But if we were disappointing to them, they and their settlement were just as much a let-down to us, for we saw, not the neat log cabins and lean-tos amongst the cottonwood groves and broad, fresh streams and high, grassy meadows of Kansas that we expected and that John had described to us in his letters. We saw instead a pair of tattered, flapping tents, a single, broken-wheeled wagon, cold firestoves outside, four bony horses nibbling at the frozen turf. And over all, a pervasive gloom and lassitude — an atmosphere worsened by John’s illness and by Jason’s and Ellen’s withdrawal to the privacy of their own tent, which they had pitched on their land claim several hundred yards down the draw from John’s and Wealthy’s towards the Osawatomie River.
On our arrival, Fred and I had visited and greeted them separately, as if they were John’s jealous and unhappy neighbors, instead of his beloved younger brother and sister-in-law sharing a calamity; afterwards, we had encamped up on the ridge in John’s second tent, and that made Jason and Ellen think that we had chosen John and Wealthy over them. And when, in a few days, I fell sick myself, it was simpler for me to move in with John, where Wealthy could the more easily tend us both, and then Fred followed, perhaps because he knew not what else to do and now hated being alone with his thoughts. He came into the tent and placed his bedroll on the other side of John, so that there were three of us lying there, crowded into a single small, dark space, whilst poor Wealthy tried to keep the fire going outside, despite the wind and the snow and the lack of good, dry firewood, caring for us as if we had been shot and wounded in battle instead of having declined spiritually into a muck of despondency and sloth and after a while had weakened and got physically sick as well.
Wealthy had her poor, confused son, Tonny, beside her at every step, clinging to the folds of her dress and whimpering all day and night about the cold and from constant hunger and showing even then the first signs of slowness that would later grow into retardation and cause her and John so much sadness and worry. But if she had not had him there, I believe that Wealthy would have walked on one of those long winter nights straight into the darkness that surrounded us then and disappeared, only to be found days later, frozen to death in some gully. For she was as angry then as any woman I have ever seen in my life. She was silent, and she fumed. And with every good reason. John, Jason, Fred, and I, we were all of us pitiful, shameful specimens of manhood. We were not worthy of her; nor of Jason’s wife, either. Here we were, the four eldest sons of the great John Brown, four sickly, miserable fools, foundering in gloom, gone all weak and cowardly. I confess it, it was the women who were strong and they who, to all intents and purposes, kept us alive, until the winter morning when the Old Man finally arrived and began to set everything straight.
And it happened just as I imagined it would. Just as I hoped and dreaded it would. The tent flap was drawn suddenly away, and against a milk-white sky loomed the dark, familiar shape of Father in his broad-brimmed black hat and his greatcoat. He entered the tent, glanced quickly around in that expressionless way of his when he has come upon something complicated and unfamiliar, surveying the scene with as little emotion as possible, until he has acquired from it all the information necessary for a proper response, which in this case was to go straight to John, who in his delirium and fever had neither seen nor heard the Old Man enter, whereas both Fred and I, like startled rabbits, had sat up at once.
In silence, the Old Man felt John’s forehead and then bent his head to his eldest son’s chest and listened to his clotted lungs and his heart. Behind him I saw shades flitting beyond the thin canvas, rough profiles of other people moving about outside, and heard the creak and clank of saddles and harness and the low voices of my brothers Salmon and Oliver, which surprised me, for I had thought Father was coming out alone, and I heard a male voice that I did not at first recognize, then the voices of the women, Wealthy and Ellen, and Jason, too, as if a crowd had gathered out there.
In a somber voice, Father said his first words to us: “We’ve got to place a fire in here and set a kettle of water to steaming and clear his lungs. I don’t suppose you boys have any stovepipe handy, or you’d have already done that.”
I shook my head no, and Father stood up and passed by me without saying anything more. For a second, he paused over Fred and looked down at him with great sadness. In a thin, apologetic voice, almost a child’s, Fred said, “It’s John and Owen who are sick, Father. Not me so much.”
“Yes, I know. And I know about your injury, son. Owen wrote me of it. We’ll sit and have us a proper talk later,” was his response, and he went directly out. He said nothing to me then of my having disobeyed him, nor did he speak of it afterwards. It was as if his silence on the subject were my punishment, for it did, indeed, feel like one.
Things changed quickly then. Father set everyone to work at once — even me and Fred. Even, in a sense, John, who was obliged, with Wealthy’s help, to change out of his filthy, damp clothing, and after washing himself from a basin of water heated on the fire that Salmon had quickly got blazing outside, he put on some of Salmon’s and Oliver’s extra garments, which were his size and, more importantly, were dry and clean, and then Wealthy wrapped him in several of the fresh blankets that Father had brought and propped him up in his cot, so that his lungs could expand somewhat, Father said, and still following the Old Man’s instructions, she shaved her husband’s scruffy beard and combed out his matted hair.
Father gave few explanations; he merely gave orders, and then set to work himself. “Jason, you and Salmon pack in from yonder grove of cottonwoods as much deadwood as you can find in an hour. Then start a greenwood smokefire and cut and dry us a few of those old oaks.
“Ellen, you go on down to your stake there below and empty out your tent. Fumigate and scrub it clean, air out all your blankets, and tighten those slack ropes up a mite. And when you put your things back inside, leave the rear wall clear, as we’ll be setting a campstove there.
“Wealthy, when you’ve finished shaving John, you do the same as Ellen with these two tents up here. And why’n’t you put little Tonny to work right away at carrying out as much as he can lift by himself? The lad needs to know he’s useful.
“Oliver, here’s the money and a list of items to purchase in town. Start now and be back before midday, so we can have our stoves set up by nightfall. Unload the wagon first, my boy, we’ll be needing some of those goods and tools right off’
He helped Oliver wrestle down a barrel of salt, another of corn meal, many new gray woolen blankets, a large supply of dried Adirondack venison mixed with berries, Indian-style, and axes, spades, half a dozen unmarked wooden crates, and a pine box, carefully fitted and sanded smooth, which I thought might contain rifles, for it was the right size and Father himself lifted it from the wagon and carried it with considerable delicacy to a knoll a short ways off, where he set it down on the ground and then for a short time stood motionless over it, as if in prayer, before returning to the encampment.