Page 24 of Caroline’s Compass

Caroline took a bearing and compared it with Father's sketch. “The direction is close. The creek changed around it.”

“We wait here. If the water falls by morning, we test again.”

“If it does not?”

“We search farther south or build a raft for the goods.”

“Nathaniel will not like losing a day.”

“Nathaniel likes drowned wagons less.”

They marked the safe edge with stakes and strips of cloth. When they returned, Caroline reported to the council. No one argued with the delay.

Mr. Daugherty opened his mouth.

Mrs. Bell lifted her walking stick.

He closed it.

*****

THE WAITING CAMP PRODUCED an afternoon of forced idleness that no one performed well. Mr. Bell carved a replacement spoon until Mrs. Bell, the younger, told him they had nineteen spoons and one damaged wheel. He said the wheel required a larger knife.

Grace and Lucy attempted to wash stockings near the safe edge. Caroline assigned Charlotte to watch them. Charlotte returned ten minutes later carrying seven wet stockings and an expression usually reserved for arithmetic errors.

“They floated one downstream.”

Lucy corrected her. “It explored.”

Rebecca used a pole to recover it from reeds. The stocking emerged brown, elongated, and attached to something that might once have been a frog. Grace declared it Lydia's. Lydia said ownership could not survive that degree of change.

Thomas and Caroline spent the same hour comparing the old ford sketch with the new channel. He measured bank height. Mr. Hall remembered a willow on the far side. Mrs. Bell remembered that Mr. Hall had been wrong about the weather that day.

“Do memories always require witnesses?” Thomas asked.

“In this company, they require defense.”

They found the shifted ford by combining the sketch, the willow, the current, and a line of older wheel marks beneath the grass. Caroline marked the place with blue cloth. Lucy asked if it was the strip from the lost stocking. Lydia said even the river had refused that stocking.

Supper at the waiting camp was meant to be simple. Martha planned cornmeal mush, beans, and dried apples. The beans refused to soften, the apples attracted every child in the company, and Lucy mistook the salt crock for sugar.

Martha tasted the apples and closed her eyes. “No one speak.”

Grace tasted one. “We may need prayer.”

Thomas approached with the field notebook. Caroline intercepted him before he reached the kettle. “This is not an official route hazard.”

“Your expression suggests otherwise.”

Martha refused to waste the apples. She rinsed them, added water, and announced they would become sauce. Lydia said the sauce could preserve meat. Rebecca said it could remove rust. Mrs. Bell offered cinnamon and said young women should always label crocks.

“The crocks were labeled,” Charlotte said.

Everyone looked at Lucy.

“The writing faced the wall.”

Thomas ate the finished sauce without visible distress. Caroline asked whether survey work required bravery. He said only at Whitaker suppers. Martha threatened him with the spoon, which he avoided more quickly than his dignity permitted.