The Indifference of Tumbleweed

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with her and Grandma and we heard the cries and whispers in the small dark hours. Mamma looked pinched and anxious in the mornings. The yarrow infusion had been kept and bottled, but it was all gone by the third day and we saw no more of the plant as we journeyed. Grandma watched closely for the sinister threads of infection that would spread up the wrist and spell doom for the hand itself. One of the surgeons would be called to amputate it, with the unimaginable horror that would go with such a procedure. But there were no such signs, nor the telltale smell of dead flesh that would indicate gangrene. Instead, the little hand slowly resumed its natural shape, the fingers wiggled and after a week, the pain was greatly abated.
    But before that Reuben and I were addressed by Henry Bricewood, in the company of Jude Franklin, the younger of the two Franklin brothers. Jude and Henry had been cautious friends from Westport days, and were often seen together. How Jude had missed the original scene with the dog was unexplained. He was a slow-witted fellow, but not in the way that my brother was slow. Reuben had a steady good-hearted approach, with a task done well to its completion. Jude seemed perpetually frustrated and angry with himself and his limitations. He would kick and lash the oxen if they turned the wrong way or ignored an instruction. I had seen him break a good knife by getting it too deep into a stick he was trying to cut, stupidly wrenching and twisting it beyond its endurance. His two young sisters, with far more natural ability than he would ever have, would watch him cautiously from a distance, whispering together, but never venturing to advise or assist him. His older brother Allen sneered at himcontinuously, teasing and jibing and making everything a hundred times worse. Allen was a good deal of the reason for Jude being the way he was, I concluded.
    There were ten Franklins in all. Mr Samuel Franklin was a skilled butcher, with large beefy forearms and a strange multi-coloured moustache which jutted horizontally above his lip, to give him an air of perpetual pouting. His passion was all for his apple trees, and he repeatedly spoke of a change of career when he reached Oregon. My father suggested he acquire a herd of swine, the meat of which went so well with applesauce. ‘Combine your skills, man,’ he adjured. ‘Don’t give up one for another.’
    Mr Franklin was no great wit, and had the same uncontrolled impatience that I had seen in Jude. He wore a wide-brimmed felt hat, dyed a bright blue colour, which he would snatch from his head and use to belabour a misbehaving child or beast. He was always first to have the oxen yoked and the fire kicked out every morning. His wife was a small dark woman, with evasive eyes and silent manner. Her children occupied much of her time, despite a tendency to push them away when they were importunate. I scarcely ever heard her speak. Also with them was her much younger widowed sister, Mrs Gordon, who had a small son, perhaps four years old. Then came Allen, Jude, Billy, aged about eleven, two girls with names I had still not committed to memory, and a baby, not yet a year in age. Mrs Gordon did the great bulk of the food preparation, sewing, washing and baby care. ‘Earning her passage, so she is,’ said my father. Her sister would walk at a pace that was close to trotting, keeping at the head of the whole party alongside her impatient husband. She seldom took notice of her baby or the two little girls who trailed along far behind with the little Gordon boy.
    Henry Bricewood enquired regularly about Nam’s hand, Jude Franklin usually with him. They approached Reuben and me on the last day in May. ‘Miss Collins,’ said Henry, with a little bow that surprised me. Jude snickered softly. ‘How is your sister’s wounded hand now?’
    â€˜It appears to be free from infection,’ I told him. I looked around in vain for one of my

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