My WIP (historical fiction)

@savannah_grace2009 Joke’s on me, I forgot I put it in the first sentence! But if you aren’t paying attention, it’s easy to miss. It’s vague, and you’d have to assume she was living there since she was born, so I should probably clarify that a little, but it’s there.

“A dull ache filled my heart as I took a last look around the house I had called home for the last thirteen years.”

@savannah_grace2009

Dropping some more of the story… here we go with some more of the journey! It needs more work, but this is what I’ve got so far….

The next morning we were up before dawn again, starting another day of endless walking. This continued to be our pattern for the remainder of the week. It rained on our fourth day of the journey, not all day, but a good part of it. We were soaked through and through; the ground turned soft and made it harder for the oxen to pull the wagons. By the time we set up camp, the rain had stopped, but we were still wet. We dried out a little by the fire, but the ground was all wet when we settled down for the night. We couldn’t all fit in the wagons, only Mattie and Oscar.

Fortunately, the following day was sunny, and I finally felt like I was able to rid my bones of the dampness. On the eighth day of our journey, our wagon hit a deep rut and one of the wheel spokes snapped. We were forced to stop where we were, and James took his horse to ride off to the nearest town to find someone who could help us fix the wheel.

In the meantime, Mama shooed us all off to occupy ourselves in the woods. Etta stayed behind to watch Mattie, but I joined the boys. This was becoming a pattern- I was more of a tomboy, and I had a longing for adventure, so I tagged along with the boys. I had tried talking to Etta a little bit, and while she was sweet, she didn’t say much. I followed the boys as they blazed their way through the brush.

“Look, here’s a little creek,” Albert announced, holding back branches. Oscar let out a whoop and scrambled down the bank into the water. George soon followed, and it wasn’t long before the two of them were splashing their way down the creek toward a tiny waterfall. Albert continued to hold the brush aside until Abe and I had made our way down the bank. I lifted the hem of my dress and waded into the water. It was icy cool, and shocked my senses at first. Albert jumped down into the water and swept his arm across the surface, sending an icy spray over me and Abe.

“Albert!” I cried out in annoyance. He always seem to find a way to tease me and get on my nerves. I didn’t mind so much when my brothers did it, they knew my boundaries. Albert didn’t know when to stop, and it aggravated me to no end.

“Aw, you don’t know how to have fun,” Albert complained. “It’s really not that bad.” I glared at him. Abe splashed Albert back and then took off down the creek towards George and Oscar. I expected Albert to give chase, but instead he lingered near me. He stood still for a second, studying me, and his gaze softened. Water dripped off his fingertips.

“You know, Libbie, I’m going to marry you someday,” he announced. Of all the strange things Albert said, this certainly topped the list. I hadn’t ever expected those words from his mouth, and I had no idea how to respond. As good-looking of a guy as he was, Albert didn’t fit my ideas of husband material. I couldn’t imagine ever marrying someone who annoyed me as much as he did.

“Ha!” I scoffed. “You’d have to come a long way for that. I’m gonna marry a fine gentleman who knows how to treat a woman with respect.”

Albert laughed. “You’re hardly a woman.” I felt my already red cheeks turn a deeper shade. I was painfully aware of my lack of a figure. I didn’t need Albert, of all people, to remind me.

“I will be one day,” I retorted. “And when I am, I’m not going to be looking for the likes of you.”

Albert seemed unfazed in his confident assertion that he would marry me. I sincerely hoped he was wrong.

Our wagon wheel was fixed, and we continued on our way, across the hills of Pennsylvania. We passed through Pittsburgh three and a half weeks after we’d begun our journey. After a month of travel, we were midway through Ohio.

As the days passed on more and more, I grew tired of the monotony. Every day we were up at the crack of dawn, eating a cold breakfast of porridge or something of the like, and hitting the trail. We kept moving all day, the oxen plodding along one step in front of the other. The wagon constantly bounced over ruts and stones and roots, so that riding in the wagon wasn’t any more enjoyable than walking alongside. Even Clara resorted to walking most of the time, complaining of blisters on her feet. Most days the sun beat down, and on those days, we welcomed a passing shower, but other days it poured all day, a soaking, drenching rain that chilled to the bone.

Occasionally, we’d come to a creek or river that we needed to cross, and if we were lucky, we could cross on a ferry, but when we weren’t so lucky, we had to swim. Only Mattie remained in the wagon, since she was too little to swim.

I missed my close friends from back east, and I longed for companionship, but most times Etta kept to herself. Sometimes during the lonely walks, I hurried ahead to where Etta was walking with Mattie and kept pace beside them. I would talk to Etta about where we were going, wondering what it would be like living on the frontier. Etta usually only responded with an indifferent shrug, or an “I don’t know.” Gradually, I got tired of trying to converse with her, and dropped back to join the boys. Albert and Abe had become fast friends, Albert often coming up with ideas of things to do along the way, and Abe, being the level-headed one, talking him out of all the dangerous things. George and Oscar usually tagged along with them, though the older boys sometimes excluded them if they thought what they were doing was risky for the younger ones.

With no one else to do things with, I often tagged along with Albert and Abe, too. Abe occasionally seemed bothered by me hanging around, but he was quick to jump into my defense when Albert started annoying me. Albert had a habit of creeping up behind me and yanking my braids, and he said the most outlandish things sometimes, to go right along with his wild ideas, but he at least didn’t seem to mind when I hung around.

I wished my friend Elizabeth had come along with us instead of the Cullivers. Then I could at least talk to someone who would carry on a conversation with me, someone who knew me. As it was, I had to settle for attempting conversations with Etta or tolerate Albert’s teasing.

One day, somewhere in the middle of Ohio, things changed for me and Etta. We had been encamped near a river, knowing we would have to cross. Fortunately, there was a ferry, but the man running it told us we would have to swim, or the ferry would be too heavy to make it.

I wasn’t fond of crossing rivers, especially the ones where the current was strong. With this one, however, I was at least able to hold on to the edge of the ferry. One wagon at a time could cross, and Etta went with the first one, as did I.

We were about halfway across the river when I saw a protruding log just next to the ferry, right in Etta’s line of impact.

“Etta, watch out!” I called out. Etta turned and saw the log just before she bumped into it. The force caused her to lose her grip on the ferry, and unprepared for the sudden change, the current pushed her under. “Etta!” I screamed. Keeping one arm firmly looped around one of the ferry posts, I reached with my other arm for Etta. Etta popped up above the water again, gasping and coughing, fighting against the current. I kept groping for her, my fingertips brushing the fabric of her dress. At last I was able to grip her arm, and I clung to her with all my might. The arm entwined around the ferry post began to tremble. With a grunt and a strength I didn’t know I had, I pulled Etta towards me until she was able to cling to my waist. The added weight dragged me down, and I struggled to keep my chin above the water. I felt as though my arm would slip from the ferry post at any moment.

James, who was just ahead of us, had seen what happened and was making his way towards us down the ferry. When he reached us, he wrapped his arm around Etta’s waist to support her, and I regripped the ferry post with my other arm, trembling from the exertion. Etta was still coughing, trying to grip another post, but she was weakened, too.

“You did great, Libbie,” James told me. “Your effort probably saved her life.”

I was too exhausted to care. I could think about it later.

When we reached the other side of the river, James pulled me and Etta out of the river. There we both sat heavily on the ground, exhausted and soaked to the bone.

“Thank you, Libbie,” Etta said gratefully. “If it weren’t for you, I might have drowned.”

I blushed and said nothing. That was the most Etta had said to me in the past week. From that moment on, it felt as though a thread had been woven in the thin fabric of our friendship. Etta still didn’t say much, but there seemed to be a mutual trust between us even in the silence.

@hybridlore I’ll keep posting more when I have time!

@savannah_grace2009 haha I think that paragraph mistake happened when I was copying and pasting over from my document lol.

“At long last” is an expression (it’s like “at last”, but implies more of a “finally, after all that struggle”) but it felt a little weird to me too when I was reading it again so I’ll probably change that.