Journey of Hope: A Novel of Triumph and Heartbreak on the Oregon Trail in 1852 by Victoria Murata

failed throughout the whole country. Wet rot, they called it, and few farms had been spared. He remembered having to sell his livestock to pay his rent and buy food for the family. A few months earlier, the British prime minister had resigned. Then the new man in charge had ordered the closing of government food depots to prevent the Irish from becoming “habitually dependent.” Michael’s face contorted as he remembered his county, with every farm and family destitute. His neighbors and friends had sold all they had to buy the Indian corn the British government had been selling for a penny a pound, but soon there was mass starvation when there were no pennies left. He sighed deeply, remembering all the people who had been evicted by their landlords when they had no money to pay their rents.

     
    He watched Kate methodically doing her evening chores. She looked worn out. All the travelers were bone tired from struggling to keep the wagons moving over muddy and rutted trails. Sometimes the mud was like sucking quicksand, and it had been hard to keep shoes on feet. His thoughts returned to Ireland—to his neighbor Maggie Donahue and her two small children .

     
    He found them one morning standing in the rutted road wet to the skin from the rain, their feet up to their ankles in mud. Her husband had recently been imprisoned because he couldn’t pay the back rent, and the landlord had evicted Maggie and her children. Michael and Kate took them in, even though they had barely enough food for their own family.

     
    Michael shook his head sadly, remembering how they had been so hopeful the summer of ’46 that the fall’s harvest would be a good one after the devastation of the year before. He remembered his deep disappointment that September when the new crop succumbed to the blight.

     
    He held the rotten black potato in his hand that he had pulled from the ground, and for the first time in his life, he could not think of what to do. They had nothing left: no money and no food. He knew it was only a matter of time before they would be evicted. He stared at the rotten potato for a long time, unseeing. Kate had been calling his name, but all he could hear was a roaring in his ears like the sound of a train. Then Kate had come up to him and angrily taken the potato from his hand, throwing it as far as she could. She looked at him fiercely, her eyes flashing.
    “We’re done here, Michael. We’re going to my sister’s in Dublin, and then we’ll decide what to do.” She didn’t wait for a reply but turned on her heel and packed up their few belongings. Soon they were on the road to Dublin with hundreds of other displaced families.

     
    Michael worked oil into the leather harness, carefully covering both sides. The wagon train hadn’t been making good time in the persistent rain. One day they traveled over a particularly mucky stretch of the trail and barely made five miles. Everyone was either pushing the wagons from behind or pulling them from the front. Michael could see the discouragement on the faces of many of the travelers. He knew they were concerned about the possibility of early snow if they didn’t get to the Blue Mountains in good time. His brow furrowed when he was reminded of the journey his family had made to Dublin six years earlier.

     
    When they reached Dungarvan in County Waterford, the scene was riotous. People were amassing together in angry mobs, shouting and raising fists against British troops that were protecting stores of grain to be shipped out to England. Michael and Kate watched, horrified, as starving peasants picked up stones and hurled them at the troops. Michael saw the enraged face of the officer, and although he couldn’t hear him over the angry crowd, he knew what his shouted orders were.
    “Quickly! In here!” he yelled, and Kate and the children ducked into an abandoned building as they heard the first shots and the screams from the crowd. The pandemonium seemed to go on