The Mother Lode by Gary Franklin Page B

kindly. And I’ve been practicing writing my name until it looks less and less like chicken scratches.”
    â€œGood!”
    Ellen leaned on her hoe, and they both watched the clear mountain water flow across the grassy pasture. She turned her face up toward the Sierras, which seemed so close and tall that they looked ready to fall right over the top of them. “I do love this land, Joe Moss. I was raised on a farm outside of Baltimore. The earth was rich and giving, but it was an entirely flat land with not a mountain or even a hill in sight. I would sometimes try and try to see the earth curve from our porch, but I never did. I sometimes thought the earth was flat rather than round, although I had been taught better. But here with the Sierra Nevada so big and close and tall . . . here you almost think you’re halfway to heaven.”
    Joe slipped his crutch out from under his arm and rested his whiskery chin upon it as he followed her gaze upward toward the peaks. “Have you ever been up to the lake, ma’am?”
    â€œI have,” she said with a soft smile. “When my husband first brought me here, we went up to the lake and spent two glorious summer days. We fished and swam . . . oh, my goodness, is that water clear and cold! But I have never felt so clean and fresh. I would like to go up there and visit it again someday, but . . .”
    â€œBut what?”
    â€œI have the livestock to tend and they depend on me. I couldn’t just leave them.”
    â€œNo,” he said, “I reckon not. And I suppose your neighbors wouldn’t be willing to feed ’em.”
    Her eyes fell from the mountaintops and she stared at the grass with a sad shake of her head.
    Joe hobbled over to a gate and diverted the water into the next pasture. “What is the date, ma’am? I have sorta lost track.”
    â€œIt’s August. I think it is the tenth of the month. Why do you ask?”
    â€œI need to go up there and start collecting my lumber,” he answered. “When will the first snows fall in this country?”
    â€œThey usually wait until October . . . maybe a little earlier or later.”
    â€œThen I’ve got to get up there soon,” he told her. “And do you know what I’m going to do with the first load I bring down?”
    â€œI have no idea.”
    â€œI’m going to build you a fine two-seater.”
    â€œJoe Moss!” She acted embarrassed.
    â€œNot so we could sit side by side and hum ‘Dixie,’ ” he said with a bold wink. “Just so you’d have a nicer one than Eli and all his wives and children. And I’ll make sure it has no cracks or drafts. It’ll be a thing of rare beauty in these parts. People will come from all around to admire your new two-seater.”
    Ellen burst out laughing, and gave Joe a gentle push that almost sent him sprawling to the grass. “Joe, you are almost hopeless!”
    â€œAlmost is all right,” he said with a chuckle.
    And then they went to work moving water and Joe could hear Ellen humming “Dixie” in the soft summer breeze.
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“I would like to hitch up your wagon to the Palouse and my gray horse and then go up the grade and bring back some lumber,” Joe said a few days later.
    Ellen just stared at him. “I don’t think you are up to that, Joe. The mountainside is very steep and . . .”
    â€œWell,” he said, a little irritably, “I’ve got to see it for myself and give’r a try. I just can’t wait any longer to start collecting that lumber.”
    â€œVery well,” she said, “but I’m going with you.”
    â€œThat’s not . . . .”
    â€œIt is necessary,” she told him. “To have any chance at all, one person will have to be up on the road while the other goes down on a rope.”
    Actually, that’s the only way that Joe had figured it could be done. “I’ll go