The cabin was dark, silent but for soft sounds of slumber, when Ben Cartwright rose and, dressing quietly, slipped out to walk in the cool, brisk air of the November morning.  It was dark outside, too.  Not even the sun was awake to accompany Ben on his solitary survey.  Too early for him to be awake, too, Ben realized, but this was not a day for sleep.  Today was special.  Today was a new beginning.

    Ben turned and looked at the cabin behind him, smiling in remembrance.  A year ago to the day——November 1, 1850——had been a special day, too, though Ben hadn’t known that then.  That was the day he and Clyde Thomas had started felling logs to build this cabin.  They planned it to be only a temporary home, a place to survive the winter until they could continue on to their true destination in California.  Ben laughed softly.  No one could have told him that November morning a year ago that he’d already reached his true destination, that western Utah would become his home.  But Ben had fallen in love with this land, the pine-forested hills to the west even more than the fertile bottomland here along the Carson River.

    When Ben made his decision to settle east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, he assumed he would continue to live in the cabin he and Clyde had built.  But when he offered to buy out Clyde’s share, Ben discovered that the Thomases also wished to remain.  Ben was never sure whether Clyde and Nelly had reached that decision independently or whether they simply hadn’t wanted to leave him behind.  Regardless, Ben was glad they were staying, though he wasn’t about to consider spending another winter under the same roof.  Too much closeness strained the best of friendships, even as warm a one as he shared with these companions of the Overland Trail or the one his older son Adam enjoyed with young Billy Thomas.

    Clyde and Nelly hadn’t argued with Ben’s desire for a place of his own, and there’d been only brief discussion about what to do.  The Thomases would keep this cabin along the Carson River, while Clyde would help Ben build another wherever he chose.  Once their joint trading post had closed for the season, they’d worked on the Cartwrights’ new home.  Now it was ready.  Today Ben and his boys would move, and tonight Ben would sleep under his own roof for the first time in a year and a half.

    Ben laughed again.  It was longer than that!  That roof in St. Joseph hadn’t belonged to him anymore than the myriad of boardinghouse roofs beneath which he and Adam had slept while making their way west.  Ben had, in fact, never slept beneath a roof of his own.  He and Adam’s mother Elizabeth, daughter of a New England sea captain, had rented their cottage in New Bedford.  And, except for the year they had spent in Missouri, Ben and his second wife Inger had slept primarily under a tent beside their covered wagon.

    Ben’s brown eyes clouded as he looked northeast.  He couldn’t, of course, see beyond the piñon-dappled mountains to the lonely grave by the Humboldt River where Inger lay buried, but she still felt close to him, perhaps because she, like Elizabeth, had left a son to carry on her memory.  Hoss didn’t look a great deal like his mother, but her Swedish heritage was evident in his blue eyes and straight, wheat-colored hair.  And, more importantly, his open face showed he had inherited her loving nature.  Even at fifteen months, Hoss was a big-hearted boy.  Big in every other way, too.  Inger had named their son Eric, after her father, but the boy’s size demanded a name as big as the mountains.  The one Inger’s brother Gunnar had suggested (and Adam had insisted on) had eventually been adopted by everyone, even Inger herself.

    Ben’s long legs strolled slowly through the fields he and Clyde had planted last spring.  Barren now, but what a harvest of good food they’d produced!  All the two families could eat and enough to sell to emigrants passing by on their way to California.  Sixty thousand of them had come over the Carson route this year, so the trading post had done booming business throughout the spring and summer, despite the competition from the one at nearby Mormon Station.

    Though Ben had never quite understood how, Mormon Station had passed into the hands of John Reese, a man in his early forties, who, along with eighteen others, had arrived from Salt Lake City in July, bringing ten wagons of flour, butter, eggs and beef.  Although Reese’s Mormon Station was better stocked than Ben and Clyde’s humbler trading post, the two partners priced their goods competitively and had all the business they could comfortably handle.  They’d made a handsome profit on their investment, enough to make improvements in their respective cabins and still have some to lay back for livestock next spring.

    Clyde Thomas, having never forgotten or forgiven the way Mormons gouged him (his opinion) for ferry passage over rivers on their overland journey, grunted whenever their neighbors were mentioned.  Ben, however, liked Reese.  He seemed an honest man, even if his prices were higher than Ben considered justifiable.  Still, his and Clyde’s weren’t that much lower, for the cost of freighting goods over the Sierras had to be taken into consideration.  No, despite Clyde’s opinion, Reese was a good man, a hard-working man, a man who looked to the future.  Unlike Mormon Station’s previous owner, Reese evidently intended to stay.

    Some of the others that came from Salt Lake City with Reese, however, made less pleasant residents with whom to share Carson Valley.  James Finney, for instance, was not only illiterate, but feather-brained in the bargain and, in contrast to most of the Mormons Ben had met, almost perpetually drunk.  Ben wasn’t sure whether Finney was Mormon or had just hired on as a teamster to make his way west.

    Frankly, Ben would have been glad to see the man continue on over the mountains, but Finney showed no inclination for California.  He seemed to prefer chipping around the canyons to the north.  Odd behavior for a miner, Ben thought, or maybe not.  Maybe the hope of a new strike naturally drove a true prospector to the lonely, isolated places of the earth.  Finney, after all, wasn’t the only one searching for gold in the area.  The miners even found a little color now and then, but no one had discovered the big strike of which they all dreamed.

    Sandy Bowers was another who had come as a teamster with Reese’s party and stayed to prospect for gold.  Bowers was as unlearned as Finney, but Ben couldn’t help liking the big eighteen-year-old with the booming laugh.  Everyone, even Clyde Thomas, liked Sandy.  Like Finney, like the other miners, Sandy rarely found more than enough gold to buy his daily ration of beans and bacon, but he was perpetually optimistic about the bonanza he was sure to uncover with the next swing of his pickax.

    Ben hadn’t gotten well acquainted with the other miners in the area, but that didn’t seem to matter now.  Most of them had gone over the mountains the previous month before snow blocked the passes.  By the time Ben returned from his final trip to Sacramento for winter supplies, Carson Valley’s population had dropped to a fraction of its summertime peak.  Ben had hoped to persuade his brother John to winter here with him and his sons, but on reaching Placerville, he learned that John had heard of the discovery of gold in New South Wales and joined the transoceanic rush to the new field.  Ben shook his head, wondering if it was really the lust for gold that drove John or his craving for salt spray in his face.  Unlike Ben, John had never shaken loose the wanderlust of his youth.  Ben couldn’t understand how a man with a wife and boy he hadn’t seen in close to three years could set sail for a distant land, but he and John had always been different.

    “Pa!  Pa!”

    Ben turned and smiled as eight-year-old Adam came running across the field to meet him.  Though Ben, too, had loved the sea, here was the reason he had left it.  This dark-haired, dark-eyed boy and his infant brother.  If he never again viewed distant ports, Ben would count himself blessed above all men on earth, so long as he had those two precious faces in sight.

    Ben scooped Adam up in his muscular arms.  “Well, you’re up early,” he said, giving the boy’s blue suspenders a teasing yank.

    “You, too, Pa,” Adam said.  “I guess we’re both pretty excited about our new place, huh?”

    “I know I am,” Ben replied, setting the boy down again after giving him a good squeeze.  “Are the others awake yet?”

    “Just Miss Nelly,” Adam reported.  “I think she’s fixing some food to take with us.”

    Ben smiled as he raked wind-blown brown hair back into place.  That was probably exactly what Nelly Thomas was doing.  Though she had recognized the need for the two families to live separately, Nelly fretted about how the Cartwrights would manage without a woman to cook for them.  Ben had to admit he didn’t cook as well as Nelly, but he figured he and the boys weren’t likely to starve.  Especially not when they’d still be sharing meals with the Thomases from time to time.

    Reaching the cabin, Ben went inside, followed by Adam.  “Good morning, Nelly,” he said to the sandy-haired woman at the stove.  How Nelly’s brown eyes had widened when Ben and Clyde unloaded the new cast iron stove after that last trip over the mountains!

    “Mornin’, Ben,” Nelly said softly.  “Up early, ain’t you?”

    “You, too,” Ben chuckled.

    “Well, I had reason,” Nelly asserted.  “I aim to see to it you and the boys have a proper breakfast to start the day and a decent meal to reheat for dinner.”

    “Appreciate it,” Ben said, “but I do wish you’d quit worrying, Nelly.”

    Nelly sighed.  How could she help worrying?  Ben could take care of himself and Adam, she supposed.  But a baby?  There’d been no persuading Ben to leave Hoss here with her, though.  “Now, I’ve written out a bunch of my best receipts,” Nelly told Ben, “and I’ve done my best to make them clear enough for even a man to make out.  You follow them, Ben, and you’ll do all right.  I don’t want to hear of you feedin’ these younguns nothin’ but bacon and biscuits like you was on the trail.”

    Ben responded by giving her a smart salute.  “Yes, ma’am!” he promised.  “Turnips and taters at every meal.”

    Nelly wagged a finger beneath his broad nose.  “Hush your sass,” she warned.  “You’ll be teachin’ these boys your ornery ways.”

    Ben laughed.  “Now, Nelly, since when did Billy need lessons in orneriness?”  Nelly laughed, too, acknowledging with a nod the well-earned reputation of her favorite mischief-maker.

    From the bed in the front room came a long, lazy yawn.  “You talkin’ about me?” Billy drawled.

    “They sure are!” Adam informed his friend as he perched at the foot of their shared bed.  “And not a word of it good.”

    Billy sat up and frowned, his freckled cheeks bulging out.  “Why’s everybody always jumpin’ on me?” he demanded.

    “Oh, nobody’s jumpin’ on you,” his mother scolded.  “Get on up and get the cow milked, boy.”

    “You see to ours, Adam,” Ben ordered.

    “Okay,” Adam agreed readily.  He gave Billy a shove that sent the redhead sprawling back onto the mattress.  “Beat you to the barn,” he challenged.

    “No fair!” Billy hollered, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and grabbing for his trousers.  “You’re already dressed.”

    “Early bird gets the worm, Billy,” Ben grinned.  Billy scowled and, scrambling into his red shirt and brown britches, followed Adam out the door.

    Yawning and scratching his tangled auburn hair, Clyde came around the canvas curtain that separated his and Nelly’s sleeping quarters from the rest of the cabin.  “You’re sure noisy critters this mornin’,” he muttered.  Nelly stopped stirring the pumpkin she was stewing long enough to give her husband a good morning kiss.

    Clyde clapped Ben on the back.  “Well, the big day’s finally here, is it?”

    Ben laughed.  “The day you get shed of me, you mean?”

    Clyde frowned, his blue eyes narrowing.  “Ain’t what I meant and you know it.”

    “I know,” Ben said, “and now’s as good a time as any to tell you both how much I’ve appreciated your hospitality this last year.”

    “Now, Ben, this was your cabin, same as ours,” Nelly chided, arms akimbo.

    “Sure,” Ben agreed, “but it wouldn’t have been a home without the touches you added.  I’ll always have good memories of this place.”

    “You sound like you was leavin’ forever,” Clyde snorted.  “Last I heard, you was gonna be back in a couple of days.”

    Ben guffawed.  “That’s right!  I can’t bear being away from Nelly’s cooking longer than that.”  The three friends enjoyed the private joke.  While the Cartwrights were leaving today to establish their own home, everyone knew Ben and Clyde would be working together on a number of projects, so they’d all see each other frequently.  And Nelly had insisted on a standing invitation for Ben and his boys to share Sunday dinner each week.  “Can’t abide not seein’ my Sunshine at least once a week!” Nelly had declared.

    Ben smiled as he recalled that reference to his younger son.  Judging by the bulge beneath Nelly’s skirt, she’d soon have her own infant to fondle.  Maybe, then, she’d be less possessive of Hoss.  Secretly, Ben doubted it.  Even before Inger’s death Nelly had taken comfort in cuddling Hoss’s fat little body, comfort she’d sorely needed after cholera took her younger son, four-year-old Bobby.  Then, when Inger was gone, Nelly’d stepped in to provide the mothering the baby had needed, and her attachment for the child had deepened daily.  Hoss loved her, too.  Separating the two was likely to be the hardest part of the move, Ben realized.

    After a heartier than usual breakfast, Clyde helped Ben load his share of the supplies in the wagon, while Adam and Billy brought the Cartwrights’ personal possessions from the cabin.  There weren’t many, so it was soon time to leave.

    Nelly gave Hoss a parting hug and handed him to his father.  Hoss crowed merrily when Ben bounced him on his arm, but his blue eyes clouded as his father carried him away, and one plump hand stretched over Ben’s shoulder back toward Nelly Thomas.  Hoss wasn’t really old enough to understand what was happening.  Though Adam had tried to explain it for the last two days, Hoss only understood that changes were taking place.  Sensing the sudden quietness of the child, Ben held him more tightly and pressed a kiss against his chubby cheek.  “It’s all right, son,” he whispered.  “We’ll see them again soon.”  The promise seemed to satisfy Hoss, who squirmed around to see where they were going instead of where they’d been.

    The Cartwright cabin was almost four miles northwest of the Thomas home.  For the oxen it was a good two-hour haul, though the man and his sons could have walked it more quickly.  Someday, maybe next summer, Ben hoped to have a riding horse.  Jonathan Payne, another companion of the journey west, had intended to breed horses once he arrived in California.  Ben planned to locate him, though all he knew at present was that the Paynes had settled somewhere in the vicinity of Monterey.  Since that area would be a good place to find beef cattle, too, perhaps Jonathan could tell Ben what local men had the best stock and the fairest prices.

    Ben chuckled.  Here he was planning next year’s work when he had plenty to do right now.  Coming out of his own reverie, Ben noticed that Adam was unusually quiet.  “Something on your mind, son?” he asked.

    Adam frowned up into his father’s face.  “I miss Billy,” he said.

    Ben tousled the boy’s black hair.  “Here, now; none of that,” he teased.  “You’ll have us all turning around if you keep that up.  Besides, you and Billy will be seeing each other again in just a couple of days.”

    “Tomorrow’s Sunday,” Adam pointed out.  “Miss Nelly said we could come to dinner every Sunday.”

    “Not tomorrow,” Ben said firmly.  “We need to get settled, and their family deserves a day to themselves, too, son.”

    “Yes, sir,” Adam mumbled.

    “We’ll be there early Monday to help lay the floor,” Ben reminded Adam, “and if I know Miss Nelly, she’ll save some of her special Sunday pie for us.”

    “Pie!” Hoss chirped happily.  It was one of his favorite words.

    “Oh, you and your pie,” Ben teased, tickling the baby’s ribs.  Hoss squealed with delight.

    The cabin, crowded tight against the abrupt rise of the Sierra foothills, came into sight, and Ben gratefully set Hoss on the ground.  Two hours was a long time to carry his armload of a son.  Hoss had started life at a whopping fifteen pounds; and though he had no scale to prove it, Ben felt sure the boy was twice that now, thanks to Miss Nelly’s cooking.  “Watch your brother while I unhitch the team,” Ben instructed Adam.

    “Can we go in the cabin?” Adam asked.  “I want to show Hoss around.”

    Ben suppressed the urge to laugh.  Showing Hoss around the small cabin should take all of five minutes, maybe less.  “Sure, Adam,” he said, lips twitching.  “Give him a good tour.  I’ll be through soon and we’ll unload the wagon.”

    Adam took Hoss’s plump hand in his slender one.  “Come on, Hoss,” he said.  “Wanna see your new bed?”

    Hoss cocked his head, still not understanding what was going on, but content to follow Adam anywhere.  Adam had to shorten his steps to accommodate Hoss’s uneven ones, but he was glad his little brother had finally learned to walk.  There were times Adam thought the baby never would.  Truthfully, Ben had begun to wonder, too.  Of course, considering how much weight Hoss had to lift just to stand upright, maybe it wasn’t surprising that he preferred to crawl.  Adam thought to himself that they’d probably make better progress if Hoss would drop to his hands and knees, but they finally managed to cross the few yards between the wagon and the front door.

    Adam lifted Hoss over the threshold and gave the puncheon floor a solid stomp with his brown shoe.  “See, Hoss, we’ve got a good, strong floor,” he pointed out.  “That’s something the old place didn’t have.” Adam knew he wouldn’t be able to claim that distinction for long, though.  Flooring the Thomases’ cabin was first on the list of projects his father and Mr. Thomas would be working on together.

    Hoss flopped on his rear and began to pat the smooth wood.  Adam frowned and hauled the child to his feet.  “No, Hoss,” he commanded.  “You can’t sit right in the doorway.  Besides, there’s more to see.”

    As Adam led the way into the main room, Hoss toddled contentedly after him.  “There’s the fireplace,” Adam said, pointing to the recess in the west wall, near which sat a rocking chair.  “You remember to stay away from fire, don’t you, Hoss?”

    Hoss’s fat chin bobbed up and down.  He’d learned that lesson well.  Fire was hot; so was Miss Nelly’s new cook stove, though Hoss didn’t know the word for the new piece of furniture that had been installed only a few weeks before.

    “And see, we have our own table now,” Adam bragged.  The benches on each side of it were the old ones from the Thomas cabin, though.  Clyde had made new chairs for everyone at his place, and Adam felt jealous of that.  Pa had promised, though, that he’d make some for them as soon as he could.  Having helped Clyde with the others, Ben was sure he was ready to tackle making one by himself.

    With both palms flat, Hoss patted one of the benches.  “Eat,” he said.

    Adam shook his head.  “Not yet, you bottomless pit.  Come see the bedroom.”  Adam took Hoss’s fat hand again and led him to the east end of the cabin.  They walked through another doorway into the bedroom.  “See, Hoss, a real wall, not just a curtain.  Isn’t that nice?”

    Hoss didn’t respond.  Curtains, walls——it was all the same to him.  He toddled toward the bed with a rush of steps and grinned as he rubbed his face against the patchwork coverlet.

    Adam grabbed the baby under the arms and hefted him onto the bed.  “This is Pa’s bed,” he informed his little brother, “but look where you and me will sleep.”  Reaching down, Adam pulled a trundle out from beneath the larger bed.  It, too, was fitted with a mattress stuffed with pine needles and grass and covered with a colorful quilt.

    Hoss leaned over to look at his new bed and tumbled headfirst onto the mattress.  He gave one sharp cry of surprise, then grinned up at his big brother.

    “You stay put when I put you somewhere!” Adam scolded.  “What if I hadn’t pulled out this mattress?  You’d’ve cracked your noggin!”

    Hoss’s grin faded.  He didn’t understand what Adam meant, but the reproachful tone was unmistakeable.  His lower lip started to tremble.

    “Don’t cry,” Adam soothed, sitting down next to the baby.  “I’m not mad, Hoss.  I just don’t want you to get hurt.  You have to mind brother, remember?”

    Hoss wrapped pudgy arms around Adam’s middle.  “Bubba,” he chortled.  Adam grinned and gave the little lad a tickle.  Hoss responded, as usual, with a giggle.

    “Well, it sounds as though Hoss likes our new home,” Ben said brightly, walking in to see the brothers rolling on the trundle.

    “Yeah, he does, Pa,” Adam reported.

    “And how about my big boy?”

    “Big boy!” Hoss chirped.

    “No, not you,” Ben said, bending over to pinch the toddler’s plump belly.  “I meant Adam.”

    “I like it, too, Pa,” Adam said, “but it’ll be lighter once we get the windows in.  I don’t see why we have to do all that work over at the Thomases first.”

    “Because Miss Nelly is a lady, son,” Ben explained.  “Getting a house just right is important to a lady.  It won’t take long to get them fixed up, though; then Mr. Thomas will help us put in our windows.”

    Hoss pulled on Ben’s pants’ leg.  “Eat!” he demanded.

    Ben chuckled.  “Fix him a slice of bread and butter, would you, Adam?”

    “I wanted to get my things put away,” Adam pouted.

    “It won’t take that long,” Ben scoffed, “and he’ll get less underfoot with food in his hand.”

    Adam laughed.  “That’s for sure!”

    While Adam prepared Hoss’s snack, along with one for himself, Ben started unloading the hundred-pound sacks of flour and cornmeal.  One of each went inside the cabin; the others Ben stacked neatly in a small shed he’d built of sawed lumber brought over from Sacramento earlier in the summer.  Once the temperature dropped to freezing, he’d use it for meat storage, as well.

    Long before the heavier supplies were unloaded, Adam was ready to unpack his belongings.  First things first, though, Adam decided.  He found one of their gray blankets, well worn from its use on the journey west, and spread it near the cabin’s front door.  He steered Hoss, buttered bread in hand, to it and plopped him down on his rear.  “Stay,” Adam ordered, pointing at the blanket.

    For the moment Hoss seemed too absorbed in his food to wander, so Adam felt free to scramble into the wagon in search of his personal treasures.  Most valuable to Adam, of course, were his textbooks, those he’d brought overland and those his teacher in St. Joseph had sent by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company via the Isthmus of Panama to San Francisco.  His arms full, Adam headed for the cabin, checking on Hoss as he passed the door.  Still on the blanket, Adam noted.  Good.

    Entering the cabin, Adam headed directly for the wall separating the main room from the bedroom.  Pa’d built three shelves along that wall and told Adam the lowest would be his.  Carefully, Adam arranged his schoolbooks according to size, noting that there’d be just enough room to set the treasured music box that had once belonged to his mother beside them.  He went back outside.  Hoss was still sitting on the blanket, but the bread was gone now.  Adam shook his head at his brother’s buttery chin and fingers.  “Sit still,” he commanded, “and I’ll get something to clean you up.”

    From the wagon Adam grabbed a knobby flour sack and hurried back to the blanket.  “Want your toys, Hoss?” he grinned as he emptied the sack onto the blanket.  Wooden blocks rained down, along with a carved squirrel, bird and deer.  Hoss crowed happily and snatched up the bird, his favorite.  He started to put its wing in his mouth, but Adam pushed the fat hand down.  “No, no; don’t eat,” he cautioned.  Then, using one end of the flour sack, he wiped Hoss’s face and hands clean of the butter.  “That’ll have to do until I fetch some water,” Adam said.  “Now, can you play here with your toys while brother unpacks?”

    Hoss didn’t respond verbally; he was too busy making his bird fly through the air.  Satisfied, Adam went back to the wagon, intending this time to move his spare clothing indoors.

    “You’re doing a good job of watching our boy, Adam,” Ben said proudly as he lifted another sack of cornmeal from the wagon.

    Adam squared his shoulders.  “I’m trying, Pa,” he said.  “Hoss minds me pretty good, but I’m not always sure he understands.”

    Ben laughed.  “He’s still a baby, Adam.  Believe me, it’s wiser to assume he doesn’t.  Just keep watching him like you’re doing.  I’m going to need your help more than ever, son, now that we have our own place.”

    “I’ll do my best, Pa,” Adam promised.

    Walking toward the shed, Ben smiled.  He knew Adam’s word could be relied on, and it was one of the qualities he most admired in his young son.  There were grown men who didn’t have half his eight-year-old’s measure of responsibility and integrity.

    By the time the wagon was completely unloaded, the sun stood directly overhead.  Ben sent Adam to a nearby creek for a bucket of water and began building a fire to heat their dinner.  “Is Pa’s boy hungry?” he asked his toddler.

    “Eat,” Hoss replied, his blue eyes gleaming as his father hung the kettle of stewed pumpkin over the fire to heat.

    “Good,” Ben said, interpreting that one word as an affirmative response, “‘cause Miss Nelly fixed us a fine dinner here, Hoss——fried squirrel, stewed pumpkin and plenty of fresh bread on the side.  I’ll fry some potatoes to go along with that.”

    Once he had the potatoes diced and sizzling, Ben lifted the little boy into his arms and sat down in the rocker to keep an eye on the food.  Though Ben had protested taking the rocker, Nelly had insisted.  “It helps Hoss get to sleep,” the kind-hearted woman had declared.  “Besides, Clyde’s promised to make me a new one.”  Ben had submitted to her wishes then, in the knowledge that anything Clyde Thomas made was likely to be of better quality than the rocker Ben had found abandoned outside the Mormon Station trading post last year.

    When Adam returned with the water, Ben saw to it that everyone was washed and ready by the time dinner was hot.  They said grace and dug in, each knowing that supper wasn’t likely to be as tasty or as filling.  Ben was a fair cook, but he had a long way to go before he could feed his boys as well as Nelly Thomas had for the past year.  Ben sighed and resolved to study the recipes Nelly had sent after the boys went to bed.  He wasn’t confident the results would compare favorably with hers, even if he followed her instructions to the letter, but he was determined to keep his boys well nourished.  He owed that to their mothers.

    After dinner Ben laid his drowsy younger boy on the bed and covered him with the down-filled comforter Nelly Thomas had made the boy for Christmas last year.  Coming out of the bedroom, he saw Adam pulling out one of his schoolbooks.  The boy’s hand swiftly dropped to his side.  “Is it okay to read awhile, Pa?” Adam asked.

    Ben nodded.  “Sure, son, but you’ll need to go outdoors.  It’s too dark in here with no windows.”

    “Can’t I light a lamp, Pa?” Adam wheedled.

    Ben shook his head.  “No, son; Pa tried to buy plenty of lantern oil, but it’s not a good idea to squander it this early.  We’ll need it more this winter when we can’t sit outside.”

    A soft whimper drifted through the bedroom door.  “Bubba,” Hoss called.  Adam frowned.  He’d been watching Hoss all morning and felt he deserved some time to himself.

    Reading the boy’s thoughts in his expression, Ben gave Adam’s shoulder a consoling pat.  “He’d probably quiet down quicker if you’d lie down next to him awhile,” he suggested.  “I’d do it myself, but I need to work on getting a supply of firewood laid in.”

    “Okay,” Adam sighed, “but he’d better get to sleep fast or I’ll read him a page out of the New England Primer.”

    Ben laughed softly.  “Not a bad idea, Adam, if it weren’t so dark in that room.  A story might just do the trick.”  No story was needed this time, though.  Once both boys lay side by side on their father’s bed, the younger one quickly fell asleep and his older brother soon followed.  It had been a busy morning and Adam was tired.

    Adam woke before Hoss, though, so he did find time to study a little and to make an entry in his daily journal before supper.  It was a light meal, just some bacon fried to go with what was left from dinner.  After the table was cleared and the dishes washed, Ben took from the second shelf the thick volume of Shakespeare’s works that Josiah Edwards had shipped to him as a Christmas gift last year.  “Ready to start a new play, Adam?” he asked.

    “Yes, sir!” Adam replied enthusiastically.  “More about King Henry, please, Pa.”

    Ben laughed.  “Yeah, well, I guess it makes sense to read Part II after Part I, son.  Henry the Fourth it is, then.”  Ben opened the big book and laid it on the table by the coal-oil lantern.  Adam sat down in the rocker and pulled Hoss into his lap.  As he listened to his father’s cello-toned voice reading the words of the immortal bard, Adam rocked his baby brother.  Hoss didn’t understand a word of the play, of course, but he found his father’s voice soothing and his brother’s lap as good a place as any to snooze.
 

    When the Thomas cabin came in sight Monday morning, Adam raced ahead.  “Hey, Billy!” he yelled.

    Billy ran out the door of his cabin, waving and hollering.  “Hey, Adam!  Come see what we got done already.”

    Adam charged up to his friend and both headed inside.

    “Lands, you folks must have been up before the sun to get here this early!” Nelly exclaimed.  “Have you had breakfast?”

    “Yes ma’am,” Adam replied.  “Pa fixed pancakes and bacon.”

    “Didn’t burn ‘em too bad, did he?” Clyde cackled.

    “I did not,” Ben snorted, entering the cabin.  “As evidence, I offer the fact that both my boys cleaned their plates.”

    “All that proves is that they were hungry,” Nelly teased, reaching for the baby in Ben’s arms.  “Hello, Sunshine.  You gettin’ enough to eat at Pa’s house?”

    “Eat!” Hoss cried, falling into Nelly’s arms.

    Nelly laughed.  “We’ll eat later, Sunshine.  Aunt Nelly’s plannin’ a big dinner come noontime.”

    Ben raised a thick, dark eyebrow.  “Aunt Nelly now, is it?”

    Nelly blushed.  “Well, I guess I was takin’ liberties.  You folks sure seem close as kin, though, so maybe I can be excused.”

    Ben smiled warmly.  “Nelly, I never had a sister of my own, but I’d be proud to call you that——which would, of course, entitle you to be my boys’ aunt.”

    Adam walked over to Mr. Thomas.  “Does that make you Uncle Clyde?” he asked seriously, as Adam tended to take almost everything.

    Clyde chuckled.  “I reckon, but just by marriage, it seems.”

    “Clyde!” Nelly scolded, turning apologetically to Ben.  “Trust my man to take funnin’ one step too far.”

    Ben put an arm around Nelly and gave her a gentle embrace.  “Think nothing of it, sister dear.  There are black sheep in every family,” he said, giving Clyde a wink.

    Nelly’s face flamed redder than her son’s hair.  “High time the both of you quit flappin’ your tongues and went to work,” she chided, “if you plan on finishin’ this floor today.”

    Ben chuckled and nodded his acceptance of the admonishment.  He moved toward Clyde.  “Looks like you’ve made a good start,” he said, his hand sweeping toward the doorway Clyde had cut in the cabin’s north wall, against which Ben’s and the boys’ beds had stood when they all lived together.

    “Come on through and see what I’ve done,” Clyde said.

    Ben followed his friend through the doorway into what had once been the stable and had later served as the trading post.  Gone was the counter behind which Ben had conducted business.  Gone were the shelves along the east wall.  Nothing, in fact, remained in the room.  The ground had been beaten down firmly and a few half-logs laid in place near the north wall, beyond which Clyde’s smithy still stood.  “You have been working,” Ben whistled.

    “Still plenty to do, Ben boy,” Clyde chuckled.  “Or should I say ‘Brother Ben’?”

    Ben grinned.  “I’ll answer to either, and even quicker to the dinner bell.”

    “Ha!” Clyde snorted.  “Missin’ your sister’s cookin’ already, ain’t ya?”

    “Oh, yeah,” Ben said.  “Tell me where you stowed my ax, and I’ll get to work splitting logs.”

    “In the smithy,” Clyde replied.

    With both men working, the area that would become Clyde and Nelly’s new bedroom was completely floored by the time Nelly announced that dinner was ready.  Everyone gathered around the table, Adam and Hoss both eyeing the bounty eagerly.  Ben cut a surprised glance at Nelly.  “You’ve gone all out, Nelly.  This looks more like a Sunday dinner than a weekday’s.”

    “Well, now, I—I got to make sure you and the boys eat proper once a week, don’t I?” Nelly stammered.

    Ben chuckled.  “You won’t hear me complain.  Someday, though, I’m going to have to invite you to my place, so you can see we’re not really dying of malnutrition over there.”

    “Lands, I didn’t mean——” Nelly began, then stopped when she saw Ben smile at her.  He was teasing.  “Would you say the blessing, Ben?” she asked instead of completing her apology.

    Ben bowed his head, the others followed suit, and a brief prayer thanked the Giver of all good things for the abundance He’d provided for their table.

    “Eat!” Hoss demanded as soon as the grownups’ heads came up.  Young as he was, he had learned that nothing would reach his mouth before the prayer ended.  But he was always ready for food the minute it did.

    “All right, greedy belly,” Ben said, chucking the little fellow under his chubby chin.  “Goodness knows, I’ll get no chance at dinner ‘til you’ve had yours!”  Feeling not an iota’s guilt, Hoss just grinned.

    As Ben had said, the table was loaded with enough food to rival Nelly’s best Sunday dinners.  And he could see two pies sitting at one end, a sure sign that today’s dinner was intended to be special.

    “We’re gonna need to move everything out of here before we can go much further,” Clyde said.  “Hope that stove don’t take all day to cool down.”

    “Oh, it won’t,” Nelly said.  “I cooked everything at the fireplace except the pies, and they were done early.”

    “Good thinking, Nelly,” Ben said.

    Nelly laughed.  “You don’t know how I been longin’ for a real floor, Ben.  I’ve had everything planned out in my mind for days.”

    Clyde forked another pickle onto his plate.  “What she means is she’s all set to boss the job.”

    “You planning to sleep outside tonight, Clyde?” Ben asked dryly.  Clyde grinned.  He got the point.

    As soon as dinner ended, Nelly put the boys to work clearing the table.  “Take all the dishes outside,” she ordered, “well away from the cabin.  I’ll wash ‘em up once the men get started.”

    While the boys worked at the table, Ben and Clyde took down the canvas curtain and began unpegging the bed from the east wall of the cabin.  “Might as well take this on in the other room,” Clyde suggested.

    “Might as well,” Ben agreed.

    By the time the men had finished setting up the bed, Nelly and the boys had taken all the chairs and the table outdoors.  Ben and Clyde carried out the heavy cast iron stove and started building the floor, beginning at the west end, where the fireplace stood.

    They’d been working for about an hour when Nelly poked her head through the cabin door.  “Rider comin’,” she announced.  “Looks like John Reese.”

    Clyde stood and limped to the door.  The leg that had taken a poisoned arrow——like the one that had killed Ben’s wife Inger——had never been as strong after that.  Clyde had gotten used to the limp, though, and those around him barely noticed it any more.  Stepping outside, Clyde shaded his blue eyes with a bronzed hand.  “Yup, it’s Reese,” he said.  “Wonder what he wants.”

    Ben followed Clyde out and stood waiting until John Reese reined in a chestnut gelding.  Reese tipped his felt hat to Mrs. Thomas, but didn’t dismount.  “Howdy, ma’am,” he said.

    “Howdy to you, Mr. Reese,” Nelly responded.  “Sorry I can’t offer you a cup of coffee, but I’m not set up to cook just now.”

    Reese nodded.  “I can’t stay anyway, ma’am.  I just wanted a word with your husband.”  He turned toward Clyde.  “Mr. Thomas, a few men from this area will be meeting at my place next Wednesday, and I’d like you to join us.”  He looked at Ben, standing behind Clyde.  “You, too, Cartwright.  I was going to ride over to your place as soon as I talked to Mr. Thomas here.  As two of the oldest settlers in this region, you should have a voice in our discussions.”

    “What’s this here meetin’ about?” Clyde inquired.

    “With so many folks settling in this part of the territory,” Reese explained, “we’re going to need some government established.”

    Clyde spit tobacco juice onto the bare ground.  “Thought we had a government,” he muttered, “over to Salt Lake City.”  The Compromise of 1850 had set the territorial capital at Fillmore City, but everyone knew the real power resided with the head of the Mormon church in Salt Lake.

    Reese shook his head.  “That’s the problem.  Salt Lake’s too far away to give us any real help, and the leaders there seem in no hurry to set up anything local.  Some of us at Mormon Station feel it’s time we undertook the job ourselves.”

    “That might not sit too well with the leadership of your church,” Ben said bluntly.

    Reese chuckled.  “I may be Mormon, Cartwright, but that doesn’t mean I see eye-to-eye with Brigham Young about everything.  I think we need a government more closely tied to our needs here.”

    “I agree,” Ben said.

    “Yup, me, too,” Clyde added.  “We’ll be at your meetin’, Reese.”

    “Ten that morning sound about right?” Reese asked.

    “We could be there earlier,” Ben said, “but ten’s fine.”

    “I’m going to ask a few men from the new settlement at Eagle Station, too,” Reese explained.  “That’s where I’m headed now. They have further to come, so I thought it better to start later.”

    “Sure you wouldn’t rather light down and help lay a floor?” Clyde suggested dryly.

    Clyde hadn’t sounded like he was joking.  Reese saw through the straight face, though, and grinned back at the sweaty builder.  “Believe I’ll pass,” he said.  Tipping his hat once more to Mrs. Thomas, he rode north.

    Ben gave his friend a hard clap on the back.  “Back to work, Clyde.  I plan to get Sister Nelly set up to cook again by suppertime.”

    “Hear that, Nelly?” Clyde cackled as he turned toward the cabin.  “Give the beggar one good meal, and he invites himself back for more!”

    “Lands, he’s earned it!” Nelly cried.  “I planned on him and the boys stayin’ to supper.”

    From his perch in her arms, Hoss crowed with delight.  “Eat!  Pie!” he declared.

    Along with the others, Nelly laughed.  “Yes, Sunshine, there’s pie left, and Aunt Nelly will make sure you get some.”

    Though Ben and Clyde worked hard that afternoon, only half of the cabin’s main room had been floored by the time the sun started to dip behind the mountains.  They moved the stove back inside, so Nelly could prepare supper, but left the table outdoors.  No use cluttering up the room until the job was done, and eating in the open air would feel refreshing after a day of laboring indoors.

    “Nobody’ll be braggin’ on this like it was Sunday dinner,” Nelly said apologetically.  “I’ve really had to throw this meal together.”

    “It tastes real fine, ma’am,” Adam said.

    “Well, thank you, son,” the cook replied with an appeased smile.

    “It’s easy to see my younger boy agrees,” Ben laughed.  Hoss’s face was smeared with his exuberant enjoyment of the meal.

    Only one face at the table wore a frown.  “What’s your chin draggin’ the dust for, boy?” Clyde demanded of his son.

    “I thought you was gonna finish that floor today,” Billy whined.

    “Why, son, your pa and Mr. Cartwright have done their best, I reckon,” Nelly remonstrated.  “They’ll finish up tomorrow.”

    “Yeah, but it’s my bedroom they didn’t get to,” Billy wailed.  “Where am I supposed to sleep?”

    “Oh, lands, what a ruckus over nothin’,” his mother scolded.  “We’ll spread your mattress on what floor we got.”  Billy didn’t look the least bit mollified.

    Suddenly, Adam’s face lit up.  “Hey, why don’t Billy come home with us?” he cried.  “He can sleep in my bed!”

    Billy looked up, a grin starting at the corners of his mouth.  “That’s a good idea!” he said and turned pleading eyes on his mother.

    Ben chuckled.  “It’s all right with me,” he assured Billy’s parents, secretly wondering why Billy thought Adam’s trundle was that much improvement over a mattress on the floor.

    Billy spent that night in the Cartwrights’ cabin, and for the next several days, while the men worked to finish the floor, install the glass-paned windows and make a few other improvements in the cabin, he and Adam traded off as host to the other.  Both families spent a few days apart after that to catch up on regular chores, planning to cut windows in the Cartwright cabin right after the November 12th meeting at Reese’s Mormon Station.

    The trading post was just ahead now, but Clyde’s steps had slowed almost to a crawl.  Looking back, Ben saw the man, who though just two years older than Ben’s thirty years, walked like a man of much greater age.  “Leg bothering you?” Ben asked.

    Clyde shook his head.  “Naw, just ain’t anxious to go amongst a nest of Mormons.”

    Ben shook his head.  “Oh, Clyde, don’t start that today!”

    “I don’t hold with their religion, and no man can make me say I do!” Clyde snapped.

    “Neither do I, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t good neighbors,” Ben reasoned.

    Clyde lifted his hat and raked callused fingers through his coppery hair.  “So far, I reckon, but I don’t cotton to old Brigham Young or his kind takin’ rule over my life and land.  Any man that goes cavortin’ around with twenty or more so-called ‘wives’ ain’t fit to make laws for decent folks.”

    Ben smiled.  “I thought that’s what this meeting was about, Clyde,” he pointed out softly.  “Reese doesn’t like the idea either.”

    Clyde nodded.  “Yeah, but I don’t know if the same holds true for the rest of the men here at Mormon Station.  We’re gonna be outnumbered, Ben.”

    Ben threw an arm around the shorter man’s shoulder.  “Since when aren’t you and I a match for anything thrown at us?”

    Clyde grinned.  “More than a match,” he said with a quick jerk of his chin, “provided they don’t throw their womenfolk agin us, too.”

    “What womenfolk?” Ben demanded as he and Clyde started walking once more toward the designated meeting place.  “There isn’t one besides Nelly this side of Salt Lake City!”

    Clyde gave a loud hoot.  “Ain’t it the truth!  Must make it hard for these Mormons to practice their religion, huh?”

    “Will you stop?” Ben hissed.  “We’re almost there, and so help me, Clyde, if you bring up polygamy—”

    “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Clyde replied with a maddening grin.

    Ben rolled his brown eyes heavenward.  He couldn’t figure out whether Clyde was as prejudiced against Mormons as he sounded or if the man just liked to get a rise out of his long-suffering friend.  At times like this, Ben suspected Billy came by his penchant for mischief honestly.

    As soon as the two men walked through the door of Reese’s trading post, the Mormon leader strode briskly across the room to greet them.  “Cartwright; Thomas,” he said.  “Glad you could make it.”  A second man came up behind Reese and nodded at the two new arrivals.  Catching a glimpse of the man out of the corner of his eye, Reese beckoned him forward.  “Have you men met William Byrnes?”

    Ben extended a hand.  “Of course.  How are you, Byrnes?”

    “Doing well, Cartwright,” Byrnes replied.  “Excited about making a real community out of Mormon Station.”

    “And the rest of Carson Valley,” Clyde added testily.

    “Oh, of course,” Byrnes agreed hastily.  “The entire valley.”

    “Bill, I’m not sure our neighbors here know all the others,” Reese said.  “Would you introduce them around?”

    “Glad to,” Byrnes said.

    Ben and Clyde had already met most of the occupants of the room, the exceptions being some of the new settlers in Eagle Valley, so the introductions took but a short time.  And that was fortunate since Reese called the meeting to order only minutes after they had finished greeting acquaintances old and new.

    “All of you know the purpose for our meeting today,” Reese began.  “A year or two ago Carson Valley was just a place to pass through.  No more.  People are beginning to settle here, to make their homes here.  But any government available is a long way from our valley, too far to provide effective leadership.  We need to take steps to provide it ourselves.”

    “Here, here!” Byrnes sang out in agreement.

    “We must face facts, gentlemen,” Reese continued.  “Without legal title to our lands, all of us here are nothing more than squatters.  Yet Salt Lake City seems reluctant to send officials here to deal with that most basic of legal needs.  And while we’ve been fortunate in attracting mainly god-fearing, law-abiding citizens, we can’t afford to assume that such will always be the case.  We need a plan to deal with criminal activity.”

    Ben and Clyde nodded to each other.  Everything Reese had said so far made sense.  Any growing community could expect sooner or later to attract a lawless element, as well as more solid citizens.  Better to nip that element in the bud than let it take root.  The lack of legal title to their lands was an even more immediate concern.

    “Fine words, Reese,” said a man Ben had just met, Frank Hall of Eagle Station.  “But what can we do about it?  You think Utah’s gonna just let us order things like we want?”

    Reese smiled.  “What I propose will take the territory of Utah completely out of the picture.  I suggest we petition Congress to grant us a territorial government independent of Utah and to send a surveyor to define all land claims.”

    Clyde whistled.  “Bold critter, ain’t he?” he whispered to Ben.

    Ben gestured to get Reese’s attention.  “If we expect Washington to honor such a request, we’ll have to show them we’re ready to govern ourselves.”

    “Absolutely right, Cartwright,” Reese said.  With a long finger he swept the room.  “That’s why we’re here, to set in motion a government Washington will have to respect.”

    “There’s others ought to have a say in this,” Frank Hall protested.  “Ain’t more than twenty men here, and the Federal government ain’t gonna smile on no territorial convention that small.”

    Ben smiled.  Though his poor grammar revealed Hall to be a man of little learning, he was talking common sense.

    “There’s more than just Mormons in this valley,” an even rougher-looking man growled.

    Reese flushed.  “Yes, of course, though most of the men you’re speaking of are transients rather than permanent settlers like those in this room.  Our meeting today is just intended to get things started.  I’m sure there’ll be other meetings, and we can involve more men in those.  I suggest we elect a committee today to act as our temporary government and give them the power to appoint officials where needed.”

    “What about a legislature?” Joseph Barnard, another settler from Eagle Station demanded.  “A proper government should have more than just an executive branch.”

    “Kind of gettin’ the cart before the horse, ain’t you?” Clyde snickered.  “We ain’t gonna have no proper government ‘til Congress recognizes us.  And ‘til then we don’t need no fancy legislature.”

    A loud debate ensued with men vociferously voicing opposing viewpoints.  Finally, Ben Cartwright stood, raising both arms to get the men’s attention.  “Perhaps the idea of an official legislature is a bit premature,” he said, “ so why don’t we simply nominate a committee today to begin thinking about the laws we need most and report to the body at large.”

    “Good idea,” Jameson, a resident of Mormon Station, shouted.

    “I’ll settle for that,” Barnard agreed.

    “What we need most,” William Byrnes interrupted, “is a limit on how much land a man can settle.  Fertile land’s scarce in the valley.  No one man should control more than a quarter-section.”

    “That’s a good suggestion, Bill,” Reese said smoothly, “but what we need first, as Cartwright suggests, is a committee to examine such ideas.”

    “All right, then, I nominate you,” Byrnes announced.  Other Mormons vied with one another for the privilege of seconding the nomination.  Though no official vote was taken, Reese obviously would head the new committee on laws for Carson Valley.

    Clyde almost leaped to his feet as soon as nominations were declared open for other members of the committee.  “I nominate Ben Cartwright!”

    Ben grabbed at Clyde plaid flannel sleeve, jerking him back into his seat.  “What are you doing?” he demanded.

    “Got to have something besides consarned Mormons on this committee,” Clyde whispered.

    “Aren’t enough of us gentiles, as they call us, to elect anybody,” Ben muttered under his breath.  To his surprise, however, he was elected to the committee, as was Joseph Barnard of Eagle Station.  Then followed the election of the governing committee.  William Byrnes, John Reese and Jameson were elected to this committee, as well as the one on which Ben would serve, and four others were selected to round out the committee of seven.  The meeting dismissed, and those elected to consider laws and resolutions adjourned to the home of William Byrnes to continue deliberations that afternoon.

    Toward evening Ben walked along the cottonwood-lined banks of the Carson River.  Here and there a few orange-yellow leaves still clung to the bare branches, but soon they would all be gone.  In the hills to the west red and gold aspen stood in vivid contrast to the dark evergreen of the pines.  That view lay behind Ben, though, as he directed his steps toward the Thomas cabin.

    Adam, playing with Billy on the seesaw their fathers had built three months earlier, suddenly jumped off when he saw his father.  Billy’s half of the board slammed to the ground and Billy slid off on his backside.  “Hey!” he yelled.  “Give a feller some warnin’!”

    Adam was too far away to pay much mind to Billy, however.  Ben laughed and tossed the boy high in the air when he came running to meet him.  “You were gone all day, Pa,” Adam scolded.  “That must have been some meeting!”

    Ben laughed.  “Yeah, well, you can thank Uncle Clyde for how long I was gone.  You been a good boy?”

    “Sure,” Adam said readily.

    “And Hoss?”

    “Pretty good,” Adam said, his brow furrowing thoughtfully.  “He sure gets underfoot a lot, Pa.  Me and Billy’s hardly had a moment’s peace.”

    Adam looked so serious Ben couldn’t keep a straight face. He laughed as he set Adam down.  “Seems like I remember another little lad who got underfoot a lot.”

    Adam frowned.  He knew Pa was referring to him when he was younger, but he didn’t think the comparison a fair one.  He couldn’t possibly have been as annoying as Hoss!

    Clyde came around the corner of the cabin with a load of firewood.  “Trust Ben Cartwright to show up when the work’s all done,” he cackled.

    Ben made a growling face at his friend.  “You’ve got some right talking after the job you dumped in my lap.”

    Clyde guffawed even louder.  “Face it, Lieutenant Cartwright,” he said, using the honorary title awarded Ben by the people with whom they’d traveled west, “you were meant for greatness.  How’d the meetin’ go?”

    “Good,” Ben reported.  “We plan on having another one next week, larger this time, maybe as many as a hundred men involved.  We’ll present the laws we came up with today then.”

    “Anything I ought to worry over?”

    Ben grinned.  “I ought to let you stew over that for a week, but, no, nothing you can’t live with.”

    Nelly came to the door, with Hoss toddling after.  “Pa!” the sticky-faced boy cried, raising his arms to be picked up.

    Ben lifted the youngster and gave him a kiss on his sugary cheek.  “Now, what have you been into, Hoss?”

    “Pie!” Hoss chortled, a wide grin splitting his face.

    Nelly shook her head.  “Climbed up in a chair when I wasn’t lookin’ and helped himself.  I’m afraid one of the pies I fixed for supper don’t look real invitin’ any more.”

    Ben laughed.  “Sorry, Nelly.”

    “Like I said, underfoot and into everything,” Adam accused, staring reproachfully at his little brother.

    “Oh, no harm done,” Nelly laughed.  “If it was any other youngun, I’d fear spoilin’ his appetite, but—”

    Ben hooted.  “Nothing spoils your appetite, does it, Hoss?”  He lifted the boy’s wool shirt and blew on his stomach to Hoss’s giggling delight.

    “Well, come on in and set a spell,” Nelly said.

    “No, we can’t,” Ben said.  “I’ll be cooking a late supper as it is.”

    “Ben Cartwright, you are eatin’ supper here!” Nelly declared.

    “Now, Nelly—”

    “It’s all planned,” she said.  “Lands, the food’s cookin’ now, and I made enough for everyone.  You don’t want it goin’ to waste, do you?”

    “No fear of that,” Ben chuckled, patting his younger son’s ample stomach.  “I’ve sired the perfect solution to leftovers.”
 
 

“Adam.”  Ben shook the small shoulder lying next to Hoss in the trundle bed.  “Adam, wake up, son.”

    Adam’s black eyes slowly opened.  “Morning, Pa,” he yawned expansively.

    “Good morning, Adam,” Ben whispered, not wanting to wake Hoss yet.  “I need you to fetch some water from the creek, son.”

    Adam propped himself up on sharp elbows.  “How come so early?”

    “I want to get the stew on, so there’ll be nothing to do but heat it for the Thomases,” Ben explained.  “You know Miss Nelly.  If there’s anything left to do when she gets here, she’ll take right over.  And this is my party.”

    Adam grinned as he swung his bare legs over the edge of the bed and stood up.  “You mean Aunt Nelly,” he reminded his father.

    Ben arched an eyebrow, not sure he’d ever get used to the new appellation.  “Yeah, well, by whatever name, she’s my guest today.  I aim to prove I can take care of my own boys.  You with me?”

    Adam gave a decided nod.  “I’m with you.”  He grabbed his blue pants from a peg on the wall and stepped into them.  “I don’t know why Aunt Nelly’s comin’ today anyway.  You don’t need her to set in the windows.”  He drew a suspender over each shoulder.

    “She’s coming to watch Hoss and to hang the curtains,” Ben replied, walking through the doorway.

    Following his father into the main room, Adam scowled.  “Curtains!  Why we need curtains?  Ain’t nobody around to spy in, anyway.”

    Ben rumpled Adam’s black hair.  “I, for one, appreciate the touches a woman adds to a home.  You know if your mother or Hoss’s were still alive, we’d have curtains, and I don’t plan to raise a couple of heathens.”

    Adam’s face had grown pensive at the mention of his mothers——he always felt he’d had two——but he couldn’t figure what curtains had to do with making him either heathen or god-fearing.  From the look on Pa’s face, though, now wasn’t the time to ask.  Now was the time to fetch water.  Adam trotted outside, grabbed up a pail and headed for the creek.

    By the time he returned, Adam could smell the chunks of deer meat searing in the pot.  Ben had the potatoes and carrots peeled and sliced, ready to add as soon as the meat was browned on all sides.  Adam sniffed the air appreciatively as another familiar fragrance hit his nostrils.  “Fried mush!” he chirped.  “My favorite, Pa.”

    “Is it?” Ben smiled as he turned the slices of cold mush to fry on the other side.  “I thought your taste ran to bacon and eggs.”

    “Well, it would if we had any chickens,” Adam admitted.  “That is one thing I miss from Aunt Nelly’s place.”

    Ben laughed.  “I appreciate honesty, Adam, but today’s not the best time to tell me you preferred living with the Thomases.”

    “I didn’t say that!” Adam protested indignantly.  “I like having our own place.”

    “Good,” Ben said.  Then he gave Adam a wink.  “I miss the eggs, too, son.  Maybe next spring I could bring back a brood of our own, if I had a boy willing to be responsible for them.”

    “Me, Pa,” Adam announced.  “I’d be responsible and Hoss could help.”

    Ben’s laughter rocked the rafters.  “I wouldn’t count on it, son,” he cackled.

    From the next room came a demanding “Pa!”

    “Uh-oh,” Ben said.  “I didn’t mean to wake him up yet.  See to your brother, would you, boy?”

    Adam frowned.  He knew that “seeing to” his brother’s morning care generally involved changing a dirty diaper.  Since Pa was busy with both breakfast and lunch, however, Adam saw no way out of the offensive chore.  With a sigh he walked through the doorway and over to the trundle, the edge of which Hoss was trying vainly to roll across.

    “Okay, up you come,” Adam said, struggling to lift the baby to Pa’s higher bed for changing.  Hoss was already almost beyond the older boy’s strength to lift.  Adam tickled the baby’s chin.  “Hoss, you either gotta quit this growing or you gotta grow big enough to tend yourself.  This in-between stuff is wearing me out.”

    Hoss smiled adoringly at his older brother and kicked his legs, wafting the fetid odor from his diapers toward Adam’s nose.  Adam turned his head away quickly and groaned.  The bad kind.  Why did he always get stuck with cleaning Hoss up after the bad kind?

    Suddenly the smile on the baby’s face seemed taunting to his older brother.  “You don’t have to look so all-fired happy about it,” Adam scolded.  “High time you learned to trot to the outhouse on your own.”  The suggestion made no impression on Hoss, however, so Adam set to work making his brother presentable for company.

    Hoss had on a fresh diaper, but nothing else, when Ben stuck his head through the doorway to call his boys to breakfast.  “Hoss ain’t dressed yet, Pa,” Adam reported.

    “Isn’t,” Ben corrected.  “Don’t bother ‘til he’s eaten.  He’ll be warm enough like he is.”

    “And that way we won’t have to change his shirt afterwards, huh, Pa?” Adam grinned.

    Ben laid an affectionate hand on the boy’s slender neck.  “Adam, my boy, you’re quite a mind-reader,” he smiled.

    The boys were fed, the dishes washed and the cabin shipshape when the guests arrived.  Billy Thomas burst through the door without bothering to knock.  “We’re here,” he announced.

    “So I see,” Ben scowled playfully.  “How far back did you leave the old folks, Billy?”

    “Fur as I could,” Billy tittered.

    Ben walked outside, taking a deep breath of the pine-scented breeze.  Waving at the Thomases, who were only a short distance behind their son, he walked to meet them.  “Why’d you bring the cart?” Ben asked.

    “Easier than totin’ this much on my back, that’s why!” Clyde snorted.

    Ben looked into the ox-drawn cart.  Clyde’s tools were there, of course, as well as a brown-paper-wrapped package Ben took to be the curtains.  In addition, the cart held four pies.  “Good gracious, Nelly,” he ejaculated.  “We don’t plan to work up that huge an appetite.”

    “Speak for yourself,” Clyde hooted, giving Ben’s arm a solid punch.

    “I only planned two for dinner,” Nelly explained.  “The others I’ll leave here since you said you weren’t comin’ for Sunday dinner this week.”

    Ben shook his head.  He wondered if he’d ever convince Nelly Thomas that he and the boys were capable of managing on their own.  Still, he had to admit all three of them relished dessert.  It was in short supply at the Cartwright table, too, for Ben had never understood the mysteries of pie-making.  He smiled his thanks and helped carry the pastries inside.

    “Pie!” Hoss crowed in happy greeting when his father walked in.

    “Yes, and you stay out of them,” Ben ordered, waving an admonishing finger under the nose of his younger son.  Hoss looked disappointed, but bobbed his head soberly.

    Nelly, having followed Ben in with the last two pies, set them down and began what was obviously an inspection tour of the cabin.  “Why, you’ve got it fixed up right nice,” she said, smiling at the table already set for dinner, “and whatever that is cookin’ smells almost edible.”

    “Almost!” Ben sputtered.  “You wait ‘til you taste it before you go criticizing, Nelly Thomas.”

    “I wasn’t criticizin’,” Nelly contradicted.  She approached the mantel over the fireplace and looked at the two daguerreotypes Ben had set there, one on each side.  One face she recognized.  “I never knew you had a picture took of Inger, Ben,” she said softly.

    Ben gazed dreamily at the picture.  “Yeah, we had that made on our first anniversary——first and last,” he said quietly.  His thoughts were particularly nostalgic since November was the month he and Inger had married three years before

    Nelly nodded, sharing the moment of sorrow with Ben, for Inger had been a cherished friend.  She pointed to the other picture.  “That your first wife?” she asked.

    “Yes, that’s Elizabeth, Adam’s mother,” Ben said of the handsome, dark-haired woman in the other gilt frame.

    “Two fine-lookin’ women you found for yourself,” Clyde said from the doorway.

    “Fine-looking and fine-hearted,” Ben said.

    “When you aim to put a third picture up there?” Clyde asked with an impish grin.

    Ben paled.  “Never,” he said tautly.

    Secretly, Nelly didn’t think Clyde should have brought the subject up this soon after Ben’s loss; but since he had, she thought she might as well express her opinion, too.  A year might seem a short time to grieve, but Ben’s boys needed a mother and Ben a wife to share this home he was building.  “There’s other fine-hearted women, Ben,” she said softly.

    “Not of their like,” Ben replied, coloring.  To lighten the sudden sobriety in the room, he laughed.  “Besides, where in all of Utah Territory would I find an unmarried woman of anything but the Mormon persuasion?”

    Clyde chuckled.  “Or even that kind.  With their men takin’ two or three apiece, there can’t be many left over.”

    Nelly clucked her tongue reproachfully.  “You men had best clear out and start to work.  I won’t have such matters spoke of before these innocent boys.”

    “Innocent?  Him?” Ben teased, pointing at Nelly’s red-haired son, then skipping out before Nelly could toss a pie at him for his sass.

    “Still set on three winders?” Clyde asked, pulling his saw from the cart.

    Ben chuckled.  “I know you think it’s an extravagance, but we want lots of light in our front room.  We’re a family of readers, you know.”

    “Hoss, too, I suppose,” Clyde sniggered.

    Ben shrugged.  “Time will tell, but he’s gonna have the right example set before him.”

    “Yeah, all right,” Clyde said, eager to change the subject.  He wasn’t setting his own boy much of an example in the education department, and sometimes that made him uncomfortable around Ben Cartwright, who set such store by learning.  “You’re plannin’ to read in bed, too, I reckon,” he added, referring to Ben’s previously stated intention of putting a window in the bedroom, as well as one on each side of the cabin’s front door.

    “Maybe,” Ben chuckled.  “Mostly, I plan to wake with the sun coming through that east window and be about my work, unlike some of my lazy neighbors.”

    Clyde turned to spit a stream of tobacco juice away from the cabin.  “I don’t need the sun to wake me up.  My own innards act like a regular clock when it’s time to start chorin’.”

    Ben arched a blue-black eyebrow.  “Did I say I meant you?  I have other neighbors, you know.”

    Clyde slapped his knee.  “Okay.  You slickered me that time.  Who’d you have in mind?  Old Virginny, maybe?”

    Ben scowled at the reference to James Finney, who took his nickname from his home state.  “No one in particular, but Finney doesn’t strike me as a beaver for work, now you mention it.”

    “You men better start workin’ like beavers yourselves,” Nelly warned from the doorway, “or I’ll take a lesson from Inger’s book and make you sing the praises of James Finney before you get your dinner.”  Both men smiled, remembering the times on the trail when Inger, who couldn’t tolerate criticism of anyone, had made them earn their dinner in just the fashion Nelly mentioned.

    Ben made her an elegant bow.  “Yes, ma’am!” he said.  “We’ll soon have you a window to dress with those frills you brought.”

    Hoss tugged at Nelly’s skirt.  “Pie, Aun’ Nenee?”

    Nelly scooped the toddler up and carried him outside.  “Not yet, Sunshine.  Let’s take us a walk in the trees ‘til the menfolk get the window holes cut.”

    “Good idee,” Clyde snorted.  “That’ll get the both of you out from underfoot.”

    “Idea, Clyde,” Ben groaned.  He’d tried all last winter to break his friend of his folksy pronunciations and sometimes felt ready to toss it up to a lost cause.

    “Idea,” Clyde corrected himself amiably.  “I remember more than I forget nowadays, Ben.”

    “Glad to see you making some progress,” Ben said, though he looked dubious.

    “Yeah, well, I’d like to see you make some progress,” Clyde sniggered.  “At this rate we won’t have the first winder——uh, window——set ’til long past dinner.”

    Ben accepted the rebuke with a nod.  It was more true than not.  He’d rather jaw with Clyde than do chores any day.  He and Adam both, however, were looking forward to having more light in the house, so Ben grabbed up his saw and began to open a square on one side of the door while Clyde sawed away on the other.

    The glass for both front windows was in place by the time the sun stood overhead.  “Now you folks sit and rest while I heat up the stew,” Ben ordered.  “Dinner won’t be as fancy as the ones I enjoy at your place, but it’ll be tasty.”

    “I’m sure it will, Ben,” Nelly said, seeing how nervous the man was and feeling certain he needed reassurance.  It was obvious Ben felt the need to prove himself, so despite her desire to pitch in and help, she let him stir and bake his own corn pone to go with the stew.  At least, she’d have the satisfaction of topping off the meal with a slice of pie for everyone.

    Ben soon announced that dinner was served, and family and guests alike scooted onto the log benches on both sides of the table.  Hoss stood on the bench and spatted the table with both palms.  “Pie!” he demanded.

    “Dinner, first,” Ben said sternly, tying a napkin around the boy’s neck.

    Hoss’s lower lip shot out, but he didn’t say anything.  Once Ben filled his plate with savory venison stew, thoughts of pie fled his mind.  Hoss may have preferred pie, but almost any food met with his affectionate embrace.  After the first bite the boy banged the tabletop again.  “Good!” he announced.

    “It surely is,” Nelly laughed.  “You followed my receipts right well, Ben.”

    “They’ve been a big help,” Ben admitted.

    While Ben’s stew met with unanimous approval, the real attraction of that meal, or any other they shared, was the dessert.  Nelly’d made both dried apple and peach pies.  They sliced one of each, so everyone could have the kind he favored.

    Nelly had swept the front room clear of the wood splinters before dinner, so as soon as it ended and she’d washed up the dishes, she was ready to hang the curtains.  First, though, she heated the flatiron she’d brought along and pressed the calico ruffles smooth.  Once the curtains were hung, she called to Ben, “Come see what you think.”

    Despite being in the middle of installing the bedroom window, Ben willingly stopped to admire the tie-backs now gracing his front windows.  He smiled as he saw the blue flowers blossoming on vines of green.  “Inger would have liked that print,” he said.

    Nelly smiled back at him.  “She did like it, Ben.  I made the curtains from that yardage of hers you give me.”

    “Blue was her favorite color,” Ben added, fingering a ruffle.  “Almost everything she made for our little home in St. Joseph was blue.  I’m glad you thought to use this for the curtains; we’ll think of her whenever we see it.”

    Nelly looked close to tears.  “You better get back and finish that other window, Ben, so I can get the curtain up in there before we have to leave.”

    Ben nodded and returned to the bedroom.  The work was done by mid-afternoon and, giving his friends his heart-felt thanks, Ben and his boys waved good-bye.

    “See you Wednesday,” Clyde called.

    “What’s Wednesday, Pa?” Adam asked once their company was out of sight.

    “You remember, son,” Ben said.  “That second meeting about forming a new government.”

    “Oh, yeah,” Adam said.  “Me and Hoss is gonna stay with the Thomases while you’re gone.”

    “You and Hoss are going to stay with them, Adam,” Ben corrected with a shake of his head.  Sometimes he wondered if so much exposure to the Thomases, however good-hearted they were, was a good influence on his boy’s education.  Ben rebuked himself immediately for the thought.  There were more important things than grammar, and in those things his uneducated friends excelled.

    Ben looked down at Adam.  “We’ll be spending the night with them, too, since Reese expects the meeting to go a second day.  That’s why I didn’t want to impose for Sunday, too.”

    “We’ll make out, Pa,” Adam declared.  “After all, we got pie.”

    Hoss squirmed in Ben’s arms.  “Pie!”

    Ben frowned at his older son.  “Now look what you started,” he scolded.

    Adam shrugged and gave his father a sheepish grin.

    The hills to the west were splashed with sunset shades when Ben Cartwright finally approached the Thomas cabin on the evening of November 19.  On days like this, Ben really felt the need for a mount.  Though Mormon Station wasn’t far from Clyde and Nelly’s home, Ben was tired and would have much preferred to ride rather than walk.  The meeting had lasted so long, too, that Ben feared he was holding up dinner.  He quickened his pace.  A delayed meal was the one thing most calculated to make his younger son hard to handle.  And Ben figured the normally sunny little lad was probably just about at that point now.

    Nelly, however, had foreseen the problem.  “I fed Hoss early and put him down on Billy’s bed.” she explained when Ben walked in and didn’t see his toddler.  “That’s where we’ll put you tonight, too, Ben; these young ones can handle a pallet for one night.”

    “Better than I could,” Ben chuckled, then laughed louder as he caught a glimpse of Billy’s disgruntled face.  How quickly they spoiled, these privileged boys!  Billy and Adam had both been content to sleep on the ground on the journey west.  Now, after only a year of settled life, they considered themselves put upon to do the same.  Ben said as much, to explain his sudden laughter.

    “Ain’t it the truth?” Clyde snorted.  “Maybe we ought to bed ‘em out in the barn, just as a reminder of where they come from.”

    “No, sir!” Billy yelped.  “Me and Adam’s real content with a pallet by the fire, ain’t we, Adam?”

    Adam’s chin bobbed up and down quickly.  “Real content,” he assured his father.

    “Good,” Ben said firmly.  He hadn’t seen Adam react negatively to Nelly’s edict in the first place but wanted to be certain his boy understood that such behavior was unacceptable.  In their own home Ben permitted Adam to speak his mind, but he was glad to see his son had his company manners on tonight.

    Nelly had been keeping dinner warm until Ben’s arrival, so everyone found a chair.  “Nothin’ fancy,” Nelly declared, belittling her own cooking, as usual.  “Just plain oxtail stew.  I tried that receipt you brought back from Ludmilla last time you went through Placerville, though, Ben.  You be sure and tell me if it’s good as hers.”

    Ben forced himself to keep a straight face.  Nelly had shown definite signs of jealousy ever since Ben and Adam’s first trip over the mountains for supplies last spring.  They’d found their old trail mate, Ludmilla Zuebner, running a cafe in Placerville and had returned singing the praises of the food they’d eaten there.  Then Clyde had made a later trip for the same purpose and come home singing a second verse of the same song.  Nelly had been fit to be tied and had demanded that the next one of them to visit Ludmilla had to bring back recipes for the dishes they were so wild over.  To Ben had fallen that thankless task, but Ludmilla had been warmly generous in her response.

    “You know, Nelly,” Ben said as he ladled stew into his plate, “you ought to make Clyde take you over to Placerville next time he goes.  Ludmilla always asks about you, and I know she’d love a visit.”

    Nelly touched her protruding belly, knowing that what was growing there was likely to prevent paying any long distance calls for some time to come.  “No more than me, Ben,” she sighed.  “Bein’ the only woman this side of the mountains, I do get lonesome for decent conversation.”

    “Since when ain’t my conversation decent?” Clyde demanded.

    Nelly reached over to pat his callused hand.  “Now, you know what I mean.  Women like to talk about babies and sewin’ and the like.  All I ever hear is talk of crops and trade and government meetin’s.”

    Ben choked on the stew in his mouth.  He’d been just about to bring up the subject of the meeting he had attended that day.  “Sorry, Nelly,” he apologized, for he saw in her eyes that she had guessed what caused his sudden discomposure.

    “It’s all right, Ben,” she laughed.  “I want to hear the news, but maybe we could hold it ‘til after the meal.”

    “Yes, ma’am,” Ben replied meekly.  Then mischief sparked in his eyes.  “My, Clyde, that’s a fetching new outfit you’re wearing tonight.”

    Clyde looked down at his red wool shirt and gray pants.  They weren’t new.  All at once, Clyde grinned, seeing what Ben was up to.  “Yeah, pleased you like it.  And, Ben, that hat of yourn would look right smart with a peacock plume stuck in the band.”

    Billy snickered at his mother’s reddening face, while Adam bit his lip to keep from joining in.  He really was on his company manners for the night, even though Pa evidently wasn’t.

    Nelly looked askance at both men, then flapped her hand at them across the table.  “All right, you two nuisances, that’ll be enough.”

    It wasn’t enough for Billy, though.  He bounced up from his chair and began to prance around.  “Now, my duds ain’t new,” he announced, “but ain’t I a purty sight?”

    “Your bottom’ll be a pretty sight if you keep that up,” his mother warned.  “Sit down and finish your dinner.”

    “I am finished,” Billy insisted.  “Can me and Adam go out to play?”

    “There’s pie, sugar,” Nelly offered.

    “Can I save mine for tomorrow?” Billy asked.  “I’m full, Ma, and I want to go outside.  That government talk bores me, too.”

    “It’s dark now,” Nelly said.  “I don’t want you wanderin’ off.”

    “Just to the seesaw?” Billy wheedled.

    Nelly relented.  “Well, I reckon you can go that far.  You finished, Adam, or do you want pie first?”

    “I’d like to save it for tomorrow, please,” Adam replied.  He’d seen the warning frown on Billy’s face and knew that was the safest answer.  Besides, like Billy, he’d rather play than listen to the grownups talk.

    “You’re excused then, Adam,” Ben said.  “Go no further than the seesaw.”

    “Yes, sir,” Adam said, sliding from his chair and following Billy outside.

    “Now, if you two tell me you want your pie saved ‘til tomorrow, I’ll—I’ll give it all to Hoss,” Nelly threatened.  “He, at least, appreciates my cookin’.”

    “As do I, ma’am,” Ben said quickly.  “A nice thick slice, if you please.”

    “That’s better,” Nelly giggled.  “I’ll cut us each a slice and get you some more coffee.  Then I reckon we’ll be ready to hear about the meeting, Ben.”

    Over pie and coffee the friends discussed the laws the squatter government had passed.  William Byrnes’ proposal to limit each settler to a quarter section of arable land had been adopted, as well as one to hold the timbered lands in common.  “Anyone buying a claim will be required to improve it in value by five dollars within six months,” Ben continued.

    “I like that,” Clyde said.  “We ain’t interested in riffraff settlin’ here.  Folks that make improvements is more likely to stay.”

    “I think so, and five dollars is a small enough amount that anyone should be able to handle it,” Ben agreed.  “All of this, of course, is contingent on Congress’s allowing us to separate from Utah Territory.  If they don’t, none of our titles would hold up in court.”

    “We gonna set up courts of our own?” Clyde asked.

    “Yeah,” Ben replied.  “As a matter of fact, that’s on the agenda for tomorrow, as well as elections for justice of the peace, sheriff and a jury.”

    “What office you runnin’ for, Ben?” Clyde inquired with a wicked wink at his wife.

    “Don’t you think committee member is job enough?” Ben demanded.

    “Naw, justice of the peace sounds good to me,” Clyde snickered.

    Ben scowled.  “You want me performing weddings for our Mormon neighbors, do you?”

    Clyde guffawed.  “Sticks in your craw, don’t it?”

    “I wouldn’t do it,” Ben said firmly, “not if I knew there was already another spouse.  I doubt I have anything to worry about, though.  Even with more than 100 men voting, the Mormons are as likely to run this government as the one in Salt Lake, my friend.”  It was Clyde’s turn to scowl.

    Ben’s prediction proved true.  In the elections the next day, as well as those for several years to come, the Mormon majority controlled the results.  Winning a place on the jury, Ben was among the few gentiles selected to serve.  But he thought everyone elected this time, whether gentile or Mormon, would do a good job, assuming, of course, that Congress didn’t disallow all the work the squatter government had begun.

    Ben picked up his boys Thursday afternoon.  Nelly was a little put out with him because he wouldn’t stay to supper and refused her invitation to Sunday dinner, too.  “Haven’t you seen enough of us the last week or so?” Ben teased.

    “You’re always welcome here, and you know it, Ben Cartwright!” Nelly sputtered.

    Ben laid an affectionate hand on her shoulder.  “I do know that, and I want to keep it that way.”

    “Well, you are coming for Thanksgiving, aren’t you?” Nelly demanded, clearly perturbed at not getting her way.

    Ben laughed.  “Wouldn’t miss it!  If the weather holds, that is.  We had our first snow the day after Thanksgiving last year, remember?”

    Nelly nodded.  “I do, but there hasn’t even been snow on the mountains yet, Ben.  Funny, ain’t it?  If the snows had held off last year like they’ve done this, we’d all be livin’ in California.”

    It was funny, Ben thought, as he and the boys headed home.  A thing as ordinary as the weather could decide a man’s future.  If it had been more favorable last year, he would have bypassed the Carson Valley the way most emigrants did.  Had Inger been alive, she would have pointed out that weather was in the hands of God and been sure the snows were His way of making His will known.  And she’d have been right, Ben decided, feeling more strongly than ever that this place had been his destined home long before he first saw it.

    Dreamy-eyed, Ben snuggled Inger’s son against his chest.  This child, too, had been the product of his wife’s faith, a demonstration of her conviction that God would fulfill her heart’s desire for a child in His time.  And now her faith had taken root in Ben’s heart.  He’d been a believer in God all his life, of course, but Inger’s simple trust in an all-knowing, all-caring Father had changed the way he looked at everything, from the changes of the weather to the development of this land he would call home.  Whatever affected him or his boys, Ben now felt, was not ruled by happenstance.  Everything, great and small, was directed by the hand of a loving Creator, who had a plan for each individual life and was perfecting it in ways beyond the understanding of mere man.
 

Though snow began to dust the Sierras by Thanksgiving, none fell on the valley floor.  The Cartwrights and Thomases were able to count their blessings together over a table even more bountifully spread than the one they had enjoyed their first winter together.  Not until mid-December did the first snowflakes float down on the Cartwright’s roof.  Ben greeted their coming with pleasure, certain now that the temperature would remain cold enough to store whatever game he shot.

    The day after that first snowfall he and Clyde took an extended hunting trip to lay in a supply of meat.  The results of that trip, along with the pig he’d bought from one of the residents of Mormon Station and butchered and smoked earlier, made Ben confident he and the boys would eat well during the months the Carson Valley was shut off from California.  Not as well as the Thomases, of course, who had a better cook, but what Ben’s cooking lacked in quality, he could rectify with quantity.  And for Hoss, especially, quantity was the key word.

    About a week and a half before Christmas, Ben began to whittle some simple shapes similar to those that had decorated their tree in St. Joseph.  “Are we gonna have our own tree or put one up at the Thomases again?” Adam asked.

    Ben saw the yearning look in his boy’s dark eyes, so he didn’t need to ask, but he did anyway.  “Which would you prefer?”

    “Our own,” Adam answered at once.  Forthright by nature, Adam had never had the least fear of speaking his feelings, for his father encouraged openness.  “Can we have one, Pa?”

    Ben chuckled.  “Why do you think I’m sitting here whittling these things, boy?  If we were sharing a tree, we’d have no need for more than we made last year.”

    Adam grinned.  “I guess that’s right.”  He frowned, then.  “Uh-Pa?”

    “Yeah?” Ben asked, smoothing the back of the deer he was carving.

    “You think maybe Mr. Thomas would make us some animals to hang on the tree?” Adam asked tentatively.

    Ben’s head jerked up.  “Mine aren’t good enough for you, boy?”

    Adam’s mouth twisted askew.  “They’re all right, Pa, but—”

    “But not as lifelike as Mr. Thomas’s, eh?” Ben said.

    Adam gulped.  “N—no, sir, and I think we should make our tree the finest there is——for Hoss, I mean.”

    “For Hoss, is it?” Ben laughed.  “I doubt it’s Hoss’s interests you’re concerned about.  Tell the truth, Adam.”

    Adam grinned sheepishly.  “For me, then, Pa.”

    “Mr. Thomas has enough chores without decorating our tree,” Ben said soberly.  “Besides, I think by the time we’re finished, you’ll be pleased with the result.  I brought some special things back from Sacramento.”

    “What things, Pa?” Adam demanded.

    “Paint, for one.”  Ben smiled.  “Remember how much fun you and Jamie had painting the ornaments in St. Joseph?”

    Adam was smiling broadly now.  “I sure do.  That’ll make our tree real colorful, not plain like last year.”

    “It’ll be almost like the one we put up in St. Joe,” Ben said.  “I bought some small candles, too, and popcorn to string for a garland.”

    “And to eat!” Adam chirped.

    A bleary-eyed Hoss, just up from his nap, toddled into the room in time to hear his brother’s last statement.  “Eat?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.  Ben and Adam both laughed.  They might have known Hoss would wake up to hear that word!

    Once Ben had a dozen shapes carved, he gave Adam small cans of red, blue and yellow paint and a brush.  “Wait ‘til Hoss takes his nap, then you can go to work,” Ben whispered.

    Adam nodded solemnly.  He could just imagine Hoss’s plump fingers taking a dip in the pretty colors and smearing broad strokes across the table or, worse yet, his big brother’s shirt.  Pa was right; waiting ‘til the baby was sound asleep was the best plan.

    Adam smiled.  That way, too, the tree could be a surprise for Hoss come Christmas Eve.  Last year, when Pa was trying to soothe Adam’s disappointment over learning there was no Santa Claus from loud-mouthed Billy Thomas, he’d said that now Adam was old enough to play the Santa game with Hoss.  Pa had said then it would be fun.  And as Adam anticipated his baby brother’s wide-eyed wonder when he saw the tree, he began to understand what Pa had meant.

    Like Adam, Ben found himself looking forward to Hoss’s daily nap time.  While Adam worked busily at painting the new ornaments, Ben sat by the hearth carving first more ornaments and then slats for ladder back chairs the way Clyde had shown him.  The house was quiet with both father and son intent on their work, and Ben found the stillness restful after the constant activity of spring, summer and fall.  He’d never been overly fond of cold weather, but being shut in had its advantages.  Quiet afternoons like this brought a refreshing peace to his soul.

    One afternoon Adam, with the tip of his brush, gave his yellow bird a blue eyespot and sat back, satisfied.  “They’re all painted, Pa,” he reported.

    Ben looked up from the chair he was working on.  “That’s good, Adam.  I’ve been watching your work, and you’ve done a real fine job.”

    “Were you gonna carve some more?” Adam asked.  “The tree will seem kind of bare if this is all, don’t you think?”

    Ben chuckled.  “Maybe, but I don’t think we have time to make more this year.”

    Adam frowned thoughtfully, then his countenance lifted.  “What about hanging pinecones to fill in with?  We did last year.”

    “So we did,” Ben said, “and maybe you could add a touch of paint on the tips.”

    “Yeah!” Adam cried enthusiastically.  “I’ll get some cones right away.”

    “Not now, son,” Ben said with a shake of his head.

    “But, Pa, I’ve already got the paint out and everything,” Adam argued.

    “Yes, but Hoss is likely to wake soon, and you’ll want to get things put away before he does.  Then you can take him with you to pick up pinecones and paint them tomorrow.”

    “Aw, Pa, he’s no help,” Adam complained.

    “Then teach him to be a help,” Ben said firmly.  “You might keep your eye out for the tree you want while you’re at it.”

    “Oh, I already know that!” Adam exclaimed.  “I spotted one just the right size last week.”

    Ben laughed.  “All right.  Day after tomorrow we’ll chop it down and set it up.  Now put your supplies away, son.”

    Adam did as he was told, setting the ornaments atop the mantel to dry and the paints and cleaned brush on the highest bookshelf in the cabin.  He went to the front window and pressed his nose against the glass pane.  “It’s snowing again, Pa,” he said softly.

    Ben caught the note of uneasiness in Adam’s voice.  “Real pretty, isn’t it, when it drifts down slow like that,” he commented tentatively, standing up and stretching the kinks out of his back.

    Adam turned worried eyes to his father’s face.  “You think there’ll be too much?  For us to get to the Thomases, I mean.”

    Ben moved to the window beside Adam.  “I don’t think so, son.  Unless there comes a real storm, we’ll make it.  I’m looking forward to that goose Mrs. Thomas promised, too.”

    “And the presents,” Adam grinned.

    Ben tousled Adam’s dark hair.  “Time I started supper.  Fried ham and potatoes sound goo