A Jack and Three Queens

Chapter 1

Trot, a Jack

Tom Booth

May 1856

The great brown coils of the Missouri River could just be seen off to the north from the Booth homestead located in far western Missouri. On a hill overlooking the river there was a two-room log cabin with a Texas style porch in between. Here was the modest twenty-acre farm of Elijah Booth and his two sons: Samuel, 25, and Thomas, 20. For over twenty years Elijah Booth had been breeding mules here. As his sons grew older, they assisted in the operation and with the making of harnesses for the horses, donkeys and mules that he bred and sold. Elijah Booth grew a few crops on the farm for food, but mule production was his chief industry.

The farm overlooked the Missouri River, which lay to the north of their home. To the east were the town of Sibley and the old fort: Fort Osage. To the south of the farm was Independence and to the west Kansas City, while to the southwest was another important Missouri town: Westport. Located where it was, the Booth farm was in the center of a nation moving west with the Oregon Trail and the Santa Fe Trail both starting in this vicinity.

In just the last few years of operation, Elijah Booth had expanded his business interests on the farm, beginning to trade in slaves and mixing in Missouri politics. As a result, it was in his best interest to fight for the new Kansas Territory to become another slave state in the Union. Elijah Booth planned to move his entire operation west to a place on Pottawatomie Creek in Kansas and onto a much larger piece of ground. He had gone ahead of his sons to stake out their new farm in the Kansas Territory, leaving the sons back in Missouri to care for the livestock and slaves while he obtained title to the new land. They understood he was also setting up some temporary shelters for them in Kansas: a new cabin, barn and fencing. He had grand plans for their future in the newest slave state that he and his friends envisioned.

While Elijah’s sons waited for moving instructions from him, there was suddenly very bad news from Pottawatomie Creek ending those plans forever. Some of Elijah Booth’s friends and fellow slaveholders arrived in a mounted posse one afternoon to tell his sons that a Free Soiler named John Brown, a man who objected to all of Elijah Booth’s plans, had murdered him along with several other slave-holding men in the proposed slave settlement.

Samuel was livid at this revelation. His face turned red and he vowed terrible vengeance. He quickly saddled a mare and took off in this rage with his father’s friends, looking for this Brown fellow to exact a horrible revenge upon him.

Sam left his younger brother Thomas on the farm with all the animals and a couple of slaves to care for. Thomas did not object to staying behind; he had no desire to chase men across the frontier when there was so much happening right now on the farm that needed his attention. He postponed thinking about the murder of his father and what he really thought about it until he was not quite so busy.

Down in the birthing shed a donkey, who Samuel had named Mud, because he did not like her very much, was about to give birth. Her weaned colt, Clothesline, was in the nearest pen trying to be with her mother. Thomas had assisted many of the mares and the donkeys giving birth and there seemed to be nothing special about this delivery.

Tom was slightly annoyed, however, at being left alone at this important time by his brother without even a discussion on the matter. Tom reflected it would have been nice if his brother had at least asked him if he would watch everything while Sam rushed off to hunt John Brown.

As Tom waited for the donkey colt, he tried to understand his brother’s anger over the murder of their father. He wondered if there was something wrong with him that he did not feel the same intense rage. Also, unlike his brother, Tom was not a slave partisan. He did not like slavery and would have been an outspoken opponent of it except for the political views of his father and brother. He was very unhappy that his father had been murdered, but that did not make him pro-slavery in his politics. To be truthful, he was not very political at all.

As he had nothing better to do while he waited for Mud to deliver her colt, he mulled it all over in his head trying to decide if there was something fundamentally wrong with him lacking much passion over the matter. He was certainly happy to let the law deal with John Brown. He did not need to go chasing after him for private vengeance like his brother. Perhaps he was not a very good son? He felt a certain loyalty to his father but little real love. They had not been close. These thoughts were troubling to him. As a Christian, Tom believed he should grieve more over his father’s death.

Tom had reached no firm conclusions on these muddled thoughts when he heard a clamor outside in the barnyard and he left Mud in the shed to see who had just arrived on the farm. It was one of his neighbors: Ben Sawyer. Ben was a large fat man. He had come from Pennsylvania about ten years ago with his wife and five daughters. Some of the daughters were with him now in the buggy, pulled by a very poor excuse for a mule. For that matter, the wagon they rode in was a poor excuse for a buggy. It rattled and clamored with every turn of its wheel. It had announced old Ben’s arrival loudly before he had appeared.

Howdy, Tom called to them from the shed.

We heard about your father, Ben whined in his nasal voice. The wife thought you might need some tending since your brother took off looking for the murderer. Ben took off his straw hat and wiped his forehead as if the speech had been a great chore for him to deliver.

That is very kind of you, Tom answered, helping Mrs. Sawyer down from the front seat of the wagon. Ben Sawyer was not known for his charity and Tom was frankly surprised that he would do this. His wife, however, was a friend Tom knew from the church. Mrs. Sawyer was known to be a Godly woman and one who might want to help a neighbor in need. She was a thin, worn woman who had once been beautiful, wearing a dress and bonnet that had seen several seasons of use. Mrs. Sawyer was also very regular in her Church attendance. Several of the younger girls got out of the flat bed of the buggy behind her carrying baskets. The daughters were all barefoot.

I am working down here, Tom explained. Mud is about to give birth.

Mule or donkey? Ben asked with some slight interest.

Donkey, Tom replied.

I brought some food, Mrs. Sawyer said, grabbing a basket herself from the back where all the children had been.

That is very thoughtful of you, Tom acknowledged at once. You know our cabin. Make yourself at home. I need to be here a while yet to help with the birth.

Mrs. Sawyer headed towards the cabin with most of the children and Ben following. She had come over on several occasions to be social in the past, usually with some of her children, but this was Ben’s first trip in a long time.

Ben parked himself in the most comfortable chair on the Texas porch with his pipe and with a jug of something one of his daughters had found inside for him. Tom was sure it was his brother’s jug of moonshine. One daughter, fourteen-year old Sarah, stayed behind at the shed with Tom.

Sarie, Ben called to her. You help Tom if’n he needs it with that birthin.’ Won’t hurt none to have her learn some on that, he added, more to himself than to Sarah.

Tom appreciated the company as Sarah followed him into the shed. He knew Sarah and her sisters from Church. He often talked with her and he thought her to be the brightest child of the Sawyer brood. She was also unusual in that, while all of the other girls in the family had adopted the Missouri style of speaking and pronunciation so as to sound like natives, Sarah alone still sounded like she was from Philadelphia. The best example of this was in her first sentence.

Which donkey is this? she asked. Only she did not pronounce donkey like everyone else in Missouri did: dawn-key. What came from her mouth sounded like dun-kee.

Her name is Mud, Tom replied.

Mud?

My brother named her. I asked what her name was and he said, ‘It’s Mud to me.’ So I have always called her Mud.

Is she going to have a mule or a dun-kee?

Donkey. We are hoping to get a new stud for the mares. Mystic is getting old and Sam hopes to get a new sire to replace him.

About that time Mud started to deliver. Sarah watched with fascination as Tom assisted Mud in delivery of the new donkey. To his delight, it was a male. Sarah watched in apparent awe as the little colt stood up for the first time. Tom continued to clean it up with Mud’s approval. To his surprise, the colt seemed to attach himself to Tom. He had to show the colt where to nurse and only then would it finally leave him for his mother.

What are you going to call him? Sarah asked.

No idea. Any suggestions? Tom replied.

Trot, Sarah offered.

Why Trot?

I don’t know, Sarah replied. He just looks like a Trot to me. Isn’t that rather a happy, hopeful sort of a name?

Trot it is, then, Tom said, rising.

As they watched Trot nurse, another child came from the house to announce the food was ready whenever they were. Tom washed up on the Texas porch and went in with Sarah trailing him. Ben already had a plateful and was eating happily.

Jenny or a jack? Ben asked to be polite.

A little jack, Tom replied.

Why is it called a jack? Sarah asked, sitting at the table next to the place set for Tom.

No idea, Tom replied. But male donkeys are called jacks and females are called jennies. He sat and filled his plate. Mrs. Sawyer could cook well and he enjoyed the fare much more than his or his brother’s efforts. Their mother had passed away some time ago and they had been caring for themselves ever since. There was a female slave who was supposed to cook for the Booths, but, with Sam gone, she was doing nothing for Tom because she knew Tom would not beat her. It was just another reason he did not like slavery.

He told Mrs. Sawyer several times how much he was enjoying the food she had prepared, and she, in turn, informed him that she was leaving the rest of the food she made when they left. Tom reflected on how generous that was, considering the Sawyers were not well-to-do farmers at all. In fact, Tom was very surprised by the gesture. Ben was not known for his charity towards others. Perhaps Tom had misjudged him and he was really a good man after all. Tom supposed it had been wrong of him to think poorly of Ben Sawyer when he had just been so generous to him, and he reproached himself accordingly, promising not to form quick opinions in the future and to look for the good in people more. He certainly appreciated the very good meal Mrs. Sawyer had made for him and wondered what he might do to return the favor for her.

After his guests left, Tom went back down to see Mud and Trot. Trot came right over to him and wanted to be petted. This established their relationship from then on.

When Samuel Booth came back a couple weeks later, empty handed and bitter over John Brown’s escape, Sam was not impressed with the new donkey at all. Trot can be yours along with Mud, Sam declared. I want a bigger sire for the new mules I intend to breed.

Tom was happy to own Trot, who soon learned how to slip through the fence boards and follow Tom around the farm. As he caused no trouble, Tom let him, supposing it might make him easier to train. It was true, Trot was not going to be a large donkey, but Tom did not geld him as he was thinking of breeding some smaller mules with his stock. He and his brother did not think alike on anything.

Sam had a lawyer in Kansas City working out the division of the farm and the stock for them since their father was dead. They did not have to worry about the land in the Kansas Territory; apparently their father had not concluded its acquisition. Sam also seemed to resent having his brother for a business partner-- he would have liked the farm and all the property for himself. This is when Tom first began to think about leaving home and separating himself from his brother.

The idea of leaving the farm grew when Samuel began to acquire more slaves with the idea of breeding them like they had the mules. It was what their father had talked about doing. In the breeding of the animals, Tom and his brother had two very different notions of the ideal mule. Sam wanted mules as large as they could be bred, while tom wanted the smaller version and did not want to breed slaves at all.

In dividing the stock, Trot, of course, went to Tom. When Mud weaned him, Tom gave him a job guarding the sheep and goats until he was large enough to breed with the mare horses and make mules. Trot took to watching the stock as desired. During the day, Trot would often follow Tom around like a dog while Tom talked to Trot like you might a person. Trot, in turn, pretended to understand him. Tom often found himself praying that he might find a friend as loyal and as devoted as his donkey.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 2

The Sawyers

Sarah Sawyer

1857

The Sawyer homestead was not far from the nice farm of the Booths. Like the Booth farm, the Sawyers had twenty acres, but there was an amazing difference between the two farms in quality. The Sawyer farm was very poor land and looked trashy from a lack of care to all its buildings. The cabin was built off of a gully on very bad land. The few crops that grew looked very ill tended with weeds often choking out the corn or other plants struggling to grow. All of the buildings and equipment were in poor repair. There was trash everywhere around the yard and rusting implements leaning against buildings and fences as if they had been left there for a time to be repaired that never came. The only part of the farm that looked cared for was the small chicken coop.

The patriarch of the family, Ben Sawyer, declared that these poor conditions were because he had no sons to help him mind the farm. Sarah, the middle child, supposed it was because her father was a very lazy man-- Ben typically spent most days sitting on the porch directing the activities of his five daughters while he smoked a pipe and sucked on a jug of moonshine. He often whined that, if he had a son, the boy could have gone hunting and filled the table with meat. If I only had was one of Ben’s favorite phrases. Sarah had heard it so often she ignored him whenever he started a sentence that way.

The Sawyer family had come from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1846. Ben had promised them all a new life when they came west. He was full of talk about the free land in Oregon, but that had not happened. Ben had settled on a cheap farm in Missouri. The new life he had promised was only a different life, but Sarah did like her new home more than the old one. There were advantages to not living in a crowded city. Sarah also liked the church her mother took her to. Ben would sometimes go with the clan to the little church, but her mother was the religious one. Ben usually fell asleep during the sermon and embarrassed them all with his loud snoring if he went. Mrs. Sawyer had the children in church every Sunday without fail while Ben sometimes liked to stay abed with his jug while they attended divine services. No one but her mother ever minded his absence. None of the girls enjoyed being embarrassed by him, even his special Cindy.

This eldest daughter of the five daughters was born Cynthia, but Cindy was what everyone called her. She was a lovely girl at eighteen years old. She alone of the girls had gone to school and had just graduated from the 12th grade. Cindy was the only one in the family with good clothes and who wore shoes all the time. She had no regular chores on the farm, either. Sarah had long wondered why Cindy enjoyed such favored treatment in the family of girls and had eventually discovered old Ben figured to marry Cindy to someone rich and improve his family’s position that way-- or at least his own position.

Lee was the next oldest daughter at sixteen. Her full name might have been Leanne, but Sarah did not know for sure. Like Cindy, Lee had blonde hair, but Lee’s was more a platinum color while Cindy’s was the color of ripe wheat. Lee had sharper features than Cindy but did not have the fine pretty face of her older sister. Lee resented her sister Cindy more than the other daughters did. Cindy had her own room while Lee and Sarah shared a bed in a small room with the two youngest girls. At night Lee would rant and rave about the unequal matters in the home and how thoroughly she hated it. She was highly offended that Cindy should always be given such preferential treatment while the other four daughters were made to make do with what was left.

Sarah was the middle child. Like her sisters she had blonde hair. Though it was close in color, hers was not as pretty as Cindy’s, but she did not have hours to sit and brush it like Cindy did. Also, Sarah had darker streaks running through her hair in places. Sarah was the tallest daughter and very well muscled from doing a lot of work on the farm.

Sarah ran the chicken operation. Chickens were the only part of the farm that was really productive. Their first slave, an old man named Wheezy, had taught Sarah about breeding chickens and harvesting them. Wheezy would sit and direct her actions much as her father might have if he had ever known anything about chickens, but Ben did not really know much about anything. Wheezy knew lots of things about everything and Sarah was always asking him questions about plants too. Old Wheezy knew all the wild plants to eat and those that were poison.

In addition to breeding and harvesting chickens, Sarah would collect wild plants for them to eat and to use for medicines. Certainly the garden planted by the other girls did not yield very much, so Sarah carried a canvas bag to collect edible plants she took with her everywhere she went. It was a big supplement to their modest dinner table. Everyone loved her choke cherry jelly that she made after the first frost each year. As she liked the jelly on the bread their mother made for them, Sarah would can enough to last the whole year.

The youngest Sawyer girls were 13-year-old Elizabeth, called Beth, and 11-year-old Judith, always called Judy. They each had platinum colored hair like Lee. They spent their days trying to avoid doing anything. They were supposed to keep the garden, but their mother ended up doing most of that. Sometimes Sarah would switch the pair of them to make the two little ones work in it, but oftentimes it was easier to just do the job than to force Beth and Judy to do any work. With Ben for a parental model, what could you expect from them?

Cindy did not spend much time with Lee or Sarah ever, so with Lee was Sarah’s natural teacher. Lee taught Sarah some good things and tried to teach her bad things too. It was Lee who taught Sarah how to kiss. They were talking about men and kissing and Lee asked Sarah if she knew how to kiss. Of course Sarah did not and Lee purposed to show her. Sarah thought it a bit odd that Lee insisted on putting her tongue in Sarah’s mouth and she told her so. Lee then admitted their father had shown her how to kiss. That sounded so very disgusting to Sarah-- she could not imagine Lee allowing old Ben to put his tongue in her mouth and told her that too.

As the whole matter did not sound right to her, Sarah asked her mother about this. That was when Mrs. Sawyer allowed Ben to get a female slave like he had wanted to purchase for some time. Presently Sarah noticed this new fourteen-year old slave, Sallie-Mae, was pregnant. What came out of the slave was a girl who looked a lot like the youngest Sawyer, Judy, only this baby had light shaded black skin. No one had to explain to her how that had happened. Sarah figured it out but held her opinion to herself. All of the Sawyer girls save the black one had blonde hair. That child’s hair was a very strange sort of kinky blonde. Sarah felt the shame of it at once, but Lee told her there were many families all around them with the same sort of black brothers and sisters.

Sarah began to think that if Ben was pestering Lee, he might try her at some point and she began to think about running away if he ever did. She did not intend to end up like the slave girl or like her sisters.

She supposed her family had become pretty trashy since their move to Missouri. She knew most of their neighbors considered and rightly called them poor white trash. She agreed and wanted to leave home as soon as possible. The only ones she would miss were her mother and Lee, but Lee could act pretty crazy some times. Sarah sometimes thought she might miss Beth, but she was not sure. Beth could be meddlesome and slothful like their father at times.

In Sarah’s heart was the wild desire that some handsome man would take her away from all this and marry her. The young man she liked the best was their neighbor Tom Booth. He was tall and handsome and always talked nicely to her at Church or in town. He did not seem like most of the other men in Westport, being generally quiet and not a braggart like his older brother. Tom was kind to his animals and did not hold with slavery at all. Being a quiet person he did not speak out against slavery, but she knew his views from talking with him at church. Tom Booth was the finest man she knew, but not likely to be interested in a girl from such a trashy family. He was a man of substance and property. Since the death of his father he owned half a farm and half the livestock there.

So Sarah supposed the chances of Tom Booth ever noticing her in that way were slim and none. Sarah knew she was somewhat pretty, but she was only 15 and much too young to be married to a sensible man. She was not pretty in a delicate way like her older sister Cindy. Cindy would have turned heads without the fine clothes Ben bought for her. She was dainty and had fine features while her long blonde hair was always curled ever so nicely. Sarah was plainer but still handsome in her own way. All of the Sawyer girls had some looks-- at least there was that to be said for them. Sarah supposed they had gotten their features from their mother. She would have been a handsome woman if she did not look so tired and unhappy all the time.

Their little village nearby was an interesting community. All of the roads from the East converged here, so there were many travelers headed west out of their little town. There were some for Oregon and many for California now where the gold was reported to be. Others were headed to Santa Fe. Sarah thought someday she might run away and go to California where there was gold to be found and picked out of the rivers. At least that was her plan if she ever needed to run away. She thought she needed a getaway strategy should bad trouble come to vex her.

A plan in life was important and Sarah would consider hers often at night or when bored. She often plotted how she might steal away after dark, helping herself to some of Cindy’s nice things to help get her started in life. She had a tiny purse with just a few coins hidden away against such a day. She buried them under a rock far from the house to keep them away from the others in her family who would have stolen them if they knew they existed. Her mother was the only person she would have trusted not to take them.

When bored, Sarah would rehearse the plan in her mind. She would sneak to Cindy’s room and take her best walking shoes. Sarah had a knife she would take for protection too. Then she would sneak out the window so as not to creak the door any. She would have laid aside her own clothing wrapped in a blanket. She would put her little bundle on a stick and hurry off in the darkness to where she hid her money. From there the road was open for her and she was not sure where exactly to go.

Just down the road on the way west was the old Coleman Inn. Sarah often offered to run down there to fill Pa’s whiskey jug for him. She was not trying to be nice to him with this gesture-- rather it was a chance to talk to travelers about where they had been and where they were going. If she were to have a sensible plan she needed as much information about the West as possible. Old Wheezy had told her about the plants she could eat to live off the land when she moved and she was always looking for the ones he told her about and testing them to be sure they were good.

As no one in the Sawyer family ever did anything quickly, she always had plenty of time to spend loafing at the tavern. So when Pa