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“Papa, what is it?” Mia cried, struggling with his weight even though he was a thin man.
“If it ain’t one thing, it’s another,” Harry gasped as he leaned his full weight against Mia.
Seeing that Tiny Brown offered no help, but instead just stared straight ahead as he continued manning the scow, Mia gave him a dark frown, then helped her father onto the cushion of blankets that were always there, used as his bed at night, or for an occasional rest during the day.
“What do you mean?” Mia said, concentrating only on her father now.
She would give Tiny a piece of her mind later.
She only hoped they could find someone else to board the scow as her father’s assistant in the next town they came to.
“It’s this heart trouble that I’ve been having,” Harry said, glad to be stretched out on the blankets so that he no longer had to put his entire weight on his daughter. She was so tiny, she looked as though she might blow away in the breeze.
He glared at Tiny whose back was to them, finding him more and more loathsome as each day passed. The little man had not even offered Mia a helping hand when she needed it the most.
“Papa, do you think this attack was worse than the others?” Mia asked, on her knees now beside her father. She dipped a cloth down into the river, then wrung it out just before placing it on her father’s sweat-beaded brow.
“Might’ve been. I don’t know,” Harry said. He closed his eyes and rested as she continued bathing his brow. “It only lasted for a moment.”
“You’d best not do any more work today,” Mia said, laying the damp cloth aside.
She eyed the oar that her father had abandoned when he felt the discomfort in his chest.
The scow, which was propelled by two wide oars called “sweeps,” was designed to be rowed by two men.
But Mia wasn’t a man. Still, she knew that if they were going to get to shore, where they could put in for the night, she must take up one of the oars.
Until now, the scow had floated effortlessly, even lazily, along the Rush River, which would eventually run into the Mississippi and finally take them home, to St. Louis.
Mia knew that helping Tiny get the scow to shore would be grueling work for her. She wished that her parents had never decided to travel so far from their home this time. Instead of enjoyment, this trip had brought them nothing but disaster and sadness.
“Papa, you just lie there and rest,” Mia said.
For her papa’s sake, she had to try to appear comfortable with the task that lay ahead of her. Her father’s health came before any discomfort she might feel while helping to row the scow to shore.
She stood up, sucked in a nervous breath, then stooped over and picked up the oar.
“Mia, what on earth do you think you’re doin’?” Harry blurted out as he struggled to get to his feet.
But his recent attack had drained his energy, and with each effort he made to try to get up, his heart went wild inside his chest.
He realized that he had no choice but to rest and allow his daughter to do the work of a man, something he had vowed never to let happen!
“Papa, I’ve watched you often enough to know how this is done,” Mia said, lowering the oar into the water.
She ignored Tiny when he turned around and gawked at her, then gave her a cynical, mocking laugh.
“Just you shut up,” Mia said, still working the oar although each stroke made her arms feel as though they were going to fall off. “Help me head this thing toward shore, Tiny. We’re stopping for the night.”
Her eyes widened when just as they floated around a bend in the river, she saw the old abandoned fort that sat a short distance from the banks of the Rush River. She had seen this fort many times before as they had made their yearly trek down the river.
“Look!” she cried. “It’s the old fort. You can tell that it’s abandoned. Tiny, help me get there. We’ll set up camp at the fort for the night.”
Suddenly Georgina burst into song, sending her lovely melody into the air.
Mia looked over her shoulder at her canary, smiled at her sweetness, then continued working hard to pull the oar through the water.
“That damn bird and its screeching noise,” Tiny growled as he helped head the scow toward land. “I don’t know why you keep that aggravating thing on board this scow. It ain’t a proper place for you to have a bird, and I wish you wouldn’t force me to listen to its nonsense.”
