In the words of Marion Russell...
The market place in Santa Fe was a wonder. In open air booths lay piles of food stuffs. Heaps of red and green peppers vied with heaps of red and blue corn and heaps golden melons. There were colorful rugs woven by the hands of the Mexicans and deep-fringed shawls, gay with embroidery. There were massive Indian jars filled to the brim with Mexican beans. There were strings of prayer beads from old Mexico, beads worn smooth and shiny to a patina by many praying hands. Mexican turquoise in heavy settings of silver. Silver was way cheaper than tin. Here was to be found exquisite Mexican drawn work and intricate Indian bead work.
This was old Santa Fe, asleep among the red hills. Sheep grazed on distant mesas, a hot wind blew across the mesquite. There were saw-tooth mountains silhouetted against the sky. Through a great wooden gateway flowed the Santa Fe trail from across a wide, hot valley.
From September of the year 1852, until August of 1856, we lived in New Mexico. Will and I had three years in the Catholic school. We learned to speak the Spanish language. Unconsciously we had learned to love the land of great distances and long silences. We had become familiar with the sunsets and great dawns that burn down into the valley and that flame up over the blue mountains. The stunted thorn trees, the sand that reflects sun like polished metal, and the thin gray lines that writhe in the heat waves like a nest of spiders, we loved with knowing we loved.
When mother received a letter saying that her home in Missouri was standing unrented and was fast falling into decrepitude, she decided to return there and forget her dream of California. When she told Will and me what she was planning we didn't mind, for we thought only how nice it would be to hit the trail again. We did not realize how homesick we would be for New Mexico before we would come again to Santa Fe.
On a hot August day in 1856 we left Santa Fe for Fort Leavenworth. This time we took passage in a small train of twenty wagons - too small for adequate protection from the Indians. The wagons were all ox-drawn and oxen do not walk as fast as mules or horses; however, they did walk more evenly and we were able to sew or even read as they ambled slowly eastward. The east-bound wagons were not so heavily laden. We slept in our covered wagon although many wagons held bales of buffalo hides for eastern markets.
On this trip across the Great Plains I was eleven years of age and Will was thirteen. We read and reread "Pilgrims Progress" and a travel book written by some missionary. It told of natives spearing fish off coral ledges, of hibiscus blossoms and snakes so large they might have swallowed our covered wagon.
Will walked all day by the wagons. Mother busied herself sewing ball after ball of rags to be woven when reaching home into a fine rag carpet. I think that the walking and carpet rag sewing helped them to kill the time as the slow oxen bore us onward. I had nothing to do but help with the carpet rag sewing, a task that I loathed.
It is a most remarkable thing that today I can find nothing outstanding about that trip eastward. Folks tell me it must have been a unique adventure, and beg to hear about it. I assure you it was often tiresome and boring.
August is the hot time of the year and I think I shall never forget how I sweated under the canvas curtain. I remember Mother's flushed face as she bent over her sewing, and how I wound the long rag rope into tight, hard balls for her. I can see Will trudging wearily close beside the wagon. I can see the hot August sun shining on the polished horns of the red and white oxen. Slowly we passed Fort Union and slid slowly down in a valley. How small and forlorn seemed our string of twenty white covered wagons.
Eliza, Will and Marion had several harrowing and frightening encounters with different tribes of Natives, a woman ready to give birth and asking for assistance, not only for the delivery of her baby, but protection from her abusive husband. While her telling of them would continue to hold your attention, they were all simply too long to include all of the details.
It was Will's discovery of two trappers that had been scalped and killed near Pawnee Rock and an encounter with some Border Ruffians, when the wagon-master decided that they would camp at Diamond Springs and "stay there until such time as a larger caravan might join us or the Government be induced to send a detachment of soldiers to protect us."
Mother tried to say that she could not see where we could be in much more danger on the road than in camp; but being a woman no one listened to her.
It was decided to break the great lock of a great stone house that was nearby, with windows boarded up and massive door barred and bolted.
We used that grand, old parlor as a community hall while we camped there... After two weeks at Diamond Springs our food supply began running low, but still the men refused to press onward. Finally, mother arose to her small height and announced firmly that she was much more afraid of Old Man Famine than a host of Border Ruffians. I knew my mother meant what she said and was not surprised when she awoke me early one morning and told me to dress quickly, as she and I were going to walk to Council Grove. Council Grove being the next stop on the Santa Fe Trail.
She then awoke Will and told him he must stay and take care of our things at the wagon. Before the sun arose or before anyone was stirring around the camp at Diamond Springs, mother and I made our way afoot out to the Santa Fe Trail. Autumn was coming and there was a tang in the early morning air. The hazel furze was yellow; there was the buff of honey-suckles and the violet of passion flowers. This was a different world from that of New Mexico with its dim distances and long silences. We walked for a time in silence. All that I though of was the warm bed I had left in the wagon. I wished that mother had left me to guard the wagon and taken Will with her.
Council Grove was 16 miles from Diamond Springs, and we halted only once and that was to eat our lunch in the shadow of a ruined water wheel. The Trail forded a little stream near us. I rested and slept for a moment, my head on my mother's spread-out dress skirt. When she awoke me it was with some tenderness. "We walk on now, my baby." She steadied me as I walked on beside her.
All I could think of was how tired I was, and how hard it was to keep up with my mother, who evidently wanted to reach Council Grove before night came and caught us. I tried hard to be as brave and as uncomplaining as my mother, but the muscles in my slender thighs were twitching with fatigue when we climbed the steps of the store at Council Grove. When the grocery-man there asked me kindly if I was tired, I remember how I burst into tears and how mother had to answer him for me.
We stayed that night in the home of the grocery-man where his wife put us to sleep on a great feather bed. As I dropped off to sleep that night I found myself wondering if all the beds in Heaven were not duplicates of the grocery-man's big feather one.
Mother awoke me early next morning. The Big Silver Dipper still hung in the mid-night blue of the heavens. I saw it as I drew on my shoes and stockings. But mother said we must hurry, a westbound wagon train was embarking. The driver who rode in a nice top-buggy said we might right back to Diamond Springs.
I shall never forget that ride in my first top-buggy. Behind a team of dappled, spanking grays we out-distanced the slow moving wagons. As we covered the weary miles our feet had stumbled over the day before, I began building castles in the air. When I grew up, I said to myself, I would travel endlessly back and forth over the Santa Fe Trail. I loved the trail and would live always on it. I would travel always in a red-wheeled buggy like the wagon master's behind a team of spanking grays. I would sleep every night on a great feather bed like the grocery-man's. I also would like a pink dress and red rose for my hair.
These were the dreams of my childhood... but I still would like the buggy ride, and the red rose would not go badly.
We met the caravan and mother was able to tell the wagon master that she had broken trail as far as Council Grove; that there were no Ruffians to hurt him. I also remember that for days I was stiff and sore from my long pilgrimage. My life as I look back seems to have been lived best in those days on the trail.
You can read more on the National Parks Service page about Plants Along the Santa Fe Trail. Plants like Breadroot Scurf-Pea, Cane Cholla, Compass Plant and Running Buffalo Clover.
You may have noticed that Marion had several mentions of the flowers along the trail that inspired this block - Prairie Flowers... This block could be considered an intermediate block given the number of pieces, but rest assured, I have made it as beginner friendly as possible. The dimension of the pieces in the outer sections of the block are oversized to remove the concern for the ever elusive scant 1/4" seams, and the pictures capture each step in assembly of the block.
Be sure to come back and link up your block for a chance to win a fat quarter too!
What color flowers will you be making?
I chose red for my quilt to represent the red rose that Marion wanted in her hair... but loved the block so much I wanted to see how purple looked as well.
Leave a comment. I'd love to hear your thoughts on color choice or anything else in the story that captured your attention.
Stay Pieceful!
Melva
Interested in the rest of the block patterns? You can find details in the introductory post.
Block 7 - August 12 ~ Prairie Flowers
Block 8 - September 2 ~ Granny's Choice
Block 9 - September 23 ~ Comfort Of Home
Block 10 - October 14 ~ Wagon Tracks
Block 11 - November 4 ~ New Mexican Star
Block 12 - November 25 ~ Tecolote
Block 13 - December 16 ~ Label
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Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun Than Housework
