"Alamen left and you git around, Hand over hand like a merry-go-round."
As the dance gathered tempo, all the younger children were put to sleep in either the beds or in whichever wagon was not already crowded with sleeping youngsters. Joe danced on, and at intervals cups again rattled behind the barn while the barrel became lighter.
Because it seemed to him that the dance had just started, Joe was amazed when the sun rose.
The last hour the Towers spent at their old home was a time of bustling confusion and great activity. Joe shook hands with all the men, and stood awkwardly while all the women kissed his cheek and wished him well. The women gathered about Emma, and tears flowed as they embraced. Joe gulped, more than ever realizing the enormity of the task they had undertaken and what it involved. The people gathered about were the friends of a lifetime, and living together had cemented more than superficial friendship. There was love too, and respect, and Joe had a sudden wild desire to ask everybody to go with him. He tried not to look at the weeping Emma, and knew a lighter moment when he saw Tad, knife at his belt, swaggering before the younger set. Then he saw Helen Domley with Carlyle in her arms and turned away so no man would see the tears in his own eyes.
Under no circumstances could Joe have described exactly how they started for Oregon; he saw the over-all picture but not the details. He did know that the mattresses, the last articles to go into the wagon, were carried there and placed exactly right by an army of willing workers. The same army literally overwhelmed and hitched the mules, and tied the placid cow to the wagon's rear. Joe's four younger children, still sleepy, promptly went to sleep on the mattresses. Tad, who had already asserted his determination to walk all the way to Oregon, refused to ride and Mike stayed at his heels. Barbara walked hand in hand with Marcia Geragty, and Emma was in John Geragty's wagon. Nobody else was going to Oregon, but the Towers would have plenty of company for at least the first part of their journey. Not everybody could see them off, for some had to return to their work. But most went.
The mules, overawed at being caught and harnessed by so many expert muleteers, were completely tractable. They strained willingly into their harness when Joe gave the order. Ahead, behind, and one both sides, rode or walked the people they were leaving. One by one they had to turn back and start in the other direction, and the last to turn was Marcia Geragty. Though Joe could not be positive about many other details of their leave-taking, he was never to forget the parting of his daughter and her best friend.