Bound For Oregon

“‘No,’ father agreed. ‘There is no ague here. But times are hard right now, and people are poor. They have no money even to buy one of my pitchers. Out in Oregon the land is rich and farming is easy. I have heard from people who have been there and seen it with their own eyes. And the government is giving away this rich land to anyone willing to settle it.’”

The way Father describes Oregon conveys his desire for The Pioneer Experience and Spirit and explains his reasons for wanting to migrate west. This scene of dialogue between him and Mary Ellen also illustrates the characters’ close relationship, captures Mary Ellen’s reliance on Father, and shows Father’s desire to keep Mary Ellen safe and to give her a good life.

“She had to come, I thought afterward. I couldn’t imagine being without Grandma. She had taken care of me most of the first seven years of my life. My mother had died when I was just nine months old, and Father had carried me a long, long way on horseback through the snow to Grandma’s house. Everyone said I was too young to remember that journey, but sometimes I thought I did: Father’s breath in the frosty air, snowflakes swirling around us, whitening the horse’s dark mane, a startled rabbit hopping across our path.”

Mary Ellen’s close relationship with her grandmother makes leaving Arkansas more difficult for her. She has always seen her grandmother as a maternal figure because Grandma cared for her and Louvina Todd after their mothers died. She is also afraid of saying goodbye to Grandma because she has always felt safe, comfortable, and secure in Grandma’s presence. Van Leeuwen recreates this sense of safety through sensory imagery of colors and temperature, which also reflects the fleeting nature of childhood memories.

“At these stops everyone was anxious to know where we were going. When Father told them, they all seemed to have advice to offer. ‘Once you reach the wild prairies, you don’t want to be traveling alone,’ cautioned one farmer, whose long solemn face reminded me of George Kimball. ‘You still have over two thousand miles of wilderness to go, you know. Your best bet is to wait in Independence for a wagon train to be made up and join with it.’”

The Todd family learns to rely upon the help and support of other pioneers to survive their difficult migration to Oregon. They not only take the advice of other settlers, but they band together with other pioneering families as they venture along the Oregon Trail. These relationships do keep them safe but also offer them a sense of community, speaking to The Importance of Family and Community to Survival.

“With each thunderclap I could feel the wagon tremble. I was sure that at any moment the cover would be torn off, and our wagon would capsize. Wrapping my quilt tight around me, I thought of Grandma. How I longed for her loving arms around me, her soft voice giving me courage. Father was busy trying to fasten down the wagon cover. Mother was too distracted by Cynthia’s crying to have time for me. Besides, she never had been one for hugging and kissing.”

Mary Ellen must develop ways of comforting herself and easing her fears throughout the journey to Oregon. She loves her family, but she misses her grandmother and often feels alone while out on the Oregon Trail. She is in an unfamiliar environment and doesn’t always feel that she can bring her emotional concerns to her parents or siblings. This passage captures the internal conflicts Mary Ellen experiences throughout the journey, many of which are inspired by her external circumstances.

“Children were everywhere, racing around campfires, jumping over wagon tongues, tripping over tent pegs. Some of the men were rough-looking and quarrelsome, and Mother warned us to stay away from them. Every day there were dogfights, and sometimes fistfights. It was so different from our peaceful evenings with just our family around the campfire. But I liked the excitement.”

Joining other pioneering families boosts Mary Ellen’s spirits. In Arkansas, Mary Ellen was a part of a community. She had friends, a schoolhouse, and a meetinghouse, all of which gave her a sense of home, safety, and belonging. She starts to feel these comforting emotions again when she and her family reach Independence. Her response to joining the other pioneers conveys The Importance of Family and Community to Survival.

“Father had been the brave one, I thought, as I went to refill the water bucket. Yet it was puzzling. Nothing had really happened, just a few words around a campfire. It was not so much what Father had done but what he hadn’t done—been drawn into a fight—that seemed brave to me.”

Mary Ellen learns how to be brave and strong from watching her father. In this scene, she has just observed Father diffusing a tense interaction with a stranger and his violent dog. She admires how her father handles the situation and learns to apply his behaviors when she ends up in similarly challenging situations. The passage encapsulates the softly didactic tone of the text which conveys morals about bravery to young readers.

“We had been traveling for six weeks now. Surely, I thought, we must be almost to Oregon. As the wagon train rolled along, I kept expecting to see that beautiful land that Father had told us about just beyond the next rise. But beyond the next rise would only be more waves of grass. ‘We have come four hundred miles,’ Father told me when I asked him. ‘But we still have nearly two thousand miles ahead of us.’ I stopped looking for Oregon on the horizon.”

Mary Ellen’s time on the Oregon Trail challenges her restless spirit. She is only a child when she and her family make the trek out west. She therefore longs for familiarity, safety, and home. At this juncture of the journey, she is learning how to be patient and seek comfort in her immediate family and surroundings instead of relying on a traditional home setting for security.

“I looked at Father. Something in his face had changed, I thought, in the weeks since we had left Arkansas—and especially since crossing the bridge over the Wakarusa. The line of his jaw was sharper, firmer. And a determined light burned in those steady blue-gray eyes. Seeing it, I knew that he would not turn back.”

Mary Ellen’s understanding of her father changes over the course of her and her family’s western migration. In the past, Mary Ellen’s home life was more fixed, stable, and controlled. She therefore grew accustomed to how Father behaved in this predictable home environment. On the Oregon Trail, the family encounters numerous unfamiliar challenges that cause Father to behave in new ways. As a result, Mary Ellen starts to see new parts of his character. Her evolving perspective on her family therefore illustrates her coming of age.

“It was not until late that evening, when our family was gathered around the campfire, that I thought again of Daisy. I remembered the rough-soft feel of her tongue licking my fingers, making me want to laugh and squirm at the same time. I remembered the way she used to look at me with her moist dark-brown saucer eyes when she came to be petted. My own eyes filled with tears.”

Losing the family heifer, Daisy, causes Mary Ellen to mourn all of the other losses she has experienced in her short life. Mary Ellen is indeed sad about her cow’s fate. However, crying over Daisy in turn inspires her to cry over losing her home, her grandmother, and her community back in Arkansas. This emotional passage therefore conveys Mary Ellen’s sensitive character and complex inner life.

“‘All those terrible tales we have been hearing are exaggerated,’ he told Louvina and me. ‘Most Indians, like the Kaws we saw today, are peaceful toward the white people, and most wagon trains are not bothered by them. But the Indians do have reason to be unhappy. You know, all this country once belonged to them. For years the whites have been crowding them out. They have killed their buffalo and taken their land. They have not treated them with fairness.’”

Mary Ellen relies upon Father in order to understand the world around her, particularly when her world becomes unpredictable and unfamiliar. In this passage, Father is trying to grant Mary Ellen perspective on the Indigenous Americans’ experience. He does not want her to see the Indigenous people as enemies or threats because he sympathizes with their experience. His words offer a more enlightened and progressive viewpoint on the Indigenous experience and early white Americans’ negative impact on their well-being, yet Van Leeuwen’s use of the word “Indian” instead of Indigenous American draws attention to the colonizing nature of the family’s passage to the west, regardless of their sympathy.

“In front of us lay the river: a mile across, it seemed to me, swift and swollen and muddy yellow in color. Its fast-flowing water was dotted with islands, and on them grew green bushes and trees. But no trees at all, not even a slip of willow or cottonwood, could be seen on the low riverbanks. The land was so flat, the sky so high, and the river so wide that all I could do was stand and stare. Never, I thought, had I seen a world so large. Looking at it in the gray dusk, the Platte seemed impossible to cross.”

Mary Ellen’s use of descriptive language in this passage captures her keen eye for detail, her observant nature, and her sensitive spirit. Mary Ellen often feels tired and restless throughout her family’s journey. However, her descriptive narration also shows that she is attuned to her surroundings. At the same time, this passage captures how vast, overwhelming, and unfamiliar her new environment is, and therefore the ways in which the wild landscape impacts her heart and mind.

“That afternoon I walked by myself along the warm sandy road. Dust filled my throat. The sand reflected the heat of the sun back into my face, making perspiration trickle down my cheeks. Looking around, I could see nothing to break the monotony: not a stick or a stone, a bird or a flower. I began to wonder about Father. Were he and Mr. Grant being sensible, or was it possible that they were too careful? If others could travel fast, why couldn’t we?”

The longer Mary Ellen and her family are traveling, the more complex questions she begins to ask about herself, her family, and their future. Mary Ellen’s physical solitude in this scene also gives her the space to reflect on her circumstances and to ask difficult questions. The passage thus captures Mary Ellen’s evolving point of view and perspective on Father.

“Soon we began passing other wagons that had been forced to halt because of illness. Father and Mother tried to help some of these families by offering our medicines and the small supply of milk that Blackie still gave. Father also gave advice on caring for the sick. Others, in their frantic haste to escape the place of infection, kept on traveling as fast as they could, their sick ones jouncing and jolting inside the wagons. And every day we passed more fresh graves.”

Sickness is one of The Challenges of Migration that the Todd family repeatedly encounters throughout their journey. However, even this challenge doesn’t change how the Todds interact with their fellow pioneers. They don’t abandon other families in their times of need, which shows their capacity for empathy and desire to build community.

“Sometimes I wondered if it could be my fault that this had happened to my sister. Hadn’t I often been jealous of her happy disposition, the way Mother smiled at her and frowned at me? And hadn’t I felt angry that she had taken so easily to this new mother and had no thoughts of another? With shame I remembered all the times I had spoken impatiently to her and refused to play the games she liked best.”

Louvina’s illness changes Mary Ellen’s perspective on herself and her family. When Louvina falls ill and struggles to recover, Mary Ellen is forced into a bout of self-reflection. She starts to realize that her unkindness to her sister was not always just. She is also realizing that life is fragile and that she must appreciate her loved ones.

“I thought about how Mr. Grant must have felt, lying helpless and all alone out in those hills. What an awful, desperate feeling it would be, wondering if you would ever be found. And I thought about how much our animals meant to us, and those precious drops of water, and having each other.”

The challenges Mary Ellen and her family face on the Oregon Trail give Mary Ellen a deeper appreciation for family, friendship, and community. Thomas Grant’s near-death experience particularly teaches her to be grateful for the relationships they’ve built and to value the lives they have been given.

“With a little twinge of pain, like a toothache that kept returning, I thought again of our house back in Arkansas. Mother’s roses blooming next to the front door. A friendly curl of smoke rising from the chimney. That put me in mind of the meetinghouse and the schoolhouse and how much I had been missing my studies. I had a sudden sharp longing to forget about Oregon, wherever it was, and stay right here.”

Mary Ellen’s first-person narration offers a window into her complex inner life, her raw emotional experiences, and her longing for love, peace, and security. Whenever Mary Ellen is feeling lonely or discouraged, she often lies awake thinking about the home she and her family left behind. Her private thoughts and memories reveal her true feelings and her sensitive, youthful spirit.

“It was a secret, I thought with a little rush of pleasure, that I shared with Mother. Then I remembered the young woman whose baby had been born dead. That couldn’t happen to Mother. This baby—our baby—was going to be born healthy and strong. I would help make it so, I promised myself, by taking care of Mother, I would do more of the chores at mealtimes so she could rest, and carry things so she wouldn’t have to bend over. Smiling to myself, I went to lift the biscuit pan out of the fire.”

Elijah Todd offers Mary Ellen a sense of hope and courage. When she learns that Angelina Todd, or Mother, is pregnant, she feels a new surge of determination. She realizes that she has to be strong not only for her parents and sisters but for the new baby they’ll be welcoming into the world. This passage therefore conveys the ways in which Mary Ellen is growing up.

“So once again we parted with old friends. Mr. Grant waved a smiling farewell, a trace of the old bounce in his steps as he hitched up his oxen. But Mother’s shoulders seemed to sag as she said good-bye to Mrs. Grant, pressing into her hand a gift of flower seeds from her garden. And it was strange to see John heading out to herd the cattle without David at his side. Though my eyes saw it, my mind couldn’t quite accept that this was happening. We had been with the Grants so long, I had begun to think we would always be together, even in Oregon.”

Mary Ellen’s first-person account is peppered with repeated instances of loss. Mary Ellen has experienced loss and sorrow since she was a baby and her mother and first stepmother died. She then had to leave her homes in Indiana and Arkansas and to say goodbye to Grandma. These losses only continue as Mary Ellen and her family make their way west. However, Mary Ellen continues to feel sorrow and grief and doesn’t become numb to loss. When the Todds part with the Grants, Mary Ellen feels upset, which conveys her emotional capacity and sensitivity.

“And what about Father? He was a careful man, a sensible man, yet he also had put his family at risk. And when Mother was about to have a baby too. Feelings that had been simmering inside me for a long time—since Daisy died, or maybe even longer—came bubbling up. All at once I was furious with Father. How could he do that to us?”

Mary Ellen’s time on the Oregon Trail influences how she sees her father. She has always trusted him to keep her family safe. Therefore, when they start to encounter more and more dangers on the trail, Mary Ellen feels frustrated and confused. This passage captures Mary Ellen’s emotional complexity and illustrates how the migration experience is affecting Mary Ellen’s mind, heart, and spirit.

“Then from the wagon I heard again that tiny birdlike cry that I had first heard that morning. And I felt a flood of hope. So many bad things had happened to us along our way: storms and Indians and terrible sickness and death. Still, it seemed as if someone was watching over us from up there among the stars. With the help of God we were going to be all right. We had to be. We had Elijah now.”

Elijah’s birth renews Mary Ellen’s hope for the future and strengthens her faith. Elijah is symbolic of the new life the family is trying to build together. Once Mary Ellen meets him, she gains perspective on all the obstacles her family has overcome and on all the challenges they will face.

“What were we going to do? I wondered, as I walked back to the fire. Should we wait for Father to recover, or try to move on? Could we move on? Mother lay in bed in the wagon, still too weak to do anything except take care of the baby. And Mrs. McReynolds had not recovered from the deaths of Captain and Mrs. Clark and Jesse. Though she was strong in body, her mind seemed clouded. She waited mutely for Father to tell her what to do. Last night John had taken all the burden on his thin shoulders. But it was too much for him all alone. I could tell by his bent back and the anxious look in his eyes as he hurried from one chore to another. He too was waiting for Father to tell him what to do.”

Father’s illness acts as the novel’s climactic event. His illness is the greatest challenge the family faces because without him, Mary Ellen and her family fear that they won’t survive. They count on Father not only for their physical well-being but to lead them with wisdom and confidence through unknown terrain. Mary Ellen is therefore despairing in this passage because she can’t imagine a future without Father.

“As they neared the bottom of the hill, the oxen were going at a full gallop. It looked as if the wagon would run right over them. I waited for the crash, the sickening splintering of wood, the overturned broken wagon that would be the final disaster. Then, miraculously, they were down. John came sliding along behind the wagon, picking up his hat and dusting off his breeches. ‘Hurrah for our team!’ he cheered in his loud, piercing voice.”

The Todd family’s venture through Laurel Hill is one of their final obstacles on the Oregon Trail. Mary Ellen fears that they won’t make it through the challenging terrain even though they’ve overcome many other obstacles. She fears the worst because she has learned that anything can happen when navigating unfamiliar landscapes. Therefore, when they make it down Laurel Hill, Mary Ellen’s vocabulary changes. She is using diction that captures her excitement and relief.

“I like Oregon very well, what I have seen of it, but it does not yet seem like home. I cannot be running over to Grandma’s house like I used to do. We have neighbors but no meetinghouse and no schoolhouse. Father will teach us this winter. There is talk of building a schoolhouse in the spring. You should see Elijah. He is a good baby and hardly cries except when he is hungry. Louvina and I have the thimbles you gave us, and we are sewing on our quilts. I now have fourteen squares.”

Mary Ellen’s letter to Grandma illustrates changes in her character. The letter is private and personal, which allows Mary Ellen to speak in an honest and open way. She isn’t hiding her true feelings from Grandma but is also communicating her newfound openness. Her tone is therefore more mature.