Devil's Paintbox by Victoria McKernan

Aiden is fifteen years old and living with his younger sister Maddy in a dugout on a homestead in Kansas. Their parents and brothers and sisters have all died and a fire has burned up any possibility of a crop this year. They are barely surviving on grasshoppers, dirt and other things that they can catch. The outlook is bleak in The Devil's Paintbox by Victoria McKernan.

Hope for the future comes in the form of Jefferson J. Jackson who is recruiting men to be loggers in the Pacific Northwest. Jackson will pay for Maddy’s and Aiden’s journey on a Wagon Train to Seattle and then Aiden will work for two years as a logger to pay off the passage. Maddy and Aiden know that this is their only hope for survival, so they join the Wagon Train on the Oregon Trail.

The journey is not easy as they have problems with wolves, dangerous river crossings and small pox along the way. Their adventures are both exciting and horrifying. Aiden makes friends with an Indian along the way who wants to vaccinate the Indians for small pox—what the Indians call the Devil’s Paint—and Aiden gets mixed up in his dangerous scheme.

This is not a happily-ever-after book, but it does a good job showing the struggles faced while the pioneers crossed the United States looking for a better way of life. Living in Kansas, this book hits close to home as I think of my relatives who homesteaded in Kansas and tried to survive when things were tough. In fact, the old dugout where my great grandparents lived is still there in Rush County.