A Mending at the Edge: A Novel (Change And Cherish)

  In the morning I heard the rooster crow and realized someone was already up, fixing the fire and preparing coffee for us all. When I came downstairs, Matilda smiled and admired the smooth pine floor I’d oiled myself.

  “Your boys are sleeping in?” she asked.

  I didn’t respond. “I’ll go on over to see how progress is coming on the church once the girls are awake. Want to come?”

  “My brother expects me back. I can take the stage, he said.”

  “Oh, come with us,” Kitty urged. Since her braids were neatly wrapped around her head, I knew she’d been up for a time too. “We can walk you back to the stage later.”

  “I wouldn’t want to miss it,” Matilda said.

  Almira was slow to rise, and when she did, she asked to remain in the house with the girls. She commented on the stove, said it was a fine one. “It must have cost a pretty penny,” she said. “More than twenty dollars.”

  “Twenty-five dollars. I’ll be working long years for it, but it makes a fine bread.”

  She sighed onto the chair. “I haven’t had a safe place to just sit,” she said. “Not for a long time.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should leave her here alone in the house, though I didn’t know why not. I had no reason to think she’d take anything from me. She had an eye for the price of things. I hoped I wasn’t being taken advantage of. And then I chided myself. I had offered her assistance and then so quickly began creating criteria I thought she should meet to receive it.

  “Yes, you stay,” I said. “Ida and Kate will enjoy not having to go anywhere after their long trip home.”

  Besides, if I did have to confront Martin about the boys or Keil about Almira, I could do that without the girls listening.

  The three of us, Kitty, Matilda, and I, walked past the store. I looked in at the pharmacy, but no one was there, and the workmen had stopped building on that structure. I suspected that was how the building would go on now, moving from place to place, framing walls, then waiting for the bricks to be fired across the Pudding, then making the roof ridges, pounding the lumber to close in the walls and the rooms, putting on shingles. In between they’d work on the church, the largest structure we’d ever built from our lumber.

  It was a quarter mile from the village to the Point, the place where Keil’s house and the church stood. I hadn’t been up this way for a while, so I didn’t recognize the house going up below the creek.

  “John Giesy’s house,” Kitty told me. “One of the finest, like Keil’s.” The path past it went up a steep ravine toward the fir grove. We were perspiring by the time we reached the Keil house. Kitty said she’d need to rest there. She loosened her apron at the waist and sat down on the steps. She chewed on her nail. “Go ahead. I’ll catch up,” she told us, as Matilda and I walked on toward the church. Men and boys congregated there, so I assumed I’d find my sons there too. Several of the men who’d been building at the fair were already at work here with their hammers. I imagined they’d gossiped about Almira Raymond, wondering who she was and why she had returned with us. Men tried to say they didn’t gossip, but I remembered Christian always had more news than I did at the end of his day. As we approached, I heard Matilda gasp.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. Ja. It’s a surprise,” she said. “The Stauffers are here.”

  I knew Jacob Stauffer. He was the son of John Stauffer Sr., a former scout who’d settled in Willapa. I wondered if John Sr. had moved his family here, then, but I didn’t see him. Only Jacob.

  “You met Jacob in Willapa?” I said.

  She nodded. “We talked. Nothing more.” Her neck showed reddish blotches, and her steps hurried up the hill even though it was the steepest part. “I used Mrs. Stauffer’s oven. It’s very good. You can regulate the heat well. O. B. Twogood sold it to them, a shop in Oregon City. We went by there when we came here. Such fine things for sale. Have you been there?” She rattled on, giving no room for answers.

  “Ah,” I said. “What time did you say you had to get back to the stage?”

  She didn’t say.

  I waved my hand. “Jacob Stauffer,” I shouted. “It’s good to see you.”

  He turned to see who’d called his name and waved back to my raised hand, and then I watched his eyes move to Matilda’s. He grinned from ear to ear, dropped his hammer on a pile of lumber, and walked full stride our way.

  “You know Matilda Knight,” I said when he reached us and removed his flat-top hat. A small dog trotted behind him.

  “Ja, sure,” he said. “We stopped at your brother’s in Oregon City on the way down. He said you’d gone to Salem.”

  “He told you I was in Salem?”

  “To help with the cooking. I worried I might miss you.”

  “You did? You worried you’d miss me?”

  She repeated nearly everything he said, and I recognized it as that loving duplication of our hearts. Excitement welled up in her face. Jacob bent absently to pat the dog’s head, but he never took his eyes off Matilda.

  “I didn’t know how long you’d be there. Or if you’d find work in Salem and maybe not come back here at all. Your brother said you were hoping to move out on your own perhaps, not be a burden on them, though he claimed you weren’t that at all.”

  He removed his hat now, kept turning it over in his hands while Matilda clasped her palms behind her. By the way she stood before him, she might have been fifteen years old instead of over thirty.

  “Matilda’s thinking of catching the stage back to her brother’s soon. Maybe you could walk her there,” I suggested.

  “Ja, sure. Or maybe talk her out of it.” He grinned.

  “That would be good too,” I said. I decided to add, “You can live with us, Matilda. There’ll be work here. You’re good with a needle. You said so yourself. Keil’s opening a tailor shop for noncolonists to have work done.”

  “Opportunities,” Jacob said.

  “Ja,” she barely whispered. “But I’d better go back and talk with my brother. See what he says.”

  I watched them walk side by side down the hillside. Jacob put his hand out once to catch her when Matilda slipped but chastely put his hands to his side when she was steady again. Matilda would have to work it out herself, I decided. I had to find my boys.

  And find them I did, right in the middle of the building activity. Martin was there with them, of course. He’d supervised them as I knew he would have, but still it annoyed me that he hadn’t stayed at the house so they’d have been there when I got home.

  “The boys were good, then, Martin?”

  “Very good,” he said. “They’re fine boys, don’t you know.” He didn’t face me, but rather stood next to me, looking out at the construction. They’d made little progress in the few days we’d been gone, but they’d begun, and sometimes that was the hardest work of all.

  “You didn’t stay at my house,” I said. “Didn’t I tidy it up enough for you?”

  “Nein.” He cleared his throat. “Brother Keil…said otherwise.”

  There was no tease in Martin’s voice.

  “Well, I’ll take them home now, then.”

  He stood silent next to me. I heard a crow caw in the trees. “Sister Emma, Brother Keil would have a word with you.”

  “We talk often.”

  “About the boys.”

  I felt my heart start to pound. “You said yourself they were good boys.”

  “Ja. That they are.” He cleared his throat, and I thought his face looked pained when he turned to me and said, “It is for the best, Emma.”

  “What’s for the best? What are you talking about?”

  “Transplanting is often good. Just remember. We only want the best for all of us, to make each life better than our own.”

  Puzzle Pieces

  I could see my sons in the distance, their small frames moving about like happy goats, jumping over piles of lumber, chasing friends, letting playful dogs pull at their pants. They stayed out of the close
construction area, so they weren’t being a nuisance. They looked fine. There had to be some reasonable explanation for why they hadn’t been to see me yet and for Martin’s odd hesitations and foreboding tone as he sent me off to Keil.

  “I’ll find Brother Keil, since you say he wants to see me. Is he back at the gross Haus?” Martin nodded. “Fine. I’ll speak to my sons and then talk to Keil. Would you take the boys home for me after that?”

  “Ah…,” Martin said.

  “Mama!” Christian shouted.

  I waved. Christian started to run toward me, but Andy stopped him. What’s that about? The boys waited for me to reach them as I walked farther up the hill.

  “Hi, Mama,” Christian said. “Did you see me jump over that pile of boards?”

  I nodded, and he leaned into my skirts and I hugged him. “You look like you’re having a good time, Andy,” I said. He nodded but didn’t speak. I motioned for him to let me hold him too, and he allowed it. I felt stiffness in his shoulders, though, and he broke the embrace first. “Martin’s going to take you home in a bit. We need to catch up.” I wiped at a smudge on his cheek with my thumb.

  “He’ll take us home to Keil’s house,” Andy said. It wasn’t a question.

  “Why would you say that? We have a home now. You have your own rooms. I know I have the quilt top stretched over your bed, but it’s up with a pulley. It’s out of your way. Think of it as a colorful night sky over you. We’ll put it in the parlor before long. Would that be better?”

  “I don’t mind the quilt there, Mama,” Christian said. “I like to see all the threads sticking out.”

  “Uncle John and Uncle Martin think we should stay with Uncle Martin now,” Andy said.

  A hot poker seared my heart. “Oh they do, do they? Well, we’ll have a talk about that. Meanwhile, you stay right here while I go talk to Brother Keil.”

  Christian’s face wore both confusion and fright, so I calmed myself, controlled the tremble in my voice. “It’s going to be fine, Christian. Mama will be back shortly with this all straightened out. Did you have your breakfast already?”

  Christian nodded his head, but Andy stared at me. What sort of thoughts had been put into his head? Not by Martin, surely. I trusted Martin.

  I turned and smoothed my apron. I yanked at the pocket I’d tied at my waist. John Giesy was now deciding who should raise my sons? Would these Giesys never let me go my own way? Hadn’t I given in to the ways of the colony, so my sons would be safe, so all my children would be raised well? Hadn’t I done everything they’d asked of me?

  I slipped on the steep path leading to Keil’s house. I straightened. Kitty still sat on the steps, fanning herself. “What’s the matter, Sister?” she asked. “You look as though you’ve seen a snake.”

  “Nothing,” I lied. I stomped up the steps past her, opened the double doors, and immediately took the steps downstairs. That’s where Keil would be. In his workroom. Plotting and planning. Maybe John Giesy was with him, and I could confront them both.

  “Sister Emma,” Keil greeted me with a large smile. “You’ve come back. I trust you had a good time at the fair?” He stood. “Though I know it wasn’t quite the fair time yet, but soon, ja? Our new dance hall will be well received.”

  I reached for my pocket and nearly threw the sack of money at him, money we’d raised selling extra candies and sandwiches to the gawkers watching the dance hall go up. “Nearly twenty dollars,” I said. “I realize the colony provided the goods, but my sister and I made the candies, and our labor counts for something. We women worked while there, and we were selling things. That too should count.”

  “Ja. Such things count.” He picked up the bag and poured the coins out onto his workbench. He placed them into a neat pile at the edge. A few greenbacks stuck in the bag. He pulled one out, turned it over in his long, slender fingers, placed it back down. “Gut, Emma. You did gut.”

  “Yes, I think I have done well. So what’s this I hear about John Giesy suggesting that my sons come under the supervision of Martin? To live with him here, with you? Is that true? Why would you wish this, when I now finally have a home for them? A good home.”

  “Ah, Sister Emma,” he sighed and sat down. He motioned for me to sit as well, but I stood. “A man’s influence is essential, Emma. You know this to be so.”

  “I’ll see that they spend time with Martin and you and my brother. Even their other uncles, John and whomever else. My father lives close by. But my sons need their mother.”

  “Who likes to be off doing things,” Keil said. I must have looked puzzled, so he added, “Off looking for a place to homestead. Liking to travel to cotillions and dance, though she is married yet to another. Once living far away in Willapa, just to be away from here. Who gets herself an unusual chicken and a stove at colony expense.”

  “Those were part of my duties! Louisa and Helena suggested I go. My own mother-in-law thought it a good thing to do. I would have stayed here. I only did it for the benefit of the colony. All of it, everything I have, goes back in service.”

  “Looking for a homestead?”

  “But I settled here. You built the house for me, here.”

  “It’s clear that you are not fully committed to the colony, Emma. You’ve taken on the attitude of your father more than your brother, and the agreement, well, that says more than anything that you aren’t truly willing to be subservient to the community. It’s still you, Emma, doing what you think is best, over the good of the community. You purchase a stove, rather than add to the ledger side for things needed for your sons. You’ve let others look after your children…as you did these past days. You welcomed in that Zwerg.” I opened my mouth to defend Brita, but he held his hand up to silence me. “I said nothing about your taking in that circus person. But now I learn you’ve welcomed someone you lifted from the streets of Salem. We open our doors to others here, Emma, but they must share our common goals. I wonder if you really do. You’re more interested in an intriguing world with strangers than in spending time with your family or raising your sons.”

  I never should have let the boys spend all that time with Martin. I’d thought it would be good for them, but now I could see that my willingness to be separated was interpreted as disinterest, self-centeredness, or, worse, neglect.

  “I only want the best for my sons,” I said. I sat down now. I shook. My arms felt weak as weeds and just as useless. “The community…You said this would be a safe place for us. And the house…It was meant to give my children a better life. To ease the burden on those staying here, in your home. So I could take care of them as a mother should.”

  “You tell yourself a story, Sister Emma. The house was always for your benefit, but you wrapped it in the needs of your sons. We knew it was to separate them from the colony influences. I suspected this, but John Giesy confirmed it. This is how you thought in Willapa too, ja? To separate is best, you might have told Christian. To separate is healthy. You told them that being independent was for the benefit of all, but it was for you. Isn’t that so?”

  “Nein,” I whispered. “I never intended to keep my sons from family. I haven’t since we’ve been here. I let Barbara and Andreas travel with Andy. I’ve complied. Can’t you see that? Why would you want to take their care from me?” My throat ached. I thought I’d gotten what I wanted here: safety for my children and me, protection from Jack Giesy. Even my hope that my parents would move west had come to pass. I had my own home. But none of it was turning out as I’d planned.

  “The colony will educate Andy and Christian. That’s more than your own parents are able to do, ja, since they won’t join the colony? You’ll see the boys, of course. They’ll have time with you. And we’ll protect them from Jack’s temper, and you too. In fact, Jack left because he knew Martin would be raising your sons. They are not Jack’s sons, so I doubt he’ll pursue interest in them, beyond what he asked for in return for leaving. Your girl, perhaps. We’ll protect her from him as well, so long as you remain her
e. And where else would you go, Emma?”

  His voice sounded far away.

  “Martin’s had nothing to do with this, by the bye,” Keil added, “except to agree. But he will have a place for the boys as soon as the pharmacy is finished. Until then, there’s still room for him and the boys to stay there. It will justify my paying the conscription fee for him as well, a side benefit so he won’t have to go to war. He’ll attend the university this fall too.”

  “Martin?”

  “Ja, he’ll take pharmacy classes, but then next year or so they will offer medical classes. He will be a big help if he is a doctor. Maybe you can look after the boys between their classes and when Martin comes back home each night.”

  “I can provide care but not a home to my sons?”

  “There is good reason.”

  The clock ticked into the silence.

  “The reason being that one day my son, Andy…He’ll attend the university?”

  “But of course, Emma. Don’t you remember the agreement we both signed? I have it here.” It was on top of his desk. He’d been expecting me. He read, “‘I, Emma Giesy, will agree to abide by the rules of the Aurora Colony as directed by Father Keil, offering up what I have to give in service to the colony.’” He emphasized the last part of the sentence. “‘In return, the colony will provide care, education, and keeping for me and my family including the building of a home designed for use by me.’ See, I signed it right here,” Keil said. “Didn’t I agree that your children would be educated?”

  Offering up what I have to give in service to the colony. It was a sentence I’d remember the rest of my days.

  “I wasn’t clever enough, was I?” I said, looking up at him. My throat constricted like a hangman’s rope.

  “Oh, Emma. You got what you wanted: a home of your own. You secured the promise of education for your sons. Even for yourself, though I can’t imagine what you’d study in the university, but it was clever to include yourself. And you agreed to abide by the colony rules and to offer up what you had in service to the colony. A reasonable exchange. A colony way.”