Ida suckled eagerly. Of my four children, only Ida could I nurse; wet nurses and the goat’s milk had rescued my others. I should have found it hopeful that I could feed this child and that I fed her in a dry, safe place. But too much had happened. Time, like a good chalk, had yet to erase the stains I carried on my heart.
“Ach, someone comes in through the root room door,” one of the kitchen women said. She had disgust in her voice, as though the intruder should know better than to drag his muddy boots through the food larder instead of stomping and removing his brogans at the covered porch outside, above us. I felt the gush of wind carry the scent of roots, which were hung to dry in the rafters behind the hallway door. Wood slammed against the doorjamb. “I will tell him to go around,” she said as she moved past me.
For a moment I had this twinge of premonition. It could be Jack Giesy, my second husband, come back. He had a claim on me, though not on my heart. Brother Keil had sent Jack packing last fall, but I knew Keil could change his mind. At the sound in the root room, I wondered if perhaps he had.
Ida fidgeted, her blue eyes wide, and she stared at me as she let her hands flop away from my breast. My only child of the four to have blue eyes. If I ignored her, she could make me pay, with her new teeth coming in. I smiled nervously at her, brushed her walnut-colored hair, the same color as mine, but with dozens of tight curls instead of my strands pulling loose from my bun. I shushed her as my fingers lifted those ringlets. “It’s all right,” I said. “You go ahead and suckle now. Mama is with you.” I tried to relax as I plotted my escape route up the stairs if Jack came through the door.
“What are you doing in here?” I heard the kitchen woman say, and I swallowed hard, started to stand. “Soaked like a swimming kitten you are. Ach.”
I craned my neck to see who followed her in.
“Andy,” I said when I saw my almost-nine-year-old son. Irritation followed relief. “Didn’t I ask you to stay upstairs? And why on earth would you go outside and get all wet rather than use the stairs anyway?” Water dripped off his chin, puddled at his boots.
“You told me not to come down the steps,” he said. “I wanted to do what you said.” A raindrop like a tiny pearl hung from his long eyelashes. His dark eyes twinkled with a hint of guile. My head began to pound.
Ida sat up then. Her eyes moved to the popped cornball Andy held in his hand. She reached for it. “And where did you get that?” I asked.
“At Christmas, remember? Herr Keil gave them to all the children. I saved mine.”
I wondered if some of the cornballs might have been kept back in the root room and if he’d lifted one as he walked through. It didn’t look soaked. I didn’t like him lying to me or being disobedient. I must not think these bad thoughts about every little thing that happens. He might have had it in his coat.
“Someone will need to clean up the mud mess in the hallway,” the kitchen woman said. Under her breath as she passed by me she added, “Some people need to keep better control over their children, ja?”
“I’ll tend to it,” I sang out to her. To Andy I spoke firmly, “Go get a broom and sweep up this mud. Now.”
“That’s women’s work,” Andy said.
“So is disciplining a wayward boy.” He dropped his eyes. I softened. He’d been through so much. “You see we’re fine here, nothing to worry about. Get the broom, and then maybe you can go into Brother Keil’s workroom to see what medicines he’s mixing.” I nodded toward the opposing door. “Go on.” Then to Ida I said, “Finish up here.” I pushed Ida’s face back to my breast. “Mama has things to do.”
My son moved off, and I heard Brother Keil welcome him in. Relief flooded me. Only later did I remember that Andy had failed to sweep up the dirt. I vowed he’d do it later.
I patted Ida as she ate. How could I not feel hopeful with a baby growing fat at my breast? Oh, I once had wishful thoughts and a profound belief that I could do all things necessary for my children, alone. But belief in one’s own strength is not enough. Firm wishes held out like hope are not enough. I’d had high hopes for my second marriage too, but I’d come to that union like the mule who wore blinders when it plowed, unable to see what frightening things could catch me unaware.
Jack Giesy always had his problems and was never a steady man, but I’d failed to see that until he threatened my children’s fate and, ja, my own, leaving me bruised and broken in more than my bones. Toward the end, I’d had to keep him separated from Andy, most of all, Christian’s son who thought he’d have to rescue his family by doing harm to Big Jack.
Now here I was, settled in Oregon, in a tentative embrace of those very German American colonists who had once rejected what my first husband and I—and colony scouts—had been sent out from Bethel, Missouri, to do. We’d found a new site in the west, but it was not to Keil’s liking, and so our group had split. I’d once rejected them too, refusing their help after my husband’s death. Finding the balance between strict molds and a singular support, that was what I longed to find, and I would. I resolved that I’d remember myself back into a hopeful state, where I saw the possibilities instead of the disappointments. Soon, I prayed, my parents and brothers and sisters would arrive from Missouri and we’d have a grand reunion. I’d have a house of my own. I’d raise my children, keeping them close. My husband would stay away. I’d contribute to the colony and be known for more than being contrary. These were my wishes.
My fingers ached still from Jack’s wrenching them the year before. Ida curled her small fist inside mine.
Another whoosh of the root cellar door. “Ach,” I shouted to the kitchen women, “it’s probably my other Kinder following their brother. I’ll see to them.”
I placed the Nine Patch over my shoulder and open bodice and hiked Ida on my hip. I scrunched the mud on the floor and approached the root room door, rehearsing what I’d say to these urchins and what to do to hold Andy accountable for being a poor model for them.
Root smells and damp earth greeted me. My eyes glanced down to the height of the eyes of my children, or at least where I expected them to be. I saw, not foreheads, but knees.
When I looked up, I stared into the dark, brooding face of Jack Giesy, the husband I’d hoped would let us be.
“Aren’t you pleased to see me?” He angled toward me like a snake, as though to put his arms around my shoulders and his daughter, sucking us in. Rain dripped from his felt hat. A half sneer marked his face. I recognized it as a look that formed a prelude to his outbursts of rage. Who knew how long he’d been nursing some perceived injustice that he thought could be remedied by bullying his way in here?
I backed up. My hands grew wet. My heart pounded. Ida fussed. I saw movement behind Jack. Someone short had slipped through the door, slammed it shut with a thud. How could Andy have gotten behind him? He’d give fuel to Jack’s fire. Please, may it not be one of my children!
Jack reached for Ida then, his daughter; but I twisted, holding her head pressed into my chest. “Don’t touch her,” I hissed. My jerking from him caused me to stumble. Jack stumbled back too, I thought from the force of my words.
Instead, a small stranger pushed her way around Jack. She waddled from side to side to stand between us. The size of a child, she wore the face of a worried woman.
She pulled on my skirt. “I know you can help me,” the high, breathy voice said. She grabbed my hand, thumped a startled Jack on his thighs when he tried to move around her to grab at me. He groaned, struggled to catch his balance as she fast-walked out toward the rain, pulling at my skirts. I pushed past Jack, covered Ida’s head, and scurried along.
I had no idea who this woman was or what she needed. But in the midst of my dread at seeing Big Jack, she’d sliced through my despair and somehow seen hope inside me.
Spinning Straw into Gold
I’d heard of small earth men, as they were called, in German stories such as Rumpelstiltskin. They bargained for a child by helping a princess turn straw into gold. They were magi
cal people, part of a fairy tale. I’d never met one, only seen pictures of them as part of circus acts. Karl Ruge said the Indians thought such small-statured people were mystical, with a close attachment to the divine. Some people didn’t like them. They claimed the little people made them nervous, judged them solely by appearance. The Zwerg I’d read about were short men with long white beards. But here stood a woman, indeed, with a wide forehead and long, thick dark hair chopped at the nape of her neck. I had never been this close to a being so…different…and despite the tightening of my throat for fear of Jack lurking behind me, her presence in that small root room had brought me strange comfort.
My comfort was short lived as Big Jack followed us outside.
“Don’t run away from me,” he said, grasping my shoulder, spinning Ida and me around.
“Leave me be.” I struck at his arm, which he lowered, no longer a threatening fist.
“What do you think, Wife?” he whined, his palms raised in surrender. It was part of his pattern to intimidate, then snivel and cajole when he remembered there was a witness. “I maybe could see my daughter and my sons? That’s all I want. To be a good father.”
“You were asked by Brother Keil to leave,” I said. My heart pounded in my ears, but my voice sounded steady, even loud against the muffle of wet grass and trees. The little woman still tugged on my skirt. “And they are not your sons.”
“I was asked to hold my temper, to do no harm, and I plan none,” he said. He removed his hat and smoothed back the hair that curled behind his ears and at his neck. He needed it cut, something I used to do for him before all that had happened between us. The drizzle caught in his beard. “There were hard freezes in Willapa,” he said. He cleared his throat. “I thought I’d seek warmth here in Aurora. You’d maybe not begrudge a man comfort, would you?”
We will talk of the weather, then, as though we are old friends getting reacquainted.
I pushed Ida’s head farther under the quilt. I should get her out of the drizzle, though people in this western country looked more casually for shelter than in Missouri, where one rushed to get out of the weather. Here, rushing and scrunching up your shoulders against the rain offered scant relief, just an aching neck.
“You’ve no time for aweather chatter,” the little woman told me. “I have a sick baby in the cart under the front porch and—”
I turned to her. “Let’s bring him in, then.”
“Along with two others.”
“I’ll take Ida back inside while you go and get them,” Jack said. “I maybe could help. That is my daughter you’re carrying, ja?”
I slipped behind Jack, fast-walked back into the root room, and nearly stumbled over Andy, who’d been listening at the door. “Get Brother Keil,” I told him. “Go.” His eyes got round as coal, and I knew he spied Jack beyond me. “Go now! Do as I say.”
Andy came to himself and scooted ahead of me into Brother Keil’s workroom while I marched toward the kitchen, grateful to see that Louisa Keil had come down to check on the status of the ham and beans. “Louisa,” I said, intercepting her. “Please, take Ida for me. Stay in the kitchen. There’s a…problem in the root room.”
“Her boy comes in there all full of mud,” the kitchen grump told her, hands on her hips, a spoon held out like a bird’s broken wing.
“That’s not the problem,” I said. “And we’ll clean it up, I promise. It’s Jack.”
“Ja, sure,” Louisa said. Her eyes held concern as she took my child. I buttoned up my bodice. I loved it that Louisa didn’t question me further.
Behind me I heard, “What’s this?” Keil’s voice boomed as Jack came back in. “Oh, Jack Giesy, It’s been some time since we’ve seen a Willapa Giesy.”
These men forget so easily.
“He comes to make trouble,” I said.
“Nein. I make no trouble,” Jack protested. “A man needs a dry place and a moment or two with his family. Is this such a bad thing?”
Brother Keil tugged at that tuft of white beard at his chin. “Nein. You come inside, then. The draft pushes against the lanterns and scrapes the wall,” he said as Jack moved toward the stairwell. I hesitated. Leave Ida so close to Jack?
“Remember, Louisa,” I warned. She nodded and headed up the stairs. I’d have to trust her.
I slipped past Jack, pulling the quilt tighter around my shoulder like a shawl.
“And where do you go, Sister Giesy?” Keil called out to me.
“She’s helping me,” the little woman told him. She’d followed me back in. Keil looked down. Her protruding forehead hid her eyes.
“And who might you be?”
“Brita-witha-one-t Engel. Are you coming?” she dismissed him, pulling on my skirt.
“Ja, well then, I guess that is all right that you go help another,” Keil said to my back, as though I needed his permission for anything at all.
The rain now let up and turned into a soft mist that dribbled through the slats of boards on the porch. Huddled back as close to the house foundation as they could get were Brita’s children. Two boys stood by the two-wheeled cart. Their coughs nearly covered the soft murmuring of a baby. Brita lifted the infant, and I scooped up the younger of the two standing children. The older boy was about my Andy’s age, though taller than his mother. She told him to bring the cart, and he pulled it after us, coughing all the while, as we headed back into the house through the root cellar. I could see my breath in the air. We’d have snow by morning.
I knew change and challenge waited for me inside the gross Haus, but for now I felt grateful to this Brita for giving me a meaningful diversion. Her troubles rose above my own.
Brita spoke to her boys in German mixed with English words, and she interspersed “danke” with her English “thank you” to me.
“It’s what anyone would do,” I told her, holding the door so she could pass in front of me, followed by the tallest child pushing the cart before him.
The baby cried now, a weak wail. “I’ve no milk for her,” Brita said. “The cave we stayed in flooded, and the goat ran off with a thundering, a final brick to bring my chimney down.”
“I can wet-nurse her,” I heard myself say. “But we have cow’s milk and goat’s. And this one?” I nodded my chin to the child I held. His cough sounded wet and rattled.
“He throws up cow’s milk. It’s why we got the goat. He’s so tired from acoughing.” She pulled at my skirt again, and I realized that Brita couldn’t see the face of the child I held unless I squatted down. She wiped spittle from the toddler’s mouth. “Poor Stanley,” she said. “So sickly.”
“Let’s see what Brother Keil might have to offer for remedies.”
My eyes adjusted from the darker root room to the lantern-lit hall. No Jack in sight. I heard musical notes from the horns coming from the highest level of the house. Band members dealt boredom a blow by practicing a tune or two or took a work break from finishing the upper floors. Andy’s head stuck out from Keil’s workroom, then slipped back when Keil entered the wide hall. Louisa came back down the steps, patting Ida’s back. The red trim of her quilted petticoat swirled a flash of color as she stepped. A furbelow, from Louisa? It was a bit of stitching spice I had never noticed before. Why do I notice such insignificant details when my world is spinning apart?
Charles, Brita’s older boy, left the cart and sat down on the bottom step, holding his head in his hands. Dark circles framed his chipped nails. They disappeared as he clutched his dirty blond hair. He held himself in a wracking cough. Brita placed a handkerchief to his mouth, comforting him. I saw green mucus there.
“Let me see your tongue,” Brother Keil said. Charles lifted his head, opened his mouth. I was vaguely aware of people standing near the kitchen, though I didn’t see Jack’s profile. I cast a glance toward the workroom; it stood empty. He’s upstairs with Christian and Andy and Kate. I should have warned them. I need to protect them.
“Does your chest hurt? Ja, I figure as much,” Keil said when
Charles nodded, an action that began another round of coughs. The child in my arms, maybe two or three years old, also coughed now. I wondered if the warm room didn’t aggravate their symptoms.
Keil opened one of the doors in the large blue cabinet and took out a vial of dark liquid. “Pulsatilla,” he said. “It should help the cough. Then we get you some food and a dry place to rest, but no sleeping on the left side, ja? You’ll be better then, in the morning.”
I knew about the juice compressed from that flowering plant. Martin, Christian’s brother, used it for a toothache once, and after Christian’s death, he’d given it to me and said it would help me be less sad. I don’t think it did, but then nothing save grace and time could have helped me. I hadn’t known pulsatilla would stop coughs. I’d always treated my son with dulcamara, carefully measured, as it could be dangerous. But he got better in the warmth and worsened in the cold and damp, unlike this child. That Andy hadn’t yet contracted some winter’s ailment was a gift in itself, which I’d just then thought to be grateful for.
“We should put the family in a separate place,” I said. “Maybe keep the coughs from spreading.”
“Nein,” Keil said. “The boys can go with the other men. The one you hold, he is a Junge?”
“They stay together,” Brita said, moving in that side-to-side gait to stand before him. Despite her small size, she acted fearless in front of Keil. “With their mother.”
My own children and I were clustered together in the evenings in this wide hallway at the behest of the Keils, but during the day my boys were urged to spend time with the older boys and men staying at the upper floors. Now they couldn’t, not with Jack there.