“Are you sure I can’t get you something? Water? A pretzel?” She looked so tired, her eyes sad and sunk into her round, smooth-skin face.
She shook her head. “This is all I need, right here.”
“All right, then,” I said and backed out. I closed the door behind me, entering through the kitchen door once again.
“These are good, Mama,” Ida said. She held one of the biscuits from Christine’s basket. Kitty awakened and skipped down the steps into the kitchen without encountering Christine. I smiled to myself. My house design worked well: privacy for the parlor and activity for the kitchen. I just hadn’t expected my foster sister to discover the uniqueness of my design. Matilda and Almira joined us, and I told them about Christine’s visit.
“Quiet. That’s what I longed for when things were going so badly,” Almira told me when I repeated Christine’s request. Almira held one of the tin serving spoons Christian had made. “I’d try to take a walk in the afternoon, but there were always babies clinging.” She swallowed. “Not that I didn’t want them with me, but sometimes, for a few minutes, I needed to be alone. I wanted not to be responsible for them, for what was happening in my life. I took to walking at night. I wanted to be…still.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “I’ve sat there, just as she is now, in your parlor, Emma, while your girls rested or played outside. You and Kitty and Matilda, gone. It’s one of the greatest things you gave me by asking me to come home with you. A little peace. I know that’s why I can sleep now. And I can get more done when I’m awake too.”
“Every woman should have a place for herself,” Matilda said. “Even when they marry.”
“Especially when they marry,” Almira said. “You keep that in mind, Matilda.”
“I’m coming to believe that marriage isn’t in my future,” Matilda said. We all looked expectant, but she said nothing more.
“That makes two of us, then,” Kitty said.
After the girls were dressed and we’d all finished our oats and milk, I opened the door from the stairwell to see if Christine needed anything. She wasn’t there. She’d left a note, though, that read, “I’d like to come back again, but this time to stay.”
The boys arrived before I could think further about Christine’s request; and though I asked Martin to join us, he declined. It was just as well. It would be awkward with him around. Andy said he thought I’d gone to the fair. “It’s nice you stayed,” he added.
“I’ll miss seeing Brita,” I said, “but I wanted to spend time with you and for you to have time with your sisters.”
“I’m glad you weren’t too busy,” Christian said. He ran up the stairs and found the wooden chest next to the rocking chair in the wide hall. I’d put some of his winter clothes in there, and a hoop he and Andy could roll along with a stick. I climbed the steps and watched as he surveyed his old room, now taken over by his sisters and the women who lived here. “There’s a lot of girls here,” he said.
I laughed. “Ja, there are.”
He sniffed the air. “It smells like girls.”
“That’s the lavender,” I told him. “It makes everything smell nice. All the girls doesn’t mean there isn’t room for you, though. You’re always welcome to come and…even stay, you know.” I probably shouldn’t make such suggestions; it might confuse him. I didn’t want that.
“Martin says sometime I can sleep in my old bed here. Maybe.”
I felt that burn in my stomach at the idea that someone else could decide for me about my child’s wishes. “Whatever Martin says,” I told him. I didn’t want Christian in the middle of this edgy time, but I knew my voice held some contempt, because Christian glanced up at me in the sideways look he had.
“We’re going to get a dog,” Kate told him, as she skipped up the stairs.
“We are?” Christian and I said in unison.
“I don’t think so,” I continued. “A dog won’t get along with Opal or Clara. Who told you that?”
“Karl said Po needs people around. With him teaching now, the dog gets into trouble and chews things, and he’ll get into the potato fields or be trampled by horses or et up by the hogs.”
“That’s eaten up by hogs,” I corrected.
“We can save him, Mama.”
I couldn’t save anyone.
Christian said, “Martin can’t have animals in the store because of all the medicines and such. A dog would be fun to have. We could come and play with it, couldn’t we, Mama? Me and Andy?”
“Why, yes, you could,” I said.
“And we could take the dog for a walk on our special path,” Ida told him. “And we’d let you teach him, Andy, when you came here.” My older son had climbed up the steps now too. “If you wanted. You too, Christian.”
“A dog’s a good friend to have,” Andy said. “Better than a horse that wants to bite you—until he learns better.” Andy smiled at me, and it was the warmest light. Christian continued chattering about the dog, and I knew I’d have to talk with Karl. But just like that, having a dog around was suddenly a brilliant idea.
Martin came to pick them up later, and they went to him with reluctance, at least I thought so. Christian chattered like a squirrel telling me some story he’d forgotten to share before. Even Andy didn’t push to leave. I confess I appreciated seeing that in them. But I also knew I had to make this transition easier between Martin and me, or he might find a reason not to let them come again. “You be good and listen to Martin,” I told them. “I’ll see you again before you know it. Andy might need new shoes,” I told Martin, who nodded.
“I’ll tend to it,” he said.
“Or I can.”
He hesitated. “Gut. We’ll do this together, then,” Martin said.
I expelled breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
The day after the boys’ visit, I went looking for Christine and found her hanging laundry on the line at the Keils’. I told her she was more than welcome to stay with us. We had room, but I was curious about why she’d made the request, and why now.
“I’d rather not say,” she said. Her dark eyes looked down. Small brown spots speckled the backs of her hands, freckles that matched a few on her face. It looked like she’d tried to cover them with powder. “The Keils have been very kind to me here, and I’ll continue to come to cook for them, but I want…fewer people around. Does that make me selfish?” she asked.
“I’m not the one to ask about that,” I said. “People are always commenting about the things I want, saying they’re to dress up myself.”
“I’m better able to think when I’m alone. Time to read or maybe to mend or even listen to the birds.”
“Or children laughing,” I added.
She looked away.
“There are several of us living in my home, though,” I reminded her. “We won’t be able to assure you of that very quiet time as you had the other day.”
“It’ll be more time than at the Keils’ and…with just women. I’ll do my share. I’m not asking for charity.”
“You can help, but part of why I wanted the house is for charity, to give to others what they might need and couldn’t find anywhere else. It’s why I have the double doors.”
“It was rude of me to leave without saying good-bye.”
“You proved that my design worked.” I smiled. “Do you want me to tell Louisa that you’re moving here?”
By the look she gave me, I thought she’d take me up on that offer, but she shook her head no. “I need to do hard things myself,” she said. “It’ll make me stronger.”
Four days after Louisa and Helena returned from the fair, the two arrived again, complete with calling cards. “What did you say to Christine Wagner while we were gone, to make her want to leave?” Of course, Louisa held me accountable for Christine’s request. Louisa told us she’d been less than amused when Christine spoke to her, then left at the end of the work day and walked to my home, with her few personal things bundled up in a tapestry bag.
??
?I said nothing to her, except to answer her question.”
“We have a perfectly good place for her,” Helena said. “She’s been a fine influence among the younger girls too.” She twisted then smoothed the ribbon holding her scissors at her waist.
“That won’t change. She’ll only be here in the evenings.”
“And when she isn’t working.”
“I suppose it will be more difficult to assign her tasks in the evenings if she’s over here,” I noted.
“We didn’t work her all the time,” Louisa defended. “She wasn’t a servant or, worse, a slave, for heaven’s sake. She could have left any time she wanted.”
“Apparently, she did,” I said.
They sipped their tea in unison.
“I don’t think your gathering up women like this is a good thing for the colony,” Helena said. “Surely Dr. Keil did not intend for the house he built for you to be used as a plotting place for disruption in the colony’s routine.”
“A plotting place?” I laughed. “A woman has moved. There’s nothing sinister in that.”
“One would have thought that having your sons live elsewhere would have…tempered you, Sister Emma,” Helena said.
I wouldn’t dignify her words about my sons by responding to them, though I felt my face grow hot.
I stirred a spoon in my glass, biting my tongue. Oh, how I wanted to challenge these women’s righteous indignation!
“I still think you should put some paintings on your wall,” Louisa said. She pointed to the two open areas on either side of the brick fireplace.
“What?”
“Some color. Don’t you think the walls need color, Helena?”
“Your husband thinks that paintings are frivolous,” I said.
“Does he? Well, then, maybe the bare walls are best,” Louisa said. She adjusted herself on the chair. Her hip must be hurting her yet again.
With a simple stitch, Louisa could be sewn into her husband’s opinion. I suspected that the concerns she and Helena raised had more to do with Keil’s wishes than with any real issue of theirs about Christine Wagner’s moving to my home.
“I’m sure you’re aware,” I said, “that we have an agreement, your husband and I. That I am to use this house for the betterment of the colony, and so I am. Christine will continue to work for you and contribute. The rest of us living here do too. Matilda works for the tailor shop. Kitty works at the hotel, as do I. Almira tends to my children so I can work. You have nothing to worry about.”
“Oh, we’re not worried at all,” Helena said. She stood and tightened her bonnet strings. “We thought that you should be.”
“What did they say?” Almira asked when I returned to the kitchen.
“Ach, something about my stirring up plots to disrupt.” I slammed the three-legged spider onto the stove, and Kate and Ida both jumped.
“Mama,” Ida said. “Be gentle.”
“Ja, gentle.” I took a deep breath.
“Because I’m here,” Almira said. She sighed. “I’ve brought you disgrace.”
“Because I’m here,” Matilda countered. “Herr Keil wants me to go so I won’t disturb Jacob’s work. That’s it, isn’t it?”
“I’m not even interesting enough to be a suspect,” Kitty said. “I can’t imagine I have anything to do with it.”
“It’s me,” Christine said. “I’ve put you all at risk.”
“No one is at risk,” I said. Why do we women always assume we’re the origin of problems? “What could they do to us? Move me out…Take my…” I looked at the girls and at the faces of the women. “They wouldn’t. No one would defend that action because they’re girls.” I hoped that Ida and Kate couldn’t put the pieces together, understand what we talked about over the top of their heads. “John Giesy wouldn’t be interested enough to get in the middle of such a scene, especially with no one coming forward saying they wanted…well, you know.”
“Could they keep you from seeing your boys?” Almira whispered.
“So long as Martin has them, I don’t think so. I even think I might see them more with Martin’s going to school than if he weren’t. We’re going to work together at this. He said so.”
“Still, they threatened you,” Matilda said.
“Not such a big word as that. Just a little…chastening. I can live with that. I’ve experienced it often enough. I’m stronger now than I was.” I removed the spider from the stove, the three legs balanced perfectly on the smooth surface. Keil and company couldn’t make me think of myself as they saw me, just because they said it. “In fact, they’ve inspired me. If I’m going to be accused of plotting something, I may as well do it. They’ll have a hard time convincing anyone that I’ve disrupted the colony with my kind of doings.”
“What do you plan to do?” Kitty asked.
“For the moment, make apple dumplings and eat them ourselves, without sharing a one with the rest of the colony.”
Kitty giggled. “Is that all?”
“No. But it’s what I’ll do at this moment. The real plotting will come later, after we have our sustenance.” I smiled. A few paintings were forming in my head. I felt as invigorated as the day when the boys came to visit. Maybe even more.
Stories with Hopeful Endings
November 7. The girls complete their stints of morning stitching. When Kate finished hers today, she said, “I am full of enthusiasm!” Would that my life would be so.
December 1. Today Louisa tells me that they saw Brita at the fair last fall! She came by the dance hall seeking me. I feel bad now that I didn’t go. But the past is past. I will write to Brita again and apologize. At least she’ll know then why I wasn’t there, as Louisa said they did not tell her, not wanting to be “gossips.”
I had things to do. Perhaps because I felt unable to bring about all that I wanted in my own life, I looked at others’ to see what I might do to advance theirs. That cleft beneath my heart, where I’d once daily tended to my boys’ needs, felt empty, and I hoped that I could fill the space in part with something meaningful. I wondered if Helena and I might not share a motivation in this kind of thinking, but quickly pitched that thought away.
Finding out where Jacob Stauffer stood in relation to Matilda proved my first order of business. Was the man a serious suitor? Was he reluctant to express himself because of his concern over a woman’s sensibilities? I suspected that a lot of talk about “sensibilities” was a way that those in power kept women in their place, acting as though we needed protection from the outside, cruel world. Our colony was both our family and another world. And like a wool coat, at times both warm and scratchy. We’d be more joyous if people were allowed to fall in love and hope to marry, without the consternation of achieving approval from Brother Keil.
I suppose I ought to have asked Matilda first, but I didn’t want her sensibilities to overpower her. Her cautious side might choose to primly point out to me that in due time, if Jacob were truly interested, he would speak to her of marriage and then they’d secure consent from Dr. Keil. If Keil refused, they could always leave Aurora, but leaving this place had its difficulties; I was witness to that.
But I knew that life is short, and Matilda was already nearly thirty. If she was to have a marriage, which she said once she’d never expected, then there was no time to waste.
Our gathering had taken on new people: BW, my sister-in-law, and Barbara, my mother-in-law, had joined us too. I was a little edgy with their presence, never sure of their intentions. And I supposed if I’d thought about it, I would have waited to bring up the subject of Jacob and Matilda until it was just our little group. But my in-laws always made me act in ways that surprised even me.
“How does Jacob like his work detail?” I asked Matilda.
She blushed, and lowered her eyes so she didn’t see the stares of BW and Barbara Giesy.
“Jacob’s been peeling bark from oak trees, for the tanning factory to use,” I told the women.
“It’s hard work, but
better than felling the trees,” Matilda said.
“He seems a kind man,” BW said.
“He’s very gentle with children,” Matilda added. We sat in my parlor on a Sunday afternoon. Christian and Ida were in the kitchen playing with jacks. I could hear their groans and cheers. Andy hadn’t come, and Kate joined us with the stitching. Rain and wind had their way with the windows, but we were snug inside. It was late November, and for days the skies had been as gray as the bottom of a duck and just as soggy.
My mother-in-law had brought her piecework for a Friendship quilt, something she’d heard about from relatives back in Pennsylvania. I’d been surprised by her request to join us, especially since this was the Sabbath and I assumed she’d think we shouldn’t be working. I considered changing our routine for her and my sister-in-law, but the truth was, we weren’t “working.” Piecing quilts or helping one another stitch wasn’t work. It was quiet, contemplative time, made all the more spiritual if the quilt we worked on would be for someone other than ourselves. I gave Barbara Malachi 3:16 and commented that we created remembrances together on our Sabbath afternoons, something Scripture permitted. If she wished to join us in doing that, she was welcome in my parlor.
Apparently those conditions were acceptable, as both women had arrived with piecework in hand. Now my mother-in-law was showing us a copy of Godey’s Lady’s Book that she’d brought with her. It described ways we could print verses on our fabric or stamp the letters of all our names. We decided on names.
“We might ask Louisa to write each one using her Fraktur lettering,” BW said. John’s wife had hair nearly as white as Barbara’s, the mother-in-law we shared.
“I doubt Louisa will ever join us on a Sabbath afternoon,” Kitty said.
I glanced at my in-laws, but they didn’t exchange meaningful looks. They just kept stitching.