“Maybe could be it’s all the more precious that way, knowing it’s fleeting, not long for this world. If we lived that way, knowing we’re on the way to dying, we’d take more time to do the things that bring us a little pleasure, don’t you think, Widow Giesy? I bet your Christian wishes he’d spent more time in his marriage bed than with his oyster beds.”
He was so brassy. Did Christian have regrets? Could those who died still harbor longing the way those they left behind did? I couldn’t imagine that. It was a theological question, one I’d have to explore with Karl, not with this man who sent signals of friendship wrapped up in tempered heat.
As we approached Fort Willapa I could feel my heart start pounding. It would be so good to see Andy! I’d clipped pictures from my almanac and glued the tiny pieces with flour paste to form entirely new designs, ever grateful for my sharp scissors that let me practice the craft of Scherenschnitte. I’d made him a tiger and a parrot and wrapped the cuttings in cloth for Jack to deliver to him. I imagined Andy opening them and finding pleasure in the little pieces of paper that were transformed into something new. Little pictures I’d sent so he’d know that he was constantly on my mind. Kate even took some stones from her treasure basket and sent them with me. “So’s he’ll know I got them for Andy,” she told me. “I wants them back.”
“He’ll be bringing them back,” I’d told her as I kissed her forehead good-bye.
Now at last I’d be seeing him and taking him home. I’d ask Martin for as many herbs as he could spare so if the cough came back I’d have a way to stop it before it got so bad he fevered and I had to be separated from him again.
Martin came out of the house as we tied the mule to the post. “Such a long way you’ve come,” he said. He leaned forward, always leaning into things. He looked over at Jack.
“She wanted a visit,” Jack said.
“Ja, that’s good, but there’s only me here, don’t you know?”
“Where’s Andy?” I asked. I looked toward the field. He must be well enough to run and play outside. How wonderful! But then they could have brought him back. I felt a rush of heat to my face but held my tongue.
“They’ve gone to Aurora Mills,” Martin said. “Jack didn’t tell you? Just for a visit, don’t you know. They’ll be back in a week or so.”
I turned to Jack. “You knew he wasn’t here and yet we came all this way, for nothing?”
“You needed an outing,” he said. “Tell me it wasn’t a pleasant journey?”
“When will people stop deciding what I need or don’t need?” I said. “What I need is my son back. What I need is to be able to take care of things without other people cutting up my life like it was some little piece of paper they could recompose into something else entirely. How dare they just take my son! How dare they!”
“He wanted to go,” Martin said softly.
“Ja, and if a five-year-old wished to ride a mule across a swollen river you would let him? This is what a grownup does, make good decisions for a child.”
“Mama and Papa had never gotten to share their grandchild with their friends at Aurora. It’s been nearly two years since they’ve seen the Bethel folks. They’re going to bring back sheep when they return. It’ll be fine, Emma.” Martin reached out to offer me his hand. “Come inside and have tea.”
“No tea. I just want to go home.” I swung around swiftly and began walking out ahead of the mule and Jack. My mind burned with the outrageousness of it all. They’d had to come right by our place if they went to Aurora crossing the Cowlitz. Maybe they took a ship, crossing the very bay that had taken Andy’s father’s life. Without talking to me, his mother, about any of it!
I heard Jack shout something about not being in such a hurry.
“I must get home before dark, remember?” I said. “I have children to attend to.” I stopped short. “Don’t I?”
“Of course Kate and Christian are there, waiting for you,” Jack said as he caught up with me. He moved the mule to stand before me. “Why don’t you get up here and ride with me.”
“I’ll walk,” I told him, pushing past the mule. “At least it’s some small portion of my life I still control.”
16
Louisa
If it weren’t for the music I should think we colonists would have taken much longer to find our place of belonging in this West. It soothes us when the day’s work shifts from outside to inside and the candlelight becomes our comforter. Through the open windows (where there are blessedly few insects despite our closeness to the river) the men’s chorus lifts its melody above the treetops, and even while we women sit and spin we can hear them, sometimes their rhythm a perfect fit for the thump of our wheels. Beethoven’s Ninth with its lovely chorus makes me feel as though I am at home in Germany; the words bypass my heart and go directly to my soul. I love the rousing songs they sing too. They practice for the festivals. The settlers here enjoy festivals. There seems to be one scheduled nearly every month somewhere within carriage distance. I suppose it is something to look forward to. It breaks up the monotony of difficult fieldwork, all the adjustments needed to find the way in a new land. We Germans know how to celebrate with our brass horns and dances and wonderful food. It is good we brought those customs with us along with the drums and brass horns.
My husband has actually composed some pieces, though more for the band than for voices. I like “Webfoot Quickstepp” because it makes me tap my feet and I have to stop my spinning! I don’t believe he composed that one but it is one of my favorites. Sometimes he lets others think he has composed them all. I notice he says “I made up some strongly medicinal wine from Oregon grape” when in fact someone else did the work but he oversaw it. I think “we” might be a good word to use there instead of “I,” but of course I’m not likely to suggest it.
We Bethelites are becoming “webfoot” people. After last winter we started calling ourselves that because of the incessant rains. Andreas and Barbara Giesy, when they visited this spring, said the same was true of the Willapa though they claimed those ocean breezes bring in sunbreaks more often than we saw here through the winter past. I wonder if people back in Missouri would understand a sunbreak.
Then in the summer the ground becomes dry as old coffeecake and we smell smoke sometimes in the morning where a fire to burn brush or stumps has gotten out of hand. It can take over an entire field and lick at trees the farmer hadn’t planned to burn at all. Fire is a terrible thing but oh so necessary in these parts, where the stumps must be burned to clear the ground and then dug at with a crowbar so the workers are covered with soot.
Our mill turns out lumber for houses and we are building steadily. The doctor rises early and he has tasks for everyone. It is as though this journey west has given him new vigor. I worry he might decide that we need to expand our family. I pray not, though I know Eve was admonished to submit to her husband’s wishes. I wish only to keep my eight living children healthy and well, and to do so I must keep myself healthy and well. Women die in childbirth. I see it. It is almost as dangerous as cooking in the summer kitchen with the fire sparking as we stir; a woman’s dress is suddenly aflame. Such morbid thoughts I think! Eve did as she was bid by her husband after she ate of the Tree of Knowledge. The doctor forgets that the man ate of that fruit too. Maybe, just maybe, Eve wasn’t tempting him as the serpent had but instead was hoping to feed him, the very thing a woman is called to do and a man will complain about if she doesn’t.
I would never say such a thing to the doctor. Never. But I think it. In this diary of sorts, I write it.
So far, the doctor’s diligent work, the young people’s problems he has to solve, his music pleasure, and the laughter with his children before they go to bed keep him willing to be held in our marriage bed without requesting the fruit that would bring another child into the world.
I still think of Willie every day.
The children are good. They don’t speak his name but the grief sneaks up on me like a black cat racing
across my path, unexpected and promising to make the day go badly. I wonder if Emma Giesy has that experience too. I don’t know why I think of her as often as I do. Perhaps because we share a grief now, having lost someone so dear to us, someone who was the chalice of our lives. It surprised me to see that she’d let her Andy from her sight to come here with his grandparents. It is a side of her I must assess through different eyes.
The boy and his Oma and Opa remained here several weeks. Andy enjoyed the other children living in this colony, even though it is a hike to the distant farms nestled among the firs. In the town proper there is still just this big house and several smaller dwellings and the colony store, but we keep working. As in the old country, we go out to the fields and orchards, returning back home at night. The doctor says the new arrivals, those not of our colony of course, look for land separated from each other where they can’t see the smoke of a neighbor’s house. We’ve adopted this western way somewhat. Hiking is good for children the doctor says. Even little ones like Andy.
He has sad eyes, though, that child of nearly six. He has seen trial in his young life, with his father’s death. I asked about his sister and brother and he answered clear and firm, “They’re well, Frau Keil.” Like a little man he is, so like his father, ready to take on responsibility at a young age. Watching the boy makes me think of when his father first came to the doctor and said he wished to be in service to the colony. My husband beamed. He groomed Chris for such a role and my husband is a grand teacher. This is not to malign George Wolfer back in Bethel or Karl Ruge in Willapa. These are both great teachers with university degrees. But my husband, who lacks such schooling, is a true teacher, a true guide, and he helped Chris see what must be seen in order for the colony to be successful.
His death was tragic indeed, as the doctor led Chris to the understanding that taking the Bethelites to Aurora Mills and not staying there in Willapa was the only sane course of action. It was so good that Chris came to accept this before he died. Imagine if he had carried thoughts that my husband betrayed him; imagine if he had died with such beliefs? I wonder now if his wife encouraged him to persist at oystering as a way of helping Chris save face. It would be a grand gesture on her part if she had. But I suspect she liked more the idea of having her own cabin to stay in far from others the way these eastern settlers seem to like their land in the West. That oystering scheme suggests that Emma had no intention of letting her husband come here one day to take his chosen place as the heir to the doctor’s work. At least it earned him good money and Chris met his duty and sent the money to repay what the colony had put out for him.
In time, they’ll all come here, the doctor says. Every one, and then they’ll know this was truly God’s plan. He says we can “rest assured we are following God’s plan when things go well and in time, all things go well.”
I have questioned this in my mind. Not that I would share such thoughts with the doctor. Nein. But Willie died. And Chris died, a man meant to lead this colony, perhaps share in the doctor’s work so he could rest a bit. I get confused then between what is suffering meant to compensate for our sins and what is suffering that will one day bring God’s plans to fruit? Who to ask? There is no one. I know the question alone would be seen as challenging the doctor, and so I won’t ask it. I’d not do anything to add to the weight he carries here.
It was good to see Andy Giesy closer to the true activities of the colony. He could learn from the doctor. But I can’t imagine Emma letting him go. It amazes me still that the boy has spent such time apart from her at all.
I suppose she is busy just doing woman’s work with that new baby. I’ve set aside my Fraktur work. There is too much washing, mending, cooking, planting, harvesting to do. But this fall, the doctor let us take two days to attend the fairs at Linn and Benton counties. We prepared the wagons with food we’d need for the travel and the stay away from our home. The children jabbered in excitement as we took four wagons of people to the events.
Some of our harvest was entered to be judged, including our apple cider vinegar, some hogs, a sheep, our oats, a quilt, a Strudel or two. Food. We women put so much of who we are into our food. The doctor said the fair is a way of announcing our wares and thus while we cooked and played and offered venison sausage and spoke about its special flavorings, we invited others to taste. Thus we worked to let others know that we value quality and are easy people to be among. We also bring business to the colony. Sometimes it seems no matter what Dr. Keil chooses to do, he can find a way to turn it into good for the colony.
The children scampered around, and while there were many people we didn’t know in attendance, the atmosphere was one of neighborliness, of goodwill. People smiled and the women nodded their bonnets at each other as they walked on the arms of their men, serenaded by distant fiddles and the smells of cooked beef wafting through the air.
There were booths with lovely things a woman might have decorated. Tin pots painted with bright colors. I was reminded of the pottery my mother had in our home in Germany and for the moment felt all wistful. I saw whittled figures made of soft woods that must have been brought from the old countries by settlers in the region. Miniatures. Even a scene meant to be Adam and Eve in the garden. Several people painted landscapes of trees and that mountain they call Hood that has snow on it all year round. We can see it from Aurora Mills. What pleased me most, though I did not tell my husband, was that I peered at the lettering on the bottom of the paintings and read first names like “Nancy” and “Mary.” Women’s names! Imagine. Here in this wilderness, women painting pictures for display. A woman even sat in one booth and handed out papers in English I could not read. The doctor had turned aside to talk to someone about horses, so I took the leaflet. I will save it and ask Karl Ruge when I see him next. I thought I heard the woman say the English word meaning “school,” but I can’t imagine there’d be a school here for women to learn to paint.
I saw show towels embroidered with scripture, so there are other Germans here, not just of our colony. My favorite item was a butter mold. A flower was carved with intricate leaves that one would press against the butter. Such butter would sell more quickly at a market than a simple mold or none at all. And it was beautiful, nearly as lovely as my Fraktur, which I saw no examples of at the fair. I brought the doctor by and hinted here and there until he said we should make such a mold. “Something unique to the colony,” I said, “yet grand enough to be the centerpiece at a fine table.”
“I’ve had a good idea,” he said and nodded. I know he meant it was his idea but for just a moment it felt as though he’d paid me a compliment.
We walked the uneven grounds, surrounded by the scents of venison and even a beef being turned at a spit. Chickens and hogs, fruits and flowers; the displays were like music to my eyes. Our band would be playing in the evening.
Then came my husband’s finest words to me in weeks: “See all these people, Louisa?” the doctor said to just me. “See them all coming from near and far, leaving their homes in the East, arriving here? They’ll need all we have to give them.” Soon, the doctor said, we’d begin weaving and tailoring and making shoes and we’d have these items to sell and display at the fairs. “We’ll have furniture and blacksmith’s work. Helena Giesy will come out, and she’ll help weave cloth and piece quilts to replace the ones people had to leave behind or that are so worn out from being room dividers and sick robes and warmth to wrap around a woman’s shoulders when she steps out to milk her cows. We’ll make new quilts made with the wool we raise and dye and spin right here.” His eyes were shiny with the possibilities. “Whatever they have need of, we will sell to them. Helena will come and she’ll be followed by others. All will go well here now. It is God’s will.”
That “will” question again. I wished he hadn’t said it, for it took me back to my lost Willie. Instead of feeling as warm as if I’d been wrapped in a quilt, I was chilled, even in the hot October afternoon; even with the band playing the “Webfoot Quickstepp
.” So quickly grief could transport me. I guess my mind knew before I could remember that as in life, the band would follow the joyous piece with the heaviness of a funeral dirge.
17
Emma
A Prayer Against the Sail
My Kate put a piece of cloth as a sail on a cedar bark boat she’d made, then set it afloat in the barrel of collected rainwater. She’d made a twig mast and somehow drilled a hole through the tough cedar bark, then stuck the stick there so it bravely held the sail. She set it afloat. It twirled around once, twice, then tipped over. She lifted it out, reset the sail and set it afloat again. Her breath pressed against it; it toppled again. She kept picking it back up, setting it on the water. The cloth sail was saturated, the bark too uneven to keep the mast upright. Before long it would be waterlogged and probably the whole thing would sink. But still, time after time, Kate continued, doing the same thing, expecting her sail to stand upright and her craft to move where her breath sent it, to get a different result even while she hadn’t yet come to realize that she must change what she was doing. I couldn’t stand it.
“It won’t work,” I told her, swiping the bark, pulling the cloth from its stick mast and squeezing the water from it with my fist. “Why do you keep doing it over and over? Can’t you see it’s finished? Done. You’re defeated.”
She stared, those wide blue eyes looking into mine, and then I saw her lower lip quiver.
“You broke it,” she accused.
“It was already broken. It won’t float. It isn’t balanced right for one thing. The sail is saturated; it’s too wet. It isn’t ever going to do what you want it to.”
She blinked. I’d never yelled at the children, not ever. My parents had never shouted at me. They might not talk to me for a time when I upset them; they might raise an eyebrow as an indicator that I’d gone too far, but they never shouted, never grabbed at me the way I’d just grabbed at Kate.