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

  “That scripture describes grace, Almira. It says we get to start over. We get to be restored. In between, we offer that same grace to others, and that’s a way to show that we’ve been changed. But it doesn’t mean we won’t have to start again. We have a way back, so we don’t have to stay at the outside.”

  “We start over and over, like in the puzzle path,” Kate said. I smiled at her. She is growing in wisdom, my daughter.

  “I guess it has its one way in and one way out, and we have to keep moving. So yes, maybe that’s so, Kate,” Kitty said. Kate beamed.

  On the following Sabbath, our Scripture verse was from First Timothy, the second chapter, in which all were asked to pray for all men, but especially kings and those in authority, so that there might be peace, and the word of God could be more easily spread.

  “It means that when people are at war,” BW said, “that it’s difficult to spread the love of God to others. Others see only the warring side, and with people of faith fighting on both sides, how can others know the true story?”

  “I think it means we have to submit to those in authority. And pray for them,” Almira said.

  “I didn’t see anything about submission,” Matilda said. “Jacob and I don’t think of our marriage as his having ‘authority’ over me, nor my trying to get it over him. We’re together on things. Most of the time. We talk things out until we are. I think that’s what it means.”

  We stitched for a time in silence, then Matilda spoke again. “I wish we’d have our own house, instead of having his whole family and brothers and sisters live there, but none of them are married. Jacob’s the first. It’s the charitable thing to do, all live together.”

  “Who will have authority with all those women living there?” Kitty said. “Have you thought about that?”

  “We’ll all pray for you,” Martha said, “with that many women in one house.”

  “I’ll need it,” she said, and we laughed.

  “What did you think of Brother Keil’s announcement last week?” I asked. “I wonder if this scripture says anything about that?”

  “I found it very strange,” Kitty said.

  Christine said nothing.

  Almira, who rarely went with us, had attended that morning. “Are the sermons tiring him? Maybe that’s why he’s asked others to preach for him. I know my husband worked very hard on his messages each week, to make them faithful to Scripture.”

  “Too bad your husband didn’t live faithful to Scripture,” Kitty said.

  I saw Almira flinch. It might be all right to criticize a family member ourselves, but hearing anyone else do it could be wounding, indeed.

  “It wasn’t all him,” Almira defended. “That girl. And I suppose me. I never did stand up to him the way that girl did. He liked her obstinancy He never struck her. Anyway, he worked on his sermons. They tired him. That’s all I was saying.”

  “It’s a surprise that Keil would allow anyone besides John or Karl to preach. It sounded like even Dr. Wolff might preach sometime,” Martha said. She had a chipped tooth that made some of her words sing.

  “Maybe some of the younger men will be groomed as new leaders,” Kitty said. Her crooked pinky finger stuck out as she spoke with her hand in the air. “Maybe they’ll need wives.”

  “I like listening to Chris Wolff,” I said. “He reads Shakespeare and Cicero and classic books that I hope he’s introducing our children to in school.”

  “They’re pushing for articles of agreement,” Christine said. Her voice was so soft, I had to ask her to repeat what she’d said. Sometimes the loom I’d had Jacob set up in the parlor made a lot of noise. I’d been weaving a blue-dyed yarn made from boiling galls, the pockets of insects that formed on the stems of ragweed. It wasn’t Prussian blue, but it was pretty. And we’d give the rug away to Matilda and Jacob when they moved into their house, so we all felt we weren’t really working on the Sabbath, we were serving.

  “Agreeing about what?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “That’s all I know for certain. There are snippets of conversations that I hear over the dinner talk. They’re more open on the work sites, in complaining about who has gotten what property or how quickly something has occurred. The younger men seem impatient. The hotel will be finished before the church, from the looks of it. Some are excited about the railroad being courted, and others, well, they think it will mean the downfall of our community. The younger men, they want new life. A ‘western life,’ they call it, where they’re free to be independent.”

  “But they fear risking the wrath of Keil or of doing something on their own and failing,” Matilda said. I looked at her. “Jacob tells me. That’s why he’s building our log home. We’d never get a lumber home. You’re very fortunate, Emma.”

  “Yes, I am,” I said. “What would the articles of agreement say? About how money is distributed, or who gets the land? About marriages or not?”

  “All of that. And that he’ll have a council, a group who will advise him about issues, and he agrees to listen to them. More men in authority, maybe. So decisions can get made, even when Keil is in one of his low moods.”

  “Goodness. Papa might rejoin if that happens,” Kitty said. “Back in Bethel, Andrew Giesy didn’t listen. That’s what Papa said, anyway. Who knew who was really in authority? Keil was out here, but his son was back there claiming he carried his father’s staff. And Andrew made decisions. Many of you were at Willapa…It was very confusing.”

  “And I suspect not very many new people found a path to our Christian way either, with all that uncertainty,” I said.

  “Just like here,” Kitty said. “Except for Almira, there hasn’t been an outsider who has joined us for years. And lots of former members have left. Like the Knights.”

  “They’re still close by,” Matilda defended. “They’d help if we needed them. They’re helping build our log home.”

  “They’re going to put into writing what we colonists believe,” Christine said.

  “It’s always easier to say, ‘Come join me,’ when you can say what you truly believe,” Almira said.

  “Ja,” I said. “Kitty’s right. It’s pretty hard to win souls when everyone is feuding or moving around in different directions. So maybe this is what this scripture is really about.”

  That and the need to make certain we open our doors wide and that what’s on the other side shines light into darkness.

  Dedication

  The colony principles were issued that summer. They emphasized again that all we possessed was to be placed within a common fund, that we’d labor for one another. They spoke of the value of marriage, that the family was to be honored as led by God, and they covered decision making and promised homes for each family. Of course, it affirmed again that Keil was our leader. Our house church women talked about the new principles, expressing surprise that naming Keil as the “president and autocrat” didn’t appear until number ten. Even the importance of plain living as number eleven was further down than I’d thought it would be.

  We were stuck on number ten, though, as along with naming Keil as leader, it suggested that a vote might take place if big changes were proposed, to indicate “general consent of the community.” It was probably too much to imagine such a vote would include women, but one could hope.

  “Someone has thought these out carefully,” Matilda observed.

  Jacob’s sister, Sarah, had joined us that day, and she added, “I heard that years and years ago, Chris Wolff and Karl Ruge, maybe Henry Finck, were together in Germany, and they presented a list of principles like this to the Prussian leaders. Then they had to flee, because the prince thought it was a challenge to his authority.”

  “This could look like that,” I said, “if you were a crowned prince.”

  “At least he put God and parents first,” Almira said. “And the family. Family. It’s so important. Children…” Her voice trailed off, and she got up shortly after that and went upstairs.

  “I like numb
er seven myself,” Kitty said. “Maybe if I do find someone to marry, Keil won’t tell us we can’t. The carpenters are strong and sturdy. I rather like taking dinner baskets out to them. I might find a good man out there.”

  “Number nine says ‘the children’ and doesn’t exclude girls from the school. Thank goodness for Karl in that!” Matilda said.

  “I wonder who the advisors are,” Sarah said.

  “One thing’s for certain, they won’t be women,” Kitty said.

  “At least not up front,” I added. “We women might never be official advisors, in authority, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have persuasion with the men in our lives.”

  “You haven’t talked Papa into having us all live together, though,” Kitty reminded me.

  “Persuasion takes patience,” I said. It was a belief I just realized I held.

  The new rules said nothing about widows specifically. And Kitty liked that marriage was supported. She read, “The family is strictly maintained; people marry, raise, and train children.” I wondered if it might be an opening for me, to bring my children back into my own personal fold. What might “strictly maintained” really mean? I’d have to ask Karl. He always had insights.

  That fall, I didn’t hear so much grumbling from the workers, so we assumed the advisors now had a voice in the affairs of the colony, at least in the men’s affairs, and that our prayers for “all that are in authority” were being answered. The church building stood nearly finished. We learned from Henry C that bells for the belfry had been ordered from Ohio. The hotel’s three floors, with windows in the attic, had finishers working into dusk. Ben Holladay, the railroad man, attended a number of our concerts in the Park House, a newly built structure that was nestled in the trees not far from Keil’s house. Many new trails had been created through the forest area near the Park House, a building that either Keil (or the advisors) had ordered built for the band’s performances. Mr. Holladay and Dr. Keil “took many walks on the paths,” she told us. Mr. Holladay was a visionary, as Louisa called him, who would help the colony continue to grow into the outside world. She’d say that because her husband did. Still, I noticed that the band building was finished before the church was.

  It bothered me, too, that we weren’t recruiting any longer, as Christian had done in the old days, using the light of faith and the comfort of communal efforts to bring people into our fold. Instead, our production lured people in: our fine leather goods, our medicinal wines, our turned furniture and textiles. It wasn’t the same to me. People bought our products, but they weren’t drawn to our ways of looking after one another and tending to the less fortunate. Our colony grew mostly through the arrivals of those from Willapa or Bethel, rather than through new, invigorated blood. I guessed that like any group, we wanted people to join us, but then we resisted the changes they brought with them. Even our house church changed with each new addition. Change was in the nature of the people who gathered together, whatever the original purpose. Trying to keep a group the same proved a futile effort. But when my mind began muddling over perceived injustices and uncertainties, I tried, as Karl had advised, to find God in the changes and walked my puzzle path of thinking right back to God’s power to influence everything, when we allowed it.

  The shoemaker and saddler had picked up so many new accounts that they ran short of materials. Whenever Keil or one of his advisors learned of a stand of oak needing to be cleared, our men would be volunteered to do the clearing, so they could take the bark from the trees, so important to the fine tanning that we did. Ashes from the burned bark were blended with water to remove the hair from the deer and cow hides.

  This was work Almira found she could do: stuffing the hides into the trough, punching them down with a stick, then waiting three days and currying the hair off. It wasn’t “careful work” as she called it, so her hands, large knuckles and all, could keep up. Since she’d been going out to work on tanning, Almira acted happier. She didn’t as often leave us, to go upstairs alone to read or outside to walk. Sometimes she even joined us at the Park House for a concert.

  Our house church had to change its meeting times, since the band played in the park so often on Sunday afternoons. I wondered whether it was anything deliberate on Keil’s part, this taking away from our Sabbath meetings. Maybe he’d changed the Sunday band times in order to keep our house church women from sharing our complaints with one another. He also announced that from now on, the Sabbath celebrations would begin on Saturday at noon. All work would stop then. We’d have music and eat together. Worship would begin on Sunday morning with yet more music and a meal on Sunday afternoon.

  Maybe he thought there was power in our women’s meetings, power needing curtailment. It was an idea that hadn’t occurred to me before.

  We women adapted and began meeting midweek.

  I almost felt sorry for the men, who lacked this place of comfort to work and talk. We’d try new recipes out on one another, to see who could make the best Scatter Soup with the thinnest dumpling batter carrying the greatest taste. I loved watching how the ribbon of flour and eggs formed odd shapes as they were swirled into the hot soup. “It must be your Clara’s blue eggs that give yours that fine flavor,” Matilda told me, smacking her lips in a most unladylike manner after she’d scooped up the soft-cooked forms.

  “Nein, it’s her meat broth,” Louisa told her. “What do you put in that, Emma?”

  “I’ll never tell,” I said. We almost never told our cooking secrets. My mother made a meatloaf dish with a rare flavor, and she had always hoarded that recipe and probably would until her dying day.

  While we stitched, we shared our burdens and prayed for one another, and in between, we sang rounds, a venture begun by Kitty. I have to say I found it refreshing to hear those repeating loops of women’s voices, singing psalms and sometimes tunes Kitty said came from Shakespeare’s time that children sang around the Maypole. The second group began while the first went on to higher tones. It was like a dance of voices, and I could join in, the lilt of others’ voices carrying mine along, even though I sang out of tune.

  “Henry C said that to lose one’s temper means to be out of tempo in a song,” Helena said when we finished a round. “I find that quite comforting.”

  “You’ve never lost your temper, ever,” Louisa told her. “Have you?”

  “I’ve had my moments,” Helena confessed.

  No one lifted an eye from the quilt spread before us at this surprising admission.

  “Isn’t it nice to know, then, that you’re simply out of balance?” Kitty offered. “That makes you a lot more like the rest of us.”

  “I have to say that being called unbalanced has never seemed so…embracing,” Helena told her.

  Nothing subversive occurred at our house church, just piecing and patching. Acceptance of the way things were fell more easily on my shoulders when we gathered as we did. The distance from my parents, the loss of my sons, the uncertainties for my daughters’ lives, even the fate of a world where war once raged became weights carried with me by my friends. Maybe Keil’s decisions weren’t meant to demean us women; rather he and the advisors simply didn’t take our interests into account. We’d long ago taught them that they didn’t have to; we knew so well how to adapt.

  Louisa would say the men “had the economy” on their minds, so they didn’t consider a woman’s needs. But I remembered one day when Kate came home and told me she’d learned something in Greek. “Oikos,” she said. “It means ‘household.’”

  “That’s nice,” I told her, and continued to beat at the rug hanging over the line.

  “But, Mama, it means two things, like our two doors. It means…econ…economy too. Dr. Wolff says that in the household, we look after one another and share, and that should be the basis of our lives. He says we shouldn’t try to get too big or try to do too much without helping one another. We should all live like it’s our house, and in the kitchen, where the cooking stove is, that’s where the econ…”
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  “Economy,” I finished for her.

  “That’s where everything is. In the kitchen. We get fed, and we give to others and make our weavings and trade them, but we see one another every day. That’s our oikos,” she said. “The Greek is easier to say.”

  She was right. We women had the greatest place to be: at the hearth, the center of it all. The men had their own pressures, and a part of me almost felt regret for them.

  From my upstairs window, I could see one of their big pressures: the hotel, looming tall and large. The stage stopped there, but to justify such a huge building we’d need many more customers. We’d need the railroad to bring them. But even there, it was the kitchen oikos that mattered. Food sustained us. Without many outside people purchasing our food, the building would be like a boil on the back of the colony, instead of a precious pearl worn to embellish the colony’s bodice.

  Our colony was defined by colony principles that in truth were established more for the men than for us women. We women had our own principles, I decided. We continued on as we had: tending our families, sprinkling the mundane with occasional song, interrupting our trials with a bit of laughter, and welcoming the acceptance of friends. Keil’s rule had never changed that. A woman’s oikos threaded its way through the ages to this century, in this place. A place I now called home.

  Matilda and Jacob prepared to move into their family home during the fall of 1866. They announced they’d be moving soon and that Matilda was with child.

  “I guess my house was private enough,” I teased, and Matilda’s face burned red. How I’d miss them! Yet again, another change.

  At one of our house church gatherings, Matilda told us that Martin, who was attending her instead of a midwife, had heard two heartbeats through his stethoscope. Louisa said well, of course: hers and the baby’s, any midwife would know that. But Matilda said he’d heard two very fast beating hearts in addition to her own, and they must belong to two infants.