A Mending at the Edge: A Novel (Change And Cherish) Page 36

  “Several of us would have to stay there the entire time and work,” Louisa cautioned. “They’ve extended the fair time now to more than four days. It wouldn’t be much of a respite for the women.” She sighed. “I’ve always enjoyed the fair, making things to exhibit and all. There’d be scant time for that if we had a restaurant to run.”

  “We could still go to the dances,” Christine said. “We could spell each other.”

  “Ja, you like dancing, don’t you?” Louisa said. She smiled at Christine as though she were her daughter. “Aurora did too.”

  “We could display our quilts,” Kitty offered. “And tell people about our tailor shop. And our wines.”

  “For medicinal purposes only,” Louisa added, raising a needle to the air.

  “Is beer medicinal?” Ida asked. No one answered.

  “It might be fun,” Martha said. “Your girls could help serve, right, Emma? They’d meet interesting people. Practice their English. And I’d prefer to be doing something other than wandering around looking at exhibits.” That last word sang out through a chipped front tooth.

  “We might just rival the band,” I said, “with people knowing us for how we feed our friends.”

  “This must not be a competition, Emma,” Louisa said.

  “Emma doesn’t know how to do things any differently than that,” Helena said. “Not that competition is a bad thing, you understand. But always being first. It can be troublesome.”

  They still didn’t understand me. I didn’t want to be first; I wanted to be remembered for something worthwhile, for something even adventurous at times. Christian had understood me and never tried to take the wild from me. He knew it wasn’t meant to be disruptive or arrogant. It was to take in life and savor it fully.

  “Everyone should either ring the bells or stand upside down on them,” I said and grinned at Kitty. Louisa looked up, confused. “Besides, ‘Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.’ That’s from Shakespeare,” I said, hoping to redirect the subject yet again.

  “‘Fools make feasts and wise men eat them.’ That’s what Benjamin Franklin wrote in his almanac,” Helena noted.

  “I’m willing to be a fool on behalf of the colony and let the wise men eat our dishes. Wise women too. We’ll give them a great welcome when they enter our building,” I said.

  “Don’t you think a tent would be sufficient?” Helena said.

  “No. A building. As permanent as the dance hall. People could as easily remember Aurora for a fine platter of roasted meat or a delicate cake frosted with cream or even ice cream as they remember Aurora for the band’s songs. Our biggest challenge will be finding enough ice on a hot October day. A structure says, ‘We’re here to stay,’ while a tent, well, it can be taken down and forgotten.”

  “Ice cream makes my mouth water,” Kitty said.

  “Which is exactly what we want for fairgoers. But we don’t want to sell them food only. We want to serve them. To be hospitable, provide what people need without making them feel…well, like they’re needy at all. We’ll help them rest and take in the benefits of a lovely meal and the music, so they will be filled up. We’ll offer our best manners.”

  Christine stood up to declaim, “‘Being set at the table, scratch not thyself, and take thou heed as much as thou canst not to spit, cough and blow at thy nose; but if it be needful, do it dexterously, without much noise, turning thy face sidelong.’” She giggled and sat down.

  “Wherever did you hear that?” Helena asked.

  “In an old book about manners and such that Almira read to me.”

  “She truly was a woman of suspicious experiences,” Helena noted. She stuck herself with her needle, moaned a little, then sucked at the puncture.

  “Just like Emma used to be,” Louisa said. “And she’s turned out quite well, I’d say, with our influence.”

  I didn’t wait to let Louisa’s goodwill gather moss. “So should we approach the advisors or Brother Keil or—”

  “I’ll approach Wilhelm,” Louisa said. “And let him know that we have a way to bring more people to our hotel. This is for a good cause, Helena. And all it requires is an investment of lumber and effort.”

  “I might even ask my father if he’ll donate some of the boards,” I said.

  “Gut. That would be gut, Emma. The more people we involve in this, the better. But let me smooth the way with my husband first.”

  “Ja, you’ll need to grease this well,” Helena said.

  “And while you’re talking to him, Helena and Kitty and I will do our rounds with the advisors,” I said. “We combined the male and female chorus that way.”

  “That was Wilhelm’s idea, I thought,” Louisa said.

  “Ja. It was, but we women know how to grease things,” Helena said. “After all that time in the kitchen, it’s something we know how to do.”

  I tried not to get my hopes up too high. Wilhelm could still be unpredictable. BW hadn’t disagreed with any of our discussion, so if Wilhelm did, there was always another door we could go through to John or the advisory council. A mixed chorus required little investment; a building did. So far, buildings had been built only at Wilhelm’s behest.

  I wondered about Louisa’s ability to make her case with Keil. But she was his partner, at least as much as Keil would let her be. She had entertained Ben Holladay, the railroad mogul, so she must support the plan for the hotel to become a train stop one day. And her words had silenced Helena on the matter and given support to the restaurant idea. But this idea came from a woman, and that could make it suspect in Keil’s mind. We’d just have to wait and see.

  When we gathered next around the quilt frame—we were completing one for Elizabeth, John and BW’s daughter, to put into her dowry (we’d be stitching one for my Kate next)—Louisa brought good news. Wilhelm loved the idea of a restaurant at the fairgrounds. He knew the ropes he had to pull to get permission to build, and he’d try to keep the colony as the only business offering full meals there. He had an idea of design, or so he told Louisa, but we all knew what it would be: a rectangle with a fireplace at one end and perhaps a good cooking stove, if we insisted. It would be furnished with rectangular tables with benches, so people could sit with friends but also might slide down to make room for strangers. We’d paint everything blue, all the benches and the tables.

  Keil’s only reservation, according to Louisa, was that we women would have to spend our entire time at the fair working. “He didn’t think that was, well, fair. He wants meals to be available at all hours, but that means constant duty for us.”

  “He didn’t think our working all the time was equitable?” Kitty asked. “But we work here all the time. Why would he care about our doing so in Salem?”

  “Maybe he didn’t want others to think poorly of our men,” Martha said, “letting us cook at all hours like that. Maybe he wants some men to cook?”

  “Most men don’t cook a thing,” Christine said. “Maybe when they’re out hunting, but we’re always packing things up for the bachelors to take, so they don’t have to do much about feeding themselves.”

  “Fairgoers wouldn’t expect to see men cooking. They wouldn’t trust it,” Helena said.

  “The great chefs of the world are all men,” I said. “My uncle in France writes of exquisite dishes, and once he even asked my father to send him a barrel of buffalo tongues he planned to prepare.”

  “Did Papa do that?” Kitty asked.

  “I don’t think so. It wouldn’t be an easy order to fill. We won’t have it on our menu since we won’t have a fancy chef to prepare it,” I said and laughed.

  “Well, you see. Men can cook, if they get the recognition for it,” Louisa said.

  “It’s the everyday preparation that they shy away from, the things we have to do constantly, deciding the night before what we’ll have to eat for the next day, based on what we know is in the larder. Men don’t have to think that far ahead. I bet those French chefs have women underlings to do their
dicing and chopping and shopping the markets for them,” Christine chimed in.

  I thought of Kate’s comment about everyday feasts and how it was fine women’s work.

  “My Wilhelm has been meeting with Ben Holladay. He took over the contract for the railroad development last year, and…” Louisa hesitated, perhaps because she wasn’t sure whether we knew of this transaction, but everyone already did. It was the talk of the colony. “My husband sold him a strip of land, right through the middle of Aurora, to bring the rail line south.”

  “How ironic,” Helena said. She continued to stitch as she talked. “We leave Bethel because the railroad comes so close it might contaminate our young people, and now we’ll have the railroad in our own backyard.”

  “We don’t have that many young people to contaminate,” Kitty said, “because we don’t have many weddings.”

  I saw Martha cover a smile behind a cough.

  “Wilhelm only wants the best for us,” Louisa defended. “Mr. Holladay has invited the colony band to go on tour. He’ll send them up to the Puget Sound area, where you were married to Jack Giesy, Emma. Wasn’t it up there somewhere?” I nodded as she continued, glad Ida wasn’t here. “Then they’ll cross the country on the train, and he’ll pay them five hundred dollars for their concerts and pay all their expenses while they’re gone.”

  “No one’s going to pay for replacing their work here, though,” Helena said.

  “I wish I could go on an excursion like that,” Kitty said, her voice dreamy.

  “Not even the Pie and Beer Band will be going,” Louisa said. “The tour will bring in money for many things the colony needs, things we can’t trade for, and it will publicize the railroad and our hotel. And there’s no reason why we can’t announce as they tour that we’ll have our restaurant at the fair. Despite the fact that Mr. Holladay is paying them good money, my Wilhelm is willing to allow this, to build a building that will be the first restaurant at the Oregon State Fair. As you suggested, Emma.”

  “You didn’t tell him it was my idea, did you?”

  She blushed. “Nein. I let him think it was mine.”

  There was a time when I’d have been annoyed by Louisa’s admission, but this time I thought she’d done the wisest thing.

  It was the talk of Aurora as spring grew near. The colony men were selected to build, and the material was hauled in large wagons over the road to Salem. Meanwhile, the contingent of musicians went off on their tour, and those of us left behind assumed additional responsibilities. We planted seed potatoes, including those I’d kept in my basement, far away from Opal. I’d heard that several goats over by Needy had eaten raw potatoes, and all had died. So had some pigs.

  “Potatoes have got to be cooked if they’re to be fed to animals,” my mother told me when I visited and reported the Needy livestock deaths. She had a number of what Americans called old wives’ tales about things related to food. She was frequently right. I vowed to listen to her more.

  My father had donated money for lumber for the restaurant building, and in return, Wilhelm said he’d put a sign up saying, “Contributed in part by Wagner and Heirs.”

  “I like it that you didn’t tell Keil to say ‘Wagner and Sons,’” I told my father. I still stopped by their small home nearly every day, if only for a moment. It surprised me how much we had to talk about when I saw my family often, instead of the occasional crossing of paths near the park. I could ask about my sisters’ samplers or about the tree they’d planted that didn’t seem to want to grow. It was a lesson to me, that the frequency of interactions might carry as much weight as their length. Despite my discomfort in seeing my sons at Martin’s, it was what I needed to do with them too, to make my presence known regularly so they wouldn’t forget who I was. Perhaps it was already too late, but I’d at least see if more regular contact tied us together with a stronger thread.

  “Well, I have more than one son and more than one daughter, and whatever is left after I die will go to all of you.”

  “To your daughters too?” I asked.

  “And your mother, of course,” my father continued. “If it’s in the will that way, the law can’t take it from you.” A puff of smoke lifted up from his corncob pipe, and I coughed.

  I cleared my throat. “But most would say, ‘and Sons,’ rather than include their daughters as heirs. Thank you, Papa.”

  “I’ve disagreed with the lot of you at one time or another,” he said. “But you’re still all my heirs.”

  I coughed again and felt the closeness of the bodies in the room, the clutter and lack of places to take in a deep, filling-up breath. Kate’s tidying up our house took on new importance as I reflected on how well organized our space was. Clearly, we had room for them all.

  “Have you given any more thought to perhaps moving into my house?” I asked. “I could spell Johanna and Mother too. We’d all be there as one family, and there’s more room there than here. I’m a good cook.”

  “Bragging doesn’t become you,” my mother said. “Humility, Emma. Remember. Not so self-centered.”

  “It isn’t bragging to state a simple truth,” I said. “I do cook well. And you sew well. And Johanna takes care of Louisa well, and she’s a fine dancer. William raises fine crops of flowers. I wish my geraniums had such blooms. And so it goes. We don’t have to discount our talents, do we? That isn’t humility.”

  “I can tell you William’s flower secrets,” my mother said.

  “Humility is knowing where your talents come from,” Johanna said.

  “And I do,” I told my sister. “I may have had some crossed paths a while back. I may even have gone astray for a time, but I do know where my strength comes from, my imagination, even my—”

  “Wildness?” my mother said. She grinned, though.

  “High spirit,” I corrected. I also knew that it was part of who I was, to take a few steps back before I could go forward; that I hadn’t always honored the pearls of wisdom that had come into my life, nor known how to accept them. “Our talents are gifts. I didn’t think anyone would want to receive mine, but now I know that demeans the One who gave them to me. It takes the meaning right out of them.”

  Johanna said, “Though that wasn’t what we were talking about.”

  “You had invited us to come live with you. Again,” my mother said.

  “But we’ll decline again,” my father told me.

  “I like how we’re all mushed in together in this house. It’s…cozy,” my mother said.

  “Not that we don’t appreciate the offer,” my father continued. “But your house is still owned by the colony, and that means at any time, well, changes could be made.”

  “Change comes anyway,” I said.

  “I’ll stick with Martin’s way,” my father said. I must have looked confused. “He’s been paying for that apothecary shop himself. Out of what he’s earned, helping people who weren’t colonists but who needed care.”

  “Martin owns the building?”

  “He does. And I suspect it’s because he didn’t want to be surprised by anything that Wilhelm might decide. He intends to have his practice there, and I’m sure he didn’t want Wilhelm intruding.”

  “He never said…”

  “What happened to you made a change in Martin’s life, in more ways than having two boys around to raise. Help raise,” he added. My face must have asked for that distinction. “He’s done well by your sons, but I think he wishes you were more in their lives, even though he knows it must be hard for you to see them there with him. He wanted that education, but somehow he got caught up in your life with your boys too.”

  I hadn’t thought that Martin might have felt like a pawn of sorts, who’d had to decide, like me, whether to argue with the powers that were or make the best of it, hoping I would make the best of it too.

  And I had.

  It wasn’t the best arrangement for raising a family: brothers and sisters separated, the boys not living with their mother. But it was better than
when they’d lived with Jack, and it was probably better than our trying to homestead, the way Brita had, and bearing the consequences.

  “I didn’t think Martin felt I neglected the boys,” I said.

  “Oh, not neglect so much,” my father said. “He knows it must be painful to come by and then have to leave them behind. He understands. But they miss you. They do.”

  “I should make a greater effort,” I said.

  “Parents push beyond what is comfortable for themselves, in order to provide for their children. It’s what’s required,” my father said.

  “Ja, and my sons are a part of the Wagner and Heirs, and I don’t want them to forget that either.”

  I’d thought Wilhelm would go along on the band tour, since he’d composed several of their pieces, but Henry C conducted while Wilhelm supervised the building of the restaurant. The band members would have many stories to share when they returned, which was supposed to happen in September, so they’d have a few weeks to rest up before their scheduled return to the fair.

  I’d decided to put my newfound plan for more frequent visits to my sons into practice, so one day in late September, I made my way to the apothecary. Po trotted along behind Ida and me. Kate was at the Ehlens’, helping the girls, she’d told me. Po rubbed his nose at the back of my knees.

  I hoped to see Martin as well and ask him about his owning his own building. I could always use that as the reason I was there, if my sons appeared standoffish. I had to overcome those distances to stay in their lives, though I could see how disappearing could be easier than facing the uncertainty of what each new encounter might bring. I took a deep breath. I was doing a good thing, a mothering thing.

  I had Ida in hand. We found Andy playing the clarinet.

  “Are you rehearsing for the Pie and Beer Band?” He shook his head, with the instrument mouthpiece clamped between his teeth. “Well, maybe next year,” I said.

  He didn’t say anything, didn’t release the instrument.

  “Play something,” Ida said.