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

  “He needs an…elevating purpose,” Helena announced. She placed her needle into the batting. The movement caused the scissors at her waist to clink against the quilting frame. She stared out into the room. “Pipes and music will not do it. Something to engage his mind so he is not thinking of his loss so much, that’s what he needs. A task to remind him of God’s faithfulness despite the darkness of the days he experiences now.” She inhaled as though to orate: “I remember after I made my decision not to marry, I needed such an elevating project.”

  Her supposed fiancé had been a bridge builder. I thought to say something about a bridge being elevating but bit my tongue instead.

  “We should begin the church. That’s exactly what we need now. I’ve thought that for a very long time.”

  “Perhaps we should telegraph them,” Louisa said. “The Bethelites. There’s a way to do that now.”

  “Better we get the Giesys and Stauffers to all come from Willapa,” Helena said. “They can help us. My brother John can be here within days from Willapa, instead of the months it would take Missourians to get here. Surely they will listen now to our needs, with Father Keil so mournful and without Emma there to restrain them from doing what should have been done long ago. Oh!” She touched her hand to her mouth, as though suddenly aware that I sat before her. She’d spoken out of habit. She dropped her eyes.

  “Ja, I was so powerful, I could keep all the Giesys up there against their will,” I said. “Ach!” I’d poked the needle into my finger. Kate looked up at me, a question in her eyes. “I’m fine,” I said. To the others I said, “I didn’t keep Adam Schuele there. Or Karl Ruge. Or even Martin. They’re all here now.”

  “Ja, we don’t talk so much about Adam,” Louisa said.

  “I didn’t mean, well, I guess I did mean it,” Helena said. She clasped her hands in her lap. “None of them listened to me or Father Keil when we were there for Christian’s burial. That would have been the right time to make the necessary change, and Father Keil was hopeful of that, or he wouldn’t have made such a lengthy trip.”

  “He would have,” Louisa said. “He loved Christian like a son.”

  “But they hung on,” Helena continued. “Martin even said it was in part because of you, Emma. They didn’t want to abandon what you and Christian had so wanted and worked for. Even my mother stays there in part because of you.”

  “Not because of me,” I protested. “She and Andreas took my son and came here, remember? And Adam Knight left, and so did Adam Schuele. They went all the way back to Bethel. I didn’t hold them there against their will.”

  “Will you never let my mother forget that? My parents meant no harm in bringing Andy here,” Helena said. To my mother she said, “Did she tell you that my parents kidnapped her son? Goodness, it was such an affair. They were trying to help, give Emma room to take care of her other children.” Back to me, she said, “You were with child again, after all, waiting for young Christian to be born and had your hands full. It would have been a better thing for him to have lived with them.”

  “Well, your mother has your sister to look after her and your brothers,” I said. “There’s no reason for her to come here.” I felt my fingers begin to rub against each other; I took a breath, felt calmer.

  “Ja, aber,” Helena protested, “we need to be all together now, as the disciples in the book of The Acts: ‘They were all with one accord in one place.’ My brother John could handle finances. Just until Father Keil is restored,” she hastened to tell Louisa. “The Stauffers would help at the mill—”

  “My Jonathan is doing a good job taking care of finances,” my mother said.

  “Perhaps Emma’s being here will make it easier for the Giesys to come now,” Louisa said. “You could be right, Helena.”

  “They haven’t come yet,” I reminded her. “I’ve been here more than a year. If I were so busy holding them hostage, why wouldn’t they have come if they’d wanted to?”

  “People sometimes don’t notice that their shackles have been removed,” Helena said, “until someone else points it out to them.” She picked up her needle. “I’ll point out to them how much better we fare here.”

  I didn’t comment. At Willapa everyone had a single-family home, not like here where we crowded together like piglets in a piggery, where maybe that had caused the Keil deaths.

  “You should ask them to come, Emma. Now is the time.”

  “It would be my good fortune that only Jack would listen.”

  “That wouldn’t be good,” Louisa agreed.

  We worked together in the quiet then, me piecing my red wool blocks into a quilt pattern that put the blocks on edge, as though the squares were diamonds. It was a unique design, one that had come from my imagination as I was thinking of the Diamond Rule. My sister Lou had commented on how pretty it was. Kitty had said it reminded her of a symbol on a deck of cards, at which Helena had gasped. The point took extra doing to get to a sharp edge, but I found that the concentration required to make that perfect edge took away some of the irritation of the conversation.

  “Let’s invite Sebastian, then,” Louisa said. “He and Mary and the girls. Sebastian helped construct the mill there, didn’t he? He’s a good hand with a hammer, and that’s what we need now. Good hammer hands.”

  I swallowed hard. No. Mary and Sebastian were our old neighbors, and I suspected that Jack lived with them once again. Their exodus could spur Jack to come back here with them. I took another stitch at that red square edge. I poked my finger with my needle and sighed. Only my own spittle would get rid of the stain.

  An Open Door

  March 26, 1863. My birthday! Christian would have brought me an oyster shell or maybe some small treasure of tin. Instead, I will bake myself a pudding using carrots in place of eggs, well boiled and mashed and sent through the sieve. It tasted good in January when the hens stopped laying. Lighter than any egg pudding I’ve made.

  In March, we traveled by wagon to Salem for the reopening of Durbin Livery Stable. My parents didn’t go. They’d been staying with Adam Schuele, my father’s old friend, and attending events far away proved too much trouble, my mother said. Jonathan took their wagon and my children. I rode or walked along when my Hinterviertel, my backside, became tired. In the distance, we could see tall poles being set for the telegraph wires that would come right through Aurora. “We won’t have to go to Portland to communicate with Bethel now,” Jonathan noted. He appeared quite pleased with Aurora’s continued entry into the wider world, with no worry over the prospect of the outside contamination that had once brought us west.

  Andy acted glum during the entire trip. He poked at Christian’s shoulder with his fist, not so hard he hurt him but enough to annoy his younger brother, who’d whine so I’d turn around. I pointed my first finger at him and scowled.

  “Stop it now! This is a fine outing your uncle is taking us on, and we don’t need to be upsetting his ears with your antics.”

  “He hits me, Mama,” Christian complained.

  “Andy…,” I warned. “You mustn’t hit the boy.”

  “He took my cap and stuffed it in the straw,” Andy charged.

  “Christian…?”

  “He poked me.”

  “Andrew Jackson Giesy, you are older. You are wiser. You cease. This instant.”

  “Or you’ll what?” He set his jaw in defiance. I could feel heat come to my face, and my palm opened as though against my will. I swung back to strike his cheek, but then Andy mimicked me: “Mustn’t hit the boy.”

  I stopped myself, my arm in midair, turned around, clasped my hands in my lap. What have I almost done?

  “They raise your dander, Sister,” Kitty said. “Just being boys, ja?”

  “Naughty boys,” I said.

  “They’re bored. It’s a long trip,” Jonathan noted. “You don’t spend much time with them, I notice. They are always with Martin.”

  I felt my face burn. “I’m busy doing,” I said.

  “Some
might say you should be doing with your boys,” Jonathan said.

  “Do you say that?”

  “I’m just supposing.”

  “Today they should appreciate the outing. They have much to be grateful for, and they fail to notice it.”

  “Children are students of their parents,” he said.

  “What are you saying?”

  Jonathan shrugged his wide shoulders. “I don’t hear you saying so much about all your blessings, Sister. Maybe all they hear of is the disappointments. It’s what they remember, then.”

  “I’ve had my share,” I said.

  “Ja, you can be right about your past, Sister, but hanging your hat back there only lets sun burn your face today. I don’t see you tap your feet to the band music here. You don’t dance anymore. Have you made little wooden shelves, like you once did? You must be a good steward of your trials, as well as of your gifts.”

  “I’d never considered the tithing of my trials,” I said. “Who would want ten percent of misery given to them?”

  “You tithe the lessons learned from suffering,” he said.

  “My brother the philosopher,” I scoffed.

  “Happiness doesn’t appear to have been invited to Emma Wagner Giesy’s house,” my sister sang out.

  “Emma Wagner Giesy doesn’t have a house,” I sang back, off-key, of course.

  We rode without speaking, my attention now on Ida, sitting quietly beside me. Kate daydreamed out the wagon back. She looked to the past too, it appeared, her eyes always on the distance. The boys still bickered, but I heard no more howls. Kitty began teaching Kate a round. When was the last time I danced? When was the last time I wanted to sing? I remembered Sarah Woodard of Willapa talking about her Indian friends, the healing ones. They asked these questions of ill people, to assess how far they had fallen from doing things that pleased them and brought them healing. Singing and dancing, working with wood, and painting brought me comfort, but I wasn’t doing them. I quilted, yes, but less because I found solace in the act and more to get the quilt top done. Was that what my sons saw in my life, a working woman, tending her children, avoiding one husband, grieving another, pursuing her parents, but always working? I turned to look at them. The boys and Kate were old enough to witness some of my struggles. Was Jonathan saying I needed to share more of my joys as well?

  I couldn’t even name a present joy. Perhaps that was the heart of the problem, the place where I needed to begin.

  “I love spring,” I said to no one in particular. Then to the boys and Kate, I said, “See the buds on the trees? They’re different trees from those we had in Willapa. Not such big firs or cedars here. Remember when we used to play that game of how hungry we were, telling each other what we’d eat?” Kate shook her head. “It was when we walked Andy home from school. You, dear Kate, were hungry enough to eat everything in our house,” I reminded her. “And, Andy, didn’t you want to eat the tree?”

  “I don’t remember,” he said. He’d stopped punching Christian. “You ate the tree,” he said then. “So you’d have toothpicks in your mouth when you were finished.”

  “That’s right. You’ve such a good memory.”

  “I ate the cow. And Kate said we could wash everything down with the river.”

  “See, you remember it all.” It pleased me that he recalled a difficult time that we’d converted into something fun. “I like that.”

  “What did I want to eat?” Christian asked.

  “You were so small you did somersaults, or tried to. And by the time we’d eaten everything in sight, we were home.”

  “That was before Big Jack,” Andy said.

  “Ja. It was before him. Just like now, though. We’re going to a new place to have a good time for the day. Your uncle drives the wagon; we have food packed to serve people, so we won’t need to eat fence rails,” I added. “And we will see Brita and her family again—I’m sure of it. When we come home, you’ll have aunties to entertain you. It’s a grand day. One to remember.”

  “And the sun shines,” Kate said.

  “So it does.”

  “So we can wash down whatever we eat with spring water instead of a river, right, Mama?”

  I smiled at her. She began singing Kitty’s round. This happy thinking could be catching.

  I had never seen the old Durbin Livery Stable in Salem, but the new one was grand. Horses grazed on the short spring greens behind the planed wood building. Two of them stood with their heads over each other’s necks, as though chattering. Several more nickered over the half doors of their stalls, which had been newly whitewashed. The horses liked all the activity of men and women arriving, their liquid eyes following the women dressed in their finery. Sometimes one whinnied low when a woman stopped to pat her gloved hand at a soft nose. The parasols didn’t frighten these animals, a sign they were trained to be with happy, dancing people.

  To celebrate their rebuilding after the fire, the Durbin brothers had organized a cotillion party. Tickets were four dollars for the dinner, but Jonathan had managed to get several gift tickets since the colony band was to play. Brother Keil had come out of his cave to sit at one of the tables. Louisa had remained behind, feeling a bit under the weather, or so she’d said. Sometimes I suspected she liked it when she had time to herself in that big house she had to share with us all.

  We colony women had been asked to prepare cold foods—fried chicken, carrot loaves, dandelion salad, and jars of pickled cherries and tomato figs—and baskets of doughnuts and breads made with our hops and potato yeast.

  I watched to see if Jonathan danced and which woman he might choose. My brother had shown no interest in any woman that I could see. I wondered if he’d left a sweetheart at Bethel. He kept his nose to the ledger books, as I kept mine to my children and work.

  Today I looked forward to seeing Brita. She’d been here to help rebuild after the fire so maybe that gave her a chance to put memories of the circus fire behind her for good. Something about her perseverance inspired, and I’d missed that once she left. I hoped she’d put her homestead plan into action too. My father hadn’t said a word about the Homestead Act, and my mother told me he didn’t really intend to use it. “He wants to purchase a place with a dwelling already on it,” she said. “Most of those places have better land than what’s left for the Homestead Act.” I wasn’t being included in the search. I pitched that loss away. Today, as Jonathan had encouraged me to do, I’d be grateful for what was.

  Helena served the table where Brother Keil sat with some dignitaries. People raised happy eyes to me as I brought steaming platters and cold dishes. Here I could eavesdrop without appearing like a gossip. And we didn’t need to wear our bonnets here. We’d donned straw hats we’d made ourselves, so our faces were open to receive their kind smiles.

  “Oh, you’ll like these pickled cherries,” I told one frowning man, who said he’d never heard of such a thing. “The cloves and cinnamon and vinegar combined will pucker up your lips so quick, you’ll collect a friendly kiss from your sweetheart there, ja?” I nodded to the woman seated beside him, who fanned her blushing face at my words, while those at the table laughed with good humor, then dove into the cherries. They nodded assent and pointed with their fingers for more as their mouths puckered.

  When we’d finished our serving, we stood at the edges and watched the dancing. People loved to dance in this Oregon State, and the swoosh of their dresses brought back good memories of Missouri, when even young girls learned the Schottische, that slow waltz, by standing on their fathers’ shoes to be “best girl” for the dance. It was how my father had taught me. How I wished Christian and my father could have been here to teach Kate.

  I made sure not to make eye contact with any of the men standing loosely at the edge. They’d be bachelors, and it would not be good for them to think I was available, though I stood with the single women. As I watched the dancers move around the smoothed plank floor, I realized I did miss dancing with a man. But couple dancing was a
thing of my past. Maybe after everyone had eaten, Kitty and I could swing around the floor, for the women often coupled up while men smoked their pipes. Fewer men than women attended in any case, a reminder again that our states were at war and young Oregon men were off training for battle.

  “Would you care to dance?” It was the voice of a stranger, a man not much taller than I, but well formed.

  “I don’t much,” I said.

  “Oh, go,” Kitty told me. She pushed at my elbow. “It’s only a dance. I’ll watch the girls.”

  Wasn’t this what Jonathan urged me to do, participate more, just enjoy?

  So I did. He was a jockey, he said, who rode horses in races when he wasn’t working on nearby farms. When asked, I told him I was a mother, a cook, and a wife.

  “Your husband’s at war?” he asked.

  “Nein.” It was all that I said. He nodded politely at the dance’s end, bowed at his waist, then turned to leave. I complimented myself on experiencing a moment of joy, until I met a glare sizzling across the dance floor from the eyes of Brother Keil.

  I hadn’t seen Brita anywhere among the crowd. While others danced, I took Ida by the hand to wander by the stables. Kate and the boys were being watched by Jonathan and my sister. A breeze brought the unmistakable scent of horses to my nose, and Ida said, “Horses?” I nodded yes. Brita had been hired to work the stalls, and it was there, far from the dancing, that I found her.

  I crouched to her height, and we held each other for just a moment, our shawls wrapped loosely at our shoulders. Pearl sat playing on a blanket in an empty stall, and Brita took her toddler’s hand as we walked and talked. Ida held my hand too and attempted to skip, her dark curls bouncing. Men sauntered outside to smoke their cigars, while in the distance women fanned themselves, warm from their dancing exertions.

  “I’d show you our quarters,” Brita said, “but they’ve stacked ice blocks there right now, to have them closer for the party. Once this is over, my life goes back to normal.”