Centennial

by James A. Michener

  He was disappointed when all she did was strain off excess water and place the curds in a bag. “What happens next?” he asked.

  “Oh, tomorrow you can help me again. I crumble the curds and rub in this much soda, and we’ll put it in a crock. It’ll sour and smell and become runny. Then it’s ripe, so you set the crock in hot water till it’s warm again, and you stir in some salt and a little water with a squirt of vinegar in it.” She hefted the dripping bag onto a peg over the sink and said, “Tomorrow you can help me finish.”

  Tomorrow he would not be here.

  On Tuesday at three in the morning he helped load the Zendt wagons with the last batch of souse and scrapple and sausage he would make. He watched his four brothers drive off to town, and as soon as they were gone he went inside and kissed his mother goodbye. She guessed that he might be running away; his interest in cup cheese had been so unusual that she had tried to fathom why. She knew. She asked, “Where you goin’?” He replied with another kiss and went out to get his gun and his two horses. He also took the two belonging to Mahlon, plus whatever harness was needed.

  He drove the four horses down to the White Swan and hitched them to the Conestoga. He left Hell Street in darkness, driving over to Hollinger to pick up the two horses boarding there. “That’s a fine team of six,” the farmer said approvingly. “Almost looks as if you’d matched ’em.” As Levi harnessed them to the Conestoga, completing his team, the farmer asked, “You’re the Zendt boy. Ain’t they shunnin’ you?”

  “No more,” Levi said.

  By back roads he drove past Lancaster and out to the orphanage. Pulling up outside the gate and hitching his lead horse to a tree, he started toward the house, but remembered his valuable gun lying unprotected in the wagon. Grabbing it, he went inside and bellowed, “Elly! Elly Zahm! Come down here!”

  It was barely dawn but the work girl was up and busy at her chores. She appeared with her arms wet and her skirt tied behind her knees. Her scrawny face was red and her hair unkempt. As soon as she looked at Levi she knew that some powerful thing was afoot, and she was in no way perturbed when he said, “Get your things. We’re goin’ west.”

  It took her three seconds—one, two, three—to know that her destiny required her to join this man, and his gun and his wagon, and his waiting horses. She had no conception of what was being asked of her, but she knew that there could be no viable alternative. She dashed inside the orphanage and grabbed the few things that belonged to her.

  A girl shouted, “He’s taking Elly Zahm ... with a gun.”

  The mistress, not yet dressed, hurried to the front door in her gown, and with one glance, apprehended what was happening. “Elly!” she screamed. “Come back here.”

  “I am never coming back,” the thin girl said stubbornly.

  “That man’s a monster.”

  “I’m going,” Elly cried, clutching her good dress in her arms as she hurried toward the Conestoga.

  “Shall I fetch the police?” one of the girls shouted.

  “No!” the mistress snapped. “He’d kill us all. Let her go. She’s nothing but a whore. Just like her mother before her.”

  And that would have been the benediction with which Elly left the orphanage had not a tall, lively girl, blond and quite pretty, broken from the crowd of watchers, running to Elly and thrusting into her hand a small bag of carefully saved coins.

  “Laura Lou Booker,” the mistress screamed, “come back here! You’re as bad as she is!”

  Ignoring the command, the tall girl clasped Elly, kissing her fervently on the cheek. “You’re escaping for all of us,” she whispered, and when Elly tried to return the precious money, Laura Lou kissed her again, whispering, “Remember what we said. A wife must have a little money of her own.”

  Clutching the few dollars, Elly Zahm, sixteen years old, walked resolutely through the gates of the orphanage and climbed into the Conestoga. Levi Zendt, his Melchior Fordney rifle in his left hand, called to his six horses and headed out of Lancaster for the last time.

  It was only twelve miles to Columbia, where the famous bridge waited to lift them across the mighty Susquehanna, but because the six grays were new to the wagon and to each other, the going was slow. They did not reach the river till nightfall, and when they did the tollgate was closed. This required that they sleep on the eastern bank, and as the stars appeared, Elly faced the first crisis of her long trip west.

  “We cannot share the wagon till we’ve been married,” she said. “I’ll sleep under that tree.” Taking a blanket, she prepared to do so.

  This Levi would not permit, for he realized that as a gentleman he must allow her to have the wagon, but she had a practical mind and said, “You must guard the wagon. Our things are there.” And she slept beside the Susquehanna.

  In the morning Levi asked, “Would you like it if we found a preacher on the other side?”

  “Very much,” she said. “I want no bastards.”

  Levi hitched up the horses and got the Conestoga into line for the crossing. The man in the wagon ahead turned out to be a German on his way to Illinois, and as they waited he came back to talk with the runaways. “In our schoolbooks in Germany we had pictures of this bridge,” he said, pointing to the engineering marvel. “Longest bridge of its kind in the world.”

  Levi was impressed that so great a thing could have existed so close at hand without his having known of it. He told the man, “In Germany you have pictures of Lancaster, and in Lancaster we have pictures of Germany,” but Elly pointed out, “This isn’t Lancaster. It’s Columbia.”

  The fee to cross, for a wagon with six horses, was one dollar, which Elly thought excessive, but the German called back, “For two dollars such a bridge would be cheap.” And they entered upon the very long covered bridge, with its two separated tracks plus a third for persons walking their horses.

  When the heavy wagon reached the western end of the bridge Elly said, “The minister in that church ought to be up by now,” so at half past seven in the morning they rousted out Reverend Aspinwall, a Baptist minister, who said, “I couldn’t possibly marry you without knowing who you are. You’d have to show me a proper clearance from your church and then get a legal license at the courthouse in York.”

  “How far’s York?” Levi asked, and Reverend Aspinwall said, “Twelve miles,” and Levi said, “That’d take all day.” Elly began to cry, and when Aspinwall asked why, she told him, “Always they called me a bastard. I don’t know whether that’s right, because I had no parents. But my children won’t have that name.”

  “They mustn’t,” Aspinwall said. “Can’t you ride into York for your license?”

  “We cannot,” Levi said sternly.

  “No, I suppose not,” the minister said. He blew his nose and considered the matter. “Tell you what,” he said. “There is such a thing as marriage-in-common. You announce to the world that you’re going to live as man and wife, and if you have two witnesses ...”

  “Where would we get witnesses?” Elly asked.

  Reverend Aspinwall, looking at her unprepossessing face, doubted that she would ever again find a man who might want to marry her. If it were to be done, it had better be done now. Coughing, he said in a low voice, “Mrs. Aspinwall and I would be your witnesses.”

  He called his wife and said, “Mabel, these young people don’t begin to have their papers in order. But they must be married now.

  Mrs. Aspinwall stared at Elly’s middle and could see no visible evidence of need. How thin the girl is, she said to herself.

  “So I wondered if you and I could serve as witnesses to their intention?”

  “Certainly.” She took Elly’s hand and said, “A girl needs someone to stand with her, doesn’t she?”

  Taking a position in front of his desk and with no Bible, Reverend Aspinwall said, “In the eyes of man and in the presence of God these two young people ...” He stopped, looked at Levi and said, “I don’t believe I have your name.”

  “Lev
i Zendt.”

  Reverend Aspinwall gasped. “Aren’t you the young man who tried to ...” He could not force himself to say the word.

  “It did not happen that way,” Elly interrupted.

  “I heard all about it. The Stoltzfus girl. I know Peter Stoltzfus.”

  “It did not happen,” Elly said stubbornly.

  “How could you know whether it happened or not?” Reverend Aspinwall asked sternly. “Has he raped you, too. Is that why you ...”

  “I know it didn’t happen because I followed the sleigh,” Elly cried.

  “Why would you follow a sleigh? At night?”

  “Because I love him,” she said. “Because I’ve always loved him. Because he’s the only man in this world who has ever been nice to me.” She broke into tears.

  Mrs. Aspinwall tried to take the sobbing girl to her bosom, but Elly tore herself away and confronted the minister. “I saw the whole thing. She flirted with him something awful. She teased him about never going with girls. She was to blame. She did it all.”

  There was a moment of embarrassed silence, during which the minister blew his nose and his wife tried to comfort the girl. After coughing several times, Reverend Aspinwall resumed: “In the presence of God these two young people, Levi Zendt and Elly—your name, child?—Elly Zahm announce their intention to be husband and wife. In the presence of two witnesses, that is.” He coughed again, then dropped into his ministerial voice and prayed: “God, have tenderness toward these children. Cherish them. Help them, for they are going into territories they do not know. Keep them in Your love.”

  With that he raised his hands to indicate that the service, such as it was, had ended, but Elly asked, “Do we get a paper?”

  “Not from me,” Reverend Aspinwall said. “This isn’t a formal marriage, you know. And he’s outcast from his own church. I cannot lend it the appearance ...” He hesitated in embarrassment.

  “I can,” Mrs. Aspinwall said.

  She went to her husband’s desk and took a sheet of paper on which his name and the address of his church had been imprinted. On it she wrote in bold letters:

  On this day Levi Zendt and Elly Zahm appeared before my husband and me and in the sight of God Almighty announced their intention of living together as man and wife, in the state of Holy Matrimony.

  Witness

  Mabel Aspinwall

  February 14, 1843

  She handed the paper to her husband, indicating where he was to sign, and with visible reluctance he did so.

  “How much?” Elly asked.

  “No, no!” Aspinwall protested.

  “Here,” she said, handing him one of Laura Lou’s dollars. “It makes it more proper.” She folded the paper neatly, tucked it in her dress, and the trip west was begun. (See Map 06 – The Travels of Levi Zendt)

  The journey to York was spent in getting to know the horses. The two lead ones were Levi’s own, and they responded well to his directions. The two nearest the wagon were Mahlon’s, and Levi had a pretty good understanding of what they might do, but the two bought horses in the middle posed some problems, for they did not feel comfortable working behind the lead pair and showed their uneasiness at every turn in the road by pulling against the traces.

  Patiently Levi corrected their fractiousness, and at last he had the satisfaction of feeling them working together. “This is gonna be a great team,” he told Elly, who watched with pride as the six handsome grays moved stolidly forward, pulling the heavy wagon with no apparent strain.

  About halfway to York, Levi got his first jolt. A traveler coming eastward stopped to admire the horses and said with visible conviction, “Neighbor, if you’re plannin’ to go over them mountains ahead, I’d shed myself of that Conestoga and get me a smaller rig.” When Levi argued against this, the traveler said, “Hell, man, you ain’t usin’ half that wagon. You don’t need one that big and you’re just pullin’ dead weight. Ain’t fair to the horses.”

  This charge cut Levi, for if there was one thing he tried to be, it was considerate of his horses. He discussed the matter with Elly, and to his surprise she sided with the stranger. “It is half empty,” she said.

  “Day’ll come we’ll need it,” Levi said stubbornly.

  “You’re gonna kill your horses,” the stranger repeated, cracking his whip as he moved eastward to the Columbia bridge. When he was gone Levi mumbled, “You see his horses, Elly? They need rest and a good washin’-down, but he has time to lecture me.”

  Normally he would have ignored the man, but his growing apprehension was making him testy. He was now married, and come nightfall, somewhere west of York he and Elly would bed down in the Conestoga and their life as husband and wife would begin. Certainly he knew a good deal about horses; the two handsome beasts in the lead had been bred by him, using a large gray stallion owned by a Welsh farmer in Lampeter and one of the Zendt mares, but he knew little about women. The five Zendt brothers had never discussed such matters, and their mother would have perished rather than speak of husbands and wives. To the boys, their mother seemed a kind of machine devised for the preparation of food, and it was impossible to visualize her as their physical parent.

  Apart from the usual coarse humor of the barn and the market, more exciting than informative, Levi knew little except that this was his wedding day and that when night fell, wild and confusing things were due to happen. The day seemed unusually hot and he began to sweat.

  For her part, Elly knew a surprising mixture of facts about marriage, but not because she had been properly instructed at the orphanage. True, the good church ladies who supported the place insisted that the girls receive instruction in the three Rs, in which formal classes were held; but Elly’s more important instruction came because she had the good luck to be friends with that remarkable girl Laura Lou Booker. They made a formidable team, one fortifying the other. Laura Lou excelled in numbers and had a scientific curiosity, while Elly was more inclined toward literature, often seeing life as a fragment of some poem. Between them they asked questions, made prudent guesses.

  When an orphanage girl attained the age of thirteen years and nine months, a stern-visaged churchwoman met with her in private to advise her of two facts: she was now old enough to have a baby, and God would forever condemn her if she meddled with boys. The precise relationship of these two absolutes was not spelled out.

  It happened that Elly and Laura Lou received this information on the same day, and each listened respectfully in the darkened room, but when the instructor was gone, Laura Lou said, “She didn’t tell us much. I wonder if she knows?” It was quite clear to Laura Lou that her body had been fashioned for special purposes, and she proposed to ascertain what they were. She approached the matter as if it were a problem in mathematics, which she handled adroitly, and what she was unable to deduce from the meager information allowed her, she was intuitive enough to guess. Her solutions were not always accurate and she wound up with a somewhat confused understanding of the role of the male, but for a thirteen-year-old girl she did remarkably well. One night in the darkness she assured Elly, “Men can’t be much different from horses.”

  The wonderful thing about Laura Lou was her unflagging enthusiasm, her zeal for new experiences. She would study the various men who appeared at the orphanage and would evaluate them in long night sessions with Elly: “It would be heavenly to be married to that young minister. He’s clean and he listens and he eats with good manners and he knows how to laugh.” Of the carpenter she said, “I do not like thin men. He’s too nervous, Elly. He wants to watch us girls but he’s afraid to. I simply wouldn’t want to be married to him.” It was she who first pointed out the virtues of Levi Zendt, the butcher: “He’s very well built, Elly. Much like a good stallion, dependable and strong. He’s shy but he’s not crooked.”

  One night she said unexpectedly, “Elly! You’re in love with Levi Zendt! I saw it today.” They spent a good deal of time dissecting what a girl like Elly, an orphan with no prospects and less than
mediocre looks, would have to do to catch a man like one of the rich Zendts, and Laura Lou concluded, “I think men like to be loved. Just loved. Just tell them they are more to you than anything else in the world.”

  “How do you know that?” Elly asked, eager to keep the conversation going.

  “I just feel it,” Laura Lou said. “Anyway, when I find a man like Levi Zendt, I’m going to tell him I love him, because I don’t have any prospects, either. All I have is love.”

  “You’re pretty,” Elly said.

  “Pretty isn’t everything,” Laura Lou said, breaking into laughter. When Elly asked what caused this, she said, “Remember what they say about Mr. Zearfoss? He keeps his wife Edith for cooking and his sweetheart Becky for nice.” The two girls laughed at the most famous of the local adulterers, after which Laura Lou said solemnly, “If a man married you for cooking, Elly, and kept me on the side for nice, in the end he’d stay with you.”