Painted Vessels

by Gina Renee Freitag

  “You can tell me anything; we can figure it out together,” Jed assured him. He waited as the boy gathered his courage. Finally, Eli took in a deep breath and began to speak.

  GRACE

  Plump, feathery snowflakes drifted to the ground outside the Gardners’ dining room window. The pastor’s wife smiled as she gazed at the view. Grace loved wintertime. She loved snow, mittens, hats, and scarves. She loved crackling fires and hot drinks that fought off the cold December air. For Grace, winter made friendly gatherings even cozier. Tonight was no exception.

  Twice a month the Duncans, the Gardners, and their next-door neighbors, the Webers, shared supper together. They alternated hosting the meals between the three houses; this evening they were gathered at the Gardners’. Their small home was warm and comfortable. Grace was impressed by the inviting atmosphere, considering how little they owned and how simply they lived. When it was the Gardners’ turn to host, they moved their kitchen table to the dining room. They only had the one table, and it only had four chairs, so they also moved the two parlor chairs to the dining room. It was a snug fit and elbows occasionally bumped, but the young couple never appeared insecure by their shortage. Perhaps it was their contented attitude that contributed to the pleasing atmosphere.

  When the three families started to have meals together, Grace insisted they all bring food to share. She wanted those evenings to be focused on their time together, and she didn’t want the Gardners to feel the burden of having extra mouths to feed. But Grace was the first to admit that she greatly anticipated whatever dish Ada prepared. The young woman was an amazing cook! The food she made wasn’t showy; it was as simple as her home, and just like her home, Ada’s contribution seemed that much better because of it.

  Little Noah Weber was always a fun addition to the group. The young boy was well behaved, even though he was a ball of energy. Whenever supper was at the Gardners’ home, Eli set a wooden chest by the table and stacked it high with pillows, allowing Noah to sit with the adults. He was going to be four in a couple of months, but despite his age, the youngster politely sat with them and didn’t mind being the only child. After supper, Eli always managed to find a toy or two, and Noah entertained himself with them while the adults moved into the front room to visit around the fireplace. It was endearing that Eli had kept some of his childhood toys. They were well made and still in good condition.

  That evening, as the snow continued to fall, the three couples enjoyed a pleasant conversation around the supper table.

  “Oh, I just heard,” Grace informed the group. “Jacob Martin and Laura Taylor are now engaged.”

  “Really,” Ada exclaimed. “I’m so happy for them. I adore Laura; she’s such a sweet girl. I enjoy visiting with her on Sundays. She seems quite devoted to Jacob. Are their parents excited?”

  “They are—for the most part,” Grace said. “However, I think Edith Taylor wanted them to wait, but Laura is eighteen now.”

  “Why did Edith want them to wait?” Eli asked.

  “Well, long engagements can be difficult,” Grace explained. “And they can’t get married until Jacob saves a bit more money. He’s been working for his uncle at the mercantile, but I believe he just began working at the Miller farm on weekends as well.”

  “I didn’t know Mr. Johnson was Jacob’s uncle,” Ada said.

  “Jacob’s mother is Edgar Johnson’s sister,” Isaac replied.

  “Hasn’t Jacob been working for a few years?” Eli asked. “Why does he still need to save? I’m sure David has a few properties he could afford now. This house wasn’t much at all; he keeps his prices reasonable.”

  “I think Laura’s mother has greater hopes for her daughter,” Hannah said cautiously. Eli shook his head.

  “Well, I hope she doesn’t make them wait too long,” Ada said, glancing at her husband.

  Soon the friends moved their conversation to the front room, and as the conversation moved, so did the chairs. Once by the fire, Grace noticed a small display hutch that was new to the room. It sat against the wall adjacent to the fireplace and was only two feet wide and three shelves high. The doors didn’t have glass yet, but they were embellished along their top edges with an intricately carved design. Inside the hutch was a doll with a wooden head and hands. She wore a red dress edged with white lace. The doll was stunning! Grace would have loved to own a doll like that when she was younger. Hannah also noticed it and went immediately to the hutch.

  “Ada, is this your doll?” Hannah asked. “Oh, she is so beautiful! Can I pick her up?” Ada’s eyes darted toward Eli, and she smiled. She handed the doll to her neighbor, who couldn’t help but give its soft body a gentle hug. “You’ve taken such good care of her! My dolls were so dirty and scratched.”

  “She looks like you, Ada,” Grace observed.

  “She should,” Eli said. “I used Ada as a model when I carved it.”

  “You made this doll?” Grace asked.

  “I carved the head and the hands and feet,” he said humbly. “Ada made the body and the dress. It’s only a few years old, so it hasn’t been played with much.” The group looked at him with amazement. “Ada and I used to make toys and sell them at summer markets before we moved here,” he explained.

  “So, the other toys,” Hannah said, “the train and horse Noah is playing with, you made those also?”

  Eli nodded and glanced at the smirks on Marcus and Isaac’s faces. “I suppose you two are going to tease me now,” he said.

  Isaac put on an innocent expression and shook his head. “No, but I can think of a few men who might, so your secret is safe with us. We won’t tell anyone about your dolls. Right, Marcus?” The men chuckled as the same faces seemed to come into all of their minds at once. “Well,” Isaac continued, “your kids will have the best toys in town, that’s for sure.”

  Grace watched the smile on Ada’s face melt away.

  Eli glanced at his wife before responding. “Yeah…maybe so,” he said and then quickly added, “Ada has some hot chocolate warming on the stove. I don’t know about the rest of you, but that sounds really good to me right about now.”

  Noah, who had been playing quietly up to this point, clapped his hands in agreement. Eli grinned and scooped the boy into his arms. “I think you and I should have the first two cups. What do you say, little man?” He flew the boy through the air and into the kitchen, laughing playfully as the others followed close behind.

  ELI

  “Tend my crops…”

  Eli stretched out on his bed, using his interlaced hands as a pillow behind his neck. He was tired! The day had been full, beginning with an early morning spent in the garden. After working in the garden, he and Jed took a mid-day trip into Bradford and then spent the latter part of the day working on the interior of the young couple’s vardo. Now, as the evening came to an end, Eli and Ada shared a quiet moment of solitude in their new wagon home.

  As tired as he was, Eli enjoyed starting each day in the garden and never neglected it. Goldie’s father Levi had asked him to look after it while he and Bea were away. Before leaving with the rest of the merchants in May, the quiet-spoken man had instructed him on the best way to care for the plants, and Eli didn’t want to let him down. After weeding, he would gather water from Badger Creek and irrigate the entire garden before the sun reached its zenith. It took three hours every morning to weed and water, but the garden was important. The vegetables would be canned in the fall and used all winter to help feed the caravan.

  Whenever he watered, he always gave each fruit tree an additional bucket or two. Bea said if they were given extra water, the fruit would be larger and juicier. He didn’t know if that was true or not, but he wasn’t going to chance messing up the crop’s yield. After giving the nicest fruit to Mrs. Perry in the fall, the women would make the rest into preserves, which would then be canned—half for the markets and half for the caravan’s personal stock.

  It was early August, and Eli had already grown four inches since la
st summer. The exercise from working in the garden and carrying heavy buckets of water had built up the muscles in his shoulders and back. He and Ada had been underweight when they first joined the caravan, but after a year of eating regular meals, playing hard, and working hard, they had filled out and gained a healthy glow. Now at seventeen, Eli looked more like a man and less like a boy. Ada, however, had only grown half an inch, and he couldn’t help teasing her a bit.

  He was glad they had stayed in the West Woods over the summer, but even Jed and Rosa commented on how lonely it was without the others. He didn’t know how Levi and Bea could stand to be by themselves during those months. As close as Eli had grown to Jed and Rosa, he missed the rest of the caravan and looked forward to their return.

  He was excited to show everyone the progress on his vardo. Their wagon home was almost finished, and the young couple had moved into it the week before. All that was left were some final touches, such as cupboard doors, cushions, and a woodstove before winter. The tent Floyd had made was dismantled and placed in the storage shed. The oilcloth had held up well in the winter cold and summer heat; it still had some life left in it and was worth keeping.

  At the end of March, two months before the others had left for the markets, Jed and Tony gave Eli a set of carving tools for his birthday. He had never owned his own tools before and treasured them greatly. Normally, Jed took Eli into Bradford each week. They had a standing appointment in town, but they also used the time to buy supplies for the rest of the caravan. One day, however, Jed insisted on taking Tony with him instead. That was the day they had purchased the set. The gift was from everyone, of course, but Eli couldn’t help thinking of the tools as being mostly from the two men who had picked them out.

  Eli looked forward to showing Tony the merchandise he had been making. He had carved some toys, doll heads, and wooden spoons with decorative handles. He had also started shaping some strips of wooden trim that he planned to use as embellishment in the vardo. Tony would be pleased to see how much he was enjoying the craft. Eli was improving every day and hoped to eventually carve some pen handles and maybe some beads for Hattie, but those items were small and might be difficult.

  Over the summer, Eli practiced playing Jed’s guitar when he wasn’t carving, taking care of the garden, or working on his vardo. He wanted to play for the group on Sunday mornings, but first he would need to buy his own instrument. Mrs. Perry took a liking to Eli and offered to pay him for a few extra jobs throughout the year. He used a majority of that money to pay Jed back for the vardo lumber, but he also put some aside for a guitar.

  The past year had been a full time for both Eli and Ada—full of deepening relationships, acquired knowledge, security, and healing. But most importantly, the year had been full of God in the midst of it all. Eli viewed the lessons gained as the groundwork for a future God had long been planning, and he looked forward to finding out what that future held. The hardest trials, the darkest days, were now behind them. At least, he hoped they were.

  Eli leaned back in bed and looked around at their homey vardo. Ada was working on a length of lace; her fingers skillfully flipped the bobbins over and under each other in the dim lantern light. Eli turned his attention to Ada and watched her work. Earlier that day, he had thought of a question while he and Jed were in Bradford, and he needed to know her answer.

  “Ada,” he said after a few minutes. Her fingers paused as she looked up from her project. “Would you go with me anywhere, even if it meant leaving the caravan?”

  “Are you thinking of leaving?” she asked, mildly surprised.

  “No, not right now. Maybe someday, though. I think God is calling me to do something. I don’t know what it is yet, but I think it might take us away from here.”

  “Of course, I’ll go with you. Why wouldn’t I?” she asked.

  “Because you’re happy here,” he said.

  “I am happy here,” she agreed. “But I’m happy here with you, not without you.” She tied off the lace and set it aside. “When you decide to go, I’ll go with you. If you’re supposed to do something, then so am I.”

  He smiled at her as she snuffed out the lantern. He had been feeling restless, but her answer calmed him. He put his arm around her in the dark.

  “Don’t worry,” he reassured her. “Jed and I just finished this vardo. I won’t take you away anytime soon.”

  ADA

  This October was colder than last year’s. Even though the church had a large woodstove, Ada leaned closer to Eli for warmth as Marcus gave his sermon. It was hard to believe they had been living in East Haven for over a year now. While several townsfolk still displayed a subtle disapproval of them, the young couple had been able to form a few close friendships. It gave Ada hope that this town might feel like home someday. Naturally, her heart was with the caravan; they would always be her family. But as time went on, she was growing fonder of her East Haven friends.

  The Gardners continued to have supper with the Duncans and the Webers once a month. In addition to spending time with those friends, Eli never missed a Friday lunch with David. He still worked for Ray Larson, who respected Eli as much as Eli respected him. As for Ada, she often sat with Evelyn and listened to her neighbor read the latest letter from her son. He had finally written to her, and their correspondence was regular. Mother and son were getting to know each other better than they ever had when he lived at home.

  Ada also felt a strong affection for Laura Taylor, especially considering the trials Laura and her fiancé Jacob were now facing. The past three months had been filled with misfortune, and Ada’s heart wept for what they would still have to endure. But this morning Laura looked happier than she had in a while, and Ada prayed for a chance to talk with her, away from Edith Taylor’s ever-listening ears.

  Last April, four months after their engagement in December, Jacob and Laura had finally set a date for their wedding. The joyous event would take place in just over a year, on the first of May. It was a long time to wait, but after calculating how much Jacob could save in that year, all those involved in the decision agreed that he would have enough money to provide Laura with a respectable lifestyle by May. The main decision maker, of course, was Edith. When Laura cried at her mother’s final word on the subject, Edith pointed out that a year was a much shorter time than she had anticipated.

  Ada liked the day they chose for two reasons: spring was a beautiful time for a wedding, with flowers beginning to bloom, and the first of May happened to be her birthday. On the following May Day, if all went as planned, Laura and Jacob would be getting married and Ada would be turning twenty-three.

  But all didn’t go as planned, and three months ago, Jacob fell from the hayloft of John Miller’s barn, breaking his leg in several places. The men tried to set Jacob’s leg, and John drove him to White Falls where a doctor could tend to his injury. It was a sticky summer day, and the two-hour journey in a jostling wagon must have been agonizing!

  Once in White Falls, the doctor reset his leg and stabilized it in a splint. Because of the severity of the fractures, he recommended Jacob stay in town for at least three weeks while he observed how his bones were healing. After only one week, Jacob’s foot turned a dreadful color, and the doctor had to remove it just above the ankle. Four weeks later, Jacob was finally sent home to finish healing and learn how to live with only one foot.

  The wedding was postponed for an undetermined amount of time, and Jacob fell into a depression. He tried to convince Laura not to marry him, but she refused to leave him. Together, they began to rethink their former plans in a way that better fit his altered state. Under the best circumstances, they might be able to get married in two years, but much would depend on the type of work Jacob could do after he healed. The entire situation was hard on them, and they both lost some of their youthful spunk. Today, however, Laura looked better and Ada couldn’t wait to talk to her.

  After the service, Laura stood near her mother, who was visiting with Agnes Miller. When she
saw Ada walking toward her, she stepped a few paces away from the women so they could talk privately. She grasped Ada’s hand and smiled.

  “You’ll never guess!” she said in a barely controlled whisper. “Jacob has been given some money! It will pay for our wedding and should be enough to cover a few living expenses until he can return to work at the mercantile. We can still get married in May!”

  “Laura, that’s wonderful!” Ada said, scarcely able to contain her joy for the girl. “I thought you looked happy this morning.”

  “It’s such a generous blessing!” Laura continued with a beam. “Jacob is convinced that John Miller gave it to him. He thinks Mr. Miller feels bad because the accident happened on his land, but I think Mr. Miller is too heartless to make such a grand gesture! I believe it was Mr. Johnson; he is family, after all. And he said Jacob could always have his job at the mercantile. He promised to pay Jacob the same, even if he has to work at a slower pace.”

  “Well, that is a kind offer,” Ada agreed. “Mr. Johnson must recognize what a hard worker Jacob has always been.” As Laura nodded, her mother grabbed her elbow, demanding the girl’s attention.

  “This is not an appropriate topic to discuss in public,” Edith insisted with a low voice. “Mrs. Martin is looking for you; don’t keep your future mother-in-law waiting.” Laura turned back to Ada and rolled her eyes.

  “Congratulations, Laura,” Ada said. “I can’t wait for your wedding.”

  “Thank you!” she replied, giving Ada a quick hug before leaving to find Mrs. Martin.

  “Ada, I was hoping to have a word with you,” Edith said, peering down her nose. Edith Taylor rarely sought Ada out for anything. The woman’s eyes were cold as she continued to speak. “My daughter is now attached to a man who will never be able to completely provide for her. You, of all people, can appreciate the situation she finds herself in. From this point on, all their decisions will be based on what the cost will be. I hope you realize not everyone will receive an invitation to the wedding.”