Both Frank and Adam watched him, expecting him to accept the offer, but the affirmation froze on his lips. This was what he’d wanted for his career—a viable position with the promise of promotion. And now Frank was offering him an opportunity for security and success. His worries about money would be over. As president of Second National, he would be able to provide for his daughter for the rest of her life.
But in order to take this position, he would have to move back to Chicago with Cassie—but he didn’t want to raise his daughter here, now that he knew a place like Homestead existed. The Amana people rallied around and supported each other. That was the kind of place he wanted to raise Cassie. A place where people loved God and expressed their love for God by caring for each other. He didn’t want Cassie to just have a nice home; he wanted her to have a heritage.
If he could find a way to stay, the Amana Colonies would give her a stability he could never buy. He and Cassie were both healing there, and his daughter was thriving.
He lowered his eyes. In his mind he saw the pristine blue of Liesel’s eyes, and he could almost feel the touch of her hand in his. She would never move to Chicago, and he—he couldn’t move back here without her. He didn’t want to move anywhere without her.
He blinked and sat tall in his chair. “Thank you for the offer, Mr. Powell, but Chicago is no longer home for me.”
Frank stared at him in disbelief. “I’m offering you my bank, Jacob.”
President of Second National Building and Loan. The title echoed in his mind as he contemplated the offer one last time, an offer he would never receive again. His grandfather would have been proud that Jacob was almost to the finish line.
“I’m honored that you would trust me with this responsibility, and a few months ago I wouldn’t have hesitated to accept this position—but much has changed since I left Chicago.”
“You’re turning down my offer.”
Jacob nodded. “I am.”
Frank cocked his head. “Who is she?”
“What?”
“There must be a girl in Iowa.”
Adam was beside him, listening to his words, but Jacob was tired of pretending. “My daughter is in Iowa…and so is a woman I’ve come to love.”
“Aah…” Frank sighed. “I can’t argue with love, no matter how fleeting.”
“This isn’t fleeting, sir.”
Unlocking the box again, Frank opened the lid and counted out three hundred dollars before handing the money across the desk. “You are still entitled to the reward money.”
Jacob tucked his hands behind him. “I can’t take it.”
“For heaven’s sake, Jacob, you don’t have to use it for yourself. Use it to buy something…for both of your girls.”
With God’s help, he’d resisted taking the money in the cab, but three hundred dollars would give him the freedom to stay near the Amanas for the winter and perhaps longer. He glanced over at Adam, but the man didn’t say anything.
“There is more than enough here to give Caldwell and the others what I owe them,” Frank said.
So Jacob took the money—more money than he’d ever pocketed before—and stood up.
“I wish you’d reconsider my other offer.”
He slowly smiled. “I’m sorry, Mr. Powell, but I’ve got to go home.”
“The basement of Schmidt’s Kitchen is flooding,” Emil blurted from the doorway. Liesel looked out at the rain pounding the streaked window. It had hammered them relentlessly during the past twenty-four hours.
Albert flung off the comforter. “We’ve got to go help.”
Liesel picked the bedspread off the floor and put it back over him. “You’re not going anywhere, Vater.”
Her father pushed away the comforter a second time and slid his feet off the bed onto the wood floor, but when he tried to stand, he stumbled again. Emil rushed forward and caught him before he hit the floor.
Her father tried to stand again, but he was too weak.
She patted the quilt softly. “Come back to the bed.”
He tried to resist, but he was too weak to walk on his own. Emil helped him ease back onto the bed. Still, her father refused to lie back against the pillow. “They will need every hand to get the water out of the basement.”
“There are already a dozen men bailing out Schmidt’s,” Emil said. “We need to get you upstairs.”
Liesel glanced around the room. “The water won’t come in here…will it?”
“No one knows.”
“I’ll be fine,” her father insisted, but Emil didn’t listen to him and neither did she. Leaning over, Emil pulled her father up off the bed, and she ducked under her father’s other arm. Her father protested as they walked toward the steps, but he didn’t struggle against them. If he did, he would fall back to the floor.
A door opened above them, and Wendel Faber, the town butcher, rushed down the stairs. He stopped in front of Emil. “Do you need help?”
“Of course not,” Albert said, but the butcher ignored him, waiting for an answer from Emil instead.
“We can help him,” Emil said. “They need you over at Schmidt’s.”
The man nodded and jogged down the rest of the steps.
Albert groaned. “They need me at Schmidt’s too.”
She squeezed her father’s hand. “You’ll be better in no time, and you can go help next time you’re needed.”
They escorted Albert to a guest room at the far end of the hall, and Emil helped him settle into the bed.
Her father pushed his glasses back up his nose and patted Emil’s arm. “You’re a good son-in-law.”
Liesel’s head lurched up, wanting to scold her father. Emil avoided her gaze. “I’m not your son-in-law, sir.”
“Ja, but you will be soon, and that will make me a happy man.”
Liesel stood frozen by the bed, trying to ignore the contented smile on her father’s face along with the silence that pervaded the room. How was she supposed to end her engagement with Emil while her father egged him on?
Emil flashed an apologetic smile at her. “You are already a happy man, Albert.”
“Doch,” he replied with a wave of his hand. “I will be much happier when Liesel marries you.”
“Vater!”
“She will be much happier too.”
It seemed as if someone had sucked the air from the room, and she felt like she might faint. Emil’s plastered smile looked like it was about to crack as well.
“Your daughter doesn’t need me to be happy.”
Albert grumped at him, and Liesel needed to do something…say something. At that moment, she wanted to remind her father that she couldn’t marry Emil—but looking into his tired face, she knew she should wait until his strength returned.
She wiped her sleeve over her forehead. No matter what happened, she couldn’t marry a man she didn’t love, not even for her father.
Footsteps pounded down the hallway, and Wendel Faber stuck his head through the doorway. “We need you, Emil.”
Emil backed toward the door. “I’m coming.”
Through the window, Liesel watched Emil and Wendel wade through the rising water. And she prayed that God would have mercy on their town.
In order for a soul to find its origin in the true place of peace and rest, a pure-intentioned heart is required.
Christian Metz, 1834
Chapter Thirty-Two
Jacob clamped his hand over his jacket pocket as Adam and he elbowed their way through the crowded street. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d carried so much money—money he was entitled to spend. “Can we catch the train tonight?”
Adam tugged on his watch chain to check the time. “We’re too late,” he said, tucking the watch back into his pocket. “But the Rock Island leaves at six in the morning.”
Jacob was tempted to jump on another freight train instead.
“We’ll be back in Homestead tomorrow afternoon,” Adam replied.
Jacob’s heart leaped
at the thought of seeing Cassie and Liesel. He would be back in the Amanas with the women he loved, and he didn’t want to leave again. Ever.
Michael said it took years for someone new to be accepted into the Amana Society, but he had years. He wouldn’t expect the Amana people to care for him. He embraced their work ethic. Their faith. If they let him stay, he would work hard to contribute to their Society and earn his keep.
Someone bumped into Jacob, knocking him off the curb. He didn’t see the horse behind him, but Adam reached for him, grabbing his elbow to pull him back up as the animal passed inches from him. He took a deep breath of relief before he thanked the man.
As they waited to cross Monroe Street Adam fiddled with his pocket watch, and Jacob knew the man was just as anxious to get back to Homestead as he was. Adam didn’t have to come to Chicago with him, yet he came willingly to help Jacob clear his name. Unlike many of the leaders in the world, who were intent on serving their own needs, the Amana leadership served their community. They didn’t hoard money for themselves or build larger homes or buy finer horses. Instead of seeking power, they sought after God.
He crossed the street beside Adam, but on the other side of the street, a display window caught his attention and he stopped in front of it. Necklaces and bracelets glittered in the sunlight, and a braided silver ring with diamonds lay swathed in blue velvet.
His fingers rapped on the glass, and he knew exactly what he was supposed to do with a portion of the reward money.
When he started for the door, Adam stopped him. “What do you need in here, my friend?”
“I just want to look.”
“Jacob.” Adam reached for his shoulder, his eyes sad. “You can’t marry her.”
A horse stopped in a puddle beside them and sent mud flying across their clothes.
“Liesel is a fragile girl, Jacob. You will break her heart.”
“I would never do anything to hurt her.”
“Perhaps not intentionally.” Adam hesitated. “Mr. Powell offered you a good opportunity with the bank.”
“I can’t move back to Chicago. Not without Liesel.”
Fear flickered through Adam’s eyes. “One of the women could bring Cassandra back to Chicago tomorrow.”
“You don’t want me to return to Homestead?”
“I don’t want you to take Liesel away from us.”
Jacob met the man’s intense stare. “I’m not going to take her away.”
Sweat poured off Frank’s forehead as he climbed the steps in the tenement building. The stairwell smelled like sewage and rotten meat, and the banister was coated with black coal dust. He wanted to turn around and ride back to the refined walls of his bank, but before he could plan for the future of Second National, he needed to mend what he could from the past.
At the top of the steps, he unbuttoned his collar and fanned himself with the envelope in his hand before he knocked on the door marked EIGHT. A small child with a sagging diaper and a crusted nose peeked out from behind it. The child’s chest was bare, and in this heat, Frank was tempted to shed his own vest and shirt as well.
“Is your father home?” Frank asked. The child scurried away, leaving him to swelter in the hallway.
A full minute passed, during which Frank felt like he might dissolve onto the dirty floor, when the door opened a bit wider. He hardly recognized his former customer and friend. Stanley Roberts’s cheeks had sunk into his bones, and his clothing hung off his body like a ragged doll.
“What do you want?” Stanley asked.
“I wondered how you were doing.”
A child cried in the background. “My hundred dollars may not have seemed like much to you, Mr. Powell, but it was everything we had.”
Frank shifted the envelope into his other hand. “Something happened at the bank yesterday,” he started. “I discovered that one of my clerks was embezzling money.”
Stanley blinked, but no emotion registered on his face. “Embezzling?”
Frank held out the envelope. “He stole your money, and I want to give it back.”
Stanley didn’t hesitate. He reached for the money, clutching it to his chest.
“You trusted me for years,” Frank said. “Please forgive me for not trusting you as well.”
Stanley opened the envelope, and his eyes welled up. “There’s a hundred and fifty dollars in here.”
“Is that all?” Frank dug in his pocket and pulled out fifty more dollars he had rolled up inside. If Jacob could give Mrs. Tucker the reward money, he could give this man plenty extra for what he’d endured over the past month. “It’s supposed to be two hundred.”
Stanley stared at the cash in his hands. “But…”
Frank didn’t wait for Stanley to protest, but he heard the man thank him as he climbed back down the steps. Hopefully, the money would be enough to get the Roberts family out of this rat hole and get Stanley a new suit so he could find a position at one of the department stores, perhaps, or someplace else.
Outside, Frank climbed into the waiting cab and told the hackman to hurry back to the bank. With the exception of his nephew’s death and his sister’s denial over what had occurred, the past was settling nicely behind him. It was time to look to the future, and Bradford Pendleton was coming in an hour to discuss how to regain Second National’s reputation and reserves as the president of the bank.
Gray light wisped through the wet leaves and branches outside Jacob’s window, rain splattering across the glass. Adam snored in the passenger seat beside him, worn out from the six-hour ride, but Jacob couldn’t sleep.
Only a month ago, he’d arrived in Homestead hopeless and broken. So much had changed since his last journey from Chicago. Through the simple life and faith of the Amana people, God healed his spirit and Cassie’s body and welded the broken pieces of his life. He felt like a new man on this trip. The old one had passed away.
As the train slowed its pace, his pulse quickened. They were almost to Homestead, and he didn’t care what anyone else thought. In minutes, he would gather the two women he loved into his arms, and he may not ever let them go. This was where he belonged.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a small cloth bag and emptied its contents into his palm. He didn’t have enough to purchase the diamond ring, but he’d purchased two other rings. The larger silver one was engraved with a wreath of flowers that reminded him of the flowers on Lily Lake. The Amana women may not be allowed to wear jewelry, but he hoped Liesel would keep it in her trunk or somewhere else to remember how much he cared for her.
The smaller ring was silver, as well, embedded with a tiny heart—and it held a promise to his daughter. Even though he may have to leave for days or weeks to work, he wanted her to always remember that he would never leave her alone.
The brakeman opened the door of their compartment and shouted, “Homestead!”
Adam jumped, and Jacob hid the rings in his pocket as the train’s wheels squealed against the tracks. Squinting into the storm, he looked to see if anyone was outside, but even the animals seemed to be hiding from the rain.
Adam shuffled into the aisle. “Niklas will be waiting for a report.”
“Could I see Cassie first?”
Adam nodded. “Of course.”
Jacob reached for his satchel overhead and pulled it down.
“Jacob…”
He faced the man. “Yes.”
Adam put his hat on his head. “I never thought you were a thief.”
“You doubted my word.”
“I hoped you were telling the truth, but I had to be certain. Outsiders have failed us before.”
The train braked, and Jacob steadied himself on the seat. “I want to earn your trust.”
Adam nodded. “We must trust each other…and the people who stay with us.”
Jacob clung to his cap as they stepped out into the storm, his satchel flapping in the wind. The sheep bleated from the barn, and rain dumped on his head. Adam turned toward Niklas’s home, but
Jacob ran to see Cassie and Liesel.
Several women worked in the kitchen below Liesel’s room, and he greeted them as he rushed by. At the top of the stairs, he pounded on the door to Liesel’s room, but no one answered.
“It’s Jacob,” he said as he knocked again.
A door across the hall opened and he heard Cassie call out to him.
“Papa!”
He dropped his satchel as he turned, his arms stretched open. Cassie bounded into his arms, and he held her close, smothering her with kisses.
From the doorway where Cassie ran, a young woman emerged with a baby in her arms. “You have a fine daughter, Mr. Hirsch.”
He ruffled Cassie’s messy hair. “Yes, I do.”
He looked back at the woman. “Is Liesel with you?”
“Oh, no. She went to Amana.”
Amana? Jacob squeezed Cassie a little closer. Had Liesel gone to visit Emil while he was gone?
“Why is she in Amana?”
“It’s her Vater,” the woman said. “Er ist krank.”
“Do you know what’s wrong with him?”
“Nein.”
He set Cassie on the ground. “Can you get your coat and hat on quickly?”
She smiled. “Faster than lightning.”
“I don’t know…lightning’s pretty fast.”
She raced toward the open door.
The wind blows where it will, and while you hear its rushing, you do not know where it comes from, nor where it goes.”
Johann Friedrich Rock, 1732
Chapter Thirty-Three
Cassie clung to Jacob’s hand as they stepped inside the sitting room in Niklas’s home. Adam was sitting in a chair beside the woodstove, and one of the town’s other Elders sat beside him.
Niklas shook his hand. “We’ve been anxious for you to return.”
“I’ve been anxious as well.”
Niklas nodded toward the two Elders. “Adam told us your good news…and he told us about the offer you received to return to your position in Chicago.”
Love Finds You in Homestead, Iowa Page 22
