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

by Jane Kirkpatrick

  “I’m so pleased you like it. I was afraid you might not take it from me, because of how hard it was to help you, and then how much I didn’t.”

  “Mary, you did what you could. It’s all any of us can do.”

  I marveled at my own generosity, that I had treasure enough inside of me to give away. “This came from you. It’s a gracious gift for my home. My very own home. Of course I’ll accept it.”

  “And for your birthday, Mrs. Giesy,” Salome reminded me.

  Mary smiled now, and I remembered that impish look. “On my birthday. Right, and smart you are,” I said in Swiss, and Salome giggled. “By the way, Mary, are you wearing a hoop?” I asked.

  She laughed with me then as she brushed at the tiny pleats on her bodice, as though there might be a loose thread, but there wasn’t. “Don’t tell,” she said then. “But I used hazel brush. All those branches growing beside the Willapa were good for it. You can bend them just so.” She showed me with her hands, then lifted the hem. “And Sebastian doesn’t even notice that my skirts are stylish.”

  “Will you teach me how before you leave? Could we use blackberry branches?”

  “Blackberry branches for what?” Jonathan asked, approaching.

  “To cut switches for fishing,” I said quickly, and Mary smiled. The secret was made all the greater in sharing it with a friend.

  “I didn’t expect you to literally build my house,” I told Jonathan. Mary and Salome had left, and he and I sat, not on the beautiful quilt Mary had given me, but on the red and green wool coverlet I kept for picnic purposes. Picnic purposes. That I have a blanket for picnics is another hopeful thought. Mr. Ehlen worked at a peg. “Brother Keil permitted you to work out here instead of on the books today?”

  “John’s taken over most of the book work for the colony,” Jonathan said. “So I had time.” He didn’t sound disappointed. “I’m still assisting in the Keil store. Keep those ledgers. It will be less pressure.”

  “I wasn’t aware you were under pressure,” I said.

  “Ja, well, you don’t know so much about everything here, Sister,” he said. “John has good experience. The best man should be chosen.”

  My entire family was being moved to the edge of things, into the backwater of the colony. “Did you want to stop doing all the work you were doing for Keil?”

  He shrugged, wiped pretzel crumbs from his very dark beard. He had thin lips revealed by his lack of mustache. Most of the older colony men wore no mustaches with their beards, a holdover custom from the old country when soldiers wore them and persecuted our ancestors. “Keil is a good manager. He needs to surround himself with the best people. I was needed for a time, and now I step aside. It’s the colony way.”

  “Well, I need you,” I said. “I wouldn’t have this house going up if it weren’t for you.” I hugged him.

  “Your Giesy name, Sister. That’s what has given you a house. You should hang on to it. In these parts, it carries weight.”

  “Maybe. But I notice my house is being built on a site I would not have chosen. The bank is steep beside it and all covered with brush. I don’t want the children going down there, but they’ll want to explore. Maybe I’ll have to build steps.”

  “It will give you new memories to live around water.” He reached for a bread roll. “And we can build a fence if you like. With a gate to keep anyone from tumbling down the steps. Ida and Opal especially.”

  “I would like that.”

  “Put the goat to the side hill. She’ll keep the brambles down. And there are springs. We hope eventually all the houses can receive water through wooden troughs. And you have a root cellar, don’t forget. You can store cool water there and your butter. For now, you’ll have more privacy to do what you want, Sister,” he said. “Think of the site like that.”

  “What makes you think I’m going to do something that needs privacy?”

  “You have a penchant for the unusual. After all,” he said, standing and stretching and nodding toward the front of my house, “you got that chicken that lays blue eggs and a house with two front doors.”

  I moved into the house in early June. Before she left, Mary gave me the rocking chair that had come from Willapa. “I’ll get its mate from Jack when we go back home,” Mary said.

  The boys ran up and down the stairs. Kate asked if we’d cook in the fireplace or if we’d get a stove one day, and Ida waddled through the house to the back porch where Opal was tied, out of reach so the goat wouldn’t knock her over. Clara clucked on the porch rail; my bantam chickens and rooster pecked at the ground. Well, they weren’t mine, but only in my care.

  “It’s all ours, then, Mama?” Christian said.

  “For as long as we like,” I told them. “We’ll have beds one day. And I’ll finish making a table from the lumber scraps. We’ll slowly add furniture,” I said. “My work time will go into the ledger book, and we’ll be able to purchase as we need.”

  “The bachelors say it will take you a long time to pay for this house,” Andy said, “unless you’ve worked out something special with Brother Keil.” He added a strange twist to his words, suggesting thoughts beyond his years.

  I felt my face grow warm. “I’m glad you’ll be spending less time with the bachelors,” I told him. “They don’t always have the best information.”

  My father surprised me on a mid-June morning.

  “Did you bring all these with you from Bethel?” I asked. Chairs and bedsteads filled the wagon bed.

  “Nein. Your brothers and me, we made them. We brought nothing with us from Bethel we could make here. It saved on the animals.”

  “But this is so…unexpected. I…thank you.”

  He nodded. “I remembered that when you got your headaches sometimes, you liked to sit outside in the cool at night, all wrapped up in your flannel. You said the stars soothed your eyes. This big wide bench, you can leave that outside, ja? It’ll be a good place to rest.”

  I ran my hands along the back of the blue bench. So smooth, and its offering, a balm. “I didn’t know if you knew I’d moved into the house.”

  “Jonathan told us, and about his demotion.”

  “Does he call it that?”

  “Like you, he is a buttress to Keil, doesn’t think Keil can do any wrong.”

  “I wouldn’t put me in that same barrel with my brother, at least when it comes to everything good about Keil. But I do think he has suffered with the deaths of his children. He isn’t the same as he was, Papa.”

  “Ja, deaths do change people.” He stared at me, then looked away. “But he’s still more willing to make decisions based on economics than on faith. I suppose I should be grateful for that. He’s sold land to us, by the river.”

  “Where the hot springs are?” My father nodded. I couldn’t imagine why Keil would agree to sell land so close to Aurora, with one of the colony mills included. Maybe Keil needed cash to provide for all the new arrivals. Some had been here a year almost, but we still talked about them as “the new arrivals.” Maybe it was his way of getting my father into Aurora at last.

  “Are you all going to live there?” The property I knew of included a smallish log house too. There’d be bottom land for crops.

  “We thought we’d live with you, Emma,” my father said. “In your new house.”

  I was flummoxed for a few seconds, then said, “Truly? I would love that! I had no idea that you’d—” Then I saw the twinkle in his eye.

  “Nein. I tease you,” he said. He brushed the braids curled on either side of my head. It wasn’t the traditional way our women wore their hair, with buns at their necks, but a style I’d seen in a Godey’s Lady’s Book that made my face looked fuller. “You have enough with four children to provide for. We’ll build a house eventually.” As though this moment of intimacy was as unexpected for him as for me, he pushed his hat back, set his hands on his hips, and scanned my house. “I am curious,” he said, “about all your grand plans with your two front doors.”

&nbs
p; “I’d forgo them if you came to stay in my house.”

  He shook his head no. “We’ll visit. Your mother and sisters and brothers and I, we’ll stop by more now. But it’s better that we stay at our own place, not one that Keil has a claim to. I worry about that for you, Emma.”

  “I have a written agreement, Papa. He can’t move me out unless I want.”

  “Words on a paper are only as good as the man—or woman—who writes them.” He cleared his throat, adjusted his hat again. “There was a time when I followed Brother Keil from Pennsylvania to Missouri. But Keil changed along the way, and now those of us who claim him in some part of our lives, now we each have to make up our own mind about what place he takes at our table, and when we’ll sit down with him. A man has to stay loyal to his own beliefs and his God, and not to a man he thought embodied them.”

  “Yes, Papa.”

  “Gut. You think for yourself, Emma. That’s good.” My father unloaded a chair, urged me to sit in it, then continued. “For some, Keil buys a way out of the war conscription. And to some he says it will be a good thing for them to support the Union by going to war. Some he pays one thousand dollars to, so they will work at the woolen mill in Brownsville or Salem or the shops in Portland, but bring the pay back here. There is no guarantee they will even bring their money back here. It’s risky. Keil doesn’t ask any of the men who once advised him. He’s in a powerful position, Emma.”

  “I have a signed agreement.”

  “No lawyers ever see the agreements signed. Not even yours. Do you have a copy? No? I thought as much. So if the agreement is broken, there’ll be no way to enforce it. Even so, I hope for your sake that you are not wrong about Keil.”

  “I do worry over Jonathan being sent to fight. And David. Thank goodness William is still too young,” I said.

  “With the grist mill, if we need to, we’ll be able to buy a replacement for David.”

  “So many houses need to be built,” I said. “We could really use another lumber mill.”

  “That, and here is one thing that a Giesy and I can agree on, even if it is Helena Giesy: the church should be built soon, where we can all worship and pray, or even more will surely lose their way. Don’t lose your way, Emma. Don’t sit in that rocking chair of yours and forget who brought you here.”

  “I won’t, Papa.” I felt drawn to him, grateful for his presence. “Thank you for the furniture, the bench especially. And I won’t be rocking in that chair much either. I’ll be busy doing. That’s who I am. And I’ll make you proud, Papa. I will.” I was suddenly certain I could.

  The Art and Compassion

  June 15, 1864. Encouraged Mr. Ehlen to make more Aurora baskets to sell and showcase at the fair. They are so tightly woven they could hold soup. How he does this with one useless arm is surprising indeed.

  July 31. Work on the church begins! They’ll build a big hotel as well.

  August 15. I visited Wallamet where Martin wants to go to school. Perhaps I do too one day.

  The men decided that the thing to do was to build a dance hall at the state fairgrounds in Salem. Keil must have concurred. They were urged on by Henry C, of course. With his presence, the renown of the band had grown. Sometimes there were articles in the newspaper and interviews with the reed players or the brass boys, as I called them. The young boys, including Finck’s son, enjoyed the music as much as anyone, though I overheard him telling Andy that the popularity of brass bands in this Oregon country surprised him. “To me it sounds like cats being thrown into a thrashing machine.” I covered my mouth so as not to laugh out loud, then soberly suggested that he might find a different description, as we Aurorans loved our dogs and cats. Young Finck merely snickered. We women often commented that music was a good diversion from the boys’ pranks and silliness, and much safer. Still, building a dance hall, and at some distance from Aurora proper, would be quite the undertaking.

  While the men worked there, of course, the start of the church was delayed.

  I supposed there were discussions with Keil about it. While we chopped onions at the hotel, Helena told us that when the band had played at French Prairie in February, it had been so popular that talk began about having a permanent structure at the fair, where the band could perform and charge a good ticket price. It would bring in needed revenue while the concerts at the Park House would be more promotion than anything.

  “Will they haul lumber from here?” I wondered out loud.

  “Oh, I imagine so,” Helena said. “We’d want to showcase our Aurora lumber mill.”

  After a Sunday gathering at the Keils’, we women sat together again, and talk of the dance hall returned. Scissor snips acted as background music to our chatter.

  I said, “We’ll need to bring food for the workmen. I’d like to help.”

  “Oh, my husband has that all organized,” Louisa told us. “The single women can do it. You have your little ones with you and a house of your own to run now, and with that new stove, you might not know how to cook over an open flame anymore.”

  “How does that new stove work?” BW asked. “That must have cost a pretty penny.”

  “I’ll pay for it,” I said. “I’ve taken tatting to the store for sale to grow the common fund. The man’s shirt I tailored should bring a good price. And the stove works quite fine. I can use it for the food we need for the dance hall workers.” I sounded defensive even to my own ears.

  “We’ll take Kitty and Martha and the young girls with stamina to cook out there and lift a hammer as well, if they need to,” Louisa said. “No need for you to disrupt your plans.”

  I’d been snipped short like a too-long sash.

  It was true that I’d been enjoying my house. Each of the children had bedsteads now, and straw-filled mattresses with charming coverlets either my mother or sisters and I had made. The Pudding River ran within its banks, and I could barely hear its rustle above a hooting owl that serenaded outside my window at night. I had a perfect view of Mount Hood too, the snow like a white cap covering its top. My brother David had woven red and purple and yellow and green yarns on a wagon wheel, forming a round rug that lay in the center of the kitchen area. It had a compass look to it and fit well with Mary’s quilt.

  My mother had brought a set of dishes for me too. They’d been in one of the chest of drawers my father had made for me. My father had understood the importance of china treasures to a woman, unlike Catherine Wolfer’s son. That grown boy had broken nearly every piece of Flow Blue china she had, smashing them against rocks near Laramie when he discovered how she’d “taxed” the animals with excess weight. She managed to save only one small butter plate, burying it in the cornmeal the rest of the way west. The story was a small reminder of how a son could direct his mother without interference from any other man. Remembering Andy’s sometimes glowering looks at me made me fidget in my chair.

  I pitched those thoughts away.

  I hadn’t wanted to have my ledger page get too heavy on the debit side without finding a way to make additions to the given side. So I’d made contributions. My stove wasn’t a luxury. It helped me be busy, doing.

  I’d found the stove advertised at Oregon City and thought it foolish not to claim one that didn’t even have to be shipped in.

  The children and I lived in one half of the house, using the kitchen as our gathering room and sleeping in one of the two rooms upstairs that were on either side of the stairwell. The boys had the north room, the girls had the wide hall, and I took the large room that looked out onto the trees and the distant cooking smoke rising from Aurora’s houses. I’d give it up when needed and turn the boys’ large room into two, taking over half for my own. But for now, I had space for the spinning wheel my mother had loaned me until they had space to set it up, and for my baskets full of yarn and fabrics. One day I hoped to have a sewing machine as I’d seen in Godey’s Lady’s Book.

  I kept the downstairs parlor for guests, should any arrive.

  There hadn’t been man
y. But I knew they’d be coming; I just didn’t know who or when…or if Louisa and Helena would have words with me about it. I figured going to the fairgrounds to help cook for the men would be an opportunity to discover those who needed my house but didn’t know it yet.

  “Maybe if one of us more seasoned went along to Salem while they built the hall, we’d be better able to plan for the fall, when the band must be there the entire time to play,” I said.

  “Oh, your sister, that new one, Christine, she’s interested in going. She can let us know how it went,” Louisa said. We were again squeezed into the Keils’ house, even though I’d invited the group to use my parlor.

  “Besides, I might be going,” Helena said. “I can surely keep track of all the items eaten and how much we used each day.”

  “But they’ve started building the church, Helena,” Louisa protested. “I thought you’d want to be here to make sure the churchmen were tended.”

  “Well, maybe Emma could do that,” Helena said. “With her young children, she’d be able to stay nice and close to home that way, now that she has a house and isn’t galloping around the country looking for land. She could feed the churchworkers.”

  I felt my face grow hot. “As the colony has need of me,” I said, “place me wherever you wish. I’d be honored to be a part of the church building this summer. I know my father and brothers intend to help. It could be a lovely family gathering.”

  Being agreeable, I found, threw them off. I didn’t even react to Helena’s jibe about my looking for homestead property. But I was surprised when Louisa said after a time of quiet, “Well, Emma’s right. The church is surely the more important structure we should tend to.”

  “Yes,” I said. “A dance hall is just that, after all. A place for dancing feet. You love the music, Louisa. Why don’t you go and be with your husband? Brother Keil will be there, surely. There are always many contacts in our capital city.”