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

by Jane Kirkpatrick

  “I hadn’t thought about women being property in those times,” Louisa said. “How fortunate that we don’t have that to deal with here in our colony, where we’re all treated the same by my husband, and where divorce happens so rarely, because he is so wise about deciding who should marry or not in the first place.” It was a long speech for Louisa.

  “You may think we’re all treated fairly, Louisa,” I said. “But we are not all treated the same.” I looked over at Helena. “Some of us have greater privileges than others, it’s true. You suggested that about my house. I understand that some of the men receive payments to go work elsewhere in Portland, while others work here with no hope of gaining wages for their ledger pages. And some of the women are treated with more…gentleness than others, or so I’ve noticed.”

  “Well. So,” Helena said. She set her coffee glass down. I thought her hand shook.

  “And some wish to marry and are refused, while others are allowed to. There’s nothing in Scripture to prevent marriage, as I recall, yet Brother Keil does this.”

  “He does what he thinks is best,” Louisa defended.

  “As do we all,” I suggested.

  “We should be going,” Helena said. “We’ve done what we came for, to express our concern for you, Emma, with that woman being here. That was our only purpose.”

  “You ought to meet Almira,” I countered. “She’s been so good to my girls and a good friend during these past weeks without my boys with me.”

  “Does Matilda intend to stay with you and this…Mrs. Raymond?” Louisa asked.

  “I haven’t asked her. She can stay as long as she likes, as far as I’m concerned.”

  The two women stood. Louisa tied her bonnet strings.

  “I’m sure she’s awake. She made the coffee for us. Let me call her.”

  “Nein, nein. We’ve other tasks to tend to,” Louisa said. “Another time.”

  “Be sure she has adequate supervision,” Helena said. “We wouldn’t want anything untoward to happen while these women were within your control. Such things could speak badly for you.”

  “Fortunately, I’m learning that I’m not in control of anything, Helena,” I said. And neither are you.

  It was Almira who insisted. “You told me you’d written to a friend, inviting her to meet you at the fair, remember? It’s what you were doing when you found me. What if she came and you weren’t there?”

  Brita would understand; I was certain of that. Besides, I had no way of knowing whether she’d even gotten my letter, and she’d told me she didn’t like fairs anyway.

  “And there’s the class. Doesn’t it start soon?” Almira said. “Have you already missed a session?”

  “That’s a dream,” I said.

  She sighed. “I guess we aren’t supposed to wish for things. Once I remember saying, after all that happened, that if I could just have a good night’s sleep, I’d be happy. Now I have that, and I feel guilty that I have that little gift of sleep.”

  “Even the apostle Paul said, ‘I think myself happy,’ and that must mean that we’re meant to be happy,” I replied. “Pursuing something that matters is a part of our nature. I’m glad you’re sleeping better, and now that you are, you can wish for new things. But I don’t know if I wish to go to the fair. Too many reminders of when the boys were with me there.”

  “Walk about it,” she said, a phrase I knew meant to walk that puzzle, to see what answers might come from my time there.

  Instead I walked to talk with Keil. I kept my eyes alert for Andy and Christian. School was in session, but one never knew when the children would be studying botany beneath the trees. Music floated up from the grassy area near the Keil and Company Store. Henry C led the music class. Chris Wolff brought his lectures out under the trees as well, and I could see my Christian sitting there, his face scrunched in concentration. Chris read from the classics. Apparently, I walked too close, for Chris Wolff looked up at me and smiled, and when he did, my son looked up too.

  “Mama!” He ran to me. “Where have you been?”

  I squatted down to his level. “Working, as always,” I said.

  “Martin lets me help with the bottles, not just Andy,” he told me proudly. “I’m working too.”

  “That’s a good boy,” I told him.

  “Martin says we can come for supper soon. Can we?” I brushed his reddish hair away from his eyes. “Please? I’m sorry for whatever I did. I won’t do it again.”

  I tried to keep from crying. Seeing them was so difficult for me, yet not finding ways to be with them was breaking Christian’s heart. “Anytime you want,” I said.

  “Ja, by goodness,” he said, reminding me of Karl. “I’ll tell Martin and Andy we can come soon.”

  He hugged me quickly, ran back, and sat down. He waved at me once, then returned his eyes to his teacher.

  Maybe the boys expected our family to be as my mother had said, sometimes with me, sometimes with their grandparents, sometimes with an uncle. Maybe that’s all our family had ever been, this hodgepodge of people separated by our desires to serve. We were not unlike Karl’s quilt, composed of bits and pieces of discards, confusion stitched with comfort. Christian had never known his own father, and life with Jack had been anything but calm or restful. Maybe this conglomerate of people who were influencing him, keeping him warm, feeding his and Andy’s bodies and spirits was superior to what they’d known when living with just me and their sisters. My girls welcomed strangers; the boys carried on as though their family home was the entire colony. Maybe I should accept that it was.

  “So you want to go to the fair to cook, Sister Emma. This is why you’re here?”

  “In part,” I told Keil. After leaving Christian at his outdoor class, I’d walked the mile up the hill and found Keil as he stood outside of the church construction. “I also wish to claim a portion of our agreement.” He frowned. Several men had been hovering around him but left as I approached. He held a roll of plans, comparing what was drawn to what he saw before him. “Two bandstands around the steeple?” I said. “That’ll be quite a sight from miles around. Everyone will know of the Keil church,” I said.

  “Aurora church,” he corrected. “I didn’t design the steeple to bring attention to me. I’m a humble man.”

  He didn’t sound as though he teased, so I guessed he really did think that about himself. It surprised me sometimes, that what seemed so obvious to me about a person’s demeanor could be seen as the opposite by the person. Almira was a good example. She was warm and kind and good with children, but she described herself as a sinful woman who didn’t deserve happiness or joy. Keil, on the other hand, was often petulant and arrogant, indifferent to his wife and cloying to some of her friends. He made decisions that propped up certain people with thick pillows, while others suffered at the foot of the bed. Yet he saw himself as a virtuous, benevolent leader.

  Perhaps that was the whole problem with me: I saw things differently. Who was I to say that Almira wasn’t right in her sinful admission, or that it was me who couldn’t see the goodness of Keil’s colony care? People did have good days and bad days. Perhaps my judgment was as impaired, like a broken wagon tongue that ought never be allowed to pull along anything precious.

  “I’ve come to humbly ask you to pay for an educational course that I wish to take at the university. I’d be there one week a month until the weather becomes impassable.”

  “Humbly?” I nodded but said nothing. “You’d be gone a week at a time? Where would you stay? You’d take your girl out of school? Nein. This does not seem good.”

  Keil had rarely indicated any concern about my girls or their education, but I saw it as a good sign that he’d give me any kind of reason rather than simply saying no.

  “I have someone who would look after them.”

  “Ah, the Raymond woman? Do you think that’s wise, Sister Emma?”

  “Matilda has offered to stay as well. And Kitty. Surely you have no objection to them.”

/>   He tapped the rolled-up set of plans gently against his leg. “Matilda Knight, I’m sure, is a fine young woman. But she distracts Jacob Stauffer from his work, and he came here to be a carpenter, not to court.”

  “If anything, her being here makes it easier for the man to tend to his hammer and saw, knowing in the evening he might have a word or two with her,” I said. “Would their marriage be so bad? Then she’d not be distracting him. And marriage seems to smother such ardor, or so I’ve noticed.” I’d often wondered if it was the amount of saltpeter we used to preserve our meats that made separation of the sexes so easily accommodated.

  “Work. That’s what we’re to do here, Sister Emma. Just as with you and Christian, you got little done your first year because your husband looked after a family. I didn’t send him out to have his family to worry over.”

  “His family was on his way before you sent him out,” I said.

  He frowned, appeared to count months. “Ja. That was not known though. So, we should finish the important buildings before I approve any more marriages. That’s what I told Jacob Stauffer. He understands.”

  “Matilda will be here for my girls while I take the class.”

  He gazed off toward the construction site again. Wild geese flew across us in their V formation, that sure sign of fall.

  “Three weeks away is too much time. Martin is taking classes, and it is hard for him going back and forth. It would be even harder for you, Emma, a woman with children to raise.”

  “But the agreement—”

  “Is that I will provide your education, and so I will. But I must have some say over the costs and conditions. That is only fair and reasonable, ja?”

  “Will you limit my son’s medical education as well?”

  “Ach, Emma. Calm down now. Your son will be a doctor in due time. But you do not need to become…what is it you wanted to take a course in?”

  “Painting,” I said.

  “Hardly practical.” He lifted his hands to the sky. “As fleeting as geese.”

  “Great paintings soothe us,” I said. “They’re like music, Herr Keil.” It had been years since I’d used that title with him. “Or fine furniture sanded to silk or a steeple that spirals into the sky. They can all help our spirits reach to higher places, to honor God. Even a luscious cake covered with whipped cream and strawberries can inspire. A painting does that too.”

  “Come up with another way to try to learn your painting then,” he said. “A course away from here is not acceptable. Now, now”—he raised his hand to silence my next protest—“but you can go to the fair, Emma, if you wish. We have need of cooks, and you did so well with the building of the dance hall. Why not put your talents there? Of course you’d have to take the girls. It wouldn’t be right to leave them alone with…the women you surround yourself with. Go along now. I’m a busy man.”

  Why not go? Defy Keil by leaving Matilda and Almira in charge. I could look for Brita and I’d cook. But I’d also talk to that instructor. Perhaps there were teachers who, like peddlers and those who sharpened knives, traveled from town to town. Maybe I could find one who would travel to Aurora. I may not get all I wanted, but there would always be another path to take. I just had to watch and listen to know which way to go.

  Plots and Plans

  September 30. We tended to the hogs today, all of us working together to finish before those going to the fair could leave. I heard grumbles from some of the men that Keil had once again locked himself inside his workroom and wasn’t there to cheer us onward. When he’s working side by side with others, the community moves steady as the river. But otherwise there is froth, and the people grumble.

  Louisa and Keil, Helena, John and BW, newlyweds Frederick and Louisa Keil, and dozens of others left for the fair. The band would play and earn a tidy sum, as well as bring more renown to our community. My parents went too, taking Lou with them, according to Kitty, who stayed in much closer touch with them than I did.

  I didn’t go; I couldn’t risk what might happen to my girls if I left them behind.

  I hadn’t planned on what did happen while so many were gone.

  It was a Sunday, and with John and Keil at the fair, there was no church scheduled at the Keil house. Karl might have led services, or even Martin, both of whom had remained behind. Martin stopped by especially, he said, to tell me the boys would like to have more time with me. He asked if it would be all right if they spent the afternoon on Sunday. All right? I suspect he had studying to do and wondered if I might not work out a regular plan with him, to have the boys on Sunday afternoons so he would work. This first day had to go well. I had grand plans.

  I wanted to do things I knew the boys might like, and involve the girls too. We’d roll hoops for a time. Maybe pull taffy. It was cool enough we wouldn’t have to put paraffin in the sweetness to keep it from melting. I’d roast a chicken later, as I’d had enough of pork for a while.

  I still had one ham left from last year—I’d wrapped it with sweet grass hay after giving the meat a good soak. We’d smoked dozens of hams, and bacon and sausage, but that one I claimed. I put a date and my initials on the bag I’d made for it. When we got ready to eat it, I wouldn’t have to soak the slices to get rid of the pepper taste, because the hay sweetened it so well. Dozens hung in the smokehouse. We rendered lard by the buckets for making our pies. We’d washed, cleaned, and dried casings, then stuffed sausages for days, and I couldn’t stand to look at another casing squeezed to the brim with pork and spices and chopped onion. We’d even run out of entrails, we had so many hogs to prepare, and several of us had made casings out of cloth. They were draped like thick ropes, round and round in the smokehouse, and it would be a few days before those sausages could be eaten. I guessed the good Lord made it that way, since no one cared about eating pork right after the work of slaughtering and rendering and stuffing. By the time we’d put the more disagreeable thoughts of the pork from our minds, the hams and sausages would be ready, and so would we.

  That Sunday I busily prepared stick candy and my special gooseberry pie. We’d be eating chicken, or maybe a nice venison roast, if one of the Indians who made their way through the region knocked on my door. I often traded with them, giving them butter or sweet candies and, depending on the season, a ham or a sausage ring to take with them. These Indians, though tall and well fed, did not have the same pride in their eyes as the Shoalwaters who had helped us those long winters ago. Disease defined these Mollala or Calapooia people, the sicknesses reducing their numbers to mere scatterings of peoples. I’d probably not see them today anyway, as this was a season for hunting, and they traveled far from this Aurora region for that.

  All through the preparations, my spirits were lifted in anticipation of my sons’ visit. Kate and Ida rose earlier than normal, tramping down the stairs in their bare feet with their nightclothes still on. Almira was up and gave them their oats, putting dried berries into their bowls, and milk she’d gotten from the goat. It was going to be a grand day. We had plenty of time to enjoy even the preparations. Then the actual event we would savor.

  We both turned to the light knock on the kitchen door.

  “We know it isn’t Louisa and Helena,” I said.

  “They’re at the fair,” Almira noted.

  “And they prefer the parlor door,” I said. I hadn’t told her that they’d left as soon as I suggested they meet her, but I did let her know that they’d expressed concern about her being with me. I wasn’t sure whether to keep such news to myself, but I decided that secrets seldom helped a person. People needed information to understand what was happening around them. I didn’t want Almira to encounter Louisa and Helena on the path somewhere and not be prepared for their looks.

  “Maybe Andy and Christian are here already,” Kate said.

  “Yea!” Ida shouted and clapped her hands as she went to the door. “Oh,” she said, and let Christine Wagner in.

  As always, my foster sister combed her dark hair back so tight int
o a bun that her eyes looked narrow inside her puffy face. She carried a basket of fresh-baked goods, and as she handed it to me, looking over the head of Ida, she said, “I know it’s early and you’ve probably got plans. But I wondered if I could sit for a bit in your parlor.”

  I’d spent fewer than ten minutes with this woman, always at the hotel or at Keils’ and never with so few others around. I hoped one day we’d talk. Maybe about how my parents fostered her and how she felt about that.

  “Well, of course. I’ll fix coffee and bring it in to you myself.”

  “If you please, I’d like to be there alone.”

  Why not go to the woods or sit in Keil’s root cellar if you want to be alone?

  “I guess that’s all right. But won’t you have breakfast with us first? We’re late getting around, as you can see by my lazy girls here.” I patted Kate on the top of her uncombed but still braided hair with its flyaway strands. “This is your…Aunt Christine,” I told her.

  “I ’member,” Kate said. She hid behind me. Christine was a large woman, though she didn’t use her girth to intimidate. She looked soft as dough rather than solid as a smoked ham.

  Christine didn’t acknowledge the girls. “I’ve already eaten. I need a moment to sit. Without…distractions. Then I’ll be on my way.” I noticed that she spoke English without a German accent.

  I took her back out onto the porch, opened the living room door, and let her step in. The room looked bare in the morning light. The chair I’d painted yellow gave the only color. I really did need to find things to hang on the walls, maybe wainscot the side walls or put up short shelves for more plates. The room felt cool to me too, and I wondered if I ought to light a fire. But when I suggested that, Christine said, “Oh no. It’s always so warm at the Keil house. This is just right. Thank you. I won’t be any bother. Thank you. I can’t thank you enough.”

  She moved into the room as though she walked on stepping stones across a stream: careful, full of caution, yet with purpose. She took a chair that faced the windows and porch but was on the far side of the room. She nearly sank into the pillow I’d set there.