Lone Star Trail

by Darlene Franklin

  Jud couldn’t refuse his neighbor’s hospitality. “I’m sure she’ll appreciate your gift.” He laid the linens on the couch next to him. “How much are you thinking of asking for the farm?”

  “I don’t know as how a couple just starting out could afford this place,” Walford said. “You have the buildings—and I built them solid, to last you know. And the fields are cleared and fenced in. A lot of work.”

  Jud understood the steps of the negotiator’s dance. Build up the value to drive up the price. “But this house is small.”

  “A good size for a man and his wife just starting out.” Walford cleared his throat.

  Jud suspected it was a sore point for the Walfords, since they had only one child. The fact the land was already developed was a definite advantage, so Jud didn’t fight him hard. They agreed on a price that would require Jud to invest his savings as well as Tom’s. If Jud’s father was alive, he would have done the same thing.

  “So we’re in agreement?” Jud offered his hand to Walford.

  Walford stroked his chin. “Unless we decide to move on earlier.” He shook Jud’s hand.

  Jud left the farm encouraged. The solution he’d found would provide for his sister and give Tom the tools he needed to take care of his family. After that, Jud would have to leave them in the Lord’s hands.

  Wande studied the table. Something was wrong. She had set too many place settings for supper. Dummkopf. Already the house echoed with the absence of Calder and his family. They had enlivened the house in a dozen different ways.

  Wande decided to fry all the bacon she had cut off the slab. Any leftovers could go into sandwiches. Within a year, after Tom and Marion married, they would need two fewer places at the table. No wonder Jud seemed so lonely at times. He had lost his father to war, his sister to the Comanches, and his other sister and brother to marriage. Time had passed him by, with no spouse or children to lighten his days.

  Though she was not yet twenty, Wande felt an old maid. Wedding plans that used to center on her and Konrad now featured Georg and Ertha. As if she would never get married. She frowned.

  The bacon sizzled, and she pushed it to one side before adding spoonfuls of batter. She would know how to cook every kind of dish, American and German, and not have a family to cook for. She sniffled. She would not feel sorry for herself, not with so much work to do.

  Work, the cure for feeling sad.

  As Wande flipped the corn cakes, Jud came in from the barn, whistling.

  “The cows gave good milk today. I brought in enough for breakfast and set the rest in the cold spring.” He poured himself a glass and drank it, leaving a white mustache around his mouth. He wiped it off with his hand and sniffed the air. “Smells good.”

  “They should be good. I used the right amount of baking powder this time.”

  He laughed. “I’m sure you did. But I smell something else. Something … with cinnamon?”

  “Ach, I hope they have not burned.” She pulled a pan of coffee cake from the oven.

  “What’s the occasion?” He grabbed a piece of bacon and took a bite.

  “It is spring. A time to celebrate new life, is it not?” She shook her head. “Although it does not feel like we had winter. No snow, only that terrible ice storm.”

  “Ma says your blood thins after a while. She says it was colder back in Tennessee, but I was too young to remember.”

  “This kaffe kuchen would be better with blueberries in it.” She wrinkled her nose, debating whether to ask Jud her question. “I would like to plant a garden next to the house.”

  “Did someone say garden?” Mrs. Morgan came in the kitchen. “You have fixed us a feast! You must let me wash the dishes.”

  Wande looked at the pile of dishes she had used, taller than usual. “But there is a lot of work.”

  “Not as much as when Calder was here. Did I hear you say you want to plant a garden? I generally have a small patch, although I didn’t last year.” She shook her head. “There’s a lot of things I neglected last year.”

  “I would like to make the garden bigger,” Wande said. “Enough to plant some vegetables from home and maybe sell some at the market.”

  Jud darted a look at her, but Mrs. Morgan clapped her hands. “What a wonderful idea. Mr. Grenville at the store says he gets requests from people every year, looking for fresh produce when they’re traveling through.”

  “That is what we heard.” Wande nodded. She slid the bacon onto a serving plate together with the corn cakes and added a final batch to the frying pan. “I will experiment. We do not know what will grow here in Texas. Papa says the soil is different. And the weather, it is different.” She laughed. “We would never start a garden in March at home.”

  Jud scowled.

  Wande wished she could take back that word. Texas must be home now.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Jud didn’t know what to make of Wande’s plan to grow a market garden. No, he couldn’t say her plans would take away from her time at the house. She had ample time to take care of her duties—and to grow some vegetables.

  Early the next morning, he found a secluded spot by the entrance to the barn and watched her break up the ground. She rubbed her hands against her skirt, and he wondered about blisters. Maybe she still had some of that rub she gave him when he helped with the laundry.

  Jud also didn’t know what he thought of her plan to run a market stall in town. Some men in town would be happy to harass a beautiful, young German woman, taking advantage of her struggles with English. Women might too, they’d just be nicer about it. But then, men didn’t usually do the shopping. He’d keep on eye on her while Ma and Marion did their weekly shopping.

  He chuckled. Jud Morgan, champion of a German immigrant. A year ago he would have laughed at the thought. But Wande wasn’t just any immigrant.

  “A sight for sore eyes, ain’t she?”

  Jud jumped at Tom’s voice. From him, the words sounded improper. Jud gritted his teeth. Why had he let someone catch him watching Wande?

  “Have you and Marion set your date for sure? Calder will want to know.”

  Tom tilted his head. “Thought she already told you. The second Saturday of November. That should give him plenty of time to get here after harvest and before bad weather sets in.”

  He did know that.

  “Want to make it a double wedding?” Tom grinned—and ducked the punch Jud wanted to throw at him. “No.”

  “Just asking. Say, I was talking to Walford the other day when I was riding the fence, and he congratulated me on my upcoming nuptials.” Tom smiled, and Jud caught a glimpse of what drew his sister to him—a heedless cheerfulness that charmed Marion as much as it irritated Jud.

  “I might have mentioned it,” Jud said. “I doubt there’s a person in all of Texas who hasn’t heard the news by now, between Marion and Ma. I’ve only told the horses.” He heard a soft nicker. Apple, a chestnut mare who had given birth to a filly with a distinctive silver streak, wanted his attention. Jud needed to get to work instead of dawdling around staring at Wande. He headed down the stalls.

  “And Mr. Walford. You told him.” Tom followed. “He said something about some land you might be buying?” Tom’s grin grew wider. “For me and Marion?”

  Jud turned in his direction. “What did he say?” Jud did not want Walford to tell Tom for fear he might want to stop saving from his paycheck. Jud walked to the last stall, where Apple waited with her filly.

  “Just that you was planning on buying his farm for a wedding gift.” Tom dug in his pocket for a dried apple. The mare took it and whinnied. Tom laughed. “No wonder you named this one Apple.”

  “Billie named her.” It still hurt to think of his sister.

  “Billie was something else, all right.” Tom knelt to look at the filly. “What are you going to name this one?”

  Jud made a decision on the spot. “Do you want to name her?” The gesture would please Marion.

  “She sure is a pretty l
ittle thing.” Tom patted her rump. “Maid Marion. What else?”

  “Very well. Maid Marion it is.” Since Jud had already cleaned the stall, he just added a few oats to the feed bag. “A new mother needs some pampering.” He scratched the mare between her ears.

  “Is it true about the land?” Tom walked to the next stall. It held a slightly older colt about ready to leave the confines of the barn.

  “I’ll be adding some of my own money as a kind of dowry to your savings to buy the land. Yes.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  Wande yanked a weed from around the potatoes she hoped would flourish in her garden. The squash plants were progressing well, but she hadn’t realized her dream of fresh green vegetables for Gründonnerstag, the Thursday before Easter.

  The lack of fresh vegetables hadn’t stopped Mama from preparing the traditional all-green meal in Offenbach—and it didn’t stop her in Victoria. When Mrs. Morgan heard about the custom of a meal consisting entirely of green foods, she let her creativity go to work. The Morgans and Fleischers would enjoy a feast tonight. As a joke, Tom had suggested frog legs, but Mrs. Morgan sent him out to the fishing hole to catch some—she said they should count, since they started out green.

  Wande shook her head at the thought. She had never eaten such a thing. Mrs. Morgan would also fry some green tomatoes. It appeared that Texans fried everything.

  Wande pulled a few more weeds before she went to the pump to clean her hands. Clean hands were essential for coloring eggs. They had eaten scrambled eggs the last two mornings so they would have one hollow shell for each member in their families, as well as a couple more in case of accidents—an even dozen. This morning’s eggs waited for their afternoon activities. Wande missed doing the familiar rituals with Mama and Alvie, but she looked forward to sharing the special memory from her homeland with her friends.

  She went up to her room to retrieve the tree branches she had collected for an Easter egg tree. Buds had already formed on the branch she had placed in a vase of water. They made the tree so much more festive. Humming “Christ Jesus Lay in Death’s Strong Bands,” a song of the resurrection, she brought the branches to the kitchen.

  Marion peeled onions at the table, handing her mother the peels. “More green food. I’m going to be tired of eggs before Easter week is out.” Marion’s tears turned her laugh into a hiccup. “Or you could stir some spinach in with the eggs when you scramble them, then they’d turn green.”

  “I prefer the taste of, how do you say it, hard-boiled? So the yellow and the white are cooked through.” Wande laid the branches on the counter by the eggshells that had been drying the past couple of days. She checked several. Perfect.

  Mrs. Morgan dumped the onion peels into spinach juice and set the pot on the stove to boil. She joined Wande at the counter. “I declare, I’ve never seen anything like what you did with these. Poking a hole in each end and blowing the insides out.”

  “It is easy.” Wande shrugged. “We do not like to waste the eggs. And now they are ready to decorate for the Easter egg tree.”

  “So that’s what you have all those branches for. I was wondering.” Marion glanced at the vase. “Look, it’s budding.”

  “In Offenbach, we used birch branches. I am glad this acacia worked also.” Wande placed two eggs in her left hand, then shook her head. “A platter will be better.”

  Marion went to the dish cabinet and brought a platter. They arranged the shells on it and carried it to the table.

  “The juice is boiling. Should I put today’s eggs in?”

  “Put them in the net bag first, then cook them for ten minutes.” Wande waited until Mrs. Morgan joined them at the table to explain the next step. “Think of things that remind you of Ostern—how do you say? Easter?” She licked her lips and picked up a stick of colored wax. “I will write Frohe Ostern.”

  “Happy Easter?” Marion said.

  Wande nodded.

  “But how do you fit all of that on an egg?” Marion shook her head. “I’ll keep mine simple. I will draw an empty cross.”

  “And I’ll write ‘Joy.’ That’s nice and short.” Mrs. Morgan held an egg gently in her left hand and made the first stroke. “It glides right over.”

  “It is not hard once you learn how.” Wande debated what to draw next, deciding on an angel. “He is not here: for He is risen, as He said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.”

  “He is risen.” Mrs. Morgan repeated.

  “He is risen indeed,” Marion responded. “Do you say that in German churches? Our pastor says that is how early Christians greeted each other.”

  Wande shook her head and concentrated on the angel’s shoulder.

  When the eggs finished boiling, they had turned a lovely green. Mrs. Morgan took them from the net and placed them in a bowl to cool. “Why green food?”

  “Mama says it is because green is the color of life, the new life Jesus came to give us.” Wande inspected the eggs in the bowl. “They look good. I wonder why we eat green food on Thursday, instead of the day of the resurrection.” When she remembered the lamb dishes they ate on Ostern, she decided she didn’t care.

  “Now I suppose we’ll use Ma’s wool and those twigs to make hangers for the eggs,” Marion said.

  “One more thing.” Wande went to the pantry and found a slab of salt pork. “We will rub the shells so they shine. Then they are ready to hang.”

  Jud and the ranch hands finished their chores early, as Ma requested. She wanted them to enjoy a special holiday meal with the Fleischers—something about green food.

  Georg and Tom headed for the bunkhouse to get ready. Jud hitched the wagon and went inside.

  “We were just finishing up.” Ma grinned as he entered the kitchen. “Take a look at our Easter tree.”

  Jud couldn’t help but notice it. A branch stood in a vase of water, a few buds appearing on the ends. About a dozen eggs hung from several branches. He leaned in closer. Make that egg shells. They shone like oiled hair and had some kind of design on them.

  “Go ahead and touch them. They’re not as fragile as they look.” Marion pointed to one with a cross. “I did that one.” Jud examined one, then another. Different words and pictures, all related in some way to Easter, glowed on the surface of the eggshells. “Frohe Ostern?”

  “Happy Easter—in German,” Marion said.

  Jud grunted. Of course. First a Christmas tree and now an Easter tree. The uneasiness he’d felt in December returned. “Wande, I suppose you want me to carry this out to the wagon and find a place where it won’t be harmed.”

  Humor glinted in Wande’s eyes. “Nein. This tree stays here. I am sure Mama has made one with Alvie.” She handed him a bowl covered with a towel. He peeked—green eggs. That didn’t seem so strange; Ma had dyed Easter eggs with them a few times.

  Jud had to ask. “Why an Easter tree?”

  “Does it matter?” Marion removed the pan of frog legs from the oven and wrapped it in several layers to keep warm. “It’s pretty.”

  “I am worshiping while I make the eggs. I am thinking about Jesus and that He died and came back to life again.” Wande touched the branches. “And our Lord died on a tree for our sins, did He not?”

  Symbols. Perhaps most traditions involved symbols.

  “Come on, folks, let’s get going. We don’t want to be late.” Ma hustled them out to the waiting wagon. Jud helped Ma onto the front seat and turned to Marion.

  “Let Wande ride up front with you today,” Marion said. “I’ll sit with Tom in back.”

  Jud lifted Wande, as light as one of those empty eggshells, and set her on the seat next to the driver’s spot. He jumped up next to her, conscious of her presence less than a handbreadth away.

  “Marion told me of one of your Easter customs.” She smiled. “He is risen.”

  “He is risen indeed.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Marion turned this way and that in front of her mirror. Ma had outdone herself with the dress
for her engagement party—soft buttercream calico with flowers the color of the bluebonnets springing up across the ranch. She stared over her shoulder, studying the effect of the skirt, the fullest she had ever worn.

  “Tom will think you are beautiful.” Wande’s fingers touched Marion’s lower back. “You missed a few buttons.”