American Challenge

by Susan Martins Miller

  Chickens scratched about the yard. Several tall white geese strutted proudly, giving an occasional honk. The smell of the clean country air invigorated Grace and made her want to run and shout.

  “I don’t know which is best,” Grace told Drew, “the sweet clean air or the scrumptious food.”

  Around a mouthful of biscuit, Drew mumbled, “Both.”

  Grace laughed as the boy with impeccable manners sopped gravy with his biscuit and swiped a drip off his chin with his sleeve. When his plate was clean, Drew said, “Samantha told me this morning that she’s been carrying water from the well to her garden each day.”

  “Looks like it needs it.”

  “We could do that.”

  Grace stopped with a spoonful of mush in the air. “That’s a nice thought. Between us, we can carry twice as much water as Samantha in her condition.” Cleaning up the last of her bowl of mush, she jumped to her feet. “Come on, there’s so much to do. And we have a surprise to see!”

  “Don’t tell me to come on,” Drew teased. “You’re the one who slept all morning.”

  “Slept all morning? Why, Drew Ramsey, you …”

  She smacked at him with her spoon, but he ducked quickly into the kitchen.

  When breakfast dishes were cleared, Samantha finally announced that it was time to go to the barn. Drew and Grace ran circles around Samantha, laughing and giggling as they followed the dusty path from the house to the barn. Chickens squawked and scattered from in front of the trio. Rhythmic sounds of hammering and sawing filled the air as the men framed in the new room.

  Samantha chatted about how pleased she was that they’d come and how excited she was about the new bedroom. When they reached the barn, Drew helped her pull open the heavy door. Grace squinted at the dimness and inhaled the smells of leather, fresh hay, and animals. Owen’s prize horses were stabled in the barn, but most of the cows and pigs were outside in the pasture.

  After a moment, Grace heard faint baa-ing. “Sheep?” she asked, making a guess.

  “Over here,” Samantha said, leading to a far corner. There, in a small enclosure, were two nanny goats and three of the most darling white kid goats Grace had ever seen.

  “Goats!” she exclaimed. “You have goats! Oh, Samantha, this is a wonderful surprise. Where did they come from? May we pet them?” She wanted to touch their silky fur.

  Samantha reached up to get a bucket from a hook and then fetched a small stool. “An old peddler came by awhile back with these nanny goats, and it just took Owen and me one look…. We couldn’t resist. We just had to have them. And a few weeks later, both gave birth—to these three.” She gestured to the kids.

  As Samantha opened the gate to the enclosure, the nearest nanny goat moved cautiously away. “Come now, Josie,” Samantha cooed to the nanny. To Grace and Drew, she said, “They’re not sure they trust me just yet. So you two just watch until I finish milking.”

  “Milking? You’re going to milk them?” Grace was fascinated. Such small animals giving milk! She watched carefully as Samantha fastened the nanny’s head in a stanchion to keep her still. Streams of milk echoed with a ping-ping-ping as they hit the tin bucket. Soon the white foam rose to the rim where Grace could see it.

  “These little critters give a lot of milk,” Samantha told them. She handed the full bucket to Drew. “Set that over by the door so it won’t get spilled, and I’ll let her loose.”

  Samantha unfastened the stanchion and then repeated the process with Annabelle, the other nanny. Once she was done, she opened the gate to let Drew and Grace into the enclosure. “Walk slowly now, so as not to startle them.”

  Grace knelt down in the hay to pet one of the kids. The coat was warm and silky to her touch. She rubbed its head and the kid pushed back. “Look, Samantha! Look how she’s trying to butt.”

  “You’re right, that is a she. A little nanny,” Samantha said. “You should see them butting one another. Like three little children romping together. Cutest thing you ever saw.”

  “Are these ones nannies, too?” Drew asked, his arm about the necks of the other two kids.

  “On your right is a billy goat, a male,” Samantha replied. “The other one is a nanny.”

  “Will they run and play with us?” Grace wanted to know.

  Samantha nodded. “They’ll give you a merry chase. You’ll have to keep a close eye on them.”

  “Let’s work for a while,” Drew suggested to Grace. “Then we’ll come back and play with them later this afternoon.”

  “That’s a perfect idea.”

  “Work? And what work will you be doing?” Samantha led the way out and closed the small gate to the enclosure.

  Drew looked at Grace as though waiting for her to speak. But she said, “You tell her. It was your idea.”

  His face flushed pink as he said, “We’d like to carry water to your garden while we’re here.”

  “Why, Drew, thank you.” Samantha leaned over to put her arm around him and kissed him squarely on the cheek. Now his face grew even redder. “What a relief it’ll be to have a rest.”

  Time passed quickly as Drew and Grace carried heavy buckets of water to the rows of vegetables. The hot sun bore down on their heads. Grace found wearing her bonnet was much more comfortable than having it hanging down her back. Owen gave Drew a felt slouch hat to wear to shade his face.

  They hoed weeds in the corn patch, then picked a basket of snap beans. Mama and Camille picked cucumbers and cooked up vinegar syrup to make pickles. There were carrots, turnips, and cabbages ready to be picked. Along the fence grew vines of ripening melons and pumpkins. Grace wished she lived on a farm with all this food growing everywhere. The open-air market didn’t seem half so much fun. Before supper, Drew and Grace released the goats and played tirelessly about the farmyard.

  The next day, Drew found several pieces of scrap lumber lying about where the men were working. Taking them to Samantha, he said, “I noticed you have no whatnot shelf in the house. I can make one from these pieces. Would you like that?”

  “Drew, you’ll never know how much I’d like that. Owen is able to put up a barn and drive a nail straight, but fancy work is not his cup of tea.”

  Drew had his trusty knife, and in the evenings, while Grace ran about playing with baby goats, Drew carved a delicately detailed whatnot shelf.

  The days were passing too swiftly for Grace. She wanted this holiday to last forever. But within a week, the room was framed and finished, and there were even two glass windows hung. In the living room, Samantha’s new whatnot shelf was mounted in the corner by the fireplace. Even Owen commented on what a craftsman Drew was.

  The women packed foodstuffs to take home. Some would pay the liveryman, but there was still plenty to share with Carter and Deanna. There were green pickles, blackberry preserves, blocks of cheese, and baskets of goose and chicken eggs. One bag of wheat and another of corn lay in the wagon bed.

  On the last afternoon, Grace and Drew sat under a leafy buckeye tree with the nannies and their kids munching grass nearby.

  “Samantha says goats grow up and come fresh much quicker than a cow,” Grace said. “Come fresh?”

  “Give milk.” Drew nodded. “Oh.”

  “And she says they eat very little, and that they’ll eat most anything. They don’t need a big pasture like a cow.”

  “I heard Samantha say that.” Drew was lying on his back staring up at the cloudless sky.

  “Drew, you know how we’re always wishing we could do more to help out our families?”

  “We do what we can. Now that I can shoot the musket and skin my own game, I feel I’m pulling my share of the load.”

  “What if we could do more?”

  “More? How?” Drew sat up and looked at Grace. “I can tell you’re thinking about something. What are you cooking up?”

  “What if we could sell goat’s milk?”

  “It’d spoil before we got it back to Cincinnati,” Drew said.

  “What if we took
the milk-giver with us?”

  Drew smiled. “You want to take one of the nannies?”

  “Yes, I want to take Annabelle.” Grace smiled. “Her kid is weaned from her.”

  “Your mama would never allow a goat in your yard.”

  “A few months ago she might not. But now that there’s little food and no money, she might not be so hard to convince.”

  Drew thought about it. “It’d be fun to have Annabelle with us,” he said.

  “I agree. Shall we go ask?”

  “Let’s go!”

  First they went to find Samantha, who was out in the garden. Grace asked if she’d part with Annabelle. “I was hoping you’d ask,” Samantha answered.

  Mama and Camille were in the kitchen cutting up a roasting hen for supper.

  As Grace expected, her mother protested. “Gracie,” she said, “you don’t know a thing about taking care of a goat. You’re too young for that much responsibility.”

  “I’m not too young,” Grace protested. “I can learn. We’ll have milk to drink and some left over to sell.”

  “But you don’t know how to milk a goat.”

  “Samantha’s already taught me. There’s nothing to it.”

  Just then, Drew spoke up. “I can build a pen and a stanchion, Aunt Lavina.”

  Now Mama hesitated. It was a good sign. Then Drew added, “And I’ll even help Grace take care of Annabelle.”

  Grace could see her mother weakening. “I suppose we could see what your papa thinks.”

  Papa thought it was the smartest idea he’d heard in a long time. “Fresh milk every day! Why, Lavina, who could argue with that?”

  So it was settled. Owen wove a tether rope for them with a handy slipknot so Annabelle wouldn’t get away from them. The next morning when they packed the wagon, the men tied Annabelle to the back.

  Grace had thought she would be sad about returning to the city, but now that she had Annabelle, she was excited. Loud good-byes and thank-yous were exchanged as the wagon pulled out of the Tate farmyard. The return trip would be slower since the wagon was weighted down with supplies.

  Annabelle wasn’t sure she liked leaving the farm. She bleated most of the way. Mama put her hands over her ears. “Such a racket! She sounds worse than a colicky baby.”

  Papa answered, “You won’t care about the noise when she gives buckets of milk.”

  Grace didn’t mind the noise at all. What fun she was going to have with her new pet.

  CHAPTER 10

  Annabelle’s Accident

  The next morning, Grace and Drew were ready to launch into their milk-selling business. But while they had plenty of milk to sell, they’d forgotten one small detail. Few people had the money with which to make a purchase.

  Drew had a small wagon in which to carry their crocks of milk. They walked from house to house, pulling the wagon and asking if anyone wanted to buy some milk. People sadly shook their heads and closed their doors. Grace and Drew went home discouraged.

  It was Drew who came up with the idea of bartering. “No one has any money,” he said, “but people have things they might want to trade.”

  “That’s a wonderful idea,” Grace agreed.

  “Let’s begin with Yost’s Mercantile,” Drew suggested. “We’ll ask Deanna and Aunt Lavina what they need from the store, and then we’ll ask Mr. Yost if he’ll trade the items for goat’s milk.”

  And that’s just what they did. Zachariah Yost was delighted with the plan because he and his wife had two small children. At last, Grace felt she was truly being a help to her family.

  When Papa learned of their plan, he commended them. To Mama he said, “Gracie and Drew make a fine business team.”

  Grace basked in his praise, but she still wished he’d stop calling her Gracie.

  Annabelle’s tether rope was seldom used. Grace could go nowhere but what the bleating nanny wasn’t right on her heels. Grace used the rope only when she took Annabelle into town.

  “That silly goat would sleep with you if she could,” Mama said in exasperation.

  And Grace wished Annabelle could sleep with her. The enclosure Drew built was situated in a corner of the small area behind the house, but Annabelle spent little time there. Not because the pen wasn’t sufficient, but because the goat cried when no one was around. Grace had never before had a pet, and Annabelle’s antics made her laugh with glee.

  And laughter was sorely needed, for as the hot, dry summer wore on, conditions in the city worsened. Food supplies dwindled, and people went hungry. There weren’t as many hogs roaming the streets these days. Papa heard that people were catching them and eating them. Grace knew butchering a large animal in the heat of summer meant meat that rotted quickly. People became very ill eating spoiled meat. Knowing this made her even more thankful for the small store of food they now had in the cellar.

  Papa and Luke talked about another trip to the country. They planned to help other farmers with building projects in trade for food. Grace thought it was a good plan and was pleased that her papa thought of it.

  For the most part, Grace had shoved the thought of her new piano far into the back of her mind. It seemed selfish to want a luxury such as a piano when people were hungry.

  However, one day as she and Drew were on an errand for Mama, with Annabelle on her tether rope, Grace was again thinking about her longing for a piano.

  They were coming back from Yost’s Mercantile when Grace had a bright idea. “No one’s in the church on a Tuesday,” she said to Drew. “Let’s stop in for a minute.”

  “Grace, you don’t like the long hours at church on Sunday. Why do you want to go on a Tuesday?”

  Grace studied Drew. His unruly mop of hair stuck out every which way beneath his cap. The cut-down trousers were already too short for him. Deanna had once said that Drew grew at least an inch a day. Where he used to be pale and wan, he was now ruddy and sunburned. Drew looked nothing like the dapper boy who came to them from Boston.

  “I do so like church … at least part of church,” she retorted.

  “Only the music.”

  “Nothing wrong with that. Music holds a sermon in itself.” Tugging on Annabelle’s rope, she called out, “Are you coming with me or not?” The nanny, who was attempting to nibble tufts of dried grass growing at the edge of the street, bleated and gave a little leap as she scurried to follow along.

  “Grace, what’re you going to do?”

  “The way things look, I may never have a piano of my own.”

  “You’re not going inside the church?”

  “People go into the church all the time to pray. Why can’t I?”

  As Drew caught up beside Grace, Annabelle gave him a playful butt on the leg. He reached down to scratch her head. “That’s not exactly true,” he said to Grace. “You’re not going to pray, are you?”

  She smiled. “I can pray while I’m looking at the piano, can’t I?”

  “Grace!”

  “I just want to lift the cover and touch the keys. There’s no reason why I can’t touch it. It’s not fair for Widow Robbins to be the only one allowed to play it.”

  “You’ll have your piano someday, Grace, I just know it. Deanna always says to me, ‘Let patience have her perfect work.’”

  “I know. Mama quotes the same Bible verse to me all the time. And I am being patient. Very patient. But while I’m being patient, I can still look at the church piano.”

  They came down Walnut Street to where the stone church with its towering bell steeple loomed on a corner lot.

  “What will you do with Annabelle?” Drew asked.

  “You hold her and stand outside to keep watch. We’ll go to the side door. There’s a little grass under the tree there. Annabelle will like that.”

  The shade cast by the church felt good to Grace’s hot feet. Here the blazing summer sun had not totally scorched the scrubby grass. “Stay on the steps,” she instructed Drew. “If you see someone coming, rap hard on the door.” She handed Annab
elle’s rope to him.

  Reaching out to take it, Drew said, “I shouldn’t help you get in trouble, you know.”

  “There’ll be no trouble, Drew.” She stepped up on the cool stone step. Glancing about, she saw no one. The brass knob turned easily in her hand. “I’ll leave the door ajar. Remember, rap hard.”

  Drew nodded, then sat down on the step and let Annabelle’s rope out to give her wide range of the available grass.

  Inside the church, the air was cool, with a kind of musty aroma. Grace made her way past the rows of pews to where the lovely piano sat. Soft light from the window fell across the shiny wood, making it gleam. With trembling fingers, she reached for the little knobs in the front and lifted the cover. It folded back once, then lifted once more to expose all the neatly lined black-and-white keys. Nervously, she glanced over her shoulder. The sanctuary was still empty and quiet.

  Her heart was fairly thudding in her throat. She spread her skirt and sat primly on the stool, then allowed herself to actually reach out and touch the keys. They were as cool and as glossy as she knew they would be. Without pressing a key, she trailed her fingers up and down the keyboard. In her mind, she saw how Widow Robbins’s fingers pounded out the chords for the hymns every Sunday. She wondered if there was a lighter way to make the melodies come to life.

  From the music rack, she pulled down the hymnal and fanned through the pages. If only she knew how to read the notes. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to press just one key. She did so, and the sound of the note startled her. She pressed another and then another. Within a few moments, she found sets of notes that sounded pleasing together and others that grated on her ears.

  A little noise sounded behind her, making her gasp. Turning around, she said, “Oh, Annabelle, it’s only you.”

  Then she jumped from where she was sitting. From the nanny’s mouth hung a partially chewed hymnal. Down on the aisle were three more that also were partially chewed.

  “Annabelle! What are you doing in here?”