The Homestead

by Linda Byler

  Hannah spread the tablecloth, brought out the dishes, poured the cold well water. Sarah warmed the prairie hen gravy. The bread baked over the fire in a covered skillet. The mush was thick and salty, filling their hungry stomachs with heaven-sent manna.

  Sarah watched her family eat until they were full. Now they were happy, light-hearted children, their cheeks flushed with the warm food. She took pity on Mose, trying hard to contain himself, to eat without wolfing down the food, but his eyes gave away his glittering hunger from within.

  Sarah knew the dull ache of an empty stomach herself. Nursing Abigail, she could not have gone on for many more days without a better supply of food. All week, she had considered asking Mose to hitch up the team and go to the Jenkinses’ for help, although knowing he would not allow it. At night, when the baby cried, not satisfied, it seemed as if the corners of the dark room contained a black portent, a foreboding of unseen hardship, and her soul felt weak with trembling.

  But she must be strong. She could see the despair in Mose’s eyes, the way he plied his religion to keep it at bay, the futility of his constant vigil and his expectation of a miracle. There was a certain hope in the way he watched the half-grown corn wither and curl in the blazing sun and the increasingly hot winds. He built a barnyard for the cow and two calves, which brought Sarah to a weak belief that he may be willing to change, to take what Hod Jenkins kept telling him into consideration.

  But tonight, with their stomachs full, Sarah did not want to bring unwanted worries to the table. Tonight, she would enjoy having Hannah back, relishing the new-found maturity she displayed by accepting the food as payment.

  They talked while they washed dishes, Sarah listening to Hannah’s expanded world with awe. She gave a small laugh, eyes wide as she listened, thankful for every scene her daughter allowed her to see. They giggled like schoolgirls, thinking what Mose would say about Bess. Then Sarah turned to Hannah and asked if she honestly would promise to stay out of the café. She believed Bess was kind, but likely the men that frequented the café would not be very good company.

  More than ever, the crude house and barn seemed primitive to Hannah. It was pitiful in its raw state, as if unlearned children had decided to build stick structures. The logs were thin and crooked with yellow, cracking clay clapped between them, the roof gray and rusted brown in long streaks.

  The outdoor cooking was the worst. Like Indians. Sarah did not seem to mind, but living the way they did chafed at Hannah’s spirits, like ill-fitting boots rubbing blisters of shame. But she was here now, in the company of her family. So she would not let the state of their lives drive away the comfort of being with them.

  They sat around the fire late into the evening, the logs burning down to embers, a soft glow encroaching in the west as darkness crept across the sky, pinpricks of stars poking their way through. At night, the wind slowed to a whisper. The grass stopped its constant tossing, as if knowing it was time to go to bed and rest while the world closed its wings and slept.

  Eli and Mary sat close to Mose, leaning on his legs with their elbows, their eyelids drowsy, the heat of the fire putting them to sleep. Sarah held Baby Abigail, although she was sound asleep, loving the feel of the small, pliant form in her arms. Manny sat cross-legged, staring into the fire, his dark eyes hiding any form of emotion, his handsome face etched in stone.

  Hannah watched her brother and wondered. What had occurred this past week while she was gone? Manny loved his father, stood by him, and defended him with his whole being, in spite of Dat’s erratic behavior.

  Hannah broke the silence by asking about the calves. Mose said he believed they were doing well. Hannah asked if they were still tethered on ropes.

  “No, they are in the barnyard now.”

  “Always? Don’t you let them out to graze?”

  “No, we don’t. We give them grass by the forkful.” Sarah’s eyes cautioned Hannah.

  “You know, the Jenkinses’ cows pretty much roam at will. They don’t go far, and if they do, they are branded. Everyone knows whose cattle they are. We haven’t branded ours yet.”

  Mose nodded.

  “Clay has a brand made at the farrier. The Bar S for Stoltzfus, Mam’s maiden name.”

  Mose looked at Hannah in disbelief. “You took that on yourself, then, to name the homestead into a place called a ranch, the way our worldly neighbors have done? We are not of the world; we are a peculiar people, set apart. We are God’s chosen, so we do things differently. Who gave Clay Jenkins the right to carry on with the name of our ranch, I mean, homestead?”

  “I did.”

  “Without my permission?”

  “Yes.” Hannah hung her head, her gaze dropping to her hands in her lap.

  “So, you are planning on turning this productive little homestead, a humble place of abode blessed by God, into a ranch with a worldly name?”

  “Dat, we have to. Don’t you see? We have no choice. Look around you. The corn is withering on its roots. This is normal weather for early summer. They don’t grow corn here. They raise cattle. The grass is abundant and it’s free. The cattle grow fat and we sell them. That’s how we survive. Until the herd is built up, we need to have a paying job to stay alive.”

  Mose pursed his lips. “The rain will come, Hannah.”

  “And what if it doesn’t, Dat? Do you have any plans beyond the withered corn, already dying in the field?”

  “God will provide.”

  And then Manny spoke in a deep voice, a man’s voice, bringing Mose to attention. “Dat, I want to be an obedient son, and you know I always have been. But Hannah’s right. Perhaps this is a test for our faith, a test of our will to survive these first years. Already we would have perished without the help of our worldly neighbors. We are no longer among our own people, so we need to accept advice and help from those around us. I met a man named Owen Klasserman when I was out riding, a heavyset man who speaks German. Their ranch is closer to us than the Jenkinses’. He says, too, that cattle is the way to make a living in the Dakotas.”

  A long speech for Manny. Mose listened to his son’s words and considered them, Sarah could tell. With the respect he had for his son, his words meant more than if Hannah had spoken them. For a heartbeat she waited for her husband’s reply and when none was forthcoming, she continued to wait, knowing Mose would think for a long time before he spoke.

  She got up, put Abby to bed, and returned to find her husband waving his arms forcefully, speaking in loud tones. She stood in front of the house in the darkness with her arms crossed, watching the red glow of the fire and her husband’s waving arms. As she listened, his voice seemed like rocks thrown on the roof, and a genuine dread gripped her.

  “Who are you to be telling your own father?” he shouted.

  Eli and Mary rose to their feet, fleeing from their father’s rant to take refuge in Sarah’s arms. Quietly she put them to bed and knelt with them to say their German prayer. She kissed them goodnight before returning to the fireside to sit with Mose, his speech now done. A cowed silence, rife with unspoken words, settled over them.

  The fire glowed. Mose got up to add a stick of wood, sparks shooting upward to the magnificence of the vast night sky. Somewhere, a wolf howled its eerie call of the wild across the rustling night grasses, immediately followed by the high yipping of a coyote.

  And then Sarah spoke in a voice filled with peace. “Children, I do believe your father and I can see that what you are saying is true. But it is hard for parents to accept the counsel of their children, knowing that we are older and wiser and have been here on earth longer than both of you. So, we should be the ones who guide and direct you. However, our situation borders on the desperate, and without the aid of our English neighbors, we will likely not survive. My whole heart yearns to return to Lancaster County, the land of my childhood, the home of our dear parents, and aunts and uncles. But that too is an impossibility with no money for train fare, and no resources to make the long journey with horses and wagon. />
  “Hannah, you are doing the one thing that for now will save us from starvation. Manny, you are right. We need to learn to adapt and accept help from those around us, whether they are people of faith or not.”

  Here Mose broke in. “Believers should not be yoked to unbelievers.”

  Sarah went on, “We are not yoked, my husband. We are here in a harsh land where folks need each other, and without that, we will surely perish. So we will continue allowing Hannah to work for the Rochers and try our best to grow the food we can, watering the garden and branding the calves, which looks to be a necessity. Then we will wait on the Lord, and see what He has for us in the future.”

  CHAPTER 11

  On Sunday afternoon, Clay Jenkins appeared riding a black horse that still tugged at the bit in spite of having traveled the miles between them, carrying the branding iron he had picked up at the farrier’s that week.

  It was fortunate that Mose was asleep, that Hannah stood by the barnyard fence watching his arrival, painfully aware of her threadbare blue dress that was too tight across her shoulders, the torn black apron tied around her waist, her bare feet.

  The welcoming light in his blue eyes, the way he lifted his old brown Stetson, and the blonde hair falling over his forehead put her at ease so that she smiled her welcome in return.

  He proffered the iron. She stepped up to take it from him, lifted it carefully, examined the insignia on the bottom, and ran her fingers over it as if the shape of the cast iron was the shape of her future. She looked up at him, her dark eyes thanking him.

  “I guess you know I can’t pay you for this.”

  He nodded and said, “It’s all right.” Then, “Mind if I get down?”

  “No.”

  He dismounted in one easy movement, then stood, so tall above her, and asked if she’d want to walk with him.

  Hannah glanced at the house and noticed the lack of activity. She nodded her head, her heart pounding in fear of her father. Clay knew he would be unwelcome, but was determined to take this chance when it presented itself.

  They walked side by side, Clay leading the horse, down the grassy track that served as a driveway to the buildings.

  The air was hot and windy, the sky a dome of blue heat, the grass waving restlessly, tossed by the constant current of air that tugged at her skirts, flapped the strings of her covering and loosened her dark hair from its restraints.

  The horse blew from his nostrils, the way horses do, with a rumbling sound that made Hannah jump.

  Clay laughed. “Thought it was your pa comin’ up behind us?”

  Hannah laughed that rich laugh that came from deep inside. Clay looked down at her and saw only the top of her head, the band of white that was her covering, and the dark hair blown loose by the wind.

  She looked up then and caught his gaze. “He’d be yelling long before he got this close.”

  “He don’t like me much.”

  “No.”

  “Well, what I came over for was to give you the branding iron, but also to see how you all are gittin’ on. I can’t see how you’re livin’ half decent with no food, and I don’t believe money’s plentiful around here. I guess to say it right, I’m plain worried about you.”

  Hannah sighed. She gazed off across the prairie and then stopped walking. Looking at Clay, really looking at him, she told him there was a time when her pride would not have allowed her to say how bad things actually were. But now, she’d have to.

  Clay switched the reins to his other hand, tipped up his hat, and waited. With a proud lift of her chin, Hannah told him about going to town, relating the whole story in minute detail, to the filth in the alleyways, Bess at the café, the room she slept in at the Rochers’, and Doris’s unhappiness.

  “I just want to be able to keep my family. The children are hungry.” Defiance flashed from her dark eyes, carrying the knowledge of her father’s disapproval.

  Clay showed his disbelief. “Whyn’t you ride over? You did once.”

  “I’m no beggar.”

  “But it wasn’t begging. You did what you had to do.”

  “I know.”

  There was a silence, long enough that Clay was aware of her, so sharply aware of wanting to comfort Hannah and take away the unfair burden that had been laid on her too-young shoulders. She was tied to her father by her strict upbringing and would become her mother when she was married. He could see this plainly. Slowly, her spirit would change.

  “So your mother wouldn’t go against your father?”

  “No. Well, not really. She did give us a little speech last night, although in her own timid way, which I suppose will help somewhere down the road. But in the meantime, the situation is real. Someone has to come up with a plan to put food on the table.”

  “Looks like you’re doing it. Right plucky of you.”

  “You think?”

  “Yeah.”

  “There was nothing else to do.”

  “So tell me, Hannah, when you get married, will you be like your mother?”

  “Who would I marry? There are no Amish within hundreds of miles. I want to get married. I figured that out soon after we left home.”

  “You can’t marry a normal person?” Clay asked seriously.

  Hannah laughed. “You’re saying you are normal and we aren’t?”

  “Something like that.”

  Hannah thought for awhile, then shook her head. “I’m still young. I don’t know what would happen if I met someone and fell in love with him. If he wasn’t Amish, my parents would never allow it, so I could never receive their blessing. That’s a scary prospect. Besides, I don’t know what love is, or how to fall in love. How does a person know when that’s about to happen?”

  Clay gave a short laugh. “I’ve been in and out of love ‘bout a hunnert times.”

  “See what I mean? It didn’t work for you. Probably never will for me.”

  Clay dropped the horse’s reins and asked if she would sit for a spell, then bent to flatten some grass by the side of the road. Grateful to rest, Hannah sat facing him, her legs curled beneath her skirt, her dark eyes on his face as he removed his hat. His hair was so long she couldn’t tell if he had the telltale blue-white forehead of every man on the plains.

  He did have a nice face, she decided. The squint of his blue eyes, the straight nose that appeared to have been smashed once, or at least broken, the cleft in his chin, his smooth skin already had the makings of fine lines and fissures around his eyes from the unforgiving weather.

  She did not let her gaze linger on his mouth for reasons she did not understand. Perhaps it was too perfect. She had never seen a mouth with that kind of perfection. It was unsettling, so she looked at his nose again, but that was too close to his eyes. So she settled on a region somewhere beyond his shoulder.

  He told her that her family would need help getting along. Did she know that? She said yes, she did know that, but figured as long as she stayed on at the Rochers’ store, she could supply sufficient food for all of them.

  “What about your pa? Couldn’t he find work someplace? Or your brother?” Clay asked, watching the way her eyes grew darker, thinking on things.

  “Manny will have to, eventually. Even if it’s for food, the way I’m doing.”

  “Your pa? He wouldn’t work for wages?”

  Hannah shrugged.

  “You dread goin’ back to town on Monday morning?”

  “No, not really. I’ll like it better once I know everyone.”

  “When’s those boys comin’ back from college?”

  “Not now. Maybe in six months or a year. I don’t know.”

  Clay said he’d never wanted to go to college. All he wanted to do was buy his own spread and raise cattle his whole life long. That was all he knew.

  “Do you want to get married and have children?”

  “Yeah. Probably, if I can.”

  “Why couldn’t you?” Hannah asked.

  Clay shrugged and thought, because I can’t h
ave you. I would get married right quick, Hannah, if I knew I could have you. But he didn’t say it.

  “Yeah, well, same for me, Clay. There’s no one close, so I’ll probably remain single and work to feed my family.”

  Suddenly she sat up straight, a fierce light of determination in her eyes. She told him she was going to learn how to rope and ride if it was the last thing she ever did!

  Clay looked at the sun and told her there was time to ride home to his place and practice in the corral. Would she?

  She couldn’t go home and get one of the horses. Her father would never allow it, with Clay and on a Sunday.

  “You always bring your pa wherever you go? Come on. You can ride with me.”

  Hannah felt the blush before it colored her face, then kept her eyes downcast, afraid to let him see how badly she wanted to do just that. She became so flustered, she could not think of an answer fast enough, so she started to laugh, which came out in a mixed-up sob, the hysterical sound of a young girl’s heart.

  Clay stepped closer, reached down, and pulled her to her feet, searching her face, not understanding what had caused the sound coming from her throat.

  She yanked her hands out of his, stomped one foot, and told him to go away and leave her alone, accusing her of bringing her father when he wasn’t even close, and if he was, she’d do exactly as she wanted anyway.

  With that, she ran off toward home, her feet pounding the dry, hard earth, tears of rage and frustration welling up as she ran.

  Clay called after her, then thought better of it. He gathered up the reins and made his way home, thinking the less he saw of Hannah Detweiler the better. But he knew too that he would look forward to their next encounter, which he planned for next week, when he would go to Rocher’s Hardware for some bolts. Or nails. Or something.

  Hannah rode the faithful Pete to work the following morning, beginning at daybreak with a parcel of cold mush in the pocket of the clean brown dress her mother allowed her to wear. It was a dress kept for church on Sundays, but since there was no church to attend, what was the point? She wore Manny’s old pair of trousers underneath, for modesty.