The Homestead

by Linda Byler

  Sarah called, “Get down, get down, Abby! Oh, I am surely glad to see you. Get yourself down and come on in!” She realized she was babbling, but didn’t care.

  Abby came striding across the dusty yard, glancing at the smoldering ashes in the fire ring made of stones, and greeted Sarah in her own inimitable way. “Sarah, you know, you folks will start a prairie fire, sure as I’m born. Why that lazy Mose don’t get you a cook stove is beyond me. He coulda laid a fireplace.”

  “Well, Abby, it is certainly good to see you. I am so glad you came over. I’ve been wishing for another woman to talk to for so long.”

  “Where’s Hannah?”

  Sarah led Abby to the armless rocker, took the remaining chair herself, and balanced the baby on her shoulder. “She’s in town working for the Rochers. I guess they own a store, the way she said.”

  “Is she being paid?”

  Ashamed, Sarah lowered her eyes. “With food.”

  “Enough?”

  “Yes, I believe so.”

  “What did she bring?”

  And so Sarah told Abby the story of Hannah going to look for work, eliminating any distress, any hunger, and of her return, without mentioning Mose’s reaction to the automobile that brought her. This was Sarah’s way, to erase the desperation and heartache and replace it with sunny optimism. It was good, her glittering unshed tears a dead giveaway to how bad matters actually were.

  When she had finished, Abby said curtly, “Well, you can keep talkin’ but it’s as plain as the nose on yer face, yer starving. There ain’t nothin’ to eat, lest you started chewin’ hay.”

  Sarah laughed, a fine, tinkling laugh without humor. So near were the tears of their affliction to the surface that she bit her upper lip hard with her lower, her eyes wide, watching Abby’s face. The dear, kind face, like an angel with wrinkles and well-washed clothing. She would never forget this woman as long as she lived.

  “Hod come over to try and talk some sense into Mose. We’re willing to loan you the money to go back East on the train, back to yer family. This weather, you know, is why. It’ll turn into a drought, maybe the worst one we’ve ever seen. Hod says there’s sun dogs and it don’t rain; the storms aren’t coming. The wind is from the southwest an’ we ain’t gittin no rain. He says the crick’ll dry up right soon, an’ he ain’t sure how good the well is you got here.

  “Thing is, you ain’t got money in the bank, no cattle to speak of, and jobs is hard to come by. Hannah won’t make enough to keep all of you goin’, you know that.”

  Sarah nodded, bit her lower lip, and pondered her words. Finally, she spoke. “Abby, I would get on that train today, with your money. I would gather up my children and board that train, return to my family with nothing but pure joy, the greatest joy, Abby. But I know Mose will never return.”

  “He will have to. This kind of weather is nothing to mess with. There’s always the fear of having no water for the cattle.”

  Sarah shook her head, her large eyes apprehensive. Hod and Mose came through the door, lifting their hats and wiping their foreheads exactly alike. The day was very warm, too warm to be operating a scythe, Hod said, clucking his tongue.

  Mose smiled. He looked pale, a bit peaked. Sarah had dark circles under her eyes, her hands looked thin and claw-like.

  Hod stated his case in forthright language. It was hot and dry. It would likely get hotter and drier. They were concerned for the Detweiler’s welfare, willing to pay the train fare home.

  Mose sat on the crude stump at the makeshift kitchen table, his head lowered, his hands between his knees, without watching Hod’s face as he spoke.

  Abby reached for the baby, crooned, and snuggled her as she smiled a beatific smile of contentment, holding this baby girl, the real live baby of her past. Sarah watched with tenderness.

  When Mose looked up, Sarah recognized the steel behind the heavy lidded eyes. Hope dashed to the ground, smashed like fine china thrown with force. “I don’t believe we’ll take up your offer. I have no need to return to Lancaster County at this time.”

  Hod became agitated, his blue eyes opening wide beneath their busy gray brows, the wrinkles and lines around his mouth lengthening and deepening. “You’re crazy, Mose!” he burst out. “You ain’t gonna survive a few years of drought. You have nothing to go on. ‘Less you git a job in town, and they’re scarcer ‘n all git out. Ain’t nobody payin’ good wages. Me and Abby, we can do what we can, but you got the children to think of and nothin’ put by.”

  “We are, in fact, surviving well. Hannah, our daughter, is employed at Harry Rocher’s store.”

  “For what? He can’t pay her big wages.”

  “She brings home sufficient food, week by week.”

  “You need to get them calves out of the barnyard. Did you brand ‘em yet?” Hod was almost shouting, veins sprouting blue on his neck.

  “Not yet. I understand they roam quite a bit, and I only have the 320 acres. One claim.”

  “How’d you get a claim?”

  When Mose told him about signing the paperwork and getting his government papers, Hod wondered if a word of it was true. For all he knew, these people were merely squatters the government would drive out if they weren’t here legally. But he liked Mose. He genuinely liked the fellow, and gave him the benefit of the doubt, sitting there in his crude house.

  “Another thing, Mose. You’re gonna have to come up with some kind of indoor heat. You know that fire thing you got out there’s gonna put the whole prairie to flame one o’ these days.”

  Abby nodded vigorously, keeping time by patting the baby on her back with her gnarly fingers, like misshapen twigs.

  “Well, here we do have a problem then. I have no means of procuring a stove. Nor do I have the resources for a fireplace.”

  “What d’ you mean, no resources? What’s that supposed to mean? Sure you have the resources. They ain’t very big, them rocks in the crick, but you could build yourself a decent fireplace, you and the oldest boy.”

  “I have no cement.”

  Suddenly Abby burst forth, her words as if someone were pounding on piano keys. “Well, you sure don’t have anything else, either. No money, no food, and no ambition to try and make life better for yer wife and five beautiful kids. You best listen to me and Hod whilst you have the chance. Get on home. You ain’t cut out to be pioneers in this hard land. It ain’t gonna deal kindly with any of you if we’re reading the signs right.”

  A woman speaking in those tones was like a cheese grater on Mose’s well-being, scraping and mangling the respect he held loosely for women to begin with.

  “You are implying that I have no ambition,” he stated, wounded.

  “I sure am.”

  “Who, then, built these dwellings?”

  “Why, I’ll tell you who built ‘em. Mostly your two kids, an’ Hod, an’ the boys, that’s who. You was too busy readin’ and prayin’.

  Mose sighed as a sad smile crossed his features. “Well, neighbor Abigail, to all Christians, persecution must come. I forgive you for your misunderstanding of our circumstances. Many were the nights when I lay tossing and turning, pained by the soreness of my muscles.”

  Abby muttered something that sounded like, “Good for you,” but no one was sure, so the conversation took a turn to other subjects of interest, including the rapid regrowth of the prairie grass after a field had been tilled.

  Sarah sat in her chair, shocked and humiliated in turn. She knew there was far too much truth in Abby’s words, but loyalty to her husband came easily. To admit Mose was making a mistake was like being pushed off the face of the earth to go spinning into a vast galaxy without gravity.

  Her safety lay in obedience, one step behind her husband, her will given over. When he stopped, she stopped. When he moved on, so did she. When he climbed on the covered wagon for the western sojourn, she followed in body and spirit. She well knew their dire situation. She knew. But to rebel, take the children and return, was as unthinkable as just that,
being pushed off the earth. Better to stay where she felt safe, at peace, her place secure in the realm of her husband’s wishes.

  “I would offer you a drink, but we have no tea or coffee,” she said.

  Hod assured her they didn’t expect anything, and they soon took their leave as Eli and Mary watched wide-eyed, their mended, threadbare clothes another testimony to this family’s hardship.

  The following day Hod and Abby returned, driving a pickup truck with wooden sides flapping and rattling, the back loaded down with a kitchen stove with a rusty top and one leg missing, stovepipe and chimney blocks, and enough bags of cement to build a chimney.

  Hod didn’t waste many words, just told a gaping Mose and a tear-eyed Sarah that this thing had been settin’ in the shed since they got an electric stove. Mose may as well roll up his sleeves and begin mixing cement because they were getting a chimney, before the whole prairie went up in flames.

  Abby brought towels and sheets and pillowcases. She had a whole cardboard box of fabric, needles, dishes, and all the groceries she could spare, which was a sizable amount from her well-stocked pantry and cellar.

  She brought two cupboards, one to set on top of the other, for kitchen space, and a table that suited well as a sink, the height perfect for washing dishes in a dishpan. She barked orders to the men, telling them where to set the stuff, busily carrying in boxes herself.

  The three boys followed about an hour later on horseback, clattering up to the house on their foaming, wide-eyed mounts. Hod took to scolding, telling them it was far too hot to race them horses, but then he laughed. He’d been young once himself.

  When the sun began its western descent, the Detweilers had a chimney and a cook stove. The cement was dry, and the stove was set up with a sturdy square of cement block replacing the missing leg. Abby helped sand down the rusted top, which they cleaned with ammonia water and lye soap.

  They made steak and potatoes, with cabbage from Abby’s garden. They ate slice after slice of custard pie, a delicacy that seemed impossibly delicious. Sarah’s eyes shone as the children ate. Mose was effusive in his gratitude.

  They sat together on the front porch, the yard strange without the fire ring. When they started a small fire in the cook stove, the smoke leaked out of the new stovepipe, setting Eli and Mary both to crying, thinking the only safe way to build a fire was outdoors until Sarah explained it to them. She was so glad to be rid of the outdoor cooking, now that she would not need to do it any longer.

  Drinking coffee was a luxury both Mose and Sarah had almost forgotten. Abby taught Sarah the Western way of making coffee, with no fancy percolators or other gadgets. “You just throw a handful of coffee grounds into the water and keep it boiling awhile,” she said, producing a cup of steaming hot bitter liquid that could easily have been stretched into two cups.

  So the neighbors parted amicably, although Abby made a point of ignoring Mose, neither looking at nor speaking to him. Mose was all right with that. Having been raised in a family of nine sisters, nothing surprised him. It rankled him, though, to be called lazy. As far as he knew, he’d never shirked any manual labor a day in his life.

  Mose and Sarah lay side by side on their tick filled with hay and talked as the crescent moon hung in the sky, surrounded by the kingdom of blinking stars. The heat hovered inside the house, but there was a cool breeze blowing through the open window.

  “I feel as if we have been visited by a miracle,” Mose said, his hands behind his head, his elbows sticking up like wings on either side of his head.

  Afraid that her husband would resume his fasting and praying, Sarah quickly assured him that it was only the Jenkinses’ generosity, their caring, that made it possible to live closer to normalcy. She added the fact that they should not live on more charitable donations. “Wouldn’t it be better to make our own way?” she asked, timidly.

  “Yes, yes, it would. I’m praying about it, asking for the Lord’s leading. You may not think so, Sarah, but I am sincere. I believe I have overstepped my boundaries of faith, that point where it blurs a line with determination, and even where you start blending reality with unreality.”

  Sarah felt a love and gratitude well up inside and turned to stroke his chest and face, a caress of true love. “Oh, Mose, for some time now I’ve been afraid for you—almost afraid of you from time to time. You were so determined, so not your usual self.”

  “I can see it now, Sarah. I have blurred the lines, and my family has suffered the consequences. Hod’s visit has brought up reality very sharply. Do you think a drought of that proportion can occur here? Years? Hod said years.”

  “I don’t know. But we do have well water.”

  “The well is old. Remember? It was almost like an accidental caving in, the well was so easily dug. And who knows? If a long-term drought should occur, will we have water?”

  “We’ll see. Do the Jenkinses feel the winter will be dry too? Or does the snowfall replenish the moisture? We didn’t think to ask.”

  There was a small space of restful silence, a moment when the breathing between them was a harmony of their hearts, a married couple who had both come through the fire that heats the dross to form a golden vessel, the purity and comfort of their union.

  “Yes, for now, we are provided for, once again. But we will both continue to pray.” Then, “Sarah, do you want to return home?”

  “Oh, I do, Mose, I do. If it was only me, I would be on the train tomorrow. But I know you would not go willingly.”

  “As much as you want to go, I want to stay. The clamor and shifting for position, the greed and desire for the best farm, the best cattle, the constant overload of relatives and church members, the endless discussions of hay and corn and religious doctrine—I am seriously in fear of Lancaster County.”

  “But, Mose, perhaps it is only in you. No one else seems to mind it. They rather enjoy it as a way of life. Surely God is blessing that fruitful land and will multiply the heirs of farms for generations to come.

  Mose shook his head from side to side. “Then I, alone, am a failure. A heretic, if you will. I have failed to keep the farm, failed to keep the Ordnung. I was abused by my brethren when I was only doing what was necessary to keep the farm. The distilling of grains. Who decided that it was worth being excommunicated?”

  In his petulant tone Sarah heard the self-righteousness of the spoiled youngest son and thought, yes, he had failed in many ways. He was failing again. But did that give her the right to return without him? Oh, she could. Fiercely she knew that she could but never would. She was bound to him by the holy vows of matrimony. She had promised to care for him, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health. Yes, they were poor beyond anything she had ever imagined, her husband’s mental health had been in serious decline, and could possibly still be, although his talk tonight was encouraging.

  “The bishop, I suppose,” she said, mildly, covering all her thoughts.

  “One person?”

  “No, Mose. You know these decisions are conferred.”

  “Not always.”

  So there it was, the impossibility of their return. Her husband harbored a sore bitterness toward the ministers of his church, a canker sore that rose on his skin, which might never burst and heal. His outward display of religion, keeping the Ordnung to the letter, his tight-lipped conservative manner, it was all a hooded cover-up for his own seething rebellion toward higher authority. Clearly, his choice to live in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a level sea of grass, made perfect sense. It was the staking of his own claim to be free of his own failures. And he kept failing, but blindly.

  When Mose took her in his arms and kissed her, the tears had already begun to flow. Later, when he lay softly snoring, she cried with the raw abandon of the brokenhearted, her face stuffed into the goose down pillow from home.

  But in the morning there was a song in her heart and a light in her eye, seeing that Mose had started a small fire in the gleaming new stove that stood in the kitchen o
n three legs and a block of cement. She got down the cast-iron frying pan and fried mush with newfound pleasure, and gave herself up to her life on the plains as the slabs of mush sizzled and sputtered.

  Every morning she thought of Hannah and prayed that she would stay true, unspotted from the world. She missed her fiery oldest daughter and the abandon with which she viewed the world. She wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Hannah never stayed Amish. How could she? She was already too aware of Clay Jenkins. Would it matter to God if she had been brought out here to live by a father who would not conform?

  In her heart, Sarah was thrilled by the budding romance, the way mothers are when their oldest daughters grow to the age where boys notice them. She had seen them leave together and didn’t have the heart to call them back.

  When Baby Abigail awoke, Mary tumbled down the stairs to reach her before her mother did. Sarah ran to playfully snatch her away, grabbing Mary’s waist to set her aside. Mary screeched and reached out to smack her mother’s arms. Sarah laughed and handed a delighted, cooing Abby to her sister, then set a pot of porridge to boil. There was coffee to be made too, a rare and wonderful treat.

  To think of cutting and sewing fabric, turning it into new dresses and shirts, was beyond anything she could imagine. She felt so warmhearted toward Abby; somehow, she must think of some way to repay all she has done. Surely her kindness paralleled, even overrode, any kindness she had ever received from members of the close-knit community back home.

  That day, the Klassermans arrived, driving their spring wagon up to the house and calling out in a blend of jovial voices. “Hey, ist anyone to home?”

  Sarah rose from scrubbing the wooden kitchen floor, shocked to hear the strange voices, shocked to see they had company yet again, which was unusual. For a moment, she felt afraid, alone and unprotected the way she was.