The Homestead

by Linda Byler

  “What man?” shouted Fannie.

  “What do you mean?” barked Sadie.

  “Hush. Everyone hush. I will not put up with this public shaming,” said Uncle Dan piously. “It was nothing.”

  Hannah exhaled, grateful for his words. She sincerely hoped it was the end of that subject, or the way it was headed.

  As luck would have it, the Jenkins family arrived that afternoon, the parents driving the rusted out pickup truck, the boys following on horseback, tanned and lithe, easygoing and full of laughter.

  Hannah yearned for Clay. She yearned to be with him alone and be rid of this flock of people dressed in somber black, with their dire predictions and spouting the evil that would come to pass if she disobeyed.

  Her mother’s tears, though. They fell red hot on Hannah’s conscience. That was the lone reason that Hannah finally admitted to herself that she simply could not do this to her mother. She knew if she stayed, her mother would not have a moment’s rest if she traveled home to Lancaster County without her. So she, herself, would lay down her own will, the flesh, and stay with Hannah. She’d follow Hannah in much the same way she’d followed Mose, cowed by the will of another person, a sheep to the slaughter.

  So she sought out Clay, made sure there was no one to see, and slipped behind the barn, away from prying, curious eyes. He asked her what the plans were.

  “I have to go, Clay.”

  “You said you wouldn’t go.”

  “I know. Oh, I know. But my mother won’t go without me. She’ll stay here, give up for my sake, and I’ll be like my father. Someone she gives her life for, a person she follows, in spite of her own unhappiness. I can’t make her do that.”

  Clay kicked at a clump of grass, his hands in his pockets. “What about us? Is that simply not possible?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A future together? You know, getting’ married an’ all.”

  “I’d have to leave my faith, my family, and my life as I know it.”

  “Stay, Hannah.” He clasped both of her hands in a grip of iron. Hannah winced. “Stay with me,” he whispered brokenly.

  All of her yearned toward him. She wanted to do just that. Stay here with him. Together they could have a prosperous ranch. Would their love be strong enough to bridge the divide between the two cultures?

  Hannah saw herself take off her large white covering, let down her long dark hair, shed the plain, homemade dresses, and put on the gaily flowered shirtwaists, the flesh-colored stockings, and high-heeled shoes. Eventually, she’d wear jeans and shirts, go to dances, drink beer, and paint her lips as red as a cherry. She’d change over to a woman of the world and be like everyone else. Never again would she belong to her family, her relatives, in the true sense of the word.

  She’d never joined the church, never taken vows, so she wouldn’t be excommunicated. She’d just not be a part of it any longer.

  She’d be like her cousin, Harvey, who had run off to join the army. They talked to him when he returned, but with a certain reserved, careful way of speaking, as mistrustful as a wild steer. He was a man of the world, especially because of joining the war effort—oh, doubly so. He was an apostate, a heretic, responsible for breaking his mother’s heart, bringing his father to an early death. Some said there was no hope for his soul. He would burn in hell for all eternity for going against his father’s wishes. Cursed is he who brings sorrow to his mother.

  At the tender age of sixteen, Hannah grappled with all of this, confronted by a handsome young man who pleaded with her to stay with him in the land that she loved.

  With a cry, a plea for help, she flung herself into his arms and clung to him, trying desperately to rid herself of her own conscience. Her bessa-grissa. The knowledge deep within that she knew better than to disobey her mother, caring nothing about her feelings of despair, living only for herself, selfish, unthinking, without natural love.

  They had a few moments of stolen kisses, with Clay’s tears mingling with her own, his arms around her like velvet, steel beneath the softness, their longing and denial a battle that had only begun.

  “I’ll go back, Clay,” she whispered, brokenly. “I’ll listen to my poor mother. But the rest of my life, I’ll try and figure out a way to come back to you. I will. We can write. I have your address.”

  Clay groaned as he pulled her closer. This final time together was the worst kind of torment he had ever known. He had never fallen so hard for anyone. All the relaxed manner he had ever known could not have prepared him for the agony of their parting.

  CHAPTER 16

  The train chugged into the station, plumes of black smoke rolling from the smoke stack as if the devil himself was in charge. Which he probably was, Hannah thought bitterly. Her black shoes and stockings pinched her feet and chafed at her heels. Her breath, sour with the morning’s coffee soup, irritated her as much as the prickling at her waistline where her apron was pinned too tightly.

  The mountain of suitcases and cardboard boxes was embarrassing. They looked like a bunch of immigrants from another country, everyone dressed in crow-like black. Aunt Eva looked like a crow, with that monstrous nose of hers. Probably the reason she never wore her spectacles was because they’d never fit on top of that nose. Her eyes were as sharp as a crow’s eyes too; she saw right through you.

  Manny sat beside her, his tanned face quiet, serene, his eyes darting everywhere, taking in the sights and sounds around him. He didn’t speak to Hannah; he merely ignored her, knowing the mood she was in would not bide well with him.

  Sarah could not hide her childlike wonder. The pure happiness of returning to the land of her youth, back to her childhood home, was almost more than she could grasp. Every click of the train wheels sang a song that traveled to her feet, through her body and into her heart. Home, home. I’m going home. Never more to roam. Never would she return, never.

  She hardly slept and didn’t mind the grimy soot that seemed to coat every available surface with black dust. Even the inside of her nostrils were stopped up; her tongue was dry with it and her teeth clacked together as if they were grinding eggshells. Tenderly, she held the baby and cared for Eli and Mary with a heart that bubbled over with joy and anticipation.

  She felt as if she would never need to eat another meal. This unexpected homecoming was all the sustenance she needed. It was only at night, when the train slid through the darkness, that she closed her eyes and saw her husband’s wracked body, the pitiful gasping for breath, the final moment when he had to let her go, that she shuddered, reliving the pain and the onslaught of grief that followed.

  She would never be free of this and didn’t want to be. She remembered Mose as a strong, healthy man, a lover of life, her heart’s desire, a tender man who loved his wife and children beyond all reason.

  They had a layover in Chicago. The children huddled around their mother with large, frightened eyes, taking in the enormity of this strange, bustling world of people, cars, trucks, and hissing locomotives. Hannah stood with Manny on the platform of the great station as they peered up, up, and up at buildings so tall they could not imagine them staying upright in a wind storm.

  “But Hannah, what are these buildings made of?” Manny asked, breathless with wonder, his large dark eyes unable to absorb it all.

  “I don’t know. Steel? Cement? Who knows, Manny?”

  “We didn’t learn much about things like this in school, did we?”

  “Not much.”

  Then, “Hannah, you didn’t want to come back, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Because of Clay?”

  “No. The homestead.”

  “We can’t go back without our father.”

  “Sure we can. I will, someday.”

  Manny watched his sister’s face and knew she meant it. He smiled at her, his youthful face beginning to show signs of manhood.

  Hannah touched his arm and grinned. “Don’t worry, Manny. I won’t go without you. I know you’ll want to go when
the time is right.”

  Their arrival in the city of Lancaster was uneventful, the train sliding smoothly into the station. Two of the uncles came to greet them and hustled them into wagons with teams of horses.

  There was so much talk, so many greetings, so much formality and recounting of her father’s death. Hannah was bone weary, completely sick of the fuss, the endless whirl of coming home, that she slouched down in the back of the wagon, drew up her knees and closed her eyes. She thought of Clay and his eyes when he pleaded with her to stay.

  It was dark, late in the evening, when the horses trotted into the driveway that led to Sarah’s father’s house. A sprawling house built of gray limestone, with wooden additions, a black slate roof and a wire fence around the yard, it was everything Hannah remembered.

  Sarah cried with the joy of being at home, a place she didn’t think she would ever see again. Empty and cold without her mother, carrying the loss of her husband like heavy armor, the room seemed to fold in on her chest and squeezed the breath from her body.

  Her father sensed the immense upheaval in his daughter’s spirit and took the children to their rooms, showed them where to wash, and produced the suitcases that held their nightclothes, leaving Sarah to lay her arms on the tabletop, her shoulders heaving with sobs. There was too much grief, too much to absorb, the awful pit of her grief yawning before her, the joy of coming home lifting her to new heights, only to return to her grief by the kitchen of her childhood without her precious mother.

  She became aware of her father standing beside her, quietly waiting until her sobs subsided. He handed her a folded white handkerchief. “Will you be all right, Sarah, through all of this?”

  Her swollen eyes still leaking tears, biting her lip to regain her composure, she nodded, then wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “It’s just so empty without Mam,” she wailed, on a fresh note of despair.

  “Yes, it is that. It will never be the same. But we are not put on this earth to stay. Our home is not here, and the Lord truly does give and He taketh away. Her time was up, in spite of those who are left behind missing her so badly.”

  “As was Mose’s time,” she whispered.

  “Ya. Oh ya, Sarah. I’m so glad you accept that. It is the truth. We can never blame ourselves or circumstances for a death. God cuts the goldicha fauda, the golden thread of our existence, and that is that.”

  So with a calm heart and a weary body, Sarah went to die goot schtup, the guest bedroom, the room with sheets that smelled of dried lavender, quilts that smelled faintly of moth balls, green window blinds, and freshly starched white curtains that were hung halfway up the ornate trim work, which was varnished to a high gloss.

  The kerosene lamp illuminated the old oak sideboard that had been her grandmother Stoltzfus’s bonnet cupboard. The gilt mirror hung above it, and the old, hand-embroidered family record. Even the pitcher and water glasses with painted fruit. It was all here, just the way she remembered.

  She washed in the basin provided by her father, slipped into her old nightdress, and lay between the smooth, cool sheets on the firm mattress she had once been used to. Never in her life had she experienced such luxury, almost sinful comfort. Clean, soft, and smelling of lavender, Sarah pressed the palm of her hand into the pillow beside her head—empty.

  So this is what widowhood was. An empty pillow beside her, only the memory of Mose’s dark head remaining. A fresh wave of longing seized her, the grief and sorrow pressing her into the mattress.

  Ah, dear God, dear God, how can I bear up under the weight of this loss? Silently she prayed, silently she cried gulping sobs. She simply could not sleep alone. She threw back the covers, tiptoed across the room and down the hallway to the children’s room, found Abby and lifted her soft, sweet body into her arms, then laid her in the bed beside her, becoming sleepy in an instant, her arms wrapped tenderly around her precious baby.

  She would need to care for her children, was her last thought before a blessed slumber overtook her.

  Sarah awoke to find the sun’s rays poking between the green blind and the window frame. Cows lowed in the barnyard, and the birds twittered and chirped their morning song in the oak branches outside her window.

  The sounds of home. She really was home. She dressed quietly, leaving Abby asleep, then tiptoed down the stairs to the empty kitchen to comb her hair and wash her face.

  The sun’s early rays that lit the kitchen illuminated the cupboards and dry sink, the basin by the kettle house door, and the old woodstove that contained live red coals, even in summer. The homemade rag rugs scattered across the linoleum looked worn and muddy, the floor itself scuffed and dull. The windows were greasy and unwashed.

  Well, here was her work. Here she would live with her children, do for her father the tasks left undone in her mother’s absence. Filled with a new sense of purpose, Sarah drew a deep breath, then began to open doors and drawers, searching for food, knowing her father and two younger brothers would be hungry after the milking.

  A disgruntled Hannah took all the light out of the kitchen. Belligerent, refusing to comb her hair, she sat on the sofa, yawning, stretching, doing anything she could to ruffle Sarah’s good humor.

  Finally, exasperated, Sarah turned with her hands on her hips. “Hannah, if you won’t try to cooperate, then return to your bedroom until you can face the day in a better state of mind.”

  “What state of mind do you think I should be in? Huh? I hate Lancaster County. I don’t want to live here with our doddy. I’m not going to milk those stinking cows, either.”

  “Go to your room, Hannah. Go.” Sarah’s voice was icy with disapproval.

  Hannah didn’t go. She didn’t want to return to that stuffy upstairs bedroom smelling of mothballs and feet. Someone’s feet smelled like spoiled cheese, the kind that had green mold growing over the rind. So she sat on the davenport that perpetually smelled of cows, glared at her mother, then shuffled off to comb her hair.

  Sarah’s hands shook as she measured oatmeal into the boiling, salted water. So this is how things would be. How could she have tricked herself into thinking Hannah would give in? A sense of unease followed her to the henhouse, where she lifted the wire basket from the peg on the wall, reached under the brooding brown hens to find the perfect eggs underneath.

  An egg. A real miracle. How long since she had had an egg for her breakfast? Likely the eggs would be rationed, the way they always were. Only one apiece. There was too much money to be made by selling them at the market, or peddling them to the neighbors. Oatmeal, coffee soup, and fried mush were much cheaper and filled stomachs sufficiently.

  But these eggs were glorious orbs of deliciousness. Her mouth watered, in spite of herself. A golden yolk in the middle of perfectly cooked white, a slice of firm, spongy homemade bread fried in butter, torn into pieces and dipped into it, was a rare treat she had often longed for in their crude house on the Dakota plains.

  Now, on this perfect day, with birdsong trilling and whistling around her, the oak and maple trees like a benediction from God alone, the deep green of the mowed lawn, the irises and gladioli, the marigolds and petunias in a border along the stone house—so much beauty around her she could scarcely take it all in. The brilliant yellow of one marigold was a miracle in itself.

  She paused to admire the perfect red of the flowering quince bush and breathed deeply of the pungent pine boughs. She picked up a pinecone from the carpet of pine needles on the ground and held it to her cheek, rolling it in both hands to release the scent.

  Today, she would visit old neighbors, laugh and talk and weep. She would renew old bonds, revel in friendship, become alive to the sounds and sights of her world, her senses filled with the compassion and love of her beloved church members.

  Hannah would come around. She would learn to like the hustle and bustle, the friendship of other girls her age. So strong was her longing to stay, she resolved fiercely to make Hannah become obedient, to force her to comply. Why couldn’t she be like the
other children? With God’s help, she would nip this blossoming rebellion in the bud before it bloomed into a scarlet life of sin. She had come this far, and she would complete the journey to fit back into the mold.

  Her father and two brothers, Elam and Ben, walked into the kettle house, the room where the laundry and washing up were done, a smile on their faces, sniffing the tantalizing aroma of fried bread and eggs, the steaming coffee for coffee soup.

  “Good morning!” Sarah trilled.

  Hannah, perched on the edge of the davenport like a displeased crow, glared at her mother’s happiness.

  Her father returned her greeting warmly. Elam and Ben nodded and smiled. “It’s so nice to come into the kitchen with breakfast waiting. It makes me miss Bena more than ever.” Her father ducked his head to hide the emotion he felt so strongly.

  Breakfast was a happy affair, the children tumbling sleepily down the stairs, Mary carrying a waving and smiling Abby, Manny sheepish for having overslept on his first morning.

  Her father smiled at the one egg apiece rule that she had remembered. “Eggs are dear, especially now in these hard times. Most folks can’t afford the laying mash, so the hens don’t produce the way they should. We get over a dollar a dozen in town.”

  Hannah shoveled her egg into her mouth, spoke with her mouth full, “I’d kill the chickens and eat them. Fried chicken is better than eggs.”

  Elam and Ben both looked at her sharply. Sarah’s heart sank, the delicious breakfast like sawdust in her mouth. Blinking rapidly to repel the tears that constantly lurked so close to the surface, she rose to dish up the creamy oatmeal.

  To her relief, her father smiled slowly, challenging Hannah. “And why would you do that?”

  “I said, fried chicken is better than eggs.”

  “But after the chickens were all eaten, you would have neither one.”

  “So. I hate chickens.”

  Sarah stared at her daughter, astounded at this flagrant display of rebellion. She had not spoken one suitable word all morning. A tightness in Sarah’s chest accelerated her breathing. She opened her mouth to speak harshly to Hannah but was stopped by her father’s eyes.