Hope in the Land

by Olivia Newport

  Two months. It was enough time to arrange the wedding.

  But Polly wanted to do one more thing before the eddy of tasks swallowed her.

  Change Minerva’s mind about Henry.

  “From the beginning Agent Edison has struck me as nervous and confused.” Minerva laced her fingers together in her lap. That Gloria’s daughter should take it upon herself to sing the praises of a man she had known only a few weeks seemed beyond sensibility. They sat across from each other at Minerva’s dining room table. Even with an everyday tablecloth, it looked more presentable than Minerva had ever seen Gloria’s table look.

  “He was,” Polly said, “in the beginning. But he’s found himself here. Lancaster County has been good for him. It’s given him a hope he didn’t have when he came.”

  What a man from Philadelphia could see in miles of farmland befuddled Minerva.

  “He’s had some difficult times in his life,” Polly said.

  “We all have.”

  “His parents died when he was young, and his grandmother raised him. Then she got sick. He’s been on his own since he was sixteen. Yet he has always had a job, no matter how small it was, and he never gave up on his education.”

  At least Mr. Edison was a college man. The farms and small businesses of Lancaster did not host many other graduates.

  “I’m sure he is an earnest young man,” Minerva said, “but he lacks a certain … polish.” She could not expect a Grabill daughter to understand the sort of man Minerva wanted for Rose.

  The front door opened, and a moment later Rose came into the dining room. At least she wore a dress today. Her overalls hung in the barn now, where she could put them on to care for the dozen birds that would be the beginning of the Swain flock.

  “Hello, Polly,” Rose said. “I didn’t know you were coming over.”

  “I was just telling your mother that I don’t think Henry will be with us too much longer,” Polly said. “He has a new assignment.”

  “Where?”

  Minerva puzzled at the gasp she heard under her daughter’s inquiry.

  “Another part of the county,” Polly said.

  Rose’s shoulders eased down from their state of alert. “His car is running well, so perhaps we’ll still see something of him. When?”

  “Today, I believe.”

  Alarm flickered through Rose’s eyes.

  This was why Polly had come. She was certain of something Minerva had refused to entertain.

  Henry braced himself. Mrs. Swain—he couldn’t bring himself to think of her as Minerva—preserved a fortress around her life with walls even thicker than the ones Henry had lived within. His walls had crumbled like Jericho. Mrs. Swain’s had been chinked in the last few weeks, but whether the assault of circumstances had created an opening through which he could infiltrate was doubtful.

  But he could not leave this part of Lancaster County without seeing Rose, and that meant knocking on the Swain door and talking himself past Rose’s mother. He’d seen Rose every day during the last week. Coming and going on the Grabill farm. Checking to be sure the repairs on her bicycle were holding up. Evening walks. They even had supper together in a café in town three nights earlier. He could not simply drive off as if these days had not happened.

  If he could get inside the house, even just inside the door, Mrs. Swain would feel more obliged to call for Rose.

  He knocked on the door, ready for Mrs. Swain.

  A young man about his age came to the door and inspected Henry through the screen.

  “You must be Richard,” Henry said.

  “You must be Henry. You’ve made quite an impression on my sister.”

  Henry’s palms oozed perspiration. “Is Rose here?”

  Richard stepped aside. “In the dining room.”

  Mrs. Swain could still firmly suggest that Henry should leave, but at least he was inside the fortress. He hadn’t expected to find Polly sitting across from Mrs. Swain and beside Rose.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  “I understand you will be leaving soon,” Mrs. Swain said.

  “This afternoon,” Henry said.

  Polly stood up. “I should get home to help with dinner.”

  “I didn’t see a buggy,” Henry said.

  “I walked! Even the doctor agrees I am fully healed.”

  “That’s good news.” Henry had never told Polly he felt responsible for her injury. If she hadn’t been showing him around the farm, explaining something as simple as digging for potatoes, she would have been mindful of where the hoes and sickles would land. If she hadn’t been injured, though, she would not have accompanied him to his interviews or known enough of his reports to help him put them back together. He wouldn’t have known how she felt about Thomas, and he might not have stopped to help that day on the side of the road.

  A moment could change everything.

  “If you go now,” Henry said, “you’ll catch Eleanor in time to say good-bye.”

  “Eleanor is leaving?” Mrs. Swain inched forward in her chair.

  “On the afternoon train west,” Henry said.

  “Eleanor has been a great help to me. Perhaps I should say good-bye as well.”

  “I’m sure she would like that.” Henry cleared his throat.

  Polly slipped past him, an odd smile on her face. Henry hoped she would let him know when her wedding date was set. If he could, he would come.

  “Would you like coffee, Mr. Edison?” Mrs. Swain asked.

  “No, thank you,” Henry said. “I wonder if I might speak with Rose for a few minutes.”

  Rose shot to her feet. “We can go for a walk.”

  Henry glanced from daughter to mother. Mrs. Swain’s expression reserved doubt but offered no overt objection. In fact, rather than scowling at Henry, Mrs. Swain’s eyes rested on her daughter. Something had shifted.

  They waited until they were a good distance from the house before either of them spoke.

  “I wish I weren’t leaving quite yet,” Henry said.

  “It’s your work,” Rose said. “It’s a good job. You don’t want to risk it.”

  “I’ll send an address as soon as I find a place to stay.”

  “I’ll write.”

  “Will your mother let you receive letters?”

  Rose grinned. “I have Richard on my side now. She’ll do anything for Richard.”

  “Then there is hope.”

  “Always.”

  “Do you have everything?” Gloria’s eyes dropped to the bag hanging from Eleanor’s shoulder.

  “I have more than I came with.” Eleanor nestled her son into the crook of her arm. “I have to change trains, but I should be at my cousin’s station by midday tomorrow.”

  “Your ticket?”

  “In my hat.” Eleanor tapped the brim. “Oh, look. There’s Mrs. Swain.”

  Gloria traced the path of Eleanor’s gaze. Minerva’s distinctive, clipped pace was headed straight for them. Gloria braced herself.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?” Minerva’s eyes were on Eleanor.

  “It was a quick decision,” Eleanor said. “And I have you to thank.”

  “Me?” Minerva said.

  Gloria touched Minerva’s arm. “Eleanor told me of your generosity.”

  When Eleanor came home, eyes glistening, and said that Minerva had paid her almost double what they’d agreed on for her work with the chickens so far, Gloria had to sit down. Minerva was not one to give without benefit to herself, and Eleanor was a penniless young woman alone with a baby. She had nothing to give. If Minerva had a soft spot at all, it had been well hidden for the last forty years. And according to Eleanor’s inquiries, the amount Minerva paid Eleanor closely resembled the price of a train ticket to Indiana. God’s will once again left no doubt. Gloria had reached into the small canister where she kept her egg money and made up the difference, along with some traveling money. Now they stood at the train depot, ready for Eleanor to board the train west. />
  “Both of you have been so kind,” Eleanor said.

  In their school days, Gloria squirmed at the suggestion that she was like Minerva in any way. She shifted her weight now.

  “Thank you for your help with the chickens,” Minerva said. “I wish you well.”

  Gloria leaned forward and kissed the baby before wrapping her arms around both mother and child. “Godspeed.”

  Eleanor climbed the steps and turned to wave one last time before disappearing into the passenger car.

  “Will she be all right?” Minerva asked.

  “We leave her in God’s hands.” Gloria breathed a prayer for safe travels and a warm welcome at the end of her journey. She still knew almost nothing of the circumstances that had brought Eleanor through Lancaster. As far as she knew, Minerva had not tried to wring information out of Eleanor either. Gloria did not need to know. It was enough that Eleanor had been in need and God had brought her to Grabill land.

  Gloria turned away from the train. “Would you like a ride home?”

  “I have the truck.”

  Gloria’s next stop would be the German Lutheran Church. Most of the vegetables had been canned by now, but Gloria still had a few late beans and squash, more potatoes than her family would need over the winter, and apples.

  They walked together toward Gloria’s buggy, parked only a few yards from the Swain truck. Gloria was ready to hoist herself to the bench when she spied Homer Griffin. He raised a hand in greeting.

  “Glad I ran into you,” he said. “Gives me the chance to thank you—both of you—for your kindness one more time before I go.”

  “Does Ernie know you’re leaving?” Minerva asked.

  “I spoke to him this afternoon. I don’t want to be a burden when there’s not enough work to earn my way. You have your boy home now.”

  “Your boy?” Gloria said.

  “Richard,” Minerva said. “Just this morning.”

  “What good news!” Gloria turned to Homer. “Where are you heading?”

  He tilted his head toward the train. “West, I figure.”

  Homer had worked for the Swains in exchange for room and board. With no more cash to take out of the county than he had brought in, it was daring of him to try to ride a passenger train without benefit of a ticket rather than wait for a freight train. Gloria had heard stories of people scrambling up the side of a car, lying on top while the train went into motion, and finding a way to climb down into a car later. Even if they were removed from the train at an upcoming stop for not having a ticket, they were farther along than when they started. Homer’s posture said he had made up his mind, and Gloria did not try to dissuade him. She suspected his departure was not unrelated to Eleanor’s.

  “How many pockets do you have?” she asked.

  Homer patted his trousers and his torn jacket.

  Gloria reached into her basket and pulled out four sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper and pushed them into one side of his jacket. “They’re just cheese and bread, but they’ll keep long enough for a couple of meals.”

  “But you made them for someone else.”

  “I can make more,” she said, pulling apples and carrots from another basket and stuffing them into assorted pockets. “Try to stay on the train as far as Indiana. She’s in the fifth car back.”

  He nodded and left.

  As they watched him disappear around the end of the train, Minerva said, “Do you suppose he truly will watch out for Eleanor?”

  “I believe so.” Homer was the one who first supplied Eleanor’s name. He wouldn’t forget her now.

  “He likes cheese sandwiches,” Minerva said. “He told me so the first day he came. We had that in common.”

  “I’m glad to know it.” Gloria pulled another from the basket and offered it to Minerva. “Homemade bread and homemade cheese.”

  Minerva looked at the wrapped sandwich, her hands not moving. For a moment, Gloria was in the schoolyard again, hungry and unfolding a packet of wet leaves. Was Minerva also there?

  “Homer was right,” Minerva said. “You made them for someone else. Someone who needs them.”

  “And as I told him, I can make more.”

  Their eyes met, and Minerva accepted the sandwich. “It’ll tide me over nicely until supper.”

  “And until we can share a meal together once again.”

  Gloria climbed to the bench and picked up the reins. At the sound of a car honking, she turned to watch the passing Ford. Henry’s arm unfolded out the driver side window and waved. The Depression yawned wide, and Gloria had few solutions for Homer or Eleanor or Henry. She could not predict the future of her tenuous relationship with Minerva. But she knew the promise of the land was the goodness of God. Hope shone as luminous as it always had in the hearts of God’s beloved.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I’ve always wanted to write a story set during the Depression. Living for the last nineteen years in a state that was part of the Dust Bowl, I’ve been mesmerized by photographs of dust storms that look like solid black walls crashing down on innocent small towns. So every now and then I pick up a book at the library or launch an Internet search on a question that flits through my mind. I suppose it was one of those forays that led me to the primary piece of research behind Hope in the Land. After all, “Production Patterns, Consumption Strategies, and Gender Relations in Amish and Non-Amish Farm Households in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 1935–1936” is not exactly beach reading. Yet I went to some trouble to track down this article, by Steven D. Reschly and Katherine Jellison, in an issue of Agricultural History, treating the theme of rural and farm women in historical perspective. Writers of historical fiction are amused by odd things!

  The article highlights the results of the Department of Agriculture study featured in Hope in the Land, demonstrating that Amish farms that focused on diversified self-sufficiency weathered the Great Depression with greater stability than “modern” farms that focused on a single cash crop and a larger number of acres farmed with the aid of machinery. Several factors made this true, but the leading element was the value of the work that Amish wives contributed to their family farms because of their labor, thrift, and small businesses.

  That’s all it took for Gloria and Minerva to spin themselves out of my imagination and onto the page. Finding a moment in history to translate to a new century and a new generation never fails to give me pleasure.

  No book is ever the work only of the author. I’m grateful for those who come alongside in the creation and production, from the public librarian determined to find my article to the editors who spot what I am blind to see after too many times through the manuscript. Thank you, Annie Tipton, for asking what I might want to write about next, and JoAnne Simmons, for paying such close attention to the details. Thank you, Rachelle Gardner, for being friend and agent extraordinaire. Thank you to all the friends who ask, “How is your new book coming?” even though sometimes that feels like asking the perennial grad student, “When are you ever going to graduate?” Though I inevitably have moments when I think I am never going to graduate, er, finish the manuscript, this moment when I can thank people for being interested and actually reading is always a sweet spot.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Olivia Newport’s novels twist through time to find where faith and passions meet. Her husband and two twentysomething children provide welcome distraction from the people stomping through her head on their way into her books. She chases joy in stunning Colorado at the foot of the Rockies, where daylilies grow as tall as she is.

  ALSO BY OLIVIA NEWPORT

  VALLEY OF CHOICE

  Accidentally Amish

  In Plain View

  Taken for English

  AMISH TURNS OF TIME

  Wonderful Lonesome

  Meek and Mild

  Brightest and Best

  Hidden Falls (a 13-part digital serial drama)

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