In the evenings, as they worked together on the reading lessons, Mandy also taught Deidre correct pronunciations and grammar and refined her use of the English language. The young woman had never known anything but that slaves spoke differently than whites. The white people Deidre had known wanted to keep the slaves as ignorant as possible so they could not break away and make a life for themselves on their own, so they were not discouraged from speaking their own low form of English. But Mandy wanted Deidre to have the dignity of speaking well, understanding the language, and of any education she could share. So as she helped Deidre learn the sounds of each vowel and consonant as well as how to blend the sounds together to complete words, she gently helped Deidre begin using better grammar and more precise diction.
While Mandy taught Deidre lessons in grammar, spelling, reading, and writing, Deidre unwittingly taught Mandy lessons in love, patience, and acceptance. Deidre taught Mandy about being obedient to the teaching in the Bible and about truly serving God with her whole heart.
The two young women became inseparable friends, who could share their very hearts with one another. So, in time, Mandy shared the secret of her own baby she was carrying. Deidre clapped her hands and did her happy little dance that made Mandy laugh. No longer did Deidre talk about leaving when Ethan came home. In fact, they started to make plans for their children to play together. Mandy knew that they had become such close friends that it would be worse than losing family if Deidre ever did decide to go away.
And so the days passed swiftly for Mandy as she worked and played with Deidre—cleaning, sewing, making soap for the next year and storing it away, gathering berries and drying them, and picking her garden produce as it matured and storing it for the family to enjoy during the upcoming winter. But however busy she was, Mandy continued to count the days until Ethan came home and she could tell him about their baby.
Chapter 5
Mandy sat up straight, stretching her shoulders back as far as they would go. Then she reached back and massaged her tired lower back. She turned her flushed face, trying to find a breeze, but the late July sun was hot, and very few leaves stirred. She moved her stool back farther on the porch, trying to find a cooler spot of shade, but the air was still and hot, and there was no escape. She thought for the thousandth time how thankful she was that Ethan had built the steep roof of their cabin to overhang the depth of the cabin by eight feet on both the front and back of the main part of the building, making nice porches to help shade the cabin in the summer and protect against the cold winds of winter.
“Just a few more bunches to tie up, and then we can walk down to the creek for some shade and some cool water.” She sighed.
Deidre tilted her head toward Mandy. “Let me finish tyin’ up the herbs. Jedediah’s hot, too. Why don’t y’all go on ahead down to the crik bank and get yourselves cooled off. My black skin don’t mind the heat like your white skin does. Besides, you’re hotter’n me anyhow just totin’ that baby.”
Mandy chuckled. “If carrying this baby is what is making me hot, it’s worth it all, and I don’t mind one bit.”
Just as she started to stand, she heard some rustling and twigs snapping in the wooded area not far from the front of the cabin. Startled, Deidre grabbed Jedediah and ran inside. Mandy sat still for a minute and listened. Sure enough, she heard whistling coming faintly through the trees. Her heart seemed to stand still as she peered out beyond their clearing to where the trees separated enough to form a small crooked path deeper into the woods and then out to the world beyond.
As she listened, the whistling came closer, and sticks and pinecones crackled under footsteps. Ethan didn’t whistle like that, so she knew it wasn’t him. She wasn’t sure what to do, so she began to pray. She didn’t want to go into the cabin, in case it was someone searching for Deidre or any other runaway slave. She knew Deidre would be listening and watching. If it was someone coming for her friend, Mandy could stall them on the front porch long enough to give Deidre and Jedediah time to sneak out the back and hide.
She reached down to keep busy tying her bunches of herbs to dry. Soon she knew whoever was coming through the woods was headed straight for her cabin. She tried to stay calm and busy and at the same time keep her eyes on the edge of the woods.
Finally, she could stand it no longer. She stood, leaning the palm of one hand on the porch post, and called, “Hello!” Then a little louder she called, “Hello there!”
“Hello, ma’am,” came a masculine voice. And then she could see a man striding through the edge of the woods into the clearing toward the cabin. “I’m lookin’ for one Miz Ethan Evanston,” he called as he came closer. He carried a bundle tied to a long pole over his shoulder and looked like he hadn’t seen a razor or a bar of soap for a long, long time.
“I’m Mrs. Evanston.” Mandy didn’t move from her place by the porch pillar. She’d never seen this man before, so how did he know her name? She prayed that Deidre would stay hidden and that Jedediah would stay quiet.
“Mrs. Evanston, please accept my apologies. I’ve been walking for several days, but I came to give these things to you.” The man hesitated. “I’m sorry to tell you that Mr. Ethan Evanston was killed a few weeks ago in a railroad accident. I wanted to bring you his belongings because he talked of you, and I knew he would want you to have these.” While he spoke he placed the bundle on the ground, untied it, and took out Ethan’s coat and gloves.
When he handed them to her, all she could do was take them and stare at them. “What did you say about my husband?” Mandy asked woodenly.
“I said Mr. Evanston was killed a few weeks ago…,” the man said more softly now, his eyes on her obviously rounded belly in concern.
She couldn’t find her voice to ask him any questions or even to offer him a drink of water. Her throat grew tight; her eyes burned.
He cleared his throat, repacked his belongings, then stood, shifting from one foot to the other. “Please accept my deepest sympathy, Mrs. Evanston.” When there was still no response, he finally said, “Well, so long then.”
Backing away, he turned and walked back the way he’d come until the woods had swallowed him and the world was again silent and still.
Mandy sank onto the porch step and drew Ethan’s coat up to her face to inhale the scent of him. The emptiness she felt seemed to have absorbed her thoughts. How long she sat there she didn’t know, but the sun moved from overhead to the other end of the porch, and it didn’t seem quite so hot.
At last the door opened quietly, and Deidre peeked out. At the sight of Mandy holding a coat and gloves affectionately against her cheek, she slowly closed the cabin door and went back inside.
Sometime later, Deidre came back out to the porch. “Mandy, y’all must eat somethin’…for the baby.”
Dazed, Mandy looked up. “Deidre,” she whispered, “he didn’t get to know his baby, and he didn’t get to know our God.”
And then the tears came.
Deidre’s arms enfolded Mandy as she sobbed. Holding her friend close, Deidre slowly rocked her, willing the comfort of her love to fill Mandy’s empty heart.
Chapter 6
The work was hard, and the days were long. Ethan Evanston stood in line with the rest of the men to get their pay on Saturdays. Most of the men had little of it left by Sunday morning, but Ethan was careful to tuck his away to take home to Mandy.
Saturdays had become the day he loved best of the work week, because after taking their pay, the men all wandered into the nearby town to spend the evening (and often the night) in the tavern, leaving him with some time alone.
He wondered sometimes why he was here. He and Mandy seldom needed much money because he could usually trade for what little they needed from the store. He had told Mandy he wanted a chance to earn them some money, but deep inside he knew it was more than that. Even though he loved Mandy and their home, he felt restless and unfulfilled. Was it because they had not had children? Was it because they were never around other
people? What was it he was missing?
Many times Ethan pondered deep questions. Why was he here on this earth? Was there actually a purpose for his life? Was there really a God? At times his life all felt so meaningless.
After collecting his pay, he usually waited until the other men had wandered into town, and then he would take the old blanket he used for a towel and some soap and go down to the river. He would wash his work clothes and wash himself. Many times he would simply sit on the bank listening to the frogs that seemed to come alive at dusk. Now and again an ambitious fish would jump and make a single splash as it arched back down to the silent deep. Crickets chirped; cicadas sang. It was a noisy world, really, but he was all alone.
After many weeks of spending his Saturday nights alone, Ethan finally found himself being tempted by a card game that sounded particularly challenging. He had played cards with some old guys at the store back East. Now he found himself wondering if he remembered how to play. And he wondered if he were indeed as good as he had thought he was, or if the old men had just allowed the “young pup” to win.
Finally one night he wandered into the town and found the saloon where the men were gathered. He found he still remembered the strategies it took to win the poker games. He quickly became a popular player, and the barmaids gave him extra attention since he usually ended up with the pot of winnings. One of the girls in particular caught his eye, and he was surprised to catch himself watching her more than once. He eventually learned her name was Bess, and she didn’t miss the fact that he had noticed her.
More often than not anymore, he wouldn’t bother to turn his head as she bent over the table, showing more bosom than he had seen in a long while. Her exotic fragrance lured him. Finally one night the success of his winnings, the quiet way she smiled at him, and the extra beers she’d brought him weakened his resistance until he found himself waking in her arms with the sun pouring in between the silk curtains of her room.
That morning, his guilt overwhelmed him and he hurried back to the camp, spending the day with knots in his stomach and going over and over in his head how he would ever tell Mandy what he had done.
The next weekend he didn’t go with the boys, but the week after he went again, determined to only play the poker games and then come home. However, it had been too long since Ethan had been with a woman, and Bess seemed to lure him. Eventually that night he decided that since he had already been with her once, what would it hurt to be with her again? She certainly knew how to comfort a lonely man, and he felt himself drawn to her in a needy sort of way.
The next morning she invited him back on Sunday night, and he surprised himself by agreeing to come. By now, he told himself, what did it matter anyway?
Ethan tried to stay in the shade of the trees as he scrubbed the railroad dirt from his face, hair, and body. This soap he got from the supply cabin sure didn’t clean a person the way Mandy’s homemade soaps did. He scrubbed harder, angry that he still compared everything to Mandy. If he really missed her so much, why didn’t he go home?
He grabbed the old blanket he used for a towel as he climbed up onto the bank. After dressing, he tried to comb out his hair with his fingers.
As he headed back to the bunkhouse, the perspiration beaded on his forehead. This seemed to be the hottest summer he could remember for a long time. The men, himself included, had stopped wearing shirts while they laid the railroad ties, and the sun had browned his skin, but the perspiration still made him feel sticky and uncomfortable and cross.
It was Friday, and he would see who was going into town. He knew all he needed was a few good belts of whiskey or a few beers and some of Bess’s soft kisses, and he wouldn’t be thinking of Mandy anymore.
But as he walked, he knew the old restlessness was back. He couldn’t seem to shake off the feeling that it had a personality of its own. In his early teens he had run away from an unhappy home to find peace somewhere. His mother was always unhappy, complaining about how worthless he and his brothers were. His dad was always drunk and unconscious or yelling at or beating one of them.
Ethan had run for quite some time before settling down and working as a farmhand. When the farmer’s daughter started making her plans for him quite obvious, he ran away again.
He had worked at the store in Boston for several years before the restless itch to move on struck again. In the store he’d heard of the adventures of the wagon trains and also how cheap land was farther west. That was when he decided to marry Mandy if she would have him, settle down and farm, and raise a happy family like some of the ones he saw while working in the store.
From their talks when he accompanied her home from the store, he knew Mandy had also had an unhappy childhood. But she loved children as he did, and he knew they would be content if they had a large family and moved away from the East, where they had both been so unhappy.
For six years now he and Mandy had lived in Indiana. They had found a beautiful spot that he was able to claim and had cleared a good section of trees. There was a stream running along one end of the land, and plenty of room for a good-sized cabin, several gardens, a barn, and the outbuildings they needed.
Ethan had built a beautiful cabin. It was quite large, with a porch clear across the front and the back of it. The main part of the cabin was one large room, and at one end of the cabin he had walled off two rooms to be used for bedrooms. One was his and Mandy’s; the other he had planned would be for the babies until they were old enough to sleep upstairs.
Most cabins had a ladder attached to one wall to gain access to the second story, but Ethan had built a stairway so they could easily get to the storage area he had built above the porches on either side of the long center room of the second floor. In the storage areas he had put lots of pegs for Mandy to dry her herbs and vegetables and fruit. She was proud of the comfortable cabin and had worked hard making curtains, quilts, pillows, rugs, and everything needed to make it cozy.
But they had not had children. As one year faded into the next, Ethan felt the old restlessness and sense of failure. Would Mandy soon resent him for not giving her children? He knew she was disappointed that they had not had a family yet.
Then he heard of the railroad jobs. The thrill of adventure tantalized him, and the reality that he could make good money justified in his mind the fact that he was once again moving on. He told himself that he would make some money and then go back to Mandy. But a voice inside mocked him. Who would take over his farm when he was old? Why did he think he was a man when he couldn’t even produce sons to share his farm and life with? Without the children for whom they had planned, what would be left for him and Mandy?
So Ethan tried to fill the emptiness inside with money. Every weekend, when the other men went into the town to drink and gamble their money away, they would always try to get him to go along. But he had stashed all his money in an old wallet and stayed at the bunkhouse alone for weeks. Eventually, loneliness got the best of him, and he began joining them on the weekends. Before long, he had met the cute little barmaid named Bess and found he could forget his emptiness, loneliness, and sense of failure for the whole weekend.
All week long as he worked on the railroad, he lived with the guilt of what he was doing. Mandy was such a sweet woman, and he loved her. So why was he here, and why did he continue to spend his weekends with Bess? Finally, he could live with the guilt no longer. He devised a plan that would free Mandy…and rid him of his guilt.
He had given Francis, one of the men, a whole week’s wages to take his gloves and coat with a wallet full of money tucked into the pocket back to Indiana, along with a story of how he had been killed in a railroad accident. He knew Mandy would grieve, but when she was over that, she would be free to build a new life for herself. Perhaps knowing he had freed her would erase the guilt he felt each time he was with Bess.
So week after week the pattern continued. He’d work all week on the railroad and spend the weekend drinking, gambling, and sleeping it off in Bess�
�s arms in her stuffy rooms above the tavern.
Chapter 7
Week melted into week as hot August trudged slowly into sweltering September. Ethan thought about the farm. Harvesting was always hot, but he could always rest under the shade of a tree for a few minutes when Mandy would bring him a cool drink from the stream. They would spend a little time resting in the shade, talking together before going back to their work.
He remembered Mandy’s quiet ways and gentle smile. She was proud of their farm and of the things he built. He hadn’t really enjoyed the farm work as much as he had enjoyed the evenings when he would build things for their house and for Mandy. She loved everything he had built for her—the matching rockers she had placed in front of the fireplace, the cupboard and hutch, the table and chairs, the bed and dresser. How she had cherished each piece of beautiful furniture.
One by one he recalled the pieces he had made for their home. Each one had drawn happy exclamations from Mandy, and she had made pillows, rugs, crocheted doilies, and scarves. She’d arranged each piece of furniture to make their cabin as useful as it was cozy. For the millionth time he asked himself why he didn’t simply return home.
Today there seemed to be no break from the heat as he pounded the iron pegs into the railroad ties. The sweat evaporated before it could cool him, and he was so thirsty. Always thirsty. The water in his canteen was as hot as the iron pegs. Even though it replenished the moisture his body lost from sweating, it didn’t quench his thirst.
The creek that they used for bathing had almost dried up, and what was left was more mud than water. Even though the other men had long ago gone to bed in the bunkhouses, Ethan sat out under a sprawling tree that had already lost most of its leaves from the heat. There was no breeze, but at least the moon was more merciful than the hot sun had been. Judging from where the moon was in the sky, Ethan decided it must be well after midnight. He knew the four o’clock whistle would blow before long, but he still couldn’t sleep.
The Long Road Home Romance Collection Page 3
