She fell asleep to the sound of Florence’s snoring.
Alice’s eyes flew open in the dark, but she was unsure of what had awakened her. A moment later, she heard a slight but distinct movement in the thicket of shrubs and trees directly behind their campsite.
She looked in the direction of her tentmates, but without any light inside the tent it was too dark to see more than three lumps on the other mattresses.
The noise came again. Quietly, Alice slipped out of her sleeping bag, taking a bracing breath of the chilly air outside her little cocoon. Her slip-on, all-weather mocs were parked right beside her sleeping bag, and she quickly shoved her feet into them and grabbed the insulated jacket she’d brought along.
Unfastening the flap of the tent, she stepped outside and straightened up. The bright moonlight lit up the clearing and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. She took a few tentative steps forward and stopped suddenly as she heard the rustling noise again. It was coming from the direction of the cooler and backpacks where their food had been stored away from the tents. Alice headed across the clearing, firmly telling herself there was no such thing as Bigfoot. She hoped.
Suddenly a large raccoon popped up on the top of the cooler. Alice stifled a cry as her hand flew to her heart. He held a marshmallow in his hand, and as he surveyed her, Alice could have sworn his black eyes were laughing. A second later, he leaped off the cooler and vanished into the bushes with a last flourish of his bushy, banded tail.
Alice walked over to the cooler. She could see one of the backpacks lying open on the ground. That little rascal! A flash of white caught her eye and she realized it was one of the marshmallow bags that their nocturnal visitor had dragged away. She carefully picked her way through the bushes to retrieve it.
As she turned around, she was surprised to see Florence emerge from their tent. The big woman looked around and hesitated, then walked purposefully into the woods along the path that led around the pond, looking around her as she went. As she went farther and farther and the brush became denser, Alice could hear her shoving branches out of her way.
She didn’t want to hail Florence across the clearing and wake everyone else, so Alice decided to go after her and was just about to cross the clearing to do so when Ronald came out of his tent, followed by Fred. The two men quickly took off along the same path that Florence had taken.
“… sounded like something big …” were the only words she was able to make out as the men vanished also.
Thoroughly entertained, Alice surmised that Ronald and Fred had heard Florence crashing through the brush. She had enough of a head start that she was completely out of sight before they emerged from their tent. Alice wondered what on earth they thought they were chasing.
Since Florence was being attended to, Alice turned back to the food and began to make sure the backpacks were secured.
Suddenly she heard Vera’s voice saying, “Come on!” Alice turned to see Vera and Ellis hurry down the path.
Since there was no one still sleeping, Alice called after them, but they didn’t hear her. A little dazed by the speed with which the camp had emptied, Alice stepped back into the clearing and shook her head.
Calculating Florence’s progress, Alice figured she was at least halfway around the pond by now. Alice could go in the opposite direction and meet up with her to deliver the disappointing news that a raccoon had been the source of the noise that Florence had heard.
She turned to her left and began to walk around the pond. Although the path was well-marked, bushes overhung it in places, and branches downed by wind and snow during the winter made walking hazardous. She paid careful attention to her footsteps, using the bright moonlight to aid her. As she got closer to the point where the path from the road fed into the one that ran around the pond, the way became easier. More people used that end of the pond, rather than fighting their way through the brush to the far end where her friends had set up camp.
A scream split the air ahead of her. Florence! Alice began to run. She jumped over a log across the path and dodged around a tree, the noise of her running masking any other sounds, and ran smack into Florence, who was rushing her way at full speed.
Down they went in a tangle of arms and legs. Alice’s breath whooshed out as the bigger woman landed squarely on top her.
“It’s behind me!” Florence gasped, clutching at Alice. “I heard it.”
“No, it’s not,” Alice said, hearing the men crashing through the brush toward them. Suddenly she realized that, like Florence, Fred and Ronald probably would not see them until they were on top of them.
As if the thought had been enough to make it happen, Ronald burst out of the brush, tripped over a root and crashed down beside them. Two seconds later, Fred fell over Ronald. He landed on his back on the ground, staring up at the sky.
Slowly, Fred turned his head. He surveyed the other three sprawled in various ungainly positions around him. “We were chasing you?”
“It was you chasing me?” Florence sat up. “I thought it was Bigfoot,” she said in disgust.
Another crashing sound came and Alice realized that Vera and Ellis also would have heard the scream and were coming to the rescue as well. “Stop!” she yelled.
And just in time. The two women halted barely soon enough to avoid falling over the tangle of bodies on the ground.
Both women were panting. Ellis was looking at them all with wide eyes.
Vera took one look, immediately grasped the situation and began to laugh. “Which one of you was Bigfoot?” As she spoke, she extended a hand to Fred, braced herself and tugged him to his feet. He immediately did the same for Ronald.
“I suppose I was,” Florence said sullenly. “But I thought they were.” She pointed at the men.
Sensing a sulk coming on, Alice explained what she had seen as Fred tried to give her a helping hand. Finally, both men took Florence’s arms and hauled her upright. She immediately began brushing off her clothes with an air of wounded dignity.
“A raccoon?” Ellis sounded so disappointed Alice couldn’t help grinning.
“Yes,” she confirmed. “That’s all it was, a single raccoon, after our marshmallows.”
Fred started to laugh. “Some Bigfoot hunters we are, making enough noise to wake the dead. If there was any kind of critter here, it’s probably halfway to Canada by now.”
“Laughing all the way,” Vera added.
Ronald began to chuckle and Alice felt her own lips twitch. Ellis also saw the humor in the situation, and as the five of them laughed until they were holding their sides and wiping tears, Florence finally cracked a smile and laughed a little as well.
When the merriment abated, Alice said, “I don’t know about you, but I’ve had quite enough Bigfoot hunting for one night. I’m going back to sleep.”
“Ditto,” said Vera. She began to walk along the path toward their campsite. “That rotten raccoon had better not have gotten into anything else while we’re out here clowning around.”
“Oh, I suspect our things are safe,” Alice said. “We made so much noise I doubt there’s an animal left within a five-mile radius.”
Several hours later, Jane and Louise stood in the front hallway laughing as Alice recounted the night’s adventures. Maxwell came downstairs in time to hear most of the story.
“At least it wasn’t boring,” Jane said. She almost wished she had gone along, just to see the scene Alice had described.
“Far from it.” Maxwell smiled. “So were Florence and Ellis very disappointed?”
Alice shrugged. “I imagine so, although none of us dwelt on the fiasco. Ellis left this morning. She was eager to get back and file her report.”
Jane was staring at Maxwell. “You sound terrible,” she said. “Are you coming down with something?”
“I think I might be,” he confessed. “My throat feels swollen and scratchy and I am quite congested. I didn’t sleep well at all last night.”
“Come into the kitchen and let me make you some
special tea,” Jane offered.
The young man looked surprised. “Really? Why, thank you, Jane.” He followed her to the kitchen.
“Sit,” she said. “This will take a few minutes.
As she efficiently began to make the tea, he asked, “What are you doing?”
“I’m mixing equal parts dried linden, elder and chamomile flowers. I use three teaspoons of this mix for every ten ounces of water.” She spooned the proper measure onto a small square of finely woven linen, then secured it and set it in a mug. Then she set a spoon in the mug and poured boiling water over the linen. “There. That has to steep for ten minutes. Then you can add honey and lemon if you like. A cup in the morning and another in the evening should help until the congestion is gone.”
Maxwell had a look of… almost awe on his face, Jane thought.
“That is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me,” he told her.
Jane was startled. “Good heavens, it’s just a cup of herbal tea.” She set down the honey and a plate with a wedge of lemon on the table near the steaming mug of fragrant tea. “There. I have to get Clothilda some information on the computer. Just wait ten minutes and flavor it to taste. I can make you more tonight.”
“Thanks, Jane.”
She left him there inhaling the warm, aromatic steam and went to the reception desk. Yesterday, she had had an idea that she hoped might help Clothilda. Jane was eager to give it a try. Ethel had made plans months before to take a bus trip to Longwood Gardens and she would be gone most of the day.
A few minutes later, their German guest appeared. Jane called to her from the computer. “Clothilda, over here.”
The older woman waved a folder. “I have brought my records down, as you asked.”
“It occurred to me,” said Jane, “that we know your ancestors booked passage on a ship bound for the Port of Philadelphia. But have you ever checked to be sure that they actually were on that ship?”
Clothilda’s eyebrows rose. “No, Jane, I have not tried to see this. You can help?”
“I can help. I think,” said Jane. She swiveled her chair around to face the computer monitor. With a little navigating, she was able to find her way to the records from the Port of Philadelphia. They were listed by ship.
Jane perused the dates, page by page. “When does your information say they sailed and on what ship?”
Clothilda pointed to her paper. “There. I have only days, not name of ship.”
Jane stabbed at the screen. “Look! I believe this is the ship. It’s the only one that lists that date as the ‘sailed from’ that matches yours. “It looks like it arrived in Philadelphia… two months later. Good heavens. Could that be? I suppose in 1749 it certainly could have been.” Rapidly, she scanned the list of the ship’s passengers’ names. “Oh, rats. I don’t see it on here. There’s Marckert, Matthey, Maurer, Mayer, Meer, Mehler, Meltzer, Mohr and Muller.”
“No Moeller?” Clothilda’s shoulders sagged.
“No Moeller.” Jane wished she had better news. “What do these little marks after some of the names mean? Oh… the ones with no marks were copied from the original German signature. The ones with asterisks—this little snowflake thing here—were names written by a clerk. I never thought about it but I imagine some of the immigrants were illiterate.”
“Ill-lit… ill…?”
“They could not read or write. They would have signed their name with a mark like an ‘X’ and told the clerk their name. So the clerk would have written it down.” A growing excitement filled Jane. “Clothilda, is it possible your ancestors might not have been able to write their name? Maybe a clerk wrote it down wrong!”
But Clothilda shook her head. “I have the letters. Letters my family write.”
“I forgot,” Jane said, disappointed.
“What is this mark? This question mark?”
“I didn’t see that one. Hold on.” Jane scanned the information key at the bottom of the page. “The ones with question marks mean the original German name was difficult to decipher.”
“So maybe my family man was bad writer?”
“I never thought of that.” Jane’s natural optimism returned. “A clerk could have copied it wrong if he found it hard to read.” She looked up, eyes alight. “Let’s compare the first names of your ancestors to the names of the people on this list to see if any are close.”
“Yes.” Clothilda consulted her notes. “There are three boys—brothers. First is Georg Christian, twenty-nine years. Second is Hans Jacob, twenty-two years. No good. Many, many Hans and Jacob in Germany. Third is Conrad Maximilian, eighteen years.”
“So the first and third brother have somewhat distinctive names. How about their wives?”
“Georg married to Karolina. Hans married to Gertrud. Conrad not married. Georg have three children, names— Johanna, Mattheis, Ulrike. Hans have no children.”
“Okay.” Jane rubbed her hands together. “Now we’re cooking with gas.”
Clothilda looked toward the back of the house, toward the kitchen. “You must cook?”
Jane laughed. “No, it’s just an expression. It means we are making progress.”
“Ah. This I understand now.”
“I’m going to print out the pages from the passenger manifest we found,” Jane told her guest, “and then we can compare the names to names that are similar. I saw at least two that are very close: Mehler, M-e-h-l-e-r, and Muller, M-u-l-l-e-r.”
“Yes.” Clothilda nodded eagerly. “Let us go cook with gas.”
Chapter Thirteen
Saturday afternoon, Louise asked three of her beginning piano students to come to the house for a special preparatory session before the National Piano Guild auditions. Each of the three was a first-year student and had never been through the adjudicating process. Louise wanted to be sure they understood how the auditions would work.
The first child did well, but the second child fumbled his way through his music badly enough that Louise felt the need to give him additional instruction. Unfortunately, that put her nearly ten minutes behind the time she had asked Patsy Ravin, the third child, to arrive.
Patsy was a nervous girl to begin with, and Louise was dreading the session. The second-grader’s mother was determined that Patsy should become a concert pianist, and evidently she expected her to reach that goal within the first two years. Louise had rarely seen a parent pester a child so much about practicing. Poor Patsy already was so upset about the Guild auditions that Louise feared that the girl might make herself ill.
When Louise approached the living room where the little girl was waiting, she expected to hear sobbing. Instead, a raspy masculine voice was saying something in a soothing tone. She stopped in the doorway, but the occupants of the living room did not see her. She saw that the man speaking was Maxwell.
“… so when you go in there to play your pieces, don’t forget that I’ll be right there with you.” He was speaking earnestly to Patsy.
This alarmed Louise. “Oh no,” she said. “Maxwell, no one but the judge goes in with the student. I’m afraid you won’t be able to do that.”
“Ah, but I will.” Maxwell turned and winked at her, then turned back to the seven-year-old, holding her gaze even though he still spoke to Louise. “I told Patsy here that I used to play piano when I was young and that I always got horribly nervous playing in front of other people. The trick is to tune them out, right, Patsy?”
The little girl nodded shyly.
“And do what?” he prompted.
“Pretend you’re sitting right beside me,” she lisped.
“That’s exactly right,” he told her. “I told Patsy to pretend she was just playing her songs for me and to forget about anyone else who might be listening.”
Louise was so stunned that she was speechless for a moment. Finally, she found her voice. “What a very good idea.” She stopped to clear her throat, surprised at the catch in her own voice. And then she had an inspiration of her own. “I’ll tell you what, P
atsy. Would you like Maxwell to come in with you the first time you play your pieces this afternoon? And then we can try it a second time with you pretending he’s there.”
When the little girl smiled and nodded vigorously, Louise felt as if they might have turned a corner. “Thank you,” she mouthed at Maxwell over the child’s head as they walked into the parlor.
The young man only smiled, raising his hand with the thumb and forefinger forming a circle in the okay sign.
On Sunday morning, the sisters were accompanied to church by Maxwell, Clothilda and Ethel, just as they had been the week before.
Louise was quiet as they walked to Grace Chapel. Jane and Clothilda were talking genealogy with Ethel, right ahead of her.
“… and we realized that it had been changed to Muller, M-u-l-l-e-r, when it was copied down from the original passenger manifest,” Jane said.
“Excellent sleuthing,” said Ethel. “Now we can start looking for Mullers. I’ve heard that name before. I’m sure there are some around here.”
“I cannot begin to look,” Clothilda told her. “This afternoon I leave on the bus for New York City.”
“Oh, I forgot.” Ethel snapped her fingers. “And how long will you be gone?”
“We tour for three days, two nights. I am back on Mittwoch—Wednesday—in the evening. On next day we go looking again?”
“Thursday,” Jane supplied. “All right. That works for me. We’ll plan a trip around the area on Thursday.”
“Louise?” Alice’s gentle voice said.
“Yes?”
Alice and Maxwell were walking beside her. Louise was quite pleased that the young man was attending church with them while he was here. It was never too late to join the flock, and Alice, bless her heart, was a particularly effective shepherdess. Louise knew Alice had spent quite a bit of her free time showing their young visitor around the community.
“Maxwell and I were just talking about the Lenten season and the reason we make an effort at sacrifice.”
Louise nodded. “Jesus’ death on the cross was the highest sacrifice there can be. Because we believe that Jesus was the incarnation of God here on earth, we believe that His self-sacrifice was the supreme expression of His love for humankind.”
Talk of the Town Page 14
