Elm Creek Quilts [04] The Runaway Quilt (7 page)

I was so dumbfounded I could only echo, “We aren’t going to Kansas?”

No, he told me, and then explained that the region was in turmoil, something his handbills had never mentioned. According to law, the settlers themselves would determine whether Kansas would be a Slave State or Free, and even as Abolitionists were helping opponents of slavery to settle there, others from neighboring Slave States, especially Missouri, were doing the same for people who would vote in their favor.

“All the more reason we should go” was my stubborn reply. “Even your one vote might make the difference.”

But my brother shook his head gravely and said that people in Kansas had been injured and even killed in the violence as those on one side of the issue tried to drive out their rivals, and not even innocent women and children had been spared. Until matters of statehood and slavery were resolved there, Hans said, we would be better off in a region where the matter had already been settled, on the side of freedom.

I agreed this would be wise, but was compelled to inquire, “And where, precisely, is that?”

“Pennsylvania,” came his reply, a farm on the outskirts of a town called Creek’s Crossing. Now my brother became ebullient, and described in glowing terms the two-story stone house awaiting us, the fertile land nourished by the waters of Elm Creek, the corral, the paddock, and the stable full of horses just like the dazzling pair pulling our wagon.

Anneke, thinking of her plan to sew shirts for the bachelors of the West, perked up then and inundated my brother with questions about the town. No, he didn’t know the population of Creek’s Crossing; no, he wasn’t sure how many churches it possessed; no, he wasn’t aware if they had a lending library—each question made him squirm more than the last, and his answers became more evasive until I finally burst out, “Good heavens, Hans, have you seen this town or not?”

No, to be precise, he had not.

Anneke and I looked at each other, and then at him, and thus confronted by two bewildered and alarmed women, he was forced to reveal the truth. He had not seen Creek’s Crossing, or Elm Creek Farm, or even a single leaf on a single tree in the region where these places were reputed to exist. All these many years, when I and my family back in Germany believed him to
be a merchant’s son turned gentleman farmer, working on his own thriving land, he had been wandering from pillar to post, working for one farmer and then another, living for a time in the city, earning a small fortune and losing it just as quickly in one business enterprise after another.

“Then how,” asked I, as calmly as I could manage under the circumstances, “did you come to be master of Elm Creek Farm?”

By winning it, he confessed with more pride than I thought proper, in a horse race.

The previous owner, a horse breeder with a taste for whiskey, had come to New York to sell some of his prize horses. He was new to the business and trying to make a name for himself selling thoroughbreds to the new generations of gentlemen sprouting up like weeds from the soil of their peasant forebears. He had overestimated the market and, his funds nearly exhausted, found himself with four horses and little to show for his journey. Naturally, as men do, he decided a drink would help him see a solution to his quandary, and as one drink turned into many, he took to wandering the streets, belligerently ordering passersby to examine his horses and admit they had never before seen their like.

Most ignored the man, but Hans humored him and said the horses were impressive to look at but were not, ultimately, a well-matched team. The man sputtered in rage and demanded that Hans explain himself. Hans indicated one horse, Castor, and said his gait was longer than the other three horses’, so his superior speed would throw off the team.

“You’re wrong, sir,” said Mr. L., and to prove it, he would have Hans ride Castor while he himself rode one of the other three. If Hans lost the race or if the horses crossed the line at the same time, Hans must buy two of the horses; if Castor won, Mr. L. would give Hans all four horses free of charge.

Hans did not have the money to buy one, much less two, of the horses, but he knew that Mr. L. in his drunken state would not be able to sit a horse well enough to win the race. Sure enough, after witnesses were assembled and a course determined, Hans sailed across the finish line and found himself the proud owner of four horses.

Mr. L. promptly demanded that Hans allow him to win back his horses. At first Hans refused, but when Mr. L. called it a matter of honor and staked his farm in central Pennsylvania against Hans’s newly acquired thoroughbreds, Hans consented. After another brisk run around the course, he found himself the owner of everything but what Mr. L. carried upon his person. Before Mr. L.’s pocket change and clothing should fall into his possession as well, Hans returned to him two of the horses and encouraged him to forgo additional gambling until a day when his luck was better.

Anneke, eyes shining, praised Hans for his cleverness and admired his generosity in giving Mr. L. two of the horses he had lost fair and square, but I was shocked—stunned and appalled that my brother would take such advantage of his fellow man. I reminded him what our father would have thought of his deportment, but Hans merely laughed at me and said, “Father’s ways don’t work in America, dear sister. That is why he remained at home, and I came here.”

I did not like this, but lest the two of them think I, too, should have remained at home, I kept my arguments to myself and vowed to see that the Bergstrom family would not abandon all dignity and righteousness in this wild land.

“How far is this farm?” said I instead, thinking that though it was nearer than Kansas, our destination might yet be too far for the horses. Hans showed me on the map, and it seemed a more isolated place than I had ever imagined, although logically I realized it could not have been any worse than Kansas Territory,
far to the west, and likely it would be better. There, Hans declared, he would raise crops to support us and the livestock, but he would make his fortune in horse breeding.

“Make your fortune as Mr. L. made his?” inquired Anneke, thinking, as I did, of how Mr. L. had been unable to sell the four horses he had brought to New York.

“I hope you did not intend to breed Castor and Pollux,” said I, “since they are both males.”

“And gelded,” added Anneke.

We dissolved into laughter at Hans’s scowl, and soon he joined in, reminding us of the other horses awaiting us at Elm Creek Farm. “A stable full,” said he, including the very horses that had sired and foaled the regal animals before us.

Our laughter faded, and I could see in my companions’ faces that mirth had been replaced with anticipation and eagerness. As for myself, I thought of the unfortunate man who had lost those beautiful horses, along with his farm and his entire livelihood. I imagined him returning to Creek’s Crossing in defeat to break the news to his family, if he had one, and to his workers, who perhaps even now were caring for the horses and wondering if they, too, would be driven from their homes or if the new owner wanted for stablehands.

However, my pity for Mr. L. was short-lived.

When at last we reached Creek’s Crossing, we were pleased to discover a quaint, pleasant village built along the banks of Elm Creek, which, in my estimation, should have been named a river. We had driven our wagon beside it for many miles, and only here did runoff into lakes and marshland north of the town cause the creek to narrow and slow enough for ferries to provide not entirely hazardous passage across the waters.

We traversed the town and discovered several churches, and saloons enough to equal their number, as well as various thriving businesses, including a general store. Here Hans stopped to
obtain basic provisions, planning to purchase more once we learned what, if anything, Mr. L. had left behind.

In the meantime, Anneke and I made an errand of our own, to a tailor’s shop across the street, where I pretended to inquire about prices but in truth was helping Anneke study the competition. We exited the shop armed with the knowledge that another tailor as well as a dressmaker were already well established in town, but Anneke was untroubled, confident that her plans would yet succeed.

Hans was waiting in the wagon, frowning in a bemused fashion. When we inquired what was the matter, he said, “Maybe nothing.” Then he paused and added, “The men inside have never heard of Elm Creek Farm.”

Anneke and I looked at each other but said nothing. We could not bring ourselves to tease him, as we had about the horses. His manner was too pensive to elicit our laughter.

But the deed to Elm Creek Farm awaited us at the bank as Mr. L. had promised, and once it was in Hans’s possession and the transfer of ownership was in order, our concerns faded. We headed out of town, following the road and the directions Mr. L. had provided. The creek accompanied us for a time as we passed other, well-established farms, then wound away from us and disappeared into a thick wood. Soon afterward, at a path through the trees barely wide enough to accommodate our wagon, the road and Mr. L.’s directions diverged.

On any other occasion I might have enjoyed the sublime beauty of the forest and delighted in the sunbeams as they broke through the leafy boughs, but that day I felt only trepidation. Then Elm Creek emerged again, which brought us some measure of relief, as Mr. L. had said the water crossed his property.

But although he spoke truthfully in this regard, nearly every other detail proved false.

Even now, knowing how we prospered in the end, it pains me
to recall the sorry sight that greeted us. Of the forty acres Hans now owned, just four were cleared. The two-story stone house was nothing more than a cabin a stone’s throw from the creek, barely twelve feet by twelve, with two oilcloth windows, a dirt floor, and sunlight streaming though the logs where the chinking had fallen out. The stable of horses was empty, which perhaps was just as well, since it was but a ramshackle lean-to, with just enough room for Castor and Pollux.

When we had surveyed our domain, Hans seemed furious and humiliated but resigned. Anneke looked as if she might weep; when Hans held out a hand to comfort her, she stormed away and climbed aboard the wagon to sit beside her sewing machine. She looked as if she heartily regretted her decision to leave New York in our company, and I cannot say I blamed her. When she thought herself unobserved, she brought out the portrait of her intended and regarded it with a strange look in her eye. Perhaps she wondered if she had not waited long enough for him in New York, and if she should seek him out. With the awareness of all that befell us since, I cannot help contemplating how different my life and Hans’s would have been if at that moment she had summoned up the courage to leave us and make her way on her own.

The sun was beginning to disappear behind the trees, we were tired and hungry, and all our happy prospects seemed to lie in ruins. This, I told myself, is what comes of such ill-gotten gains. But I lacked the cruelty to say so aloud, so instead I said, “We have less than what we thought we had, but we still have the land, and two horses, and our own fortitude. That is far more than we had upon our arrival in New York. So Mr. L. did not do the work of clearing the land and planting the crops and building us a fine house. Very well. We shall do it ourselves.”

My brother still looked discouraged, so I added, “Did we not intend to work in Kansas? Was someone to have done everything for us there?”

Anneke sighed and rested her head in her hands. Hans idly brushed straw from the horses’ coats. They were moments away from giving up and turning back, and we had only just arrived!

I was no less disappointed than they, but suddenly I grew angry. “It’s just as well we didn’t go any farther west,” I declared, snatching up a parcel Hans had purchased at the general store and marching over to the cabin with it. Alone I unloaded the wagon of all but my trunk and the sewing machine, which were too heavy for me to lift. Then I built a fire in a circle of stones that Mr. L. had arranged not far from the entrance to the cabin, filled a cook pot at the creek, and soon had potatoes on the boil. As the sun set and my companions’ appetites grew, they left their isolated places and joined me at the fireside. Wordlessly I handed them their tin plates and cups and served them potatoes and dried beef as I had on the road. We ate in silence, with only the noises of the forest to welcome us home.

Then, suddenly, my brother spoke. “Tomorrow I’ll find the borders of our property. There must be neighboring farms. They will tell us where our acres end, or I’ll find a surveyor in town.” He poked the fire with a stick. “There might be some crops in, somewhere. He’s been feeding his horses something.”

“I’ll ready the cabin,” said Anneke in a soft voice. “When I have enough daylight to see by.”

“I’ll help you,” said I, and that was how we decided to stay at Elm Creek Farm.

“A horse race,” said Sylvia, shaking her head.

Andrew looked dubious. “It could have been worse.”

“I suppose. Hans could have held the man at gunpoint and robbed him that way.”

“It wasn’t robbery,” said Sarah. “It was gambling.”

“A horse race with a drunken man who was certain to lose is no gamble.” Sylvia rose and carried her empty coffee cup into the kitchen, but instead of returning to the sitting room and her friends, she exited the manor through the back door. She crossed the empty parking lot and followed the back road to the bridge over Elm Creek, where she sat down on a bench and gazed at the water.

She wondered where that old cabin had stood. Gerda described a four-acre clearing a stone’s throw from the creek, which narrowly ruled out the location of the manor. Any area cleared in Gerda’s time could have become overgrown since, so Sylvia doubted she’d ever find the right place, if in fact any trace of it remained to be found. A cabin so decrepit in 1856 most likely would not have lasted into the next century.

Sylvia knew she should sympathize with her ancestors’ predicament, but instead she found herself more than a little pleased that no two-story stone house had awaited the three travelers at the end of their journey. A run-down cabin was more than Hans deserved after swindling a man out of his home and livelihood. All her life she had admired Hans and Anneke for building the Bergstrom estate out of nothing—which, admittedly, they apparently had done, but not without trying to take the easy way out first.