Love Finds You in Amana Iowa (9 page)

She’d longed to read another story like
Pilgrim’s Progress,
but most works of fiction were idle pleasure. If only she could find another story that encouraged Christians on their journey instead of distracted them from it.

She carefully picked a book off the shelf and then replaced it seconds later without even opening the cover. There were too many books to look at. She didn’t know where to start.

Her gaze rolled over the titles, resting on a bright blue cover. She reached for it and stared at the silver foil on the front, a man and several children playing near a log home of sorts. She smoothed her fingers over the cloth binding, reading the author’s name. A woman wrote the book. A woman named Harriet Beecher Stowe.

She turned and looked back toward the counter, holding the cover up so the man could see it. “What is this book about?”

He glanced up from the ledger in his hands and set his glasses on top of it. “You’ve never heard of
Uncle Tom’s Cabin?”

“No.”

He shook his head. “Some people call it the book that began this darn war.”

She turned it over in her hands. How could a book possibly begin a war?

“Is your husband fighting for us?” he asked

She shook her head. “I’m an Inspirationist.”

One of his eyebrows slid up. “A what?”

“Our community believes that the United States should pray for peace instead of fight for it.”

“Oh—”

She held up
Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
She didn’t want to talk about her community’s views of peace or the fact that she didn’t have a husband. “Is it a book about a Christian?”

He tapped on his ledger for a moment, thinking. “It’s more of a book about Christ.”

About Christ?
Then maybe it would be a story she’d enjoy.

“You should read it,” he continued.

She looked down at the cover again, the silver gleaming in the light. “I would like to.”

“I’ll sell it to you for two dollars,” he said.

“Oh, no.” She quickly placed the book back on the shelf and backed away from it. She hadn’t meant to give him reason to think she would purchase it.

He paused for a minute. “I suppose I could go down to a dollar seventy-five. You won’t be able to find it any cheaper than that.”

She stepped back, toward the door. “I can’t buy it.”

She could feel him critiquing her dress, her hair pinned neatly behind her head.

“Why not?” he asked.

“I—I don’t have any money.”

He paused for an instant, like he wasn’t sure if he believed her. “You don’t have any money?”

Amalie tapped her tongue against her teeth, trying to find a way to explain to him the way they lived, in words he could understand. “I live in a colony,” she said. “We don’t need any money because everything is provided for us.”

His eyebrow shot up again. “Everything except books.”

“We have books,” she said, wanting him to understand. “Just not novels.”

He closed his ledger on the counter and sighed. “Well, you have to read this book.”

She backed toward the door. What would she say to the others if she brought a novel to Amana with her? A novel that started a war. “I should probably be going.”

The man scooted around the counter and marched toward the shelves. He plucked the blue book from the mass of browns and reds and held it out to her. “It’s a story that will change your life.”

“I don’t want my life to be changed.”

“Aah,” he said as he pulled the book back. “You are satisfied with your life.”

“I am.”

“Smug?”

“Oh, no,” she stopped him. “Nothing like that. I’m just content.”

“And is the world content around you?”

She thought back to General Morgan and the smirk on his face as he told her what he was doing to the people in the North. There was a reason the Inspirationists chose not to live in the world. It was partly to stay away from people who chose to pursue worldly passions and desires more than their journey with Christ.

Even when General Morgan succeeded in burning the bridge in Lisbon, he longed for more destruction. Lust is what the Bible would call it. Without God, there was no contentment in worldly pursuits. Why should she care about the world?

“We choose to live apart from the world.”

The man took the book to the counter and began to wrap it in brown paper. “Someday the world will come to you, whether or not you want it to. You might want to know why so many people have chosen to give up their farms and their families to fight in this war.”

“I’m on my way to Iowa,” she told him. “Our new community is separated from the rest of the world.”

“No matter how hard you try, you and your people will never be able to completely separate yourself from the world.”

A protest bubbled on her lips, but she choked it back down. There was no use disagreeing with him. People on the outside could never understand the tight bond of the Inspirationists or their pursuit of righteousness. They couldn’t seem to understand how her community could be content living away from the luxuries of a town, but she and the others had everything she needed in her village. And their focus wasn’t on things. It was on following God.

The man handed the package to her. “Please take this.”

She looked at the brown paper, her hands unmoving. “I don’t have any money,” she repeated.

“Consider it a gift,” he replied, and then he pulled it back. “But only on one condition.”

“What is it?”

“That you read it.”

She considered his offer for a moment. She didn’t know when she could read it, certainly not while she was on the trail. There were too many people watching her, watching each other. But perhaps she could read it when she got to Iowa. If the man were wrong, if the story was corrupt, she would dispose of it.

“Is the story truly a picture of Christ?”

When he nodded, she reached out. “Then I will read it.”

He slipped the package into her hands. “Your heart will never be the same.”

Lord, Thy grace for me has charted the direction I must take.
Now my journey I have started on to heaven’s narrow gate.
Joachim Neander

Candlelight flickered along Friedrich’s wall as he huddled over his desk. Before he lit the candle, he drew the green muslin curtain over his window so the night watchman wouldn’t see the flame in his room and come knocking to check for a fire. The clock on his bureau read 3 a.m. and while most of the Inspirationists were early risers, no one besides him and the night watchman should be awake. And he didn’t want the watchman checking on him.

He dipped his pen into the inkwell and wrote another line on Amalie’s letter, but the words sounded too crass. He wanted Amalie to know how much he cared for her. How he didn’t want to leave her or their Kolonie. How he didn’t want to leave, but he knew he had to go.

Something smoldered within him like the flame of the candle. A small voice that told him he was supposed to fight. Whether it was God’s Spirit or not, he wasn’t certain, but there was no peace in his heart at the thought of paying his way out of the army, nor could he allow his blood to be on another man’s hands. His government had conscripted him and he would fight.

He didn’t want to hurt Amalie, but he didn’t know the right words to write in the letter, not without wounding her.

Frustrated, he held the paper over the candle and let his words burn before he opened the stove’s door and threw the letter onto the smoldering ashes.

How could he communicate all he was feeling to Amalie and to his parents? And to Matthias?

They would think that Friedrich had abandoned them, without even saying good-bye. He had no desire to abandon any of them, but if he waited a month to see Amalie or until the autumn when his parents arrived, he knew he wouldn’t leave for war. They would talk him out of it, or he would talk himself out of it. And he would never forgive himself if he didn’t go.

He slid another piece of paper onto his writing desk to begin a third letter to Amalie. There wasn’t much time left now. An hour at the most. He would have to leave under the cloak of darkness to avoid the questions, before even the baker began making bread for the day.

He dipped his pen into the inkwell again and words began to flow from within him. He told Amalie that his heart was hers, but he couldn’t respect himself nor could he ever expect her to respect him if he didn’t fight for those who were enslaved. He told her about Joseph and the scars on the man’s arms. And he wrote about the wrenching in his heart, the powerful pull to fight for the wounded like David had written in the book of Psalms.

Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked.

But even as he scribbled his thoughts onto paper, the words seemed hollow. No amount of words nor the structure of them could make her understand why he had to join the Union forces. Amalie believed the shedding of blood was wrong, for any reason, and like Matthias, she probably believed God would right the wrong of slavery through a peaceful resolution. Only those who chose not to wait on God were drawn into the fight. Or at least, that was what she and Matthias and his family thought.

With a loud sigh, he leaned back in his chair and reached for a yellowed envelope he kept at the edge of his desk. Opening it, he slid out the lock of hair Amalie cut for him in secret before he left Ebenezer, hours after he asked her to marry him when she moved to Amana. He rubbed her hair gently between his fingers. He had no likeness of her on paper, but even after three years, he could still envision the sculpting of her beautiful face in his mind, the vibrancy and strength in her eyes. He longed to see her face again, touch her skin, but he couldn’t let his desires thwart his determination to do what he believed to be right.

Amalie Wiese was strong. She would be able to weather this season without him, like she’d done the past three years, and with God’s help, he would be able to weather it as well.

He tucked the envelope with the lock of her hair into his pocket, and then he picked his pen back up and asked Amalie to wait longer for him. When the war was over, he wanted to marry her. He wrote about their future together, about their children, and as he wrote, he dreamed about the many years ahead that they would spend as man and wife.

But in case something happened, in case he didn’t return in the next year or two like he planned, he wrote that he wanted her to live a life of dedication in the Amanas without him. And a life with love. He didn’t want her to be alone.

After he sealed the letter with glue, he wrote her name on the back and then he wrote a letter to Matthias and one to his parents and placed them beside the one to Amalie.

When the clock chimed four times, he blew out the candle. Ashes sprinkled over his hand as he brushed them into the stove. He strung his burlap bag over his shoulder, packed with a blanket, a change of clothes to wear until he received his uniform, the Gospel of John, and his coat.

Leaning down, he kissed Amalie’s letter one last time. Then he placed his straw hat on his head and walked out the door.

* * * * *

Matthias Roemig tossed on his pillow, trying to force himself to sleep a few more minutes before the morning bells rang. His mind wouldn’t let him rest. It skipped across the bits of conversation he had with Friedrich yesterday. The questions Friedrich had about fighting in the war.

The pull for Friedrich to fight was strong; he could hear it in his friend’s voice and see it in his face. The passion that burned in Friedrich often challenged Matthias, and sometimes even changed his perspective, but this time it was his turn to influence Friedrich and make him understand that this war wasn’t his burden to carry. Their responsibility was to help build their community and pray that the war, along with slavery, would end soon.

Kneeling beside his bed, Matthias prayed for God’s blessing on his day, and he prayed that God would work in Friedrich’s heart to give him the peace he sought. Each person in the Kolonie was on a journey to follow after their Lord, but Friedrich seemed to search more than any of them, trying to balance the desires in his heart with the will of the Lord.

He understood why Friedrich felt like he should fight. The thought of slavery sickened Matthias, along with the stories tourists told of children being sold on auction blocks and owners who treated people like property. He didn’t know enough, though, to separate truth from propaganda. Some of the stories seemed to be generated by a government that needed men to fight its war.

His hands resting on his comforter, his head bowed in humility, Matthias begged God for the wisdom he needed to speak to Friedrich. Wisdom to help his friend realize he didn’t need to feel guilty because he chose to stand for peace instead of fight. The burden of this war should be dropped at the foot of the cross and left there.

He knelt in the stillness of the morning for another five minutes, until the bells began to toll, and then he slowly rose from the hard floor and brushed off his knees. It felt as if God’s Spirit of peace stole into his room along with the morning sunlight. Today the elders would pay fees to relieve him and Friedrich from their obligation to go into battle or hire substitutes to fight in their place. They needed to keep their focus on building the villages and supplying food for their people instead of on the worries of the world far away from them.