Waiting for Summer's Return (4 page)

It would be bearable if only I weren’t alone. Why did they all have to die?

Peter leaned over and placed a kiss on Thomas’s tousled hair.
“Guten nacht. Schlop die ’zunt,
son.
”

“You sleep well, too, Pa.” The boy pulled the covers to his chin.

Peter left the door ajar so he could hear his son’s breathing. He crossed to the wooden table in the middle of the main room and sat down. Grasping the heel of his right boot, he worked the boot free, dropped it with a muffled thud against the braided rug beneath the table, then freed his left foot and dropped that boot with its mate. He wiggled his toes and leaned back in his chair, releasing a long sigh.

The rough tabletop had been cleared of dishes but still wore a spattering of crumbs. Peter swept his hand across the surface, sending the crumbs to the floor. He looked toward the dry sink and spotted two tin plates and a mug—not enough to require a trip to the well for dishwater. It could wait until morning. There had been a time when crumbs on the table and dishes in the sink would not have been acceptable, but with
Grossmutter
’s advancing arthritis stealing her ability to do simple chores, the house sometimes reflected a lack of care. Peter did not much like this, but he did not have the time to do all the household chores as well as the outdoor duties. He hoped the woman would not find their crumbs offensive.

A light snuffling sounded from Thomas’s room, followed by the deeper, more rumbling noise of the old woman’s snore. Peter smiled. The one time he had told
Grossmutter
she snored, her expression of indignation had convinced him he had better not mention it again. He did not mind the snoring. The sounds were comforting.

Elsa always used to say if she heard him snoring, she knew he was near. It felt good to have the boy and the old woman near. His smile faded into a frown. The woman alone in the
shariah
must be finding it hard to sleep. No snores, no snuffles, no company at all. How long had it been before he’d slept straight through a night after Elsa’s passing? He could not remember now, although he was sure it had been weeks—well after the ship had delivered him and the boy to American soil.

Peter yawned, stretching. Tomorrow would be a full day. His mind sorted through the tasks awaiting him with the rising of the sun. While the woman worked with Thomas, Peter must chop some saplings to build a rope bed on which the woman could sleep, haul all of the remaining boxes and barrels to the barn and store them in the loft so the woman had room, find a way to bring heat to the shelter so the woman would not freeze when the snows came, fix the steps so she would not fall … and sometime during the day he must take her to where her family had camped and show her she no longer had belongings.

His chest ached with dread as he considered the last task.

She had already lost so much. He rested his elbow on the table edge and propped up his chin, searching for words that might comfort her tomorrow when she discovered what had been done to her wagon and the things inside it. For sure, belong ings could be replaced. That was true, yet it seemed unkind to say so when belongings were all one had to call one’s own.

“Lieber Lord im himmel,”
he prayed aloud, slipping into his comfortable German dialect, “I ask that you be with me tomorrow when I must show poor
Frau
Steadman that all her things are gone. Prepare her heart to accept the loss. Help her understand why the burning was needed. Thank you that my Thomas has a teacher. Let my Thomas also teach her to love again, for only with the opening of one’s heart can joy be restored.” He yawned, his ears popping with the stretching of his jaw.

“
Ach,
Father, I am a tired man. I must sleep now. Let the sleep bring me strength for what awaits me tomorrow. Amen.”

4

S
HE’S AWFUL SKINNY, PA.
”

Peter looked at his son. “Skinny? What is this?”

“You know—too thin. Skinny.”

Peter nodded.
“Ja.”
He sat at the table, eating his breakfast of cornmeal mush. The early morning breeze slipped through the open front door. He liked the smell of morning in the house, but very soon they would need to keep the door closed to hold out the cold.
Grossmutter
held a shawl around her shoulders this morning. Maybe he should close the door now.

“She doesn’t look very strong, either.” Across the table, Thomas scooped another bite and swallowed.

Peter shrugged. “I do not know that a person must be muscled to have smartness.”

Thomas gave a light laugh, one arm wrapped protectively across his middle. “No, I reckon not. Mr. Funk is pretty skinny, too, but he’s a good teacher.”

“There you are.” Peter lowered his brows and pointed his spoon at Thomas. “You will give
Frau
Steadman the same respect you have always given your Mr. Funk. Just because you study at home is no reason to play.”

“Oh, sure, Pa. I know.” The boy blinked in innocence.

Grossmutter
reached out with her gnarled hand and tapped Thomas’s wrist. She pointed to his bowl.

Thomas sent her a smiling nod.
“Ich esse, Grossmutter.”
He ate two more bites, as he had promised, before turning to Peter. “She looks sad, too.”

Peter set his spoon aside. He wondered how the woman had slept last night on the hard dirt floor of the
shariah
all alone. “
Ja,
she is sad.” And sadder she would soon be when she discovered she no longer had a wagon and things to call her own. “She has lost much, son. We must be patient while we wait for her to smile,
ja
?”

Thomas looked across the table with a thoughtful expression on his youthful face. “Pa, how long did it take for you to not feel so sad about Ma dying?”

Peter stroked his beard, considering Thomas’s question. This was one moment he was glad
Grossmutter
did not understand the English. “There are days, son, when the sadness still sits like a stone in my chest. Sadness comes sometimes when I look at you and think how proud she would be of you.”

Thomas paused in his eating. His chin quivered. “Would she be proud of me, Pa?”

“
Ach,
but yes,” he said, reaching across the table to tousle Thomas’s hair. “Who could not be proud of a boy like you? Even when he falls from trees!”

Thomas grinned. “Oh, Pa.”

Peter picked up his spoon. “Finish your breakfast, son. You will have studies to do and you will need a full belly for your brain to think.”

“Excuse me.”

Peter turned in his chair to see
Frau
Steadman in the doorway. He rose, his eyes involuntarily sweeping from her toes to her hair. She wore a different dress than the blue wool. This one was the same green as the leaves of the cedars that grew along the Cottonwood River. Like the blue one, it hung loosely. As Thomas had said, she looked skinny. But she had obviously made use of the well. Her face was shiny clean and her dark hair damp where it was swept back from her face. The circles under her eyes did not indicate a restful night for her.

He smiled a greeting and held out his hand. “Please,
Frau
Steadman, come in. Sit down. I will get a bowl for you for mush.”

She entered the house, her focus touching first Thomas then
Grossmutter
before returning to him. “I honestly couldn’t eat a bite.”

Peter did not want to argue with her, yet he could not allow her to starve to death on his property. “If mush does not appeal, I can go to the henhouse for an egg.”

“Thank you, but no.”

Peter clamped his jaw, worry and irritation mingling in his chest. She must eat, but he could not force her.
Lieber Lord, what do I do?
An idea struck, and a grin tugged at his cheek. Instead of addressing the woman, he turned to his son and shook his head with great sadness. “I am sorry, Thomas, but no lessons for you today.”

“Pa?”

“Disappointed I know you are, son, but I cannot allow
Frau
Steadman to teach you.”

The woman moved forward one step, her skirts sweeping the floor. Her dark eyes snapped. “Why not?”

“We agree—trade schooling for room and food. I cannot accept the schooling if you do not accept the payment. So …” He shrugged at Thomas. “No lessons today.”

Thomas understood. While his eyes sparkled, he pushed his lips into a pout. “But I’m so far behind.”

“You will have to study on your own, son.” Peter touched Thomas’s hair and brought forth a sorrow-laden sigh while Thomas played along, slumping his shoulders in disappointment. Peter peeked at
Frau
Steadman. Would it work?

She glared at him with narrowed eyes, her lips pursed in irritation. Finally she threw her hands outward. “All right. I’ll eat.” She crossed to the table and pushed Peter’s empty bowl aside, seating herself with a straight back and raised chin. “But don’t think for a moment I don’t know what you’re up to. And I won’t always be so easily manipulated.”

“Ma-nip-u-lated.” Peter scowled. “I do not know what this means.”

Her chin thrust out. “Oh, yes you do.”

With a shrug in Thomas’s direction, Peter got a clean bowl and plopped in a great lump of mush. He added a dollop of molasses and doused it with cream, then set the bowl and a spoon in front of the woman. Standing beside her chair, he waited until she took up the spoon, stirred the contents into a semismooth consistency, and brought a small bite to her mouth.

Grossmutter
continued eating while observing the woman with her sharp scrutiny. Peter could not tell what she was thinking.

Thomas, still sitting on the other side of the table, also watched. “Mrs. Steadman? You didn’t say grace.”

A blush stole across the woman’s cheeks.

Peter sent a brief glowering look in Thomas’s direction, then smiled down at the woman. “When I blessed the food this morning, God knew you would eat. It will digest without a second prayer.” He glared once more at Thomas, who hung his head. “I will get water for the dishes. Thomas, you stay and visit with
Frau
Steadman.”

Thomas raised his chin and smiled at Summer. The woman went on eating with small, dainty bites. Peter picked up a bucket, stepped out the door, and headed across the dewy grass to the well. As he turned the crank to bring up the pail, he tested the unknown word. “Ma-nip-u-lated.” How he wished he knew what she meant. With a sigh, he poured the water from the pail into his waiting bucket, taking care not to splash over the rim, then threw the pail back into the depths of the well.

Back in the house he found Thomas, under
Grossmutter
’s watchful eye, sharing what he had been studying in school before his accident. The woman listened, her fine brows pulled down in concentration. He peeked at her bowl and hid a smile of satisfaction. It was nearly empty.
Good. The tricking of her worked
.

He poured the water into the reservoir of the stove to heat and placed the empty bucket on the floor beside the dry sink. When he straightened, he found
Frau
Steadman waiting, bowl and spoon in hand. Her nearness caught him off guard, and he stumbled backward a step, kicking the bucket. She glanced at the bucket then looked at his face.

He felt heat building in the back of his neck. He looked toward the table, where Thomas grinned and
Grossmutter
pursed her lips.

“Mr. Ollenburger?”

He turned back to the woman.

She gestured toward the dry sink. “Would you like me to wash the dishes?”

Peter shook his head, returning to the table to put some distance between them. “Washing the dishes is Thomas’s job. It does not hurt his ribs to lift only bowls and spoons. When he is finished, he can show you his books, and you two can begin to study.”

She watched as he carried Thomas’s bowl to the dry sink and added it to the others waiting in the tin wash pan. “I was hoping …” He heard the tremble in her voice and stopped rearranging bowls to look at her. “
Ja?
You were hoping?”

She licked her lips, hiding her hands in the folds of her skirt. He watched her eyes flit sideways to the table before coming back to him. “I know that Thomas is eager to begin his studies, but I wondered if perhaps we could delay it for one more day.”

“Delay …” Peter looked at Thomas.

“Wait until later, Pa.”

“Wait until later?” Peter said to
Frau
Steadman.

“Just one day. I would like to have the chance to settle in, to bring the things from my wagon to the
shariah
.” She paused. “Would-would that be acceptable?”

Peter swallowed. He would rather wait until later to go to the no-longer-there wagon, but he knew he could not. He lowered his chin and aimed his voice at the floor. “I think to … delay … one day will not harm the boy. I will hitch the oxen.”

He looked up to see gratitude in her eyes.

“Thank you.”

As he clumped across the ground toward the barn, he wondered if she would regret that thank-you once she saw what the doctor had done.

Summer scuffed her toe through the pile of ashes. Ashes. Only ashes remained of what was once her wagon, furniture, books … and memories. The minister had said, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust …” as the men had shoveled soil on top of her children’s graves. Her children were ashes. Her belongings were ashes. Her dreams were ashes. Hot tears formed in her eyes, and she pulled her coat tighter around her chin as she battled the desire to dissolve into wails of anguished fury.

“Sorry I am that it was done,
Frau
Steadman, but the good of many must sometimes come before the good of one.” The sympathy in Mr. Ollenburger’s eyes substantiated his words. He lifted his ax, using it to point toward a stand of maples along the riverbank. “I-I go now to chop the trees for your new bed. You … you sit and …” He shrugged in a helpless gesture and headed into the trees, the ax on his shoulder.

Soon she heard the hollow clack of iron against wood. Chopping trees to build her new bed, he had said. Anger, hot and consuming, rose up within her. She didn’t want a new bed! She wanted her own carved oak bedstead on which her children had been born, and the quilt pieced by her grandmother, and the rocking chair in which she had soothed her babies to sleep before tucking them into the cradle that had been her own sleeping spot when she was an infant. So many precious, irreplaceable items had been inside that wagon! It was unthinkable that this pile of soot and grit was now all she had.

The wind lifted particles of gray ash and carried them away across the brittle grass. She spun from the sight, a strangled sob forcing its way out of her throat. Her gaze fell upon the row of headstones. She broke into a stumbling run and dropped to her knees in front of the graves, allowing the tears to flow.

“Oh, Vincent, all your books … They’re gone, son.” The wind whipped at her hair and dried the tears that rained down her cheeks in an endless flood. “And Rose, my precious girl, the sweet embroidery you worked on as we traveled … You were so proud of the posies you stitched from pink silk floss. You said you would hang the sampler in our new parlor. I’m so sorry I can’t hang it for you, Rose….”

She turned to another mound. “Tod, dear Tod, your carved soldiers are all burned up.” She closed her eyes, envisioning the little boy lying flat on his belly in the grass with the wooden men clasped in his dimpled fists. “I’m so glad I put one with you in your grave. At least you have one left with which to play.” She slapped her hands to her cheeks, gasping as guilt assailed her. “But, Tillie … Oh, my dear sweet baby, I didn’t put your dolly with you. I kept it, thinking I would hold it when the need to hold you was too strong. And now, like you, it’s gone. I should have buried it with you, my darling. I’m sorry, Tillie. I’m so sorry….”

Sobs shook her. She could no longer speak. Burying her face against her knees, she cried until she thought her chest might explode. It was several minutes before she realized the sound of the ax had stopped. She peered over her shoulder. On the other side of the ash pile, Mr. Ollenburger crouched on his haunches, the ax across his knees. His wagon waited behind him, a tumble of fresh-cut saplings piled in its bed.

She turned back to the graves and cleaned her face with her sleeve. Painfully she pushed herself to her feet, but she couldn’t make herself leave. Her gaze drifted down the row of markers, ending with little Tillie’s. She read aloud the words engraved there: “‘An angel took my flower away, but I will not repine, since Jesus at His bosom wears the flower that once was mine.’”

“It is true.”

She jumped at the deep voice that came from behind her right shoulder. “What?”

He stepped beside her. “What you said. It is true.” He nodded his shaggy head, his eyes solemn. “All of your
liebchen
are now with Jesus, safe in His arms.”

Anger at all she’d lost welled up like an ocean wave. “But I want them with
me
! What does
He
need with them? They’re
my
children! My
children
…” Another sob rent her words, and she placed a hand against her lips to stifle any more that might erupt.

Mr. Ollenburger’s eyes softened with understanding. “I know,
Frau
Steadman. The sadness goes very deep. It fills you until there is not room for anything else.”

She nodded. The sorrow was a crushing burden. It equaled her guilt.

“There is One who can take your sadness and fill your heart with joy once more, if only you will ask Him.”

Summer forced out her breath in a harsh huff. “Please, Mr. Ollenburger, do not preach a sermon to me. This God of whom you speak ignored my cries to save my children. Even if He could restore my joy, why would He? He didn’t care enough to hear me before. Why would He listen now?”

The man flapped his jaw twice, as if unable to form words, then snapped it shut.

She turned away from him, wrapping her arms around herself and shivering in the cool wind.

After a long while, he spoke again, his voice of distant thunder tender in its delivery. “Why my Elsa was took from me I still do not know. She wanted even more than me to see this land where no one stops you from worshiping the true God. A land where our Thomas could grow and choose whatever he wished to be. But out at the sea, she died. She is buried in the ocean.”