Walks the Fire (37 page)

Even kind-hearted Jesse could not resist commentary on that point. “I must admit, that was unkind of Charity. It
did
look as though she meant to do it. I was proud of LisBeth, though. She doesn’t always express such ladylike self-control.”

Augusta agreed, “When you first moved in, that child would just blow up for any reason. I remember how she went on and on one day about Warbonnet chasing her favorite kitten. Back then she would talk a person’s leg off. I declare, there were times I asked her to just ‘practice being quiet’ for a while! These past few weeks, though, she’s seemed to grow up all at once. We can be proud of her.” Augusta was accustomed to taking at least partial credit for any good thing that came out of Lincoln. LisBeth was definitely on that list in her mind.

“You’ve been a great help to both of us. I’ve thanked the Lord often that he led us to Joseph Freeman that dark night so long ago. And Joseph brought us to you.” Jesse brought her sewing close to her face, taking the last few tiny stitches that completed her quilt top as she said, “You are a blessing, Augusta.”

Augusta “harrumphed” loudly and returned the subject to LisBeth and MacKenzie. “Think we’ll be planning a weddin’ soon?”

Jesse spread out the quilt top on the floor before answering. Large plumes cut out of solid reds and greens had been appliqued around a circular red center on plain muslin to form a pinwheel-shaped flower. Only four of these huge flowers set together were large enough to cover the top of a bed. The sides and bottom edge were bordered with ten-inch wide strips of muslin appliqued with elaborate vines that intertwined with flowers and leaves.

Jesse answered, “Well, not too soon, I hope. I just got the top finished. I’ll need some time to finish the quilting.”

Augusta rejoiced, “Jesse King, I
knew
you
been thinkin’ on it too! Why on earth haven’t you said something! I’ve been nearly bustin’, watchin’ those two watchin’ each other.”

Jesse pulled the quilt top back up off the floor. “It’s best to let a little time go by. I wouldn’t want to rush anything. Marriage is for life, and I want them to be sure. The longer they wait, the longer I can pray,” Jesse stood up and added, in a lighter tone, “and the longer I’ll have to create my masterpiece!” She smiled happily. “I’m going to bed, Augusta. The ladies at church have promised to help me get this basted and put in the frame after lunch tomorrow.”

“Will they help quilt it too?” Augusta asked. “You might not have as much time as you think!”

“Oh, no, Augusta, this one’s not to be touched by any needle but mine.”

“Why on earth not?”

Jesse was reluctant to admit it, but she said, “Well… Agnes and Ona just don’t… I don’t mean to be unkind, Augusta, but they just don’t stitch well enough for this. Besides, I want it to be all mine… for LisBeth.” Jesse carefully laid the folded quilt top over her arm. “Which reminds me… would you mind if I had MacKenzie rig up a quilting frame in here?”

Augusta looked around the crowded kitchen. “I wouldn’t mind, but there’s no room!”

“I thought if I put it on pulleys up at the ceiling, it would be out of the way during the day. Then, at night, when we’re visiting, I could lower it onto the backs of the chairs and work on it that way.”

Augusta praised her invention and immediately assented. On Monday, MacKenzie and Joseph rigged up the pulleys, and on that evening Jesse began work on what was to be her masterpiece—and her wedding gift to LisBeth and MacKenzie Baird.

Jesse quilted all winter. LisBeth warned, “Mama, you’re going to ruin your eyes.” But still Jesse quilted.

MacKenzie shook his head at the hours Jesse spent bent over her work. “No disrespect meant, ma’am,” he said one evening, “but you’ve been quiltin’ the whole time Mrs. Hathaway’s been reading. She’s got the whole paper read to us, and you’ve got just that one little square the size of my hand filled in. How can you stand it?” He added quickly, “It’s gorgeous, Mrs. King—don’t misunderstand. It just sure must take a lot of patience!”

Jesse smiled. “That’s where you’re wrong, MacKenzie. It takes no patience at all to do what you love. Now shelling peas…
that
takes patience!” Jesse looked over at LisBeth, who had been doing just that.

“Amen, Mama! I heartily agree. But I’d rather do this than quilt any day.”

Jesse bent back over the quilt and returned to stitching. Still, she thought about what MacKenzie had said all that evening and the next day.
Why,
she thought,
do women quilt? Comforters serve the same purpose
—
and we can tie several of those in one afternoon. Yet, we work and work cutting up scraps, sewing them together, and creating quilts.

The next evening MacKenzie and LisBeth arrived home early from choir practice. They seemed unusually happy, but Jesse hurried to share her thoughts while they were still organized.

“MacKenzie,” she began, “you asked me last night how I can stand to do all this work. I never thought about it. But I’ve been thinking on it all day today, and I think I have the answer. When a man wants to make his mark in the world, he builds something. It may be a homestead, it may be a newspaper, or a hotel, or a dry goods store. Still, whatever he does, a man can always point to some
thing
and say, ‘There—that’s what I am. That’s what I’ve done that’s important.’

“A woman cooks and cleans and dusts, and in just a few hours, it’s all gone and has to be done again. When I think about it, MacKenzie, about the only thing that will be left when
I
pass over, is my quilts. I think that’s why I do it… although I never really thought it through until now. There’s a great satisfaction in running my hand over a finished quilt and knowing I made it. It must be something like what the Lord felt when he looked and ‘saw it was very good’ and then rested on the Sabbath.”

MacKenzie surveyed the nearly finished quilt. “What’s the name of this pattern, Mrs. King?” he asked.

“Princess Feather,” Jesse answered.

Taking LisBeth’s hand in his own, MacKenzie asked, “Would it be presumptuous of me to ask if you had planned to add this quilt to LisBeth’s hope chest?”

Jesse looked up at the couple and grinned. “I could be persuaded to do that. But only if I was assured that her future husband was a man worthy of sharing such a gift.”

MacKenzie cleared his throat. “Well, ma’am,” he began, “I’m not sure that I’m worthy, but we’d sure be honored if you’d let your masterpiece grace our home. I’ve asked LisBeth to marry me, Mrs. King, and she said
yes
…” MacKenzie was prevented from finishing the sentence by Augusta, who swept down upon him and LisBeth and caught them both up in a great hug. MacKenzie turned red and finished. “She said
yes
, if you approve.”

Jesse was quiet for so long that both MacKenzie and LisBeth grew nervous. Tears filled her eyes. She fought them back and said quietly, “MacKenzie, in all that you’ve said and all that you’ve done, you’ve proven yourself to be a hardworking young man. Still, there are many hard-working young men about. That alone is not enough to make a suitable husband. Since LisBeth was very little, I have prayed that God would send her a man strong in the faith. I watched you carefully, young man.”

Jesse rose from her chair and laid her hands lightly on the top of the quilt. “And it seems to me that you are committed to the Lord. I know that he will enable you to continue in your commitment to my daughter. MacKenzie Baird, I am proud to give LisBeth to you.”

The tears welled up in Jesse’s eyes again. “Forgive the tears, children. It’s not an easy thing to give your only child away.” Jesse looked at LisBeth, whose young face was wreathed in smiles. “God bless you both. You have my blessing.”

There was a moment of awkward silence, and then Augusta said loudly, “This calls for a celebration. MacKenzie, would you see if Joseph is still in the livery? I believe he was staying late to attend to that mare of his that’s to foal any time. Now… everyone wait right here.” She hurried out of the room and returned with five crystal goblets on a silver tray. Joseph came in with MacKenzie, smiling his joy and removing his hat. “These were my mother’s,” Augusta explained. “I keep them in my drawing room, away from the prying eyes of the clientele.” As she spoke, she poured the wine.

“To LisBeth and MacKenzie!” she sang out. Clinking crystal brought the evening to a close. Late in the night Jesse got up, lit the lamp in the kitchen, and bent over the quilt once more. In the morning LisBeth noticed Jesse’s late night addition to the bottom border of the quilt. In her tiniest stitches, Jesse had added:

For L.W.K.B.

By J.K.

1875

Thirty-one

Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge.
—
Ruth 1:16

The remainder of the winter
was spent finishing LisBeth’s trousseau and preparing for the wedding. The three women worked long hours. Augusta amazed her friends by picking up a needle and hemming some napkins.

“Well, goodness!” she exclaimed. “Just because I
don’t
sew
doesn’t mean I
can’t!
Now, give me that tablecloth!” she ordered.

Augusta thus became the official hemmer. MacKenzie took over the reading of the evening paper on the nights when he was not working late. He was working as much as possible to save for a new home. He had sworn never to return to the homestead that reminded him only of tragedy. It was listed with the land agents for $5 an acre.

LisBeth found it unsettling not to know where she would live after her marriage. Jesse reassured her. “MacKenzie is a responsible man, LisBeth. Once the homestead is sold, he’ll have the means to make concrete plans. You’ll just have to be patient.”

MacKenzie did have plans. The evening he shared them nearly resulted in his losing his fiancée. He announced after supper, “I’m joining the army.”

LisBeth dropped the cup she had been preparing to wash. Jesse paused in midstitch, and Augusta rattled the pile of plates she was stacking.

“MacKenzie!” LisBeth exclaimed. “Whatever for?”

“To make a life for us, of course,” came the defensive reply. “There’s need for good men in the west. LisBeth, I can’t stand being cooped up in that general store all day. I’ll never save enough for a new outfit, and the homestead’s not selling. I’ve got to do something to get on with life and make a future for us!”

MacKenzie had been thinking it through for weeks, and he was not to be deterred. LisBeth was horrified. “But, MacKenzie, the army… out west… it’s dangerous! And surely you don’t want to
kill
Indians
for a living!” LisBeth stressed the words.

“Of course not. I’m not going to be a fighting man. They need all kinds of men. Farriers and sutlers and clerks—and maybe I can do some good.” He made his case earnestly, “Look, LisBeth, at some point in all this madness, the white man and the Indian are going to have to make peace. Final, lasting peace. Maybe we can be part of that—do some good—help, somehow.”

Jesse interrupted. “MacKenzie, I admire your ideals. But I’m not certain they can be reached by your joining the army.”

MacKenzie was stubborn. “With all due respect, ma’am, LisBeth and me have to work this out on our own.”

LisBeth retorted, “I’ll thank you not to speak that way to my mother, MacKenzie!”

Jesse quietly responded, “MacKenzie is right. He must do what he thinks is best for you. I should keep my thoughts to myself, unless they are solicited. I think you two need privacy.”

Jesse gathered up her sewing and retreated to her room. Augusta wiped her hands, made some comment about wanting to read in her own sitting room for a change, and hurried out.

LisBeth and MacKenzie were left alone to settle the issue. What ensued was a typical first quarrel. Neither stayed rational, and neither won. They ended up in their separate corners of Hathaway House, fuming and mentally replaying the event.

Jesse was determined to keep out of LisBeth and MacKenzie’s life. She had strong opinions about the army, and she hated the thought of LisBeth re-entering that hard way of life. Still, she held equally strong beliefs about the role a wife should play in a marriage, and those beliefs guided the advice she gave LisBeth when the young woman came knocking at her door.

“Mother, western Nebraska is a howling wilderness—I
can’t
go there!”

“‘Whither thou goest, I will go,’
LisBeth. That’s God’s plan
for marriage.”

“But Mother, MacKenzie wasn’t fair with me. He never said a word about the army. I thought he’d grown to like Lincoln—that we would stay here and make a life for ourselves.”

“MacKenzie has made it no secret that he hates working in that store. From the first day he arrived in Lincoln, he’s told us that as soon as he had saved money for a new outfit, he was headed west.”

“But, Mother, I didn’t think he meant it!”

Jesse grew stern. “LisBeth, I think you had better seriously reconsider your promise to MacKenzie. Marriage is a lifelong commitment, my dear. Did you think that you promised to love him as long as he made decisions you agree with?”