What Once Was Lost (17 page)

Cora stood in the doorway with Louisa and Rose peering over her shoulders. All three women seemed to absorb the doctor’s directives, and the moment he departed, Cora dashed to the wardrobe and removed Christina’s nightgown from its hook. “Here you are, Miss Willems. Get yourself under those covers now. Me an’ the sisters”—Cora had chosen the nickname for the widowed sisters-in-law, who’d been together so long they had begun to resemble each other—“will see to the cookin’ an’ such ’til you’re on your feet again.”

Christina shook her head weakly in protest. “Oh, but—”

“Not one word,” Louisa stated. The elderly pair stepped into the room, hands on hips, and glared down at Christina. “Rose did some nursing when she was younger, so she’ll look after you while I assist Cora in the kitchen. You just turn your attention to getting well.”

Christina took the cotton gown but crushed it in her lap rather than donning it. She shifted her gaze from Louisa to Rose. “As much as I appreciate your kindness, I can’t expect you to disrupt your routines to take over my responsibilities here.”

“Humph. Disrupt our routines, she says.” Rose rolled her eyes. “Ever since the fire, the two of us have been sitting in a little room from morning to night, darning socks and tatting doilies to keep ourselves occupied. Coming over here and helping will be a treat.” She shook her finger in Christina’s face, her eyes twinkling. “I intend to be certain you follow each one of that handsome doctor’s orders. So”—she shooed the other two out of the room—“you go see to dinner. I’ll get our Miss Willems settled.”

Christina allowed Rose to assist her into her nightgown, and then she slipped beneath the quilt. So lazy to be in bed in the middle of the day, but once she’d stretched out on the soft mattress, she lost all will to rise. Rose fluffed Christina’s pillow before placing it gently beneath her head. After pulling the covers to Christina’s chin, the dear woman bent forward and deposited a brief kiss on her forehead.

Rose straightened and offered a sweet smile. “I’ll go fetch a glass of cool water and put it here on the stand for when you feel thirsty.”

Not since she was a child of ten—before Mama died—had someone tucked her into bed with such tenderness. Tears stung Christina’s eyes. Before she could form a thank-you, the woman exited the room with a swirl of dark gray skirts.

Although she appreciated Rose’s kind ministrations, she couldn’t deny a fierce sense of guilt. She was supposed to be taking care of the others, not having them take care of her. She rolled to her side, tugging the quilt to her ear, and allowed her eyes to close. She must do exactly as the doctor directed so she could get well as quickly as possible. Rose and Louisa could help Cora with kitchen duties, but many other, more pressing responsibilities awaited Christina. And she couldn’t allow anyone else to assume those.

In the days following his midnight trek along the riverbank with Miss Willems, Levi worked morning to night preparing his mill for spring’s busyness. Outside,
he cleared the ground where he’d store the logs awaiting the saw’s blade, and he prepared pallets to hold the cut lumber so it wouldn’t sit on the damp ground. Inside, he oiled the gears, sharpened the blades, tightened all the nuts, checked the thick leather belts for signs of rot and the metal fittings for rust. He worked carefully. Steadfastly. Meticulously. The way his great-uncle had taught him.

He paused, oilcan in hand, and allowed himself a moment of reflection. He hadn’t seen Uncle Hans in a dozen years. Was he still alive? He’d be fairly old by now—late seventies, for sure. A chuckle formed in Levi’s chest. If he knew his great-uncle, the man was as spry as a man half his age. Levi had never seen a harder worker than Hans Jonnson—and positive, to boot. When things went awry, Uncle Hans would smile and say to his son,
“Väl, if this is the worst thing that ever happens to me, I think I will end my life in good stead.”
If Far had adopted such an attitude, he might be alive today.

Levi shook off thoughts of Far. The man was dead and buried, and it was best to leave him in his lonely grave. He put the oilcan to work again, his thoughts moving ahead to April, when the first load of logs he’d ordered from the timber company in Arkansas would be transported by tugboat up the Missouri River to the mouth of the Kansas River. There, he would retrieve them and make use of the waterway to bring them all the way home. He’d spend most of the month carting logs to his mill. Then in May he’d begin sawing those logs into usable lumber.

Thanks to Uncle Hans’s patient tutelage—treating Levi like a son rather than a great-nephew—Levi had learned a trade that served him well. Still, in the back of his heart, he harbored the desire to use his cut boards for himself rather than sell them to be turned into sheds and crates and houses. Not that there was anything wrong with sheds, but how could a shed compare to a fine cupboard or a delicately spindled cradle? His earliest memories were laden with the scent of wood and resin and turpentine. When he carved an intricate rosette or a leafy design, the image of his father’s hands always formed in his mind.

Such a fine craftsman Far had been. But working on his own, he hadn’t
been able to build enough furniture to provide for his family. So he’d taken on a partner. And thus began his descent into a deep melancholy that crippled first his mind and then his body.

With a grunt of aggravation, Levi thumped the oilcan on the workbench. He sat and lowered his head to his hands. Why all these thoughts of Far and Uncle Hans today? Hadn’t he left Wisconsin behind? Of course he had. He’d set off for Kansas and the opportunity for a new life. A life free of his father’s never-ending sadness and the pitying whispers of his neighbors. He earned a good wage with his cut lumber—enough even to set money aside so he could use the winter months to craft furniture for his pleasure.

He straightened, determined to turn his attention to the present. He had the best life here on the rolling Kansas plains—making money with his sawmill and finding satisfaction in practicing his craft. And by keeping his operation small, he could depend only on himself. He might use the skills he’d learned from Far, but he would never, never become his father.

Saturday morning Levi hitched his team to the wagon and headed for town. He had two purposes for this trip—to purchase his weekly supplies and to have the promised talk with Tommy. When he’d carried the boy into the banker’s house last Sunday—well, early Monday by the time he and Miss Willems had made it back to his house, awakened Wes, and then driven the poor farm wagon to town—both of the little runaways were exhausted, chilled to the point of constant shivering, and suffering from frostbite. Talking to Tommy then would have been as pointless as talking to a chunk of wood.

So he’d returned to Brambleville Tuesday morning, his speech all prepared, but Mrs. Tatum’s cleaning lady had sent him away, saying Tommy was sick and needed to rest. But Tommy would be better by now, for sure, and they’d have that talk. Man to man. Where the boy was concerned, Miss Willems surely didn’t have enough starch to reprimand him. She treated him like an invalid even though she said he was bright. He
was
bright. Too bright to be
allowed to get by with such shenanigans as sneaking out. And in the middle of a snowstorm, to boot.

As the horses clopped toward town, Levi couldn’t help comparing today’s weather to that of a few days ago. The final days of February had been the coldest of the month, carrying snow on frigid blasts of wind. Although wind still coursed across the landscape, not even a small patch of snow remained. Instead, clumps of green were beginning to appear, the sky was clear, and the morning air—brisk but not biting—held a sweet scent. On this first day of March, it seemed as though Sunday’s foul storm had been a dream. If he lived in Kansas for a hundred years, he’d never stop marveling at the rapidly changing weather.

He reached Brambleville’s main street, where the white painted Community Church with its tall bell tower sat on a corner. The banker’s home—a two-story, red-brick Georgian with round fluted columns supporting an arched porch roof—towered next to the church building. Levi bounced his gaze across the trio of gabled windows breaking up the stern line of the deep pitched roof. If the house were his, he’d soften those gables by inserting a lacy pediment. Would Mr. Tatum purchase such trims from Levi if he presented his idea to the man?

“Whoa,” he called, pulling back on the reins. The horses obediently stopped. Levi set the brake and hopped down, removing his hat as he strode toward the door. He gave the raised panel oak door a solid
bump, bump, bump
with his knuckles, then waited.

Moments later the door opened, and the banker’s wife stood framed in the opening. She gave him a puzzled look. “Mr. Jonnson … yes?”

He nodded. “That’s right.”

“How may I help you?”

This woman spoke primly, the way Miss Willems did, but somehow Miss Willems fell short of sounding haughty. Mrs. Tatum might learn a thing or two from the poor farm director. He tapped one foot against the painted floor, eager to get this errand completed. “I’ve come for Tommy.”

Her eyes grew wide. “You have?”

“I came last Tuesday, but he was still sick. Is he better?”

She stepped back, ushering him in with a wave of her hand. “Both he and Joe are fully recovered. They complain of some discomfort where they were frostbitten, but I suppose that’s to be expected.” She closed the door behind him, then headed up the wide, spindled staircase, still talking. Although she hadn’t instructed him to do so, he followed her. “I sincerely hope the scare they received from their time of wandering will be enough to keep them from ever attempting such a foolish pursuit again. Of course”—she paused and shot a sour look over her shoulder—“if Tommy hadn’t been here, Joe never would have gone. He was perfectly content with Harold and me.” A weary sigh left her lips. “But I needn’t worry about that anymore since you’re here.”

The woman was putting a lot of faith in his being able to talk sense into Tommy. For the boy’s sake, he hoped it wasn’t ill placed. She turned a corner, and the staircase emptied into a broad landing with hallways stretching on both sides. Levi trailed behind her down the right-hand hallway, passing several white painted doors before stopping at the hallway’s end.

She held her hand out toward the last door. “He’s in there, just where you deposited him earlier this week. The only difference is the latch at the top of the door. I had Harold install it so I could be certain Tommy would do no more wandering. His thoughtless behavior took a good ten years from my life span, I’m sure. His belongings are in there, too. I trust you know what is his since he stayed with you previously.”

“His belongings?”

“Well, certainly.” Her tone turned tart. “You’ll want to take the few things he owns with him.”

Levi shook his head, furrowing his brow in confusion. “Mrs. Tatum, I just want to talk to Tommy.”

She drew back. “But you said you had come for him.”

“I came to talk. Not to take him.”

A mighty huff exploded, and she rolled her gaze toward the ceiling. “I should
have known that woman wasn’t making any effort to find another location for Tommy.”

“That woman …”
He frowned. “You mean Miss Willems?”

“Yes, Miss Willems! I’ve tried to be patient with her. She was, after all, quite ill, thanks to gallivanting all over the countryside in search of those two reckless boys.”

Levi’s heart lurched. She’d been ill? How ill?

Mrs. Tatum continued in a grating tone. “But even though the Spencer family took Joe and Florie two days ago, which indicated she’d been well enough to make arrangements for the twins, she’s sent no one for Tommy. I suspect Miss Willems is trying to teach me some sort of lesson by forcing me to care for the boy.” Her chin quivered, and plump tears appeared in the corners of her eyes. “She all but accused me of being cruel to him.”

Mrs. Tatum had locked him in a room by himself. That didn’t seem kind to Levi. But he could understand the woman’s reasoning. After having the boy escape, she probably felt extra responsibility for keeping him safe. He scratched his chin. “I wouldn’t know anything about that, ma’am. I’d just like to speak to Tommy if you don’t mind.”

She reached up and unhooked the silver clasp, then pinched her skirts between her fingertips and flounced up the hallway.

Levi opened the door and peeked into the room. The window shades were pulled, and no lamp lit the space. With the room cloaked in shadows, it took a minute for his eyes to make out the two beds covered with patchwork quilts, a tall bureau, … and Tommy, seated on the floor in the corner with his forehead on his knees and his arms wrapped around his legs. Despite Levi’s intention to dive into a stern lecture, sympathy twined around his heart. The boy looked plenty dejected. And his morose pose raised memories of another time, another place, another person … Levi swallowed.

“Tommy?”

Tommy’s head bounced up, and his palms landed flat on the floor. “Mr. Jonnson?”

The joy in the boy’s voice sent a shaft of unexpected emotion through Levi. Affection. He genuinely liked this boy. “It’s me.” He covered the short distance between them, took Tommy by the arm, and hoisted him to his feet. “We have some talking to do, yes?”