Wild Heart on the Prairie (A Prairie Heritage, Book 2) (15 page)

Jan could not bear waiting in the dark and doing nothing. He
lit a lantern, circled the house, and found Talbert’s axe lying in the dirt next
to a pitifully small pile of wood for kindling. He frowned as he picked up the
axe.

Within a few minutes he had chopped an armful of kindling
and laid it next to the back door. Then he went in search of the Beckers’ coal
bin. It was nearly empty.

It is still cold at night and this family is in real need,
Jan realized. He filled a bucket with what was left of the coal and set it
on the back stoop next to the kindling. Later he would make a trip home to
bring back more wood and coal.

He let himself into Talbert’s barn to check on their
animals. In the lamplight their lone cow lowed mournfully, begging to be milked;
their mule stamped in agitation.

Likely these animals have not been cared for this day
,
Jan surmised.

He filled a pail with water for the mule and looked for
grain to feed him. As he neared the grain bin, holding the lamp before himself,
the scurrying of mice caught his attention.

They do not have a mouser?
Jan wondered.
Ach! Not
good for the grain or for healthy living.

Jan held the lantern aloft, opened the grain bin, and saw
droppings. Mice had indeed been in the grain. He searched for and spied nesting
material behind the bin. Had the Beckers been eating from this bin as well as
feeding their animals? Jan began to get a very bad feeling.

Inside, the two women retreated to the kitchen. There they scrubbed
their hands and forearms with strong soap and hot water. Since they had both
been handling the children, Fraulein Engel inspected Elli carefully for fleas
and then Elli did the same for Fraulein Engel.

They bound clean kerchiefs about their heads, taking care to
tuck in all of their hair. Then they placed kerchiefs over their noses and
mouths, tying them behind their heads.

Elli found the kindling and bucket of coal on the back step
and built up a good fire to heat more water. When the water was boiling, they
set to work cleaning the children and their bedroom.

To say it was difficult work would be an understatement.

Elli and Fraulein Engel stripped the children and their
beds. In a few minutes the women had the four sick, naked children huddled
under a thin cover in the corner of the kitchen next to the stove. Then they
scrubbed the bedroom’s bed, floor, and walls. Elli helped Fraulein Engel to
remake the bed with the few clean bed linens they could find.

“Be careful,” Fraulein Engel admonished in German. She
pantomimed to Elli her concern over the soiled clothing and linens. Through
Fraulein Engel’s gestures, Elli understood that all the clothing and bedding were
to be boiled.

“
Ja
,” was Elli’s sober answer. She bundled the filthy
things in a soiled sheet and took them out the back door, making a pile several
yards from the house. Jan watched her from the barn. He noted Elli’s covered
head, mouth, and nose with concern.

“What does she say?” Jan asked.

Elli hesitated. It was now the middle of the night. She was
exhausted and needed to re-wash her hands and arms in strong soap as soon as
possible. There was still much to be done in the house. She did not have the
energy to deal with Jan’s reaction.

Elli pulled down the kerchief covering her mouth. “She . . .
thinks
it could be some form of typhus, but I do not think she is
certain because of how uncommon it is in these parts,” she answered softly. “But,
in fact, the children are covered in flea bites.”

Jan stared across the distance between them. When he did not
say anything, Elli turned toward the house.

“
Elli
.” Jan spoke her name roughly. She turned back.
They stared at each other across the yard until Elli, shaking her head, walked back
to the house.

She removed a large tin tub from a nail outside the door on
her way in. She placed the tub on the kitchen floor near the stove and began to
pour hot water into it. When the bath was ready, she and Fraulein Engel bathed the
children, one by one, drying them and dressing them in clean nightclothes.

The children moaned and cried as they bathed them. Elli and
Fraulein Engel scrubbed every inch of the sick little bodies with hot water and
lye soap and afterward doused them with flea powder. Once they had cleaned a child,
doused him with powder, and put him into fresh night clothes, Elli placed him on
the other side of the stove where he would still remain warm. When all four
children were bathed, they tucked them into the clean bed.

The night flew by in a blur of work and patient care for
Elli and Fraulein Engel. Elli had built a fire in the yard and boiled all the
soiled clothing and bedding. For hours she had toiled, scrubbing, rinsing, and hanging
sodden quilts and clothes on a fence to slowly dry, while Fraulein Engel tended
Talbert and Maria.

Fraulein Engel lectured Elli on eradicating the fleas and
“flea dirt” (flea droppings). She emphasized taking care not to inadvertently
breathe the droppings in—hence the kerchiefs over their mouths and noses.

It was the
flea droppings
that carried the sickness,
the older woman pointed out. The scarcely visible droppings could carry the
infection inside when breathed in or carry the infection into the bloodstream
when flea bites were scratched raw.

Elli understood the gist of Fraulein Engel’s warnings from
her gestures—and from the fear lurking in the woman’s eyes. They took care to
clean themselves every time they touched a patient.

Jan went home and returned in the morning with coal,
kindling, clean bedding, strong soap, and hot food prepared by Amalie. He also
brought a burlap sack that struggled and yowled in the wagon bed.

Elli stepped out the front door. She hugged herself in the
chill morning air and spoke to him across the yard. “Talbert is very sick now.
Maria may be improving a little.” She looked down. “Fraulein Engel is unsure
about the children. The oldest seems a little better but the other three . . .”

Jan licked his lips. “I sent Søren to the Andersons and
Bruntrüllsens. They will pass the word to the church to pray. We are all
praying.”

What he yearned to say—to shout and insist—was,
Elli!
Just come home before you become ill! Please!
Yet he knew he could not ask
it of her.

Elli stared at the ground. “Will you bury the baby?”

The horror of the request was not lost on Jan. “
Ja
, I
will. Give me an hour.” He sighed, grabbed the burlap bag, and went inside the Beckers’
barn.

He untied the neck of the sack and released a scrappy orange
tom cat Kristen had named Ginger. The cat shot across the barn, his tail
standing straight up.

“
Ja
, you’ll have all you want here,” Jan murmured. He
knew that to eradicate the fleas, one must eradicate the mice.

He milked the cow and left the pail on the back step,
knocking to alert Elli of its presence. He pumped water into the trough and
turned the cow and the mule out into the small pasture.

Then he sought out Talbert’s shovel and pick and trudged
toward a lone tree to dig a tiny grave beneath its branches.

Elli and Fraulein Engel cared for the Beckers for three
weeks. Fraulein Engel’s brother brought more flea powder and other remedies his
sister requested. Jan came daily, as did other neighbors, to do Talbert’s
chores and bring food and clean clothing.

No one in the community could believe it was typhus and
Fraulein Engel herself was uncertain. Jan attested to the mice in the grain bin
and the fleas Fraulein Engel had uncovered in the house. It just didn’t make
sense this far north, but the evidence was there, and the community took
precautions accordingly.

Then in the last week, as though to prove Fraulein Engel’s diagnosis,
Jan and Henrik buried the Beckers’ three younger children . . . followed
by Talbert. Only Maria and her oldest child, a boy of about eight years, seemed
to be on the mend.

Elli called to Jan from the Beckers’ front door. “Fraulein
Engel says I am to go home tomorrow. She can manage without me now.”

She saw the hunger kindle in Jan’s eyes and knew her own
eyes radiated her need for him.
Oh, Jan! How I long to feel your arms around
me!
her heart cried.

“Before I can leave, I must bathe and wash my hair. Fraulein
Engel will check me to be certain. It will have to be back there in the yard.”
Elli waved in the direction of the fire pit on the other side of the house where
the infested bedding and clothing had been boiled. “Then I must put on all
clean things.”

Jan nodded. “I will bring everything you need. Amalie will
help me. I will bring our tub, too, and build a fire to heat the water and keep
you warm.”

He paused and chewed his lower lip. “Are you truly coming
home, Elli?” Elli saw his pain and longing even as he desperately tried to mask
it. “It has felt like . . . such a long time without you.”

“
Ja
, my husband. I am truly coming home.” It was all
she could muster without breaking apart.

Karl came with Jan in the morning. Together they built up a
large fire and set the Thoresens’ hip bath near it. Karl set a grill over the
fire and began to heat water. Jan spread a folded sheet on the ground. On it he
laid towels, a washcloth, soap, and the clean clothes Amalie had selected for
Elli.

When Elli’s bath was ready, Karl retired to the other side
of the house. Jan intended to stay and help Elli, but Fraulein Engel would not
allow him. With gestures and many stern, unintelligible words, she indicated
that Jan should still stay clear.

For Elli, the bath and precautionary flea powder were rites almost
spiritual in nature. Fraulein Engel scrubbed every square inch of her body and,
while Elli huddled in the tub, carefully combed through her clean hair. If
Fraulein Engel had found any evidence of fleas at all, she would not have
permitted Elli to leave.

Elli emerged from the now cool water and was pronounced
clean.

As Elli dressed, Fraulein Engel dumped Elli’s soiled
clothing into the large cauldron over the fire, grated soap into the pot, and
stirred the bubbling mass with a wooden paddle.

Elli was ready to leave; she knew Jan and Karl were waiting
for her on the other side of the house. She and Fraulein Engel stared wordlessly
at each other across the sheet—across a divide they now dared not to cross.

They had battled death together and had prayed side-by-side
on their knees over dying children, yet they now could not embrace. Tears sprang
to Elli’s eyes and then to Fraulein Engel’s.

“
Tusen Takk
,” Elli choked out, her face awash in
tears.
A thousand thanks
.

Fraulein Engel nodded and murmured, “
Geh mit Gott,
meine Tochter
.”
Go with God, my daughter
.

Elli covered a sob with her hand and hurried away.

Fraulein Engel slowly peeled off her kerchief, allowing her head
and hair to breathe. She stood motionless for a moment before swiping away the
unshed tears. The strain of the past three weeks had exhausted her—but she had
grown to love Elli, and to have her safely returned to her family was a great
relief.

She unbraided her own hair, picked up the comb she had used
on Elli, and began to pull it through, from scalp to end, looking closely at it
after each pass.

~~**~~

Near dusk a week later, Kristen gathered up the tablecloth
from dinner and took it out the kitchen door to shake out the crumbs. A
demanding meow greeted her.

“Ginger! You naughty boy. You were supposed to stay at the Beckers’
and kill all those nasty mice,” Kristen scolded.

Ginger wound his way between her legs, loudly begging. The
Thoresen barn cats, like most farm cats, were hardly domesticated. They lived
in or near the barn and its sheds and were accustomed to having people about,
but they generally did not allow themselves to be picked up.

The cats haunted the milking shed during the morning and
evening milkings. They would open their mouths, and the men would squirt milk
into them, making a game of it. Kristen, who loved all animals, often set out
dishes of cream for the cats. Only then would they allow her to pet them.

Her braids swinging loose about her shoulders, Kristen bent
down to rub the top of Ginger’s head. Ginger meowed and swatted her hand.

“Oh, all right. I’ll get you some cream. I’ll bet that’s why
you came home, eh?”

Kristen went inside, spread the cloth on the table, and
returned with a saucer filled with cream. As Ginger lapped the thick cream,
Kristen squatted next to him and gave him a good scratching around his ears and
along his back.

The cat arched his back and stretched, purring and pushing
against her fingers, and he leaned, replete, on her legs, to enjoy her
affectionate rubbing.

Then, with another swish of his tail against her legs, he
leapt away and set off toward the barn.

“Amalie,” Karl’s voice carried concern. “I have found a flea
in our bed.” He had just cleaned up after morning chores and come downstairs
for breakfast. The family was gathered at the table for the meal. He held the
offending insect between his fingers.

Amalie paled. “No! Let me see.” She examined the squished
bug and breathed, “
Ja
, it is a flea.”

Elli and Jan looked at each other. “I know I didn’t bring
any home with me. Fraulein Engel scrubbed me raw out in the yard before I
left.” Nevertheless, Elli’s heart began to race.

After a hasty meal no one could enjoy, Elli took Kristen
into her and Jan’s bedroom while Amalie kept Sigrün and her little boys in the
kitchen. One-by-one, Amalie and Sigrün stripped and examined the boys for flea
bites. Jan, Karl, and Søren were in the living room checking themselves.

Elli found five small red bites on Kristen’s legs. She
stared at her daughter. “You did not feel them? They didn’t itch?”

“I did not notice them, Mamma,” Kristen replied. Her eyes
were wide. Yet clearly she
had
scratched them. The red streaks across
the bites attested to it.

Elli reported her findings to Amalie. Amalie swallowed and
stared at her daughter: Sigrün and Kristen shared a bed.

She and Elli sent the boys into the living room and had
Sigrün take off her clothes. The women did not find any telling bites. Until.
Until Sigrün absent-mindedly scratched her neck, near her hairline.

Elli saw her scratching and pulled her fingers away.
“Amalie, look here.” They stared at two red spots, one starting to form a welt
from the scratching.

“Don’t scratch it, Sigrün,” Elli breathed. Her heart was
pounding.
Scratching spreads the sickness!

The rest of the day was spent in a furor of cleaning. They
found evidence of fleas only in the girls’ and Karl and Amalie’s room, which
was next to the girls’ room. Nevertheless, the women and girls stripped every
bed in the house and washed all the bedding in boiling water. They swept and
dusted every room and shook out and inspected all their clothing.

Jan and Karl, armed with strong soap and flea powder, took
the boys to the barn to bathe them and wash their hair. Jan and Karl, the
sights and smells of death by typhus too recently in their nostrils, scrubbed
the scalps of the young ones until they howled.

The women and girls bathed in the kitchen. Elli showed
Amalie how Fraulein Engel washed her hair and then combed it and checked for
fleas or their larvae. Every piece of clean clothing donned after bathing was scrupulously
examined first.

Now that she had seen the bites on her legs, Kristen was overwhelmed
with the urge to scratch them. Elli stuck small plasters over Kristen and
Sigrün’s bites to discourage them from scratching.

After the day’s regular chores were done, the family came
together, exhausted, for a late supper. When the meal was over, the adults left
Kristen and Sigrün to clean up and sent Søren and the younger boys upstairs while
they adjourned to the living room to talk privately.

“I found bites on my legs,” Karl confessed to an already
anxious Amalie.

As Elli’s eyes asked the question of her husband, Jan shook
his head. “
Nei
. I found no bites on myself nor did we find any on Søren
or the little boys.”

Three of them had bites: Karl, Kristen, and Sigrün.

Jan paused and then added quietly. “Today we also found
Ginger in the barn.”

“
Ginger!
” Amalie’s voice was alarmed.

“He must have found his way home from the Beckers’. When we
saw him today he was sick and could hardly move. We put him down and buried him
quickly. I am afraid we must do the same with all the cats.” Jan’s voice was
grim.

“I don’t understand!” Amalie cried. “Ach! Perhaps the fleas
we found are just normal fleas, eh? And why should we think all the cats are
sick? Perhaps Ginger just ate something that made him sick?”

Elli shook her head, worry creasing her brow. “Maybe so,
maybe so, eh? But Maria Becker told Fraulein Engel that a traveler came by
about six weeks ago asking for shelter. They fed him and he slept three nights
in the barn before moving on.”

Elli’s voice shook. “Fraulein Engel questioned Maria about
the man. She said the man had a dog with him—a sick dog. Maria remembered that
the stranger said he and his dog had traveled the world together. He spent six
months working on a steamer before landing in Houston and making his way north on
the trains to see the plains and the mountains of America.

“The man loved his dog very much. But before the man went on
his way, his dog died,” she finished.

They were still as they mulled Elli’s information. Then Amalie
whispered, “The dog. The dog had fleas. And the fleas carried the sickness?”

Jan looked at each of them in turn. “Some of the dog’s infected
fleas may have gotten on the mice in the Beckers’ barn,” he muttered. “I found
evidence of mice in the Beckers’ grain bin. That is why I took Ginger to the Beckers’—to
rid the barn of the mice.”

“And . . . and then she came home last week . . .
sick . . . and with fleas?”

Jan nodded, his face grave. “You know Kristen has a way with
our barn cats.”

Elli swayed and Jan wrapped his arms around her.

Sigrün knocked on her parents’ door in the middle of the
night. Amalie groaned and rolled from the bed. She was five months gone in another
pregnancy, already heavy and unwieldy, but used to being wakened in the night
by one child or another.

She struggled to her feet and opened the door. “
Ja
, Sigrün?
What is it?”

“
Mamma
, Kristen is crying. Should I wake
Tante
Elli?”

“
Nei, nei
. I will be right there.” Amalie threw on a
wrapper and padded to the girls’ room. She bent over Kristen’s bed and felt her
forehead.

“Burning up!” Amalie exclaimed, backing away.

Kristen stirred. “My head hurts,” she moaned.

“Go. Fetch your
Tante
Elli,” Amalie commanded Sigrün.
“And bring a bowl of cold water and a clean cloth.” Sigrün left the room
immediately.

A few moments later, Elli rushed up the stairs. Jan was not
far behind her. By then Amalie had lit a candle but stood a few feet from Kristen’s
bed.

Elli could feel the heat radiating from Kristen’s body
before she touched her forehead. “Oh, dear Lord!
Nei!
”

Jan turned to Søren who was standing in the doorway behind
him. “Søren, hitch the bays and fetch Fraulein Engel. Bring her as quickly as
you can,
Sønn
.”

Søren looked into his father’s eyes. Jan saw his fear and
gripped his shoulders tightly. “We will trust God, eh? We will not give into
fear.”

Søren nodded and turned away.

Søren returned with Fraulein Engel two hours later.

Being age fourteen and having grown up in such a diverse
community, Søren was now as comfortable in German, Swedish, and English as he
was in his native tongue. So, during their drive to the Thoresen farm, Fraulein
Engel had asked Søren many questions and, by the time they arrived, she was
well acquainted with the situation.

When the good woman stepped into the kitchen, she found Little
Karl, Arnie, and Kjell at the table eating bread and milk. Excited to see a
stranger, Kjell banged his cup on the table, dashing milk on himself, the
table, and the floor. Little Karl and Arnie stared at Fraulein Engel with
solemn eyes.

“Sigrün’s sick,” Arnie pronounced, pointing. Their sister was
huddled, shivering, in a chair near the stove.

Fraulein Engel placed her hand on Sigrün’s cheek and then
forehead.

“Søren,” she directed, “I must get this one to bed also.
Please have your father and uncle come downstairs.”

She was unpacking her medicines when Jan and Karl tromped
down the stairs into the kitchen. Karl reached for Sigrün but Fraulein Engel waylaid
him.

“You have flea bites,
ja
?”

Karl understood her. “
Ja
,” he replied slowly.

“How do you feel?” She touched his forehead.

“I feel fine,” Karl replied. He pulled back from Fraulein
Engel’s hand, his manner a trifle testy.

“
Gut
,” she answered, but her eyes were worried. Then
she began issuing orders that Søren translated.

“The girls’ room is now a sick room. Only
Frau
Elli and
I will enter the room.” Karl and Jan looked at each other uneasily.

She demonstrated to Karl how to place a kerchief over his face,
covering his nose and mouth, which he did. “
Herr
Thoresen,” pointing at
Karl, “You will please to take your daughter upstairs and let
Frau
Elli
put her to bed,
ja
? But then you and your good wife will come down to see
me.”

Karl did not answer but he carefully scooped Sigrün into his
arms.

“
Pappa!
” Sigrün whimpered. “You look funny!” Her head
lolled against his chest. “My head hurts,
Pappa
.”

A few minutes later a worried Amalie returned with Karl and
greeted Fraulein Engel. Fraulein Engel took Amalie’s hand in her own.

“Dear sister, I am sorry your child is ill. I am going
upstairs to look at her,
ja
? You will stay here in the kitchen with the
kinder
.
I will come back soon.” She pointed to the sink. “All of you please wash your
hands with hot water and plenty of soap while I am gone.”

Amalie tried to protest, but Fraulein Engel shook her head
and put a gentle hand on Amalie’s swollen belly. “
Nein
. Wash your hands
and stay here. I will be back shortly.”

Amalie, Karl, Jan, and Søren looked at each other but no one
spoke. Amalie washed her hands and arms and turned to clean up the table and
her little boys. The men and Søren followed her example and washed up.

Søren shifted from foot to foot. “I should start the
milking,
ja
,
Pappa
?”

Jan shook his head. “We will need you when Fraulein Engel
comes down.”

Fraulein Engel kept her word and returned in a few minutes. “Please,
shall we sit down?”

The adults found places at the table. Karl started to pull Kjell
on to his lap, but Fraulein Engel put her hand on his arm.

“Kristen and Sigrün have the fever the Beckers had.” Her words
were uttered softly. “They were bitten by fleas as you were,
Herr
Thoresen.
Please do not touch the little ones, eh?”

Amalie made a strangled noise. “Karl is sick?”

“Not yet,” Fraulein Engel responded. “But he may be soon.”
She leveled an earnest look at Amalie and Karl. “We do not want these little
ones to sicken, do we? Or you,
Frau
Amalie. You have little ones to care
for and a baby coming.”

She folded her hands on the table and spoke calmly. “
Frau
Amalie, I wish you to remove yourself from this house and take your
kinder
with you.”

Amalie was already shaking her head in protest. “
Nei, nei
.
I will not leave my daughter or husband!”

Fraulein Engel looked at Jan. “You and Søren must go too. It
is not too cold at night yet. Can you make a place in the barn for all of you?”

Jan ignored her question. “What about Elli? What about
Kristen?”

“
Frau
Elli and I nursed all the Beckers. You know
what we will need. You can help us as you did then. Karl can as well. But we
cannot allow anyone else to become sick, can we?”

“But Kristen and Sigrün? Will they be all right?”

Fraulein Engel studied her folded hands. “God willing.”

Jan and Karl stared at each other. Finally Jan spoke. “We
should send Amalie and the children to the soddy. It will be warmer. Karl, we
can take the kitchen stove we rescued when your house burned and put it in
there.”

Amalie glared at her brother-in-law with a rage he had
rarely seen in her. Karl pulled her to him. “Please do not be angry with Jan,
my love. Please do as we say,
ja
? I do not want you . . .
or our sons to become ill.”

He did not need to say more. The death of four of the Beckers’
barn
was all too real to Amalie. She crumpled against Karl sobbing.