Hester on the Run Read online

The pigs were fat, waiting on colder weather. Then Hans would bring his rifle to his shoulder, aim, and fire, while the children were still in their beds.

  Kate did the housecleaning scrupulously. Not a windowpane, a coverlet or a floor, went unwashed. She emptied the straw ticks, washed their covers, and filled them with fresh straw. She made new pillows and stuffed them with feathers from the geese they had eaten after one had bitten Lissie Hershberger’s leg, although Kate thought the bruise was not a bite, just more like a hefty tweak.

  She and Hester disposed of every spider or ant in their path, making sure that the insects’ homes were destroyed. They scoured the floors white with lye soap, then buffed them to a dark sheen with linseed oil.

  Hans brought home a calendar from the blacksmith shop in Berksville, and Kate hung it proudly by the kitchen table. Next to it was the clock, its wood wiped clean until it shone.

  Hester worked side by side with Kate, accepting her admonishments to give herself up to Hans’s wishes.

  Hester spent hours down at the barn cleaning the stables and caressing her beloved horse’s face. Not once did she fling herself up on his back, her obedience to her father intact.

  Kate had told her many times that obedience meant sacrifice, but that there was a blessing in it, even if it was hard. Hester nodded and understood, yet she struggled with many ill feelings toward Hans’s increasingly rigid rules.

  Noah and Isaac continued to ride Rudy especially, their best horse, which was almost more than Hester could bear. Still, she remained obedient and true to her mother.

  At butchering time, when two lifeless hogs hung from the rafters, the snow lay heavy on the ground, and the wind whipped around the corners of the barn. Hans stood with his father, Isaac, heating water in great iron kettles over a roaring wood fire. They scraped the hogs clean, then cut them into pieces—hams, ribs, and seida schpeck, the meat that would be cured for bacon and other trimmings for making sausage.

  All day, Rebecca and Hester worked, seasoning and grinding, cooking and canning. The boys tended fires while Hester cleaned the entrails, the casing that would be used for sausage. This had always been her job, and she became accustomed to it, gamely scraping the casings clean.

  Lissie was put to work alongside her. She entered the forebay in the barn as if she was going to her execution, martyrdom shrouding her face, her eyes liquid with self-pity.

  “It stinks.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not going to do this, you know.”

  “You are.”

  “Who said?”

  “Dat.”

  “He won’t know if I don’t help, if you don’t tell him.”

  “Here.” Lifting a trailing, grayish mass, Hester held it out to Lissie, telling her to lay it down, take the blunt edge of the knife, and scrape out the whitish substance that clung to the inside, explaining how they would fill it with ground, seasoned meat.

  Lissie watched, holding her nose, and pronounced the whole process unfit. She jumped to rigid attention, however, when Hans came over, his face red from the heat, to ask Hester how it was going.

  “Good,” she answered without lifting her head.

  “Lissie.” The word was a command.

  Dutifully, Lissie faced her father, found his gaze, and said, “Fine.”

  “Good, good.”

  Isaac hurried past, carrying a large, bloody portion of meat. Lissie swallowed and set to work immediately afterward, the sight of her saintly grandfather spurring her into action.

  When Rebecca came to the barn to season the sausage meat, all eyes turned to her.

  “Where’s Mam? Where is Kate?”

  Rebecca shook her head, her lips compressed, and Kate was forgotten.

  Hester knew. She’d heard her being sick again. It had not frightened her at the time, but as her mother’s full figure continued to decrease and the color in her face diminish, Hester knew the time was coming when she would need more strength than she had.

  She bent over the entrails of the hogs and scraped with a vengeance, her strong brown arms rippling with young muscle. She set her mouth in a straight line, as tightly guarded against the sprout of rebellion and dislike of her father as a cast iron key turned in a lock.

  The love she had felt for him was a thing of the past, which she remembered only fleetingly. When had the tide turned? When she was no longer a child and had developed a mind of her own. It had all started with the herbs in the brown packages.

  CHAPTER 13

  WHEN HESTER WAS FOURTEEN YEARS OLD, KATE died in childbirth at the age of forty-four.

  The day was gray with rain coming down in slanted, cold sheets, reflecting the misery of the huddled family, hovering about with empty faces, unable to grasp what was before their eyes.

  Hans lifted his face to the rain and could not understand God’s ways. The little ones cried, snuffling into Hester’s shoulder, clinging to her skirts, and whining like little lost lambs.

  Noah and Isaac shed solemn tears, even while they squared their shoulders, shoved their hands deep into their pockets, and tried their best to look manly. But tears of grief swam across their eyes, ran over, and coursed down their cheeks, falling on their linen shirts. They blew their noses, blinked, and were finished.

  Hester moved about the house as if in a dream. Nothing seemed real. Everything was without clarity. A fog of disbelief left her feeling lethargic, as if nothing mattered. Her dark eyes glistened with unshed tears.

  She had cried before. Kate had told her, as her body wasted away, the once ample arms becoming thinner as the months wore on, that she would try her best. But deep inside, she felt as if God was telling her she needed more strength than she could find.

  “Perhaps my time has come, Hester. I’m counting on you, though, to keep the family together, if … if something should happen to me.”

  “Mam, don’t.”

  But Kate had pushed on, speaking words like slaps from her hand, words Hester could not bear. She had tried, but she failed to hold back the premature sorrow.

  A sadness so heavy lay over the graveyard, crushing Hans, even as the sun shone down on them the day of the burial. Kate and her unborn child were lowered into the wet earth beside the tiny gravestone inscribed with “Rebecca Zug. Daughter of Hans and Catherine Zug.”

  The community rallied around them, powerful in their kindness, bringing food and labor and sympathy. Love flowed among them, binding them together with its strong ties, and Hester was comforted by these gentle well-wishers who wanted only the best for her.

  That she had so little schooling was something they took into consideration, but Hester refused to budge. School held no promise for her. Memories of being mocked formed like clouds on her inward horizon, and she remained obstinate about going back.

  Baby Emma was one year old and cried incessantly for her mother. Barbara and Menno wandered around without understanding, and Hester took them under her wing like a fledgling mother hen.

  Hans refused to eat or drink, saying he needed to fast and pray, which Hester respected. She eyed him with a new reverence and was thankful she had shown so much obedience. For Hans blamed himself for his wife’s untimely death. He had prayed for her life now, and God had not heard him. He was sure his sins were piled around his head, and he sat in the proverbial sackcloth and ashes, repenting of his misdeeds for three days.

  He’d charged John Lantz too much to shoe his two mares, and him a bishop and a man of God. He was caught in avarice.

  He’d tasted the whiskey at little Reuben Hershberger’s house, becoming quite merry, if it came right down to it. He had taken strong drink and guilt rattled his very soul.

  He had not listened to the quiet voice of his wife, when she tried to persuade him of the goodness of the old woman and her herbs. He had gone right ahead and despised her all he wanted and was beset by the sin of hatred.

  Oh, the list went on and on until he smote his breast, lifted his eyes to the heavens, and implored God to be merciful t
o him, a sinner. He grieved with many sighs and silent tears. He stood with bent head as kindly men expressed their sympathy. His future loomed before him, frightful with the inadequacy of being without his Kate.

  Hester cooked and cleaned, washed and mended. Her grandmother Rebecca came and advised her about rearing the children. Lissie Hershberger hitched up her doddering old horse and stopped by every day for almost a month, helping Hester by sewing clothes, darning socks, churning butter, tending the lamps.

  Hester was a fast learner, and although the cornmeal mush burned sometimes, and the beans were undercooked, she forged ahead with every duty Kate had always done.

  With Lissie’s help, she folded Kate’s things and stored them in the attic. Lissie urged Hans to write to Kate’s parents in Switzerland, explaining her death, telling them about her life beforehand. John took the letter to the trading post and came home with tales of the Indians who were gathered there, coming in for supplies, saying the winter would be long and hard.

  Hester’s eyes glinted in the firelight as chills crept across her arms and jangled their way up her spine. She thought of the acorns piled on the forest floor. The muskrats’ heavy coats. The early flocks of blackbirds and geese flying low and fast. She wanted to go to the trading post. She wanted to see if the old Indian woman would be safe if the winter was too harsh.

  All these thoughts she kept hidden away as she turned her lithe form from the fireplace to the bake oven to the table to the shelves, providing food for the always hungry children, their stomachs growling before each mealtime. Lissie was a help in her ten-year-old way, which sometimes was worse than no help at all. But Lissie could make Hester laugh. Out loud, too. And that was worth something.

  On the morning of the first storm, no sunrise was visible, only a heavy white hoarfrost that clung to every blade of grass, crunching beneath Hester’s brown leather boots as she made her way to the barn. She knew there would not be enough eggs to go around, but if she stirred them well and added milk, along with some stale, torn bread, the mixture would set up well if she cooked it over the fire. She’d make fresh bread as often as she could, too. They had some maple syrup to pour over it, which Hans was especially fond of.

  When she returned to the house, she hung her heavy black shawl on the hook by the door. She was surprised to see Lissie standing by the fire, spreading her hands to its warmth, grumbling to herself.

  “What?” Hester asked, a smile already forming.

  “I froze in my bed. Mam always put extra coverlets on. You didn’t do it.”

  “I don’t know where they are.”

  “I don’t either.”

  Hans strode into the kitchen, shivering, and went straight to the fireplace, holding his hands to the fire beside Lissie.

  “Good morning, Lissie. Why are you up so early?”

  “I’m cold. I almost froze in my bed.”

  “Hester, haven’t you fa-sarked the extra coverlets?”

  It was the way the question was spoken that rankled her. As if she was expected to know everything and carry it out unfailingly.

  “No.”

  “Do you know where they are?”

  “Yes.”

  Hans watched Hester’s face, her black eyes giving away nothing. If anything, she was becoming even more beautiful, her face losing its childish roundness, replaced by more chiseled cheekbones. She was tall, now, he guessed at least five and a half feet, her body shapely beneath the loose dress, the black apron tied about her slim waist.

  She wore a kerchief too much of the time, but he didn’t know how to approach her about that. Again, for the hundredth time, he wished for Kate’s wisdom and foresight.

  Winter roared in across the Pennsylvania mountain ranges, bold and brash, reaching across the land with fingers of ice and snow, winds lashing the bare branches without mercy. Snow piled in tightly packed drifts, blown against the buildings by furious winds. The cows, horses, and sheep that were unable to be housed in a barn or shed died of the cold that winter.

  Farmers built lean-tos, temporary sheds to give their animals a break from the endless wind that drove snow and bits of ice from every branch and raised bit of land. The snow pooled into the hollows, densely packed, so that many a team of horses floundered up to their collars in snow, unable to draw their sled or wagon an inch farther. Red-faced men carried shovels so they could loosen the frightened horses, freezing their ears in the process.

  Finally, toward the beginning of January, they admitted defeat. They had no church services for more than a month. No one went to visit anyone else, except for a few hardy teenagers who possessed snowshoes. They brought tales of emaciated deer, unable to move about and starving, all over the mountain.

  For Hester, one day blurred into the next, an endless stream of days punctuated by nightfall when she tumbled into her bed, weary and heartsick, the endless responsibility of nine children too heavy on her young shoulders.

  Hans brooded. Some days he sat, a great hulking figure, by the fire, staring into it with somber eyes, his spirits so low he could barely lift his head. Noah and Isaac accepted this, even flourished in the face of their father’s silence. They had never been used to having a father who cared about them much.

  Hans did what was necessary, providing their clothes and food, instructing them in the ways of the farm, but supplying no emotional support. It was Hester he cared about, just as he always had. Now, although he was sternly dictatorial to her, he still watched her with brooding eyes, trying to imprison her with his will, looking out for her welfare in his own way.

  Meanwhile, Noah and Isaac grew mentally and emotionally by relying on and reacting to each other. They shared and spoke together about everything. The barn rang with their merry words, chiding, teasing, laughing, and jousting harmlessly, two boys who loved life and each other. They never hated Hester for what she was to Hans. It was just the way of it, a part of life.

  The longer the snow piled around the house, the further Hans declined into his pit of grief. He missed Kate’s presence so keenly, it was a knife between his shoulder blades, a constant hurting, a deep, dark thing that followed him wherever he went. He tried valiantly to shake this unspeakable misery. He prayed long and loud, his voice raised to the rafters of the barn as he implored God to help him. He tried to conjure Kate’s face, but it was only when he dreamed of her that he found a miniscule amount of solace.

  One storm followed another, days without end, it seemed to him. Was the end near? Had God lost patience with the sins of the world and said it was enough?

  Whether encased in the small, dark house, shoveling his way down to the barn, to the outdoor privy and the bake oven, or carrying wood from the adjoining shed, his spirits steadily worsened until his face became slack. His rounded jowls hung in limp folds. His cornmeal mush went untouched.

  Hester saw all this, her large dark eyes observant. It stirred up fear, this unnamed malaise. Hans didn’t care enough to scold her anymore. He didn’t care about anything.

  Increasingly, Noah and Isaac shouldered more of the workload, their faces calm as they carried wood, milked cows, mucked out the stables, carried water, and shoveled snow. School was out of the question, so they studied the books they had available, mostly in German. They learned to read fluently and discussed the Bible endlessly like two youthful prophets, their blond heads bent together in front of the fire.

  Little Barbara and Menno clung to Hester, and her arms encircled them, her heart open to the lonely children who remembered their mother but were too young to understand what death meant.

  Baby Emma simply crawled into Hester’s arms, sighed, and from that day on, claimed her as her mother.

  Solomon, Daniel, and John understood Mam’s departure. They had a view of heaven, placed their mother in it, and were comforted. They ate the food set before them, accepted Hester as their mother, and went about living their lives the way children do. When they quarreled, Hans shook himself out of his black reverie long enough to mete out due punish
ment, then returned to brooding.

  Sickness entered the house like a gray specter, stealthy, frightening, demanding more from Hester than she had thought possible.

  She strung a makeshift clothesline across one corner of the kitchen. It was always pegged with white clothes, either sheets or pillowcases, and long rectangular pieces of muslin that had been smeared with strong, odorous salves and then wrapped around swelling glands, now washed clean.

  So many of Kate’s words were seared into Hester’s memory as she cared for the sick children. Cleanliness was important for a sickbed. Lye soap had the power to wipe away the residue of disease. Kate wasn’t sure how, but it made a difference, she always said. Onion and mustard poultices worked well for the croup. Often Hester thought wistfully of the Indian woman and the stored knowledge in that head crowned with white hair.

  What would she do when Menno was red with heat from the awful fevers that ravaged his thin body? Which herb of the forest had the magical power to fight the fever? Hester felt sure that somewhere, all over the land God had created, there were remedies used by her people. The ancient old woman’s people. Hester’s own people.

  She wondered during that long winter who her people really were. She had never been an Indian. She was only born one. The only Indian she had ever met was the old woman. She had experienced a fierce kinship, a need to defend the old woman. She’d felt in awe of the beautiful place and wanted to know everything she spoke of. But she felt no sense of belonging.

  Here was her home. The Amish way of life was her way. It was all she knew. And yet, she wondered. Someday she would go to the trading post. There were always Indians there. Someday she would meet one or two. Perhaps someone her own age who could speak English. Who knew her own mother and father. Maybe her mother had died in childbirth like Kate.

  And so her thoughts went on and on as she stirred yet another load of clothes in the boiling hot water, lifted them, rinsed them, and turned them into twisted ropes, squeezing the water from them before pegging them to the line across the corner of the room.