The Homestead Read online

  Only then did Hod raise a fist and brought it down on the doorframe over and over, a rhythmic banging that must have frightened the lone occupant within, Hod’s wife, Abby Jenkins. Within seconds, the door opened a mere crack and a wrinkled face framed in fuzzy gray curls appeared, checking to make sure it was her husband and sons.

  “You don’t need to break down the doorframe, Hod. Git the little ones in. Watcha waitin’ fer? Summer?”

  Hod stepped back, extended his arm and pushed them all through the door where they tumbled, numb with cold, fear, and a real sense of having been placed into a strange, distorted world where nothing made any sense. The sun had ceased to exist, and God had forgotten them, all alone out here in the bitter, unsheltered prairie country.

  CHAPTER 4

  As the day wore on, they realized their miraculous delivery. They had never imagined God could create a storm of such intensity, with such a roaring, battering wind that sucked the heat up the chimney in spite of a good stove filled with massive chunks of wood. The glass panes in the windows rattled and jingled, lashed by heavy gusts of ice particles that scoured the house continuously.

  Abby Jenkins was calm and in control, her lean, weathered face as tough as good leather, the frizz of gray curls sprouting out of her head with no rhyme or reason, no part in the middle, cut just below her ears and left to fend for itself. She wore a house dress with a row of white buttons down the front, the fabric having been adorned with flowers at one time, but washed and faded to a light-colored material with faint squiggles of color and held together by small safety pins in place of its missing buttons.

  Her apron of sturdy oxford cloth pleated around her thin waist; woolen socks were pulled up halfway to her knees from severely tied sturdy brown shoes.

  First, she brought a wooden clothes rack to the stove and dried all the Detweiler’s outerwear. Then she found seats for everyone, the long green sofa a luxury that Sarah sank into as she closed her eyes on waves of pain that rolled across her back. She gritted her teeth and willed it away, clutching Eli on her lap. Mary snuggled beside her, the child’s hazel eyes wide with concern.

  Mose sat beside Mary, watching his wife’s face when he could. He felt out of control because of a situation he had not foreseen and had not even known existed. A belittling sense of shame and a stifling humility settled around him. For the first time in his life he questioned God, as if he was a bit put out that God had dared put them through danger that made them beholden to heathen folk. Their language was abominable in spite of their attempts to curb it for their visitors’ sakes. He was not one to speak of religion to others. You had to be careful throwing out holy words in case you might be casting your pearls to the swine. These people likely didn’t have a faith or believe in God. They appeared reckless, and the words coming out of their mouths were simply wrong. A sin, that’s all there was to it. The Bible admonished plainly to let your yea be yea, and your nay be nay, and anything dorüber was unnecessary.

  Manny and Hannah watched wide-eyed as they took in the talk that flowed so easily between the father and his sons, Clay, Hank, and Ken. Clayton, Henry, and Kenneth, Hannah thought. Everyone appeared to have come from the same mold with almost identical slouches.

  The house itself was surprisingly large and tidy for the plain appearance of the outside. A living room, complete with the large green sofa, a few rocking chairs, scattered rugs on a wooden floor gleaming with varnish, a few bureaus, dressers, and small cabinets with crocheted doilies. Most of all, the whole house had plaster walls that were painted just like the Amish homes back East.

  The kitchen was substantial with a gigantic woodstove in the center, a long plank table, benches and various mismatched chairs. There were cabinets, a pantry, and a sink built into the simple cupboards that lined one wall.

  Calendars hung above the table, from a feed store, granary, and a livestock market. Cast iron pans, blacker than night, hung from pegs on the wall, along with tin dippers and cups, saucepans, and an agate dishpan.

  There was a bedroom downstairs for Hod and Abby and three upstairs, she said. There’d be no problem, her and Hod would move upstairs and she’d put clean sheets on the bed for Sarah and Mose. The kids could sleep on the floor. Hannah could have the couch in the living room. They’d make out and everyone would be fine.

  And then she pulled an enormous blue roasting pan from the oven, took off the lid, and stirred the contents, releasing some mouth-watering scents Sarah couldn’t identify. With easy movements she unhooked a frying pan, got down a tin of lard and slapped a sizable amount into the heating pan. She disappeared through the pantry door and emerged with a parcel wrapped in white paper. Unwrapping it, she lifted a large slab of meat, threw it in the pan, followed by a few more, then another.

  Sarah had never seen anyone fry so much meat for one meal. These were the years of scarcity, the Great Depression, when meat was rationed. Even a small beefsteak was hard to come by. Sarah would fry a small amount, cutting it carefully into tiny pieces and stirring in milk to make gravy that barely tasted of meat at all. In spite of herself, her mouth watered. Sarah pulled herself up from the couch and offered to help, but Abby waved her away. “I’m used to doing for my menfolk. It’d make me right nervous havin’ another woman in my kitchen. Clay, git the table set.”

  Clay moved forward into the lamplight, hatless, his dark yellow hair sticking to his forehead in clumps, his face as red as a sunset below his eyes. His heavy plaid shirt hung in folds on his loose, skinny frame, but he moved with an easy, unselfconscious grace, as if it had never occurred to him that he should care what anyone thought of his appearance.

  His eyes were blue, narrow, and surrounded by skin weathered beyond his years. He had the most honest, frank gaze Hannah had ever seen, as if he didn’t think bad of anyone and no one thought bad of him.

  Hank was a bit shorter, wider in the face with the same lower level of red topped by that white ring where his hat hid his skin and hair from the elements. Odd-looking, but necessary, living on the prairie and working cattle.

  Ken was the youngest, tall and thin with the identical phenomenon of red skin fading to that alarming, marble white. His face appeared youthful, unsullied by wind and weather. He caught Manny’s eye more than once, grinned a lot, confident, swaggering, and like his brothers, unselfconscious.

  Clay spread a long white tablecloth, and clattered dishes of various shapes and sizes. He splattered tumblers and silverware haphazardly around the table.

  Abby turned. “There, we’ll all fit. I’ll sit beside Hod, then the kids can all slide along the bench there, and we’re in business.” She smiled her flickering smile that bunched her leathery skin into an accordion of creases as her blue eyes swept the room. “You must be starved, poor babies.”

  Sarah was dismayed to feel a swelling in her throat and the quick stab of tears. Surely she was stronger than this. But the truth was, she hurt all over, especially her lower back, and she was more than afraid of what it was. Ah, submission. So here she was, in an impossible situation, dependent on these kindly people, having no will or place of her own.

  She felt Mose’s eyes on her and turned to meet his worried gaze, assuring him with the light in her own dark eyes. I’ll be fine.

  When they were all seated, Hod spoke. “Now, it ain’t our custom to do any prayin’ before meals. But you folks has religion, I’m guessin’, so you go right ahead if’n you wanna bless this here food.”

  Mose looked around the table and said, yes, they were used to praying before partaking of a meal, but always in silence, never speaking a prayer out loud. Hod nodded, said that was fine with him and bent his head. Everyone followed suit. Mose bowed his head, silently said his usual prayer, and waited for Hod to lift his head first. This was, after all, his home and his table, and by the customs of the Amish, it would be Hod who would end the prayer.

  They sat and sat. Mose became uncomfortable, peeped at Hod, and was met by the top of his white, balding head. Thinking Hod must
be more devout than he gave him credit for, Mose quickly lowered his head again.

  Sarah cleared her throat and felt a blush of color suffuse her face as she thought how ridiculously long her husband was praying. Perhaps he was that grateful for their deliverance and the safety of this house.

  There was a loud rustling, a cough and the clatter of silverware. Everyone lifted their heads, relieved. “I’m hungry. If none of you men will end the prayer, I will.” It was Hannah who spoke. Sitting there in the lamplight without a smidgeon of shame, it was she who ended the prayer, so far out of her subservient place and quiet meekness that befitted women of the plain churches.

  Mose was furious but quickly squelched his anger, gave a quick smile and a smooth “Why, Hannah….” Sarah felt the beginning of a raucous laugh and pushed it back by lowering her eyes, her humility holding in her real emotions.

  Hod looked at Hannah, really looked at her. His eyes shone. “Wal, Mose, I’ll tell you right now. This young ‘un’s got some spunk. She’ll make it.” He nodded. “She’ll make it out here, if’n no one else does.”

  Hannah gazed back at Hod, clearly pleased. She began to shovel an alarming amount of beans onto her plate followed by the crispy fried potatoes. Sarah couldn’t help herself. She said, “Hannah, mind your manners. Perhaps there isn’t plenty.”

  “What you talkin’ about?” Abby spoke up. “They’s always plenty at my table. I allowed for six extra. Let ‘em eat. She’s a growing girl.” After that, the bowls were passed, enormous blue stoneware bowls of beans cooked with tomatoes and onion, ground beef and bacon, fried potatoes and thick slabs of steak fried in lard and liberally salted. There were baking powder biscuits, so thick and light, and homemade butter. Sarah told Abby she must teach her how to make biscuits like these.

  No one said much of anything. They simply applied themselves to their heaping plates of food. Outside, the storm continued, screaming around the corners of the house, whistling between windowpanes and walls, roaring across the level land with no obstruction in its way save for an occasional house or barn, which were like matchsticks compared to the power unleashed on them.

  Hod said they might lose a few cattle but they’d felt it in the air, ridden hard, had most of ‘em in the shed or corral. “Nothin’ to do about any of ‘em now. They ain’t dumb. They’ll find a shelter somewhere, left on their own.”

  Mose shook his head, doubt filling his eyes. “I don’t know about this country. I had no idea the weather could turn severe this quickly.”

  Hod snorted, but not unkindly. “You got a lot to learn. This country ain’t for soft folks or whiney ones that complains. Reckon if’n you want to make this yer home, you best hear me out.

  “Fer one thing, you need to get that plow in the ground. You need to finish that house and with just you and the kids, it ain’t gonna happen. Your first year depends on the success of your wheat crop. You gotta get it in. Start a few calves and get your herd started. Me an’ the boys’ll be over. Get the house done.”

  “But … but …” Mose was at a loss for words. He shouldn’t be needing all this help. It was not the way he had planned. He was from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the most fertile land in the East. He had planned on flourishing, raising corn and hay, and showing the West how it was done.

  Already they had almost lost their lives, and here they were, dependent on these heathen who didn’t pray before a meal, which told him they lived unthankful lives, and that was one of the seven worst sins. How could an Amish man of faith join with the man of the world? You cannot serve God and Mammon.

  Mose pursed his lips and said, “Well, I do appreciate your offer, but I hadn’t planned on growing wheat. I’m accustomed to our way of growing corn. And hay, of course.”

  Hod sat at the end of the table and stared open-mouthed at this young upstart. He thought, he won’t last one year unless someone knocks some sense into that pious head. “Corn ain’t much for this land,” was what he said.

  “Why not?” Mose countered.

  “Wal, fer one thing, growin’ season ain’t too long. Fer another, it don’t rain when it’s s’posed to. Wheat comes up early and ripens early. You get it shocked and milled before too much drought rolls around.”

  Mose shook his head. “Hard work.”

  “You skeered of it, or what?” Hod asked, eyes flinty with irritation.

  “No, no. Oh, no.”

  “Yer money’s in them cows anyways. You got all the hay growin’ wild. This here’s ranch country.”

  Mose nodded. This was all news to him. He hadn’t planned on this. He had nothing but seed corn, and it was going in the ground no matter what Mr. Jenkins said. And he would not have to know that he didn’t have enough money for a few cows and a bull to start his herd. He hadn’t thought about raising beef cows. He had traveled all this way to a government homestead cultivating the thought of corn and milk cows, pigs and hens. He had no idea it didn’t rain very much, or that the money they had brought was disappearing at an alarming rate.

  So, according to this man, his own well-thought-out plan was not going to work. He would talk it over with Sarah, his support.

  Abby saw to it that each child was comfortable for the night and assured them the storm would likely blow itself out in the morning. She hauled out blankets and quilts from chests smelling of cedar, plumped pillows into flour sack pillowcases, and fussed over Mary’s hair, saying wistfully it would have been awful nice to have a daughter.

  “I’ll be real nice to the boys’ women if’n they ever show an interest. All’s these men think of is cattle, the market, hay, and wheat. That’s it.” She laughed, still good-natured about her life in spite of living with these men.

  “I got a few womenfolk neighbors. Now not between us, the way the men say. But there’s Bessie. Bessie Apent. And Ruth. Ruth Jones. All married to ranchers, about five, six mile away. We’ll get together every so often, exchange news and recipes. We listen to the radio and talk about what goes on in the world.

  “Bessie’s got four daughters. She’d love to marry ‘em off to every one of mine. But I’ll tell you, them girls is so fat and lazy, I dunno how she’s ever gonna git ‘em married off. She needs to git out and chase ‘em around the corral a coupla times, melt some o’ that lard off ‘em. Big girls, not bad looking, but don’t work hardly nothin’. Her husband runs the feed store in Pine. Pine’s the town. Don’t ask me why they named it Pine. They ain’t any pine trees for hunnerts a’ miles. Some say if Philip, that’s Philip Apen, Bessie’s husband, would get them girls to work, they’d have a right decent cattle ranch. But he has to hire help for whatever he does.

  “Ruth Jones is a good friend. Salt of the earth she is. She’d give the shirt off her back. Has two daughters an’ two sons. Names Lucille and Isabelle. They’s awful nice girls. Work the cattle with their brothers. But seems like they don’t have a hankerin’ fer my boys. Somethin’ about book reading and college. Want to go east to New York. I’ll tell you right here, it ain’t gonna work. Once this beg sky gits in yer blood, you never leave.

  “New York City? They ain’t gonna make it. Now you Amish. You don’t marry outside a’ yer religion, do you? What’s Amish mean? Yer just plain down better than ordinary folk? I mean, same as them Catholic nuns dressin’ themselves covered all over and not marryin’ and stuff. Yer Hannah wouldn’t marry outside her faith, is what I make it out to be.”

  Sarah answered her questions and explained about the Amish emigrating from Switzerland a long time ago for a place to practice their religion, how today there was a large group in Pennsylvania, but Mose wanted to see the West, so here they were. And no, normally girls did not marry outsiders. It would be a disobedience and a sadness to see their daughter overstepping the parental boundaries.

  Abby nodded and shook her head wisely. She commented kindly, accepting Sarah into the realm of folks she kept in her heart. “We womenfolk, we have to stick together in the big country. It’s all we got, an’ if we can’t get along,
then the loss is ours, ‘cause we all know we need each other. Stuff like, I’ll give you my biscuit recipe, tell you how to make ‘em, and you give me one a’ yers. I ain’t sure how Amish eat. You eat kosher, like them Jews? You fast and eat a bunch of purified fish and stuff? I’ll tell you right now, there ain’t no fish on the prairie. You eat hogs? Jews don’t eat pork do they? If’n you don’t, there’s bacon in them beans we just ate. Hope you ain’t left yer religion about my beans.”

  Sarah laughed outright. “No, no, Amish is different than Jewish, although we respect their religion. Jews are God’s chosen people you know.”

  Abby narrowed her eyes. “You sure about that?”

  Sarah laughed again, easily, and could see the suspicion of new and different cultures. Was it just Abby, or was it the West?

  “Now that black shawl and bonnet you had on? You know yer gonna have to be careful where you go with that on. Folks’ll take you for a witch. I mean it. We ain’t used to that hereabouts. They’ll not do you harm; they’ll just keep about a mile between them and you. People get superstitious about ghosts and haunts and stuff, livin’ alone the way we do. Might make us crazy in the head, probably.”

  “I won’t go anywhere. Where would I be able to go? All I have is my family.

  “Yeah, and looks like you got one on the way.”

  Sarah blushed and felt the swelling in her throat. “I do,” she said softly.

  “When’s yer time?”

  Sarah mumbled a date, then lowered her eyes. She mustered all her courage to meet Abby’s eyes and asked softly if there was any help close by and how they should go about finding someone.

  “Wal, there’s Doc Elliot, but he’s in Dorchester, thirty some miles away, which probably won’t do you much good. I dunno. It’s been awhile since I was in need of someone, so I’ll ask around fer you.”