Hester on the Run Read online

  Kate was so pleased. She made sure the ham was done to his liking, fried in the cast iron skillet, then steamed in a bit of water to soften it. She sliced cabbage and cooked it until it was meltingly soft, made hominy from the dried corn, and blushed to the roots of her hair when he grabbed her in a darkened corner of the kitchen and planted a wet kiss on her face. “My gute frau” (good wife), he chortled, warbling jubilantly.

  To what did she owe this attention? She felt elevated, lifted out of the daily cares and rituals of her ordinary life, and thought she could do anything with that kind of praise.

  Rebecca’s fever came down that evening. Kate held the shockingly thin body, stroking the brown hair away from her fevered brow, and sang, softly.

  Oh, Gott Vater, in Himmelreich,

  Un deine gute preisen.

  Hans hummed from his seat by the fireplace, smiled at Noah when he recited the German bedtime prayer, tucked Hester’s hand in his, and put the children to bed. Kate felt as if she had a visitation from God himself.

  The harsh winds of winter moaned and shrieked around the eaves. It slapped loose a shake on the roof until it made a buzzing sound as Kate lay beside Hans, sleepless. Between them, little Solomon lay, snoring softly. He had just been fed, and she should have lifted him for a burp, but it was too warm and cozy under the covers. She’d let him burp on a remnant of cloth, where she’d laid him on his stomach.

  From the wooden trundle bed, the sound of thin, fast breathing chilled her through and through. The breathing was Rebecca’s, her fever in its second week now, and Kate wanted Dr. Hess. She no longer had the audacity or good faith or whatever you wanted to call it to think that all these remedies she’d tried would heal her now.

  The tip of her nose stung, the prelude to quiet sobbing. She could not bear to think of losing one of her babies. Not one. They were her whole life. She gave them all her love. Her day’s work was centered around her little ones. They were, pure and simple, a part of her.

  But Hans would have to agree about the doctor. She dreaded approaching him, with all the good humor he’d been displaying, splashing it about the small log house with abandon, coloring their world with new and vibrant hues. It would cost money, but she believed the amount Hans had had significantly increased now.

  Rebecca’s fast breathing was accompanied by a hoarse rattle. Terror filled Kate’s chest. Outside, the wind flung twigs and leaves against the small six-paned windows. Kate shivered and then left the warmth of the bed to check on Rebecca.

  The sick child was so hot, she was flinging her arms about. Kate drew back, gasping, then stumbled to the bed, grasped Hans’s shoulder and shook, clenching her nails into his muscled arms, whispering, “Hans! Hans!”

  He sat up, his brown hair disheveled, his eyes swelled with sleep, his face shiny with night sweat and unwashed skin. “Hans! Please. It’s Rebecca. She’s very sick. What should we do?”

  Hans put a palm to the side, pressed down to lift himself up and away from the bed, pushing little Solomon into the straw mattress. He began grunting, snuffling, and then crying, which soon escalated to shrieks of fright.

  “Ach.” Hans got out of bed, pulled on his everyday knee breeches, bleary-eyed, his brain still foggy with sleep. He passed a hand across his eyes, rubbing the sleep from them, and said to the crying infant, “Here, here. Hush!”

  They let him cry as they hovered over Rebecca, the same silhouette as years ago when Hester entered their lives, and everything had been like a dream, too good to be true.

  Now with each passing year, a new baby had entered their lives, leaving them no time for silliness or games or lazy afternoons spent by the creek. Too often, if they had time to give relaxed attention to their children, it went primarily to their one foundling, Hester.

  When Hans saw his wife’s tears, sliding down her cheeks, he was stung into action. “I’ll go,” was all he said. Kate lifted her eyes to his with raw gratitude.

  “Oh, denke (thank you), Hans,” she whispered.

  A small form appeared in the doorway, then padded noiselessly across the floor, and climbed up on the bed, tugging efficiently at Solomon’s blanket.

  “Sh. Sh. Net heila” (Don’t cry). Hester sat on the bed, her legs dangling over the side, her arms wrapped around the crying baby. She lifted one hand and allowed the baby to suckle on her finger, which quieted him immediately.

  Hans said goodbye, a thick form in his heavy overcoat, a scarf tied across his head to cover his ears, his heavy black hat set firmly on top.

  “Take the wagon,” Hester said.

  “Certainly.”

  How long he had been gone when Rebecca went into die gichtra (seizures) Kate did not know. She screamed in fright when the small body convulsed, the soft, pliant form becoming stiff as a board, the back arching, the head thrown back as her blue eyes turned up in her head.

  Hester sat holding Solomon, her black eyes alive, dancing in the firelight, erect, unmoving, waiting to see what her mother would do.

  “No, no, no, no,” Kate moaned softly, her mother’s heart unable to grasp what her head knew with uncanny intuition was to be.

  How many hours, how many minutes? Was it only seconds until her little tongue curled back into her throat and shut off the tiny passage behind it? Her fever had been too high, the infection raging unchecked through her lungs and then into her bloodstream, taking her life.

  When Rebecca choked, Kate cried out again. With superhuman effort, she tried to save her little daughter, but there was no use. She was gone.

  Gone to a better place. A little angel in heaven. A flower in the Master’s bouquet. All of these comforting phrases pushed themselves into her mind and then were sent away by her own refusal to accept the fact that Rebecca had died.

  Oh, she had willed her to live. She’d done everything. She’d had Lissie Hershberger more than once, tried all of her herbs and tinctures, the foul-smelling concoctions that spread their vile odor through the house, and nothing helped.

  When Hans returned with the doctor, he found his wife on the floor on her hands and knees, rocking back and forth, her eyes squeezed shut as a high, keening sound rose and fell from between her clenched jaws.

  Hans went to her but drew back before he could touch her, raising terrified eyes to the doctor. The good doctor assessed the situation by the dim light of the dying fire and shook his head, his mouth grim. Bending, he touched her back. “Kate.”

  The word cut through Kate’s grieving, opening the possibility that she might live rather than die with Rebecca. She had never felt such despair. A great yawning abyss had been before her, beckoning to her. It had been easier to think of simply slipping away into it than to keep fighting.

  The doctor helped her up and onto the other side of the bed. He gave her a double dose of laudanum before turning to Hans and the body of the child.

  “Hm.” His experienced hands felt along little Rebecca’s throat, her limbs, her stomach. He realized the suffocation was brought on by her convulsions. It was not unusual. Children died from “the fevers” or “lung fever,” as the condition was frequently called.

  This baby had never been as hardy as the rest of the family. She’d been pale since the day she was born, her cry a thin, mewling sound like a newborn kitten.

  Baby Solomon was in good hands, Dr. Hess knew. He was more concerned about Kate. Sometimes these women who bore a child every year seemed strong and capable, fulfilling their duties without one word of complaint. But they were extremely fragile on the inside, and a sudden shock, a terrifying incident, changed them forever. Dr. Hess said none of this to Hans. He believed Kate was strong, a fighter. She’d come back.

  Hans had no tears. Grief was written all over his face as he bent low, talked to the Indian child, then took Solomon from her and laid him gently in the cradle.

  He went back to Hester and talked in soft tones, pointing to Rebecca, lifeless and still, laid down tenderly by her mother. Then he took Hester up in his arms and buried his face in
her thin shoulder. Soon hoarse sobs began, a manly sound of grieving the doctor had heard many times. It never failed to chill him.

  He watched as the little Indian girl’s arms went around her father’s neck, her little hands patting his thick shoulders. “Do net heila, Dat,” (Do not weep, Dad) she said, for all the world like a capable grandmother.

  The doctor finally concluded that Hans derived condolence from his small daughter as he held her, the grieving child clinging to her father for her own support. It was, indeed, something to see.

  Word spread through the community after Hans rode to tell his parents, who sent their son, John, to other Amish families.

  Hans Zug’s little one-year-old Rebecca had died of lunga feva (lung fever), and Kate wasn’t good, were the furtive whispers, the knowing rolling of the eyes. This would get the best of her.

  The doctor left a large brown bottle of laudanum, with the precise instructions of a dedicated doctor, more worried than his professional manner allowed.

  The wagons began to arrive, Isaac and Rebecca first, dressed somberly in brown from head to toe. Rebecca’s eyes remained dry, but her mouth twitched and her chin quivered for just a moment. She felt as if this was a bad omen, her very own namesake, Rebecca, dying like this. God was calling loudly, and she needed to heed his voice.

  Isaac’s kind blue eyes filled with tears, and he shook his head up and down, saying the young child was goot opp (well off). She would not have to go through this sad world with its many trials and temptations.

  Rebecca asked Hans why they hadn’t sent for her. He said Lissie Hershberger had been there twice.

  “Piffle!” Rebecca snorted.

  Hans looked sharply at his mother.

  “What does fat Lissie know?”

  Hans lifted his shoulders and then let them fall.

  When Solomon began wailing, Rebecca took him from the cradle, and handed him to Kate, shaking her awake with powerful hands.

  “Your baby needs you,” she said, sharply.

  Kate pulled herself up, shamefaced, then looked at her motherin-law with eyes that were chillingly empty. She reached for Solomon, fed him as if each movement was too hard to accomplish, keeping her eyes dry and giving nothing away.

  They came to help, close friends as well as those who were acquaintances, all sharing the common bond of being Amish and attending the same church services. The depth of friendship didn’t matter at a time like this. A child had died, linking them all together within the bund der lieve (bond of love).

  The neighbors who weren’t Amish came and the friendly Indians, the Lenape from the trading post on Northkill Creek. They brought gifts of beads and tobacco. The Shawnee were less confident than the Lenape, not as comfortable in the presence of the Amish, but they came, too.

  People cleaned the house and the barn as well. They set up the little brown, wooden coffin on sawhorses. The women sewed a tiny linen dress.

  It was Kate’s duty to dress the lifeless body of her child. She accomplished this stone-faced and rigid, her eyes dry, with the help of her motherin-law, Rebecca, who sobbed and cried, alternating between hiccups and nose-blowing.

  Noah and Isaac stayed in the background, out of the way, not making any noise, barely whispering. They ate when they were told and sat down where they were told to sit, watching everyone with large eyes that did not seem to understand what was going on around them.

  Hester helped with the care of baby Solomon, watching the people coming to the house or leaving it. She offered to find kitchen utensils or cloths for cleaning up, anything she could do to be helpful, amazing the women of the church with her grown-up wisdom.

  Lissie Hershberger sat in a corner with a huge slice of apple pie (she hadn’t time for dinner before she came) and wagged her large head from side to side.

  “See iss an chide kind” (She is a sensible child).

  She licked the pewter spoon clean, then asked who made the apple pie. No one seemed to know, so she polished off the whole slice and sent for another, making no excuses except to say she hadn’t had apples for too long. How can you make apple pies without apples? Hm? You can’t.

  No one laughed, or smiled, for this was the day before a funeral, a quiet, holy time, but a few hands were put up quietly, gently placed across mouths that twitched up at the corners.

  They dug the small grave with pickaxes and shovels, the frozen, stony soil reluctant to give the child a resting place. Brawny men of the community hacked away at it, inside the rail fence where twenty-five bodies lay buried in their wooden coffins, returning to the dust from which they were formed, and God the judge of their souls.

  Funerals were not uncommon. It was the way of it. Folks took sick and died for various reasons. Snakebites, lockjaw, childbirth, whooping cough, accidents, many maladies. That was life in the 1700s.

  They cooked a sizable slab of pork, sliced yellow and white, strong-flavored cheese. They fixed carrots and grated cabbage, seasoning it with vinegar and store-bought sugar. They cooked dried apples, plump and full, to be eaten after the meal.

  Mamie Troyer said those prunes put her to mind of the auferstehung (resurrection). Dried, dead, and dusty-looking, but the minute they were boiled, they returned to life, plump, juicy-looking, and quite tasty.

  Lissie Hershberger choked on her hot, black tea, and said Mamie better stop saying those unholy things. It wasn’t funny. This was a funeral.

  Then they sat together like two fat, black hens, their faces drawn and somber, with due respect to the hinna losseny (the ones remaining). But their eyes twinkled and sparkled every time they thought of what Mamie had said about the prunes.

  Kate washed and dressed in her best shortgown, skirt and apron. She pulled her cap well over her head and tied the wide, white strings beneath her chin. Then she dutifully received the grieving members of the community and was comforted by them. But she remained strangely dry-eyed, compliant, agreeable, and without emotion of her own.

  The graveyard was situated on top of a rise, on a plot of land that was only partially cleared. Sturdy pine trees swayed in the bitter cold, the bare branches of the oak and maple trees creaked and bent by its force.

  As Kate stood, hearing the sighing sound of the wind through the pine needles, a wrenching sadness gripped her soul. Her tears began to flow, a warm steady stream that welled up in her eyes and dripped steadily off her chin, falling on her black shawl and splattering on the frozen earth, a baptism of the Pennsylvania soil with tears of a mother’s sorrow.

  Hans stepped closer to her when he saw her tears, and she drew comfort from his solid presence. She leaned back slightly against him.

  They set the house to rights, packed the food away, and resumed their lives as best they could.

  Baby Solomon quit his endless crying. He sat up and noticed the world around him, and even smiled at Hester. A restful atmosphere fell across the weathered little house in the woods.

  Three more babies were born, in the next four years. Daniel, John, and Barbara. Hester was nine years old when Barbara arrived in June of 1754. She was a capable little maid, used to hard work at this tender age.

  Her arms were round with muscles, her legs strong and slender, as lean as a willow. She rode any horse on the farm without a saddle or a bridle. She just flung a rope around its nose, tied it with her own special knot, and was off.

  Noah was her best friend, with Isaac coming in second. The three were inseparable, skilled in many ways for as young as they were.

  With seven children to feed and clothe, Hans and Kate remained constantly busy, working from dawn till dusk, the children working side by side with their parents as much as possible.

  Kate was nearing forty, and she carried her spreading hips and midsection with a certain sense of submission. She accepted all childbearing as a duty, her God-given ability to fill Hans’s quiver with arrows. Children were a heritage of the Lord, a blessing, truly.

  Hans accepted his wife, grateful for her understanding of him. He indulged he
r appetite for ham and eggs and great bowls of thick porridge. She loved buttermilk when they had some, aged cheese, drizzles of milk over fruit pie, and homemade bread. She fried cornmeal mush in lard, spread the thick, greasy slices with apple butter, and ate slice after slice, sometimes frying another pan-full while she washed dishes in the wooden tub that hung on the wall by the dry sink.

  Rebecca eyed her daughter-in-law’s burgeoning figure, drew her mouth down, and tightened her grip on the disapproval that threatened to escape. Why couldn’t she control her appetite? When Hester was older, she’d be ashamed of her mother. She watched the beautiful child grow tall, muscular, and slender and noticed the innocence of her devotion to her two brothers who were not her brothers at all. Rebecca wondered how long it could last.

  Hester was not just beautiful, she shone from within with a goodness, a purity of heart. Love flowed from her, unhampered, the generosity of her spirit endearing her to each member of the Amish community.

  “Hans Zug’s glay Indian maedly” (little Indian girl), they all called her. They watched her light-footed comings and goings, unable to hide how much she charmed and captivated all who knew her.

  CHAPTER 8

  ON THE TENTH DAY OF AUGUST, WHEN HESTER was ten years old, Hans decided it was time the children had some schooling, and he set about enrolling them in the Englishe schule (English, or non-Amish classes). It was a miserable little clapboard hovel five and a half miles away, with old Theodore Crane as head schoolmaster.

  Many of the children were Amish, with a few half-Indians, and two or three rowdy sixteen-year-olds. Crane kept his school with a rigid eye and disciplined with unrelenting harshness. He had to. If he didn’t, the boys would throw him out and thrash him within an inch of his life.

  When Hester, Noah, and Isaac met Theodore Crane, they were dressed primly in clean Amish clothes dyed with walnuts. The boys held their broadfall knee breeches up by a strip of sturdy rawhide when they were too thin around the middle to keep them up otherwise. Their straw hats were yellow, made with fresh straw that summer. Kate made all her family’s straw hats, soaking the straw in water until it was pliable enough to be braided, shaped, and sewn together.