“Dr. Trachsel tells us that you are well now,” Niklas said.
Jacob nodded.
“We are grateful to God that He healed you and your daughter.”
Jacob thanked them both for their prayers and for their visit, but as he was talking, it occurred to him the real reason Niklas and Adam had come to see him. They’d been sent to collect for his doctor’s bill.
They’d been kind to Cassie and him, but what would they do when they found out he only had a measly $1.95 to his name? It could be months before he had enough money to pay them back. Or even years if he couldn’t find a job.
Instead of asking him about the money, Niklas surprised him with his next words. “Dr. Trachsel told us you know how to swim.”
“I…,” Jacob started, wondering at the odd question. “I learned when I was a child.”
“Very few of our people are able to swim,” Adam said.
“Not many people in Chicago swim either.”
“Near the main village of Amana, we have a seven-mile canal called the Mill Race that provides power for our lumber, grain, and textile mills,” Niklas explained. “Every summer we have to dredge it to remove the silt and debris from the canal.”
Niklas blinked, and Jacob wondered what he read in the man’s eyes. Desperation, perhaps. “One of our fine young men worked on the grosse boat, but he left for schooling in Cedar Rapids. Now we need someone to take his place. Someone who can speak some German and, more importantly, someone who can swim.”
Jacob’s heart raced. “You want me to work on your boat?”
Niklas followed his words with a flurry, as if Jacob might think the work was below him. “We can pay you seven dollars a week plus your food,” he explained. “The crew lives on the boat for the season, so your lodging would be provided as well.”
The twinkle was gone from Adam’s eyes. “We know it’s hard work, but Dr. Trachsel said you are a good man. We thought that perhaps you could assist us for a few months. If you don’t have any other obligations…”
“Obligations?” Jacob couldn’t help his laugh.
“It would just be until October,” Adam said. “You could continue on when the work is finished.”
“What would I be doing on the boat?”
Niklas began twisting his hat again. “Sometimes the captain will need you to retrieve or fix things in the water. Sometimes he will need you to help remove the bridges so the boat can pass. When you’re not needed in the water, the captain will rotate you with the other crew members.”
For seven dollars a week, he would do whatever the captain needed. “Can Cassie stay with me on the boat?”
“Oh, no,” Niklas said. “The dredge boat is too dangerous for a child.”
Jacob’s shoulders slumped. He couldn’t take the position if they refused a place for Cassie to stay.
Niklas patted the top of his hat. “She can’t stay on the boat, but one of the Tantes in Homestead can care for her while you are working.”
Jacob’s mind raced at the man’s words. Could he leave Cassie with a woman he didn’t know, in a community he didn’t understand? His daughter had endured so much change in the past year, losing her mother and her home and everything that seemed to be secure. Now he would have to leave her as well.
“You will only be a few miles away,” Adam urged. “And we could arrange for you to visit her.”
He brushed his hands together. The Homestead community had already been so good to Cassie and him, and now they were offering him work with decent pay and a place for both him and Cassie to stay. He could save every penny that he didn’t spend on Cassie’s care, and when the work was finished, he’d start building their life again.
“Could I speak with my daughter first?”
“Of course.” Niklas nodded, taking a step backward out the door. “We will return in the morning.”
Detach yourselves from other purposes and permit your hearts to be prepared, so that I, speaks Eternal Love, may communicate with each one of you.
Christian Metz, 1819
Chapter Thirteen
Sophie didn’t like Cedar Rapids. She didn’t like the granite buildings or the crowds of people swarming the streets. She didn’t like the horrible smells that saturated her flat, making her nauseous, and she didn’t like cooking three meals a day every day. Monotonous was how she described life on the outside. Monotonous and lonely.
Liesel turned the page of Sophie’s long letter, her heart breaking for her dear friend. Cassie was tucked in close beside her on the ottoman, sound asleep, and Liesel couldn’t be happier. Sophie, on the other hand, sounded miserable.
In the following pages, Sophie described the pitfalls of city life and most of all her utter failings in the kitchen. She’d burned the potatoes on her first attempt at frying them with bacon grease. Then Conrad had brought home a slab of beef and she’d tried to boil it like the women did in the communal kitchen, but it was stringy and dry.
To make up for the disaster, she’d attempted to bake a blueberry pie, but the berries in the city weren’t nearly as sweet as the berries in the Amanas, so she’d settled for a rhubarb pie with plenty of sugar. The pie had fallen apart when she and Conrad tried to eat it, and it was so sweet it tasted like syrup. She’d dropped her fork and cried over her dessert.
There was no one for her to ask about making rhubarb pie. No one to talk to about her disappointment with her new life or what she missed about her home. There were thousands of people in Cedar Rapids, but not a single person had befriended her.
Conrad told her it would be fine, that she’d make friends eventually, but she wasn’t certain. She clung to her faith in God, but she dearly missed her mother, and she missed her hours spent with Liesel and her other friends in the garden.
Liesel folded the letter and set it in her lap. The outside world sounded as frightening as she imagined it would be. Why would anyone want to move away from the security of the Amanas? Here there was safety and community and people who cared for you when you needed help.
She couldn’t console her friend, but she could pray for her. She bowed her head and prayed, the way she’d done almost every night since Sophie and Conrad had left. She asked God to comfort her dear friend, and she asked Him to change Conrad’s heart and bring them back to Homestead.
Brushing her hand across Cassie’s head, she continued praying until she heard a knock in the next room. Voices followed, but she couldn’t hear what the men were saying. She fixed an afghan over Cassie’s shoulders before she slipped off the couch and crept to the other side of the room.
Niklas Keller and Adam Voepel were with Jacob, and she listened as they offered him Conrad’s job on the dredge boat.
Jacob, in the Amanas?
Her heart lurched at the thought.
She’d told herself over and over that one day Jacob and Cassie would climb on the train just as Sophie and Conrad had done. One day soon they would be gone. She hadn’t allowed herself to entertain the thought that they might stay—well, at least she hadn’t allowed herself to entertain the thought for long.
But what if Jacob and Cassie could stay in the Amanas for the summer—or perhaps even longer?
Reaching into her apron pocket, she ran her fingers across the edge of Sophie’s letter. She would be delighted if Cassie could stay. Overjoyed. But she wasn’t sure she wanted Jacob Hirsch to stay in the Amanas. He was a kind man, but even so, he unnerved her. She couldn’t imagine living out the next few years of her life with him here, knowing that she might see him at their prayer services or in the dining room or on the dark pathway between the houses.
Worse yet, she would see him and not be able to acknowledge him as a friend. She would be married to Emil, and it would be inappropriate for them to converse privately. They’d never be able to talk about their week shared together in the doctor’s home.
Months would pass; the community would forget about her time here with Jacob. But even if they didn’t forget, surely no one would suspe
ct that she’d been immoral with this stranger. She guarded her chastity as closely as she guarded her heart.
The community may forget…but she would always remember the summer of ’94. Even as Mrs. Emil Hahn, she wouldn’t be able to stop the memories of her time spent with Jacob and his beautiful daughter.
Cassie could stay in Homestead, but as far as she was concerned, Jacob needed to move on. The dredge boat would be a good start since it was three miles from Homestead, but come winter…
Come winter Jacob would probably tire of the plain lifestyle anyway. He would be more than ready to move back to Chicago or travel to another big city where he could live the news he loved to read.
The door shut in Jacob’s room, and footsteps crossed the floor. Rushing back to the sofa, she tucked her legs under her and pulled Sophie’s letter from her pocket, pretending to read the words again. When Jacob walked into the room, his gaze rested on his daughter, spread out with her doll on the sofa, and then he looked at Liesel.
“She’s asleep,” Liesel whispered.
Jacob waved her into the bedroom, and she followed him through the doorway. Leaning against the wall, she watched him pace the floor.
When he arrived in Homestead, worry shadowed his face, but the shadows had slowly subsided during the past few days. A new strength had emerged, and this strength made her wonder what Jacob Hirsch had been like before the weight of the world crushed him.
He stopped pacing and turned toward her. “Two of your Elders came to visit me.”
“I heard.”
“Did you hear what they said?”
She rolled her fingertips over the blue paint on the wall. “Some of it.”
“We’re released from quarantine.”
She mustered a smile. “That’s good news.”
“So you’re free to leave whenever you’d like.”
She nodded, but she didn’t move. It wasn’t time for her to walk out of this room. “Niklas Keller offered you a job.”
He wandered over to the window and leaned against the sill. “On the dredge boat.”
“Dredging is hard work.”
He crossed his arms. “What do you know about dredging?”
“My best friend…,” she began. “Her husband used to work on the boat.”
“Ah,” he replied slowly. “The friend who moved to Cedar Rapids.”
He remembered. “Conrad hated the boat. He said he’d rather get a tooth pulled than spend another summer on it.”
“You don’t think I’d like the work?”
“I think you’d hate it.”
“Liesel…” Her pulse quickened as his eyes bore into hers. “Have you ever been hungry?”
His gaze was intense, but she refused to look away. “Not really.”
“Have you ever wondered where you were going to sleep the next night?”
“Of course not.”
“Have you ever been terrified because you couldn’t pay a doctor’s bill or the rent on your house?”
She blinked. “What’s a rent?”
A smile flickered across his lips, and she felt silly for asking the question. Still, she’d never heard the word before.
He nodded toward the window. “You have to pay for everything in the outside world.”
Pay for everything? She laced her fingers together, watching him. No wonder the worry had shadowed his face. There were so many burdens out there, and he had no one to help him carry his heavy load.
Pity weighed his gaze as he watched her, but he didn’t have to pity her. She understood plenty, and the way she saw it, the only people that needed pity were those who didn’t have anyone to prop them up when they fell.
Jacob brushed his hands over his trousers. “I’ve been out of work for three months, and now your Elders are offering me a job.”
She glanced at her feet. Her feelings didn’t matter. Jacob needed work, and it wasn’t her position to convince him to move on to another city to find it. In her selfishness she wanted him to go, yet she needed to think of them before herself.
She met his eye again. “Then you must take it.”
“Niklas offered to let one of the older women in the community care for Cassie while I’m working.” He stepped closer, his eyes pleading with her. “Will they take good care of her?”
“The Tantes in Homestead have been part of raising almost every child in this community. They will care for her like she is blood.” She squeezed her hands together. “But there’s one problem—”
His eyes narrowed. “What is it?”
“Cassie is still in quarantine.”
“Quarantine,” he repeated like he’d forgotten. He started pacing again.
“You will need someone to watch Cassie until Dr. Trachsel releases her.” A slow smile wove across her lips. “Someone who has been exposed to the disease.”
He stopped walking and shoved his hands into his pockets as he fixed a stare on her. “Why don’t you want to go home, Liesel?”
Her gaze wandered toward the window, toward the hot sun beating down on the men and women working the fields today. She couldn’t tell him that she was scared for her life to move forward without Sophie, scared about her marriage to Emil. Nor could she tell him that she’d never been happier than she’d been the past nine days.
When she didn’t reply, he stepped closer to her. “Cassie’s not contagious anymore.”
She shook her head. “We don’t know that, Jacob, and Dr. Trachsel won’t risk exposing anyone else to the disease.”
His eyes wandered from her eyes to her hair and then back to her eyes. The intensity of his gaze scared her. She tried to scoot back, just one step away from him, but the wall was already behind her. The words from her father’s letter raced through her mind. Was this the time to scream?
Jacob kept both hands in his pockets, but he didn’t need his strength to make her quake. His words alone reached out and shook her. “What are you running from, Liesel?”
She rolled her shoulders back. “I don’t know what you mean.”
His tone was gentle but direct. “Is it your work in the gardens?”
When she didn’t reply, he continued. “Because you seem like the type of person who would work hard no matter how difficult the job.”
Her knees shook, but she tried to remain confident. Strong. “You don’t know me, Jacob.”
He didn’t stop. “If it’s not your work, perhaps you are trying to get out of something else.”
She shook her head. “I’m not trying to escape,” she insisted—but he didn’t seem to hear her.
“Or perhaps…” He stepped closer to her, and she could feel the warmth from his skin. “Perhaps you are running from Emil Hahn.”
Her hands sprang out, shoving him away from her. She didn’t care if she hurt him. All she wanted was for him to go away.
He stepped back, his hands protecting his chest, but his face filled with compassion.
Unbidden tears filled her eyes. How dare he accuse her of running away from her betrothed? It didn’t matter that he was right. It was none of his business, and she didn’t owe him an explanation.
She swallowed hard. “This isn’t Chicago, Jacob. We work together here, and our community needs to have the Mill Race dredged. I am offering to stay here and care for Cassie while you work, but if you continue to harass me, I will walk out that door.”
She hid her trembling fists behind her back, praying even as she spoke that Jacob wouldn’t make her go away. “I hope, for your sake, that the Elders will find another woman willing to come under quarantine.”
Jacob stepped back slowly, like he wasn’t sure exactly what would come out of her lips next or if she might shove him again. She wasn’t sure either.
“That’s a relief, Liesel.” He reached for the hooks by the door and pulled off his cap. “I was worried you might be running away.”
A new creation shall emerge when the Spirit of God lives and works within humankind.
Christian Metz, 1832
Chapter Fourteen
On Friday afternoon Frank picked up the earpiece on his desk telephone and asked the operator to connect him with the local precinct. Once she did so, he could hear people shouting in the background, and the man who answered had to ask Frank’s name twice. He spelled his name and explained that he was the president of Second National Building and Loan—a title most people respected.
The police chief picked up the line, but he wasn’t the least bit impressed by Frank’s title or even particularly interested in it. Even so, Frank explained that one of his former clerks had embezzled money from his bank and disappeared.
The chief barked an order out to someone before resuming the call. “What did you say your name was again?”
He cleared his throat. “Frank Powell.”
“Have you been out on the streets lately, Mr. Powell?”
He glanced out the window at his side; the sky was colored orange and yellow from the setting sun. “I have.”
“Then you’re aware of the crime infiltrating them.”
He wasn’t going to let the chief slight his duty by concentrating on petty crimes. “This man took at least twenty thousand dollars from me.”
“I don’t care if it was a hundred and twenty thousand, Mr. Powell.” The chief shouted another order at someone else. “I don’t have the men to chase down your money.”
Frank squeezed the bridge of his nose. He actually paid taxes, unlike most of Chicago’s business owners, who usually bribed their way out of a tax bill. He paid taxes to employ men to police their city, and now this man wouldn’t even delegate a single officer to search for Jacob.
“If I were you,” the chief said, “I’d hire a private detective.”
“I don’t have any money left to hire an investigator.”
“You find your embezzler, Mr. Powell, and then we’ll talk justice.”
“You’re supposed to help me find him!”
“Here.” The man rustled some papers on the other end. “I’m opening a file for you. In our spare time, I’ll send someone over to start on the investigation.”
Love Finds You in Homestead, Iowa Page 10