Hearts to God (The Hearts to God Series)

by Traci Tyne Hilton

  “I trust that God will prompt Mr. Sutton to offer for you. He’s in want of a wife and there are no other likely ladies in this town. If he does, you will accept.” Sarah left without another word.

  The long fingers of the setting sun reached through the window, a last moment of heat before the end of the day. Madeline rested her head on the table. Her move had been carefully planned, with prayer and faith. She had come to work hard and please God. It had fallen apart, and the future she dreamed of, of working and serving God with the skills he had blessed her with, seemed to have slipped through her fingers.

  It had been a false vision and nothing more.

  Chapter 6

  Housework kept Madeline and Sarah on the farm for the next three days. Though their household was small with just the two young people and three adults, the laundry seemed to take forever. Madeline wished her sister had the new machine for washing clothes that the Shakers has invented…and for the good Shaker cloth the sisters treated with zinc and heat so that the dirt would wash off with ease. While she couldn’t find it in the Bible, Madeline liked to believe that there wouldn’t be dirt in heaven. Especially if there weren’t any washing machines.

  All of the scrubbing filled the tense days while they waited—Madeline in fear and the Greenes in hope—for Mr. Sutton to come calling.

  After the clothes had been scrubbed, they baked and cleaned the house. The dusty landscape and the nooks and crannies of Sarah’s furniture with all their furbelows and turnings made poor partners. Simple furniture, a bed, a few hooks, and a chair that could be hung on the wall had kept housekeeping from taking over life back home. Madeline’s own housekeeping plans were along those lines. Efficient and plain.

  And the rugs… Madeline shook her head. Why have rugs in this terrible dusty land? Sarah had one she had hooked herself, but it was heavy, and beating it out took the better part of one morning. Madeline was tempted to think she was being kept home on purpose, and that the inefficiencies of the last three days were merely an invention. But the frequent, little comments Sarah made about Mr. Sutton’s upcoming visit made her think this was most likely the way Sarah always kept house. She could see why women like her sister didn’t go into business for themselves the way the Shakers did. Who would ever have the time, running a home in this manner?

  The fourth morning, Sarah tucked into her garden, weeding and harvesting. She was silent, her face a mask of frustration. Mr. Sutton hadn’t come yet, and from Sarah’s fuming manner, it looked like he was no longer expected.

  Madeline was relieved. Though she and Sarah hadn’t gone to town in days, Kitty and Job had been back and forth to school without bringing any tales home, and Zeke had also been silent on the issue. Whatever Mr. Cary had been threatening, he hadn’t acted on it yet.

  With Sarah out back, Madeline saw her chance to spend the day in her herb house.

  She had quite a bit of work to do if she wanted to establish a working relationship with Dr. Julius, Sutton’s store, or any of the other nearby towns. Most of her crates were still packed up.

  Once inside her little sanctuary, the tension that had built up in her over the last week began to melt away. She took a deep breath, rejoicing in the earthy, familiar scent of her concoctions. She longed to run down to the carpenter and explain the kinds of shelves and drawers her herb house needed, but would have to make the few planks stuck to the walls work as shelves. Like everything else she had seen in this town, it felt temporary. Just thrown together for the time being.

  While she rummaged through her boxes, putting her goods in order, there was a knock at the door.

  “Come in.” She didn’t look up, not wanting to hear what task her sister required of her.

  “Thankee.”

  Madeline froze. She knew that deep, friendly voice with its cowboy drawl. Her heart fluttered, and her hands began to shake.

  Doc Lee stepped through the door, but left it open behind him. He wore a red, quilted vest that reminded Madeline of the thick, red Dorothy cloak she had packed away for winter. His floppy black Quaker hat was tipped back on his head. “I was hoping I could talk to you about your herbs and such.”

  “Of course.” Madeline dusted her hands off on her white apron. She liked to think that her sister’s constant needling about finding a man had no effect on her, and yet the presence of Doc Lee, with his trim figure, green eyes, and gilded skin made her heart betray her best intentions.

  “As you can imagine, most of my treatments come from a fur piece away. Some even come from China.” He joined Madeline at her little workbench and looked into the contents of her crate. “You might just be the answer to my prayers.” He looked up from her box and smiled.

  He caught her eye for a moment, and she couldn’t look away. Heat rose to her cheeks. She dropped her hand to the crate of packaged, dried herbs. “What…” the word came out in a long, quiet, breath, “might you be looking for?” She bit her lip and prayed that she could pull herself together. Back home, she grew and prepared the herbs, but someone else managed the sales to the towns. She only hoped she didn’t sound like a fool.

  “D’ya have any Fu Zi, also called Aconite?”

  Madeline shook her head. “I’ve a catalog…” She turned to an unopened crate. “I haven’t brought it out yet.”

  “You might know it as Wolf’s Bane.” Doc rustled through the seed packets on the counter.

  “No, I don’t have any by those names.” Her hope dimmed and her hand shook as she opened the new crate. She had to have the herbs Doc Lee wanted. If not, she’d have no reason to see him again. She jerked her head up and looked at him. She had meant, of course, that if she did not have what the doctor wanted, it would be hard to earn the money she needed to escape this town.

  “What about Panax Ginseng?” Doc Lee held up one paper packet of seeds to look at it in the light. “I don’t know what you all would call that back in Ohio.”

  “Neither do I.” Madeline held out her catalog. “I have seeds for everything listed under medicinals, and many of the preparations are also ready.”

  Doc Lee flipped through the catalog, his long, thin, tan fingers gliding quickly over the lists. The knuckles of the hand that held the booklet were red, and swollen.

  Her breath caught in her throat. That had to be from when he struck Smokey on her behalf.

  “Who prepares the Belladonna?” He tilted his head up to her, his one eyebrow lifted.

  “I’ve prepared all of them. Everything I brought, I prepared. I can make whatever you need.” She wrung her hands on her apron. “That is, I can prepare anything I have with me.”

  “Hmm.” He turned back to the catalog.

  “I can learn to prepare more. But those are what we are used to making.” She let her apron fall from her hands.

  He flipped back to the beginning of the catalog. “I use Mullein, but that grows wild ‘round here. I could use your Belladonna.” He rubbed his smooth jaw. “How effective are your remedies?”

  “Very.” Madeline relaxed and smiled. This, she could answer. “Our herbs are strong, and our preparations are tested, tried, and true. I trained under the best healer in the community.” She joined him at the little shelf that served as a table and opened the book back to the beginning. “When I left, they allowed me to take a supply of each item on the list, so long as I prepared it myself, and seeds as well if I had raised them.”

  Doc Lee leaned his elbows on the table and looked at the list. “There are over forty different products here.”

  She turned the page. “There are over one hundred, but due to the weight of the cases, I could not bring many of the oils.” She bit her bottom lip. “But as soon as I’m able, I will make more.”

  Doc Lee was very close. From the corner of her eye she could see his profile, his straight nose, long black eyelashes, and his round, full lips. She trained her eyes on the page but his closeness kept her from reading the words.

  He tilted his head. “I’d sure like to see how you make
these.” His voice was low. “Would you come to my workroom and show me?” He turned his head, his face mere inches from hers.

  Madeline pressed her fingers on the workbench to steady herself. She parted her lips to answer him, but only a small breath came out. She wanted nothing more on Earth than to go with him to his workroom.

  He held her gaze, his mouth, a half smile of hope, and his eyes crinkled, urging her to say yes.

  She tried to breathe, but her chest heaved as though she had been running. She wanted to answer him, but she also wanted to run away. And yet she couldn’t move, not an inch.

  He took a small step backwards, and a shiver of fear coursed through her, the mere idea he might leave spurred her to speak.

  “I would like that.”

  Doc Lee’s smile spread across his face. “Can I help you carry what you need? I brought my cart over.”

  Madeline shook her head to clear the cobwebs. “Pardon?”

  “Tell me what needs toted. What do you want to make up? We’ll go now.”

  She found herself nodding and following him with her eyes as he examined her crates of herbs and seeds. “Yes, that would be nice.” She wanted to say more, Take me to your workroom. Let me make medicine. Don’t ever bring me back here. But it was foolish thinking, and she dared not hope to get away from her sister’s home—yet.

  “What can I bring?”

  “Ahh.” She flipped through the pages, but the words were meaningless. If her sister found her leaving with Doc Lee…“We could make…” Her eye landed on a preparation she knew the world used to help barren women bear children, and her face warmed to an almost unbearable degree.

  “Yes? What do you suggest we try?”

  “Ahh…cough elixir?”

  Doc Lee nodded. “What do you need?”

  “Horehound and… and Marsh Mallow, and Mullein. And sugar.” She picked up three small oval bandboxes and handed them to the doctor.

  He smiled at the bright yellow and blue boxes. Their fingers brushed as he took them from her. A thrill of pleasure coursed through her at his touch, a worldly pleasure she had never intended to entertain.

  He drove her through the countryside in his one-horse wagon. Town was ahead, the line of roofs peaking between around the distant trees, but Doc Lee veered away from it off the main road and onto a rutted trail. He handled his reins with casual grace. The horse knew where it was going.

  Doc pointed away from town. “I find Mullein in the meadow, that away.” The field was dotted with yellow flowers ready to be harvested. “And Sage is all throughout here.”

  The spicy scent was hard to miss. There was another smell that Madeline had learned was Juniper. “What else can be harvested here?” She laced her fingers together, trying to forget what it felt like when he touched her hand, but the more she tried to dismiss it, the more it overtook all of her other thoughts. Hands to work, she told herself. Not hands to Doc Lee.

  “I haven’t rightly studied it yet.” He grinned at her. “I wish that I could, but I keep so busy with my patients.” The horse led them to a little white clapboard house. A full, ripe garden stood out in front of the house, and a tidy barn was to the left. Doc guided the horse and cart to the barnyard, and then offered his hand to help Madeline down. She bit her bottom lip, just a little, and closed her eyes as she took it.

  A small old Chinese man in a black quilted coat and a straw hat rose from a stool where he had been sitting in the shade of the barn. He spoke to Doc Lee with words that put Madeline in mind of the worship songs her heart longed to sing, words only God could understand. The old man took the reins from Doc.

  Doc and Madeline walked around to the back of the house.

  A smaller building was tucked behind the farmhouse. Doc opened the door and let Madeline in first. “I’m glad to hear you keep busy with patients. Do most folks in town come see you, or the other doctor?”

  Doc kindled a fire in the potbelly stove. “Most townfolk go see Doc Julius.”

  Madeline set her boxes on the long table near the stove. “So, you must travel quite a bit, then.”

  “Don’t have to. We’ve got some four hundred Chinese here in Artemisia, and just one me. They keep me plenty busy.”

  “Four hundred? But Sarah said there were hardly any.” Madeline wished she could make her words go away. She didn’t want him to think she had been talking about him or…his kin.

  Doc Lee shrugged. “We keep to our own, when we can. Some folks, like your brother-in-law, Zeke, like to come to me when they’re ailin’, but for the most part, we lay low.”

  “Why’s that?” The question popped out before Madeline had thought it through. She grimaced and shook her head. “I’m sorry. I—”

  “Don’t be sorry. I’m glad you don’t understand.” His eyes were friendly but with tinged with sadness. And yet, they seemed to plead with her not to look away.

  Madeline found a pitcher of water on the table along the side of the room and filled a pot Doc had set on the stove. “I find it hard to understand folks in town.” She picked up the round box of Horehound and measured out an ounce with her fingers. “And they me. Zeke and Sarah weren’t raised in the community as I was.” She sprinkled the dry leaves, watching them fall into the dark pot of water. “I find even my family doesn’t understand what I want to do.” Her cheeks were warm—from the fire.

  Doc picked up the sugar bag and weighed it. “You’ll use this to make your syrup.” He set it down and moved to a large chest with dozens of tiny drawers. He pulled one open. “I was taught to use this to sweeten the pot.” He held out a sample.

  The sweet tang of Licorice root reminded Madeline of candy and would be nice to drink. “But would it cook down with the water?”

  Doc shook his head. “No. We’d not make a sugar syrup for cough.” He slid the door shut. “But maybe we could try to make something new?” He lifted his eyebrows so slightly, hardly at all, and his lips parted as though he wanted to say more, but he didn’t.

  Madeline marked each subtle movement in his face without reply. Seemed every time she looked at him her words stopped completely.

  Doc opened another drawer. “This is good for cough, also. Come, smell it, feel it.” He picked up her hand and sprinkled a mixture of dried leaves and twigs on it. They felt weightless. Madeline breathed deeply, appreciating their earthy, pungent scent.

  “We’ll fix up yours, then mine. Then maybe…” His eyes were locked on hers, and his words stopped.

  Tears pricked at Madeline’s eyes. She didn’t know why, couldn’t put a word to it, but her whole person hadn’t been so shaken since the day she realized her Shaker church was wrong about salvation. She tilted her hand and let the medicine fall back onto Doc Lee’s open palm.

  “The hardest part of coming here,” she said, “is not knowing where I belong.” She moved back to the stove and stirred her water. “Sunday will come again, but where does a fallen Shaker girl go to worship?”

  Doc Lee shut the drawer. “Can’t be anyplace less like home than the Chinese Mission Church, can there?”

  She looked up, her heart lit with an unexpected spark of hope. Perhaps not all people from China were heathens.

  But heart to God, she told herself. Heart to God.

  “But you’d be welcome to come with me, if you don’t mind that it’s small and plain.”

  “Small and plain? That sounds like home.” Madeline added the Marsh Mallow and Mullein to the pot, but did not look at the doctor who seemed to open heretofore unseen doors in her heart. “This needs to boil for half an hour, then we strain it and add the sugar.” Her face was warm from the boiling water, and from the temptation pulling at her heart. She wouldn’t have believed even yesterday, that a man could test the firmness of her convictions so thoroughly, in such a short space of time.

  While they waited for the remedy to boil Doc brought out herb after aromatic herb and explained their properties to Madeline. Her head spun with the information. Not since her childhood had s
he learned so much in one day.

  She held a slender bamboo rod from which a thin hammered silver plate hung by a chain. Doc sprinkled it with Chamomile, Skullcap, Plassiflora, Damiana, Red Clover Blossom, Motherwort, and Vervain, as she watched the balance of the plate with each addition. When he had finished, he spilled them from the thin silver tray onto a tin plate with raised sides that wrapped around three quarters of the plate. Madeline pressed her lips together to suppress a laugh. The tin plate looked like a rather uncomfortable bedpan.

  Doc poured the mixture onto a paper. Madeline was mesmerized by the motions of his strong but lean hands as he folded the paper into an envelope.

  “This tea is for you.” He inclined his head as he handed her the bag, a brief, but oriental bow. “Drink it after supper, and you should rest better. You’ve moved to a strange place, but a good night’s sleep will help.”

  Madeline pressed the package to her chest. Her heart more full then her mind could understand.

  She hadn’t slept in days. Not since Mr. Cary had come to the farm.

  Doc had treated her like his peer in medicine, like an adult well-trained and worthy of consulting. For the first time since moving to Oregon she had been treated like more than a potential bride. She wanted to weep, to sing, and to kiss him, all at once.

  Her eyes flew open in horror, and she stepped back. She had to leave before she was unable to master her emotions. God had given her the dispensation of singleness. She had always known it, and she would live according to it.

  “What?” Doc Lee stepped forward, and reached for the envelope of tea. “I haven’t offended you, have I?”

  Madeline shook her head.

  “You don’t have to take the tea.” He reached for it again, his eyes full of pain, his mouth pulled in a confused frown.

  “I want the tea.” She wrapped her arms around her chest, embracing the package. “But I need to go home now.”

  Doc Lee nodded. “Of course. I can git you home. I…” His eyes roamed her figure.

  She thanked the Lord for the protection of her modest gray dress, her white linen shawl, and the long apron she always wore when she worked. He couldn’t see the storm in her soul through so many layers.