Prairie Rose

by Catherine Palmer

  “God!” he groaned as his team finally began to pull the wagon forward. “Why, God? Why this? Why now?”

  Seth walked along, his boots crackling like a trek across an icy field. Pray, he had told Rosie. Pray? What for? What good had God ever done him?

  Seth thought about the Deuteronomy verse and how deeply it had hurt Rosie. She had made peace with it somehow. She felt an absolute assurance that God was her Father—and that knowledge made her whole life worthwhile. Maybe God was Seth’s father, too. But truth to tell, God didn’t seem that different from the earthly father he’d known.

  Just when Seth had needed him most, his father had run off and left the family—abandoned them. Left them to their own devices. Sure, the family had survived. Barely. Seth had begged God to send his papa home. The man never returned.

  Then a second crisis in his life had led Seth to cry out to God. When Mary’s father had run him off the farm, Seth had been sure his life was over. What had God done to answer a desperate prayer for reconciliation? He had tossed Seth into the Union army to fight one battle after another, march thousands of miles—so far away from Mary that he hadn’t known she was expecting a baby. Hadn’t known when she died. Hadn’t even known she was sick.

  On his own, Seth had fought his way back from the edge of despair. He had signed up for a homestead, bought a team, built a soddy and a barn. Then he had traveled back to Missouri and had taken what was rightfully his. His only son. Along the way, Rosie had dropped into his life. Rosie—an unexpected, unearned gift from God if ever there was one.

  And now—now he could lose her, lose his land, lose his son. Lose everything.

  “God!” he shouted again into the black sky. At the cry, old Nellie stopped in her tracks. Seth pulled on the collar. She balked, shaking her head from side to side. Frustration boiled up inside him. He slapped the mule on her rump. She sat down.

  Heat pouring through his veins, Seth dropped to his knees. “God, take these confounded grasshoppers away!” he said through clenched teeth. “Keep them off my crops. Keep them out of Rosie’s garden.”

  He angrily backhanded a tear off his cheek. “I want Rosie, you hear me, God?” he said. “I want Chipper, too. He’s my son. I have a right to him! If you let Cornwall have him, I’ll kill … that … that …”

  He couldn’t go on. He brushed a handful of grasshoppers off his thigh and set his hand in their place. Rosie wouldn’t like it that he was shouting at God. He doubted she would call that praying. But it was the best he could do.

  If he was honest with himself, Seth had to admit he hated God. Hated him just the way he hated his own father. Maybe God had created the world, but he’d sure bungled up the rest of the job. He was never around when a man needed him. It was a lot easier for God to let people struggle against impossible odds than to step in and protect them. Take these vexatious grasshoppers for a perfect example.

  “God!” Seth shouted upward again. “If you let these bugs eat my crops, I’ll never talk to you again. You hear me? I’ll know you’re no better than my good-for-nothing papa. I’ll know you don’t care what becomes of me. You hear?”

  Seth grabbed a grasshopper that was wandering down the back of his collar and hurled it to the ground. Then he got up and brushed the squashed grasshoppers off the knees of his jeans. Old Nellie had decided to stand up again. Seth took her and Pete by the harness and led them toward the bridge. Ahead, the sun was just beginning to rise.

  “They’re eating up your scarf, Rosie,” Chipper said. He stood beside her outside the door of the soddy and held up the tattered scrap of cotton. Six grasshoppers clung to it, their tiny mouths working furiously at the thinly woven fabric.

  “They’re eating everything.”

  “What are we gonna do, Rosie?”

  “Pray. That’s what your papa said we should do. I’ve been praying ever since the first grasshopper hit me in the head last night. I’m not going to stop now.”

  “I reckon you might as well stop. God ain’t listening.”

  “A good father always listens to his children. And God always answers our prayers.”

  “I don’t think God’s gonna answer this prayer, Rosie. It’s too late. The hoppers are eating up most of Papa’s corn—an’ your potatoes, an’ the beans, an’ everything we gots.”

  Rosie knelt down amid the grasshoppers clustered around the soddy. “The thing you must always remember is this, Chipper: God always answers our prayers. Sometimes he says, ‘Yes, my child, I will do that for you because it fits in with my plan for the way I want the world to go.’ And sometimes he says, ‘You’ll have to wait awhile. I’m not ready to do that yet.’ And sometimes … sometimes, Chipper, our Father says, ‘No, that is not what I’m going to do, my beloved. I have a better plan for you, so please try to trust me through this difficult time.’”

  Chipper studied the fields beyond Rosie’s shoulder. His blue eyes were troubled, and the corners of his little mouth turned down. “Which way you think God’s going to answer us this time, Rosie?” he asked. “’Cause it sure looks to me like them grasshoppers have ate up everything Papa planted.”

  She turned and looked out over the stretch of land Seth had so carefully plowed and planted. Bare stalks covered with living, moving insects pointed upward like knobby fingers accusing God of betrayal. The willow tree by the creek was stripped bare. Nothing remained in the garden beside the kitchen but a few pale yellow stems. The grasshoppers had even eaten the pith out of the pumpkin vines.

  The pests had attacked the soddy, too. Rosie’s broom lay on the ground, chewed from handle to bristles. Holes riddled her storage baskets. Her cleaning rags were nothing but tatters. If not for the stream, she, Seth, and Chipper would have nothing to drink. Even the top of the well was filled with grasshoppers.

  The animals had suffered beyond belief. The cows refused to eat, and Rosie was concerned that their milk might dwindle to nothing. The mules stood forlornly in the barn, their brown eyes speaking of their misery. Stubby squeezed himself under the bed and wouldn’t come out.

  “Chipper, we are going to have to wait on the Lord,” she said softly. “Though I’ll admit I can’t imagine what he can do about this.”

  “He better think of something quick. ’Cause here comes Papa.”

  Rosie stood as Seth strode through the grasshoppers toward the soddy. His eyes red-rimmed, he grabbed Rosie’s hand and set a knobby, half-chewed potato into her palm. “They got into the root cellar,” he said. “That’s all I could find.”

  “I’ll make dinner,” she said. She put on the best smile she could come up with, but Seth shouldered past her into the soddy.

  Rosie and Chipper hauled water from the creek and built a fire using their cache of stored buffalo chips. She decided to make a big pot of potato soup—something that might warm their stomachs and clear their heads. But the moment she lifted the lid on the stew pot, fifteen grasshoppers jumped into the steaming water.

  Finally, she pushed the potato in among the buffalo chips and left it to bake. At least the grasshoppers wouldn’t be able to get through the coals to eat it.

  The grasshoppers stayed for nine days. They ate the cornstalks.

  They ate the wagon ropes. They ate the wooden milk bucket.

  They ate every leaf, bush, blade of grass, and weed in Seth’s one hundred sixty acres of homestead. They even ate up the old dress Rosie had worn from the orphanage to Kansas.

  And then one morning a wind blew in from the west. All the grasshoppers took wing. Within an hour they had gone—a great black cloud of buzzing, swarming pests that nearly blotted out the sun.

  Startled at the sudden silence, Rosie stepped out of the soddy to see what had happened. Stubby slinked out from under the bed and stood beside her. Chipper and Seth were walking up from the stream carrying a bucket of water between them. Rosie crossed her arms over her stomach and stared at the two of them, fighting tears. For nine days, they had lived from one moment to the next—fighting for survival with l
ittle time even to think.

  Now … now what?

  “Didja see that, Rosie?” Chipper asked. “The grasshoppers went away! They flew right straight over me an’ Papa. It was like black smoke—only real loud. I got scared, thinkin’ the hoppers couldn’t find anything left to eat and was gonna come after us next. But Papa said to hold on tight to his hand. So I did. Sure enough, they left us alone.”

  Chipper and his father set the water pail down in the yard beside Rosie. She picked a few grasshoppers out of the water and tossed them onto the ground. Then she looked up at Seth. Neither of them had slept much since the invasion. Instead, they had sat together on the bench just outside the soddy. Saying nothing, they had joined hands and waited. Waited through the long, swarming nights until the hot, swarming days began again.

  “Now whatcha gonna do, Papa?” Chipper asked. “What’s next?”

  Seth looked down at his son. Then he lifted his head and met Rosie’s eyes. “I’m ruined,” he said.

  “No.” She shook her head. “Please, Seth, don’t say that.”

  “Pack up.”

  “Seth, why? What are you saying?”

  “I’ll take you back to Kansas City.”

  “Kansas City! But I don’t want to go.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you want. It doesn’t matter what I want. I don’t have anything to offer. When you came out here, I promised you room and board in exchange for looking after Chipper and keeping house. Your bed’s half-eaten up. And God knows I don’t have anything but what I can shoot to feed you. You’d best go.”

  Rosie sank onto the stool beside the front door. In the distance she could see the O’Toole family filing over the bridge. Rolf Rustemeyer was coming from the other direction. No doubt they would all want to compare and assess the damage now that the hoppers had finally gone.

  “Lord, what does this mean?” she murmured, bending over and squeezing her eyes shut as Seth and Chipper went out to meet their neighbors. “Were the grasshoppers your sign of wrath against us, Father? Are you punishing me for coming out to the prairie without asking your permission? Is it my willfulness in not letting you choose my husband for me—for loving Seth so much? Was it something Seth did? Or Rolf? Or Jimmy? Why, Lord? Why did you allow the grasshoppers? And why are you sending me away now?”

  “Great ghosts, has she lost her mind?” Sheena asked Seth. “Did the pestilence send her over the brink?”

  Rosie looked up. “I’m praying, Sheena.”

  “She does it all the time,” Chipper piped in. “Out loud, too. She says God answers all our prayers. Sometimes yes, sometimes wait awhile, and sometimes no. But he always makes everything turn out good for the people who love him.”

  Sheena, Seth, and Jimmy all stared down at Rosie as though she had indeed lost her mind. She picked a grasshopper out of her pocket and gave a little shrug. “I do believe it,” she said. “The Bible says it.”

  “What good can God make of our troubles now?” Jimmy asked. “Sure, the lot of us are finished. Finished clean. It’s as bad as the potato famine in Ireland, so it is. Only this time I’ve my wee brablins and hardly a thing to feed any of them.”

  “No foot für eaten?” Rolf Rustemeyer asked.

  “No food,” Sheena said. “We’ve eaten the last of our salt pork. Do you have any food, Mr. Rustemeyer?”

  “Nein.” The German shook his head. “No foot.”

  “We gots oysters,” Chipper said. “Rosie gots ’em in the barn in her big tradin’ box.”

  Rosie glanced at Seth, and the look in his eyes made her heart begin to hammer. “Yes, we do have oysters. Now why didn’t I think of that before?”

  “What else is in there?” Seth asked.

  “Coffee. And canned brandied peaches.”

  “I’ve got pickles at our place,” Sheena added. “Shortening, too. They didn’t get at that.”

  “I have a jug of maple syrup,” Rosie went on. “And mackerels— big fat ones in cans. And a keg of lard.”

  “I haf tea,” Rolf said.

  “What with oysters and mackerel and canned brandied peaches, we will be a fancy lot, won’t we?” Sheena said. A grin tugged at the corners of her mouth. “At least we’ve something to get by on.”

  “Until what?” Seth asked. “We won’t be able to make it through a Kansas winter on a few oysters and some lard, Sheena. The crops are ruined. There won’t be a harvest. That means no winter stores. No produce to sell in Topeka. No grain to haul to LeBlanc’s mill. And no money to buy seed.”

  “We have a little money,” Rosie said. “The bridge tolls. Rolf took his already, but there’s forty-three dollars and seventy-five cents each for the Hunters and the O’Tooles.”

  Jimmy O’Toole’s face went from white to pink to bright red in the space of three seconds. Seth’s mouth dropped open. Sheena fanned herself with both hands.

  “Forty-three dollars, did you say?” she puffed.

  “I’m pretty sure of it. I counted it out for Mr. Rustemeyer right before the picnic.”

  “By all the goats in Kerry, my sweet lass, you’ve saved us!” Jimmy O’Toole cried. He grabbed Rosie’s hands and pulled her up from the bench. “You and that wobbly pontoon bridge have saved us!”

  “Forty-three dollars each?” Seth asked.

  “And seventy-five cents.” Rosie hugged herself tight, hoping against hope that the light in Seth’s eyes meant what she thought. She had done the right thing. She had helped him.

  “Rosie!” He threw his arms around her and swung her up into the air. “You crazy girl! Taking bridge tolls left and right. Trading for oysters and mackerel. Going on with it even when you knew I didn’t like it. You did it! You saved us!”

  He planted a big kiss right on her cheek. Rolf laughed and gave her a kiss on the other cheek. Then Jimmy O’Toole kissed her hand. Chipper kissed her elbow. Stubby started barking. Pretty soon the whole group was dancing around the yard, stepping on squashed grasshoppers and singing and shouting at the top of their lungs.

  “We’ll go to Topeka,” Seth said. “Rolf and I. There isn’t time to go all the way to Kansas City. We’ll bring back whatever we can lay our hands on to plant. If we’re lucky, we can all put out winter squash, bush beans, cabbages, and even tomatoes.”

  “Will you buy carrots?” Sheena asked. “We can still plant those. It’s only mid-July.”

  “Carrots. Collards, too. They can take cold as low as fifteen degrees. We can put out mustard greens. It’s too late for onions and potatoes, but we might get turnips.”

  “I’ll stay here with the women and brablins,” Jimmy said. “Every day I’ll plow under the ruined crops and get the fields ready. I’ll plow two or three acres for me one day. Three for Seth the day after that. And then three for Rustemeyer.”

  “Chipper, you’ll be coming with me.” Seth took his son’s hand. “We’ll leave right away. The sooner we get going, the sooner we can come back and start planting again. Rustemeyer, go get your things. Rosie, it’s time to clean out the savings.”

  The gathering dispersed with far more enthusiasm than when they had assembled. But Rosie couldn’t prevent the wave of despair that swept over her as she watched Seth and Chipper head into the soddy. Yes, her bridge tolls had saved them. Yes, she had done her part to help.

  But what would it all mean? Just moments ago, Seth had been ready to send her straight back to Kansas City. Were his feelings for her so shallow? Did his affection depend on healthy crops and lots of money? Did he still see her as merely someone to look after Chipper and keep the house?

  Brushing aside fragments of dead grasshoppers, Rosie dug her fingers into the corner of the barn floor where she kept the bridge tolls hidden. In moments she had unearthed the heavy crock in which she stored the precious cache. Silver dollars gleamed in the bar of sunlight that filtered between the barn siding.

  “Father,” she whispered as she touched the cold metal. “I may have saved Seth’s homestead with these dollars. But I haven’t made him l
ove me. We haven’t become a family. We’re still just three misfits. Four, if you count Stubby. I don’t have a home to call my own. Chipper doesn’t have a mother to care for him. Seth doesn’t have a wife to share his love. Nothing seems settled between us. I promised Chipper you would turn all our troubles into good. But, Father, oh Father—”

  “Still praying, Rosie?” Seth was standing at the far end of the barn, a chewed-up leather bridle in his hands. “I thought you might have given up on that by this time.”

  She stood beside the heavy crock. “No, Seth. I still believe.”

  “Believe what?” He walked toward her. “I asked God to get rid of those grasshoppers—”

  “And he did.”

  “Nine days too late.”

  “Our Father never promised to do his work by our timetable.”

  “Your Father sure has a funny way of showing his love. You’d think if he cared the least bit about you, he wouldn’t have let those grasshoppers head in this direction.”

  “Our Father never promised a life free of trouble.”

  “Then what’s the use of praying?”

  Rosie bent down and picked up a silver dollar. “Praying is talking to God. Praying is how you let him know you love him. It’s how you know you can trust him.”

  “Trust him for what?”

  “Trust him to be with you—through grasshoppers and whatever else life on this earth brings us.”

  “You really think God is out here on the prairie with you? How can you go on believing that?”

  “Because praying is also listening. And when I stop to listen, I can hear God’s voice speaking to my heart. I feel his comforting presence. He’s my rock. My redeemer. He has saved me from a fate much worse than grasshoppers, Seth. It’s the least I can do to trust him with my earthly troubles.”

  She tossed the coin to him. “I wanted to help you,” she went on. “I thought this would do it. But now I understand it takes much more than forty-three dollars and seventy-five cents to save a man. It takes faith. It takes hope.”