Love Finds You in Nazareth, Pennsylvania

by Melanie Dobson

  Her stomach growled.

  “Very much hungry,” she replied for all of them. “I would eat just about anything.”

  “Good,” he said, directing them toward the next room. When she walked through, she saw wooden trenchers filled with corn, bread, and some sort of meat.

  “What is that?” she asked Samuel.

  “Boiled eel.”

  She gasped, and when she turned to meet Elias’s eyes, he shook his head ever so slightly at her insolence. She patted her hands on her wet bonnet. She was soaked, exhausted, and terribly hungry. How was she supposed to eat eel?

  But their hosts didn’t give them another option.

  Her dress soggy, her body sore, Catharine sat down and began to eat the boiled meat with her fellow messengers and their new Indian friends.

  Chapter Ten

  Susanna sang one of Lily’s songs as she skipped along the pathway to the Nursery. The lyrics challenged her, inspired her even, and threaded through each new song was the beautiful language of the Delaware. More important than the songs, her budding friendship with Lily helped soothe her loneliness. Even with the women living around her, she still often felt like she was alone, but not with Lily. The young woman was filled with song and life, singing as she carried her son in a woven cradleboard that rested on her back.

  All morning Susanna and Lily hummed their songs as they dipped wicks into melted beef tallow to make candles. The long summer days were being replaced by long nights, and Susanna wondered if the winter gray would enshroud them like it had in Europe. She didn’t yet know if she would be able to roam outside during the winter snow or if it would be too cold.

  And when the snow began to melt, would her husband return?

  Ahead of her was the Nursery, the stone as gray as Saxony’s winter sky. She’d told Annabel about her promise to visit Timothy, and the laboress had finally allowed her to go to the Nursery before the supper meal.

  This afternoon the children crowded around the Negro governess, and Susanna watched her toss a canvas ball into the air. The children raced after it until one of them brought it back. She turned and tossed it toward Susanna this time. Susanna reached up and caught the ball, and the children gathered around her.

  Then she saw little Timothy, smiling up at her.

  She reached down and picked him up. “I told you I would come for a visit.”

  She handed Timothy the ball and he tried to throw it, but it dropped just a few feet away. The children didn’t seem to care. A little girl picked it up and ran toward their chaperone.

  “Where’s my papa?” Timothy asked.

  “I believe he’s back in Bethlehem, with your mother.”

  “Do you want to play with me?”

  She set him on the ground and rubbed her hands together, looking back at the governess, but the woman was watching the other children. It had been a very long time since she’d played with a child, back when she was still a child herself. She’d never had any siblings, so as she grew older, there was never a brother or sister for her to play with—but perhaps she could remember how.

  “Can you please play?” Timothy asked, his face beginning to fall from worry. He tugged on her sleeve.

  “I would love to play with you,” she said. “But you will have to teach me how.”

  He took her hand, guiding her away from the other children to a small hut made of sticks and leaves.

  “Let’s play…” He paused and then let out a shriek. “Indians!”

  She stepped back. “I don’t know how to play Indians.”

  “It’s easy.” He pounded his chest and twirled. “You run, and I’ll chase you.”

  “Indians don’t chase you.”

  He stopped the pounding and looked up at her like his small head held all the wisdom in the world. “Sister Greta says they will if we go outside at night.”

  She glanced behind him, at the windows of the Nursery. “Who is Sister Greta?”

  “She makes our food.”

  “I’ve met several Indians, Timothy, and not one of them chased me.”

  His eyes were weighted with concern. “You best be careful. Greta says—”

  She stopped him, about to point out the reddish and yellow shades of skin in the children around them, but perhaps Timothy didn’t know his friends were Indians. “Why don’t we play another game?” she asked instead.

  He thought for a moment and then took off running. “Come and find me!” he shouted before he hid behind a tree.

  Susanna smiled. She may not be the best playmate, but she remembered well the game of hiding and seeking. She looked in the hut and behind one of the trees and called out his name as she walked through the grass, searching the trees.

  He laughed when she found him and then told her to hide. It took only seconds to find her.

  “Timothy,” one of the children yelled, “we’re gonna race.”

  Susanna waved him toward their game, and after a quick hug, he rushed toward his playmates. His family.

  The dark-skinned chaperone shouted for them to start, and the entire horde took off around the building. Then the woman walked toward Susanna and introduced herself as Mariana, one of five Nursery workers. Several of Mariana’s teeth were missing, and her arms were so thin that they resembled two broomsticks. But there was an intrinsic beauty about her, like gold that had been refined by fire.

  “How did you come to Nazareth?’ Mariana asked.

  “My husband and I were sent here from Europe as messengers to the Indians,” Susanna explained. “Are you from the Colonies?”

  Mariana shook her head. “I was born on a plantation in St. Thomas.”

  “You are far from home as well.”

  Mariana’s gaze traveled to the children as they rounded the side of the house. “Not so far anymore.”

  Maybe one day this would feel like home to her as well.

  “How long have you been in Nazareth?”

  “Six years now,” Mariana said. “One of the messengers bought me in St. Thomas and brought me here.”

  Susanna searched the woman’s face. “You are a servant?”

  “I was purchased as a slave, but here I serve the Savior alongside the rest of the women.”

  Susanna thought for a moment about her words. She’d met indentured servants in Saxony, some who had run away from their masters, but she’d never met a slave before. “Did you decide to follow our Savior in St. Thomas?”

  She nodded her head slowly. “I made the decision to follow Him there, but my master despised the Christian faith because he wanted to be our only master. He punished my sister for her choice, and she wasn’t strong enough to survive his strong hand.”

  Susanna shuddered. She’d heard stories of the Brethren messengers in St. Thomas and the other islands, about the thousands of slaves who’d come to know Christ as these men and women lived among them. Some of the messengers had been persecuted, horribly so, but they never stopped sharing the love of Christ.

  The children shouted as they came near.

  “What happened to you?” Susanna asked.

  “After my sister died, one of the missionaries arranged for my purchase. I think my master was glad to be rid of me.”

  “Do you miss your island?”

  Mariana leaned back against a tree. “The plantation was my prison. Here I live and work among all the other women as a sister instead of as a slave.”

  Timothy and a few of his friends gathered around the women and began circling them as they sang. Susanna wasn’t sure what to do, but Mariana began clapping, so she joined in the clapping until the children raced away again.

  “They like you,” Mariana said.

  She watched them. “Really?”

  “Do you like working with children?” Mariana asked.

  She turned toward the woman. “I don’t know.”

  “Perhaps one day you can join us here in the Nursery.”

  Susanna thought for a moment of the children’s games and smiles. She would neve
r be lonely, surrounded by all of them. “I’m supposed to be going on a mission to the Indians soon, but if I weren’t going…if I don’t go, I would enjoy working with the children.”

  When the sun began to fade behind the trees, another woman opened the door of the house and the ringing of a bell echoed across the yard. Timothy hugged her leg and then rushed toward the house with the other children. Mariana took a step toward the door and then turned. “Please come visit us again.”

  “I will.” Susanna was still standing in the yard when the door shut. Quiet drifted over the yard, replacing the children’s lively shouts and laughter. Loneliness settled over her again, stifling her like a woolen cloak on this cool autumn day.

  Turning, Susanna walked back toward the hill where she lived, but she didn’t hurry home. Instead, she savored her minutes in the fresh evening air and the view of fields surrounding their tiny town. Trees stood like fortress walls beyond the field and beyond that, though she couldn’t see them, were the blue mountains where Lily once lived, the wilderness where her husband now traveled.

  No one was walking the path with her, but still she felt a strange sensation, as if someone were watching her. She scanned the trees and the earth in front of her, but she didn’t see anyone in the golden forest or the fields or on the pathway. She hadn’t seen a bear or a wolf since their arrival, but Lily had told her stories of those animals. And told her she wouldn’t want to meet one alone.

  She picked up her skirt and hurried along the dirt path, watching the fields and trees for an animal. And then she saw something looking back at her.

  At first she thought it was an animal, but a man stepped out of the forest…followed by a second man. She almost screamed, but she swallowed the sound. No one would hear her yell except the men, and she guessed that they wouldn’t respond well to hysterics.

  She stopped on the pathway, watching them as they stared back at her. Both men were bare-chested and wore their black hair long over their shoulders. One of the men had something painted across his chest, but she didn’t stare at his skin or at the tomahawks at their sides.

  If she ran, would these men chase her, like Timothy in his games? Perhaps even worse, what would they do if she didn’t run?

  The men didn’t approach her nor did they retreat into the den of trees. She lifted her hand in a wave, but neither man responded to her gesture of friendliness. With her eyes on them, she began walking along the path again, her pace steady. She wouldn’t run, but she also wouldn’t stand still like an animal they’d down with a musket or arrow.

  As she hurried away, she wondered exactly what Sister Greta knew about the Indians in the woods.

  Chapter Eleven

  A great fire glowed in the middle of Tanochtahe, an Indian village fifty miles north of Gnadenhutten. The beat of drums echoed through the forest as Christian watched the Indians leap and dance around the blaze. The unearthly sounds of their yells sent tremors through his skin. Dogs barked beyond the fire, and the frenzy of the noise and drumbeats decimated the peace of the wilderness.

  Those who weren’t dancing filled hollowed gourds from a large oak barrel on the back of a wagon. He could only guess what evils the barrel contained. The Indians in Gnadenhutten had left this life to follow Christ with their minds and their bodies, but here in this village, Indians seemed to worship the god of darkness with their entire beings.

  Another woman shrieked, and as the men drew closer, Christian heard the shaking of rattles on their legs, an erratic pulse against the drums. He was afraid, but he didn’t fear the enchanting power of their wickedness. What he feared most, as the first missionaries to this village, was that they would fail to communicate the power of their Savior, of a God so great that He could remove this darkness from their hearts. He and Joseph had to make them understand.

  Samuel motioned Christian and Joseph ahead, toward the frenzy of both body and soul, and when they walked into the center of the village, the drums stopped playing. An eerie silence replaced the yelling and drums until a fire log crashed into the inferno and erupted in a cloud of sparks flashing in the night. The men wore breechcloths around their hips, and the stiff hair that rose from their headdresses were dyed bright reds, blues, and yellows. Most of the women wore dresses made of buckskin and headbands decorated with beads and feathers, though some of them were as bare-chested as the men.

  Christian lowered his eyes as Samuel guided them past the fire. He felt a bit like what the biblical David must have felt as a shepherd boy, being mocked by Goliath and the other giants. These warriors didn’t mock Joseph and him with their words—or if they did, he couldn’t understand what they were saying. But when Christian looked back up, he saw the Indians taunting the messengers with their eyes.

  He was grateful that Elias had remained in Gnadenhutten with the women tonight. If these men and their drink turned angry, only the warriors from on high could fight them off.

  Samuel motioned them into a large dwelling covered with bark and dried mud, and the moment they disappeared through the open door, the drums in the village center resumed their erratic beat. Hanging lanterns lit the smoky room as eight Indians sat in a circle, passing around a pipe. It was as if they didn’t hear the hell being raised outside their door.

  On a low bench was an old man, his weathered skin streaked with wrinkles. Even though his skin was tinted a tan color, he was dressed like an English gentleman, with linen stockings, breeches, and an embroidered waistcoat over his shirt. His dark hair was pulled back with a ribbon, and when Samuel spoke to him, there was no smile in his brusque reply. Christian couldn’t tell if he was angered or honored by the presence of white men.

  Samuel looked back at Christian and Joseph. “Chief Langoma requests that you sit.”

  Christian sat cross-legged on one of the rugs, and Joseph sat beside him as the chief continued speaking.

  Samuel interpreted his words. “He wants to know why you have interrupted their celebration.”

  Christian leaned forward, speaking to the chief as if the man could understand his words. “We come to offer something that will give you much more joy than drinking and dancing.”

  Samuel spoke the words in their language, and then sadness laced the foreign words of the chief’s reply.

  “Many white traders come visit us.” Samuel interpreted. “They want us to buy from them. They want us to give them our ancestors’ land. We do not want to buy. We do not want to sell. We don’t want to give up our drink or our dance.”

  Christian’s gaze wandered toward the open doorway, at the dozens of Indians lined up to drink out of the barrel. He wondered whether it was the French or the British who had given them the drink and at what cost.

  “We are not here to buy or sell any supplies,” Christian replied. “We come to share the love of God and His Son with you.”

  The chief took a long draw from the pipe and slowly exhaled the smoke as he seemed to consider the words.

  How many white men had come through their village, making promises and gifting them with rum? Both the French and the British were trying to win over the native people so they could rule the Colonies; sometimes they won through bribery and promises, and sometimes they tried to conquer them through force. Christian had no use for the political maneuvering and uprising. Christ could bring them all together, no matter where they had been born or what language they spoke or even what their ancestors believed.

  When Chief Langoma didn’t reply, Christian spoke again. “We are not traders or soldiers. We come to you only as servants of God.”

  Joseph reached into the pouch at his side and removed a piece of tobacco, one of the many small gifts they’d transported from Nazareth. He set the tobacco in the center of their circle, and at a nod from the chief, the Indians divided it into small pieces. One of the Indians broke his piece into flakes for the pipe.

  “We already have gods.” Samuel translated the chief’s words. “They are many and they are powerful.”

  The drumbeats
outside increased along with the wild shouts. The drink must have been powerful to fuel this kind of frenzy. Christian feared what would happen when the fuel was gone.

  “Are any of your gods powerful enough to forgive sin?”

  Samuel translated the words, and the chief rested back on the bench, watching Christian.

  “We want to come back and visit you and your people when they are sober.” Christian leaned forward. “To tell the stories of our great God and of His power.”

  A young woman came into the room and set a bowl in front of each man. In each bowl was a white powder, and the woman spooned hot water from a kettle over each dish.

  “Cittamum,” she said simply and backed away to another room.

  Christian glanced at Samuel.

  “It is roasted corn,” Samuel said. “They pound it into a flour.”

  “Cittamum.” Christian repeated the woman’s name for the mixture and then scraped the bowl with his fingers like the other men, licking the paste from it. The mixture tasted more like ashes than corn.

  The chief nodded his approval.

  “I want to tell you about our God and the Son He lost.”

  The chief paused for a moment. “I don’t know your god, but I know what it is like to lose a child.”

  Christian opened his pack and retrieved a belt of polished shells.

  “It is our covenant to you,” Christian said as he held out the wampum. “We are here to help, not to hurt you. We would like to return to tell you more about this Son.”

  All the men began to speak, and as the minutes passed, Samuel didn’t bother to translate what seemed to be an argument. As they debated, Christian prayed that they would accept the offer, that they could return to this clan when the Indians were sober and their ears ready to listen.

  The chief motioned for the men around him to quiet. He eyed each of the white strangers before he reached for the wampum. Christian held his breath as he began to speak.

  “We will accept your covenant of peace,” Chief Langoma said, surprising Christian with his ability to speak English, and then he motioned toward the door. The Indians were jumping around the fire and wailing like they were mourning a great loss. “If you return after the drink is gone, we will listen to your story.”