Love Finds You in Nazareth, Pennsylvania

by Melanie Dobson

  “I don’t want to turn them away,” Edward said. “But I don’t know how we will feed our current residents until harvest. How am I supposed to feed four additional people?”

  “Even if they don’t live with us, they can work among us,” Susanna suggested. “The man could help us hunt for food.”

  Edward drummed his hands on the desk. “I can’t care for another house.”

  Christian cleared his throat, and they both looked at him. “With your permission, I will oversee the Disciple’s House.”

  “If the Count arrives—” Edward continued, but Christian interrupted him.

  “Then the Count can decide what to do with the refugees.”

  Edward looked back at the window, seeming to weigh his options. “Elder Graff will want to send this request before the lot.”

  Susanna stepped back toward the door, her voice confident. “The lot won’t turn these people away.”

  Chapter Twenty

  May 1755

  The Keatons were the first refugee family to arrive in Nazareth, but as the hostile Indians ravaged farms across Pennsylvania during the months of April and May, more refugees flooded into Nazareth. With no news of Count Zinzendorf’s arrival, forty guests took up residence in his house. The children, with their singing, infused life into the stoic manor, and they played along the plaza as their parents helped harvest the wheat and tend the gardens.

  Summer was approaching, and most days, Susanna was able to get outside for fresh air even if it was only the brief walk to the Disciple’s House. She and her sisters spent much of their days singing as they weaved blankets for the beds and stitched clothing for people who had fled without their belongings. Ruby Keaton, who’d lost her baby to the Indians, busied herself by overseeing the manor’s kitchen, and the other refugee women helped her cook.

  So many people of different faiths and different languages had settled in Nazareth, and they were all learning to live together as a community. Susanna knew that God wanted them to care for these wounded people, and to her delight and the amazement of all the Nazareth residents, God multiplied their limited supplies of grain as well as their game, several of the men returning almost daily with deer and even bear for them to eat. And their Quaker friends in Philadelphia had sent them extra supplies as well.

  As the weeks passed in a feverish pace of work and worship, she and Catharine slowly and sometimes painfully mended the friendship they’d shared for three years. The wound was still raw to Susanna, but she refused to wallow in her bitterness. Living so close to each other could only breed bitterness or healing, and she chose healing.

  She only saw Christian during their daily times of intercession, when he wasn’t out hunting or harvesting with the other men. With all the activity in the community, Annabel hadn’t mentioned the scheduled quiet times for married couples—she hadn’t even given her weekly lessons on marriage.

  While part of her wanted to see her husband, Susanna wasn’t ready to speak to him yet. She wanted to forgive him for his deception, but even when she decided to offer him this forgiveness, she wasn’t certain she could ever trust him again. He hadn’t crossed the plaza, demanding to see her again, not since the day the Keaton family arrived. He might be kind to her, but she could never live up to his ideal for a wife, not in comparison to Catharine. Except for the late nights when she couldn’t sleep in the dormitory and the worship times when she sat across the aisle from him, she refused herself the pleasure and torment of thinking about him.

  Catharine stitched on her bed most days, waiting for her baby arrive. When Susanna was there, Catharine talked incessantly about going back to London, but even as her stomach grew larger, she rarely mentioned Elias’s name. It made Susanna sad for what the deception had cost all of them.

  This afternoon Susanna wasn’t inside the dormitory. It was Sabbath, and after worship she and Lily tramped their well-worn path to the Nursery to visit Timothy and Nathan. Wild roses grew on both sides of the path, perfuming the air as they walked, and sunshine warmed their faces and their song.

  Lily enjoyed the outdoors as much as Susanna did, except Lily was more comfortable in this world where she had been born. The wilderness of this New World still intimidated Susanna at times as she thought about the snakes and bears and other unknowns around them, but Lily never seemed to worry about the danger. She embraced the outdoors with the same affection that she embraced her son.

  Susanna hadn’t seen the Indians watching them since last fall, but several of the Brethren had seen them lingering near Nazareth. With Lily alongside her, she wasn’t afraid to travel to the Nursery. They sang together as they walked along the pathway, a song about three children who paraded behind their mother and mimicked her every move. The lyrics were silly—children spilling their mother’s cittamum and burning the pots of tea—but in the silliness of the words, Susanna was learning much of the Delaware language and about the people.

  The Nursery in sight, Lily’s song stopped abruptly as she scanned the trees in the distance. Susanna watched the trees also. She saw a blur of color, but it disappeared so quickly that she thought it was a ray of light shimmering among the trees.

  Lily took her hand and pulled her toward the Nursery.

  “What is it?” Susanna asked.

  “I thought I saw something.”

  Susanna looked back toward the trees. “What did you see?”

  Lily shook her head, and Susanna recognized the forced lightness in her tone. “Some sort of animal.”

  Susanna started singing again, to frighten the animal as Lily had taught, but Lily hushed her.

  “Not this time,” she whispered, before motioning for her to hurry.

  When Timothy saw them, he shouted their names as he ran to greet them. Susanna spent the afternoon playing outside with Timothy and the other children while Lily played with and rocked her child. When Mariana rang the dinner bell, Timothy hugged Susanna and rushed back inside with the others. Susanna stepped into the house, searching for Lily, and she found her friend in a storage room. Mariana waited nearby in the hallway to take the baby, but Lily wasn’t ready to give him back yet.

  “The sun will be setting soon,” she told Lily—but instead of responding to her, Lily whispered something into her son’s ear.

  It always grieved Lily to leave her son at the Nursery, but over the months her sadness had seemed to lessen. It was almost as if armor had grown over her heart to protect her from the pain, an armor that would be hard to penetrate when she wanted to love another.

  Today though, the grief had returned. Tears fell down Lily’s face as she clutched her son to her chest, and Susanna worried for what was happening inside her friend.

  “One more minute,” Lily begged, and Susanna nodded her head. They knew the path back to the Sisters House well. They could walk in the darkness if need be.

  Lily turned her back, and Susanna joined Mariana outside the door. “Perhaps it is too hard for her to continue visiting him,” Mariana said.

  “Oh no,” Susanna said with a shake of her head. “She lives for these visits.”

  “Most of these children never get to see their parents.”

  Susanna couldn’t sense sadness in the governess’s words, only a statement of fact. Mariana’s mother had been sold when she was a young girl, so she didn’t know what it was like to be raised by a loving father and mother. Susanna knew the security and love of a parent…and Lily seemed to know as well.

  Susanna couldn’t imagine Lily giving up the privilege of seeing her son.

  When Lily finally emerged from the small room, she handed her baby to Mariana. Instead of the playfulness that usually danced in her eyes, a curtain seemed to have dropped, ending the dance. There were no more tears or even kisses for her child as she turned and walked out the door.

  “They are good to him, aren’t they?” Lily asked as they began their walk home.

  Susanna nodded. “Yes, they are.”

  “I love him more than anything.”r />
  “You are a good mother to him.”

  “I’m not a good mother,” Lily murmured as she scanned the trees.

  They hiked quickly toward the falling sun, and before they reached the Sisters House, Lily began to sing in her language, a soulful song about God protecting her son. Susanna had heard her sing the song before, usually when they were with Nathan, but today her words sounded more like a prayer.

  “If something happens to me,” Lily whispered, “promise me that you will care for Nathan.”

  She slowed her pace before they walked up the steps to their house. “Is something wrong?”

  “I need to know—I need you to teach Nathan my language and tell him stories about me. I need to know that you will protect him from those who wish him harm.”

  Susanna studied her friend’s face, and in her eyes she saw the craving for reassurance.

  “I will take care of him.”

  The front door of the Sisters House banged open.

  “What are you two doing?” Annabel demanded.

  Susanna glanced at Lily. “We’ve been at the Nursery.”

  “Hurry.” Annabel waved them toward the door. “Catharine is about to give birth.”

  Elias paced back and forth outside the Sisters House like a panther waiting to pounce. He didn’t invite Christian to join him in the pacing, but when Christian sat on the porch, he didn’t send him away either. So Christian remained on the porch, not sure of what to do for the man who had once been a good friend. Perhaps if he talked to Elias, he could offer some sort of comfort like Susanna had with their refugee friends. Or at least he could get him to sit down before he collapsed. The rapid back and forth motion was maddening.

  But like Susanna, Elias remained angry with him. Any comfort Christian tried to offer, he was certain, would be rebuffed—so he remained on the porch, drumming his hands on the steps.

  God had scoured his mind over the past two months along with his heart, cleansing the impurities and the yearnings that once plagued him. He still dreamed about Catharine on occasion, but the dreams that once intrigued him now angered him instead. He couldn’t tell Elias this, of course, but he was grateful for the cleansing, no matter how painful.

  A scream bellowed from the house behind him, and Elias stopped his pacing and stared up at the windows.

  “That’s normal,” Christian said. He tried to sound reassuring, although he had no idea what was normal in childbirth.

  Elias stepped toward him, his gaze locked on the upper windows. “I should be in there with her.”

  “Annabel wouldn’t let you near her room.”

  Elias hesitated and then sat on the step below Christian. “I should have been with her long before today.”

  Christian folded his hands together, weighing his words before he spoke. “Why didn’t you reconcile with her?”

  Elias looked up at him. “I was so upset at her—at both of you. I didn’t want to be near her.”

  “Catharine loves you, Elias. Not me.”

  “You don’t know that—”

  “Everyone knows it except you.”

  Elias shook his head. “She loved you long before she even met me.”

  “I don’t know that she ever loved me,” Christian replied slowly. “I wanted to think that she cared about me, but that doesn’t mean that she did. She wanted to marry you instead of me.”

  “But you went to the lot before I did.”

  “Yes, but if the lot concurred with my choice, Catharine was planning to turn me down.”

  Elias’s head snapped up so fast that Christian wondered if the man had injured his neck. “She wasn’t going to marry you?”

  “Didn’t she tell you that?”

  Elias shook his head. “For a long time after the night I saw you, I didn’t speak to her at all, and when we finally spoke, I never bothered to ask her exactly what happened.”

  “You should ask her, Elias. She hasn’t done anything wrong.”

  Another scream thundered down on them, followed by a high-pitched shriek.

  Elias’s voice was low as he watched the window. “I thought she still loved you.”

  “She loves you, my friend. No one else.”

  His head dropped to his hands. “I’ve been so stupid.”

  Minutes later, Susanna opened the front door and peeked out at the men.

  “You have a beautiful little girl waiting for you upstairs, Elias.”

  “I do?”

  “She has your eyes.”

  A slow smile crept up his face. “Is Catharine all right?”

  “As well as can be expected,” she replied and then waved him toward the door. “They both want to see you.”

  Christian gave a light push on the man’s shoulders. “Go.”

  Elias bounded up the stairs and in the door, but Susanna lingered for another moment. “Is Elias speaking to you again?” she asked.

  “God is a worker of miracles.”

  “Indeed,” she said softly. “And a healer of wounded hearts.”

  She closed the door, leaving him alone to wonder at her words as the bell rang overhead to announce the birth of Elias and Catharine’s daughter.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  November 1755

  Even though she was a tiny creature, Juliana Catharine Schmidt was more vocal than her mother. Her lungs blared like the trumpets at daybreak, and when she wasn’t happy, the octaves she reached were monumental.

  Some nights, though, even as Juliana’s crying woke almost every sister in the house, Catharine didn’t seem to hear her daughter. Nights like tonight, Susanna had to retrieve Juliana from the wooden crib that Elias had carved for her and cradle the baby in her arms.

  Susanna swung Juliana gently, trying to calm her. She didn’t mind holding the baby during the dark hours, but her attempt at soothing words rarely comforted Juliana’s cries. The girl wanted her mother’s voice and the milk from her breast.

  Susanna looked down at Catharine, huddled in a ball on her narrow bed, and wondered if she was ignoring the cries or if she was truly asleep. Elias had been a doting papa over the past five months—visiting whenever Annabel would allow him—and most days, Catharine cared well for Juliana. But during the nights, when Elias wasn’t around, it seemed that Catharine often forgot she was a mother.

  The other sisters were aggravated with Catharine’s lack of care for Juliana during the night, especially when Catharine was allowed times of rest during the daylight hours. The other sisters had to work throughout the day, no matter how many hours little Juliana kept them awake.

  Annabel slept in her office on the first floor of the building, but even she had been awakened at times by Juliana’s cries. Annabel had agreed to set up a mattress for Catharine in the spinning room so that she and Juliana could sleep there during the night, but this arrangement worried Susanna even more than the waking of the sisters. What if, like tonight, Catharine didn’t wake to feed her daughter? What would happen to Juliana?

  “Catharine,” Susanna whispered, nudging her friend’s back with her toes.

  When Catharine didn’t respond, Susanna shifted Juliana into her other arm as the baby alternated her wailing with attempts to suckle Susanna. She shoved Catharine with her foot, and her friend slowly rolled over.

  “Can’t you hold her?” Catharine moaned.

  “She needs to eat.”

  Susanna bounced Juliana, singing one of Lily’s songs to her as Catharine buried herself under the covers, but the baby’s crying increased. If Catharine wasn’t going to feed her baby, Susanna needed to find something to soothe the pains in Juliana’s stomach.

  Perhaps she could put some maple syrup on Juliana’s tongue, just until Catharine was ready to feed her.

  With Juliana in her arms, Susanna rushed to Lily’s bed for help, but when she reached it, she saw that Lily was no longer under her covers. A shadow of worry crossed over her, but the baby’s cries chased away her concern. She couldn’t wait until Lily returned from wherever i
t was she escaped to at night.

  “Rebecca,” she whispered to the woman who slept next to Lily.

  “You don’t have to whisper,” Rebecca said as she sat up. “Everyone is awake except that baby’s mama.”

  Susanna shifted Juliana again to her other arm. “Will you help me get her down to the kitchen?”

  Rebecca wrapped her cloak around her nightdress, and they retreated to the hallway. After lighting a candle, Rebecca escorted her down to the basement.

  “The syrup’s on the left, top shelf,” Susanna instructed from the doorway of the pantry. “Toward the back.”

  Rebecca stepped on a stool to retrieve the jug of maple syrup and brought it to Susanna. Susanna dipped her finger into the brown sweetness and then slid it into Juliana’s mouth. The baby’s crying stopped immediately, sucking Susanna’s finger until it was clean. Then Juliana’s mouth puckered again.

  Rebecca pushed the jug toward her. “Give her some more.”

  Susanna dipped her finger again and again until Juliana’s cries faded into sleep. Susanna turned and leaned her back against the table.

  Rebecca handed Susanna a spoon as she sat down beside her. “You can’t keep rescuing her.”

  They both dipped spoons into the maple syrup, something neither of them had tasted until they moved to Pennsylvania. Annabel would be furious if she found them hovered over this jug, but if the syrup soothed Juliana, perhaps it would soothe her caregivers as well.

  “I’m not rescuing Catharine,” she insisted. “I’m rescuing Juliana.”

  “Catharine needs to care for her baby.”

  “It’s only a season,” she replied. “In time she’ll be ready to care for Juliana.”

  “I don’t know if she will. I don’t think it’s the same darkness that some of the other new mothers experience. It seems like she expects someone else to care for her child.”

  Susanna took another spoonful of maple syrup, a small one, and the sweetness calmed her. If she weren’t careful, she could eat their entire stash.