A Wedding Quilt for Ella (Little Valley 1)

by Jerry S. Eicher

  Dora nodded and diligently began to scrape the dishes into the scrap bucket before handing them to Ella to wash.

  When the last dish was finally scraped, Dora took the pail outside to dump. She took no light along. They all knew the way by heart, and with the faint glow from the kitchen door, the path was easy to follow.

  A few minutes after Dora had let the screen door slam, a loud shriek pierced the night air. Ella caught her breath and raced for the kitchen door. What now? Did some awful creature assault Dora? Is there a robber man in the yard? Did he come to assault them when none of the men are home?

  “Oh, no!” Clara said, following close behind her.

  The two looked at each other, pale faces in the light of the kerosene lamp, and then they crept slowly toward the screen door. Ruth stood stock-still, frozen by the sink.

  Dora’s voice reached them as the two made their way cautiously to the door. “Don’t come out here!” Dora yelled, her voice sounding muffled. Loud sniffles and coughs followed.

  “Why not?” Ella asked from the doorway.

  Dora yelled again. Her voice sounded more angry now rather than anything else. “Of all the stupid, hideous, awful things to do! And on a night like this! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!”

  A wave of putrid smell rolled up the porch, and Ella gagged.

  “A skunk,” Clara said with a howl. “Where did she find a skunk?”

  “I threw the slop on it!” Dora sputtered as loud as she could.

  “Now I’ve heard everything,” Ella said. “Did it get you?”

  “How would I know?” Dora hollered with fury “You want to come out and see?”

  “I don’t think so,” Clara said. “I’m stayin’ inside.”

  “Someone has to help her,” Ella said, unable to keep the laughter out of her voice.

  “It’s not funny!” Dora said, fairly bellowing.

  “So what do you need?” Ella asked.

  “How ’bout a tub of hot water? That would be a start.”

  “Out there? How are we supposed to get it outside? It stinks all over in here.”

  “How do you think it smells out here?”

  “I can’t imagine,” Clara said. “Don’t want to find out either.”

  “Get some water heated,” Ella said. “She’ll need a wash.”

  “That’ll take a while,” Clara said, hesitating.

  “Well, she can’t clean up in cold water.”

  Clara went to add wood to the fire while Ella ventured outside. Dora stood on the edge of the garden where the kitchen light reached. Farther into the garden, the darkness was deep and the smell was awful.

  “So did it get you?” Ella asked, struggling to breathe.

  “Get a flashlight so we have some light. Maybe I can tell then.”

  “Clara’s heating water for you. We’ll bring it to the tub in the basement.”

  “I can’t go in there with this much smell on me.”

  “Maybe the skunk didn’t hit you fully. If it didn’t, you could leave your dress outside.”

  “Get the flashlight, then, and another dress and a blanket. I have to be takin’ this dress off as quick as I can.”

  Ella left, got the items Dora wanted, and returned. The flashlight revealed no wetness on Dora’s dress.

  “Let’s move away from this spot,” Ella said, and when they did the smell decreased.

  “I guess it did miss me,” Dora said, her voice low and disgusted.

  Ella couldn’t keep from laughing.

  “So what do we do now?” Dora asked, coughing loudly.

  “Come to the basement steps and take your dress off there. You can go inside then. The smell won’t stay in the house without the dress.”

  “That’s what you think. What about on me?”

  “We’ll worry about that later. There’s got to be some way of gettin’ it off.”

  At the concrete steps, Dora got ready to remove her dress. “Turn out the light,” she said.

  “The neighbors have seen girls in their underclothes before.” Ella laughed in spite of the evening.

  “They haven’t seen me,” Dora retorted.

  Ella handed Dora the flashlight, and she shined the light ahead of herself.

  “Go on, now,” Ella said. “I’ll bring you a dress and a blanket.”

  “Bring a complete change,” Dora said. “I smell all the way through.”

  Dora carefully found her way down the steps, her flashlight winked on only at intervals. Ella got a stick to pick up the dress. She carried it over to the wash line, its wire just visible from the kitchen light. Gingerly she held the stick up and draped the dress over the line. Tomorrow her mom could decide how to salvage the smelly thing.

  Twenty-three

  Ella let the screen door slam on her way in, the sound snapping in the night stillness. What time is it? There is a late feel to the air. A quick glance at the kitchen clock proved it was a little past nine-thirty.

  “Is the water warm?” she asked Clara, who stood beside the large kettle used to heat bath water.

  “A little,” Clara said. “I put in plenty of water, but doesn’t she smell? It will take more than soap to get her right again. Isn’t that just the most awful thing to have happen to you?” Clara then dissolved into giggles. “She’ll have the whole house stunk up by the end of the night.”

  “The skunk didn’t get a good hit from the looks of things.”

  “Smells like it,” Clara laughed. “Wouldn’t this have to happen to Dora, of all people? Do you think the skunk saw her comin’?”

  “It was probably as scared as she was.”

  “I wouldn’t like a bucket of slop thrown on me either.” Clara giggled again. Ruth, her face still pale, went into the living room to join her two younger sisters.

  “Read them a story,” Ella hollered after Ruth.

  Just then they heard the rattle of buggy wheels in the driveway. Mamm must be home with whatever unpleasant news she carried.

  “Okay,” Ella said, “the water’s warm enough. I’ll dip some of the water out, and you take the bucket downstairs. After Dora starts washing, come back up for another bucketful. She’ll be needin’ all the clean water she can get.”

  “You thinking water and soap will take that smell off?” Clara asked, unconvinced.

  “Let’s see,” Ella said, her mind whirling. “Vinegar. I think that works better than soap.”

  She dropped the dipper beside the kettle and reached under the counter for the bottle of vinegar. A quick twist of her hand, and a generous splash found its way into the bucket.

  “Poor Dora,” Clara said.

  “She needs it, and she’ll thank us later. Now light another kerosene lamp, and take it with you. Dora’s only got the flashlight with her.”

  “There’s one downstairs,” Clara said.

  “Good. Dora can shine the flashlight for you while you go down, and you won’t have to carry the lamp.”

  Ella held the door open for her, and Clara hollered from the first step, “I want light, please.”

  Dora made some strange sort of noise in the basement, and the feeble beam of the flashlight bounced on the top steps.

  Clara contorted her face to suppress a giggle, and Ella shut the basement door with a smile. Behind her the front door opened, and Ella rushed over to meet Mamm.

  “Da Hah sie lob,” her mom said with emotion. “He will live, they think. I got to speak with your daett. Eli’s still in surgery, but earlier one of the doctors gave a gut report.”

  “That is good news,” Ella said as Mamm seated herself on the couch.

  “What a night this has been. But we are to be spared, it seems. I don’t know if my heart could’ve taken more sorrow. And you…with Aden just passed away. It would have torn all of us apart.”

  “Ah, Mamm,” Ella began, reluctant to go on.

  Lizzie glanced at her face and then stopped, startled. “Is there something wrong? Something I don’t know about?”

  “Dora g
ot sprayed by a skunk. She’s in the basement cleaning up.”

  “A skunk! I thought I smelled one coming in from the barn. It got worse when I walked past the garden, but I figured we just had one wandering about. Why would Dora go after the thing?”

  “Dora threw the slop bucket on it.”

  “On purpose? The slop bucket?” Mamm asked. “Why would she do that?”

  “No, not on purpose,” Ella said. “She just walked out, as usual, and dumped it off into the night.”

  Mamm sat still for a long moment, and then she started to laugh. “Now I’ve heard everything.”

  “She smells pretty bad,” Ella said, relieved to see the change in her mother’s mood.

  “I imagine so! A skunk would do that, but on a night like this…Da Hah must be trying to cheer us up!” Mamm laughed and then cried till the tears ran down her face.

  “Are you okay?” Ella asked.

  “Ach, I guess I’m not,” Mamm said. “My nerves are ’bout shot, I suppose. So where is Dora? In the basement, you said? Have you given her somethin’ to clean up with?”

  “Warm water and vinegar.”

  Mamm thought for a moment. “That’s a good start. Have her rinse in water with baking soda and hydrogen peroxide.”

  “That stuff?”

  “It will help, yah,” Mamm assured her. “I’ll fix it. Bring the peroxide in from the medicine cabinet, and I’ll fill the bucket in the kitchen.”

  “Clara should be up with the empty bucket any minute.” Ella said as she turned to get the peroxide. Clara was back in the kitchen when she returned.

  “I’m so glad Eli’ll make it,” Clara said. “I was afraid he would die, and then Dora went and got herself sprayed. How can you laugh and cry all in the same evening?”

  “It just works that way sometimes,” Mamm said. “Now the peroxide.” She reached for the bottle in Ella’s hand and dumped a generous splash in the water, already white from the baking soda. Mamm stirred the contents briskly with her hand.

  “Poor Dora,” Clara said again. “She wasn’t happy with the vinegar water. What will she say about this? It’s like she’s being made ready for the oven.”

  Mamm had little sympathy. “She shouldn’t throw slop on skunks. Maybe this will help her remember in the days ahead.”

  “I’m sure she won’t again,” Ella said. “This is not a lesson to be learned twice.”

  “She already smells better,” Clara said. “But her clothes stink pretty badly.”

  “Then take them outside,” Lizzie said quickly. “Surely you didn’t let her wear her dress into the house.”

  “Nee, I didn’t,” Ella said. “She took it off at the basement door. It’s on the wash line now, and I’ll be takin’ the rest of her things out there too.”

  “Good,” Mamm said with relief. “We can save the clothes for tomorrow. I think vinegar will probably work for them and do a gut job on the smell. If not, we can soak them until it does.”

  Ella turned to Clara. “Here, take the bucket down, and I’ll bring Dora her clean clothes.”

  Clara walked to the basement door, the bucket firmly in her hand. It looked like she would spill the contents on the kitchen floor when her dress caught on a kitchen chair, but Clara unhooked her dress in time. Ella followed her down the stairs with the clean clothes.

  In the basement, Clara found the still sputtering Dora busy washing herself behind the plastic divider they used for baths.

  “Am I to be tortured all night?” she complained.

  “That’s the last treatment,” Ella said, laughing. “Clara can get you a clean bucket of water now.”

  “Without all this junk in it, I’m hoping. I smell like a cake ready for the fire.”

  “Just water, now,” Ella said, “to rinse with.”

  She gathered up Dora’s underclothes and carried them outside, holding them at a distance as she hung them on the wire beside the dress. On the walk back, she paused to look at the night sky. Here the skunk smell from the garden wasn’t as strong, and the stars were out, bright and strong. A great longing swept through Ella so suddenly it gripped her like a vice around the heart.

  Is Aden with the stars? Her eyes searched the heavens, and she found herself hoping they could speak the answer but knew they couldn’t give anything but silence. When she thought the bull would charge, she figured she’d join Aden, wherever he was. Why wasn’t I allowed to join him? Life could never repay what she had lost. Above her the stars continued to twinkle as her gaze swept across the heavens.

  Aden used to watch the stars with her, and now he was gone—yet the stars continued their display. It didn’t seem right. Perhaps if the stars could speak to her, but there was nothing. And then—perhaps it was her imagination or was it truly the stars speaking? Continue on as we continue on until your time is up. Only when your time is completed, will ours ever be.

  Ella looked across the sweep of the sky. Did Aden send me a message? That’s a strange thought. Surely not! Her people didn’t believe in such things. Instead, this must be Da Hah Himself taking time out from all His great works to comfort me and mend my broken heart.

  “Ella, are you okay?” her mom’s voice called from the kitchen doorway.

  “Yah,” she said, “just looking at the stars.”

  “We really need to get to bed. It’s late, and I’ve already sent the little ones. We’ll be all by ourselves for choring tomorrow morning.”

  “I’m coming,” she said. She turned and went inside to find a dressed Dora seated in the living room.

  “That lousy skunk,” she said, still sputtering.

  “You do smell better,” Ella said with a laugh.

  “Now off to bed, all of you,” Mamm ordered. “You need your sleep. The day will be full enough tomorrow.”

  In her room, Ella lit the kerosene lamp and took her tablet from the drawer. Yes, it was late, but she still felt she must write if only for a few moments.

  “Dear journal,” she wrote.

  It’s been a long wild day, to be sure. Eli got injured by the bull but should be okay, Mamm thinks. Right now we’re supposed to be in bed and asleep, but I can’t stop thinking about Aden. Why did God have to take such a wonderful man? I know I’ve asked myself that many times, and there still is no answer. I suppose there never will be one—at least this side of eternity.

  I thought for a moment tonight that I would get to join him—not in some evil way but in the best way one could cross over. I stood up for Eli in the face of the angry bull. Is that not a good way to go be with the one your love?

  It all happened so fast, but I knew what I was doing. Yet I’m still here. I wonder why, and I also wonder what it would be like over there in the place where Aden is. Are there really streets of gold? That seems a little cold to me, in a way, and not at all like what Aden would have wanted.

  He liked the stream down by Stoddard Road, the music of the water over the rocks, the glory of the stars at night, and the beauty he said he saw in my eyes. I don’t know about that, but I do wonder if those things are over there where he is. I wonder…Does he have a girl there who loves him?

  No, I don’t suppose they have such things, at least from what I’m told. But I know he does have something so much better. In fact, maybe he’s forgotten about me already because of all the wonderful things that are in heaven.

  I never thought that I could hurt this way. At first I just thought I hurt because I missed him. Now I know the pain is also because he no longer misses me. The ache is like a great big boulder in my heart, aching for what I’ve lost and also for what I will never have again—a man who loves me like Aden did.

  I’m sure there are boys who will say they do, but I don’t want to go to the young people’s gathering anymore. I know what will happen. They will say the words, “A beautiful girl like Ella, she shouldn’t be without a man.” Yet I don’t think I’m that beautiful. Aden always said I was, and I believe he meant it. Yet all those who are in love think their loved one i
s beautiful.

  I worry because there will probably be someone who will think they want me now that Aden isn’t here. Someone will ask to take me home. I fear it a lot from some boy who maybe already has a girl. It will happen, and terrible feelings will come out of it. Even if I say, “no,” which I will, the girl will know.

  It’s a terrible thing, and I think I’ll just stay home for a good long time. For more reasons than my sorrow, it will be for the good of everyone. Oh, dear God, why did you take my Aden away from me?

  With tears in her eyes, she closed the tablet, slid it under a dress in her dresser drawer, and climbed into bed to fall into a troubled sleep.

  Twenty-four

  Ella awoke with the sound of Mamm’s tap on the door, dressed quickly, and was downstairs ahead of her sisters.

  “I suppose you’ll be working inside this morning?” Ella asked. “And Clara too? She’s probably still pretty sore from last night.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Mamm said.

  Ella waited until Dora and Clara appeared together at the bottom of the stairs and then said, “Clara’s in the kitchen this morning, and Dora’s with me out in the barn.”

  “Thanks,” Clara said, looking grateful. “My hands are still hurting.” Ella got her coat and headed outside. In the yard she could already see the light of the gas lantern in the barn shining through cracks around the door. Monroe must already have been up for a while. When she opened the door, the line of cows stood in the stanchions. Monroe, with a milk pail in his hand, glanced at her from between the cows.

  “You should have gotten us up,” she said.

  He laughed, his voice still rough. “I thought with all the ruckus last night, all the girls of the house would be needin their sleep.”

  “Yah, yah,” Ella said as he laughed again.

  Behind them the door opened, and Dora walked in.