What the college doctor had written to Adele was true. This was nothing like Serena’s birth, and there was no sign of blood refusing to clot.
The baby cried when Adele cleared her tiny mouth and rubbed her slippery limbs. Caroline shouted for Jerome to enter, and Adele looked up to see tears in his eyes as he bent for his niece. Adele asked if she could offer a prayer of thanksgiving and Caroline nodded, but it was Jerome who spoke the words. “Our gratitude is beyond words, dear Lord.” He turned to Adele. “My gratitude to you is beyond words as well.”
Adele placed the baby on Caroline’s breast and stood. Jerome reached out to Adele and she allowed it, a warm squeeze of a hand between two people who had worked together to make another’s life better and to bring a new life into the fold. Adele freed herself then bent to attend to Caroline and her baby while Doc Pederson and Jerome left for cigars, Adele imagined, though she’d never seen Jerome smoke. Jerome would make a good father one day. Adele hoped this Clarissa person knew what she was getting.
Jerome’s help and kindness at the delivery were a compress to Adele’s hurt and disappointment over severed hopes. She could see that he was a good brother and he was a good banker. He was just a rotten fiancé. He should have told her he was engaged, and he never should have kissed her or called her beautiful.
Adele stayed two more days. The snow had stopped for a time at least, when she indicated she’d be leaving.
“I did find a girl to come in,” Jerome told her. “She’ll look after Caroline while I’m at work.”
Until your fiancée arrives.
“I’ve asked her to come over today, as I know you’re anxious to go. I want to go with you to make sure you’re safely back at the farm.”
“That’s not necessary,” Adele said. “I think we both know what wagon rolls ahead for each of us, and we are in separate carriages.”
“I had hoped that—”
“Don’t. I understand, I do. I have my responsibilities as well. I wish you well, Mr. Schmidt. I will see you at the bank in the spring. Until then, enjoy your new status as uncle. It’s a very important role.”
“But what’s happened? We had such pleasant conversations together. I … wanted more of—”
“You must know that I am not the kind of woman who would interfere with a man’s plans,” she said. “I regret allowing myself to … care. So much. I have my duties. My Polly and my farm and my life delivering babies. For a short time I thought it might not be enough, but now I know it is. Thank you for allowing me to find that out. Good-bye.”
“I have to go with you. I have to,” he insisted. “The drifts—”
She left the porch and his words. She lifted herself onto the mule Jerome had saddled and brought to the front. Once outside of town, she would give the mule his lead and let his chest break the drifts as she trudged along behind, hanging on to his tail. She didn’t want to need Jerome’s presence. She could live well on her own.
The sky was as blue as her Willow plates, the sun so bright she pulled her hat to shade her eyes, to prevent burning. It took several hours to make the three-mile trek, but finally she saw the smoke rising from her chimney. When she stomped on the steps, Polly stepped out. “I knew you’d come home today,” she said, her arms going around Adele.
“How did you guess?”
“I was just about to run out of sketching paper. I knew you wouldn’t let me go very long without that or anything else I really needed.”
“Like a good midwife.”
“Like a good mother.”
Chapter 10
FINAL DECISIONS
The winter of 1859–60 was harsh. Winds and cold kept Adele and Polly pushing hay from stacks while cows bawled and stood chest deep in snow. Narrow trails through the deep drifts marked the paths of deer and cows to the creek, and a smaller trail showed paths between house and barn that left both women exhausted from daily chores. By February, with only hours instead of days between light snowfall, Adele wondered out loud if they had hay enough to feed until green sprouts signaled spring.
“What will we do if we run out?” Polly wiped grease on her cheeks, so chapped and red. “No one else has hay to spare, either.”
“No, they don’t. We’ll trust the Lord; that’s all we can do.” Adele stitched on a quilt face by the fireplace while Polly tried her hand at knitting. Adele didn’t get much rest of late, and when she did fall into a deep sleep, she dreamed of Jerome Schmidt, much to her annoyance, in one of the dreams seeing him at the bank again to negotiate her loan. She’d have to seek a higher loan if they ran out of hay or had to replace stock that died in this thieving cold. At least she had the land. She read in the gazette that a Homestead Act was working its way through Congress that would allow land in the West to be had for twenty-five cents an acre. They could buy quite a spread if she sold the farm here in Buffalo County. And she wouldn’t have to worry about begging Mr. Schmidt for money or running into his new wife, either. At least she guessed he had a new wife by now. She really didn’t have any local news, since her last visit with Caroline occurred in late January when there’d been a slight break in the cold. Adele had donned snowshoes and made her way to town, sure to time it so she didn’t see Jerome, and he wouldn’t see her.
In late February, when the temperature dropped well below zero and stayed there, they broke ice from the creek for the cows to drink and one morning woke to discover four calves frozen to the cold earth, not able to survive their delivery during the cold night.
When March revealed a thaw, Polly’s friend Sam trudged through the melting snow to give word of the preacher’s plan to be at the schoolhouse later in the month. He brought other news as well, that the Bentzes were planning to head west along with several other families from the village. “Fed up with this cold,” he told them, holding a cup of warm coffee in his hands. “Figure by the time they arrive in Oregon, Congress will have passed the Homestead Act, and they’ll have cheap land to buy. A quarter an acre they say.” Sam had thick dark hair and long slender fingers. A surgeon’s hands, Adele thought.
“Is your family considering such a thing?” Adele asked. “Heading west?”
“Nope. We’re staying put. My pa is hoping to buy up the farms of those taking leave of their senses, as he puts it. And I’m still heading east to Kentucky this fall, to start college. A man needs to be well educated in these times to take care of his family. That’s what my Pa says.” He smiled at Polly over his coffee cup. “I’m not sure how I’ll do in school without Miss Polly here to help me with homework. I do fine with science and arithmetic, but my English, well, that’s not so grand.”
Polly blushed, and Adele wondered how her daughter would fare with this young man’s company no longer a possibility on a summer afternoon.
“You’ll have lots of girls willing to help you in Kentucky,” Polly told him. “You really don’t need my help. You never did.” She looked directly at him, and Adele realized the girl was an encourager supporting a friend, not someone she wanted to give her heart to. “I hope you’ll write now and again. I’d like to know how it is in college,” she continued. “I want to go myself one day.”
“Could you carry a message to a doctor there?” Adele refilled the boy’s cup. “He was very helpful in giving us information about a difficult case I had as a midwife. That Polly and I had,” she amended.
“I didn’t even get to help with that one, Mamadele,” Polly protested.
“You helped by suggesting we write to the college and by staying here to keep things going. I’d have been lost if you hadn’t. That’s part of being a midwife, too, that your family keeps up their part of the bargain and allows the midwife to do her work.”
“We’re a team.”
“That we are.”
Adele hoped they always would be.
They celebrated Polly’s birthday after the circuit rider’s visit in March. She turned seventeen, and all the talk, aside from how lovely she looked, spun on Oregon. The Bentzes especially enthused about th
eir plans to go west.
“You ought to come along.” Idella held her toddler’s hand as they sat on the ground at the schoolhouse, eating fried chicken. A spring wind caused Adele to pull her shawl tighter. “I know lots of women aren’t excited about going, but I am. And Adele”—she leaned in to whisper—“I’m with child. You promised you’d be my midwife again.”
“That was before I knew you wouldn’t be a mile or two down the road.”
Idella’s voice got serious. “It is the only thing that worries me just a little. Gustaf says it’ll take six months to cross, and that’s after leaving from Council Bluffs in Iowa. We’ll need a month to get there, and we have to be there no later than May 15. I’m already three months along. That means I will deliver somewhere between here and Oregon.”
“You can do it,” Adele told her.
“Aren’t you ready for a new adventure? What do you have holding you here?”
Adele wasn’t sure anymore. Surviving the winter had drained her, made her wonder if she could farm for the rest of her life. She didn’t relish asking Jerome for another loan.
“It would be exciting, wouldn’t it, Mamadele?” Polly said later. “All the talk about Oregon. And Idella does need help. A good midwife could be essential on a wagon train. You’d be well appreciated there.”
“We can talk about it,” Adele told her, wondering at the little stirring of interest that fidgeted in her breast. At least she’d never have to run into Jerome on a wagon train west, and she wouldn’t ever have to worry about Polly’s father catching up with them, either.
Jerome Schmidt’s winter had been full of meeting Caroline’s needs. He’d secured a young girl to come in to help. He’d hired three, in fact, as Caroline’s demands sent the girls scurrying, one after the other. The latest—a Norwegian girl—said she could be as stubborn as an ox when he described Caroline’s … ways. The girl stood up to her, and Caroline backed down. He realized what a gem Adele had been in being able to deal so well with his sister. Doc Pederson seemed to enjoy his sister’s company, and Jerome didn’t want to ask why. He appreciated the respite whenever the doctor took Caroline’s attention. Meanwhile, little Emily grew fat and happy, and his time holding her was the joy of his life. The only joy in his life. He missed Adele and couldn’t understand why she’d frozen him out so suddenly, just when he’d begun to believe she might have feelings for him. He hoped she’d be in soon for her interview about the loan. It was already mid-April, and several other farmers had come in so they could purchase seed and get planting as soon as the fields dried up. Adele was conscientious and should be coming in any day now. At least he might have a business relationship with her, and maybe in time …
He sighed then mumbled about the newspaper.
“What were you saying, Jerome?” Caroline rocked little Emily, smiling at the baby. Maybe Caroline would be an adequate mother after all, finding someone besides herself to truly care about.
“This rag,” he said, folding the paper and tearing it into strips he’d use to start the fire. “It’s a waste of good paper. Never says anything of import that I haven’t already heard from the Milwaukee Gazette. I should start my own.”
“There’s little to be done about the news, anyway, so what does it matter if it’s a month late?”
“Local news would be nice to get.”
“You get that at the bank, don’t you? Or Olson’s store? Did you hear that a wagon train is starting out from the village with several from here joining up?”
“Yes, I heard the rumors, but there’s nothing in the paper about it. And how did you learn of it?”
“Why, Adele came by for a final checkup with me and little Emily yesterday. She approves of your new hire, by the way, and she asked when Clarissa was going to arrive. I told her I didn’t know. Any day, I suppose, though you certainly haven’t said anything about the wedding date, dear brother. Not that I’ve asked. I’m not a meddler, you know.”
“Clarissa?” he said. “Why on earth would Miss Adele mention Clarissa?”
“She knows she’s your fiancée. I told her myself.”
“What? When did you tell her?”
“Why, about the time she stayed here to help with Emily’s birth. Was it a secret?”
“No secret, Caroline. But it also isn’t true. I’m not marrying Clarissa. She isn’t joining me here in Mondovi. She’s already married someone else by now.”
“How was I to know? You never said, and you always look at your timepiece with such longing. You said Clarissa gave it to you, and you told me you were engaged. I just assumed—”
“Wrongly. Quite wrongly.” He stood, looked at his timepiece, sat down, then stood again. He could be at Adele’s farm in less than an hour.
“Should we take the cast-iron spider with us?” Polly shouted to Adele, who bent over a barrel in the bedroom, folding quilts into the bottom.
“Just one skillet, that’s all we’ll need. And the Dutch oven. Gustaf says enough is as good as a feast, so just take enough.” Adele walked back out into the main room where Polly sat like a frog on a lily pad surrounded by sifters, dishes, ladles, and pans. “We’ll bury the Willow dishes in the cornmeal barrel.” She lifted a plate. The dishes would remind her of John, who had bought them as a wedding gift, although the color would always make her think of Jerome’s deep-blue eyes. “Yes, just one skillet, but we’ll try for the entire set of dishes.”
Adele’s heart fluttered at the speed with which she’d made this decision. Polly had danced with joy when they’d discussed going west well into the night. She’d already sold the farm to Sam’s dad, cows included. Idella was almost as happy as Polly about their decision. “I’ll have two midwives, just like last time.”
“And I can look after Luke in the meantime,” Polly said.
With the purchase money, Adele bought a wagon and hired a mule skinner to drive it, a cousin of Gustaf’s. The two wagons would join three others rumbling out from Mondovi by week’s end, the high water from the snowmelt having peaked. She felt excited, full of possibilities. She was thirty-seven years old but not too old to start a new adventure. She could farm in Oregon—or who knew what she might do there? The choices were endless.
“Will we be ready by Friday, Mamadele?”
“We’d better be.”
Adele found herself nostalgic, running her hands across furniture they’d have to leave, memories flooding over her like rivers over rocks. “Are you all right, Mamadele?”
Adele wiped her eyes with her apron. “Just saying good-bye,” she said. “It’s the right thing to do, I know it is. But change is still hard, isn’t it?”
“I guess,” Polly said, and Adele envied the girl’s youth and flexibility. She’d have to mine some of that from her own past. “Rider coming.” Polly squinted, looking down the lane. “He sits a horse like Mr. Schmidt, all tall and lean in the saddle.”
Adele stopped her reminiscing, looked out the window.
“What could he want? I paid the loan.”
The man barely pulled up his horse before he dismounted. “Adele. Miss Adele.” He looked at Polly, who had moved in behind Adele on the porch.
“Is Caroline all right?”
“Yes, yes. How good of you to think of her. She’s fine. Wonderful. In fact, she told me something that I have to confirm with you—” He looked around at the barrels and wooden boxes on the porch. “Confirm with you before you go? Are you going somewhere?”
“To Oregon. It’s going to be wonderful. Mamadele and I are teaming up with the Bentzes. She’s having a baby, and Mamadele and I are her midwives. She gets two.”
“Oregon? But—”
“There was really nothing holding us here. And Polly was ready for a new adventure. So was I,” Adele said. “I found I longed for … something more.”
“Listen, please, before you go. Caroline told me—” He was gasping for breath. He swallowed and started again.
“Can I get you water?”
“Yes, pl
ease, Polly. Adele, Miss Adele, please stay.”
“I’ll get it.” Polly disappeared to the pump with a ladle in hand.
“Caroline told me this morning that she told you about Clarissa.”
“Such news should have come from you.” Adele’s shoulders were straight as a wagon tongue.
“Yes, but it wasn’t any news at all. I was engaged to Clarissa—”
“Which you should have told me.”
“But the engagement was broken long before I even came to Mondovi. Clarissa broke it off, and when I met you, I knew it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I love you, Adele.”
It was what she’d longed to hear, but now?
“If there is even the slightest hope that you might find it possible to love me, too, I’ll go to the ends of the earth to wait until you tell me yes.”
“Yes to what?”
“To my proposal of marriage. Will you marry me, Adele Marley?”
“What have I missed?” Polly asked, returning.
“Mr. Schmidt, Jerome, has just asked me to marry him.” She was laughing, the joy bubbling up inside of her like steam in a pot.
“Will you?”
“I—I don’t know.” She looked into his blue eyes the color of her Willow blue and said, “Yes. I will. Yes.”
Jerome whooped and lifted her, spinning her around, and he kissed her right there in front of Polly.
“What … what does this mean for Oregon?” Polly said.
Adele stopped. “I don’t know.”
“The Bentzes are counting on us, Mamadele. And you’ve sold the farm.”
“Yes, they are counting on us.” She looked at Jerome.
“I’m not known for making quick decisions,” he said. “But the wagon can probably use another man to help, and if my intended wife is heading west, then I’m going to be right there with her.”
“What about Caroline?”
He paused, thoughtful then. “She has resources, and Doc Pederson to manage them, it seems.”
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