Walks the Fire

by Stephanie Grace Whitson

  Jesse answered, “Well, not too soon, I hope. I just got the top finished. I’ll need some time to finish the quilting.”

  Augusta rejoiced, “Jesse King, I knew you been thinkin’ on it too! Why on earth haven’t you said something! I’ve been nearly bustin’, watchin’ those two watchin’ each other.”

  Jesse pulled the quilt top back up off the floor. “It’s best to let a little time go by. I wouldn’t want to rush anything. Marriage is for life, and I want them to be sure. The longer they wait, the longer I can pray,” Jesse stood up and added, in a lighter tone, “and the longer I’ll have to create my masterpiece!” She smiled happily. “I’m going to bed, Augusta. The ladies at church have promised to help me get this basted and put in the frame after lunch tomorrow.”

  “Will they help quilt it too?” Augusta asked. “You might not have as much time as you think!”

  “Oh, no, Augusta, this one’s not to be touched by any needle but mine.”

  “Why on earth not?”

  Jesse was reluctant to admit it, but she said, “Well… Agnes and Ona just don’t… I don’t mean to be unkind, Augusta, but they just don’t stitch well enough for this. Besides, I want it to be all mine… for LisBeth.” Jesse carefully laid the folded quilt top over her arm. “Which reminds me… would you mind if I had MacKenzie rig up a quilting frame in here?”

  Augusta looked around the crowded kitchen. “I wouldn’t mind, but there’s no room!”

  “I thought if I put it on pulleys up at the ceiling, it would be out of the way during the day. Then, at night, when we’re visiting, I could lower it onto the backs of the chairs and work on it that way.”

  Augusta praised her invention and immediately assented. On Monday, MacKenzie and Joseph rigged up the pulleys, and on that evening Jesse began work on what was to be her masterpiece—and her wedding gift to LisBeth and MacKenzie Baird.

  Jesse quilted all winter. LisBeth warned, “Mama, you’re going to ruin your eyes.” But still Jesse quilted.

  MacKenzie shook his head at the hours Jesse spent bent over her work. “No disrespect meant, ma’am,” he said one evening, “but you’ve been quiltin’ the whole time Mrs. Hathaway’s been reading. She’s got the whole paper read to us, and you’ve got just that one little square the size of my hand filled in. How can you stand it?” He added quickly, “It’s gorgeous, Mrs. King—don’t misunderstand. It just sure must take a lot of patience!”

  Jesse smiled. “That’s where you’re wrong, MacKenzie. It takes no patience at all to do what you love. Now shelling peas… that takes patience!” Jesse looked over at LisBeth, who had been doing just that.

  “Amen, Mama! I heartily agree. But I’d rather do this than quilt any day.”

  Jesse bent back over the quilt and returned to stitching. Still, she thought about what MacKenzie had said all that evening and the next day. Why, she thought, do women quilt? Comforters serve the same purpose—and we can tie several of those in one afternoon. Yet, we work and work cutting up scraps, sewing them together, and creating quilts.

  The next evening MacKenzie and LisBeth arrived home early from choir practice. They seemed unusually happy, but Jesse hurried to share her thoughts while they were still organized.

  “MacKenzie,” she began, “you asked me last night how I can stand to do all this work. I never thought about it. But I’ve been thinking on it all day today, and I think I have the answer. When a man wants to make his mark in the world, he builds something. It may be a homestead, it may be a newspaper, or a hotel, or a dry goods store. Still, whatever he does, a man can always point to some thing and say, ‘There—that’s what I am. That’s what I’ve done that’s important.’

  “A woman cooks and cleans and dusts, and in just a few hours, it’s all gone and has to be done again. When I think about it, MacKenzie, about the only thing that will be left when I pass over, is my quilts. I think that’s why I do it… although I never really thought it through until now. There’s a great satisfaction in running my hand over a finished quilt and knowing I made it. It must be something like what the Lord felt when he looked and ‘saw it was very good’ and then rested on the Sabbath.”

  MacKenzie surveyed the nearly finished quilt. “What’s the name of this pattern, Mrs. King?” he asked.

  “Princess Feather,” Jesse answered.

  Taking LisBeth’s hand in his own, MacKenzie asked, “Would it be presumptuous of me to ask if you had planned to add this quilt to LisBeth’s hope chest?”

  Jesse looked up at the couple and grinned. “I could be persuaded to do that. But only if I was assured that her future husband was a man worthy of sharing such a gift.”

  MacKenzie cleared his throat. “Well, ma’am,” he began, “I’m not sure that I’m worthy, but we’d sure be honored if you’d let your masterpiece grace our home. I’ve asked LisBeth to marry me, Mrs. King, and she said yes…” MacKenzie was prevented from finishing the sentence by Augusta, who swept down upon him and LisBeth and caught them both up in a great hug. MacKenzie turned red and finished. “She said yes, if you approve.”

  Jesse was quiet for so long that both MacKenzie and LisBeth grew nervous. Tears filled her eyes. She fought them back and said quietly, “MacKenzie, in all that you’ve said and all that you’ve done, you’ve proven yourself to be a hardworking young man. Still, there are many hard-working young men about. That alone is not enough to make a suitable husband. Since LisBeth was very little, I have prayed that God would send her a man strong in the faith. I watched you carefully, young man.”

  Jesse rose from her chair and laid her hands lightly on the top of the quilt. “And it seems to me that you are committed to the Lord. I know that he will enable you to continue in your commitment to my daughter. MacKenzie Baird, I am proud to give LisBeth to you.”

  The tears welled up in Jesse’s eyes again. “Forgive the tears, children. It’s not an easy thing to give your only child away.” Jesse looked at LisBeth, whose young face was wreathed in smiles. “God bless you both. You have my blessing.”

  There was a moment of awkward silence, and then Augusta said loudly, “This calls for a celebration. MacKenzie, would you see if Joseph is still in the livery? I believe he was staying late to attend to that mare of his that’s to foal any time. Now… everyone wait right here.” She hurried out of the room and returned with five crystal goblets on a silver tray. Joseph came in with MacKenzie, smiling his joy and removing his hat. “These were my mother’s,” Augusta explained. “I keep them in my drawing room, away from the prying eyes of the clientele.” As she spoke, she poured the wine.

  “To LisBeth and MacKenzie!” she sang out. Clinking crystal brought the evening to a close. Late in the night Jesse got up, lit the lamp in the kitchen, and bent over the quilt once more. In the morning LisBeth noticed Jesse’s late night addition to the bottom border of the quilt. In her tiniest stitches, Jesse had added:

  For L.W.K.B.

  By J.K.

  1875

  Thirty-one

  Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge.—Ruth 1:16

  The remainder of the winter was spent finishing LisBeth’s trousseau and preparing for the wedding. The three women worked long hours. Augusta amazed her friends by picking up a needle and hemming some napkins.

  “Well, goodness!” she exclaimed. “Just because I don’t sew doesn’t mean I can’t! Now, give me that tablecloth!” she ordered.

  Augusta thus became the official hemmer. MacKenzie took over the reading of the evening paper on the nights when he was not working late. He was working as much as possible to save for a new home. He had sworn never to return to the homestead that reminded him only of tragedy. It was listed with the land agents for $5 an acre.

  LisBeth found it unsettling not to know where she would live after her marriage. Jesse reassured her. “MacKenzie is a responsible man, LisBeth. Once the homestead is sold, he’ll have the means
to make concrete plans. You’ll just have to be patient.”

  MacKenzie did have plans. The evening he shared them nearly resulted in his losing his fiancée. He announced after supper, “I’m joining the army.”

  LisBeth dropped the cup she had been preparing to wash. Jesse paused in midstitch, and Augusta rattled the pile of plates she was stacking.

  “MacKenzie!” LisBeth exclaimed. “Whatever for?”

  “To make a life for us, of course,” came the defensive reply. “There’s need for good men in the west. LisBeth, I can’t stand being cooped up in that general store all day. I’ll never save enough for a new outfit, and the homestead’s not selling. I’ve got to do something to get on with life and make a future for us!”

  MacKenzie had been thinking it through for weeks, and he was not to be deterred. LisBeth was horrified. “But, MacKenzie, the army… out west… it’s dangerous! And surely you don’t want to kill Indians for a living!” LisBeth stressed the words.

  “Of course not. I’m not going to be a fighting man. They need all kinds of men. Farriers and sutlers and clerks—and maybe I can do some good.” He made his case earnestly, “Look, LisBeth, at some point in all this madness, the white man and the Indian are going to have to make peace. Final, lasting peace. Maybe we can be part of that—do some good—help, somehow.”

  Jesse interrupted. “MacKenzie, I admire your ideals. But I’m not certain they can be reached by your joining the army.”

  MacKenzie was stubborn. “With all due respect, ma’am, LisBeth and me have to work this out on our own.”

  LisBeth retorted, “I’ll thank you not to speak that way to my mother, MacKenzie!”

  Jesse quietly responded, “MacKenzie is right. He must do what he thinks is best for you. I should keep my thoughts to myself, unless they are solicited. I think you two need privacy.”

  Jesse gathered up her sewing and retreated to her room. Augusta wiped her hands, made some comment about wanting to read in her own sitting room for a change, and hurried out.

  LisBeth and MacKenzie were left alone to settle the issue. What ensued was a typical first quarrel. Neither stayed rational, and neither won. They ended up in their separate corners of Hathaway House, fuming and mentally replaying the event.

  Jesse was determined to keep out of LisBeth and MacKenzie’s life. She had strong opinions about the army, and she hated the thought of LisBeth re-entering that hard way of life. Still, she held equally strong beliefs about the role a wife should play in a marriage, and those beliefs guided the advice she gave LisBeth when the young woman came knocking at her door.

  “Mother, western Nebraska is a howling wilderness—I can’t go there!”

  “‘Whither thou goest, I will go,’ LisBeth. That’s God’s plan for marriage.”

  “But Mother, MacKenzie wasn’t fair with me. He never said a word about the army. I thought he’d grown to like Lincoln—that we would stay here and make a life for ourselves.”

  “MacKenzie has made it no secret that he hates working in that store. From the first day he arrived in Lincoln, he’s told us that as soon as he had saved money for a new outfit, he was headed west.”

  “But, Mother, I didn’t think he meant it!”

  Jesse grew stern. “LisBeth, I think you had better seriously reconsider your promise to MacKenzie. Marriage is a lifelong commitment, my dear. Did you think that you promised to love him as long as he made decisions you agree with?”

  “No, of course not, but I didn’t think…”

  “Apparently not. You’d better think now, and think hard. Don’t try to change MacKenzie. If you’re not prepared to be his helpmeet wherever he decides to go, then you’d be doing him a terrible disservice. He deserves better.”

  “Who’s side are you on?” LisBeth was appalled that her mother seemed to be against her.

  “I’m on the side of what’s right for each one of you. I love you dearly, and because I love you, I’m telling you what you need to hear. Prepare to follow MacKenzie wherever the Lord leads him until death parts the two of you. If you can’t make good on that promise, then don’t make the promise. Stay here in Lincoln and say goodbye.

  “I’m very fond of MacKenzie. If he’s intent on a life in the west, then he’ll need a wife with ‘gumption,’ as Augusta calls it. It you don’t have gumption, LisBeth, admit it now. Don’t add to a young man’s burden by standing between him and what he thinks will make him happy.”

  “I thought I was what made him happy.”

  “Spoken like a very young and very foolish girl. There’s more to marriage than all that romantic nonsense you read about in novels. There’s working together for a dream, and nursing through sickness, and losing what you love, and working together to earn it back again. It’s the day-to-day that grows a love that lasts. If you’re not willing to be by MacKenzie’s side day to day, then for heaven’s sake don’t marry him just because he’s handsome and he makes your heart flutter.”

  “Mother!” LisBeth was embarrassed.

  “We’ve had this conversation before. I do remember the ‘hearts-a-flutter’ stage of my youth. It had very little to do with ‘the love that is stronger than death.’ The question you have to answer is, which kind of love do you want? The fleeting one or the lasting one?”

  “I want both!”

  “And you can have them. MacKenzie can give you both. But not unless you’re willing to put your dreams together with his and go west. So,” Jesse took her daughter by the shoulders and said soberly, “either get on the wagon and head west with your man—or get out of his life.”

  LisBeth pondered the advice. She stood up to go and Jesse added, “You’d better take a long walk and think this over. It’s not a decision to be made lightly.”

  Nature had a part in helping LisBeth make her decision. She followed Jesse’s advice and went out for a walk. It had been a lovely early spring evening, although clouds had blown in from the west. LisBeth walked only a short way from the hotel when the wind came up and the temperature began to drop. She turned back toward the hotel. Down the street, she could see that someone had hitched up a team and was pulling out of the livery. The wind grew colder, and a few flakes of snow began to fall. LisBeth pulled her duster close around her and shivered. She hurried back to the hotel, just as the storm began in earnest. Snow was falling harder. Bursting through the kitchen door, she headed upstairs: Augusta peeked around the corner and called up after her. “If you’re going up to MacKenzie, dear, he’s gone. He just headed out a few minutes ago.” LisBeth was down the stairs and out the door in time to see the old wagon disappearing in the distance. The wind was blowing too loud for her voice to be heard as she called after him. Augusta followed her outside. “Come back in, dear. He’s just going to the homestead to gather a few things. He said he’d be back first thing in the morning.”

  But MacKenzie did not return the next morning. The wind howled all night, lashing snow against the hotel and piling it up in huge drifts. Hour after hour, LisBeth lay awake, listening to the storm and praying for MacKenzie. When she could not sleep, she made her way to the kitchen where she found Jesse, bent over another quilt, stitching as rapidly as she ever had.

  Jesse looked up when LisBeth came in. “He’ll be all right. MacKenzie has a lot of common sense. He’ll find shelter, and he’ll be all right.” She managed to sound calm and reassuring, but fear for MacKenzie and her daughter gripped her heart.

  It snowed for three days. It took all Jesse’s and Augusta’s creativity to feed the boarders, who stayed in the hotel dining room by the hour, playing cards, reading old newspapers, smoking, and talking politics. The Indian Wars were fought and refought, with Jesse trying her best to close her ears to those discussions.

  When the snow finally stopped, the world was a level blaze of white. Everyone in town turned out to help dig out, and soon, people could get about. Carriages moved slowly through the tunnel they’d dug down the middle of the main streets.

  The snow made wildli
fe easy to spot, and Joseph trekked on snowshoes for miles, bringing in fresh meat every day. J. W. Miles almost ran out of flour, but Miles was partial to Hathaway House because of MacKenzie, so he kept Augusta at the top of his supply list and secreted his last fifty-pound bag of flour for her. She was smugly satisfied when Cadman House boarders put down their $2 and moved to Hathaway House for a week, until the trains came through bringing emergency supplies.

  At last, Jesse pulled Joseph aside and whispered, “Joseph, do you think it’s possible to ride out to his homestead to check on MacKenzie? I don’t know how much more LisBeth can take…”

  Joseph shook his head. “I don’t give much chance that he made it, ma’am,” he said sadly, “but I was just coming in to ask you if you thought I ought to go. What if I find—”

  “We have to know.” Jesse shuddered at the picture that came to mind. “It’s cold enough to bring him back, and we’ll bury him at Wyuka. It’ll be a terrible thing, but at least LisBeth will have a grave to visit.”

  LisBeth came into the kitchen as they finished their conversation. She sensed the topic and called after Joseph, “Thank you, Joseph.”

  The hours crept by for them all after Joseph left. Emotions ran high and they grew angry with one another over little irritations. At last, Jesse called them all to prayer.

  “Dear Lord,” she said simply, “you know where MacKenzie is right now. If he needs help, let Joseph find him. If he is well, then bring him to us quickly. And, Lord,” Jesse prayed, “if he is with you, please help us to bear it.” She added an unspoken postscript, Lord, LisBeth is so young—if it is Your will, don’t ask her to face death just yet—please, Lord.

  The women waited all night. Jesse quilted, although her hands shook and she later felt compelled to remove the sloppy stitches. Augusta read aloud until she grew hoarse and had to stop. Both she and LisBeth were nodding in their chairs when the book slipped out of Augusta’s hand and hit the floor, waking them with a start. Outside the kitchen door they heard bridles rattling, and horses stomping. LisBeth gave out a little cry as two men stomped into the kitchen, shaking snow all over the floor as they removed their coats and hats.