She nodded. “Ja. Here we can make something of our lives and give our children a better future.” At least she hoped. But first she had to pay off the farm loan. And hopefully, now that they’d gotten most of the crops planted, she would be well on her way to seeing that happen.
Carl didn’t respond.
“Don’t you want a better life too?” she asked. “Maybe you’d like to try to own land here in America?”
She would never have dared to ask Hans such a personal question. But with Carl, she was learning she could share openly, that he wanted and even initiated their conversations.
“I don’t know what my life will hold,” he said hesitantly. “But I’m hoping that maybe soon, after your groom arrives, I’ll be able to move to Chicago and perhaps teach there.”
His words pricked her with disappointment. Didn’t he want to stay? After all the work he’d done, hadn’t he grown accustomed to farming? Didn’t he find the wild land captivating, like she had?
For several minutes they walked without speaking. The clanking and rattling of the wagon filled the space between them. The dust of the dirt road swirled around them, along with her unspoken questions. She may have grown braver in talking with him, but the hard set to his lips was enough to silence her.
She inhaled deeply of the air laden with the blossoming maple flowers in the trees that shouldered the road.
Her stomach growled with the constant hunger she battled. It wouldn’t be long before they’d be eating fresh produce from the garden.
The baby gave a thump as if to agree that it was past time for a meal. If she’d calculated correctly, she only had about a month left before the baby came.
She put a hand to her lower back and pressed the aching muscles. The baby was getting heavier, and the walk to town and now back home had taken more effort than she’d anticipated. Nevertheless, she’d been delighted when Carl had arrived that morning and asked her if she wanted to accompany him. The way he’d asked her—the light in his eyes—had made it too hard to say no, even if she’d wanted to, which she hadn’t.
He’d told her that her mutter had decided Uri had too much work to be spared a trip. And of course they needed to sell the turkeys before they began to decompose or before a wild creature found their makeshift river icebox.
She’d had butter and eggs to sell, and she’d needed to restock the flour, sugar, coffee, and kerosene. She’d gone through the supplies much quicker now that she was feeding Carl. Always when she visited the general store, she took a moment to stop and smell the spices—the nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and other tantalizing scents. She dreamed about the day when she’d have enough money to buy whatever spices she wanted for her baking.
“At least these poor excuses for roads have dried up,” Carl said, his voice containing its normal hint of humor. “Those mudholes earlier in the spring were rather dangerous.”
“The men have talked of turning this into a corduroy road at some point.” She wasn’t sure why she felt the need to convince him of the virtues of their community.
“And pray tell, what exactly is a ‘corduroy road,’ or dare I even ask?”
“They’re made by splitting logs in half and laying them next to each other across the road, particularly in the deepest mudholes.”
He grinned. “Now, that sounds one hundred percent better than the current situation.”
She watched his face, trying to gauge if he was serious or sarcastic. “We’ll be able to take our harvest to market much easier.”
“I suppose even if the corduroy road jars your bones apart, at least your horses won’t get lost in mud puddles.” His eyes glittered with flecks of mirth. “And I suppose you wouldn’t need to worry about any more late-night swims either, would you?”
“If I had a magic horsey like Gretchen’s, then I wouldn’t have to worry about walking at all.”
He laughed.
The warmth of his laughter soaked into her like a fresh spring rain. What was it about him that brought out her smile and a kind of playfulness she’d never known before?
The path to her farm was around the next bend, and she slowed her footsteps to make the time with him last just a little longer. After years of avoiding Hans as much as possible, she didn’t quite know what to do with her new feelings—the freedom of being around a man and actually enjoying his company.
Carl’s pace slowed too as they neared the farm. Was he reluctant for their time together to end?
“Thank you for your willingness to keep me company today,” he said. “But I think I’ve worn you out.”
She was weary, but only because the baby was getting so large. She couldn’t blame the roads this time.
“I was selfish to ask you to come along,” he said, “when the ride is so unbearable and the walk tedious to one in your condition.”
“You made the walk so lovely I hardly noticed my aches.” Once the words were out, she didn’t know what had come over her to make her so bold. She pretended to watch the scampering of two baby red squirrels around the trunk of a nearby tree as they chased each other and chattered.
“I had a lovely day too,” he said softly. “But of course, how could it be anything but lovely when I’m with such a lovely lady?”
“Mama?” Gretchen’s sleepy face peeked over the edge of the wagon bed.
“A lovely lady and her princess.” Carl smiled at Gretchen.
His compliment brought Annalisa much more pleasure than she cared to admit. She turned toward her daughter, hoping to hide the effect of his words. “Ready to get out and walk, liebchen?”
Before she could lift Gretchen, Carl reached for the girl. Gretchen went to him with open arms.
Instead of immediately depositing her on the ground, he lifted her above his head and twirled her around. “I think you’re a flying fairy princess.”
Gretchen laughed and extended her arms to make wings.
Annalisa watched the delight in both Carl’s and Gretchen’s faces. He wasn’t playing with her out of obligation or to flatter her. Nein. He truly liked the young girl. Annalisa could see the joy in his face, and it brought an aching happiness to her heart.
When he delivered the flying princess back to solid earth, she looked up at him with her wide, innocent eyes. “Would you be my papa?”
“Ach, nein.” Embarrassed, Annalisa quickly twisted Gretchen away from Carl. “Nein, liebchen. You can’t ask such a thing of Carl.”
“But don’t we need a papa?” Gretchen’s delicate features tightened with confusion.
“Ja. But he’s coming on a ship from Saxony. He’ll be here soon.”
“Why can’t we have Carl as papa instead?”
“Because . . .” She didn’t dare look at Carl. “Because we can’t.”
“But—” Gretchen started, but Annalisa pressed a finger against the girl’s lips and silenced her with what she hoped was a stern frown. She knew her answer was unsatisfactory, but how could she explain to Gretchen the complexity of the situation when she herself didn’t know all the answers. She only knew Vater had decided everything many months ago. She had no way to reverse the plans now that they’d been set in motion.
And besides, even if she’d wanted to change the plans, Carl had once informed her he wasn’t a farmer and never would be. And hadn’t he just told her he was making plans to leave them, to go to Chicago and teach?
“I think I’ll walk ahead and give Uri his hard-earned turkey money.” Carl’s voice held a resignation that confirmed her thoughts. “But I’ll be back to take care of the horse and barn chores.”
She nodded and avoided meeting his gaze.
Without another word he continued toward her parents’ farm.
She led Old Red and Gretchen back to the cabin and began unloading the butter crocks that she would refill for the next trip to town. And as she worked, she tried not to think about Carl’s silence with Gretchen’s childish declaration, or his silence when Frau Pastor had wished they could find a way to keep him.
She’d only managed to carry in one load of crocks when the door banged open and Carl stumbled inside, breathless as if he’d just run the distance back from her parents’ farm.
“They’re flying a white flag.” He gasped the words out.
She froze, his declaration chilling her down to her bones.
His eyes held a fear that mirrored her own.
Typhoid fever.
Neither of them spoke the dreaded words. But from the worried wrinkles across his forehead she knew he was thinking them too.
“Was anyone sick this morning when you left?” She tried to stay calm, but her heartbeat was pattering as hard as a heavy spring rain against the roof.
“I didn’t notice anything, but I usually only see Uri and your vater before I leave. And they seemed fine to me. Neither complained of being sick.”
“What of Mutter or Eleanor?” She hadn’t seen either since the previous Sunday at church.
“I don’t know.”
For a long moment the only sound was Snowdrop’s happy yipping outside and Gretchen’s return banter. The sunshine spilled inside the cabin, but it suddenly seemed too bright, too jarring, too warm.
Annalisa took a deep, steadying breath of the familiar woodsmoke that lingered in the air. There was no sense in panicking yet. Likely her family would weather the illness just fine. They were healthy, strong, and such a disease wouldn’t ravage them the same way it would someone weaker.
“You won’t be able to go back until the flag is down,” she said.
He nodded solemnly.
“Perhaps you can stay with our neighbor, Herr Mueller.” She wanted to offer to make a bed for him in the barn, but propriety demanded that he stay with another neighbor.
The lines creasing his forehead deepened. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have taken you and Gretchen into town today. What if you were exposed?”
“We’ll be fine.” She hoped.
But Carl’s eyes weren’t reassuring.
For two days Annalisa watched Gretchen for any sign of sickness. And with every ache in her own head or muscles, she tensed. She couldn’t afford to get sick, not with the baby soon to be born, not when she had Gretchen to take care of, not with the rest of the garden that needed planting and the corn that needed sowing and the weeds that needed pulling and the berries that would soon be ready for picking and preserving.
And she had to finish the dandelion jelly.
Annalisa dipped her fingers into the bowl of flaxen petals. They were as soft as the down of a baby chick. Hopefully she’d have enough to make several jars so that she could keep one and sell the rest.
And I don’t want to keep one just so that Carl can taste my jelly, she thought. I want one jar for Gretchen. Ja, she liked watching the pleasure in Carl’s face when he ate, and she devoured his compliments. But that wasn’t why she wanted the dandelion jelly . . . was it?
With a flick of her hand she dumped the petals into a pot of boiling water. Then she stirred the wilted yellow flowers in the water, inhaling the bubbling waft that smelled like freshly cut grass.
Through the open door Gretchen’s chatter was clear and sweet, followed by Carl’s low response to the girl. She had no doubt that Gretchen was watching him repair the crooked fence around her garden. Gretchen had already completed her morning chores, including making the bed. Except . . .
Annalisa’s stirring came to a jerking halt. The small crate under the bed had been shifted to an odd angle and wasn’t in its usual face-out position.
Had Gretchen moved it?
Annalisa let the wooden spoon slip into the honey-colored liquid and rushed to the bedstead.
She trembled as she slid awkwardly under the bed, her bulky middle hardly allowing her to fit anymore. But she knew that she could because she’d put her earnings in her crock just two days ago, the very evening they’d returned from their trip to town.
Her fingers shook as they made contact with the hidden crock.
Oh, Gott, bitte, she prayed. “Bitte, bitte, bitte. Not Carl.” Please, please, please. Not him. Not like Hans.
She’d wanted to think that maybe God had been smiling down upon her of late, but maybe she’d been mistaken.
Slowly she wiggled her way out from underneath the bed, knelt and poured out the coins. With nausea rolling through her stomach she counted every penny, making small stacks on the floor.
She hadn’t been able to save much since Hans had taken her money and gambled it away before he died. Over the hard winter she’d needed most of her earnings to buy supplies. But she’d managed three dollars and twenty-five cents, which was a good start. If she saved a little at a time, someday it would all add up to enough that perhaps she could send Gretchen to school.
In the Old Country, girls were allowed very little schooling, if any. Only boys could become teachers. But here in America she could give Gretchen and the new baby so much more than she’d ever had. If she worked hard and saved enough . . . and if she could keep her earnings from being stolen.
Her hands shook, and she almost tipped over the last stack of coins.
When she finished counting, she sat back on her heels and stared at the money. Four dollars? Had she added wrong?
She wasn’t very good at figures, had only learned just a little arithmetic during her time at the Detroit school.
With her pulse pattering faster she recounted the stacks. Once again her sum came to four dollars exactly.
How was it possible? She stared at the money, tempted to count it again. Had she miscalculated when she’d returned from town? But even as her mind scrambled to make sense of the extra coins, her heart cinched at the realization of what had happened.
She pushed herself up, the weight of the baby making her efforts cumbersome. She lumbered to the door and stopped at the sight of Carl in the yard.
The tight pinch around her heart moved into her throat. Tears stung her eyes.
Carl Richards was a good man. A very good man.
She couldn’t speak to him yet, not past the ache. Instead she leaned against the doorframe and gave in to the indulgence of watching him without his knowledge. He’d taken off his hat, and sunlight glinted on his dark waves, reminding her of the thickness and the forbidden pleasure she’d found in combing her fingers through the strands.
Longing pushed into her aching throat. She wanted nothing more in that moment than to have him pull her into his arms and to rest her cheek against his shoulder again.
She didn’t know how he’d discovered her hiding spot, but he had. Instead of taking from her, he’d given of the little he had.
And he’d done it in secret, likely thinking she wouldn’t realize he’d added to her money, not knowing how carefully she kept track of how much went into the crock.
Should she thank him?
He’d repaired the garden fence and now stood next to the clothesline, nailing slanted boards into the posts. In his spare time he always seemed to find something to make or fix. She never knew exactly what he was doing until he finished and showed her how the new contraption worked.
Gretchen had followed him, and he’d enlisted her help in holding the rope while he worked, taking care it didn’t touch the ground and become soiled.
“And the English word for hund is dog.” He had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt so that his bare arms showed. They were still white, but the muscles rippled with each stroke of the hammer.
“Dog,” Gretchen repeated.
“Mein hund folgt mir,” he continued. “In English we say, My dog follows me.”
Gretchen spoke the English words effortlessly.
Was Carl teaching her even though she was a girl?
She’d wanted Gretchen to learn the native language. Her daughter would have a much easier time fitting in and would have more advantages if she could speak English, especially at an early age. But Annalisa didn’t know enough to teach her.
She pressed trembling fingers against her lips, overwhelmed by his kindness.
A distant rattle of a wagon drew Annalisa’s eyes to the path that led from the road to the cabin. Her muscles tensed, and worry chased away the sweetness of the moment.
She held her breath and whispered a silent prayer that it wasn’t her groom.
Not yet.
She didn’t want him coming yet.
Every day when she awoke, she couldn’t keep from wondering if today would finally be the day he arrived. She knew it had to be any day, any hour, any minute. He was long past due.
Perhaps something had happened to him. Maybe he’d changed his mind. Or what if he’d become too ill to come. In either case, she expected that he or his family would write to them if he was unable to travel.
As the rattle passed by the farm and grew faint, she breathed out her relief.
Because the truth was, she wanted Carl to stay. Ja, she had to admit it to herself—she wanted things to go on the way they were. With Carl there.
She didn’t want her groom to come because that would mean Carl would leave.
Now that she’d gotten a taste of what life with a kind man was like, could she really marry a stranger, someone who might not respect her, someone who might be like Hans or Idette’s husband, Leonard?
Carl paused in his work, smiled down at Gretchen, and spoke in English.
She repeated his words with a return smile of her own—a smile filled with girlish adoration. And love?
Was Gretchen starting to love this man?
“God help us,” Annalisa whispered. By prolonging Carl’s time with them and allowing Gretchen to come to love him, was she only making his leaving more difficult for her daughter?
Gretchen had already lost her papa. Even though Hans had barely spoken a word to Gretchen, she’d still loved him. She didn’t need to lose another man she’d grown to care about. The loss would devastate the girl.
Annalisa turned back into the shadows of the cabin, the agony of the situation churning her stomach like strong vinegar.
The bubbling of the boiling dandelions called to her.
But she hesitated. What if she could change Carl’s mind about staying? What if she could make him want to marry her?
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