Sister Marcella and Sister Alice exchanged a look. “We have nothing to hide.”
“In the night, I hear singing. Music.”
Sister Marcella clasped her hands together. “What you hear is our midnight worship.”
Dorothea couldn’t hide her astonishment. “You worship, at midnight?” Every night?
“We adhere to a strict schedule. Father Friedsam stresses discipline.”
“But I thought I heard . . . harmonies.”
“Yes,” Sister Alice said. “Father Friedsam writes most of our hymns. There are usually four parts, though sometimes there are even six or seven parts. That’s when our choir practices for three or four hours.”
“Why . . . at midnight?”
Sister Marcella looked at her as if it was so obvious. “Because Father Friedsam believes that the Second Coming of Christ will occur at midnight.” She gave Dorothea a calm smile. “We want to be ready.”
A bell chimed and Sister Marcella reached for the door latch. “We must go tend to the Three Sisters.”
“Are there others who are ill?”
A giggle burst out of Sister Alice, and Sister Marcella lifted a sparse eyebrow at her, silencing her immediately. “The Three Sisters is what we call our garden.”
“But why?”
“Beans, corn, and squash,” Sister Alice said. “They’re always grown together, helping each other. The squash provides shade for the roots of the corn, and the corn provides a natural pole for the vines of the beans to climb up. The roots of the beans help stabilize the corn. A wonderful example of God’s community from the world of nature.”
“I’m unfamiliar with corn.”
“Soon you will know it well,” Sister Marcella said. “It’s a plant native to the New World.”
“The Iroquois Indians introduced it to us,” Sister Alice said. “They’re the ones who taught us about the Three Sisters.”
Dorothea leaned toward them. “But aren’t you afraid of the Indians?”
Both sisters shook their heads from side to side. “God is with us,” Sister Marcella said. “We have nothing to fear.”
God was with Dorothea too, but she felt she had much to fear.
Almost in unison, the two women spun on the balls of their feet and started back down the long hall. Dorothea stared after them, her gaze moving up and down the length of them, from their hoods to the shapeless robes that covered their bodies. Then she noticed their feet were bare. There was something, she thought, so touchingly human about the sight of bare feet.
Dorothea closed the door with a sigh. What an odd place she was in! She wondered why the old Indian had directed them here, of all places, though she supposed he might have thought they were one and the same—speakers of the same German tongue.
Strange—to have much in common with these people and yet feel so separate from them. Ah, but then there was the music. She hoped she might hear it again tonight. It filled her with a peace unlike anything she had felt before. She went to Jacob’s bedside and smoothed out his blanket. He seemed a little better and the thought cheered her. More color in his face, less of that heavy labored breathing.
The two hooded sisters were outside, walking past her open window on their way to the garden, talking as they walked. She paused when she heard their conversation.
“Es geht ihm hinnerlich.” He is doing poorly.
The other sister’s hood bobbed up and down in agreement. “Ich denk der Mann is am Schtarewe.” I think the man is dying.
Dorothea’s shoulders sagged at their assessment.
14
Jacob’s Cabin
October 30, 1737
On this sunny afternoon, Anna was alone in the cabin while the others were either in the meadow or down by the creek. She watered her rose and set it by the cabin door to get sun. Soon, it must be planted to survive, though she had no idea where. This cabin of Jacob Bauer’s, it was a temporary home for them all. Strange, to realize that Jacob had built it to house his family, yet everyone but his family was living in it.
She knelt by her trunk and opened it for the first time since she had left Ixheim, pulling out the sewing bag and extra linens, all made by her grandmother. Memories of her grandparents flooded her. Each piece of linen reminded her of how she prepared for the journey to America. It was difficult to decide what to bring, what to leave behind.
But the most difficult thing to leave, of course, hadn’t been a thing at all, but her dear grandparents. She had little hope that Bairn would be able to coax her grandparents to return with him, if indeed he could even get to Ixheim. Her grandfather, an adventurous man, might be talked into it, but her grandmother would squelch the idea.
She held a delicate handkerchief to her face, eyes closed as she breathed in the faintest scent of lavender from her grandmother’s garden. Lavender would be at the top of her list of things to plant in the garden. She heard a horse whinny from the meadow and another one nicker in response, and closed her trunk with a sigh. She should get started on supper before everyone returned, famished, annoyed with her for dawdling the afternoon away.
As she cut vegetables for the soup, she cherished this rare moment of solitude. A huge iron kettle hung from a tripod over the fire. The fire burned low. Anna picked up the iron poker and began to nudge the great charred logs.
She poured water into the kettle and set the bucket on the table—made up of four large trunks pushed together—behind her. For a moment, she gazed at the flames dancing through the logs. Bairn and Felix, what would they be doing right now? One moment, she found herself missing them terribly, longing for them to return. In the next instant, she fought a silent battle with Bairn for leaving, almost a seething anger toward him. How could love and anger coexist in her heart?
Before she could examine those thoughts, the cabin door opened and the newcomer appeared with a large bundle of dried hay gathered in a blanket. His face lit up when he saw her. “More hay to squirrel away in the loft to keep the livestock well fed through the winter,” he said cheerfully, “though we have very little livestock. Five hens, one rooster, one pig, two sheep, only four horses.”
“And three of those horses are borrowed,” she reminded him. They burst into shared laughter, the nonsensical kind that felt good, lighthearted.
Soon, they would need to return those horses and wagons to the farmers in Germantown. That was another matter Christian remained indecisive over—who should return them? When should he go?
“Is that a rose plant by the door?”
“Yes. A rose from Ixheim. I brought it with me.”
“You must have taken great care with it, for it to survive an ocean journey.”
“Indeed. It was rarely out of my sight.” She wondered why Henrik had come to the New World. Why would he not have been with others on the ship? So she asked him.
It was a reasonable question, but Henrik stiffened as though she had stabbed him with it. Instead of answering, he lifted the blanket of hay and said he should get this hay up in the loft before the minister’s wife came after him with her broom for messing up her clean floor.
He came back down the loft ladder with the now-empty blanket and sniffed the air with an appreciative look on his face. Steam thick with the smell of bean soup billowed around them.
Henrik set the blanket on the ground near the fireplace and turned around to lean against the table with his arms folded across his chest. As big as the cabin was, he seemed to fill it.
“Are you hungry?” Anna asked.
“Bean soup. Just what my stomach was pining for.” But from the way he was gazing at her, bean soup did not seem to be the only thing on his mind.
Anna turned abruptly toward the fire. “The soup is burning.” She started to reach for the handle of the kettle with her bare hand, then pulled it back at the last second and used a folded-up dish towel instead. She wiped her hands carefully on the towel before she turned to face him again.
Henrik uncrossed his arms and straightened, fill
ing even more of the room. A strange smile—one that Anna couldn’t read—pulled at his mouth. A rakish grin. “So what do you pine for, Anna?”
“Just what you would expect,” she said.
“What would I expect?”
Again that strange smile.
A few seconds of silence ticked by before she answered. “A family of my own, to love and be loved.” She looked around the cabin and gave him a wry smile. “Though I suppose this church could be considered plenty of family.”
“How have you managed, on your own all this time?”
“I had little choice.”
He shook his head. “They take you for granted.”
He was referring, she knew, to the rude way Maria had spoken to Anna earlier today. It was her turn to rise early to start the fire, but she had overslept. By the time she woke, the few remaining embers had gone cold and the black ash had turned to white. Maria was furious, banging pots and pans, telling everyone that breakfast would be much delayed because of Anna’s late sleeping.
“Please don’t speak poorly of them. They are the only family I have.” Especially with the Bauers gone.
His eyes met hers. “Not anymore.”
Her heart warmed by his kind intent, but she looked away from his earnest gaze.
Ephrata Community
Dorothea heard a knock at the door and opened it to find a man in a white robe. She immediately knew it was a man and not a woman because the top of the hood was pointed, not rounded. She was learning much about the community since she’d arrived. This man wore thick eyeglasses and had large, protruding teeth that pursed his lips in a perpetual look of disapproval.
“I was told your husband is ill.”
“Yes. Are you a doctor?”
“No. I’m Brother Andrew.” He said it as if nothing more needed to be said. He went to Jacob’s bedside and examined him—checking his pulse, his fever, listening to his labored breathing.
“Back in Germany, there was a woman we called a Braucher.” Anna’s grandmother. “She can heal the sick with her touch alone. It’s a wondrous gift of God and comes from a faith that runs deeper than the core of the earth.” She looked hopefully at Brother Andrew. “Isn’t there anyone in the community who has the healing touch?”
“If this Braucher was given a gift from God to heal, then perhaps you should pray to God for the gift of your husband’s healing.”
As if she hadn’t been praying! “And when my husband recovers, then he’ll be himself again, won’t he?” Dorothea reached out to squeeze Jacob’s hand, hoping for some response. “Surely, he’ll be well again.”
Brother Andrew did not answer her.
“Do you have any idea what causes his suffering?”
“I’ve seen this once before. It has a ravaging effect. It consumes an individual. Hence the name.”
“What is it?”
“Consumption,” he declared, and he left as quickly as he came.
Jacob’s Cabin
October 31, 1737
Day after day had passed with no sign of Jacob or Dorothea.
Josef Gerber wanted to go searching, but Isaac Mast wouldn’t hear of it. Not until the meadow hay was cut, dried, and stacked in the cabin rafters. “If we cannot feed our livestock through the winter, we will have no way to sow crops in the spring, and no harvest next fall.” His dark brown eyes gazed around the room. “We do not want to face a starving time,” he added, striking fear into everyone.
The sailors on the Charming Nancy had told Felix gruesome stories of “starving times” that occurred in the Jamestown and Plymouth settlements, and he relayed the stories to everyone in the lower deck. There were starving times in the Old World that were not easily forgotten—famine, poor harvests, shortages. Mostly, Anna remembered, the starving times came from effects of war.
The newcomer stepped in to fend off Isaac’s anxiety-provoking comments, which were becoming a common occurrence. Henrik had a way of evoking calm and hope for the future. “We have no reason to worry,” he insisted. “We now live in a land of plentiful supply.”
Yes and no, Anna thought, as she listened to Henrik. Their diet was a lopsided one, short on vegetables and heavy on meat. And always accompanied with brown bread made with molasses and baked over the open fire. It was still too warm to butcher the pig and salt it for the meat barrel, so they relied on hunting game as often as they could—venison, possums and raccoons, wild fowl. Josef Gerber was the best hunter in the group. They weren’t always sure what they were eating, but so far no one had fallen ill with digestive troubles.
Anna and Catrina had made a daily adventure of foraging in the woods for herbs, tree bark, roots, and edible plants to gather and eat or, better still, to use for medicinal purposes. Some plants Anna recognized from her grandmother’s tutelage: lady ferns, which could be mashed up and the juice would ease stinging nettles, burns, and cuts. Tansy to rub on the skin to repel insects. Mint to aid digestion, catnip to stop bleeding. Sage to relieve a woman’s aches during her monthlies. Feverfew to cure a headache.
If Anna had doubts about something—and about most plants in these unfamiliar woods, she did have doubts—she fed them first to the pig. If it wouldn’t eat it, she wouldn’t trust it. The pig turned up its nose at many offerings, for which Anna was grateful.
Henrik volunteered again to go search for Jacob and Dorothea, an act that endeared him to Maria. She was afraid Christian would end up going by default and knew he had a poor sense of direction. On top of that, Catrina had woken up in the morning with a sore throat. She lay quietly on a mat, bundled up, far from the cabin door that was constantly opening and closing and letting cold air swoop in. Even Anna felt concerned about Catrina’s health—she was a child who was never quiet, yet today she had said barely two words.
Christian, Isaac, Josef, and Simon huddled together for a conversation, as they often did for matters of grave concern. Josef held one opinion, Isaac the opposite, Simon saw both sides, and they all looked to Christian to make the decision. Unfortunately, Christian was paralyzed by decision making. He liked to gather all the possible facts before he came to a decision, sift through every detail, then hold off to gather more facts.
“How in the world did Christian ever decide to come to the New World?” Henrik whispered to Anna. “He can barely decide what to wear each day. And he only has one change of clothing.”
“He didn’t decide,” Anna whispered back. “Jacob Bauer decided for everyone.”
“Most likely,” Christian said, “something arose that would make them take shelter for the time being.”
“Like what?” Maria, ever forthright, asked him. “What could have possibly stopped Jacob Bauer from forging ahead? You know how that man thinks. Nothing gets in his way.”
“Perhaps the baby might have gotten sick. Or Dorothea.”
“Where would they have found shelter? We saw nothing along the way. Not a single light or sign of any other farm.”
Christian sighed. “Maria, I don’t know where they are, but I do know that Jacob has lived here for over a year now. He would know where to take shelter. A cave, an abandoned shack. He would know where to go.”
Such reassuring words from Christian, who was prone to fretting, satisfied everyone. The men and women were able to return to their tasks.
The mild autumn days allowed time to cut and dry the hay, then cart it into Jacob Bauer’s cabin and hoist it to the rafters. Maria was constantly sweeping the scattered hay. “I can’t wait until I have a proper house,” she said, frowning as she looked around the cabin. “I feel as if I’m still on the lower decks of that awful ship.”
It did seem as if they were still on the Charming Nancy, sharing small living quarters with people and animals. Anna looked up to the cabin rafters. “But it is much taller, Maria.” Most of the men in the church had had to duck their heads as they walked around the lower deck. “Here, everyone can stand up straight.”
Maria swept the last of the stray hay over to the si
de. “You sound like the newcomer. The cup is always half full.” She set the broom against the wall.
Anna almost laughed at that. Maria was right, for once. The newcomer was a cockeyed optimist. He had a way of looking at all of life as if filled with wonder. The time on the ship, he declared more than once, was God’s way to prepare the church to endure life together in a small cabin.
And when it came to nature, the newcomer was in complete awe of it. Yesterday, he stopped sickling hay to observe a herd of deer that watched them curiously through a stand of trees at the edge of the meadow. Isaac jabbed Henrik about that all evening, insinuating he would do anything to avoid hard work. But Anna knew his wonder was sincere; it wasn’t just deer that captivated him—raccoons, eagles, beavers, even a skunk. If Anna didn’t know better, she would have thought he’d never seen wildlife before coming to the New World.
The newcomer’s positive outlook was quite refreshing, because oh! how the others grumbled! All of them. Each new experience was approached with complaints or fearfulness. The men complained about the meadow grass they were gathering—too thin, too many weeds among it. And yet had they sown it? Barbara spoke incessantly about Indians. And yet had she seen any? Not one. Maria made twice daily references to returning to Ixheim; in her recollections, everything was better in Germany and they never should have left.
As Henrik picked up the sickle to head down to the meadow, he stopped and whispered to Anna that he wondered if this was like listening to the Israelites after the miraculous crossing of the Red Sea. The first moment life became difficult and uncertain, they pined for Egypt. “So when you’re foraging in the woods this afternoon, please be sure to bring back strawberries and leeks for tonight’s supper.”
When he saw she didn’t realize he was teasing, he grinned and said, “Lach!” A jest.
Well, it was true. The little church had already forgotten the cruel landowners of Ixheim and mewled for safety and security. Just last night, she overheard Maria try to convince Christian to move to Germantown.
Anna watched the newcomer follow the other men down the path. The sky had a different look to it and the wind was picking up. She turned and went back into the cabin to check on Catrina. She added another blanket on top of her because she was shivering. Anna felt a blast of cold air and turned to see who had come in from the meadow. Then she stopped abruptly.
The Newcomer Page 13