Piecing It All Together

by Leslie Gould

  “Savannah?”

  I turned toward Mammi.

  “Do you mind if I quilt for a while?”

  It wasn’t like I had anything else to do. “Go ahead.”

  “Would you like to join us?” Jane asked. “It’s been a slow day as far as customers. And we still have a long way to go to finish quilting this.”

  “I’d like that.” I sat down in the exact spot I had the day before and retrieved the needle I’d left in the fabric.

  Once we were all settled and started with our stitching, Jane said, “Arleta left me a message on my answering machine this morning, thanking me for the casserole. She sounded good.”

  “She seemed good yesterday too.” Mammi smiled at me. “Don’t you think?”

  I nodded. “She was definitely more animated with Mammi than she’d been with me.”

  “Oh, don’t take that personally,” Jane said. “She’s more reserved than most, and she probably wasn’t sure whether she could trust you or not.”

  I focused on the quilt again. “I’m wondering if she’s feeling more settled about Miriam being gone.”

  “What do you mean?” Jane asked.

  “I’m just thinking out loud,” I said, “but maybe she knows where she is.”

  “Why would she keep it a secret?”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want someone to know.” I feared I was pushing things too far with my speculating.

  “Such as?” Jane asked.

  I lowered my voice. “Vernon.”

  Neither Mammi nor Jane said anything, and I was afraid I’d disappointed them with what sounded like gossip—and very well could be.

  Finally, Mammi said, “I wondered that myself.”

  There was another long pause, and then Jane said, “Would you like me to continue the story I was telling yesterday?”

  I glanced around at all of the empty chairs. “With just me? Won’t everyone else be upset?”

  She laughed. “Well, I’ll catch them up.” She glanced at Mammi and then back at me. “But I want you to hear all of it, especially if you are going to leave soon. This story is for you.”

  “All right,” I said, touched.

  “Where did I leave off yesterday?”

  “Emma had lost everything—her son, baby girl, husband, and her home,” I answered. “She’d arrived in Elkhart County and even helped with a birth but still longed to return to Pennsylvania.”

  “That’s right,” Jane said. “As you can imagine, everything had changed for Emma. . . .”

  CHAPTER 13

  Emma

  That evening, Emma helped Sarah wash and get ready for bed while the baby fussed in the cradle. Walter would sleep out in the barn with Judah while Emma stayed in the cabin with Sarah.

  “He’ll be fine out there,” Sarah said. “There’s a room in the back where Judah has his things.”

  “Did the three of you grow up together?” Emma asked.

  Sarah nodded. “Since we were babies. Walter and I started courting when we were sixteen.”

  “How old are you now?” Emma asked.

  “Twenty-four.”

  They’d waited a while to marry. Perhaps Walter and Judah had the goal to move west all along and had been working and saving money to buy land.

  “I didn’t want to leave Ohio,” Sarah said. “But Walter didn’t want to stay. If it were up to me, we’d go back home.”

  Emma murmured her understanding.

  Sarah continued. “Judah courted a woman back home, but he rejected her. He’s always been the black sheep of his family, the prodigal son. I don’t know why Walter puts so much trust in him. I expect Judah to get bored here and run off before too long. There are times when he’s gone off exploring for days at a time. Who knows what he’s doing.” She lowered her voice. “He hasn’t joined the church yet, and sometimes I wonder if he ever will. He seems to act more and more like an Englischer all the time. Traveling all over the place. Working for our neighbor, George, who cheats whomever he can. Judah has different ideas than most Plain people. I don’t find him, exactly”—she paused—“trustworthy. But if anyone can make it on the frontier, it’s Judah.” She sighed. “If anyone can’t, it’s me.”

  Emma could relate to Sarah but didn’t say so. Instead, she said, “Don’t be too hard on yourself. You’ve just had a baby.”

  Sarah sighed. “It’s all so hard and I know it will be even harder now with a baby, with no mother or sisters nearby. The worst part about living here is not having any other women around, although there is the Englisch family about a mile away—George Burton, the cheat, and his wife, Harriet. But we don’t see them much, unless he needs help. Harriet keeps to herself. And then there’s Mathilde, but she’s so quiet. . . .”

  Emma thought of how happy Mathilde was to see Sarah and the baby. She might be quiet, but she seemed to be kind and caring.

  “Mathilde is fortunate to be here,” Sarah said. “To have Jean-Paul.”

  Emma’s heart skipped a beat. Fortunate to be in her homeland but away from her family? It seemed Mathilde had been faced with horrible circumstances and choices out of her control.

  “Judah seems to know quite a bit about her and Jean-Paul and the Potawatomi people,” Emma said as nonchalantly as she could, not wanting to betray how interested she was in the topic.

  Sarah nodded. “When he and Walter first came here, there were more of Mathilde’s people in the area. Judah became acquainted with some of them as he traveled to the different areas. Even now, he’s constantly peppering Jean-Paul with questions about the Natives. It gets so tiresome.”

  Even though she was curious, Emma doubted she would get much information from Sarah about the Potawatomi. And she also doubted she’d be able to have many more conversations with Judah—or if she should.

  Once Sarah was in bed, Emma took the baby to her, holding him against her chest. He was so tiny. So beautiful. So precious.

  “I’m exhausted,” Sarah said, putting her head back on the pillow. “Is he really hungry?”

  Emma nodded. “And it will help your milk come in.” Emma handed the baby to her. “It’s the same for every woman. It will be hard for a few weeks and then it will get easier.”

  And then, God willing, it wouldn’t get harder from a broken heart and endless grief.

  Sarah opened her nightgown for the baby. “That is fine for you to say, having never actually birthed a baby.”

  Emma hesitated. Should she tell Sarah she was a mother too, even though her children were dead? If she didn’t, would Sarah feel bad when she found out that Emma was a widow?

  The baby latched on, and Sarah grimaced. “I never thought it would be painful. My Mamm never had any pain with nursing her babies.”

  Emma had birthed two, jah, but only nursed one. Her breasts ached at the thought. She needed to say something to Sarah. “I had babies, two of them,” she whispered. “And nursed one. The second was born dead.”

  Sarah stared at the top of Hiram’s head. “Where are your children now?”

  “Buried in our family plot, back in Pennsylvania.”

  Sarah continued to stare at her baby. “And your husband?

  “Buried there too.” She was sure they were all in heaven, but it sounded prideful to say so. She hoped they were.

  “How sad,” Sarah said without lifting her head.

  Tears stung Emma’s eyes as she turned away from the bed.

  “The woman Judah courted was a widow named Ida,” Sarah said. “Apparently, it’s not what he wanted.”

  Emma had heard of men who didn’t want to marry a widow. Thankfully, Abel didn’t seem to be one of them. Judah seemed to be a caring man, but maybe she’d misjudged him. If his own sister-in-law felt he was untrustworthy, maybe Emma should be wary of trusting him too.

  The cabin grew even hotter, and Emma needed some fresh air. She stepped out the front door, leaving it open a crack. She wasn’t sure what was worse, the heat or the mosquitoes. Or Sarah’s lack of a caring response to Emma
baring her soul.

  Ribbons of pink and orange streaked across the western horizon while thunderclouds gathered in the eastern sky. She heard voices over by the barn.

  “George, I told you. We don’t have any idea where Jean-Paul and Mathilde were headed.” It was Judah speaking.

  Emma stepped to the side of the cabin. A lean Englischman wearing a black suit sat tall on a stallion, talking with Judah. Walter was nowhere in sight.

  “We’re in need of Mathilde’s help. My wife isn’t feeling well.”

  “Perhaps they’ll be back by tomorrow,” Judah said. “If they stop by, I’ll tell Jean-Paul you’re looking for them.”

  The man tipped his hat. “Tell him I’m moving cattle day after tomorrow to drive to Goshen. He must come by tomorrow afternoon and bring Mathilde with him—or sooner if they can. I could use your help too.”

  Judah shook his head.

  George held his head high. “I’ll pay. My financial problems are a thing of the past, I promise.”

  “I’m too busy here,” Judah said. “Sarah is confined and will need Walter’s help more.”

  “Who assisted Sarah?”

  “There are two new midwives over in Jackson Township.”

  Emma slipped back to the front of the cabin.

  George said, “Good. That makes this place a bit more civilized.”

  Emma stayed at the door as George Burton took off on his stallion. He didn’t look like a farmer, and he didn’t sound like one either.

  THE NEXT MORNING, Jean-Paul and Mathilde stopped by with a basket of wild berries for Sarah. This time Mathilde stayed on her horse while Jean-Paul delivered the basket to the front door. He had his pipe lit, and the smell of tobacco filled the air.

  Emma’s heart skipped a beat. The little family made Emma long for Asher and Hansi. She took the berries and waved to Mathilde, calling out, “Thank you!”

  The woman barely smiled, but she seemed pleased.

  Emma wasn’t sure if she should tell Jean-Paul about George stopping to look for him, so instead she said, “Judah may have some information for you. I think he’s in the barn.”

  “Merci.” Jean-Paul turned toward Mathilde and said something in French. Then he swung Baptiste, from where he sat in front of his mother, into his arms and started toward the barn.

  Emma took the berries inside, where Sarah and the baby slept, grabbed a leftover biscuit from the table, and took it out to Mathilde.

  The woman smiled again—just a little—before she bit into the biscuit as the men returned.

  “I’ll go talk to Burton,” Jean-Paul said.

  “As long as he pays,” Judah said.

  Jean-Paul held the pipe away from his mouth. “At least you’d have cash coming from him. He does put my wage toward our debt, but it seems the interest rate keeps going up.”

  Judah gave the man a sympathetic look. “George was hoping Mathilde could help Harriet too.”

  Jean-Paul nodded. “Merci.” He put the pipe back in his mouth.

  Emma wondered if what Mathilde earned went toward Jean-Paul’s debt too.

  Mathilde held up half the biscuit and nodded her head, as if in thanks.

  Emma smiled in return. She found the woman fascinating.

  When Jean-Paul swung Baptiste back on the horse, Mathilde gave her son the rest of the biscuit. Emma thought of Hansi again, and her heart felt as if it might stop altogether. In the cabin, the baby began to cry. Emma waved her hand in farewell and stepped back inside.

  After Emma settled the baby down, she headed outside to weed Sarah’s garden before the sun grew too hot. She wore her bonnet and pulled her sleeves down to her wrists.

  Walter went into the cabin, and after a few minutes Judah stepped to the edge of the garden. “I can do the weeding,” he said to Emma.

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Mathilde helped us plant our first garden three years ago, when it was just Walter and me. She gave us seeds to get started—corn, squash, and beans. And tomatoes.”

  Emma glanced around the garden as Judah spoke. All of the plants were high and healthy. Thyme, rosemary, mint, and parsley all grew on the inside of the garden.

  “The first summer, the deer ate most of the vegetables,” Judah said. “But not as many come around anymore. Mathilde showed us how to plant onions and garlic on the outside, and that’s helped.” Emma noticed the rows encasing the garden as she swatted at a mosquito that buzzed around her face.

  “I have to haul water for the plants,” Judah said. “Two buckets at a time from the creek. We’re hoping to dig a well soon.”

  It wasn’t far to the creek, just beyond the willow trees, but carrying water for the house, the livestock, and the garden surely took a lot of time.

  She stepped to the row of beans. “Sarah said there were Potawatomi in this area when you first arrived.”

  “Some.” Judah started weeding along the tomatoes. “They fished the Elkhart and Saint Joseph rivers and hunted in the woods. The women tended gardens. They had villages up by Goshen and close to South Bend, which is where Mathilde’s people were from. There’s a Catholic mission up there, and her family converted.”

  Emma tossed a handful of weeds on the other side of the onions, outside the garden. “Converted to Catholicism?”

  Judah nodded. “The priests—Black Robes, as the Natives call them—served the Natives and wanted them to be able to stay here, while the Protestant missionaries thought the Potawatomi should leave the area and go west.”

  She thought of the violence her great-uncle in Ohio had warned them about and shivered as she asked, “Were the Potawatomi peaceful?”

  “Mostly.” Judah tossed weeds into the pile that Emma had started. “Although there were . . . events that I’m afraid painted them in a bad light, but the violence wasn’t representative of all of them.” He bent down and continued to weed as he spoke. “One happened years ago at Fort Dearborn, which is where the town of Chicago is now. Braves, alarmed by the invasion of their lands, attacked the fort and defeated the US soldiers stationed there, killing many. As a result, the US government assumed all Native groups were hostile and needed to be removed from the vicinity for the safety of settlers. They held the sins of a few against all Native people.”

  “So they started forcing them to leave right away?”

  Judah shook his head. “The Indian Removal Act didn’t become law until 1830, under President Jackson. It wasn’t until 1838 that the government started leading the Potawatomi away from Indiana, and it took a couple of years until most were gone.”

  “Why didn’t they leave sooner?”

  “Well, even under the Indian Removal Act, the Natives couldn’t, technically, be forced to leave. But many were coerced—some by deceit and trickery. Some signed treaties for land that didn’t belong to them and accepted cash payments that the true landowners never benefited from. Some were called ‘whiskey treaties.’ You can guess what the circumstances of those were.”

  Emma nodded. “Did all of the Potawatomi go to Kansas?” She stood tall for a moment, stretching her back and then brushing the soil from her hands.

  “Some fled to Canada, and there’s still a group just over the Michigan border. Chief Shipshewana, who lived northeast of here, was removed in 1838 and escorted to Kansas by soldiers. A year later he returned to his old camping grounds and then died beside Lake Shipshewana soon after.”

  “When did Mathilde’s family go?”

  “They and others resisted as long as they could, until they had no other choice,” Judah answered. “They left three years ago.”

  Emma began pulling weeds again. “How did Mathilde come to marry Jean-Paul?”

  “He worked as a trapper near South Bend, for a man who had a trading post nearby. He’d been working there for twenty years or so, since he was a young man. That’s how he met her. When it was clear the Potawatomi would have to leave, Jean-Paul thought it better for his family to stay here than to become, essentially, refugees.”

>   Emma’s own ancestors had fled their homeland of Switzerland for the Palatinate region of Germany, and they then ended up fleeing again for Pennsylvania, all in search of religious freedom. They’d been refugees in a new land twice.

  The Potawatomi were refugees too, but they’d been forced from their homeland strictly because of greed. The greed of the settlers. Emma felt sick to her stomach. Mathilde and her people had lost their property—while her family had gained new farms.

  IT WASN’T UNTIL later that afternoon that Mamm and Isaac arrived. It turned out she’d gone on another birth in the northeast corner of Jackson Township, and Isaac had gone with her.

  “It was uneventful,” Mamm said. “But I’m ready to get some rest.”

  Mamm checked on Sarah and the baby and told Walter that his wife needed to rest. “You’ll need help,” she said.

  “Perhaps Mathilde can come,” Sarah said.

  Walter answered, “I’ll ask George.”

  Emma wasn’t sure how Mathilde could help both Sarah and Harriet, but didn’t say anything. Back home, mothers, grandmothers, sisters, and cousins would care for a woman after she gave birth. And if she was new to the county, the women in the church would do all they could for her. But here, like Sarah said, there was a scarcity of women.

  “I’ll come check on Sarah next week,” Mamm said as Isaac helped her up into the wagon. “Send Judah for me if she starts to run a fever or bleed heavily, or if her milk doesn’t come in.”

  Walter assured her he would.

  As they left the Landis farm, Emma felt more burdened than ever. Helping with the birth and caring for Sarah and the baby had been a blessing, but she’d been reminded of everything she’d lost. Still, talking with Judah had been a bright spot. She appreciated the information that he shared about Mathilde and her people. But Emma didn’t belong here. She needed to return to Pennsylvania.