by Leslie Gould
She held Agnes against her chest, and for a moment the baby stopped screaming and started rooting around. Emma’s own breasts responded as if letting down, even though she had no milk. She ached the way she had when her hard, bound breasts felt as if they might burst after her little girl was born dead, when she had rivers of milk but no baby. If only she could nurse Agnes now for Mathilde.
For a minute, she thought the best thing was to send Isaac for her cow and see if the baby would take that milk, but then she thought of Harriet. Harriet was the next nearest nursing mother, besides Sarah, that she knew of. Surely she would feed Mathilde’s baby after everything Mathilde had done for her.
“Can you take me to the Burtons’ place?” Emma asked.
Jean-Paul shook his head. “Judah can. He’s outside the barn with both horses, ready to go.”
EMMA TUCKED THE baby inside her cloak, and Judah helped her up onto her sidesaddle, on Red. By the light of the moon, Emma trotted after him along the trail to the Burton place.
When they arrived, Judah helped her down and then led the way to the front door. He banged on it. George yelled, “Go away!”
Judah banged again.
Finally, George swung the door open. He had a cigar in one hand and a half-full glass in the other. A lamp in the foyer shone behind him. “What’s going on?”
The baby began to scream, and Emma wiggled her out from under her cloak. “Mathilde is ill and can’t feed the baby. We need Harriet to nurse her.”
George’s cloudy eyes narrowed. “Harriet?”
Emma nodded.
George threw back his head and laughed. “Harriet wouldn’t nurse a savage’s baby, even if she could.”
Savage. The same word Eli had used.
“Harriet’s not even nursing her own baby. Lenore found a wet nurse over by Bremen. Georgie is over there.”
Emma stuttered, “Bre-men?”
“It’s about ten miles away,” Judah said quietly. “Let’s leave.”
“Tell Jean-Paul I expect him here in the morning, to work. Mathilde too.” George slurred. “If they’re not here, I’ll double the interest on what they owe me.”
Judah shook his head and started to speak as George slammed the door.
“Are we going to Bremen?” Emma felt near exhaustion. She felt like she couldn’t ride another mile, let alone ten.
“No,” Judah said. “We’re going back to Sarah. You tell her she has to feed the baby.” He helped Emma back onto Red and again led the way.
As they traveled, the screech of a panther startled Emma, causing the baby to cry out again. Judah pulled his rifle out and shot it into the air. The panther screeched again, but this time it was farther away.
When they arrived at the Landis place, Judah helped Emma down and then led the way to the door. He pounded on it.
“Who is it?” Walter yelled.
“Me, along with Emma and the baby.”
A few minutes later, Walter unlatched the bolt, and Judah pushed the door open.
“Sarah,” Emma said, stepping into the cabin and looking toward the bed, even though the room was pitch dark. “You have to feed the baby. We can’t find anyone else. She’ll die if you don’t help.”
“Her duty is to Hiram,” Walter said.
“Just feed her this one time,” Emma pleaded. “Until I can figure out what else to do.”
Hiram began to fuss.
“I’ll hold Hiram,” Emma said. “But take Agnes.”
Sarah looked to Walter.
He gave her a curt nod. At least he hadn’t called Mathilde a savage. Emma handed Sarah the baby and then lifted Hiram from his cradle, giving him her finger to suck on.
A few minutes later, Sarah said she was done and pulled Agnes from her breast. The baby began to cry again and so did Hiram.
“Take her,” Walter said, who stood near the door with his arms crossed.
Emma did as she was told, rolling Hiram onto Sarah’s lap as she took the newborn. Judah held the door open for her, and as they shuffled back to the horses, he asked, “What now?”
“Let’s go get Bossie,” Emma said. Hopefully the baby could tolerate cow’s milk.
Even though it was the middle of the night, Judah milked the cow, getting what he could from her. Emma took a cloth from her bag and soaked it in the milk and then formed it into the shape of a teat and wiggled it in the baby’s mouth as she sat up against the wall of the barn. Agnes screamed, fighting against it, but then she finally latched on and started sucking. Emma repeated the process over and over. Eventually, the baby fell asleep.
“Hopefully she won’t spit it all up,” she said, as she handed the baby to Judah, who stood next to her. He held the baby with one hand and helped Emma up onto Red with the other. Then he handed Agnes to her.
The ride back to the Bernard place was slow, with Bossie plodding along after Judah’s horse. Emma felt her eyes grow heavy and struggled to stay awake and keep hold of Agnes. Finally, they arrived at the cabin and Judah helped Emma down. “Go on in. I’ll take care of the horses and cow.”
Coughing greeted her as she opened the cabin door. But it wasn’t Mathilde. It was Jean-Paul, who sat at the table.
“Have you fallen ill too?” Emma asked him.
He nodded.
“Get into bed, then. I’ll make you some tea and a poultice.”
The next few days were a blur as Emma cared for Mathilde, Jean-Paul, and Agnes. Mamm came between births, placing her hands on Mathilde and Jean-Paul’s back, feeling the vibrations of their raggedy breaths and declaring both had pneumonia. She instructed Emma to continue with tea and poultices and to get them to drink as much water and eat as much soup as she could. Judah stayed at the Bernard cabin, hauling water, chopping wood, emptying the slop jar, and watching Baptiste. Isaac came when he could, but Phillip didn’t want to lose work time getting the cabin done.
After three days, Mathilde turned a corner and began caring for Agnes, feeding her the cow’s milk, which the baby did spit up, but also having her nurse again. Emma feared it was too late, but Mathilde kept at it.
Jean-Paul, on the other hand, didn’t get better. He grew weaker as his cough grew stronger. The fifth day after he fell ill, with Mathilde’s arms wrapped around him, he took his last raspy breath and died.
BACK HOME, PEOPLE called pneumonia “an old man’s friend,” but Jean-Paul wasn’t an old man. Older, jah, but he had a young wife and two babies, who were far away from family. Emma’s heart broke for Mathilde and her children.
Mathilde’s eyes stayed dry, but her countenance was defeated. A priest came from South Bend, and he and Mathilde buried Jean-Paul in the simple coffin Judah made for him, in a grave on the edge of the woods that Isaac had helped Judah dig. Mathilde wore her buckskin dress and shell necklace. Emma stood close by, holding Agnes in her arms. In the distance, a loon wailed, as if in lament for Jean-Paul, as if mourning for them all.
As Judah and Isaac covered the coffin with soil, the others went back to the cabin, and the priest baptized the baby. Emma knew there were those in her community who would criticize her for even observing the baptism, but she chose to stand by her friend. Mathilde needed her, and she wouldn’t leave.
Emma’s heart ached for Mathilde losing Jean-Paul. She remembered all too well the pain and devastation of losing her husband. She vowed to do all she could to help the young widow and her children in the months to come, until she returned to Pennsylvania.
Emma left Bossie with Mathilde but rode over in the morning and evening to milk. Light rains fell for a few days, but then the weather turned dry and sunny again, and Phillip and Isaac continued to make good progress on the cabin.
Often, Judah was at Mathilde’s when Emma arrived, hauling water and chopping wood. Together they helped Mathilde finish harvesting her garden, pulling the squash, digging up the potatoes, picking the rest of the beans, and shucking the corn. Mathilde dried the corn and then cut the kernels off the cobs. Emma knew she’d grind them into meal
to make corn cakes throughout the winter.
One late afternoon, over the campfire in the yard, Mathilde made soup from corn, squash, and beans, while both Emma and Judah were at her place. When she handed Emma a bowl, she said, “We call it three sister soup.” She smiled shyly.
It was delicious.
Mathilde was so knowledgeable and resourceful that it seemed she could survive on her land with two children and no husband. Of course, Emma and Judah would keep helping her. And surely, by spring, when Emma left to go back to Pennsylvania, Mathilde would be stable. Emma hoped, also, that other Plain women would befriend her. And other Englisch women too.
As they finished their soup, a rider approached.
Judah stood. “It’s George.”
Baptiste stepped to Mathilde’s side, grabbing onto her skirt.
George wore his black suit and sat high in his saddle. Emma, her bowl still in her hands, stepped past the fire, where Agnes slept in her cradleboard.
“Judah,” George called out as he neared. “Walter said I might find you here. I need your help moving cattle tomorrow.”
“I have my own work.”
George took his hat off and ran his hand through his thick hair. “If you have your own work, why are you here?”
Judah didn’t answer.
George’s eyes narrowed, and Judah met his gaze. After a moment, George turned his attention on Mathilde. “We keep expecting you to show up at the house. And yet here you are, entertaining the neighbors.”
She lowered her head.
“I’m afraid maybe your husband didn’t keep you abreast on how much you owe me. I don’t fault you for that, but I need to go over your account,” George said. “Every day you don’t show up for work, the debt grows.”
When Mathilde didn’t answer, he turned his horse. As he left, he said, rather loudly, “I’ll never understand why the government wanted all of the savages to leave, not when labor is needed here. How are we to manage?”
None of them said anything until George’s horse was trotting away.
“I’ll go with you,” Judah said to Mathilde, “to go over your account. George could try to swindle you.”
“Jean-Paul told me, every day, what we owe George. I have our accounts in a book in the house.” Mathilde lifted Baptiste into her arms. “I’ll take it when I talk with him.”
“Let Judah go with you,” Emma said.
Mathilde shook her head. “Jean-Paul wouldn’t want that.”
Judah pursed his lips, as if to keep himself from saying more. Mathilde started toward the house with Baptiste, and Emma followed with the baby. Judah went to the barn to milk the cow and feed the horses, while Emma helped Mathilde clean the dishes and settle the children.
Later, as Judah and Emma rode toward their homes, she asked about the debt the Bernards owed George.
“He loaned Jean-Paul money to buy his land and then for a plow and seed.” Judah slowed his horse more. “I’m afraid he’s charging a high rate of interest, but Jean-Paul would never discuss it with me. I think he was embarrassed.”
It sounded as if Mathilde was too. Otherwise, she might let Judah accompany her to discuss the situation with George.
By the last week of October, as Phillip and Isaac put the roof on the cabin, the rains started. Trying to cook and wash around the campfire became an even bigger chore as everything turned to mud, and a few times Emma fled to the barn to cry in frustration.
On the third day, Judah came over to help them finish the roof, bringing the cow with him. “Mathilde said she didn’t need her anymore.”
“Why?” Emma asked.
“She’s going to work for Harriet for a while. George put one of his herds on her pasture yesterday, and one of his hands is going to stay in her cabin through the winter.”
Emma gasped. “Did George take her cabin? As payment for what she owes?”
He shrugged. “It’s not our business.”
Emma crossed her arms. “Judah, of course it’s our business. She has no one else to help her.”
He shrugged again and walked toward the cabin, leaving Emma alone in the barn.
CHAPTER 19
In the middle of November, Isaac returned to Jackson Township to help Dat plow fields while Phillip finished the cabin. Fighting a horrible loneliness, Emma stopped by the Landis place to visit with Sarah.
Hiram was fussy, and Sarah was exhausted. She talked about how homesick she was. Emma listened sympathetically.
“I heard you’re going home,” Sarah said.
“Who told you that?”
“Phillip said something about it to Walter.”
Emma sighed. In a moment of weakness, she had told Phillip she was thinking about returning home.
Sarah continued, “I wish I could go with you as far as Ohio. If only Walter would change his mind.” She looked as if she might cry. “I’ve told him over and over to give this property to Judah, that my Dat will help him find a farm in Ohio if we return, but he won’t listen to me.”
Emma wondered if Judah knew she was leaving too. She considered him a friend now, after all they’d gone through in caring for Mathilde and the children.
“Where are Walter and Judah?” Emma asked.
“Hunting,” Sarah answered. “Hopefully they’ll come home with a buck to smoke so we don’t starve this winter.”
Emma didn’t respond. She knew they were far from starving. She stayed a while longer and then said good-bye.
Once she was on her horse, she decided to stop by the Burton place in hopes of seeing Mathilde. She missed her friend.
It wasn’t a warm day by any means, but it wasn’t raining. The cloudy sky had threatened precipitation all day, but none had fallen. She knocked lightly on the door. And then a little louder when no one answered.
Finally, George opened it, a cigar dangling out of his mouth. “No one here is up to visitors,” he said gruffly. “Harriet is still feeling poorly.”
“Then may I say hello to Mathilde?” Emma took off her headscarf. “I didn’t have a chance to speak with her before she left her place.”
“She’s busy.” George took a step backward and staggered a little.
“It will only take a moment.”
“Go along,” George sneered. “We don’t want your kind here.”
Puzzled, Emma stepped backward. Her kind? Did he mean Plain?
There was a racket from the other side of the house and then a yell. “I’ll take the baby,” someone said. Perhaps Lenore. Was she speaking to Mathilde? Was Georgie back in the household?
George closed the door before Emma could say anything more. She put her headscarf back on and then undid her horse’s reins from the hitching post. As she started down the road, she noticed someone walking through the pasture toward a shack at the edge of the woods, a woman and a child. Emma squinted. The woman had a cradleboard on her back.
“Mathilde!” Emma called out.
The woman kept walking. Would they not even let her stay in the house?
Emma called out again, but still Mathilde didn’t respond. The wind had picked up and was blowing through the trees. Perhaps Mathilde couldn’t hear.
“Wait!” she cried out. She tied her horse to the pasture fence and then climbed over it, running after Mathilde.
Baptiste turned and waved. The smile on his face warmed Emma’s heart. She waved back and kept running, stumbling a few times. Baptiste pulled on Mathilde’s hand, and finally she stopped, turning slowly.
Emma reached her. Out of breath, she asked, “How are you doing?”
“Fine.” Mathilde held her head high.
Tears stung Emma’s eyes. She doubted Mathilde was fine. “I’ve missed you.”
Mathilde’s eyes softened.
“I told you we didn’t want your kind around here!”
Emma turned. George was striding toward them, holding his riding whip high.
“Go,” Emma said to Mathilde while still facing George. “Quickly.”
Mathilde didn’t budge.
“Now.” Emma couldn’t bear it if George took out his anger on Mathilde.
Still, Mathilde stayed. But then Baptiste began to whimper, and Emma hissed, “Go for the sake of your children if not for yourself.”
Finally, Mathilde started toward her shack while Emma stood her ground.
George flung out the whip as he continued barreling in her direction. Did he plan to attack her? Emma took a step toward him and then another. “I was simply saying hello to my friend,” she said once he was within speaking distance.
He cracked the whip. “Your friend?”
“Jah,” Emma answered, hoping her voice wasn’t shaking as much as her knees. “My friend.”
“Well, you’re trespassing.” He cracked the whip again.
Emma met his gaze. “I won’t again. I promise.” And she wouldn’t. She couldn’t risk putting Mathilde and the children in danger.
Someone called out for George from the back porch of the house. Emma squinted in the afternoon light. She guessed it was Lenore.
George tucked the whip into his belt and turned without saying another word, marching back across the field. Emma waited until he reached the porch before continuing on to the fence and Red. By the time she reached her horse, a curl of smoke came up from the shack’s chimney. George was a mean and horrible man. If only Mathilde wasn’t in debt to him.
Emma stopped to see Judah on her way home to tell him what happened, but he was still out hunting. She didn’t bother to tell Sarah and Walter because she didn’t expect them to be sympathetic.
Over the next few weeks, Emma met with a few women in the area who were expecting, ones who’d heard she was a midwife. Meeting them helped her loneliness, but she kept thinking about Mathilde. Judah had started working for George again, which disappointed Emma. Was that why he’d claimed George’s actions toward Mathilde weren’t their business?
Judah had been the one to help the most when Mathilde and Jean-Paul fell ill and then when Jean-Paul died. She’d begun to believe that Sarah had been wrong in her assessment of Judah. Emma had begun to trust him.