by Leslie Gould
But why would he defend George and then go back to working for him? What had George done to entice him back?
Judah didn’t say much about his work there, except that he seldom saw Mathilde.
On Christmas, Emma and Phillip rode to Mamm and Dat’s farm. When they arrived, Dat met them in the barn. “You have a letter from Abel,” he said, handing it to her.
It was just a few lines long, and simply said he expected her to return in the spring. She sighed, folded the letter, and slipped it under her cloak, into her apron pocket. On one hand, it was good to hear from him. On the other, he hadn’t written anything of importance. Not that he missed her nor anything about his life back home.
She’d write a chatty letter full of news and of her desire to return to him as soon as possible. Hopefully his reply wouldn’t be as brief.
Barbara and her family were in the cabin when Emma entered, which she’d expected, but Eli and his family were there too. Confused, Emma whispered to Mamm, “Why are the Waglers here?”
“Eli hopes to start courting you,” she answered.
Emma was going to go back home in the spring. It would serve no purpose for her to court Eli, but even if she planned to stay, she wouldn’t. Not after what he said about the Native people. Emma couldn’t avoid Fannie, but she did her best to avoid Eli during the dinner.
She also did her best not to think of Christmas Day back in Somerset County, one in particular—Hansi’s last. As always, they’d gathered at her parents’ house with her grandfather, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Asher had talked about going west that day. At the time, Emma hoped it was nothing but a dream, and she’d barely listened. Instead, she’d cooked and cleaned with her aunts, laughed with her cousins, and ate until she was stuffed.
Today, there was plenty of food too. But it wouldn’t fill her the way the meal on that last happy Christmas had.
Several times Eli tried to start a conversation, but each time Emma found something pressing she needed to do. Set the tables. Dish up the mashed potatoes. Heat water to clean up.
As Mamm stacked the dishes, she said, “It’s time for you to move back here.”
“I have three women who are ready to deliver in the next six weeks or so.”
“Oh?”
Emma nodded. “One lives in Locke Township, and the other two are in Union Township.”
“I see,” Mamm said.
“I couldn’t say no.” Emma was relieved she hadn’t.
“Don’t commit to helping anyone else,” Mamm said. “We’ll have you come home after they’ve all delivered.”
“All right.” Hopefully that would give Emma enough time to see Mathilde again. Then, once Emma was back at her parents’ farm, she would contact the Martins in Newbury Township and let them know she wanted to travel back to Pennsylvania with them in the spring.
A few minutes later, Fannie stepped in and said, “I’ll help with the dishes. You Youngie go on and have some fun.”
Emma put on her cape and joined Barbara, Phillip, Isaac, and Eli. Jah, she would miss her family when she returned to Somerset County, but she would be in a place of comfort and familiarity. She’d be safe. And she much preferred Abel to Eli.
THE DAY AFTER Christmas was cold but dry. After she wrote to Abel, saying she definitely planned to return in the spring and telling him in detail about her life in Indiana, Emma and Phillip hung the hams in the new smokehouse, along with some from the year before that were already cured. Emma made a double batch of molasses cookies and then convinced Phillip to visit both the Landis and Burton families with her. Surely George wouldn’t be as rude to Phillip as he’d been to her.
Sarah and Hiram were in the cabin when they stopped by, huddled around the fire. Phillip went out to the barn, in search of Walter and Judah, while the women visited. After a while, the men came inside, greeted Emma, and pulled the crudely made kitchen chairs up to the fire, warming their hands.
“I’d like to go with you to the Burtons,” Judah said. “I haven’t had a glimpse of Mathilde in weeks.”
“Oh, can’t you leave all of that alone?” Sarah asked. “She’s being cared for. Don’t go making trouble. She has work, and she and her children are safe.”
“We don’t know they’re safe,” Emma pointed out.
Phillip cleared his throat. “Was checking on Mathilde your reason for going out visiting today?”
“Not entirely. I wanted to see Sarah.”
Phillip said, “We’re going back home.”
Emma shook her head. “I’m going to the Burton place.”
“I’m going back home.” Phillip stood.
Emma stood too. “You said you’d take me.”
Judah rose from his chair. “I’ll take you.”
Emma pursed her lips, not sure she wanted to go with Judah. Then again, George might be more apt to welcome her with Judah than with her brother. “Denki,” she said to Judah.
Phillip shook his head. “You’re unconscionable.”
Emma didn’t reply, but she found his lack of empathy far more unconscionable than her concern for a friend.
“I can’t wait until you return to Dat’s,” Phillip said, “and I won’t have to worry about you meddling where you don’t belong.”
“Would you like to go now?” Judah asked Emma, ignoring Phillip.
“Jah.” She hadn’t taken her cloak off—it had been too cold in the cabin to do so.
“I’ll take her home,” Judah said to Phillip. “We won’t be long.”
Phillip grunted and sat back down. It appeared he planned to stay until Judah and Emma were on their way. Or maybe he wanted to gossip about the two of them with Sarah and Walter before he left.
No matter. Emma was headed to see Mathilde. At least Phillip was honest about his feelings and motivations. She had no idea what Judah’s were.
As they rode along, heavy clouds darkened the sky.
“We’re going to get snow,” Judah said. “By nightfall, I’d guess.”
When they arrived at the Burtons, Judah helped Emma down and then tied the horse to the hitching post. Clutching her bag of cookies, Emma followed Judah to the door. George might be more likely to let them in if he saw Judah first.
To her surprise, Lenore answered the door instead.
“Merry Christmas,” Judah said, stepping to the side to reveal Emma.
Lenore frowned. “Come on in.” Emma couldn’t help but notice that the doors to the parlor on the right side were closed.
Lenore ushered them into the left-side parlor, where boxes were stacked around the room. Harriet sat on the settee, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders.
“Look who’s here,” Lenore said.
Harriet nodded in recognition but didn’t speak.
“I brought cookies.” Emma opened the bag and pulled out the cookies wrapped in paper and tied with string. She’d made molasses with the hope that the softer cookies wouldn’t crumble.
“Thank you. Merry Christmas to you too,” Lenore said. “I’m rather surprised you celebrate Christmas.”
Emma shrugged. “We do.” She nodded toward the boxes. “Are you moving?”
“Yes, little Minnie and I are going ahead to Chicago. Harriet and Georgie will join us when she’s feeling better.”
“Hush,” Harriet said. “We don’t need to air everything to the neighbors.”
Ignoring her, Judah asked, “What about George?”
“Well, unless he finds a buyer for this place or finds someone to run it,” Lenore said, “I’m guessing he’s staying here.”
Harriet folded her hands in her lap and dropped her head.
Feeling alarmed, Emma asked, “What about Mathilde and her children?”
Lenore put her hands behind her back. “Well, I doubt they’ll come to Chicago. . . .”
Emma fought the panic that rose in her throat. “May I see her? To ask what her plans are?”
“No. She’s upstairs, feeding the baby,” Lenore said. The baby. Emma was pretty sure
she meant Harriet’s baby.
“Where are Baptiste and Agnes?”
“In her house,” Lenore said. “Mathilde only came for the feeding, since it’s Christmastime. . . .”
Emma hated to think of the children by themselves.
“Where’s George?” Judah asked.
“Gone for a few days.” Lenore stared at Judah. “We haven’t seen much of him lately. I believe you would know as much as we do.”
Judah shrugged. “I don’t know anything. George said he didn’t need me this week.”
At the sound of a baby fussing in the back of the house, Emma bolted through the dining room.
“Come back here,” Lenore ordered.
Emma kept going, turning the corner into the kitchen. Mathilde stood at the bottom of the back staircase, holding Harriet’s baby boy.
Hopefully Agnes was getting enough nourishment too. Emma touched Mathilde’s arm. “How are you? How are your children?”
“Fine.” As Mathilde turned her head, Emma thought she saw a bruise across her left cheek. Or perhaps it was a shadow.
Lenore reached the kitchen. “You need to go. As you can see, we’re busy.” She reached for the baby.
As Emma turned to leave, Mathilde reached for her hand and squeezed it.
“Merry Christmas,” Emma managed to say. “God keep you.”
“And you,” Mathilde answered.
“Go on,” Lenore said to Emma.
As Emma and Judah left, the first snowflake fell and then another and another.
“Try not to worry about her,” Judah said as snow swirled all around them. “Mathilde is smart and resourceful.”
“And all alone,” Emma replied.
Her own loneliness wasn’t anything compared to what Mathilde’s likely was. She had to try to see her again. There must be something she could do to help.
THE SECOND WEEK of January, Emma was summoned early in the morning to help the Englisch woman in Locke Township deliver her baby. The delivery went well, and Phillip hadn’t grumbled too much at going with her. With each delivery she did, her own grief became more manageable.
The next one was the first week of February for another Englisch woman about five miles from the farm. It was the woman’s first, and she appeared to be all of fifteen years old. Phillip waited with the husband in the barn, bringing in more wood from time to time and dozing as much as he could. Emma knew he was impatient to get back to his farm, and at dawn, he came into the cabin with another load of wood and said he was going home but would come back in the afternoon.
Emma hoped the baby would be born by then. It wasn’t. But just as darkness fell, after the girl had been pushing for four hours, she finally and painfully delivered a large baby boy. Emma had never felt so relieved, and the bone-tired young woman rallied to nurse her baby.
Phillip spent the night in the barn again as Emma cared for the mother, and then, exhausted, she rode Red back home, following Phillip, and slept for the rest of the day wrapped in a blanket in front of the fire.
Isaac, accompanied by Eli, came the next day as she kneaded dough to bake in the outside oven Phillip had built. How she missed her cooker back home, along with the hand pump and the solid outhouse. “Mamm says it’s time for you to come home,” Isaac said. “She said for you to bring Bossie too. Mamm thinks you should breed her soon.”
Emma didn’t want Bossie to be pregnant while walking all the way back to Pennsylvania.
“I have another birth to attend to,” she said. At least she might. And, although she thought of her and prayed for her each day, Emma wanted to check on Mathilde in person. It had been almost six weeks since she’d seen her. “I can come back in two weeks.”
Eli didn’t looked pleased, but Isaac did. Emma knew he liked an excuse to be out and about.
They gave her the latest news from Jackson Township. Mamm had been keeping busy with a few births each month, along with caring for the sick. Several people nearby had influenza, and she’d been taking care of them.
“Services will be at our house the last Sunday of February,” Eli said. “Surely you will be back by then.”
Unless the last pregnant mother tarried, she and Phillip would be going to the Waglers’ for the service. Phillip would want to see Barbara, and there would be no stopping him. Emma would need to tell Eli then that she was going back to Pennsylvania.
The following week, no one came to fetch her for the third birth, and Isaac didn’t return either. The week after that, the middle of February, Emma fell ill with a fever, sore throat, and wheezy cough. Just as she was finally recovering, Judah came to summon her late one afternoon during a snowstorm.
The husband of the third Englisch woman who had contacted Emma about helping her had gone to the Landis farm to see if Sarah could help his wife because he didn’t want to pay a midwife. His wife was having a harder time than usual, and he thought having a neighbor woman with her might help. When Sarah refused, Judah said he’d go get Emma.
Judah assured Phillip that he’d stay with Emma and bring her back, and Phillip seemed relieved, since the next day was the service at the Waglers’. Phillip would go—and Emma obviously would not.
As the snow fell all around them, she thought of the first storm of the winter on the day Judah took her to the Burton place to try to visit Mathilde. She didn’t have much longer to see her again. By the end of the month, Emma would be back at her folks’ place. Soon after, she would be traveling to Pennsylvania.
She put on all the petticoats she had under her dress, followed by her cloak, and then hitched up her dress and rode behind Judah. She was thankful for his warmth, but she still wasn’t sure of what to think of him. Was he as untrustworthy as Sarah claimed? Was he loyal to George? She had no idea what the truth was when it came to Judah Landis.
CHAPTER 20
The snow fell harder as they journeyed on. Emma was seized by a cough, which caused Judah to slow the horse and ask if she was all right.
“Jah,” she managed to say, hoping she was.
Finally, Judah stopped the horse at a barn. “The family didn’t get a chance to build a cabin before winter,” he explained. “I’ll cut more wood for you and haul water too.”
“Denki.” She took his arm as he helped her off the horse and then looked up at the roof of the barn, where smoke curled into the snow. Judah knocked, and when a man’s voice yelled, “Come in,” he pushed the door open.
Emma’s eyes adjusted to the dim light, illuminated only by a flickering campfire in the middle of the barn. Some of the smoke drafted upward, but some of it drifted across the barn. The family shared the space with a pair of oxen, a cow, and a horse. Emma anticipated that the conditions inside would be bad, but they were worse than she expected.
A pot of soup hung over the fire, and two redheaded children huddled together on one side, coughing, while a smaller blond child pressed himself against the mother, who was curled up on a blanket on the other side of the fire.
The husband stood nearby. He nodded at Judah as he stepped inside.
Judah took his hat off. “This is Emma. She’s the Plain midwife.”
“She looks awfully young.”
“She’s old enough,” Judah said. “She was trained by her mother, back in Pennsylvania.”
“I see,” the man said. “I’m Neal O’Brien. And this is my wife, Betha.”
They must be Irish, Emma thought. Back in Pennsylvania, in the cities, the Irish were mistreated. Some wouldn’t hire them. Others told them to go back to where they came from. Many taunted them. Emma thought of the freedom her family had found in America and hoped it was still available to others, including the O’Brien family.
She stepped toward Betha and then bent down on the cold, hard earth. This was no place to have a baby. She wished she’d brought another blanket. The toddler sat up and rubbed his stomach. “Food?”
Emma glanced at the hungry faces across the fire and then at Neal. He shook his head. “I need to go hunting. . . .” Emm
a doubted Betha would be ready to push the baby out until her older children went to sleep, and they probably wouldn’t be able to fall asleep until they got some food in their bellies.
Leaving her bag beside Betha, Emma stepped across the room to where Judah still stood by the door. “Would you go get some food? Tell Phillip what’s going on. I cooked a venison shoulder yesterday. Bring the rest of that, the potatoes in the coals, and some of the apples in the cellar. And one of the loaves of bread I baked this morning. Oh, and I need the blankets from my bed too.”
Judah nodded.
“That will be a lot to carry,” Emma said, suddenly realizing how many requests she was making. “Will it be all right?”
“I’ll manage.” He gave her a kind smile. “I’ll be praying as I ride.”
“Denki.”
As Judah turned to leave, Emma instructed Neal to go chop more wood and then asked the oldest child to sweep the barn floor. She took one of her cloths from her bag and changed the toddler’s diaper.
Betha moaned every few minutes from her place on the floor. It took some urging, but Emma finally got her up and walking around.
Emma suppressed a cough. “Tell me about your pain.”
The woman touched her lower back.
“And when did they start?”
“Yesterday morning.” Betha had to be exhausted.
After Neal returned with the wood and stoked the fire, the two older children helped him feed the animals and shovel the manure out the side door. Emma put the kettle on to boil and then kept Betha walking as much as she could. After the water was hot, she made her a cup of chamomile tea.
Emma had heard older women say that the pain of childbirth made mothers love their children all the more, but she wasn’t sure about it. Who couldn’t love their baby, whether they’d had a hard or an easy birth? The older women also said that mothers in labor shouldn’t moan, yell, or call out. Emma didn’t agree with that either.
Betha’s children didn’t seem concerned about their mother, at least not yet. Perhaps they would be soon, if they didn’t go to sleep.