Dorothy Garlock (19 page)

Over it all, the sturdy metal windmill stood a silent sentinel—the watertanks were filled.

Could she be a part of this? Could she sink her roots in the fertile black soil and call this home? Her family would be Owen, little Harry, Uncle Gus and Soren. She would have to accept Esther for what she was, and Hettie and Lily as well.

While she was thinking these thoughts, Uncle Gus came out of the barn with a long staff in his hands. He let himself out the gate and started across the pasture to drive the milch cows home for the night.
This is not a happy place,
the old man had said. What a pity, Ana thought as she walked to the house. The setting is so perfect for a happy home.

*   *   *

The shades of night had fallen by the time the men came to supper. The lamp in the middle of the table cast a glow over the room that smelled not only of lye soap and wet wood, but also of fresh coffee, meat with fluffy sage dumplings, and hot buttered cornbread.

“Something smells larrupin’.” A smile creased Soren’s handsome face. The men had washed the dirt from their upper bodies at the washbench on the porch and put on clean shirts before they came to the table.

“I don’t know how good it is, but there’s plenty of it,” Ana retorted with an answering smile as she carried a bowl of the dumplings to the table.

After she took the bread from the oven, she slipped into her chair at the table so the men would sit down. They filled their plates and began to eat with intensified interest. Eating was a serious business to these men who had worked hard since sunup. Ana kept the dumpling bowl, the bread plate, and their coffee cups, filled. She discovered that she enjoyed doing for these big, kind, hard-working men.

Nothing was said about her trip to town, Owen going after her, or the mess Esther had left in the kitchen. The talk was about the piglets, the planting, and the possibility of the mare giving birth within the next few days. They also talked of someone named Foster who would show up any day and stay a month or two and even into harvest time if they could persuade him. It was evident that they looked forward to his arrival.

“If I thought Foster would show up in a day or two, I’d not ask the Wilson boys to work,” Owen said serving himself a second helping of dumplings.

Ana realized that he must be hungry. They’d had only a handful of raisins and a peppermint stick while they cleaned the kitchen. Not much food for a man his size.

“He might not be in any shape to work for a couple days after he gets here,” Soren said, taking a sip of his coffee. “If you want to get the corn in before it rains, the best bet is to hire the Wilson boys.”

“You may be right. I’ll stop by there tonight. I hear they’ve got their corn in already.”

When the meal was over, Soren leaned back in the chair and stretched his arms over his head.

“I’m frazzled to the bone. I used muscles today I haven’t used since this time last year.”

“He’s getting soft, Uncle Gus,” Owen said. “I was going to ask him to ride over to the Knutson’s with me, but maybe he’s not up to it.”

“I’ve been looking at the back end of those mules all day. I’m not going to spend my evening looking at the back end of a horse when I can sit here and look at a pretty woman.” Soren’s blue eyes smiled into Ana’s, expecting to see a blush creep up to her cheeks. He was disappointed.

“If you stay here, you’ll work,” she said primly. “The milk has to be strained and put in the cellar, the woodbox filled for morning, the dishes washed and put away. And—”she added with smile lines crinkling her eyes—“the diapers washed and hung on the line.”

“Well . . . on second thought, I just may amble on off to bed.” He pressed his hand to the small of his back. “I’m kind of down in the back—”

A bubble of laughter burst unknowingly from Ana’s lips. She got to her feet and began to clear the table. She didn’t see the look that passed between Soren and his father when they saw Owen’s smiling eyes following her. Nor did she know how rare it was to hear a woman’s laughter in this house.

After the Halversons left to go back to the small cabin in the grove, Ana strained the night’s milking and Owen carried it to the cellar.

“I’ll be gone for an hour or two,” he said when he returned. “Do you mind staying here alone?”

“Of course not. When I finish here, I’ll cut the cloth we got at the store today so Harry will have clean napkins for tomorrow.”

“If you need the ones in the tub, I’ll hang them up before I go.”

Ana looked at him sharply. Was he offering to wash diapers?

“There’s no need. I was just teasing Soren.”

“You like Soren and my uncle?” It seemed to Ana that he had asked her that before.

“Of course. Is this Foster you speak of a relative too?”

“No blood kin, but I’ve known him for a long time and think of him as kin. Soren, Uncle Gus and I are about the only family he has, and he spends a month or two here in the summer. He sleeps in the barn or at the little house with Uncle Gus and Soren.”

“Why not here? There are four bedrooms upstairs that aren’t in use.”

Owen shrugged. “Foster does as he pleases.”

Esther is the reason his friend Foster sleeps in the barn, Ana thought with disgust after Owen left her. He knows it, and still allows it.

When the kitchen was orderly once again, she carried the hot teakettle and a bucket of cold water to the bedroom. She was glad for the opportunity to be alone so that she could take a washrag bath. After stripping to the waist, she washed the upper part of her body, then the lower part. It felt so good to be clean.

Tomorrow or the next day she would get water from the rain barrel and wash her hair. She stopped in the act of pulling her nightdress over her head. She hadn’t fully decided that she would stay here—or had she?

O
wen
put a bridle on the horse and opened the gate. Ordinarily he would have walked the mile across the back pasture to the Knutson farm, but tonight he had to take the road so that he could stop at the Wilson place to talk about hiring the boys.

The sky had darkened and the stars were out when he rode away from the homestead. He looked back over his shoulder to the ray of light marking a window of the farm house. He had been reluctant to leave. That in itself was a startling discovery. Usually he spent only as much time in the house as was necessary to eat and sleep. Early this morning and again tonight, because Ana was there, the house had been a warm and welcoming place, the home he yearned for when he was a boy.

Mixed and troubled emotions raked him. Would his marriage to Ana, if she accepted him, cause a permanent break between him and the sister who had done so much for him when he was unable to do for himself? Was he abandoning Esther now when she needed him the most? Looking back, he could see that Esther’s behavior had gradually become strange. And what she had done today was the act of a person totally out of control. Another worrisome question rose up in his thoughts. What could be done for a person with a sick mind?

Owen continued ahead, urging the horse to greater speed as he came closer to the Wilson farm. The family, lingering in the kitchen after the meal, welcomed him warmly. It took only a single look to sense the closeness between the parents and the children. When Owen asked if he could hire the boys for a few days, Wilson looked proudly at his sons and bragged that there were no better boys in the state of Iowa and none that would give him a better day’s work.

The boys hung their heads and murmured, “Ah . . . Pa—”

Wilson clapped each fondly on the back and told Owen they would be at the Jamison farm by sunup.

Owen rode away from the Wilson farm trying to remember a time when his pa had bragged about him. He could only remember hearing him say what a lazy and worthless boy he was.

“Good Lord, man,” Owen murmured aloud. “The old bastard’s dead. Stop thinking about him!”

*   *   *

Jens Knutson took better care of his animals than he did his family. The barn was large and tight and kept in good repair. The house was small, the roof leaked, and the wind blew in the cracks around the windows. Jens was tightfisted. The neighbors were fond of saying he had ninety-nine cents out of every dollar he had made. He had been a widower whose simple-minded daughter Hettie had already given birth to a “woods-colt” when Esther was offered to him by her father. There had been much speculation as to the father of Hettie’s child, but she either didn’t know or was too frightened to tell. Jens saw in Esther a good worker and someone to keep an eye on Hettie.

Owen rode up to the back of the house and tied his horse to a rail. Lily came out onto the porch.

“Is that you, Uncle Owen?”

“It’s me. How’s things here?”

“Why do you ask? Things are never good here.”

“I came to talk to Esther.”

“Esther’s in an awful state. She slapped Mama and made her cry.” Lily wrapped her arm about a porch post and rested her forehead against it.

“Where’s Jens?”

“Gone to bed. Esther went to bed right after she got home this afternoon, and she wouldn’t even come down for supper.”

“She’s upset with me. I asked her to go home and stop making trouble for Mrs. Fairfax and she . . . well, she’s not pleased about it.”

“She was fairly foaming at the mouth when she got here. I’ve never seen her so mad. She flew into me and Mama and said she hated us and wished we would die. Mama got upset and—oh, Uncle Owen, sometimes I wouldn’t care much if I did die.”

“I’ve told you before, Lily, that if you want to leave here and go to Lansing or Dubuque, I’ll put you up until you can find a way of earning your keep.”

“I can’t leave Mama. I know she’s simple-minded and people make fun of her, but she wouldn’t hurt anything for the world. Grandpa hates her; Esther hates her. If I left her, I don’t know what she’d do. I’m all she has.”

“I understand and think the more of you for it.”

“Esther thinks you’re going to marry Mrs. Fairfax.”

“I asked her. She hasn’t accepted me yet.”

“Esther says it wouldn’t be decent for you to marry your mother-in-law.”

“I don’t know why not. Mrs. Fairfax is not kin.”

Lily shrugged. “You know how Esther is when she makes up her mind. The devil couldn’t change it.”

“Then she’ll just have to live with it.”

“What will you do with the baby if Mrs. Fairfax leaves?”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

“She could take him with her.”

“I can’t let someone else take over a responsibility that’s mine.”

“Mama and I could take care of him.”

“It would be the talk of the county, Lily. I can’t let that happen. You’d never have a chance to marry a decent man.”

“I don’t anyway. Everybody knows about Mama and that I don’t have a pa.”

“They don’t blame you, Lily.”

“Ha! If a boy even spoke to me, his ma would have a conniption fit.”

“You know that Esther wanted Paul, and then me, to marry you. It’s not that you’re not a nice, sweet, pretty girl—”

“—Is that why Paul went away?”

“Partly, I guess. But he wanted to see the world before he settled down. I can’t blame him for that.”

“Nothing would be changed if we married, would it, Uncle Owen? Esther would still have control over both of us. I thank you for refusing. I hope and pray I can choose my own man when I marry.”

Owen lifted a hand and stroked the auburn hair back from the earnest young face. Lily had grown up. No, Lily had never been a child. She had been burdened with taking care of her mother all her life. Owen felt a pang of guilt. He hadn’t done much to help Lily. It must be hell for the girl to live with Esther and Hettie.

“I’ll see to it that you don’t have to take a man you don’t want,” he said gently. “It would be good for you to get to know Mrs. Fairfax, Lily. She’s a real lady. I think you would like her.”

“Esther wouldn’t stand for it. She wouldn’t even let me get near Harriet or look at the baby. Now I wish I had done it anyway.”

“There are things that I regret too. But what’s done is done and in the past. What I want to do is change things so the future will be more pleasant for all of us.”

“I don’t see much hope of that,” she said with a slump of her shoulders.

“Maybe not, but I’m going to try.”

“Esther said Soren is back and that we are to stay away from over there. She said she doesn’t want any more ‘woods-colts.’ Oh, I hate it when she calls me that.”

“You have nothing to fear from Soren, Lily. He would never take advantage of you or Hettie.”

“I know it, but Esther don’t. Will you talk to her and see if she’ll let me come over and see the baby?”

“How old are you now?”

“I’ll soon be eighteen.”

“You’re old enough to come over without asking her.”

Lily snorted. “She’d have a fit and fall in it. She treats me like she treats Mama.”

“Then it’s up to you to put a stop to it. I want to talk to Esther. Will you tell her to come down?”

Lily led the way into the kitchen, then went on up the stairs. Hettie pushed aside a curtain and came from the small room she and Lily shared. She had a bright smile on her pleasant face. At times it was hard to remember she had the mind of a child.