A Quilt for Christmas (16 page)

“You give me your needles, I knit. I can knit in the dark,” Clara said. “I always be working with my hands. I stitch right good.”

But Mercy would not give them up, remarking she had only a single pair. Then she and Eliza closed the storeroom door and piled hay in front of it. When they were finished, Eliza said no one would ever guess there was a hiding place in the wall.

“I believe it will do,” Mercy said.

“Why did you agree to it?” Eliza asked, when Mercy walked her to the buggy. The rain had let up, and Eliza paused before climbing into the conveyance.

Mercy smiled. “You are my friend. You asked me. Helping each other is what friends do.”

*   *   *

Eliza was exhausted by the time she returned home, unhitched Sabra, and led her into the barn. After she rubbed down the horse, she went to the house and found Missouri Ann in the doorway. “You've not slept?” Eliza said.

Missouri Ann shook her head. “Not till you was home safe. I didn't straighten the house, because likely the Starks'll just tear it up again.”

“You are sure they will be here at dawn?”

“I am.”

Then they had better get a few hours' sleep, Eliza said, and the two women lay down on Eliza's bed, fully clothed. Eliza thought she was too agitated to rest well, but minutes after she closed her eyes, she was asleep.

Neither she nor Missouri Ann awoke until they heard mules in the barnyard, and a voice cried, “We know you got the slave girl hid somewheres. Now open the door, or we'll burn down the house and all that's in it. We brung kerosene to help us with the burning.”

Eliza righted herself and went to the window, peering out at the sky, which was light in the east. “Will they do it?” she asked Missouri Ann.

“Oh, yes, ma'am.”

“Are you ready?”

“I am.”

Deciding not to awaken the children, Eliza opened the door and stepped outside. “What are you doing here, Mr. Stark? You have already searched our house and outbuildings. You know no one is hidden here.”

“Don't know no such thing. Maybe you hid her before, but I reckon she's right around here now. You probably brung her inside, thinking we wouldn't be back. Well, we outsmarted you.” He grinned at Missouri Ann, who stood behind Eliza.

“You've already terrified the children,” Eliza said.

“Don't know as I care.” He swung down off his mule, leaving his shotgun attached to his saddle, and gestured to his three sons, who dismounted, too. “I believe we'll start in the house this time, save us trouble. You get in our way and you'll lose an eye. Maybe that girl will, too, the one kept the house bolted up last time. Or maybe you'll get an arm broke off.”

“You can't come in here,” Missouri Ann said.

“Oh, I can't, can't I? Who's to stop me? Not a puny thing like you.”

“I'll stop you,” said a voice behind the Starks. “You ain't fit for the kitchen cellars of hell, frightening two women like you just did.”

Dad Stark started to turn, but the voice said, “You stay right where you are, Mr. Stark. I have a shotgun trained on you.”

Eliza, startled, stared into the darkness, not knowing who had spoken or what the man was doing on her property. Perhaps he was another slave-catcher.

“Who's there?” Dad Stark asked.

“Print Ritter.”

Eliza turned to Missouri Ann, who gave her the ghost of a smile. “Mr. Ritter?” she mouthed, and Missouri Ann nodded. “What's he doing here?” Eliza whispered, but Missouri Ann only put her finger over her lips.

“Oh, the fool blacksmith. You spend the night here with Missouri Ann, did you, laying out in the barn like hound dogs coupling?” Dad Stark asked. “Well, you take her for all I care. She ain't good enough for a Stark.”

“Watch your mouth,” Print said.

“Best you watch yours,” Dad Stark said and laughed. “I got three boys with me, and we all got guns.”

“Yours is on the horse, and I'll wager the onliest thing your boys have is pistols.”

“Good enough to shoot a man. We're four against one.”

“Two,” another voice said, and Eliza recognized it as John Hamlin's. What were the two of them doing there? she wondered. How had they known about the Starks?

“Oh, a reverend can't shoot worth nothing,” Dad Stark said. “He's no more danger than a girl.”

“Well, I can shoot,” a third voice said.

Eliza could not imagine who that man was, but Dad Stark could. “What you doing here, Tom? You ain't against slavery. We could cut you in on the
re
ward.”

The man was the sheriff, Tom Miller. He was proslavery, Eliza knew, so surely he was not there to protect Clara.

“Maybe not,” the sheriff replied, “but I sure am against threatening women and children. That's my job. I seen how you tore up the house here and put a fear in those little ones. I knew you was mean, hamfat, but you're even worse'n I thought.”

“You got no cause to call me names, Tom. We was just kind of teasing, having a little fun. We didn't mean nothing by it.”

“Is that right, Mrs. Spooner?”

Eliza shook her head, then realized that in the dark, the sheriff could not see her. “It is not. He threatened to take my son's arm off, and I believe he would have done it if he hadn't been allowed to go into the house. And you heard him just now, saying he would do the same or even gouge out an eye. Missouri Ann's face is already badly bruised where he hit her, and if you have been inside, you have seen how the Starks tore up the place. A ten-dollar gold piece wouldn't pay for all the damage.”

“He threatened to hurt Ma, too,” a fourth voice said, and Eliza realized Davy was with the men. She had thought he was asleep in the loft, but he must have gone for John after she left with Clara. He would have run all the way through fields to the Hamlin farm. Then John would have gone for Print and the sheriff. They had come from the opposite direction so Eliza had not encountered them on the road.

“I guess we'll be on our way then,” Dad Stark said.

“Not just yet,” the sheriff told him. “You ain't leaving less'n Mrs. Spooner says so. You want to charge them with something, ma'am? I'd be happy to jail them.”

Eliza thought it over. The Starks deserved to go to jail for the fright they had caused and the mess they had made, but that would make them madder than ever, and despite the sheriff's threat, the Starks might try to get even. Besides, she did not want others to suspect she had hidden Clara. What if John Hamlin needed her assistance again? “I will forgive it this time, but I never want to see a Stark anywhere near this farm. I want their word on it.” She wasn't sure why she'd asked that, because the word of a Stark was worthless.

“I'll do better than that. I'll come by here every now and then, and so will Mr. Hamlin and Mr. Ritter, and if we see a Stark within a mile of your farm, I'll make it hot for him. I'll lock him up, and you can charge him then with the mischief he done.”

“How'd you know we was coming back?” Dad Stark asked as he mounted his mule.

Eliza feared for Mother Stark, was afraid Dad Stark would whip his wife if he suspected she had warned Eliza. But before Eliza could speak, Missouri Ann said, “I lived with you too long, Dad. I can outsmart a Stark any day of the week.”

*   *   *

Later that day, when she was alone in the house, Eliza went to the candle box and took out Will's second letter. She carried it to the bench on the porch so that she could smell the earth scent as she read it. “You would have been proud of me, I think. Oh, how I wish I could have told you about this venture,” she whispered as she stared at her name written in Will's hand. And then she added as she unfolded the letter, “But I believe you do know about it. Perhaps it was you who protected us.” She looked up at the sky, at a cloud that was long and thin, the sun edging it in gold.

She began to read the letter, but just then, Davy came up and sat down on the porch step. He looked at the letter, and said, “Read it aloud, Mama.”

October 18, 1864

Dearest Wife

I do not like the army much. The food is worse than what we feed the hogs. We eat beans & bacon, bacon & beans & crackers so hard you could not break them with a hammer. Yesterday I chewed on a piece of meat that had the hair still on it. Coffee tastes like the runoff from the soddy roof. I would gladly trade my gun for one of your apple dumplings. But I am here in a good cause & should not complain. It is said the Johnnies have it worse. Well, they caused this war & deserve it. I never hated a people so much. If one comes by the farm, you are to take down the shotgun.

Davy made a fist with his right hand and hit the palm of his left. “You should have let me join up, Mama. I could have gotten a Secesh, gotten one for Papa.”

“And what if something had happened to you, too?”

“It wouldn't.”

Eliza did not remind him that Will had said the same thing. She continued with the letter.

I worry about you & the children living there alone. I have heard terrible things about what some of the soldiers of our own army do to Southern women & can only imagine what the Secesh, the vilest men on earth, would do to a Union woman alone if they were to come into Kansas. Use the shotgun if you have to. But be careful. Guns beg you to fire them.

We ran across a party of Secesh two days ago. War seems to be long days of practice, then an hour or so of the worst excitement I ever saw & we excited those boys pretty bad. There were five of them & I'm sorry to say that three survived, although in poor condition. There is a Southern tradition in this war—I do not know the source of it or what it means—that Johnnies yell to each other, “Mister, here's your mule.” We have taken it upon ourselves to say it to the captured Rebs at every opportunity. They do not like it.

Before long you will be harvesting. Do not tax our old horse too much, for she must last at least another year. Davy can help with the plowing, & even Luzena can do her part. If I am not there by spring, do not plant too early, because a frost could scour the tender plants. Those are my orders. Dear me, why do I feel I must instruct a farmer as experienced as yourself? I believe you can do quite well without me, although I do not want your independence to become a habit.

Well, Eliza, that is all I have to say except that I miss you & our children. There is no sight I wish more to see than you standing beside the door as I come up the lane when this terrible war is over. Meanwhile, I think about you every night as I go to sleep. I hope you know how well I love you. Give a great deal of love to Davy and Luzena & save a good measure for “my little girl.”

Until I see you, I remain your loving husband

William T. Spooner

*   *   *

Neither Print nor John told Eliza when or how they removed Clara from her hiding place and sent her west. In fact, for all Eliza knew, the escaped slave was still hidden on the Eagles place. But a week later, Mercy Eagles and her children stopped at the Spooner farm on their way to town.

“I've baked a panful of gingerbread and thought I'd share it with you. I remember you liked it, and I thought it would be a nice way to celebrate the end of the war.” The news of the surrender had come only two days before. “It came too late for us,” Mercy added, “but we must celebrate nonetheless.”

“We must indeed,” Eliza said. “We can be grateful that Ettie's husband will come home now, and Anna's.” She did not have to say how sorry she was that Mercy's and her husbands would never come back.

Mercy seated herself on a tree stump and took off her bonnet, using it to fan herself, because the day was warm. She no longer carried her knitting needles. Missouri Ann had cut the gingerbread, and the children had taken theirs out to the orchard. The three women sat in the shade with their cake and talked about the weather, the crops, the promise of more rain. Then Mercy leaned toward Eliza and said, “There is something else.” She reached into her basket and removed two folded squares of cloth and handed them to Eliza and Missouri Ann.

Eliza opened hers and found herself looking at a quilt square, but a square like none she had ever seen. The maker had cut out a rough outline of a woman and appliquéd it onto a plain square of fabric. The square had a moon, a tree, and a strange shape that looked almost like a buggy. She glanced at Missouri Ann's square, which showed a woman and a child. Then she looked up at Mercy, her mouth open. “Clara—”

“I found them in the barn after Mr. Hamlin took her away. There were three. Mine has a woman on it and a barn.”

Eliza held the square close so that she could examine it. “I never saw such fine stitching.”

“Even better than yours.” Missouri Ann smiled.

“What will we do with them?”

“They are quilt squares. I shall add mine to a quilt.” Mercy looked off into the distance and sighed, then added, “A quilt that will remind me that I must not shirk my duty.”

“No,” Eliza told her. “It will remind you that when called upon, you did what was right.”

“And of our friendship,” Mercy said.

Eliza nodded. She would add her square to a quilt, too. Thinking about that she remembered Will's Christmas quilt and wondered again what had happened to it.

 

CHAPTER EIGHT

April 20, 1865

Anna Bean's hired man, Gage, rushed into Eliza's barnyard in Anna's wagon, whipping the horse, then almost falling out of the wagon when it came to a stop. Gage, old and crippled, had been ill when Anna found him resting against her barn. She'd let him sleep in the hay and had nursed him back to health, although he might have been a fiend who would murder her and the children in their sleep. But Anna had a kind heart, and so did Gage, because when he recovered, he stayed on to help her on the farm, taking his pay in board and room. She was lucky to have him, because well into her pregnancy, Anna could do only a little of the farm work. Now as he rode into Eliza's barnyard, Gage cried, “Come quick, Miz Spooner. She's a-laying there carrying on like I never heard. I went for the doctor, but he's passed out.”