Dandelions on the Wind (11 page)

Gabi translated the proverb into English. “Birds of a feather flock together.”

Maren looked at Rutherford. “I will miss you all so.”

“PaPa! Miss Maren!” Gabi skidded to a stop in front of them, waving her cloth doll. “Did you hear us?” The child’s whole body wiggled like a ribbon on a breeze. “I will say the German and English sayings at the apple picking party and Oma will say a poem.”

Rutherford lifted Gabi into his arms. “That will be a special time.”

Maren followed them into the sitting room. A fire glowed at the hearth and oil lamps flickered from the wall and a side table.

Mrs. Brantenberg looked at Maren and rose from her armchair. “I will make coffee.”

Maren seated herself on the rocker. “Come sit with me, Gabi. I have something to tell you.”

“I know.” A smile filling her face, Gabi climbed onto Maren’s lap and settled against her arm. Rutherford sat across from them on the sofa.

“You and PaPa are going to marry.”

Her pulse quickened. She dare not look at the man. She knew what courtship generally implied, but they hadn’t discussed marriage. They both still had too much to work through for marriage to be a possibility. When she had regained her composure, she hooked her finger under Gabi’s chin and looked into her blue eyes. “No. Your PaPa and I do not have plans to marry. I need to live in town, and your PaPa needs to live in the house with you and Oma.”

“I want you, too.”

Maren pressed her lips against the emotion threatening to undo her. “I know, little one. But I have to do what is best for all of us.”

“That is you. The best.”

Tears stung Maren’s eyes. Oh, how she loved this little girl. But she couldn’t stay. She wrapped her hands around Gabi’s. “Saturday I will move into town and work in Mr. Heinrich’s store.”

Gabi’s bottom lip quivered.

“I will come see you, and you will come see me. I will see you at church, and I will be here for the apple picking party.” Maren blinked and finally made herself look at Rutherford—a mistake.

A pleading frown dulled his eyes.

Fourteen

S
aturday had come too soon, and Maren was not ready to leave the farm. The cow had been milked, but she had skipped her morning chitchat with Rutherford. Instead she had enjoyed a music time with Gabi and helped Mrs. Brantenberg clean up after breakfast. Now she was upstairs packing the flute box into her trunk.

Gabi stood beside the trunk, her face long. “Thursday you will come with Miss Hattie to quilting.” A statement rather than a question.

Maren brushed a curl from Gabi’s sweet face. “I may be working and not able to come every week, but I will see you often. Your PaPa will bring you into town, and I will come to the farm when I can.” Her voice cracked, and her resolve to leave threatened to do the same.

Mrs. Brantenberg rushed into the room, a sack cradled in her hands. “I brought you some food.”

Maren smiled. “I will be working at a grocery store.”

“For a man.” Mrs. Brantenberg seated herself on the bed. “Johann Heinrich is a good man, mind you, but he will not watch that you are eating well.”

Maren sat beside Mrs. Brantenberg on the bed and looked at the red needlework on the sack, too tiny for her to read.

“Geteiltes leid ist halbes leid,”
Mrs. Brantenberg read. “Trouble shared is trouble halved.”

Nodding, she ran her finger over the lettering. No one could match Mrs. Brantenberg’s generous cooking or her warmth of heart. She had given Maren a job, a home, a family, hope—her German friend had more than halved her troubles.

Mrs. Brantenberg pulled a smoked sausage from the sack. “I only packed a few of your favorites—ones that would travel and store well.”

Maren pulled each item from the bag and showed them to Gabi. A loaf of rye-wheat bread, a tin of cranberry pemmican, four bacon popovers, a small wheel of white cheese, and a jar of Mrs. Brantenberg’s German mustard. Fighting the emotion clogging her throat, she rested her hand on Mrs. Brantenberg’s arm. “
Takke
. Thank you. For everything.”

Mrs. Brantenberg nodded, her lips pressed together.

Footsteps on the staircase drew their attention to the doorway. Rutherford stopped in the open doorway, looking first at the plentiful array of foods, then at Maren. “It looks as though Johann could depend on you to stock the grocery.” He chuckled.

Oh, how she would miss that baritone laugh.

“Johann is too occupied to cook,” Mrs. Brantenberg said. “And Emilie will soon be engaged in her studies at Lindenwood. That basement won’t have any kind of real kitchen. It’s but a few things to give her a solid start.”

Rutherford raised his hand as if to surrender, and Maren bit back a giggle, wondering if he had staged this bit of lightheartedness to soften her departure.

He peered at the bag. “I still have the sack you sent with me.”

Mrs. Brantenberg lifted her hand to her collar. “You kept it?”

“I did.”

“Der apfel fällt nicht weit vom stamm.”
Mrs. Brantenberg wagged her finger at him. “Thankfully, it’s true—the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. You came back.”

He nodded. “I moped all about camp the day the bag emptied, and for several days more.”

“I, too, will treasure the sack you have given me, and the food will surely keep me fed until I can settle in.” Maren looked long into Mrs. Brantenberg’s eyes. “Thank you.”

Rutherford glanced toward the window. “Boone and Duden are waiting at the rail.”

Maren tucked the sack into her trunk. There was no place like home, but this farm had been the closest she could hope to come to it.

***

Maren and Rutherford were nearly to the dry goods store when she shifted on the wagon seat. They’d not spoken more than a handful of sentences to each other on the ride in, and those were limited to the turkey they had seen bustle across the road and the clouds Rutherford saw gathering on the horizon.

He cleared his throat. “The store is closed on Sundays. Will we see you at church tomorrow?”

She glanced at the darkening sky. “If the weather permits it, you will.”

“Then I’ll pray for good weather.” He reined the horses to a stop at the back of the store and looked at her. “You’re sure about this?”

“I am.” But was it too much to hope that her stay here—away—would be short-lived?

“As you wish, then.” Rutherford jumped from the wagon and was at her side in an instant.

She accepted his hand, allowing him to help her to the ground. If she had her way, he would never have let her go. But he did, and he slid his hand into his trouser pocket. Had he, too, felt the chill in the letting go?

***

By the time Rutherford reached the lane to the farmhouse, rain had begun to form mud puddles.

Mother Brantenberg greeted him at the kitchen door, a frown dulling her eyes. The kitchen smelled of sauerkraut and sausage.

“You left her there?”

He set his rucksack on the bench. “It’s what she wanted.” He sighed. “And probably best, for now.” Believing that may make the separation more tolerable.

Mother Brantenberg nodded and pulled three dinner bowls from the shelf. “You are a wise man.”

“I don’t feel very wise.” A lonely man, yes. An impatient man.

A warm smile deepened the creases at her eyes. “I could ask the Becks to bring me and Gabi home from church tomorrow.”

“And I could take Maren on a picnic.” He looked out the window at the soggy sky. “Or bring her back here for lunch and music.”

“That would be nice. Gabi and I moved her things into my bedchamber.”

He kissed her forehead and glanced at his bag. “I’ll take mine to the room and tell Gabi dinner is ready.”

To the room where he’d seen Maren’s dressing gown hanging on the bedpost.

***

Maren sat on the narrow rope bed and glanced around her new home. An oil lantern flickered atop a small table. A pot-bellied stove popped and crackled at the far wall. Still, the room was too quiet without Gabi’s slumber-purr. Blue gingham curtains hung at the window above her trunk. She already missed looking down from her bedroom window at the farm to watch Rutherford walk to the barn and stop to wave at her. Her fingers slid down the chain about her neck and grasped the whistle, tempted to sound it.

Just in case … I would come running
.

No. This was something she needed to do on her own—with God’s help.

Maren pulled her Bible and reading glass from her trunk. While a hardy rain splashed the cobblestone street outside and thunder boomed overhead, she reread the third chapter of Ecclesiastes.

To every thing there is a season.… A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.… A time to love.

She crossed her arms, hugging herself. This was her time to refrain from embracing life on Mrs. Brantenberg’s farm. She would trust God with her present and her future. Even if it meant she would sleep very little tonight, if at all.

Fifteen

M
ary Alice Brenner’s toddling twins joined Mr. Heinrich at the candy counter while her two-week-old daughter lay in the crook of her arm. And Maren couldn’t seem to tear her gaze away from baby Evie’s sweet face.

Rutherford had moved her into town two weeks ago. Since then he had driven her to the farm twice for Sunday dinner and music, and they had walked in the orchard the past two Thursday afternoons. Last Saturday, he’d bought two sodas and they’d enjoyed a sack lunch on the banks of the river. She counted all that as courting. But Rutherford had loved and lost, and she had family in Denmark she was desperate to see.

Past dreams of being married and having children of her own followed her to the yard goods. “Mary Alice, are you looking for a practical fabric like cotton or denim, or something with flair like taffeta or silk for a special occasion?”

“I need a heavy, durable fabric for the trail.”

Maren ran her hand across a green-print cotton duck, which seemed most practical for the mother of three.

Mary Alice hooked a wily strand of dark brown hair behind her ear and reached for the bolt of green cloth. “I’ll also take ten yards of those two cottons.” She pointed to a red calico and a brown floral.

“The trail?” Maren shouldered the other two bolts and carried them to the cutting table.

“My husband heard talk of wagons headed west this next spring, and he’s all aflutter to go.”

Maren looked at the tiny hand curled at the baby’s pursed mouth. Mary Alice had lived here a dozen or more years. She and Mrs. Brantenberg had both shared stories with Maren of her and Gretchen’s friendship. “You’re planning to leave Saint Charles?”

“Evie will be near seven months by then … plenty big enough to travel. Women have babies in wagons, you know.”

Nodding, Maren unfurled the first bolt to measure ten yards. That wouldn’t be her choice. She wasn’t even sure if she’d want Gabi making a trip like that.

While picturing Mary Alice and her two daughters in the same fabric, the image of her and Gabi in matching dresses flitted across her mind. Gabi would pick the red cloth. Maren set the scissors to the fabric and began cutting, wondering how long her failing eyesight would allow such tasks.

“I figure I best prepare for the journey. Men get a notion, and well, I don’t want to get caught with nothing fresh to wear at our new home in California.”

“Speaking of men.” Mary Alice sighed. “I saw Woolly Wainwright in town. Was that two or three weeks ago?”

“I know it’s been longer than that since you’ve been to quilting circle.”

“It was a few days before the baby came.” The young mother shrugged. “Well, I hadn’t seen him since Gretchen died. He left town so suddenly, and I had my twins.” She pulled the first cut fabric to her and began folding. “The man looked positively dreadful. Too thin. And so sad.”

Nodding, Maren laid her scissors down. She remembered that man … just returned from the ravages of war. Dejected, and rejected. But determined and persistent.

“Got me to thinking, Maren.”

Thinking about Rutherford? Maren unrolled the calico, her thoughts rolling with it.

“I know both stories—yours and Woolly’s, and I think you two would be a good match.”

Maren’s neck warmed and she swallowed hard. “Did you tell him that?”

“No. I said no such thing.” Mary Alice raised a thin eyebrow. “But if you’d like me to—”

Maren shook her head. “No need.”

Mary Alice trailed her finger down baby Evie’s cheek. “One can’t mourn forever what could’ve been, should’ve been, or was. Life is far too short for that.”

Smiling, Maren met her friend’s gaze. “He’s courting me.”

“That’s wonderful news!” Mary Alice’s eyes widened.

“Thank you. This evening, we’re having formal supper together for the first time.”

Her friend’s smile grew. “Sounds like I’ve missed out on far too much not going to the quilting circle. I’ll be there Thursday, but right now I’ve got to get my goods and go home.” With her free arm, Mary Alice pulled Maren into a warm embrace. “Oh, I feel so much better. He’s a good man, and deserves to have love again.”

Maren nodded. Did she love Rutherford? Is that what she felt for him?

***

The air carried a chill, but sunshine warmed Maren’s back as she and Rutherford walked down Main Street toward The Western House Inn for supper.

“How are things looking for apple picking?” She shifted her reticule to her other arm so she could hold his hand.

“I readied the cider press this week—gave it a good scrubbing. Mother Brantenberg and Gabi are weaving apple baskets.”

“Johann said he’ll close the store so he and Emilie can help. Hattie plans to join us too.”

“Several neighbors have offered to come pick. We’ll make short work of it, for sure.”

“I am looking forward to the harvest and celebration—one more opportunity to spend a day at the farm.”

He nodded. “And I’m anxious for you to be there.”

The Western House Inn sat on the corner of South Main Street and Boones Lick Road, and marked the beginning of the trail west. Wagons and tent cabins dotted the area while men buzzed about like bees to a rose garden, and she suspected Mr. Brenner may be among them. “Mary Alice Brenner was in the store this morning.”