Elm Creek Quilts [04] The Runaway Quilt (12 page)

In the middle of harvesttime, an unfamiliar wagon came to Elm Creek Farm. I recognized the driver, a slight, sour-faced man with greasy blond hair and tobacco-stained teeth who worked odd jobs on the waterfront. Hans was in the fields, and the mistress of the house, embarrassed by her poor English, hid inside as always, so I greeted him.

He looked me over suspiciously before speaking. “This the Bergstrom farm?”

I assured him it was. “Do you have a delivery for us?”

“I’m supposed to give this to the Bergstroms at Elm Creek Farm.”

“I am Gerda Bergstrom, and this is Elm Creek Farm,” said I, with some impatience, because the large wooden crate in the wagon behind him had captured my interest.

“That’s what I don’t understand.” He studied me with sullen belligerence. “I thought this here’s the L. place.”

I had not heard the name of Mr. L. in so long that the remark caught me off guard. “Indeed, Elm Creek Farm did once belong to Mr. L.,” stammered I, “but it has since passed to my family.”

“Passed how?”

I was suddenly conscious of Hans’s absence. “Quite legally, I assure you. My brother has the deed, if you require proof.”

“I’m only askin’ because . . .” He shrugged. “L. still has friends in these parts. They might not like it if they thought you ’uns took his farm out from under him.”

“Certainly not,” said I primly. “Though I must say, they must not be especially good friends if they have not missed Mr. L. before now. If there’s nothing else—” I made as if to retrieve the large crate myself.

“I’ll get it,” grumbled he, setting the reins aside and climbing down from his seat. With great effort, he lifted the crate from the wagon, but rather than carry it into the cabin, he left it on the ground beside the front door. I paid him and gave him my thanks, but without another word, he drove away, casting one sullen backward glance over his shoulder before disappearing into the forest.

Anneke immediately joined me outside. “What did he want?”

“Only to deliver this,” said I lightly, not wishing to worry her, and then excitement drove the surly man from my thoughts, for
upon examining the crate, I discovered it had been sent from Baden-Baden. Anneke ran off to tell Hans, and they quickly returned, Hans bearing his tools. He brought the crate indoors and pried off the lid, and Anneke cried out with delight, for inside, tightly packed, were bolts of fabric—velvets and wools, even silks—as fine as anything I had ever seen in Father’s warehouse.

There were letters, too, for all of us. Mother’s to Anneke welcomed her into the family and informed her the fabrics were a wedding gift. Father’s to Hans congratulated him on taking a bride and expressed hopes that Hans would be able to obtain a good price for the fabrics. Father’s letter to me cautioned me to be sure my younger brother invested the profits into Elm Creek Farm rather than squandering them unwisely. Mother’s to me was full of news of home; she provided the latest gossip on all of my acquaintances, except, of course, for E., who became the more conspicuous for his absence.

Our siblings had written as well, and as I hungrily read their letters, Anneke knelt on the floor and withdrew the fabrics from the crate, delighting anew with each bolt. Suddenly she looked up at me, stricken. “Oh, my dear Gerda. I’m so sorry.”

“Whatever for?”

“Your parents sent me all these nice things, but they sent you nothing.”

I indicated the pages in my hands. “They sent me letters.”

“Yes, of course, but . . .” She hesitated. “Don’t you feel slighted?”

Until that moment, I had not. “Of course not,” said I, thinking a crate so large surely could have accommodated a small book or two.

Anneke forced a smile. “Likely when you marry, they will send an even finer gift.”

Hans guffawed. “Likely they will, once they recover from their shock.”

I poked Hans in the ribs as if we were children again and laughed with him, but Anneke merely shook her head at us, astounded and scandalized that we would treat my spinsterhood with such an inappropriate lack of shame.

“This is really a gift to us all,” added Hans, in a nod to Anneke’s concern for my feelings. “With what we can earn from the fabric, I can buy another two horses, and next spring, I can build us a real house.”

Anneke rewarded him with a smile, but she ran her hand lovingly over each bolt as she returned it to the crate, and I could not help thinking that she would prefer to keep the fabric for herself, to create clothing for the townsfolk of Creek’s Crossing in a shop of her own and piece quilts from the scraps.

But I soon forgot Anneke’s thwarted ambitions as the most arduous labor of the harvest set in. By sharing work with Thomas, Jonathan, and other neighbors, Hans soon had our crops in, and they theirs. Elm Creek Farm had provided only enough to see us through the winter, and not a surplus to sell in town, as Hans had hoped, but at least we would not have to rely on the generosity of friends as we had the previous year.

Creek’s Crossing was an industrious community, so our more experienced neighbors had fared even better than we neophytes on Elm Creek Farm. Everyone seemed content and satisfied, eagerly anticipating the Harvest Dance in mid-November, where, Dorothea said with a gentle smile, the women would wear their finest dresses and bring their tastiest recipes, which they would disparage until one would think they had worn rags and served slop, while the men would exaggerate the yield of their crops and the quality of their livestock until one was convinced the farmers of Creek’s Crossing alone could provide for the entire Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I, too, looked forward to the Harvest Dance, for Jonathan had danced with me at the previous
year’s celebration, and I was hopeful he would be my partner in even more dances this year.

Anneke, who was interested in finding me a more lasting partner, offered to make me a dress, in which, she said, I would dazzle the eye of all who saw me.

Scoffed I, “And after the dance, I’ll wear it to dazzle the eye of the cow and the chickens?”

“You’ll set it aside for special occasions.” Her gaze went to the crate of fabrics, tucked away in a corner of the cabin until Hans could determine how to best sell them. “There’s a lovely blue silk that will be very becoming to your eyes.”

I laughed at the thought of scattering chicken feed clad in silk, but when she insisted, I said that if she must make me a dress, let it be a sturdy calico I could wear new to the Harvest Dance, and later as I did my chores. She grew impatient and pointed out that she knew much more about sewing than I did, and if I didn’t want her lecturing me on politics or on the proper pronunciation of English words, I should not attempt to instruct her in dressmaking. Then her eyes took on a steely glint I had never before seen there, and have seen only rarely since. “Let me show you how to best dispose of your parents’ gifts,” said she. “Let me show you what I can do when permitted to follow my own judgment.”

I knew it was not I she intended to impress. “What will Hans think of you cutting up a bolt of fabric? Won’t he see it as the loss of at least the mane of a horse, or a wall of the new house?”

“Didn’t your mother’s letter say the fabric was a gift to me?”

So dumbfounded was I by her unexpected determination that I had no choice but to submit, especially as I suspected she had an underlying purpose. I will also admit that although I knew what obstacles my plainness presented to even the finest seamstress, I found Anneke’s promises that she would make me look handsome dubious but perhaps not entirely outside the realm of
possibility, because she was, after all, exceptionally talented with a needle.

One morning, a week before the dance, we rose early and raced through our morning chores so we could get to work on the dress as soon as Hans left to care for the horses. Thus I was standing in my corset as Anneke fit the bodice when a knock sounded on the cabin door.

“L.?” a gruff voice called from outside. “You there?”

Wide-eyed, Anneke scurried off to the other room, leaving me in my corset to welcome our visitor. I snatched up my calico work dress and threw it on over the pinned silk bodice, wincing as a pin found flesh. “Good morning,” said I, pulling open the door, breathless.

Two men with rifles stood before me, one regarding me with his mouth in a grim line, the other taking in the exterior of our altered cabin with bemusement. Two weary horses nibbled at the thin shoots of grass behind them.

“I’m looking for L.,” said the first man.

“He no longer lives here,” said I. “I’m afraid I don’t know where he is.”

The second man gave me a hard look. “We hear tell you ’uns stole his farm.”

I drew myself up, hoping he would not detect my nervousness. “You heard incorrectly.”

At the sound of my accent, the second man nudged the first. “Dutch,” spat he, in a most disparaging tone.

“We don’t mind you Dutch,” said the first man, addressing me, but speaking as if to remind his companion. “Not as much as some. Your man around?”

“My brother is in the barn.”
Without his rifle,
I thought, feeling a pang of fear.

“We’ll go talk to him there.” The first man tugged at the brim of his slouch hat. His companion merely scratched his dark beard
and glowered. As they turned to go, I saw over their shoulders that Hans was hurrying toward us from the barn. To my relief, Jonathan was at his side. He must have arrived only moments before the two men, as he had not yet come to the cabin to greet me.

“What brings you gentlemen to Elm Creek Farm?” Hans called out, with an easy smile.

The two men exchanged a look, then the first one said, “We’re looking for a n——.”

Someone else would have said “Negro” or “colored man.” I have seen the injury caused by the word he did use, and I will not repeat it here.

“A runaway n——,” added the second man.

Jonathan winced slightly at the word, but Hans’s expression did not change. He merely shrugged and said, “Everyone at Elm Creek Farm stands before you, except my wife.”

“He might be hiding in your barn.” The second man took one step toward it before Hans put out an arm to stop him.

“I just came from there,” said he, with that same easy smile. “There’s no one hiding in my barn.”

The first man said, “We might do well to check for ourselves.”

“You might, if I were not a man of my word.” Hans looked up at them steadily. “Is that your meaning?”

The second man swore impatiently, but the first man held Hans’s gaze. “You’re new to this country, and maybe you don’t know the law. This may be a Free State, but anyone helping a n—escape is breaking the law.”

“We know the law,” said Jonathan.

I prayed he would not choose this moment to distinguish for our visitors, as he had many a time at Dorothea’s sewing circle, the difference between a just law, which ought to be obeyed, and an unjust law, which by a just man must be broken.

The second man squinted at Jonathan. “Ain’t I seen you at the Nelson place?”

“Very likely you have, as Mrs. Nelson is my sister.”

The second man spat on the ground and muttered to his companion, “G——Abolitionists.”

Jonathan stiffened, but restrained himself without need of the hand Hans placed on his shoulder. “That’s no way to talk about a man’s family,” Hans said, and he held the second man in a gaze so firm that the man eventually looked away and muttered something resembling an apology.

The first man turned around in a slow circle, scanning the clearing surrounding our cabin. Suddenly he asked, “What happened to L.?”

“L. sold me Elm Creek Farm more than a year ago.”

“We haven’t been through these parts in some time,” said the first man. He broke off scanning the horizon and, after an inscrutable glance at Jonathan, smiled at Hans in a friendly manner. “L. might have been a Yankee, but he was not unsympathetic to our employers. We could always count on him for a hot meal and a bed on the floor near the fire.”

I felt myself balling my dress in my fists, and I forced myself to remain calm. Perhaps Elm Creek Farm had once extended its hospitality to slave catchers, but no more!

I was just about to declare the same when Hans said, “I’ll have my wife fix you some eggs.”

“Hans,” I exclaimed, and Jonathan shot him a look of stunned amazement.

“Sister,” said Hans in a level voice, “tell Anneke to fix these gentlemen some breakfast while they feed and water their horses.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but when Jonathan gave his head the barest of shakes, I swallowed back my words and went inside. My thoughts were in turmoil as I delivered Hans’s instructions. Anneke nodded wordlessly and obeyed, while I went to the window and watched as the slave catchers headed to the
creek while Hans and Jonathan returned to the barn. I could not bear to witness the hay and oats we had harvested for our own horses going to feed those of slave catchers, so, fuming, I took off my dress and unpinned the blue silk bodice of my dancing gown, and flung the pieces onto Anneke’s sewing machine.

“Don’t be angry with me,” Anneke said from the fireplace as I dressed. “Be thankful he didn’t ask
you
to cook for them.”

That was the first I realized he had not, which was unusual, since I did almost all the cooking for the family. But if Hans thought it would be enough for me that my own hands were unsullied, he was mistaken.

None too soon the men finished their meal and left, shaking Hans’s hand and tugging their hats at me and Anneke. As soon as they were gone, I burst out, “Hans, how could you?”

“I could hardly feed their horses but not them, now could I?”

“Yes, you surely could have. Slave catchers are the lowest of men, and you have given them sustenance necessary to continue their pursuit. Better to send them away hungry, too weak and distracted to find this unfortunate slave.”

“If they did not eat here, they would eat at another farm. Best not to make enemies of them.”

Jonathan made a noise of disagreement, and I, disbelieving Hans could mean what he said, asked, “Do you want them to believe you’re a friend to their cause?”

“I couldn’t send those horses away before giving them a rest.” Hans dropped onto a bench beside the fireplace. “They’ve been running them too hard. If they keep up that pace, I don’t see how they’ll survive the return journey. That’s a long way to travel on horseback.”