Elm Creek Quilts [04] The Runaway Quilt (13 page)

“That’s a long way to travel on foot,” said Jonathan, referring to their quarry. “Especially in this season. The nights are cold, colder still for a man hunted in a strange land.”

“Likely he’s found shelter along the way.”

“More likely than not, he hasn’t.”

“If he’s made it this far, he must be made of sterner stuff than you and I,” said Hans, mustering up a grin. “I must say, his owner must sorely miss him to pursue him so far.”

“Never underestimate the extent or the strength of a man’s greed, especially when his pride is insulted.”

Now Hans laughed. “You sound more like the minister every day.”

“But Hans—”

Hans’s smile vanished. “I will not be drawn into an argument.”

“Into this argument,” said Jonathan, “willing or not, we will all eventually be drawn.”

As the entire nation would soon discover, he was correct.

Whenever she could spare time from Elm Creek Quilts and Grandma’s Attic, Summer returned to the Waterford Historical Society’s archives to pore over the maps and page through bound volumes of city resolutions and legal affairs.

One particularly fruitful visit had turned up two intriguing maps of the county. The first, dated 1858, identified the town as Creek’s Crossing, but unlike the Creek’s Crossing map from 1847 that Summer had found during her first library search, labels identified Elm Creek Farm as well as the farms of other families. A map from 1864, however, called the town Water’s Ford, but it was clearly the same region as the one depicted on the first map, with the additional development not unexpected after a six-year interval. Although a dashed line still indicated the town boundaries, Elm Creek Farm was shaded to suggest that it lay outside the border proper. Furthermore, while other farms were labeled by name as before, Elm Creek Farm was not.

It looked to Summer as if someone wanted to pretend Elm Creek Farm did not exist.

On a later visit, with the date of the name change more narrowly defined, Summer had turned to the town government records. In the volume from 1860, she finally found an official proclamation renaming the town, but although the document cited the need to “restore dignity to the village and its people,” it provided no specific reasons.

The town’s name appeared as Water’s Ford in every source from the decade that followed, but gradually Waterford came into greater use. Since Summer found no official proclamation noting the change, she surmised that Waterford was a corruption of Water’s Ford. The archives became somewhat muddled after Waterford was used exclusively, since another town in Pennsylvania shared the name and some of the documents from it had been filed among those of the former Creek’s Crossing.

After Sylvia told her friends about the Bergstrom’s encounter with the slave catchers, Summer decided to extend her search to local newspapers published in Gerda’s time. Even though the town proclamation had not provided any details, surely a scandal shameful enough to make them change the name of the town would have appeared in the Creek’s Crossing newspaper.

After hours of studying microfiche, Summer remained convinced that some long-ago reporter would have broken the scandal in the paper, but to her dismay, she could not say for certain.

The archives of the
Creek’s Crossing Informer
ended in mid-1859. When they resumed in 1861, the paper was called the
Water’s Ford Register
.

Summer was no cynic, but she found it difficult to believe the paper wasn’t published during the exact period something significant had occurred in the city.

She would have bet her entire fabric stash that either the Waterford Historical Society wasn’t interested in preserving the
newspapers from those years or someone had made sure no copies would remain to be preserved.

“How delightful,” said Sylvia dryly when Summer told her what she had learned. As if it weren’t bad enough that Hans had obtained the farm through less than honorable means, now it appeared that the Bergstroms had done something so scandalous that the town had had to change its name to divert the shame of it. “My family certainly made their mark on this town, didn’t they?”

“We don’t know for a fact that your ancestors were involved,” said Summer. “It might just be coincidence.”

Sylvia took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “Nonsense. On the map of Creek’s Crossing, Elm Creek Farm appears, but on the map of Water’s Ford, it’s been all but expunged. Gerda herself writes of a scandal, and you call it coincidence?”

“Well ...” Summer hesitated. “Until we have more proof ...”

The poor girl looked as if she wished she had not told Sylvia what she had uncovered. “Now, dear.” Sylvia patted her hand. “You mustn’t worry about sparing my feelings. I have already come to terms with the fact that my ancestors were not the sterling characters I thought them to be.”

“Maybe, but aren’t they much more interesting this way?”

“Yes, I suppose they are.” They were much more real, too, more like people Sylvia would enjoy chatting with than the remote figures from the family stories.

Still, the more she pondered Gerda’s cryptic asides, the more she suspected there might be parts of her family history she would not wish to divulge, not even to her closest friends.

5

November 1857—the Harvest Dance

I never learned whether the two slave catchers found the man they pursued, but they did not return to Elm Creek Farm. I prayed often for this unknown, unfortunate man, and was encouraged by Jonathan’s assurances that the longer he remained free, the greater his chances of escaping to Canada.

When I first came to Pennsylvania, I assumed that it and all Free States were havens for the escaped bondsman, and that once a runaway crossed the border into the North, he could not be compelled to return to his former masters. That was, sadly, not true. In 1850, as part of a compromise meant to placate Southern states angered by measures to check the spread of slavery elsewhere in the growing nation, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law. It proclaimed that runaways, even those who managed to reach Free States, must be returned to their owners, and that federal and state officials and even private citizens must assist in their recapture. Moreover, anyone—freeman or
fugitive—suspected of being a runaway slave could be arrested without a warrant and, once apprehended, could neither request a jury trial nor testify on his own behalf.

This Jonathan told me, indignantly adding, “I cannot and will not submit to any law that compels me to act against the dictates of my conscience and my God.”

I admired him for his convictions, for his sentiments were the same as my own. In comparison, Hans’s reluctance to risk offending the two slave catchers troubled me. If the fugitive had been hiding in our barn that day, would Hans have delivered him into the hands of his pursuers? I did not wish to believe this of my brother, and I disliked that my admiration and faith in him had been so shaken.

Anneke, of course, believed that Hans had acted appropriately. They were a good match, I suppose, as neither would believe any evil of the other. She refused to discuss the matter with me, both out of loyalty to her husband and from her exasperation that I did not understand that citizens, especially immigrants, must obey the laws of the land—all laws, not merely those that suited one’s own tastes. I, in turn, could not abide her blindness to one’s moral obligation to disobey unjust laws. Anneke responded, “You would not say such a thing except to please Jonathan.”

This flustered me a great deal, so much that I refused to speak to Anneke for the rest of the day, which suited her fine as she was not interested in conversing with someone who would criticize her husband. But by the next morning we were speaking again, more from necessity than choice, as it was impossible to avoid each other in our two-room house. It was Anneke who broke our silence, by offering to finish the task the two slave catchers had interrupted. I accepted her offer gratefully, and by noontime, she had finished the bodice of my new dress. The entire gown was complete the morning of the dance.

“You look enchanting,” declared Anneke, and I heartily wished I could believe her.

Saturday dawned cool and crisp, and we completed our chores with glad hearts, looking forward to the evening’s festivities. I baked two pies, one of apples Dorothea had shared with us from their trees, one of wild blueberries I had discovered growing near the creek, and I also made potato pancakes with soured cream. I did not know what our neighbors would think of the latter, but since numerous other families of German descent inhabited the town, I suspected few would remain on the platter, if only accounting for Hans’s appetite.

We rode into town on the wagon pulled by two of Hans’s horses—“Bergstrom Thoroughbreds,” he liked to call them—to find the streets of Creek’s Crossing full of other families, laughing and calling greetings to one another. We met Dorothea and Thomas at the grassy square in front of the City Hall, where already the picnic had begun. Four tables had been arranged in a long row to one side of the square, and the women of the town had covered them with all manner of mouthwatering dishes, to which I added my contributions. We filled our plates and set out quilts to sit upon. I was careful not to muss my blue silk dress, in which, I admit, I felt rather fair for a plain girl, and as we ate, I searched the crowd for Jonathan, disappointed that he did not join us. After Anneke’s remark about how I sought to please him, however, I could not bring myself to ask Dorothea where he was, not within Anneke’s hearing.

The dancing was well under way when Jonathan finally appeared. He told me I looked lovely, which, to my embarrassment, made me blush. I quickly replied, “It is the dress. Anneke has skill with a needle I will never know.”

Too late, Anneke shot me a look of warning. Hans’s eyebrows rose, and Anneke quickly took his arm. “Come, Hans. Dance with me.”

He accompanied her without argument, but I knew from his expression that he had deduced where the fabric for my dress had come from. As Dorothea admired Anneke’s handiwork, I watched my brother and his wife as they joined the line for the next dance, and was relieved to see that Hans did not seem angry.

Dorothea was not the only one to admire my dress, and I took every opportunity to sing my sister-in-law’s praises, but never more so than when Mrs. Violet Pearson Engle, the dressmaker, passed by our quilt on the way for another serving of cake. She asked me to rise so she might better examine the drape of the skirt. “Fine silk,” she announced as she had me turn around before her. “And the handiwork is finer still.”

I knew Anneke would delight in the compliment, and wished that Jonathan would escort me to the dance so I might whisper it to her in passing, but as one song ended and the musicians called for another, Jonathan extended his hand to his sister instead. At the conclusion of that dance, Hans and Anneke returned to our quilt breathless and laughing, and since I would no longer be left there alone, Thomas left to claim his wife’s hand from her brother. Jonathan did not return as I expected, and as the music resumed, I spied him whirling about with a bright-eyed, dark-haired young woman I had never met. Once more he danced with her, to my growing consternation—and then, to my astonishment, Cyrus Pearson approached and asked me to be his partner.