Enchanted Heart (3 page)

Marty looked at Greta and wondered if they were about to lose their mother as well and if she was going to have to take care of her twin sister all by herself. The thought of carrying on, being both mother and father to a child who is the exact same age as herself made her suddenly weak with fear. But, just as she summoned the courage to undertake that endeavor, Mama drew in a breath of resolve, pulled her body erect and cleared her throat.

“He would want us to go on,” she announced as if telling them a bedtime story. “On to the land that we were promised. He would want that, I’m sure.”

In her mind, Adelaide wondered where else they would go except to the new land. They certainly could not go back, not by themselves at least, without an escort. Onward was their destiny and they would make that journey in honor of the man who had followed a dream that, for him, could only be realized beyond the Pearly Gates on the golden streets of Heaven. He had found his Promised Land. Theirs lay far, far away beyond the horizon that swayed with the heat of the sun and the rippling waves of the grass that stretched eager blades toward the cloudless sky.

“Yes, Mama,” Marty agreed and remembering those same words from Papa’s trembling lips she squared her shoulders with the resolve to make it so. She looked at Greta, who had ducked her face into the collar of her blouse. “He would want us to go on, wouldn’t he Greta?”

Greta’s sad and fearful blue eyes looked up at her while her chin remained planted on her chest as she muttered with a shrug, “I suppose.”

“Of course he would,” Marty retorted with her nose wrinkled in exasperation at her sister’s pathetic helplessness. Then, she felt compelled to hug her sister, to wipe away the sadness that welled in her eyes. Her thin arms embraced her mirror image while deft fingers swiped away the tears in her own mournful eyes.

“Yes he would,” Mama agreed with a nod that neither girl saw, for they had pulled apart only far enough to stare at each other in silent bonding.

All fell silent as the night drained its darkness into the morning clouds. Before the wagons began their daily drive westward, Mama told the wagon master of her loss. But, since there was no time for ceremony or even to dig him a proper grave, he was pulled from their wagon and dropped on the ground beside it.

Dressed in his best clothes with his Bible in his hands, he lay straight and proud, facing the new homeland while the wagon left him behind, taking with it the family that he had cherished and the dreams that he had envisioned long ago when this promise of free land without taxes or persecution had been offered to him. At that moment, the land that he would forever own, it turned out, was the five-foot-nine by three-foot patch of Texas dirt that he lay upon, but he claimed it with eternal pride.

Marty stood beside her father for some time while the other wagons ambled past her and she cursed the people who walked beside them for being alive and well and able to go on. Her tiny heart beat wildly in her chest and her face streamed muddy tears of both anger and grief. Then, with one final kiss on Papa’s cheek, and the resolve to make his dream come true, she ran to catch up with her wagon and the only family that she had left here in this harsh and hateful land.

And as she slowed to a walk, she vowed right then and there that she would take care of Mama and Greta and that they would never be sad again. She knew in her heart that she was taking on a task that would prove to be daunting if not terrifying, for having to become an adult at the tender age of seven was frightening in itself and having to care for a frail sister and a mournful mother would certainly take a lot out of her. But she was prepared for the mission that she had imposed upon herself and her small body seemed to raise itself three inches in her resolve to watch over the ones who needed her.

Marty Hirsch swore that she would face any adversity, any future tragedy or heartache in order to insure that Mama and Greta were safe and happy. She vowed to Papa, if not to herself, that his vision of owning land, land that no one could take away from him and land that would require no price except the sweat of his brow, the labor of his body and the love in his heart, would be realized by her growing determination to make that dream her own.

Chapter Three

Tragedy seemed to be overcome by time’s never-ending journey to renew itself by bringing forth new life. While death declared war upon the settlers, they somehow fought back by creating new members to love and cherish, replacing those lost on the long journey from Germany to the Promised Land. But more often than not, the loss of a loved one seemed to loom like a dark cloud of sadness upon the grief-stricken families that made up the town of New Braunfels. Heartache had certainly not passed by the Hirsch family during the long years since they had first set foot on Texas soil.

When Papa died that first year, Marty thought that there could be no going on without him, no walking forward and no happiness would follow her. But when she and Mama and her twin sister Greta finally stopped with the wagons and the other immigrants from Germany, she knew in her young heart that the surrounding countryside would cradle them in its beauty. And, she realized, with an uplifted spirit, that if this picturesque new locality did not heal their hearts, it would certainly heal their aching bones.

But there was no rest for the settlers, for they needed to build shelter, homes for the weary and hearths for the freezing families in the newborn town. Everyone helped in this endeavor and everyone worked as one body, one soul and one entity until all were cozy in their own little abodes. Some were put into communal housing until smaller homes could be built for them. But by winter time, all were under roof, something that they had not experienced since their first day in the new country.

Marty and her family were settled into a large building with two other families who had also lost the heads of their households. Each family took its own private space in the structure, which was a diminutive area cordoned off by blankets that had been hung over ropes. This overcrowded confinement was fine with Marty, for she and Mama and Greta felt quite comfortable in their small quarters inside the communal dwelling. It seemed like home to Marty and home was a word that she had longed to say in her heart and on her lips since she had left the one where she had lived back in Germany.

That home where she had been born seemed so far away, so long ago that Marty could not recall any part of it. All of her memories, both good and bad, had been replaced by the seemingly endless ride on the rolling waves of the ocean and then the cold and wet weeks on the shores of Texas, followed by the long and treacherous walk to the town that the older people called New Braunfels. It had all been gobbled up by the boundless grief of losing Papa and the trepidation of facing this new adventure without him to guide her and to take care of her mournful family, a role that she had lovingly assumed that dreadful day on the prairie while life had passed her by.

But life seemed to renew itself as time elapsed and Mama’s heart was somehow healed by the loving arms of Papa’s business partner Sven Reinhold. Marty did not complain about the union, for seeing Mama smiling again made her love the new man in their life, even though he was not new at all to them. Her new step-father, whom she had known since she was a baby, was a loving and dear man to her and she could not think of a more perfect man to replace her Papa in her life, if not in her heart.

Sven built a new home for them on the land that had been deeded to him, which lay just a mile from town. Being a married man with a family to provide for, he had been granted over three hundred acres to farm. He tilled the rocky dirt from sun up to sun down until it was planted and waiting for the sun and the rain to make a crop out of it before he rode into town to rebuild the business that he and his former partner had created before their journey to Texas.

As a blacksmith, a cooper and a carpenter Sven had been Papa’s partner in the old country. Together, they had formed their business in the little town of Wasserburg, Germany on the Inn River where they had not only forged tools and farming equipment but beautiful tin-ware and copper kettles. In his tiny new shop on the edge of New Braunfels, Sven not only made harness rings, plows, shovels, and other farming implements, but he also fashioned ornate bowls, kettles, pots and other fine household utensils. His new business brought in enough money for him to build a bigger house by the time the twins turned fifteen. Together, the family lived in the new house until the girls became wives and moved into their own homes.

Marty married Elias Ingram when she was nineteen, after she had studied diligently for her teacher’s certificate and after she had established a means of supporting herself if she was ever expected to do so. She loved him because of his intellectual formality and his elegant charm, which propelled him into politics and ascended them into the upper crust of society. But because he was a lawyer and spent most of his time either in court or courting political allies, she rarely saw him, which made her eventually hate the lavish lifestyle that she had married into.

Elias had studied at West Point and Harvard University before he had come back home to New Braunfels as a stark opposite of the boy who had left his meager farm years before. And when the Civil War started, he joined the Southern Rebels because of the Confederate Conscription Law, which had demanded that all men enlist in the Confederate Army or face death and loss of lands. He left his wife, hoping that his loyalty to the South would indemnify their civic status and personal welfare, only to be killed in action a few months later, leaving Marty with more misery than she cared to combat. And as the months waned into years, her large house became lonely and empty, an overwhelming replica of her broken heart. The echo of her own voice grew distasteful and repugnant to her solitary ears in that big, lonely mansion. Many times, she found herself gravitating back to the house that Sven had built for them, where love reverberated in every room.

Two years after Elias was killed, Marty sold the estate for a smaller sum than it was worth. But leaving it behind, along with its memories, was worth every penny that she’d been paid for it. She rented a little house near Sven’s blacksmith shop and she would stop to visit him on her way to teach at the school every morning and then again after school. Her overwhelming sense of loneliness seemed to be cured by her stepfather’s company and having someone to whom she could tell her troubles was certainly a godsend.

As the years passed, Marty spent more time with the man who had won Mama’s heart and his merry enthusiasm seemed to heal her, as it probably had done for Mama. Each day, after she had moved into her tiny new home, she and Sven would talk and her mood would be transformed into cheerful optimism by his encouraging conversations.

She so missed having a man to talk to, any man, and Sven became a suitable substitute for the banter that she craved. And every morning, she walked away from the blacksmith shop thankful that Mama had found happiness with this man and deep in her heart, Marty wished that she would find a man who was not afraid to speak his mind or to stick out his chest against any adversity. Being strong and resilient and she hoped—no, she expected her next mate to be tougher and feistier than she, yet she realized that she needed him to be gentle and loving toward her, like Sven was to Mama.

Elias was neither of these things. Elias was filled with gigantic words that spilled from his mouth like a spewing waterfall that thrashed the earth below but still sparkled with a rainbow-like glow. He was stiff and staunch, prim and proper. He replaced his boyhood charm, which he believed would get him nowhere in life, with a haughty air of importance that he flaunted with his every utterance. He nullified his inadequate background by making and spending money and by entertaining the wealthiest of New Braunfels’ inhabitants. But he was never demonstrative in his feelings toward his wife except when they lost their unborn children. In his own rigid way, he comforted her, which made her love him all the more despite his tepid touch when he held her in his arms. And she knew that he loved her even though he hardly told her so, for his eyes reflected the admiration that she knew that he felt for her. And she loved him. She loved him because he showered her with gifts of imported fineries, furs and jewels and all the things that she had been deprived of in her childhood, things that Mama had been deprived of and that Marty wished that Mama could have enjoyed. But things that Marty turned her back on when she walked away from her mansion.

She knew that Mama was happy with Sven, happier than she remembered her mother being with Papa. Marty could recall only a few arguments between Mama and Papa but Mama had rarely smiled for Papa the way that she smiled for Sven Reinhold. It must have been his charm and wit that caused such delight in Mama’s heart, for Papa Sven made Marty and Greta smile as well. Marty realized that Sven’s jovial relationship with Papa was why her father had come home every evening with a song on his lips and a grin on his face.

All Marty remembered about the happiness that Papa had brought out was that joy which he had cultivated in his daughter’s adoring heart. Elias could not generate that same kind of bliss, but he could bring out a sort of joy that made her feel appreciated, wanted and needed. And she was happy just being that. Until he died.

Her twin’s married life ended much like Marty’s, with one exception. Greta married Gunnar Goldstein, a half-Jewish German boy who was gentle and caring and who worshipped her with his every breath. Gunnar, with his golden hair and sunny smile, seemed to light up any dark event with his exuberant disposition. He was an editor for the local newspaper, hoping to one day become a journalist. Greta was enchanted by the poetry that he had written for her and she kept them with her most precious possessions.

But, Gunnar sent poor Greta into a depression that even his memory could not shatter when he was killed in the Nueces Massacre in 1862 after he had joined with his fellow Germans in an attempt to preserve the Union’s hold on their state and to protest the Confederate’s conscription of the men of Texas. Gunnar was assigned by his commander to chronicle the advances of the Union Army against the Rebels. But when his regiment was attacked by an overpowering battalion of Southern soldiers, retreating was its only option.