A Quilt for Christmas (5 page)

“And you will answer to me personally.”

At that, one of the Stark boys let out a loud laugh. “Why, I could pound you in the ground with my big toe.”

“Perhaps you could. But do I have to remind you gentlemen that I hold a mortgage on your farm, and I believe you have a payment due on January first?” He paused, then added, “January first of 1864. God bless me, that means you are nearly a year late. And another payment is due on January first next year, just one week from now. I hate to take away anyone's farm, but…” He shrugged.

The Starks looked at each other, but before they could respond, the reverend turned and walked back to the pulpit, saying, “Now, friends, our closing hymn is ‘All Hail the Power.'”

The Starks glared at Missouri Ann, who ignored them and began singing in her sweet voice. She glanced sidelong at Eliza, as the entire Stark family clumped down the aisle, swearing and pounding the floor with their heavy feet.

By the time the service was over, the Starks had cleared out. There was no sign of them in the church yard.

“Thank you, Reverend,” Missouri Ann told the minister as she curtsied to him at the doorway. “If you hadn't spoken up, they'd have hauled me back to that awful place, and me and Nance would never have got away.”

“Oh, don't thank me. I wouldn't have done you much good in a fight. But Print there, I believe he could have taken on the whole family and beaten them with one hand.” The reverend cleared his throat. “Such talk on this holy day. You must forgive me. Happy Christmas to you, ladies.”

Eliza led the way to the sleigh, Missouri Ann and the children behind her. The cutter was designed for two, so it would be a tight fit. Just as they reached the sleigh, Print Ritter came up. Missouri Ann seemed tongue-tied, so Eliza said, “We are grateful to you, Mr. Ritter. If you hadn't stood up beside Reverend Hamlin, I believe the Starks might have dragged Missouri Ann out of church.”

The blacksmith looked uncomfortable. “I don't like seeing a person mistreated, especially by the likes of the Starks. I'm glad you're shut of them, ma'am.” He lifted his hat to Missouri Ann, who blushed and mumbled her thanks. “And I'm real sorry that Hugh got killed.” He didn't look sorry. Missouri Ann thanked him again in a low voice, and he added, “If them fellows bother you again, you just let me know. I'll take care of them.”

“We will,” Eliza said.

The blacksmith glanced at Missouri Ann, but she was too embarrassed to look up.

“You think the Starks'll join up with the Union and maybe go away?” Davy asked, when the five were crowded into the sleigh and Eliza had spread a quilt over them. The bricks for their feet had long since gone cold.

Missouri Ann shook her head. “They're copperheads!” she whispered, as if the words could not be spoken aloud.

“You mean they don't support the Union?” Davy asked, astonishment in his voice.

“That's what I'm saying.”

“But Hugh joined up with the Kansas Volunteers,” Eliza told her.

“Oh, Hugh was different,” Missouri Ann said. “Your daddy was a fine man,” she told Nance, who was cuddled in her arms.

“Maybe his brothers will join the Confederate army then,” Eliza said.

“They're too cowardly.”

Davy laughed at that. “Papa says all the Confederates are cowards. That's why we'll beat them.” Then he added, “The Starks backed down awful fast when Mr. Ritter stood up to them.”

Missouri Ann seemed to think that over and looked out at the snow-covered land with a slight smile on her face. The snow hadn't started again, but the wind had come up, and the faces of the five were red and cold. “They got what they deserved.”

“Do you think they'll trouble us?” Eliza asked. “Maybe they'll come looking for you at the farm.”

“Not considerable trouble,” Missouri Ann replied. “They wouldn't do that.”

“I guess Mr. Ritter scared them away,” Eliza suggested.

“It ain't that. They ain't got the money to pay the mortgage, and they're scared they'll lose the place, poor as it is.”

“So we have nothing to worry about,” Eliza said.

“Oh, I didn't say that. The Starks is too mean to give up. They'll bother us some, maybe steal chickens or break down a fence. We have to keep a watch for them. But they wouldn't burn down the house or steal me and Nance.”

“And if they did, I'd go after them with Papa's gun,” Davy said.

Eliza turned to stare at her son, suddenly realizing he wasn't a child anymore. Davy was almost as tall as Eliza, and his voice had changed. Some boys no older than he had joined the army as drummers, a few even as soldiers. With four females living on the farm now, Davy really was the man of the house. Eliza decided that on the next Sunday, her son would take Will's place at the end of the pew.

*   *   *

Eliza had left a banked fire in the house, and when they returned from church, she and Davy added wood to the coals, and before long, the house was warm. She cut up the rooster she'd killed the day before and placed it with winter vegetables in an iron pot, which she hung from a crane over the fire. The children sat at the table, peeling their oranges and sharing them with Nance.

“One for me and one for you,” Davy said, handing the child a section.

“One for me and one for you,” Luzena repeated.

“That's not right,” Davy said. “She's getting twice as many as we are.”

Luzena frowned, not understanding. “Then I won't give her any more.”

“No, that doesn't work out right, either.”

“More,” Nance said.

“She's never ate a orange before,” Missouri Ann told Eliza.

“What about you?” Eliza asked.

Missouri Ann shook her head. “I seen them but never had the cash to buy one.”

“Davy…” Eliza said, but her son had already gotten up from the table, and he gave Missouri Ann an orange section.

“Me, too,” said Luzena, proffering her own bit of orange, but Missouri Ann shook her head, saying one piece was enough.

Missouri Ann ate her bit of orange slowly. “Tastes like summer,” she said.

“It does at that,” said Eliza, who was mixing dough for dumplings.

“You let me do that. You take a resting spell,” Missouri Ann said.

Eliza shook her head. “We'll let that old rooster stew. It's time you saw the soddy. You'll have to sleep here with us until we get it fixed up. In fact, maybe you ought to stay here altogether.”

“No, me and Nance can live in the soddy.”

“Then let's get to it. Maybe you'll change your mind after you see it,” Eliza told her, removing her shawl from a peg and opening the door. She led the way to a building built of long strips of prairie sod stacked on top of each other. The soddy was small and low to the ground, and there was a hole in the back wall. Eliza thought animals might have sheltered inside. She and Will had loved the little house, but they had been young and newly in love, and the soddy was their first home. It had been a cozy house, cool in summer and so warm in winter that she hadn't had to sleep with her bowl of yeast to keep it from freezing. Now she saw what a dismal place it really was. Clods of earth had fallen from the ceiling onto the floor. “It's awful dirty,” Eliza said.

Missouri Ann laughed. “Of course it is. It's made of dirt, ain't it?” She clapped her hands. “Why, it's as fine a house as I ever lived in! And to think there's just the two of us. We'll get lost in here.”

Eliza blinked at that, because the soddy was not much bigger than a horse stall. “It's awfully small.”

“Just the right size. I can sit on the bed and flip pancakes.”

“You can't stay here yet.”

“I'll clean it up tomorrow. It don't need much work at all, just that hole in the side patched. Someday maybe I'll get me muslin to stretch across the ceiling so's the dirt don't fall down. It's a right fine house, best I ever saw.” She frowned. “I didn't bring anything with me, not even a cookpot.”

“I got extra,” Eliza told her. “Extra dishes, too.” She frowned and added, “But you won't need them. We'll all eat together.”

“'Bliged. I wish I could have brought my scrap bag with me, but the Starks would have knowed for sure I was leaving if I'd taken that along to church. They know it means more to me than anything. Mean as they are, they probably've used it for kindling by now.”

“The idea!” Eliza gasped. Then she asked, “You quilt then?”

“Of course I do. I'd rather quilt than eat cake on Sunday,” Missouri Ann replied.

“Then we will make quite a pair. I've got enough scraps for both of us. We'll spend the winter piecing. It'll be like when I was young and sat with my mother and sisters over the quilt frame after the supper dishes were done and the bread set. There's nothing I'd rather do than quilt with another woman. I've got quilts in the house you can use until we've made some for you, although what I have is a poor offering.”

“Oh, I wouldn't think so,” Missouri Ann said. “You have the reputation of being the best quilter for miles around. Ain't nobody can quilt like you—except maybe me on my best day.” She gave a sly grin that was almost a challenge.

“Then together, we'll make the best quilts anybody in Wabaunsee County's ever seen.”

“That's a fact.”

“I made a quilt for Will—my husband—for Christmas, you know,” Eliza said, then wondered, how would Missouri Ann know?

“I do know. I met Enoch on the road as he was going back to the Kansas Volunteers. He told me.”

“Was he eating divinity candy?” Eliza had to ask.

“He was at that.”

“Well, at least Will got the quilt, and in time for Christmas. My husband wrote me. That was the letter I received yesterday.”

“A letter from your husband. Ain't that romantic? I never got a letter in my life, except the one saying Hugh was dead.”

Eliza found that strangely moving. She took her friend's hand and said, “I'm so sorry about Hugh, Missouri Ann.”

“He was all right. I told Nance that. She'll be raised with the knowing that he was all right.”

“He was, indeed,” Eliza agreed, thinking there was nothing wrong with telling a little lie.

“He wasn't like the rest of the Starks. He wouldn't have treated me the way they did,” Missouri Ann insisted.

“Of course not,” Eliza replied. “I don't suppose he left you anything.”

Missouri Ann shook her head. “Anything he had, Dad Stark's taken the possession of it.”

Eliza nodded. “Then next week, we'll go to the postmaster and find out how you apply for a pension.”

“A what?”

“A pension. When a man dies in the war, the army pays his widow a sum of money every month in compensation. Of course, money doesn't compensate for the loss of a husband. And it isn't much, maybe three dollars a month.”

Missouri Ann thought that over. “I guess maybe that's another reason the Starks wanted me and Nance to stay. Three dollars a month is a fortune to them. To me, too.”

“But it's not as much as Hugh was paid for being a soldier.”

“Hugh got paid?” Missouri Ann's mouth dropped open. “I never saw a penny of it.” Then she added quickly, “The Starks must have got it. Hugh wouldn't have left his wife and daughter without no money.”

*   *   *

The children had gone to sleep as soon as supper was over, Luzena sharing her bed with Nance and the new doll, which she had named Miss Cat, for her pet who had died the year before. Missouri Ann had offered to sleep on the floor “like I done at the Starks',” she'd said, but Eliza insisted her friend share her own bed. “We'll keep each other warm,” she'd told Missouri Ann, realizing how cold her bed had been with Will away. When she had dressed that morning at the Starks', Missouri Ann had slipped her dress over her nightgown, and now she was sleeping warm in that garment, covered by quilts.

Eliza was tired, too, but she was restless. She wondered what Will would think about her taking in Missouri Ann and Nance. Would he approve? Of course he would. Will was a kind man. He'd taken in stray dogs and cats, and more than once, he'd asked her to give a meal to a tramp passing through. He wouldn't deny shelter to a woman and child. Still, she ought to ask for his permission. But what if he said no? Eliza smiled to herself. She'd ask in such a way that he couldn't turn her down. She'd done that often enough.

And so, despite the hour and her own weariness, Eliza lit a candle and went to the cupboard for a sheet of paper and a pen. She reached for the bottle of ink, but it was frozen, so she took up a pencil instead and sat at the table near the dying fire and began.

December 25, 1864

Dear Husband

On this most sacred of nights, I write to wish you a Happy Christmas & to tell you that your most welcome letter informing me the quilt had arrived, was joyously received. It was the best of all Christmas gifts. The children are overjoyed at their presents & I am warmed by your words that someday we will be together to share the quilt. Davy was busy with the knife, whittling a piece of wood which he said will become a stirring spoon for me. Luzena named the doll Miss Cat, for that ugly stray that got her tail caught in a reaper.

It has been a most unusual Christmas. At Post Office yesterday, Missouri Ann Stark that was Missouri Ann Martin received word her husband Hugh had been killed in battle. She had been abandoned to the Starks that misused her & wanted her to marry one-legged Edison, who is the most foul of creatures. On impulse, I asked her to live with me. She agreed to meet me at church today, but was followed by the Starks & a most unpleasant scene occurred in which Reverend Hamlin was threatened. But they were put in their place by the reverend, assisted by Print Ritter, the man who mended the wheel of our wagon last winter. Missouri Ann & Baby Nance are now asleep, even as I write this. I ask your approval for what I have done & would welcome any advice you can give me.