Fields of Grace (30 page)

Immediately, he brightened. “A
goot
choice! But while we wait, come.” He held out his hand, and she took it. They walked together across the brief expanse of grass separating the sod houses. He pushed open her door and gestured her inside.

The once-gaping hole now housed a deep box, mottled gray with drying clay. Lillian bent down and peered up the chimney, then straightened and clapped her hands. “Eli, you are so clever! It will be so nice to cook inside during the winter.”

He rocked on his heels, a pleased smile on his face. “
Jo
. It is not so nice as a brick
Oweback
, but it will do until I can build you an oven, and the fire will keep you warm, too.” He jerked his thumb toward the outside. “If this cold continues all winter, you will be very glad for that fireplace.”

“For sure.” She looked around, noticing all the boxes and barrels piled on the opposite side of the room in a disorganized heap. With one eyebrow raised, she said, “What is this?”

Eli looked at the stacks and scratched his head. “We had to push them out of our way so we could work.”

Lillian plunked her hands on her hips and gave him a mock scowl. “
Oomkje
Bornholdt, you made a terrible mess of my house! This must be righted before bed.”

He smirked. “You are very bossy,
Frü
Bornholdt.”

The title—
Frü
Bornholdt—hung in the room, bringing a tense halt to their lighthearted banter. With the boys calling her “Ma” and Eli calling her “Lillian,” she hadn’t stopped to think of herself as anything other than
Frü
Vogt. But she was
Frü
Bornholdt, Eli’s wife. The name took her by surprise, but the greatest shock was realizing she didn’t find the sound unpleasant.

Scrambling to restore normalcy, she said, “W-will you now build a
Feaheat
in your sod house, too?”

Eli swallowed, then cleared his throat. “
Nä
. The walls, they do not have enough length to support a fireplace. We had some trouble cutting this hole and keeping the sod wall from collapsing. We wedged a board across the top of the opening to support the wall and coated it double-thick with clay so it will not catch the flames.” A smile teased the corners of his lips. “All the laughing you heard came because chunks of sod kept falling on Henrik’s head. Joseph said he hoped it would knock sense into him.”

Lillian chuckled softly, envisioning the scene. Then she sobered, thinking of her chilly day in his sod house. “But you’ll be so cold. Surely the winter, when snow arrives, will be even colder than today. You must have a source of heat, too.”

He waved her concern away. “
Ach
, I will be all right. I will cover myself with several quilts and maybe that deerskin from Henrik’s kill. It keeps the deer plenty warm enough.”

Despite his lack of apprehension, Lillian remained dubious. “I think quilts and deerskin might not be enough.” What would she and the boys do if Eli froze to death? Anything might happen in this unfamiliar new land.

Eli continued in a convincing tone. “I will be fine, Lillian. It can be no colder than my attic room in Reinhardt’s house when I was a boy.”

Although Lillian had known Reinhardt and Eli her whole life—she’d known everyone in the village of Gnadenfeld—she hadn’t realized they’d slept in the attic. The attic of her own home had been unbearably hot in the summer and frigidly cold in the winter. She shivered just thinking of trying to sleep in such an uncomfortable room.

“You and Reinhardt slept in the attic? But the Vogts’ house was so large. Why did you not use a downstairs bedroom?”

“You misunderstand me, Lillian.” Eli rubbed his finger beneath his nose. “Reinhardt had a room in the main part of the house. I slept in the attic.”

Lillian stared at him in astonishment. In all her years of acquaintanceship with the Vogt family, she had assumed Eli was treated like part of their family. He and Reinhardt were together constantly, like any other brothers, alternately romping and tussling. To discover this inequity in treatment both troubled and angered her.

Apparently Eli read the dismay on her face because he shrugged. “I had plenty of quilts, and it was quiet—peaceful.”

“Even so.” Lillian’s voice trembled with indignation. “They took you in. They told the entire village they considered you their son. And all the while—”

He stepped forward and curled his hands over her shoulders. “Lillian.” She gazed into his serene face. “It does not matter. Do not let this sully your memories of the family. They were good to me. They fed me and clothed me and cared for me, never asking anything in return except respect and obedience, just as would be expected of any child. I was never mistreated or neglected.”

A gloomy picture filled Lillian’s mind—a picture of a small boy shivering beneath a pile of quilts, all alone and shut away from everyone. “But an attic room! Is that not neglectful?”

“Lillian, had it not been for them, I would have been on my own.” He turned stern, silencing her protests. “I thank God for their kindness to an orphaned boy every day. We will not speak of this again unless it is with appreciation for the sacrifice they made in raising a child who was not their own.”

His hands slid away from her shoulders, and he stepped back. Sniffing the air, he said, “I believe the
Bobbat
is nearly done. I will get the boys; we will wash up and enjoy a good meal together before restoring order in this room.” He strode from the sod house, leaving Lillian alone in front of the newly constructed fireplace.

Her heart ached over all the brief conversation had revealed. Despite his claims to the contrary, she knew hurt lingered in his heart. How often he must have felt discarded and unwanted, trundled away in an unpleasant space while the rest of Reinhardt’s family enjoyed comfortable rooms.

And now she also understood Eli’s open acceptance of her sons. He didn’t want them to experience the same rejection he’d felt as a boy being raised by a man other than his father. So easily Eli could have become bitter, but instead he had chosen to seek his peace in a relationship with God. She felt a swell of admiration for him, but another emotion rose above it.

Lillian believed she was falling in love with her husband.

26

T
he wind whistled, rising in pitch and volume until Lillian wanted to cover her ears. Then, as quickly as it escalated, it sank to a gentle whisper, teasing her with the idea that it might have blown itself away. Over and over the process repeated, keeping her from drifting into sleep.

Thankfully, the wind wasn’t disturbing her sons. Henrik and Joseph slept soundly on their mats across the room, worn out from their day of sod cutting, chimney building, and jollity. They had nearly fallen asleep in their supper plates, tottering off to bed the moment they finished eating. But she lay, wide-eyed and alert, attuned to the wild song of the wind. And thinking of Eli.

Did he sleep? All alone in his little sod house . . . just as he had been all alone in his attic room in Gnadenfeld? The ache in her breast increased with the howl of the wind as she envisioned him as a little boy with covers tugged up to his chin, lying beneath the slanting rafters. Tears pricked at the image, and she blinked rapidly, shattering the unpleasant picture. But the tears still flowed.

“So much unfairness in this life, God,” she whispered. She had overheard Eli addressing the Lord on many occasions when he was unaware of her presence. When he prayed with the family, his demeanor reminded her of a minister, but when speaking with God on his own, he revealed the intimacy of his relationship with his Maker.

Over her weeks of Bible reading and everyday communication with God, she had begun quiet conversations with God— conversations that were prayers, yet not bound by formality. She had found purpose in both means of speaking to Him. So it felt perfectly natural to talk to Him open-eyed, snuggled in her feather mattress, rather than with bowed head and closed eyes, on her knees.

“Why must hard things happen, Lord? Especially to children. Eli orphaned and then not truly loved and accepted . . . my own little Jakob falling while playing a game . . .” Her voice caught, images of Eli and Jakob bouncing back and forth in her mind so rapidly she found it difficult to distinguish one from the other. “You must have a reason, but I do not understand. If You can do anything, why do You not remove suffering from our lives and let us be always joyful?”

The wind howled angrily, and she shivered beneath her quilts. “I am sorry if I offend You with my questions. But please, Lord, help me understand . . . and help me find a way to atone for the lack of full acceptance Eli received as a child.”

“Lord, help me understand and not resent Lillian for her reaction.”

Eli knelt beside his bed, his beard brushing his laced hands as he prayed. Lillian’s face haunted him—the look of pity when she uncovered that one small truth of his childhood. So many times while growing up he had seen pity in people’s eyes. He’d heard the whispered comments: “Poor Eli . . . Without parents or a home, what will become of him?”

Poor Eli
. . . How he’d hated the sound of it! As if his parentless state somehow demeaned him. He’d worked hard to overcome the disgrace of being orphaned. In school, he studied to stay at the top of his class; for Reinhardt’s father, he performed twice as many chores as his foster brother; in the village, he helped build houses and barns and repaired wagons for anyone who needed assistance. When grown, he became a prosperous farmer and a respected horseman. Yet, despite all of his accomplishments, the murmur plagued him.
Poor Eli . . .

He’d thought the pitying murmurs had been left behind in Gnadenfeld. But no, they found him even here on the plains of Kansas. Earlier that evening, when Lillian had looked at him with the sorrowful expression he had come to loathe, the shame came rushing back. Pushing up from his knees, he blew out a mighty breath of frustration.

“I do not wish to be Poor Eli to Lillian. Maybe Capable Eli, Dependable Eli, Needed Eli, or . . . best of all . . . Beloved Eli.” His shoulders slumping, he rasped to the empty room, “Will she look at me now and see the man I have become, or will she always see the lonely child?”

The thought of forever being Poor Eli to this woman who had stolen his heart was unbearable. The cold, fiercely blowing wind crept in along the edges of the door and battered the sod house until little bits of grit drifted from his sod ceiling. He stood in the center of the room, listening to the wind howl like many tormented voices, feeling as though his soul joined in the chorus. But standing there shivering on the dirt floor, even if he did it all night, would solve nothing. It couldn’t erase the past. Not the past of years ago, and not the past of hours ago.

He blew out his lantern and rolled into the quilt-covered straw mound that served as a mattress. “Lord, take away the memories,” he begged. But lying there, cold and alone, he felt like Poor Eli.

Birdsong, joyful and shrill, teased Eli from a sound sleep. He rubbed his eyes, then sat up groggily, looking around in confusion. With no windows in the sod house, it was difficult to determine the hour, but tiny slivers of sunlight sneaked through the cracks around the door. The brightness told him sunrise had arrived some time ago.

He leapt from his bed, scrambling for the clothes that lay across his trunk. How could he have slept so long? The answer came easily—he had lain awake far into the night, bothered by the windstorm and the troubling thoughts concerning Lillian. Suddenly, he realized the wind no longer roared—a welcome change. But would Lillian’s pity have drifted away, too?

Sunlight washed over him as he stepped outside. The morning was cool but calm, reminding Eli of the late days of September. He shook his head. This land was as changeable as a rich woman’s wardrobe. Would these fluctuating temperatures have a negative effect on his fledgling wheat crop? He supposed only time would provide the answer.

Lillian and the boys sat around a trunk, which Henrik must have pulled out into the sunny yard. Joseph looked up from his plate and grinned. He pointed at Eli with his fork.