Robin Lee Hatcher (19 page)

Another thing occurred to Charlotte as she watched him. Lance truly found what Pastor Joki said interesting. He
wanted
to be here, to listen, to sing, to pray. He actually
enjoyed
being in church. And not so he could be sociable. The look in his eyes told her that.

She turned, following Lance’s gaze toward the pulpit, wondering if the pastor just might have something to say to her, too. Anything seemed possible today.

Jakob marveled at how changed he felt this morning. Amazing what a difference twenty-four hours could make in a man.

He glanced at his wife, seated beside him in the pew, and acknowledged the difference in her, too. Karola looked happy. Truly happy.

“Thank you for making us one,” she’d whispered last night, cloaked in the darkness of their bedroom. Somehow Jakob had known she’d thought him asleep, that her words had not been for his ears but for God’s.

Now, Jakob considered her words of thanks to the Almighty, considered how deeply she believed God’s hand was in everything, that it was God who had brought them together. He rather envied her confidence, a confidence he saw even when she was fearful, even when she was unhappy. A confidence Jakob didn’t have.

“Where do you stand with Jesus?”

Why had she asked him such a thing? It wasn’t as if he didn’t believe in God and Jesus and the Holy Ghost. He did. He’d been raised in the church, same as Karola, and it never would have occurred to him
not
to believe. He knew the liturgy and the hymns and even a psalm or two. So he considered God rather distant, someone to be reckoned with on Sundays and when dying. That didn’t mean he didn’t believe. He just figured while here on earth, a man had to do the best he could by the sweat of his own brow.

Where was God, after all, when Jakob had saved and scrounged so he could come to America? Where was God when Jakob slaved in that awful factory in New York, or when he’d been robbed and beaten in Wyoming? Where was God when he’d plowed the fields of his farm and dug the irrigation ditches with the sun blistering his back?

Or when his young wife lay dying, leaving him with three children to raise on his own?

With you
.

Jakob stiffened, then looked around, halfway expecting to find someone whispering near his ear. But everyone nearby was dutifully listening to Rick Joki, their eyes trained on the pulpit.

Jakob frowned, deciding he’d better do the same.

Chapter Thirty

25 July 1908
Shadow Creek, Idaho

Dear Father and Mother,

Yesterday, I received six letters from you. Six! I stayed
up late into the night reading them. In truth, I read each
of them more than once.

How joyous to see Mother’s familiar handwriting and
to read your words of wisdom, Father. I could close my
eyes and hear your voices speaking.

It was wonderful to hear the news of Steigerhausen. I
imagined myself there with Father in the bakery as people
came and went. Please tell Frau Struve I was delighted to
learn of the arrival of her healthy son. And tell Ilse
Engels I adore the drawing of her dog you sent to me.
Maeve asked to hang the drawing on her bedroom wall,
which she promptly did when I agreed.

In your first letters you thought me already married;
in the latter you thought me alone. You had not heard
Jakob and I were wed. In an odd and wonderful way, it
seems we have always been together. God has blessed us
with a love for one another that floods my heart with joy.
I am grateful for each new day.

Jakob is mending from his accident, and although he
remains impatient for the healing to be complete, at least
Dr. Cooper says Jakob need not fear any permanent damage.
This past week, he has resumed many of his daily
chores. He still cannot do heavy lifting, and he continues
to move with care. But he is greatly improved. I see his
frustration over those things he cannot do as yet but am
learning not to interfere. He does not like to be coddled.

It remains dreadfully hot in this valley. There has been
little rain this summer. The mountains and the uncultivated
lowlands have turned brown, withering beneath a
blistering sun. The earth is dry and cracked. The streams
and irrigation canals are running low. I see Jakob’s
frown when he looks at the clear blue skies and know he
is as worried as every other farmer.

I long to be able to ease his worries, but I know only
God can do that, and Jakob has not yet learned to give his
concerns to the Lord. I try to exhibit patience, although
it is not one of my natural attributes.

Our friend, Lance Bishop, the young man who works
for Jakob, has begun courting Charlotte White. It was all
the gossip in town yesterday. Frau Noonan, the postmistress
and owner with her husband of the grocery in
Shadow Creek, took great pains to tell me everything she
had heard and seen about the couple. I tried my best to
dissuade her, but she is not easily stopped once she has
begun.

I hope to have a portrait taken of my family this fall,
after the harvest is in. I heard of a fine photographer in
American Falls, which is not so far away that we cannot
go and return in the same day. I would so very much like
to send you a photograph so you might see Jakob and me
and the children. You would quickly understand why I am
so happy in my role as wife and mother.

Maeve’s sixth birthday is nearly upon us. She will
enter school when the new session begins. I have been
working with her on her reading and spelling. She is
bright and learns quickly.

The lessons are good for me, too. I am told my English
is excellent, but I know I sound quite foreign because of
the way I phrase things. It is not so for Jakob. You would
not know he lived in Germany until he was twenty. By the
way he speaks, you would think he was an American from
birth.

Bernard has been the first of the children to call me
Mama. I cannot express the joy I felt the first time he said
it, for I feel as though it is true, that these are my children.
I suppose it shall take Maeve a little longer. She
remembers her mother and misses her still, and although
we have grown closer with each passing week, I must be
patient. Oh, there it is again. My need for patience.
Learning to wait.

Aislinn no longer walks with uncertain steps the way
she did when I first arrived. Now she races about everywhere.
She has two more teeth, and although much of her
chatter is still a mystery, she adds new words to her
vocabulary almost daily. She is a delightfully happy child.

I pray that some day you will come to visit us in America,
to see this vast and wonderful country that is now
my home and to meet the family God, in his bounty, has
given me.

I remain your loving daughter,
Karola Hirsch

Chapter Thirty-One

Y
ou tell better stories than that, Karola,” Maeve said as she closed her
McGuffey’s First Eclectic
Reader
.

Karola smiled at the girl.
“Danke.”

Maeve set the book aside, then rose onto her knees and leaned her forearms on the sofa back.

It was afternoon, and the house was quiet. While Bernard and Aislinn napped in their rooms, Karola and Maeve had settled into the parlor, Maeve on the sofa, Karola at the writing desk. Jakob was in the barn.

“What’s that you’ve been reading?” Maeve pointed at the open Bible on the desk.

“I am reading from the gospel of John.”

“Can I read it instead of this?”

“It might be a little hard for you yet, Maeve. The English, it is … well, different, from what we speak today. I struggle with it myself.” That was an understatement. It would have been easier if she read from her German Bible, but Karola was determined to persist. She was in America now. She would read English like everyone else.

“Please.” The girl slid from the sofa and came to stand beside her.

Karola stroked Maeve’s hair, filled with wonder at the bond forming between them. “I suppose you may try if you wish.” She turned the open Bible toward the girl and placed her index finger on a passage. “Here. This is where I was reading.”

“‘Let not your heart be …’” Her face scrunched up and her mouth pursed as she concentrated.

“‘Troubled, ’” Karola supplied.

“‘Troubled.’
Ye?
What’s that?” She glanced up.

“It is another form of the word
you.”

“Why don’t they just say
you
then?”

Karola laughed softly. “I have wondered the same thing.”

“‘Ye … believe … in God, believe also in me.’” She looked up a second time. “Believe in who?”

“In Jesus.”

“Like what we learn in church?”

“Ja.”

“Oh.” Maeve considered this a moment or two, then slid the Bible back to Karola. “Why don’t you read it to me? It must be a real good story ’cause you’re always readin’ it.”

Karola smiled again, noting the sleepy look in the girl’s eyes. She suspected if she read aloud to her, Maeve would soon be napping like her brother and sister. “Come. We will sit on the sofa together.”

Maeve led the way. Within moments, the little girl was leaning against Karola’s side, Karola’s arm around her shoulders, while the Bible lay open on Karola’s lap.

“I will try to tell you the story in words you will understand.
Ja?”

“Sure. Okay.”

Speaking slowly, translating the words first in her mind, Karola began. “Jesus said, ‘Don’t be troubled. You trust God, now trust in me. There are many rooms in my Father’s home, and I am going to prepare a place for you. If this were not so, I would tell you plainly. When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. And you know where I am going and how to get there.’”

Maeve sighed and nestled closer.

“‘No, we don’t know, Lord, ’ Thomas said. ‘We haven’t any idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?’ Jesus told him, ‘
I
am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you had known who I am, then you would have known who my Father is. From now on you know him and have seen him!’”

Karola stroked Maeve’s hair.
Please, Father, let this precious
child come to know you now, while she is young. Don’t let her
wait, as I did, until after she is grown.

“Philip said, ‘Lord, show us the Father and we will be satisfied.’ Jesus replied, ‘Philip, don’t you even yet know who I am, even after all the time I have been with you? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father!’”

Karola knew Maeve slept now, but she didn’t stop her recitation, for the words were precious to her, too beautiful not to speak aloud now that she’d begun.

“‘If you love me, obey my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world at large cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you do, because he lives with you now and later will be in you. No, I will not abandon you as orphans—I will come to you. In just a little while the world will not see me again, but you will. For I will live again, and you will, too. When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Those who obey my commandments are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them, and I will love them. And I will reveal myself to each one of them.’”

“And does Jesus reveal himself to you, Karola?”

She released a tiny gasp of surprise as her gaze left the page and she turned. Jakob stood in the parlor doorway. Their gazes met, locked.

He stepped into the room. “Does he?”

Her heart skipped erratically. “
Ja,
he does.”

“How?”

She saw a yearning for understanding in his face and wanted desperately to supply the answers.
Help me, Father.

Jakob sat on a nearby chair, his gaze never leaving hers.

“How?”

“It is hard for me to put into words.”

“Try.”

“He reveals himself in his holy Word.” She touched the Bible in her lap. “And in a voice, though not one I hear with my ears.”She moved her hand to her breast. “I hear it here, in my heart.”

Jakob leaned toward her, his brows drawn together. “What does that voice say to you?”

“That he is near to me. That he is my portion forever. That he loves me.” She mirrored Jakob’s action, leaning toward him. “That he loves you, too.”

Jakob wasn’t a man given to shows of emotion, but he felt suspiciously choked up, and he couldn’t even say why.

“Jakob … where do you stand with Jesus?”

Karola hadn’t asked that question of him again, yet it echoed in his mind, in his heart, ever persistent, demanding an answer from him.

“Where do you stand with Jesus?”

He still wasn’t sure what it meant. He only knew he wanted the same peaceful assurance he saw in his wife.

“Karola … would he reveal himself to me if I asked?”

Joy, unlike anything he’d ever seen, shone in her eyes. “
Ja,
Jakob, he would.”

“You look like you’re feelin’ better,” Lance said as the two men rode toward the alfalfa fields the next morning.

“I do. Believe me, I do.”

Jakob’s answer wasn’t related to his health alone. This feeling went deeper. It was as if a great burden had been lifted from his back yesterday afternoon, as if a curtain had been drawn back from a window, letting in the light of day. And with the light had come unexpected joy.

He’d actually caught himself humming while shaving this morning. Jakob
never
hummed.

He couldn’t say what precisely had happened to make him feel this way. There hadn’t been a bolt of lightning in the parlor or a voice from above rattling the eaves of the house. There hadn’t been a flash of supernatural knowledge or wisdom. Yet he’d known things had changed, that
he’d
changed. Suddenly he’d known he was in right standing with the Lord.

He’d almost said something to Lance when the younger man arrived at the farm that morning. He had a feeling in his gut Lance would understand. But in the end, he’d kept it to himself, not knowing what to say.

“I talked to Brad about helping us with the second cutting.” Lance’s easy conversation intruded on Jakob’s thoughts. “I figured we’d need one more hand, what with the doctor tellin’ you to take it easy a few more weeks. Even if you are feelin’ better.”

Jakob nodded, though at the moment he felt he could do the work of two men.

After a short silence, Lance continued. “I went into town last evening for supper.” A pause, then: “At the Whites’.”

Jakob raised an eyebrow. “Is that so.”

“Yep. It was real good. Mrs. White was ailin’ so she didn’t join us, but Mr. White and I got on right well. Better than I expected, to tell you the truth. You know how he dotes on his little girl.”

“And how about Miss White? Did you get along with her, too?”

Lance grinned. “She was right friendly.”

Jakob laughed. Hard to believe he’d been burning with jealousy only a month ago, afraid Lance meant to steal Karola right out from under his nose. But back then, Jakob had been a man without hope.

Today, he had hope.

Today, he figured nothing could shake his world again.

“Tell me everything.” Emma’s eyes fairly sparkled with curiosity.

Charlotte was only too glad to comply. She cast a quick glance around the hotel restaurant, making certain no one was seated at the nearby tables, then leaned toward her friend. “He told Daddy his intentions were honorable. He hopes I’ll agree to marry him when the time is right and if Daddy agrees to the match.”

Emma’s eyes widened. “He actually said that in front of you?”

“No, silly. I was out of the room at the time.”

“Then how—”

“I was listening from the hall, of course.” Even as she said it, Charlotte felt an odd pang. But why should she feel bad about such a thing? “I had to know what they said to one another, didn’t I?”

“Oh, Charlotte.” Emma’s sigh was heavy. “You shouldn’t eavesdrop.”

She knew her friend was right, although that knowledge had never troubled her before. And it irked her that it did so now.

“You would have done the same in my place.”

Emma shook her head, and Charlotte knew it was true. Emma wouldn’t have done such a thing. And neither should she.

She leaned back in her chair as unfamiliar sensations warred within her. Guilt. Regret. And just a tinge of shame.

Why on earth should she feel ashamed? It wasn’t as if listening from the hallway was among the seven deadly sins or something. Her father and Lance had been talking about her. How else was she to know what they said if she didn’t listen? She couldn’t come right out and ask them, for pity’s sake.

Still, Charlotte decided, if such an opportunity presented itself again, she would not listen in. She didn’t care at all for the way she felt now.

“I’m sorry, Charlotte.” Emma looked truly repentant. “I didn’t mean to judge you. It isn’t my place.”

“That’s all right. You’re forgiven.”

They exchanged smiles. Emma was always quick to apologize, and Charlotte was always quick to forgive. They knew this about one another.

“Do you think you’ll want to marry Mr. Bishop when he actually asks you? Do you love him?”

Charlotte considered the question a few moments. “I don’t know.” A shiver ran through her, a mingling of fear and anticipation— with a dash of curiosity about the mysteries of marriage thrown in. “His smile does make me go a little weak in the knees. Is that love, do you suppose, Emma?”

“Maybe. I’ve never been in love so I can’t say for certain. Now that you’ve captured the heart of one of the valley’s most handsome bachelors, I may never know. I’ll probably end up a spinster.”

Charlotte looked at her friend, and suddenly it mattered a great deal that Emma was happy. “I won’t hear of it, Emma Shrum. Once I’m married, I’ll devote all of my attention to finding you a suitable husband. I promise.”

Emma laughed softly. “Well, not all. I should imagine Mr. Bishop will want
some
of your attention.”

Charlotte blushed, oddly pleased at the thought.
And I shall want some of his as well.
She smiled, even more pleased at that prospect, then decided to change the subject before Emma asked her what she was grinning about and she utterly embarrassed herself.