The Heirloom Brides Collection (37 page)

Midmorning she set the mending aside and made sandwiches using the leftover biscuits, cheese, and sweet pickles. None of the workers left their duties to partake of the snack, however, so she covered the plate with a cloth napkin and left it on the table in case they came in later. But they didn’t even come to the house at noon. Instead, they gathered in the shade of the wind block of cottonwoods on the far side of the field and ate sandwiches from the sack Titus Klaassen’s brother had carried in that morning.

Observing them from the window, Clara balled her fists on her hips and released a mighty huff.

Papa clomped up beside her. “What’s the matter?”

She flapped her hand in the direction of the men. “Look at them out there eating sandwiches. I heated up the house by starting the stove and cooking a pot of beans with ham and baking corn bread—far more than you and I can eat. But now it will go to waste because they aren’t coming in.”

Papa’s forehead pinched. “Maybe they didn’t want to bring the smoky smell into the house.”

She snorted. “The smoky smell is already in the house. Even with the windows closed, it came in. Maybe I should open them anyway and let some air blow through. I feel as if I’ve spent my whole morning sitting in an oven.”

To her continued irritation, Papa chuckled. He patted her arm. “I believe the heat of the room has you in a dither. Let’s sit down and have some of your beans and corn bread. A good meal might take the edge off your temper.”

But the savory beans and moist corn bread did nothing to ease Clara’s irritability. At the end of the day, when everyone left without a word of good-bye, she gritted her teeth and battled the urge to chase after them and berate them for their thoughtlessness. That evening, before the sun disappeared over the horizon, she and Papa wandered into the yard and examined the charred field and the fresh-turned ground behind the house, evidences of the men’s industriousness.

Papa released a satisfied sigh. “Ah, Clara, how good to have neighbors who so willingly give of their time and talents. We owe a great debt of gratitude to the Klaassens and their friends.”

Guilt pricked. Why did resentment rather than gratitude fill her? Papa was right—people had been so giving and helpful. Would she harbor a grudge because they didn’t eat her food today? How childish and self-centered. She’d been taught better by both Mama and Papa. God must certainly be displeased with her peevish thoughts and actions.

She swallowed a lump of regret and forced her dry throat to form a question. “Will all the men who came today be back tomorrow?”

“I’m not sure, Clara Rose. It doesn’t seem as if the garden plot is ready for seeds, and those stumps still need removal. Maybe they’ll all come tomorrow to finish the jobs.”

She slipped her hand through Papa’s elbow. “Well, just in case, I’ll bake something extra special for breakfast tomorrow to say thank you. Maybe an applesauce cake?” Mr. Klaassen had particularly enjoyed her apple-walnut muffins, and the cake was even more moist and flavorful with lots of cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg stirred into the batter.

Papa smiled. “That’s a fine idea.” He turned her toward the house. “Even though the smoke smell is still heavy, let’s crack a few windows, hang moist towels over the openings, and let the night breeze in, hm?” Papa’s suggestion of moist towels blocked some of the smoky scent from plaguing Clara’s nose, and the cool air allowed her to sleep deep and restfully. Tuesday morning she rose early and mixed up the promised applesauce cake. Her heart lurched when the men praised her for her thoughtfulness, but then plummeted when Mr. Klaassen instructed them to pick up the large wedges and eat them on their way to the field.

Clara wilted in dismay. “You aren’t going to sit at the table and visit”—she swallowed—“with Papa while you eat?”

A hint of apology showed in his eyes, but he shook his head. “We’ll eat outside. Then we won’t be tempted to dawdle. Joshua, Floyd, and I plan to have those stumps out by the end of the day, and Andrew wants to finish your garden plot so he can work at our place tomorrow.” He bobbed the piece of cake. “Thank you again, Miss Frazier. This is a pleasant way to start the day.”

A pleasant way to start the day was conversation around the breakfast table. But she held the protest inside and served Papa instead.

The Tuesday morning change in routine became the regular procedure for the rest of the week. No matter what she prepared for breakfast—pancakes, bacon and eggs with biscuits, crumbly dried apricot coffee cake—Mr. Klaassen found a way to transport it to the field. She considered making a pot of oatmeal. He wouldn’t be able to carry oatmeal out the door in his hands! But neither she nor Papa cared for oatmeal, so it would only go to waste.

Mr. Klaassen instructed her not to worry about midmorning or midafternoon snacks. Instead, he brought jerky or nuts in his pocket to snack on between meals. He also stopped taking supper with them, claiming he needed to see to chores at his house and wanted to get back earlier. The only meal for which he sat at the table was lunch, and those fleeting minutes proved dissatisfying. She warred between irritation with him for being distant and irritation with herself for being so bothered by it.

Friday after a morning of baking that left the house smelling wonderful, she hitched Penelope to the wagon and made a trip to town. She hadn’t gone into Wilhelmina by herself before, and her stomach churned with anxiety. While she drove beneath the sunny sky with a warm breeze touching her face and flapping the ruffle of her bonnet’s brim, she sent up prayers for strength and courage.

She stopped at the bank first and withdrew money from their savings account. The teller’s smile smoothed the frayed edges of her nervousness, and she entered Voth’s Grocery and General Goods Store with less trepidation. The owner of the store, Ira Voth, cheerfully marked her account paid-in-full and waved a friendly good-bye as she departed. She retrieved their few pieces of mail from the post office, responding to the postmaster’s hello with a timorous smile. Basking in the warmth of everyone’s friendliness, she drove to the Feed and Seed. Thanks to Andrew Klaassen’s diligent work, her garden plot was ready to receive seeds. Mrs. Klaassen had offered to share, but after everything else the family had done, Clara decided taking seeds would be one kindness too many.

To her delight, little flats of vegetable starts filled tables in the large lean-to beside the store. She leisurely browsed, touching the unfurling leaves and breathing in the musky aroma of moist soil. When she came upon flats of tiny tomato plants, such an intense longing for her mother welled up, the good feelings conjured from her previous encounters swept away. Tears pricked, and she sniffed hard.

She turned from the tomato seedlings, and her gaze fell on a display of flats marked
Bloomen.
She needn’t understand German to know it meant “flowers.” Only tiny sprigs of green poked up from the soil, but identifying tags hung by strings from each flat. She crossed to the display and examined the tags. She frowned. What were
Schwaulmauchkjes
or
Re’jiene
?
Bottabloom
she determined were marigolds. Their telltale pungent aroma rose from the green leaves and teased her nose. At least she understood the numbers indicating the price per flat.

“May I help you?” The woman’s voice, laden heavily with a German accent, came from behind Clara’s shoulder and startled her.

She whirled around, her face flaming. “I—I was just looking.”

The woman smiled, her full cheeks dimpling. “You are Miss Frazier,
jo
? Who lives east of town beyond the Klaassen
Foarm
?”

Clara nodded.

The woman offered her hand. “
Mein name ist
Naomi Zemke. My
Ehemaun
, Ike, and I own the Wilhelmina Feed and Seed. Nice it is to make your acquaintance, Miss Frazier.”

Clara accepted the handshake and then locked her hands behind her back. The friendliness glowing on Mrs. Zemke’s face reminded her of Mrs. Klaassen. Despite their vast age difference—Mrs. Zemke was surely already in her late forties or early fifties—Clara suspected they could be friends. If she wanted to make friends. She cleared her throat. “You have a nice selection of vegetables and flowers. I want to put in a large garden so my father and I will have food for the winter months. You’re familiar with the growing season here. Could you help me decide what to buy for planting now and what should wait?”

Over the next half hour, Mrs. Zemke proved her knowledge by instructing Clara on the best time to plant, which vegetables were best to grow from seed and which from seedlings, how to thin carrots and radishes for the best result, and which plants preferred wet soil to dry soil. By the time they’d finished loading her wagon with flats of little plants, Clara’s mind whirled with the various instructions. She hoped she would be able to remember everything long enough to write it all down.

As Clara placed brown paper bags of seed potatoes and onions next to a flat of strawberry seedlings, Mrs. Zemke tapped her lips with her finger and surveyed the wagon’s contents.

“
Ach
, Miss Frazier, your vegetable garden will be well filled with the choices you have made. But when I find you, you were admiring the flowers. Do you not wish to take home Bloomen for your garden, too?”

Clara closed the hatch. After paying off her balance at the grocer and paying for the items in her wagon, she only had a few dollars left from the money she’d withdrawn. If they bought a piglet, which Mrs. Klaassen had suggested, she would need the remaining funds. She offered a sad smile. “I would like to plant flowers in the yard.” The sad little house needed some color. “But I have to wait.”

The woman nodded in understanding. “Nä-jo, well, the flowers do not sell fast as the vegetables.” She smiled broadly and put her hand on Clara’s shoulder. “No worrying you do, Miss Frazier. Some flowers will be here for you when ready you are.”

Mrs. Zemke’s odd way of phrasing made Clara want to giggle, but she reined in her humor and thanked the helpful woman instead. Back on the farm, she laid the flats along the foundation of the barn where they wouldn’t receive too much sun, as Mrs. Zemke had advised, then headed for the house. As she crossed the yard, she glanced toward the field, then came to a halt. Where was Mr. Klaassen?

T
itus banged through the back door. “Ma!”

She appeared like magic in the kitchen doorway, her face alight.

“Are you ready for tomorrow?”

He grinned, envisioning the paint cans, brushes, pickets, and chicken-wire rolls in the barn. “Yes. How about you?”

She gestured to the table. Plates of
Zweibach
, cookies, and cakes covered the entire surface. “People have been delivering things all day.”

“We won’t go hungry tomorrow, that’s for sure.” Titus reached for one of the double-decker rolls served at every Mennonite gathering.

Ma smacked his hand. “We will go hungry if you eat everything before tomorrow.” She laughed, proving she wasn’t really angry. “Come look here, too.” She led him to the pantry. Three towel-covered platters rested on a low shelf. She lifted the corner of the towel draped over the closest platter. “Ham sandwiches here. That one over there has egg salad, and the last one cheese. Enough to feed half the town.”

Titus couldn’t hold back a laugh of delight. “Maybe half the town plans to come. That would be something, wouldn’t it? Then the Fraziers would know they are truly welcomed to Wilhelmina.”

For a moment, Ma’s face clouded. “Titus, do you think we might be rushing things? They haven’t yet attended a church service, and Clara is like a skittish colt, ready to bolt at a sudden noise. Are you sure we won’t overwhelm her with so much activity at once?”

He’d observed Clara over the past days, standing on the porch or at the window and gazing out with an expression of loneliness. She needed company. And she wanted it, whether she realized it yet or not. “She might be overwhelmed at first, but I think she’ll appreciate it once she understands we’re all there out of kindness.”

Ma closed the pantry door and crossed to the table. She fingered the chipped edge on one of the cookie plates. “I have done much praying about how to help her feel at ease in our community. She reminds me of a lost lamb.”

Titus chuckled. “A skittish colt, a lost lamb… What animal will you use to describe her next?”

Ma pursed her lips. “Certainly not a lioness. I don’t think she has so much as a tiny growl in her.” She touched Titus’s arm, her expression softening. “She is a lovely, kindhearted girl. Most important, she knows Jesus as her Savior. If you decide to court her, your father and I will not interfere.”

Titus raised one eyebrow. “She isn’t Mennonite, Ma.”

An ornery gleam entered his mother’s eyes. “Yet.”

Titus laughed. Before he could reply, someone knocked on the door and called a hello.

Ma bustled through the back porch and threw the door open. “Naomi! Come in.”

“Nä, you come out.” The Feed and Seed owner’s wife peeked past Ma at Titus. She crooked her finger at him. “You, too. You can help.”

Both Titus and his mother stepped into the yard. Ma said, “What is wrong, Naomi?”

“
Nuscht
, nothing.” She led them to her wagon and gestured to the bed. “I have some things here for the Frazier family. Neither Ike nor I can go out there tomorrow, but you take them with you, jo?”

Ma rose up on tiptoe and peered over the side. “Naomi!”

The woman beamed at them. “By the Feed and Seed she came today. She bought vegetables for her garden, but she said she must wait on buying flowers. I thought, why wait? So here you are. Pansies, petunias, cornflower, marigolds, zinnias…” She turned her smile on Titus. “You put some of the ladies to work making a colorful garden for her, will you? I have seen that house. A flower garden will do it much good.”

Ma embraced Mrs. Zemke. “This is very kind of you, Naomi.”

Mrs. Zemke waved her hands as if shooing away flies. “Nä, nä, I could not help myself. I see her pining over those flowers, and I say to myself, this girl is timid like a rabbit. She will not ask, but I can give.”