Lyn Cote Read online

  At these heartbreaking words, he wrapped his arms tightly around her and let her hushed sobs beat against him. He absorbed her anguish as best he could. But Ellen’s desperate state ignited his own alarm. He’d survived what had happened in Germany. He would not see Gunther and Johann taken from him now.

  He realized those words were whistling in the dark, as death hovered at their elbows, always ready to snatch life from them. But he would not give in to this despair, nor would he let Ellen.

  He focused on the sweet woman in his arms. Here, in this dark room while all slept, he could comfort her. Had he ever known a woman with a kinder, more caring heart? He buried his face in her soft hair, allowing himself to breathe in her natural scent and a trace of lavender.

  Minutes passed. He let himself float, without thought or worry, just holding her close. Comforting her comforted him. Was that wrong? He knew in his heart it was not.

  Finally, she drew a long, shuddering breath and straightened herself. “I’m sorry I gave in like that,” she whispered.

  He tried to think of words but none came to mind. Then, as if someone else were in control of him, he leaned forward and kissed her forehead. “William will not die.”

  She tried to smile but failed, her lips quivering with more sobs. She bent and lifted the baby out of the cradle and back into her arms.

  Kurt waited there, not sure what to do. He knew he shouldn’t have held her like that, but it was done now. And if he was honest with himself, he didn’t regret it.

  “Do you think I should try some of the willow bark tea?” she asked.

  “I do not think a spoonful will hurt,” he said. “I’ll get it.”

  He poured out a spoonful of the tepid brew, and then tickled William’s chin, waking the child. He trickled the tea into the baby’s mouth. When he was done, he gave Ellen a smile and turned to go back to his uncomfortable chair.

  “Kurt,” she murmured, “thank you.”

  She said my given name.

  Kurt didn’t turn, afraid for her to glimpse his reaction. “Guten nacht,” he murmured and walked softly back to the classroom, trying to ignore the thrill he was feeling at the sound of his name on her lips.

  He moved to the pallet where Johann tossed and turned, mumbling in his fevered sleep. With the inside of his wrist, Kurt tested his nephew’s forehead. Would the fever never break? Kurt didn’t even have the energy to walk back to the desk and sit. Instead, he lay down beside Johann on the bare half-log floor and fell asleep almost instantly, the last thought in his head of Miss Ellen Thurston and how right she had felt in his arms.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Standing outside the school in the chill morning air, Kurt felt as if he’d aged a decade over the past two weeks. The worst of the measles outbreak had passed. A few children remained at home, still recovering from the illness. But after today’s thorough cleaning had been done, the school would no longer serve as a hospital, but return to its true purpose. He hoped people would come to help them get it ready, but it was possible that they might still be afraid to come.

  He rubbed his eyes with both hands. After two weeks of little sleep, he wondered if he’d ever feel rested or normal again.

  Pale and thinner, Johann came outside and leaned against him. Kurt patted his bony shoulder. “Tonight, we go home.”

  “Good. I want to see my kid,” Johann said, referring to his beloved pet, a baby goat. “Do you think he missed me?”

  “I’m sure he missed you.” An image of Johann, delirious and floating in the cold creek, flashed through Kurt’s mind. That night I thought I’d lose you, little one.

  Movement at the edge of the trees snagged Kurt’s attention. Gunther appeared in the clearing. Kurt’s heart clenched and then expanded. One glance and the young man raced to them. Throwing down a bucket, he wrapped his arms around Johann and lifted him off his feet.

  Kurt didn’t know how it happened, but soon they were hugging each other as they never had before. Then he realized Gunther was crying hard, wetting Kurt’s shirt. He held his brother close. In a way he couldn’t understand, Gunther’s tears were washing away the fear and cleansing him, too.

  Finally, Gunther drew back and lowered Johann to his feet. “I missed you, little guy.”

  Kurt had expected Gunther to speak in German as they usually did when no one else was near. But he’d spoken in English and with so faint an accent that he’d almost sounded like someone else. For the first time, the knowledge that his baby brother would soon be a man lodged solidly inside Kurt.

  “I missed you, too, Gunther,” Johann said.

  From inside the school, a child called to Johann.

  “Be right back,” Johann said, leaving them.

  The two brothers gazed at each other. “I thought we might lose him,” Gunther admitted and then swiped his wrist over his moist eyes.

  Kurt couldn’t speak. He hadn’t thought Gunther would fear what he feared. He is growing up fast, too fast.

  “I thought I might lose you, too.” Gunther looked down then, not meeting Kurt’s eyes.

  Kurt could think of no reply to this. When trying to keep Johann from succumbing after his cold night swim, he’d given little thought to his own vulnerability to illness.

  “We had a rough time in Germany.” Gunther leaned back and folded his arms. “But here we have a new chance.”

  Kurt drank in each of Gunther’s words of hope. “Life is getting better,” he said. Kurt thought of Miss Thurston, of how deeply he’d allowed her into his mind, his heart.

  Gunther stared down at the step. Finally, he just nodded.

  As if Kurt had summoned her merely by thinking of her, Miss Thurston stepped outside. “Did you come to help us sanitize the school, Gunther?” Her words were warm and her smile also.

  All too well, Kurt recalled the sensation of holding this lovely lady close. Now, every time he saw her, he had to fight the urge to put his arm around her and draw her near. Not a wise idea.

  “Yes, I brought cleaning things,” Gunther said, picking up the bucket he’d dropped and rattling the contents.

  “Good.” Before she could say more, a wagon rocked into sight. The old preacher’s daughter-in-law, Lavina, sat beside her younger son, Isaac, who was close to Gunther in age. She waved, announcing, “We brought my laundry tub to boil water for the cleaning!”

  And then more wagons jostled into the schoolyard. Kurt was relieved to see that at least some people had turned out to help, after all.

  Kurt helped move the benches and all the other furniture in the school and Ellen’s quarters outside. Though he kept busy, Ellen would not leave his mind.

  I will do the work here and then I will go home and I will not think of her.

  An inner voice replied, “Not think of her? Who do you think are you fooling?”

  *

  Ellen welcomed those who’d come to help disinfect the school with pure joy. The fact that the town of Pepin had made it through the measles and not lost a soul was surely something to feel good about.

  Soon she was sweeping out the schoolroom while outside others filled the laundry tub to begin heating water. Kurt seemed to be everywhere she looked, helping everyone with everything. She tried to stop herself from noticing him, from responding to the sound of his deep, sure voice. But since the night when he’d comforted her with such tenderness, she seemed to have no control over herself. The man had lodged in her mind. And her heart. She had not a clue what to do about him.

  People on their hands and knees began scrubbing the floor and walls with the hot water and lye soap. Marta was polishing the windows with pungent vinegar water and newspaper. The potent mix of odors made Ellen’s eyes water. She decided to work outside, away from the fumes and away from Kurt Lang.

  There, with a stiff-bristled brush in hand, she scrubbed down the benches. Amanda, recovered now from her own bout with measles, watched the children—including a healthy, happy William—outside in the sun. Ellen noticed that except for Lavina,
the Whitmores and her cousins, those working to disinfect the school were those whose children had recovered from measles.

  Evidently, much of the population would steer clear of the school building for a time. She couldn’t blame them. But it brought her a worry. She wished most of all the Brawleys had come to help today. How had they weathered the measles outbreak? No one had mentioned them yet.

  Mrs. Ashford worked nearby. Something about the dejected way the storekeeper’s wife moved and sighed again and again put Ellen on alert. Finally. Ellen asked in an undertone, “I think you should sit down for a while. You’ve helped so much already, bringing food even after Amanda came down with the measles.”

  Mrs. Ashford’s face crumpled. Ellen drew the woman to sit on a more private bench behind her quarters. “What’s wrong?”

  The woman continued to cry. Finally, with a hiccup, she asked, “Have you seen Amanda’s face?”

  Ellen stopped to think. “From a distance. What’s happened?”

  “Her eye, her right eyelid droops,” the woman said in a hushed, hopeless tone. “It makes her look squinty.”

  Ellen considered this. “That’s a possible aftereffect from measles, I think. Yes, the medical dictionary warned that could happen. The muscles in the eyelid are weakened.”

  Mrs. Ashford muffled a wail in a handkerchief pressed to her mouth. “It gives her a very off appearance. How will we ever find her a decent husband?”

  The words sent anger flaring through Ellen. She called on her self-control, not letting out any of the words rushing through her mind. When she could command herself, she said, “Amanda is intelligent, kind and hardworking. Any man with sense at all would find in her a wonderful wife.”

  Mrs. Ashford sniffed. “You’re sweet to say that, but men always want a pretty wife.”

  “Some men make that mistake,” Ellen said, recalling how much prettier her younger sister was than she. “But others look under the surface. Besides, Amanda always presents herself well. What is a droopy eyelid after all is said and done?”

  “Ned says it could have been worse. She could have caught small pox and been dreadfully pockmarked.”

  Or she could have died.

  Ellen patted the woman’s arm. “Why don’t we leave Amanda’s future husband up to God?”

  Mrs. Ashford rose with a pronounced sigh. “Of course, you’re right. I don’t know why I’m being so foolish.”

  Before the measles outbreak, Ellen knew she would have responded inwardly that this woman was foolish. But Mrs. Ashford had worked tirelessly to help Ellen and the other mothers tend their sick children, and Ellen saw her differently now. She patted the woman’s back, trying to comfort her. “Let’s go back and finish those benches.”

  As they rounded the corner, Ellen saw that the yard had emptied of workers except for Amanda, who was watching toddlers near the swings. And Gunther.

  Gunther leaned forward and tenderly kissed Amanda’s right eye.

  As she heard Mrs. Ashford’s sharp intake of breath, Ellen braced herself, awaiting in dread for the onslaught of scolding. But she waited in vain.

  Mrs. Ashford took Ellen’s elbow and hurried her back to where they had been.

  Ellen obeyed the silent prompt not to let the young couple know they’d been observed, but was confused. Hadn’t Mrs. Ashford seen Gunther kiss Amanda’s eye? If she had, why hadn’t she reacted in her usual manner? Ellen sent her companion a questioning look.

  “I didn’t want to embarrass my daughter,” the woman confided, obviously touched by the tenderness she’d just witnessed. “It seems you were right about Gunther, Miss Thurston. Perhaps he is a fine young man after all.”

  Astounded by Mrs. Ashford’s change of heart, Ellen looked back at the young couple. For a moment, her mind recreated the image she’d just seen. Only this time, she—not Amanda—sat with William in her arms, and Kurt was kissing her, starting a warm current swirling through her.

  Red-faced, Ellen quickly turned away from Mrs. Ashford as if the woman could somehow know what she was thinking.

  *

  By the first week of November, Kurt was once again helping work with Marta outside the lady teacher’s quarters. Once again they were packing up the Bollinger’s possessions for their impending trip to New Glarus. School had resumed now, and the horror of the town’s measles epidemic was behind them.

  Because all the windows were shut tight against the advancing cold, Kurt could hear Miss Thurston’s voice inside the school but he couldn’t make out individual words. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from listening.

  Since the night he’d held her, the feelings he had for her had become harder—much harder—to conceal. He’d been trying to keep his distance from her, but it had done him no good. In some ways, it had probably made the situation worse. Absence did make the heart grow fonder.

  Marta carried out the final box and set it into the rear of the wagon. “That is all except for the bedding.” The woman sighed and leaned against the lowered tailgate. “Why are you alone?” she asked him suddenly.

  Her question startled him. “What?”

  “Why aren’t you married?”

  He couldn’t hide how shocked he was. “I have Gunther and Johann to care for.”

  “You should have brought a wife with you.”

  The memory of Brigitte’s horrified face flew into his mind. His father’s act had horrified everyone at home, and with the horror had come repulsion. No one wanted even to look at Kurt or Gunther or Johann. Bitterness choked him, his heart hardening.

  “I would never have come here unless my Gus wanted us to. And now he will never see New Glarus.” Marta appeared to be fighting tears, her lips quivering. “I don’t understand why this has happened. Every step of the way we prayed and now I’m here alone to raise our sons.”

  Pushing aside his own tragedy, Kurt rested a hand on her shoulder. “You have suffered. But God hasn’t forgotten you. Gus died but your son didn’t succumb to the measles.”

  “I know. I don’t want to sound ungrateful. I’m just speaking what’s in my heart to the only adult here who can understand me.”

  He comprehended that, too. So many times he had felt left out when people spoke rapidly or when they addressed him as if he were hard of hearing. And he was unable to express himself as clearly, as thoroughly in English as he could in German. Talking to Marta was a relief in that way. But she wasn’t the one he really wanted to speak to.

  “Why don’t you come with us to New Glarus?”

  Her question startled him so, he jerked backward. “Leave?”

  “Yes, New Glarus is Swiss but we are German-speaking Swiss. You would be with people who understand you and know Europe, not just this lonely, raw land.” She cast a glance about her.

  “Leave?” he repeated, taken aback.

  “Yes, you would be among those who are like us, not these people who think they are better than we.”

  All the rude words and misconceptions that had been hurled at him over the past months streamed through his mind, sparking a fire in him. He hadn’t realized that he’d stored them up.

  This woman only spoke the truth. But he didn’t know what to say in reply.

  “You think about it,” she urged him. “I could delay leaving to give you time to gather—”

  “No,” he said, speaking more sharply than he wanted. “I have worked too hard to leave. Gunther is doing better and Johann has a good school with a good teacher.”

  Marta shook her head at him. “I see how you look at the schoolteacher. But if you think she will marry you, a foreigner—” she said the word in English “—you are deluding yourself.”

  Kurt’s insides twisted with denial and shock. “I am not so unwise.” He swung away from her.

  Marta caught his arm and stopped him. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want you to be…”

  He turned back, his hot anger dwindling by the second. “I know.” He held up a hand as if to make peace. “Gunther and I will come just a
fter breakfast tomorrow to start your journey.”

  Marta murmured her thanks and released him.

  Kurt was glad he’d walked to town. He had more than two miles home to work off his spleen.

  The idea Marta had planted resisted his efforts to uproot it. Life would be easier if he went to a German-speaking village.

  But my home is here.

  And of course, Miss Thurston was here, too. The thought of never again seeing her elegant features or hearing her gentle, cultured voice left him bereft as if a dark veil descended over his heart.

  For that reason alone, he should leave with Marta.

  *

  In the crisp November dawn, Ellen carried William as she and Kurt walked to town with Marta. It was not lost on Ellen that Marta walked between her and Kurt. Ellen was grateful for the distance, and she also resented the distance. Both reactions irritated her.

  Dawn gold still hung in the eastern sky. Behind them, Gunther, with her three boys jabbering excitedly to him in German, was driving Marta’s wagon into town. There he would pick up the old trading road along the Mississippi and head south. Marta had preferred to walk into town.

  Ellen worried about William and the Brawleys. The husband hadn’t wanted William in the first place. And in the days after the outbreak ended, Mrs. Brawley hadn’t come for William. Letting the uneasy matter lie, Ellen had accepted Marta’s offer to watch him during school hours. But today with Marta leaving, Ellen had to go through town on her way to leave William for the day.

  Marta said something in German to Kurt, pausing in front of the store. Ellen only caught “Mrs. Ashford.” She looked to Kurt for the translation.

  “She would like to thank the Ashfords,” he replied to her unspoken question, and then turned toward the store.

  But before he could enter, Mrs. Ashford came out, followed by her husband. “I thought you’d be leaving early,” the wife said.

  Marta hurried forward, speaking in heartfelt German as Kurt translated. “Thank you, Mrs. Ashford, for all you and your husband have done for my family. We were strangers and you fed us. We were sick and you helped us. You are true Christians. Thank you.”