Wonderful Lonesome Read online

“A baby doesn’t really need much.” Mary took a muffin from Abbie’s basket. “Whether you have a boy or a girl, the baby things don’t matter. I kept Little Abe in white muslin gowns until he started to walk.”

  Abbie glanced at Ruthanna, hoping she was not hiding something more serious than false labor that would lead to a birth any time soon.

  “The gowns are easy to make.” Mary moved to the stove for the coffeepot and refilled the cups on the table. “I have a pattern. But you can use all my gowns. They are in perfect condition. Babies don’t wear out their clothes.”

  “Thank you.” Ruthanna lifted her cup and took a cautious sip of hot liquid. “Actually I’ve already made two from remnants of Eber’s shirt fabric.”

  “It’s generous of you to share your baby things.” Abbie smiled at the toddler across the room, trying to remember how he looked when he was small enough for baby gowns. She had held him when he was new. How many months had it been now? Abbie calculated from his birthday in January and came up with twenty months.

  “How is Willem?”

  Abbie had been staring into her coffee and flicked her eyelids up at the sound of Mary’s inquiry. “He is well.”

  “I know most of us don’t have much crop to harvest this year,” Mary said, “but that doesn’t mean it cannot still be the wedding season.”

  Abbie felt the color drain from her cheeks. A few weeks ago she had playfully reminded Willem of the same thing. “It’s hard to make plans right now.”

  “I suppose so. No place to read the banns. No one to perform the ceremony.”

  Abbie nodded politely.

  “You could always go to Ordway,” Mary continued. “You could get married there and stay for a few days before you came back.”

  Abbie put a bit of muffin in her mouth and looked around. “Where did Little Abe go?”

  Mary pushed her chair back and stood up again, but she did not seem concerned. “That child. If I turn my back for half a minute, he disappears. I can hardly get anything done keeping track of him all day.”

  Abbie stood now. “You relax. I’ll find him.”

  She pivoted so that most of the cabin was in sight and saw no sign of Little Abe other than a trail of small household items that served as his playthings. Abbie saw now that the Millers’ front door did not catch fully when it was closed, and she pushed it open to go into the yard.

  Ruthanna was relieved to see Abbie lead the small boy back into the house less than a minute later. Even if Ruthanna did feel perpetually pregnant, at least she knew her child was safe in her womb.

  “You little rascal.” Mary picked the boy up and put him in her lap in a wooden chair with a high carved back that must have once been a fine piece of furniture. “Ruthanna, that chest right there has all the baby things. Why don’t you go through them and see what you would like to use.”

  Ruthanna rose from the table. By the time she reached the cedar chest, Abbie had it open and lifted out a stack of neatly folded tiny clothing items.

  “The gowns are in several sizes. Little Abe was growing so fast I was sewing constantly.”

  “They’re lovely.” Ruthanna found the softness of washed and worn muslin appealing as she thought of it next to her baby’s skin.

  “There’s a quilt, too.”

  “I just finished making one.”

  “You can always use another.”

  Ruthanna found nothing to disagree with in that observation and took the quilt from the chest. Tiny blue and green triangles were laid on their backs against each other. Ruthanna had made her quilt with simpler squares.

  “Your quilting is beautiful,” Ruthanna said.

  “I wish I could say I made it. My mother sent it. She was one of the best quilters in our district at home.”

  Mary’s innocent comment sent a sharp pang through Ruthanna, who suddenly wished that her own mother were going to be present when her baby was born. Her parents had been vague about when they might visit.

  “Abbie, how is your quilt coming?” Mary asked.

  “I work on it nearly every night,” Abbie said.

  “I can’t wait to see it!” Mary picked up a tiny sweater. “Don’t forget this. Little Abe was born in January. If your baby comes in November, the size should be right for the winter.”

  Abbie handed Ruthanna a simple black knitted sweater with an open front and one tie at the neckline.

  “Do you have a cradle?”

  Ruthanna shook her head. “Not yet. But Eber wants to make one, something that we can use for all our children. I think he already has the wood cut out in his workshop.”

  “Well then, a few burp cloths and soft towels and you’ll be all set.”

  Ruthanna rewarded Mary’s generosity with a warm smile to mask her inner sense of foreboding. She wanted Eber to return and take her in his arms and to their home.

  With the smell of fresh bread rising from behind the bench and taunting her stomach, Abbie approached Rudy’s farm a few days later. As she drove the buggy past the scruffy meadow and saw both his horses grazing, she smiled. He was probably home.

  At first Abbie was nervous about seeing Rudy again after his confession of two weeks ago. But they were friends and fellow settlers, and she refused to think of sacrificing either dimension of their relationship to awkwardness. The Colorado plain was too desolate and lonesome to cut herself off from anyone. When the time was right they would speak again of that day, but for now she did not want him to feel spurned because she suddenly dropped away from him.

  She knocked at his door and immediately opened it to let herself in, as she did every week. If he was home during the day, he did not spend his time inside the house, so she never waited for him to answer the door.

  This time, though, he sat at the rugged table that he used for meals and papers. Several envelopes lay open before him. He looked up.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello.” Abbie moved to the shelf where he stored his bread and set the flour sack she carried in with her on it. She glanced around for last week’s bag.

  “It’s there on the back of the chair.” Rudy pointed.

  She picked it up and folded it neatly into a small square. “What are you reading?”

  “Letters from home. I had not picked up my mail in quite some time.”

  “Good news, I hope.”

  “Amusing news.”

  “Oh?”

  “Listen to this.” He read to her from the page he held in his hand. “Your little second cousin Ezra is a mischievous fellow. Though he is only nine years old, he is the master of practical jokes. Last week he hid a barn cat in a crate and put it on a shelf in his grandmother’s closet. Lest you think he was being cruel, let me assure you the creature had plenty of air and was only confined for a couple of hours. Of course the thing meowed incessantly while the boy’s grandmother had her quilting group over for lunch. Afterward, when she was determined to discover why there was a cat in her house and began an earnest search, he moved the crate around to another room every twenty minutes or so. She was convinced the poor thing was trapped in a wall and was about to call someone in to open the wall when the boy confessed. Fortunately she has a good sense of humor, though she threatened retaliation when he least expects it. Now the child is suspicious of everything his grandmother does. The entire family is having quite a laugh.”

  Rudy looked up, a grin on his face. “He was such a little boy when I left. I wish I knew him now.”

  “They sound like lovely people.”

  “They are.”

  A lump took instant form in Abbie’s throat and made her voice thick. “What other news do you hear?”

  Rudy picked up another letter.

  “Amos Schrock was a good friend when we were little boys. He’s getting married as soon as his family’s harvest is in.” Wistfulness crept out of his words.

  “I’m sure he would love to hear that you are well,” Abbie said.

  Rudy nodded slightly and picked up a note card. “This one is f
rom my father. He is all business. How many acres he planted, how much yield he expects, how many calves have yet to be weaned.”

  “He wants to know you are happy.” Abbie surprised herself with the sudden insight. “He wants you to write with your own news.”

  “I know.” Rudy’s gaze drifted out the window. “They all feel so far away.”

  Abbie did not know what to say. They were far away. She had come with her parents and brothers and had not often stopped to think what it must have felt like to come alone to a new state only to discover that all was not as expected.

  “Speaking of calves,” she managed, “how is yours doing?”

  Rudy took in a deep breath and returned his gaze to Abbie’s eyes. “She is well. Do you want to see her? I let her out in the fenced part of the barnyard today. She needs to get used to being away from her mother.”

  “You’re not going to wean her yet, are you?”

  Rudy tilted his head to one side. “Soon. Two months is a long time to leave a calf with its mother. I’m raising milk cows, after all. But I don’t want to separate them abruptly.”

  He had a soft heart, Abbie thought. Many farmers she knew thought only of what they needed from their animals. Rudy remembered that his cow and calf were also mother and child.

  They walked out to the barnyard together, and the calf came easily to Abbie. She scratched under its chin and looked into its huge brown eyes. In another year, this calf would be old enough for breeding and could have her own calf and begin her work of producing daily milk.

  Abbie smiled at Rudy, grateful that he was not pressing her to say how she felt toward him. She did enjoy spending time with him and keeping track of his animals.

  But Rudy Stutzman did not make her heart race the way Willem Peters did.

  Ruthanna waddled from the house to the barn, a trek that seemed to take her longer every day. It was harder to make her legs go where she wanted them to go and keep her balance at the same time, and every day required greater effort to breathe in the thin Colorado air. She thought she had adjusted to high altitude living until she began to carry a child. Supper was ready, but Eber had not come in from the workshop all afternoon. Ruthanna was not sure how much longer she could keep the food warm without drying it out, or how much longer she could keep at bay her fear that something was wrong with Eber.

  She shuffled across the dusty ground and breathed relief when she found the barn door open, uncertain that she could have managed to push it open. The heat inside the barn smacked her in the face and weakened her knees. Instant thirst made insistent demands she could not satisfy. When she did not see Eber standing in his workshop stall, Ruthanna’s heart raced, and she ignored the limitations of her condition to reach as quickly as possible the place where she could look over the stall wall.

  Eber lay on the stall floor.

  “Eber!”

  His eyes popped open.

  “Are you all right?”

  Sluggish, he sat up. “I’m sorry. What time is it?”

  “I’ve had supper ready for almost half an hour.”

  He rubbed his eyes. “I only meant to take a quick nap.”

  Ruthanna hesitated to ask how long ago that had been. “It’s beastly hot in here. No wonder you’re sleepy.”

  “It’s beastly hot anywhere we go, Ruthanna.”

  She could not argue with that.

  He stood up. “Look at the cradle. I sanded everything and put it together today. I just need to put a finish on it.”

  Ruthanna stepped into the stall and ran her finger over the simple curved piece of each end of the cradle, then the spindles in the sides notched delicately at the centers. She pushed it gently side to side and was pleased with the way it glided.

  “Thank you, Eber,” she said softly. It was an exquisite gift, and Ruthanna hoped their child would one day feel as grateful as she did for the care Eber had taken.

  “I told you I would have it finished before it was too late.” Eber draped an arm across Ruthanna’s shoulders. Though heat and dehydration would make him sleepy, she was now sure that he also had a fever.

  “We still have a few weeks,” she reminded him. “You don’t have to make yourself ill to meet the deadline.”

  Abbie ignored the howling coyotes that evening. With a lantern on the table in front of her, she spread open the issue of the Sugarcreek Budget that she had already read three times. Beneath it were three earlier issues. As hard as she had tried to write something cheerful and encouraging to send to the Budget, she had instead laid her attempts in the belly of the stove and listened to them crackle into flame. If she could not be cheerful and honest at the same time, she would rather be silent. However, someone else might have written.

  Most of the time the Weavers scanned the stories in the Budget looking for news of someone they knew. This time Abbie intended to read enough of each story to be sure she was not missing some reference to the struggling settlement, whether a comment by someone who lived within miles of the Weaver farm or someone remarking from afar on the conditions in Colorado. Two years ago a woman from Oklahoma had visited and then reported that Colorado was all right for a man who had money to spend, but a poor man had no business there. For weeks after that, a flurry of articles crisscrossed the country venturing opinions about the suitability of settlers for the demanding life on the plain.

  Though she wished the woman from Oklahoma had kept her opinion to herself, Abbie understood what she meant. A settler who had sufficient money could do well carving out a life in Colorado and enjoy the beauty the state had to offer. Without money, though, the task had proven more complex than any of them expected. Most of the settlers had to just do the best they could to feed and shelter their families. Whether any of them would succeed over time remained to be seen.

  Willem certainly intended to. But his terms of success would hardly attract future settlers.

  Rudy aspired to a sweetness of life that was as brittle as old thread.

  Abbie pored over the articles, one issue after the other. For the first time she felt the irritation of trivialities and understated criticism that wove through the articles, and the whole business struck her as an indirect way to communicate. The settlers around Limon did not have that luxury.

  Abbie did not leave the farm the next day. Tuesday was a baking day, and while the loaves rose through two yeasty cycles before going in the oven in twin sets, she cleaned the Weaver home. Her mother sat for much of the day in the shade cast by one side of the house or another, repositioning two chairs with the movement of the sun so she could listen to Levi read painstakingly from the family’s German Bible and recite multiplication tables. Abbie took them plates of boiled eggs and cold ham at lunchtime and the first slices of fresh bread and milk for midafternoon refreshment. Levi had been grateful for both interruptions. He was a cooperative student even in midsummer, but Abbie knew he was not reading as well as many children his age. Esther Weaver was on her own to teach him.

  Abbie had heard talk of the Amish families beginning their own school, even if it convened in someone’s barn and the mothers rotated teaching duties. With the Chupps gone, though, Abbie supposed the energy for undertaking would dissipate. After all, the Chupps had five of the nine school-age children who would have attended. The remaining families, like hers, had only one child each between the ages of six and fourteen.

  On the other hand, Abbie mused, an organized Amish school could be an attraction to families with young children. Occasionally she did Levi’s lessons with him and surprised herself with her patience. Late in the afternoon, the baking finished, Abbie pondered this question as she swept a coating of flour blown astray from the mismatched pieces of linoleum that constituted the kitchen floor.

  Soon it would be time to get supper on the stove. Abbie made sure that the doors at both the front and rear of the house were open to catch the breeze that the unobstructed plain often birthed in the late afternoons, just when the family was most weary from the heat. She stood
for a moment looking toward Pikes Peak rising from the seemingly endless plain. It was miles and miles away. Still it dominated the view. Abbie hoped she would remember to come out later and watch the sun set behind the mountain. She knew better than to hope Willem would ride over to share this simple pleasure as he had so many times in the past.

  But someone was riding in. Abbie squinted into the glaring late afternoon light to see Mary Miller urging her horse to pull the buggy faster. Mary was calling something, but Abbie could not hear her words over the clatter of the hurtling rig.

  Finally Mary pulled on the reins, breathless.

  “Little Abe is missing.”

  The instant pressure in Abbie’s chest seized air from her lungs.

  “Did you hear me?” Mary shrieked.

  Abbie gulped, Little Abe’s sweet face rising in her mind. “How long?”

  Esther and Levi appeared from around the corner of the house.

  “I don’t even know!” Mary covered her eyes. Her shoulders rose and fell three times before she could continue. “He went down for a nap, and I sat outside to work on my mending. Then I went out to the garden to see if there was anything worth picking and started clearing weeds. When I realized how long I had been out there, I figured I should wake him up or he would never go to sleep tonight. But he was gone!”

  “Ananias!” Esther hollered for her husband.

  “Albert went into town and isn’t back yet,” Mary said. “I’ve looked and looked around the house and barn. I can’t think where Little Abe could have gotten to.”

  Esther tapped Levi in the center of the back. “Find your daed and tell Reuben to bring the horses.”

  Levi lit off through the dust.

  “Someone should be at the house to wait for Albert.” Abbie started to hoist herself onto the buggy bench. “I’m going to take you home. We are going to turn over every stone and board of your place, and we are going to find Little Abe.”

  Esther nodded. “My husband and sons will not be far behind.”

  “What will I say to Albert?” Mary moaned. “How does a wife tell her husband that she has lost their child?”