Heart of the Sandhills (3 page)

Jeb pulled on the brim of his hat, scratched his ear, and seemed to be considering the question. “Can’t say as I’m keepin’ any now, Abner. Daniel and Robert are workin’ for me. They more than earn their way. Reckon they’ll stay as long as they want to stay.” He squinted up at Abner. “I’m personally hopin’ that’ll be a long time.”

“Government gave ‘em a reservation out in Nebraska. That’s where they should go.”

“Why should they do that, Abner?” Jeb asked quietly. “Minnesota’s always been their home—for longer than you or me been here, even.”

“I got a wife and two girls to worry about,” Abner grumbled. “We got to be careful. That trouble last spring proves it.”

“Daniel and Robert got nothing in common with them hostiles that caused that trouble.” Jeb forced a smile. He put his hand on Abner’s shoulder. “You can’t just lump people all together like that. I never liked Germans much ‘til one saved my hide at Shiloh.” He waved his hands around him. “Now I’m livin’ near a whole town full of Germans and it don’t bother me at all.” He thumped Marsh on the back. “Give it time, neighbor. You’ll see’ there’s nothin’ to worry about.”

Marsh’s spittle stained the light covering of snow at Jeb’s feet. He wiped his mouth with his shirtsleeve. “I’ll give you ‘til spring plantin’ to get ‘em off your place,” he said. “Come spring, if they’re still there, I won’t be responsible.”

“You threatenin’ my friends, Abner? That ain’t neighborly.”

“It ain’t only me, Jeb,” Abner said.”I been talkin’ to Baxter and Quinn. They don’t like it either. We kinda got you fenced in on this, Jeb.”

Jeb looked past Abner toward his wagon. If Baxter and Quinn agreed with Marsh, he really was fenced in—literally. Between the three, they owned all the land surrounding Jeb. And he had been wanting to buy one of those sections from Earl Baxter. Trouble over Daniel and Robert took on a new level of importance. “Just calm down, Abner,” Jeb said. He put one foot up on the boardwalk that stretched in front of the store. “I got to get my supplies and get home. Why don’t you and Sally come up to the house after church on Sunday? Meet Daniel and Robert and their wives.” He nodded. “We’ll invite the Baxters and the Quinns, too. Once you all meet the Two Starses and the Lawrences, you’ll know for sure there’s nothing to get all riled up about.”

Marsh shook his head. “Sally was in a family way when the mess happened back in ‘62. Lost the baby. Never been the same since. And she won’t be makin’ Sunday calls on some of them that done it.”

“I’m sorry about what happened, Abner. I truly am. But we got to move on. Quinn was on the other side in the Rebellion, but I don’t hold it against him. We’re all Americans again and I’m willing to let it go.” Jeb stepped up on the boardwalk just in time to see Reverend Donohue coming out of Ludlow’s. “Let it rest, Abner. Everything will be fine. You’ll see.” He called out to Reverand Donohue before turning back to say, “You change your mind about comin’ over, you’re welcome any time. Marjorie makes real good pie. It’s worth a visit.” Without waiting for a response, he headed for the Reverend.

The Reverend Elmer Donohue advised a worried Jeb Grant to pray. Being new to the West and having never seen an Indian himself, but having heard his share of stories, he also suggested that perhaps Brother Marsh was right and that the, urn, Dakota
guests
currently staying on the Grant farm could be encouraged to seek another domicile in the spring. Jeb listened to the reverend’s meaningless, misinformed litany, finished his shopping at Ludlow’s, and headed home, thoroughly discouraged.

Although the early snow melted within a few days, its arrival infused every settler with an uneasy sense that they had better be about getting prepared for the onslaught of an early and harsh winter. After all, they reminded one another, hadn’t the squirrels been lining their nests with an unusually thick layer of leaves? And weren’t the horses’ winter coats coming in thicker and sooner than normal? In the wake of such signs, Robert Lawrence decided to take Nancy along for what he expected would be their last trip into town before spring. When he returned, Robert pulled his team up in front of Daniel and Gen’s cabin.

Daniel met them at the wagon. “Gen’s up at the Grants’ helping Marjorie make some apple pies,” he said to Nancy. “I’ll get her.”

“I’ll walk up there,” Nancy said. She nodded at Robert and headed off up the road.

“Wait,” Daniel called out. “Let us drive you.”

Nancy put one hand on her belly. She laughed. “The baby won’t be here for many moons.” Her face grew sad, and inwardly Daniel felt a sympathetic pang, wishing he had not been the cause of bringing her two lost children to Nancy’s mind. But Nancy recovered quickly and cast a bright smile in his direction. “You men need to talk. Gen and I will be back in time to make you something to eat.” Without waiting, Nancy headed off up the road.

“What is it?” Daniel asked his friend, frowning.

Robert reached into the wagon for a newspaper and held it out to Daniel, who leaned against the wagon and began to read the article Robert pointed out.

I have recently learned, with much surprise, that the Sioux Indians who were the perpetrators of the Minnesota Massacre of 1862 have been moved from their location at Crow Creek down into one of the settled counties of Nebraska, directly opposite white settlements in Dakota.

You are aware that these Indians murdered more than one thousand defenseless men, women, and children in the state of Minnesota. Now an order has been signed for the release of those hostile savages and they have been turned loose to seek revenge by a system of robbery, rapine, and murder upon our unprotected citizens . . . If these Indians are allowed to remain near our settlements, our citizens will either be compelled to abandon their homes for the security of their lives and property or wage a war of extermination against them . . .

When Daniel finished reading, Robert spoke up. “The new reservation is in Nebraska. Plenty of timber, good land, they say.”

“We aren’t reservation Indians,” Daniel said abruptly. “Not anymore.

“Maybe we should be,” Robert answered. “If the new reservation is good. If—”

Daniel interrupted him, quoting from the newspaper article. “If the whites in the area don’t ‘wage a war of extermination against the savages’?”

“There are more letters in that paper,” Robert said. “Many of the settlers here are beginning to worry about us. There’s a letter from Quinn. He calls us
hellhounds
.”

Daniel sighed. Leaning against the wagon, he studied the earth at his feet for a moment. “Elliot Leighton writes that Congress is going to give at least some of the Dakota scouts farms. He hopes that when he and Jane bring the children out in the spring they will be able to help us move to our own farms. Then all of these worries with Jeb’s neighbors will be resolved.”

“No one in Minnesota is going to give Indians free land,” Robert argued.

“It isn’t free,” Daniel snorted. “It was
our
crops and
our
livestock that fed the soldiers and the rescued captives for weeks.
Our
furniture fueled their campfires.”

Robert interrupted him. “None of that matters. They don’t care.” He gripped the sides of the wagon and stared up the road toward New Ulm. “Someone threw a rock at Nancy this morning. Called her a fat sow and a few other things I won’t repeat.” He stared at Daniel. “Thanks be to God Nancy didn’t hear the entire speech. Or at least she pretended not to hear.”

Daniel swallowed hard and looked up at the sky, thinking. Finally, he looked back at Robert. “I am sorry, my friend.”

Robert shook his head and sighed. “We can be grateful winter is coming on. That will help keep our women close to home without frightening them.”

Daniel nodded his agreement. “And in the spring when Elliot arrives with news that we are moving all these worries will be over.”

He and Robert began to unload the sacks of winter provisions from the back of the wagon. They worked in silence, pretending not to worry, all the while wondering why God did not see fit to grant them peaceful lives.

Unaware of Robert and Nancy’s mistreatment in New Ulm and unable to read the newspaper for himself, Jeb Grant discussed Abner Marsh with his wife. Between them, they decided to keep both Abner Marsh’s hostility and Reverend Donohue’s indifference to themselves for the time being.

“Winter’s coming on,” Marjorie said, “and things will settle down.”

Jeb mused, “Maybe that land they been promised will come through in the spring. Maybe they won’t ever have to know.” Jeb picked up one of his twin boys. “One thing we aren’t going to do is let the bigots decide who our friends are.” He hugged his son fiercely and then set him back down. “We just got to pray harder, I guess.”

And they did.

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

—Hebrews 4:12

Jeb and Marjorie grant experienced answered prayer in a unique way. As the old-timers had predicted, winter had arrived early and was to stay long in their part of Minnesota, making traveling even the few miles into New Ulm impossible for days at a time. Temperatures plummeted, hovering at fifteen to twenty degrees below zero for days at a time. The first of many snowstorms was so severe that the Lawrences and the Two Starses could not see one another’s homes for nearly sixteen hours. Nearly thirty inches of snow remained on the ground for the entire month of December. Abner Marsh and his neighbors were so busy trying to keep their livestock—and, at times, themselves—from freezing to death, they had little time to worry and no time to talk about the four Indians living a few miles away. For the first time in their married lives, Jeb and Marjorie were sincerely thankful for terrible weather. And then, something else happened that appeared to answer their prayers for peace.

While Gen and Nancy spent nearly every day together, they were often unable to scale the deep snowdrifts separating them from the Grants’ house only a quarter of a mile away. One morning Robert surprised the women by pulling up to Gen and Daniel’s cabin standing on a makeshift sleigh he and Daniel had made by taking Robert’s wagon off its frame and lashing the box to a crude pair of wooden runners carved from two saplings.

“Marjorie said to come and fetch you,” Robert announced as he and Daniel stepped inside to warm up. “I think she said something about quilting.” The men exchanged knowing grins as Gen scooped up her basket of finished quilt blocks and packed her sewing kit. In less than an hour the women were ensconced in Marjorie’s kitchen, chattering away while Marjorie hand-cranked her sewing machine at top speed to finish the quilt top Gen was making for twelve-year-old Meg Dane.

“I can’t believe how many pieces you have in these blocks,” Marjorie said as she finished the last row. “Where did you get the idea?”

Gen smiled. “When my Papa made me leave home and go to school at the Danes’ mission, he told me to look at the moon every night. He said he would be looking at that same moon, knowing it would bring us closer. Ever since then, when I’m lonely for someone, I look at the moon and imagine them doing the same.” She paused. “Even now that Papa is gone, and so many other people I love are in heaven, I like to look at the moon and imagine them doing the same—from the other side.” She hurried to finish. “More than once I’ve looked up and prayed for Meg, imagining her in the rose garden we planted together before I left New York.” She blushed. “I wanted to do something to represent the moon. But just plain circles don’t make a very pretty quilt. Daniel was teasing me one day and said I should put two stars inside each moon. ‘When I tried it, this is what happened.”

“It’s beautiful,” Marjorie said.

“I hope Aaron isn’t jealous,” Gen worried aloud. “I did a simple nine-patch hoping he could include it in his bedroll when he’s a soldier.”

“Well, you made Aaron’s while we were harvesting the garden and doing all that canning and preserving last fall,” Nancy interjected. “If there had been three feet of snow on the ground, you could have made him a Two Stars pattern!” She added, “Aaron won’t mind. Men don’t care about things like that.”

“Done!” Marjorie called out, holding up Gen’s completed quilt top.

After lunch, the women lowered Marjorie’s quilting frame from the kitchen ceiling where it hovered over the table when not in use. With four iron C-shaped clamps they anchored each corner of the large frame to a chair back. Then they stretched out the backing fabric, a collage of odd-shaped pieces of tan fabric gleaned from worn-out skirts and shirts. Once the backing was basted to the thin strips of ticking nailed to each of the quilting frame boards, the women spread a flannel sheet and the newly finished quilt top over it to complete the fabric sandwich.

“I can’t reach the center!” Nancy panted as she strained to reach across her pregnant belly to baste her section of the quilt together. The women laughed while they ran extra-long stitches from the center to the edges of the quilt so the calico would remain in place without bubbles or bumps while the women quilted with smaller stitches.

While the women worked, Jeb, Daniel, and Robert came and went, stomping in to thaw out, leaving to haul feed to the horses or to shovel steaming piles of manure out of the barns. They dug tunnels to Marjorie’s chicken coop and came in to report the loss of five hens—not to the cold, but to a fox. They set traps near the chicken coop and then headed for the pond to harvest ice. Marjorie’s two-year-old twins, Lee and Sherman, fell asleep beneath the quilt. When Gen offered to help her carry them up to bed, Marjorie grinned. “Let them sleep. Won’t do any harm and then I won’t have to worry about them waking up and raising a ruckus upstairs.”

She went upstairs and came back with a thick tied comforter that she set on the open oven door to warm.

“Let me,” Gen said, when the comforter was warm. She bent down and ducked beneath the table. Tucking the warm blanket around the twins, she watched them sleep, caressing first one, and then the second little head and sighing.

“In God’s time, my sister,” Nancy said gently, peering beneath the edge of the quilt at Gen.

With a wistful smile and a nod, Gen emerged from beneath the quilt. Inspecting the tip of her left middle finger she muttered, “I don’t have a callus yet. My finger is nearly bleeding.”

“I’d say that’s a signal it’s time to bake cookies!” Marjorie said.

“Can we?” Gen asked, surprised.

Marjorie nodded. “I’ve been saving back the makings for a special occasion. I’d say this is it.” She stood up and stretched, arching her back and rubbing her neck. While Gen and Nancy released the C-clamps holding the quilting frame in place and sent it back up to the kitchen ceiling, Marjorie bustled to the pantry. “I like to went crazy all these weeks cooped up in this house alone. I was crying to the Lord about it just this morning. In fact, I told Jeb I was going to make my own snowshoes and head out after lunch if he didn’t figure a way to get the team out and get me some female company.” She plopped a flour sack on the table. Her eyes teared up as she looked from Gen to Nancy. “I’m being silly, I know. But I just got to tell you two you mean a lot to me.” She blushed furiously and headed back to the pantry.

“Finally!” Marjorie opened her front door wide and waved Gen and Nancy inside. “I thought you’d never get here.”

She and Gen followed Marjorie through the drafty house toward the warmth of the kitchen. At the doorway they both stopped short. Three other women sat around the quilt. At the sight of Gen and Nancy, they all cast piercing glances in Marjorie’s direction.

Putting a reassuring hand on each of her friend’s shoulders, Marjorie spoke up. “I know we’ve all been lonely with the string of bad weather, and when I sent Jeb out to round you ladies up for a day of quilting, I thought it’d be a good time for you to meet Genevieve Two Stars and Nancy Lawrence. They learned to quilt from the same missionaries that won ‘em to the Lord,” she said. ‘While she made introductions, she pulled out the chair next to a blonde-haired woman. “Nancy, you sit here next to Lydia.”

When Nancy didn’t move, she felt Marjorie’s hand on her back, gently guiding her to the designated chair.

Lydia pulled her hands away from the quilt top and shifted her chair away an inch or two, but she was blocked by her neighbor, a stoop-shouldered woman Marjorie had introduced as Lydia’s sister Violet.

“Harriet,” Marjorie said to a stout, dour-faced woman on the opposite side of the quilt, “now that we’re all here, I’ll just pop those rolls you brought in the oven.” She directed Gen to the opposite side of the quilt. “You sit next to Harriet. I’ll pull up another chair in minute.” And so, while Marjorie slid a pan of rolls into the oven and clattered around making coffee, five very uncomfortable women sat motionless around a half-finished quilt while Marjorie filled the air with chatter.

“Show them, Gen,” Marjorie said as she put a pot of coffee on to boil. “Show them the quilt we made for Meg.”

Gen had wondered why Marjorie had sent word for her to bring what they had come to call the Two Stars Quilt with her, but she had obeyed, folding it into a basket slung over her arm. Now, as she exited the kitchen and went to retrieve the basket from where she had set it inside the front door, she heard Marjorie say, “Meg is the missionary’s daughter I told you girls about. One of the children Gen’s husband protected during the—the unpleasantness.”

When Gen returned to the kitchen and held Meg’s quilt up, the woman named Lydia let out an admiring “Oh.”

Marjorie spoke up. “Isn’t it stunning? I’ve never seen anything like that. Her husband teased her about putting two stars inside the moon. Don’t you just love what Genevieve did?”

“How did you ever think to combine gold with the dark blue?” Lydia asked.

Gen touched a piece of gold fabric while she said, “The scraps are from Daniel’s work shirts. The gold was in a package a friend sent from New York last fall. She said all the women back there are using it.” Gen self-consciously folded the quilt back up.

Harriet demanded, “Let me see it.” ‘When Gen handed the bundle over, Harriet turned back a corner and leaned over, peering at the quilt’s surface through the glasses perched on the end of her nose. “Who did you say taught you to quilt?”

“First, Mrs. Dane up at Lac Qui Parle Mission.” Gen accepted a cup of coffee from Marjorie, but remained standing. When Harriet only harrumphed a response, Gen added nervously, “I’m afraid I wasn’t a very good student. I didn’t like sewing ‘very much. Then the Danes lost their house in a fire and we had to move to Hope Station. One of the mission teachers—Miss Jane Williams—and I used to sit out on her porch and quilt in the evenings. I—I pretended to be interested at first, and then one day I realized I really
was
interested. After a while I decided I even enjoyed it.”

“Nice stitching,” Harriet said, thrusting the quilt back at Gen, who nearly spilled her coffee before managing to wrap her arm around the bundle and return it to the basket.

Gen mumbled her thanks and perched on the edge of Marjorie’s chair. Once again, an awkward silence reigned. With nervous glances at one another, Violet, Harriet, and Lydia picked up their needles and began to quilt. Gen noticed for the first time that Violet’s odd, stoop-shouldered posture was forced by a melon-sized hump between her shoulders.

Marjorie settled into a chair at the opposite end of the quilt between Lydia and Harriet. “You can see we’re just crosshatching. I thought I’d read a bit while you women quilt, if you don’t mind.” She beamed at them. “I’m so thankful the Lord gave us this break in the weather. And I mean to thoroughly enjoy it … heaven only knows when we’ll all be able to do this again.”

Violet glanced timidly at Harriet and croaked that she too was grateful for Jeb’s sleigh bringing the women for a day’s quilting and that she, for one, had been so lonely this winter—and wouldn’t it be lovely if Marjorie were to read to them for a while?

Harriet opened her mouth to comment but shut it again firmly when Marjorie produced her Bible and, with trembling fingers, began to flip pages. With a distressed glance in Nancy’s direction, Gen concentrated on threading her needle. Tying a single knot in the end of the thread, she slipped the needle between the layers of the fabric sandwich, popped the knot beneath the top layer, slipped the needle back on top, and began to rock her needle back and forth, back and forth as she quilted small, even stitches a quarter of an inch from the seam in the quilt.

“I been reading straight through the New Testament all this winter,” Marjorie said quietly. “I’ll just start where I left off in Galatians.” She began to read about the law and grace, about things Gen didn’t understand. But then Marjorie read a passage that made Gen and Nancy duck their heads and quilt furiously.