Prairie Rose (28 page)
“Great ghosts, has she lost her mind?” Sheena asked Seth. “Did the pestilence send her over the brink?”
Rosie looked up. “I’m praying, Sheena.”
“She does it all the time,” Chipper piped in. “Out loud, too. She says God answers all our prayers. Sometimes yes, sometimes wait awhile, and sometimes no. But he always makes everything turn out good for the people who love him.”
Sheena, Seth, and Jimmy all stared down at Rosie as though she had indeed lost her mind. She picked a grasshopper out of her pocket and gave a little shrug. “I do believe it,” she said. “The Bible says it.”
“What good can God make of our troubles now?” Jimmy asked. “Sure, the lot of us are finished. Finished clean. It’s as bad as the potato famine in Ireland, so it is. Only this time I’ve my wee
brablins
and hardly a thing to feed any of them.”
“No foot
für
eaten?” Rolf Rustemeyer asked.
“No food,” Sheena said. “We’ve eaten the last of our salt pork. Do you have any food, Mr. Rustemeyer?”
“Nein.”
The German shook his head. “No foot.”
“We gots oysters,” Chipper said. “Rosie gots ’em in the barn in her big tradin’ box.”
Rosie glanced at Seth, and the look in his eyes made her heart begin to hammer. “Yes, we
do
have oysters. Now why didn’t I think of that before?”
“What else is in there?” Seth asked.
“Coffee. And canned brandied peaches.”
“I’ve got pickles at our place,” Sheena added. “Shortening, too. They didn’t get at that.”
“I have a jug of maple syrup,” Rosie went on. “And mackerels— big fat ones in cans. And a keg of lard.”
“I haf tea,” Rolf said.
“What with oysters and mackerel and canned brandied peaches, we will be a fancy lot, won’t we?” Sheena said. A grin tugged at the corners of her mouth. “At least we’ve something to get by on.”
“Until what?” Seth asked. “We won’t be able to make it through a Kansas winter on a few oysters and some lard, Sheena. The crops are ruined. There won’t be a harvest. That means no winter stores. No produce to sell in Topeka. No grain to haul to LeBlanc’s mill. And no money to buy seed.”
“We have a little money,” Rosie said. “The bridge tolls. Rolf took his already, but there’s forty-three dollars and seventy-five cents each for the Hunters and the O’Tooles.”
Jimmy O’Toole’s face went from white to pink to bright red in the space of three seconds. Seth’s mouth dropped open. Sheena fanned herself with both hands.
“Forty-three dollars, did you say?” she puffed.
“I’m pretty sure of it. I counted it out for Mr. Rustemeyer right before the picnic.”
“By all the goats in Kerry, my sweet lass, you’ve saved us!” Jimmy O’Toole cried. He grabbed Rosie’s hands and pulled her up from the bench. “You and that wobbly pontoon bridge have saved us!”
“Forty-three dollars
each
?” Seth asked.
“And seventy-five cents.” Rosie hugged herself tight, hoping against hope that the light in Seth’s eyes meant what she thought. She had done the right thing. She had helped him.
“Rosie!” He threw his arms around her and swung her up into the air. “You crazy girl! Taking bridge tolls left and right. Trading for oysters and mackerel. Going on with it even when you knew I didn’t like it. You did it! You saved us!”
He planted a big kiss right on her cheek. Rolf laughed and gave her a kiss on the other cheek. Then Jimmy O’Toole kissed her hand. Chipper kissed her elbow. Stubby started barking. Pretty soon the whole group was dancing around the yard, stepping on squashed grasshoppers and singing and shouting at the top of their lungs.
“We’ll go to Topeka,” Seth said. “Rolf and I. There isn’t time to go all the way to Kansas City. We’ll bring back whatever we can lay our hands on to plant. If we’re lucky, we can all put out winter squash, bush beans, cabbages, and even tomatoes.”
“Will you buy carrots?” Sheena asked. “We can still plant those. It’s only mid-July.”
“Carrots. Collards, too. They can take cold as low as fifteen degrees. We can put out mustard greens. It’s too late for onions and potatoes, but we might get turnips.”
“I’ll stay here with the women and
brablins
,” Jimmy said. “Every day I’ll plow under the ruined crops and get the fields ready. I’ll plow two or three acres for me one day. Three for Seth the day after that. And then three for Rustemeyer.”
“Chipper, you’ll be coming with me.” Seth took his son’s hand. “We’ll leave right away. The sooner we get going, the sooner we can come back and start planting again. Rustemeyer, go get your things. Rosie, it’s time to clean out the savings.”
The gathering dispersed with far more enthusiasm than when they had assembled. But Rosie couldn’t prevent the wave of despair that swept over her as she watched Seth and Chipper head into the soddy. Yes, her bridge tolls had saved them. Yes, she had done her part to help.
But what would it all mean? Just moments ago, Seth had been ready to send her straight back to Kansas City. Were his feelings for her so shallow? Did his affection depend on healthy crops and lots of money? Did he still see her as merely someone to look after Chipper and keep the house?
Brushing aside fragments of dead grasshoppers, Rosie dug her fingers into the corner of the barn floor where she kept the bridge tolls hidden. In moments she had unearthed the heavy crock in which she stored the precious cache. Silver dollars gleamed in the bar of sunlight that filtered between the barn siding.
“Father,” she whispered as she touched the cold metal. “I may have saved Seth’s homestead with these dollars. But I haven’t made him love me. We haven’t become a family. We’re still just three misfits. Four, if you count Stubby. I don’t have a home to call my own. Chipper doesn’t have a mother to care for him. Seth doesn’t have a wife to share his love. Nothing seems settled between us. I promised Chipper you would turn all our troubles into good. But, Father, oh Father—”
“Still praying, Rosie?” Seth was standing at the far end of the barn, a chewed-up leather bridle in his hands. “I thought you might have given up on that by this time.”
She stood beside the heavy crock. “No, Seth. I still believe.”
“Believe what?” He walked toward her. “I asked God to get rid of those grasshoppers—”
“And he did.”
“Nine days too late.”
“Our Father never promised to do his work by our timetable.”
“
Your
Father sure has a funny way of showing his love. You’d think if he cared the least bit about you, he wouldn’t have let those grasshoppers head in this direction.”
“Our Father never promised a life free of trouble.”
“Then what’s the use of praying?”
Rosie bent down and picked up a silver dollar. “Praying is talking to God. Praying is how you let him know you love him. It’s how you know you can trust him.”
“Trust him for what?”
“Trust him to be with you—through grasshoppers and whatever else life on this earth brings us.”
“You really think God is out here on the prairie with you? How can you go on believing that?”
“Because praying is also listening. And when I stop to listen, I can hear God’s voice speaking to my heart. I feel his comforting presence. He’s my rock. My redeemer. He has saved me from a fate much worse than grasshoppers, Seth. It’s the least I can do to trust him with my earthly troubles.”
She tossed the coin to him. “I wanted to help you,” she went on. “I thought this would do it. But now I understand it takes much more than forty-three dollars and seventy-five cents to save a man. It takes faith. It takes hope.”
“It takes love,” he said. He was silent a moment, regarding her with intense blue eyes. When he spoke again, his voice was low. “Do you love me, Rosie Mills?”
She looked away quickly, wishing for a bonnet to hide beneath. Her cheeks flushed at his bold question. But he wanted an answer. She would give it to him.
“Yes, I do,” she said, squaring her shoulders and meeting his gaze. “I love you, Seth.”
“How?”
“What do you mean?”
“How do you love me? The way you said you’d find love when we talked back at Holloway’s Station? Look at me. I’m a good, honest, hardworking man—just like Rolf Rustemeyer. Just like Gabriel Chavez, David Hill, Matthew Smithers, and most of the rest of the homesteaders. You danced with me. You danced with them. You let me kiss you. You let Rustemeyer kiss you. Is that how you love me, Rosie? The same as all the rest of them?”
She gulped down a bubble of air.
What do I say? How do I tell him?
“I love you as my Father loves you,” she managed.
His eyes hardened. “Your Father doesn’t love me a lick.”
He slung the bridle over one shoulder and turned to leave the barn. Rosie caught his sleeve. “Do you want to take me with you as far as Topeka?” she asked. “Do you want me to go back to Kansas City, Seth?”
He swung around and grabbed her shoulders. “I want what no one can give me—a guarantee they won’t leave … or die.”
“Oh, Seth, I—”
He was breathing hard. “Go back to Kansas City, Rosie. Or stay here. The choice is yours.”
“Seth,” she said softly, “true love involves trust. It’s all about faith—trusting the one you love and trusting God to protect your union. The shield of faith in our Father helps us endure.”
“Do you still think that’s all there is to it? Endurances? Just signing the pledge on the marriage license and then working together day in and day out?”
Rosie shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “I think it’s more.”
“Are you willing to give your heart to a man?”
“Do you have the courage—the faith—to make a pledge?”
He dropped his hands from her shoulders and looked away, struggling against emotion she could barely comprehend. “I’m trying,” he said.
She blinked back the tears that threatened. “Then I’ll stay.”
T
HE TRIP to Topeka should have taken a day and a half. But Rustemeyer had insisted on hitching his horse alongside Seth’s mule to pull the wagon—and the two creatures could not have been more unsuited. Pete was a plodder. Seth had always been able to rely on the mule, whether it was to pull a plow across three acres of tough sod in a day or to haul a loaded wagon over the uneven prairie trails. Rustemeyer’s feisty mare, on the other hand, thought she had the world by the tail. She pranced, she flirted, she complained about the heat, she shied and balked and generally made poor ol’ Pete miserable.
Seth couldn’t help but compare the mismatched team to his marriage to Mary Cornwall. She had enchanted him, but he couldn’t deny that in time her lightness would have worn thin. As much as he had adored her, Seth understood now that Mary would have made a poor partner in the life he had always dreamed of for himself.
Rosie Mills, on the other hand, was perfect. She actually enjoyed the prairie. Not only had she accustomed herself to the daily chores, she had taken on the extra labor of managing the bridge. Though the stream of strangers crossing his land bothered Seth— especially where Chipper and Jack Cornwall were concerned—he knew Rosie’s ingenuity had saved his farm.
Leaving her there with nothing but Stubby to protect her had been hard. Now all Seth could think about was loading his wagon with supplies and heading back to the homestead. Though he wasn’t quite sure he was ready to marry Rosie, he couldn’t imagine life without her.
Three days after they’d left the homestead, Seth, Rolf, and Chipper finally arrived in Topeka. During the following seven days, they traveled from mercantile to feed store to farm, and they bought whatever seed and healthy plant stock they could lay their hands on. It was a tough assignment. Every grasshopper-eaten farmer in Kansas who had put a little money back seemed to have the same idea. The town teemed with men, prices rose, tempers flared. But finally Seth and Rolf managed to fill their wagon and set off on the return trip.
“Are we really goin’ home now?” Chipper asked as they crossed Soldier Creek one evening and headed toward the Red Vermillion River. “Or are we goin’ out to another farm to buy plants? I wanna go home, Papa.”
Seth smiled.
Home, Papa
. He had never thought two words could sound so beautiful.
Home … Papa
. Even if the crops completely failed this year, Seth knew he had accomplished something far more significant. To Chipper, the Kansas soddy was home. And Seth was Papa.
“We’re on our way home,” he said, ruffling his son’s thick dark hair. “If we can get Pete and Gertrude to cooperate, we’ll be there late tomorrow night. How does that sound?”
“Sounds good. I can’t wait to see Rosie. How ’bout you, Papa? Have you missed Rosie?”
Seth didn’t have to ponder that one. “I sure have. I’ve missed Rosie a lot.”
“Fräulein Mills
ist
goot cook,
ja?
” Rolf said.
Seth shook his head.
Food
again. It seemed like they’d spent half their time in Topeka searching out boarding houses and hotels where the German could buy himself a hearty meal.
“Rosie’s more than a good cook, Rustemeyer,” Seth told him. “She’s a good woman.”
“
Ja
, vasch clothes. Grow potatoes
und
carrots in
Garten
. Sew pretty dress. Pink,
ja?
Maken britsch money. Goot fräulein.”
“Rosie’s a good fräulein, all right. But there’s more to her than cooking and gardening and sewing.”
“She’s pretty,” Chipper said. “She gots all that hair!”
“Dances good, too,” Seth added. “And she’s smart.”
“Schmart?
Was ist
schmart?” Rolf asked. “
Schmatz
? A big kiss?” He demonstrated the German word by making loud smacking noises with his lips.
This sent Chipper into fits of laughter. “No, no!” the boy said. “Not kissin’. Rosie’s
smart
!”
“
Schmerz?
Fery sad?” Rolf gave a big frown and pretended to cry.
“Not
Schmerz
!” Chipper giggled. “Smart. Smart!”
As Seth watched the sun sinking into the sea of rippling bluestem grass, he wondered how to explain Rosie’s complicated intelligence. For one thing, she had good old horse sense. The woman could take a pile of grain sacks and decorate a whole house. She could make a meal out of a single potato. She could turn wood ashes into lye for soap or pigment for paint. And she wasn’t afraid to try where others might have failed.