A Winter's Promise Read online

  “I won’t think about that,” Emma said as she yanked the barn door open. “I’ll do what I have to do right now—this hour—like Kate said, and then I’ll face the next hour.”

  So far her back didn’t hurt as much as yesterday. So far. She rested her head on Molly’s warm, sturdy flank as she milked her—as she had rested her head on Al’s chest that bright autumn day when they had walked down by the creek and talked about their future. Emma laughed aloud. Al wouldn’t be flattered to hear that Molly’s flank reminded her of his chest!

  He had held her gently in his arms that day—no more one-armed hugs. “You’re different from most girls, Emma,” he had said.

  “In what way?”

  “I never felt that I could trust a girl before. I’ve heard my sisters plan their silly games; ‘If you tell him this or that, he’ll do thus and so.’ You wouldn’t do that, would you—try to make me jealous, so I’d pay more attention to you?

  Emma had raised her head and looked into his eyes. She wanted to be serious, but she heard herself giggle. “No, I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t know how!”

  Al threw back his head and laughed. “I hope you never learn. You’ll be all right, if you stay away from foolish women. Just be yourself.”

  Then his smile faded, and his eyes held hers. It was as though nothing on earth could keep her from him now. Closer and closer she felt herself being drawn, until his lips were on hers. Those precious lips she could have drawn from memory were on hers, telling her what words couldn’t express—and she was saying things right back! It was as though all she had been feeling for him was rising in a huge, glowing ball.

  It was all she could do to choke back the words “I love you!” She must wait to hear it from him first. Thinking back now, Emma realized it probably wasn’t more than ten seconds before he whispered, “I love you, Emma!” At the time it had seemed more like ten minutes.

  She thought she should probably hold back, wait until the next time she saw him, before she said the same to him, but the words came from deep within and there was no stopping them.

  The next kiss left her head spinning and her knees trembling. She’d never known a person could feel like this. She had leaned against his chest again, and Al had said, “We’d better get back to the house.”

  Al had gone off to the lumber camp that winter, and she must have relived those moments a thousand times while he was away. So long ago now . . . five, six, no, over seven years ago. Emma shook her head. And I thought that once we were married, we’d always be together like that.

  What’s the matter with me! I’m thinking like a silly schoolgirl.

  Emma picked up the full pail of milk and headed back for the house, groaning with each step. Al just had to get home.

  Six

  Emma’s Decision

  It wasn’t until she was pouring milk for the children’s breakfast that Emma glanced over at the window and saw the geranium. She gave a little cry, setting the pitcher down so hard that milk splashed out.

  Before she got around the table, she knew the plant was hopelessly frozen, its darkened leaves already drooping. She cradled the limp bud cluster in her right fingers and wiped her tears with the left.

  Albert’s head pressed against her hip. “It’s only a flower, Mama.”

  She patted his firm little cheek. “I know ... but it would have been so pretty.”

  She felt his head nod. “It’ll grow again.”

  “No. It’s frozen too badly. See, the whole stem is clear, like ice.” She handed the flowerpot to him. “Go set it out in the lean-to. If Grandma gives me another slip, I’ll plant it in the same pot.”

  Emma went to stir the oatmeal, afraid to discover what else she might have forgotten.

  “Tell you what, boys,” she said, when they were eating breakfast. “When you’re done eating, you can carry wood in for the wood box.”

  “Me, too! Me, too!” Ellie insisted.

  “Well, now, Ellie, why don’t you help Mama bake bread?”

  “Dough! Dough!” she yelled, waving her spoon.

  The last few times Emma had baked bread, she had given Ellie a ball of dough to play with. I wonder how may children I could have, Emma thought, before I’d stop being thrilled when they learn something new?

  Of course Ellie wanted the dough right now, and pulled at Emma’s skirt while she heated milk and mixed it with flour and the yeast mixture. As quickly as she could, Emma worked flour into a portion of dough for Ellie, sifted a bit of flour onto the oilcloth, and gave Ellie her dough. “Close that door as fast as you can,” Emma reminded the boys as they dragged wood in and thumped it on the floor.

  Time and again her eyes went to the clock. I never realized how many times a day I look at the clock,” she said to herself. “I feel cut off from the whole world, not knowing what time it is.” She looked out over the snow and gray trees. “Everybody knows what time it is but me,” she sighed.

  By the time Emma finished kneading the bread, the baby was crying hard. Ellie’s ball of dough, looked like it had been made with ashes instead of flour, but Emma put both aside to rise. When it was baked, she’d suggest that Ellie let the chickens have her bread.

  She changed the baby and sat down to nurse him. Did she imagine it, or was it easier to sit today?

  So far the boys hadn’t said a word about Papa coming home today, and Emma wasn’t about to raise their hopes by mentioning it. At times the snow in the air was so heavy she couldn’t see the woods. She shivered, thinking of Al walking thirteen miles in the blinding storm. She could almost hear Ma talking with Pa. “Think Al will make it home today? He always stops.” And Pa would just grunt.

  Ma always had a little bag waiting for Al to take to the children and bits of family news to send along. Some times there was even a letter from Gustie. A pang of loneliness for her big sister swept over Emma. Gustie, the daredevil. Gustie, the strong, laughing one. Was she still laughing after losing three little girls with croup? Were little Luke and John all right? Had the new baby come? Suddenly Emma wanted to know so badly she groaned. “Oh, Lord. Please let me hear from her.” Then she shook her head. “I don’t see what good it does to pray, but I guess I’ll keep on.”

  When the baby was content again, Emma went to wash dishes. No water. She’d take two pails to give her balance, she decided. At noon, when she watered the stock, she’d carry more. But when was noon? If only the sun would shine.

  Coming back with the water pails, she couldn’t even see the house at times through the blowing snow. How could Al possibly get home?

  While the water heated for dishes, Emma stretched out on the bed to rest while she could. It wouldn’t be easy to get down to the river to water the stock. She had hardly begun to relax when Fred dropped a stick of wood on his toe and cried. Then Albert called him a baby, so Fred hit him and Albert hit him back, and Ellie got in the way and fell into the house of sticks they were building and knocked it down, and Albert cried because she wrecked it....

  Emma got up to make peace. There’s no sense washing dishes now, she decided. It seems like a long while since breakfast; I may as well feed the children again. She helped them get started putting the wood in the wood box, and while they were busy, she scrambled eggs.

  While they were eating, Emma put the bread in tins and patted some dough in a shallow pan for Kaffee Kuchen. She made indentations with her fingertips, poured melted butter over it, and sprinkled it with cinnamon and sugar. It would, be nice to have ready when Al got home before supper. If Al got home.

  Later, Emma left the dishes standing and rocked Ellie. Albert came and whispered in her ear, “Can I have some paper when you go out?”

  She winked and nodded. When Fred wasn’t looking, she whispered in Albert’s ear, “Why don’t you cuddle in with Fred and sing him to sleep?”

  Ellie’s eyelids fluttered, then they were still. “Such a little dolly,” Emma said to herself as she looked down at the delicate pink cheeks and dark curls. “And I hardly take time
to look at her.”

  By the time Emma was ready to go out, Albert was wiggling impatiently at the table. Quietly she took down more paper and sharpened the pencil. “I hope they sleep till I get back, but if they don’t—”

  “I know, Mama. Don’t let ‘em climb.”

  She smiled and gently closed the door behind her. I’d have to be awfully thirsty to go out in this storm, she thought as she opened the barn door. The ox hesitated a moment but then moved out, and the cows plodded along behind him.

  Although her knees were scabbed now, they still hurt dreadfully when she knelt down by the water hole, and spears of pain shot up her back. As she hauled bucket after bucket, she choked back the urge to pray for strength. “God could have sent someone to help me,” she, muttered under her breath. If He didn’t choose to help her, she reasoned, she’d just have to do it on her own.

  When the animals were back in the barn, Emma leaned against the log wall for a moment before cleaning the gutters. She had never let the barn get this dirty before. She picked up the shovel, which seemed to be made of solid iron, and then set it back down. Al could do the cleaning with such little effort. It would have to wait until he got around to it. She latched the door and struggled through the snow, gasping when the windswept her breath away.

  “When I’m in the house, warm and dry,” she told herself, “I’ll just have to face it: Al isn’t going to be able to get home. In the lean-to, she stomped her feet and tried to brush off the clinging snow.

  “Give it to me, Fred!” she heard Albert yell as she opened the door. Her eyes, accustomed to the blinding glare, refused to see in the dim room. She strained to make out their figures on a chair under the corner shelf. What were they fighting over? Oh, no! Al’s straight edge razor! Fred held it, open, in his hand, and Albert hung on to it by the handle, trying to pull it away from him.

  “Albert! Let go! Drop it, Fred!”

  For one eternity-long instant no one moved, then the razor clattered to the pine floor. Fred wailed, “I jus’ wanted to s’ave—like Papa!” Albert streaked away, leaving Fred to her mercy.

  Unaware of any pain, Emma propped her foot on the chair rung and turned Fred over her knee. “Don’t you ever take Papa’s razor again!” she railed, emphasizing each word with a well-aimed swat. She released him, and he ran howling to the bedroom.

  “What next?” she moaned. She saw Albert cowering behind the coats along the wall, wide-eyed and chalky white. “Come here, Albert,” she said shakily.

  He crept toward her, chin trembling, and she grasped him firmly by the shoulders. “Albert! Fred could have been cut so bad. You know that, don’t you? You have to watch him better!”

  “Oh, Mama! I’ll watch better! I’ll watch better!” he sobbed.

  “It’s a good thing you minded me. If you hadn’t let go. . .”

  Her shudder ended with a sob. “Now, go get in bed and don’t even wiggle!” she ordered, shaking her finger in his face.

  She picked up the razor, keen enough to sever bone,

  folded it, and put it in her apron pocket. She would hide it well. Clenching her jaws to keep her teeth from chattering, she took off her overshoes and coat. The dirty dishes sat on the table accusing her, but she ignored them. She filled the stove with wood, shoved the bread and Kaffee Kuchen in the oven, and threw herself facedown on the bed, thinking that if one of the children so much as moved, he’d wish he hadn’t.

  “I’m done,” she wept. “I can’t struggle anymore.” Her back was cold, but she didn’t want to move to reach for a cover. Let the wind howl and the windows rattle, she thought. I don’t care. Probably Al will come home next week, or who knows when, and find us all frozen stiff. It’ll serve him right.

  From habit Emma started to pray, “Oh, Lord, help me,” but she choked back the words. What was the use? God didn’t care. Al didn’t care. Nobody cared. Funny, she thought, I don’t even feel like crying anymore. I just want to die.

  Thump! Bump! There was someone at the door!

  Emma scrambled to her feet, smoothed her hair, and pulled her apron straight on the way to open it. She was halfway across the room when it burst open and a man, so snow-covered she couldn’t tell who it was, stood in the doorway.

  “Help me with these confounded buttons!” Al’s voice boomed as he pulled his snow-crusted “turkey”, off his back and dropped it with a thump.

  The children flew out of the bedroom. “Papa! Papa!”

  “Wait now! Let Papa shake off his coat,” Emma yelled over the din. She dug the snow out from around his buttons, then she held back the children so Al could shake his coat out the doorway.

  She hurried to the bedroom to lay out dry clothes for him, calling, “How on earth did you get home in this storm?”

  “Got a ride with Aaron Nelson to his house!” he yelled back. “Only had to walk the last couple miles.”

  “Oh, dear,” Emma said to herself. “He didn’t, get to stop at Ma and Pa’s. Ma must be so disappointed.”

  Albert bounced on his toe. “You got to ride on his sleigh, with the horse?”

  “Yup! Sure did. I’ll tell you all about it soon as I get dry clothes on.”

  Albert kept up a steady stream of chatter as Al changed, while Fred and Ellie bounced and squealed. Why was Mr. Nelson the first one to have a horse, Albert wanted to know. Was he rich? Where did he get it? How much did it cost? What color was it? What did the sleigh look like?

  Al explained that Mr. Nelson wasn’t what some people consider “rich,” but he thought a horse was important, and that he shared it with other people whenever he could.

  The boys scampered along beside him as he carried his wet clothes to the door and hung them on hooks. Ellie waited, her arms in the air, while he buttoned his vest. When he finished he swooped her up, hugged her, and tossed her in the air. She squealed and laughed, while the boys yelled, “My turn! My turn!”

  Al grinned over his shoulder at Emma and called over the children’s clamor, “Bread smells good. Almost done?”

  “Bread’s not, but the Kuchen is,” she said. “Coffee’ll be ready in a minute.”

  She’d wait, Emma decided, to tell him about her struggles until the first excitement of being home died down. Besides, she needed to sort out her feelings, too. She wasn’t sure she wanted to let go of that put-out feeling toward Al. He hadn’t asked her how she was, or how things had gone—just came in and started making demands right away. Still, it was so good to hear his voice, to hear the little ones laugh, to have his huge frame almost fill the room.

  Well, hello, little fella,” she heard Al say in the special tone he reserved for babies. He picked Georgie up and held him at arm’s length, and the baby wiggled and sighed. “Look at ‘im laugh, will ya?”

  He sat down in the rocker with the baby in one arm, Ellie in the other, and one boy hanging on each knee. “Well, now ... you guys got anything to tell me?”

  “Ellie tore the catalog,” both boys tattled in unison.

  Al frowned. “Hey. You wouldn’t want anyone telling on you, would ya?”

  Emma turned the hot Kuchen out on a clean dish towel before she explained, matter-of-factly, what had happened. Just let him yell because I gave them the catalog, she thought. He’ll get it with both barrels. I’d like to know what he’d have done in my place.

  She was almost disappointed when he ignored the incident and came to the table, a little one still in each arm, dragging a boy on each leg. He told them how fast the horse pulled the homemade sleigh, while Emma poured coffee, cut the Kuchen, and took the baby. Ellie clung to Al, daring Emma to make her move.

  Albert took a drink of milk, leaving a white mustache. “Can we get a horse and a sleigh? Can we?”

  Al grinned and nodded. “Yup! Pretty soon. Pretty soon.”

  He talked on about the week’s work, but Emma hardly heard him. His words were drowned, out by the screaming in her mind, What about me? What about what went on here while you were gone?

  Several tim
es she tried to break into his monologue but, failing, retreated into silence. If he’d just look at me, she thought, he could see I’ve had trouble.

  “Your ma sure bakes good,” Al said to the boys, his mouth so full his words were mushy.

  Sure, that’s all you care about—your wants, she screamed silently.

  He held up his cup. Emma struggled to her feet, babe in her left arm, and got the coffeepot from the stove.

  Al glanced up at the clock. “What on earth? The clock’s stopped!”

  She nodded. “I forgot to wind it last night.”

  “You forgot to wind it?” he boomed. You’d think she had said she’d forgotten to feed the baby.

  Now was her opening. She wouldn’t tell him how bad it had really been. He might think she was making it worse, and he hated exaggeration.

  “I—I had a little accident. Cora kicked me.”

  “What? You let old Cora kick you?” Al slapped his knee and roared with laughter, and the children started to laugh, too. “Emma! I’m surprised at you. You know, that old crosspatch! How come you let her get you? And what’s that got to do with the clock not being wound; anyway?”