Read Online Elm Creek Quilts [04] The Runaway Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini - Free Book Online

reportorial technique she had learned in her journalism seminar at Waterford College, Summer identified the town’s name change as the “what”—now she needed to learn when and why. The “who,” of course, were the Bergstroms.
    Whether the family had played any role in the transformation of Creek’s Crossing into Waterford, she could only guess, but her instincts—and her knowledge of how Sylvia’s family had influenced the town’s fortunes in later years—told her she was not pursuing a false lead.
Summer through winter 1856—
in which we become farmers, and I am unwittingly courted
    So passed our first evening at Elm Creek Farm. By morning’s light, my companions had gained more resolve, while I felt my own weakening, as I began to realize how very far I was from home and everything familiar. But, I reminded myself, that was precisely what I had wanted, and since I could not bear to return to Germany in defeat even if I could afford the passage, I had to make the best of it.
    By the end of the day, we discovered that our circumstances were not quite as dire as we had imagined. Mr. L. had put in a kitchen garden, so we would soon have fresh vegetables. We learned that an acre of corn had been planted, and this news cheered us immensely. Since much of our land had not been improved, our woods were full of game, and thus we celebrated our second night at Elm Creek Farm with a feast of venison and seed potatoes, eaten by the fireside under the stars.
    As the weeks passed, we set the cabin to rights as best we could; Anneke and I filled the spaces between the logs while Hans repaired the roof enough to keep out the rain. Each day I marveled anew at the changes in my brother. He had left my father’s house seven years before knowing a great deal about the textiles trade in Baden-Baden but little of horses and nothing of farming. Now he put in late crops and drove the team as if he were born to it.
    Castor and Pollux did not pull the plow, of course. One of Hans’s first acts as master of Elm Creek Farm was to trade them with the owner of a livery stable for a team of till horses, a pig, and a flock of chickens. We were all downcast to part with the elegant creatures, especially Anneke, who grew teary-eyed whenever she saw them prancing before a carriage in town. Hans promised her that one day, when his business was established, he would give her far superior horses, born and bred on our own land. Anneke didn’t quite seem to believe him, but the promise pleased her just the same.
    When our immediate needs were seen to, Anneke asked Hans to turn his attention to improving our little cabin. He had made us each a bed by stringing rope between oak posts, upon which Anneke placed straw ticks she had sewn, but only a curtain separated our beds from his, and we had no fireplace, which would surely be a problem come winter. I added my voice to Anneke’s, but Hans instead set himself to work on the barn.
    He had met a neighbor, a Mr. Thomas Nelson, whose land abutted ours to the north. His wife, Dorothea, befriended me, and in later years became my dearest friend and confidante—closer to me in many ways than Anneke ever was. Anneke thought Dorothea too solemn and bookish, but I admired her keen mind and sensible temperament. After the day’s work was finished, we enjoyed many evenings discussing literature and politics, and I learned a great deal about our new country from her. Often we gathered at the Nelsons’ home, which despite its simplicity seemed a palace compared to our cabin, but I had too much pride not to reciprocate their kind invitations, and we entertained our neighbors nearly as frequently as they did us.
    We spoke English with the Nelsons, since they did not speak German. Anneke would have preferred to sit silently with her sewing rather than have Hans or me translate the conversation, as her inability to speak English shamed her, but Hans said, “You will never learn if you don’t try, and you need