Jacob's Return Page 9

  “Women are meant to raise children and serve their husbands needs, not to break the laws of nature by doing men’s work.”

  “So if Rachel were a man, printing a newspaper would not be against God’s laws?”

  “The entire concept is an abomination. If God meant us to … to—”

  “Read … he would have given us eyes and minds?” Jacob said.

  “Explaining to you is a waste of time. You cannot leave the dratted machine there. That is where I repair the buggies.”

  “But you can repair them where they sit. You don’t need this spot.”

  “I do. The light is better here.”

  “It is better for Rachel’s printing too.”

  “If I have anything to do with it, there will not be any printing.”

  “Why does this not surprise me?” Jacob asked. “All right. Ruben, let’s put the machine back on the wagon and move it to the corner where the thresher is. We’ll put the thresher here and when Simon needs to repair a buggy, once or twice a year, he can move the thresher outside for a time.”

  “I do not want the thresher outside. It will rot.”

  “I wish to hell you would rot, you sorry excuse for a—”

  “Levi,” Ruben shouted toward the upper floor where they could see him through a ladder door repairing a flailer. “This is your barn, where can we put Rachel’s printing press?”

  Levi muttered a string of sharp, though unintelligible words.

  “What did you say?” Ruben called, brow furrowed.

  Levi came down the ladder. “I said, ‘muzzle you, Ruben Miller.’” He raised his eyes to the heavens, seeking patience. “For bringing my attention to my children’s bickering.”

  “Datt—”

  “Mein Gott, Simon, shut up! A decision I have made and you need to hear it, the both of you,” he said encompassing all three in his disgruntled look. “Ruben, you ask whose barn is this? Well I have an answer. Jacob is home and as youngest, the farm is his by rights. But Simon has worked it four years without Jacob’s help. Without Simon’s hard work, the farm would be worthless.”

  Jacob saw his Datt’s look narrow and land on Ruben. “Like your farm is, Ruben, and my friend, Zeb Miller, your poor Datt, weeping for looking down at it.”

  Ruben closed his mouth tight, a look of patient respect for Levi on his face, as he waited for the end of the reprimand.

  Three chastised children, they stood, Jacob thought, resisting the urge to smile at Ruben because he had been included in the scold.

  “... and when you meet him at the pearly gates, you bet Zeb will be harder on you than I am. But this farm. This is my right to decide. Though the farm is rightfully Jacob’s—”

  “Datt, I—”

  Levi raised his hand. “One more word, Simon, and I will thrash you.”

  Simon stepped back and shut his mouth.

  Jacob and Ruben chuckled and got a hand raised to them. They shut up too.

  “I cannot take the farm from Simon,” Levi said. “So here is what we will do. We have the main house in the middle, and my house, the daudyhaus, on the left. We will put another small house on the right, a kinderhaus, for Simon and Rachel, and leave the big house for Jacob, Emma and Aaron. This way, the farm will be split equally between my two sons.” He narrowed his eyes and examined their faces in turn.

  Jacob remembered the look. He was eight years old and had switched the fowl eggs. Geese, chickens, and ducks, squawked at strange hatchlings, and Datt was going to kill him.

  “You will share the responsibility equally,” Levi continued. “Cost, income, work, the keeping of the ledgers. But until I get Nate McKinley to write up the papers, this farm is still mine. You leave the press there, Ruben, it is the best place.”

  Jacob couldn’t believe that his father aimed that sorrowful look at him. Why was it that Datt was always most disappointed in him?

  Levi shook his head. “From you, I expect more.”

  Jacob mentally threw his hands in the air. Thirty years old, and his father could still read his mind. It was humiliating.

  Finally, Datt turned that look on Simon. “You approve of this or you find another farm.”

  Simon nodded once.

  “You and Jacob will share everything. Equally.”

  “Everything?” Simon asked.

  “Everything,” Datt repeated, then he gave one last scowl before he walked away.

  Simon watched their father go, then turned and examined his brother’s face.

  “What?” Jacob asked.

  “Datt wants us to share everything. Equally.”

  Simon turned to Ruben. “You know, Ruben, I think Rachel will like such an arrangement.”

  Chapter 7

  Rachel removed a cherry pie from the oven, freeing a scent like almond paste to mingle with the spicy ones of sausage, onion, and pickled beets. “Smells good enough to tempt a fasting Quaker,” she said.

  Esther put her hand on her big belly and smiled. “Then I must be a fasting Quaker, because I’m starved.”

  “You’ve been starved for months, Es. That baby is going to be so big, he’ll come out walking.”

  They were still chuckling when the kitchen door opened.

  “Welcome, Ruben,” Rachel said. “You look nice.”

  “Clean, you mean, Mudpie.”

  “Esther, you remember Ruben.”

  “Hello, Ruben,” Esther said. “You’re thinner.”

  “Hello, Es. You’re not.”

  Esther’s smile faltered. “I’m sorry about … all of them.”

  “I’m sorry you’re going to die.”

  “Ruben!” Rachel nearly dropped the beets. “What a terrible thing to say!”

  Ruben looked like he’d swallowed a pickle whole. “I can’t believe I said that. Esther, I’m sorry. It’s just that since I lost Alma, then Violet, in child-bed, well it’s just … your chances aren’t good, you know.”

  Rachel wasn’t certain who was paler, Esther or Ruben. “Don’t be stupid, Ruben. If all women died in child-bed, none of us would be here talking about it.”

  “You’re right, Mudpie.” Ruben took Es’s hand. “Let’s start again. I’m sorry about Daniel, Esther.”

  “Thank you, Ruben. I miss him, just like you miss Alma and Violet.”

  Ruben grimaced. “It’s hard having two dead wives, you know. If I miss them both, I think there’s something wrong with me for wanting them both back … when I could never have had them both at the same time anyway. But if I think of one and get to really missing her, I suddenly feel guilty for not missing the other one.”

  Esther shook her head. “You’re in a bad way, Ruben. That’s for certain.”

  He nodded. “If we were luckier, you and I, I would have died instead of Daniel, before ever knowing I had killed another wife and baby.”

  “Oh, Ruben,” she said softly, and placed her hand on his arm. “It wasn’t your fault they died.”

  Jacob came in carrying the twins, followed by Simon, one cut, purple eye, swollen shut.

  “It is not our way!” Levi shouted behind them.

  Judging by Levi’s words, and Simon’s face, it looked as if Jacob gave Simon what-for sometime between arriving home with the press and leaving it in the barn. Knowing Jacob, he had good reason. Knowing Simon, Jacob had good reason.

  Ruben touched Esther’s cheek. “Don’t cry, Es.”

  Simon stopped dead. “Ruben, don’t go making eyes at Esther. She’s Jacob’s.”

  “Simon!” three voices shouted.

  Jacob turned to his father. “You can doubt I had cause?”

  “Turn the other cheek,” Levi said.

  “Wasn’t my cheek took the blow, Datt,” Jacob said lifting Aaron.

  Levi shook his head in resignation.

  “Unkabear, boo-boo ouch?” Aaron said leaning over and poking his finger in Simon’s black eye.

  Simon shouted and lurched back.

  Jacob retrieved Aaron’s finger. “Don’t, Aaron. It
hurts Unkabear for you to touch his boo boo.”

  “As if you care,” Simon muttered.

  Aaron began to cry, and the two brothers faced each other, a lifetime of anger and disappointment between them.

  Aaron raised his arms to his uncle but Simon did not move.

  “Don’t be a jackass, Simon,” Ruben said. “Take the boy.”

  “He is sorry he hurt you,” Rachel said, trying not to smile at Ruben’s comment.

  Simon grunted and took Aaron on his lap.

  Ruben winked at Emma and opened his arms, inviting her into them, and Emma crinkled her nose, preparing for the smell. With a chuckle, he took her from her chair. “Got to show her I can smell good.”

  His words eased the tension, and for that Rachel was grateful. “When do you think my press will be ready to print?” she dared ask.

  Ruben shook his head. “Broken armature.” He gave Emma a piece of bread and butter. “Two gap-toothed gears, no letter box, but most all the lead letters.”

  Appetite gone, Rachel placed her fork on the table. “Most?”

  “Don’t write anything with an ‘E’,” Ruben quipped.

  Rachel’s moan got her a sympathetic, if sticky, pat from Emma. At least she understood.

  “Split shaft,” Jacob added. “Not to mention dry rot in the frame. We’ll need to see a blacksmith, probably a carpenter. Three bolts and two corner braces missing, too.”

  “But we hardly had a chance to look,” Ruben said.

  Rachel stood. “It’s not funny. That press is important to me, to this community. Sometimes you joke too much.”

  “Jacob,” Ruben said. “Mudpie is mad at you.”

  Simon smiled. “Pass the pig stomach, Datt. I’m wonderful hungry today.”

  * * * *

  Their need for a carpenter brought a hand they did not expect. It turned out they already had the best they could want.

  Ruben surprised all of them with his skill.

  The rebuilt frame on the Gutenberg was as well-crafted as any Jacob could imagine, and he was glad Ruben had regained an interest in his work and some new respect for himself.

  But rebuilding the frame was the easy part.

  For nearly three weeks Jacob looked for press parts, or someone who knew where to find them. During that time, he kept giving Rachel heartening reports, because he didn’t want her to be discouraged. He knew he needed to tell her how bad a mess they were in, but he didn’t know how to say it without making her lose hope.

  She resolved his dilemma a few days later when he arrived in the barn after plowing to work on the press and found her and the twins spreading hay in the lambing pen.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Watch.” She spread a time-worn, green and purple quilt atop the hay. From a basket, she took a hickory nut doll and a jumping jack and placed them on the blanket. Emma threw in her soft cloth ball, and one by one, Rachel lifted the twins and put them inside.

  “Ach,” Jacob said. “A good place for lambs.” Tiny fingers closed over a horizontal slat, Aaron’s mischievous smiling eyes peeking between. A giggle brought Jacob’s gaze to Emma peering through a wider gap down below.

  She and Rachel wore matching dresses today … green, like a long-fallow field after a good April shower. A sun-kissed field you wanted to run through bare-foot with your best girl.

  Rachel.

  “Jacob,” she said, reading him and telling him with the word he must not. She touched his arm.

  He lowered his head, closed his eyes and put his hand over hers, need pulsing deep inside.

  “I am free to help you repair the press now,” she said, her voice revealing her own yearning. “What do you need first?”

  You. I need you. “A miracle.”

  Rachel removed her hand and stepped back. “We have miracles aplenty. You have come home. And here is Atlee’s press in our barn. And there—”

  “Your press now.”

  Rachel smiled. “My press.” She pointed to the pen. “There are two miracles who might be kind enough to fall asleep so we can work.”

  “I told you, don’t count on that happening too much.” Jacob watched his monkeys fight to keep their eyes open. He shook his head, went over and lay them down, pulling the corner of the quilt over them and patting each bottom. “Rest for Pa-pop. I’ll be right here. We’ll play when you wake up.”

  “Play,” Aaron whispered, but Emma was already asleep.

  “You are a good father, Jacob Sauder. You love them and they know it.”

  “They are easy to love.” Like you, he tried to say with his look.

  “The press,” she said. “Let’s get to work.”

  “I don’t think you can help with this, Rache.”

  “It’s my newspaper, Jacob, and my dream for our community. I need to help with the problem. What kind of person would I be if I left it to you? It would no longer be my dream.”

  “I share your dream, Rachel.”

  “Then share the joy of making it come true. Please.”

  He tweaked her nose. “When you smile like that, how can I say no?”

  “I’ll remember that for when I want something else.” She took a triple-slate, hinged like a book, from her basket. “You will examine the press and tell me what is wrong, and I will note each problem as you find it. We will discuss how it should be fixed, or who might fix it, and I will write that too. Esther said everyone is talking about your search for parts.”

  “Esther was here?”

  “Still is. She’s making dinner. Mom’s sisters, Lena and Ruth-Ann, are spending the day with Mom, so Esther is free to spend it with me.”

  “This happened before I came home? It is not just because you want Esther and me to … I hope Es doesn’t expect … Mudpie, I don’t think I can do it. Things are … comfortable for me, for us, this way. The children are happy.”

  “And you?”

  “As happy as you,” he said, searching her face. “If I marry, I’ll have to find my own farm, because living here with you would not be fair to my wife.”

  “If you don’t marry, nothing will change between us.” Even to say it, broke Rachel’s heart. “I am married to Simon,” she reminded them both, which brought a few moments of silent mourning.

  “What about Esther for Ruben,” Rachel said, to change the mood. “She brings out his tender side.”

  Jacob shook his head. “He is only tender with her because he expects … well you know. I think he’s afraid to take another wife.”

  “Poor Ruben.”

  “Never mind poor Ruben,” Ruben said as he entered the barn. “Jacob’s right, Mudpie, no more wives for me. Let’s see to that press now.”

  * * * *

  By the end of the morning, Rachel’s note-taking had given them direction, encouraging Jacob for the first time in weeks. He had forgotten that sharing problems with Rachel made them easier.

  At dinner that night, they discussed finding parts.

  Esther shook her head. “I am disappointed in all of you. The answer is staring you in the face.”

  Ruben grinned at her challenge. “Why don’t you tell us this brilliant answer, Miss smarter-than-everyone.”

  “Advertise in your newspaper for parts.”

  Simon’s snort was eloquent in its disdain.

  Jacob slammed his hand on the table. “Esther you’re brilliant.”

  Esther gave Ruben an I-told-you-so smirk. “Why thank you, Jacob.”

  Like their father, the twins slammed their hands on the table, but they kept at it until Rachel gave them each a cookie.

  Simon was disgusted. “If you feed them every time they act up, they will be plumper than Datt’s turkeys.”

  Jacob winked at his hellions. “We could advertise for another old Gutenberg too.”

  Esther frowned “Another press, why?”

  “Ach,” Ruben said. “Not so smart after all.”

  Esther crossed her arms. “You tell why, Ruben Miller.”

  “For the
parts.”

  “Good idea, I had,” Esther said, smiling. And when Ruben opened his mouth in indignation, she shoved his shoulder with hers.

  “It’s settled, then,” Jacob said. “We’ll advertise.”

  “Why can’t you make the parts?” Simon asked, but when everyone looked at him in shock, he slapped his forehead. “What am I saying?”

  “Unkabear?” Aaron queried with raised arms.

  Ruben lifted Aaron from his chair and plopped him into Simon’s lap. “Here. God help the boy, he likes you. Be a good uncle for a while and keep your remarks to yourself.”

  Simon looked at Aaron as if he’d sprouted horns, sighed in resignation, and took a forkful of cherry pie. Aaron promptly robbed the fork and shoved the pie into his mouth, wiping his hand on his uncle’s shirt. Simon mumbled a German prayer citing children as Gifts from above, while Ruben lost his struggle with laughter.

  “I cannot help repeat Simon’s question,” Levi said, struggling with his own laughter, Rachel thought. “Why not make the parts? You are both smart boys.”

  “Thanks, Levi,” Ruben said. “But we cannot build a letter-box if we have never seen one.”

  “To have small slug-type letters manufactured,” Jacob added, “would cost a fortune. We cannot do it.”

  “Why? You are a wealthy man,” Simon said. “Lots of money to throw around. Two hundred dollars a year for a nursemaid. Spend more, big, important, rich man.”

  Jacob counted to ten while waiting for his patience to return. “Rachel is paying for the press herself. She cannot afford such costs,” he said. “I am willing to lend her the money. I have already offered. But she will not allow it.”

  “Hey, you are rich,” Ruben said. “How did that happen?”

  “I’ve learned first-hand that wealth is not measured in dollars, but I have those too,” Jacob said. “North Dakota gave one hundred and sixty acres to homesteaders a couple of years ago and I got my hundred and sixty. Later, I sold it to the railroad to build a stockyard, for ten times what I considered a fair price. Good thing they didn’t ask what I wanted.”

  “I’ll be,” Ruben said.

  Simon stood, placed Aaron in his father’s lap, and silently left the kitchen.