PROLOGUE

November 20, 1864

It was a fine fall evening. The wind carried the smell of rotting apples and wood smoke and a hint of frost that would likely come after midnight. The setting sun made the stubble in the fields shimmer like flakes of mica and sent rays of light through the clouds as if the Almighty Himself were casting down the fiery shafts. Far off were the night sounds of cattle lowing, and nearer, of chickens clucking. The wind swirled papery dead leaves across the porch.

Usually, late November was the time of year when, the harvest done, the children asleep, Eliza would sit on the porch with her sewing, Will beside her, and they would talk of the day. They would tell of the chores done, the ones left for doing. Will would scan the sky for signs of the next day’s weather, might say that his skin felt damp, which meant rain on the morrow. Often they sat without talking, were satisfied just to be there, together. Will was not a man to display his emotions, but sometimes he would reach for her hand, and Eliza would set her sewing aside, feeling his rough skin on her palm, and she was almost too happy to breathe. At those moments, her heart swelled, and she wondered why it was that she had been given such a good man, not always an easy man, but one who loved her. And she loved him. Oh yes.

“Well, Mrs. Spooner,” he would say. “The Lord’s give us a right nice life.”

“The Lord and Will Spooner,” she would reply. “My husband works harder than any man I know.”

“Almost as hard as his wife,” he would tell her.

Men were not given to such praise. Some of the men she was acquainted with were known to call their wives lazy or frivolous and to blame them for sloppy habits, were more likely to complain about meat cooked tough than compliment a pie made well. But not Will Spooner. He was a man to say what pleased him.

Eliza was not given to displays of affection, either, but she would squeeze her husband’s hand, and he would press hers in return, and the message was as clear as if it had been written in a love letter: I am content. Theirs was not a perfect marriage—such a thing didn’t exist—but it was as good a marriage as ever was.

Now, Eliza wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. The wind had blown up dust, she told herself, for she was not a woman to cry for sentiment.

The light was fading fast, but Eliza would not go inside, where it was too dark to sew. The house was a fine one, built sturdy of big logs and chinked so the air didn’t blow through the cracks, but it had only a single window. If she were to sew inside, she would have to build up the fire to get enough light to see by, and that might awaken the children. Besides, she liked the outdoors, the smells and sounds and the chill of fall, although the cold made her fingers stiff, almost too stiff to hold a needle. She reached up to tighten her shawl and poked her finger through the fabric. The garment was old, had belonged to her mother and her grandmother before that, and it would have to be mended, not for the first time. It was now more mending than shawl, but there wasn’t the money for a new one. There wasn’t any money at all. Will hadn’t thought about that when he left, hadn’t thought she’d have to spend to have the wood chopped and be cheated at that. Eliza had had to scrimp to purchase the thread she sewed with and was quick to save the basting strands to be reused in the quilting.

Still, she was one of the lucky ones among the war widows, as the women whose men were away fighting for the Union called themselves. Her harvest was in, and there was enough to last through the winter if they were frugal. The potatoes were dug, the corn in the crib, the apples dried or pressed into cider. The costly woodpile was high, and the house snug. She was blessed, too, because there were no small children underfoot. Her two—Davy, fourteen, and Luzena, twelve—were old enough to be a help to her after their lessons at the table were done. Her son did the work of a man, while her daughter tended the house so that Eliza could work the fields with Davy. Together they had brought in the harvest as best they could, with much of it going to men who had helped on shares—and jayhawked her, she suspected. But at least there was enough to tide them over until the following year.

Eliza had everything she needed—except Will. But he would come back. Just a few months ago, in the late summer of 1864, he had gone for a soldier, a member of the Kansas Volunteers, to preserve the Union and free the slaves, but he would come back. He had promised. Until then, Eliza would manage.

Just as the sun sank below the horizon, Eliza bit off the last bit of thread, muttered, “Done,” and held up the quilt for inspection. She was not given to self-praise, but she had to admit it was as fine a quilt as she had ever made, which meant it might be the finest in Wabaunsee County, Kansas. Eliza would not say she was the best quilter for miles around, but others would. She looked for imperfections but could not see them. Maybe that was not due to her fine sewing but because the dark had come on.

She had wanted to make the quilt with hearts and flowers to remind Will of the farm and let him know how much he was loved, but Eliza thought such a quilt might embarrass him among the soldiers. So she had chosen a Stars and Stripes quilt, one she had seen in Peterson’s Magazine. The magazine was old, had been published in 1861, before the war began, and she hadn’t seen it until the copy came around to her three years later. But the moment she saw it, she knew she had to make the quilt for Will. The magazine pattern was in color, hand-tinted with bright red and blue. The quilt was not exactly a flag, but inspired by the flag—a background of red and white stripes with a border of white stars on blue, and a star-filled blue triangle in the center. She hadn’t made the quilt exactly like the pattern. What woman didn’t want to bring her own creativity to a quilt? Besides, she’d wanted to make a small quilt, one that was the size of a hired man’s comfort, because a full-size quilt would be large and too heavy for a bedroll. She knew the white would get dirty. Will had written that the soldiers slept on the ground, and when they found tents, the accommodations weren’t clean. They sat on their blankets to eat and clean their guns, to read the Bible and play cards. But if the quilt were to be patterned after the Union flag, it had to have the white stripes.

With winter coming, Eliza had worried that Will would take cold. The blankets issued to the soldiers, he had written, weren’t much better than shoddy, sold to the War Department by a contractor who was more interested in profit than in providing warm bedding for the army. After reading the letter, Eliza knew she had to make her husband a quilt, and by chance, she had seen the copy of Peterson’s Magazine. The coincidence seemed fortuitous. At first, she had thought she would line the quilt with wool. She would procure it from a neighbor who raised sheep, trading with him for a bushel or two of corn. The wool would be warmer than cotton. But then she thought down would be even warmer and not weigh so much. She’d never heard of anyone using down for batting, but it would be soft, and lightweight, too. So she killed and plucked the ducks and made a case of muslin the size of the quilt top, quilted it to keep the down in place. Then she layered the down pouch between quilt top and backing and quilted again, in the shapes of stars and oak leaves.

Eliza hefted the quilt and was pleased at its light weight. She turned the coverlet over and around, and ran her hand across the bottom until she could feel the name that was stitched just above the binding: “William Thomas Spooner, Wabaunsee County, Kansas, 1864.” She had embroidered her husband’s name so that no one else could claim the cover. And because stitching Will’s name pleased her. She had added her own name, too: Eliza Spooner.

A coyote howled, and there was a rustling in the chicken coop. Eliza set down the quilt and went to where the birds were roosting, but the pen was closed tight against the coyotes and the foxes and other predators that fancied poultry for supper, although not against tramps. She had seen her share of homeless men wandering the roads. Now that the cold weather was coming on, she wondered if they would ask to sleep in the barn, or worse, not ask at all. Davy had rousted one man after a rainy night, and prodding with a pitchfork, had ordered him out. It had been too dark for the tramp to see that Davy was only a boy. So he had run off, leaving chicken feathers in the hay where he had slept, and out back of the barn, they found where he had butchered and roasted the chicken. There would be other wanderers, army deserters, discharged soldiers with arms in slings or arms gone altogether. Eliza didn’t mind the men who came to the house at dinnertime, begging a meal. They seemed harmless in the daytime, but she feared them after dark. She wished there were another man on the farm, but where could one find a hired man? And with what would she pay him if she did?

She made her way back to the house in the dark, pausing a little as she picked up the quilt and folded it, then held it against her chest. If Will were there, he would come outside to see what was keeping her, might put an arm around her, and they would stand silently, looking up at the stars and counting their blessings. It was a good life, and it would be again. Will would come home older, gray in his beard, perhaps a little more solemn. But he would brag he had saved the Union and would take down the fiddle, and they would sing the Yankee songs. And Eliza would silently thank God that her husband had come through safely. He would come home. Eliza had no doubt of it. He had promised.

With a frown at her useless daydreaming, Eliza went into the house and slid the board into place across the door, securing the cabin. She set the quilt on the table. First thing in the morning, she would take it to Enoch Coldridge, who had come home on furlough and would leave that week to return to the Kansas Volunteers. Enoch had agreed to take the quilt to Will, along with a sack of divinity candy, on which she’d used the last of her sugar, and the black walnuts she and the children had gathered only the week before. Eliza had her doubts that Will would ever see the divinity, but she depended on Enoch at least to deliver the quilt.

It was a stroke of luck that Enoch had come to call, had come just at suppertime to deliver a letter from Will. The supper had been meager, and Eliza had given up her portion to Enoch. He knew it and was beholden to her, so when she asked him to take the quilt back with him, he couldn’t turn her down. If it weren’t for Enoch, Eliza would have had to mail it, and who knew when it would arrive? Or if? With Enoch carrying it with him, the quilt would reach Will before Christmas. She had never given Will a Christmas present, and the idea of a special gift to her husband-soldier delighted Eliza. A quilt made with loving hands, a quilt that would warm Will against the winter cold, a quilt for Christmas.