Chapter Twelve

Elisa wondered how Emmanuel felt about Cousin Albert’s coming. She knew Mama told him again and again what a good job he had done with the farm while Papa was sick. Mama also told him how important it was for him to stay in school during planting season. That wouldn’t be possible unless the family had more help.

Still, Elisa couldn’t help but wonder if her brother really wanted Cousin Albert’s help. She found the opportunity to talk to him about it while walking home from school one day. When Albertine grabbed Cecile’s bonnet, just to tease her, Cecile went running down the road after her sister. This left Elisa and Emmanuel to walk on alone together.

“How are you feeling about Cousin Albert’s coming?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” Emmanuel replied.

“I just can’t help but think you might be feeling out of sorts or something. After all, you’ve learned a lot about the farm this year. I think you’ve been doing a great job. Do you really think you need Cousin Albert’s help?”

“Thanks for believing in me, Elisa,” Emmanuel said. “But you don’t know how much work is involved in putting in the crops. I was really worried that Mama was going to spend a lot of the money Papa left us on seed, and then I would plant it wrong and lose everything.”

“So you’re glad Cousin Albert is coming?”

“All I know is that the Porta family has a huge farm in Switzerland. Albert has been helping his father for years. If you remember, our family barely knew a rooster from a hen when we moved here. And do you remember when I let the corn get too coarse before picking it? I have to believe Cousin Albert can teach us all a thing or two about farming,” Emmanuel said.

“I’m glad to hear you feel that way, since he’s already coming,” Elisa said.

“The sooner he gets here, the better, Elisa. Maybe now I’ll have time to go with you on some of your hikes,” Emmanuel said. “I’ll bring my fishing rod and see if there are really trout in that creek.”

*  *  *

A few days later, Cousin Albert arrived. Mama was fixing supper when she heard a knock on the front door. When she opened it, she saw a tall, gangly young man wearing knickers too short for him and a well-worn cap. At his feet was a cloth valise with leather handles.

“Madame Bolli?” he said to Mama. “Je suis Albert (I am Albert).”

Mama gave Cousin Albert a huge hug and immediately brought him into the kitchen. “Let me look at you,” she said. “Oh my, you look so much like your father did at your age. Please, sit down. How did you get out to our farm? Did you hitch a ride with one of the neighbors?”

“No, Madame,” Cousin Albert replied. “I walked from the train station.”

“That can’t be! You must be just exhausted. How I wish we had been there to meet you when you got off the train. If only I had known when you were coming.”

“It was good for me to walk,” Cousin Albert said. “It gave me a chance to see other farms on the way.”

Just then Emmanuel came through the back door carrying an armful of wood for the fireplace. He knew without being told that this must be Cousin Albert. So he quickly dropped the wood into the wood box and walked across the kitchen with his hand extended.

Cousin Albert rose to his feet and grasped Emmanuel’s hand in his own.

“Welcome, Cousin,” Emmanuel said.

“Merci, Cousin,” Cousin Albert responded.

The two young men stood almost eye to eye, with Cousin Albert just a bit taller but much slimmer than Emmanuel. Cousin Albert looked wiry but strong, and Emmanuel could almost begin to feel the weight he had carried for so long being gently lifted from his shoulders. Mama sensed the relief in her son.

“Let me give you boys a piece of pie and some milk,” Mama said as she wiped her eyes with her apron. “Then you can show Cousin Albert the farm, Emmanuel.”

*  *  *

“There isn’t much that I can tell you that you don’t already know,” Emmanuel said as he started the tour of the farm a few minutes later. “This is the barn, and that log shed is where I keep all the tools. Over there is the hen house.”

“And where do you keep the horses?” Cousin Albert asked.

“We don’t have a horse yet,” Emmanuel said. He noticed a shocked and concerned look on Cousin Albert’s face.

“But don’t worry, we can borrow a team to do the plowing.”

“C’est bon,” Cousin Albert said as a look of relief crossed his face. He was ready to work hard in exchange for room and board in America, but he had never had to pull a plow himself in Switzerland.

“Tomorrow I need to mend the fence row,” Emmanuel said. “You can come with me and see the fields then. I’ve started on the planting, but it’s not too late to get your advice. I have so much to learn.”

“It is my pleasure to share with you what the good Lord has allowed me to learn,” Cousin Albert said.

Emmanuel turned to look straight in Cousin Albert’s face.

“Thank you for coming so far to help us,” he said.

“It is the will of the Lord,” Cousin Albert responded. “When the Holy Spirit tells us to go, we must go.”

Emmanuel stretched out his hand again, but this time the handshake was followed by a hug. Then the two young men turned to go back to the kitchen to visit with Mama until dinner.

At the dinner table, Elisa and Cecile had a million questions for Cousin Albert. They wanted to talk to him in French so he would understand more quickly, but Mama reminded them that Cousin Albert really wanted to learn English. “You would do him a favor to ask him questions in English,” she said.

“Where do your sisters go to school in Lausanne?” Elisa asked. “Are their studies very hard?”

“They go to religious school,” Cousin Albert said. “The studies are, how do you say, difficile, no? But my sisters think more about the boys and the cotillions.”

“Just like us!” Cecile laughed.

Albertine and Adele wanted to ask Cousin Albert questions, too, but they were too shy. They peeked at him while he talked, but as soon as he looked their way, they lowered their heads and giggled.

“These little ones resemble my younger cousins in Switzerland,” Cousin Albert said. “Petite dark eyes dancing with merriment.” He smiled at them and winked.

*  *  *

In the next few days, Cousin Albert helped Emmanuel with the planting and everyone helped Cousin Albert feel more at home. Mama even gave him some of Papa’s clothes to wear. At first Elisa thought it was strange to see someone else in Papa’s clothes, but Mama said it was the sensible thing to do. She said she thought Cousin Albert had a lot more growth in him, anyway. He wouldn’t be able to wear Papa’s clothes for long.

Elisa took it upon herself to help Cousin Albert with his English. She wrote up vocabulary lessons and held class at the kitchen table after the dishes were cleared away. With Emmanuel reinforcing what Elisa taught Cousin Albert as the two worked together during the day, Cousin Albert was soon able to discuss farm business easily in English as well as in French. Teaching him made Elisa realize how much she and the other Bolli children had learned in less than a year.

March not only brought Cousin Albert to the Bolli farm, it also brought the first signs of spring to the rolling green hills, forests, and meadows of East Tennessee.

At first, Elisa didn’t want to see the purple violets peeking up at her from the forest floor when she went on her walks. It seemed wrong that something as wonderful as spring would come into a world without Papa.

One afternoon Elisa was crying as she returned to the backyard. Cousin Albert was sitting on the back porch cleaning mud off his boots. Elisa tried to slip by without his noticing her tears, but he reached out and touched her arm as she went by.

“Cousin Elisa, you have the tears in the eyes,” he said. “Why do you cry today?”

“Oh, Albert,” Elisa sobbed. “I just don’t understand how spring can happen all around us. Papa’s dead, but the world just goes on as if nothing has happened.”

“Ah, I see,” Albert said. “That is very difficult. But, Elisa, the Bible says there is a time for everything. This is the time for spring.”

“I guess it is, Albert.”

“Spring will help you to heal your heart. You will see.”

Elisa didn’t really understand how spring could be healing, but that night she prayed. She asked the Lord to help her understand her feelings. Reading in her Bible the next morning, Elisa sensed the Lord answering her prayer through a verse she discovered in Song of Solomon. There she read, “For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time for the singing of birds is come …”

Elisa thought about the cold winter the family had experienced. She could almost feel the bone-chilling dampness of the January rains that would always remind her of Papa’s death. She realized then that Cousin Albert was right. Spring was a gift from the Lord. It was a way He could assure Elisa and her family that life could go on without Papa. It was the Lord’s way of saying that He would never leave them, but always protect and bless them as part of His wonderful creation.

Once she understood, Elisa wanted to share the blessing of spring with the rest of her family. When she noticed the first buds on the yellow forsythia bush in the yard, she cut a handful of branches and brought them inside. She put the branches in a vase filled with warm water from the tea kettle and set the vase on the kitchen windowsill in the sun. The buds became tiny yellow flowers in no time.

When Mama came into the kitchen and saw the forsythia she began to cry, and Elisa quickly realized it was because Papa always used to cut flowers from the garden in Brazil and bring them inside to surprise his wife.

“I’m sorry, Mama,” Elisa said, crying herself. “I didn’t mean to make you cry. I just wanted to bring you a bit of spring from the yard.”

“It was a lovely thought, honey, and the forsythia is beautiful. I just miss your Papa so much. Don’t worry about my tears. They are healing the sadness in my soul,” Mama said.

Soon it was April, and spring was in full bloom. The woods were full of clusters of mountain laurel blossoms and the sweet fragrance of lily-of-the-valley. The dogwood trees danced gracefully across the hillsides dressed in their lacy pink and white blossoms.

When Emma came for a weekend visit, she brought plants and seedlings from her parents’ gardens. She and Elisa spent most of one Saturday digging and planting a flower bed on the south side of the house. “What did you say these flowers were called again?” Elisa asked Emma as she patted the soil around a bushy plant covered with star-shaped pink blossoms.

“Impatiens,” Emma replied.

“Well, I’ll be impatient to see how all this turns out,” Elisa laughed.

“I thought all kinds of flowers grew in Brazil, Elisa,” Emma said. “Didn’t you learn all the names when you planted your gardens there?”

“Mama knew all the names of the plants but I really didn’t,” Elisa said. “We hired gardeners to plant the gardens. Now I see how much fun I missed.”

“Well as long as we get plenty of rain, this garden should grow quickly,” Emma said. “The clumps of daisies we planted behind these impatiens will grow taller than they are. Those roses behind the daisies will grow taller still. And the little clumps of English Ivy we planted right next to the house will begin to climb soon. By this time next year, ivy should just about cover the side of your house.”

“And I’ll be able to send you home with a bouquet every time you visit,” Elisa said.

“How pretty this looks,” Mama said as she joined the girls in the side yard. “Thank you so much for bringing the plants, Emma.”

“You are very welcome, Mrs. Bolli. My mother says flowers make a cloudy day sunny,” Emma said.

“And so they do,” Mama agreed. “When you girls are finished, come join me in the parlor. I want to show you something else pretty.”

When Elisa and Emma entered the parlor an hour or so later, they saw Mama sitting in the new walnut rocker Cousin Albert had made for her. He had started woodworking in the evenings to help Mama furnish the house, and he was getting very skillful at it. Mama had pulled the rocker over to the window and was working on a beautiful quilt square. The design featured an eight-pointed star the color of blue sky on a soft white background.

“Isn’t this a lovely design?” Mama said. “Aunt Esperandieu asked me to finish this square for her. I wanted you to see it, Elisa, because I realize I’ve been neglecting your instruction in needlework since we moved to America. You girls have barely made any progress at all on your samplers. Now it’s time you learned to quilt so we can begin your trousseaus.”

At the mention of trousseaus, Elisa and Emma began to giggle. It would only be a few years before they were old enough to be married. Then they would leave home with trunks packed with linens and quilts they had stitched by hand. But that day seemed far away to them now.

“My mother said there’s going to be a quilting bee at the Esperandieus next Saturday,” Emma said. “Are you going, Mrs. Bolli?”

“Yes, I am,” Mama said. “Elisa, you and Cecile are invited, too, if you’d like to come.”

Elisa looked forward to Saturdays because they gave her a chance to take longer walks through the woods and climb up the ridge to see the mountains in the distance. But she didn’t want to miss being with Emma and the Esperandieu girls. Besides, when she spent time with her mother, Aunt Cecile, and the other women, she felt a special sense of belonging. Hearing them talk about cooking meals for their families, birthing babies, and understanding their husbands helped Elisa come to know what being a woman was all about.

Soon school would be out for the summer and she could go on all the long hikes she wanted. She would go to the quilting bee.

“Say you’ll come,” urged Emma. “Maybe you could even spend the night with me afterward and stay through services on Sunday!”

“I’ll be there!” Elisa said. “Was that all you wanted us for, Mama?” Elisa asked.

“Yes, dear. You’re excused.”

“Come on then, Emma,” Elisa said. “Let’s go on a hike.”

*  *  *

The quilting bee was a wonderful success. Not only did the group finish a quilt for one of the cousins who was getting married, they consumed trays full of ginger cakes, cookies, and other sweet treats, and drank gallons of lemonade.

Elisa was a bit disappointed, however, when she learned that she, Cecile, and the other young girls couldn’t sit side-by-side. Rather, they were positioned in between experienced quilters around the quilt frame so that they could receive instruction as they stitched.

“Those stitches are a bit too long, dear,” Mrs. Buffat whispered to Elisa in the middle of a discussion about the new pastor expected to arrive any day at Spring Place Presbyterian Church. “Take them out and try again.”

Elisa looked across the stretched quilt, now a sea of blue stars on foamy white cotton cloth, to catch Emma’s eye. Emma’s expression didn’t have much sympathy in it, however. She’d just had to repeat a whole row of stitches herself.

“I’ll never get married if I have to make a pile of these quilts first,” Elisa commented to Emma and Cecile during a lemonade break.

“Maybe we’ll each be fortunate enough to marry a widower,” Emma laughed. “Then we’ll just inherit his first wife’s trousseau!”