Chapter Fifteen

“We’re getting rabbits!” Adele exclaimed when Elisa returned from her walk the next day. “Lots and lots of rabbits!” This was as happy as Elisa had seen her little sister since Turk died.

Mama took a wooden peg out of her mouth and turned from the clothesline where she was hanging clothes to dry. “We’re getting two rabbits, Adele, that’s all—and I will make sure they are both female!” Mama said.

Elisa realized that her mother was trying to get everyone’s mind off Turk. Giving Adele rabbits to care for would distract her. The older girls were to begin learning to make Swiss lace the next morning.

“When, Mama? When will we get the rabbits?” Adele asked.

“After Cousin Albert builds the hutch,” Mama answered. “The county fair is in two weeks. I’m sure we can pick out some nice rabbits there.”

“Two weeks is too long!” Adele complained.

“All good things are worth waiting for, dear—even rabbits,” Mama said. She picked up the laundry basket and went back in the house.

When Elisa came up on the back porch she noticed Albertine reading in the shade. It seemed Albertine was always reading. Elisa wondered if it was her shy sister’s way of escaping from the hurts of the past year.

“I sure would like it if you would go with me on my walks, Bertie,” Elisa said. “I’m reading Pilgrim’s Progress now. You can bring one of your primers and I’ll bring my book. We can hike up to the meadow and read under a tree. Would you like to do that?”

“I guess so,” Albertine said, and Elisa was glad to see that her sister looked more excited than she sounded. She wondered why she hadn’t thought to include her before.

Pilgrim’s Progress was the most difficult book Elisa had tried to read. Not only did it challenge her mind, but it also spoke to her heart and gave her a yearning to be closer to the Lord. “I am the Lord’s and He is mine,” she wrote in her journal after reading the first few chapters. “What can I want besides?”

*  *  *

Mama encouraged Cecile, Elisa, and Albertine to finish the lace collars she was teaching them to make in time to enter them in competition at the county fair. Two weeks may have been too long for Adele to wait for rabbits, but it wasn’t long enough for the older girls to master the art of lace-making.

As hard as they tried to keep the pattern taut on the cushion while twisting the bobbins left and right to make the lace, they had to start over several times. Not one collar was ready for competition by the deadline in the middle of August. Of course, Elisa used her stiff elbow as her excuse.

Still, it was great fun to go to the fair. They left early in the morning to ride with the Esperandieus. Mama brought a basket packed with fried chicken, biscuits, and preserves. She put in a blackberry pie for dessert, and two pies she planned to enter in competition.

All the French-Swiss families agreed to meet for lunch at the fair on the south side of the fairgrounds by Chilhowie Lake. Elisa and her sisters felt like city girls with their bonnets and parasols, sitting on quilts by the lake. Albert Chavannes and Alfred Buffat even took Cecile and Elisa for a ride in a rowboat.

When the family toured the livestock barns, Elisa saw Mr. Johnson, who had shot Turk, throwing slop to a couple of overweight hogs in a pen. Instead of speaking to him, she turned her head away.

I want to forgive him, Lord, but I guess I’m not ready to yet. Please soften my heart, she prayed silently. I know it only hurts me if I don’t forgive.

Finally the family made its way to the rabbit barn. They walked up and down row after row of hutches. Inside were rabbits of many different breeds. Adele raced to the hutches with blue, red, or white ribbons pinned to the outside first, to see if any of the prizewinners were for sale.

“Oh, Mama! Look at these cute baby ones!” Adele squealed when she discovered a litter of plain white rabbits with pink eyes at the end of one of the rows. “I want these rabbits, Mama. May we please take them home?”

“Remember what I said, Adele. We will take two.” Mama said.

Adele finally decided on two little girl rabbits. Mama put them in her picnic basket, now empty except for the towels the pies had been wrapped in, and paid the rabbit breeder fifty cents for both.

The rest of the afternoon the rabbits hopped and scratched around in the picnic basket while Mama and the girls looked at exhibits of quilts, lace, and perfumed soaps made of ashes and lye. Mama had to ask Adele to stop peeking in at the rabbits for fear they would get out.

At the quilt exhibit, Mama was careful to point out the different quilt patterns to Cecile and Elisa. She reminded them that it wasn’t too soon to begin thinking about which patterns they wanted to include in their trousseaus.

The girls were truly amazed by the lace collars and cuffs on display, and they laughed when they imagined their own pitiful attempts laid out next to those masterpieces. They were almost as nice as the ones Grandfather Bolli had sent from Paris!

The last event of the day was the pie judging. Mama had entered a blackberry pie and a lemon one, so the girls were very excited when it was time for the winners to be announced. The lemon didn’t fare well at all. Mama said it must have soured in the heat. But the blackberry pie won second prize, and Mama proudly pinned the red ribbon to her picnic basket.

While Mama and the girls were visiting the exhibits, Emmanuel and Cousin Albert were entering every contest they could find. Mama had given them $100 of crop money to buy a second-hand wagon at the fair. But while shopping for the wagon, they saw a two-man log-sawing contest advertised. The grand prize was a new wagon. Without telling Mama, they entered the contest and won! To add to the surprise, they spent the $100 on a chocolate-colored farm horse and a black-and-white cow.

It was a tired but happy family that went home after the fireworks that evening. Instead of climbing back into the Esperandieus’ wagon, they were riding home in their own wagon at last. Even better, the wagon was being pulled by their horse, and it had a new milk cow tied to the back.

“This was the best day of my life,” Adele declared as she took one of the baby rabbits out of the basket with both hands and held it close to her face.

*  *  *

“There’s going to be a baby in the house,” Mama said the next day. She looked up from the letter she was reading as Elisa came into the kitchen. “I can’t think of anything this family needs more than a baby in the house.”

Mama went on to explain that the letter was from Cousin Albert’s parents in Switzerland. Albert’s sister’s husband had died following a farming accident in Lausanne, leaving her all alone with a three-month-old baby. Cousin Albert’s parents thought Elise Bolli, having lost her own husband just seven months before, would be well-suited to counsel and comfort her niece, so they wrote to ask if she and the baby could come visit for a while.

“I have to send Cousin Albert to town to send them a telegram saying ‘yes’ right away!” Mama said. “A baby in the house! Imagine that.”

The next few weeks were extremely busy ones. Not only did all the school clothes have to be ready for the beginning of school the last week of September, but the harvest was coming in. When Emmanuel and Cousin Albert weren’t working at the Bolli farm, they were busy helping one of the neighbors get in their corn or wheat. On top of all that, Mama wasn’t exactly sure when Cousin Albert’s sister and her baby would arrive. She wanted to get everything ready as soon as possible.

Cousin Albert had been sleeping in the third bedroom upstairs, but he moved onto the sleeping porch with Emmanuel so his sister and the baby could have that room. Mama scrubbed the bedroom from top to bottom and made a colorful coverlet for the feather comforter by piecing together some of the floral-patterned flour sacks she had been saving.

When the room was ready, she began to think about turning one corner of it into a nursery for the baby.

“Emmanuel, go up to the attic and look for the white wicker bassinet we had for Adele in Pernambuco,” Mama said. “I think it’s in the far west corner.”

Once the bassinet was scrubbed and in place, Mama remembered other things that the baby would need.

“We have that wonderful French pram Grandfather Bolli sent from Paris too,” Mama said to Elisa. “Please see if you can find it in the attic.”

As Elisa began to climb the attic stairs, she realized she hadn’t been up there since the day of Papa’s funeral and burial. The trunk packed with the things from Papa’s office was closed, but it was pulled away from the wall just as she had left it that day.

When Elisa’s eyes adjusted to the light, she began looking around for the navy blue pram. She remembered it well. After Adele was too large for it, she and Albertine had used it to stroll their dolls through the gardens surrounding the Pernambuco villa. After the move, it had been carried up to the attic and forgotten.

At last, Elisa saw the familiar silver spokes of the pram’s wheels across the room. Moving a barrel and some small crates of dishes Mama hadn’t needed at the new house, she finally reached the pram. Someone had thrown an old quilt over the top of it to keep the dust out.

Elisa tossed back the quilt and began to pull the pram out into the light where she could see it better. As she did, she glanced to see if anything was inside. Something was.

In the dim light, Elisa could see a neatly folded stack of baby blankets in the pram. But under the blankets, she saw just the edge of something white and lacy.

Elisa lifted the baby blankets out of the pram and her heart almost stopped. There on top of the tiny mattress was Mama’s rosepoint lace wedding veil.

“Oh, thank you, Lord,” Elisa said. “It isn’t lost after all.”

Elisa picked up the veil ever so gently. It felt soft and delicate in her hands, just as it had the day she had carried it to her parents’ bedroom in Pernambuco to try it on. Seeing it again helped her remember the day she had packed it.

The pram had been abandoned in the hallway by her younger sisters, who had taken out their dolls and left the pile of baby blankets inside. Seeing it on her way back to the dining room, Elisa had decided it was a very safe place for the veil. She had taken out the baby blankets and laid the veil gently in the pram. Then she had folded the blankets and put them on top for protection.

With a light heart, Elisa made her way down the attic steps with the veil. She had to go slowly so as not to fall, since the tears of happiness in her eyes made it hard to see the steps. When she came into the bedroom where Mama and Cecile were hanging freshly starched curtains, all she could manage to say was, “Look.”

“Oh, Elisa,” Mama said. “You found the veil! I knew it couldn’t be lost forever. How wonderful to see it again. Where was it?”

Elisa told Mama and Cecile about finding the veil in the pram as they unfolded it together. It wasn’t quite as white as it had been when it had been packed over a year ago, but the rosepoint lace was as beautiful as ever.

“I know just what to do with this so that we’ll never lose it again,” Mama said. “I’ve asked Cousin Albert to make hope chests for each of you girls. He’ll make Cecile’s first because she’s the oldest. We’ll store the veil there until Cecile is married, then she’ll pass it on to you, Elisa, to put in your hope chest.

“Oh, girls,” Mama said as she clutched the veil to her heart. “Just seeing this again brings back such happy memories for me—and gives me so much hope for your future.”

That night Elisa read psalms of praise from her Bible and prayed a bit longer than usual. She thought about the Swiss veil that would stay safely locked in the trunk in Mama’s room until Cecile’s hope chest was ready.

“Thank you, Lord, for faith that comforts us through all our losses, for hope for the future, and for the love of family and friends,” she prayed before going to sleep. “You have given me all three, and I will praise You all the days of my life.”