CHAPTER FOUR

 

Charlotte tied the horses and headed into the house.  Her wet black boots were kicked aside on the hand-woven rug that rest on the floor below the wall-mounted coat rack. Although one oil lamp rested on the kitchen counter next to the wood-burning stove, another was needed to adequately light up the kitchen for reading and writing.  Writing her sister Ruth had been on the top of her to do list for the day. 

Ruth was ten years her junior and a very opinionated woman, and Charlotte never enjoyed her debates since every little thing that could become a debate had ended up one when Ruth was living at home: how the chickens were arranged in the chicken house, the color of the sky, and even how potatoes were sliced could blossom into an hour long debate over the dinner table.

“She’s creative!” her mamm had said about Ruth on several occasions. 

“No!  She’s plain bored!”  Charlotte had always replied, and her mamm had disagreed.

After doing ten extra chapter books and taking on the chores for the second farm, Ruth had finally found her match: Reuben Yoder and they both had bountiful energy to share, and they had ended up marrying and were still a very happy couple in Walnut Creek, Ohio.  Ruth was the only reason that her daed had purchased the neighboring farm. 

If only she had her sister’s energy, she’d be able to avoid paying hired help. Sure, the quiet neighbor was living on the second farm, but he wasn’t a tenant farmer.  He had his own barn and his own patch of garden vegetables, but the rest of the farm and its upkeep fell on her.

The second oil lamp was grabbed and placed on the kitchen table.  The light flickered and lit up the room just as the sunshine flowed through the window. “There’s plenty of light now that I’ve already lit the second lamp,” Charlotte laughed and then studied on what to eat for a late breakfast.

Should she fry up some thick cakes of sweet cornbread to take over to the quiet neighbor? His help would be needed to rebuild the fence to protect the chickens from the wild animals.  She hadn’t the courage to look over at the chicken yard in fear of seeing that they had been killed by pack of wolves that the overly chatty other neighbor had seen earlier that day.

A large black horizontal cloud lined the sky before it started circling in the air.  Should she put breakfast on or wait until the storm had passed? She’d watched plenty of violent storms through her upstairs bedroom window right before her close-knit family would take shelter in the root cellar. Because she couldn’t leave the house, she had to watch the storm from her bedroom window.

“It’s not touching the ground.  It shall be okay if it doesn’t touch the ground,” she soothed her worried mind, turned and poured some spring water into the heavy cooking pot and sat it on the stove.  Reaching up above her head, she grabbed the cast iron skillet. 

The taste of thick fried sweet potatoes laced her mouth, but she realized that she had used the last of the split and smaller potatoes from the feed bag the previous weekend.  She’d have to go dig in the hole that lined the root cellar for more.  All potatoes, sweet ones, Yukon ones, and red ones were buried in three-foot holes, holes that lined the root cellar, and this was done so that water would drain out of them during heavy downpours.  Fresh orchard grass, wood, and sheet metal protected and preserved them throughout even the toughest winters.

A knock at the door startled her.  She jumped back when she saw a tall, thin white man leaning to peek through the kitchen window.  She didn’t know him.  She didn’t want to know him.  He looked strange, and he looked lost.  She knew that he had come to the wrong farm.

She quickly took cover behind the door and then slid under the long black coats that rested on the wall-mounted coat rack.  She’d purposely placed them there to hide if any stranger came knocking.  Had he noticed her?  Would he hurt her? 

Her heart raced and a sharp fear entered her mind.  She was small for her age and had been outside the wooden house only a few times; were there mean men that come looking for single ladies whom had no men folk to protect them?

“What are you doing?  Step away from the door!”  A man’s loud voice rang from outside and was followed by fast gun shots. He was going to kill her.  Her legs knocked together as she tiptoed in front of the door and leaned over to peek out the window.  The quiet neighbor was lying on the ground and the intruder was standing over him reloading his gun. 

“Daed’s gun is in the bedroom!”   Even after his death, her father’s gun had stayed in her parents’ bedroom. The woven throw rug almost made her bare feet slide out from under her, but she jumped and caught her balance as she leaped to the right corner of the room. The gun was there, on the gun rack, like it had been since she was a little girl. 

Her eyes snapped shut as adrenaline stapled throughout her body; the gun was forbidden to be touched by the women folk, and she knew it, but she also knew that her father was no longer around to scold her.  Her lips rolled under her shattering teeth: Her daed’s was the protector, the runner of the household, and the sole decision maker.  Could she fill his shoes?

A water of sadness unglued her eyes, her heart rate slowed down, and her mind become more rational: she would not use his gun.  Her community was based on love, obedience, and a forgiveness that the world adored and she had to be quiet and not defend herself against the attacker, even if it meant losing her life.

Her hands still shook a little and the gun felt slick and delicate under both of her sweaty palms.  The corner gun rack was higher than anticipated and even tiptoes made it difficult to put the gun back in the rack as it had been before she’d fetched it. 

The kitchen door slammed open causing her to quickly swirl around, and the long gun accidentally fired as the intruder charged through the bedroom entrance; he’d been running for the gun.  He’d known the layout of the house.  He fell down and did not move, and red blood oozing out his head.  His hand gun lay on the floor next to him. Was he dead? She would be in big trouble if he was, and she was right…

 

 

*****

 

Charlotte watched as the Coroner loaded the dead man’s body into the back of the wooden hearse.  He snapped the door shut, shook his head and looked at the town doctor, who was caring to the quiet neighbor’s gunshot wound.  The wind was a bitter cold, and the air a heavy wave of coolness that was unusual for rural Bloomington residents.  The Sheriff’s dark velvety eyes expressed worry; his tall, toned body kneeled next to the doctor studying the victim’s bloody wounds.

Charlotte’s throat convulsed and her ankles and knees ached as the cold snap blew around the bottom baby blue ruffles of her evening gown.  At least she was dressed well to face the Sheriff and Coroner.  She knew she’d let everyone down by grabbing the gun from the gun rack, especially the doctor, for his opinion of her mattered a lot, as he was her lifeline having traveled to New York to learn more about the mysterious disease that had plagued her body ever since she’d swallowed some of the hair tonic that her salesman uncle had lathered all over her infant head. 

Truth be told, she wanted regular dresses, but all she had were fancy dresses that her mamm’s Englisch friend Kathy had brought during her biannual trip to Bloomington.  The evening gowns were from Manhattan, and Kathy was a well-known theater actress and a really good one, loving her job as much as her single, free life.  They changed out costumes every so often, so she had always brought them to Charlotte to play with since she was homebound.  Little did she know, now that her mother had passed away, she wore them on a daily basis.  Her mother hadn’t known about the dresses, for if she had known about them, she’d taken them away since they were “worldly.” 

Since she was a young tot, Charlotte had saved the frilly dresses in a wooden chest that rested in the loft wall.  The hidden place had been there since they had bought the place when she was a baby.  Another chest and a little box were hidden in there, but she’d always be scared that she’d get caught up in examining the contents and one of her siblings would find the hidden place. 

She turned her attention back to the Sheriff, “The gun accidentally went off, Sheriff. I killed a man, and I take full responsibility,” She looked to the Sheriff for understanding, and he leaned, drew a very narrow brow and stared at her.

He took his hat off and ran his hand through his short black hair.  “You’ll do time then.”

“This man is dead too.”  The Doctor looked up at Charlotte and frowned.  “You saved your own life, but two were taken.  What were you thinking, Charlotte?  You’ve never shot a gun.  Why did you grab it?”

“My parents aren’t here.” Charlotte took some hasty breaths and blushed.  “I admit.  I got scared.  He looked that cold, that evil.”

“This dead man, who was your very quiet neighbor, is a US Marshall.  He was in this area looking for a bank robber.  He was protecting you! You took down a Marshall.  You’ll spend the rest of your life in jail, Ms. Miller.”  The doctor explained.  “I can tell that the shots came from your upstairs window; the window where you’ve hung out for sixteen years.”

“Not when I was an infant.  Mother had me in her bedroom, in a wooden crib.” Charlotte became defensive, wanting to set the record straight.

“You’re fibbing bigger than an elephant, Ms. Miller.  Your crib was by the window. I was friends with your father before he caught my son stealing your country hams from the smokehouse.  My son is a now a mighty fine man since he left the bottle alone; he’s the school superintendent, and he just approved your teaching certificate,” The Sheriff bragged.

“That was very kind of your son, but it looks like that I won’t be teaching anytime soon.  May I be put in jail somewhere else, where there is snow, and lots of it?  I want somewhere different than here.”

“I was not upstairs, I promise that, and God knows the truth; I would never hurt my neighbor.”  She wept as a cool snap of air splashed against her red face and made it return to a more normal peachy color.  She closed her eyes and rested her chin of her praying hands.  Why Lord, why? God didn’t answer; all she heard was the distant howling of wolves, many of them, and she sensed that this farm was soon been chaos all around. 

Had her parents been wrong by gifting her both farms? What had they been thinking of by letting her out on her own, unleashing her into the sad, evil world of the Englisch?  Could she grit her teeth and carry on, or should she sit out in the sun to let the strange disease take her life, all while bank robbers and made packs of wolves ravage her two farms?

Her mother’s gentle face flashed before her, as her faithful words, “Don’t worry.  We’ll make it.  God is testing us, and we will stay strong.”

“I’ll stand strong in the Lord,”  she forced the words out, although she didn’t understand what she’d just blurted out, but she knew that it would have been what her mother would have said, so she had said it. 

Could she learn why her mother said these words when hard times come knocking?  What was this relationship, built on Someone who you couldn’t see?  One thing was that she could feel that He was there, although she couldn’t explain why she felt that way; she knew that she was not alone.  God was by her side.  Would it be possible to establish a strong relationship with God like her parent had established when she was little?

Would God allow heartache like he’d done before in order to open a new door for something better?  Charlotte recalled the strange bug that had eaten away at the corn crop when she was eight years old.  Many times her daed hadn’t been at the dinner table to check on his kinner’s homework because he’d been kneeling beside his bed praying for God to keep his crop untouched.  After weeks of praying, the bug had finally come knocking, killing the whole year’s crop.  They had to use savings to buy more chickens in order to sell more eggs. 

She remembered the fall that had followed the crop disaster. Her mamm had been an hour late schooling her because she had to walk to the outskirts of town to sell the eggs.  Her mother had done everything to support her husband and family. 

However, Charlotte had took up knitting and ended up selling hundreds of beautiful knitted mittens to friends and family, even donating some to the School for the Blind in Louisville, Kentucky.  There were several students that wanted to give up at the school, and her handmade shawls and mittens cheered them up so much that they become close with her family, and Charlotte was still pen-pals with many of the students. 

Had God allowed this tragic event for a reason?  Surely He had a good reason, for she could face jail time.  She’d been boxed up in the haus for sixteen years, and she didn’t understand why God would toss her into a cold jail cell?  A loving God wouldn’t have the heart to do such a thing, so how could this be happening?

However, after the conceited candy man had said that she couldn’t afford his candy, she wondered how much she could knit to earn the money to buy some umbrellas and matching dresses from New York City.  Would this rude candy man notice that the umbrellas were from his city?  He’d made her spitting mad, but there was something about this strong-willed, independent salesman that intrigued her.  She wanted to prove him wrong, but in the same sense, she wanted to prove that she was a lady and not a little girl anymore.  She wanted to leave a pleasant memory in his mind. 

*****

 

 

“I may be coming back to get you!”  The Sheriff leaned over the saloon bar and recalled his confident, business-like words.  In over three decades of being sheriff, mainly because no one else was man enough to do it, he’d blurted those words to many a killer, and most of the time, he stood good by going back and arresting the killer, usually an outlaw. 

The whiskey stung his eyes, and he added to the pain by deeply guzzling it down, shot after shot, letting it blaze down his nervous throat.  A group of card players were unusually quiet, and even the regulars, who had their own bar stools, sat alone at a table for two.  He nodded as the bartender slid another strong shot his way. 

Was this what his town had become since the booming saloon had entered his town?  He sighed and felt guilty for drinking so heavily, but the strong spirit of the drink seemed to somewhat numb his sad mood.  Was this why these other men were in this very place, gulping drink after drink?  What could they be doing for their families right now?  There must be a garden to be tended to, a business transaction that could be won, or even a couple of chapters of a good book to read.  The Bible…when did they read it, and did they read it at all?  His throat convulsed.  He refused the next drink that ran down the counter and splashed in front of him. 

“Something wrong Sheriff?”  The bartender took his hands and wiped them on his white bar apron and looked worriedly at the sheriff’s glossy, blood-shot eyes.  The sheriff never drank, and the whole town knew it.

“Yes, when Graham Miller comes in here, DON’T serve him an ounce of liquor.  Tell him to report to my office right away, that it is a dire emergency!”

The bartender grinned and then leaned over the bar counter.  “I know what you’re up to, and that man can’t handle that young girl, much less run two farms.  He’s my best client.  I can’t refuse to serve him.  Your plan is flawed.”

“Think of another way to earn money if this place closes down.” The Sheriff snarled, swung off the stool, and briskly walked out the double doors, anger filling the air. 

Alcohol in Bloomington had just met its number two obstacle: the town sheriff, and the number one obstacle was God, who had a big plan for not just Bloomington, but the whole country, and the news would later be blasted all over the front pages of black and white newspapers across the country: alcohol would be banned.  Like the sheriff, many people in small towns across America would say that they had seen it coming.