Love Finds You in Amana Iowa (13 page)

He tossed the kit back on Friedrich’s cot. “You hear that, boys? Freddy here is gonna stitch up all our socks.”

He could make socks too if he needed to do it, but he didn’t mention that to Private Smith. He had never felt uncomfortable around the other men in Amana, his brothers, but here he couldn’t seem to understand the joviality of these men, nor did they understand him. They laughed in the face of the sacred, trivialized what should have frightened them.

But even if he couldn’t feel joviality for the battle ahead, his blood still rushed in excitement as they prepared for their journey. He didn’t know what lay before them. He didn’t know about these other men, but the Spirit of God traveled with him wherever he went, even into the enemy’s camps.

In his haversack, Friedrich packed a fork, tin plate, and the canteen he’d already filled with water. And he placed a small burlap bag inside with the salt beef and hardtack the army provided, rations to last him for the next four days.

“You got your Bible in there?” Earl asked.

Friedrich picked up his Gospel of John and quietly placed it in his knapsack. The men around him snickered, but he didn’t acknowledge their mockery of him. This feeling of loneliness—it was foreign to him. He’d spent his life surrounded by his family and friends, and he thought he would like being in the company of the soldiers as well. But even with all the men in the tent this early morning, he was still alone.

“Maybe you should preach to us, Freddy. Tell us about the good Lord and all that before we go out there and fight.”

“You’re not going absent without leave on us, are you, Fred?” another voice asked. “Stitchin’ up socks back at camp while we’re all fighting for you.”

“I hear the man don’t believe in fighting.”

“He ain’t gonna run,” someone else said. “Sergeant said he’ll shoot deserters, and Freddy here don’t wanna be shot. He’ll probably turn traitor instead.”

“Or be taken prisoner. That’s what happens to boys who don’t know a lick about fighting.”

Friedrich clenched his fists, cringing at the accusations in their voices. He wanted to show all of them that he did know a thing about fighting, but it would only prove that he was just like the rest of them. And he wasn’t anything like them.

Someone let out a blood-curdling yell behind him, and he ducked to the ground. The other men laughed.

“You better get used to that, Fred. Them Rebels like their yellin’.”

Breathing deeply, Friedrich stood up and slung the haversack over his shoulder, the string wrapped across his chest. He was supposed to fight alongside these men, not fight with them. But if God wanted him to be here, God would have to give him strength to make it through this.

Someone spat a curse word, and Friedrich cringed again. All he wanted to do now was march in silence through the hills in Tennessee, away from some of these men.

If only Matthias had joined the army with him. He could still hear his friend’s voice outside in the hallway down at the courthouse, begging to say good-bye to him. Everything within him had wanted to leap up and shake his friend’s hand one last time, so Matthias would know he hadn’t abandoned him. And that one day, Lord willing, he would return to the Kolonie.

What he would give to have Matthias with him now, to march on the Rebels beside his best friend instead of these men, who took the name of their Lord in vain instead of blessing the very name that created each one of them.

“Leave him alone, Smith,” one of the soldiers commanded.

Friedrich nodded at Jonah Henson in appreciation. Maybe he wasn’t as alone as he thought.

Jonah was from Iowa County like him. Before he joined their regiment, Jonah was a clerk at a dry goods store in Marengo. He’d told the other men that he’d never even hunted in his life, but he seemed to serve willingly like the rest of them. The other men respected him, even feared him a little. Much more than they respected Friedrich.

“Don’t worry about Earl.” Jonah spoke to Friedrich in German.

Friedrich stepped back in surprise. “You speak German?”

“A little,” he replied. “My grandfather insisted on teaching me when I was a child.”

Friedrich hung a cap pouch and bayonet scabbard from his leather belt as they talked. It was good to hear the familiar language of his family and his community.

Jonah pointed at Earl. “His uncle was some famous general in the last war, and he thinks he’s too good to be a private.”

“I will pray for him.”

Jonah gave him an odd look and then smiled. “You can pray for me too.”

Friedrich nodded as he picked up his shotgun. They would all need prayer. The sergeant said there were skirmishes across the state of Tennessee right now, but most of the Federals in Tennessee were fighting to take over the small river port of Chattanooga. There wasn’t time to continue training the new infantrymen. They needed soldiers to join the battle, no matter how green. He and the others from Iowa’s 28th would support the men already fighting there.

They marched hard all day during their training, and then he collapsed on his cloth in exhaustion, Amalie in his mind. Most nights, right before he sank into sleep, he wondered if she had read his letter and if she knew yet that he wasn’t waiting in Amana for her.

Any day she would walk into their village and discover that he was gone. He hoped she would find it in her heart to forgive him for leaving, hoped God would provide her peace as she waited for him, and he dearly hoped she would wait. He couldn’t imagine returning to Amana and finding her promised—or even married—to someone else.

He wished he could have been enough of a man to ask the colonel for a few weeks longer to say good-bye to her, but one look at her pretty blue eyes, one soft touch of her hands, and he never would have left Iowa.

He and Jonah were the first ones out of the tent, ready to get on the open wagons that would transport the men from Camp Pope to the train station. As they walked toward the wagons, Jonah lifted a letter out of his haversack and dropped it into a barrel that would take the mail to the local postmaster.

Jonah turned back toward him. “You have something to mail, Vinzenz?”

“I’m waiting to buy a stamp in Tennessee.”

“Why didn’t you buy one from the post office?”

He hesitated. “Because I didn’t have any money to bring with me.”

Jonah gave him an odd look. “Where are you sending it?”

“Back to Amana.”

“I’ve heard about your colony.” Jonah paused. “I think I’d like to visit one day.”

“You are always welcome,” Friedrich said.

Jonah dug in his sack and pulled out a stamp. He handed it to Friedrich.

Friedrich eyed it for a moment. “Are you certain?”

Jonah smiled. “You can repay me in Chattanooga.”

He borrowed Jonah’s glue as well, and with the stamp on the envelope, Friedrich dropped it into the barrel.

An hour later the men packed into the seats on the train, and Friedrich waved good-bye to the lush grass and hills of Iowa and to Amalie and Matthias and the entire community west of the camp.

He didn’t know what would be waiting for him in Tennessee, or what the enemy looked like, but he was ready as he could be for the journey.

* * * * *

An afternoon storm turned Amana’s main street into a stream of sticky mud. Water soaked through Matthias’s straw hat and his work clothes as he trudged through the mess, back to his room. The other workers left the mill an hour ago for supper, but he kept sawing and smoothing the lumber for the floor. He was plenty hungry, but not hungry enough to be in the same room as Amalie.

He walked along Price Creek, swollen from the rain, and passed by the stone soap factory and the wooden windmill set back in an orchard. A smaller stone building housed the bakery at the corner and next to it was the shop where he and the other carpenters built and sometimes fixed broken furniture. Beside the carpentry shop was the cellar of the new kitchen house, awaiting its frame.

His stomach rumbled, and he stepped off the muddy street to the orchard along the side. While the others were eating meat and some sort of potatoes, he would attempt to satisfy his hunger with fruit tonight, and then tomorrow he would ask one of the elders if he could begin taking his meals at another kitchen house.

He ate the plum so fast that he barely tasted it and then he picked another one for his pocket. The elders would excuse him from eating supper, but not from evening prayers. Hopefully the fruit would keep his stomach quiet as they prayed.

When he reached his room, he threw his soaked clothes onto a heap on the floor and dried himself with a towel.

Amalie might be living in Amana now, but it didn’t mean he had to acknowledge her presence. He would ignore her, like he had done before he left Ebenezer. And like she had done to him.

He threw the towel against the blue wall and watched it slide down.

He couldn’t avoid every meal nor could he skip the services in the meetinghouse or their evening prayers. Maybe he could talk to the elders and they could assign Amalie to a job someplace far away, like South Amana. He might never see her again if she lived there, or at least he wouldn’t see her until she and Friedrich were married.

He dug through the heap of wet clothes to find the other plum and ate it quickly before he pulled on a pair of dry trousers and a clean shirt.

If only that colonel hadn’t come to Amana. If only Friedrich hadn’t felt compelled to follow him. Friedrich and Amalie would marry this fall, and Matthias would marry soon as well.

On the table in front of him were the letters from his friend. He’d yet to open the one that Friedrich had written to him. When Friedrich returned, he might open it, just to see what his friend had said, but he couldn’t do it now. He was afraid that Friedrich might say he never planned to come back.

Three weeks ago he’d mailed the other letter to Friedrich’s parents with a short letter of his own. He’d told them how sorry he was, that he’d tried to talk Friedrich out of leaving Amana. He couldn’t imagine how devastated they must be at the news. And embarrassed. None of the community’s sons had gone to fight in the war between the states, but now the son of a respected elder had defied the leadership of their community and gone to war.

Next to the envelope with his name was the letter Friedrich had written to Amalie. The last letter he would have to deliver for Friedrich.

Lightning flashed across the sky as Matthias walked back outside. The letter was tucked under his slicker and he shoved his hat down on his forehead before he rushed down two buildings to swing open the door to Henriette’s kitchen.

As he stomped his feet on the rug by the door, he considered giving the letter to Sophia or one of the other girls to deliver to Amalie if she wasn’t there, but then he felt ridiculous. Friedrich would expect Matthias to be the one to give her the letter, and he could certainly control his emotions long enough to simply hand it off to her and leave. There was nothing else for them to talk about.

From the dining room, he could see Amalie in the kitchen scrubbing a pot in the wooden sink. She was so full of herself and her abilities that she didn’t have time for anyone else. Even without her kitchen complete, she had found work in Henriette’s, because work was everything to her. More important than any of the people in her life.

He clutched his fists together, welcoming back the anger. He would remain angry at her until Friedrich came home, and then the two of them could iron out their differences.

“Matthias!” He recognized the lilt in Sophia’s voice before he looked back at the kitchen.

He didn’t see Amalie, but Sophia smiled wide at him as she glided into the room. Her pale face was flawless, no hint of the sweat that drenched most kitchen workers after a long meal.

“Hello, Sister Sophia,” he said with a slight bow of his head.

If Amalie heard him, she didn’t come to the doorway to greet him.

Sophia crossed the room toward him, accusing and teasing him at the same time. “You missed supper.”

“I wasn’t hungry.”

“You’re such a hard-working man, Brother Matthias. It’s a shame for you not to be hungry.”

He was a wretched man, torn between his desires and what he knew to be right. He knew Sophia was only flirting with him, like she did with every unmarried man now that Friedrich was gone, but still in some way, her praise seemed to soothe the frustrations within him. “You’ve worked a long day yourself.”

“I don’t do it for myself,” she said softly. Her eyes widened in open admiration. “I do it for men like you who are working so hard to build our town.”

He cleared his throat. “And we appreciate it.”

“There’s some sausage left over and potato salad,” she whispered. “I’ll fetch it for you.”

“You don’t have to—” he started, but sausage sounded mighty good to him right now.

“Sophia!” Sister Henriette called from the kitchen.

Sophia glanced over her shoulder, but before she left, she flashed one last grin at him.

He pitied the man who eventually married her. She needed more attention than any one man could give. A woman like Amalie was confident without a man’s attention, without anyone’s attention. He’d seen proof of that this very day, when she reacted to the news of Friedrich’s leaving by asking for her kitchen house. Amalie needed her kitchen more than she needed a man.

Henriette shot him a stern look when he stepped into her kitchen, but she didn’t ask him to leave. Amalie was arched over the sink scrubbing a stack of pans. And she ignored him.

He nodded toward her. “I need to speak with Sister Amalie.”

Henriette hesitated at his request. Unmarried men and women were not supposed to socialize in their community.

She motioned him back to the doorway and stepped beside him. “Why must you talk to her?”

“I have something to give her,” he whispered. “From Friedrich.”

She held out her hand. “I will give it to her.”

It was what he wanted, for someone else to deliver it, but still his fingers clutched the envelope. Friedrich would want him to give it to her himself.

“If you allow me to speak with her today, I will not disturb her again.”