sleep. Kurt turned the pony and they began the trip to town, heading toward the golden and pink sunset. Crickets sang, filling his ears. Beside him, Miss Ellen Thurston held herself up as a lady should. Only last night had he seen her usual refined composure slip. Finding the infant had shaken her. Did it have something to do with the little brother she’d mentioned?
Kurt chewed his lower lip, trying to figure out how to begin the conversation about his brother. “I still don’t agree with what you have said about Gunther,” he grumbled at last.
“But yet you are here, talking to me” was all she replied.
A sound of frustration escaped his lips. “Gunther...” He didn’t know what he wanted to say, or could say. He would never speak about the real cause of Gunther’s rebelliousness. He would never want Miss Thurston to know the extent of his family’s shame. His father’s gambling had been enough to wound them all. What had driven him even further to such a disgraceful end?
Kurt struggled with himself, with what to do about his brother. Gunther needed to face life and go on, despite what had happened. Would his giving in weaken his brother more?
“Your brother is at a difficult age—not a boy, not fully a man,” she said.
If that were the only problem, Kurt would count himself fortunate. So much more had wounded his brother, and at a tender age. A woodpecker pounded a hollow tree nearby, an empty, lonely sound.
“Gunther and Johann are all I have left.” He hadn’t planned to say that, and shame shuddered deep inside his chest.
“I know how you feel.”
No, she didn’t, but he wouldn’t correct her. “Do you still think to teach Gunther in the evenings?”
“Yes. As you know, you can send him to school, but you cannot make him learn if he’s shut his mind to it. Private lessons would be best.”
Kurt chewed on this bitter pill and then swallowed it. “He will have the lessons, then.”
“Will you be able to help him with his studies on the evenings when I am not working with him?”
“I will.”
“Then bring him after supper on Tuesday.” Miss Thurston looked down at the child in her arms and smiled so sweetly—Kurt could tell just from her expression that she had a tender heart. Something about her smile affected him deeply and he had to look away.
She glanced up at him and asked, “Have you told Gunther about this?”
“I tell him soon,” he said.
“Good.” She sounded relieved.
He, however, was anything but relieved. His fears for Gunther clamored within. They had come to this new country for a new start. He wanted Gunther to make the most of this, not end up like their father had.
They reached the downward stretch onto the flat of the riverside. He directed the pony cart onto the trail to the school. Again, he was bringing her home in Martin’s cart and again someone was waiting on her doorstep. This time a woman rose to greet them. What now?
Kurt helped Miss Thurston down. She moved so gracefully as a shaft of sunset shone through the trees, gilding her hair. He forced himself not to stop and enjoy the sight. Instead, he accompanied her to greet the woman.
“Good evening,” Miss Thurston said, cradling the sleeping baby in her arms.
The other woman replied, “I am Mrs. Brawley. My husband and I are homesteading just north of town.”
“Yes?” Miss Thurston encouraged the woman.
“I have one child and I heard the preacher say this morning that you needed someone to care for the baby.” The woman gazed at the child, sleeping in the lady’s arms.
“I take it that you may be interested in doing that?” the schoolteacher asked.
“Yes, miss. I could take care of two as well as one.”
“May I visit your home tomorrow after supper and discuss it then?”
“Yes, yes, please come.” The woman gave directions to her homestead, which lay about a mile and a half north of town. They bid her good-night and she hurried away in the lowering light of day.
“Well, I hope this will solve the problem of William’s care during the schooldays.”
Her single-mindedness scraped Kurt’s calm veneer. “You think still they will let you keep the child?”
She had mounted the step and now turned toward him. “Perhaps you are one of those who think a woman who does not wish to marry cannot love a child, and is unnatural. That is the common wisdom.”
Her cold words, especially the final ones, startled him. “No. That is foolish.”
Her face softened. “Thank you, Mr. Lang.”
He tried to figure out why anybody would think that. Then her words played again in his head. “You do not wish to marry?”
“No, I don’t wish to marry.”
Her attitude left him dumbfounded. “I thought every woman wished to marry.”
She shook her head, one corner of her mouth lifting. “No, not every woman. Good night, Mr. Lang. I’ll see you Tuesday evening.”
“Guten nacht,” he said, lapsing into German without meaning to. He turned the pony cart around and headed toward the Stewards’ to return it. Thoughts about Miss Thurston and William chased each other around in his mind. Very simply, he hated the thought of seeing her disappointed. What if she became more deeply attached to William and the town forced her to give the child away in the end?
Why wouldn’t she face the fact that the town would not let her keep William? He wouldn’t press her about this, but in fact, the town shouldn’t let her keep him. The question wasn’t whether Miss Thurston was capable of rearing the child. But didn’t he know that raising a child alone was difficult, lonely, worrying? Didn’t he know it better than anyone here?
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