later, she stood on the shady porch of the store, watching the man load her trunk, two boxes of books and her valises onto the back of his wagon along with his goods. She noticed it was easy for him—he was quite strong. She also noticed he made no effort to gain her attention or show off. He just did what he’d said he’d do. That definitely differed from Holton, the consummate actor.
This man’s neat appearance reminded her that she must look somewhat disheveled from her trip, increasing her feelings of awkwardness at being alone with the stranger. She’d often felt that same way with Holton, too. His Eastern polish should have warned her away—if her own instincts hadn’t.
At his curt nod, she met Mr. Lang at the wagon side and he helped her up the steps. His touch warmed her skin, catching her off guard. Rattled, she sat rigidly straight on the high bench, warning him away.
Just then, the storekeeper’s wife hurried out the door. “Miss Thurston! Ned just called upstairs that you’d arrived.” The flustered woman hurried over and reached up to shake hands with Ellen. “We didn’t expect you so soon.”
“Yes, Mr. Ashford said as much. I’d told my cousin when I was arriving, but perhaps she didn’t receive my letter.”
“The school isn’t quite ready, you know.” Mrs. Ashford looked down and obviously realized that she’d rushed outside without taking off her smeared kitchen apron. She snatched it off.
“That’s fine. My cousin wanted me to come for a visit, anyway.” Ophelia’s invitation to visit before the teaching job began had come months before. Ellen suffered a twinge, hoping this was all just a minor misunderstanding. Then she thought of Ophelia’s little boy. Little ones were so at risk for illness. Perhaps something had happened?
She scolded herself for jumping to conclusions. After a few more parting remarks were exchanged, Mr. Lang slapped the reins, and the team started down the dusty road toward the track that Ellen recognized from her earlier visit to Pepin.
The two of them sat in a polite silence. As they left the town behind them, Ellen tried to accustom herself to the forest that crowded in on them like a brooding presence. The atmosphere did not raise her spirits. And it was taking every ounce of composure she had left to sit beside this stranger.
Then, when the silence had become unbearable, Mr. Lang asked gruffly, “You come far?”
“Just from Galena.” Then she realized a newcomer might not know where Galena was. “It’s south of here in Illinois, about a five-day trip. You may have heard of it. President Grant’s home is there.”
“Your president, he comes from your town?”
She nodded and didn’t add that her hometown had a bad case of self-importance over this. They’d all forgotten how many of them had previously scorned Ulysses S. Grant. “Before the war, he and his father owned a leather shop.” She hadn’t meant to say this, but speaking her mind to someone at last on the topic presented an opportunity too attractive to be missed. She found President Grant’s story extraordinary, though not everyone did.
“A leather shop?” The man sounded disbelieving.
“Yes.” She stopped herself from saying more in case Mr. Lang thought that she was disparaging their president. The wagon rocked over a ridge in the road. Why couldn’t it move more quickly?
“This land is different. In Germany, no tradesman would be general or president.”
Ellen couldn’t miss the deep emotion with which Mr. Lang spoke these few words. She tilted her face so she could see him around the brim of her hat, then regretted it. The man had expressive eyebrows and thick brown lashes, another resemblance to Holton. Unhappy thoughts of home bombarded her.
As another conversational lull blossomed, crows filled the silence, squawking as if irritated by the human intrusion. She felt the same discontent. She wanted only to be with dear Ophelia, and she wasn’t sure she could stand much more time alone with this disturbing stranger.
She sought another way to put distance between them. “I am going to be the schoolteacher here. Do you have children?” Ellen hoped he’d say that he and his wife had none, and hence she would not come in contact with this man much in the future.
“I am not married. But I have two...students.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” Ellen said, clutching the side of the wagon as they drove over another rough patch, her stomach lurching.
“My brother, Gunther, and my nephew, Johann. They will come to school.”
This man had responsibilities she hadn’t guessed. Yet his tone had been grim, as if his charges were a sore subject.
“How old are they?” Do they speak English? she wanted to ask. She sincerely hoped so.
“Gunther is sixteen and Johann is seven.” Then he answered her unspoken question. “We speak English some at home. But is hard for them.”
She nodded out of politeness but she couldn’t help voicing an immediate concern. “Isn’t your brother a bit old to attend school? Most students only go to the eighth grade—I mean, until about thirteen years old.”
“Gunther needs to learn much about this country. He will go to school.”
The man’s tone brooked no dispute. So she offered none, straightening her back and wishing the horse would go faster.
Yes, your brother will attend, but will he try to learn? And in consequence, will he make my job harder?
The oppressive silence surged back again and Ellen began to imagine all sorts of dreadful reasons for her cousin not meeting her on the appointed day. Ellen searched her mind for some topic of conversation. She did not want to dwell on her own worry and misery. “Are you homesteading?”
“Ja. Yes. I claim land.” His voice changed then, his harsh tone disappearing. “Only in America is land free. Land just...free.”
In spite of herself, the wonder in his voice made her proud to be an American. “Well, we have a lot of land and not many people,” she said after a pause. If she felt more comfortable at being alone with him, she would have asked him to tell her about Europe, a place she wished to see but probably never would.
“Still, government could make money from selling land, yes?”
She took a deep, steadying breath. “It’s better not to look a gift horse in the mouth.”
More unwelcome silence. She stole another glance at him. The man appeared in deep thought.
“Oh,” he said, his face lifting. “Not look gift horse...to see if healthy.”
“Exactly,” she said. She hadn’t thought about the phrase as being an idiom. How difficult it must be to live away from home, where you don’t even know the everyday expressions. Homesickness stabbed her suddenly. Her heart clenched. Perhaps they did have something in common. “It must have been hard to leave home and travel so far.”
He seemed to close in on himself. Then he shrugged slightly. “War will come soon to Germany. I need to keep safe, to raise Johann.”
“You might have been drafted?” she asked more sharply than she’d planned. During the
