Heart of the Sandhills Read online

  Robert interrupted him. “None of that matters. They don’t care.” He gripped the sides of the wagon and stared up the road toward New Ulm. “Someone threw a rock at Nancy this morning. Called her a fat sow and a few other things I won’t repeat.” He stared at Daniel. “Thanks be to God Nancy didn’t hear the entire speech. Or at least she pretended not to hear.”

  Daniel swallowed hard and looked up at the sky, thinking. Finally, he looked back at Robert. “I am sorry, my friend.”

  Robert shook his head and sighed. “We can be grateful winter is coming on. That will help keep our women close to home without frightening them.”

  Daniel nodded his agreement. “And in the spring when Elliot arrives with news that we are moving all these worries will be over.”

  He and Robert began to unload the sacks of winter provisions from the back of the wagon. They worked in silence, pretending not to worry, all the while wondering why God did not see fit to grant them peaceful lives.

  Unaware of Robert and Nancy’s mistreatment in New Ulm and unable to read the newspaper for himself, Jeb Grant discussed Abner Marsh with his wife. Between them, they decided to keep both Abner Marsh’s hostility and Reverend Donohue’s indifference to themselves for the time being.

  “Winter’s coming on,” Marjorie said, “and things will settle down.”

  Jeb mused, “Maybe that land they been promised will come through in the spring. Maybe they won’t ever have to know.” Jeb picked up one of his twin boys. “One thing we aren’t going to do is let the bigots decide who our friends are.” He hugged his son fiercely and then set him back down. “We just got to pray harder, I guess.”

  And they did.

  Three

  For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

  —Hebrews 4:12

  Jeb and Marjorie grant experienced answered prayer in a unique way. As the old-timers had predicted, winter had arrived early and was to stay long in their part of Minnesota, making traveling even the few miles into New Ulm impossible for days at a time. Temperatures plummeted, hovering at fifteen to twenty degrees below zero for days at a time. The first of many snowstorms was so severe that the Lawrences and the Two Starses could not see one another’s homes for nearly sixteen hours. Nearly thirty inches of snow remained on the ground for the entire month of December. Abner Marsh and his neighbors were so busy trying to keep their livestock—and, at times, themselves—from freezing to death, they had little time to worry and no time to talk about the four Indians living a few miles away. For the first time in their married lives, Jeb and Marjorie were sincerely thankful for terrible weather. And then, something else happened that appeared to answer their prayers for peace.

  While Gen and Nancy spent nearly every day together, they were often unable to scale the deep snowdrifts separating them from the Grants’ house only a quarter of a mile away. One morning Robert surprised the women by pulling up to Gen and Daniel’s cabin standing on a makeshift sleigh he and Daniel had made by taking Robert’s wagon off its frame and lashing the box to a crude pair of wooden runners carved from two saplings.

  “Marjorie said to come and fetch you,” Robert announced as he and Daniel stepped inside to warm up. “I think she said something about quilting.” The men exchanged knowing grins as Gen scooped up her basket of finished quilt blocks and packed her sewing kit. In less than an hour the women were ensconced in Marjorie’s kitchen, chattering away while Marjorie hand-cranked her sewing machine at top speed to finish the quilt top Gen was making for twelve-year-old Meg Dane.

  “I can’t believe how many pieces you have in these blocks,” Marjorie said as she finished the last row. “Where did you get the idea?”

  Gen smiled. “When my Papa made me leave home and go to school at the Danes’ mission, he told me to look at the moon every night. He said he would be looking at that same moon, knowing it would bring us closer. Ever since then, when I’m lonely for someone, I look at the moon and imagine them doing the same.” She paused. “Even now that Papa is gone, and so many other people I love are in heaven, I like to look at the moon and imagine them doing the same—from the other side.” She hurried to finish. “More than once I’ve looked up and prayed for Meg, imagining her in the rose garden we planted together before I left New York.” She blushed. “I wanted to do something to represent the moon. But just plain circles don’t make a very pretty quilt. Daniel was teasing me one day and said I should put two stars inside each moon. ‘When I tried it, this is what happened.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Marjorie said.

  “I hope Aaron isn’t jealous,” Gen worried aloud. “I did a simple nine-patch hoping he could include it in his bedroll when he’s a soldier.”

  “Well, you made Aaron’s while we were harvesting the garden and doing all that canning and preserving last fall,” Nancy interjected. “If there had been three feet of snow on the ground, you could have made him a Two Stars pattern!” She added, “Aaron won’t mind. Men don’t care about things like that.”

  “Done!” Marjorie called out, holding up Gen’s completed quilt top.

  After lunch, the women lowered Marjorie’s quilting frame from the kitchen ceiling where it hovered over the table when not in use. With four iron C-shaped clamps they anchored each corner of the large frame to a chair back. Then they stretched out the backing fabric, a collage of odd-shaped pieces of tan fabric gleaned from worn-out skirts and shirts. Once the backing was basted to the thin strips of ticking nailed to each of the quilting frame boards, the women spread a flannel sheet and the newly finished quilt top over it to complete the fabric sandwich.

  “I can’t reach the center!” Nancy panted as she strained to reach across her pregnant belly to baste her section of the quilt together. The women laughed while they ran extra-long stitches from the center to the edges of the quilt so the calico would remain in place without bubbles or bumps while the women quilted with smaller stitches.

  While the women worked, Jeb, Daniel, and Robert came and went, stomping in to thaw out, leaving to haul feed to the horses or to shovel steaming piles of manure out of the barns. They dug tunnels to Marjorie’s chicken coop and came in to report the loss of five hens—not to the cold, but to a fox. They set traps near the chicken coop and then headed for the pond to harvest ice. Marjorie’s two-year-old twins, Lee and Sherman, fell asleep beneath the quilt. When Gen offered to help her carry them up to bed, Marjorie grinned. “Let them sleep. Won’t do any harm and then I won’t have to worry about them waking up and raising a ruckus upstairs.”

  She went upstairs and came back with a thick tied comforter that she set on the open oven door to warm.

  “Let me,” Gen said, when the comforter was warm. She bent down and ducked beneath the table. Tucking the warm blanket around the twins, she watched them sleep, caressing first one, and then the second little head and sighing.

  “In God’s time, my sister,” Nancy said gently, peering beneath the edge of the quilt at Gen.

  With a wistful smile and a nod, Gen emerged from beneath the quilt. Inspecting the tip of her left middle finger she muttered, “I don’t have a callus yet. My finger is nearly bleeding.”

  “I’d say that’s a signal it’s time to bake cookies!” Marjorie said.

  “Can we?” Gen asked, surprised.

  Marjorie nodded. “I’ve been saving back the makings for a special occasion. I’d say this is it.” She stood up and stretched, arching her back and rubbing her neck. While Gen and Nancy released the C-clamps holding the quilting frame in place and sent it back up to the kitchen ceiling, Marjorie bustled to the pantry. “I like to went crazy all these weeks cooped up in this house alone. I was crying to the Lord about it just this morning. In fact, I told Jeb I was going to make my own snowshoes and head out after lunch if he didn’t figure a way to get the team out and get me
some female company.” She plopped a flour sack on the table. Her eyes teared up as she looked from Gen to Nancy. “I’m being silly, I know. But I just got to tell you two you mean a lot to me.” She blushed furiously and headed back to the pantry.

  “Finally!” Marjorie opened her front door wide and waved Gen and Nancy inside. “I thought you’d never get here.”

  She and Gen followed Marjorie through the drafty house toward the warmth of the kitchen. At the doorway they both stopped short. Three other women sat around the quilt. At the sight of Gen and Nancy, they all cast piercing glances in Marjorie’s direction.

  Putting a reassuring hand on each of her friend’s shoulders, Marjorie spoke up. “I know we’ve all been lonely with the string of bad weather, and when I sent Jeb out to round you ladies up for a day of quilting, I thought it’d be a good time for you to meet Genevieve Two Stars and Nancy Lawrence. They learned to quilt from the same missionaries that won ‘em to the Lord,” she said. ‘While she made introductions, she pulled out the chair next to a blonde-haired woman. “Nancy, you sit here next to Lydia.”

  When Nancy didn’t move, she felt Marjorie’s hand on her back, gently guiding her to the designated chair.

  Lydia pulled her hands away from the quilt top and shifted her chair away an inch or two, but she was blocked by her neighbor, a stoop-shouldered woman Marjorie had introduced as Lydia’s sister Violet.

  “Harriet,” Marjorie said to a stout, dour-faced woman on the opposite side of the quilt, “now that we’re all here, I’ll just pop those rolls you brought in the oven.” She directed Gen to the opposite side of the quilt. “You sit next to Harriet. I’ll pull up another chair in minute.” And so, while Marjorie slid a pan of rolls into the oven and clattered around making coffee, five very uncomfortable women sat motionless around a half-finished quilt while Marjorie filled the air with chatter.

  “Show them, Gen,” Marjorie said as she put a pot of coffee on to boil. “Show them the quilt we made for Meg.”

  Gen had wondered why Marjorie had sent word for her to bring what they had come to call the Two Stars Quilt with her, but she had obeyed, folding it into a basket slung over her arm. Now, as she exited the kitchen and went to retrieve the basket from where she had set it inside the front door, she heard Marjorie say, “Meg is the missionary’s daughter I told you girls about. One of the children Gen’s husband protected during the—the unpleasantness.”

  When Gen returned to the kitchen and held Meg’s quilt up, the woman named Lydia let out an admiring “Oh.”

  Marjorie spoke up. “Isn’t it stunning? I’ve never seen anything like that. Her husband teased her about putting two stars inside the moon. Don’t you just love what Genevieve did?”

  “How did you ever think to combine gold with the dark blue?” Lydia asked.

  Gen touched a piece of gold fabric while she said, “The scraps are from Daniel’s work shirts. The gold was in a package a friend sent from New York last fall. She said all the women back there are using it.” Gen self-consciously folded the quilt back up.

  Harriet demanded, “Let me see it.” ‘When Gen handed the bundle over, Harriet turned back a corner and leaned over, peering at the quilt’s surface through the glasses perched on the end of her nose. “Who did you say taught you to quilt?”

  “First, Mrs. Dane up at Lac Qui Parle Mission.” Gen accepted a cup of coffee from Marjorie, but remained standing. When Harriet only harrumphed a response, Gen added nervously, “I’m afraid I wasn’t a very good student. I didn’t like sewing ‘very much. Then the Danes lost their house in a fire and we had to move to Hope Station. One of the mission teachers—Miss Jane Williams—and I used to sit out on her porch and quilt in the evenings. I—I pretended to be interested at first, and then one day I realized I really was interested. After a while I decided I even enjoyed it.”

  “Nice stitching,” Harriet said, thrusting the quilt back at Gen, who nearly spilled her coffee before managing to wrap her arm around the bundle and return it to the basket.

  Gen mumbled her thanks and perched on the edge of Marjorie’s chair. Once again, an awkward silence reigned. With nervous glances at one another, Violet, Harriet, and Lydia picked up their needles and began to quilt. Gen noticed for the first time that Violet’s odd, stoop-shouldered posture was forced by a melon-sized hump between her shoulders.

  Marjorie settled into a chair at the opposite end of the quilt between Lydia and Harriet. “You can see we’re just crosshatching. I thought I’d read a bit while you women quilt, if you don’t mind.” She beamed at them. “I’m so thankful the Lord gave us this break in the weather. And I mean to thoroughly enjoy it … heaven only knows when we’ll all be able to do this again.”

  Violet glanced timidly at Harriet and croaked that she too was grateful for Jeb’s sleigh bringing the women for a day’s quilting and that she, for one, had been so lonely this winter—and wouldn’t it be lovely if Marjorie were to read to them for a while?

  Harriet opened her mouth to comment but shut it again firmly when Marjorie produced her Bible and, with trembling fingers, began to flip pages. With a distressed glance in Nancy’s direction, Gen concentrated on threading her needle. Tying a single knot in the end of the thread, she slipped the needle between the layers of the fabric sandwich, popped the knot beneath the top layer, slipped the needle back on top, and began to rock her needle back and forth, back and forth as she quilted small, even stitches a quarter of an inch from the seam in the quilt.

  “I been reading straight through the New Testament all this winter,” Marjorie said quietly. “I’ll just start where I left off in Galatians.” She began to read about the law and grace, about things Gen didn’t understand. But then Marjorie read a passage that made Gen and Nancy duck their heads and quilt furiously.

  For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.

  Harriet shifted in her chair. Lydia got up and refilled her coffee cup, rattling the cup and saucer noisily. Violet paused and reached up to rub her neck, grimacing slightly and leaning back as best she could against the hump on her back. The aroma of fresh-baked bread wafted through the room. Still, Marjorie read …

  Bear ye one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself … As we have opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith … And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy …

  Marjorie finished reading. “Mmmm … those rolls smell good!” She got up and opened the oven door. The aroma of cinnamon filled the little room as the icy clouds of suspicion hovering above the quilt began to thaw.

  “You women have a nice time together?” Jeb asked later that evening as he settled down beside the kitchen stove to enjoy a piece of dried-apple pie.

  Marjorie leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you for collecting Harriet and the others, dear. I know it was asking a lot to have you take the team all those miles.” She sighed. “I only wish Abner would have let Sally come. Genevieve showed the women her Two Stars quilt. Lydia especially admired it.” She settled opposite her husband at the table.

  Jeb took another bite of pie and a sip of coffee. He looked up at the underside of the quilt suspended above the kitchen table, studying it for a moment before reaching across the table to pat the back of Marjorie’s hand. “Looks like you got a good bit accomplished today, Marjorie.” He smiled. “Just what was it you said that broke the ice?” he questioned. “I mean, when I saw Gen and Nancy headed up onto the porch, I was waitin’ for Harriet Baxter to come barrelin’ right out and order me to take her home.”

  “Why, I didn’t really say anything,” Marjorie said. “I just poured coffee and read the Good Book.”

  Jeb ch
uckled. The Good Book. He leaned back and stretched. His chair creaked dangerously. “Don’t suppose you happened upon any of them passages about lovin’ your neighbor as yourself?”

  “I just read what I read, Jeb,” Marjorie said, blushing. “I wouldn’t have wanted them to think I was preaching at them.”

  Jeb went to the window and looked out. “If the weather holds and you want to have another quiltin’ you just let me know. I’ll be glad to round ‘em up any time you want company. Who knows, maybe if we pray on it we can even get Abner to let Mrs. Marsh around that quilt a time or two.”

  Four

  Forsake the foolish, and live; and go in the way of understanding.

  —Proverbs 9:6

  Historians would remember the winter of 1866–67 because of the Fetterman Massacre in the West. Farmers would remember it because of the record-breaking cold and subsequent loss of livestock. Merchants would remember the most dismal season on record thanks to deep snows and below-zero temperatures for days at a time. But Marjorie Grant would always remember the winter of 1866–67 as the winter she proved that just as the pen was mightier than the sword, a quilting bee could prove to be mightier than prejudice. For that was the winter that Mrs. Abner Marsh came to quilting. She accepted a cup of tea from the hand of Genevieve Two Stars and hoped aloud that Nancy’s delivery would be an easy one. And, as she said quietly to Marjorie one day, Sally determined to make the best of things with the neighbors—and to find a way to convince Abner to do the same.

  And if it were not for an event in the far-off West, things could have been different. The long winter could have provided time to cool Abner Marsh’s temper. His wife’s exposure to Genevieve and Nancy could have been the beginning of a change in Marsh’s heart. The spring arrival of the white children from the East who loved Daniel and Gen Two Stars could have made Abner Marsh and his neighbors willing to just let things be and get on with their lives.

  Unfortunately, while Marjorie Grant was introducing the neighbors to her Dakota friends, events in the West conspired against the uneasy peace between the Marshes and the Grants, the Baxters and the Two Starses, the Quinns and the Lawrences. The West was where Colonel Henry Carrington, charged with building three garrisons to protect the Bozeman Trail through the only prime hunting grounds left to the Sioux Nation, listened to a thirty-three-year-old Captain who loved to boast that with eighty men he could cut through the entire Sioux Nation. While cutting through the entire Sioux nation was not feasible that December, Carrington trusted Fetterman to find a way to end a Sioux attack on a woodcutting detail. Oddly enough, last-minute volunteers who begged to go along gave Fetterman the eighty men he had always said he needed to defeat the Sioux.