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Night was overtaking them. Fortunately the half-moon had risen so he could see to drive. He glanced at its silver half circle above the treetops. Then, after many quiet moments, he asked, “What am I to do with him?” He didn’t try to hide his anxiety.
“Making him sit with little children won’t work,” she stated.
“But he must learn. And I cannot teach him.” His words rung with deep feeling he couldn’t conceal.
“I think private lessons would be best,” she said. “I asked my cousin to invite you tonight so we could discuss this without calling attention to Gunther. If I came alone to your place...” Her voice faded.
“Private lessons?” he echoed.
“Yes. Why don’t you bring him two evenings a week? I will help him improve his English, and learn American history and government. You can make sure he studies at home on the other evenings.”
“That will make more work for you. I cannot pay.”
She touched his forearm. “I’m the teacher here in Pepin. Whether I teach in the daytime or evening, I’m being paid.” Then, seeming embarrassed, she removed her hand from his sleeve and looked away.
He wished she hadn’t taken her hand away so quickly. Her long, elegant hands, covered in fine kid gloves, were beautiful. “You are good. But still, I think Gunther must not be given good for bad behavior.”
“Very few sons of farmers attend school beyond eighth grade. Don’t you see? It isn’t normal for Gunther or good for him.”
The school came into view through the opening in the forest. Kurt tried to come to grips with what Miss Thurston had suggested.
Then an unusual sound cut through the constant peeping of tree frogs. Kurt jerked the reins back, halting the pony. He peered ahead through the dark shadows.
Miss Thurston did the same. The sound came again.
A baby crying.
They looked at each other in amazement.
“It’s coming from the rear of the school, near my quarters,” she said, stark disbelief in her voice.
Mr. Lang slapped the reins and jolted them over the uneven schoolyard to her door. A shaft of moonlight illuminated a wooden box. The crying was coming from inside.
Without waiting for his help, Miss Thurston leaped over the side of the cart and ran to her door. She stooped down and leaned over the box.
The wailing increased in volume and urgency.
Kurt scanned the shadows around the schoolhouse as Miss Thurston called out, “Hello? Please don’t leave your child! I’ll help you find a home for the baby! Hello?”
No answer came. Only the crickets chirped and toads croaked in the darkness. Then he thought he glimpsed motion in the shadows. He jumped down and hurried forward a few steps but the cloaking night crowded around him. The woods were dark and thick. Perhaps he’d imagined movement.
The baby wailed as he walked toward the teacher’s quarters. He joined Miss Thurston on the step, waves of cool disbelief washing through him. “Eines kind? A baby?”
“It seems so.”
She looked as if she were drowning in confusion, staring down at the baby, a strange, faraway expression on her face. She made no move toward the child. Why didn’t she pick up the child? In fact, Miss Thurston appeared unable to make any move at all.
* * *
Ellen read his expression. How to explain her reluctance? She hadn’t held a child for nearly a decade, not since little William. Her baby brother.
“How does the child come to be here?” he asked, searching the surrounding darkness once more.
“I don’t know.” The insistent wailing finally became impossible for her to avoid. She stooped and lifted the baby, and waves of sadness and regret rolled over her.
“What is wrong?” he asked.
She fought clear of her memories and entered her quarters, Mr. Lang at her heels. She laid the baby gently on her bed and tried to think.
“Does this happen in America?”
She looked at him. “What?”
“Do women leave babies at schoolhouses?”
“No. I’ve never heard of this happening before.”
The child burst into another round of wailing—frantic, heartfelt, urgent.
Mr. Lang surprised her by picking up the infant. “He is hungry.” He grimaced. “And the child needs a clean...windel.”
“Windel?” she asked.
“The child is wet,” he replied.
She lit her bedside candle. In the light, she noticed the child had a dark reddish discoloration showing through his baby-fine golden hair. Was it called a port-wine stain? Memories of her brother so long ago made it hard to concentrate. She could feel Kurt looking at her, most likely wondering why she was unable to take action.
“Do you have an old cloth to dry dishes?” he asked when she offered no solution. “We could use to...”
“Yes!” She hurried to the other side of the room, threw open a box of household items and grabbed a large dish towel.
Mr. Lang completely surprised her by snatching the dishcloth, laying the baby on her bed and efficiently changing him.
“You know how to change a diaper?” she asked, sounding as shocked as she felt. She couldn’t help but admire his quick, deft action.
“I raised Johann from a baby. We must get milk for this one.” He lifted the child. “We will go to Ashford’s Store, yes?”
Glad to have direction, she blew out the candle and followed him outside. They rushed past the pony and cart and headed straight for the store. The motion of hurrying seemed to soothe the infant.
Within a few minutes, Ellen and Mr. Lang arrived at the back of the store, at the stairs to climb to the second-floor landing. Moonlight cast the stairwell in shadow so she held the railing tightly as she hurried upward. She rapped on the door, and rapped again and again. The child started wailing once more. Mr. Lang stood behind her, trying to soothe the child. She wrung her hands. What seemed like forever passed.
Then Mr. Ashford in trousers and an unbuttoned shirt opened the door. “What do you...” he began forcefully, then trailed into silence, gawking at Ellen.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Ashford, but we need help,” she said.
He stared at them yet didn’t move.
“We come in, please?” Mr. Lang asked even as he pushed through the door and held it open for her. She hurried inside, again thankful for Mr. Lang’s support.
Mr. Ashford fell back, keeping them by the door, still looking stunned. “Where did that baby come from?”
“We don’t know,” she nearly shouted with her own frustration.
“We find him on the doorstep,” Mr. Lang said. “We need milk and a bottle. You have these things?” His voice became demanding on the final words.
Mrs. Ashford, tying the sash of a long, flowered robe, hurried down the hall, followed by Amanda in her long, white, flannel nightdress. The two asked in unison, “A baby? Where did it come from?”
“It is boy,” Kurt said.
“We don’t know,” Ellen repeated, nearly hysterical herself from the baby’s crying. She struggled to stay calm as memories of her little brother bombarded her. “He was left on my doorstep.”
“He needs milk. And a bottle to feed. Please,” Mr. Lang repeated.
Stunned silence lasted another instant and then Mrs. Ashford moved into action. “Ned, go downstairs and find that box of baby bottles. Mr. Lang, bring that baby into the kitchen. Amanda, light the kitchen lamp.”
Grateful to follow the brisk orders, Ellen followed Mrs. Ashford and Mr. Lang. The lady of the house lit a fire in the woodstove while her daughter lit the oil lamp that hung from the center of the ceiling. As if he sensed that help had come, the baby stilled in Mr. Lang’s arms, his breath catching in his throat.
Mrs. Ashford began rifling through her cupboard and then triumphantly brought out a tin and opened the lid. “Horlick’s Malted Milk,” Mrs. Ashford read the label aloud. “Artificial Infant Food. It’s something new, made east of here in Racine, Wisconsin.”
Standing beside Mr. Lang, Ellen’s nerves were as taut as telegraph wire. In contrast, Mr. Lang looked serious and determined. Having him with her had made this so much easier.
The storekeeper entered the kitchen with a wooden box of glass bottles. With their goal in sight, Ellen slumped onto a chair at the small kitchen table. Surprising her, Mr. Lang lay the child in her arms and stepped back.
Again, holding the baby brought Ellen the waves of remembrance. Struggling against the current, she watched Amanda scrub a bottle clean while the older woman mixed the powdered milk with water and set it in a pan of water on the stove to warm. Within a few minutes, she handed Ellen the warm, wet bottle. Ellen wanted to offer the child to Mrs. Ashford, but the little boy flailed his hands toward the bottle and she quickly slipped it into his mouth. He began sucking. Bubbles frothed into the bottle.
Relief swamped Ellen.
Mrs. Ashford sat down at the table near her, watching the child eat. “He’s evidently hungry.”
“He has good appetite,” Mr. Lang agreed, gazing down with a grin.
Ellen released a pent-up breath. She felt as if she’d run a ten-mile race.
“Where did he come from?” Amanda asked again.
“I drive Miss Thurston home from her cousin’s,” Mr. Lang replied. “We find the baby in a wooden box on the doorstep.”
“Did you see anyone?” Mrs. Ashford asked sharply.
Ellen frowned. “I thought I saw movement in the woods. I called out but no one was there.”
“I’ve heard of this happening,” Mrs. Ashford admitted, “but I never thought I’d live to see it here. Someone has abandoned this child.”
“And on Miss Thurston’s doorstep,” Amanda murmured.
All of them stared at the baby in her arms.
No other reason could explain the child’s appearance. People didn’t go around misplacing infants.
Ellen gazed down at the small face that had changed from frenzied to calm. The evidence of tears still wet on his cheeks drew her sympathy, and tenderness filled her.
Who could part with you, little one?
“How old do you think he is?” Ellen asked.
“Hard to say,” Mrs. Ashford said, reaching over to stroke the white-blond, baby-fine hair. “But not more than a month old, if that.”
“Nearly newborn, then.” Ellen cuddled the child closer. The tension suddenly went out of the little body. The baby released a sound of contentment, making her tuck him closer, gentler. More unbidden caring for this child blossomed within her.
“Some people are superstitious about babies born with marks like that,” Mr. Ashford said, pointing at the baby’s port-wine birthmark. “Maybe that’s why they didn’t want him.”
“Yes, it’s sad the poor thing’s been born disfigured,” Mrs. Ashford agreed.
Ellen stiffened. “On the contrary, I’ve heard people say birthmarks are where babies were kissed by an angel.” Nonsense of course, but she had to say something in the child’s defense.
Mr. Lang bent, stroked the child’s fine hair and murmured some endearment in German. His tenderness with the child touched Ellen deeply.
“I can’t think of anybody hereabouts who was expecting a child. Can you, Katharine?” Mr. Ashford asked.
His wife shook her head.
“But babies don’t really come from cabbage patches,” Amanda said reasonably, “so where did he come from?”
“That’s enough about where babies come from,” Mrs. Ashford snapped.
“You better go off to bed,” the girl’s father ordered and motioned for her to leave.
Ellen sent the girl a sympathetic glance. Some topics were never discussed in polite society. “Good night, Amanda. Thank you for your help.”
The girl stifled a yawn as she left. “See you tomorrow at church, Miss Thurston.”
The mention of church snapped Ellen back to reality. “I better be getting home then. Dawn will come soon enough.”
The baby finished the bottle and Mrs. Ashford placed a dish towel on Ellen’s shoulder.
Laying the baby on it, Ellen rose, patting his back. She prepared to leave.
The older couple looked flummoxed. “You can’t mean you’re going to take this baby home with you to the school?” Mrs. Ashford popped to her feet.
“I don’t see that I have any other choice,” Ellen said, and waited to see if she’d be contradicted.
Despite her initial misgivings, the truth had already settled deep inside her. Someone had entrusted her with this child and she would not shirk that responsibility.
Mrs. Ashford said something halfhearted about Ellen not knowing how to care for an infant in an uncertain tone that didn’t fit the usually overconfident woman. Ellen hadn’t appreciated the woman’s comment about the child’s disfigurement, and she also knew without a doubt that the Ashfords shared the common prejudice against the illegitimate, the baseborn. “I’ll keep the child. I’m sure someone will realize they’ve made a mistake and come back for him.”
“I hope so,” Mr. Lang spoke up. “This is serious thing, to give up one’s own blood.”
His statement struck a nerve in Ellen. What had driven someone to give up their own child, their own kin?
