The Holland Press

By nine that morning she had fallen asleep at the table and drooled on her new ledger. A knock at the door awakened her to both facts. Springing from her chair brought on the realization that her left leg was asleep, and she narrowly avoided a collision with the floor thanks to the butter churn, which deflected her fall just enough for her to catch herself. Standing, she straightened her wrinkled dress while shaking her left foot as if she could summon the feeling back immediately simply because it was urgently needed. She limped in a circle, checked her disheveled hair and decided to count to three slowly, then open the door.

Standing there was a short man with very white hair and the reddest and roundest face she had ever seen. The contrast between his snowy hair and bright red face was surreal, and it made Immel wonder if she wasn’t fully awake and imagining it.

“Miss, I would like to speak to your good lady, if you please,” said the stranger.

“My good lady?” replied Immel, repeating what she heard him say and wondering who her good lady was.

“Mrs. Karl Hoffstedder, if you please.”

“Oh, that’s me.”

She focused and pushed her shoulders back. Now she could see at least a dozen workers a few paces behind him, standing around in the yard. A muffled ripple of laughter moved through the men.

“I’m Otto. I spoke to your husband Karl in town about the expansion of your farm. He said you’d be in charge, ma’am. I, uh, we didn’t expect a lass... Anyway, we have our crew and would like to get started if you have no objections.”

“We have a crew?” She almost protested. “I haven’t hired a crew yet...”

A voice among the men in her yard said, “You better tighten up, Rusk. You’ve nary been hired yet!”

The laughter was no longer muffled. She felt as if her face was turning as red as Otto’s.

“Come meet the fellows you’re about to hire, miss. They are a rough sort, but they know their trade. They’ll work for me and I’ll see to them. You won’t have a worry.”

Immel looked back at the kitchen table, where the ledger lay open with the day’s first mark already drying on it. Could she hire men without asking what they would cost or all they would do? She took the ledger and followed Otto onto the porch.

The sound of workers was new and strange noise at the Hoffstedder place. In one morning it arrived and replaced the quietness of the day that Immel had always known. Once the names and wages were entered and Otto had shown her where the first frames would stand, the men began unloading tools and lumber. She stood on her back porch without knowing exactly what she needed to do next. She thought for a few moments that she might mourn the loss of the farm’s peacefulness and her own solitude, but she honestly felt invigorated by the new faces and skills they brought with them.

Sunday morning on the farm held an eerie calm. There was no sound of construction as there had been the last six days. It wouldn’t have seemed much different than any other Sunday morning but for the blended smells of fresh dirt, hewn lumber and coffee on the soft morning breeze.

Immel leaned on the rail of her back porch, viewing the scene of stacked lumber and incomplete frames growing out of the ground. What she had witnessed this past week opened her eyes to many things. She had not appreciated the power of a team that works together, something she had never seen at such close quarters before. She saw leadership in a new way. She now understood better the needs of supply and cohesion, along with cycles of work and rest and play. As she tapped her foot in unison with the memory of fiddle playing and dancing the night before, she smiled and giggled.

She envied something about these fellows, watching them building wood-frame structures and sleeping in her barn. They seemed to possess so little, no houses or land here to call their own, yet they knew exactly who they were, what they were meant to be and do, with as much conviction as the deer or snow geese. They worked together like members of the same body. Even their quarrels seemed to arrive at some useful end. They all ate from the same cooking wagon, laughed and joked together and lifted each his fellow at any opportunity. She had not known kinship like this existed, not in her family, not in her circle of acquaintances.

Immel found herself feeling a little empty. Had she missed something, not being a man who could know that kind of brotherhood? Or not being a mother and knowing her bond with a child? She quietly searched the memories of her closest relationships. Had she known any such bond with her mother or sister? No... Had she formed this bond with cousins? There was a time she thought maybe she had, but it paled in comparison to what she was witnessing and what she had a hard time putting into words.

She decided to stop quizzing herself as she smiled over a memory from the evening’s festivities. The whole group in a circle clapping hands and stomping their feet while the two Americans, Rusk and Zeke, arms hooked at the elbow, jumped and danced in tight circles as fast as they could, for absolutely no reason besides the pure fun of it.

From outside the circle she laughed involuntarily, but loud enough that someone looked back and motioned her in. She just stifled her laugh and shook her head, so they looked at her for a moment, then turned back to the dancing duo.

If they had asked me one more time, Immel thought...

A part of her did want to join in, but she had not danced since she was a child.

For the first time, she became acutely aware of a void. Something vital was missing. It had never actually been there and she had not known it by name, yet she missed it nonetheless.

Supply wagons coming up the road became common over the next few weeks. The ruts being cut into the ground had already begun to change the footpaths near her home into permanent lanes for wheeled traffic. That Wednesday, however, something large was being pulled by six horses on an oversized flatbed wagon. Immel looked on with curiosity as the behemoth wagon and team pushed their way up the hill toward the new barn. She could see that the load was covered with tan canvas tarpaulin.

As it moved closer she recognized Karl in the driver’s seat, coming home with a wily grin as if he had traded in their old buckboard for this enormous vehicle and was pleased with himself over the deal he’d made.

“Get my dinner on, Eemma,” he shouted. “I’m starved and road-weary, and draw me a bath, missy!”

Not the greeting she would have liked, but much what she expected. She ducked into the house to get things going as if compelled by some ancient code.

After she had a meal cooking and a bath drawn, she walked out to see what her husband had brought home. The load had been uncovered and brought down near the barn, where the men stood a bit removed from a huge contraption that looked like something an inventor might dream of before waking up and thinking better of it. A boiler, a great wheel and a separate wooden-bodied machine stood together, waiting to be made into one working thing. Karl was standing on the side of the engine, touching levers and strange-looking controls. He was as excited as Immel remembered her and her sister always being on Christmas morning.

Karl was talking a little too fast and not making complete sense, while Otto patiently tried to follow his questions and offer what guidance he could.

“What a saint Otto is,” she whispered.

She wondered why it felt so good to be standing here among the hired help and the horses while her life partner seemed consumed with his new toy. She felt curious about the machine but wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of asking. It didn’t matter. Everyone else was mulling every conceivable question and comment, so she would just listen... and stroke the neck of the lead horse that brought the thing, gazing into the depth of the largest and darkest eye she’d ever seen.

“You know something about it, don’t you, boy? More than all the men gawking at it, I’d say.”

William Rudolph the Third clanged a metal skillet against the side of his cooking wagon.

“Lunch is on!” said William, whom the Americans called Willy.

Immel had had opportunities to visit with and get to know him over the past several weeks. As the men moved toward the outdoor benches and tables they had built, she heard Karl shout, “What say we eat with the boys outdoors, Eemma? I’m starving to death!”

Immel narrowed her eyes and said, “Yes, let’s.”

She made her way to the house to take dinner off the stove.

Later, after lunch with “the boys,” which she preferred anyway, the banter over the machine died down. Two things had become clear. The first was that it was a new-fangled, factory-made threshing outfit whose engine would drive the machinery by a long belt, separating wheat from straw much faster than men could do it by hand. Karl spoke of it as if he had bought the harvest itself. The second was that no one present had a clue how to get it working safely.

“It’s much too elaborate for us to tinker around with, Mr. Hoffstedder,” said Otto. “We need an oiler. We need a man like Jonah Lucas.”

Bruno and Durante Pavoni laughed loudly and in unison at Otto’s proposition.

“Jonah?” Bruno asked incredulously. “And how are you going to find Jonah Lucas?”

The twins laughed again, and Durante fell off the log he was sitting on, laughing there on his back in the grass. They seemed to be enjoying a rare moment of agreement between them and trying to prolong it as long as possible. The whole group chuckled at the boys and the notion of finding Lucas before Karl lost patience with his purchase.

“Time is the problem. He can be found, but we need him soon. We don’t even know where he was working last,” Otto said.

“Why is this a problem?” Karl demanded. “A man can’t be that hard to find in this part of the country. Where is his home now?”

Bruno howled and fell in the grass, using his brother’s stomach as a pillow. They revived their hysterical laughing.

“What is it? Am I missing something?” Karl asked, peering over his thick spectacles, first at Otto, then at the Pavoni twins.

Otto put his head down a little.

“We know where he lives. He lives in his house. He’s there every night!” said Durante, hardly finding the breath to voice it.

Now most of the men were laughing loudly. Something was insanely funny about that statement, and whatever it was seemed hysterical to the workers, judging by the Pavoni twins, and less so to Otto. Karl’s face was tightening, but Immel’s curiosity was piqued.

“We’ll send for him,” said Karl defiantly. “Does he live near a town?”

“Sometimes,” said Otto, with a creeping smile as if finally allowing himself in on the joke.

Immel could see tears streaming down Durante’s red cheeks. He was laughing so hard he couldn’t catch his breath. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought he was choking on a fish bone.

There was some inside joke, and Karl didn’t like being on the outside of it one bit. Immel could enjoy the humor without knowing what it was yet. She reveled in the joy of the workers. This wordplay had turned a normal day of labor into a festival of sorts. She enjoyed the idea of this group’s camaraderie and wished to be included.

Otto shook his head and laughed with them. “Yes, yes,” he chuckled. “His house is the problem. It’s hard to find. He built it himself.”

“Why is this a problem?” Karl asked loudly and slammed his fist on the outdoor table.

He had lost patience with this game. Immel turned and walked toward the house to hide her smile. The idea of Karl not being in control gave his wife something of her own to laugh about.

“He put wheels on it!” screamed Bruno in a voice an octave higher than he looked to own. “He takes it with him, and you never know where he’s going or coming back!”

The entire group was laughing, and some were shaking their heads in agreement. Immel spun around and looked toward Bruno and then to Otto. She was searching their faces now to see if this was true or an elaborate joke. She decided they weren’t making this up.

Karl stared at Otto, who stopped laughing long enough to answer.

“It’s the truth. He takes his house with him wherever he travels.”

“Like a turtle!” howled Durante.

Karl was speechless.

Immel was suddenly fascinated by the idea of someone traveling with their home and possessions so that anywhere they went would immediately be home.