Elm Creek Quilts [07] The Sugar Camp Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini

of courage to swim across Elm Creek three miles upstream at a point called Widow’s Pining, where it was nearly twice as wide and far more treacherous, with dangerous currents, sharp rocks, and unexpected undertows. Dorothea considered it a test of great foolishness. It was difficult enough for someone who knew Elm Creek well to manage a boat that far east of the ford, much less swim.
    She and her brother had discovered that for themselves not long after the waters had claimed Thrift Farm. It had been Dorothea’s idea to take the rowboat to see if they could find the place where their house had once stood. They thought they spied the foundation through the cloudy waters, but the swift current overturned their boat. They clung to it as they were swept downstream, and only providence in the form of a log that snagged the boat before they lost their grasp spared their lives. Uncle Jacob had wanted to switch them when they returned home, exhausted, cold, and bedraggled, but their mother had intervened. She said they had learned their lesson and that the river had already beaten them harder than any man could. Lorena was right. Jonathan had feared the water ever since that day, and he would only wade in the creek up to his ankles. If obliged to cross on the ferry, he lay down in the back of the wagon, feigning lazy indifference as he fixed his gaze on the sky rather than look at the water, clinging to a book or his hat with white-knuckled hands.
    Dorothea, who had not acquired his wariness, never shamed her brother by trying to cajole him out of his fears. She had decided, after their adventure was over, that the river had twice endangered them and had twice left them unscathed. If Elm Creek intended to claim their lives, it would have done so already. Knowing her conclusion was irrational, she confided it to no one, but wished her brother shared her quiet certainty that the creek would not harm them.
    The ferry reached the opposite bank, and before long the travelers were back on dry land aboard the wagon. Dorothea hoped Uncle Jacob would drive through town on the chance she might encounter some of her friends, but as she expected he took the longer route south past the wood and limestone buildings, then turned west to rejoin the road along Elm Creek. Uncle Jacob usually preferred direct routes, but he would go out of his way to avoid unwanted conversation.
    Not far south of town, Elm Creek diverted from the roadside as it curved around an oxbow to the west, and the road continued past several well-tended farms. Dorothea knew the families—the Shropshires, the Craigmiles—and waved to acquaintances as they rode past. The third and largest farm was Two Bears Farm, which until recently Dorothea had always thought of as the Carter farm. She recalled the two youngest children, girls she had taught at the Creek’s Crossing school, and wondered how the family had received the news that they were to be evicted. It was not uncommon for an eastern family to own land in the region and to allow others to live upon it in exchange for improving the land and raising crops, but in the Elm Creek Valley, most tenants eventually bought out their distant landlords. The Carters probably had assumed they would one day, too. Perhaps, with that possibility in mind, they had saved enough money to give them a good start somewhere else. Dorothea hoped so.
    She saw several figures working in the fields with horse and plow, but did not wave in case Mr. Nelson was among them. Far likelier he was sitting inside an oak-paneled study in the white house on the hill, reading a book or writing a letter home, begging to be released from his exile to the hinterlands.
    “Mr. Nelson has one hundred sixty acres,” remarked Lorena. “He does not look to have even half of them harvested yet. Does he expect the oats and rye to wait until he has time to attend to them?”
    “He started late,” said Uncle Jacob. “A better question would be why the Carters did not