Blue Shadows Farm: A Novel

5. Sophia—May 1866

27 May 1866 Link Lake, Wisconsin Why are you sneaking around? I thought you were a bear. You scared the bejeebers out of me,” Silas Starkweather said as he held up his broadax, prepared to defend himself. He’d been using the wide-bladed ax to square the sides of a pine log that he would use for his cabin. Silas had cut the logs in the pine woodlot on the west side of his newly acquired 160 acres. Having been government land before he homesteaded it, it had been set foot on by no white man, except for the surveyors who had plotted the township in the early 1850s. He didn’t give this bit of history any thought as he focused on the job at hand. The girl smiled and slipped easily off the side of the horse that she was riding bareback. She wore a thin cotton dress and no shoes. At age sixteen, she had clearly left behind her childhood appearance and was fast becoming an attractive young lady. Though it was only May, her face, arms, and legs were as tan as the horse’s leather bridle. “Who are you? Where’d you come from?” Silas said gruffly. He did not want to be interrupted from his work. The sooner he 5 Sophia completed his cabin, the sooner he could begin plowing his new land. Having never been plowed before, he knew breaking the ground would be a challenge. She put her hands on her hips and looked the young man square in the face. “I am not a bear. I am Sophia,” the girl said. She had long arms and legs and curly blonde hair. “Sophia who?” Silas asked gruffly. “I am Sophia Reinert,” she said. Her blonde curls bounced when she talked. “I am daughter of Volfgang Reinert.” “Wolfgang’s sure a funny name,” Silas said. A hint of a smile snuck out from under his sagging brown mustache. He pulled off his faded felt hat and swabbed a handkerchief over his sweaty forehead. It was a warm, sunny, spring day, a promise of the summer to come. The big bluestem and the little bluestem grass had just begun to green up. The leaves emerging on the oak trees were about the size of a squirrel’s ear, light green and crinkled. “Volfgang is not funny. Volfgang is German. We German people are in this country five years already.” “German, huh? You speak English pretty good.” “Learn it at school. Five years already I go to school. Link Lake School. Good place to learn. Why you got a white streak of hair down the middle of your head?” Sophia asked, as she touched her hand to her head. “Oh, that. Got that in the war.” “You fight in the war?” “Yeah, I did. Got myself shot in the head, too. Stop asking questions . I’ve got work to do.” “I’ll bet it hurt.” “Hurt like the blazes.” Sophia kept staring at Silas’s head as he talked. 28 Sophia—May 1866 29 Sophia—May 1866 “How old are you, Sophia? Don’t you have work to do at home?” Silas asked. “I am sixteen years. How old are you?” Sophia smiled when she asked. “I’m twenty-one,” said Silas. “Lot older than you. That’s all you need to know.” “Not so much older. You are age of my brother.” “What’s his name?” “Papa call him Fritz, I call him Fritzy.” “What does Fritz do?” “He farms with Papa. I have another brother, Emil. He’s seventeen . And little sister, Anna, too. She’s only four.” “You have a big family. Are there lots of people around here? I came here to be alone.” “Not a big family. Other families are bigger. Some families have six, seven kids. Even more.” “Where’d you say you lived?” Silas asked. He put his hat back on his head and sat down on the pine log he was chopping, trying to think of a way of getting rid of this nosy girl. He didn’t want a lot of people poking around his place. “We live just over there. Over that hill. We are your neighbors.” Sophia pointed toward the south. “Are you a farmer?” “I plan on doing a little farming,” Silas said. “But first I’ve got to build this cabin, and a shelter for my yoke...