As the episode had unfolded every partygoer had adjourned to the fence. This afforded one and all a clear view of the proceedings. Upon seeing physical horse manure flying out of the state legislator’s mouth instead of his usual verbal variety, the spectators broke down into uninhibited laughter, finger pointing, and knee slapping. A few imitated him. The mocking enflamed the legislator even more than the recent argument had. Standing to his feet, the object of their derision pulled his glove from his pocket and slapped the mayor.
“I demand satisfaction!” He spoke the words of one seeking a duel.
The jeering crowd grew silent. The mayor was a marksman with any firearm; his opponent had never been able to even wound any of the wildlife at which he had aimed; however he was a master swordsman. The mayor knew nothing of handling blades except for his table knife. Because the one challenged could pick the weapons to be used for the duel, the mayor at last responded with a compromise that he deemed as fair.
“I choose fists.”
It was the opponent’s turn to laugh in a callous attempt to shift the ridicule from him to the mayor. “Fists? My good man this is to be a duel to the death. Have your second contact me after you have overcome your cowardliness and are able to decide exactly how you are to die.” His pride only momentarily restored, the offended lawmaker strode to his buggy and yelled at Thomas. “You there. Fetch my filly. She’s the one standing next to the horse that bit the mayor. Instead of biting his cheek it should’ve bitten his tongue off.”
Thomas snapped to attention and obeyed. After retrieving and hitching up the horse he turned around swiftly to help conceal his suppressed laughter as the legislator and his wife rode away. Now that the main event of the party had ended the dance proved to be anticlimactic. The next day tongues wagged in every church attended by the partygoers. The more adventuresome and speculative placed bets on the upcoming challenge to the death.
The mayor chose the smallest bore pistol that he was certain would only wound his opponent’s arm that would be holding an identical weapon at the duel. By the time his second arrived at the opposing duelist’s home with news of the choice of firearm to be used, the microorganisms transmitted into the state legislator from the horse crap were already rapidly multiplying throughout his body. The viruses and bacteria attacked him without mercy. The parasites that he had ingested did the same. All of them worked to reduce the once potential candidate for the U.S. Congress to a wasted shell of what he once was. Unable to even summon enough strength or clear vision to aim his weapon on the day of the duel a week later, he sat motionless in the chair brought along to support him. In response the mayor fired a single round six feet above his head.
Still finding no satisfaction, the one who remained seated demanded that his second stand in for him. Unwilling to die or be wounded because of another’s foolish pride, the second shook his head and walked away. The duel ended many friendships. As the wretch wasted away he made no peace with God, friends, or his rivals. Instead he cursed them all until his dying breath.
After the sorry affair was over Thomas wondered if he would someday face a similar duel from an avenger who had hunted him down on behalf of the one he had killed. He thought it would be a brother or maybe an uncle of the deceased who finally came calling.
8
Settling in at the orchard was quite an adjustment for its new occupants. They spent their days harvesting, pruning, and checking the trees. Any dead ones were chopped down and the wood stored in the barn to dry for later use in the fireplace. A new tree was planted in its place; Jeremiah had left behind many seedlings from which to choose. Recreation consisted of hunting, fishing, knitting, reading, and visiting nearby Pittsfield’s post office, tavern, citizens, and stores. Meals consisted of apples, venison, fish, wildfowl, and whatever could be made from flour, walnuts, and more apples. They were only able to use part of the remaining crop after Jeremiah and Emma took away the first half of the apples. Something about the remaining fruit seemed odd to Arnold.
“It looks like they took all the big juicy apples and left the small ones for us.” He observed.
“Yah. Jeremiah said these need time for get bigger.”
Luckily, there already was enough seasoned firewood stored in the barn to get them through the first winter. After the harvest the men spent their time making cider. Meanwhile Andrea used every imaginable recipe she could recall or invent that called for apples – pies, cakes, jams, sauce, tarts, cookies, muffins, breads, and other items that she could not even name because she was certain that she had concocted them for the first time ever. The following spring and summer was spent establishing markets for her baked goods and the cider.
Working with material that had been discarded by the nearest brewery, Rudolph had built a rudimentary distillery. It was not until the fourth year at the orchard that he was confident that he at last had produced a brandy worthy of sale. His first attempts had produced a strange liquid that tasted more like apple beer than brandy. It was not until he had traveled with Arnold to Boston and spoken with a master whiskey maker that he had learned how to mix the right ingredients and process them correctly.
“Making brandy is trickier than beer.” He confided to Arnold. “But I think this is the best batch yet. Here, taste a cup.”
Arnold sipped it and closed his eyes. “Well, I prefers rum but that’s leftover from me days of sailing the seas. The landlubbers will like this brandy good enough to be buying it, boy. Now we be bringing home good money. You notice it no longer has that rusty taste it used to?”
“Yah. I think the used parts that the whiskey maker in Boston gave us are better than the old parts I first used.”
That fall Arnold and Rudolph worked 12 to 15-hour days, six days a week as they harvested the apples and converted them to cider and brandy. Arnold wanted to supply as much as possible for the neighbors’ upcoming Christmas and New Year’s celebrations.
“It seems that’s when these New England yanks be drinking the most,” he said. “The rest of the year they be clutching their money pretty tightly.”
“It is different in Bavaria. We like to drink the most for Oktoberfest.”
The two kept busy with their work and were tired when not toiling so neither one noticed the change in Andrea. The previous autumns she had worked as many hours as they. Now she seemed to spend as much time lounging in her favorite rocking chair as she did baking. This continued until December when Arnold realized that she only had made half as many baked goods as the previous Christmas season.
“You feeling okay, dear?” He asked her three weeks before Christmas Eve.
She stared blankly. “Of course.”
By January Andrea worsened. Now she was unable to sleep. By February she began wandering off into the woods and getting lost. Concerned neighbors always returned her. When she started cursing and yelling at anyone who came within her sight, Arnold dragged her to the doctor. After examining her, the doctor sent her to another room to sit with Rudolph.
“What is it?” Arnold pleaded.
“Some sort of problem with her mind. You said she forgets who you and Rudolph are sometimes. Well she doesn’t remember me either. I’m afraid her mind is going.”
“But…”
“I’m sorry. Treating those with such problems is outside my training and knowledge. The medical profession is beginning to help a few whose mind gives out. There’s still too much we don’t know yet. It’s the cases like this that make me feel helpless.”
“What can I do? Rudolph and me have to take turns watching her all the time.”
“There’s really no telling when she might swing to the other extreme.”
“What?”
“A doctor friend of mine works at a hospital for the insane in Boston. He told me patients behave like Andrea is now for days or weeks at a time and then they calm down, say nothing, and spend most of their time sleeping. The bad cases try to kill themselves o
r someone else.”
Arnold’s face lost its color.
“I’m sorry. I have no medicine except laudanum to calm her down so she won’t wander off as much. You are going to have to think of placing her in a hospital. The best such place I’ve seen is in Boston. I know it’s hard. Believe me it’s hard for me as well. The worst part of being a doctor is when you can’t help cure a patient.”
Once home Rudolph waited to speak until after the laudanum had placed Andrea into a deep sleep. “I know I am only your servant but I am afraid what happens to Andrea.”
Arnold sighed as he puffed on his pipe. “Well two of our daughters are still in Boston. I guess at least they could take turns with me visiting Andrea at the hospital until she gets better and comes home again.”
Rudolph’s head sagged. Back in Germany all those whom he had heard of with similar problems never came home once they entered a place to care for them. He doubted that it would be any different in America for poor souls whose minds were giving out bit-by-bit, memory-by-memory, until there was no grasp of reality at all.
“I could stay and run the orchard. Maybe once I find Thomas he will want to return here and help me. Between the two of us we could keep it going for you and Andrea.”
Arnold gagged on the smoke from his pipe. “But I thought you wanted to get revenge on Thomas for what he