CHAPTER SEVEN H: DINAH’S THURSDAY
Dinah was stirring a copper pot in the washhouse when Elias entered through the side door.
Steam clouded the windows, and the floor was slick beneath his boots.
She did not turn until he had shut the door behind him.
“I told the cook I wanted no more visitors tonight,” she said.
“I am not here for a clean shirt,” Elias answered.
Dinah glanced over her shoulder.
“That is fortunate, because you would not get one.”
Elias explained the damaged cart and the need to take his mother beyond the estate before morning.
Dinah kept stirring while he spoke.
When he finished, she set the wooden paddle against the wall.
“Who else knows?” she asked.
“Martha, Jonah, and Ruth.”
“And your mother?”
“She knows we are leaving, but she does not know the wagon has been damaged.”
Dinah folded her hands in front of her apron.
“You have already made a mistake by keeping that from her.”
Elias lowered his gaze.
“I wanted to spare her another worry.”
“She has lived with worry longer than you have been alive,” Dinah said.
“You cannot protect her by making decisions she does not know you have made.”
He accepted the rebuke because he knew it was deserved.
“Will you help us?” he asked.
Dinah looked toward the windows.
“The laundry wagon leaves at first light, and the driver is my nephew.”
“Does he know?”
“He knows enough to understand when I ask him to make a stop.”
“Will he be willing?”
“That depends on what you expect him to risk.”
Elias told her about Hannah and the old kiln.
He did not speak as though the discovery of one missing child made the danger to every other family less urgent.
Dinah listened without interruption until he mentioned Ralston’s return.
Then she took a stool and sat down.
“Ralston once made my nephew drive a wagon through the night,” she said.
“The wagon returned empty, and my nephew has never spoken about the people who were inside it.”
Elias waited.
Dinah rubbed her thumb against the rough edge of her apron.
“He was seventeen,” she continued.
“Ralston told him that refusing would send his younger brother to the fields in his place.”
“What happened to the people?” Elias asked.
“He does not know.”
Dinah stood and reached for the paddle again.
“If you ask him to drive tonight, you will be asking him to return to the worst night of his life.
”
Elias considered the request he had intended to make.
“Then I will ask him myself, and I will accept his answer.”
Dinah nodded.
“His name is Isaac.”
“I know Isaac.”
“You know the man who drives the laundry wagon,” Dinah said.
“You do not know everything he has survived.”
The door opened, and a young man stepped inside with a bundle of wet sheets.
Isaac stopped when he saw Elias.
Dinah took the bundle from him and placed it on the table.
“Elias needs a driver,” she said.
Isaac looked at Elias for a long moment.
“Where?”
“Beyond the north road,
” Elias replied.
“My mother needs to reach Martha’s family.”
“Tonight?”
“Before the morning inspection.”
Isaac glanced at his aunt.
“I cannot take the laundry wagon out of the yard without the stable keeper seeing.”
“You do not have to,” Dinah said.
“You are already taking it to the village tomorrow.”
Isaac understood her meaning and shook his head.
“The stable keeper counts the baskets.”
“Then the baskets must still be there,” Dinah replied.
“The people can ride beneath the canvas only if there is room.”
Isaac looked toward Elias.
“I will not drive anyone inside a closed wagon again.”
Elias felt the force of the statement without knowing every detail behind it.
“Then we will not ask you to,” he said.
“My mother can sit beside you, and I can walk behind.”
“The stable keeper will see her.”
“He sees her carrying laundry every week,” Dinah said.
“She has helped me sort linen since the spring.”
Elias looked at her in surprise.
“You never told me.”
“Your mother has a life when you are not watching,” Dinah answered.
Isaac crossed to the window and studied the dark yard.
“If the stable keeper asks where she is going, I will say she is helping unload.”
“And if he orders you to turn back?” Elias asked.
Isaac did not answer at once.
“Then I will decide what to do when he asks,” he said.
“I will not promise you a courage I have not yet had to find.”
Elias reached out his hand.
Isaac shook it once, firmly.
“Meet me before the first bell,” Isaac said.
“Bring only what you can carry openly.”
Dinah returned to the copper pot, but her eyes were wet when she looked at the two young men.
“And tell your mother the truth about the wheel,” she added.
