Excerpt of Promised to Me? by Robin Lee Hatcher

Prologue

April 1897

It was good that God made Jakob Hirsch the son of a
farmer, for he could never have been a sailor. Seasickness
had plagued him from the beginning of this voyage.

But at the moment he wasn’t feeling so bad. The steamship
was making its way into New York harbor. Today he would
feel the good, solid land of America beneath his feet.

Laughter reached his ears, and he glanced across the deck
toward three young women standing near the ship’s railing.
The unlikely group of friends—as different from one
another in appearance as night is from day—had first
captured his attention soon after the RMS Teutonic left
Southampton, England. Something about their nervous
excitement, their sense of adventure, their unspoken hopes
and dreams for the future—obvious to anyone who looked at
them—defined this trip for Jakob.

The English girl, an elegantly dressed, auburn-haired lady
of means, was pretty and shapely. The blonde from Sweden
was plain, unusually tall, and much too thin for Jakob’s
taste. The Irish girl with the wild mane of black hair—the
one with the wedding ring and slightly rounded belly—had
an earthy beauty and a spark in her eyes that must spell
trouble for her husband, poor fellow.

Not that Jakob had met the woman or her friends. Nor did
he want to make their acquaintance. Jakob had a girl of
his own back in Germany. Still, watching those three young
women had helped dispel some of the boredom of the
shipboard journey.

A gust of wind caught Jakob’s cap and nearly swept it
away. Just as he caught it, he heard someone
exclaim, “There it is!” He surged to his feet and rushed
to join the others at the rail as the Statue of Liberty
came into view.

He’d made it. He was here. America! Here he would make his
way, buy his own land, have a freedom and a hope that a
poor farmer, the youngest of five sons, couldn’t have in
his homeland. Here he would find his future.

“Amerika,” he whispered. “I have made it, Karola, mein
Liebling. Soon you will come, too. I promise.”

Ellis Island, May 1908

“Miss Breit?” The inspector looked at her, bored
indifference in his gaze. “Are you traveling alone?”

"Ja,” Karola replied.

“And who will be meeting you?”

This time, Karola answered in English. “I will not be met.
I am going by train to Idaho. I am to be married when I
arrive there to Mr. Jakob Hirsch. He is a farmer.”

“Do you have proof of those arrangements?”

“Ja.” She removed Jakob’s telegram and the train fare—in
American dollars—from her satchel, just as she’d been told
she would have to do.

The inspector looked at them, grunted, then marked
something on a paper and sent her to the next line.

Helga Wehler was already there. Like Karola, Helga was
traveling alone, coming to America to be married. Unlike
Karola, Helga was only seventeen and afraid of her own
shadow. The girl had attached herself to Karola soon after
they’d met in the crowded women’s quarters below deck.

Helga turned around, her eyes wide. “Are you afraid,
Fräulein Breit?”

Helga was referring to the next inspection, one every
immigrant dreaded above all others. Using a buttonhook, a
doctor turned up both eyelids, looking for trachoma. If
the disease of the eye was detected, the immigrant would
be detained on Ellis Island, then sent back to Europe on
the next available ship.

“Nein,” Karola answered. How could she be afraid now that
she was finally in America, now that she was finally about
to be married to Jakob Hirsch?

Eleven years. Eleven years since she’d promised to marry
Jakob. Eleven long years of waiting and wondering and
doubting and despairing. She had lost hope, of course,
with the passing of time, but now she was here. She was to
be Jakob’s wife at last.

After leaving for America, Jakob had written to Karola
regularly until the spring of 1901. Then the letters had
stopped. Never a reply, no matter how often she’d written
to him. By the end of the following year, believing that
something terrible must have happened to him—he had to be
dead—she’d stopped waiting to hear from him. Only pride
had kept her from allowing others to see her broken heart
and shattered dreams.

Then, last December, a letter had arrived from America. A
letter from Jakob.

She remembered standing in the parlor of her parent’s home
above her father’s bakery, holding that letter, her heart
racing, her emotions swinging wildly between hope and
bitterness, anger and joy, love and hate.

He owned a farm in a place called Idaho, Jakob had
written. The soil was rich, and there was a fine house and
outbuildings. If she was unmarried, would she consider
coming to America to be his wife?

As she’d read his letter, she’d pictured herself, seated
with her parents in their small church each Sunday or
working with her father in the bakery every day. She’d
felt the pitying stares of the young married women of her
village. Poor Karola. No one wants her now. Others, she’d
known, laughed behind her back. Serves her right for
thinking she’s better than everyone else. Going to
America. Ha!

Oh, she’d known what they whispered when she was out of
hearing.

In those first years after Jakob left, she had bragged to
everyone about how rich they were going to be in America,
about how much Jakob loved her, about how perfect their
new lives would be once they were together again. When
other men had tried to court her, she’d rejected them,
firmly and plainly—even at times, she supposed, cruelly.

Then Jakob’s letters had stopped arriving, and by the time
she’d stopped hoping, most of the suitable young men of
Steigerhausen had either married or moved away. The few
who remained wanted nothing to do with the baker’s
daughter. Who wanted a wife with a head full of impossible
dreams and a heart that still longed to see the world
beyond the borders of their small village? No one, it had
seemed. Not until Helmutt Schmidt. The very idea of being
married to him made her shudder.

And so, as Karola had read Jakob’s letter, asking if she
would come to America, she had made a quick decision: Ja,
she would. She would do anything to get away from the life
she’d been leading. Anything.

The first steps of her journey had begun four months
later . . .

American Falls, next stop," the conductor announced from
the rear of the coach.
Karola looked out the window, wondering when the station
would come into view. After several days of train travel,
she was weary, dusty, and rumpled-not unlike when she'd
arrived in America on the steamship the week before-but
this time her arrival meant the end of her journey. In a
short while, she would see Jakob. By tomorrow, she would
be Mrs. Jakob Hirsch, and she would live in a fine house
and have all the things she'd wanted. No one would ever
again have the right to whisper and titter about her.

She tried to picture Jakob but failed. She remembered
thinking him the most handsome of all the young men in
Steigerhausen. She'd known the other girls in their
village had been green with jealousy because he'd chosen
her. If she concentrated, she could almost hear his
laughter, a sound that she remembered had risen from deep
in his chest.

Was he still as handsome? Did he have that same laugh?
What was he like now? Would she recognize him when she saw
him? And, the most persistent questions of all: Why had he
stopped writing to her? And why, after so many years, had
he written to her again?

Her mother had told her to ask him those things and more
before she accepted his offer, but Karola hadn't listened.
She'd wanted out, and Jakob's letter had provided the way.
As far as she could tell, there was no good reason to
refuse his proposal of marriage. Jakob had always adored
her. He wouldn't have sent for her if he didn't adore her
still. Whatever the cause for his long silence, it was in
the past now. He would love her, she would for-give him
for abandoning her, and all would be well.

"Miss Breit?"

Karola gave a start, pulled from her thoughts.

"We're almost there," her elderly seatmate, Mrs. Rankin,
said. "You must be excited to see your fiancé."

Excited? She supposed so. Or was it trepidation that
caused Karola's pulse to race?

"My goodness," Mrs. Rankin continued, "I can only imagine
how overwhelming this must all seem to you. Did I tell you
I came west over the Oregon Trail when I was a bride of
twenty?"

Ja, she had. The woman had rarely stopped talking since
she'd boarded the train in Chicago and taken the seat
beside Karola.

"My, what a wilderness it was back then. The wide-open
prairies and the Indians and the forests and the rivers.
No trains, you know. Not like it is today. It was wild, I
tell you. The Wild West, just like that Buffalo Bill's
show called it. Well, maybe not exactly the same, but near
enough."

Karola looked out the window. What would she do if she saw
a wild Indian?

"Perhaps I mentioned this already, but my niece lived in
Shadow Creek for a time. She said it was a nice town,
although much too small for her liking. Quite the little
organizer, that girl. All involved in the suffrage
movement."

Karola turned to the older woman, unable to translate the
word suffrage from English to German.

Mrs. Rankin seemed to understand the question in her
eyes. "Suffrage. A woman's right to vote. That's why my
niece moved to Oregon. Idaho women have had the right to
vote for quite a spell, but Oregon hasn't seen the light
yet." She laughed. "Land sake, I can see that's buffaloed
you. Young woman, the West is chock-full of opportunities
if you aren't afraid to try."

The train began to slow, drawing Karola's gaze once more
to the window. Her heart pounded hard as she wiped the
palms of her hands against her skirt. This was it. The
time had come. Her journey was about over.

Amid hisses and creaks-sounds she had heard countless
times as she crossed America-the train rolled to a stop.

"American Falls," the conductor called.

Karola stood and reached for her two battered suitcases.

"I've enjoyed talking with you, my dear," Mrs. Rankin
said. "I wish you and your intended every happiness."

"Danke," Karola replied. Then with a suitcase clutched in
each hand and her satchel pressed against her ribs beneath
her right arm, she made her way toward the exit.

She paused before stepping from the train, scanning the
platform. And there he was. She would have recognized him
even if he hadn't been the only person waiting for
passengers to disembark. He was, indeed, as handsome as
ever. Not that he hadn't changed. He had.