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Jenny of L'Anse Bay (Great Lakes Romances) (Volume 11)

By Donna Winters

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Chapter 1



June 1867

The dust rose in thick whorls—choking, stifling dust. Through the gray haze, Jennifer Crawford could barely make out the ample figure of Grandma Jen, who was wielding her carpet-beater with a vengeance.
“That’s right, dearie, whack away! We’ll rout the dirt this very day!”
But the child standing behind her was lost in the pungent cloud that sent her into a spasm of coughing—
Jennifer stirred, slowly coming to full consciousness. So it had been a dream, after all. Her beloved Grandma Jen was dead, and that five-year-old child who had helped with the cleaning had been her own self twelve years ago.
She took another moment to gain her bearings. This was not Clifton, the bawdy copper mining town of her childhood, but Eagle River, on the sandy harbor facing Lake Superior. She was in her own bedroom in the apartment above his general merchandise business.
She struggled up in bed, unable to shed the uneasy sensation that something was wrong. Chimes rang out from the mantel clock in the parlor. One…two…three…twelve in all. Midnight. But the room was too bright for that late hour. Was there a full moon tonight?
Odd. What could have disturbed her sleep? There was no sound aside from the steady ticking of the clock and her parents’ even breathing in the room across the hall. Her eyes stung as if irritated from the dust in her dream and she rubbed them with her knuckles.
The curtain fluttered in a sudden breeze, and she caught an acrid odor drifting through the half-open window. She crawled out of bed and drew aside the filmy lace.
To the west the sky glowed red.
Fire! And that awful smell was smoke.
Panic tore through her.
Huge dark clouds billowed along the street, carrying live sparks and bits of ash. They drifted everywhere, some burning themselves out, some smoldering, ready to ignite.
She breathed in a shallow gasp of fright. Most of Eagle River was built of wood. The houses, the public buildings, the places of business, the second-floor apartment in which she stood and her parents’ store below. The entire town was in danger of being engulfed in a fiery inferno!
On bare feet Jennifer raced across the hall to her parents’ room. They were deep in sleep and burrowed away from her insistent hands.
“Mama! Papa! Fire! We must get out!
“Ummm . . . Not now, Jennifer . . . What’s that you say? Fire?” Papa pulled himself to a sitting position, shaking off sleep.
“Hurry!”
Clad in only a thin nightgown, Jennifer returned to her room. She grabbed a brown serge work dress and pulled it on, skipping stockings and petticoats, then fumbled for her shoes.
While she worked her bare feet into the shoes, she kept her eye on the open window. A spark drifted inside like a flaming butterfly, igniting the delicate white lace of her curtain. She ran to the window and slammed it shut, then grabbed a quilt, throwing it against the curtain to squelch the flame. But the tongues of fire had already licked up beyond her reach. She threw the quilt aside and turned to her dresser, yanking open the drawer and grabbing a handful of handkerchiefs, which she threw into the wash basin.
As she scooped up the dripping cloths, pandemonium broke out on the streets below. Shouts and the incessant clanging of the fire bell propelled her across the hall to her parents’ room. In the haze of smoke that filled the room, her mother grappled with her wrapper. Her father buttoned his trousers. Both were coughing and choking.
“Cover your nose and mouth.” She pushed the wet cloths to their faces.
Her mother gasped. “I can’t breathe . . . can’t see. . . .”
Jennifer grabbed her by the hand. “Hold onto me. Papa, are you all right?”
“I…I be all right,” he managed between fits of coughing.
“Hold on to Mama and follow me!”
Jennifer’s eyes stung. Tears ran down her cheeks and her lungs burned. Groping along, she led her parents through the hall to the stairway, then down the sixteen steps to the first floor. The three of them stumbled out the back door, falling in a heap on the sand in the alley.
The sky was a lurid, billowing red. A strong gust of wind whipped erratically between the buildings, driving sparks before it. Cinders from Crawford’s General Store took flight, settling on the building next door.
Nightmare. Jennifer grew numb with shock.
A bucket brigade formed, and she dragged herself to her feet and found a place in line.
“I’ll be back,” Papa called, “just as soon as your mother be safe.”
Jennifer watched as the fire consumed Papa’s store, their home, everything they owned but the clothes they were wearing.
Why, Lord, why? She hurled her question at the heavens as a spark of anger smoldered into her heart.

o0o

Hot, soot-covered, and weary, Jennifer concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. The Woodworths’ home, where her mother was waiting, was only a block away, but it seemed more like a mile. Soon, the sun would break over the horizon to rise on an Eagle River now in ruins—twelve homes and businesses, gone.
Trudging beside Papa, Jennifer looked up into his face. Dark smudges across his cheeks and forehead bore testimony to his valiant struggle to save their earthly belongings, but his blue eyes were clear and undefeated.
“What are we going to do now, Papa?”
“The Lord will show us. He’ll provide, I reckon.” Though his voice was strained with fatigue, there was no hint of resentment. It seemed he had lost no confidence in his God.
How do you know he’ll provide? He’s just given us a taste of hell. Do you think now he’ll show us a glimpse of heaven? Jennifer dared not give voice to the bitterness that reigned within.

o0o

Three days later Jennifer stood on the shore of Lake Superior. While crying gulls soared free over the lake, she felt imprisoned by her bubbling, churning emotions. Bitterness over her loss had not diminished with time. On the contrary, it boiled hotter than ever.
From force of habit, she reached for the silver locket which usually hung around her neck, but it was gone, melted in the heat of the blaze. A gift from her Grandma Jen, it had been her most cherished possession, a reminder of the Cornish lady who had brightened the first five years of her childhood.
She would always remember the days when her mother and grandmother had run the boarding house in Clifton. Grandma Jen had brought a measure of Christianity into the lives of the tough breed of miners who came as emigrants from Cornwall without family, and often without knowledge of or dedication to Christ.
Were it not for her, many more of the men would have sought refuge in the saloons and gambling halls.
Now, the locket—the only tangible reminder of her grand¬mother—was gone, and fresh grief welled within.
There had been talk after the fire, accusations of arson. Though there were no witnesses, everyone believed William Jenkins had set the blaze. He had threatened the magistrate the day before the fire, and had been jailed when unable to prove his whereabouts on the night Eagle River burned. Since then, he had been released for lack of evidence and had fled the area. No one in town expected to see him again.
Still, it was a malicious, vengeful act that had stripped Jennifer of her precious memento—of practically everything she and her parents had owned. With the loss of the store and home, she and her folks had taken up lodging with Brother and Sister Woodworth, former missionaries to L’Anse, on the southernmost area of Keweenaw Bay. Their small frame house was wholly inadequate for five adults. Even so, she must repress any show of dissatisfaction with the cramped quarters, or appear terribly ungrateful.
Her gaze shifted from the gulls to the white sand on the beach. There played an elongated shadow of shawl fringe, riffled by breezy fingers. Even this reminded her of the licking flames she had fought in vain.
Turning away from the lake, she walked toward the white clapboard house, purposely approaching from the rear so as to avoid passing the rubble she had once considered home. Quietly, she entered the back hall.
“It will be good to see the Bentleys again,” Sister Woodworth was saying as she prepared breakfast. “It’s been three years now since they took over our old mission post at L’Anse, and I expect they could use a bit of encouragement by this time. Of course, we’ll be eager to see our Indian friends again, too.” She paused, a wooden spoon poised over her pancake batter. “Though the chief and his son accepted Christ while we were there, many others remained firmly rooted in their heathen ways.”
As Sister Woodworth described the Ojibway village, a half¬-formed idea began to take shape in Jennifer’s mind. She stepped inside the kitchen, drawn by the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and fried bacon.
Papa pulled out the chair beside him. “Good morning, Jennifer. Come, sit ’ee down.” He offered his cheek for her kiss.
Jennifer obliged, then took the chair he held for her. “Good morning, Papa, Mama. Brother and Sister Woodworth.” Her words came out stiff and perfunctory.
Sister Woodworth, a white apron draped around her ample girth, carried a platter of fluffy flapjacks and thick slices of bacon from the iron cooking stove to the oblong pine table, while Mama filled coffee cups.
Leveling her gaze on the reverend’s wife, Jennifer drew in a deep breath and put an idea into words. “I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation as I came in just a moment ago. May I ask how long you plan to stay at L’Anse?”
The woman’s lips twitched in a semi-smile, as if she were not quite sure where Jennifer’s question was leading. “About two weeks, dear.”
Two weeks. Just right for a change of scenery. “Would you and Brother Woodworth mind having a traveling companion?”
Her mother gasped as she returned the coffeepot to the back burner with a clang. Jennifer had spoken brashly, inviting herself along, but this seemed the perfect solution to her growing restlessness. Her help wouldn’t be needed in the store any longer, and having heard the Woodworths discussing L’Anse, her curiosity was piqued.

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