Idyllic

A week later Elsa asked J.D. a question to which he did not know the answer. The group had already made it a habit to linger at the table after their late supper to discuss anything they needed to know, or had discovered, about the Jenkins property.

"J.D., did your uncle ever name this place?" she asked.

"A name?" he answered, puzzled.

"You know, like Tara, or Biltmore, or something like that," Elsa said.

"Be a long time before this place ever gets to be something like what they were!" Brian said dryly. He and Sam looked at each other. No matter how tired they were, they still never lost their sense of sarcasm.

But J.D. took Elsa's question seriously. "You know, I don't think so. I don't remember hearing anything like that, not that my mother or Corny ever mentioned."

"Well, then, we'll have to come up with something," Judith said brightly.

"Corny's Corners," Fred said. It was the first time he'd spoken all evening.

"No, no, no," Elsa said. "It has to be something appropriate. And it'll have to be something that just...happens."

"You mean, think it up out of the blue?" Luther asked.

"Yes, that's it!" she told him. "One day, one of us will hear or see something...or remember something...and we'll realize that that's what we should name the place."

It was so pleasant to wake up to the sound of birds rather than hearing people talking or yelling outside! It was wonderful to be able to close a door and have some privacy! It was nice not having to wait in line forever to use the commode. Luther even found a feral female very pregnant cat living in the barn, and worried about her safety. He had found a replacement for his beloved Buddha.

And most of all, it felt good to be living a real home again.

But that didn't mean their lives were easy. In fact, they were even more difficult than before. Sam's fingers were constantly tender from his hammer hitting them instead of their intended nail heads. J.D., the former rich kid, had been "volunteered" for chamber pot duty every morning, emptying the pots' contents into the outhouse. The entire group's attempts at foraging into nearby abandoned homesteads had proved fruitless--almost nothing of any real use could be found in them. There was mud everywhere, and all of them were constantly chilly to the point they could see their breath when they got up in the morning. The living room fireplace smoked. The wood stove was either too hot or too cold and was a challenge to cook on, and Laura's and Elsa's first attempt at baking something in the oven turned out to be rock hard and blackened to its core. They discovered the barn wasn't safe to step into--its floor was just as rotten as the roof.

On the other hand, they were all sleeping better than they had since before the storms. Before the new ice age, they would have complained their beds were lumpy or hard, but now the mattresses seemed deep and comfy. There was no shortage of clean water, and the women especially were overjoyed when they were able to take turns heating water, dump it into the main floor bathroom's tub, and actually sit and soak in the tub. One item they had brought back from a neighbor's home was an ancient bottle of Mr. Bubble, and the adults enjoyed using it more than the children did! The overpowering smells and sounds from the refugee camps were far away and quickly forgotten. Despite the hardships, within a few days all 13 of them felt healthier than they had in months.

"It seems idyllic living here," Elsa mused a week after they had moved in. They had already developed a habit of gathering in the living room in front of the fireplace in the evening, just before going to bed. J.D. and Sam had quickly formulated a plan for the short-wave radio--one night J.D. would call Lawton just to check in; the other night Sam or Laura would contact his parents.

"What does 'idyllic' mean?" Peter asked.

"A pleasant, quiet, romantic life in the country, with no worries about the outside world," Elsa answered.

"It won't last, you know," J.D. reminded her.

She wrinkled her nose at him and complained, "Oh, you had to go and ruin the moment for everyone! I just meant that it's good to be here."

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "You're right."

"We are better off here," Sam agreed, but he thought to himself...I think.

A few minutes later they all headed for bed. Jeremy and Elsa talked quietly in their room, although they couldn't see much because she had only one candle flickering on the table. Jeremy got a box from under the bed.

"I thought you unpacked everything earlier!" Elsa said, surprised to see the carton. "Do I get to see what's in it?"

Jeremy looked a little sheepish. "You ought to know what's in here--I brought it with me from New York! I kind of hid it once we got to Nuevo Laredo, because I was afraid someone would steal it. I guess you forgot about it once we got separated at camp. I've been protecting it ever since."

Elsa's eyes widened and she gasped a little. "You brought," she sputtered, "the Gutenberg Bible?"

"I was so afraid no one would ever see it again if I left it at the library, but once we were in Mexico I was afraid I'd be arrested for keeping valuable stolen property, or worse, that someone who didn't know what it was would take it and burn it for fuel. I had to bring it with me.

"Elsa, I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier," Jeremy apologized. "After we started dating I had more important things I wanted to tell you about!"

"That's okay," she smiled, a little flirtatiously. "But," she said, returning her voice to a serious tone, "I would like the others to know about this. Who knows? Judith might like to look through it again."

The next night the couple brought in their prize possession to the living room gathering. Judith immediately recognized it and she blinked back tears as she held it. "I thought this was gone forever," she whispered. "Thank you for taking care of it."

Peter, Fred and Maria did not knowknow whatthe book was that Jeremy held, since they had not been in the library. Peter said, "I can't read it," as Elsa showed him some of the fragile pages.

"It's in German," Elsa explained. "It was printed by a man named Johannes Gutenberg, which is why it is called the Gutenberg Bible. His books were the first books ever printed on a printing press. Laura, I'm curious--can you read German?"

"A little," she started to say, but was interrupted by Peter.

"Johannes Gutenberg is a funny name," he said.

"It's just an old-fashioned German name," Laura explained. "'Johannes' is like our name 'John,' and 'Gutenberg' means, let me think..it translates to 'good mountain'...That's it!" she squealed.

"What's 'it'?" her husband Sam asked, raising his eyebrows.

J.D. did a double take, comprehending Laura's excitement. "It's what we'll call this place," he said. Laura nodded eagerly. "It IS a valley surrounded by hills, and well, like the book, it is a 'first', a place to start over."

"Seems a little melodramatic to me," Brian answered. "But it's your property, so you can call it what you want!