Editor’s Note: This is an ongoing series which runs each Thursday morning titled the Richland Chronicles, by author Paul Lintern. It is set in the 1860s and tells the story of Richland County through the eyes of young people. The books are available from Lintern for $25 a set, tax and shipping included. Each book is about 120 pages written for intermediate readers (4th grade) with local illustrations. Volume I is Amelia Changes Her Tune. Volume II is Isaac and Wolf Paw Find Their Home. Volume III is Autumn Keeps Her Secret. Volume IV is Mr. Gamble Starts a School. Volume V is Jacob Blows his Horn. Volume VI is Cassie Fights the War.
“Leeny, you’ve got to do something about that goat!” Jacob was grumbling again, from the hall outside her bedroom door.
“That crazy goat ate through his rope again and was chomping the new tomato shoots in Mrs. McLaughlin’s garden next door! I grabbed him and apologized to her, but that goat bit me when I dragged him back to the carriage house.
“Maggie’s not very happy, either.”
Jacob didn’t like animals, and he didn’t try to hide it. At 14, he knew how to do everything you had to do for horses, but that didn’t mean he liked them. And when Emilene came about a year ago, she brought her pet goat, Winny.
Mrs. Zimmerman had insisted she be allowed, given all she’d been through. Emilene was an only child, born to a German couple who had moved to Mansfield a couple years before she was born.
Her grandparents and every other relative still lived in Europe, and her parents never told her why they had come to Ohio, only that this was a place of great opportunity and they wanted her to have a good life.
That good life crumbled after Emilene’s father signed up for the Army when she was six, and never came home. He was buried on a battlefield in Mississippi in 1863.
Her mother became sick soon after and died of pneumonia that winter.
Emilene had been moved around to families at the Lutheran Church, including the Zimmermans, while her mother was sick. When her mother died, she suddenly found herself a daughter of the Zimmermans. She didn’t remember asking or even being consulted about it.
They were nice to her; she was given a room with Cassie, who was 13 at the time, and allowed to bring most everything that was familiar — her clothes, of course, and doll and tea set and bed and old quilt, plus father’s violin and mother’s washbowl and pitcher. And the goat.
Her father had bought the goat as a companion for his little girl, as he headed off to war. Winny, named by her father after the Union Commander, Winfield Scott, had all the attention he could want from an adoring Emilene.
When Emilene was being moved from household to household, Winny went right along with her. Emilene didn’t know that was one reason she had been in so many homes.
When she landed at the Zimmerman house, they had to admit there was room for Winny in the carriage house, and that a little girl that had been through so much needed to have something that was truly hers, even if it had to be a goat. All the Zimmermans tried hard to hide the fact that there were no goat lovers in their house, except their new little Emilene.
But Emilene could tell.
I suppose they feel the same way about me, too, she thought.
She thought that a lot, even though there was not a lot of evidence to support that.
I’m just a bother to them all. Jacob hates my goat. Cassie has to give up her room. Nate doesn’t have time for little kids. Mr. Zimmerman is always working and Mrs. Zimmerman, well, I guess she tries.
“I’ll go take care of him,” Emilene said through the door.
She pulled herself out of bed; it had stopped raining but the April chill hit her feet as they touched the floor. She quickly pulled on a work dress, stockings and shoes. She wished she could just wear pants, like the boys. It was much more practical.
Then she walked down the stairs into the kitchen, where Mrs. Zimmerman was fixing some porridge.
“Good morning Little Lady. We thought you should get to sleep in after that big night,” she said.
“I’m sorry about Winny,” Emilene said.
“Oh, don’t worry about that silly goat. Jacob always makes more of things than they are. Winny is a goat, and he is just being a goat.”
“I will replace Mrs. McLaughlin’s plants.”
I’m not sure how.
“We’ll do that together, Dear. I have several plants coming up in our garden. We always plant too many tomatoes anyway,” she said.
Jacob came in. “You’re up. Ol’ Tecumseh needs a little talking to. He has to learn to stop chewing through his ropes,” he said to Emilene.
Jacob gave the goat a nickname of Tecumseh after General William Tecumseh Sherman, whose march to the sea left a path of destruction through Georgia.
“Now Jacob, Winny is just Winny. Emilene is doing a good job of taking care of him, and I know she appreciates your help when it’s needed,” Autumn said.
Emilene nodded her head, although not as enthusiastically as she might have.
You wish Winny weren’t here, don’t you? And me?
Emilene walked out to the carriage house and up to Winny.
“You need to stop getting us in trouble, you ninny Winny,” she smiled and gave him a hug around his neck.
Winny nuzzled her side and let out a loud bleat that caused Maggie to snort and stomp in the stall next to them.
“What are we going to do? It’s just us; we have to stick together. Maybe I can build a little room out here and can stay here with you. Would you like that?”
Winny grabbed some hay from Emilene’s hand and chewed away as he put his face close to hers. Emilene wrinkled her nose and pushed him away.
“You ninny Winny.”
Cassie walked in just as that happened and laughed.
“Ninny Winny is a good name. Are you dried out yet?” she asked.
“I am, but my dress sure isn’t,” Emilene said.
“Well, get your chores done. We are going to have dinner at the Pleasant’s home. Mama forgot to tell you. I’ll help you with the dusting downstairs; you can dust upstairs while I wash in the kitchen.
“Papa’s coming, too, and Jacob. The Pleasants say they have a surprise for us. They said, ‘two Pleasant surprises,’ to be specific.”
