Enchanted Heart Read Online Free

her shoulders with the resolve to make it so. She looked at Greta, who had ducked her face into the collar of her blouse. “He would want us to go on, wouldn’t he Greta?”
    Greta’s sad and fearful blue eyes looked up at her while her chin remained planted on her chest as she muttered with a shrug, “I suppose.”
    “Of course he would,” Marty retorted with her nose wrinkled in exasperation at her sister’s pathetic helplessness. Then, she felt compelled to hug her sister, to wipe away the sadness that welled in her eyes. Her thin arms embraced her mirror image while deft fingers swiped away the tears in her own mournful eyes.
    “Yes he would,” Mama agreed with a nod that neither girl saw, for they had pulled apart only far enough to stare at each other in silent bonding.
    All fell silent as the night drained its darkness into the morning clouds. Before the wagons began their daily drive westward, Mama told the wagon master of her loss. But, since there was no time for ceremony or even to dig him a proper grave, he was pulled from their wagon and dropped on the ground beside it.
    Dressed in his best clothes with his Bible in his hands, he lay straight and proud, facing the new homeland while the wagon left him behind, taking with it the family that he had cherished and the dreams that he had envisioned long ago when this promise of free land without taxes or persecution had been offered to him. At that moment, the land that he would forever own, it turned out, was the five-foot-nine by three-foot patch of Texas dirt that he lay upon, but he claimed it with eternal pride.
    Marty stood beside her father for some time while the other wagons ambled past her and she cursed the people who walked beside them for being alive and well and able to go on. Her tiny heart beat wildly in her chest and her face streamed muddy tears of both anger and grief. Then, with one final kiss on Papa’s cheek, and the resolve to make his dream come true, she ran to catch up with her wagon and the only family that she had left here in this harsh and hateful land.
    And as she slowed to a walk, she vowed right then and there that she would take care of Mama and Greta and that they would never be sad again. She knew in her heart that she was taking on a task that would prove to be daunting if not terrifying, for having to become an adult at the tender age of seven was frightening in itself and having to care for a frail sister and a mournful mother would certainly take a lot out of her. But she was prepared for the mission that she had imposed upon herself and her small body seemed to raise itself three inches in her resolve to watch over the ones who needed her.
    Marty Hirsch swore that she would face any adversity, any future tragedy or heartache in order to insure that Mama and Greta were safe and happy. She vowed to Papa, if not to herself, that his vision of owning land, land that no one could take away from him and land that would require no price except the sweat of his brow, the labor of his body and the love in his heart, would be realized by her growing determination to make that dream her own.
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Three
     
    Tragedy seemed to be overcome by time’s never-ending journey to renew itself by bringing forth new life. While death declared war upon the settlers, they somehow fought back by creating new members to love and cherish, replacing those lost on the long journey from Germany to the Promised Land. But more often than not, the loss of a loved one seemed to loom like a dark cloud of sadness upon the grief-stricken families that made up the town of New Braunfels. Heartache had certainly not passed by the Hirsch family during the long years since they had first set foot on Texas soil.
    When Papa died that first year, Marty thought that there could be no going on without him, no walking forward and no happiness would follow her. But when she and Mama and her twin sister Greta finally stopped with the wagons