did-you-know? rent-now

Amazon no longer offers textbook rentals. We do!

did-you-know? rent-now

Amazon no longer offers textbook rentals. We do!

We're the #1 textbook rental company. Let us show you why.

9780310235552

Promised to Me

by
  • ISBN13:

    9780310235552

  • ISBN10:

    0310235553

  • Format: Paperback
  • Copyright: 2003-05-01
  • Publisher: Zondervan
  • Purchase Benefits
  • Free Shipping Icon Free Shipping On Orders Over $35!
    Your order must be $35 or more to qualify for free economy shipping. Bulk sales, PO's, Marketplace items, eBooks and apparel do not qualify for this offer.
  • eCampus.com Logo Get Rewarded for Ordering Your Textbooks! Enroll Now
List Price: $12.99 Save up to $7.38
  • Digital
    $5.61
    Add to Cart

    DURATION
    PRICE

Supplemental Materials

What is included with this book?

Summary

Dear Mother and Father,After all those years, I was certain Jakob Hirsch had forgotten me. Then came his proposal of marriage. With more impulse than wisdom, I crossed the ocean to begin a new life with him in Shadow Creek, Idaho. Little did I dream of the changes eleven years had brought to the man I once loved-which included three small children waiting with him at the station.I will not marry a stranger who no longer loves me, but I have agreed to look after Jakob's children until the harvest is in. A cabin on his property provides me with respectable living quarters. If only it were as easy to separate my heart from this family! It will be difficult to leave when the time comes, for I am falling in love with these little ones-and, truth be told, with Jakob.Your loving daughter,Karola BreitIn Idaho, the land is good but life is hard for a German émigré whose dreams have turned to dust. Love found and lost can shatter a man's faith. But it is about to strengthen that of the woman to whom he turns-and in the drought of summer, a withered promise springs to life.Promised to Me is book four in the Coming to America series about women who come to America to start new lives. Set in the late 1800s and early 1900s, these novels by best-selling author Robin Lee Hatcher craft intense chemistry and conflict between the characters, lit by a glowing faith and humanity that will win your heart. Look for other books in the series at your favorite Christian bookstore.

Supplemental Materials

What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

Excerpts

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 parents' 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 every-one 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 ...

All of Karola's worldly goods were packed in a battered old trunk and two suitcases. Tomorrow morning, she and her father would begin the journey to Hamburg, where she would board a ship and sail to America. She was certain she wouldn't sleep a wink all night.

Her mother sat in the chair beside the bed, her Bible open on her lap. "It is not too late to change your mind."

"I do not want to change my mind, Mother. This is what I've dreamed of."

"Oh, Karola, Karola. You always have your head in the clouds. I fear the pain it will bring you. What do you know of America? What do you know of Jakob Hirsch? He is no longer the boy who went away. He cannot be. Remember that marriage is forever. If you make a mistake because you are rash-"

"Would you have me stay and marry Herr Schmidt?" Karola pictured the cobbler, a man older than her father, with skin as tanned and rough as the leather shoes he mended. He'd asked her father for her hand in marriage last year.

"Nein, but I would not have you act in haste either."

"Haste! Mother, I have waited eleven years. Every day since Jakob went away, I have worked in the bakery and shared this apartment with my parents, as if I were still a child. Every day, I have known others whisper about me because I want more than what I can find here. They think I am haughty and proud. Maybe I am. But Jakob understood me. Jakob is like me. And now he owns his own farm in America. He owns it, Mother. He is not a tenant. No man tells him what to do. He made his dreams come true. I want to do the same."

Her mother shook her head as she lowered her eyes to the open book in her lap. Softly, she asked, "Have you asked God what he wants you to do?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Karola, mein Tochter, you will never be truly happy until you choose God's way instead of your own. I will pray that he will have mercy as you learn this truth for yourself."

Jakob sat on the front porch, enjoying the cool of evening after a day spent in the fields. His muscles ached, but in a good way. The way of a man who works hard on his own land.

He glanced down at the letter in his hand, one he had read numerous times. If all had gone according to schedule, Karola Breit arrived in New York earlier today. Even now, she should be on a train, headed west. Headed toward him.

Memories of his own arrival in America flooded his thoughts. He remembered the elation and fear as clearly as if he'd come through the immigration depot yesterday. Only it hadn't been yesterday. It had been more than a decade ago. He'd been a young man of twenty with a head full of unrealistic expectations, but he'd had courage to spare. America was the land of opportunity, overflowing with milk and honey. Nothing, he'd believed with the arrogance of youth, could stop him from having anything and everything he wanted.

Life had a way of cutting an arrogant man down to size.

Jakob closed his eyes as he recalled the moment he'd seen the Statue of Liberty, the first thing every immigrant watched for at the end of a long and torturous journey.

Give me your tired, the lady proclaimed, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

He opened his eyes again.

Lady Liberty hadn't lied. America had welcomed Jakob Hirsch. She had allowed him to breathe free. Although nothing had come easily and he'd suffered much, he now owned this farm, free and clear. Three hundred and twenty acres of good land, land he'd earned by the sweat of his brow. He wasn't rich, but neither was he poor. He'd put down roots, deep ones, and he'd made a home here. He was an American citizen. He'd managed to remove all traces of a foreign accent from his speech. He thought and talked and acted like those who'd been born in these parts. There was little about him of the youth who'd left Germany so long ago.

His thoughts returned to Karola, imagining her as she moved from one line to another in the immigration depot. He hoped the experience hadn't been too difficult.

Would he still recognize her? Had the years changed her as much as they'd changed him? Had life been kind to her? She'd been a girl of seventeen when they'd said their good-byes. What was she like today?

Jakob had carried Karola's likeness with him in his pocket watch when he left for America. But the watch had been stolen, and without the photograph, added to the relentless passing of time, her image had faded, becoming misty and unclear in his mind.

When he'd sent his letter to Germany last winter-a rash act, he acknowledged-he'd never expected a reply, let alone one of agreement. At best, he'd thought she would have forgotten him. At worst, he'd expected to be despised.

Jakob rose from the rocking chair and stepped toward the railing that framed the porch. The setting sun had stained the horizon blood red, and shadows stretched across the ground to the east. The evening air was crisp and smelled of freshly turned soil-ambrosia for a farmer's soul.

He was thankful Karola had agreed to come to America. He needed a wife. He'd known it for some time. Of course, there were several unmarried women in this valley between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five, but he hadn't been able to imagine himself married to any of them.

Then one night last fall he'd dreamed of the old country and of his father, now dead; of his brothers, now living in Berlin; of Gottfried and Freida Breit, the baker and his wife, and of their only child, Karola. The dream itself had made little sense, but for some reason, Jakob hadn't been able to shake Karola, the sweetheart of his youth, from his thoughts.

And so he'd written his letter.

Now he wondered what had happened to her since they'd parted all those years ago. He wondered if she'd never married or if she'd been widowed. She hadn't told him any of that in the few letters they'd exchanged these past months. Nor had she commented upon the circumstances of his life after he'd detailed them for her in his second letter. Perhaps she thought he'd said everything there was to say.

Well, he supposed none of that mattered. He would be able to ask her anything he wanted soon enough. If all went according to plan, she would arrive in Idaho in less than a week.

Chapter Two

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.

Continues...

Excerpted from Promised to Me by Robin Lee Hatcher Copyright © 2003 by Zondervan
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Rewards Program