Somewhere along her path, Amanda Jane had picked up lace making, and she had a long strip going, colored red like the flowers. As Jenny leaned over to admire it, Amanda Jane inspected it and picked out some little mistake Jenny wouldn’t never have seen.
Watching her work, wondering how she’d learned to do such a thing and where she’d lived before Cowbird Creek, Jenny suddenly remembered the first night Tom had come in, and how Mamie had intended him to go with the older woman. When Amanda Jane leaned back and closed her eyes to rest them, Jenny made bold to ask, “Mamie said once that you know all about men with missing parts to them. How’d you learn?”
Amanda Jane opened her eyes and gave Jenny a knowing look. “I spent a year or so in a city with a big hospital for soldiers. Lots of those boys had an arm or leg missing or only half left. When they got well enough to walk, and kitted out with crutches or wooden legs or whatever as needed, they’d make their way to the vaulting house where I’d settled at the time. Girls as had been there longer would train the rest of us. And some of the soldiers who’d been in the hospital longest had figured out what worked best and what they most liked a girl to do.” She smiled, her wide mouth curling up pretty. “Whatever Mamie told you, I’d bet I can tell you more, if that good-looking farm boy is likely to come back again.”
“I never know if or when. He doesn’t come here but once in a while. Still, I’d be glad of whatever you could tell me.” It felt good to have someone saying how fine-looking Tom was, even if at the same time it made her a little jealous. As smart as Amanda Jane was, and as good at making the most of her figure and her features, she could probably get Tom’s attention if she wanted it. It was silly to care, as if Jenny was some girl in town and Tom was sparking her.
Amanda Jane examined her lace some more. “There was one, he wrote me and said how he’d never thanked me properly for being so kind to him. A handsome fellow too, and he had some sort of store, and people working for him. A man like that, he could take care of a woman.”
Jenny’d never seen that look on the older woman’s face, kind of mournful. Like maybe she was wishing that man had stayed around and offered to take care of her.
Whether or no, Amanda Jane shook her head a little and went on, “Yes, and better than a farm boy.”
Jenny bristled. “I bet Tom can do plenty, on a farm or off it. He’s plenty strong. And stubborn enough to find a way to do things, specially if folk think he can’t.”
“Now, now, child, settle down. I’m not claiming to read the boy’s future.” She went back to her stitching.
Jenny gazed at the stove, imagining a fireplace instead, where you could watch the flames on a winter evening. Would she ever sit at her own fireside of an evening, talking quiet with someone and watching flames burn low?
Or maybe a campfire, traveling from town to town with another girl, like Sophie and Bessie did between bed-houses? More likely it’d be on a train, sitting side by side piled under with blankets, the clatter and grumble of the train making a sort of lullaby . . . . She’d have to talk to one of ‘em sometime, Sophie maybe, and find out how they liked it. Whether it felt good, choosing where to go, no one telling them what to do until the next time they allowed someone like Mamie to boss ‘em for a while, ‘til they got tired of it and moved on again.
“Girls!” Mamie’s voice startled Jenny out of her wondering. “You go on up and get your rest. Tomorrow and all the gentlemen it brings will be here before you know it.”
Amanda Jane didn’t move right away, and when she did, she acted like she’d got heavier since she first sat down. Jenny wondered at it, but not for long. She had a deal to think about once she got up to bed.
Chapter 17
“That feller must be on a cattle drive. Can’t get that dirty on a ranch.” Finch was peering out the door at a cowboy down the street, heading toward the shop. Tom might have gone to look if he hadn’t had his arms full of smelly, dripping hides. He put them down as quick as he could, not much liking the picture of a cowboy seeing him doing that kind of job.
The cowboy who ambled in was coated head to foot, and not just in dust, but something (or maybe somethings) heavier. And cowboys didn’t usually smell like fine ladies fresh from a bath, but this one was further from it than most. Tom could believe, easy, that he’d been on the road for weeks, getting up close to cattle and everything they put out.
Tom’s stomach went tight to see that the cowboy was carrying a saddle.
Maybe something was broke, or loose, and just needed fixing. But he had a feeling otherwise. He felt a lot of things, but no surprise, when the cowboy said, “I heard from some cowpoke coming back from another drive that your place could put pictures on a saddle, along the edges. He had some, and they looked right fine. I’ve got my pay in my pocket, and willing to pay handsome for work like that.”
Business hadn’t been at its best, and Finch didn’t act inclined to turn any away. Tom waited, his heart jumping around somewhere near his throat, to hear what pictures the cowboy had seen. If they was birds or ladies or his latest job, the pairs of bull horns tip to tip, he was sunk, unless Finch would credit they came from someone else. But wouldn’t the cowboys who ordered that work straight from Tom have sent this fellow to the farm instead of here?
The cowboy kept him in suspense by not saying what the pictures on that other fellow’s saddle had been. He just plunked his saddle down on the table and looked at Finch, his face eager enough to give Tom a warm feeling along with his nerves.
Finch twitched like he was going to look Tom’s way, but stopped himself. “Yep, we can do that. How long you stopping for?”
We. At least he hadn’t had the nerve to say I.
The cowboy stretched and yawned. “Today, tonight, and one day more, along of tomorrow being Sunday. Not that the boss usually bothers about Sabbath-keeping, but I guess he figured one time might do him more credit’n none.”
Finch stuck his chest out, and his face twisted into what might be Finch’s best try at looking pious. “Well, we can’t do the work on the Lord’s Day, so it depends what you’re wanting, whether it’ll be ready in time.”
Tom managed not to snort. Finch wouldn’t know near as well as Tom how long different designs would take, and Finch, it was plain, didn’t want to ask him or let the cowboy know who’d be doing the work. Finch was in a bind, and serve him right.
The cowboy looked confused. “Didn’t I say? I want what that other feller had. Feathers. ‘Cept I’d like ‘em bigger and not so close together.”
Of course Tom was relieved not to be found out, but he also found he was disappointed not to have something new and maybe harder to try. Finch, meanwhile, was nodding and looking like he could just about feel those coins in his hand. “Sure, we can get that done. You just leave the saddle here, and we’ll get right to work.”
Finch didn’t say another word until the cowboy was out the door and halfway down the street, heading toward the nearest saloon. Then he muttered, “So can you do it? Today or tonight? Or will you have to work on it tomorrow to get it done?”
Tom clenched his fists behind him. So it was just fine for Tom to work on Sunday, for all Finch’s playacting. He couldn’t let on that he’d had practice since the last time, and got quicker at carving leather, so he made himself take a minute as if to think and then mumbled, “Should be able to do it by tonight sometime.” He could work slower while Finch was still around, and then finish up quicker once Finch wasn’t there to see.
Tom made his way to town after as good a Sunday as he could expect. He’d spent some time sleeping and a lot more finishing his latest job, cresting waves for a cowboy from New England of all places, who missed the ocean. He was putting by some real money, at least compared to what he could save from what Finch paid him. What he’d find to do with it, well, he hadn’t got much forwarder on that. But at least he could use some on seeing Jenny again. The thought carried him along the road like he could float on it.
As he got near Doc
Gibbs’ place, he saw Mrs. Gibbs sitting on their front steps, reading a letter. You could tell at first glance, now, that she was expecting. She waved to him and said as he got closer, “You’ve got some spring in your step this morning. I’m glad to see it.” She didn’t ask why, for which he was grateful even though he figured he could trust her about his side business.
“Thank you, ma’am. You look cheerful yourself.” In fact, she looked like she’d been laughing. He didn’t recall seeing her laugh before.
Mrs. Gibbs held up the paper. “Reading a letter from Freida Blum is almost as good as talking to her to bring a smile to your face. There’s nobody like our Freida. Here, for example, she says, How are you feeling, are you as big as a house yet or just a little barn? Are you eating enough, Joshua had better make sure, you’ve always been so thin! Remember you’re eating for two now, I wish I could bring you some of my beef stew, it’s just right for making big strong babies!”
Tom could just about hear Mrs. Blum, with her accent and her way of stressing different parts of words from other folks. Mrs. Gibbs wasn’t copying her, exactly, but she’d picked up a little of the rhythm. It made Tom smile along with Mrs. Gibbs. She glanced over at him and kept going.
“If Jedidiah and I can make our way there, we’ll stop by and visit, I’ll see how you’re doing, not that Joshua won’t be doing his doctor best, but sometimes what you need is an old Jewish lady making sure you’re taking care of yourself. Don’t you go having that baby before I get there, except if we can’t come after all, then you have it whenever it’s ready, babies make up their own little minds, don’t they? And get plenty of rest, you should probably have your feet up right this minute . . . .” Mrs. Gibbs laughed out loud and folded up the letter, tucking it in her dress pocket and giving the pocket a fond little pat.
Tom glanced down the road, where he should be taking himself before much longer. “Guess you and Mrs. Blum are pretty good friends.”
Mrs. Gibbs got a thoughtful look on her face. “Indeed we are. But you know, Tom, we didn’t start out so. Freida Blum took rather a dislike to me when we first met.”
Tom made some sort of surprised noise. It wasn’t that hard, in fact, to imagine someone finding Mrs. Gibbs — or rather, Clara Brook, as she used to be — an odd sort. She hadn’t been one to smile at all comers, or flirt, or agree with everything a body said. He’d been enough younger to be just a boy in her sight, but he could tell that much.
But Mrs. Gibbs had more to say. “You don’t always know what people are like at first, and they don’t always know about you. Give them time, and sometimes they can learn, or you can.”
If she had a special point to make, he’d no more time for thinking about it, much as he’d rather listen to Mrs. Gibbs than Finch. “I’d best be going. Enjoy your letter, and I hope Mrs. Blum, or rather Mrs. —” What was her married name? Oh, yes. “ — Mrs. Kennedy and Mr. Kennedy will be able to come through town.”
Mrs. Gibbs gave a little sigh. “I do hope so. And that they come soon. Well, take care, Tom.” She looked straight at him, almost like through him. “I hope you and Mr. Finch get along today.”
Tom just tipped his hat and went on his way. Mrs. Gibbs didn’t know Finch as well as he did, or she wouldn’t bother hoping.
Chapter 18
If Mama or someone didn’t write back, this would be the last letter Jenny sent home.
So she should try to make sure and spell the words right.
She’d heard about a book that helped folks spell, and she’d guessed right that Amanda Jane would know about it. Amanda Jane said the book was called something like a dick-shun-ery. At first she thought the older girl must be making fun, but Amanda Jane swore that was the real, actual name.
Then it was just a matter of getting up a little early and going into the lounge before breakfast when no one was about. Of course, the bookcase might not have had that book, but she found a thick one with a long name that ended in Dictionary. That looked about two-thirds right, and the book had nothing inside but words and what they meant. She stuck it under her skirts and hustled upstairs with it, hiding it under her bed.
Now she had it open on her dressing table, next to a sheet of paper with nothing but Dear Mama on it. And a fat lot of good the Dictionary did. She’d wanted to know how to spell friends, having a vague notion it wasn’t just like it sounded, but she couldn’t find it in the book, along of not knowing how to spell it! What good was a book about how to spell if you needed to know already before you could find anything?
She cussed out loud and crumpled up the paper, then grabbed the Dictionary and threw it across the room. It hit the wall and fell down into the corner between the wall and her bed.
Well, that was a bad idea! If the book got damaged, pages bent or cover dented, she’d be in real hot water. She went and picked up the book, which looked all right at a glance — but a glint of something in the corner caught her eye. She bent over to see better, and there was a cuff link on the floor. A cuff link with a diamond set in silver.
She jumped back like she’d seen a rattler. This was so much worse than the Dictionary. Whoever’d lost the cuff link — and it might be that fancy lawyer passing through town, or worse, someone who lived right in Cowbird Creek, maybe the banker — he was bound to miss it, and to figure just where it might be.
Like she’d told Tom, she’d seen what happened to girls who stole from customers, just a few weeks after she came to Mamie’s and another time since. It didn’t matter how much they cried or begged or promised never to do it again. They got thrown out in the street with just the clothes on their backs, and the threat of the sheriff to send them out of town. Mamie’d prob’ly be happy to turn them over to the law, except word would get around that her girls were thieving. But she might even do that if what was took cost enough.
And here Jenny stood, holding a book she’d took without asking.
The first step, then, was to put the book back. And then find Mamie, and tell her about the cuff link. Should she take it with her, or leave it on the floor? Maybe leave it, so Mamie could see just where it’d ended up.
She tucked the book under her skirts again and headed downstairs. But she was so shook up she wasn’t watching where she walked, and she bumped right into Amanda Jane. Who said “Oh!” pretty loud, and then looked right where the book stuck out like Jenny’d grown an extra hip bone. “What in the world is that?”
And wouldn’t you know it, Mamie was right at the bottom of the stairs and heard the whole thing, and came whooshing up to them. “What, indeed?”
Jenny, her stomach sinking down toward her toes, pulled up her skirts and took out the book. “I was just putting this back, ma’am.”
“And you thought it might catch cold, unless you sheltered it under your skirts?”
She could feel she was blushing, and might start crying any minute. “I — I didn’t want the other girls to see it, for thinking they’d make fun of me. And I was wanting to talk to you about something, right after I put it back.”
Mamie raked her with a look sharp as a kitchen knife. “I do believe I have something to talk to you about as well. Come to my office. Mandy, put the book where it belongs.”
Jenny followed Mamie, starting to sniffle and trying to do it quiet-like. Mamie closed the door and sat at her desk, leaving Jenny to stand and fidget. After what felt like long enough for Jenny to get old and gray, Mamie said, “I just got a letter from one of our gentlemen. You might remember the lawyer who passed through Cowbird Creek recently. It appears his letter was delayed somewhere along the way, or I’d have had it sooner. He says he’s missing a valuable cuff link, and wonders if I might know anything about what happened to it.”
She’d better speak up, or look even guiltier. “That’s what I was coming to tell you, ma’am. I found it, or what I figure is the same one, in the corner of my room just now.”
Mamie leaned on her elbows and looked in Jenny’s eyes like she was reading what was behind them. “And
you were just coming to tell me this, as soon as you’d put back the book you took without asking.”
Jenny finally starting crying for real. Mamie could make whatever she wanted of it — Jenny couldn’t hold it back a second longer. But she managed to say, “I never took that cuff link, ma’am! I never! And I was so scared when I found it, along of you maybe thinking I did, but what would I do with it?” She fought to stop crying and mostly did. “I’m not some magpie to go collecting shiny things!”
Mamie almost smiled before she set her face back to stern. “You could have tried to sell it, perhaps to a customer.”
“You can ask any of ‘em, ma’am, whether I done any such thing. If I had, they’d prob’ly tell you, since they’d’ve said no, or it wouldn’t have been in that corner for me to find, or anywhere here, would it?”
Mamie stood up. “Show me the cuff link and where you say you found it.”
Jenny opened the door to find three of the girls standing around nearby. For one blessed second, Mamie was madder at someone else than at Jenny. She whacked the nearest girl on the backside and pointed down the hall, saying through her teeth, “You take yourselves back downstairs and make yourselves useful! If there’s no gentlemen waiting, you can just go help Cook in the kitchen. Get!”
The girls scattered, and Jenny led Mamie to her bedroom. She climbed onto her bed to where she could point at the cuff link without going near it. “Right there, ma’am.”
Mamie looked at Jenny instead of the cuff link. “And how did you happen to find it in the corner?”
Jenny hung her head. “I got mad at the Dictionary, ma’am, and threw it against the wall. Along of I couldn’t find a word without knowing how to spell it, which was what I wanted the book for in the first place.”
What Frees the Heart Page 11
