What Frees the Heart

by Karen A. Wyle

  “Yes’m. Should I go around asking, or do you want to do it?”

  Mamie rolled the pen around some more. “I’ll call them together and ask. You’d best stay away, in case any of them would be afraid to answer honestly for fear of riling you or hurting your feelings. I’ll let you know.”

  She could only hope Mamie hurried up about it, with Jenny’s nerves strung tight with waiting. “If it’s all right, how do we let Tom know?”

  “I’ll find a way to send a message. I’ve got other business to deal with, as soon as I’ve talked to the girls.” Mamie’s face got that tight look that showed she was aggravated. “I’ll be seeing the preacher in a while, to talk about the service. Seems he has some concerns about how to hold a funeral with all these disgraces to womanhood attending.” Jenny’d have bet a silver dollar Mamie was quoting the preacher. “I do believe I’ll be ready to strangle that man by the time the funeral is over.”

  Mamie looked Jenny in the eye. “But one thing I’ll be telling the girls when I meet with them, and I’ll tell you right now — you act like ladies, whatever nastiness comes out of his mouth. I’ll be keeping my temper, and all of you had better do the same.”

  Jenny’s head was still in a whirl all the rest of the afternoon and through supper. What could she do to settle her mind?

  Well, one thing she could do was find out more about whether her own idea — traveling around and working that way — made any sense. She still didn’t know who she’d want to, nor be able to, travel with, but at least she could find out more about what it was like. Which meant talking to Bessie or Sophie. Which one, then? Seemed like Bessie was the one who made the decisions and took care of any trouble. But . . . Bessie’d ask more questions, and have more opinions, and be more’n ready to tell them whether or not she was asked.

  Jenny had a notion that with the house closed, Mamie might be letting the girls sit in the regular lounge. She peeked in from the doorway and saw she was right, with girls sitting all over, talking quiet or not even that. Bessie was there, one of the talkers, but for a change, Sophie wasn’t close by. She might be crying in her room, or trying to take a nap. But it was worth checking whether she might be in the small lounge, not as far from Bessie but not in so much of a crowd.

  And there Sophie was, looking lost and pitiful, holding a handkerchief and a needle but not doing nothing with ‘em. She looked up when Jenny came in and tried to smile, but didn’t come near managing it. As Jenny sat down next to her, she said, her voice shaking, “I couldn’t stand no more of everyone jawing about Mandy and why she done it, and if only someone’d found her sooner, and why she didn’t talk to nobody about being so low. Talk makes Bessie feel better, so I left her to it. And she knows I don’t feel the same, so she didn’t stop me.”

  Now it came to it, Jenny hardly knew how to get started. “I did want to talk, but to you special, and not about Amanda Jane. Would you mind that?”

  To her surprise, Sophie brightened up a bit. “That’d maybe help get my mind off things, to talk about something different. And . . . I can’t remember when someone other’n Bessie asked what I thought about anything. It’s kind of nice.”

  Did everyone really just write Sophie off? If Jenny stuck around for long, she’d have to make a point of paying more attention to her, instead of just figuring Bessie would do all the talking for the pair. “I had this idea, and you’d know more’n me about how it’d work . . . . I’ve been thinking a lot about how you and Bessie travel round from place to place, and wondering if it’s better’n staying put, and what it’s like and all.”

  When Jenny ran out of words, Sophie sat still like she was gathering up her own thoughts. Jenny was starting to get twitchy when Sophie finally said, “It was Bessie’s idea, to start with. That won’t surprise you, I reckon. But we didn’t much like where we was when we met, and I hadn’t knowed Bessie a week before she could talk me into anything she liked.”

  That didn’t surprise Jenny neither. But she pushed down the laugh that wanted to rise up, and waited for the rest.

  “Some of the places we stayed for a while was better’n where we’d been. Some wasn’t, though. And being the new girls could make it worse.”

  Jenny hadn’t thought of that. She was just getting past being one of the new girls here, after all this time. “But sometimes you set up by yourselves, didn’t you?”

  Sophie shuddered. “That didn’t always work out so good. If there was a house in town, the madam might send her box-herder out to threaten us.” She surprised Jenny by chuckling. “One time, the fellow thought he’d knock us around. Bessie kicked him where it hurt and pulled a pistol on him. I hadn’t even knowed she carried it before then.”

  A good idea, that. If she had a way to get hold of one.

  Sophie’s good cheer didn’t last long. “And we was robbed once. We used to take turns sleeping, and it was Bessie’s turn.” She hung her head. “I didn’t hardly know how to stop the feller. I just sat there. I thought about hollering, but by the time Bessie’d wake up, she couldn’t hardly have got the drop on him. Bessie’d made sure we hid some of the money in the clothes we slept in, and he didn’t look us over, so we didn’t lose it all.”

  And yet they’d kept doing it. Was that all Bessie’s doing? “Didn’t you like nothing about it?”

  Sophie relaxed back against the chair. “Oh, sure, some things. We got to see a few places, and stay longer where we liked what we found. And I wasn’t scared too much of the time, along of Bessie being so good at watching over me and getting us out of scrapes.”

  Which more or less left Jenny where she’d started, except with a sharper picture of what could go wrong. She patted Sophie’s hand. “Thanks for talking to me. I sure appreciate it.”

  Sophie smiled for a second, before it fell off her face. “Like I said, it was good to think about something else for a while.” She looked at her sewing like it had got in her hands without her knowing, folded the needle up in the cloth, tucked both into her pocket, and stood up. “I guess I’ll go see whether Bessie’s got tired of the lounge yet.”

  Jenny followed her out and headed up to her bedroom. She might do some thinking, or else trying might help her fall asleep.

  * * * * *

  It was a darkish morning, clouds heavy overhead, though at least it wasn’t fixing to rain just yet. Tom took his hat off and looked around.

  Folk were supposed to look gloomy at a funeral, and the women all around were mostly crying, but the preacher looked about like his own pa had died and left the land to someone else. It might be having to stand there with fallen women all round him, though he’d found a place to stand as far away from ‘em as he could get. Or it might be seeing Tom show up, after everything he’d said to try to keep him from it.

  Your soul is in my keeping, young Tom, and I fear for the direction you seem to be headed. I’m not saying some of those women can’t yet be saved, but while they live in sin and encourage men to sin, I can’t be happy seeing you in their midst — even if it didn’t seem you were especially drawn to one of them, to the present peril of your soul should you be taken untimely. And what will your dear mother say?

  Well, he’d already talked to Ma again. He couldn’t say she was happy about him going and what it likely meant, but she didn’t nag him about it. And he’d told Pa as well, knowing Ma would sooner or later, and wanting Pa to hear it from him first.

  Pa had been took thoughtful by it, leaning the pitchfork on the fence in the middle of tossing out the dirty straw. “I look back to when I was your age, and if I hadn’t met your ma and fallen so hard for her, I can’t swear as to what I would or wouldn’t have got up to — especially if Mamie had set up her place by then. Though I can’t see me going so far as to make plans about a woman of that kind.”

  Tom bit his tongue rather’n quarrel about just what kind of woman Jenny was, and made himself be thankful that Pa wasn’t lecturing, let alone ordering him to bide at home. He’d gotten more of a fight from Finch, w
ho was awful put out that after letting Tom take time from work yesterday, Tom might be late coming in today and wouldn’t take no for an answer. When he left last evening, Finch was grumbling about what things were coming to and what he might do about it.

  Meanwhile, Doc had shown up — and not just Doc, but his missus, big as her belly had got, standing real tall and looking at the preacher like she was daring him to make something of it. Seeing the two of them made the preacher look glummer’n ever. Doc came up to Tom and shook his hand before going back to where Mrs. Gibbs was standing.

  After doing some more frowning, the preacher started the service, almost drowned out by sobbing women. From what Tom could hear, it was a pity they weren’t making a little more noise.

  “The day of repentance has passed for the woman we inter today, and woe to her, and to all who follow the devil’s road . . . .

  “Yea, let all the sinners among us take heed, lest they too be struck down in the midst of their sin and fall forever into the fiery pit, there to suffer the torments of Hell for all eternity, writhing in the flames, beyond all hope of salvation . . . .

  “Beware, all you who hear me! For we must tremble to think that this fallen woman even now suffers those torments, for she did not repent, as you still have time to do, but for who knows how long, as death may take you without warning, may take any one of you as it has taken this sinner, even while her sins blackened her soul . . . .”

  Mamie and some of the other girls were biting their lips ‘til they went white. Jenny was looking awful pale and trembling all over. And Tom, of a sudden, had had just about enough.

  “See here, now! Ain’t you never heard of ‘judge not, lest ye be judged’? And how Jesus came and died so the Lord could show us mercy? And what about the woman taken in adultery? Didn’t Jesus talk to those ready to stone her about their own sins? And say he didn’t condemn her, and she should go and sin no more? Well, that there woman won’t be doing any more sinning, and how do we know where her soul went?”

  The preacher’s jaw dropped, and his face went red. Mamie turned to Tom with her eyebrows near up to her hair. And Jenny ran right across to him and gave him a big ol’ kiss. He kissed her back before moving her alongside him and saying to the preacher, “Well, don’t you got a job to do?”

  The preacher opened his mouth and shut it again, glaring at Tom as if lightning was about to shoot out his eyes and strike Tom down where he stood. But when Tom stayed standing and no lightning happened, the preacher tugged on his jacket and said, as huffy as could be, “Let us pray.”

  When Tom got to work after the funeral was finished, he could tell someone had got there quicker with the news. Finch shook his shaggy head at Tom, mumbling, “I don’t know. I just don’t know about this.”

  Tom didn’t know neither, nor have anything useful to say, so he just waited for Finch to get on with it.

  “You’ve shocked some good folks in this town and no mistake. Bad enough you going to that funeral, but to holler at the preacher!”

  To tell truth, Tom was feeling a little sorry about that. Given it to do over again, he wasn’t altogether sure he would. But when he remembered Jenny’s kiss and the way her eyes shined at him, he figured he probably would, at that.

  “I had two people tell me they might not be back here to get their shoes fixed or new ones made. If that’s how it turns out, I’ll have to let you go.”

  At least he wasn’t firing Tom just in case. Finch might not be exactly good at shoes, but he was all Cowbird Creek had for a cordwainer. Would how Tom acted be enough to make folks take the time and trouble to go out of town? Not many, he’d bet.

  He hoped.

  A week later, there was no knowing who might’ve come in and hadn’t, though business was slow enough to make Tom nervous. But the butcher did come in, and when he saw Tom, he gave him a grim sort of smile and said, “I’ve been thinking for years that preacher needed taking down a peg. Good on you for ‘tending to it.”

  Finch, putting the butcher’s boot on the mend shelf, acted like he hadn’t heard.

  Chapter 23

  Jenny hadn’t seen Doc since the funeral. He’d hadn’t cried like the girls, but he’d looked plenty sad all the same. Today, though, when her turn came for her monthly checkup, Doc looked upbeat enough to whistle, not that he actually did. She wished she could manage being that cheerful, but what with Amanda Jane dying and Tom wanting to marry her and her not knowing what to do about that, she’d been dragging around during the day, as much as she could get away with, and then tossing and turning at night.

  From the way Doc looked at her, he could see right off that she was poorly. Which she didn’t much want to talk about, even with him, so she said right off, “You look happy today, Doc. Something good happen?”

  “Lie back, please, and get comfortable. Yes, indeed, something good has happened. Freida Blum — excuse me, Freida Kennedy now — and her husband Jedidiah have come to town.”

  Jenny’d seen Freida a time or two, bustling down the street or asking sharp questions of the dry goods clerk. “Were you and Mrs. Blum, as she was before, good friends?”

  Doc looked a little sad again, which made her sorry to have asked. “Yes, we were. And are. She made quite a difference in my life at one time. Clara and I were sorry to see her go, though glad for her happiness. I hope her new life has not proved too much of a physical strain.”

  Jenny tried to picture Mrs. Kennedy riding all over creation giving medicine shows. Not that she was likely to do rope tricks or juggle fire . . . or dance with veils and not much underneath! The idea made her giggle. Doc looked at her with an eyebrow up. “Hold still, please. I’m glad to have amused you, though I confess I don’t know how I accomplished it.”

  Well, Jenny sure wasn’t going to confess how, not to a good friend of the lady in question. “Was she sick or something?”

  He changed the subject instead of answering. “You’re looking fine, as far as . . . the area I’ve been examining is concerned. But I’d rather be seeing you as blooming as usual. And you may have lost a little weight. You must still be in mourning for your friend.”

  Well, that was sure some of it. Tom turning her world upside down and sideways was in there too. She didn’t know what to think, or what to do, and the one thing she wanted was to see Tom again, and she didn’t know when it’d happen.

  Doc gave her a hand as she got off the bed, just like she was a lady. She squeezed his hand. “Thanks, Doc. For what you do, and for being so good to us.”

  Doc’s eyes went wide for a second, and he squeezed back before he pulled his hand away. “You’re more than welcome, Miss Jenny. And I want you to take care of yourself. Get plenty of sleep, when you can, and eat hearty of Mamie’s excellent meals.”

  Excellent? Well, they were good, for sure, a lot finer’n what she could cook herself. If Mamie’d fed Doc sometime, she might have done a mite better by him. But Jenny didn’t see a need to say so.

  * * * * *

  Tom had noticed, since he came to work for Finch, that Doc took good care of his boots, blacking ‘em regular and not letting ‘em stay dusty if he could help it. So when Doc showed up at Finch’s wearing boots considerable more broke-down, he guessed what Doc needed and met him at the door. “Your good boots need some fixing?”

  Doc handed the boots to Tom. “I’m afraid so. As many miles as they take me, it stands to reason they need expert attention now and again. I hope you and Mr. Finch can restore them to health.” He waited for Tom to chuckle and then went on, “I may have to find a way to invest in new boots before much longer. But please do what you can.”

  By now Finch had joined them. “We surely will, Doc Gibbs. I can get ‘em back to you by Saturday afternoon.”

  Doc found it easier’n Tom did to smile at Finch, seemingly. “That’ll be just right. I’d rather be wearing my good boots when Sunday comes.”

  Finch took the boots right then and carried them back to his work table. Doc waited for him to get a
distance away and said to Tom, quieter, “I also came to give you an invitation. Clara and I would be pleased to have you with us for Sunday dinner. Freida and Jedidiah Kennedy are visiting, and —” He dropped his voice even more. “They’d be most interested in breaking bread with the young man who put our overly self-righteous preacher in his place.”

  Tom just barely managed not to look over his shoulder at Finch, which would’ve likely made things look more suspicious. “I’d be most happy to, Doc.”

  When Mrs. Finch brought their dinners, he took his outside, not troubling to ask Finch’s leave, and walked around the square to see what he could see. After all, if Jedidiah Kennedy was in town, wouldn’t he be putting on one of his shows? And sure enough, there was the wagon — just down the street from Madam Mamie’s. It made Tom’s heart pain him standing so close to where Jenny lived without being able to go in, but now he’d come here, he might as well stay and watch. And maybe Jenny was watching from some window.

  Professor Kennedy stood on the wagon seat, all in a fancy coat with long tails, and a shiny top hat on his gold-colored hair, hair that reminded him of Jenny’s the first day he ever saw her. Kennedy’s voice boomed out over the people who’d gathered round. “Give the lady a hand! Wasn’t that the finest dancing you’ve seen in a long, long time? For those of you just straggling up now, don’t be too downhearted — you can see her again this time tomorrow, on the other side of the square. And now, a man who’s learned his skills everywhere from California to Chicago, from the wild northern reaches to way down in Mexico, here’s Cowboy Dan with his fancy roping!”

  Tom swallowed the last of his dinner, along with regret that he’d missed the dancing, but at least he hadn’t missed the show altogether. A cowboy stepped up onto the seat wearing some sort of spangly jacket, like nothing he’d ever seen a cowboy wear and, he’d wager, nothing a cowboy working a ranch or a cattle drive’d be caught dead in. And the lasso he pulled out had been dyed a bright red. But when he set to whirling that rope around, big ol’ circles darting every which way, all so fast the rope was one red blur, Tom had to admit the fellow was good, better’n the cowboys Tom had seen showing off on the ranches hereabouts.