The Girl Called Ella Dessa: Will she ever be cherished for the inner beauty beneath her scars?

by Karen Campbell Prough

  By the table was a pile of flour sacks, mostly unfilled. Two wooden boxes seemed to overflow with straw or cut grass and a damp odor drifted from them, mixed with the scent of rotting potatoes. The thick scent of mold and dampness clung to the interior and reminded him of a cave he once found in the side of the mountain.

  The only source of light was the fire and one dismal window—a two-foot square opening. Filtered light fought its way through an oiled animal skin.

  The curtain slid sideways. She slipped into view and resembled a small girl playing dress up in her mother’s clothes.

  She wore the same oversized, wrinkled dress from the day before. A narrow strip of faded brown material, apparently torn from somewhere on the dress, held her hair away from her heart-shaped face. Her cheeks had grown rosy and her eyes shy. The toes of new leather boots peeked out from under the skirt dragging along the floor.

  “Unseasonable cold this morning,” he commented, trying not to show the sympathy he felt. “Thanks for letting me come in by the fire.”

  “Thanks for bringin’ this to me.” Her delicate hands fluttered over the pack as if not sure what to do. “Thank your mama.”

  “Go ahead. It’s all yours.” He could tell she wanted to open it. “We’ve too much to eat. I should’ve brought you honey. I found a bee tree two weeks ago. The fair weather combs were capped off and overflowing.”

  “Did you get stung?”

  “Yes. They didn’t want to give up their hard work, meant for the winter.”

  “This is too much.” She lifted the potatoes and onions from the pack. Her hands shook as she seized the small cut of salt-cured ham. Grease stained the muslin encircling its irregular shape. “Pa will pay you.” Her chin lifted with pride. Her child-like expression met his. “We do have cured venison and flour.”

  “My folks wanted you to have this. There’s new butter in the covered tin.” He unbuttoned his coat and tossed it over a lopsided bench by the table. “Go ahead, eat.” It gave him keen satisfaction to watch her face light with pleasure.

  Within minutes, the skinny girl used a knife to slice the heel off the loaf. She sniffed. “Pumpkin.” With an air of anticipation, she spread a gob of firm white butter and took a bite.

  Jim heard her murmur of approval.

  “I guess I’m hungry.” She gazed at the thick slice in her quivering hand. She then cut a hunk of ham and bit into it, not caring breadcrumbs still stuck to her face.

  He averted his eyes, puzzled by the ache in his chest, and gazed upward. The half-log mantel over the fireplace had no personal items on it. Instead, crowded together was a collection of kitchen implements, iron hooks, a battered metal pot, a pewter candlestick holder, and a diminutive pine-needle basket.

  The basket’s lid was open. Jim could see a looped coil of delicate handmade lace. Its intricate pattern, a jarring reminder a woman once called this her home. He felt perplexed by the absence of personal items. The walls and mantel at his home peeked out from behind handmade decorations. His mother encouraged her children to make things with their hands.

  The cave-like bleakness of the Huskey cabin depressed him. He knew he must move or flee from its encompassing walls. He rose to his feet.

  His swift movement startled the girl. A guarded air of alarm clouded her round eyes. She wiped both hands down the front of her shabby dress and darkened the material. Her fingers trembled. The stark anxiety in her eyes said she realized she had let a stranger come into the cabin—without much thought to danger.

  “Can I bring in wood?”

  “There’s no more split.” Her eyes darted to the lopsided pile near the hearth, and she licked a smear of shiny grease from her top lip. “It’s gone, ‘less I put a big log in—one end at a time.”

  “That’s not safe.” Jim felt a surge of fury toward the man who left a child alone with no cut wood. “It’s only the start of winter. You won’t make it through.”

  “My pa ain’t had time. I’ve burnt too much the last few days. I was chilled.” She avoided his stare and used her teeth to pull a hunk of meat off the ham bone. “I haven’t split more. There’s logs.” Grease showed on her pink lips.

  “You shouldn’t have to. I’ll do it.” He reached for his coat and hat. “Where’s your axe?”

  She pointed to the wall beside the door.

  He gathered the axe and a froe. “Stay in where it’s warm. I can find the logs.”

  He held back curses when he saw how Jacob failed to prepare for the coming winter. Logs lay on the ground, stripped of limbs, but not cut into short lengths. He saw one lopsided stack of three-foot logs, which hadn’t been pre-cut and split, much less stacked correctly. Under his breath, he called the man several choice names as he wielded the axe.

  In no time, he had achieved a pile of short logs. Then he set the cut pieces on a tree stump and swung the axe into the dried wood. Identical halves parted and fell to the ground, and he drove himself to split as much as he could.

  Jim knew his father would wonder if he stayed away, just to avoid work, but he concluded he could honestly explain his absence. It didn’t take him long before he stood back and eyed the splendid pile of split wood he managed to stack near the cabin’s door.

  He flexed his sore shoulders and explored the homestead.

  The boney cows needed tending, and he forked dried corn leaves to the two penned in the dilapidated barn. Their shrunken udders revealed they didn’t have anything to give. They stood in filth on the clay and flat-stone floor.

  Jim walked to the rugged chicken house. He had to bend almost double to get inside and chase the small flock out into the mid-morning sunlight. The skinny-necked chickens squawked and ran frantic circles in the foraging pen. He found one egg and took it to the girl.

  “An egg?” The expression on her face was priceless. “Thanks for helping. I forgot to shut the chickens in last night. A fox snatched one— carried it off. I saw feathers. Leastways, I think it were a fox. We’ve only five left. I went out early this mornin’ to latch their door.”

  “Chickens are valuable.”

  She studied the egg in her hand. “We don’t get eggs much. A skunk keeps digging under—to get to the nest boxes. Pa drove wooden pegs between the rocks, but the skunk claws the dirt and clay out around ‘em.”

  “It’s late in the year for eggs, anyways. Do you have feed for them?”

  The girl avoided his gaze. “No, I guess they’ll hav’ta make do with scratchin’. I gave the last of the feed two days ago.”

  “Two days? Hmm, not much for them to find outside. Bugs are dead or gone with the turn in the weather. Don’t you worry. We can spare cracked corn and feed for them. I’ll try to bring a sack tomorrow.” He frowned, wondering what else to do for the girl. “You’ll be all right if I leave?”

  “I keep busy.” She turned away from his scrutiny and placed the brown egg in a basket. Her narrow shoulders drooped.

  “Ella Dessa, I’m believing my parents will suggest you stay with us for the winter. It’d be best.”

  “No. Pa would come home and find me gone. Plus, Duncan don’t cotton to him. There’d be trouble if my pa found out where I got off to.” She sat on a bench and folded her hands in her lap. “When Pa marries, he’ll bring her here. I have to wait. Guess he thinks I need a new mama.” Uncertainty clouded her eyes and altered them to a misty blue.

  “Ella Dessa, I wish you’d consider packing clothes and coming with me.” Jim gritted his teeth and fought the temptation to tell the sweet girl her father wouldn’t bring home a new mother. From all indications, Jacob planned to leave the cove. “We can write a note for your father. He can come get you.”

  “Pa don’t read. Besides, there’s no paper.”

  “Then we’ll think of another way. Scratch a picture in the clay floor?” he suggested and grinned.

  She giggled. “Mama used to do that.”

  “See? It’s a plan.”

  “No. I got animals to tend.” She dropped her eyes to her fold
ed hands.

  “Papa and I will come back for them.”

  “I ain’t goin’.” Her chin raised a notch.

  He almost grinned. “You’re a girl. You don’t have supplies to last the winter. We’d all worry about you. Come with me?” He held out his hand.

  “No.” She stared at his outstretched fingers.

  “Then, that’s it.” Jim lifted his empty pack and cradled his rifle. “I’ll be back. Maybe, I can bring word of your father.” As he opened the door, she shivered and hugged her own waist. She appeared so fragile. “Bye, Ella Dessa.”

  Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “Bye, Jim. You tell your mama ‘thanks.’”

  He nodded, flipped the pack over one shoulder, and shoved an arm through a strap. I shouldn’t leave her here. But he couldn’t hog-tie her. She’s a little thing. I despise you, Jacob Huskey. You don’t deserve a daughter like her.

  Chapter 12

  “How was she?” His mother occupied a rocker close to the hearth and a stack of firewood. From where she sat, she could keep an eye on the girls doing schoolwork at the table, reach and toss a piece of wood on the fire, and hardly hesitate in her knitting.

  Jim smiled. “Thrilled by the pumpkin bread and ham.”

  Brown woolen yarn curled and looped across her lap. The wooden knitting needles clicked without pause. “Was Jacob there?”

  “Naw.”

  “So, she refused to come.”

  “Yes.” He crouched on the stone hearth and arranged fresh logs on the hand-forged iron grate. “How can Jacob do this to his own daughter?”

  Mother stuffed her needles into the yarn. “Not many men are like your father. A man who lets his natural drives and inner selfishness take over will lose what’s most precious in this world. Jacob will lose Ella Dessa. If a man doesn’t want God’s guidance and help along the path of life, his own desires will cause him to destroy his connection to other people.”

  He recognized the miniature sermon in her words. He sat on the floor, stretched his legs out in front of him, and crossed his ankles. Tired from chopping wood and the hike home, his anger at Jacob grew.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’d like to give Jacob a piece of my mind with my fist. I could take him down. He’s stringy and tall.”

  “Jim, letting your temper solve problems will never get you anywhere. Remember that. It’ll cost you. Jacob has a frightful temper. Men avoid him. Rumor has it Meara endured beatings. Perhaps, the girl suffered, also.”

  “How bad did he hurt Meara?”

  His mother looked toward her girls. They sat quiet, trying to catch tidbits of the conversation. She dropped her voice to a soft murmur. “I just caught snatches of conversation and overheard the remarks women made when Jacob rode into town. He never brought Meara or Ella Dessa with him. There had to be a reason.”

  “Can’t we bring the girl here?” He tossed another log on the fire. “I think she’d come if you and Grace prodded her.”

  “Heard my name.” Grace entered, sank to the wooden floor on the other side of the rocker, and crossed her legs under her dark-green skirt. Her hands appeared red and chapped from scrubbing the plank flooring in the girls’ bedroom. “Also heard what you said, Jim.” She raised her smooth brows. “I think her coming here is a great idea. I’ll even go with you—to get her.”

  “Wow, it’s not every day my big sister wants to go hiking in the cold.”

  Grace reached past their mother’s legs and smacked his leg. “It’s not an unmarked trail. I climbed it recently. Remember?”

  From the table, Peggy ignored the school assignment in front of her. She placed her left elbow on the book, to keep her place, and twirled a strand of reddish hair over one finger. “I think we can make space for her in our room.”

  “We’re crowded now.” Anna wrinkled her nose. “Phillip’s in our room.”

  “Put him with the big boys,” Peggy said.

  “No, he’s still too little.” Their mother shook her head. “The big boys wouldn’t wake if he needed comforting during the night. This way, he has Grace until the wedding.”

  “Mother, she’s not leaving the cove.” Jim saw his mother’s face reflect unhappiness at the thought of her oldest child leaving the home.

  “I guess not,” Mother said. “I’ll discuss it with your father. I’m sure we can find room for such a tiny slip of a girl, even if she sleeps here in the kitchen. But your father needs to tell Jacob. We’ll say we can use her as a maid, since he’s leaving town.”

  “Maid?” Grace’s oval face showed dismay. “You wouldn’t do that to her.”

  Mother rolled her eyes. “Grace, you know me better than that. It’s just what we’ll tell him.”

  “Whoa! He’s really leaving?” Jim tugged at her sleeve.

  “Leigh stopped to talk to your papa, just after you left this morning. It seems Jacob told everyone he’s leaving town tomorrow. He plans to wipe his feet of the cove, the mountain, and start a new life in Virginia. Phoebe Windorf is going with him. She has kinfolk there.”

  “Phoebe Windorf! Why, she’s a—”

  “Jim!” His mother’s eyes flashed an unspoken warning. “Grace, where’s Phillip?”

  “I left him sleeping on my bed. He needed a nap. Mother, we know girls Anna’s age have worked the back room of the store, but Mr. Beckler and his sister, Agatha, treat them good. They even board there. How about asking them?”

  “Yes. Walter has a kind heart.”

  “I think one girl’s name is Lessie.” Grace smiled. “Agatha teaches them to read and sew. It’s a good place for them to be.”

  Jim spoke up. “Agatha only takes in orphans.”

  “She might make an exception with Ella Dessa.” Mother stood and laid her knitting on the rocker seat. “This subject is closed for now. I have to see to our meal. The others should be back soon. We’ll discuss this later. Grace, go wake Phillip.”

  Jim snatched up the knitting and slumped into the rocker. His thoughts whirled.

  The door opened, and his papa, Duncan, and Samuel entered.

  “I’m froze.” Samuel made a beeline for the fire, shucked his coat, and dropped it to the floor. He held reddened hands toward the flames. “We walked half the mountain checking animal trails, tracks, and traps. I’d rather do homework all day.”

  Jim studied the irritated look on Duncan’s face. It told him his middle brother still fumed about being left behind to do the trap line, but he really didn’t care what Duncan liked or disliked.

  “Who died?” Their papa shut the door to the dogtrot. “Everyone’s so serious.” A half-grin uplifted his full lips and bushy mustache. He winked at his wife and slipped off his coat. “It wasn’t me, I’m still here. See?” With one cold-cracked hand, he playfully patted his wide chest.

  “I told them what Leigh said to you.” She took his hand, turned it over in hers, and shook her head. “Honey, you need to put bear grease on them.”

  “No time. What’s wrong?”

  “The children think we should go get Ella Dessa.”

  “They do?” He placed an arm along her shoulder, grimaced, and leaned on her. “Do they realize this place can’t hold more younguns? Where’d she sleep?”

  “She’d sleep with us girls.” Grace proceeded to wipe three slates clean and erase spelling words written by the girls. “Phillip will bed with the boys. Samuel’s a light sleeper. He can watch out for his little brother.”

  “Hey, wait a minute! Don’t I have a say in this?” Samuel sat cross-legged near the fireplace. “I’m a light sleeper because of the noise level in that room. Phillip won’t sleep at all with Jim and Duncan serenading him all night. Ouch!” he yelped, as Jim’s boot connected with the side of his right thigh. “That hurt.”

  Grace ignored them. “Papa, Ella Dessa can sleep on the pallet Phillip uses in our room. I’m sure she won’t mind. Or I’ll sleep there, myself.” Her tone was gracious and pleading at the same time. “I bet Jacob wouldn’t even care if sh
e came here.”

  “I agree.” Jim clutched the knitting in his fists. He knew his papa quite often let the majority rule in a family discussion.

  “Jim, that’s not the issue.” Papa shook his head. “Daughter, you’ve a kind and loving spirit. I’d like to slip the child down here and hide her, but I need to answer to a higher calling. I must try to do it the right way, ‘cause Jacob’s her parent. Besides, he and Duncan have tangled. So, I got to tread lightly. Leigh also said he and his wife would take her in. We’ve a small community of people who’ll band together and protect the child.”

  “I’d give up my pallet if it wasn’t for her having to sleep near Duncan and Jim.” Samuel snickered. “She’d need cotton stuffed in her ears.” He lifted a book from the floor and opened it. “I read at night because I can’t sleep.”

  Duncan advanced across the room in two strides. He grabbed Samuel under the arms and lifted him to his feet, which caused the book to drop to the floor. “I think Jim and I will carry you out to the barn for the night. You’d learn how good you have it.”

  “Duncan, he’s joking.” Grace frowned as their red-haired brother released Samuel and gave him a playful shove.

  “They both snore like woodchucks.” Samuel picked up his coat and hung it on a peg. “It sounds like two saws in our room.” He held his nose and produced noises with his throat to prove his point. He got giggles from Peggy and Josie.

  “Stop!” Their mother raised her hand. “Hush and quit the nonsense.” She rescued her knitting and put it in a grapevine basket near the hearth.

  “I agree.” Ephraim pointed at the table. “Let’s partake of the evening meal. In the morning, I’ll go to the cove and speak to Jacob myself.” He hung his hat on a peg behind the door and groaned. “I have to sit. My knee seized on me today.” He limped to a bench at the table and bent to remove his boots.

  The girls scurried to assist their mother.

  Jim knelt and helped remove the boot. “Papa, you should’ve seen her face when I gave her the pumpkin bread. We’ve just got to help her.”

  “Son, I’ll approach Jacob if he’ll talk civil to me. And if I can make it down the trail.” He grimaced and gritted his teeth as Jim pulled on the boot. “Ahh! It hurts.”