Bachelor's Puzzle

by Judith Pella

  Ellie often wondered what a future mother-in-law might think of her. She sometimes imagined how the mothers of the young men she was interested in would accept her. Colby Stoddard’s mother, Emma Jean, scared her most. That woman ran her home like a military camp, with herself as the general. Her husband was only a colonel, if that. No wonder her daughter Sarah was so shy. Colby was a rebel except he was always polite and respectful in his mother’s presence. Away from her, he was a wild one. That’s probably why Maggie, much as she refused to admit it, was sweet on him. And why most of the girls, including Ellie, were to some degree taken with him. He wasn’t a truly bad sort, just fun-loving, and Ellie did like that about him but not enough to risk having Emma Jean for a mother-in-law. Maybe if she really loved Colby, it wouldn’t matter who his mother was.

  The new pastor’s family most likely would be far away in Maine.I t might be she’d never meet them unless they had the means to take the train west sometime. She wondered again what he was like. She made a picture in her mind of a tall, handsome man about twenty-five years old, with dark hair and deep-set dark eyes intense with both humor and wisdom. Oh, how those eyes would gaze upon her with love! She would work at his side. She had always wanted to start a Sunday school in their church. Oh yes, she could see it now. She would lead the little children, and he would lead the adults. And together they would serve God, building a wonderful church and congregation that would become known throughout the county for its faith and good works.

  Stop it this minute, Ellie Newcomb! How you spin silly daydreams.

  More than anything else, she wanted her own home and family. L ooking around at her parents’ home, she imagined having one like it. She loved the simple frame house with its whitewashed siding and covered front porch. Dad had built the house himself, with the help of neighbors, of course. I t was two stories, the bottom floor one huge area for the kitchen, dining, and living areas, though at Mama’s insistence there was a small separate room for a formal parlor. Upstairs were the four bedrooms. There was no indoor plumbing except in the kitchen, the one thing Ellie would change in her own home. She’d have an indoor bathroom with a big bathtub, maybe even with hot and cold running water.

  Not on a pastor’s salary, you won’t! she told herself in an attempt to bring her fancies down to earth.

  She concentrated once again on the patterns in Mama’s box. The pattern showing was a L eMoyne Star, or as her mama called it,L emon Star. Maybe she should do something simple like that. She really should refuse to get caught up in a competition that was not only unseemly but could become downright unsavory if it went too far. But she had always been taught to do her very best, and she could do far better than the Lemon Star.

  Thumbing through a few more patterns, she paused at one called Tree ofL ife. This was also pieced but more difficult by far. And there was a lovely spiritual meaning to it. I t consisted of a tree trunk with nearly fifty tiny triangles for leaves. But since she especially enjoyed laid-on work, maybe she could make a more representational tree with a gnarled old trunk like the willow in their yard. Could she work that in blue? Oh, of course. She’d make a sky and perhaps an entire scene of the house, the willow, a couple of birds.

  Jumping to her feet she went to Dad’s writing desk, found some paper, and sketched out her idea. Then she began to wonder if Mama had a scrap of blue that would work for the sky. She went to the scrap box and was digging through that when she heard the wagon rattle into the yard.

  Within a few moments, the house seemed to burst into life.

  “Looks like you’ve been hard at it, Ellie,” Mama said as she strode into the house with an armful of packages and took note of the scattered patterns and scraps of fabric.

  Ellie hurried over to help. “Just looking through your patterns.”

  “Find anything?”

  “I’ve got some ideas.”

  “Ooh!” Maggie exclaimed, holding up Ellie’s sketch. “Looks like you’re Leonardo da Vinci creating a masterpiece.”

  “Put that down. You’ll mess it up!” Ellie demanded, feeling a little embarrassed. Down deep she knew she had gone too far with the drawing.

  Mama ambled over. “That’s really nice.I know I’ve’ve got some brown for the tree.”

  “What’s all this?” Dad asked, coming in just then.

  “It’s for the biddies’ man-trap quilt,” Maggie said before Ellie could respond.

  “What?” Dad truly had no idea what she was talking about.

  Quickly Ellie said, “Oh, it’s nothing, Dad. Just a welcome quilt the Sewing Circle wants to make for the new pastor.”

  Dad looked at Mama.

  Mama said, “Maggie, would you put down Ellie’s work and finish bringing in the groceries?” I t wasn’t really a request, but Maggie was obviously reluctant to obey just as things might be getting interesting.

  “What are you ladies up to?” Dad asked Mama.

  “We are just making a welcome quilt.”

  “What has Maggie gotten into her head—?”

  “Maggie, scoot!” snapped Mama, and this time Maggie leaped toward the door.

  “Stay put, Maggie,” Dad said quite firmly. Everyone held their breath, for it wasn’t every day he so openly disputed Mama.

  “Calvin, now, don’t get your dander up,” Mama said with a laugh. “Goodness, you know what a kidder Maggie is.”

  Maggie, who had stopped short at the door, made a protesting sound, but before she could say anything, Dad spoke. “I was afraid of something like this.I knew there was gonna be trouble when I showed you that letter and your eyes lit up like the Columbia steamer at night.”

  “Whatever do you mean, Calvin?” Mama said with another laugh.

  Ellie defined it as a nervous laugh.

  “We’ve got a bachelor minister coming to the county,” Dad said. “That’s like luring a poor fly into a web.”

  “Oh, Calvin, really!”

  “Ada,I am the chairman of the board of deacons, and I must set an example for the church.I insist that this family behave in a seemly fashion with the new pastor. You will not parade our daughters about like tavern hussies!”

  Dad never used words like insist and will not around Mama, not to mention a word like hussies. This was serious.

  “We are only making a quilt, dear,” Mama said in a rare contrite tone.

  “I’m going to tend the animals,” Dad said, then strode past Maggie and out the door.

  Maggie started to follow him.

  “Don’t take another step, Margaret Edith!” Mama hissed.

  Again Maggie stopped short.

  “Put the new sack of flour in the bin,” ordered Mama. “Then it is time to get supper.”

  “But Dad will need help.”

  Maggie never did know what was good for her.

  “Georgie will be home soon,” Mama said tightly in a tone that broached no argument.

  Reluctantly, like a convict marching to the gallows, Maggie picked up the sack of flour Dad had brought in and carried it to the bin in the sideboard.

  Ellie closed up the pattern box, straightened up the scrap box, and put everything away. Then she went to the kitchen to help with supper.

  “Mama, is Dad right?” she asked. “Is it so terrible to want to impress the new pastor?”

  “Your father is just being a man, which simply means he doesn’t understand how things are, especially in the area of love and marriage. But what he truly doesn’t understand is that we are only making a welcome quilt. No man ever married a girl because of a quilt.”

  That didn’t take into consideration the unspoken implication of the quilt, but logic did tell Ellie that her mother was right. A quilt would never affect a man’s heart. Still, she felt bad, not because of the quilt but because she knew her father was upset, perhaps even upset and disappointed with her. What he thought about her meant too much to her to feel comfortable with that.

  “Mama, do you mind if I go out and . . . help Dad?” she asked.

&n
bsp; “Well, just until Georgie gets home—”

  “That’s not fair!” protested Maggie. “You told me I couldn’t go out—”

  “Ellie did her chores today while you went to town and played. And it was you who put your father into a sour mood in the first place.”

  “What happened?” Ellie asked.

  “Nothing. Go on and help your father,” Mama said.

  Mama’s tight lips and the flash in Maggie’s eyes gave Ellie the feeling she really didn’t want to know, so she grabbed a coat from the hooks by the door and went out.

  Dad had brought the horses into the barn and was forking hay into their stalls.

  “Can I help, Dad?”

  “Why, you haven’t worked in the barn since you came back from that fancy finishing school your mother sent you to.” He seemed to place special emphasis on those last few words. The school had been Mama’s idea, though Ellie had wanted to go.

  Ellie rubbed Jock’s white face. He and Samo were their wagon team. “I can rub the horses down for you.”

  “Georgie will do that, honey. Why don’t you just get on with why you came out here?” He smiled and didn’t seem mad at all.

  “You’re not mad anymore?”

  He shrugged. “Not much.”

  “I don’t want you to think ill of me, Daddy.”

  “I would never, Ellie. You are the finest daughter a man could ask for. You have always made me proud.”

  “Well, this thing with the quilt—”

  “I know your ma put you up to it.”

  It would have been easy to let it go at that, but Ellie knew it would neither be fair nor honest. “Daddy, the quilt was Mama’s idea, or at least the Sewing Circle’s, but . . . well . . .I have to admit it kind of has an appeal. That is . . .” Pausing, she turned so she could look her father in the eye. “I wouldn’t be opposed to marrying a minister—”

  “Ellie, not you—”

  “He’s going to marry someone, Dad. Why not me?”

  Instead of answering right away, Dad paused in his work and gazed at his daughter. There was sadness in that look but maybe some understanding, too. He reached up and touched a lock of her hair hanging loosely around her shoulders.

  Finally, he spoke. “I reckon I don’t really mind the ladies making a quilt. Maybe I don’t even mind them trying to snag the pastor, though I feel mighty sorry for the lad. No, that’s not what perturbs me.I guess I’m’m just realizing my little girls are growing up—well, truth be told, they are grown-up. After what happened in town today and now this silliness with the quilt,I know it won’t be long till I’m’m gonna have to hand you over to another.” He stopped, his lips trembling a little.

  “Much as I have always wanted my own home and family,” Ellie said, “that’s the part that troubles me, too.L eaving you and Mama isn’t going to be easy.I love our family and our home.

  But we’ll always be near each other.I’ll make sure of that.”

  “Just as long as you marry someone worthy of you. A good man, a Christian man who treats you right.” He bit his lip. “I don’t worry so much about you, Ellie. But that Maggie. If she takes up with that no-account—” He stopped, lifted the hayfork, and impaled another load of hay for the horses. “Maybe Maggie ought to marry the minister. That’d settle her down some. But she’s so young. . . .” He seemed to be talking more to himself than to her.

  Ellie wanted to remind him that Maggie was only a little more than a year younger than she was. She wondered what in the world had happened in St. Helens that had him so riled but thought better of bringing any of that up now.

  “Dad,I know God will lead me to the perfect husband,” she said instead. “And I won’t marry anyone you don’t approve of.”

  “Then let’s just leave it in God’s hands.”

  It wasn’t until that night after they had crawled into bed that Ellie could ask her sister about the trip to St. Helens. She put out the lamp and spoke in whispers because she was sure this wasn’t going to be a discussion they wanted Dad to overhear.

  “So, Mags, tell me what happened in town,” Ellie said.

  The moonlight coming in through the window revealed Maggie rolling her eyes. “Dad went off like a lit fuse just because I was talking with Tommy Donnelly. He actually said he didn’t want me ‘keeping company’ with Tommy. Can you believe it?”

  “He said ‘keeping company’? Those words?”

  “Tommy is just a friend.”

  “You’re probably his only friend. He never had any friends in school.”

  “I tried to tell that to Dad, that he himself always taught me to be nice to the less fortunate. Well, all he said to that was ‘Less fortunate girls.’ ”

  “Well,I can see Dad’s concern,” Ellie said. “Tommy always was . . . an odd sort. Kind of sullen and . . .I don’t know.I can’t put my finger on what makes him odd, but I’m’m not the only one who thinks so.”

  “He is odd, and I can’t help feeling sorry for him. But to ‘keep company’ with him? Really!”

  “You can’t be too careful now that you’re getting older.”

  “Another reason I hate getting older.” Maggie squirmed under the covers. “And you know what’s worse? Mama agreed with Dad.”

  “Agreed?”

  “Jane Donnelly is Mama’s best friend,” Maggie went on, “so it seems kind of disloyal. She said Tommy takes too much after his father.”

  “Mr. Donnelly is almost always drunk and scowling like he’s got a real mean streak. And he never comes to church.I’ve’ve heard rumors that young Tommy drinks spirits with his father.”

  “Tommy hates his father,” Maggie said. “The man beats him and makes him work like a slave when he, that is, big Tom, don’t hardly lift a finger. Dad called big Tom shiftless, and I believe it. But Tommy is different. He doesn’t want to be like his father, he truly doesn’t.”

  “Sometimes a boy can’t help turning out like the only example he sees.” Ellie felt some fear rising up in her. “Mags, you’re not sweet on him, are you?”

  “Goodness, no!I feel sorry for him is all. You may not think looks are important in a husband, but I do, and Tommy, bless his heart, is as homely as they come. A bit slow-witted, too.”

  “Be careful around him, then.”

  Maggie gave a quiet chuckle. “You sound worse than Dad.

  Even Mama said it’d be okay to invite him to church.”

  “Won’t be the first time we’ve tried.”

  “He could change.”

  “Maybe Georgie or Boyd could invite him.”

  Maggie gave a testy sigh. “He’d just consider them two-faced, and he’d be right. They have never been nice to him before.”

  Ellie thought it was time to change the subject. “Dad was all sad because he realizes we are growing up and will be married soon.”

  “He don’t have to worry about me!I’m’m years away from that.”

  “Still, it’s sweet, isn’t it? And you know what else? He said he feels sorry for the new pastor with all the girls going after him.”

  “Yes. There’s a man who is doomed even before he sets a foot on the powder keg.”

  FIVE

  Dad announced that on Sunday, two weeks after Mama’s Sewing Circle had decided to make the welcome quilt, the family would go to Scappoose and attend Grandma and Grandpa Newcomb’s church. This was the last weekend in April. The family usually visited their grandparents on the third weekend of the month.

  “One good thing to come of having no pastor of our own,” Dad said, “is that we get to spend an extra Sunday in the month with Grandma and Grandpa.”

  Ellie was sure she saw a twinkle in his eye as he said this with a pointed look toward Mama.

  Mama said nothing. She could hardly protest going to church, could she? But no doubt she was perturbed that Dad had to make such an embellished point of the matter, since they had been following this routine since they had lost their pastor. Eight months ago, Pastor McFarland, their former minister,
had suffered a stroke while riding the circuit. He fell off his horse and broke his leg and died a week later from the trauma. He was seventy years old and probably should have given up the circuit long ago. Most likely he had hung on because, as they soon learned, ministers were not exactly falling off trees in the Brethren of Christ Church. I n those intervening months it had been quite a hardship on the church members in the county. Many letters had been sent to headquarters back east, but word always came back that there just were not enough available ministers.

  Most of the church members in Columbia County visited other denominations when they could, but distances were so far it was usually quite an ordeal to get to another church. Nevertheless, the Newcombs now went to Scappoose two Sundays in a row.

  The church was another bone of contention between Mama and Grandma Newcomb. Dad had been raised Methodist and Mama was Brethren of Christ. When they married and moved to Maintown, there was already a Brethren of Christ Church there, so that’s where they became members. Grandma once said right out that she thought that’s why Mama had pushed for the move to Maintown. Ellie did not know if that was so. She herself could see little difference between the two churches; in fact, she thought the Brethren were an offshoot of the larger denomination.

  Saturday morning the family boarded the wagon. Dad had put up the frame and canvas cover because it looked like it might rain on the way. He and Boyd rode up front, and the rest of the family rode in back under the canvas. Dad had spread a layer of hay on the floor, and Mama had laid a couple of quilts over that so the ride would be a little more comfortable. Ellie tried to sew, but the bouncing of the wagon prevented her from doing the fine appliqué work she needed to do on her block for the welcome quilt. Maggie had a book to read, but after a while she had to put it down because the jostling was making her sick. She still hadn’t chosen her block, and Ellie knew she would put it off until the last minute.