Clara's Mail Order Joy (Home for Christmas Book 5)

by Natalie Dean

  Clara had not expected to have to work so hard; her hours were taken up with cooking and cleaning up after meals. Laundry was exerting because Peter’s clothes were filled with dust from the mine. The first Monday that was washday saw Clara in a very unpleasant humor but despite her displeasure at the task, the meals were ready on time.

  “Honey, you’re always working so hard,” Peter said at supper after he’d praised her for the meal she’d cooked. She’d found that the Dutch oven upon which he had relied when living in the camp was really quite versatile, serving as a cookpot, a griddle and of course an oven. Clara wondered if Father, who was an admirer of inventions that performed their purpose with efficiency, had ever used a Dutch oven. Probably not, she realized; Father was an Ellis and the Ellises had servants. “Why don’t you go visit your sisters one of these afternoons? I can surely do without a cooked meal three times a day and you merit a rest. Your sisters will think I’ve killed you off like one of Bluebeard’s wives if they don’t see you soon.”

  “Perhaps we could go on Sunday, after church,” Clara suggested, not wanting to admit that she was still leery of handling the reins for the wagon.

  “I reckon we could,” Peter said.

  He didn’t sound eager.

  “You weren’t planning to go down in the mine on a Sunday, surely,” Clara said in such a disbelieving tone that Peter immediately said that no, he’d had no such idea.

  So on Sunday, he donned his wedding suit and Clara one of her fine dresses and they went to church.

  It was very different from Boston, she noticed immediately once they were inside and sitting on the wooden benches. There were no prayer books or hymnals, there wasn’t even a piano or an organ. The windows were very plain, with no stained glass, only simple panes of glass that let in the light. Rev. Mains greeted them and said that he was pleased to see them; he said this with a stern glance at Peter, which led Clara to wonder if perhaps her husband had not been as dedicated a churchgoer as he ought to have been. However, he was married now and Clara was confident that she would manage the welfare of his soul quite handily.

  Minnie and Gavin were seated on a bench in the middle; Harley and Hazel had not yet arrived. The sisters shared a smile; they were here, together. Then Hazel arrived, Harley behind her, his hat in hand; there was no empty room on the bench and the couple found another place to sit. Clara and Minnie were both disappointed; it would have been nicer to be together.

  Church was interminable, Clara found. There was no way to rest her back against any support and by the time Reverend Mains had launched into his sermon, a particularly spirited delivery which spoke of the virtue of women and the merits of Deborah, the female judge of Israel, Clara felt as if she could find no comfortable position in which to sit. How could all these people sit this way, she wondered, stealing a glance down the pew to see how Minnie was managing. Minnie’s head was tilted back as she attended to the sermon, but she seemed to be having no trouble sitting.

  Clara fidgeted. Truly, if the good reverend did not bring his sermon to a close soon, she was quite sure that she would stiffen so that she would not be able to rise from where she sat. She looked to the other side. There, too, the men and women sat in unyielding posture.

  If the rustics could do it, then Clara Allerton Ellis certainly could, she decided. She leaned slightly back so that she could derive more support from her corset, raised her head and kept her gaze upon the minister with what she hoped was a seraphic expression. Meanwhile, she was wondering where she could get a pattern for men’s trousers. Peter had only the trousers he wore into the mine and the ones he wore now. He needed at least another pair; he had put up a fuss when she said she had to wash them and he’d had nothing to wear until they were dry.

  The congregation rose and sang a hymn that was not familiar to her. Clara’s keen love of music recognized that the tune was much livelier than the slow, ponderous pace of the congregation would have indicated. They were ruining the hymn, she thought. It was not meant to sound as though it was being sung over a funeral plot.

  But when Reverend Mains bowed his head for prayer, Clara wished that they were singing again. Was he going to list every single sin that every human being had ever committed, she wondered as he went on and on, making his way through the Ten Commandments with vivid Biblical examples of each transgression. Then he went into a litany of what she supposed were sins common to Colorado: drinking and gambling and cursing and fornication and vanity . . . at that point, she lost interest, perhaps because she did not regard vanity as so dire a sin that it merited being mentioned in the same breath as the others.

  Finally, the prayer ended, to be followed by yet another doleful hymn. Clara thought of the choir at the cathedral at home and the magnificent singing voices that had heralded the adoration of God on a Sunday morning. Why would God choose to be present in this dreary building when he had a home in a Boston cathedral, she thought.

  Still, she had no choice. A Christian was obliged to attend church services regardless of whether or not the structure was suitable for an Ellis daughter. The seats were evocative of medieval punishment, she thought, but she would endure it. She would endure it all, at least until Peter’s mine yielded its treasure and then they would live in luxury.

  Harley invited his in-laws to join them for Sunday lunch. They were planning to hire a cook, he said, as if to warn them that the meal might be less than memorable. But the sisters were eager to be together and they accepted his invitation.

  “Thank you, Jane,” Hazel said when a young girl brought in platters of food to share. There was meat, which in Clara’s opinion could have used a bit less salt; the carrots could have cooked a bit longer and would not have suffered from perhaps, an infusion of sweetening, she thought; the biscuits were passable; the pickles were too tart; the berry cobbler lumpy. She wondered why Hazel was not cooking the meals; it was something she had achieved mastery over when the sisters were required to divide the household tasks because the Ellises could no longer afford servants.

  Harley commented that Reverend Mains had delivered his usual excellent sermon. Clara stared. He could not possibly mean what he said.

  “Does he always speak at such length?” she asked.

  “Generally,” Gavin said with a smile that indicated his awareness of her real meaning.

  “I thought my backside was about to turn to stone,” Pete said. “I understand that we’re not to think of creature comforts in the presence of God, but no one has ever explained to me what it is that makes us holier if we’re suffering on a piece of wooden board. If we’re going to have to sit on benches, the least the good Reverend could do is to shorten his speaking a tad.”

  “I thought his sermon was well founded,” Harley said stiffly. “I take your point, however, about the benches. They’d be better with a back on them.”

  “What about the music?” Clara asked. “The hymns were not inspirational in the least.”

  “Clara,” Minnie said, “you will simply have to sing louder.”

  This brought laughter, even from Harley Wyatt, but Clara did not see anything funny in the suggestion. What Minnie proposed was likely the only recourse available if they were to make a joyful noise. She knew herself to be the possessor of an exquisite soprano singing voice. Her sisters also had excellent voices.

  “If only there was a piano,” she said.

  “Nobody in Newton has a piano,” Harley answered. “Plenty of musicians, though; guitars, banjos, dobros, dulcimers. They’re fine for dances and there will be a number of those once summer is in full swing.”

  “But no piano,” Clara repeated.

  “No piano.”

  No piano. She had come to a benighted spot at the very edges of the nation, where such things as pianos and inside plumbing were unknown. If this kept up, Clara thought, she might just have to join Peter down in the mine, because the sooner the silver vein was struck, the sooner they could commence living the way the daughter of Jonathan and Betsy Ellis
expected to live.

  After the meal, the men went outside to take a look at the new foals that had been born to the mares on the ranch, affording the sisters an opportunity, their first since the three of them had been together in Colorado, to talk amongst themselves. Clara was most voluble. Had they ever endured such a worship service, she asked? And was not doing the laundry a particularly grueling chore? She didn’t mind the cooking, nor the cleaning, but laundry was excruciating. And how long would it be before Colorado would have bathrooms the likes of which were familiar in Boston?

  There was silence at first as her sisters digested her complaints. Then Hazel spoke, “But Peter loves you,” she said. “It is in his eyes when he looks at you, and is that not worth more than all the deficiencies that you list?”

  They were interrupted by the arrival of what Clara supposed was one of the strangest sights she had ever seen. A young girl, no more than ten or eleven years of age, she guessed, came into the parlor carrying a tray of cups and saucers and coffee. She was tall and slender, with a pretty face and long, fair hair plaited in a braid and tied with a string. She wore boy’s clothing.

  “Thank you, Oakley,” Hazel said as the girl placed the tray on the table near Hazel’s chair.

  The girl nodded and left the room.

  “Who is that?” Clara asked, her diatribe against the absence of amenities in Colorado halted by this unlikely interruption. “She favors your husband in coloring. Is he a widower with a child?”

  “Her name is Oakley,” Hazel said quietly. “That is all I know.”

  Chapter 8

  Clara could not put the thought of the trouser-clad Oakley out of her mind after she and Peter left the ranch and returned home. Peter was not much more forthcoming.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe Gavin knows; he’s lived in Newton longer than I have. I suppose she’s kin of some kind.”

  “I should think she is!’ Clara declared. “But if he were a widower, surely he would have said so. Other people in town would know.”

  “I don’t know as it matters, Clara,” Peter said, his tone serious, something which in itself was unusual, for Peter typically had a cheerful way of looking at things.

  “Doesn’t matter? Of course it matters! If a man has an illegitimate child, he ought not to expect a virtuous woman to meekly accept that child’s presence in her house.”

  “What would you have him do? If the girl is from him, would it be better if he sent her off to an orphanage?”

  “My sister Hazel is the sweetest-tempered and most charitable of women,” Clara told him. “It is unjust of her husband to exploit her kindness.”

  “Maybe she’s doing the Christian thing,” Peter said.

  “What do you mean by that? The Bible clearly says that we are to refrain from sinning.”

  “The Bible says, doesn’t it, that we’re to forgive? I don’t pretend to be much of a church-going man; I don’t often go but I reckon that it’s the right thing to do and now that I’m a married man, I’ll do it. We’ll have children one day and I don’t want them to think their father is a reprobate. But even if I never stepped through the church doors again, I’d know that I’m called not to cast judgment.”

  “Where are we going?” Clara asked. They were on their way home, but Peter had steered the horse in a different direction from the route that he typically followed.

  “I think you might want to see another part of Colorado. These are our neighbors.”

  “What is this?” Clara inquired in a horrified whisper. Before her were tents spread out with no order at all and not even an attempt to recognize symmetric dimensions from one another. In other places, there were odd sorts of dwellings constructed out of poles and cloths to separate rooms or perhaps even residences. In front of the living quarters, there were people, mostly men, tending to fires, cooking on stones, sitting on the dirt, chatting to a companion or staying by themselves.

  When the wagon went by, some of the men noticed its presence and rose.

  “Hey Pete!”

  “Pete, you’re finally showing us that wife of yours!”

  “Ma’am, what’s a pretty lady like you doing with a plug-ugly like Edwards?”

  “What’s she think of Angel?”

  As the men neared the wagon, Clara felt a sense of alarm. They were dirty and disheveled, their clothing an odd hodgepodge of hats and trousers and vests and shirts, all seemingly coated in the dust of the mines. Peter seemed to be unperturbed by their condition as he greeted them.

  “Folks, meet Mrs. Edwards, from Boston.”

  “Ma’am,” said one man, approaching the wagon, “you are surely the prettiest woman ever to cross the Mississippi River.”

  Clara liked compliments and she was never unwilling to accept them. But these men were staring at her as if they hadn’t eaten in days and she was something served on a plate. She clasped Peter’s elbow with her gloved hand, taking comfort in the natty cut of his broadcloth suitcoat and the sinewy forearm beneath the fabric.

  There were more comments, some of them, she suspected, unsuitable for her ears. Peter chided one man who said something which Clara didn’t understand but which apparently her husband could not accept. The man apologized, abashed and then, reaching over to the flowers growing wild at the outskirts of the camp, pulled up a handful of the blossoms and handed them to her.

  “With my regards, Mrs. Edwards,” he said.

  Gingerly, Clara took the flowers, resigned to the fact that she would need to wash her gloves free of the stains from the stems in tomorrow’s laundry barrel. “Thank you, sir,” she said.

  “Haven’t seen you of late, Pete,” called one man. “How’m I s’posed to win back the money you won from me if I don’t get another chance to play?”

  “I’ve given up my bachelor vices, men,” Pete said jocularly. “Now that I’m married, I’m a new man. As you can see, I went to church today where I learned enough about sin to keep me honest for the week to come. Reckon I’ll have to go back on Sunday for a refresher.”

  “Looks like you’ve got a good woman to keep you in line now, Pete,” said another man. “Don’t you do anything to lose her.”

  “I don’t aim to, Allaren,” Pete said. “Good day to you all, now, and good luck down below!”

  When they were out of earshot, Clara asked, “Who are those people? Are they miners?”

  “They are.”

  “I don’t believe I saw any women.”

  “There are some. Not a lot. It’s mostly a bachelor’s business, mining. But the women are here, cleaning and taking care of their men. There are children in the camps, too. People came here from all over the world when news got out that silver---and gold too—had been found here. People will come a far distance for a chance at a strike.”

  “You came from Wyoming?”

  “No, I was at Fort Laramie when I was a soldier. I’ve done a fair bit of traveling throughout the West and I’ve turned my hand to a number of trades. I’ve worked as a carpenter, I’ve built railroads, I’ve done ranch work . . . all honest labor. I saved up to buy this mine and my gut tells me it’s got silver in it that’s going to make you the wife of a rich man one day. But mining isn’t like other labor.”

  “What made you decide to buy a silver mine?” she asked.

  “I won a good sized amount of money in a poker game,” he said, “and I put that with what I saved and I bought the Silver Belle.”

  “You gamble?”

  “Not now,” he said. “I used to play a lot of cards. Won, too. But I’m going to be thirty next year and the time for that sort of folly is over. I don’t want to risk my earnings on a turn of the cards.”

  “I’m glad. Peter . . . those men. They look desperate. You don’t look like that.”

  “They’re risking everything they have on the hopes of hitting a rich strike. For me, I own the land. I have a house. I have a wife. If mining doesn’t bring me what I think it will, I’ll turn my hand to something else.”

/>   “Would you go back in the army?” she asked. While she didn’t much like the thought of Peter at risk against the restless Indian tribes of the West, she thought that soldiering might be a steadier means of making a living than the other fields he had worked in.

  “Lord have mercy, no. I joined the army because I thought it was better than living in Kansas after the War. But there’s a passel of orders being given when you’re a soldier and I like doing things my way.”

  “What rank did you have in the army?”

  “Lieutenant,” he said.

  “You didn’t want to stay and get promoted?”

  “I figured I was lucky to make lieutenant. They must have run out of candidates to give me those stripes,” he chuckled. “I’m not soldier material. But I didn’t know that until I tried it. Why?” he asked, smiling. “You thinking I might look good in Union blue?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what’s best. Father fought in the war; he said that war is bloody and dirty and a miserable business, but he wouldn’t have fought if he didn’t believe in what he was fighting for.”

  “What side? Boston, so he was in the Union Army?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s Yankees here. And Rebels. The West is a way for wounds to heal.”

  “It’s a long way to come for that.”

  “I reckon so. But this is a mighty big country and if a man feels that he can’t stay in the land where he was born, the West is a good choice. I couldn’t stay in Kansas.”

  “Is your family still there?”