Gingham Mountain

by Mary Connealy

  The shiver wasn’t exactly fear though. It wasn’t normal that she hadn’t feared Grant. Her fearful reaction to men was something she’d been fighting all her life, at least since Parrish.

  Her shoulders squared and she lifted her head as she remembered confronting Grant. Never for a moment had she considered cringing or dropping her eyes. Why wouldn’t Grant have that effect on her, when he was so much like Parrish?

  A feeling of power firmed her jaw. She’d been taking one daring chance after another in the last few years. Maybe she’d finally built herself a backbone.

  She couldn’t defeat him physically, but she and Grace had outsmarted Parrish. And Grant struck Hannah as none-too-bright. She’d have to outthink him.

  She rushed back to her satchel. It held her and Libby’s few possessions in the world. Then she marched herself straight across the wide Sour Springs street, stepped up on the boardwalk, and went into a building with the words STROBEN’S MERCANTILE painted on the front window.

  Shuddering from the delicious warmth and the smell of food, she ignored her frozen fingertips and empty stomach and dodged around bolts of cloth and barrels of nails toward the whipcord lean woman standing behind the counter.

  Another woman, unusually tall, painfully thin, and nearer Hannah’s age, stood in the corner of the store feeling a bolt of cloth. She looked up when Hannah charged in, but Hannah barely spared a glance.

  Pointing back toward the street, Hannah said, “A man just took two orphans off a train and is planning to take them home. He has no mother for them. I tried to stop him, but he ignored me. I need help. He said his name is Grant.”

  The shopper drew Hannah’s attention when she jerked her head around. Setting the fabric down, she turned toward Hannah, opening her mouth as if to ask a question. Then her teeth clicked and she went back to browsing.

  The lady behind the counter looked up from a scrap of paper in her hand and stopped in the middle of setting a jar of molasses into a wooden box. “Lord’a mercy, that Grant. Another two kids?” She started laughing, loud braying laughs that would have set a donkey’s heart into an envious spin.

  “It’s not funny.” A noise from the street snagged Hannah’s attention and she spun around. Through the storefront window, she saw Grant driving out of town in a rattletrap wagon, with Libby barely visible, sitting squished between Grant and Charlie on the seat.

  Hannah ran to the door just as Grant disappeared into the swirling snow. With a cry of anguish, she ran back to the lady in the back of the store. “He’s leaving. We have to stop him.”

  “Harold.” The lady turned away from Hannah and hollered into the back of the store, “Grant took two more kids out to the Rockin’ C.”

  Laughter came from the back room.

  Desperation making her furious, Hannah snapped, “If you won’t help me then direct me to the sheriff.”

  Turning to Hannah with narrowed eyes, the storekeeper smoothed her neat gray braid, curled into a bun at the base of her skull. Her woolen dress was as faded as Hannah’s and patched at the elbows, but the work was done with a skill Hannah admired. A couple of missing teeth, a beak of a nose, and round, wire-rimmed glasses gave the lady a no-nonsense appearance, and Hannah thought at first she’d made the woman angry.

  Then the woman started laughing. “The sheriff don’t have no call to go chase Grant down. Ned and Grant are friends. Ned’s not going out in this storm just to meet two more of Grant’s young’uns. Ah, Grant and that crowd of his. Just thinkin’ of it fair tickles me to death.”

  Hannah turned to storm out of the store, aware that she’d done more storming around in the last few minutes than she’d done in her entire, meek life.

  Before she could move another step, the woman asked, “Hey, who are you anyhow?”

  Hannah stopped, not sure where she was storming to anyway. “I’m Hannah. . . Cartwright.” She stumbled over the name she’d made up so she could get general delivery mail from Grace. She’d never used it much, avoiding people for the most part except for Libby, and Libby certainly never spoke Hannah’s last name.

  “What are you doing in Sour Springs?”

  “I. . . I am. . . ” Hannah drew a blank. There was one thing that was the truth. She was staying until she could save Libby and all the other children Grant had absconded with. And she couldn’t afford to stay because she had no money. “I’m looking for work.”

  The storekeeper jumped as if she’d been poked with a hatpin. “Really, can you read and cipher? Because we need a new schoolteacher.”

  The storekeeper pointed a thumb at the other woman, now moved on from the dress goods to a stack of canned vegetables. “We offered Prudence the job, but she’s come to town to take up as a seamstress. Not a lot of sewing around these parts. But she’s bent on it, aren’t you?”

  Prudence nodded her head.

  “It’s a respectable enough business for a woman, I reckon, but you’re apt to starve. Still, that’s your business and no one else’s.”

  Prudence’s silent response reminded Hannah of Libby. She had to save Libby.

  Hannah gave a friendly nod of hello to Prudence then opened her mouth to admit she’d never spent a day inside a classroom. She caught herself. That wasn’t the question. “Yes, I can read and cipher.”

  “Harold,” the storekeeper bellowed into the back of the building, “get out here.”

  A huge, unkempt man ambled out from the back room, wearing a union suit that might have been white years ago and a pair of brown broadcloth pants with the suspenders dangling at his sides.

  “We got a young lady here, huntin’ work. She’d make a fine schoolmarm, I’d say.”

  Wiping his hands on a dingy cloth as he plodded in, Harold said, “Great, we weren’t going to be able to open up on Monday, since the last teacher ran off.” He caught sight of Hannah and tilted his head to stare at her as if he was reading her mind, hunting for intelligence.

  Hannah knew this might well be the only job in this tiny town. And she had to feed herself until she could get Libby back. “I have some experience teaching.”

  She didn’t go into details—that she’d taught her little sisters after Parrish went to bed at night. Then she’d taught the street children who had teamed up with her after she’d escaped Parrish’s iron grip.

  Harold headed for the front of the store. “I’ll get the parson and Quincy Harrison. We can vote on it right now.”

  Harold grabbed his coat off a bent nail by the front door as he left the store, letting in a swirl of snow and frigid wind. He pulled the door closed firmly with a crack of wood and a rattle of its window.

  Hannah turned to the storekeeper. “Uh. . . Mrs. . . uh. . . ”

  “I’m Mabel Stroben and that’s my husband Harold. Call me Mabel. Do you have a place to stay? A room goes with the job. It’s the room above the diner.”

  Hannah had no place to stay and only a few coins left in her pocket.

  “A room would be wonderful.”

  “Great, then it’s settled, all except getting you hired.”

  That sounded like a really big “except” to Hannah.

  The door squeaked like a tormented soul when Harold came back. He shed his coat, dusting snow all over the room. Before he’d hung up his coat, a man wearing a parson’s collar and another man, dressed a lot like Harold but half as wide, came in.

  Mabel pointed at Hannah. “Here she is.”

  “Well, that’s just fine. I’m Parson Babbitt.” The parson turned kind eyes on Hannah. “Let’s sit down here and have a nice chat.”

  There were chairs pulled up around a potbelly stove in the front corner of the store, opposite that lone shopper.

  Hannah knew this wasn’t going to work. She had no idea what being a teacher required. She was fairly certain she had the ability to teach, but she had no schooling or experience and she wasn’t about to lie. She relaxed as she gave up this pipe dream. She’d only had a couple of minutes to consider the idea anyway. It’s not like s
he had her heart set on it. She took a seat and folded her hands neatly in her lap.

  Prudence was now leafing through a book of fairy tales.

  Hannah had learned to be suspicious to stay alive, and she had the distinct impression the woman was eavesdropping. But why? Maybe she had children and wanted to know if there’d be a school. Except, no, Mabel said they’d offered Prudence the teaching job and no married woman would be allowed to work.

  The parson settled on her left; the other man sat on her right. Harold perched his bulk on a chair on past the parson and. . . the chairs were gone. Mabel moved down the counter that stretched the length of the small store and leaned on it to listen.

  “I’m Quincy Harrison. I’m president of the school board. The parson and Harold are the other board members.”

  “Hello, Mr. Harrison, Parson Babbitt.” She smiled calmly, completely sure this farce would soon be over. Her insides were gnawed with worry over Libby, but she had no worry about getting hired. They’d say, “No thanks”; then she’d go rent a horse and chase down her little sister, hide out somewhere with Libby in this dinky town, and stowaway on the next train coming through.

  But what about the other children? Hannah had to save them, too. She would listen for a few minutes then decide what to do next.

  Quincy Harrison said, “Can you read and cipher?”

  Hannah nodded. “Yes, very well in fact.”

  “Do you want the job?” the parson asked.

  “Yes, I’d like it very much.” No lies necessary yet.

  “It’s settled then.” Harold stood up. “You’re hired.”

  Hannah’s jaw dropped open. This was the interview? “Uh. . . don’t you want me to take some tests? Show you what I know?” Hannah could pass those tests, she had little doubt.

  “No need.” Quincy stood next. “If it turns out you can’t read or cipher, reckon we’ll just fire you.” He headed toward the door.

  “Wait for me, Quince. We’d best stick together in this weather.”

  Hannah was distracted from needing to save Libby and that sweet little boy for just a second. She had a job. As a teacher, of all amazing things.

  “Did you leave your things over at the station, Miss?” Harold started to pull his coat on.

  The door slammed as the two men went out.

  “Yes. . . I mean no.” How did she explain to this man that she didn’t have any things except her satchel. “Everything’s been taken care of already.”

  Since everything she owned in the world was on her back or in her satchel, that was true. She went back to what was important, possibly life and death. “What about that man? We can’t just stand by while he steals two children.”

  “Steals children? Grant?” Mabel started laughing as she headed back toward the center of the counter.

  A bit slower to react, Harold started in, too. “I think I’ll box up some of the extra pumpkins in the cellar. They aren’t gonna make it to spring anyhow.” Harold seemed to accept Hannah’s statement that her things were dealt with.

  Mabel nodded. “He’s got a sight of mouths to feed.”

  Hannah remembered about the girls Grant had told Libby would love her. “How many children has he made off with like this?”

  “Don’t rightly know.” Mabel looked at the ceiling as if only God could count fast enough and high enough to keep track. “Over the years. . . maybe twenty or twenty-five. Some of ’em’re done growed up and gone nowadays.”

  “There’s half a dozen or so of the older ones married and living around Sour Springs, and that many again scattered to the wind.” Harold grabbed his heavy coat off the nail where he’d tossed it a few short seconds earlier. Hannah’s whole life had changed in less time than it took the snow on Harold’s coat to melt. “I’d say he’s only got five or six out there.”

  “Four, I think,” Mabel said with an unfocused look that made Hannah wonder if Mabel could read and cipher herself. Of course, Mabel wasn’t the new schoolteacher. “Until today. Now he’s up to six.”

  “Twenty or twenty-five?” Hannah exclaimed. “Twenty-five children?”

  At his very worst, Parrish had kept six. All crammed into one room while he had a nice bedroom all his own. The children were stacked into one set of bunk beds, three on the bottom, three on top, with no more regard than if he’d been stacking cordwood.

  “All together, give or take,” Harold said, satisfied with the estimate. “Not all at one time. Lordy, that’d be a passel of mouths to feed, eh, Mabel?”

  Hannah pictured a hovel filled with underfed children gnawing on raw pumpkin while they were forced to work from dawn until dusk to make money for the man with no last name. She also realized that the town accepted this wretched state of affairs and she’d get no help—at least not from these two.

  She should have enlisted the parson’s help. It didn’t matter. The parson had to know and had done nothing to stop it. If they wouldn’t help her save those children, she’d do it herself. “Someone has to put a stop to this. Why, the man is no better than a slave master.”

  Mabel didn’t seem capable of being riled. “Now, Miss Cartwright, it’s not that’a way with Grant. Don’t go getting your feathers all in a ruffle. Just let us explain how things work here in Sour Springs, and you’ll see that you just need to be reasonable.”

  Hannah balled up her fists. “I have no intention of being reasonable!”

  Mabel blinked.

  That’d come out wrong. Hannah heard the door open and close and glanced back to see the other shopper leave without buying anything.

  She looked back. From the set looks on Mabel’s and Harold’s faces, they were supportive of the miserable way Grant treated his children. Well, maybe some people could live their lives like this, but she wasn’t one of them.

  Rather than waste another second arguing with these two, she decided to handle this situation herself. She had a few meager pennies left. She’d see where she could hire a carriage, ask directions, and take care of Mr. . . Grant herself.

  FOUR

  She turned to Harold. “I’d appreciate it very much if you could direct me to my room.”

  “I’ll guide you over, miss. It’s the room over the diner.”

  Hannah sniffed in disgust as she turned to walk out. As she left the store, she heard Mabel say to herself, “Steals children. . . Grant? Imagine.” Then Mabel started laughing all over again.

  Pulling on his coat as he walked, Harold led Hannah through the cutting snow, down the wooden sidewalk, toward the town’s only diner. Harold led her down an alley that seemed to catch all the wind and shove it through at top speed. He rounded the back of the diner, went through a door and up a narrow flight of creaking steps.

  Hannah clutched her satchel and followed.

  It was exactly what she expected, but at the same time she was dismayed at the cramped space. A single room not more than ten-feet-by-ten-feet, with a sloped roof that made the place even smaller. A narrow cot, a row of nails on which to hang her clothes, and a rickety stand with a chipped white pottery washbasin and pitcher. The only heat radiated off a stovepipe that came up through the floor from the diner below. “Do all the teachers stay in this room?”

  “The last four have. We’ve had a sight of trouble keeping a teacher in this town though. The women tend to up and get married or run off for one reason or another. I remember one that got kidnapped, I think. Or no, maybe she ran off with a tinker. Or was that two different teachers? It’s hard to keep track.”

  Kidnapped? Who got kidnapped? Hannah thought of Grace, teaching in a small town in far west Texas. Could she have met such a fate? That would explain why the letters quit coming. Hannah wondered if she’d ever see her sister again.

  Harold crossed his arms and screwed up his face as if thinking were painful. “Or did she get kidnapped by a tinker then marry him? I can’t rightly remember. And I think we had one once that turned to horse thievin’. Bad business that one was. They all kinda fuzz together in my head.”
Harold shrugged as if willing to make up a story if he couldn’t remember the truth.

  “Mabel and I have seven boys, but they’re all grown now, so even though I’m on the school board, we don’t have much to do with the school. We’ve been known to run through three or four teachers a year.”

  This town obviously chewed teachers up and spit them out. It occurred to Hannah that she could be the next in a long line.

  Afraid more thinking might make Harold’s brain explode, Hannah said, “We can discuss the other teachers later.” She moved to the door, thinking to shoo him and his body lice out.

  “Oh, little advice, miss. Think long and hard a’fore you go walin’ on any of the kids. Some of the town folk don’t take kindly to it.”

  Hannah stiffened. “I don’t intend to wale on any child, for heaven’s sake. I’d never strike a child.”

  “Now don’t go making promises you can’t keep. The Brewsters’ve moved on, but their like’ve come through town before ’n more’n likely’ll come again. Need a good thrashin’ real regular, those young’uns did.”

  “No youngster needs a thrashing. Children need love and understanding. Now really, I must ask you to leave. I’ve got things to do.”

  Harold must have been long on mouth and short on ears because he apparently didn’t hear her and kept talking. “No figurin’ people near as I kin figure. But the likes of the Brewsters’ll be back. Two boys and a girl. The lot of them Brewsters could stand a good thrashin’ to my way of thinkin’.”

  Hannah bristled up until she could have shot porcupine quills at Harold. Thrash a child indeed. Why, she’d be no better than Parrish.

  She had to get Harold out of here so she could go save Libby.

  Swamped with stubbornness she didn’t know she was capable of, Hannah decided then and there she’d neither thrash a child, nor steal a horse, nor let herself be kidnapped, nor marry any man. She’d had her fill of men, first Parrish and now that awful child-stealing Mr. . . Grant. She planned to have no man in her life ever. In fact, squaring her shoulders, she vowed right then and there she’d start a new tradition and stay at the school forever—unless she had to steal Libby away from her new father and save the other children out there and run. She tried to imagine twenty-five children stowed away on a train. Or was it six or four? She’d heard several numbers. Hannah got a headache just thinking of all she had to do.