Gingham Mountain

by Mary Connealy

  Grant surged to his feet. His daughters held on tight and plunked him right back on the bench between them. Marilyn got up and stood so close he couldn’t escape without knocking her over—which he hated to do, but still he seriously considered it and saved the idea in case it came to that.

  “What kind of question is that to ask your pa?” Grant tried out his best I’m-the-Head-of-This-House voice. He’d never used that voice much, mostly because it didn’t work worth a lick. “You girls behave yourselves now. I’m sorry I messed up supper, but you can see clear as day I needed the practice.”

  “We’ve been trying something fierce to get Miss Cartwright to come out again.” Marilyn leaned down, her eyes narrowed as she studied him. “She seemed to want to learn how to sew a riding skirt, and she asked a lot of questions about cooking. I was sure she’d be back, worrying about orphans the way she does.”

  Grant had never been one to turn a child over his knee. He’d just never found it necessary. Most of his children were so happy to live with him—sometimes after a rocky start of course—that he’d never had to resort to such as giving a whoopin’. He reckoned Marilyn and Sadie were a little old now for him to start in. But still—

  “Now she won’t come.” Sadie leaned in from the side. “Pa, did you do something to hurt her feelings? Did you try and steal a kiss or—”

  Grant erupted off the bench. “Now, you girls just stop that.”

  Marilyn didn’t get knocked clear over, but that was only because Grant caught her and set her aside on his way past.

  “We’re not havin’ that kind of talk around here.” Grant grabbed his hat as he ran out the door.

  The girls were giggling. One glance over his shoulder, just before he hid in his immaculate barn, showed the two of them standing in the doorway of his crooked little house with their heads together, chattering like a couple of pea-brained magpies.

  “All right, children. You’re dismissed for morning recess.”

  As the classroom emptied amid shouts of joy, Hannah held two slates together on her desk, studying Charlie’s handwriting. Charlie’s was so beautiful, full of loops and swirls, it made Hannah think of an ancient Bible handwritten by monks.

  Benny’s wasn’t so good. He’d have been all right except he’d taken to copying Charlie’s style. All he’d done is end up with words Hannah couldn’t read. She mulled over how to redirect Benny’s attempt at beauty without hurting his feelings.

  Maybe she should talk to Charlie, get him to tone it down. But it was a shame to stifle such creativity.

  “Miss Cartwright?” Marilyn’s voice broke her concentration.

  Hannah glanced up, surprised to see Marilyn and Sadie still in the room. The children usually all stormed out for recess. “What is it?”

  Sadie held up a small bundle, wrapped in brown paper. “This is some extra fabric we had at home. People give us things like this all the time, and we can’t begin to use it all. We’ve been wanting you to come out and learn to sew. But since you haven’t, Marilyn and I thought maybe we could work on it here.”

  Hannah thought of her worn dress. Heavily patched, faded until it was colorless, nearly torn to shreds when she’d fallen off Rufus that day at Grant’s, only wearable because of Sadie and Marilyn’s talented needles.

  Looking down at her frayed cuffs and the drab gray color that had once been blue gingham, she remembered stealing it off a clothesline when she was still in Chicago, over four years ago. The way she’d gotten it was a disgrace even more so than the way it looked. She’d never had the money to spare for a new one, but it didn’t matter because she wore it now as penance. A reminder of the depths to which she’d sunk to survive. The rags of a street urchin because a thief didn’t deserve better.

  “Girls, I can’t take that fabric.” Hannah shook her head. “You might need it for yourselves. No, absolutely not. Thank you, though. I should get paid soon. Then I’ll buy some cloth. I would be very grateful for your help then.” Getting paid would be wonderful. Right now she was eating each day solely because of the generosity of Grant’s children. A situation that had to end.

  Marilyn kept coming. “Now Miss Cartwright, I’m afraid we can’t let you wear this dress anymore. It’s indecent and. . . and. . . ”

  Sadie pushed past her sister. “You’re shaming us, miss. Why, anyone who sees you thinks you aren’t paid enough and this town doesn’t care about you, and it’s just plain hurting the honor of the good town of Sour Springs, Texas.”

  One corner of Hannah’s mouth turned up. Oh yes, the highly developed skill of all orphans—the ability to manipulate.

  Marilyn stepped past Sadie, and the gleam in Marilyn’s eyes sent a little thrill of fear through Hannah. “The plain facts are, Miss Cartwright, people in this town are generous to Pa with things like fabric. You saw the pile of it in our kitchen when we were digging around for a patch for your dress, now didn’t you?”

  Hannah remembered the little mountain. It was a fact that the family had more cloth than they’d ever use. “I saw it.”

  “Well, this is how it’s gonna be.” Marilyn arched her eyebrows at Hannah, and Hannah remembered that the girl was a big help with the teaching. She was old enough and strict enough to do it better than Hannah ever could.

  “Marilyn, don’t take that tone—”

  “We’re going to make you a new dress,” Marilyn cut her off. “You can help us and learn something or you can stay out of our way.”

  “You can make it, Marilyn, but you can’t make me wear it.” Hannah didn’t like the direction of this conversation. It put her on an equal footing with these girls when she was supposed to be in charge.

  “We will make it and you will wear it, even if we have to ‘accidentally’ rip a big hole in that dress, which would take about two seconds and next to no effort.”

  Hannah gasped. “Marilyn, you wouldn’t!”

  Sadie’s eyes got wide with what could only be admiration. She stepped up beside her sister. “The honest truth is that even if we don’t do it, it’s going to happen someday. You’ll snag it on a nail or a rough corner of a wooden chair or have another run-in like you did with Rufus, and your dress is thin as paper.”

  “And when that happens,” Marilyn went on, “you won’t have anything to put on. You’ll be standing here with your dress hanging in tatters with nothing to change into because you don’t have another dress. You need this dress now, made of good sturdy cloth so something disgraceful doesn’t happen. Or at least you need to have it so, when something disgraceful does happen, you’re ready.”

  Sadie jerked her chin in a way that seemed to say everything was settled. “So we are going to make this dress, with or without your help. And if you don’t want to wear it, we’ll just stuff it in a corner of the classroom to be used in the event of a disaster. Then you’ll be happy enough to have it.”

  Hannah glared at the girls. Then she glanced down at the patches Grant’s girls had sewn on the sleeve of her dress. There was another big one on the back and the cloth didn’t come close to matching. When the girls had sewn her dress back together, they’d commented on the tissue-thin cloth. She knew she needed to replace it soon for the sake of decency. But her pay hadn’t come yet, and Hannah didn’t know how to sew when she could afford fabric. And she’d die before she let that dreadful Prudence sew for her. . . as if Hannah could afford to pay someone for a job Hannah was ashamed she couldn’t do for herself. And now, here stood these generous, blackmailing children offering her fabric.

  She knew Grant hadn’t been consulted, although in fairness to him, she admitted he’d have probably let her have the cloth. But the girls hadn’t asked. And that probably made her a thief yet again. At the very least she was a beggar. The only food she had was a share of the children’s lunch every day, something they’d also manipulated her into without Grant’s knowledge, since their excuse for each one sneaking her bits of their food was that they didn’t want to hurt their pa’s feelings by not eating every bi
te of the mountain of food he sent.

  Between Grant unknowingly feeding her, his daughters offering her fabric to dress herself, and the knowledge that what she wore was stolen, she could hardly look the girls in the eye. She couldn’t have looked them in the eye anyway. They walked past her.

  Turning, she watched them clear her desk, spread dark green wool out, and begin talking about what to do next. With a huff of disgust, she went up to stand beside them. “Oh, all right, you little monsters. Tell me what you’re doing and go slow.”

  The girls started giggling, and before long Hannah took up the giggling and was in the middle of her first sewing lesson.

  Sadie pulled a tape measure out of her pocket. “Stand up straight, Miss Cartwright. You’re so slender I’m afraid we’ll make it too big.”

  As they worked, the girls chattered pleasantly. Hannah learned far more than she wanted to about Marilyn’s affection for Wilbur Svendsen.

  “We need to find a man for Miss Cartwright before she’s too old to have children,” Sadie announced.

  Marilyn gave Hannah a quick glance then started giggling. She covered her mouth as she laughed louder. Through gasps for air, she said, “Miss Cartwright could use a beau for sure.”

  Sadie ran the tape from Hannah’s shoulder to the tips of her fingers. “That is unless you already have someone sparking you, Miss Cartwright.”

  “I most certainly do not have anyone sparking me. It’s not proper for you to ask me such a question, Sadie.”

  Sadie and Marilyn exchanged a strange, satisfied look.

  “And anyway, I can’t cook or sew.” Doing her best to sound falsely forlorn, Hannah said, “Why, any poor husband of mine would most likely not survive. I think I’ll just keep teaching if you don’t mind. I believe God has given me a gift for teaching, and I plan to devote my life to it.”

  Sadie said, “Well, husband or not, it won’t hurt you any to learn to sew.”

  Grant’s girls told her what each measurement was for and how to lay out the fabric to cut. In the end they made her do most of it herself, just like any good teachers.

  When the time came, they wanted her to cut, but she refused. Sadie took over, and Hannah flinched every time the scissors snipped for fear the precious piece of cloth would be ruined. But Sadie cut and chatted as if she did it every day.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Grant went through the whole mending basket.

  He even darned some socks, although he was afraid his uneven stitches might cause a blister or two. But it wasn’t a bad job all in all. He hadn’t had grown daughters to do for him at the first, and he’d learned some things. He ran like a scared rabbit when the children came home so there was no way Sadie and Marilyn could ask about it.

  But when he came in to supper, Marilyn next-thing-to-attacked him with a bolt of cloth. “Pa, I’ve been thinking. Since Wilbur’s been sparking me, I need to get some experience making clothes for a man. It’s all your fault I don’t know how to do that.”

  Grant backed away from her, looking between her and that length of brown cloth in her hands. “Why’s it my fault?”

  Sadie came up behind him and blocked the door so he couldn’t escape. “Because you never let us make you any clothes.”

  “I don’t need any new clothes.”

  “Yes, you do, Pa.” Joshua sat leaning against the wall, reading a schoolbook, with his long legs drawn up to his chest so he wouldn’t stretch across the whole floor and trip everyone who came by. “Sadie already made a whole new outfit for me just this year, but that was before Marilyn came. I don’t need anything. Marilyn is sure enough right that she doesn’t have much practice.”

  “You don’t want me to be a failure as a wife, do you, Pa?” Marilyn wheedled.

  “I don’t need clothes.” Grant grabbed the fabric out of Marilyn’s hands with too much force, feeling an almost desperate need to stop her.

  The gleam of mischief faded out of Marilyn’s eyes. Grant hadn’t noticed it was there until it was gone.

  Grant held her stare for as long as he could stand it. “What?”

  “When’s the last time you let us make you something?”

  Grant folded the fabric clumsily as he went and set it on a teetering pile of cloth that he’d been given by kind ladies over the years. There was quite a heap of it, enough to keep his children in clothes for a long while.

  “We’re not wasting cloth on me.”

  The touch on his shoulder turned him around. Sadie smiled at him. “Now calm down.”

  Grant fought the pull of her sweet charm. Sadie, his youngest daughter in that first group of children he’d adopted, had always held a special place in his heart—of course all his children held special places in his heart. Still, he knew how he responded to Sadie. He had a hard time denying her anything. His stomach twisted for fear he’d calm down. He didn’t dare calm down. He’d end up doing something he didn’t want to do.

  “You’re trying to store up everything for us, aren’t you?” Marilyn’s voice pulled him back to look at her.

  Grant frowned. “You kids are growing. There’s no call to waste good fabric and time on me when you boys will tear the knees out of your pants by tomorrow night and need new. There isn’t always fabric to be had.”

  “You’ve got quite a few dollars in the bank these days, don’t you, Pa?” Joshua waited in silence. The kind of silence that made a man talk, even when he didn’t want to say a word, just to end that silence. And how did Joshua know what he had in the bank? That wasn’t anything proper to speak of with children. Grant had certainly never told him.

  “Even if I do, there are hard times in ranching. We’ve got some cash money built up for now, but a hard winter might cost us a crop of calves and we could be in trouble. You kids need things. Your shoes wear out and your arms and legs sprout. I spend what needs spending and save the rest for a rainy day.”

  Grant noticed Charlie looking down at his outfit. Everything the boy had on was new. Grant remembered the shame of having clothes come to him secondhand. Not that his children didn’t wear hand-me-downs; they did. But when they first came to the family, they got one set new, right down to socks and boots, made just for them.

  Charlie, settled on the floor on the far side of the fireplace, raised his eyes. Those hostile eyes, so suspicious, carrying a world of anger around on his thin shoulders. Grant saw the war in the boy. He wanted to get mad about the clothes because he reacted to everything with anger. But what was there to get riled up about with clean, freshly made, nicely fitting shirts and pants?

  Grant also noticed something sticking out of Charlie’s pocket. The little corner he could see had the look and shape of a pocketknife. Charlie didn’t own a pocketknife. Grant knew that for a fact. And how could the boy have any money? With a sinking stomach, Grant knew it had most likely gotten into Charlie’s pocket in a dishonest way. Charlie wouldn’t be the first orphan to have a knack for thieving. Just because a boy had enough food and a warm bed didn’t always stop things from sticking to his fingers. Sighing, Grant knew he had something else to deal with. He said a silent prayer for his troubled son.

  Looking at his children, Grant’s eyes landed on Libby with her new dress. After Grant had fixed her worn little shoes, he got her new ones at the mercantile and fixed the soles on those. Now she had a pair for good and another for home.

  The little angel was settling in well, but Grant had to clear up this fuss about clothes and go for a walk with Charlie.

  “I think we’ve got enough cloth to spare to make you a pair of pants and a shirt.” Sadie stepped to Grant’s side as Charlie rose to his feet. The two of them exchanged a glance then turned to face Grant. Grant noticed Charlie tuck that knife deeper in his pocket.

  “And you need new boots, Pa.” Sadie crossed her arms. “Yours are worn clear through on the bottom. They have to be cold.”

  Grant studied his boots. They were the ones his ma and pa had gotten for him when he was sixteen, just a couple of months bef
ore they died. They’d seen to it he had a new pair the two years he lived with them. But that was when his feet were growing as fast as summer grass. His feet hadn’t grown since then. Why buy new? Two leather thongs held the soles on, and his toes peeked out in half a dozen places. He’d slipped new pieces of leather on the inside because the bottoms were worn thin as paper, and he’d sewn buckskin on over the heels a couple of times. “I’m fine.”

  Sadie reached past him and snagged the piece of fabric off the pile. “Please, Pa. It makes me feel selfish to have nice things and see you go without.”

  Marilyn stepped up behind Sadie, her blond head nodding. “We’re not going to make one more new thing for anyone in this house until we get you out of these rags.”

  Benny dodged in front of Sadie with his wide, loving eyes. “Are we selfish, Pa? Do you think we are?”

  “No, son. Not a one of you kids has a selfish bone in your body.”

  “You must think we are, or you’d have something nice for yourself once in a while,” Sadie said. “You gave up your room, and now you sleep on the floor without complaining.”

  “I didn’t even think of that when I was so mad at Benny. You don’t even have a room.” Charlie’s hand slid deep in his pocket to hold the knife. The boy looked up and Grant caught his eye. A faint flush of red that screamed guilt rose on Charlie’s fair cheeks.

  “Now, you guys stop it. The kitchen is a room. No one’s using it at night. It’s a waste not to have someone sleeping in it. I’m closest to the fire. Why, I’m the selfish one. If you kids’d just think about it, you’d be fighting me for the kitchen floor.”

  He scanned all those worried young faces. None of them was buying it for a second.

  “You never have anything nice for yourself.” Sadie held up the yards of brown cloth. “And we never even noticed till now. We really are greedy and selfish.”

  This had started out differently. Grant had seen the teasing light in Marilyn’s and Sadie’s eyes. He’d known they were up to something that had only a little to do with clothes. But they weren’t teasing anymore. Somehow he’d made them feel bad. The last thing he ever wanted to do was hurt a child.