Gingham Mountain

by Mary Connealy

  Ike nodded and went straight up. She envied him his youth and strength then remembered she wasn’t that much older than he was.

  As she reached for the first handhold, she heard footsteps. She knew they’d come. She turned around just as Abe emerged from the treeline with Matthew on his back. She tapped her toe as she waited. Honestly, if they were all going out, she was tempted to stay in.

  Abe nodded to her and began his climb. She noticed Matthew wasn’t just clinging for a piggy back ride. He’d been strapped like a papoose on Abe’s back. He faced backward.

  “Hi, Ma!” Matt waved as Abe ascended. Grace waited until they’d gone a ways. She wasn’t in any mood to have Matt’s drool dripping down on her head.

  The only reason she didn’t go home now was because they’d figure it out and come on back. Then she thought she felt the baby kick, which was impossible. She couldn’t be more than two or three months along. But it reminded her of this claustrophobic canyon. That kick was like a kick up the mountain.

  She reached for the handhold again, knowing the only one left was Daniel, but the boys were good at sneaking. If she’d gotten away with only them noticing, he might be awhile coming. He’d come along soon enough though. He knew she liked having him along on the way home.

  She was a dozen feet up the cliff when a handhold crumbled and she began sliding backward. She didn’t even scream. She’d learned to flatten herself against the rock and slide to the bottom. A few scrapes were all she’d get.

  She’d only gone a few feet when Daniel caught her by the back of her dress. “I didn’t hear you coming.” She turned, smiling, her feet back on solid ground. “Thanks.” She held her breath, afraid he’d haul her home.

  He pinned her between himself and the cliff and scowled. “Grace, you are determined to die one way or another, aren’t you.”

  “I just want to have a little visit.” Let him assume it was with Sophie. “I don’t mind a few scrapes on my hands.”

  “A few scrapes?” Daniel loomed over her, looking down, disgusted. “How am I supposed to go gallivanting all the time and still get my chores done?”

  “You’re going to get cranky wrinkles if you don’t stop looking at me like that.”

  “Well, good. If my face is set in permanent wrinkles, it’ll save me using my frown muscles.”

  Grace ran one finger down the corner of his mouth, tracing the deep furrow. “I’m sorry I make you frown. But Daniel, I just have to go for a visit once in a while.”

  “You’ve never had to before.”

  “That is the honest truth. I don’t know what’s changed, but this year I just have to.” Her finger rose, and she ran it down the lines that were working themselves in between Daniel’s blond eyebrows.

  Daniel shook his head to escape her finger, but his scowl eased some. “Can this be the last time, please? The gap has to thaw pretty soon. I’ll take you and we’ll have a visit, but then we come home and stay home. I’ve got to get that room built, and I’ve got cow and chicken chores. Having to run to the neighbors so often is a strange quirk that I don’t like to see you developing, Grace. You’re strange enough as it is.”

  Grace nodded. She didn’t bother to tell him that she was going to see Hannah. She’d only be gone a week. . .or two. By then, surely she could hold herself to home until the thaw. “I can’t seem to stop being strange though, Daniel. You know, I’ve wondered before if maybe I’m not all that strange. Maybe women and men are just different.”

  Daniel shook his head. “You’re not going to get away with this by blaming it on being a woman.”

  “Why not?” Her finger lowered to his frown again.

  His eyes dropped to her lips. “Quit distracting me.”

  “I’m not.” Grace smiled, hoping to distract the dickens out of him so he’d be a good sport about it when she headed for town.

  “Oh yes, you are. And you know it.”

  “Is it working?”

  “I’ll say it’s working.” Daniel kissed her right there on the mountainside.

  The boys had been pestering the McClellens for a long, long time before Grace and Daniel caught up.

  Hannah trudged home after surviving another day.

  Grant still hadn’t taken his children out of school, and that surprised her. Was it possible they weren’t telling him about the Brewsters? Once Grant found out about the Brewsters’ return and how awful they treated his children, he was bound to take his young ones out.

  Hannah, slumped exhausted in her single chair, wished Grant was here so she could tell him it wasn’t just orphans. The Brewsters were nasty to everyone. Gladys and the other townspeople had learned to trust Grant’s children.

  She stood up, her spirit renewed. If Grant took his children home, he’d be quitting on the school, quitting on the town, and worst of all, quitting on his children. He’d be making them feel like they were being picked on when they weren’t—well, they were, but no more so than anyone else.

  “I’m not going to put up with it.” Hannah paced in her tiny, slopedceiling room as she focused her anger on Grant—the quitter! “You’re going to keep your children right here in my school, and when things get tough, you’re just going to have to get tougher.”

  She declared to the empty room, “I’m not going to let him run away!”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Hannah wanted to run away.

  The school became a daily struggle. Hannah knew that only sheer stubbornness, combined with the need to feed herself, plus endless prayer kept her going back.

  She wrote parts for the Brewsters. One minute she’d try and teach them their parts, and they’d refuse to join in the pageant. The next minute Hannah would excuse them from being in the play and let them quit practicing, and they’d complained about being left out.

  The Brewsters were allowed to go outside for every recess, and the rest of the students mostly stayed in. Hannah let them all out for a few minutes, but the second the Brewsters started trouble, Hannah would announce play practice, and the students, except for the Brewsters, would run for the schoolhouse like they were running for their lives. Even though it was well into March, a cold spell had settled in and shortened recesses weren’t a great hardship, except her students needed to run off steam. The whole school fairly buzzed with pent-up energy, and Hannah began to have discipline problems in addition to the Brewsters.

  Marilyn was good at teaching the school. Charlie was always right at Wally’s side, diverting the big boy’s flair for cruel mischief onto himself. Hannah watched Charlie like a hawk in case she needed to step in, but Charlie always seemed to be one jump ahead of Wally. In fact, Charlie seemed to enjoy the chance to taunt Wally and attract the boy’s wrath.

  All of the parents had taken to meeting their children and seeing them home from school. Ian now rode out with Grant’s family until he was sure they were in the clear.

  Hannah found herself spending all her time protecting Sadie from Celia and Benny and Emory and Sally from Cubby. Through it all she never gave up trying to force a little learning into the Brewsters’ stubborn heads.

  Hannah collapsed after another stressful day, grateful to have survived. It was two days before the pageant. All of the children had already headed home. She sat in her desk chair and prayed fervently to live through tomorrow. It was too much energy to pray for more than strength sufficient for the day.

  The pageant was getting closer.

  The Brewsters were getting more unruly.

  The winter was dragging on.

  And Hannah was considering applying for a job at the diner.

  Before she was anywhere near done catching her breath, a redhaired woman, very pregnant, carrying a toddler, came in the classroom. “Miss Cartwright, I’ve wanted to come in and introduce myself any number of times.”

  Hannah couldn’t resist returning the warm smile. “You have to be Gordy’s mother.” Hannah thought of the vivid curls and the abundance of freckles on one of Benny’s classmates.


  The young mother laughed, as the toddler squirmed in her arms. “Yes, I’m Megan O’Reilly. You wouldn’t say Gordy looks like me if you could see his pa.”

  Hannah heard a soft Irish lilt in Megan’s voice. “Your husband’s a redhead, too?”

  Megan smiled, running her hand over the red curls on the little girl bouncing and patting her mama’s mouth with pudgy hands. “We’re a matched pair and that’s a fact. Ian is Sour Springs’s only blacksmith.”

  “I’m glad you found time to come in.” Hannah stood and waved Megan into the only adult chair in the classroom. It was a cinch the young woman wouldn’t fit behind a student’s desk. “Sit down. Please, you look like you’ve got your hands full.”

  Megan lowered herself gratefully into the chair with a soft groan.

  Hannah perched on her clean desktop. “I wanted to get around and visit all of the children in their homes, but I’ve been slow getting it done. I had no idea teaching and putting on the pageant would be so demanding.”

  The little cherub in Megan’s arms blew spit bubbles and squealed as she tried to get down. Megan wrestled with her like she’d done it a thousand times before. “I wanted to help you, but Ian hasn’t been letting me get far from his sight these last few weeks, not even for church. My time is close, and our babies come fast. He’s afraid I’ll get caught out and have the little one along the trail.”

  Hannah was tempted to get the woman out of the school right now for fear she’d give birth on the spot. She didn’t say that of course. “I understand. I appreciate that you wanted to help.”

  “The main reason I came in wasn’t because of the children but because I wanted to talk to you about Grant.”

  Hannah’s heart sank. Had word finally gotten out about what went on between her and Grant in the school, not once but twice? Maybe one of the other children saw the two of them through a window. Hannah opened her mouth to ask for forgiveness.

  “Grant is my father.”

  Hannah’s mouth dropped closed. “Your. . .your. . .”

  “I know.” Megan laughed. “I’m only about five years younger than he is. He’s only two years older than Ian, and he’s Ian’s father, too. It makes me laugh to think of him as our pa, but I called him that for the years I lived with him. I wasn’t the first child he adopted, but I was mostly grown so I had a bunch of little brothers and sisters from the minute he plucked me off the train.”

  Suddenly Hannah was intensely curious. She’d heard about the twenty children, and it made sense that some of them were still around, but she’d never wanted to ask who was an orphan and who wasn’t, partly because the question could be hurtful but mainly because she’d been avoiding the whole subject of Grant like he was a full-blown plague.

  “Do many of Grant’s children live around Sour Springs?”

  “There are six of us still around, plus the six still living with him. My husband lived with Grant for a year before he was out on his own. Ian never should have been put on an orphan train. He was near seventeen and no one wanted to adopt a boy that old, which meant he was a leftover.”

  “A leftover?” Hannah asked, masking her horror at a person being called such a thing. Megan had said it almost affectionately.

  “Yes, we had no more scheduled stops before we turned around and headed back to New York. So Sour Springs is the end of the line. Any children who get this far aren’t going to be adopted. Grant found that out and started showing up at the train station when an orphan train pulled in. He takes any children that are leftover.”

  Hannah saw it now. Crystal clear. Leftovers. “I heard Grant talking with the lady who rode with the children.”

  Megan’s face lit up in a smile. “Martha. She’s a saint. She and her husband took in more than a dozen leftover children themselves when they were younger.”

  Hannah knew her instincts that Grant couldn’t be trusted had been born from her own awful experience. She still resisted believing in him fully, but she knew her lack of trust was her own problem, not his.

  “The real reason I wanted to talk to you about Grant is that I wanted to thank you for whatever you’ve done to keep my family in this school. We’ve been afraid, Ian and I, that whatever resentment people in this town feel toward orphans might spill over onto our children. We were half expecting to end up teaching Gordy at home, too. But he loves coming to school, and he’s found good friends and is welcome in people’s homes.”

  Hannah stood, her jaw tense, her fists jammed against her slender waist. “Well, for heaven’s sake, why wouldn’t a sweet little boy like Gordy be welcome in anyone’s home? What is wrong with this town that you’d even worry about such a thing?”

  With a quiet smile, Megan said, “We heard that you are an orphan, too.”

  Hannah said rigidly, “That’s right.”

  “And that you didn’t have a very nice time of it with your adoptive father.”

  Hannah didn’t respond.

  “So you know what’s wrong with people. You know what it can be like. You know how much an orphan longs for a family. I reckon that’s why I’ve had so many little ones so quick, having a family just means so much to me. It’s the same reason Grant has promised God to give his life to orphans. He’s vowed to have no babies of his own when there’s a world full of children who need a home. And to Pa, that promise includes never getting married because married folks”—Megan patted her substantial belly—“tend to have children.”

  “Never have children of his own?” Hannah felt a little lightheaded. “He promised God?”

  “He just can’t bear the thought of bringing more children into the world when there are so many now who need love. He told me that, once I was grown and gone, when I was pestering him about finding a wife. He never tells his children about it. He doesn’t want them to think he’s giving up anything. He’s committed his life to children. He’s a wonderful man.” Megan heaved a sigh then hoisted herself and two babies—one inside, one out—to her feet. “I didn’t mean to go on so long. Ian will be hunting me if I don’t get on. But I wanted to meet you and thank you for your kindness to my son and my little brothers and sisters.”

  Hannah didn’t want to let her go. She had more questions that needed answers. But she didn’t dare ask any of them since the basis of all of them was, “What is a man who never wants to get married doing kissing me?” and, “How can I get him to do it again?” And maybe she’d ask, “Is wishing a man would break his promise to God an unforgivable sin?”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  On the night of the pageant, Prudence waited with the patience of a stalking cougar for Grant’s wagon to pull up to the schoolhouse.

  She’d watched him at church long enough to know he’d be late. Always last in, first out. Those worthless orphans were the cause of his living like that. Her mouth watered when she thought of how she’d rid this town of that trash. The fact that she’d been an orphan didn’t matter. She’d made a life for herself. She’d left the horror of her childhood behind when she teamed up with Horace. The fists of one man were easier to take than the hands of many that she’d had to endure to earn coins on the streets of Boston.

  The milling around of the crowd settled down as everyone got inside.

  Horace came up behind her and slid his arm around her waist. “Tonight’s the night.”

  Prudence nodded. “If this doesn’t work, tomorrow we take what’s ours by force. But we won’t need to. I’ve got it all planned.”

  Horace kissed her neck and laughed. She hated the stench of him. It never went away since he’d been working Sour Spring. But they’d get their land, they’d get their money, and they’d leave this stench behind. She hugged his hand tight and leaned back against him, laughing as she counted the money and saw their lives stretched out ahead of them. No more cold weather. No more working that sharp needle. No more hard times. Grant was their way up, for good this time.

  She saw his wagon pull into town and straightened. “This is it.”

  Horace turned
her around and kissed her soundly. “Do it without messing up.”

  Prudence nodded and slipped away from him, then pulled on her cloak. She peered through the window in the front door. She had to time it just right.

  Guilt alone got Grant to his children’s pageant.

  To avoid the sin of skipping the Easter program, he had to break his promise—given only to himself but a promise just the same—to avoid Hannah. His avoidance plan was all he could come up with to keep from kissing her again.

  His children’s excitement defeated self-preservation. Here he stood unloading the children from his wagon when he should have been home adding more rooms onto his house. He was up to six new bedrooms, and he had one more stand of trees he could attack.

  As he jumped down, he noticed that Joshua looked him square in the eye. Charlie had picked a birthday and declared himself thirteen. The boy was probably closer to eleven, but Grant didn’t care, unless the boy decided to haul off and build a house and get married, too.

  Grant sighed, shoved his hands in his pockets, and let the children go ahead as he secured the team to a hitching post. He trailed glumly behind the others to the brightly lit school as he considered the grand nest he was building that might well be empty soon. He’d deliberately come late, hoping to have only a few minutes to get the kids inside and pick out a spot for himself in the back.

  The children ran ahead and he was alone as he stepped into the small entry area. The last in, he stood gathering his courage, holding the door open like an escape route he didn’t dare take. He pulled on the knob to close himself in with Hannah. Sure the whole rest of the town was here, but Hannah was the only one who was haunting him.

  Prudence slipped in. His arm stretched out holding the doorknob in such a way that she stepped into what was nearly a hug. She had that look in her eye that she’d used a few times, right before she attacked him with her lips.