by Tia Siren
But she wasn’t caring for her father’s house anymore. She was caring for her husband’s, a man she barely knew, even two and a half weeks in.
“Oh dear,” she said loudly so that small listening ears would hear. “Oh, my! Andrew will be so unhappy about this. I can’t imagine who could have done it!” She silently picked up a small hard ball that was still rocking in place under a table near the smashed vase. She slipped the ball into her pocket. “Oh dear.” She shook her head. “Could this have been a ghost? Oh, how will I tell Andrew there is a ghost in this house!”
She heard the sound of a small gasp from the other side of the open door into the foyer. It was followed by several muffled sounds of “shhh”.
“What will I do? A ghost!” She said again, directing her words toward the doorway.
“Oh! Oh, oh, is there really a ghost? Is there, Miss Ella?” Carl came running into the room and threw himself into Ella’s skirt, balling it up and pressing his face into it. She put one hand on his back and patted him.
“Shut your bazoo, Carl!” Raymie said in an irritating voice, also coming into the room. “You know it wasn’t a ghost! She’s just trying to scare you.”
Ella shook her head. “I wasn’t trying to scare him, Raymie. I was just trying to draw you, four boys, out. You did this, didn’t you? With this?” She pulled the ball out of her pocket and held it out for them to see. The other two boys were poking their heads around to see what she was doing. They came in the room, looking distraught and threw themselves on the couch. Peter hung his head, his small cheeks red. Freddie pressed his lips together to keep from laughing. Raymie was the one who appeared most upset, crossing his arms over his chest and plopping down on a big high-backed chair sitting next to the couch.
“I get bored around here!” He said angrily.
“I’m sure you do. You should be in school.”
“We don’t need to go to school!” He said abruptly. “We won’t need that when we’re working here on this farm.”
“Surely your papa will let you go to the schoolhouse if you want to.”
“I don’t want to!” Raymie exclaimed, giving her a furious look.
“You don’t?”
“He does, too!” Peter said, quietly. Raymie glared at him. “Well, you do, Raymie. I heard you telling Freddie even just a couple of days ago. You said you wanted to learn to read, and you were mad because you don’t know how.”
“I do know how to read!”
“No, you don’t.” Peter shook his head.
“You don’t know how to read, Raymie?” Ella was surprised and disappointed. She would have thought that at least the oldest one would have learned that by now. “It’s very important that you know how to read. Especially since you want to work on the farm.”
“I don’t want to work on the farm!” Suddenly Raymie stood up; his small fists clenched and his eyes filled with tears. Ella’s heart broke looking up at him. She took a step closer and reached out to him, but he pulled away. “I want to work in a bank! It’s not fair!” He bolted out of the room and up the stairs. A few moments later, the door to his room was slammed shut.
Ella was left in shock. He was so embarrassed. She hadn’t meant to embarrass him. Freddie gave her a smile and walked out without a word. Shortly afterward, Peter followed, never taking his eyes off the floor. Both boys went up the steps.
Ella looked down at Carl, who was staring up at her. “He’s mad,” Carl said.
Ella nodded and looked at the stairs. “Yes, I think he is mad.”
She leaned down and picked the little boy up, resting him on her hip. He was too big to carry like a baby, but he held on to her as if he was one. She carried him up the stairs and opened Raymie’s door without knocking. She set Carl down and surveyed the scene. Peter and Freddie were simply sitting on Raymie’s bed while the young boy pressed his face into his pillow. Carl immediately went to the bed, climbed up on it and covered his oldest brother with a hug, resting his cheek on Raymie’s back and wrapping his small arms around his brother as much as he could.
Raymie didn’t move, accepting his little brother’s love without a word. Again, Ella felt her heart melt for the boys and their obvious love for each other. She went to the bed and sat in an open area, placing one hand on Raymie’s shoulder.
“I am so sorry I embarrassed you, Raymie. Please don’t be upset anymore. I tell you, you can be happy about one thing.”
“What’s that?” Raymie’s voice was muffled but sounded hopeful.
“You can learn to read any time in your life. I have three younger brothers at home, and I taught them all to read. My papa thought that reading and having an education was very important, even for a girl! So he taught me and I taught them. I can teach you, too, if you want.”
Raymie sat up but didn’t look at her. Carl transferred himself to Ella, draping himself over her back and wrapping his arms around her neck. She lifted one hand and patted his arms instinctively, feeling a great deal of affection for the little tyke.
“I can learn to read?”
“Of course, you have just as much…” Something behind Raymie on the wall caught her attention, and she focused on it. All four boys looked up at her face when she suddenly stopped talking. “What is this?” She mumbled to herself. She stood up, taking Carl with her as he wrapped his legs around her waist so she could piggy-back him. She carried him to the wall and bent down. There was a bit of wallpaper torn away. She lifted her fingers, grabbed it and pulled it so that it ripped some more. She heard a gasp behind her and Freddie spoke up.
“That’s wallpaper Papa put up just for Raymie. It’s his favorite color. He’s gonna be mad.”
Ella continued to rip the wallpaper off, feeling a bit of nervous excitement flow through her. She lowered Carl to the floor and ripped even more down. Behind the green wallpaper, there were pages and pages of newspaper. The section that had caught her eye read in big bold letters Jim Smiley and his Jumping Frog. Someone had covered the wall with an old New York Saturday Press from 1865. She was shocked that it was still readable after all the years that had passed.
“We can start now if you like.” She looked back to smile at the four boys. Their eyes had widened, and they looked at the wall curiously. “I can read this story to you. It’s a very interesting story about a man and his jumping frog. Would you like for me to read it to you?”
“Yes, yes, Miss Ella!” Freddie was the first one to respond, and his brothers followed suit quickly. Even Raymie had regained his composure and came over to look at the words on the wall.
An hour later, Andrew came through the front door and stood still for a moment. The house was quiet. It was never quiet. He looked around suspiciously, noticing the broken vase that had been partially cleaned up. He glanced down the hallway and then up the stairs nervously.
“Boys?” he called out and took the stairs up two at a time. The first door to the right was Raymie’s so he swung it open.
He didn’t expect to see his four sons sitting on the floor surrounding Ella. Carl was once again on her back. She appeared to be reading from papers they had ripped down from the wall.
“What is going on?”
Freddie was the first one on his feet to run toward his father.
“Papa!” he called out excitedly. “Mama Ella is teaching us to read! She says we don’t have to go to the schoolhouse if we don’t want to and that she’ll teach us right here. But I want to go to the schoolhouse, papa, that’s where other kids are! And Raymie wants to be a banker, papa! He does!”
With that, the other three boys approached their father and started talking all at once.
“Whoa, my sons!” Andrew laughed. He gestured for Ella to come to him, as well. She got to her feet and approached slowly. He noticed she looked nervous and shook his head, reaching out to touch her cheek and brush a loose strand of hair away from her face, gently pushing it behind her ear.
“Is this true? You would lik
e to teach my sons? You don’t mind being here with them all the time?”
She shook her head. “Not at all, Andrew. I would be proud to teach them. They are lovely boys, you know.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You are the first to say that, my dear. I am glad. I am very glad.” He pulled her into a hug that she didn’t expect. She put her arms around him and pressed her cheek against his chest with a sigh. Tingles covered her when he whispered in her ear. “Do you think you can take a grouchy old man and fall in love with him, too?”
She looked up at his deep green eyes and had to admit it. “Yes,” she said. “I think I already have.”
“I have been distant,” he said in a low voice.
“I have been watching. You are a good father and a good man with plenty to be concerned about. You work hard for these boys. They know it and so do I. I am proud to be here. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I’m so happy to hear that, Ella. I really am.”
He lowered his head and gave her a kiss, which she returned. It was the warmest, best kiss she had ever had. And it was only the beginning.
*****
THE END
MariAnne’s Escape – A Mail Order Bride Romance
Enough was enough.
For the past four years, MariAnne Parkinson had counted every day as just another day to survive; a challenge and obstacle that she could only conquer—never savor or truly enjoy.
It hadn’t always been this way, she reasoned. The first 18 years of her existence had been a time of love and laughter, pleasure and prosperity; a life of light that she had shared with her parents and sisters on the vast expanse of their Texas horse ranch.
The day after her eighteenth birthday, however, had brought some most unwelcome tidings: the news that she was bound to marry her father’s business associate, Leon Campbell--a man whose dowry would pay the bills that would save their foundering farm.
“A pretty steep price to pay for my freedom,” she mused, reflecting on the virtual living hell that she endured from day to day.
Although always pleased to help her family with the rigorous duties that kept their ranch running, she never could embrace the role of ranch hand; and that is the unpaid job title she was given the day after her wedding. Her husband dragged her into his corn field at the break of dawn and commanded her to clear the field of all robust stalks; telling her that she would have no supper until the task reached its rightful completion.
And even after she met this lofty goal and retired to their modest ranch house, she also found that it was her responsibility to prepare the supper that her husband tried to deny her; feeding him and his crew of surly ranch hands before eating herself.
“And if only that was the most serious complaint I had to lodge against that man,” she thought now, cringing as she contemplated her many miserable nights spent at the home that quickly morphed into a house of dreadful horrors.
Although she’d never coveted the idea of retiring to bed in the company of the oily, unattractive Leon—a man thirty years her senior—MariAnne at least had hoped that he would be gentle in their lovemaking. Yet the rough, sometimes violent rutting that occurred each night in their bedroom proved just another form of abuse; just another form of dehumanization that threatened to steal her every last ounce of happiness and well-being.
The birth of her daughter Ellie two years ago had served to introduce some much needed comfort and succor to the agony of her troubled situation. With the dark brown eyes that mirrored her mother’s and the sweetest smile she ever had beheld, this beautiful little ray of sunshine blessed and brightened her mother’s life; her luminescence dimming just a bit every time her resentful father—jealous of the way in which sweet, adorable Ellie commanded his wife’s attentions and consumed her love—screamed at her for the slightest offenses--once for spilling a bit of milk on the kitchen floor.
When Ellie came to her with tears in her eyes one too many times, MariAnne knew that she had to take action; so with this in mind she charged into the kitchen and confronted her husband—shaking her fist in the face of the man who towered over her with a menacing glare.
“Now you listen here Leon,” she commanded, adding in the harshest tone she could muster, “For three years now I have done my level best to be a good wife to you; tolerating your horrid treatment every day and night, and all for the sake of my family back home. Yet I shall NOT stand by and watch you scream at my daughter—teaching her to fear you, and possibly to hate herself. I do not ever want to hear you saying her name with anything but the greatest love.” She paused here, adding as she squared her slender shoulders to proud effect, “Or my name, for that matter. You are my husband, Leon, and Ellie’s father. You are not our master, our lord or our boss man. You treat your ranch hands with more respect than the people who bear your name, and that is a travesty. It has to stop, and it will stop now.”
She fell silent then, pinning her husband with a narrow eyed look that brimmed with both hatred and a sense of challenge.
These same eyes flew wide seconds later, as a fuming Leon pulled back his fist and slammed it into her delicate chin; drawing a scream from deep in her throat as she staggered backward, clutching a face that now throbbed with pain.
“That’s what happens to disrespectful wives who disobey their men,” he sneered, adding as he turned away, “And if Ellie ever shows me the same type of attitude, then she is bound to get the same treatment. And that’s a promise.”
Glaring after him with incensed eyes, MariAnne fought the urge to jump on his back and pound him upside the head. She knew all too well, however, that he could overpower her and knock her senseless in a matter of seconds—leaving her daughter alone and defenseless in the company of a madman.
“I have to make a plan,” she thought, drawing a deep sustaining breath as she nursed her bruised jaw with a gentle hand.
Over the next month MariAnne seized upon the single viable escape that gave her temporary release from her prison of a home; her weekly unsupervised trips to the market in town. Here she sold eggs for the little bit of extra money that she could call her own; money that her husband intended her to earmark for the purchase of fabric and hair pins—those feminine accessories that would help her look her best for the man she married.
Yet instead of spending her meager earnings on yards of floral print calico, she brought the coins home and stowed them away in the gold tinted jewelry box she kept on her dresser; the only wedding gift that had proved of any use to her since the beginning of her marriage.
Then one night, when her husband left the house with the brash announcement that he would be out late at a downtown saloon and not to bother waiting up for him, MariAnne assured him that she would not and locked the door behind him; gathering a few articles of her and her daughters’ clothing into a large carpetbag and retrieving her savings from the jewelry box.
Slipping into a long wool coat that concealed the fabric of her mint green calico dress, she grabbed a second coat for her daughter and took their carpetbag firm in her hand.
Finally she ventured to Ellie’s room and took her by the hand; her heart wrenching as her daughter scooped her favorite rag doll up into her arms and lifted her tiny chin to ask her mother, “Where are we going, Mama? Where are you taking Dolly and me?”
Forcing a smile even as her tension wrought heart pounded in her ears, MariAnne pulled her daughter behind her as she made quick steps toward the door.
“That’s a good question sweetheart,” she told her daughter, adding as she clasped her little hand in hers and made fast tracks for the door, “All I know is that, wherever we’re going, it’s bound to be a good sight better than where we are.”
Chapter two
MariAnne reconsidered these words a half hour later, as she and her daughter shared a hard wooden bench at the center of a hot, dry and overly crowded train station.
After walking with her daughter down the long dirt
road that separated her husband’s sprawling Austin ranch from the bustling downtown area, she had rushed with Ellie through the wooden double doors that accessed the train station; hoping against hope that they would avoid a confrontation with the heathen who, or so he had told her, played poker at a saloon just a mile away.
“I need passage for two to San Antonio on the next available train,” she told the dour, salt and pepper haired gentleman who worked at the ticket booth.
The man nodded, quoting her the rate for two tickets in a rote, mechanical tone.
Leafing through the wad of bills that she withdrew from the depths of her purse, she counted them slowly, one by one; performing this count a total of three times before letting loose with a frustrated sigh.
“I’m afraid I’m just a little short,” she said finally, adding as she pinned the now frowning ticket agent with imploring eyes, “Look Sir, my daughter and I simply must leave town on the next train available. And while I can’t reveal the specific reason as to why, I assure you that we are not about to embark on a pleasure trip. It is very important that we….”
“Next!”
Silencing her with a single loud word, the ticket agent waved her out of the way as he seared her with a cold eyed glare.
MariAnne shook her head.
“Please Sir, I have my 2-year-old daughter with me,” she plead, struggling to steady her voice as a loud, rough sob arose in her throat. “We need to leave here this evening, and I’m just a few dollars short. Please show us mercy…”
“Next!” the clerk repeated, this time reaching forth from the ticket booth to emphasize his words with a light shove that knocked MariAnne from the line.
