Loving Liza Jane

by Unknown

  The other teachers had always lived with families, but much to Mrs. Winthrop’s dismay, this particular teacher, Miss Merriwether, had insisted on her independence. Of course, Mrs. Winthrop had thought it highly inappropriate that a lady live alone, particularly the schoolteacher, and even Ben had inwardly scoffed at the notion. The wilderness was no place for a self-governing female. He’d already decided that the lady was undoubtedly some fastidious, uppity spinster from the city used to having her way. Probably stubborn to boot.

  As it turned out, it mattered little what Mrs. Winthrop, or anyone, thought about her living arrangement. Hickman needed a schoolteacher, and since no one else had applied for the job, the school board had voted to invite Miss Merriwether.

  “Is she gonna live with us until you finish it?” Lili asked, sliding onto a nearby stool.

  “Good grief, Lili, what would ever make you ask such a question?”

  “Ain’t she ar ’sponsibility?”

  “Don’t say ain’t, Lili, and no, she certainly is not our responsibility. I simply offered your grandfather’s old place if and when I find the time to fix it up. Until then she’ll stay at Emma Browning’s boardinghouse.”

  “Will she be mean and grumpy?”

  “Who?” He was still thinking about old Mrs. Winthrop.

  “The new teacher.”

  “I shouldn’t think anyone would be mean and grumpy to you,” he offered, giving her a slow grin and turning the eggs over in the pan. “Now hop down and set the table, would you?”

  “Mr. Lofthouse was mean and grumpy to everyone,” Lili said as she walked to the cupboard to take down a couple of plates.

  “Well, that was Mr. Lofthouse.”

  “And the teacher before him, Mr. Abbott, was only a tad better. But he had that ugly black mark on his face. Did you know that hair grew out of that thing?”

  “Hair? Sweetheart, a person can do nothing about a birthmark.”

  “I know, but it was hard to look at that man, ’specially when he got up close. I wonder if the new teacher will have a birthmark,” she said, hugging the clean plates to her shirt.

  “I doubt it.”

  “I wonder if she will be pretty,” she said.

  Ben smiled at the little chatterbox. “God made everyone different, Lili. It’d be good if you kept that in mind. Looks are not everything, honey. In fact, they’re not even important.”

  “Mr. Lofthouse wasn’t too bad to look at, but he couldn’t make no one behave,” she charged, seeming to ignore his strategy for teaching a timely, godly lesson on love and acceptance.

  “Anyone. He couldn’t make anyone behave.”

  “I know. That’s why they had to fire him.”

  “I believe he quit, pumpkin.”

  “Do you think the new teacher will quit?” she asked, finally laying a plate on the table.

  “I couldn’t say.”

  “I wouldn’t want to teach them mean boys what sit in the back.”

  Deciding to let her grammar slide, Ben took a tin plate from the table behind him and stacked the eggs atop it. “Those Hogsworth twins ever give you any trouble?”

  “No, Papa, but they sure do like to stir things up. Once they brought a snake into school and stuffed it right inside Mr. Abbott’s coat pocket when he wasn’t looking.”

  Ben stifled a chuckle. “I’m sure that created a stir.”

  “Mr. Abbott’s face went pure white with shock when he stuck his hand inside and came out with that slimy thing. When he tossed it across the room, it landed smack on Eloise Brackett’s desk. She screamed from here to kingdom come, Papa.”

  He laughed quietly. “I imagine she did.”

  “I wouldn’t have minded if it’d landed on my desk, Papa. I’m not ascared of snakes.”

  “You’re not afraid of much of anything, young lady,” Ben said, tapping the end of her freckled nose with his finger.

  Taking their seats a moment later, father and daughter clasped hands at the table. “Whose turn is it to say the morning prayer?” he asked.

  “Yours, I believe,” Lili said, her authoritative tone signifying she’d been keeping track.

  “Well then, I’ll take your word for it,” Ben said, grinning at her freckled face before bowing his head.

  “Dear Father,” he prayed, “we thank Thee for the food You’ve put before us. Please watch over Lili, Molly, and me today as we go about our business. You know exactly what our needs are, Lord, and we trust Thee to meet them according to Your timeline.

  “Help us, Father, to live according to the commandments that Thou hast set before us and to be ever mindful about showing the love of Jesus to our neighbors.

  “Please give us generous hearts and kind spirits.

  “In Thy name we pray…”

  “And be with the new schoolteacher!” Lili cut in before he’d managed the final amen.

  Ben couldn’t hold back his spontaneous chuckle. “Yes, Lord, and be with the uh, new teacher, Miss…uh…”

  “Miss Merriwether, Papa.”

  “Yes, Miss Merriwether.” Sneaking a peek at his daughter for good measure, he quickly added, “I believe that’s all—for now—Lord. Amen.”

  Smiling appreciatively, Lili hastily released his hand and took to her breakfast like a famished piglet.

  Ben took advantage of her silence to ponder his day.

  There were fences to mend on the back forty, a lame horse to tend to, Bessie and Sarah to milk, hogs to feed, and fields that needed plowing and harvesting. And then there was that matter of his grandfather’s old house up on Shannon’s Peak. Just when was he supposed to find the time to make the necessary repairs to that so that the new teacher could move in?

  Pardon me, Lord, he inwardly amended, but I wish when You created me, you’d have thought to add a spare hand. I could use an extra about now.

  Shoveling a forkful of eggs into his mouth, he watched his daughter. She had her mother’s hair, golden curls that had a way of shimmering in the light, then changing hues with the slightest toss of her head. And those freckles. My, but she had a faceful of them. There’d only been a few decorating Miranda’s pert nose, but Lili’s face was

  peppered. Unfortunately, they coincided with, perhaps lent to, her mischievous behavior. Then there was that lone dimple on her left cheek, positioned in exactly the same spot as Miranda’s had been.

  Miranda. How he missed her. But time and sheer busyness, not to mention God’s faithfulness and grace, had a way of smoothing over the hurt. Little by little, every new day brought him one step closer to wholeness. Still, he had a long way to go, and he doubted he would ever truly love another woman—even if he chose to remarry. Women as sweet as Miranda only came along but once in a lifetime. Nevertheless, there was the matter of his daughters; they needed a woman’s touch. And that was a matter he could no longer continue to ignore.

  What was he going to do when his daughters, particularly Lili, started asking the sort of questions intended for a woman’s ear? Even now, he had a difficult time dealing with Lili’s overwrought emotions. One moment she was laughing hysterically, and the next, drowning in a puddle of tears. Plain reason told him she would only grow more complicated. All women did. To his knowledge, no man had ever mastered the internal workings of the female mind. And as if Lili weren’t enough, God had seen fit to drop another daughter into his lap just fourteen months ago—while taking the one woman who had the means for raising his little girls.

  He wasn’t bitter. He’d passed through that stage in his grieving process and discovered afterward how much better off he was for not lingering there. Bitterness got him nowhere. Besides, he’d had little time for it. Neither had he taken the time for self-pity, much as he could have enjoyed wallowing in that particular venue. Self-pity was a luxury, something he couldn’t afford with two daughters to raise and a farm to maintain.

  No, the practical side of things kept him moving in a forward direction. The problem was, all signs pointed to his inability to continue hi
s forward progress. For the past several weeks, it appeared he was stuck in muck up to his eyebrows, spinning his wheels, and getting nowhere. If anything, the farm was suffering. Already there were crops wasting only because he hadn’t the time to work them properly.

  Even Mrs. Granger was petering out on him, complaining of aches and pains she’d never had before, confessing to him that taking on two children when she’d already raised nearly a dozen of her own was a bit more than she could handle at this stage of her life.

  “I’m not as young as I used to be, Ben,” she’d said nearly two weeks ago after he’d put both girls on the wagon, then gone back into the house to pay her. “I promise I will help you for a bit longer, but only until you manage to find someone you can count on permanently.”

  “I thought I could count on you permanently,” he’d protested.

  Her frown told him he’d thought wrong. “I’m getting up there, Ben. Heavens’ sake, child, I watched you grow up.”

  It was true; she was an old family friend, the epitome of a good neighbor. She’d nursed his own sick mother when she’d come down with an uncommonly high fever, had even sat with her and clutched her hand until she’d breathed her last. Consumption was what they’d called the lung-destroying disease that took his mother. Not long after her fateful death, his father had fallen ill and perished from something similar.

  Orphaned at fourteen, Ben had moved in with his crusty, eccentric, yet somehow lovable Grandfather Broughton, even though he’d claimed impoverishment. When the old man died, however, Ben discovered a suitcase full of money stashed beneath his grandfather’s rusted bedsprings, squashing all rumors of destitution.

  The find had been a bittersweet blessing, for it put Miranda and him in a much better financial position to begin their marriage. Still, he’d figured his life would never be quite the same without the old man. He’d put a stamp on his heart that would forever affect his life’s decisions. “God first, boy. Remember that,” he’d repeatedly said.

  “You could always court Emma Browning,” Mrs. Granger had said, pulling his thoughts back to their conversation. “She’s very pretty, don’t you think? And she has a good heart. Granted, she’s a bit on the wild side…”

  “Mrs. Granger, Emma is a tiger on the loose. I like her enough, but I’d certainly never marry her! And that father of hers is a drunken dolt.”

  Mrs. Granger nodded. “You’re right, of course.” Deep in thought, she pursed her lips, then blossomed with a ready smile. “What about the widow Riley?”

  “The widow Riley is ten years my senior, Mrs. Granger, and well, plump—she’s plump.” Plump had not been a good choice of words. Whopping might have better described her, but he had more class than to be completely forthright when it came to another’s looks.

  “Well, you can’t be too choosy, Ben. You have motherless daughters. How much longer do you think you can properly care for them?”

  “That’s why I’ve hired you, Mrs. Granger.”

  “And I’ve told you that you need to start looking elsewhere, Benjamin. Besides, my Althea is expecting another baby any day, and she’s asked me to come to St. Louis to look after the rest of her brood.”

  “But you just said you’re getting too old for this.”

  “Althea is my daughter. I can’t refuse my own children.” As if a light had just come on, Mrs. Granger brightened. “I have it. How about looking into a mail-order bridal service? They advertise those kinds of agencies out east, you know.”

  At that, he’d laughed outright, finding the entire notion bizarre and completely illogical. Men and women married for love, not convenience, didn’t they? Besides, he wasn’t even sure it was the Christian way of going about finding a woman to care for his daughters.

  But a few days later he’d seen the advertisement at the post office where John Holden kept a supply of newspapers from such places as New York and Boston, and he’d had time to rethink his position.

  “MARRIAGE MADE IN HEAVEN AGENCY”

  CHRISTIAN Women Seeking God-Fearing Men.

  Will Marry Sight Unseen Providing the Match Suits.

  Prefer Courting First, However.

  Prospective Groom to Pay for Prospective Bride’s

  Transportation and Room and Board

  Until Said Marriage Is Performed.

  Under the eye-catching caption was a list of names of women, all desperate, no doubt, and their varied attributes. Included were such things as date of birth, physical features, background information, family history, personal talents and interests, and a host of other tidbits that would satisfy any male anxious enough to find a wife.

  Ben had laughed most of the way home that day wondering to himself what would drive someone to such extremes as to advertise her need for a husband. But then, hadn’t he been equally irrational for hovering over the ad for as long as he had, even going so far as to imagine what some of these spurned spinsters looked like? They couldn’t be shy, he mulled, for what timid woman would be so bold as to market her availability? Nor could they be exceedingly attractive, or some man would surely have snatched them up before they’d had the chance to apply at the agency.

  So why exactly had he hastily ripped the ad from the paper and stuffed it into his pocket? For all he knew, the outfit could be running an illegal racket. Under the guise of “Christian-based agency,” they could be stealing overtly enthusiastic men blind. And he could be one of them! Try to explain that to Mrs. Granger when he came crawling back to her begging for more time, admitting he’d been swindled by an imaginary marriage market.

  On the other hand, the organization could be completely legitimate, doing its best to find husbands for otherwise unmarriageable women because of their deadbeat personalities, or worse, unsightly facial birthmarks that grew hair!

  But then looks didn’t matter. Hadn’t he just told Lili that this morning?

  Later, after dropping off a disgruntled Lili and a fussy Molly at Mrs. Granger’s place, he headed up Shannon’s Peak to have a look at his grandfather’s old cabin. Might as well determine what else needed fixing, make a bank withdrawal, and purchase some essential supplies. The fields would have to wait another day.

  Chapter Three

  Liza rolled over on her mattress of lumpy feathers and glanced overhead at the discolored ceiling. Across the room a window curtain waved about, signifying a gentle wind, even though no evidence of moving air quite reached her. Tossing the sheet off her warm body, she studied her surroundings before rising.

  A lone chest of drawers marked with age stood against a paint-chipped wall. Atop it rested a flowered chamber set, a pitcher and cracked basin, and on the wall above the chest hung a faded and distorted mirror in a beaded metal frame. A round, rather misshapen, colorful rug covered a good share of the gouged wood flooring, probably covering the worst of its blemishes. Next to the bed stood a wobbly table housing one kerosene lamp and a vase of dying flowers. Liza groaned then draped an arm across her forehead. If this was the best the town could offer in boardinghouses, the rest of the town sorely lacked class. Of course, she’d known that as soon as they had rolled into the place last night.

  ���Breakfast!” came a squalling voice from downstairs. Liza immediately identified it as that of Emma Browning, her pretty but rough-edged landlady. Apparently, the kitchen was directly beneath her room. “Anyone interested better set yourself at the table within the next five minutes, or all this food will go to my hungry dog and cat!”

  As if a freight wagon pulled by a mule team had just plowed through Emma Browning’s Boardinghouse, the entire place shook with the feet of hungry occupants as they opened and closed doors and then skittered down the flight of creaky stairs.

  Apparently, Emma Browning meant business when she announced breakfast.

  Not nearly as inclined as her housemates to meet the breakfast deadline, Liza lifted herself from the bed and momentarily dangled her feet over the edge, worrying herself silly about nothing and everything. Would there be eno
ugh teaching supplies in the little schoolhouse? How many students could she expect? And why was she Little Hickman’s fourth teacher? Moreover, why wasn’t her house ready for her? Surely, she’d been adamant enough about wanting her independence.

  At least Aunt Hettie would be relieved to find she’d been dropped off at a boardinghouse. “There is safety in numbers, my dear,” she would say.

  Without further thought, Liza decided that besides investigating the schoolhouse first thing this morning, she would seek out the cabin intended for her use and, if need be, do the work herself to make it livable.

  Liza rose and shuffled across the room, heading for the chamber set first where a full pitcher of water awaited her. It should be room temperature by now, she ruled, snatching a washing cloth and towel from the top of her opened trunk. Thankful that at least a fresh bar of soap lay in a dish beside the basin, she took it up and began her morning ablutions. Just then, there came a quiet knock at her door.

  Startled, she jumped back and drew the string of her nightdress more securely about her. “Yes?”

  “Miss Merriwether? It’s Emma Browning. Aren’t you coming down for breakfast?”

  “I—I’m not quite presentable. I guess I slept longer than I’m accustomed to doing.”

  “It was a long journey for you, ma’am. I would expect you need your rest. How about I bring something up to you later?”

  “But I thought…”

  “Don’t pay me no never mind. I have to be downright merciless with those no-good mongrels downstairs. They spend their days laborin’ on farms or at Grady’s Sawmill and their evenin’s cavortin’ and gettin’ corned, then ’spect me to feel sorry for ’em. You, however, are a guest, and I would never hand over your breakfast to my dog and cat.”

  Liza thought she detected a hint of humor in the woman’s voice. So she’d been right about her after all; there was some give to Emma Browning. Perhaps she wore her thick cloak of resistance for good reason. Perchance she’d learned a few hard lessons about basic survival from her drunken father.