A Log Cabin Christmas (25 page)

“They’re lovely,” Mary said finally as she fingered the ivory winders that looked as delicate as snowflakes. She wondered just how much they might cost, but instead of asking, she returned to the thread cones. “I don’t really need the white cone.” She had to show some discipline, after all. She wasn’t sure she needed any thread at all, now that she considered. Though the war in the East had been over for a time, people still weren’t buying much. And with Smith’s store open, she’d have even more competition for people wanting Rosa Red thread.

“I’ll throw the white in if you take one of each of the spools,” he said, “and of course three of the red, as you indicated earlier. I can telegraph the order to the Barbours, and it will be here within two weeks. You’ll find them and me, their agent, quite reliable and most professional.” He snapped his top boot heels together and bowed at his waist.

She tapped her index finger to her lips. “I … I’m sorry. I really have no needfor so much Rosa Red. I’m not sure what I was thinking,” Mary said. “If I invest at all in something new, it would be my plan—” She stopped herself. “My husband used to say that my optimism sometimes bordered on lunacy.”

“It sometimes takes lunacy to spread ones wares wide and far. The Barbours weren’t sure that sending me west was a good investment, but here I am. Lunacy in person.”

Mary smiled. “And I’m sure you will sell far and wide, Mr. Taylor—”

“Richard,” he corrected.

“But—”

“The quality will attract new customers for you, provide reasons for them to come to your store. From wide and far, they’ll arrive.”

Wide and far
. Mary stared at Richard Taylor, whose dual-colored eyes looked anxious as he awaited her final order. Could
he
be the detail God provided? Why, he might be just the man to implement her plan to expand her sagging sales
wide and far
. Doing so could mean her very survival.
Is this what I should do?
she prayed. Richard Taylor might just have provided her the sustenance she needed sandwiched between two other stores. She breathed a prayer of thanks and asked the newcomer to take a cup of tea with her. Lunacy or faith reigned. She’d soon find out which.

R
ichard Taylor chastised himself. Why hadn’t he just taken the woman’s original order of three spools of red? Why did he have to push for just a little more? And then he’d said she was “almost as good” as someone who sewed? One should never insult a woman or worse a woman in a position to buy one’s products. He needed this sale. Life hadn’t been all that easy since he’d come west following the war. His few sales had at least convinced the Barbour Brothers to give him a little more time before they recalled him and gave him his walking papers. Stores were few and far between in this region, and other salesmen already covered the high population cities like Portland and Salem and many of those stores—even Cooley & Company down the street—traveled to San Francisco to fill their orders. He hoped to make inroads at the smaller establishments in the territory with his charm and his steady horse and good products. It was his philosophy that every product needed, first, to be of great quality and, second, to have a story. If the product had quality, people could buy it anywhere; if he had a good story to go with it, they’d look forward to buying it from him. He hadn’t convinced Cooley & Company or Smith of many sales; he hoped for more from this lovely older woman.

“I assure you the quality is of the best,” he told her as he followed her into the back room of the log store. “I sold several spools at the Aurora Colony north of here. They’re known for their fine tailoring, I’m told. Dr. Keil himself made the purchase for the colony store and the outsider’s establishment. They have quite a grand selection.”

I’m a wreck
, he thought, praising her competition that wasn’t all that far down the road.

“A woman who knows the needs of her neighbors surely makes wise choices,” Richard said, in an effort to recover. “Perhaps the three spools of thread will be just what they need.”

“Perhaps,” she said.

Something had changed in her demeanor, Richard noticed. He wondered what he’d said or done. She’d been sweet, almost flirtatious, when he’d first showed her the Rosa Red, asking to call her by her given name. Now she was looking all, well, professional. He wondered how old she was. Her skin was the shade of sunrise, all pink and smooth. A few lines marked her eyes, but her white hair reminded him of his dear old mother, God rest her soul.

“Mr. Taylor,” Mary said. “Are you declining my invitation to tea?”

She’d invited him to tea?
He’d been so busy chastising himself he hadn’t heard her. Maybe his hearing was going, a sad state for a man of only twenty-seven years.

“There’s a proposition I’d like to discuss with you before I finalize my purchases.”

“Tea? Why yes, certainly. Tea would be good.”

Praise God and his mother’s prayers. She was inviting him into her private quarters to discuss business.

Mary Bishop led him through a storage area into a small back room of the log store, where she swung a pot hung over the coals at the fireplace. It was a cozy room with Ocean Waves—the quilt pattern he noted on the bed just beyond a screen. A checkered tablecloth matched pillows on the four chairs set around the square table.

Mary Bishop left the door to the store open so she could hear the bell jangle, he imagined, or for modesty’s sake. The little dog lay in the doorway between the two rooms, head on paws stretched out. Richard didn’t see many animals inside the stores he sold to. He kind of liked the comfort the little rust-and-white spaniel brought.

“I realize this may be somewhat presumptuous on my part,” Mary said as she set the tea cozy and pot of loose tea on the table. “For a while now, I’ve had this idea but haven’t known how to implement it. I’m not sure if your employers, the Barbour Brothers, will allow it, but I do think you have the means and ability to do what I’m thinking.”

“It’s nothing … illegal you’d be asking of me now, is it?”
There I go again!
Richard thought.
Why can’t I just wait things out!

Mary frowned. “Oh no, nothing illegal at all. It was your working for more than one employer at a time that I wondered over. Let me explain.”

She used her apron to pick up the handle of the hot pot and poured steaming water over the tea leaves in his mug. “We’ll let that steep a bit,” she told him, putting the pot back. She sat across from him at the table, brushed at absent crumbs, her eyes on the tablecloth. She had the most graceful hands.

“Here’s what I’ve been thinking,” she continued. “I do a fair business in this store, but I’m dependent upon people coming to me for their purchases. Where I came from, back in Wisconsin, my father ran a store. The Indians and local people bought there, but when my father decided to service outposts, taking his wares up the streams to the Indians and others living along the creeks andrivers, his business improved. He no longer needed to wait for people to come to him; he went to them.”

“Very resourceful,” Richard said. And it was.

She stood to finish the tea, straining it, dumping the tea leaves into a separate tin possibly to be used again.
She’s a frugal one
. “It may be a little strong for you,” she said. “Dale, my husband, always resisted tepid.”

“Never liked tepid myself,” he assured her. Her smile lit her face, those violet-blue eyes. They stared at each other for a moment until she looked away. This woman certainly wasn’t tepid! Had he embarrassed her?

“So where was I?” she said.

“Your story of your resourceful father.” Richard took a sip. He longed to wipe his nose but had forgotten his handkerchief, so he sniffed.

She sat back down and took a drink of her tea. The moisture from the cup brought a fine mist to her upper lip. She was quite a lovely woman, he decided. Perfectly arched brown eyebrows. Luminescent skin lacking blemishes or brown spots, which was rare for someone of her age, which must be close to forty, maybe even fifty with such pure white hair. She combed it folded softly over her ears into a thick bun at the back of her neck. He’d seen lovely ivory combs holding the bun when he’d followed her into the back room.

“My father taught me to look for other options in business, that one always had to be either the very best at something, be the biggest, or provide added value for one’s customers,” Mary told him. “He chose the latter of those three, and that’s what I want to do, too. So here’s my plan. What if you were to not only visit local establishments to sell your thread, but were to also sell to individual homes along the way, showing skeins or hanks, offering new thread barrels? I could make up more convenient skeins from the thread I purchase from you, which you could sell. Along with books of cloth, thimbles, lace, ribbon—the sorts of things women are always needing but must wait for until they come in to town or send their fathers or husbands in here, never being certain if what their men bring home will really be what they wanted.”

He was impressed with her idea. “We might want to include a few pots and pans,” Richard said, expanding on it. “But always the latest items a woman might need, indeed.”

“Can you sharpen scissors?”

“I’ll learn.”

“You’d have to be exclusive to my establishment, though you could continue to take orders for the Barbour Brothers’ threads sold in their spools and deliver them to other stores around. But sales to individual homes, those would come from my store.”

“I’d need a cart for my horse to pull.”

“That could be arranged,” Mary told him. “And you’d earn a percentage from what you sold, the amount to be deducted from the cost of the cart until it was paid for, assuming you’d want to own the cart eventually.”

Richard thought about that. “To begin with, I’d take the percentage in cash,” he said. “I’ve no need for a cart until we see how this works.”

“Very good,” Mary said. “Does fifteen percent sound fair?”

“Indeed it does,” he said. More than fair. He’d make her pleased she’d trusted in him. “And I see no problem with the Barbours. I’ll still be taking orders for their thread and even making it possible for them to sell more.” He reached out his hand to shake hers, hesitated, and then said, “Ought we sign something officially?”

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Mary Bishop said. “My husband always said a contract was only as good as the man—or woman—who signed it.”

“I think I would have liked your husband,” he told her. “What can I do to assist?”

“First, we need to decide on the thread order and get that Rosa Red sent out,” she told him. “Then I’ll show you the cart.”

He retrieved order forms from the front, the little dog tagging along beside him, her nails clicking on the floor. Mary read the papers at the table, sipping tea. He smelled lavender stronger than the tea leaves coming from her person, a pleasant scent indeed.

They’d just finished up the order when the doorbell dangled. Mary lifted her eyes to the outside door.

“Mary,” the man called out. “Is my order ready?”

“Yes indeed, Mr. Lawson,” she told him as she rose. The man cast his eyes through the open door to the private area, where Richard sat. He caught Richard’s gaze.

“I see you have company,” he said. “I can come back later.”

His words held scorn, and Richard hoped his presence didn’t tarnish Mary’s reputation.

“We’re doing business,” she said.

“And I was just about to leave,” Richard said as he stepped through the door and reached for the man’s hand and introduced himself. “May I carry the box to your wagon for you?” he asked.

“Carry my box? No. I can handle it myself,” Mr. Lawson scoffed.

For some reason, the man appeared annoyed as he hoisted the box from the floor. Perhaps that’s what caused his abrupt movements, which sent his elbow against Richard’s sample bag, which then slid on its hard leather toward the jarof buttons sitting on the pine slab counter. Richard’s leather bag flopped open, and out spilled the cones of thread that rolled like peeled logs against the button jar, sending it flying.

The dog barked.

Richard reached for the cones.

Mary grabbed for the jar.

But her hand gripped too tightly. The jar shattered within her palm, sending buttons and shards of glass to the floor and blood pouring from Mary’s hand.

“Ah, Mary, I’m so sorry,” Lawson said tossing his box to the floor inches from Richard’s boots. “Such a clumsy man.”
Was he speaking of himself?

Richard grabbed a linen towel and held Mary’s injured palm. Worried that he might be forcing glass into her palm but wanting to slow the bleeding, he pressed with the towel.

“You’ve cut yourself, and it’s all my fault,” Lawson said.

“It was my spools of thread,” Richard said. “I’m so sorry.”

“Let me take care of you,” Lawson ordered. He literally pushed Richard out of the way, grabbing at Mary’s hand. “Mr. Taylor is it? You’d best run and get the doctor while I bandage this up.”

“I have no idea where the doctor is,” Richard said, still pressing the towel to Mary’s palm. “You go.”

“Ach!” the old rancher said, disgusted. “I need to take care of Mary. I’ve caused this.”

“I can take care of myself,” Mary said. She jerked her hand from Richard’s and Lawson’s pull and scurried around as though to find her hat or shawl.

Richard would rather have been holding Mary’s hand than running for the doctor, but clearly she didn’t need two men arguing about how to take care of her. His mother would be rolling his eyes at his lack of manners. He stepped back.

“I’ll go at once,” Richard said, deciding he could ask after the doctor’s location from someone on the ferry. He picked up Lacy and put her in the back room, away from the glass, then headed out the door, hoping to catch the ferry on this side of the river. That was how things happened with him, he thought as he caught the ferryman’s eye. His life was made up of splinters of bad following anything good.

“You’ll need help now, Mary. Don’t be so proud you can’t accept it,” Laird told her after the doctor left.

“I’ll do just fine,” she said. The stitches hurt more than she cared to admit, and halfway through the surgery she’d wondered if maybe she should haveaccepted the second dose of laudanum to numb the pain. The stitches ran across her palm, making her right hand stiff as if frozen. For how long, she didn’t know. “The good Lord gave me two hands, Mr. Lawson. I’m sure I’ll do fine.”

“I can help,” Richard said, and when she started to protest, he added, “To proceed on our business arrangement.”

“What would that be?” Laird turned, becoming instantly proprietary. Mary needed to stop that yeast from rising.

“My business arrangements are private, Mr. Lawson,” she said. To Richard she said, “Yes, you can assist, Mr. Taylor. And Mr. Lawson, what you can do to be of assistance is please deliver these buttons to the Widow Mason. That is, if you truly want to help,” she said.

“Of course I do, Mary. Mrs. Bishop,” he corrected. “Anything at all.” Mary thought she heard him mumbling under his breath something about “all those children scampering about.” Glumly, Laird left, taking the buttons that Richard had carefully sorted from glass and washed.

Richard’s presence calmed her for some reason, even though Mary wished she could lick her wounds in private. She’d told him he ought to telegraph the order, then return tomorrow to begin setting up the cart.