As Time Goes By (The Californians 2)

As Time Goes By

Lori Wick

10Prologue

Santa Rosa, California December 1871

Jeffrey Taylor tiptoed up the back stairway of his house in stocking feet. His parents and brothers were all asleep and he stepped carefully along the upstairs hall way to avoid the reliable creaks and groans of the hard wood floor.

Once in his bedroom he lit the lantern and undressed for bed. The sights and sounds from the Christmas party he had just attended came back to him. Jeff knew every one there, had grown up with most of them. They had laughed, sang, played games, and eaten for hours. And then the hostess' face, Sylvia Weber, swam before his eyes.

"What's the matter with you tonight, Jeff? You haven't been very attentive this evening." Her voice was irri tated and Jeff was quick to apologize.

"I'm sorry, I must be a little tired."

"I'll forgive you," Sylvia said with a teasing light in her eyes, "if you come over right now and have one of these desserts I made."

Jeff had gone, telling himself to perk up, but Sylvia was right; he had been distracted the whole evening. It was almost a relief to leave.

He lay in bed now, stretched out flat--almost six feet of him--hands pillowing his head. His body was ready for sleep, but his mind, full of the day's activities and conversations, was moving like a runaway stage. Earlier that day Jeff's father, Bill Taylor, had talked with him. Bill informed Jeff that Jake Bradford had been in to mention that his daughter Roberta was coming back to town and looking for a job.

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Roberta Bradford, "Bobbie" to most, was the answer to his parents' prayers because she was an experienced shipping clerk and only needed the position temporarily until she got married.

Jeff had known they were going to be needing some one at the shipping office, owned and operated by the Taylor family, because his mother, May, was taking some time off.

Bill's consultation with Jeff about hiring Roberta was far more than just professional courtesy over the fact that they would all be working together. Bill told Jeff outright that if he didn't want Bobbie to work there, they would drop the whole idea. The reason for such words from father to son dated back five years.

Finally allowing the years in his mind to fall away, Jeff let his thoughts slip back to the summer of 1866, the summer when Jeffrey Taylor's thoughtless actions hurt Bobbie Bradford enough to drive her from her family and home for over five years.

Santa Rosa, California

June 1866

Seventeen-year-old Jeff Taylor was not hearing one word of Pastor Keller's sermon. While keeping his head totally still, he could shift his eyes until he had' a perfect view of Sylvia Weber's profile. Unfortunately he could also see Richard Black.

How dare Sylvia sit with Richard in church when only last night she had let Jeff hold her hand! The sight of them made Jeff fume, but his anger didn't last. Sylvia smiled at him as soon as church was over, causing his

irritation to immediately dissipate.

"We're leaving, Jeff."

The words, spoken by his mother, came much too soon for Jeff's tastes. Why, he had only had a few min utes to talk with his friends and
no
time to speak with Sylvia. She looked wonderful in a pale blue dress shot with flowers of dark blue, the perfect foil for her blonde hair and striking blue eyes.

Jeff wore a brooding look as he climbed into his folks'

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wagon. He usually rode with Rigg, his 21-year-old brother, but today Rigg had stayed home with a summer cold.

Actually Rigg was his half-brother--Marshall Riggs. Rigg had been a toddler when his father died and his mother married Bill Taylor. Bill and May had three more boys as the years went on: Jeffrey, Gilbert, who was 13, and Nathan, the youngest at ten.

A huge lunch of fried chicken and dumplings was enough to take Jeff's mind from Sylvia for a few minutesm that and the job his mother had given him of taking some soup up to Rigg. Rigg wasn't really sick enough to stay in bed, but May had wanted him to and he had done so to please her.

"Ready for something to eat?"

"Sure." Rigg put aside his Bible and pushed up in bed. "Smells good."

"Chicken soup." "How was church?" "31 right."

"You wouldn't know it by your voice."

"Sylvia sat with Richard."

"So it's Sylvia this month." Rigg's voice was dry. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"'Calm down, Jeff." The older man's voice was gentle. "I've just noticed that you don't stay interested in any one girl for very long."

"'It's different with Sylvia." Jeff spoke adamantly, a little too adamantly.

Rigg nodded sagely, wisely holding his peace. His food saved him from replying for a few minutes, and then he told Jeff that he needed to get some sleep so he could be at the store in the morning.

Jeff nearly accused Rigg of being married to the store that bore his namemRiggs Mercantile. But the one time

he had hinted at such a thing, Rigg gave him quite a tongue-lashing. He told Jeff flat-out that he wouldn't know a day of hard work if it bit him in the seat of the pants.

Jeff had silently agreed with him but replied that these were his fun years. He would have to work the rest of his life, so why start now? Rigg, who had been working at the store since he was 14 and was in complete charge since he was 19, had Only shaken his head and walked away.

Jeff consoled himself with the fact that he helped out at the shipping office from time to time. The fact that his ten-year-old and 13-year-old brothers did more work than he did was conveniently ignored as Jeff once again told himself that he would be working the rest of his life. At 17 you were supposed to enjoy life to its fullest.

Jeff was just leaving Rigg's room when his mother called him from the kitchen.

"You have a visitor, Jeffrey."

Certain that Sylvia had come to apologize, Jeff flew down the stairs, only to find Pastor Keller waiting in the living room and talking with his father.

"Hello, Jeff," the pastor greeted him. "Sorry to intrude on your Sunday afternoon, but I have something I'd like to discuss with you."

"Sure." Jeff took a chair and gave the pastor his full attention.

"We're planning an outing for the church. I think everyone will enjoy it. We're going boating at the lagoon."

"Hey, that sounds great!"

''I was hoping you'd say that. We're planning a little something special for the young people, though, and here's where you come in. Right now there are 12 young

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people from 15 to 17, six boys and six gifts. What I'd like to see you do is ask the six boys to invite the girls on this outing. We'll have a picnic and some games before the boating, which isn't scheduled until four in the afternoon. The date is three weeks from today."

Pastor Keller held out a piece of paper to Jeff, who took it and read in silence.

Jeffrey Taylor

Tom Freemont

Richard Black

Deacon Briggs

Dan Walton

Jeremy Reeve

Angie Stallsworth

Sylvia Weber

Roberta Bradford

Kimberly Miller

Dorothy Nelson

Lydia Caminiti

"You're one of the older boys, Jeff, and I think a leader. I was hoping you could talk to the other fellows and ask them if they'd be willing to invite a girl from the list."

Pleased at being referred to as a leader, Jeff nodded and continued to listen.

"If you think this is going to make anyone uncomfortable, we'll just drop the asking part and invite the young people as a whole."

"No, this is great," Jeff answered from a purely selfish standpoint, thinking how much fun it would be to attend an event and have Sylvia all to himself. "I'll talk to the others right away and let you know."

"Thanks, Jeff. I knew I could count on you." Pastor Keller took his leave shortly after that and Jeff asked to borrow the wagon. Within two hours all six boys from the list were in the Taylors' yard demolishing a platter of cookies that May had delivered to them.

"'So
that's the story," Jeff explained. "These are the girls, and Pastor wants us to do the asking."

"Who asks who?" Richard wanted to know.

"That's what we have to decide," Jeff told him without much friendliness in his voice.

"I'll ask Lydia," Jeremy offered, and the other boys, save Jeff and Richard, began to speak up. Within minutes it became apparent that two boys wanted to ask Sylvia and no one wanted to ask Roberta.

"You told Pastor this was a great idea, Jeff;
you
ask four-eyes."

"Hey, Richard, don't talk about Bobbie that way. She's really nice."

"Then you ask her, Deacon," was Richard's surly reply. But Deacon wanted to ask Angie, and being one of the younger boys, he fell silent rather than stand up to Richard, who was almost as old as Jeff.

"It looks like we tell Pastor Keller that it's not going to work out." Jeff voiced his solution even as he told himlf

that he would just ask Sylvia on his own.

"We could draw straws to see who asks Bobbie Bradford." This was Richard's suggestion, his voice betraying to everyone that he was sure it would never be him. The group fell silent for a moment, and each boy felt weighted down with guilt over the way they were talking about Bobbie.

Deacon was rightmBobbie was a very nice girl but she wasn't at all attractive. She was the youngest girl on the list, not yet 15, and it appeared to anyone who cared to observe that Bobbie was never going to develop any female curves.

She was about as straight up and down as a young girl could be, and even with her short height she appeared to be all arms and legs. Her eyesight was the next thing that

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weighed on everyone's mind, as each young man pictured the wire-rimmed spectacles she wore on the bridge of her turned-up nose. They made her eyes look like those of an insect, or so the boys thought.

And if those reasons weren't bad enough, Bobbie had the ugliest hair in town. A dirty blonde color, it refused to curl or lay straight, but fluffed out from around Bobie's head and shoulders like the wool on a sheep.

The Bradford family was not what anyone could call affluent, but Mrs. Bradford was a whiz with a needle and thread, and most people never dreamed that Bobbie wore her mother's made-over dresses. Bobbie had a brother who was 13 and an older married sister, who was expecting her first baby.

The family was well-liked at church and known for their hardworking, generous attitudes. Mr. Bradford did odd jobs around town and was the gravedigger for the church cemetery--not a glamorous position, but appreciated by most. Mrs. Bradford cleaned house for two of Santa Rosa's wealthier families, and had a small business of sewing and mending clothes in her home.