Bachelor's Puzzle (29 page)

With their help, Reverend L ocklin hobbled into the house.

Ellie bade him sit by the hearth while she went to get some things to tend to his foot.

“You take Boyd’s bed,” Dad said to the reverend. “He’ll be over at the Copelands’ for the rest of the morning. And you look like you need at least one good night’s sleep. After that, we’ll work out other sleeping arrangements.”

“I appreciate this, Calvin,” the reverend said.

“We are honored to have you.” Dad went back outside to take care of the horses and wagon.

After stoking the fire in the stove and putting a kettle of water on to boil, Ellie went to Mama’s medical shelf in the cupboard where she kept a supply of bandages, various salves, and herbs of her own making, along with some store-bought things—elixirs for coughs, castor oil, liniment, and stomach tonics. But Mama mostly swore by her homemade concoctions, recipes that had been passed down in her family for generations. The purchased items had for the most part been whims that she said had done little good.

Along with a roll of bandages, Ellie took down Mama’s jar of salve made with balm-of-Gilead buds that she always used on more serious cuts. Mama certainly wouldn’t begrudge Ellie using it on the minister now, though once when Maggie had gotten down the jar to use on a little finger cut, Mama had nearly hit the ceiling. The buds were not easily procured because they had to be harvested at a very particular time that lasted only a few days. Thus they were to be used judiciously.

When the water was hot, Ellie filled a basin, adding some cold water to make it tepid and also some lye soap. She got a washcloth, a towel, and the other supplies and returned to ReverendL ocklin. The poor man had fallen asleep in his chair. She hated to disturb him, but his foot had to be tended to before it festered.

“Reverend L ocklin,” she murmured quietly, setting the basin on the floor. “I must soak your foot and clean it. Forgive me, please, for waking you.”

“What?” he grunted, his eyes flickering open.

“I’m going to put your foot into the water.I t will hurt, but it must be cleaned.”

“Cleaned?” he muttered. “Can it be cleaned? I t’s so scorched and soiled . . . can it ever be clean again. . . . It was so nice . . . I liked your house.It was the best part. . . .”

She knew then he wasn’t talking about his injured foot. He was still fretting over the quilt. She didn’t know what to say, how to allay his grief over that loss. She wished she could promise that the Sewing Circle would make him another. They could, and perhaps they would, but she felt it would be wrong to make such a promise without their consent.

Not knowing quite how to respond, she concentrated on his injury instead. Carefully she removed the petticoat ruffle, then lifted his foot and gently lowered it into the soapy water.

“Yow!” he bellowed, kicking up his foot and splattering water everywhere, only barely missing kicking Ellie in the face.

“Oh, I am so sorry!” she exclaimed. Mama never had this kind of response when she tried to nurse their wounds. Regretfully, Ellie realized she should have made sure he was fully awake before she started.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he railed.

“I was just . . . I wanted to—”

But at that moment he let his foot drop to the floor with more force than it could take, and he cried out again, this time with curses.

Ellie’s face turned red.

“What’s going on in there?” Dad said, coming back into the house.

“I’m afraid I’m’m not a very good nurse,” Ellie said in a shaky voice. She was close to tears. She had so wanted to offer comfort and solace to the distraught minister but was only making matters worse.

“No!” Reverend L ocklin cut in quickly. “You’re doing fine. I . . . I just forgot myself.”

“I know you’re having a hard time, William,” Dad said, “but I do ask that you have a care with your speech. My daughter is of a delicate nature, you know.”

“I am so sorry. Please forgive me!” The reverend was definitely awake now.

“Of course,” Ellie said. I n a steadier voice, she added, “Why don’t we try this again? It will burn a little,I’m afraid.”

Wryly, ReverendL ocklin said, “I already found that out, didn’t I?” He offered a smile with his words to allay her distress.

Then, to further display his cooperation he dipped his foot into the basin without any guidance from her. The soap surely burned terribly in the deep cuts, but he made not another sound. She washed away the dried blood and the dirt that had crusted on the wounds when he had been barefoot immediately after the fire started. Glancing up at him once, she saw his eyes were closed, his teeth clenched.

“I hope there’s no more glass in there,” she said. As gingerly as she could, she probed the cut with her fingers just to make sure at least large pieces of glass were gone.

“You know, it actually feels better,” he said.

“You are just being brave.”

“I’m hardly that, as you could tell before.”

“You were taken by surprise.”

They were quiet while she tenderly washed his foot. I n the kitchen she heard her father rattle about.

“Found some fresh eggs in the hen house,” he said. “Anyone else hungry?”

“I’m starved,” Ellie said.

“I can’t decide if I’m tired or hungry,” the reverend said.

“Well,I say you should have a good meal and then sleep for two days,” suggested Dad.

“I think I could do just that—” He stopped suddenly and frowned.

Ellie thought she’d pressed too hard on his foot and stopped.

“I forgot—today is Sunday.”

“No one will expect you at church today,” Dad said.

“This has been hard for everyone,” Reverend L ocklin said. “Maybe they’ll need to get together. Maybe . . . well, maybe I do, too . . .”

“No one was planning on church,” Dad said. “But . . .I guess we can get the word out if you truly want to meet.I ’ll fetch Georgie. He’d love to be useful by rounding up the folks.”

“I’ll finish fixing breakfast,” offered Ellie, “while you go after Georgie.It’ll be ready when you return.”

Dad appeared relieved to hear that. Ellie knew he would have been willing to pitch in and help in the kitchen since Mama was gone, but he had very little expertise in cooking. Ellie couldn’t remember the last time she saw her father cook. I t must have been when Georgie was born. He did wrap a loaf of bread from yesterday and a hunk of cheese in a napkin to take to the boys watching the Copeland house.

A few minutes after her father left, Ellie lifted her hands from the basin and, drying them on the towel, said, “I’ve done as much as I can for now, but it would be good to soak a bit longer. I’ll get it bandaged once I get breakfast going.”

Ellie sliced up some salt pork and set it in a skillet on the stove. When it was sizzling nicely, she put in some sliced potatoes. Once as she worked she glanced toward the reverend and found him staring at her. She smiled and he smiled back but did not take his eyes off her. That made her self-conscious, but she was competent in the kitchen, so it didn’t hurt her performance at all. Finally, when the potatoes were cooking, she returned to her “patient.”

“Let’s get you bandaged up, shall we?”

He lifted his foot from the water, and she dried it with the towel. As she did so, she carefully examined it. She saw no more bits of glass and hoped that since it had bled quite a lot, it had washed itself out. The foot was swollen, and the cut on the bottom of the arch was deep and quite red around the edges.

She smoothed the balm-of-Gilead salve over the cut and then wrapped it with the new bandage.

“How’d you get so good at everything you do?” he asked.

“I guess my mother is a good teacher, and I enjoy this sort of thing—cooking and taking care of people.”

“You’ll be a fine wife and mother one day.”

Though her cheeks surely grew nearly as red as Reverend Locklin’s foot, she said sincerely, “I hope so.I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.”

“I enjoyed watching you. I t’s been a long time since I’ve’ve witnessed such a domestic scene.”

“You haven’t spent much time at your parents’ home, then?”

Hesitating a moment, he shrugged and went on. “I ran away from home when I was twelve. My mother was okay, but my stepfather—” He shook his head. “Well,I don’t have to think of him anymore.”

“You haven’t seen your mother since you were twelve?” Ellie asked, unable to hide her incredulity at such a thing.

“She chose her husband over me, so what was the use?” His tone was bitter.

“You’ve never forgiven them?”

“That would be the Christian thing to do, wouldn’t it?”

She thought that an odd thing for him to say. Then she smelled the potatoes and knew they needed tending before they burned. She wanted to return to their conversation, but just then Dad came home and the eggs had to be scrambled, and there wasn’t another opportunity. Since the reverend would be staying with them for a while, she determined to learn more about him.

After breakfast Reverend L ocklin went up to the boys’ room to take a nap before the church service. When Dad went up an hour later to let him know it was time to get ready to go to church, the reverend was asleep so soundly he didn’t budge when Dad called. Dad said he didn’t have the heart to wake him.

Ellie and her father went to the schoolhouse by themselves, and she was glad they did because nearly everyone in Maintown was there. Apparently ReverendL ocklin had been right about the need of the community to gather together in the face of two tragedies. Though few people liked Tom, the idea of one of their own being shot to death in their own backyard, so to speak, was unnerving. Then on the heels of this to have their beloved friends, the Copelands, who were among the original settlers of Maintown, lose everything in a fire was beyond shocking.

Jane Donnelly and Mama were among the few absent, but Mama had sent Maggie with messages.

Getting Dad and Ellie alone before the service began, Maggie reported, “Mrs. Donnelly is acting real strange. She refuses to leave the house for fear that she might miss Tommy, and Mama is afraid to leave her alone. Mrs. Stoddard is going to organize the Sewing Circle to take shifts staying with Mrs. Donnelly until things settle down.” To Dad she added, “Mama says you have to get a funeral for Tom organized as soon as possible ’cause there’s an inordinate amount of flies infesting the Donnelly barn, and it’s been pretty warm lately.”

“In all the excitement I nearly forgot. L eave it to your mother to be practical,” he said.

As chairman of the deacons, it fell to Dad to lead the service. He got the business out of the way first, announcing there would be a service for Tom Donnelly tomorrow morning. He requested volunteers to help with the grave digging after today’s church service. Usually such labors on Sunday were frowned upon, but all saw the expediency in this case.

With that out of the way, Mrs. Renolds led the group in a few hymns, after which Dad suggested they have an old-fashioned prayer meeting. Again, there was no argument. Everyone seemed to feel the need for prayer, especially in light of recent events, and offered a prayer as they felt led. They prayed for the Donnellys, especially for Jane, whom everyone loved. They prayed for the Copelands, who lost their home, and for the reverend, who had lost his home, too, and been injured, as well. They prayed for other needs in the community: for Mrs. Cook who was failing quickly from her illness; for Albert Stoddard, who was in bed at that very moment from exhaustion after fighting the fire. He’d been ill for some time and as a result had several months ago given up his position as chair of the deacons.

Besides praying for all their needs, the folks also used the prayer time to praise God for their many blessings, of which the tragedies had made them more deeply aware.

Ellie had never felt such a strong bond with her friends and neighbors as she did now. And before she realized it, she was praying out loud, something she seldom had the nerve to do in such a large group.

“Dear Lord, I want to thank you, too, for our pastor you so graciously sent to us. Somehow, no doubt through your wisdom, he knew we all needed this time in church today and made this gathering happen. And though he wanted more than any of us to be here, in the end he was too ill and tired to attend himself. I know he is here in spirit. Bless him now with peaceful rest and heal his injured foot.”

She was a little shaky when she finished, but she felt good. The people of Maintown would not soon forget these last two days, and the thing they would remember most was the closeness they all felt in this moment.

TWENTY - FIVE

The last thing on earth Zack wanted to do was officiate at Tom Donnelly’s funeral. But he felt he owed it to the town and to Jane, as well, because he could not shake his personal sense of responsibility in Tom’s death. Just as everyone had assured him that the fight had been unavoidable, they now assured him he had no blame in the man’s death. But he knew what Tommy had told Maggie and thus knew the truth of the matter.

The graveyard sat on a hill just east of the center of Main-town, conveniently adjacent to the property where the new church would be built. Thinking of the new church made Zack realize that among the losses from the fire was that money the board of deacons had given him to deposit in the bank. He’d worry about that later, however. Now he had to put Tom to rest, if that was possible.

Ada had been successful in coaxing Jane Donnelly from her house for the service. The woman, whom Zack had thought attractive and younger looking than her age when he first met her, now looked haggard and old. Grief bore heavily upon her. Could she have so loved her meanspirited husband? Or was the grief for her missing son?

Having lost all his books in the fire, Zack was forced to improvise the service. But he still remembered what he had memorized for the last Deer Island funeral, so he used that.

There were about thirty folks in attendance. Zack noted that all the ladies of the Sewing Circle were there, most of their husbands, and a few others. He thought the turnout was more likely to support Jane rather than to honor her husband.