Bachelor's Puzzle (6 page)

Dad had brought the horses into the barn and was forking hay into their stalls.

“Can I help, Dad?”

“Why, you haven’t worked in the barn since you came back from that fancy finishing school your mother sent you to.” He seemed to place special emphasis on those last few words. The school had been Mama’s idea, though Ellie had wanted to go.

Ellie rubbed Jock’s white face. He and Samo were their wagon team. “I can rub the horses down for you.”

“Georgie will do that, honey. Why don’t you just get on with why you came out here?” He smiled and didn’t seem mad at all.

“You’re not mad anymore?”

He shrugged. “Not much.”

“I don’t want you to think ill of me, Daddy.”

“I would never, Ellie. You are the finest daughter a man could ask for. You have always made me proud.”

“Well, this thing with the quilt—”

“I know your ma put you up to it.”

It would have been easy to let it go at that, but Ellie knew it would neither be fair nor honest. “Daddy, the quilt was Mama’s idea, or at least the Sewing Circle’s, but . . . well . . .I have to admit it kind of has an appeal. That is . . .” Pausing, she turned so she could look her father in the eye. “I wouldn’t be opposed to marrying a minister—”

“Ellie, not you—”

“He’s going to marry someone, Dad. Why not me?”

Instead of answering right away, Dad paused in his work and gazed at his daughter. There was sadness in that look but maybe some understanding, too. He reached up and touched a lock of her hair hanging loosely around her shoulders.

Finally, he spoke. “I reckon I don’t really mind the ladies making a quilt. Maybe I don’t even mind them trying to snag the pastor, though I feel mighty sorry for the lad. No, that’s not what perturbs me.I guess I’m’m just realizing my little girls are growing up—well, truth be told, they are grown-up. After what happened in town today and now this silliness with the quilt,I know it won’t be long till I’m’m gonna have to hand you over to another.” He stopped, his lips trembling a little.

“Much as I have always wanted my own home and family,” Ellie said, “that’s the part that troubles me, too.L eaving you and Mama isn’t going to be easy.I love our family and our home.

But we’ll always be near each other.I’ll make sure of that.”

“Just as long as you marry someone worthy of you. A good man, a Christian man who treats you right.” He bit his lip. “I don’t worry so much about you, Ellie. But that Maggie. If she takes up with that no-account—” He stopped, lifted the hayfork, and impaled another load of hay for the horses. “Maybe Maggie ought to marry the minister. That’d settle her down some. But she’s so young. . . .” He seemed to be talking more to himself than to her.

Ellie wanted to remind him that Maggie was only a little more than a year younger than she was. She wondered what in the world had happened in St. Helens that had him so riled but thought better of bringing any of that up now.

“Dad,I know God will lead me to the perfect husband,” she said instead. “And I won’t marry anyone you don’t approve of.”

“Then let’s just leave it in God’s hands.”

It wasn’t until that night after they had crawled into bed that Ellie could ask her sister about the trip to St. Helens. She put out the lamp and spoke in whispers because she was sure this wasn’t going to be a discussion they wanted Dad to overhear.

“So, Mags, tell me what happened in town,” Ellie said.

The moonlight coming in through the window revealed Maggie rolling her eyes. “Dad went off like a lit fuse just because I was talking with Tommy Donnelly. He actually said he didn’t want me ‘keeping company’ with Tommy. Can you believe it?”

“He said ‘keeping company’? Those words?”

“Tommy is just a friend.”

“You’re probably his only friend. He never had any friends in school.”

“I tried to tell that to Dad, that he himself always taught me to be nice to the less fortunate. Well, all he said to that was ‘Less fortunate
girls
.’ ”

“Well,I can see Dad’s concern,” Ellie said. “Tommy always was . . . an odd sort. Kind of sullen and . . .I don’t know.I can’t put my finger on what makes him odd, but I’m’m not the only one who thinks so.”

“He is odd, and I can’t help feeling sorry for him. But to ‘keep company’ with him? Really!”

“You can’t be too careful now that you’re getting older.”

“Another reason I hate getting older.” Maggie squirmed under the covers. “And you know what’s worse? Mama agreed with Dad.”

“Agreed?”

“Jane Donnelly is Mama’s best friend,” Maggie went on, “so it seems kind of disloyal. She said Tommy takes too much after his father.”

“Mr. Donnelly is almost always drunk and scowling like he’s got a real mean streak. And he never comes to church.I’ve’ve heard rumors that young Tommy drinks spirits with his father.”

“Tommy hates his father,” Maggie said. “The man beats him and makes him work like a slave when he, that is, big Tom, don’t hardly lift a finger. Dad called big Tom shiftless, and I believe it. But Tommy is different. He doesn’t want to be like his father, he truly doesn’t.”

“Sometimes a boy can’t help turning out like the only example he sees.” Ellie felt some fear rising up in her. “Mags, you’re not sweet on him, are you?”

“Goodness, no!I feel sorry for him is all. You may not think looks are important in a husband, but I do, and Tommy, bless his heart, is as homely as they come. A bit slow-witted, too.”

“Be careful around him, then.”

Maggie gave a quiet chuckle. “You sound worse than Dad.

Even Mama said it’d be okay to invite him to church.”

“Won’t be the first time we’ve tried.”

“He could change.”

“Maybe Georgie or Boyd could invite him.”

Maggie gave a testy sigh. “He’d just consider them two-faced, and he’d be right. They have never been nice to him before.”

Ellie thought it was time to change the subject. “Dad was all sad because he realizes we are growing up and will be married soon.”

“He don’t have to worry about me!I’m’m years away from that.”

“Still, it’s sweet, isn’t it? And you know what else? He said he feels sorry for the new pastor with all the girls going after him.”

“Yes. There’s a man who is doomed even before he sets a foot on the powder keg.”

FIVE

Dad announced that on Sunday, two weeks after Mama’s Sewing Circle had decided to make the welcome quilt, the family would go to Scappoose and attend Grandma and Grandpa Newcomb’s church. This was the last weekend in April. The family usually visited their grandparents on the third weekend of the month.

“One good thing to come of having no pastor of our own,” Dad said, “is that we get to spend an extra Sunday in the month with Grandma and Grandpa.”

Ellie was sure she saw a twinkle in his eye as he said this with a pointed look toward Mama.

Mama said nothing. She could hardly protest going to church, could she? But no doubt she was perturbed that Dad had to make such an embellished point of the matter, since they had been following this routine since they had lost their pastor. Eight months ago, Pastor McFarland, their former minister, had suffered a stroke while riding the circuit. He fell off his horse and broke his leg and died a week later from the trauma. He was seventy years old and probably should have given up the circuit long ago. Most likely he had hung on because, as they soon learned, ministers were not exactly falling off trees in the Brethren of Christ Church. I n those intervening months it had been quite a hardship on the church members in the county. Many letters had been sent to headquarters back east, but word always came back that there just were not enough available ministers.

Most of the church members in Columbia County visited other denominations when they could, but distances were so far it was usually quite an ordeal to get to another church. Nevertheless, the Newcombs now went to Scappoose two Sundays in a row.

The church was another bone of contention between Mama and Grandma Newcomb. Dad had been raised Methodist and Mama was Brethren of Christ. When they married and moved to Maintown, there was already a Brethren of Christ Church there, so that’s where they became members. Grandma once said right out that she thought that’s why Mama had pushed for the move to Maintown. Ellie did not know if that was so. She herself could see little difference between the two churches; in fact, she thought the Brethren were an offshoot of the larger denomination.

Saturday morning the family boarded the wagon. Dad had put up the frame and canvas cover because it looked like it might rain on the way. He and Boyd rode up front, and the rest of the family rode in back under the canvas. Dad had spread a layer of hay on the floor, and Mama had laid a couple of quilts over that so the ride would be a little more comfortable. Ellie tried to sew, but the bouncing of the wagon prevented her from doing the fine appliqué work she needed to do on her block for the welcome quilt. Maggie had a book to read, but after a while she had to put it down because the jostling was making her sick. She still hadn’t chosen her block, and Ellie knew she would put it off until the last minute.

Georgie was restless and kept trying to say a tongue twister he’d just learned. “Theophilus Thistledown, the successful thistle sifter, in sifting a sieve full of unsifted thistles, thrust three thousand thistles through the thick of his thumb.”

He drove them crazy with it until Maggie tried to stuff a handful of hay into his mouth. Mama, who had amazingly dozed off, woke to the yells and scuffles and made the two sit as far apart as one could get in a small wagon.

About the time it began to rain, Georgie started with riddles. “Two brothers we are, great burdens we bear, by which we are bitterly pressed. I n truth we may say we are full all day but empty when we go to rest.”

“Shoes,” said Maggie, barely giving him a chance to finish. Her tone was smug.

He tried another and another, and she quickly guessed them all, taking the fun out of it for him, and he finally fell silent. It wasn’t long afterward that they pulled into Grandma and Grandpa’s place.

They lived out of town a couple of miles on Cater Road. Grandpa had been a logger, only farming enough to feed his family, unlike Dad, who farmed a sizable potato crop for income and also had started working part-time at the sawmill last year when the crops were bad. Hearing the wagon rattle over the driveway of their house that was nestled in a nice grove of fir and cedars, Grandma and Grandpa came out on the porch and waved.

As the family bounded out of the wagon, the chatter began.

“Thought you might be coming today,” Grandpa said. He was in his seventies, an older version of Dad. His hair was thin and white, whereas Dad’s was still brown and thinning only in a few places. They were the same size, or would have been if Grandpa didn’t have a stoop in his back that caused his head to jut forward, making him a few inches shorter than Dad. But their eyes were the same, as was the timbre of their voices. They had the same quiet, easygoing personalities and the same smile.

It was very easy to love Grandpa.

Then there was Grandma Newcomb. I n a way she was a lot like Mama, though Ellie knew Mama would never believe that.

Perhaps Mama more resembled Grandma’s shadow, a softer, gentler version of the older lady. Both women spoke their minds and appeared to wield the power in the family, but Grandma’s words seemed much sharper than Mama’s. I t was like the saying about a person’s bark being worse than their bite. That was often true in Mama’s case, but Ellie knew from experience that it was not so for Grandma. No one, not even Maggie, could manipulate Grandma. Her bark had bite, and one better not forget that.

Grandma and Mama didn’t look at all alike, either. Mama was shorter than Ellie but a bit on the plump side. “You try having four babies and still keep your girlish figure!” she’d say if anyone even hinted that she should drop a few pounds. Her hair was brown and her eyes green like Maggie’s. She was pretty even for a thirty-nine-year-old matron.

Grandma Newcomb was tall, at least as tall as Dad, and what Ellie would call big-boned, though not fat. Her hair and eyes were gray, iron gray. She always wore her hair in a chignon, not the fashionable kind that Ellie liked to wear sometimes in the middle of her head. Grandma’s was low on her neck and looked as though she was wearing a big spoon. Her everyday dresses matched exactly except in color. One was dark brown, one dark blue, and one dark gray. When she wore the gray one, she looked a little like one of the bullets in Dad’s carbine. All her dresses had shirtwaists and long sleeves, with the only adornment being an ecru lace collar at the high neck. For special occasions she had another dress that was dark green. Now, as she waved from the porch, she was wearing the brown dress.

“Girls, let’s get these quilts and bring them in so they can dry,” Mama said.

“Oh, those old things,” Grandma said as the first quilt was pulled from the wagon bed. “Do they have to come into the house?”

The quilts were by no means Mama’s best, but Grandma made it sound as if they’d been used in the barn for birthing a calf.

“I’ll lay ’em out in the barn,” Dad said in a conciliatory tone.

Amazingly, Mama didn’t argue.

“I’ll take care of them,” offered Boyd, a little too eagerly, Ellie thought. He hopped up into the wagon and grabbed the reins.

“You hang them over a clean post,” Mama instructed through gritted teeth. “Carefully.”

“I’ll help!” Georgie said, spinning around toward the barn.

Mama laid a hand on his shoulder. “No, you won’t.” Poor Mama had the look of a sea captain on a sinking ship that everyone was quickly abandoning.

One thing good that could be said about Grandma was that she was an excellent cook. Even Mama had to admit that. And since they had been making a habit lately of coming on the last two weekends of the month, she surely had been expecting them. The meal she spread out before them that evening was fit for Christmas. Roast venison, potatoes, and her canned green beans, which she had a way of seasoning so that even Georgie ate them. She brought out her pickled beets and Ellie’s favorite, pickled carrots. For dessert she served apple and currant pie.