Prairie Rose (3 page)

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Hunter,” Mrs. Jameson said, “but I simply couldn’t send a twelve-year-old off with a stranger. We find our children jobs in the city. With the shortage of men these days, even our younger ones are working at the liveries and helping with refuse collection—”

“Shoveling stables and picking up garbage? I can offer a boy a better life than that.”

“But I can’t just give you a child. It would be worse than slavery.”

“Slavery? I’m holding out a chance at a new life. I’m offering this boy a future. I’ll turn him into a strong, useful man.”

“I’ll be your man!” Rosie called out. She took a step and began to sway. Sheena leapt to her side, placing an arm around her waist to keep her from falling. “I’ll go with you, Mr. Hunter. I’ll help you with the plowing, and I’ll take care of your son. I know I can do it.”

Seth Hunter stared at her. The little boy beside him gaped at the unexpected declaration. Even Sheena O’Toole eyed her in wonderment. Rosie didn’t care that she had astonished them all. This was her chance—and she intended to take it.

Mrs. Jameson turned on her. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped. “The cook will be searching the whole house for you. At this hour of the morning, you’re to be in the kitchen ladling out porridge.”

“Yes, ma’am … but … but I believe I’ll go to Kansas with Mr. Hunter instead. I’ll be his worker. I’m good with children, and I can learn anything.” She swallowed and forced herself to meet those bright blue eyes. “Sir, won’t you take me with you? I’m nineteen—almost twenty—and I can do a good day’s work. I promise you won’t regret it.”

So far Seth Hunter had said nothing. Rosie knew she was losing ground. Mrs. Jameson would never hear of her going away with a stranger. And what man would want a skinny foundling to help him on his homestead? But he had offered a future. A home.

“I’m a very good cook,” she continued. “Just ask anyone. I bake the best apple pies. I can clean and scrub, and I know how to take a stove apart and black it top to bottom good as new. I’m wonderful at hoeing, and nobody makes pickles better than mine. It sounds like I’m boasting, but it’s true, Mr. Hunter. You’ll see how thankful you are to have me.”

Seth looked her up and down, his blue eyes bringing out a flush in her cheeks and making the back of her neck prickle. She glanced at his son. Chipper was grinning. A broad space where he’d lost his two front teeth gave his face the look of a small, round jack-o’-lantern.

Mrs. Jameson harrumphed. “Rosenbloom Cotton Mills, I shall not tolerate such nonsense. And as for praying in a tree—”

“Mrs. Jameson’s right,” Seth said to Rosie. “I was mainly needing a farmhand. I don’t reckon you’d be strong enough.”

“I’m strong enough, Mr. Hunter,” she countered, squaring her shoulders and setting the bloodied rag on a countertop. “Besides, you
owe
me. You said so yourself.”

“Indeed you did, Seth.” Sheena wasn’t quite as tall as the younger woman, but her stocky stature gave her the look of a determined bulldog. When she spoke again, her voice held a tone of foreboding. “Speak the truth and shame the devil.”

“I admit I’m obliged to the girl,” Seth said. “She saved my life, and I intend to pay my debt by sending her a reward from Kansas. A dollar here, another there, as my crops come in.”

“She wants to go with you to Kansas. That’s the reward she claims,” Sheena said.

Rosie’s heart warmed to the woman at her side. Somehow, Sheena understood the depths of Rosie’s need. Somehow, she
knew
.

“She’s a
donny
thing, Sheena,” Jimmy put in, “but she’ll not last two weeks on the prairie before—”

“You’re no great help to her, are you now, Jimmy O’Toole?” Sheena interjected. “She’s a poor slip of a thing with no mother and never a home to call her own. She knew not a
stim
about our Seth, yet she saved his life, so she did.” She fastened a glare on Seth. “Now then, Mr. Hunter, what do you have to say for yourself?”

Seth took off his hat and scratched the back of his head. He assessed Rosie and appeared clearly unhappy with what he saw. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared out the mercantile window for a full minute, his eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. Finally, he gave a grunt of surrender.

“I reckon I’m going to take the girl.” He turned to Mrs. Jameson. “I’ll only need her for the growing season—six months at the most.”

“Sir, Miss Mills is an unmarried woman.” Her words were clipped. “You can’t just take her into your home like that. It wouldn’t be Christian.”

“She can live in the barn.”

“But Rosie isn’t married!”

“A family down the river brought in a girl from Sweden, so they did,” Sheena put in. “She takes care of their children and cooks their meals. Two or three families in Lawrence hired young women who used to be slaves to work for them. I even heard of a family—”

“But Mr. Hunter is not a family. He’s a widower. He’s a single man!” objected Mrs. Jameson.

“And that’s how I’m going to stay, too,” Seth said, turning on Rosie. “So if you have any crazy ideas about—”

“No,” she said quickly. She had to reassure him—had to make this work. “All I want is somewhere to live.”

“Don’t be foolish, Rosie,” Mrs. Jameson cut in. “You know nothing about this man. You have a place with us.”

“A place, yes. But not a home.” In spite of Mrs. Jameson’s scowl, Rosie lifted her chin. “I’m going to Kansas, ma’am, with Mr. Hunter.”

Seth hooked a thumb into the pocket of his denim trousers and cocked his head in the direction of the orphanage. “Go fetch your things. I’d just as soon be gone when Jack Cornwall talks the sheriff into letting him go.”

“I don’t have anything of my own to fetch, sir. I’m ready to leave this very minute.”

“You don’t have anything?” He frowned and glanced at Mrs. Jameson.

“We’re an orphanage, Mr. Hunter,” the director explained. “We do well to put food in the children’s stomachs. Rosie’s fortunate to have a pair of shoes.”

Seth studied Rosie up and down for a moment, his blue eyes absorbing her faded dress, worn shawl, and patched boots. Finally he shook his head. “All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Rosie pressed her cheek against that of the woman who had taken her in so many years before. “Pray for me, Mrs. Jameson. And give my love to the children.”

She turned quickly so she wouldn’t change her mind and hurried out of the mercantile. Seth Hunter lifted Chipper onto the spring seat, helped Rosie into the back of the wagon, and climbed aboard himself. Jimmy O’Toole settled his wife and their five red-haired children among the sacks, barrels, and tools. Then he joined Seth on the seat.

Rosie tucked her skirts around her ankles before allowing herself one last look at the Christian Home for Orphans and Foundlings just down the road. What had she done? Oh, Lord!

After releasing the brake, Seth flicked the reins to set his team plodding down the street.

“Don’t give her bed away, Mrs. Jameson,” he called as the wagon passed the Home’s director, who was already marching purposefully back toward the orphanage. “I’ll have her back in six months.”

“It’s a long way from Kansas City to my homestead,” Seth said as the wagon rolled out of town. “Ever been to the prairie, Miss Mills?”

She was sitting bolt upright, her head held high as though she intended to drink in the sights and smells and sounds of everything along the way. A ragged bonnet covered the lump on her head, and only a few wisps of brown hair drifted around her chin. Skinny as a rail, she had a straight nose, high cheekbones, and a long neck. If it weren’t for her eyes, she’d be about as pretty as a fledgling prairie hen. But her eyes glowed, huge and brown, like big warm chocolates, and when she blinked, her thick lashes fluttered down to her cheeks in a way that made Seth feel fidgety.

“I’ve never been anywhere,” she said, turning those big eyes on him. “Except to the mercantile and church.”

“My place is a long way from any market or church.”

“I don’t mind, Mr. Hunter. The Lord promises, ‘My presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.’ I’m not afraid.”

“You’re a brave lass, so you are,” Sheena O’Toole put in. The children were nestled around her, busily sucking on their peppermint sticks. “In truth, at times the prairie can be a lonely place.”

“Oh, I’ve been lonely all my life.”

Rosie said it so matter-of-factly that Seth almost didn’t catch the significance of her words. When he did, he knew he had to set things straight right away. He didn’t want her getting any ideas.

“Look, Miss Mills,” he said. “I agreed to let you come along because I owe you. I’m giving you room and board in exchange for hard, honest work. I don’t promise any luxuries, and I won’t require your company evenings or Sundays. I’ve been alone a lot of years, and I like it that way.”

He knew she didn’t fully understand his situation, but he had no intention of going into the details. He had shelved the memories of a brief young love, a secret wedding, and the tumult that had followed. He had lived as a husband for less than a month before his wife’s parents banished him from their property. When he had learned he had a son, he was in the Union army and camped on a battleground three hundred miles away. He had not seen his wife again.

“The boy stayed with his mother,” Sheena O’Toole whispered in explanation. “Seth was fighting in the war.”

“My mama lives in heaven now,” Chipper whispered, turning his big sapphire eyes on Rosie. “She’s not coming back to take care of me anymore.”

Seth hadn’t heard the boy speak more than a word or two in the days he’d had him. Chipper had a high, sweet voice, a baby’s voice with a slight lisp from his missing teeth. But not much about him reminded Seth of Mary. Sturdy, black-haired, and blue-eyed, the child was a spitting image of himself.

“I bet you miss your mama,” Rosie Mills said from the wagon bed.

The dark head nodded. “I do miss her. And I don’t like
him
.” He jabbed a tiny thumb in the direction of his father. “He’s a Yankee.”

“Oh, but he’s much more than that. He’s your papa, too. That means he loves you, and he’s going to watch out for you.”

“I don’t care. I want to live with Gram and Gramps. I like them better than any Yankee.”

Seth glared at the little gap-toothed face. He didn’t know how to talk to a five-year-old. Mary’s parents despised their son-in-law, and they had poisoned his own child against him. When he returned for a wife he hadn’t known was dead, he had learned they’d lost their farm and were moving to southern Missouri. It was then he had decided to claim the son he had fathered. Now he was beginning to wonder if he’d made a mistake.

“Did you know your mama’s love lives in your heart, Chipper?” Rosie asked, leaning forward and taking the child’s chubby hand. “Why, sure it does. Whenever you’re lonely, you can think about her.”

“Where does
your
mama live?”

“She doesn’t know, Chipper,” Sheena said. “Poor Miss Mills never met her mama.”

“But I know my father very well,” Rosie said. “God is my father. He’s always looking out for me, always wanting the best for me, always with me. If I need help, I can talk to him any time.”

“Sounds like a better father than
him
.” The thumb jabbed Seth’s way again.

“I imagine he could be a pretty good papa in time. You’ll just have to teach him, Chipper. Now, what do you think a good papa would do with his son while they were traveling to the prairie in a wagon?”

Seth frowned at the road. He didn’t like this turn of conversation. Not at all. He wanted to concentrate on his land, to plot out every one of his one hundred sixty acres, to imagine how his crops would grow. He wanted to talk over new ideas with Jimmy O’Toole. He didn’t know what to do about the little boy beside him. Or the woman with the big brown eyes.

“He’d sing,” Chipper said. “A good papa would sing.”

“Oh, that’s easy.” Rosie laughed at the boy’s suggestion. “Come on, then, Mr. Hunter. What shall we sing on our way to the prairie?”

“I don’t sing.”

“I told you,” Chipper said. “He don’t even sing.”

“Everyone sings,” Rosie said. “It’s the easiest thing in the world.”

“That it is,” Sheena agreed. “As easy as dreaming dreams.”

“Here’s a song about heaven, where your mama lives, Chipper. Let’s all sing it together:

“Precious memories, unseen angels,

Sent from somewhere to my soul;

How they linger, ever near me,

And the sacred past unfold.”

Rosie’s voice was high and lovely. It wrapped around Seth’s heart like a pair of gentle arms, warming and comforting him. He did his best to ignore her, but the pleading in the woman’s sweet voice softened him.

“Precious memories, how they linger,” he joined in roughly, keeping his attention trained on the road ahead.