Prairie Rose (9 page)

“I bought a stove from a fellow upstream who couldn’t prove up his claim,” Seth said, lifting the wooden bar across the front door. “He sold it cheap. You’d better light it if we’re to have any supper tonight.”

Rosie swallowed and stepped around a chicken on her way toward the door. Chipper sidled up against her, one thumb stuck securely in his mouth. Taking his free hand, she gave the little boy the bravest smile she could muster. “Your father built this,” she whispered. “This is a prairie house.”

“Looks more like a mole’s house to me.”

“You—!” Seth swung on the child, his finger outstretched. “I’ll have you know my place is twice as big as Rustemeyer’s, and I’ve got a better stove and a bigger bed than O’Toole—” He caught himself. “Just get your hide in here and start peeling spuds.”

Rosie stood just outside the doorway. She easily read the hurt that ran beneath Seth’s anger. And she understood it. He had built this house. It was his pride. His only possession.

Dear Father
, she prayed silently, bowing her head under the open sky.
Please help me to see the beauty in this place. I know you can make good of all my willful mistakes. I’m almost sure you wanted me to stay back at the Home, but here I am with Seth Hunter—and I don’t know why, nor what I’m to do for you. Oh, Father, please make a godly plan of my terrible mistake. Please bring joy and peace—

“Are you coming inside?” Seth called, leaning one shoulder against the frame of his door.

Rosie breathed a quick “Amen” and hurried toward the house. As she brushed past Seth, she looked up into his eyes. They were as hard and blue as ice, and she suddenly knew she must do all in her power to soften them.

Not just his eyes
, a voice spoke inside her.
Soften his heart
.

“I’m going to check on my cows,” he said. “I’ll bring in some meat from the smokehouse.”

He started out, but she caught his arm. “Wait, Mr. Hunter. Please … will you show me around?”

“I thought you knew how to light a stove.”

“I do. But … this is your home. You built it. Please, I’d like you to show it to me.”

He looked down at her, his jaw tight. She saw a flicker of some emotion cross his face. And then he stroked a hand down the door.

“Walnut,” he said. “You won’t find a harder wood in these parts. Took me three days to build.”

“And the hinges?” Rosie said. “They’re leather. They look strong.”

“Deer hide.”

“I can’t imagine anything that could break down such a sturdy door.”

She gave him a bright smile as she walked inside. But there, her heart sank further. Darkness shadowed the cavernous room. A filmy cobweb stretched across one corner. A dank, musty smell mingled with wood smoke permeated the air, and the few pieces of furniture stood around on the uneven dirt floor like lonely soldiers.

“Here’s the stove,” Seth said, striding across the room. His head nearly touched the low ceiling. “I’ve only had it a couple of weeks. I reckon it could use a good cleaning.”

Rosie swallowed at the sight of the large sooty stove with its rusted pipe and blackened burner lids. Half-afraid of what she might find, she gingerly opened the oven door. A brown mouse lifted its head, gave a loud squeak, and jumped out at her feet. Rosie gasped and leapt backward as the mouse fled across the floor with Chipper racing after it.

“Mr. Hunter,” she said, setting her hands on her hips. “Have you ever used this stove?”

He took off his hat and scratched the back of his neck. “Well, uh, not exactly. I figured I’d get Sheena over here one of these days to teach me how to work it.”

Rosie brushed off her hands. If there was anything she knew, it was cooking and cleaning. Maybe God could use her to set up this household—if only for little Chipper’s sake. In fact, the more she looked around the place, the easier it was to imagine what she could do with it. Scrub the table. Air out the mattress. Polish the stove.

“I built this table out of pine,” Seth was saying. He stroked his hand down the three smooth boards of the long trestle table. “And the chairs. If you know anything about caning …”

“I do,” Rosie said, studying the four seatless chairs. Obviously, Seth had been using a set of stumps assembled around the table for his perch. Those would have to go.

“And here’s the bed.” He cupped the ball on top of the foot post. “It’s got a straw mattress. No bugs.”

Rosie inspected the frame. To her surprise, the bed revealed skilled craftsmanship—its joints solid, its pegs tight, and its posts carefully carved, sanded, and polished. Curious, she returned to the table. It, too, displayed even planing and careful joinery. The chairs—though they lacked seats—stood level and rigid. And in the center of each chair’s back a design of flowers and scrolls had been carved.

“You did this work?” she asked, straightening. “You built these things?”

Seth shrugged. “My uncle taught me carpentry. I always liked working with my hands.” Before she could marvel aloud at the handiwork, he turned away. “See what you can do about that stove, Miss Mills. I’ll be back in a few minutes with some meat.”

“Eggs, too, please!” she called after him. “If you have any.”

As he disappeared through the door, Rosie let out a breath. “Well, Chipper,” she said softly, “here we are at home. How do you like it?”

“I hate it.” He picked up a potato from the basket at his feet and hurled it across the room. “Hate it, hate it, hate it!”

Rosie gathered the little boy in her arms and held him tightly as he began to sob. Never mind what Seth Hunter wanted, she thought. This child needed love—and she intended to see that he got it. If not from his father, then from her.

Seth decided Rosenbloom Cotton Mills’s real name should have been Twister. The skinny little gal was a regular cyclone around the house. Declaring the stove too filthy to use, its chimney blocked with creosote and its ash pit jammed, she fixed a lunch of cold smoked venison. She boiled greens on an open fire, along with a few potatoes and some coffee. After lunch she broke down the stove, dragged it out the front door piece by piece, and began to scrub and polish.

While Chipper wandered the creek bank picking up kindling, Rosie scoured every pot and pan in the house. She hauled the mattress outside and threw it on top of a spice bush to air. Then she toted the sheets and bedding down to the creek and washed them in the cold water—declaring that she would do it again with hot water after she had the stove put back together.

By the time evening rolled around, she had reassembled most of the stove and all of the bed. Along the way, she had managed enough chitchat to wear out any man’s eardrums. “Don’t you have a broom, Mr. Hunter? Never mind, I’ll make one tomorrow. I’m so glad you have a well. I thought sure I’d be obliged to make that trip to the creek five times a day. You need some new paper in your windows, Mr. Hunter. These oiled panes are all fly speckled. We had real glass panes at the Home, but I don’t see how a person could ever bring glass out here to the prairie. It would shatter the first time the wagon hit a bump, wouldn’t it? Don’t throw those ashes away! I’ll want to make lye for the soap. Have you seen any beehives around here, Mr. Hunter?”

As he went back and forth from the house to the barn, Seth couldn’t help but marvel at his new employee. While he cleaned the cow stalls and checked on his chickens, the little brown-eyed twister sashayed around like there was no tomorrow. By the time she banged two pots together to call him to supper, he had to admit bringing Rosie Mills from Kansas City might not have been such a bad idea. The delicious aroma drifting through the front door of his house made his stomach groan in anticipation.

Seth washed his hands and face in the pot of warm water Rosie had set on the front porch. Still dripping, he walked inside to find the long table spread with wilted poke salad boiled with chunks of salt pork, fried sweet potatoes, and a mountain of steaming scrambled eggs. Seated on a stump at the table, his hair combed and his cheeks scrubbed, Chipper regarded the feast with wide blue eyes. Slowly, half-unbelieving, Seth walked across the room and stared. He hadn’t eaten a meal like this in … in years.

“Did you wash up, Mr. Hunter?” Rosie asked, breezing into the house carrying a plate piled high with turnovers. “I put a bowl of hot water—” She stopped and looked Seth up and down, breathless, as though the sight of a wet man had cast a spell over her. “I see you found it.”

He raked a hand back through his damp hair. “Where did this come from? All this food?”

“Here and there.” Coming out of her trance, she set the turnovers on the table. “You have a wealth of greens right outside the door. Poke, dock, plantain. I found some dried apples in the cellar. I hope you don’t mind—”

“No, no. It’s fine. Use anything you want. I’ll make sure we always have fresh meat. Rabbits and quail, if nothing better. Anything in the smokehouse is yours. I dug a cellar when I moved out here late last summer. It still has a few things I managed to winter over.”

“There’ll be twice as much next spring,” she said, sitting on a stump across from Chipper. “You’ll hardly believe how good I am at pickling and canning. My cheeses and sausages are wonderful— though at the Home we never seemed to have enough to go around. Everyone says my—” She stopped and clapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m boasting. You’d better pray quickly, Mr. Hunter.”

She stretched out her hands to him and Chipper and bowed her head. Thrown off-kilter by her action, Seth cleared his throat. Across the table, the boy slipped one hand into Rosie’s, but he firmly tucked his free hand into his lap. Deciding the whole business of holding hands was for children, Seth propped his elbows on the table and closed his eyes.

How long had it been since he had prayed? During the war, maybe. A battle. Cannonballs bursting all around. A prayer for preservation. A cry for safety. Nothing more. He couldn’t remember the last time he had spoken with God. Or listened. After all, God had allowed the Cornwalls to banish him from their property, allowed his best friend to be killed, allowed Mary to die.

“Are you going to pray before the supper gets cold, Mr. Hunter?” Rosie asked, slipping her hand into his. “At this rate, the turnovers won’t be worth feeding to the chickens.”

Seth glanced at her. Then he looked down at their clasped hands—his large and hard, hers much softer. An ache started up inside his chest. He couldn’t speak. Could hardly move.

“Dear Father,” Rosie said softly, “I thank you so much for our safe journey across the prairie. Thank you for this beautiful home Mr. Hunter has built. Thank you for providing us with this fine supper—surely more than we can even eat. In the name of Jesus Christ I pray. Amen.”

Rosie gave Seth’s hand a gentle squeeze. Then she picked up her spoon and began to dish out the scrambled eggs. “I have never, never in my whole entire life felt so happy,” she said. When she looked up at him, Seth saw that a streak of stove blacking smudged her cheek and a puff of white flour dusted the end of her nose. Unaware, she gave him a warm smile.

“Have you ever been this happy, Mr. Hunter?” she asked.

Scooping up a spoonful of greens, Seth couldn’t bring himself to answer. He felt a strange tickle at the back of his throat. And he had the terrible feeling he was going to cry.

CHAPTER 5

R
OSIE had been happy at supper. But when she saw where she was to spend her summer nights, her spirits flagged. The barn smelled to high heaven. What little hay was left over from winter had grown stiff and moldy. Three milk cows and the mules used the barn for shelter. The chickens roosted in its rafters. And as she climbed the rickety ladder into the loft, Rosie gasped and stiffened in shock. On the moonlit barn floor below her, a five-foot-long blacksnake slithered out from under a tuft of loose hay and disappeared behind a wagon wheel.

“Don’t worry about that fellow,” Seth called up. “He’s not poisonous. He keeps the barn cleaned up for me—eats mice.”

Wonderful
, Rosie thought.
How comforting
.

“Are you all right up there?” Seth asked.

Rosie looked over the edge of the shaky platform. “What about grizzly bears?”

“We don’t see them around much. They follow the buffalo.”

“Wolves?”

“Same.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Would you like to keep my rifle on hand?”

Rosie shook her head. She could cook and clean and can and pickle—but she didn’t have a clue how to shoot a gun. Seth glanced around the barn before looking up at her again.

“Well, then,” he said, “good night, Miss Mills.”

“Wait, Mr. Hunter!” she called out. “Please send my bonnet back to the Home. It’s to go to Lizzy Jackson—after I die, I mean.”

“Die?”

“Just see that it goes to Lizzy. She’s wanted it ever so long, though Cilla gave it to me instead. I’d like Lizzy to have it.”

Seth shook his head. “You’re not going to die in the barn tonight, Miss Mills.”

“Tomorrow you might put a bolt on the door.”

“I can do that.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hunter.” Rosie drew back from the edge of the loft, but through the chinks in the floor she could see Seth staring up at where she’d been standing. She thought he had half a mind to allow her to sleep in the house—though she wouldn’t do it. Such a thing would be improper. No, she would just make do in the barn, with the mice and the snakes. …