WILD OATS (21 page)

She glanced out the back door at the reverend. She had left her copy of Mrs. Millenbutter's book on the bench and the preacher was perusing it casually. A good hostess would put the kettle on and return to her guest until the water boiled. Cora rudely lingered in the kitchen.

Not before the tea was steeping did Cora make her way out the back door, carrying the blue pot Amelia Sparrow had sent as a wedding gift in the middle of a plain cherrywood tray, surrounded by her best mismatched china.

"Here we are," Cora said with exaggerated cheeriness. The preacher didn't even look up. It was not until Cora stood at his side that he raised his eyes from the book.

"Oh, Cora." He came to his feet as if surprised to see her.

"Reverend, why don't you turn over that washtub?" she said, indicating the battered tin tub propped up to dry at the end of the bench.

The preacher immediately laid the book aside and placed the washtub with as much precision as if it were the pulpit in his sanctuary. Cora placed the tea tray on the makeshift table and seated herself opposite Reverend Bruder.

"Do you take sugar?"

"Just milk," he answered, refocusing his attention on the book.

"I'm sorry, I don't have any."

"What?" The preacher looked up at her, clearly preoccupied. "Oh, fine," he agreed before Cora had time to repeat herself. "This is very interesting reading. I've never even heard of Daisy Millenbutter."

Cora was momentarily surprised. "Oh, Mrs. Millenbutter gives wonderful advice. I am quite committed to her."

The reverend nodded. "When I picked it up, I thought it might be a new imitation of the writings of Mrs. Eddy, but it is quite different."

"You've read Mrs. Eddy?" Cora asked.

“Well, of course, and you?''

She nodded. "I found her fundamentals very uplifting, but the Eastern mystic element was somewhat unwieldy for me."

The preacher was looking at Cora as if he'd never seen her before. “I was not aware that you were a student of religion or philosophy."

"Only in a small way," she assured him, a grin teasing at the corner of her mouth. “At the Methodist Home it was either the study of philosophy or the fundamentals of hand washing."

Reverend Bruder laughed out loud. "And so you find Mrs. Millenbutter superior to Mrs. Eddy."

"No, not superior, just more suited to me. I have a great appreciation for fresh air and exercise. I suppose that blending my personal preferences in life with my philosophy for living was an easy choice."

He nodded approvingly. "So what aspect of Mrs. Millenbutter's philosophy was holding your attention this morning?"

"I was looking for a cure for diphtheria."

"Oh?"

"I heard that there is sickness in Low Town. I was hoping Mrs. Millenbutter could offer some worthwhile treatment."

"Does she?" he asked.

Cora sighed. "She recommends swabbing the affected area of the throat with lime juice."

The reverend shook his head. "In the big cities back East they give patients an antitoxin to cure them. I'd say we are just as likely to get some of that rare medicine as we are to find limes in the territory."

Cora agreed. "I was trying to decide what curative elements might be in the limes that we could find in some product we have here locally."

"A very good idea. What have you come up with?"

"Nothing yet," she admitted.

"Perhaps together we can think of something."

Cora nodded her willingness. "What do you know about limes, Reverend?"

"They are very aromatic," he said. "They have a distinct and pungent smell."

"And they are very sour," Cora added. "I can't imagine how horrible it would be to have it swabbed on one's throat."

"Not pleasant, I don't imagine," the preacher agreed.

"The juice of the lime stings very badly if you get it into a cut," she said.

The two sat quietly for a moment. "That's about all I know of limes," Cora said finally.

Reverend Bruder nodded. "All right. So now we must think of something that is readily available to us that smells to high heaven, tastes abominably sour, and stings in cuts."

The moments stretched on as Cora mentally inventoried the cupboards in her kitchen for the potential curative. She was near ready to give up, when she glanced at the reverend to see his eyes wide with surprise.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Whiskey."

"Whiskey!"

The reverend's face colored brightly and he looked away from Cora in embarrassment. "I have not always been a preacher, Mrs. Briggs," he said. He hesitated a long moment as if reluctant to speak. Taking a deep breath, he turned his eyes to Cora. "Once I was the most wretched of sinners. And I admit to having had a dismal familiarity with corn liquor."

"Reverend Bruder?"

"In my youth I was a drunkard," he said solemnly. "And I would be one yet, had my dear Constance, fine Christian woman that she is, not plucked me out of the depths of Satan's pit of despair and set me firmly on the road to redemption."

Cora was momentarily stunned into silence. With a nervous little cough, she managed to reclaim her voice. "I had no idea."

He shook his head. "None in town know," he said. "Since I accepted the call to preach, I've not said a word about my former life. We moved out here to the territory to leave that unfortunate past behind."

Cora felt drawn to alleviate the vulnerability in the formidable man beside her. "The past is truly past," she said, reaching over to gently pat his hand. "The fact that you have left your mistakes behind you says more for your character than if you'd been righteous all your life."

The preacher looked up at her. He nodded with more than a hint of admiration, feeling that she spoke as much for herself as for him. Rising to his feet, he gave her a modest bow of leave-taking. "May I take Mrs. Millenbutter's book to read?" he asked.

"Why, of course," she said. "You haven't finished your tea. Where are you off to?"

"Mort Humley's place."

"Mr. Humley's? Why?"

Reverend Bruder's bright moustache wiggled as his expression bloomed into a hearty grin. "I wouldn't be much of a shepherd," he said, "if I didn't know which of my flock has a corn-liquor still on his property."

Cora laughed out loud with wide-eyed surprise. She wondered, as she watched the reverend make his way to the street, when he would remember why he had come to visit her.

Cora made her way to Pratt farm nearly every day to see Jedwin. She worked beside him to get the oats into the bam. Gathering the shooks onto the wagon and safely stacking them out of the weather to wait for the threshing team to come through town. They worked and sweated and strained their backs and arms until they ached. It was the most pleasant task either could recall. They scampered in the fields and rolled in the haymow and took lunch together in the privacy of the old log homestead.

Jedwin looked the part of the contented farmer these days. The sun had browned his skin and his work clothes were gentle colors, not the somber grays and blacks of the mortuary. And in addition to his appearance and his clothes, a smile graced his face from morning until night and his laughter rang across the fields.

"I am so grateful for this time with you," Jedwin told her as he helped her spread the picnic cloth she'd brought for their luncheon.

Cora smiled, pleased. "It was a wonderful idea to meet here at the farm."

Jedwin's answering grin was hot and sensual. "The nights are just too short," he told her.

Cora raised her eyebrows in blushing challenge, feigning ignorance of his meaning. "But the nights are so romantic," she told him. "Have you forgotten about being romantic?"

Jedwin grabbed her wrist and bent his head over it in an elaborate kiss to her hand. "Romancing you, Mrs. Briggs," he claimed with comically exaggerated sincerity, "is all that I live for."

"Oh really? Well, what happened to poetry?" she asked as she handed him his dish of luncheon fare. "I haven't seen a passionate rhyme in weeks."

Shrugging, Jedwin sat quietly for a moment in contemplation, finally looking quite intently at the contents of his plate.

Setting it down, he dramatically smoothed a nonexistent moustache and thoroughly cleared his throat.

"The fairest woman that e'er I've seen,

Feeds me nothing but beans and greens."

Cora huffed in feigned fury. "You'll see nothing but cornbread and water if you don't watch your step."

Jedwin held his hands before him as if warding her off in fear.

They ate their meal as companionably as lovers. Jedwin took an occasional bite from his plate, followed by one from hers. Cora quickly followed suit. Finally they exchanged plates, but quickly discovered it was not the contents of the other plate that lured them, but the person holding it.

As their stomachs filled they became more lethargic and serious.

"Have you given up work at the mortuary completely?" Cora asked him as she handed him a quarter piece of pecan pie.

"Nobody will let me near the place," he explained. "I've never had diphtheria, so Mama won't let me near the living and Haywood won't let me near the dead."

Cora's expression troubled momentarily. "Is the plague worsening?''

Jedwin shook his head. “I don't think they've had a death in a couple of days. That's very good. You know the preacher has my mother and the other nurses swabbing the throats of the sick with corn liquor."

"I know," Cora admitted with a giggle. "It was inadvertently Mrs. Millenbutter's idea."

The two laughed and talked about philosophy and friends and the reverend and finally the conversation reached the topic of the Methodist Home.

"It was not so bad at the Home," Cora confided to him. "It was just never home to me. I shared a room with nine girls. Nine girls whom I considered my friends, but I was still lonely. I hated it."

Jedwin's expression saddened. "You've been lonely here in Dead Dog, haven't you?"

Cora waved away his concern. "No more lonely than I've always been since Mama died. And since I've met you, I've not been lonely at all."

Jedwin's expression warmed into a smile. "Good."

Realizing the weight of her admission, Cora wanted to call the words back, to make him think he'd misunderstood.

"We've been so lucky," Cora said.

"Lucky to find each other."

"Lucky to be spared the diphtheria," she said. "A disease like that can devastate a town. It can wipe whole families off the face of the earth. I read in the Guthrie paper, the
State Capital,
that the sickness is running through both the territories like a wildfire."

Jedwin gazed at the woman across from him who was so desperately attempting to put distance between them. Jedwin would not dream of doing the same himself. Life was so sweet, so new, so precious to him now. Disease and death held no more fear for him than the potential separation from her. He reached for her and she came into his arms.

"I am learning so much about you, Cora," he said.

"What are you learning?"

"How fond you are of secrets."

Chapter Sixteen

Haywood heard the rustle of cook pots as he stepped into the doorway kitchen.

"Evening, Mellie," he said.

Amelia Sparrow glanced up and nodded silently.

"I heard you come in," he said. "How are things down in Low Town? Still looking better?"

"No new cases today," she answered. "And for all that I was sure it was foolishness, the reverend's whiskey cure seems to be helping."

Haywood nodded. "Whiskey is a good antiseptic. Maybe it really can work."

“I suspect the worst of it is over,'' she said. “In a day or two our lives will return to normal."

"Yes," he agreed, "I suppose so." He hesitated for a long moment, watching as with tired, slow-moving steps she puttered through the kitchen. "I just wanted to let you know, Mellie, that these past couple of weeks, working with you, well, it's given me a whole new perspective on Amelia Sparrow."

"Oh?" she said with disinterest.

Haywood chuckled lightly to himself and shook his head. “I used to think that you were the most spoiled, selfish woman on earth."

"What!" His words certainly captured Amelia's attention and she looked up at him sharply.

"You've really proved to me that isn't so," he said.

"I do not need to
prove
anything to you or anyone else," Amelia answered with cold fury. "I have worked with you to protect my son from contagion. Any mother would do the same."

"Maybe so," Haywood admitted casually. "But I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much with anyone else."

His grin was open and winning, but Amelia did not respond in kind.

Amelia raised her chin, attempting to recapture their former employer/employee relations. "As I said, Mr. Puser, the worst of this awful plague is past. I can assure you that there will be no need for you and I to fraternize so closely in the future."

Rather than accepting his setdown with good grace, Hay-wood laughed in Amelia's face.

She opened her mouth for a scathing retort; Haywood was saved, however, by the rapping of someone's knuckles at the front door. Shooting him a look of fury, Amelia stepped past Haywood into the hallway.

"Reverend Bruder," she said as she saw the preacher standing in the doorway. "What a pleasant surprise."

The wind was blustery, stirring Amelia's skirts wildly before she managed to close the door behind him. Taking off his thick wool coat and hat, he gave a slight bow of acknowledgment as she hung them on the halltree. "Miss Amelia, Mr. Puser."

"What brings you out this way?" Haywood asked, reaching a hand to grasp the reverend's.

The preacher straightened his wispy red hair and twisted his orange moustache into shape as he answered. “Just inquiring about the health of my community."

Amelia graciously led him into the formal parlor, Haywood following. The room was dark and continuously draped in mourning ribbons for the use of the families of deceased persons. The preacher had been in the room on countless less pleasant occasions.

"The whiskey cure seems to be working rather well," she assured him pleasantly. "We've been using little plugs of cottonwood spore twisted on a wire to keep the medicine against the throat for a longer time."

"Excellent idea," the preacher commended her. "And I am sure that the patients don't find it nearly as unpleasant as if we'd used limes."

"Limes?" both Amelia and Haywood asked in unison.

"That was the treatment originally recommended. But, with that out of the question, I improvised."

"Wherever did you hear about limes for a treatment?" Haywood asked.

Reverend Bruder smiled. "Why, from Mrs. Briggs."

"Miss Maimie?" Amelia was clearly surprised.

The reverend took a seat without waiting for it to be offered. "No, Cora Briggs."

If a thunderbolt had struck Amelia between the eyes she wouldn't have been more stunned. She seated herself quickly as if worried she might fall. "You've been visiting Cora Briggs?"

The preacher tutted. "I don't like the sound of that question. Mrs. Briggs is a member of my flock, I have not only a right, but an obligation to visit her."

"She hasn't set foot in church in eight years," Amelia protested.

He nodded in agreement. "She seems to feel that the ladies of the church would not welcome her."

"And we certainly would not!"

"Then she is totally correct in her perceptions."

The preacher's tone implied censure, and Amelia recognized that it was directed at her. Hastily she sought to assert her moral superiority. "Has Mrs. Briggs confessed with which men she is consorting?"

Reverend Bruder's face flushed slightly, uncomfortable with his own dereliction of duty. "We haven't gotten around to that discussion as yet. Our talks concern health and philosophy." As the two other occupants of the room stared at him, the reverend cleared his throat a little self-consciously. "I truly never got to know Mrs. Briggs adequately. I certainly never suspected such intellect. And I fear I have misjudged her. Once I, regain her confidence, I will certainly want to counsel her about the wages of sin."

“Perhaps she could better explain it to you," Amelia suggested unkindly. "She's been
earning
those wages for some time."

“Mellie!'' Haywood called her up sharply. Amelia gave him an exasperated look, but partial compliance.

The preacher glanced at Haywood in speculation.

"What on earth could that woman know about the care of the sick?" Amelia continued to protest.

"Apparently a good deal." He opened the book that he carried and handed it to her. Amelia had assumed that it was his Bible, but saw now that it was not.

"Mrs. Briggs has graciously allowed me to borrow her copy of Mrs. Millenbutter's very fine guidebook on health, posture, and spirituality. I am forced to admit, Mrs. Sparrow, that I have found it absolutely fascinating."

"It is a biblical work, Reverend?" Amelia asked.

"No, it's not
strictly
biblical; it relies a good deal on common sense. I believe that by following many of the instructions in this book, we can more likely protect the health of the people of this community."

Haywood reached out for the book and Amelia handed it to him. As for Amelia, her interest was not even piqued. She was absolutely certain that nothing that Cora Briggs had to offer could be of any value.

"I thought, Reverend, that as a minister of the gospel, your concerns would be more for our souls, especially the sinful ones, than for our bodies."

"My concern is for both, Mrs. Sparrow. God gives us our health and life as well as our spiritual being."

"Then certainly such concerns should be left for God," she said.

The preacher leaned back in his chair and stubbornly folded his hands across his chest. "I believe he is supposed to 'help those who help themselves.'"

Haywood nodded as he perused the book. "Certainly none of this would hurt anyone, Preacher," he said. "Fresh air, hygiene, deep breathing, and good posture, at least nothing in her prescription is inherently deadly."

"That's what I felt," the reverend said and then added with a chuckle, "Actually, what
I've felt
is a good deal better. I've been taking a long constitutional every morning and working on my posture exercises in the privacy of my own parsonage. I highly recommend it"

Reverend Bruder rose to his feet, taking a deep breath. He raised his hands over his head in a full body stretch. This had the effect of making his coattails rise almost to his belt. Both Haywood and Amelia stared at him as if he'd lost his mind.

"Ahhh . . ." he said as he slowly brought his arms back to his sides. “I truly believe I have never felt so good in all my life. Well, I must be on my way."

"Your book, Reverend." Haywood held the book out to the preacher. He reached out in a fatherly gesture and managed to pat affectionately both the book and Haywood's hand. "You may borrow it for the day," he said. "Mrs. Briggs gave me permission to loan it about town. I'm giving everybody a day to look it over. But don't worry. At my request, Titus Penny has contacted the company and requested a hundred copies for sale in his store. They should be arriving on the train within a few weeks."

Jedwin pulled the team to the barn area behind the Briggs mansion. The old flatbed hearse was loaded with lumber and paint, a great pile of topsoil, and baskets of flower bulbs. Jedwin's work apron lay spread across the top. Jumping to the ground, he began to unhitch the horses. Leaving them in their collars, he tied them to a convenient hitching post within reach of both the water trough and the tall grass left standing around the edge of the barn.

"Good morning." He heard the call from behind him and turned to see Tulsa May making her way toward him from the back door of the house. Her work dress was cheap calico of a nondescript brown, but somehow it suited her more than her usual fashionably colored attire.

"A good day to you, Miss Tulsa May," he called back to her. "I'm surprised to see you here."

Tulsa May looked puzzled. "Why? You knew that I was staying with Miss Maimie."

He nodded. "I just expected you would be out for your morning exercise, like just about everybody else in this town."

She giggled happily, her gap-toothed smile making her appear almost attractive. "Isn't it a sight on this earth?" she said. “I saw with my own eyes Lily Auslander, who is as broad as Mama's old milk cow, taking baby steps down Main Street with a bag of butter beans on her head!"

Jedwin laughed at the image. "Wait until you see Carlisle Bowman tossing Indian clubs."

Cheerfully the two swapped stories of the latest craze that had swept through Dead Dog.

"Papa wants Mother to start a special Saturday afternoon meeting for young ladies," she told him. "He wants her to call it Prayers and Posture."

Jedwin raised an eyebrow. "I would imagine you will be expected to attend."

Tulsa May smiled with exaggerated brightness. "Only if the sun continues to rise in the east and set in the west."

Jedwin shook his head. "Well, at least it will keep you busy after you get these flower boxes planted."

"I'm so glad that you could get free to come and build them."

"I understand Miss Maimie is not exactly thrilled about this addition to her house."

Tulsa May waved away his concern. "It will do her good. Aggravation is a wonderful medicine," she said. "It keeps her mind active."

"Is that your prescription for the lady?"

With a delighted sigh, she nodded. “I told Conrad and Mattie to take all the time they need to recover and get their affairs in order. I find Miss Maimie a very enlightening challenge."

"I'm sure she finds you equally as interesting."

"Not interesting. As I said before, aggravating."

With Tulsa May's help, Jedwin began unloading the lumber from the wagon. "Haywood said you want boxes for every window on the ground floor."

She nodded. "Eighteen windows in all," she said. "But the front windows are in sections of three. I think you could just make long boxes there."

Jedwin agreed. Slipping his work apron over his head, he bent forward slightly, crisscrossing the strings at the back of his waist before tying them in front. He looked up to see Tulsa May staring at him, an unusual expression upon her face.

"What is it?"

She started slightly, as if being caught, and then gave a hasty shake of her head. "Nothing, nothing," she insisted.

Jedwin sensed a strange unease, but didn't question her further- 'Til start here in the back," he said. "By the time I get to the front, I will have made all possible mistakes and will be putting my perfected product up for company."

Tulsa May nodded vaguely and then seemed to deliberately pull herself out of her musing. "That seems like a perfect plan to me," she said with a determined cheerfulness.

"I hope that all this hammering doesn't upset Miss Maimie."

This time Tulsa May's laugh was genuine. "Oh, I guarantee that it will. Honestly, I can hardly wait. It will keep her busy assaulting your character for the entire day."

Jedwin chuckled as Tulsa May began to peruse the load in the hearse. "I see you even brought me some of your own dirt," she said.

Jedwin clutched his heart as if wounded.
"That,
young woman, is not
dirt.
It is my own personal blend of compost-mulched topsoil."

"Oh, then excuse me, sir," Tulsa May said to him with a respectful curtsy to the dirt pile. "What did you bring me to plant?" she asked.

"As much as I could," he answered. "I swear, Tulsa May, you are about the only person in the world that I know who would take it into her head to plant flower boxes at the beginning of winter."

She nodded in agreement. "Anyone can plant flowers in springtime. I prefer a real challenge."

"Well, I nearly brought you some immortelles to stick into the ground," Jedwin said. "But I thought the better of it."