Elm Creek Quilts [07] The Sugar Camp Quilt (10 page)

“Surely he would release you from your chores occasionally so you might assist in such an important community effort.”

“Mr. Pearson,” said Lorena dryly, “have you met my brother?”

“I suppose it was too much to expect that you could be spared. I continue to underestimate the amount of work required by every member of a farmer’s family, including the ladies.” Cyrus looked endearingly disappointed. “I had so hoped you would be able to assist us. Your status as the schoolteacher lends credibility to a cause that has often floundered, and I had looked forward to seeing you more often in town.”

“I am only the former schoolteacher,” Dorothea reminded him. “Considering how briefly I held that position, I suspect I have little credibility to lend.”

“You underestimate the esteem this town holds for you.” The familiar mischievous light returned to his green eyes. “And my esteem, too. But very well. If the thought of a well-functioning lending library does not tempt you, if the prospect of escaping the drudgery of farm chores for what I hope you would consider pleasant company does not move you, if my personal appeals to your generous nature do not persuade you—” He rose. “I confess the latter wounds me the most, but—”

“Mr. Pearson,” said Dorothea, laughing. “You have persuaded me. I want a library as much as your mother does, and I will assist in the effort as much as I am able.”

“I cannot tell you how much this pleases me. My mother would like you to call on her at three o’clock Thursday afternoon for the first meeting of the library board. May I tell her you will be there?”

Dorothea nodded. She would obtain her uncle’s approval somehow.

“Perhaps I might also escort you to the meeting?”

“Thank you,” said Dorothea, “but I do not believe that will be necessary.”

“I think that is a fine idea,” said Lorena. “It is possible you will not be able to take our wagon. Your uncle may need the horses.”

Dorothea reconsidered. Her mother was wise to anticipate an objection that might prevent her from attending. They agreed that Cyrus would come for her a half-hour before the meeting and bring her home afterward.

Cyrus lingered long enough to finish his tea, but left soon thereafter, citing other necessary errands. Dorothea changed out of her Sunday dress and met her mother in the kitchen garden. That morning at breakfast, Uncle Jacob had announced that he did not want any preening young peacock of a man to interfere with the gathering of the potatoes. Dorothea was determined to show her uncle she could have callers and still complete her chores.

“What are you thinking, Mother?” Dorothea asked when her mother worked a long while in silence.

“I’m thinking that it seems as if the new library may at last become more than a fond wish,” she said, brushing clumps of soil from a potato. “I also think it is very fine that you are wanted so badly on the library board. However …”

“Yes?” prompted Dorothea.

Her mother hesitated a moment longer before saying, “Nothing. I suppose it is good that Cyrus is so devoted to his mother.”

Dorothea laughed. “You would fault him for being attentive to his mother’s needs?”

“Only if it means he neglects the needs of others. Of course, there is no reason to assume he will.” Lorena smiled ruefully. “I suppose if I did not dislike his mother so, his attentiveness would not bother me in the least.”

Dorothea’s mirth dimmed. She had not considered that joining the library board would mean more time in the presence of Cyrus’s formidable mother.

D
OROTHEA AND
L
ORENA HURRIED
, but they did not finish in the garden by the time they needed to begin making supper. Since only the potato rows were left, Lorena suggested they finish in the morning, since Uncle Jacob would likely not notice the neglected garden but would certainly notice a late meal. They washed quickly at the pump and ran to the kitchen, but although they raced through supper preparations, Uncle Jacob still sat at the table a full five minutes before his plate was set before him. They learned soon enough a further reason for his displeasure: As he cut into his bread, he announced that Lorena would return to the garden after her regular chores were through and remain there until the last potato was collected.

Lorena nodded without a word; Dorothea took a drink of water and tried to maintain the appearance of calm. Later, when her mother went to the back door, Dorothea followed.

“Where are you going?” said Uncle Jacob, reading his Bible in the fading daylight.

“To the garden with Mother.”

“You have other work to do.” He gestured to her sewing basket on the floor behind her usual chair.

“It’s my fault we didn’t finish the potatoes. I should help her.”

“You should attend to your own business.” He returned his attention to the page, holding the book close.

“It will be dark before she finishes.”

“Dorothea.” Lorena shook her head and reached for the lantern hanging on the peg beside the door.

“Leave it,” said Uncle Jacob.

“It will take her twice as long in the dark as in the light,” said Dorothea.

“Dorothea,” said her father. “Mind your uncle.”

“It’s all right,” murmured her mother. “I won’t be long.”

Lorena threw a shawl over her shoulders and slipped out the door. Simmering with anger, Dorothea stormed across the kitchen to her seat by the fireplace, unlit now though the early autumn evening was cool. She sat, fuming, hands clasped in her lap.

Uncle Jacob closed his Bible and put away his reading glasses. “You ought to get to work on that quilt.”

“I ought to be helping my mother,” said Dorothea. “Better yet, she ought to come inside. The garden can wait until morning.”

“And fall behind on every chore entrusted to her tomorrow?” Uncle Jacob countered. “That is no way to run a farm, niece. I should think your father’s failure would have taught you that.”

Her father never looked up; Uncle Jacob might have been speaking of a stranger for all he seemed to care. “Thrift Farm was lost to a flood,” said Dorothea tightly.

“Thrift Farm was in serious decline long before the waters claimed it. Elm Creek merely put it out of its misery.”

“I have the milking,” said Dorothea’s father suddenly. He touched Dorothea’s shoulder in passing and left out the back door, taking the lantern. Dorothea yearned to follow, but she understood her father’s unspoken request and grudgingly opened her sewing basket. She sewed the pieces of her quilt block in silence, glancing at the door at the slightest noise for her parents’ return. Her father entered first, without the lantern; she guessed where he had left it and, unfortunately, so did Uncle Jacob. He ordered her father to go and fetch it, but Dorothea announced that she would do it and left her sewing behind on her empty chair.

She found her mother on her hands and knees in the potato plot, working by lantern light. Dorothea swiftly knelt to help her.

“You should get back inside,” said Lorena. “Your uncle will be furious.”

“I don’t care.”

“You will care well enough if he should see fit to switch you.”

At her words Dorothea could almost feel the sting of the hickory branch. “He hasn’t switched me since I began wearing corsets and long skirts. I don’t believe he will do so now.”

Lorena sighed, pulling furiously at the weeds. “The older you get, the more you provoke him.”

“Someone ought to stand up to him.”

“Dorothea—” Lorena sat back on her heels. “You don’t understand.”

“I do understand. How long must we endure this? We don’t need Uncle Jacob or his farm. We can go out west, to Kansas, to California. We can stake a claim and make our own farm.” She was almost in tears. “We can summon Jonathan. He will come. Surely they need doctors in the west.”

“That’s a very romantic notion, but your brother is only sixteen. We cannot interrupt his training now, and he is unlikely to receive a proper education in unsettled country.” Lorena picked up the spade and stabbed at the earth. “Your uncle is right in one respect: Your father and I were very poor farmers. We would have no chance of establishing a farm in unfamiliar climate, on ground that has never felt a plow.”

“We have learned a great deal in eight years.”

“Not enough to risk our lives when we stand to inherit a well-tended farm right here.”

Dorothea knew the argument was useless. She yanked on a fistful of weeds and said, “Uncle Jacob is likely to leave the farm to someone else just to spite us.”

“To whom would he leave it? He has no friends and no other relations.”

“Then he will probably live forever.” Her anger spent, Dorothea listlessly brushed soil from a potato, shadowed and strange in the flickering light. “He sent me to fetch the lantern.”

“Then you should take it to him.” When Dorothea hesitated, Lorena smiled. “Go ahead. I’m almost finished.”

“Very well,” said Dorothea, but she stayed with her mother until the last potato was harvested.

D
OROTHEA WAITED UNTIL
T
HURSDAY
morning at breakfast to tell Uncle Jacob she had been specifically requested as the former schoolteacher to assist with the creation of a new library.

“Why don’t they ask the new schoolmaster?” asked Uncle Jacob.

“They did. Mr. Nelson refused.”

“So once again you are their second choice.”

Dorothea refused to be baited. “I suppose I am. Nevertheless, the request is a great honor, and I am obliged to assist them.”

Uncle Jacob shook his head. “I cannot spare the horses to take you into town.”

“That is your only objection?” asked Lorena, piling more flapjacks on her brother’s plate.

“It is.” Uncle Jacob waved her away before she buried his plate entirely. “But it is reason enough.”

“Then you will be pleased to know Dorothea does not require the horses,” said Lorena brightly. “Mr. Pearson has offered to escort her.”

Uncle Jacob’s jaw tightened. “I see.” He knew he had been tricked, but he could not retract his words. “See that you return home promptly afterward. Your chores will be finished before you go to bed if you must stay up all night.”

“Thank you, Uncle,” said Dorothea, but he spared her only an irritated glare as he pushed back his chair and rose from the table.

“Never mind him,” said Lorena as they cleared the table. “I will finish your work as well as my own. You are a young girl and you deserve a pleasant outing.”

Riding into Creek’s Crossing to attend a board meeting at the home of Mrs. Violet Pearson Engle was hardly Dorothea’s idea of a pleasant outing, but she was interested in the library, and Cyrus never failed to be an engaging companion. For all the friendliness between them when they met in town, they did not truly know each other well. They had attended school together only one year, a brief interval immediately following the Granger family’s arrival in Creek’s Crossing and preceding Cyrus’s departure for a boys’ academy in Philadelphia. When they were in school together, Cyrus had sat in the back row with the other older boys who thought themselves too old for school, laughing in whispers and genially ignoring the teacher, the sweetly befuddled Miss Gunther. Dorothea did not care for such disrespect and laziness, and she had ignored Cyrus and his friends except when her best friend Mary’s lovesick admiration forced her to notice him. While Mary mourned when Cyrus left Creek’s Crossing, Dorothea never missed him. To her pleasant surprise, however, when she encountered him during his rare visits home for holidays and summers, it was evident that his time back east and abroad had greatly improved him. He behaved in a far more gentlemanly fashion than he had as a boy, and if he did tend to tease, a manner Mary now derided, Dorothea found it a welcome and refreshing departure from Uncle Jacob’s mercurial tempers.