Hearts Awakening (12 page)

After she moistened several diamond-shaped pigweed leaves she had selected from the basket, she placed them, one at a time, on the tender, reddened flesh on Ellie’s palms with hands gnarled by more than ten decades of use. Cool sensations took the sting away almost immediately. “Leave them sit a spell. You’ll still blister some more, but not as bad. You’ll heal quicker, too.”

“That feels much better. Thank you.” Ellie was curious as to how Gram knew where Rebecca had stored her healing herbs. “Did you visit here often?”

“Often enough to know Jackson as well as I know my own grandson,” Gram replied before she frowned. “Where’s your ring?”

“My ring?”

“Your wedding ring.”

Ellie lowered her gaze. “Oh, I . . . I don’t wear it when I’m doing housework.”

Gram put a finger under Ellie’s chin and tipped up her face. “Don’t tell me Jackson didn’t take the time to buy you a proper ring and gave you one of those rings Charles Burke whittles for somethin’ to do.”

Ellie swallowed hard. “We didn’t exactly . . . that is, we decided to get married fairly suddenly. He didn’t really have time to buy a ring.”

Gram plopped herself into the chair next to Ellie. “Good girl.”

Ellie cocked a brow.

“Defending your husband, regardless of which busybody tries to malign him, is a good and proper thing to do. I always defended all three of my husbands, bless their souls, at least until we got back home behind closed doors again. Still, I wouldn’t let that man of yours off too easily. He can afford a proper ring. Make sure he gets one for you, one you can wear no matter what you’re doing. It’s important for other folks to see.”

“I try not to put much stock in what other people think,” Ellie replied. Recalling the images of women who had looked at her with pity for years, she shook her head. “That’s not entirely true. What other people think matters to me . . . sometimes.”

“Good girl.” Gram patted her arm. “Honesty seems to come naturally to you, although there are times when I believe the good Lord forgives a lie, ’specially when it’s done to keep from hurtin’ someone who doesn’t need hurtin’. Just don’t tell Reverend Shore I said so. He gets a bit touchy sometimes, especially if you interrupt his dinner. Acts like he’s the only one who knows the real meaning of the Word sometimes, too, but he’s young yet. He’s only sixty-seven.”

Giggling, Ellie shook her head. “He had to leave his dinner to marry us a few days ago, and he did seem to rush through the ceremony.”

Gram laughed, revealing the few yellowed teeth left in her mouth. “Let’s take a look at those hands of yours again.”

Ellie lifted up the leaves. “Most of the redness is gone.” She wriggled her fingers. “The skin isn’t as taut as it was before, and the blisters don’t appear to be anything that will last more than a day or two,” she said. “I don’t know how to thank you for helping me.”

Gram smacked her lips together. “You could try cutting me a big wedge of one of those apple pies I spied up on that top shelf before the others get back and start digging into them.”

Ellie chuckled. “I’ll do more than try, and I’ll even top it off with a thick slice of cheese.”

“Good girl. I do think we might get to be friends, Ellie.”

“I hope so,” Ellie replied. She figured if she had any hope of making a success of this very unconventional marriage of hers, she was going to need a friend. A very wise, very kind, very caring friend . . . just like Gram.

Eleven

Market Day in the city had always been hectic, though nearly always profitable for Jackson. But rarely had it ended without an argument between him and Rebecca.

In mid-September he finally brought his family to the weekly Wednesday event, simply because he could think of no rational reason why the boys could not accompany him as they usually did, which meant Ellie needed to come along to help him keep a close eye on Daniel and Ethan.

When they arrived several hours after first light, Jackson started unloading his apples, fully aware that their presence here today for the first time as a married couple would likely invite a good deal of gossip. But whether the curious folks who showed up at his stall would actually make a purchase remained to be seen.

He unloaded a bushel of Maiden Blush apples, the last of the season, from the wagon at the rear of their stall while Daniel and Ethan helped fill up small bowls of apples for their customers to sample from the rickety wooden table in the front. The pale yellow apples, tinged with a blush of pink, offered a good contrast to the greenish bronze Roxbury Russets, which had reached harvest a couple of weeks earlier than usual this year.

Ellie worked alongside the boys setting out an assortment of miniature apple turnovers and applesauce cakes she had made using that old brick-back oven behind the house instead of the cookstove. He could hear her humming as he hoisted the basket to one shoulder and carried it back with him. For half a heartbeat, he pictured Dorothea standing at the front of the stall waiting for him, but he dismissed the idea as absurd. Dorothea was far too delicate to spend the entire day catering to his customers. Even Rebecca had never been happy at market until he had finally relented and sent her off shopping for more pretties while the boys stayed behind with him.

Ellie, on the other hand, had seemed content, if not relieved, when he had told her he expected her to work alongside him in the stall the entire day.

He nodded as she passed him on her way back to the wagon to get another basket of baked goods. Although she was smiling and humming as she walked, her smile was a tad too tight and her humming too deliberate to be natural. He suspected she, too, was a bit nervous about facing the inevitably curious customers who would appear at his stall once word of her presence at market had spread through the crowd.

After having negotiated the terms of their marriage contract with her, however, Jackson had no doubt she would not back down from those gossipmongers, either.

He set the bushel of apples down behind the front table, took one whiff of the sweets she had made, and urged his boys to silence by holding a finger to his lips. He swiped one of the bite-size apple turnovers and quickly polished it off with another before breaking one in half for Daniel and Ethan to share. Unfortunately, he did not have time to wipe the sugary crumbs from either of their little faces or hands before he heard Ellie approaching.

Turning, he saw her struggling to carry not one, but two baskets of her goodies and hurried over to her. “Here, let me do that,” he insisted, easily lifting both baskets out of her arms and setting them down on top of the table for her.

Apparently a bit chagrined by his greater strength, she glanced at the array of sweet treats she had already set out, put her hands to her hips, and narrowed her gaze. “If I didn’t know better, I might think a few certain people I know were stealing something I made for our customers, which might be why a particular someone wanted to be so helpful.”

The half grin she wore now was a lot more appealing to him than the tight smile she had been wearing, and her eyes were sparkling for the first time that day.

“We didn’t steal nothin’. Pappy took two turnovers first, then he gave one to us,” Daniel blurted.

“Guilty, but you better make that three,” Jackson admitted, grinned, and popped another one into his mouth.

“Me and Ethan had to share one. We want more.”

Ethan pumped his head up and down, setting his cowlick into motion.

Ellie folded her arms and waited.

Daniel sighed. “Please? Can we . . . may we have more, please?”

“Yes you may, but only because you remembered to ask politely.” Grinning more fully now, she broke another turnover in half and handed it to the boys, whose manners had improved dramatically under her care. Jackson could not say the same for their behavior toward her, but he continued to wait and watch as she struggled with their rejection.

“Not too fast,” she cautioned as they gobbled down their treat. “There’s no more for either of you. Or for you,” she said to Jackson. “If you three don’t stop eating what it took me an entire day to bake, there won’t be any for the customers.”

“You give the turnovers away. No one pays for them,” he argued.

“No, they don’t, but once they taste how delicious they are, they’ll be certain to buy more of your apples than usual, don’t you think?”

With the sweet taste still in his mouth, he could not argue that point and held up his hands in surrender. Fortunately, she did not remind him that he had not been very supportive when she suggested the idea of making baked treats for his customers. To his credit, however, he had moved a stack of firewood closer to the outdoor bake oven so she would not have to carry it so far. And as she had promised, she had made an amazing array of sweet treats to give away and had not burned a single loaf of bread in that oven for their own table, either.

Before he went back to the wagon for more apples, he glanced up and down the wide aisle of the open-air market that had been located here on Market Square for as long as most people could remember—except for Gram, of course. Protected by the wooden roof overhead where fire ladders hung from heavy beams, most vendors were busy setting out their wares. Sam Brooks and Earl Chastings, his market neighbors on either side of him, had yet to arrive. Very few customers were here yet, either, but within the next hour, they would crowd the market so he would scarcely be able to see past his own stall.

With so few people walking about now, he could see Widow Jane Spence was already sitting on an old bench at the far end, waiting to tempt young and old alike with her mint sticks and sour drops. At the other end, her older sister, Mrs. Paula Harrington, had trays of gingerbread and molded cakes ready for sale. Two constables standing near them were idle, waiting for the crowds to develop so they would have to start patrolling for the band of boys who had been turning Market Day into Mischief Day.

Between the sweet confections at either end, the variety of goods for sale ranged from barrels of
schmier käse
, a soft cheese he did not favor, butter, and eggs to sausages and meats. Salted fish was also available, but he had no fear it would show up on his dinner table because Ellie apparently disliked salted fish even more than he did. The usual summer bounty of produce being set out had thinned, as far as he could see, but the fall harvest of apples and root vegetables appeared to be well under way.

“I could use an extra pair of hands, neighbor.”

Startled, Jackson turned toward the voice he had heard.

Standing back by the wagons, Sam Brooks tapped the arm tucked into the sling he wore over his left shoulder. At sixty, he was a robust man, and he took as much pride in the sausages he made as he did in his multicolored beard. Stripes of red, gold, brown, and gray hair stretched from his face to the top of his belly, although the sling now obscured some of it.

“I’ll help,” Jackson offered and hurried back to the wagons with both boys on his heels.

Sam greeted their arrival with a sheepish grin. “Thanks, Jackson. I knew I’d be able to count on you, which is what I told my missus. She’s feeling too poorly again to come with me today. I see you finally brought that new wife of yours with you and your boys, too. I don’t suppose there’s any hope nobody will ask how I broke my arm, is there?”

“Did you get kicked by that old mule of yours?” Daniel blurted.

“Daniel!” Jackson snapped, a bit harsher than he intended.

The boy bowed his head, and Ethan clutched at his father’s trouser leg.

Sam chuckled. “There’s no harm done, Jackson. The boy’s just curious, and I shouldn’t be so set on holdin’ on to my pride,” he insisted, ruffling Daniel’s hair. “Old Jonas isn’t the most agreeable mule I’ve owned, but no, son. He didn’t kick me, mostly because I’ve learned not to give him the chance. I’ll tell you what, though. You guess how I really did break my arm, and I’ll let you have a whole parcel of those sausages.”

When Daniel kicked at the ground instead of replying, Jackson let out a sigh. “Go ahead. You can guess.”

Daniel looked up and scrunched up his face. “Did you fall out of a tree?”

“I’m too old to climb trees. Mostly I sit on a stump to rest now and again when I have the chance, but you’re close.”

“Did you trip over one?”

“Even closer. Do you remember that storm a few weeks back?”

Daniel nodded.

“Well, it seems a bolt of lightning hit one of my trees and snapped off a limb. And that old limb smashed right to the ground. Seems I had the misfortune of standing right by that limb when it happened, and that’s how my arm got broken. ’Course, I shouldn’t have been caught out in that storm, but that’s what happens when you don’t keep a keen eye on the sky,” he said. He grabbed a small parcel from the wagon and handed it to Daniel. “You come pretty close, so here. Since your new mama is here today, give this to her so she can cook up some sausages for your supper tonight.”

“Go ahead,” Jackson urged when Daniel hesitated.

Daniel took the parcel. “She’s not my mama. She’s just Miss Ellie, and she can’t cook sausages as good as my mama did.” He took Ethan’s hand and led him away.