Homespun Hearts (33 page)

"See, Esme-girl," he'd told her on the walk back up the mountain. "The Lord does provide."

"The Lord didn't provide this, Pa." Her voice was harsh with criticism. "It's charity from our neighbors."

Pa shook his head. "I know it don't sit well with you, girlie. But it don't just put food on our table. It provides a chance for those good folks to do good works."

Cracking an egg into the beans, Esme sighed in exasperation now as she did then. There was just no talking to Pa. The way she felt—the worthlessness, the shame—he felt no part of that. Maybe that was a good thing. Glancing over at the twins who were cheerfully trading tickles with Armon Hightower, she decided that it apparently didn't bother them, either.

Shuddering, she felt it again. Standing before them all in her ragged dress was as if she were naked. And Cleav ... he saw her. He saw her shame. She wondered if he pitied her. A lone tear fell unheeded into the big pot of boiling beans.

A scream of laughter abruptly halted her thoughts, and she looked toward her sisters. Adelaide was actually lying back on the bench screeching with laughter as Armon leaned over ostensibly tickling her ribs. Agrippa had her arms around the young man's chest and had pressed herself tightly against his back, pretending to be protecting her sister.

What immediately caught Esme's attention was the serious heated look in Armon Hightower's eye. The look was not playful, it was dark with passion.

Grabbing up a bucket of water, she poised it threateningly before them.

"Stop that this instant! Or I swear I'll give you something to cool you off in a hurry!"

The action froze immediately. With calm careful movements, as if not wanting to startle Esme into any drastic moves, the three disengaged themselves from their naughty little entanglement.

Esme set the water back in its place with a thud.

"Adelaide, Agrippa, you two sit on this side of the table and behave like young ladies."

The two quietly and without comment followed their younger sister's orders. Esme hurriedly turned back to the beans and gave them a quick stir to keep them from scorching before continuing her tirade. Holding the bean- splattered spoon before her like a weapon, she turned her attention to Hightower.

"Young man, I expect decent behavior in my house," she told him angrily. "If you cain't conduct yourself with propriety, you're going to find yourself real unwelcome around here." Esme's chin was raised stubbornly, and her eyes blazed with fury. Armon Hightower was five years older and twice her size, but he knew a formidable enemy when he saw one.

"I apologize, Miss Esme," he said quietly. "I guess it's this warm spring weather—it's got the sap running, I reckon."

Esme started to make a reply about not letting his sap run around here but thought the better of it.

She turned back to her beans.

"Cornbread's done," she stated with exaggerated calmness. "Best call Pa in to supper."

The meal did not set her in a better frame of mind. Armon turned his considerable charm toward her father. The bright-eyed, smiling young man had Pa laughing and grinning until Esme wanted to reach over and slap him. Armon was clearly looking to get on Yo's good side, and he was probably succeeding! Esme had little taste for her supper. How was she supposed to keep the twins respectable and safe if Pa wouldn't even scare off a no-account like Hightower?

She was more convinced than ever that her plan was the proper course of action. As long as they lived in a cave and were, as the preacher had said today, the most "bowed down" in the community, Esme knew any good-for-nothing male type with an itch in his britches was going to come looking for the twins. There must be some unwritten law that said poor women were fair game, because when fellows went looking to sow wild oats, that's exactly the girls they picked.

In a big blue house with a wraparound porch, menfolk would come courting the twins. They would woo and spark 'em on the porch swing maybe. But they wouldn't be laying 'em on the kitchen bench.

"Mr. Hightower," she said with great formality, "am I to understand that you are interested in paying call on my sisters?"

Armon glanced quickly at Yo and then the twins.

"Well, sure, Miss Esme, your sisters are a couple of mighty fine gals."

Esme's words were in as haughty a tone as she could project. "Then I'm sure Pa would agree to allow you to pay call to one of them."

"One?" Armon amazingly seemed surprised.

"We've always shared everything!" the twins protested.

"You cannot share a man." Esme was adamant.

Staring dumbfounded across the table for a moment, Armon scratched his head thoughtfully.

' 'Miss Esme, I ain't got the faintest idea of how to choose between these two."

"But you must choose!" she insisted.

"Well, he don't have to choose right away," Yo said, causing Esme's mouth to open in shock and her eyes to blaze in anger.

"Pa!"

"All I'm saying is a man's got to take his time about these things." Pa smiled, giving the twins a wink and Armon a slight nod of approval.

"A man can't call on two women at once!" Esme would not give on the point.

"That's right, Esme-girl," Pa agreed, hoping to make peace. "That why I'm saying he can call on Agrippa on Fridays and Adelaide on Saturdays."

"What!"

"Just till he's had a chance to make up his mind."

"Oh, please, Esme, please." The twins were bright-eyed with hope.

Even Armon seemed content with the compromise.

"I still don't like it," Esme said slowly. "But I suspect it's okay. But listen here, Hightower," she said, pointing her finger at him. "If you're coming on Fridays and Saturdays, I don't want to see you around this place any other time. Sunday through Thursday you find yourself elsewhere!"

"Yes ma'am!" The man flashed her a dazzling smile of compliance, and Esme wondered if she'd lost this round after all.

Armon took his leave shortly after supper, much to the whining dismay of the twins. Esme was grateful for the respite. She couldn't imagine how she was going to handle a man like Armon Hightower if he didn't choose to cooperate with her wishes.

As she cleaned up the supper dishes, Esme again thought about the big white (soon to be blue, she hoped) house with the wraparound porch. This morning in church she'd have sworn that she'd never be able to face Cleavis Rhy again. But she really had no choice. She had come to like Cleavis Rhy, maybe even want him for herself, but she needed Cleavis Rhy for her family.

The girls were sorting through the charity basket with excited laughter as Esme dried her hands on the dishcloth.

"I'm not going to be around much next week," she announced suddenly to the family. "I'll be spending my time down mountain."

The other three occupants of the room looked at her curiously.

"Agrippa, you're the best cook, so I'll expect you to do your best here in the kitchen. Adelaide, you'll need to go ahead and get that garden turned. Pa, you're going to have to help her."

All three immediately began to protest, but Esme continued. "Starting tomorrow I'm going to be helping Cleavis Rhy in his store, so I'll be leaving before sunup and returning after dark."

"Rhy's hired you to work in his store?" Pa looked nearly stunned with disbelief.

"Well, not exactly," Esme admitted. "But it amounts to that just the same."

"Is this more of your crazed notions about courting a man?" her father asked with a wry grin.

"I'm going to show him what a good helpmate I can be, Pa," Esme explained calmly. "There ain't nothing wrong with that."

"Esme-girl," Yo explained with a sigh of infinite patience. "If he's looking for a good helpmate, I suspect he's found it in little Miss Sophrona. She seems a fine Christian woman and more than fair looking in the bargain."

Esme felt as if he'd slapped her.

"You think she'd make a better wife than me?"

"It ain't a question of better, girlie," he answered softly. "It's a question of more likely. I love you, honey. I wouldn't see you hurt for the world." Reaching across the table, he took his daughter's hand and squeezed it. "I see what you're doing, Esme-girl. You're trying to get a better life. And I'm all for that."

"Not just for me, Pa," Esme hastened to explain. "For all of us."

"All of us are fine, girlie. It's you that cain't be content. You're like your mama, and I loved her, too." He gave her hand a warm, affectionate pat. "This Rhy fellow, he ain't for you. He's so citied, he don't know 'come here' from 'sic 'em.' He'd need to take a compass and a shovel to find his own hind end."

"No, Pa," Esme protested. "He's not like that at all. He's a gentleman and all, that's for sure. But he's got good sense. You know what he's doing in them ponds he built behind the store? He's raising fish. Raising 'em, just like they’s chickens or something. He's got fish like setting hens and others like roosters, and a whole pond full of little brooder chicks no bigger than a finger."

Yohan watched his daughter's eyes as she talked. The spark of curiosity and intellect burned so brightly there.

"Trout in the river are getting overfished," Esme explained, "and the temperature of the water ain't always right for 'em. Cleav is growing more to make sure they don't give out completely."

"Cleav, is it?" Her father raised an eyebrow.

"Mr. Rhy, that is." Esme hurriedly corrected herself.

Pa gave her a long, hard look. "You hankering after this Cleavis Rhy, you think?"

Esme felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment. "Yes, Pa," she admitted in a quiet whisper.

"Hallelujah!" Adelaide shouted. Both she and Agrippa came running over to hug their little sister.

Accepting her sisters' affection, Esme still looked back to her father, hoping for approval, help, or hope. Pa only smiled and raised his fiddle to his chin and began plucking out a lively tune.

"She gets the dress," Agrippa said with certainty.

Adelaide nodded with agreement.

"What dress?" Esme asked.

"The prettiest dress you've ever seen in your life," Adelaide told her.

"It was the best thing in the whole basket," Agrippa said.

Pulling out the snowy bundle of white lawn, Agrippa shook the gown out before her. The light summer material was sewn in neat pleats across the bodice and the long skirt billowed to the floor.

"Try it on, Esme," Adelaide insisted. "Try it on right now!"

With more force than help the sisters had quickly dispensed with Esme's worn old serge, and she stood momentarily in the middle of the room, shivering in her threadbare shimmy.

Up and over her head the beautiful gown of store-bought lawn was draped over Esme. Immediately she was uncomfortable.

"What's wrong with this?" she asked her sisters in unpleasant surprise.

Agrippa surveyed her critically.

"Well, it doesn't fit," she told her simply.

The dress was several inches too short, that was clear. But there were other more serious problems.'

"It's too tight in the waist," Adelaide said.

"I'm aware of that," Esme replied with a self-deprecating grin. "I can hardly breathe."

"I think we can take it out," Agrippa told her, grasping the rather voluminous folds of material that hung down past the sash.

"Look at all this wasted fabric in the bodice!" she exclaimed to Esme. "With all this a man couldn't tell if you have bosoms or you're hiding a polecat!"

Adelaide laughed along with her sister. "The gal who gave this away must have weaned the triplets."

"It looks awful," Esme stated fatalistically.

"But it's going to look wonderful," Agrippa promised her. “All this extra material means we'll be able to let out the waist and have plenty left to re-trim the hemline."

"You're right. I can make it fit me." Esme's voice was hopeful.

"Of course you could," Agrippa agreed. "But you ain't going to."

"What?"

“Adelaide and I sew better than you and you know it. We just don't care for mending much." She glanced toward her twin and met a nod of agreement.

"You go on down to the General Merchandise and help Mr. Rhy," Adelaide told her. "Between chores we'll get this dress fixed up for you."

"That's not fair," Esme protested. The fiddle playing in the corner stopped abruptly, and Pa's voice was warm but firm. "It's the fairest thing that's happened around here in a good long while."

M
onday morning arrived
with a burst of springtime. Tiny green buds dotted the tree branches, patches of bright colors were sprinkled across the hillside, and the bright blue sky overhead heralded good things to come. Up on the mountain the snow was completely forgotten, and where the trees weren't shaded in morning fog, patches of laurel slicks dotted the horizon.

Cleavis Rhy noticed none of this. For him the day was as gray as his own thoughts. Only the fortuitous return of Miss Sophrona from tending her "windswept hair" had saved him from public humiliation yesterday afternoon. And even now it wasn't over. Although nothing was said in the presence of the innocent young woman, both his mother and the Tewksburys continued to look askance at him for the rest of the day.

With that thought clearly in his mind, it was no wonder he did not welcome the sight that greeted him when he arrived at the store.

Esme Crabb, her memorably ragged clothes covered by his work apron, was sweeping the store's porch.

"What in heaven's name are you doing?" The question was sharp, distinct, and to the point. Esme raised her head and offered a bright smile.

"Morning, Mr. Rhy," she answered sweetly. "It's sure gonna be one beautiful day, ain't it?"

Cleav approached the steps woodenly. He'd lost all patience with her crush. He was clearly furious. "I asked what you think you are doing here, young woman, and I want an answer!" Standing on the first step, he was eye to eye with Esme.

Knowing it took two to make a fight, Esme simply decided not to take offense. Leaning gamely against the broom handle she propped under her chin, her eyes were bright with the hint of laughter in her voice.

"Well," she said. "You did say you didn't want me peeping at your house no more. So I come on down to the store. And I figured I might as well get started."

With a gesture Esme indicated the broom in her hand. "This is the first chore of the day, isn't it? First you dust the stock and then you sweep out."

Cleav took a deep breath and reminded himself that it was very impolite to throttle a young lady. "First
I
dust the stock and then
I
sweep out," he said with deliberate calm. "It is my store, Miss Crabb."

She gave him a toothy grin. “Now, I told you to just call me Esme."

He set his jaw tightly and his eyes blazed. "Perhaps, Miss Crabb, I don't want to call you Esme."

Stepping onto the porch, he reached for the broom, and Esme relinquished it without a word.

"Give me my apron, Miss Crabb," he ordered.

"Sure," she answered, reaching back behind her to release the tie. “But, truth to tell, it looks better on me than it does on you."

A sound came through Cleav's lips that could only be described as a huff.

When Esme handed him the apron, he hurriedly slipped it over his head and crossed the long ties behind him, then tied it neatly in the front. He gestured at her, attempting to shoo his nemesis away as if she were a chicken or a stray cat. Then he commenced sweeping where Esme had left off, purposely looking away from her.

Esme took no offense and casually drifted back toward the door.

"Thanks for taking over for me," she said easily. "I didn't eat this morning and save to graces I'm sure looking forward to a little cracker and jelly."

As she stepped through the door, she hollered back over her shoulder, "Coffee's boiled if you want some."

Cleav stopped stock still and stared at the now-empty doorway in shock. "Coffee's boiled?" he repeated to himself, as if the words were some strange foreign phrase.

Cleaning the remaining dust on the porch with a vengeance, Cleav was finished in less than five minutes. His mind was scurrying in so many directions, he barely noticed the approach of old man Denny.

"Open up a little early this morning?" the man questioned.

Cleav raised his head and stared at the man wordlessly, then turned and walked into the store.

From that very difficult beginning, Cleav saw his day grow increasingly worse.

Esme Crabb was determined to both make herself at home and to be as helpful as possible. While Cleav did his Monday book work and restocked shelves, Esme kept Denny entertained with a chat.

When the old man's checkers partner, Hiram Tyree, showed up, Esme even helped them set up the game on the front porch. "So you can enjoy the day," she told them. "They's yellow violets up on the hill already," she informed the men cheerfully. "Saw 'em myself this morning. Afore you know it, the wildflowers will be across the valley like God's own patch quilt."

The men smiled and laughed with Esme, her warmth and good humor brightening the still-foggy morning.

Cleav, however, felt no such sense of good cheer. The situation was growing very awkward, and he was convinced that if things continued this way. Miss Sophrona would surely hear gossip. He was determined to order Esme out of the store, but the time was never quite right. Customers came and went, making a private conversation impossible. He considered telling her to leave, privacy or no, but he couldn't do it. In his memory he saw her standing so bravely in the church. Her pride far too large for her meager lot in life. That was nothing to him, he quickly reminded himself. Setting his jaw firmly, he swore to himself to set this womanful of trouble out of his life as soon as possible.

Remarkably, he found she was actually quite helpful in the store. Somehow, in a few short days, she'd ferreted out where just about everything in the store could be located. And she was willing, even eager, to help out the customers.

"Since when have you been working here?" Cleav heard Pearly Beachum, the biggest gossip in town, ask her. Cold fear gripped him as he hurried over to them. What would Esme say? Whatever it was, it would be all over town by nightfall.

"I'm just helping out," Esme told the woman with a sweet smile and then whispered to her quietly, "We've run up some debt here in the past," she said in confidence. "Mr. Rhy has been so good to just forgive it, but I want to do what I can to make it right."

Cleav couldn't hear their whispers, and as he reached them, the two women moved apart. Pearly gave him a curious, but not unpleasant, look. Cleav decided that since she hadn't hit him with her parasol, Esme had obviously not said the worst.

As the morning wore on, his anger, which had ridden so strongly on Cleav when he arrived, lessened. Esme was unfailingly pleasant to the customers. He was even amused at the ingenious way she managed to make sales.

When Rog Wicker came in for his weekly supplies as well as a pack of Red Leaf, she spoke up.

"You know, Mr. Wicker, I don't chew myself, but from everything I've ever heard, Carolina Blue is a much superior jaw to that old Red Leaf."

Turning to look at the young woman, Wicker's brow wrinkled in consternation. "Course the Carolina's better," he agreed. "Costs more, too. I'll stick with Red Leaf, thank you."

"Of course." Esme nodded calmly in reply. "A penny saved is a penny earned, true enough." She sighed lightly and then added, "It just seemed to me that a man like yourself, a man who's got his farm all paid for and his children growed and married, a man who's got only one vice—and that merely being partial to a chew of tobacco— well, such a man ought to have the best. Seemed like such a man would deserve as much."

Rog Wicker's eyebrows raised. He stared after Esme for a minute as she wandered toward the canned goods. Cleav gathered the rest of the order.

"What else?" he asked the man finally.

"That's about it," Wicker answered, "total it up." The man reached for his tobacco and held it in his hand for a moment as if weighing it.

"Take this back and give me the Carolina Blue," he said without further explanation.

Cleav was momentarily stunned. Rog Wicker had been chewing Red Leaf since Cleav's daddy had run the store.

Wordlessly exchanging the tobacco, Cleav could barely concentrate on his math as he totaled up the purchase.

As Wicker took his leave, Cleav glanced across the room at Esme. Her grin was as wide as a new moon, and she raised her eyebrows in a bragging salute. The impish behavior was so infectious, Cleav caught himself grinning back. Then fastidiously he straightened his cuffs as he avoided looking at her. But he couldn't quite tamp down the smile that twitched at the corners of his lips.

The day might have taken a solid turn for the better if the next customer had not been Reverend Tewksbury. At his side his daughter Sophrona was clothed in a calico work dress and sunbonnet, and even in this modest outfit the diminutive young woman looked like a princess.

The reverend's smile was welcoming as he walked in but dimmed considerably when he glanced across the room and saw Esme Crabb apparently rearranging the canned goods.

For Esme, things were proceeding according to plan. Cleav was already seeing how much easier his job would be with her at his side. And she was surprised herself at how easily the customers were accepting her.

She'd hated her forced explanation to Pearly Beachum, but that couldn't be helped. She knew the best way to throw a dog off the scent was to give him another bone to chew on.

Now with her unequivocal victory over the tobacco, she was beginning to feel somewhat cocky. Cleav couldn't maintain his stiff behavior forever. He was coming around. A moment ago he'd smiled at her in genuine friendship. It was going to be easier than even she had expected. Her thoughts were strictly positive until she spied Sophrona Tewksbury.

Even if Esme were better wife material, physically the preacher's daughter was everything that Esme was not. And the pretty expanse of bright blue calico was headed straight in her direction.

"Esme! Good morning, what a surprise."

Although only a couple of years separated the two in age, a world of living stood between them. As children, Sophrona had played with the twins, unaware of the difference in their status. As time had passed, however, the concerns of the well-fed, well-tended young woman diverged greatly from the daily struggles of the Crabb family.

Esme, however, had always been aware of the difference. There had been no carefree childhood for her, just as it seemed there would be no careworn adulthood for Sophrona. It would have been natural to feel jealousy, envy, even hatred. But Esme had always liked Sophrona. She couldn't help it. It was hard to make an enemy of someone whose cheerfulness was legend.

"Morning, Sophrona," Esme greeted her. She saw Cleav and the preacher at a distance. Cleav looked as if he'd just taken a big bite of green persimmon.

"That's a real pretty dress you got on," Esme commented honestly. "That blue looks real nice on you."

Sophrona smiled, delighted, and then glanced down at the dress. "Do you think so?" she asked, and then with a guarded glance back to her father she added with a naughty twinkle, " 'Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.'"

Almost against her will Esme found herself smiling back. Sophrona had that way about her. She drew people to her and almost compelled them to enjoy the experience.

"I wanted to thank you for the basket we received," she said calmly, steeling herself to politeness, even as a pain clutched tightly at her. "I gathered from Mrs. Beachum that the idea and much of the gathering was done by you."

Sophrona waved away the gratitude with a pleasant word. "We all wanted to do it," she said easily. "'A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly,'" she quoted.

Her smile faded slightly, and she glanced to the side warily. She moved closer to Esme. "Follow me," she whispered. With a guarded look behind her, she grasped Esme's arm and led her toward a deserted corner of the store.

"Have you seen the new crepe de chine Mr. Rhy has purchased?" she asked Esme with considerably more volume than was necessary. "I declare that color would be perfect for you."

Walking beside her, Esme gave Sophrona a very puzzled glance. "I could never afford to buy crepe de chine," she whispered, embarrassed.

"I know," Sophrona answered easily. "I just wanted to speak to you alone. Here it is," she began again more loudly.

Opening the cabinet into which were neatly stacked the bolts of sturdy rugged materials, Sophrona pulled out the extra-long remnant of rose crepe de chine that a drummer had thrown in with Cleav's last order.

As the two women reverently ran their hands across the beautiful material, Sophrona spoke. "There's been talk about you and Mr. Rhy."

"Oh?" Esme felt a blush stain her cheek, and she was grateful that Sophrona kept her eyes on the cloth.

"I heard a bit at church yesterday," she admitted. "Everyone was determined not to let me find out what was going on, but I know they're saying you've been seen together."

"I . . ." Esme began but immediately hesitated. Should she explain? Deny? She planned to marry Cleavis Rhy, but perhaps Miss Sophrona did, too.

"In the afternoon we took tea at Mrs. Rhy's home," Sophrona explained as she leaned forward conspiratorially. "They sent me into the house. Mother said that I needed to fix my hair." Sophrona sighed with exasperation. "Sometimes I wonder if they think I am stupid. I did fix my hair, of course," she said, "but I listened at the parlor window."

This quiet avowal was made with such seriousness, it sounded as if she were confessing to murder.

Sophrona raised her eyes to meet Esme's gaze. "I'm not sure exactly what they are accusing you two of," the young woman admitted. "But I want you to know," she said firmly, "I don't believe a word of it."

Taking Esme's hand in her own, Sophrona gave it a warm squeeze.

C
leav was never more
grateful to leave the suddenly close confines of the store for the freedom of the fish ponds. When his mother arrived, she had looked even more horrified than the reverend at the sight of Esme Crabb making herself at home.

"Son," the preacher had said quietly as they had watched the two young women admiring a piece of dress goods, "just having her here in the building with you is fodder for the gossips."

"I can't throw her out," Cleav said reasonably. "If the girl doesn't steal or cause trouble, she's got as much right to be in the store as anyone else."