Instant Prairie Family (Love Inspired Historical) (2 page)

Taking in a slow, deep breath, she prayed silently that God
would protect her and lead her to the right place. The smoky air from the train
did little to settle her stomach, but her nerves calmed slightly as she closed
her eyes and imagined God watching her step onto the wooden platform. It didn’t
manage to go quite as smoothly as she’d imagined. Between the noises, the smoke
and the bright sun, she tripped, lurching forward.

A strong and calloused hand reached out and caught her upper
arm and kept her from falling. She blinked, finding herself face-to-face with a
stern frown chiseled into a bronzed face, piercing blue eyes focused on hers.
His face was shadowed by his straw hat, as if shrouded in mystery.

“Careful, miss.” His voice were low and gentle, surprisingly
cultured for a man in ripped overalls, a faded black vest and a threadbare
cotton shirt. He held a child in his other arm. The boy clung to his shoulders
as the man stepped back and released Abby. Strangely, she felt drawn toward him.
He made her feel safe.

“Thank—” Her words were cut off by the shrill of the train’s
whistle and the belching of smoke that followed. The man looked past her,
obviously searching to find someone else. It shouldn’t have bothered her to so
quickly lose his attention, but he had seemed nice...sincere.

Now was not the time to consider her confusing feelings. She
needed to look for Mrs. Hopkins. Maybe the woman would be waiting with a wagon
over by the station so they could get Abby’s luggage off the train and head
home. Abby made her way through the throngs of people to the end where men were
unloading the freight. Seeing her three chests set to the side, she sighed with
relief. She turned to study the faces of the people rushing around her.

Suddenly she felt very small and alone. What would happen if
she couldn’t find Mrs. Hopkins? The thought had never even occurred to her until
she stood watching the other passengers meeting with their families or heading
off to the livery to procure transportation. Soon she was completely alone.
Minutes passed, but there wasn’t a woman nearby who could have been Mrs.
Hopkins.

She took a seat on one of the benches and prayed, hoping Mrs.
Hopkins would arrive before she concocted a backup plan. The sun shone bright
and the air stifled her very breath. It was hotter here than it ever got back at
home in May. Her stomach churned, reminding her that the last thing she had had
to eat was a greasy sandwich of scrambled eggs and some unidentifiable meat
she’d barely swallowed down at daybreak at a tiny train stop.

Where could Mrs. Hopkins be? Did something happen to keep her
from coming? Abby tried to pray, but the thoughts all got jumbled up in her
head.

* * *

Will waited while a large family with a passel of kids
piled off the train. A few men and a pretty, young lady who needed some
assistance disembarking followed. Maybe Miss Stewart was having trouble
gathering her things or had difficulty with the jerky motion of the train’s
stop. Did she need aid to exit the train? Will hoped he hadn’t hired someone who
was too feeble to be able to carry out basic chores.

“Excuse me, sir. Could you tell me if there are any more
passengers getting off at Twin Oaks?” he asked the conductor.

“No, sir. Everyone’s disembarked,” the man answered. “Is there
someone you’re looking for?”

“Our auntie House,” Tommy replied before Will could get a word
in edgewise.

“He means our new housekeeper.” Willy offered the information
before Will could intervene.

“Yeah, her. She’s old like our other mean auntie, but she’ll be
nice ’cuz Pa’s gonna pay her to be nice and teach us lots a’stuff like how to be
gent’men.” Tommy picked up the story, hanging off his father’s neck precariously
to peek into the train.

“I’ll bet she saw the prairie and got off the train back in...
What state is that where the prairie starts?” Willy questioned midsentence.

Taking control of the conversation before the boys told all of
the family secrets, Will eyed the conductor again. “Are you sure Miss Stewart
wasn’t onboard? She should have been in her fifties. She was coming to fill a
position of housekeeper and tutor for my children. She would have been coming
from Ohio.”

“Nope. The only woman traveling alone was Miss Stevens.” The
conductor’s gaze followed the girl who had just tripped off the train, and he
pointed toward her. “That’s her. She was going to be a housekeeper, all
right—but for a widow woman...” He looked deep in thought as if he was trying to
remember something. “Mrs. Hopple or Hope.”

“That young lady?” Will clarified.

“Yes, sir.” The conductor looked Will over from head to toe
through narrowed eyes. “You had better behave around that young lady. She’s very
special,” he warned in spite of his obvious disadvantage in height and build.
Will looked down on the smaller man and wondered wryly just exactly what the man
thought he would be able to do if the situation arose.

There was no reason to upset him, though. “I don’t doubt it,”
Will said in a pacifying tone. “I have no intentions of bothering anyone. I just
came to look for my new housekeeper. Are you sure she wasn’t on the train?”

“No, sir, I’ve been on the train since we headed out of
Illinois three days ago. There was no other woman that came alone except for
Miss Standish. I hope everything is all right with your new housekeeper. Maybe
she will be on next week’s train.”

Will felt the stirring of annoyance, then something akin to
anger. If Miss Stewart wasn’t on the train, she had just made off with five
dollars’ worth of his hard-earned cash. He had sent her a ticket and asked her
to let him know if there were any obstacles that would keep her from arriving on
this train. There was plenty of time for her to have sent a letter or a wire. He
knew that she hadn’t because he’d checked both at the post office and at the
mercantile for any messages before coming to the train depot.

“Thank you for your time.” He barely remembered to be civil as
embarrassment and frustration warred within him. What kind of fool must the
conductor think he was?

“Let’s go get something to eat.” Will forced a pleasant tone
even though he was simmering inside.

“But shouldn’t we wait for Auntie House?” Tommy questioned
innocently.

“She didn’t come. She’s just like all the rest of the women.
They won’t live out here in the wilderness and let the Injuns scalp them. She
won’t come to live out here. Even our own mother didn’t want to stay with us
here.” Willy shouted the last part and darted off, not paying attention to the
wagons or horses on the dirt street.

“Willy! Wait, son! You can’t go running—”

He caught up to Willy two blocks away. The boy was hunched
over, hiding in an alleyway with his face in his hands. Just before Will reached
him, he let out a sob.

“Willy.” Will set Tommy down and pulled Willy into his arms,
holding him tight. “I don’t know why Miss Stewart didn’t arrive when we expected
her, but it’s all going to work out. Maybe she wasn’t the one God wanted taking
care of you and Tommy. Or maybe she is, and she’ll come on the next train.”

Even as Will said the words, he realized he was too far behind
with the farm chores to make the trip again in a week. He would have to leave
some kind of message at the train station just in case. And if there was a next
time, he certainly would not be bringing the boys with to have their
expectations dashed to the ground.

“No one wants to live out here. Auntie Shelia said it and so
did Ma. It’s a savage land with savages running around with no clothes on,
killing people. I’m glad she didn’t come. She would have been mean just like
Auntie Shelia. Women are just trouble. I’m glad we don’t have any at the house.”
The boy straightened his shoulders and pulled away from his father.

Will wasn’t sure exactly what he should do. Willy’s speech just
showed him how much he had failed his boys. His own mother was wonderful... It
was a crying shame the boys hadn’t had a chance yet to know a woman like
her—kind, generous and loving. But how could he possibly convince his sons of
that if the only women they had lived with were women who had made life
miserable at home? Was it time to think of sending the boys back to Philadelphia
to be raised where they could get an education and where his mother could
instill some appreciation for women into them?

“I know it’s hard to believe, but there are some women who are
good and gentle. Like your grandma and my sisters, your aunts and then there’s
Mrs. Scotts. You like her….” The boys
did
like
Mrs. Scotts, and the other women who attended their small church. But with the
busy lives these farmers’ wives led, there wasn’t much time for visiting with
neighbors. They only saw them for a little while at church the one Sunday a
month they had services. And that short amount of time wasn’t enough to really
know anyone. Even Caroline had been pleasant enough to their neighbors for a few
short hours at church each month. It was when they were home that her mood had
changed.

He stood and took Tommy’s hand in his right and Willy’s in his
left. “What d’ya say we go get something to eat now? We need to head back in an
hour or so if we’re going to get to the river before nightfall. Maybe we can bag
that stag we saw last night.”

Tommy happily started chattering about their trip back and what
animal he wanted to hunt as they headed back down the main street to the hotel.
Willy swiped at his face with his hands and then his nose with his sleeve before
Will could produce a handkerchief.

“Where’s your kerchief?” he asked.

“I forgot, Pa.” Willy blew his nose soundly.

“I ain’t got no kerchief, Pa,” Tommy reminded him. “You were
gonna give me one and then you forgot.”

“Sorry, son. We’ll get you a few at the house.” At least he
hoped that there were still some hankies somewhere in the house.

A few minutes later, Will and the boys sat at a table in the
dining area of the hotel, perusing the menu. “Pa, what are you going to eat?”
Tommy’s questions never stopped. Without letting his father answer him, he
launched into his own opinion of the food, what he wanted, and ended with
another question. “Why don’t you cook like this, Pa?”

“Well, son,” Will hedged. “I guess some things I just haven’t
learned yet.”

“Maybe our auntie House...I mean our Miss Auntie could do it
better,” Tommy reassured him.

“Don’t you understand anything!” Willy yelled at his brother.
“She’s not coming!”

“But I want her to,” Tommy whined. “I want someone to cook
better than Pa and fix my clothes so we could go to the meeting with nice
clothes like Jill.”

“Boys!” Will exclaimed, glaring at his offspring. He gave a
short lecture on the right way to behave in public. Even as he was speaking, he
remembered his father saying something very similar when he was young. When both
boys calmed down, he nodded approval.

The waitress came and took their order, smiling and teasing the
boys before she left. Comfortably plump, the woman looked to be about Will’s
mother’s age. “Maybe we can ask her if she wants to be our auntie... How do you
call it again?” Tommy quizzed his brother when the waitress left.

Before Will could stop the conversation, Tommy turned his
attention to the door. Standing up in his chair, he grinned, pointing and then
waving at someone who had entered. “There she is, Pa. That lady that you caught
at the train. Maybe she’ll be our—”

“Tomas, sit down and put your arm down!” Will was about to pick
both boys up and take them to the wagon. It was downright embarrassing that he
had come all this way for nothing, and now the boys were making a ruckus
here.

“But she’s here, Pa. She looks really nice,” Tommy whispered
this time, dropping back into his seat but still staring at someone behind
Will.

“I’m sorry, miss,” he could hear the waitress answering the
woman. “We don’t have any jobs here. There are hardly any customers except on
the days the train comes through. Why don’t you come in and have a bite to eat
and maybe by then the lady you’re waiting for will come by?”

Since his back was to the two women, Will wasn’t able to see
what happened next, but the expression on Tommy’s face brightened. Before he
could stop his son, the boy shot off his chair toward the stranger.

“Come sit with us, lady. You look nice. We need someone to
teach us how to eat nice and not like a bunch of wild hogs.”

Will turned in his chair and caught the surprised look on the
woman’s face. She quickly disguised it with a smile. “Well, hello to you, too,
little man.” She crouched down and looked into Tommy’s eyes while she spoke.

Will was taken by her soft, sincere voice. She sounded as
though she actually enjoyed talking to the little boy. Will opened his mouth to
call Tommy back to the table, but the words died before reaching his lips when
he saw the rapture on his son’s face.

“I’m not a little man, I’m just a boy. My brother says I haf’ta
be more’n eleven to be a man. He’s gonna be a man soon ’cuz he’s already nine,”
Tommy informed her, holding out eight fingers until she helped him lift one
more.

“That’s nine.” She smiled, ruffling his hair.

“I just got my hair—”

“Tomas.” Will didn’t know what to do with his son. He seemed
bound and determined to get the whole town laughing at his antics. “Leave the
lady in peace and come back to the table.”

“But, Pa, she don’t have nobody to sit with and we could learn
how to be gent’men if she were at the table,” Tommy argued, taking hold of the
woman’s hand.

“Tomas, you need to heed your father, dear.” Her melodic voice
soothed some of Will’s embarrassment, and her eyes sparkled with delight. She
straightened back up and led Tommy to the table without withdrawing her hand
from his.

Reluctantly, Tommy sat down and let her go, but as she turned
to leave, she suddenly turned back to look closer at Will. “Oh, my! You’re the
one who—”