Teaching Patience (Homespun) (7 page)

After the dishes were done, Charlotte and Bess went into the room Patience shared with Grace to see her new dress.  “It’s beautiful!  You’re going to be the belle of the ball.”  Bess smiled as she ran a finger along the front of the dress.  “Even Charlotte couldn’t have done better.”  Charlotte was known for her sewing skills. 

“It really is nice,” Charlotte praised.  “Are you nervous?”

Patience nodded slowly.  “I am, and I don’t know why.  We just spent forty-eight hours locked up in the schoolhouse together.  It’s not like I don’t know him.  I’m worried we won’t have anything to talk about, but that’s just silly.”

Charlotte sat down on the edge of the bed and patted the spot next to her.  After Patience sat down, she slipped her arm around her shoulders.  “I felt the same way the first time James came to take me for a
sleigh ride.  I think all women feel that way with their first beau.”

Bess nodded.  “I felt that way with John, and I’d known him my entire life.”
  Bess smiled sweetly at the young woman.  She was happy Patience was finally going to be going to a church social with a beau. 

“It’s going to work out fine.  Pray about it.  If God wants you to marry him, then He’ll make it happen.  If He doesn’t, it won’t.”
  Charlotte always had sage advice for her young friend.

Patience thought about that for a moment.  “Maybe I should write down some conversation ideas.”

Bess laughed.  “Ask him how his animals fared during the blizzard without him there.  Ask him what he thinks of Minnesota.  Ask him if he’s always been a believer.  There are so many things to talk about when you’re first starting to get to know someone.”

“Ask him how farming is different here than it was in New York.  Ask him if he thinks boys should be allowed to attend school for a full nine months instead of having to help with the plowing and the harvesting.  Ask him if he thinks a dog or cat is more important to a farm family.”  Charlotte’s eyes lit up as she threw question after question at Patience.

Patience looked between the two.  “So I don’t need to be asking a lot of personal questions?  General questions are okay?”

“Definitely.  Especially since Charlie will be there.  It’s hard to talk about personal things with a kid around.”  Charlotte winked at Patience, reminding her subtly she’d been the child around for
Charlotte’s courtship with James.

*****

Hugh wanted to kick himself as he did his evening chores with Charlie right beside him.  What had he been thinking asking Patience to the dance?  She was a pretty little thing, but he had no business asking her to do anything.  He was divorced.  He didn’t need her thinking he was going to marry her.  If he married again, it would need to be someone who was a little less…well, perfect than little Miss Patience.

He sighed loudly as he kept up the steady movements of his hands as he milked Melvin. 

“What’s wrong, Pa?”  Charlie patted Melvin’s nose.  He’d named the cow when he was too young to understand the difference between men’s and women’s names and the name had stuck.

Hugh shook his head.  “Nothing really.”

Charlie put out fresh hay and water for Melvin while Hugh continued milking. 
Maybe there was a way out of it
, he thought.  He could go over and talk to her father.  If George knew he’d been divorced, surely he wouldn’t let his daughter go to the social with him.  That’s what he’d do.  He’d go to their house a half hour before dinner and talk to George.  He wouldn’t have to come up with any kind of excuse.  George would surely kick him right off his property.

*****

Hugh went into the barn to help George with his chores on Saturday evening.  He’d arrived early enough to have a good long chat with Patience’s father and he planned to do exactly that.  Charlie had run toward the house to play with Frank, so he wouldn’t have those little ears listening to everything he was about to say.

He stood watching as George pitched clean hay into the horses’ stalls for a moment before he started talking.  “I think I need to tell you something before I take your daughter to the social tonight.”  Just spitting the words out seemed to be the best way.  He wouldn’t beat around the bush, and make George wonder what was going on in his head.  “I’m not a widower.  My wife left me and married another man.”

George nodded.  “So I hear.” 

Hugh’s jaw dropped.  “You know?  Did Patience tell you?”

“She told Millie, and Millie told me.  Patience wouldn’t keep that kind of information from me.  She was raised to come to us with any kind of problem or worry, and she wasn’t sure how I’d feel about your courting her since you’d been divorced.”

“And how do you feel about it?”
  Hugh waited to be told to never go near Patience again.  What else could a father possibly say?

George shrugged.  “Sounds to me like you couldn’t help losing your wife any more than I could help losing mine.  She wasn’t happy where she was, and she took off.  My wife was happy, but died of a fever.  Unless you were beating her, you’re no more at fault than I was.”

Hugh blinked a few times, shocked that a strong Christian man like George wouldn’t have a problem with his daughter being courted by a divorced man.  “You really don’t have a problem with it?”

“I don’t see a reason why I should.  The scriptures are clear about how divorce is wrong unless one partner commits adultery.  When your wife remarried, that was adultery.  You’re free to remarry any time you want to.”
  George looked up and met the younger man’s eyes.  “That’s in Matthew chapter nineteen.”

“And you have no problem if it’s your daughter I remarry?”  Hugh knew he was repeating himself, he just couldn’t quite believe his ears.

“Do you want me to have a problem with it?”  George had a grin on his face as he asked.

“No, of course not.  I just thought you would, that’s all.  I mean, most men would.”

“Things happen.  You can’t control what happened to you in the past.  Sounds like you didn’t make a great choice when you married your wife, but people make mistakes.  You have as much right to happiness as any man, and Patience will make some man very happy.”  George looked at him out of the corner of his eye.  “I think you’re a good man, or I’d have already put a stop to it.  I love my daughter, and if you hurt her, you’ll have to deal with me.”

Hugh grinned.  He really couldn’t believe what he was hearing.  He was finally getting the lecture Patience claimed was delivered to all men who even looked at her twice, but not until George had made it clear he approved of him as a suitor for his daughter.  “I won’t hurt her.”  He looked around the barn.  “What chores can I help you with?”

As Hugh sat down on the small milking stool and got to work, he couldn’t help but smile.  He was going to court Patience, and had her father’s approval despite his past.  He wasn’t going to ruin his chance with the pretty schoolteacher. 

As they made the long drive into town, they talked of Minnesota, and Patience asked some questions about how he felt about longer school months for boys.  They rode together on the seat of the wagon, while Charlie stood on the wagon bed, leaning on the seat and listening to the conversation.

“I wish farmers had the luxury of sending their older boys to school for a full nine months, but the boys are very much needed to help with the farming.”  Hugh’s voice was adamant as he made his stand.

“Why are farmers able to handle everything themselves until their sons are old enough to help, and then suddenly they need them so badly?”
  Patience’s voice was earnest as she made the argument she’d been making since she started teaching.  She wanted the older boys to be able to go to school for a full nine months of the year just like the older girls did.

Hugh looked at her out of the corner of his eye as he drove.  She was wearing a beautiful new blue dress that matched her eyes perfectly.  He should have told her how pretty she looked when he first saw her in it, but he bit back the words.  He didn’t want her to think he was only interested in her because of her beauty. 

“You know as well as I do most farmers have to trade off services and even hire threshing crews to get all the work done in time.  When their sons are old enough to help, they’re able to save the wages of a man.”

“But they handle the wages just fine up until then.  What difference does it make when they’re teens?”
  No one had been able to come up with a good answer for that argument before.  She leaned forward as she waited for him to concede the point.

Hugh laughed.  “Have you seen the amount of food a teenage boy eats?  He needs to be able to work in the fields to make up for the difference in the cost of his upkeep.”

Patience grinned.  Her own brothers had eaten a lot more food as soon as they were old enough to help with the field work.  He had a good point.  “But they’re losing out on valuable educational opportunities!”

“By the time they’re old enough to work in the fields, they know what they need to know to run a farm.  Unless they plan on going into another field,
and I don’t mean another field of dirt, they don’t need that extra education.”

Patience folded her arms across her chest, wishing he’d agree with her.  “Is that the way it’s done in New York as well?”

“It depends on the family there.  Mine kept me out for planting and harvesting once I turned fourteen.  Once I was sixteen, they kept me out for good.” 

“How old were you when you married?”

He didn’t want to talk about his marriage, but felt she had a right to know.  “I had just turned seventeen.”

“That’s so young!”
  She couldn’t believe he’d married so young.  He didn’t seem the type of man who would marry before he was ready to provide for a family.

He laughed softly.  “You’re not much older.”
 

“I’m twenty and I’ve been working for t
hree years.  That’s a lot different than being seventeen.  How old was your wife?”  She had so many questions she wanted to ask him about his wife.  She wondered so much what she’d been like.  Charlie was the spitting image of his father, so there were no clues there at all.

“Sixteen.  Neither of us were ready to be married.”

“I certainly wasn’t ready to marry at sixteen.  I didn’t finish school until I was seventeen, and then I started teaching right away.” 

“Do you enjoy teaching?” 

She nodded.  “I do.  I’m glad I’ve done it for the time I have.  I don’t think I’d want to do it forever, but I certainly have enjoyed being able to save up some money and to contribute to my family’s finances.”  She paused for a moment.  “I enjoy watching my students’ faces as they learn something new.  Sometimes they’ll have a moment where I can just see their minds working and suddenly they understand something they didn’t understand before.”  She turned to smile at Charlie.  “Charlie and I need a moment like that with spelling.”

Charlie groaned.  “I hate spelling.  Pa, would you tell Miss Stevens that I never have to do spelling again?  Please?”
 

Hugh laughed.  “I don’
t think so.  You need to learn everything she has to teach you while you get to go to school.”

“But, Pa!  Spelling is boring!”

Patience laughed.  “But just think, the more words you can spell, the better reader you are.  You like to read.”

Hugh looked back at Charlie.  “Do you like to read?”
  He hadn’t known that about his son.  It felt strange knowing there was another person who knew things about him that even he didn’t know.

Charlie shrugged.  “Sometimes.”  He obviously wasn’t ready to admit to liking anything about school.

They pulled up to the church then, and Hugh climbed down, walking around to hold his hand up to help Patience down.  Charlie jumped down and ran off to find his friends.  During the socials, most of the young boys would play tag outside, while the young girls would stay inside trying to act like little ladies as they wished the young boys would come in and talk to them.

Hugh offered Patience his arm as they walked together into the church.  She rested her hand on his elbow following along beside him.  She put the cherry pie she’d made on the table set aside for desserts, and they found two chairs together off to the side of the room. 

They talked quietly, often interrupted by other members of the church.  Bess and Charlotte both made it a point to come over and talk to them.  “That dress looks wonderful, Patience!  As soon as school is out, you’ll need to come over and we’ll make you a hat to match.  I have a new pattern.”  Charlotte sipped punch as she spoke.  She had obviously stopped by to see how it was going with Hugh.

“Thank you.  I’d love that!” 
Patience smiled up at the other women, looking forward to her summer off when she’d have time to spend with them again.

Hugh watched Patience as she spoke to the other women.  She seemed to be well liked among the entire congregation, which said a lot for her personality.  Many women were liked only by children or only by men, but Patience seemed to be liked universally.

“Let me know when, and I’ll be there, too,” Bess told them.  “I can’t wait to start up our summer picnics.”

“Summer picnics?” asked Hugh.

Patience turned to him.  “Our three families get together at least once per week during the summer, not counting Sunday afternoons when we typically all go to the lake.  We spend the afternoon sewing while the kids play.  We’ve been doing it since I was about eight.”