Together Apart (9 page)

"What do you think he's looking for?" Hannah asked.

"Me. One of the girls must have heard me cheering and turned me in."

"How could that be? Even if one of them did hear, they'd have no way of knowing it was you."

"Dru knows."

"She wouldn't turn you in. You know that as well as I."

"I suppose, but if he's not looking for me, why is the sheriff here, sniffing around?"

"I don't know, but I think it's best if I go in there, distract him before he discovers that someone has been living above the stable." Hannah pulled free of my hand just as Sheriff Tulley came back outside.

I ducked. Hannah stood up.

"Good evening, sir. May I help you?"

"Who goes there?"

"Hannah Barnett, sir. I work for the Widow Moore."

"And what might you be doing behind the woodpile at this late hour? Is there a young fellow back there with you?"

I wanted to ram my fist down his throat.

Hannah hefted a log from the pile. "Oh, no, sir. I'm fetching wood for the morning fire." She circled around then, out of my sight. "If you wish to speak with the Widow Moore, I expect her return any minute now."

Hannahs voice was as solid as a rock. It was as if she'd just stepped to the front of the school and begun a dramatic reading.

The sheriff followed Hannah into the resting room and shut the door behind him. I shot across the lawn and crouched under the window closest to the door.

I listened hard but could only make out mumbles, so I inched my head upward until I could see into the room. Hannah headed to the corner where the market goods were stored. The sheriff followed, and when he got to the table, he started digging through the pretties like a dog in loose dirt. A couple of things fell to the floor, and Hannah picked them up. Still the sheriff dug, then, as if finding the bone he'd been digging for, he held up a red shawl and said something to Hannah. Hannah nodded, and the sheriff removed what looked to be a coin purse from his vest pocket, opened it, and dropped one coin in Hannah's upturned hand. He dropped another, then another, then still more before Hannah finally took her hand away.

It wasn't long before I felt the thud of the drive-side door slamming shut. Then, one by one, the gaslights went out, and not long after that Hannah was at the back door.

"Over here," I whispered.

"Follow me," she said, then hiked up her skirts and commenced to run across the lawn at breakneck speed, stopping a few paces short of the prairie, where she flung herself down on the grass. I offered her a hand up, but she brushed my hand aside. "Join me."

I wasn't about to argue with that, and we both lay there, staring up at the shiny moon. Fireflies flickered. Crickets chirruped. A warmish breeze carrying the sweetness of prairie grass blew across us.

"I've done a terrible thing," Hannah said after a time, then giggled.

I propped myself up on an elbow and looked down at her. "It can't be all that terrible if it makes you laugh."

"I don't know what came over me."

"Tell me."

"Okay. The sheriff wasn't looking for you at all. He came to buy the knitted red shawl Flossy Zeller left with us on consignment. Mrs. Tulley was here earlier today, admiring the shawl. I overheard her telling Eliza that the weekly household allowance her husband gives her doesn't stretch far enough to buy nice things for herself. Eliza sent her home with a copy of the
Women's Gazette.
You remember the one, with the article listing the value of each household chore, the money a husband would be required to pay someone else if not for the free labor of his wife and children."

I remembered, full well. Charwoman, laundress, cook, and all the chores my ma slaved over for Mr. Richards. I'd summed it up. If he'd hired her instead of marrying her, the debt Ma owed Mr. Richards would've been paid before the first year was out. "The sheriff's wife must have read the article, raised a stink."

"Seems so," Hannah said. "And an expensive stink at that. I charged him more than Flossy's asking price. I know that was wicked of me, but there he was, talking big of licenses Eliza supposedly failed to obtain, threatening to close the resting room. And all the while he was saying those things, what he was really after was the shawl. He thought because I'm young and nothing but hired help that he'd scare me into selling him the shawl cheap. And it might have worked if not for the fact that he'd tucked only half of his nightshirt into his trousers, part of the tail trailing out."

Hannah exploded with laughter then. Real laughter, not girl giggles, and I laughed right along with her, long and hard until I thought my sides would split. When we finally wound down, I sucked in a breath and asked, "Exactly how much did you charge?"

"Double," Hannah answered, and our laughing started up again.

I might have stayed there all night, sprawled in the sweet-smelling grass, staring up into the starry sky, making believe that Hannah was my girl and I was her beau. But it didn't last. Life wasn't make-believe, and Eliza had finally returned.

We picked ourselves up out and hurried across the lawn. Eliza was fumbling with Persephone's harness. Even in the dim light I saw that her eyes were red and puffy. "Let me," I said.

She turned away and headed for the house.

"She's been to the cemetery again," Hannah whispered.

I nodded, then led Persephone to her stall.

S
LEEP DIDN'T COME EASY THE NIGHT OF
S
HERIFF
T
ULLEY'S VISIT.
At first my thoughts were too tangled with the sounds carrying down the hallway from the nursery room—Eliza, humming lullabies and then crying. There was a pattern to Eliza's grief. I didn't always know what set it off, but I knew where it took her—the cemetery, followed by hours behind the closed door of her daughter's room. She spoke often of the Judge but never of her daughter. I didn't question why one but not the other because of something I'd overheard Mama say to Hester after my brothers' funeral: when a mother loses a child, instead of the other way around like it's supposed to be, the world is turned upside down.

Later, after Eliza had retired to her own bedroom, my thoughts were tangled in the play. I scolded myself for allowing Dru to turn my head with her flattery. I didn't want to disappoint the other girls, especially shy Clarice, so I decided that the very least I could do was try. I tossed and turned, discarding one silly idea after the other. I'd nearly given up when, as I was lying there staring across the room and out the window, the curtains riffled in a sudden though pleasant breeze. The curtains billowed out then in, as if a living, breathing thing. The seed of an idea took root, and I finally closed my eyes and slept.

***

The sun was bright at my window when I awoke the morning after the sheriff's visit—too bright. And I wasn't the only one in the house who had overslept. When, after hurriedly dressing, I passed along the hall, I saw that Eliza was still in her bed. Imagining a line of women waiting at the resting room door, my feet landed on only every other of the stair steps. It wasn't until I threw open the door between the laundry and the resting room that I slowed for a breath.

Dru, an apron covering her lilac-colored dress, was sitting on a tufted footstool and reading a story to a young guest. The child's mother was sweeping the floor. Another woman was emptying the contents of her basket onto the freewill donation table—a Mason jar of preserved beef, a mess of string beans, and a sumptuous-looking rhubarb pie. No lunch would need to be prepared that day, nor, for that matter, dinner. Yet another woman was sitting at the quilt frame, her needle gliding in and out. The resting room had begun to run itself.

Mrs. Farley, one of our most frequent visitors, arrived just then and immediately sought me out. "I've brought Rusty along with me today. Where should he begin?"

Rusty—Russell, as was his given name—was the youngest of the eight Farley sons. Mrs. Farley paid her way at the resting room and bought her weekly copy of the gazette with Rusty's hard work. He mowed Eliza's lawn, pruned the shrubbery, chopped wood, did whatever outdoor chores needed to be done. He'd once offered to muck out Persephone's stall, but Eliza had declared the stable off-limits.

Rusty, grinning from ear to ear, appeared at the door just then, tipped his cap, showing his curly red hair, and said, "Good morning, Hannah. Should I start with the lawn?"

"The lawn it is," I answered, then glanced at Dru. I'd hoped Dru hadn't noticed Rusty's arrival. Dru, who, like a red-tailed hawk, missed little, returned a wink, and I knew I was in for a teasing later.

Dru was convinced that Rusty agreed to accompany his mother and work so hard because he was sweet on me. I'd seen Rusty looking my way a time or two, his shoulders squared and his smile denting his dimples. Rusty was a fine young man, as handsome and sturdy as the finest wool, just the kind of fellow Papa would have gladly given permission to call on me when I was a bit older. I might have encouraged Rusty's attention if not for Isaac. Compared to Rusty, Isaac was silk. I'd never worn silk, probably never would, but I was used to doing without.

I wasn't the only one Dru teased about Rusty. She was fond of telling Isaac of Rusty's supposed interest in me. Every time she mentioned Rusty's name, the skin on Isaac's ears and nose, so badly frostbitten by the blizzard, turned radish red and the cords in his neck stood out.

***

After Rusty had gone on about his business that morning, Mrs. Farley asked, "Is Eliza about?"

"She's otherwise occupied just now."

Mrs. Farley creased her brow. "I hope she has not forgotten that we are meeting at ten o'clock this morning to discuss the upcoming council elections."

"I'm sure she hasn't forgotten."

The council Mrs. Farley was referring to was the Resting Room Advisory Council. Eliza had asked a handful of the more regular visitors to serve. At their first meeting, the women had made a list of "Courtesies." Eliza's only rule was this—Every woman, regardless of family circumstance, nationality, or creed, will be welcomed and shown the highest and equal regard. To this, the council, after much debate, had added: Leave the resting room as tidy as you found it; Children must be tended at all times; News is welcome—hurtful gossip is not.

The councilwomen took their responsibility quite seriously. More than once I'd overheard one or the other of them ask a visitor how the resting room might better serve their needs. That's how the curtained area for nursing mothers and the installation of the quilting frame came about. The frame, donated by an older woman whose hands were so arthritic she could no longer work a needle, was a blessing for those not accustomed to resting their hands. One would bring in a pieced quilt top, stretch it in the frame, and the next time she returned, the tedious quilting might be complete. Sometimes women came to town, to the resting room, for no other reason than to sit at the frame and, while quilting, chat. On the busiest days, walking a circle around the quilting frame, one might hear three or four languages being spoken—English, of course, but also Swedish, Russian, and German.

An election of council members was to be held in the fall. Eliza expected that most of the current council members would, as she'd said, "throw their bonnets in the ring." Privately, Eliza had shared with me her hope that the election would help the women to see that taking a more active role in decisions that affected their and their children's lives would not lead to the ruination of hearth and home as so many politicians, and "none too few husbands," had led them to believe.

I was chatting with Mrs. Farley, asking after her ill mother's health, when Megan and Joey burst through the door, followed by Hester. I excused myself from Mrs. Farley and hurried over to greet them. "I lost a toof," Megan said though a new gap in her smile.

"I've got a penny," Joey chimed in. "Papa said I do my chores good. Said I can buy a peppermint stick."

Megan and Joey then made a beeline for Dru, whom they called the "Story Lady."

"Let's step outside," Hester whispered. "I have something I need to tell you that I don't want others to overhear."

Rusty mowed himself around the corner just as Hester and I stepped out onto the lawn. He tipped his hat, showing his mop of red hair. I nodded.

"Who's that?" Hester asked, her eyes following Rusty's path.

"The son of one of the councilwomen. But tell me, what's the news you've brought me? Is something wrong at home?"

"How old is he?" By then Hester's head was swiveled almost backward.

"Seventeen," I answered. "But enough of that. Tell me your news."

"News?"

"Hester!"

She finally turned to face me again. "Oh. Yes. It's that Bradshaw boy, Isaac. He's still in the county. Has been seen sneaking about after dark, and nearly every farmer in our district, when checking their stock of hand tools, has reported finding at least one missing. Mrs. Kramer swears she heard him one night, breaking into her kitchen, and that the next morning one of her sharpest butcher knives was gone."

"Don't believe everything you hear, Hester. Isaac wouldn't do such things. Believe me on that."

"Its true, Hannah. People have seen him. I shiver to think that you once spent the night in a haystack with that wild boy." Hester then lowered her voice to a whisper. "There are those who say something bad happened to you that night, something you're ashamed to tell, and that's why you've run off to work here in town. Is it true, Hannah? Did Isaac shame you?"

I choked back a scream that was building and boiling and burning in my throat. "Yes, something bad happened that night—my brothers died and I did not. I wasn't in the school like I was supposed to be, wasn't with them like I should have been, and they died. That's the awful truth. The beginning and end of it. Isaac did nothing except keep me warm, keep me alive. How many times must I tell the story before I'm believed? How many times before you believe? You can't begin to imagine the horror."

Tears sprang to Hester's eyes. "You're right, Hannah. I can't begin to imagine."