Courting Trouble (25 page)

Mr. Baumgartner closed the man’s eyes and then looked at Papa. ‘‘His Hebrew. It was perfect.’’

Papa placed a consoling hand on Mr. Baumgartner’s shoulder.

‘‘I wonder if he had any kids,’’ little Harley North said, startling Essie. She’d not even noticed him standing next to her. He looked up. ‘‘If he did and there’s no mama, then they’ll be orphans. Like me.’’

She lifted him into her arms and hugged him close. He encircled her with his arms and legs, pressing his face into her neck. The boy was too young to have witnessed something so horrible. Still holding him, she walked away so the men could do what needed to be done.

————

For the first time in its history, the festival closed down early and the horse races were postponed. Essie set Harley in a chair at her mother’s kitchen table, placing a plate of cookies and a glass of milk before him.

‘‘Is this where you eat with yer ma and pa ever’ meal?’’ he asked, his gaze touching the gingham curtains framing a window, the indoor water pump Papa had installed for Mother, and the fancy Sunshine cooking range in the corner.

‘‘Yes, it is.’’

‘‘Golly. I wish I had somethin’ like this. We all eat in that big ol’ ugly room with nothin’ but tables and chairs.’’

She smoothed back the black hair covering his eyes. He needed a haircut. ‘‘You snack on these cookies while I go put on my bicycle costume,’’ she said. ‘‘Then I’ll give you a ride home on my handlebars. How does that sound?’’

‘‘You’re leavin’?’’ His eyes widened and he grabbed her skirt. ‘‘What if the judge comes home? Or yer ma? And they see me eatin’ their food?’’

‘‘It’ll be all right, Harley. You just tell them Miss Essie gave them to you. They won’t mind.’’

‘‘Ever’body minds. Nobody wants a orphan in their kitchen. Nobody.’’

She frowned. ‘‘That’s ridiculous and not the least bit true. Why, I want you in our kitchen and I’m somebody.’’

His eyes darted to the back door.

‘‘Hush now, and eat up. I’ll hurry. I promise.’’ She pried his hand from her garment and quickly made her way upstairs.

Removing her skirt and petticoats, she began pulling on a short skirt, bloomers, and leggings. The wonder in Harley’s voice as he’d examined their kitchen provoked feelings of compassion and not a little guilt. She’d just this morning resented their home, thinking of it more as a prison than anything else. Yet little Harley would give his eyeteeth to live here.

She fastened the final button of her boot. She had already taken so much time, she didn’t want to delay any longer. Not bothering to change her shirtwaist or hat, she came out of her room, heard voices, and quickened her pace.

Harley stood on a chair before a table with an apron wrapped twice around his little body. He pounded a lump of dough with one fist and then the other as if he were trying to annihilate it.

‘‘I’m makin’ some biscuits, Miss Essie,’’ he exclaimed, his eyes bright.

Smiling, Mother cracked an egg into a bowl. ‘‘Watch what you’re doing, Harley, or else you might miss the dough and deliver a fatal blow to the table.’’

Realizing the trip to the orphanage would wait, Essie removed her hat, picked up the empty plate and glass Harley had snacked from earlier and carried them to the washbasin. Then the three of them continued with dinner preparations, Mother and Essie doing most of the work and Harley doing most of the talking.

‘‘What do ya think they’ll put on the peg-legged man’s grave? ‘Here lies a man with one leg. If ya knows where he’s from, please make his mark here.’ ’’

Essie and Mother exchanged glances.

‘‘You think he has family?’’ Harley continued. ‘‘Do Jews have families, Miss Essie?’’

‘‘Yes, of course they do,’’ Essie answered.

‘‘How do ya know? He only had one leg. Ladies are awful picky. I’d bet they’d want their fella to have both his legs.’’

‘‘You can’t judge a man by the way he looks,’’ Essie said. ‘‘A good man without legs would be a far better friend than a bad man with both his legs intact. It’s not what’s on the outside that counts, but what’s on the inside.’’

‘‘Unless you’re a orphan. Nobody wants a orphan no matter what he looks like on the inside.’’

She started to contradict him, then held her tongue. What he said had some truth to it. Folks put a lot of stock in family backgrounds. If someone from a good family were to marry an orphan, there would be a scandal of huge proportions.

Still, she had come from a good family, and nobody’d wanted her. They’d especially not want her now. Now that she was a full-fledged spinster. And a ruined woman.

But Harley was different, she told herself. He had his whole life ahead of him. And who could resist him, orphan or not?

‘‘That’s not true,’’ she said.

‘‘Is too.’’

‘‘Is not.’’

Harley studied her for a moment, then opened his mouth as wide as he could, showing her every single tooth and his tonsils to boot.

She blinked.

‘‘Well?’’ he asked. ‘‘What do you think? Am I purty on the inside?’’

She smiled. ‘‘The best I’ve ever seen. And that’s the truth.’’

‘‘Really?’’

‘‘Really. Now, use this pin and roll out that dough.’’ She positioned the roller in his hands. ‘‘Start in the middle and work your way to the edges.’’

He couldn’t manage it, so Essie placed her hands over his and guided him. With Mother puttering around behind them, Essie could almost pretend Harley was her son. Almost.

She thought of Adam and once again tried to imagine what their child would have looked like. Or what a child of hers with Hamilton would have looked like. What would it be like to have her stomach swell as it held a life that God had knitted together with His own hands?

She inhaled, then stopped herself midstream. Harley needed a bath.

‘‘Maybe the peg-legged man was a orphan,’’ the boy said, ‘‘and that’s why he was by hisself.’’

‘‘Possibly.’’ She moved the roller to a thick section of dough.

‘‘Here, try to spread it out evenly. Like this.’’

The dough started sticking to the pin. Essie sprinkled it with flour.

‘‘You sure are good at this, Miss Essie. How come you ain’t married?’’

She heard Mother pause in the middle of chopping some carrots.

‘‘I don’t know,’’ Essie answered softly.

‘‘Ain’t ya purty on the inside?’’

Mother resumed her task with sudden vigor.

No,
Essie thought.
I’m not
.

He twisted around when she didn’t answer. ‘‘Lemme see.’’

She shook her head.

‘‘Come on. Open up. I’ll tell ya the truth.’’

She glanced at Mother, but the woman acted as if chopping vegetables required every bit of her attention.

Essie slowly opened her mouth.

Harley studied her for so long that she became embarrassed and closed her mouth.
See, I told you so
.

‘‘Well,’’ Harley said, ‘‘I ain’t never peered inside o’ anybody before. Only horses. And I can tell ya this, yer insides is a whole lot purtier than Mr. Mitton’s horses. And he boasts somethin’ awful about them beasties.’’

‘‘Thank you,’’ she whispered.

‘‘Miss Essie, do ya think ya might could wait ’til I get a little taller? Then you and me could marry up, seein’ as how we both think the other ’un is purty on the inside.’’

A rush of affection for the boy filled her. ‘‘Well, Harley. Those are some mighty strong words to say to a lady. So, I’ll tell you what. When you get a little, um, taller, if you find that you are still interested, why don’t you ask me again?’’

‘‘You’re just sayin’ that ’cause you don’t wanna marry no orphan.’’ His shoulders drooped.

‘‘No, no, that’s not true. It’s just that you are supposed to speak with my father first. But I think you probably ought to wait a few years before you do that. All right?’’

‘‘All right. And as soon as they let me, I’ll start votin’ fer him, too.’’

She smiled. ‘‘He’d like that very much. Now, put the rolling pin aside. It’s time for the biscuit cutter.’’

—————

They ended up riding Cocoa to the State Orphan’s Home. After the excitement of the festival and the big dinner they’d fed Harley, the boy could barely keep his eyes open. He’d have fallen asleep and tumbled off the bicycle’s handlebars, so they’d taken the horse instead.

‘‘Listen, Harley,’’ she whispered. ‘‘Do you hear that cricket with evenly spaced chirrups?’’

‘‘Uh-huh.’’

‘‘That’s a temperature cricket. If you count the number of chirps within a fifteen-second span, then add forty, you can calculate the temperature outside. Let’s try it. Ready? Go.’’

She silently counted. ‘‘I counted sixteen. That would mean it’s fifty-six degrees outside. How many did you count?’’

A soft snore escaped Harley as he relaxed against her. She wrapped her cloak more tightly around them, trapping their warmth inside. The stench of his dried sweat breached the covering. The boy reeked, but she’d not had time to give him the promised bath. She planned to return to the orphanage tomorrow to see he received both that and a haircut.

A nighthawk darted by, startling Essie with its sudden, erratic advance. Its nasal
peent
cut through the drone of insects. Essie couldn’t see it anymore or the female it was trying to impress, but she could hear the explosive ruffle of its wings as it dove toward the ground, swooping upward at the last possible moment.

She suppressed her irritation. Wasn’t there anywhere she could go without being constantly reminded of males and females and their courtship rituals?

The entire world goes two by two, Lord. All except for me. Why? Why did you cut me out of my inheritance?

And now it was too late. She was ruined. Even if the Lord sent a man her way, she’d not be able to marry him without confessing she’d given herself to another.

And that would be the end of that. So why even bother? She would have to resign herself to life as a spinster.

But she didn’t want to. She couldn’t quite let loose of that elusive dream. She wanted it so badly. Was Mother right? Would a man be willing to accept a woman who’d been used by another? She didn’t think so.

What if she didn’t tell him? What if she pretended he was the first?

She discarded the thought immediately. Even if he never found out, she would know. And God would know. Deceit simply wasn’t an option.

She sighed. It was a waste of time to contemplate such things anyway. Her chances for catching a man were over. Over. The sooner she accepted it and moved on, the better.

They crested a hill, and Cocoa blew a gust of air from her lungs, shaking her mane. Essie steadied her.

The full moon backlit a conglomeration of buildings nestled at the bottom of the hill. She could just make out the superintendent’s residence and the children’s dwellings behind it. Barns and sheds sat tucked toward the back edge of the property, a picket fence encompassing all.

Cocoa’s hooves crunched the gravel path. A clapper rail called out in evenly spaced clicks. As Essie neared the gate, she realized it wasn’t a bird she heard, but the rhythmic creak of a rocking chair on the superintendent’s front porch.

And whoever was rocking had stopped and headed toward the fence. ‘‘Who goes there?’’

She pulled her mount up. ‘‘Essie Spreckelmeyer. I have Harley North with me.’’

‘‘Miss Essie?’’ he asked.

She squinted, trying to see who it was. ‘‘Yes. Who’s asking?’’

‘‘Ewing Wortham.’’

‘‘Good heavens. You’re back from Bible school in Tennessee?’’

‘‘That’s right.’’ He moved next to her, then lifted his arms.

She relinquished Harley to him. The boy stirred, then settled against Ewing’s shoulder.

‘‘Are you a preacher, then?’’ she asked.

‘‘Only if someone hires me as one.’’

Slipping off Cocoa, she tied the horse to a fence post. ‘‘How long have you been home?’’

‘‘Only a few hours.’’

They stepped through the gate and headed to the boys’ dormitory.

‘‘Oh my. Were your parents even here? Most folks were still at the festival.’’

‘‘It was pretty quiet,’’ he said, boosting Harley up.

‘‘Is he heavy?’’

‘‘No, he’s fine. Ma said there were a few stragglers that hadn’t made it back. Which one is this?’’

‘‘Harley North. We don’t know much about him. A farmer from Blooming Grove brought him into town a couple of years ago saying his parents had died of smallpox.’’

They reached the cabin where the boys slept.

‘‘I’ll get him settled, Miss Essie.’’

She stroked Harley’s head. ‘‘Thank you. I’ll be back tomorrow to check on him. The accident today upset him.’’

‘‘I heard it was pretty bad.’’

‘‘It was awful. It happened so fast, Ewing. And right in front of all those youngsters. Once the shock of it wore off, the menfolk formed a tight ring around the man, shielding him from view, but by that time the image of that poor soul resting in a pool of blood, all crushed and broken, was indelibly stamped in my mind.’’ She shook her head. ‘‘I’m sure it will be a long time before any of us sleep soundly through the night.’’

‘‘Did he have anyone with him?’’

‘‘Unfortunately, no. Ends up the name he went by was one he’d adopted as a performer. They’re still trying to find out who he was and where he was from. But no matter what, this town will see to it that he has a proper mourning and burial. Mr. Baumgartner is instructing us in the Jewish traditions for such things.’’

A pig frog grunted several times in rapid succession. A gnat buzzed in her ear.

‘‘Well, I suppose I ought to head on home,’’ she said. ‘‘Good night and thank you for helping me with Harley.’’

‘‘If you’ll wait a minute, I’ll walk you back to the gate.’’

‘‘That’s all right.’’

‘‘I insist.’’ Before she could respond, Ewing hurried into the dormitory.

It was so dark, she hadn’t been able to have a good look at him, but she remembered him well. He was six or seven years younger than she was, and they’d both attended the one-room schoolhouse together as children.

He’d been a pest, always wanting to come with her when she went fishing or hunting. It used to drive her to distraction. He’d been noisy and easily sidetracked, while she’d been very serious about her pursuits. And she still hadn’t quite forgiven him for bidding his measly two cents on her box suppers all those times.