Stephanie Grace Whitson - [Quilt Chronicles] (23 page)

On the last Sunday in July, Ellen was already downstairs in the kitchen drinking her first cup of morning coffee, when the sun peeked over the horizon in the east.

Georgia came in yawning. As she pulled her apron down off its hook by the back door, she glanced at Ellen. “Did you sleep at all?”

“Not much. Do you think I’m insane to be doin’ this?”

“I think it’s a Sunday, and you already go to chapel across the way. You’ve spent a lot of time on the ward recently, and it’s really not going to be any different from what you’ve already known.”

“Except that I’ll have the keys to everything,” Ellen said. “And if anything happens—“

“Nothing will happen. And if it does, you know what to do. Mr. McKenna will likely lurk in his office the entire day in case you need anything.” She stirred up the fire in the stove and began to roll out the dough she’d left to rise overnight. “You know the women. They know and like you. You’ll be fine. In fact, I’d go so far as to say you’ll do better than fine.”

Ian appeared in the doorway. “Georgia’s right,” he said. “You’ll do better than fine. Miss Dawson has walked you through every possible scenario
including
a stabbing, and statistics prove that’s not going to happen again. At least not this year.” He smiled. “I expect the biggest challenge you’re going to have today involves serving meals, since Underhill will be gone, too. But J. B. knows the routine. You’ll be just fine. If I had any doubt, I wouldn’t have hesitated to tell Miss Dawson and Underhill they just have to postpone their Sunday together in town.”

Georgia smiled. “Who would have thought. Miss Dawson and Sergeant Underhill.”

“Don’t let Mamie hear you say that.” Ellen laughed. “She’s still declaring it to be a friendship. At every opportunity.”

Ian bent to kiss her on the cheek. “Isn’t that what we told your father that day we went to the church picnic?”

Ellen nodded. “He pretended to believe us, as I recall. We should give Mamie and Martin the same courtesy.” She set her coffee mug down. “Is Jack awake?”

“He is. The usual groaning protests about the hour and wanting to sleep.” He poured himself a mug of coffee. “The growls got quieter when I told him Georgia was making pecan rolls.”

Ellen tried to maintain her sense of calm through breakfast, but after two bites of a roll, she knew that if she ate any more she’d be sorry. She glanced over at Ian. “Do you think Mamie was this nervous her first day?”

“I can’t speak for her, but I know I was.”

“You were not. You ate a huge breakfast.”

“I ate it, but I didn’t keep it down.” He grimaced. “Now you know the real reason I hurried out the back door.”

“You mean you weren’t really worried that you’d left a stall door open in the barn?”

“Heavens, no. I would have sent Jack out to check on something like that.” He grinned. “I was in a hurry to get to where Georgia wouldn’t take my stomach’s revolt personally.”

He reached over and took Ellen’s hand. “You’re highly intelligent, you have several weeks’ experience on the ward, the women like you, and Miss Dawson trusts you. Not to mention the fact that the warden himself has said you are the best candidate he’s interviewed for the position.”

“I’m also the only candidate you’ve ‘interviewed.’” Ellen smiled. “And there wasn’t really an interview.”

“That’s beside the point. If today works out, we’ll have solved the problem of the other Miss Dawson’s defection to the world of business. Your taking over for her will simplify everyone’s lives and create the least amount of upheaval in the female department. And after the spring and summer we’ve had, a smooth transition is high on everyone’s list of desired things.”

And so it was that Ellen McKenna spent the last Sunday in July serving as the female department matron. After chapel service, the women settled in around the quilting frame that held Jane’s courthouse-steps quilt. In spite of being fitted for spectacles, Ivy Cochran didn’t really see well enough to quilt, so she tended Vestal’s baby. Susan read aloud for a while, and as the day wore on, bits and pieces of conversation unraveled the women’s pasts, one thread at a time.

Agnes Sweeney had a son buried at the Little Big Horn.

Ivy was one of eleven children who’d survived their father’s death, only to be scattered “to the four winds” when their mother lost the family farm.

Susan Horst said nothing about family, but she told how a stray dog she’d taken in once “lit in to a pack of wolves circling my campfire.” She offered no details as to the why of her having a campfire, but Ellen allowed as Susan was a natural-born storyteller and told her so.

Ellen’s response elicited other stories, until she finally told one of her own about a spotted mare she’d admired as a child. When she described trying to ride the pony that would not be ridden, the women laughed with her. And suddenly it was time to serve the evening meal, the day was done, and she was leaving J. B. on post for the night and descending to Ian’s first-floor office.

“Well?” Ian said, as they walked arm in arm across the road for home.

“Well, I don’t know. I think I may have too much of a tendency to forget they’re criminals. Sometimes I’m tempted to treat Jane Prescott more like a friend than an inmate. I might not be watchful enough when it comes time for Pearl Brand to come back on the ward.”

Ian covered her hand with his. “I’m not sure what to do about Brand,” he said. “But I am sure I don’t want you doing anything you don’t want to.”

“I’d like to try it out a few more times before I decide.”

Ian squeezed her hand. “Then that’s what I’ll tell Miss Dawson at our meeting tomorrow. Unless you’d care to attend and tell her yourself.”

A
ugust and the fierce sun seemed bent on broiling Lancaster County. As Max sat on the screened porch just off his second-floor bedroom, reading the morning paper, he read that grass fires had consumed a huge portion of the northern half of the county. He laid the paper aside and stood up, stretching and yawning before retreating into the house to shave. He’d spent the last few weeks in Lincoln visiting various churches, and today he was ready to commit. It had taken a while, but then everything seemed to be moving slower these dog days of summer, and his fledgling practice was no exception.

The four-cot infirmary he’d set up in the back bedroom of the first floor remained empty. It was just as well. In this heat it would be an unremitting challenge to try to cool the room down so the heat didn’t add to a patient’s suffering. As it was, Max had taken to sleeping out here on the porch, bent on catching any errant breeze that might happen to disturb the sticky, still nights. He’d expected it would be a while before his practice took off. After all, he’d hung a sign out without having so much as one connection with any of the other physicians in Lincoln. A Medical Society meeting couldn’t happen soon enough. He needed some referrals.

The front doorbell rang. Taking a last swipe with his straight razor, he hurried into a fresh shirt and trotted down the stairs, smiling when the unexpected visitor proved to be none other than Dr. Aurelius Bowen.

“So this is where the mighty have landed,” Bowen said and stepped inside. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he peered into the parlor-turned-waiting-room to the right of the front door, then invited himself up the hall, past the dining-room-turned-examining-room and then into the kitchen, where he stood peering into the empty infirmary.

“Well?” Max asked. “What do you think?”

Bowen shrugged. “I think I need a cup of coffee and you need some patients.”

“You drink coffee when it’s this hot?”

“Young man, I’d want coffee if we were standing in Hades.” Bowen scowled. “However, I can see by the fresh shave and the clean shirt that you are one of those Sabbath-observing physicians, and I’ve interrupted your preparations for church. So I’ll see myself out. Care to have lunch? I’m at the Lindell.”

“I’d love to have lunch, but unless you’ve already checked into the hotel, why not stay here?”

Bowen responded by retreating to the front door, stepping out onto the porch, and returning, bag in hand. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say.” He grinned. “But I’ll still buy you lunch. Meet me over at Dinah’s on North Eleventh. You do know about Dinah’s, I trust?” When Max shook his head, Bowen tsked him loudly. “Young man, you need some lessons in how to ferret out good cooking. Unless, of course, you’ve already succumbed to that disease I mentioned when last we talked.”

Max laughed. “No, sir. In fact, if you’re referring to ‘widower’s plague,’ I’m not a widower, so I’m likely immune.”

Bowen squinted up at him. “You joined a church yet?”

“Actually, I’m making that commitment today.”

“Well then, prepare to suffer the associated strain of the virus—bachelor’s misery.”

“Misery?”

“No self-respecting maiden believes that a bachelor is anything but miserable, my boy. And in your case, I predict a number of them will be eager to offer a cure.” He set his bag on the stairs and headed toward the back of the house. “I’ll help myself to coffee and noodle about while you’re gone. I have some ideas of how to get you set up as the best and brightest physician in town. We’ll talk over lunch.”

Max settled into a pew at the First Presbyterian Church and reached up to straighten his tie. He ran his palm along his jaw, just to be sure. No, he hadn’t left any lingering evidence of his morning shave. Why then, had those people across the aisle given him that look? It happened again a moment later. Someone came up the aisle, paused at his pew, gave him an odd look, and settled in front of him without so much as a word. He brushed his lapels and, once again, straightened his tie. Finally, he pulled a hymnal out of the pew rack and pretended to concentrate on the lyrics.

Was it his imagination, or was something boring into the back of his head? He rubbed across the back of his neck, then glanced behind him just in time to see a young woman seated next to an older woman—must be her grandmother—look away. He thought her cheeks pinked a bit, but that was probably more his imagination than anything. Still he smiled to himself. Bachelor’s misery, indeed.

The organ music began, and slowly, the pews all around Max filled. Except for his. Not one person sat in his pew. He continued to study the hymnal. Finally, someone cleared their throat. Loudly. Max looked askance toward the aisle and saw the hem of a black silk skirt and a black parasol, the latter planted inches from his left foot.

“Are you going to sit there?” a voice boomed.

He looked up. The prune-faced dowager was talking to him. He rose to his feet. Bowed. “How do you do, ma’am. I’m Dr.—“

“I said are you going to sit there?”

Max glanced behind him at the pew. Across the aisle at the people who’d given him the strange look. He couldn’t be certain, but he thought the gray-haired gentleman who glanced his way shook his head, almost imperceptibly. Once again, Max glanced at the pew. “Please,” he said, backing away and gesturing toward the place he’d just vacated. “Be my guest.”

The dowager harrumphed. “Guest? Be
your
guest?” She followed him into the pew. “And how would that be possible, seeing as how it is
my
family name on the brass plate at the end of this pew and
my
family who helped found this church in 1869 and my
own husband
who commissioned the stained glass above the pulpit?” She sat down, muttering, “Your guest, indeed.”

Max offered a profuse apology, which the woman barely acknowledged. She put the hymnal he’d left open on the pew back in the rack. Lifting her chin, she rested both gloved hands atop her parasol handle and glared toward the choir loft. This was clearly not a woman to offend, even unintentionally.

As it happened, Max didn’t need the flowery apology he spent half the morning planning to offer as soon as the service ended. After the closing prayer, Reverend Irwin raised his voice to get everyone’s attention and, as the crowd quieted, smiled in Max’s direction. “I have the pleasure this morning of introducing our newest member, Dr. Max Zimmer. He did not know that I was going to do this, and I apologize for putting him on the spot, but a venerated member of the Nebraska Medical Society stopped by my office just before the service. He wanted me to know some things about Dr. Zimmer that, he said, the good doctor would likely be too humble to share about himself. Things that are reason to celebrate his decision to settle in our fair city.” He nodded Max’s way.

“Dr. Zimmer has studied with some of the more preeminent physicians of our day. He took a detour of a few years between his time in Paris, France, and Lincoln, but he’s seen the error of his ways, and we are honored that he’s chosen to fellowship with us.” The reverend paused. “Welcome, Dr. Zimmer. May the Lord bless your endeavors, and may you find rich fellowship with us here at First Presbyterian.” He looked out over his congregation. “Please, let us make our brother welcome.”

Before more than a few minutes had passed, Max’s hand ached from all the greetings. The pastor’s wife talked him into purchasing the privilege of signing the quilt the Ladies Aid would be auctioning off at the Thanksgiving fair, and solicited a promise that Max would attend—and bid. He was on his way out of the building when the dowager whose pew he’d invaded stepped into his path.