His Rainbow After the Rain

by Grace Clemens

  “Well, I don’t want you to be late. Do you need me to take you there in the buggy? I notice you never ride on a horse.”

  Tingles ran through her body when Philip put one hand on her shoulder and walked with her to the door. She thought a ride to the schoolhouse would be wonderful. But what kind of talk would it bring about? Would it sully their reputations to be seen that way?

  She didn’t see how it could. They were grown adults. They didn’t need anyone’s permission to court. The age difference between them wouldn’t be much different than many of the other married couples she knew of.

  “I’d love a ride to the schoolhouse, Philip,” she said, warmly. “Thank you.”

  Chapter 20

  Mary couldn’t think of anything other than Philip all day. She wanted to continue her conversation with him. In truth, she just wanted to spend all her time with him. That was what usually happened when someone fell in love, wasn’t it?

  She knew Sarah would notice when her friend came to visit her for lunch.

  Sarah tilted her head to the side. “There’s something different about you,” she said slowly, studying Mary’s face. “What’s happened?”

  Mary’s stomach twisted with nervousness. How different could she possibly look? Then again, Sarah had been her friend for so long, how could she not notice?

  She grinned, unable to keep the feeling inside.

  Sarah’s eyes opened wide. “Oh my. I do believe someone has fallen in love.”

  Mary gasped and swiped out at the air between them, trying not to choke on the bite of the ham sandwich she’d brought for lunch.

  “Hey, be careful!” Sarah commanded, leaning forward. “Don’t eat that apple if you’re gonna be choking like that.”

  Mary shook her head, swallowing her food. “I don’t want to die today, that’s for sure. There’s too much to look forward to.”

  “So you have fallen in love!” Sarah announced triumphantly. “Well, what do you know? I’m so happy for you, dear. Is it Philip Jenkins? It is! Oh, I get to call him Philip now.”

  Mary tilted her head to the side. “And why would that be?”

  “Because we’re sisters and sisters don’t have to call their sister’s beau by their last name.”

  Mary laughed softly. “If I didn’t know what you were talking about, that would have confused me completely.”

  Sarah joined her laughter. She glanced up at the board behind Mary. “That can’t be the lesson for today. You don’t even really have them doing anything. They’re just reading and studying for the next exam.”

  Mary was a little embarrassed. She really didn’t have the brain power to be teaching the children today. Even the older children had noticed she was spacy, thinking deeply, her mind somewhere else completely. When they questioned her, she just said she was tired.

  “You don’t look tired!” Annie announced, loudly. “You don’t look tired at all. You look very pretty today!”

  Mary had blushed when the child complimented her, because she was flattered and because it had been noticed.

  “I really just want to get back to the printing office and talk to Philip. Something… we had a talk this morning after the mayor came in and threw himself around. I swear he doesn’t want Philip to succeed.” She decided not to tell Sarah the nature of the threat against Philip since it felt too much like gossiping. It didn’t feel like gossiping to tell her about the mayor, though.

  “I don’t know what we’re going to do,” she went on, aggravation sliding through her, making her chest tight. “He needs to go before he does too much damage to our town. He’s going to run everyone out of business and it will be his own town, and he’ll have complete power over everyone.”

  Sarah shook her head. “I don’t like it any more than you do, Mary, even though what he does affects me very little. I don’t like the trouble it makes for you and it sounds like Philip is getting the brunt of it, too.”

  “Couldn’t we talk to your pa about it? Maybe he could do something. Anything. He’s got some influence on the mayor, doesn’t he?”

  Sarah grunted, raising her eyebrows. She stared down at the orange she was peeling. “If you call not being owned by the man and being able to pay his own way without the mayor’s influence then yeah. But if not, then no, my pa can’t make the man do anything he doesn’t want to do.”

  Mary thought for a moment. “I just wish,” she murmured. “There was a way to make him think it’s what he wants to do.”

  Sarah stared at her, pushing half an orange slice in her mouth and biting it off. “How can you convince a man like that the idea of putting more money in the schools is his idea? We can’t get in his sleep or his dreams or in his mind at all. There’s no way. And he’d never really think it up on his own.”

  Frustration slid through Mary. “It’s not justice. The way people are being treated in this town, pushed aside, made to pay through the nose, kowtowing to that man’s will…” She shook her head, disgusted. “I just can’t stand it. There won’t be a schoolhouse by the end of it. I’m spending every extra dime trying to keep up with what’s needed.”

  “Surely you can get repairs done for free.” Sarah lifted her eyes and looked around as if scanning for something in disrepair.

  Mary nodded. “It’s true; many of the men in town have offered to help rebuild the roof or the barn out back or the outhouse. The problem is getting the supplies. They can’t be donated every time. I mean, it would be nice if the wealthy people in town didn’t need to supply it. We should be getting some of the money coming from the government.”

  Sarah looked thoughtful, pulling one side of her lips over and chewing on the inside of her cheek. “Well… have you ever thought about holding fundraisers?”

  Mary blinked at her. She didn’t know what Sarah was talking about. All that schooling, being a schoolteacher herself, and she didn’t know what a fundraiser was. The name made it obvious but “holding” one… She shook her head.

  “What is that?”

  “How do you not know what it is?” Sarah asked, befuddled. “You’re the schoolteacher. You get the mothers and Mrs. Edwards and you and me and the girls and we’ll all bake cakes and cookies and sell them outside the theater when the women’s group comes in. You can use the money to buy what the school needs, probably for at least a semester, to close out the year. Then you’ll have the summer to sort through this.”

  “That is a brilliant idea, Sarah,” Mary’s voice expressed her gratitude. Her smile unwavering, she stood up and went around her desk, bending at the waist to wrap her arms around Sarah’s shoulders. “And we can get Philip to advertise it beforehand so people will know to bring extra money to buy our food. We can make banners for it this week and I’ll have to make copies of a form to send home with the students. Oh, you’ve given me so much to do, Sarah, bless you!”

  Sarah chuckled. “You’re welcome… I think…”

  They both laughed.

  “I’m willing to help, though,” Sarah went on. “You go ahead and make up one of those forms and I’ll make the copies for you.”

  Mary laughed. “No, silly, I want to get the copies made. I have to go to Jenkins Printing to have it done. I’ll write something up though and let you look at it. I know you don’t have any children here but how many copies will you need to give out to your friends?”

  Sarah’s eyes drifted up to the ceiling as she counted in her mind. “I’d say at least four or five. Some of the girls will want to give the forms to their mothers. They might not participate but their mas will; you know they had children here in the schoolhouse once, too.”

  Mary nodded, glancing around the room at the empty desks, open books, pens and pieces of papers strewn across their surfaces, the bags settled under the chairs and on the shelves lining the walls. There wasn’t much to be seen in this schoolhouse but a dirt floor, four walls and a roof that was threatening but still holding strong for now.

  Eventually, it would need to be fixed.


  Her eyes jumped up when Matthew poked his head around the wall at the other end of the room.

  “Miss Ross?” he said as he came around into full view. He held his hat in his hands in front of him. “May I talk to you?”

  “Of course, Matthew, come on in. You know Sarah Marrow, don’t you?”

  Matthew nodded at Sarah, bending forward slightly at the waist. “It’s good to see you again, miss, though you probably don’t recognize me. We never were in the same group.”

  Sarah lifted her head and shook her hair back away from her face, exposing the beauty of her eyes and high cheekbones but also the classis elegance she exuded. She lifted one hand and held it out for Matthew to take as he got closer.

  “Matthew Jacobs, I presume. I’ve heard much about you.”

  “Oh?” Matthew’s eyes moved to Mary. “Good things, I hope.”

  “Well, of course. We are talking about Mary Ross here. You are a hard worker. Smart and quick on your feet and with your wits. She hasn’t, that I remember, said anything bad about you at all.”

  Matthew gave Mary a grateful look, which she accepted and smiled in response to.

  “Thank you, Miss Ross. Ms. Marrow. I have to tell you that my parents weren’t happy when they saw you the other day and I’m really sorry. They still don’t want me to come to school but if you can get me a better job, they say they’ll let me do both, as long as the pay is right.”

  “Oh, Matthew, I’ve been meaning to stop by your place but I was sure Philip said he was going to.”

  “Philip? Jenkins? The printing guy, right? Newspaper guy.”

  Mary felt a streak of pride tense up her muscles for a moment. That was his way of describing Philip and it was much nicer than what he could have been called.

  “Yes, that’s him. He has a job opening for you and is willing to be flexible with your schedule. He said you need to come by and discuss it with him but you can tell your parents that you’ll be working with him directly. You can go home if you need to, to help the family after school, or you can go to work in the printing place. He’s promised not to be too hard on you, not keep you too late and to pay you well.”

  Matthew looked like he was going to cry. He gripped his hat in his hand so hard it crumpled. “Thank you, Miss Ross.” He was unable to contain himself. He crossed the room and threw his arms around her neck, gentle sobs coming from his thin body.

  Mary held on to the boy for a moment. “It’s going to be okay, Matthew. Everything is going to be okay.”

  Chapter 21

  Because he was late to school, Mary stayed after to help him catch up on what he’d missed. As Sarah had so teasingly pointed out, the lesson that day had been very easy. But when Matthew repeatedly fell asleep at his desk, Mary didn’t disturb him. She let him sleep for fifteen minutes before she woke him and told him to go on home.

  “You can catch up on your studies another time, dear. You have plenty of time now. All right? Go on now.”

  She gently got him out the door and stood there only a moment before turning back to hurriedly clear out her things and close the schoolhouse down for the day. She’d been thinking about getting back to Philip the whole time, through every interaction with the children, in between the lines on the pages of the books she read… She was enthralled with the man.

  Mary knew she had to keep her wits about her regardless.

  She had trained herself to stay on top of things, to be independent and to put her trust in only a few people. She had trusted that her parents would never leave her. The feeling of abandonment she’d naturally felt after their deaths had affected every other relationship she’d had since. She was a keen observer and had always known what she wanted.

  Now, with her newfound feelings for Philip, she felt a little out of control and didn’t want to get lost trying to win herself a man. She didn’t want to compromise herself or her moral values. She adhered to high standards of living. She would expect her man to do the same.

  But the more she thought about it, the more she realized that Philip was exactly that kind of man. In her talks with him, in getting to know him, she’d discovered a kindred spirit. He cared about things other than politics, corporations and money. He cared about people.

  She was also starting to think differently about Old Man Jenkins. It looked like she might be forced to meet the man. She probably should attempt to change her feelings about him beforehand so she didn’t make a fool of herself or Philip.

  Mary left the schoolhouse behind, hurrying away, swinging her cloth bag by her side, singing a happy tune. She was finally free to finish her conversation with Philip. The closer she got to the newspaper office, the harder her heart pounded in her chest.

  She went in the office without knocking because it was unlocked. She looked around the foyer, glancing through the doorway into Philip’s empty office, and through the doorway to where the printing press was. He wasn’t in there either.

  She lifted her chin and called out his name. “Philip?”

  She heard a thump in the back of the building followed by the sound of many thumps and shuffling. A moment later she spotted John coming down the short hall from the two back rooms, his hair disheveled, his clothes a bit askew.

  She wondered if he had a woman back there. She was sure he had a wife, and even had a baby on the way. Her face colored and she took a step back.

  “Oh… John… I… I’m sorry.”

  John shook his head, righting his clothes, running one hand through his hair.

  “No, no, you didn’t do anything. I just get… caught up in those books he’s got back there. I was brainlessly perched on top of a rickety ladder, reading one of them when you called out. Lost my balance and hit the floor.”

  Mary felt a pang of regret. “Oh no! I am sorry! I apologize for scaring you.”

  John threw back his head and let out a short laugh, shrugging his shoulders.

  “Like I said, no apologies necessary. I didn’t break a leg.”

  Mary sighed, relief sweeping through her. “Yes, thank God for that! I think your wife would be very upset with me!”

  John held out his hand for her to come back to the room he’d been in.

  “Philip’s not here but if you’d like to come back and have a chat with me, I’ll show you what I was doing back here.”

  Mary followed John, curiosity filling her with tingles of anticipation. The room they went to was filled with boxes, shelves lining all the walls, stopping only at the windows and the door. The floor wasn’t covered in papers, but there were plenty of them strewn about. Some even looked like they’d been trampled on.

  “You might call this my office,” John said, taking a seat after righting the turned-over ladder by one of the taller shelves. He was right. The ladder did look rickety.

  “You need to tell Philip to get a new ladder.” She turned her eyes around the smallish room while he chuckled and nodded. “This is your office? Philip isn’t doing right by you. I know he puts a lot of responsibility on you.”

  John waved for her to sit in one of the other chairs. Surprisingly, they were the only things that weren’t covered in the entire room. Every surface had stuff piled on it. The desk in the corner was useless. That might have been one of the reasons John had been reading at the top of the ladder. There was no room down below for whatever it was he had. He probably didn’t want to bring anything else down and add to the unkempt mess.

  “I want to tell you something in confidence, Mary,” John said. She was a little surprised by his use of her first name but then again, if she was right, Philip was probably talking a lot about her and he was referring to her as Mary. John probably thought of her that way without meaning to be improper.