Elizabeth held the baby inside her shawl while she bent over the book Spotted Fawn was showing her. The girl was already learning to read a few words and was carefully pronouncing them.
“That’s wonderful,” Elizabeth said and then beamed up at Jake as he closed the door on the second wood-stove. “Spotted Fawn can read!”
Jake walked over and put his arm on his niece’s shoulder. He looked as if he was going to say something, but just then there were the sounds of footsteps on the porch.
“Someone’s already here,” a boy’s voice protested from outside as something dropped on the wood.
Elizabeth looked at Jake. “That has to be Elias.”
Jake nodded grimly. “I’ll go see what he’s up to.”
Before Jake got to the door, however, it opened.
“Why, whatever—” Mrs. Barker said as she stood there in surprise. She had a handkerchief wrapped around her copper hair and a bucket of paint in one hand. She looked at Jake and Elizabeth. “What are you doing here at this hour of the morning?”
“Starting the fire,” Jake said.
“I didn’t think anyone would be here,” Mrs. Barker said. She had a blanket draped around herself and a well-worn work dress showing under that. “I don’t normally go around looking like this.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Elizabeth said. She was glad to see the other woman wasn’t always so proper. “No one dresses up when they go to paint. I’m so glad you decided to help with the wall.”
“Well,” Mrs. Barker said with a twist to her lips. “It is Christmas. And Elias is quite taken with all of the stars. He wanted to add a couple of constellations to the wall. It won’t be much paint so we thought it would be okay if we did it before school today.”
By this time Elias was inside the schoolroom, as well. He carried a couple of small paintbrushes. For once, he wasn’t scowling.
“I thought maybe the Big Dipper,” Elias said. “I like that one.”
“I like it, too,” Jake said as he walked over to the boy. “If you want any help getting the distances right, let me know.”
Well, Elizabeth thought, a person just never knew what would happen in a day.
Elizabeth helped Mrs. Barker get the paint opened and stirred while Jake and Elias marked the places on the wall where they wanted their stars.
“It was good of you to do this,” Mrs. Barker finally said. “All of the stars and other Christmas decorations are nice.”
Elizabeth nodded. She refused to ask the other woman if she was the one who had painted that awful black line. It had to have been her. Who else would have done it? But if Elizabeth asked the question she was pretty sure it would destroy any fragile truce they had managed.
“We’ll wait until after Christmas for—” Mrs. Barker said with a nod of her head at Spotted Fawn.
“She is not harming anyone,” Elizabeth said, trying to keep her voice low and mild. She didn’t want to let the remark pass, but she didn’t want to distress Spotted Fawn, either, so she didn’t want the girl to hear their voices.
“We’ve got the places marked,” Elias called out excitedly.
Mrs. Barker took the paint over to Elias and Jake.
“He’s having fun,” Elizabeth said when the other woman returned to where they had been standing.
Mrs. Barker nodded. “It’s good for him to spend some time with a man. Boys like that and his father has been away for such a long time.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“He’s off prospecting again. He made one big strike. You’d think that would be enough for the man. We have everything we need, but he’s off again. Someplace over by Helena, the last time he wrote.”
“Well, I’m sure he’ll be home soon,” Elizabeth said. She didn’t want to feel sympathy for the other woman, but she did.
“I keep thinking that, if the railroad comes, there would be a good job that would keep him here. A boy needs his father.”
And a wife needs her husband, Elizabeth thought, until the irony of it struck her.
By the time the reverend got to the school, several constellations were painted and the chill had been taken off the morning air.
“Oh, the children will be so pleased,” the reverend said as he admired the additional stars. “That’s excellent work, Elias.”
The boy ducked his head. His face was pink with pleased embarrassment.
“I think everyone would agree that Miles City is keeping up their end of things,” Mrs. Barker said proudly.
“It’s not a competition,” Elizabeth protested. “It’s Christmas.”
“Still, people have certain expectations of the people of Miles City that they naturally don’t have of the people of Dry Creek.”
“I don’t think—” Elizabeth began.
“Ladies,” Reverend Olson interrupted hastily. “You have both given us wonderful decorations. And the children are so excited about the Christmas tree you mentioned.”
“There’s going to be a Christmas tree?” Mrs. Barker frowned. “Elias didn’t tell me there was going to be a tree.”
“It won’t be a big tree,” Elizabeth said. “Jake says he thinks there are a few short pines not too far east of here, down some ravine. He’s going to bring a small one back for us.”
Elizabeth had been delighted when Jake had heard them talking and offered to bring them the tree. She had never known a man before who bothered with the dreams of children.
“Well, if we have a tree, we want to have a proper one. My husband used to say there were some fine-looking pines north of here someplace. He and Elias saw them when they were out riding one day. I’m sure Elias remembers. It’s quite a ways from here I think, but maybe he could tell one of the men where it is and—”
“I’m sure Jake will talk to him,” Elizabeth said. “But it’s likely too far. I’m sure if there’s anything close, Jake would know about it. Besides, a simple tree is fine. Just something so the children can make ornaments.”
“Oh, dear, no,” Mrs. Barker said. “I don’t think we want a small little tree to represent our town. We have a certain reputation, after all.”
Elizabeth figured the other woman would stop worrying as the day went on, but she was wrong. By the time Elizabeth and Virginia were ready to help the students make ornaments, Mrs. Barker was back at the schoolhouse, this time dressed in a mauve silk dress and matching hat.
Annabelle had offered to keep the baby at the store with her while Elizabeth and Virginia worked on Christmas with the children so Elizabeth was able to give her complete focus to the ornaments. Unfortunately, focus hadn’t been enough.
“I guess people generally use red paper,” Elizabeth said as she and Virginia looked at the rope of white paper that the students had made. The decoration was sitting on top of the teacher’s desk. The loops in the rope were uneven and, instead of looking charming, it gave the whole thing the appearance of being fought over by a couple of dogs.
“I don’t suppose we could paint the paper with something,” Virginia asked.
“Oh, of course not,” Mrs. Barker said as she walked over to where they stood. “Any kind of paint we have would wrinkle the paper even more. You need to let me buy us some decorations. The children have better things to do than decorate a Christmas tree, anyway.”
“We can’t buy Christmas,” Elizabeth protested. “The children have as much right to decorate a tree as anyone here.”
“Ladies,” the reverend interrupted gently.
Elizabeth looked behind her to see the children all looking at her and Mrs. Barker. Some of the younger girls had big eyes and even the boys were looking a little stunned.
“Of course, the important thing about Christmas is that we all get along,” Elizabeth said as she forced a big smile onto her face.
Then Elizabeth walked right over to Mrs. Barker and gave her a hug.
The other woman gasped, but Elizabeth knew there was nothing Mrs. Barker could do but adjust her hat and smile back
.
“And, don’t worry,” Elizabeth said to the children as she turned to face them. “Miss Virginia and I are going over to the store right now to see what we can get to use to make better ornaments. We’ll be back.”
With that Elizabeth swept out of the room, with Virginia following her.
“Do you think Annabelle will let us owe the money for a week or so?” Virginia asked as they started walking down the street. “I don’t make enough to do more than pay for my room and board. Although Colter has said all along that I could use the piano to start giving lessons to people. Maybe then I’d have extra—”
Elizabeth stopped. “The piano in the saloon?”
It was the middle of the afternoon and the streets of Miles City were dry, but quiet.
Virginia nodded. “So, of course, it would have to be an adult for them to have the lessons.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “We need to find you a different job. I’m sure you could find children who would want to take piano lessons, but their parents will never send them to that place to take them.”
“I know,” Virginia sighed. “But, even if I had a room someplace, I would need a piano. I’ve been praying, but—”
“I know.” Elizabeth pursed her lips. Finally, someone else understood. “God just doesn’t answer.”
Virginia looked startled. “That’s not what I was going to say. I was just going to say He hasn’t told me my next step yet.”
“Oh,” Elizabeth said.
“I can understand how you feel,” Virginia said softly. “I’m still grieving for my brother, too.”
Elizabeth nodded. “I can’t get past it. The whole thing is just a knot inside of me. That’s why I’m wearing this mourning dress. I need to find a way past everything if I’m going to stay with Jake.”
“Well, I’ll pray you do that then,” Virginia said as they reached the boardwalk in front of the mercantile. “It’s not everyone that gets a second chance at happiness.”
When they walked inside the store, Annabelle walked out from behind her counter and greeted them. “The baby’s asleep in the back if that’s why you’ve come.”
Elizabeth shook her head. She’d already been over to nurse.
“We want something to make into Christmas ornaments,” Virginia said.
Annabelle motioned for them to follow her over to a shelf. “We do have some of the most beautiful handblown ornaments, if you decide not to make them yourselves.”
Annabelle pulled a box off the shelf and opened it.
“Ohhh,” Elizabeth said. Beautiful glass apples shone there. And shiny pinecones. And clusters of red berries.
“They’re expensive, of course. The owners ordered them from the Greiner’s factory in Germany. They were supposed to be on our shelves last Christmas, but they got stuck in the docks in New York and missed some railroad connection so we saved them to sell this Christmas.”
The ornaments were molded into the shapes of fruits and nuts.
“They’re lovely,” Virginia sighed.
“But we’re thinking more of something to use so the students here can make their own ornaments.” Elizabeth added.
“Well, if that’s what you want, the best thing is right here.”
With that, Annabelle went behind the counter, reached down inside the clerk’s space and pulled out the Turkey red calico cloth that Elizabeth had dyed.
“I know this cloth has special meaning to you,” Annabelle said. “But ornaments wouldn’t use much of it. And it would make lovely ornaments—it’s got that strong Christmas red color.”
“Oh, that’s the perfect thing to do with it,” Elizabeth said.
“I still don’t know how you managed to get it so the color would stay,” Annabelle said.
“It was simple enough.” Elizabeth grinned. “I boiled the cloth in alkali and let it sit in a tub of soured oil before I dunked it in the dye.”
Virginia wrinkled her nose.
Elizabeth nodded. “I had to do it outdoors. Matthew refused to walk near the tub. It did smell pretty bad.”
She might wear this mourning dress in memory of Matthew, but her heart would ease some on her daughter’s death if the children made Christmas ornaments out of Rose’s cloth. She knew the bright red cloth ornaments would have delighted Rose if she could see them.
“Still, Matthew must have been proud of you. Knowing how to do something like that,” Annabelle said.
Elizabeth shook her head. “It embarrassed him that I was doing what he called servant work.”
“I didn’t know you had servants.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Oh, we didn’t have the money for something like that. Matthew just wanted us to live like we had servants. Which meant I had to do so many things when he wasn’t looking. Unfortunately dyeing wasn’t something that could be done when he was away for an hour or so.”
“Well, he should have been proud of you for doing what you did,” Annabelle protested staunchly. “Not every woman knows how to dye her own cloth.”
“It wasn’t just that the smells were bad,” Elizabeth said. “He didn’t like that my hands sometimes wore a stain for days afterward. I tried to be careful, but it is hard to dye things without getting any of the dye on you.”
“Well, Jake would have been proud,” Annabelle said. “It’s quite something what you can do.”
Elizabeth smiled. “I used to be so taken away when I was dyeing things. To be able to turn something plain into something beautiful is—well, it’s hard to describe. One good dunking and everything looks different.”
“It’s like getting a second chance,” Virginia said. “Like with redemption. You know, in the Bible.”
“I suppose it is at that.”
When they got back to the schoolroom, Mrs. Barker had gone. Elizabeth showed the children the cloth and Virginia started to cut some of it into strips so the children could make bright red Christmas braids for the tree.
When Virginia told everyone that Elizabeth had dyed the cloth herself, the children were impressed.
“Maybe we can dye some of the costumes for the pageant,” Elizabeth said, looking to Reverend Olson for approval. “We’d have to do it outside, of course, and only the adults could actually do the dyeing. But it is interesting.”
The reverend nodded. “I’m sure my wife would like to see this, too. Not too many people dye things anymore. It’s quite the art.”
Elizabeth beamed. No one had ever called her dyed fabrics art before.
She’d thought about what Virginia had said earlier, about her dyeing cloth being like a redemptive second chance. She wondered if God ever felt the way she did after she’d taken something gray and sorrowful and given it a new life. She hoped He did. Maybe He could do that with the angry hurt inside of her.
Chapter Fifteen
Two days later, Jake was chopping wood again behind the schoolhouse. He had found a small pine tree the day before and dragged it up from the ravine. The tree wasn’t higher than four feet tall. He knew Elias was convinced there was a ten-foot tree out there somewhere, but Jake knew there wasn’t a pine tree that tall closer than the ponderosas in the Black Hills and even the soldiers weren’t making that trip right now.
There were rumors that the renegades were banding together to make some final attacks before winter set in. Of course, everyone was probably safe this close to the fort. There were not that many renegades even if they all came together for an attack.
Jake told all of that to Elias, but the boy repeated his claim with a fervor made more adamant by his obvious wish that his father was here to back him up and his mother’s misguided statements that even an eight-foot-tall tree would solve everyone’s Christmas troubles. She considered the four-foot-tall tree they had in the schoolhouse to be no better than a bush.
Jake had no patience with any of it. He knew no tree would solve his trouble. Unless, of course, he could chop it up into kindling and use it to burn that old mourning dress his wife was wearing.
&nbs
p; “Here, let me carry that,” he said as he saw Elizabeth walking around the side of the schoolhouse pulling an old scrubbing tub.
“Thanks,” Elizabeth said as she stopped and tried to catch her breath.
“You should have called me earlier,” Jake said as he picked up the tub and balanced it on his shoulder. “That’s what you have a husband for.”
“Oh.” Elizabeth was still wearing that drab mourning dress, but she blushed like a young girl.
Jake didn’t even try to hide his grin. “I’m guessing this tub has something to do with Christmas?”
Elizabeth nodded and her eyes lit up. “We’re going to dye some of the costumes for the pageant. I thought it would be a good chance to show the children how clothes are dyed. Some of them have never seen it done.”
“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it, either,” Jake said. He needed a break from chopping wood about now anyway. “Maybe I could use a little education, too.”
“You’re interested in dyeing?” Elizabeth asked, the delight evident in her face. “Most men don’t pay any attention to that kind of thing.”
“Out here, men need to know a lot of different things.”
Elizabeth nodded. “You can help me build the fires then. We’ll need three of them. One for the yellow. One for the brown. And the tub of soda ash for getting the angel costumes a little more white. Well, and setting the other colors, too.”
Jake nodded. It was a good thing he and Colter were chopping firewood the way they were. They were going to need it.
Elizabeth walked back into the schoolhouse and stood for a minute in the doorway. The children had spent so many hours making ornaments lately and practicing their songs for the pageant that they had spread out to cover both halves of the room. She had noticed the young Larson girl was even chatting away with Spotted Fawn yesterday during recess. Elizabeth figured it was difficult to continue being afraid of Spotted Fawn when the children saw how much effort she was putting into pronouncing the names right in her McGuffy Reader.
Calico Christmas at Dry Creek Page 17