Jake had watched Elizabeth walk around the schoolhouse before he turned and looked for several good places to put her dyeing tubs. The schoolhouse was on the edge of town and, standing behind it, a man could see for miles. A few cottonwoods were scattered here and there and there was a fair-sized ravine that ran fairly close to the school. He suspected the boys had some good games with each other, hiding in that ravine.
Jake decided to set the tubs up a few yards from the school. He had barely cleared the second spot of dead grass when Colter walked around the schoolhouse carrying his ax. Jake glanced up and knew something was wrong. He’d seen the other man frown a fair amount, but he’d never seen him looking so thunderous.
“Problems?” Jake asked.
Colter grunted as he walked past Jake and went to a log that was lying near the woodpile.
Jake followed the other man over. “You didn’t overhear any other pranks the boys are planning, did you?”
Colter shook his head as he positioned himself in front of the log to take a swing with his ax. “Nope. But I found out who’s been robbing the till.”
Jake watched as the other man took a powerful swing at the log with the ax, chopping it cleanly into two pieces.
“The bartender?”
Colter shook his head as he moved to take another swing. “Danny.”
Jake stood there in sympathy as the ax hit the wood. “You’re sure?”
Colter turned and looked at Jake fully for the first time. “I caught him at it. He didn’t deny it, either. He told me he was taking the money so he could buy Miss Virginia her own piano.” Colter’s lips twisted into a bitter smile. “That’s why he stole that watch, too. It seems Danny doesn’t think Miss Virginia should play the piano in my fine establishment. He thinks she should have her own place where she can give piano lessons to people without them needing to come to a saloon.”
“Ahh,” Jake said.
Colter glared at Jake. “I suppose you agree with Danny.”
Jake shrugged. “A woman like Virginia knows how to behave no matter where she is, but I do think she’d get more students if she was in her own place.”
As the two men stood there for a minute longer, the fight went out of Colter.
“Don’t you think I know that?” Colter said. “But she doesn’t have money to buy her own piano. How’s she going to set herself up in business?”
“Maybe some of us could get together and loan her the money,” Jake said.
“You know she’d never take it,” Colter said. “Before she even started working at my place, I offered to give her some money. She was so indignant you’d have thought I was offering to buy her virtue.”
“Were you?” Jake asked softly. He knew the way men like Colter operated.
Colter shook his head. “I didn’t intend it at the time, but, well—I’ve never known a woman like Virginia before. She’s—” Colter swallowed. “The truth is I don’t know what she is, but I do know Danny is right. She doesn’t belong in my place playing piano for a bunch of depressed men who’ve got nothing better to do than drink themselves into an early grave. She doesn’t belong anywhere around men like that—or, ones like me.”
With that, Colter sank his ax into the tree log and stomped off.
Give the poor man grace, Lord, Jake prayed as he watched Colter walk around the side of the schoolhouse. He figured Colter knew he didn’t stand much chance with Virginia, but the man still wanted to help her to a better life. A man who didn’t know how to help the woman he loved was a miserable man indeed.
Jake decided he could use some of that grace himself. He had spent more time these last few days resenting that old mourning dress his wife was wearing than asking himself how he could help her with her grief. Whether she decided she wanted to be married to him or not, he owed her the concern he would give to anyone else who had seen someone they loved die.
It was afternoon before Elizabeth had everything ready for the children to watch their costumes being dyed. Before she had left the house that morning, she’d put all of the old union suits in the back of the wagon so she’d have them in school today. There were nineteen union suits and seventeen children in the pageant. Some of the union suits needed to be cut and some cinched with a rope so they’d stay on, but each child had their own and brought it out behind the schoolhouse to be dyed.
The sun was shining today and the children were comfortable outside.
“Stand back,” Elizabeth said as the children came too close to the tub she had boiling. “This first dye is yellow for the stars.”
“Take mine first,” Tommy said.
Elizabeth accepted Tommy’s union suit and put it in the boiling water. She had dried petals of goldenrod and marigolds in there.
While Elizabeth was dyeing the yellow suits, Jake put up another tub a few yards away. Soda ash was stirred into the boiling water in that tub. The limestone-and-salt mixture would help set the yellow dye and whiten the angel costumes.
The last tub, filled with water and the husks from black walnut shells, was boiling away. That dye would make the shepherd’s costumes a nice brown.
It would take most of the afternoon to finish the dyeing and Elizabeth was amazed that Jake helped her with the stirring. The yellow and soda ash tubs didn’t smell too bad, but most people didn’t like to go too close to any of it.
Jake was in love. He’d known it before, but watching Elizabeth and her dyes made him proud of his wife. She showed a reverence for the whole process that made the children feel as though they were part of an important moment. And Jake agreed that they were. His wife knew how to change things. She was taking those old union suits and making them into costumes that were exciting the children.
“I think we want a little more yellow for your star, Elias, don’t you?” Elizabeth asked as she held up the boy’s costume. “After all you are the brightest star in the sky.”
Elias nodded.
Jake wondered how his wife had managed to take this schoolroom full of students who just last week were sitting on opposite sides of each other and make them into one excited group of kids pulling together to have just the right colors.
Jake stayed through all of the dyeing and watched as finally each child had a wet union suit in a different color that they were holding close enough to them so they could see what each other looked like.
“Look, Spotted Fawn isn’t brown no more—and Elias is yellow,” the Larson girl said with a giggle.
Jake almost said something, but he saw Elizabeth turn to the girl.
“That’s the way it is with most color,” Elizabeth said as she looked over all of the children with satisfaction in her eyes. “Color is usually just on the outside. Inside most things are the same.”
“Hair’s that way, too,” Tommy said. “Elias got his in red and I got mine in brown.”
“I’ve always said God likes color,” Elizabeth agreed as she motioned for the children to bring their union suits to the rope she’d tied between two of the closer cottonwood trees. “We’ll just let these dry while we go back inside and practice your songs for the pageant.”
Jake watched the children walk around the side of the schoolhouse. He couldn’t help but notice they walked a little closer to Spotted Fawn than they usually did.
Jake realized he’d married a miracle worker. He didn’t know if his wife had set out to teach the children a lesson on the color of everyone’s skin, but he had a hunch she had known exactly what she was doing. It made him feel humble. And even more sympathetic than before to Colter.
Elizabeth had left some bean soup simmering on the back of the cookstove when she’d left in the morning so, by the time she, Jake, Spotted Fawn and the baby came back to the cabin late that afternoon, supper was almost ready.
“Just let me see to the horses,” Jake said as he helped Elizabeth down from the wagon.
Jake guided the horses closer to the lean-to once Elizabeth and Spotted Fawn were inside his cabin. He wanted to unload a few thin
gs without anyone seeing. When the wagon was still, he stepped down and folded back the furs that had been lying behind the seat.
He had a mirror and hairbrush for Spotted Fawn for Christmas and a small music box for the baby. Annabelle had wrapped them both in bright pieces of cloth when he bought them in the mercantile this afternoon. He’d searched the shelves for something fitting for Elizabeth, but he hadn’t found anything. He had gone to the telegraph office, however, and put in an order for a large piece of pink granite for that headstone he had promised her.
The girls’ presents were to be a surprise, but the headstone wasn’t. He planned to tell Elizabeth that he’d ordered it; he just didn’t want to talk about it in front of the children. He knew that Spotted Fawn had grown close to Elizabeth. He didn’t want his niece to worry that, once the gravestone was completed, Elizabeth would leave them.
Although, he had to admit, his niece might be right to think that. Jake spent a few extra minutes taking the presents up to his loft area before walking back to the cabin door.
Elizabeth added a little more salt to the bean soup. She would let the soup finish cooking while she put the leftover biscuits from breakfast into the oven to heat.
“My angel costume is the whitest,” Spotted Fawn said as she walked over to the stove. “Even Elias says so.”
Elizabeth smiled as she slid the cold biscuits onto a tin plate. “Christmas is not a competition. It’s our Lord’s birthday. But I am glad to see you are making some friends.”
Spotted Fawn shook her head emphatically. “Elias is not my friend, he’s my enemy.”
Elizabeth opened the door next to the stove’s firebox and put the biscuits inside. “Well, sometimes enemies can become friends. It takes more effort, of course, but the Bible talks about it.”
Jake walked through the door.
“What does the Bible talk about?” he asked as he took off his coat.
“Making friends out of enemies.” Spotted Fawn frowned. “I’m not sure it can be done.” She looked up at Jake.
Jake nodded. “You’ll even be able to read about it yourself. I’ll show you where it talks about it tonight when I come up to say good-night.”
“Supper will be ready soon,” Elizabeth said as she turned away from the stove.
An hour later, Jake sighed in contentment. They were all seated at the table, although Elizabeth looked as if she was ready to get up again.
Jake stood and put his hand on his wife’s shoulder. “You sit a bit more. I’ll start the water heating for dishes. You’ve had a busy day.”
Elizabeth nodded. “But you still don’t have to—I mean, I’m perfectly able to wash a few dishes.”
“So am I,” Jake said as he bent down and picked up the dish tub from the bottom shelf. “Maybe they won’t come out a different color than they were when I started, like you did today with those costumes. But I can get something clean enough.”
“Even the browns turned out pretty good,” Elizabeth said as she stood up. “And it’s hard to get a true color in browns.”
Eventually, Jake and Elizabeth decided to do the dishes together. Elizabeth was washing and Jake was drying the dishes with a piece of flannel. When he’d done dishes in the old days, he’d give them a good dunking in hot water and set them back on the shelves. But drying dishes was nice. He got to stand close enough to Elizabeth that their hips were always touching.
Spotted Fawn was rocking the baby to sleep so Jake kept his voice low so only Elizabeth could hear.
“I lost my mother, you know,” Jake said quietly. “I know how it is to lose someone you love.”
Elizabeth looked up from the dishwater in surprise.
“If there’s anything I can do to help you grieve, let me know,” Jake continued. He might not be overly fond of that black dress, but he was surely attached to the woman who was wearing it.
Elizabeth blinked. “Thank you, I—well, thank you.”
“I ordered the headstone today. Granite, like I promised.”
“Oh.”
“It won’t be here until after Christmas, but I’ll start to carving as soon as it comes.” Jake figured that finishing that headstone was the one clear thing he could do to help his wife in her grief.
“I’m obliged,” Elizabeth said.
Jake nodded as he went back to drying dishes. He hadn’t known what simple pleasures were to be had when there was a woman like Elizabeth in his house.
“You did a fine thing this afternoon,” Jake said as he folded his flannel cloth and set it on the shelf. “Dyeing the costumes for the children and helping them to see that God has made us all different and yet the same.”
“Well, it’s true,” Elizabeth said and then hesitated. “Your baby niece taught me that.”
“I wish the parents of those children could learn the lesson, too.”
Elizabeth winced. “I think Mrs. Barker is getting worse, not better. She was at the school this afternoon and I could tell she was trying to get the children to sit on the Miles City side of the room. The reverend kept them up doing sums at the board and then Virginia had them singing, so we just didn’t let anyone sit down much. But we can’t keep that up.”
Jake nodded. It was hard to worry about Mrs. Barker when he noticed how delicate his wife’s neck was with that loose strand of hair falling down like it was. That mourning dress might be all that was ugly, but it showed off Elizabeth’s skin for the beauty it was.
Chapter Sixteen
It was Thursday of the next week before the alterations were made on the costumes and the children could all hit the high notes in the Christmas carols they were practicing for the pageant. Sunday had come and gone with no thaw in the line that separated Miles City from Dry Creek in church. Elizabeth was unhappy about that. She didn’t like to see conflict in the church and, added to that, there were only a few people who came to sit on the Miles City side. Mrs. Barker and her friends stayed away.
The Reverend Olson just carried on as if the whole church was in attendance.
Elizabeth asked him about that on Wednesday.
“God would rather people speak their minds than just go home and complain about the church’s policy on something,” he said.
Elizabeth was helping the reverend get ready for school to start. Spotted Fawn and the baby were in the back of the room and Jake was outside getting some wood for the fires.
“I always thought it was disrespectful to show that kind of anger to God,” she said, a little hesitantly.
The reverend chuckled. “I’m sure God has seen more anger in His time than any one of us can possibly imagine.”
Elizabeth took a breath. This was her chance. “When my baby died, I was afraid to tell God I was angry for fear He’d punish me and not let me see her again, not even in Heaven.”
“Oh, dear,” the reverend said. “God isn’t interested in punishing you for your feelings. He knows you are grieving for your baby.”
Elizabeth blinked.
“If you want to cry, that’s fine,” the reverend said.
Elizabeth shook her head. “I don’t cry.”
Just then Jake stepped inside and the reverend called him over.
“It’s time to comfort each other,” the reverend said as Jake stepped closer. “That’s what being married is about.”
Elizabeth stiffened. But Jake just put his arms around her and drew her to him. He had been outside and his clothes were cold and a little damp. He was wearing his wool shirt, though and, once it warmed up, it was soft and nice.
Jake didn’t seem to want anything but to hold her so Elizabeth relaxed against him.
“The reverend and I were just talking,” Elizabeth mumbled against Jake’s chest. “About Rose and Matthew.”
“I know,” he said as he pulled her closer. “I know.”
“I don’t think I can forget about them.”
Jake pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “You don’t have to. Just add me and the girls to them.”
If t
here weren’t more footsteps on the porch outside the schoolhouse, Elizabeth thought she would never have moved away from Jake’s arms. As it was, she took the feel of his arms with her throughout the rest of the day.
Later that day, Elizabeth taught the angels to fly. Colter had given them some smooth wire he had in the back room at his place and Virginia bent the wire into the shape of wings for each of the angels while Elizabeth took the angels, once they had wings, and taught them how to walk without doing damage to anyone passing by. The children called it learning to fly.
“Well, I get to be a blazing star,” Elias said as he went over to twist a bit on Spotted Fawn’s wings. The girl turned to glare at him.
Elizabeth’s heart sang at the sight. Elias was treating Spotted Fawn just the way he treated the other girls. Spotted Fawn might not see his actions as being friendly, but Elizabeth knew it was a big step forward for the boy.
“Now, children,” Elizabeth said, her voice all that was proper.
Virginia finished fashioning the last of the angel wings and stepped over to where Elizabeth was.
“I think we’re going to be ready,” Virginia said.
Elizabeth nodded. It was Wednesday and the pageant was set for Friday evening. “I think it’s going to be wonderful.”
The angels were in tune, the shepherds had all found an old tree branch to use as a staff, and the stars had practiced looking wise for the procession. Annabelle and Higgins were going to play Mary and Joseph.
The short Christmas tree was decorated with stars and wreaths cut out of Rose’s red calico. It might not be a glamorous tree, but it had been made with the love of little fingers. The reverend was calling the class back to attention so Elizabeth and Virginia quietly went outside on the steps of the school. The air was chilly, but not as cold as it had been. The sky was overcast, though, and the whole town of Miles City looked gray and muddy.
“Not very much like Christmas out here,” Virginia said. “I keep telling Colter he needs to put some decorations up in his window, but he keeps saying that’s not the kind of place he runs.”
Calico Christmas at Dry Creek Page 18