Rustlers and Ribbons

by Kirsten Osbourne

  The older boy—he really needed to learn their names—turned to him and grinned. “Maybe you can tell us stories about what you and Ma did. We’d be very amused and promise not to mimic you. I don’t think a joke is as good if you don’t think of it yourself anyway.”

  Rica gave Darryl her best schoolteacher look. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea.” The boys had been well-behaved, but getting new ideas was not something she wanted for them.

  Darryl sighed. “I have to listen to my wife. What if she makes me stand in the corner all night at home?”

  Both boys giggled. “I had to stand in the corner a lot last year,” the younger boy said. “And we’re still not allowed to go into the mercantile. We apologized and helped clean up the mess, but I don’t think Mrs. Gottweiler is ever going to forgive us. Ever!”

  “Sometimes saying you’re sorry just isn’t enough. Even if you do help pick up the mess.”

  “Like when you and Ma painted the cow purple?” the older boy said to him.

  Darryl laughed. “She told you about that, did she? I think that’s the day our sister Lizard Breath started planning how she was going to get out of the house and away from us. Two years later, she was living in the biggest house you ever saw, and she was sending women off to marry strangers. She did a lot to get away from your Ma and me.”

  Doris grinned at him. His words were true, though certainly not the entire story. “Well, soon we’ll both be married, and the wonderful people of Beckham, Massachusetts will be able to tell stories about us forever.”

  “Our memories will live on in infamy!” Darryl grinned over at Rica, who was trying not to laugh. “Do you want to join me in my infamy?”

  “I’m not sure about that . . . I like teaching a lot, and if I join you in your infamy, I might end up jobless.” Rica grinned at him. She really did like his devil-may-care attitude about everything. It was very endearing. “This is the pastor’s house.” Rica drew a deep breath, suddenly nervous about the ceremony . . . and what would come after.

  They walked to the house, and he knocked on the door. When a woman opened it, she frowned at them. Her eyes caught Doris’s, and she said, “I’m still praying for you.”

  Doris smiled sweetly. “This is my brother, Darryl, and he’s here to marry our own schoolteacher, Rica. Would your husband be available to perform the wedding?”

  Mrs. Savoy shook her head. “I hope he plans to help you with your hellions . . .” She opened the door wide. “Come in.”

  “I brought my hellions with me. I’ll try not to let them destroy your parlor while we wait.” Doris had each of the twins’ hands, and the boys had their hands behind their backs.

  Mrs. Savoy rushed from the room. “Melvin! Hurry before our entire house is destroyed!”

  Gretchen looked at Doris and giggled. “That was rather mean of you to play off her fears that way.”

  “Sometimes being nice just hurts too much!” Doris sat down on one of the sofas, holding the twins on her lap. The boys were on either side of her, looking perfectly innocent. Of course, they all knew that the innocent look was sure to send the pastor’s wife into a fit of apoplexy.

  Pastor Savoy walked into the room, a smile on his face. “You sure do have my wife running scared of your children, Mrs. Butler. I approve!”

  Doris grinned. “My brother, Darryl, wants to marry Frederica Hughes, the local schoolteacher. I believe I introduced you at church last Sunday.” Rica had been going home to her parents’ house every weekend, and only in the past month had she gone to the local church and met some more of the people in the town she worked in.

  “Ah, yes, of course. It’s nice to see you again, Miss Hughes.” The pastor picked up his Bible. “Let’s get this wedding going.”

  Darryl and Rica took their places in front of the pastor, and he took her hand in his, offering what comfort he could. He could feel her nervousness, and he didn’t want to add to it.

  Ten minutes later, they were pronounced husband and wife. “Go ahead and kiss your bride, son.” The pastor grinned. He was a jovial man, and Darryl liked him instantly. He was sure he wouldn’t be preaching hellfire and brimstone like the pastor back in Beckham.

  Darryl reached out for Rica and pulled her to him, kissing her softly. “Happy wedding day, wife.”

  Rica stood there staring at him, and suddenly the most important thing in her mind was trying to remember if she’d made her bed that morning. She was usually neat and orderly at all times, but she’d slept a little later than she should have. Oh, dear, I don’t know if it’s made or not!

  Darryl turned to the pastor and shook his hand. “Thank you, sir.”

  “You’re very welcome. I hope to see you in church on Sunday.”

  “Oh, definitely. I never miss church.” And he never had. There was no better place to pull pranks on unsuspecting people.

  “Let’s all head back to my place, and I’ll feed us all a nice wedding supper. I could probably even manage to bake a cake,” Doris said, getting to her feet.

  “Chocolate?” Pris asked, her eyes dancing with excitement.

  “Only if you and your sister can lick the bowl for me. You know that’s the most important step . . .”

  “We will!” Pauline said excitedly.

  “That better mean we get to share the frosting,” one of the boys said. Darryl promised himself he was going to learn the names of those boys before the day was over. He didn’t care what it took. A man should know the names of all his nieces and nephews.

  Taking his new wife’s hand in his, he led the way out of the pastor’s house and back down the street. He was married. He didn’t feel any different, but every time he glanced at is beautiful wife, his heart beat just a little bit faster.

  Chapter 3

  Rica felt oddly as she walked hand-in-hand with her new husband toward her friend’s house. For a moment, she worried one of her students or their parents would see her, but it didn’t matter anymore. She was a married woman. There was nothing in the town’s charter about a schoolteacher marrying during her term, so unlike being seen in an ice cream parlor, this couldn’t be used against her.

  Darryl was joking around with the others and making the boys laugh. She felt a bit distanced from it all. He was obviously a man who enjoyed being the center of attention, while she tended to be more of a wallflower. She certainly hoped it was true what people said about opposites attracting, because she desperately wanted her marriage to work.

  She was glad she wasn’t going home to Pennington over the weekend because she wasn’t sure how she could explain to her parents that she’d married a stranger. Hopefully by the time she’d been married for a week, she’d have a good explanation in place, and her parents would accept it.

  Rica dove into helping with supper as soon as they were back at Doris’s house. Gretchen took a seat and picked up the sewing project she’d been working on. So much sewing had needed to be done when Doris arrived that Gretchen had immediately begun helping.

  The cake was in the oven and the frosting was whipped up by the time Harv walked in the door from work. He walked straight to his wife and kissed her softly. He smiled at Gretchen. “Best wishes.”

  Gretchen shook her head. “Rica married him.”

  Harv looked very confused for a moment, and he looked at his brother-in-law with surprise. “Now how did that happen?”

  Darryl shrugged. “Gretchen didn’t want to marry anyone but the father of her baby. Rica said she’d marry me, and I think she’s awfully pretty, so I figured why not? I came here to marry a stranger, and that’s just what I did.”

  Rica turned from the bread she was slicing. “He did ask me properly on one knee, though.”

  “He did?” Doris asked. “Why didn’t I get to see this? Don’t you know how much I would have loved to see Darryl on one knee? Did you make him grovel?”

  Darryl stuck his tongue out at his sister. He hadn’t realized just how childish she made him feel until that very moment. “She w
as very good about it, even though I couldn’t remember her last name.”

  “What do last names matter? She was about to change hers to Miller anyway. The kids are going to have fun learning to call you Mrs. Miller, aren’t they?” Harv asked.

  Bobby hurried into the kitchen then, a confused look on his face. Bobby was the older of the two Butler boys, and he usually spoke for both of them. “Are we supposed to call you Aunt Rica now? Or do we call you Mrs. Miller? Or do we still call you Miss Hughes? Things are getting really confusing around here!”

  Rica laughed. “You’ll call me Aunt Rica at home and Mrs. Miller at school. Will that work for you?”

  Bobby shook his head. “It’s going to be awfully hard to remember, but I’ll do my best.”

  “That’s all I’ve ever asked of you, isn’t it?” Rica asked as he headed back out of the room to tell his brother the answer to the question. Her eyes met Darryl’s. “You’re causing much confusion among the pupils of Salmon.”

  “Not deliberately!” Darryl protested. “I guess you could bring me to school for show and tell, so they can see why your name changed.”

  Harv shook his head at that. “Most certainly not. I’m going to keep you so busy at the sawmill, you’ll forget you have a wife from seven in the morning ’til six at night. Monday through Saturday.”

  Rica frowned at that. “You’re not even getting tomorrow off?” She had hoped they would have the entire weekend to get used to one another. It had to be strange enough to get used to living with a man you loved, but marrying a stranger? She definitely needed some time.

  “I can’t spare him. I’m sorry, Rica, you know I would if I could, but I’ve got orders piled up. I’ve promised everyone I’d have help starting tomorrow, so I will need to have him work starting tomorrow.”

  Darryl smiled at his wife. “It’ll be nice to have the extra money coming in. You’ll see.” He could see she was disappointed.

  Rica wasn’t entirely sure about that. She wanted to spend the entire weekend getting to know her new husband before returning to work on Monday. “I guess we’ll have to make the most of our Sundays off then.” She wondered if he’d care for a picnic. She’d always thought picnics were terribly romantic, and though she’d never had a beau to fix a picnic for, she’d dreamed about it often. She’d pack a picnic before church on Sunday, and the two of them would have a lovely lunch somewhere private.

  “Don’t worry, Rica. I’ll get him caught up, and then he’ll let me have two days off per week. You’ll see.”

  Harv shrugged. “I hope you can catch me up, but I have a feeling, it’s going to be like this for a good long while.”

  Darryl shrugged. “I happen to like working, as long as I’m not farming, so I’m sure I’ll enjoy every minute of it.”

  Shortly after they finished supper and cake, Darryl got to his feet. “I appreciate the warm wishes and congratulations. Thanks for helping us make the most of our wedding day.”

  Rica smiled at him, glad he didn’t mind getting up in front of groups and making little announcements like that. As much as she had to speak to her entire classroom full of children, everything changed when she had to talk to adults. “Are you ready to go?”

  He nodded. “I’m more tired than I realized until just this moment. But spending that long on a train just makes you thankful when you put your feet on solid ground.”

  Doris frowned at Harv. “Are you sure you need him tomorrow? It really is an exhausting journey.”

  Harv sighed. “I wish I could give him the weekend off and let him start on Monday, but I really can’t. It’s important to our livelihood that he start working in the morning.”

  Darryl smiled at his brother-in-law. “I understand, and it really is all right. I’m tired, but it’s nothing a good night’s sleep won’t take care of.” He grabbed his bags from beside the front door. “Lead the way, my lovely wife!”

  Rica blushed. “Thanks, Doris.” She hugged her friend. “I’ll probably stop by to talk tomorrow.”

  “I’d like that.” Doris looked at Gretchen. “All three of us?”

  “Like I would be anywhere else!” Gretchen said with a laugh.

  Rica led the way out of the house, walking toward the school and teacherage. “I met your sister when I set up a meeting with her to talk about the behavior of her boys. She was more than willing to work with me on getting them on the right track, and we were friends before I left. It was amazing how well we just clicked. She and Gretchen and me. We were the outcasts.” She knew he knew some of the story, and she was babbling more to cover the silence than anything. “I hate that it’s getting dark so early.”

  “It’s that time of year,” he said. “I helped finish up the harvest in Beckham and then I left to come here. My dad needed me to do my share.” It felt strange knowing they were going to her house to be alone. He’d never been quite that alone with a woman he wasn’t related to. “About tonight . . . we can wait a while to consummate if it makes you feel better. I’m all for doing it right away, but I can understand a woman not being as comfortable with that.”

  Rica thought about it for a moment. “Why don’t we take a week to court and see what happens from there? I’ve never been courted, and I love the idea of it.”

  “I’ve never courted anyone. My family was pretty much ostracized in our area because of the demon horde thing. I know you already know about it, so I’m not going to get into it too much, but it was hard to find someone to court or to even let me talk to her at a barn dance.”

  “You went to barn dances?” she asked. She’d always wanted to do something like that.

  “A few. But there was no dancing for me because all of the young ladies in the area knew to stay away from me.” He sighed. “We’ll figure this courting thing out together.”

  “Maybe we could do a dance in the school house next Friday night. To celebrate our wedding, or harvest, or the fact that we live in a free land.” She didn’t know why, but suddenly she felt like she needed to dance with him—to have that part of courting she’d always looked forward to but never had.

  “In other words, you don’t care what we call it, just so you get to go to a dance?”

  “As long as you promise to dance with me. I’ve never actually gone to a dance because I was always afraid I’d end up being a wallflower, and no one would ever ask me to dance. I love to dance.” Rica had practiced with her own brother for hours on end, but she’d never found the courage to actually go to one of the dances by herself. She’d prayed to be asked to the dance, but when she wasn’t, she wasn’t about to risk her feelings by standing alone.

  He grinned. “I would love to dance with my beautiful wife. I’m surprised you even have to ask.” He glanced at her sideways. “How much further?”

  She pointed. “That’s the schoolhouse up ahead, and the teacherage is right behind it. I hope you don’t feel too cramped in it.” She realized then she only had one bed in the little house. They would have to share it whether they were ready to be intimate or not. Why hadn’t she thought of that sooner?

  Darryl stopped in front of the school. “You should show me the schoolhouse. I want to see where my little wife disciplines students and turns them into thinking machines.”

  “I’m not sure about my students being thinking machines. In fact, I’m sure most of them aren’t. They come to school because their parents make them. Most of them plan to be farmers, fishermen, farmer’s wives, or fishermen’s wives. There’s never any variation. They know what kind of culture they come from, and they have no desire to rise above it.”

  “Does that make it hard to teach them?” He knew it had been similar at their little country school outside of Beckham. Everyone had known what they’d do from the moment they were born.

  “It does sometimes. They don’t understand why they need to know how to read and write when their jobs will likely have nothing to do with that. I convince the girls that they want to be able to read so they can follow recipes. The boys
need math so they won’t be cheated when they bring their catch into the market. That kind of thing. I wish I could get them to want knowledge just for the sake of knowledge, but that’s not happening anytime soon.” She opened the door to the schoolhouse and walked along the desks. “The school is big enough for twenty pupils. We have that many in the winter, but in the spring and fall, it’s more like fifteen. The bigger boys stay home to help with the chores.”

  He nodded. “That’s how it was back home, too. My sisters could do math in circles around me because I never got as much of an education as they did. My father said it was just the way of the world, and I needed to be happy I could go to school in the winter.”

  Rica sighed. “It seems to be the way of farming communities everywhere. Hopefully one day that will all change and school will be mandatory for children all nine months of the year.”

  He stopped and looked at her desk. “If I were your student, I’d have spent a lot of time in the corner.”

  “I’m sure you would. Or getting your knuckles rapped with a ruler.”

  “Do you do that?” he asked. All of his teachers had believed in rapping the knuckles of the most undisciplined of their pupils, and that was usually him and his siblings. His parents had never believed in corporal punishment, but they’d never argued when the teachers had meted it out.

  She shrugged. “I never have. I came close to using a ruler on both Bobby and Matthew last year, but thankfully it never came to that.”

  “Sit at your desk.” Darryl sat down at one of the desks meant for the youngest students, his knees banging into the desk in front of him.

  “Why?”

  “I just want to picture you as the teacher.” He didn’t mention that her hair was falling out of its pins. He could tell that first thing in the morning, she tried to tame her blond curls, but by the end of the day, there were tendrils escaping every which way. He loved it.

  Rica sighed, but she sat down at her desk. “School will now come to order,” she said in her best teacher voice.