Tracie Peterson, Tracey V. Bateman, Pamela Griffin, JoAnn A. Grote

by Prairie Christmas Collection

  Mantie filled a bowl with oatmeal from the pot on the back of the stove and sat down at the table. As the children often did on cold winter mornings, they’d pulled the table closer to the stove. Mantie was glad they had. The extra warmth was especially welcome after the cold blast of air let into the kitchen with their leave-taking.

  She checked the white porcelain pitchers on the table. The children and Walter hadn’t emptied them. She poured warm maple syrup on the oatmeal to sweeten it and covered it with cream.

  “Are you going to join me, Alice, or have you already eaten?”

  “Mm.” Alice set a cup of coffee beside Mantie’s plate and seated herself across the table.

  Mantie tilted her head and studied her sister-in-law’s face. “Are you all right?”

  Alice rested her elbows on the table and waved one hand in dismissal. “I’m not hungry, thank you.”

  Mantie shook her head. If Alice were a student, the teacher would accuse her of daydreaming. “I’m sorry I overslept this morning and left you to feed everyone and get them off to school and work.”

  “I didn’t mind. Did you have a good time with Mr. Powell yesterday? You do like him, don’t you?”

  So that was it. Alice’s mind wasn’t on breakfast and Monday morning chores. She wanted to know whether her matchmaking attempt had succeeded.

  “He seems to be nice,” Mantie conceded.

  “Did he ask to see you again?”

  “No.”

  “Oh. That’s too bad. Of course, he still might ask you. Maybe he’s scared off by your reputation.”

  “I hardly think—”

  “Didn’t he hint at liking you, even when you were alone together down the river?”

  “No. I mean …” The memory of his laughing response when she’d asked whether he was trying to make a match between her and Abe flashed through her mind: Not for Abe.

  Alice didn’t seem to notice her hesitation. “I have something to tell you.”

  “Yes?”

  “That is, Walter and I have something to tell you, but Walter thought I should tell you.” Alice looked uncharacteristically embarrassed. “Alice, you are not making any sense this morning.”

  Alice rested her hands in her lap, took a deep breath, and met Mantie’s curious gaze. “We’re going to have a baby.”

  Mantie blinked. “A baby? I mean, that’s wonderful.”

  Alice smiled. Her shoulders lifted in a nervous shrug. “We think so. Walter is very excited about it.”

  “Of course he is. Are you feeling all right?”

  “Oh, yes. I was sick when I got up this morning, but I’m fine now.”

  “Don’t worry about getting up to take care of anyone for a while. I can see to getting breakfast and all. When is the baby due?”

  “The end of June.” Alice rested her hand on her stomach. “My dresses are beginning to feel tight already.”

  “We’ll need to make you some new clothes.”

  Alice reached across the table and clasped one of Mantie’s hands. “I’m so glad you’re here. I’m excited about the baby, but I feel safer knowing I have you to depend on.”

  Mantie smiled and squeezed Alice’s fingers. “I’m glad I’m here, too. It will be fun to have a baby in the house, won’t it?”

  But later, cleaning soot from the kerosene lamp chimneys while Alice heated water for the weekly laundry, Mantie wondered how long Alice would welcome a sister-in-law in her home. At the moment, Walter’s home was large enough to easily house his sister, nephew, and niece. He and Alice were only starting their family. Would Alice soon feel Walter’s extended family was crowding her and Walter’s family?

  What else can I do but live here, Lord? I can’t support myself, let alone Jesse and Jenny.

  The young town desperately needed skilled people, but it didn’t need any of her skills. She could teach, but neither the town nor the surrounding townships needed teachers. Men filled the available positions. The salaries the male teachers demanded cost the townships more than female teachers, but everyone agreed men needed the jobs more than women, especially women like herself who had relatives to support them.

  She could sew, but the town already had a tailor, and a number of women took in sewing. She doubted she could make enough money to pay for room and board from sewing, even if she added laundry and ironing. Those needs were also already met by others.

  She was a good cook, but she hadn’t the funds to open an eating establishment.

  Men served as clerks at the few businesses in town.

  I’m letting my fears run away with my senses. Walter and Alice aren’t kicking me and the children out of their home.

  But the niggling fear remained, and her thoughts struggled with it while she and Alice performed the hot, heavy work of washing linens and clothing. Mantie couldn’t imagine Walter and Alice actually asking her to leave. Still, things might grow uncomfortable between them. She wouldn’t want to stay if she weren’t genuinely welcome.

  But where could I go, Lord? The question returned.

  A number of unmarried men in town would gladly offer a solution. Her heart cringed from the thought. It was unbearable to consider spending her life as the wife of any man other than Colin.

  Besides, she’d need to find a man who wanted not only her and her skills as a housekeeper, but Jesse and Jenny. Many men didn’t care to take on the responsibility of children other than their own.

  For that matter, she hadn’t raised Jesse and Jenny by herself. She and Walter had raised them together. If she left Walter’s home, would he want Jesse and Jenny to stay? Would Alice?

  The thought chilled her heart. Jesse and Jenny had been the center of her life since their father and Colin had died. The prospect of life without them at its core was as bleak as a windswept prairie on a winter day.

  Of course, she couldn’t expect the children to spend the rest of their lives with her. One day they would leave to establish homes of their own. That was how it should be. One way or another, the day would arrive when she must live without them. She’d never allowed herself to face that fact before.

  What am I going to do, Lord? I need to start building my own life. I can’t expect Walter or the children to take care of me for the rest of my years. I know You must have a path for me. Please, make it clear.

  The image of the animal paths in the forest flashed across her mind. She’d told Lane that we didn’t always recognize God’s paths and path makers. What had been his reply? She furrowed her brow, searching her memory. Oh, yes. He’d said, Maybe we don’t recognize them because they don’t look the way we expect.

  Leaving Walter’s home certainly didn’t look like a path she expected, but she must be prepared for the possibility.

  The morning had started with such joy-filled thoughts, and Walter and Alice’s baby was marvelous news. But her own fears brought clouds that were missing from the bright winter sky.

  Walter and Lane recognized a friend in each other. Often during the next weeks, Lane and Nate joined the family for supper and Sunday meals. Once, Abe came along, though Lane confessed that it took a bit of arm twisting.

  Mantie heard Abe talking and laughing when he visited with Lane and Walter in the front room while she and Alice cleaned up the kitchen after dinner. But if she and Alice were near, Abe was quieter than the proverbial church mouse, and she could see the guarded look in his eyes.

  “Is that the way I am around men?” she asked Alice. “Like I’ve built a fence around myself that says ‘no trespassing’?”

  Alice nodded. “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

  “That’s why you said I’m colder than a Minnesota blizzard around them. I didn’t realize how off-putting my manner is. I don’t mean to be unfriendly with the men. I just don’t want to encourage their romantic attentions.”

  “Lately, I thought I’d sensed a thawing. Is Lane Powell beginning to interest you?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Alice gave an exaggerated sigh. “Well, I
can hope, anyway.”

  Mantie’s fears of one day being unwelcome resurfaced. “Are you hoping to marry me off to get me out from underfoot?” She kept her tone light, hoping Alice wouldn’t know how important the answer was to her.

  “I’m hoping you find someone to fill your life with love and joy the way your brother does mine. I only want you to be happy.”

  Mantie slid her arm about Alice’s shoulders and gave her a quick hug. “There’s lots of love in my life.”

  “Not the kind I mean.”

  No, Mantie thought, not that kind of love. There’ll never be room for that kind of love in my life again.

  Chapter 7

  One night when Abe had refused another invitation to join them for supper, Alice asked Lane about him. “I feel guilty coming over here without him so often,” Lane confided. “He lives with Nate and me. This part of the country’s been without a blacksmith for so long that Abe can’t keep up with the work. Works into the night, most every night.”

  Nate had told Mantie he preferred time at their house to hours spent in the two rooms he and Lane and Abe shared at the back of the livery stable. “Lane says we’ll have a house of our own one day.”

  The first couple evenings Lane spent at their home, Mantie was wary. Would he press to court her? She treated him politely but made certain Alice didn’t succeed in placing her beside him at meals or leaving them alone where an opportunity might arise for him to speak as a possible suitor.

  Soon Mantie admonished herself that her fears were unfounded. Lane was friendly but appeared uninterested in pursuing a romantic involvement. Before long, Lane’s and Nate’s presences in the house felt as natural as her brother’s and Jesse’s. She began to miss Lane on the evenings he didn’t come.

  Walter and Lane established a pattern of challenging each other to checkers after dinner while the children studied under Alice and Mantie’s watchful eyes at the kitchen table. But if Nate or Jesse or Jenny needed help with their sums, Lane always gave it without complaint.

  Whichever boy finished his lessons first received the reward of a game of checkers with whichever man won the first game. Mantie couldn’t remember when Jesse had completed his lessons so quickly and with so little complaint.

  “We’re learning a new poem at school,” Jenny announced one evening. “Abe would like it. It’s called ‘The Village Blacksmith.’ “

  “Longfellow’s poem. A good one,” Lane commented.

  Mantie glanced at him in surprise. She hadn’t thought of him as a man who read poetry.

  Jenny nodded. “I like it, too. Mr. Wren says we need to memorize the whole thing, and it’s very long.”

  Lane grinned at her. “You can do it. You’re smart.”

  Her face brightened, and she stood a little taller. “Do you really think so?”

  “I know so.”

  Alice leaned close to whisper in Mantie’s ear, “That man would make a good husband and father.”

  Mantie smiled blandly back at her. “Yes. Won’t some woman be glad?” She didn’t admit she admired his way with the children. So many men preferred children be seen and not heard.

  Nor did she admit that the thought of Lane married, his life centered around a family of his own, struck a chord of anticipated pain. He is only a friend, she hastened to reassure herself, but she suspected she’d miss him when he married.

  As Christmas grew closer, days and evenings were filled with pleasant tasks and whispered, shining-eyed secrets. “Don’t come in until I say so,” became a common command from the children as they worked on Christmas gifts. Mantie and Alice worked on their gifts during moments stolen from other duties while the children were in school or after the children were in bed at night. Tempting odors elicited pleas for tastes as Alice and Mantie built up an assortment of cookies, pies, and sweetbreads.

  When weather permitted, the family spent part of Sunday afternoons at the millpond and river. The Sunday before Christmas was no exception. Shadows grew long in the late afternoon as Mantie stood beside Alice, laughing at Lane and Walter playing crack the whip with Jesse and some other boys. Nate, having no skate blades, was sledding.

  “I’m glad Walter has found such a good friend in Lane,” Alice commented.

  “He’s been good for Walter,” Mantie agreed. “Walter’s always been a wonderful uncle to Jesse and Jenny, but Lane seems to have brought out Walter’s lighthearted side. He’s been so immersed in the responsibility of providing for the children all these years that he forgot how to play with them.”

  Alice grinned and patted her stomach discreetly. “He’ll be well prepared to play with this little one.”

  Mantie smiled at Alice’s anticipation.

  Fun-filled shouts came from the ice as the human whip cracked and three boys tumbled. One of them landed beside a wooden sign Mantie hadn’t noticed before. “Who put up that thin ice sign?”

  “Lane. Walter told me Lane takes time away from the livery stable every day to check the ice. Lane says he doesn’t want any of the village’s children losing their lives to the river.”

  The men and boys ended their game. Mantie studied Lane’s face as he and Walter headed toward the bank. He is a fine man, she thought.

  Alice smiled up at Walter. “Look at your red cheeks. I suppose it’s time I head home to prepare something warm for our skaters.”

  “I’ll go,” Mantie offered.

  Lane smiled at her. “Mind if I join you? I’m ready to get in out of the wind and cold, but Nate wants to sled awhile longer.”

  As they crossed the bridge, they looked out over the river. Watching the skaters weave gracefully or dart with spirit about the ice, Mantie wished she had skate blades. Her childhood blades on which Jenny now skated were too small for Mantie.

  Lane seemed to recognize her thoughts. “You enjoy watching the skaters. Why don’t you buy blades?”

  “I’d love to skate again, but spending money on skate blades seems frivolous. I haven’t much money beyond the little I earned helping at school last month. Walter never complains about supporting me, but I try to buy as many of my personal needs as possible. Then, too, there are Christmas gifts to consider. I make most myself. They don’t cost much, but when money is in short supply, each penny counts.”

  When they reached the house, Lane lit a kerosene light against the encroaching evening darkness while Mantie stirred up the embers in the kitchen stove and added wood to hurry the heat along. A pot of beans that had been baking since morning would soon be warm enough for supper.

  She put apple cider on to heat. Cinnamon sticks filled the air with a spicy aroma.

  A sense of pleasant familiarity in performing simple home tasks together heightened Mantie’s awareness of Lane. It made her feel good and uncomfortable at the same time, and she pushed the feelings away.

  From the small pantry, she brought a plate of sugar cookies and placed it on the table before sitting down across from Lane. “You’re receiving company treatment. The family eats only broken cookies before Christmas.”

  Lane chuckled. “My mother did the same with our family.”

  “You’ve never told us about your family.”

  He told briefly of his parents and life growing up in Pennsylvania, of moving to Wisconsin, of his parents’ death after he’d returned from the war, and his decision to move to Peace along with Abe.

  “With the war, the move from Pennsylvania, and my parents’ death, I felt Nate and I had lost enough people in our lives. I didn’t want to lose another friend if I could avoid it. Some people, when they lose someone they love, draw away from others. The risk of losing someone again is too painful to face, I guess. I do the opposite. I figure since it’s inevitable we lose people we love—not everyone, but some of them—the only thing that makes it bearable is to love them as much as we can while we’re here.”

  “Yes.” Mantie touched the cameo locket pinned at her shoulder. “I don’t know what I would have done without Walter, Jesse, and Jenny when my broth
er and Colin died.”

  “Was Colin the man you told me about, the man you loved?” His tone was soft, almost apologetic.

  “Yes.”

  “Walter said Colin died in the war.”

  Mantie stared at him, shocked.

  “I wasn’t asking him about you,” Lane hurried to assure her. “He said he lost his brother in the war and that your beau died in the same battle. War’s been over four years. That’s a long time to love someone.” His voice gentled.

  “Is it? Love doesn’t end because someone isn’t with us anymore. Love is too strong. Once it’s born, it just goes on forever, don’t you think? We don’t stop loving people just because we can’t see them.” She kept her gaze on his, allowing him to search her eyes. She wasn’t ashamed of loving Colin, even if most people would have set aside the love after so many years. “When Nate goes off to school, you don’t stop loving him until he gets home in the evening.”

  Lane didn’t respond for a minute. “I was going to say it isn’t the same, and it’s not, in most ways. But maybe in a sense you’re right. We expect children to come home from school at the end of the day. In the same way, at the end of our life here, God is waiting for us to come home.” He smiled.

  “Have you lost a woman you loved?” Mantie asked the question gently, a bit uncertain whether it was appropriate. Would he think the question too personal, too invasive?

  “No. I never loved a woman the way you speak of loving. Colin was an especially blessed man to know a love like yours. Tell me about him, will you?”

  She began haltingly. Lane listened, attentive, smiling, nodding. The words came more easily as his interest appeared genuine. She told how she and Colin met, of his love for life, the way he brought laughter into her quiet world.

  “I’ve heard people say they began to forget what the person they loved looked like after awhile.”

  Lane nodded.

  “I never forget. I remember everything. He was short, with wide shoulders.” She held out her arms. “Like so. He was stocky and strong. He had wide cheekbones and laughing blue eyes and black hair with curls that fell over his forehead. I remember the sound of his laughter and the way he threw his head back and laughed robustly, loud and uninhibited. I remember—”