Prairie Rose

by Catherine Palmer

  When Seth walked into the soddy and spotted the table with its steaming cauldron, golden brown corn bread, and bouquet of wildflowers, his blue eyes lit up like a summer afternoon. “Miss Mills,” he said as he sat down, “I’m beginning to believe I made a wise choice in bringing you out here. You’re as fine a cook as any I’ve known.”

  Rosie flushed as though he had called her Helen of Troy. Her hands shook as she poured fresh milk into his mug. No one had ever said Rosie was fine at anything. She knew she was a good cook by the way everybody at the Home ate and ate—and then asked for seconds. She knew her cherry pies were delicious because she had tasted them herself. But “as fine a cook as any I’ve known” was the biggest compliment she’d ever received. It was even better than Rolf Rustemeyer calling her beautiful. After all, any number of women could be called beautiful. But to be the finest cook a man had ever known …

  “There’s a gooseberry bush upstream aways,” Seth said. “We’ll have pawpaws and chokeberries, too.”

  “I do make good pies,” Rosie said and quickly realized how vain her words sounded. “What I mean to say is—”

  “I’m sure you do. I’ll look forward to tasting them.” He glanced at his son. “And, Chipper, at this house you can eat all the pie you want.”

  The little boy’s blue eyes darted up in surprise. “Really? Really, truly?”

  Rosie could hardly believe her ears as she sat down across from the little boy who had been too astounded to glower and label his father a Yankee. Seth nodded, and one corner of his mouth turned up in the hint of an actual smile.

  “And now,” he said, “shall we bless the food?”

  The shout that echoed from the barn many days later sent Seth’s heart straight into his throat. He dropped his seed planter in the furrow and took off running. Chipper jumped up and spilled a bowl of potato peelings on the ground as he raced after his father. Seth had just hurtled the low fence that ran around the barn when he heard the cry again.

  “Oh my! Oh my!”

  “Rosie?” Forgetting her formal name, he burst through the door. “Rosie, what’s wrong?”

  “Grain sacks!” she exclaimed. “Piles and piles of them!”

  Seth stopped, breathing hard. “Grain sacks?”

  Chipper skidded to a halt beside him. “What happened, Rosie?”

  “Just look what I’ve found!” Rosie grabbed a bundle of empty flour sacks and hugged them tightly. “It’s a treasure. Better than gold! Better than diamonds! There must be fifty of them. Maybe a hundred! I was searching for eggs because the hens seem to be roosting anywhere—and I think you’d better build a coop, Mr. Hunter—but anyway I came across this mound covered by canvas here at the back of the barn. Straw was scattered everywhere and the cobwebs were thick, so I almost went right past it. Then something whispered to me to lift up the corner of the canvas. So I did, of course. Believe me, I’ve learned to obey those messages I get from the good Lord above. At first I couldn’t believe my eyes, but then I took my skirt and began to dust—”

  “Miss Mills, what are you jabbering about?” Seth exploded.

  “Grain sacks! Look at them all. When I dusted them off, I realized what I’d found. These bales are all white and stamped ‘Hunter,’ but these others are printed with flowers and stripes and … and here’s a check and a plaid … blue and yellow and green … oh my, is this an actual paisley print—”

  “Miss Mills!” Half-fearing she’d lost her mind, Seth grabbed Rosie’s shoulders. “They’re grain sacks.”

  “I know! Aren’t they beautiful? Oh, Mr. Hunter, what do you mean to do with them?”

  “The ones with my name will go to the mill in the fall. The others are extras. I got them off that fellow who went bust. He sold the whole batch to me for fifty cents, and I figured if I had a bumper crop some year—”

  “Might I use a few of them, Mr. Hunter?” she broke in, her lips moist and her brown eyes glowing.

  What could he say? “Use as many as you want.”

  “Oh, Mr. Hunter!” She threw her arms around his chest. “Thank you!”

  For an instant, shock rippled through Seth. The woman smelled so sweet … of fresh air … lemongrass … wild pinks. Her cheek was warm and downy against his neck and her eyelashes soft, so soft, on his skin. In his arms she felt small, slender, fragile. And real. Soft and feminine and very real. She pressed against him in the briefest of hugs, and then she whirled away.

  “Catch, Chipper!” she sang out and tossed the little boy a bundle of grain sacks. “We’ll have curtains! A rug! Pillows!”

  He giggled and flung the bundle back at Rosie. “Your turn!”

  “Mr. Hunter!” She swung around and tossed it to Seth. “You’ll have a new shirt by Sunday! Checks or stripes? Blue or brown?”

  “Well, blue is nice enough, I reckon,” he said, watching in amazement as she pulled open the bale and began tossing sacks into the air. “But I think you should—”

  “Pink roses for a tablecloth. Morning glories in the windows. Cherries for a kitchen towel.” And then she began to sing as she took Chipper by his chubby little hands and danced him around and around the barn.

  “Shout! Shout! We’re gaining ground!

  Oh Halley, Hallelujah!

  The love of God is coming down!

  Oh Halley, Hallelujah!”

  Seth stared at the woman and the little boy spinning in giddy circles over the joy of finding a few empty grain sacks. Laughing, Rosie picked up a sack and tied it around Chipper’s shoulders like a cape. She tucked another into her skirt to form an apron. Then she draped a third across Seth’s arm, linked his elbow, and swung him into a jig.

  “The devil’s dead and I am glad.

  Oh Halley, Hallelujah!

  The devil’s dead and I am glad.

  Oh Halley, Hallelujah!”

  Seth was surprised at how easily his feet slipped into the once-familiar steps of the dance. How many years had it been since he had danced? But there was no time to reminisce. His little twister was circling him around the barn, kicking up her heels, and waving grain sacks like patriotic flags as she belted out the song.

  “The devil’s dead and gone to hell.

  Oh Halley, Hallelujah!

  I hope he’s there for quite a spell.

  Oh Halley, Hallelujah!”

  Seth joined in, unable to hold back his favorite verse.

  “My uncle had an old red hound.

  Oh Halley, Hallelujah!

  He chased the rabbits round and round.

  Oh Halley, Hallelujah!”

  Rosie sashayed him across the barn while Chipper skipped and hopped around them like a squirrel. When the song faltered into la-da-das, Rosie grabbed a handful of hay and threw it up into the air. Dancing away from Seth, she twirled amid the falling stems as they settled on her bonnet and skirt. He stepped back to watch her, but she took his hand again and pulled him into the dance.

  “You’ll settle down no more to roam.

  Oh Halley, Hallelujah!

  Grain sacks will make your house a home.

  Oh Halley, Hallelujah!”

  “Red and yellow, green and blue. Oh Halley, Hallelujah!” Chipper shouted from the third rung of the loft ladder. “I like Rosie ’cause she is nice. Oh Halley, Hallelujah!”

  “Oh, Chipper, that’s a good one!” Rosie sank onto the floor laughing. “I can’t dance another step!”

  A shadow blocked the door. “Fräulein Mills? Hunter?”

  Seth swung around. “Rustemeyer.”

  “Guten Morgen.” The man stared at the hay-covered woman who sat gasping on the barn floor. “How you are?”

  “Uh, we were just … Miss Mills found some grain sacks.” Seth jerked the flowered bag from his arm. “We were dancing.”

  “Der Tanz.”

  “I’m going to sew curtains,” Rosie sang out, rising and attempting to brush off her skirt. “I’ll braid a rug.”

  “Ja?”

  Rosie glanced at Seth. He watched i
n wonder as the young woman’s cheeks colored. Then she shrugged her shoulders and, if his eyes weren’t deceiving him in the dim light, she winked at him. “Excuse me, please. I was searching for eggs.”

  Slipping between the two men, Rosie practically ran out of the barn. Chipper studied the situation for a moment; then he took off after her. Seth crossed his arms over his chest.

  “What do you want, Rustemeyer?”

  “Die Brücke?” the German said. He pulled a stem of hay from Seth’s collar. “Britsch?”

  “The bridge,” Seth said. “You came to build?”

  “Ja, ja.” He glanced out the window at the young woman carrying a basket of eggs toward the soddy. “Fräulein Mills. Beautiful.”

  Seth gave a grunt and started toward his tool chest. As a matter of fact, Fräulein Mills was beautiful. Especially when she was dancing in the hay. Or laughing like a bell. Or throwing her arms around a man’s chest. Oh Halley, Hallelujah!

  CHAPTER 6

  ROSIE felt so excited about the grain sacks that she forgot to daydream about becoming Rolf Rustemeyer’s wife. While the two men walked down to the creek to survey for the new bridge, she and Chipper quickly hoed the little garden Seth had planted just outside the house. It was a good spot, and she hoped late summer would bring an abundance of healthy vegetables.

  Rosie dug grass sprouts and weeds from among the emerging onions, turnips, potatoes, beans, and corn. Chipper picked cutworms, potato beetles, and harlequin bugs until he had filled the bib pocket of his overalls. While Rosie hauled water from the well to the garden, he smashed the pests under a big stone.

  Gardening done, Rosie sent Chipper off to collect buffalo and cow chips while she settled down in the soddy with the grain sacks. By lunchtime she had hemmed four curtains of pale green fabric printed with blue morning glories, dark green vines, and curling tendrils. She made rods from peeled branches and hung the curtains so they stirred in the breeze at each window.

  After lunch with the men, she fashioned a tablecloth of pale periwinkle blue stripes and a matching straw-stuffed cushion for each of the cane seats she had woven earlier that week. Her fingers were sore from stitching, but she had promised Seth a shirt by Sunday. The man certainly did need one. Though he washed his face and hands at every meal, he never took off the only shirt he had, and it was in dire need of a wash. Chipper needed new clothes, too. Of course, Rosie herself had only the one dress, but she managed to wash it now and again, hang it up in the night air, and wear it again by morning.

  Determined to fulfill her promise to her employer, she selected a pair of grain sacks that had been dyed a beautiful sky blue— the exact color of Seth’s eyes. As she slit the sides of the sacks, Rosie thought about those blue eyes. When Seth had laughed that morning in the barn, his eyes had lit up and begun to sparkle. They fairly glowed against the deep tan of his face—as though they were lit from inside with a hot blue fire. Rosie felt her stomach do an odd little flip-flop at the mere memory of the way Seth Hunter had looked at her as they danced.

  She wished she could say it had been a look of fascination, intrigue, or maybe even admiration. But Seth probably thought his hired hand was a little touched in the head, the way she had been so silly about finding the grain sacks. Rosie didn’t care. After all, the first chance she had, she was going to ask Rolf Rustemeyer to marry her, and she felt pretty sure he would say yes. He thought she was beautiful.

  She draped the grain sacks over one shoulder and set out from the house toward the creek to find Seth and take his measurements. As she tramped down to the water’s edge, an odd thought occurred to her. She had met Rolf Rustemeyer three times now: the other day on his land, earlier that morning in the barn, and at lunchtime. What color were his eyes?

  A pontoon bridge. Perfect. The bridge would drop when the creek ran low—as it did right now. It would rise when the creek ran high. Seth’s infantry unit had built and crossed a hundred pontoon bridges during the war. He knew the bridge across the Bluestem would need to support the weight of heavy wagons and be stable enough to keep travelers from toppling into the water. The construction would require strong cables, two or three flat-bottom skiffs, wood planks for the walkway, and secure piers on each bank. But how to explain the structure to Rolf Rustemeyer?

  Seth rubbed a hand around the back of his neck as he studied the big German. Maybe the thing to do was call on Rosie. At lunch, she had managed to teach the fellow the English words for meat, potatoes, and bread. She could get a few facts across to him by pointing things out with her hands or drawing pictures in the dirt.

  On the other hand, Seth wasn’t crazy about the way Rustemeyer ogled Rosie. The man had no manners. He followed her around like a big, shaggy dog. When she set out the lunch, he would have wagged his tail if he’d had one. And he ate like he hadn’t had a decent meal in two years. He probably hadn’t. Most bachelor farmers had a hard time tending to both crops and housekeeping. Like every unmarried male homesteader other than Seth, the German would be eager to find himself a wife. Though isolation and language barriers had kept him from the few social gatherings on the prairie, Rustemeyer wouldn’t overlook an unmarried female living so close at hand.

  No, Seth thought he’d better try to explain the pontoon bridge to the German without Rosie’s help. After all, she belonged to him. No, that wasn’t quite right. She worked for him. And the more she worked around the house, the better he liked having her here. No doubt about it, Rosie could cook. Clean, too. The garden looked good. Chipper stayed busy. Even the floor—

  “Fräulein Mills!” Rolf hollered, waving one of his big beefy paws. “How you are?”

  Seth glanced up to see Rosie coming down the creek bank, her skirt dancing around her ankles and a smile lighting up her face. She was toting some blue grain sacks over one shoulder. As she approached, Rolf nudged Seth.

  “Pretty, ja?”

  “What is it with you?” Seth said, his voice more irritated than he liked. “Look, Rustemeyer, the fräulein works here. Understand? She works for me.”

  “Ja. Not vife.”

  “No, she’s not my wife.”

  “Gut. Sehr gut.” The German grinned broadly. “Ich bin glücklich.” Seth gave a grunt. “Whatever that means.”

  “Hello, Mr. Rustemeyer,” Rosie said as she stepped up to the two men. When she looked at Seth, he could see a pair of pink spots on her cheeks. “Mr. Hunter, I’ve come to borrow your shirt for a moment. I need to make a pattern.”

  Seth glanced at Rustemeyer, who was scanning Rosie up and down. He wished she would get on back to the house. “Maybe tonight, Miss Mills. We’re busy right now.”

  “But I promised you a shirt by Sunday. If I wait to measure until tonight, I’ll never get it done. Tomorrow I’ll be baking bread, and the next day I’ll be making soap, and the day after that I mean to hunt for strawberries. With the gardening and cleaning and gathering chips and such, I barely have time to sit down for a moment. You need a new shirt so badly, Mr. Hunter, and this blue color I’ve found will make your eyes … your eyes …”

  The pink spots on her cheeks blossomed into red roses. Seth couldn’t hide the grin that tickled the corners of his mouth. So, Miss Mills wasn’t all housekeeping and chores. Her eyelashes fluttered down, and she cleared her throat.

  “This fabric is a very nice shade of blue,” she said, lifting her chin. “It will hide the dirt well, and that shirt you’re wearing is so dirty it could walk around on its own. Now take it off and let me measure it. As soon as you’re wearing the new one, I’ll give the other a wash and you can have it back—if it doesn’t fall to shreds at the first touch of soap and water.”

  “All right, you can have it. While I get out of it, see if you can explain a pontoon bridge to Rustemeyer.”

  “You’ll have to explain it to me first.”

  Briefly, Seth outlined his proposal for the bridge. He had two skiffs himself—one he’d bought off the farmer who went bust— and he suspected Rustemeyer had a third. They coul
d braid regular rope into heavy cable, build piers out of stone and mortar, and add the plank walkway last. With hard work, the construction shouldn’t take too long.

  “Think you can get that through his head?” he concluded, jabbing a thumb in the direction of the curious German.

  “All you have to do is draw him a picture, Mr. Hunter.” Rosie turned away and knelt to the ground. She began to sketch. “Here’s the bridge. Brücke. Here’s the water. Wasser. Ja?”

  “Sie sprechen Deutsch!”

  Rustemeyer squatted down next to Rosie and gazed at her with those big puppy-dog eyes of his. Seth had the urge to topple him straight into the creek.

  “You must learn better English,” Rosie said. “Now you and Mr. Hunter are going to build a pontoon bridge. Floating on the water, see? The small boats will float. The water can go up and down, but the wagons can still cross over the bridge.”

  With some gratification, Seth watched Rustemeyer shaking his shaggy blond head. Not even Rosie could make the big hound dog understand. Seth dropped his suspenders and pulled his shirt over his head. When his eyes emerged, he saw that Rosie was walking down to the creek. In one hand she held a stone. In the other, she carried a leaf.

  “The stone sinks,” she told the German. “You see? It goes under the water. But the leaf floats on top of the water. The bridge must float. Like the leaf. Float.”

  “Float? Nein. Ich verstehe nicht.”

  “Oh, he doesn’t understand, Mr. Hunt—” Rosie caught her breath as Seth tossed her his shirt. Her focus dropped to his bare chest, then darted quickly back to his eyes. The flush on her cheeks spread down her neck, and she hugged his shirt as though it were some kind of shield.