“Well, what do you say to my proposition?”
Haydn stood and looked down at his grandfather’s upturned face. “The price you demand for your gift is too high. I will marry if and when the right woman crosses my path.”
“There’s another thing.” The Old Man continued as if he hadn’t heard Haydn’s refusal. “I’m not going to tell anyone that you are my grandson, and I don’t want you to tell them either. I don’t want any money-grubbers making eyes at you just because they think you’ll get my money.” Cackling, he settled back in his chair with a self-satisfied grunt.
What arrogance.
If only finding a wife was so simple.
Chapter 3
You went inside the Keller mansion?” Annie asked as soon as she arrived at the Polsons’ home.
Gladys groaned. “I might as well have announced my plans at church. I made so much noise hammering that everyone knew I was there. Why don’t I think things through?”
They heard a soft knock on the door. Gladys opened the door to Ruth, Birdie standing behind her.
Gladys hadn’t known whether Birdie would join their mission projects or not, but she rolled out the welcome mat for her guest. Birdie took her seat, placing a bag filled with yellow flowered calico beside her. Since she had left the Betwixt ‘n’ Between Saloon, she had taken up sewing to earn a living.
Gladys brought out a cup and plate and fixed Birdie a tea serving. Dressed in a quiet slate blue dress and with her hair pulled back in a simple bun, the former saloon girl looked much closer in age to herself than she had guessed. Gladys resolved to make her feel at home.
“I was just telling Annie about my disastrous attempt to meet up with Mr. Keller.” Gladys took out her quilt block.
“I wouldn’t call it disastrous.” Ruth was hemming tea towels. “You met Mr. Keller. That’s more than any of us have ever done.”
“And you met a handsome stranger.” Annie wiggled her eyebrows. “A young handsome stranger.”
“Haydn Johnson.” The name tripped off Gladys’s tongue in a single breath. “He was very kind.”
Annie’s knitting needles continued clacking together. She wanted to send more socks to her brother who was serving with the cavalry up in Wyoming. “He caught her when she fell off the stepladder. And he built up the fire—”
“Brrr, it was freezing in there. I’m surprised Mr. Keller hasn’t caught cold.” Gladys shivered.
“—and he fixed tea. A man serving tea!” Annie giggled.
“He sounds like quite a gentleman.” Birdie took out a length of calico and began working on a seam.
“I doubt I’ll see him again. I hope Mr. Keller doesn’t slam the door in my face when I go back.” Gladys tied off a quilt knot beneath the fabric.
“God led you to Mr. Keller for a reason. I’m sure He’ll show you the way.” Birdie spoke with a quiet faith.
“Thank you for that reminder. I’m not doing this all on my own, am I?”
“At least you’ve started. So far, God hasn’t answered my prayers for guidance.” Ruth flattened out the bottom of the towel and changed the thread in her needle to embroidery thread.
Conversation flowed back and forth while they continued work on their projects. Gladys finished her quilt block first. “It’s time for me to get to the diner for my shift. Is anyone in the mood for some of Aunt Kate’s pie?”
“I’ve got to get home. Ma’s expecting me.” Annie finished her row and put away her knitting needles.
“I’ll come with you.” The upper half of a fancy F appeared on the tea towel Ruth was working on. “Birdie, would you care to join us?”
Birdie shook her head. “No, not this time, thank you.”
Before they left, Gladys rinsed the dishes and slipped into her coat. Soon the four of them walked down the street, the ground beneath their feet the perfect firmness of a sunny winter day. At the corner, Gladys and Ruth bid good-bye to Annie and Birdie and headed for the town square. The Keller mansion was on the way.
“It looks very festive.” As always, Ruth found something nice to say.
Gladys stared as they approached, trying to decide. “It looks half finished.” As they neared the house, the front door opened, and Mr. Johnson stepped out.
Although Gladys immediately turned her attention aside, he bounded down the lawn to the street. “Miss Polson! How nice to see you again.” He joined the two of them without asking permission.
Gladys slowed down. She couldn’t outrun him. “Good day, Mr. Johnson.” She managed a weak smile. “This is my friend Ruth Fairfield. She’s our local schoolteacher.”
“Nice to meet you.” Mr. Johnson dipped his head to acknowledge the introduction before turning his attention back to Gladys. “I hoped you were returning to finish hanging the baskets. When you do, I want to help.”
Gladys’s cheeks grew warm enough that the cold air stung her heated skin. “I would love to. When would be a good time?”
“My—Mr. Keller is an early riser. Anytime during the day is fine.”
“Are you staying with Mr. Keller, then, Mr. Johnson?” Ruth asked the question that was weighing on Gladys’s mind.
“Yes.” Haydn didn’t offer a reason for his visit.
They reached Aunt Kate’s diner. “This is our destination.” Gladys paused, unsure if Mr. Johnson planned to join them.
He opened the door for the ladies and followed them inside. Gladys headed for the counter and draped an apron around her neck.
“Who is that tall drink of water?” Aunt Kate, Gladys’s plump, pleasant relative, inquired while she exchanged her apron for a coat. “Is he someone you know?”
Rather than get into a lengthy explanation, Gladys simply said, “He’s staying with Mr. Keller.” Aunt Kate headed out the back door, and Gladys brought a copy of the menu to the table where Mr. Johnson had taken a seat with Ruth. They looked so cozy, she wished she could join them. But she helped at the diner to give Aunt Kate a break. The pocket change was welcome as well.
“What do you recommend?” Mr. Johnson lifted his eyes from the menu. “I wouldn’t mind a meal. I’ve been fixing most of our food, and I’m not fond of my own cooking.”
Gladys laughed. “You fix a good cup of tea, at least. I believe Aunt Kate has chicken and noodles left over from lunch.”
“I’ll take a bowl, then, with a slice of dried apple pie with sharp cheese.”
After Gladys waited on the other customers in the diner, Mr. Johnson called her to the table. “Are you allowed to sit with the customers?”
“For you she’ll make an exception,” Aunt Kate said as she bustled back into the room. One of the friendliest souls in Calico, she would gladly encourage Mr. Johnson’s acquaintance with Gladys. She refilled their coffee cups.
Gladys brought a cup of coffee for herself as well as food for Ruth and Haydn. She slipped onto a chair next to Ruth, across from Mr. Johnson.
Goodness, he was handsome. And to think she might never have met him if she hadn’t decided to hang baskets on Mr. Keller’s house.
To think he would never have met these two lovely ladies if he had never come to visit the Old Man. Some good had come out of the journey, after all. With a shake of his head, Haydn chided himself. Thinking like that would put him right in his grandfather’s clutches. Find the girl he wanted to marry, indeed, before the middle of April.
“Do you want anything else to eat?” The owner—Aunt Kate?—reappeared at their table.
Haydn couldn’t help smiling. “Just the pie. My—Mr. Keller doesn’t keep many sweets in his house.”
Aunt Kate retreated behind the counter.
“No wonder he’s so thin.” Miss Polson shook her head. She looked apologetically at Haydn. “His hands and fingers were so bony.”
Haydn chuckled.
Miss Polson covered her mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any offense.”
“None taken.”
Aunt Kate returned with a slab of pie big enough to be a quarter
of the whole. “Here you go, Mr …”
“Johnson. Haydn Johnson.” Haydn dug his fork into the tip of the pie and took a bite. “Mm, this is good. Is it possible to buy a whole pie that I can take back to Mr. Keller?”
Miss Polson’s beam matched Aunt Kate’s. Any woman he knew liked to have her cooking praised. She motioned for her aunt to lower her head, and she whispered into her ear.
“I have an extra peach pie today,” Aunt Kate said. “I’ll send it along with you. It’s the neighborly thing to do.”
Haydn shifted in his seat. He had concerns about his grandfather’s health as well, but the old man had insisted he was fine, nothing worse than old age. “He might not be sick if I could convince him to keep the house warm.”
Miss Polson shook her head in an exaggerated shiver. “I hope you didn’t suffer any ill effects from your exposure to the cold yesterday,” Haydn said.
Her cheeks grew pink. “Of course not.” She sipped her coffee.
Miss Polson’s curls spilled down her neck and dusted her cheek. She looked very different from her friend the schoolteacher. Even without their earlier introduction, he would have guessed Miss Fairfield’s occupation by the precise bent of the tie around her neck and the exact fixture of her hair on top of her head.
The schoolteacher might know the answer to his question. Haydn thought it a good time to ask what was on his mind. “Is there a place in town where I can pick up a newspaper?”
Miss Polson curled her nose. “Calico doesn’t have a paper of its own.”
“But you can get the Topeka Blade at the mercantile,” Miss Fairfield said.
Haydn relaxed. He hadn’t realized how dependent he was on his regular dose of news until he’d landed in Calico. He might have to start a newspaper just to give himself something to read.
Miss Polson tapped her fingers on the table. “I believe the library carries the paper as well.”
A library but no newspaper? Haydn raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t realize Calico has a library.”
“Yes.” Miss Polson threw her shoulders back like a crow fixing to tell a story. “When Calico was settled, the founding mothers decided to put all their books together so they would have a larger pool of books to choose from. Now we pay a small fee if we want to join. It’s the best library in the county.”
Small-town pride. “Kansas would still not be much more than a string of trading posts if it weren’t for those founding mothers.” Kansas actually had a good education system, and Haydn had enjoyed the coed education at the university.
Miss Polson nodded enthusiastically. “What is your occupation, Mr. Johnson?”
Haydn hid behind his last bite of pie while considering his answer. “I just finished my university education. I’ve been helping with the family firm back in Kansas City.”
“So does your family conduct business with Mr. Keller?” she asked.
“Some.” “Business” described the state of relations with his only grandfather better than “family.” “My father authorized me to spend time here in Calico, to improve communication with Mr. Keller.”
The bell above the door jangled, and several people came in. Miss Polson glanced around the rapidly filling diner. “Aunt Kate needs my help. It’s been lovely to see you again, Mr. Johnson. Will there be a time when Mr. Keller isn’t home? My presence seemed to upset him, but I’d like to finish what I started out to do.” Her eyes pleaded with him.
Haydn opened his mouth to say yes before he thought about the true answer. “He almost never leaves the house.” Haydn’s fingers drummed the table. “But I’ve learned he usually takes a nap right after lunch. Can you come by then?”
“I’m working at the diner all day tomorrow, but I’ll be finished after midday the next day. I can make it then.”
A few minutes later, Aunt Kate came out with the peach pie tied up in a box. She refused payment. “Consider it my welcome present to you, Mr. Johnson. I hope we’ll see you again soon.”
Miss Fairfield excused herself, saying she had papers to grade from school, and Haydn headed back to the Old Man’s house. The baskets of greenery welcomed his approach, although the porch looked half-dressed with baskets hanging on only one side of the steps. Gladys’s colorful baskets would bring cheer to the cold house. But if she returned, the Old Man might decide Haydn took his condition to find a wife seriously.
Of the two of the women he had met today, Ruth Fairfield was much more what Haydn sought in a wife: a heart for children, well educated, soft spoken.
So why did his traitorous mind keep returning to Gladys Polson?
Chapter 4
After Gladys returned from work the next day, she started on a buttermilk pie.
Ma took out the rolling pin. “Who are you baking for? I planned on the leftover applesauce cake for a sweet tonight.”
Gladys continued stirring the custard for the buttermilk pie. “It’s for Mr. Keller.”
Ma rolled out the pie dough. “For Mr. Keller—or for his guest?”
Gladys’s cheeks warmed. “Mr. Johnson did say he liked having a slice of pie with his meals. But Mr. Keller doesn’t keep any in the house.” She poured the mixture into the waiting dish and slipped it in the oven. “I’ve got a basket ready. Do you mind if I add jars of honey and apple butter?” After she washed her hands, she joined her mother at the table.
Ma’s laughter rang across the kitchen. “Of course not. They always say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.” She sniffed. “Something smells good. But it’s not the pie. It smells like …” She turned back the cloth covering one of Gladys’s baskets. “Needles from a cedar tree?”
Gladys took small squares of fabric out of the basket. “His living room smells musty, like no one has opened any windows for years. I thought about making cedar sachets. He didn’t have a Christmas tree, either.” She held a sewing needle up to the window light and pushed a thin strand of green thread through the eye. “It’s sad, really. That big house and no one to share it with.” Except for the surprising Haydn Johnson.
“I think it’s wonderful how you’re reaching out to Mr. Keller. I’ve only seen him once or twice since his wife’s death. I admit, he struck me as a grouchy sort.”
“He wasn’t that bad.” Gladys ran small, even stitches down the sides of the fabric. She used a soup spoon to fill the small pouch with needles before cutting a length of cheery red ribbon to tie it closed. “One down, nine to go.”
“Do you plan on redecorating the entire house?” Ma lifted the sachet to her nose. “Such a lovely scent. Can God smell things?”
Gladys was used to her mother’s sometimes whimsical thought processes. Her mind ran through the five senses. “The Bible says He sees us. He hears us. We’re told to ‘taste and see that the Lord is good.’ Jesus told Thomas to ‘touch and see.’ Smell, hmm, I remember something about prayers smelling like incense.” She picked up the Bible Pa read from every evening and leafed through the book of Revelation. “Here it is. ‘And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.’”
Ma laid the sachet back in the basket. “Of course God was using words we could understand to explain things. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall at creation.”
Gladys finished another sachet. “I want to finish these tonight. I told Haydn—Mr. Johnson, I mean—that I would come over tomorrow to finish hanging up the baskets.”
“It’s Haydn now, is it?” Ma’s eyes twinkled. “I’ll have to meet this young man. I’ve never seen you this interested in one of our local boys.”
Gladys chewed her lip. “I’m doing it for Mr. Keller, Ma. But Ruth and I ran into Mr. Johnson at the diner. After I made such a nuisance of myself the last time I went to the house, I thought it was best to warn them of my visit.”
Ma only nodded and smiled.
Gladys finished the last o
f the sachets after the evening meal. The pie was cooling on the windowsill. When she finished, she cleared off the table. After she dressed for bed, she found Ma studying the contents of the baskets she had prepared. “Why don’t you fix them some fried chicken while you’re at it?”
Gladys’s heart sped at the thought of fixing her special cinnamon chicken for the two bachelors at the Keller house. Then she caught herself. “I’ve done enough already. As far as I know, they have plenty to eat, even if they are basic dishes.”
In the morning, Gladys checked the knot on the back of her head—no one wanted hair served with their food—and headed out the door. “I’ll be back after lunch to pick up the food.”
“I’ll make sure the children leave the baskets alone,” Ma called after her.
“Thanks, Ma.” As Gladys headed for the diner, she hoped a brisk walk would clear her head of troublesome thoughts of Mr. Keller’s young guest. Instead, her anticipation grew, hoping he might return to the diner while she was at work. Shame on you, Gladys Polson. She wanted to engage Mr. Keller, not his guest, with people.
Even though the walk didn’t take care of her wayward thoughts, it did provide a nice break between the kitchen at home and the kitchen at work. She wasn’t sure which she enjoyed more, cooking a good meal or sewing, especially quilting. Ma said Gladys was practicing for a whole passel of children someday. The only problem was she needed a husband first, and not one of the eligible young men in Calico had ever caught her fancy.
Her thoughts strayed again to Haydn Johnson. He interested her because he was someone new, that was all. A college graduate and city dweller wouldn’t look twice at a small-town girl like her.
After lingering during the walk, she sped up to reach the diner on time. As she opened the door to the jingle of the bell, she spotted a familiar profile, head thrown back in laughter. She smiled at the sound.
Aunt Kate spotted her first. “Come over here and sit a spell.” She winked. “Don’t worry. It counts as work.”
Since the diner was emptier than usual for this time of day, Gladys took advantage of the offer. “If anyone comes in, I’ll wait on them. Why don’t you join us?”
Love Is Patient Romance Collection Page 22