A Patchwork Family

by Charlotte Hubbard

  “But—but I owe you for—”

  “The preacher returned that horse and saddle he borrowed, remember?” Judd said softly. “And your sister has more than replaced the napkins she took, so—”

  “But she stole money! And her schoolin’ . . . I told you I’d pay for—”

  “You’ll do no such thing, young man.” Aunt Agatha laid a hand on his shoulder, her smile kind and conspiratorial. “When I inherited a home far too large for any one family and turned it into my academy, I wanted less fortunate girls to receive the same education as those from blue-blooded families back East. I keep my own accounts, so no one’s the wiser about who pays full tuition and who does not. It’s an honor and a privilege to be teaching your sister, Billy.”

  The knot in Mercy’s throat nearly kept her from responding. “But, Aunt Agatha, I fully intend to use my inheritance to—”

  “Use it on your own children, dear. I’m proud of the home you and Judd have made, and the way you’ve shared it with everyone here,” she said, gesturing with open arms. “I love your parents dearly, Mercedes, but they could never open their hearts the way you have.”

  Mercy blinked at Judd, who reached for her hand. “Thank you, Aunt Agatha,” he said, his voice shaking in a way she’d rarely heard it. Then he chuckled, grinning at Billy again.

  “As I was saying, young man, that toy’s just a place holder. Come spring, when our mares give birth, you can have whichever foal you like for your own. It’s the least I can do, for all the help you’ve given us.”

  The boy’s face lit up and his mouth fell open. “Well, I’ll be—well, dang! Ain’t that a fine how-do-you-do? I got the best present of all!”

  He sprang toward Judd, who sat ready to catch him—and who closed his eyes on tears like those dribbling down Mercy’s cheeks. Such a fine father he would make, if only she could conceive. Six years of marriage now . . . what if it simply wasn’t God’s plan for her to bear this strapping man’s children?

  But then her gaze fell on Mary, Joseph, and the Christ Child, so serene on the sideboard. She swallowed the knot in her throat. The young virgin had learned firsthand that miracles happen in their own good time—when they were least expected, and because Someone Else was in control. Mercy could do no less than wait patiently, faithfully. Pondering these things in her heart.

  The soft chords of Nathaniel’s guitar brought her out of her musings. The smiles on the two hired men’s faces told her there was still a gift waiting to be given . . . a gift that sparkled in Billy’s blue eyes as he eased away from Judd, clasping the carved horse.

  “Last night when I shot outta here, all upset, Asa and Nathaniel reminded me that I didn’t need no store-bought presents,” he began, choosing his words with care. “Mama always praised me when I sang in the Christmas pageant at church—which was such a relief, after bein’ the Baby Jesus till I was nearly three!”

  Mercy chuckled in spite of her heartache, and so did the others.

  “So I wanna sing you a couple songs as the rest of my gift,” Billy said. “Nathaniel’s been teachin’ me to play out in the barn, but I ain’t nearly good enough to do that part yet.”

  The tall, muscled colored man eased into the introduction of a carol they’d all sung since childhood, and Mercy knew she was going to cry through the whole thing. How did this redheaded boy reach inside and pull her heartstrings like no one else ever had? How did that huge black man, who could harness six spirited Morgans to a stagecoach in minutes, caress that old guitar so it sang as sweetly as the parlor organ she’d played back home?

  How does anything happen? came a still, small voice in her head. The answers you need are all within you, my child. Seek and ye shall find.

  “ ‘Silent night, ho-oly night,’ ” Billy began. His was a sweet, childlike tone that filled the room with a purity, an innocence he wouldn’t have much longer. In a year or so, his voice would crack at all the wrong moments and he’d feel too awkward to sing for them this way.

  “ ‘. . . all is calm, all is bright . . .’ ”

  Yes, it is. If we allow it to be, came that inner whisper, like an angel’s assurance that she had done her best for both these children, and that her best was somehow good enough. Grasping her husband’s hand, she smiled at Billy and let him give her the gift of his unsullied soul, from the bottom of his little-boy heart.

  It was a moment she’d remember forever.

  The next day, after the stagecoach had left with Christine and Aunt Agatha, and the dirty dishes were washed and put away, Mercy ventured upstairs to tidy Christine’s room. Why wasn’t she surprised to see the patchwork quilt folded on the end of the bed, with a note?

  Thank you so very much for this lovely quilt, but I had no room for it in my trunk. Christine, the pretty script said.

  “Well, then,” she muttered, “perhaps you had no room for a packet of letters from Tucker Trudeau, either.”

  Her heart ached at the evenings she’d worked so feverishly to finish this gift, hoping to touch something within the girl. Hoping to show the love she so badly wanted to share. Christine had seemed withdrawn and unapproachable this entire visit, so they hadn’t even broached the subject of her mother—not that offering her Tucker’s letters would have resolved this situation. The girl would have been upset at her headmistress for withholding her mail, while Aunt Agatha would’ve been incensed because her authority had been undermined.

  Best to tuck those letters away in the bottom drawer of her vanity, where she kept other things of importance. She had a feeling she’d need the letters someday.

  As she stripped the sheets from the bed, Mercy felt a presence behind her.

  “Sure would like havin’ that purty quilt on my bed,” came Billy’s voice. “Just till Sis gets back—if it’s all right with you. Soon as she sees I’ve got it, she’ll want it, of course.”

  How had he gotten so wise so young? She gathered the quilt into her arms and turned to smile at him. “We’ll put it on your bed right now, Billy. I hope you got to talk with Christine more than I did. She was keeping her distance, I thought.”

  He let out a snort. “Daddy always said she was like a cat—purrs and rubs against you when she wants somethin’, and then skedaddles when somebody wants somethin’ from her. You ain’t gonna change that, Mercy. So don’t go frettin’ over it.”

  Christine sat squeezed between Miss Vanderbilt and a woman whose bulk spread across half the stagecoach seat—and who, by the smell of it, had worn the same clothes for more than a week. But what a relief to be out of that house, where people tried too hard to make her love them. As though that could ever happen!

  Finally, to break the monotony of the clattering coach’s sway, she muttered, “Billy’s grammar and table manners are atrocious, Miss Vanderbilt, yet you never corrected him. Why, if I had talked with food in my mouth, you would’ve reprimanded me until—”

  The woman’s tight smile warned Christine not to venture further onto thin conversational ice.

  “Yes, your brother’s social graces need some correction, but Mercedes will see he gets it,” she clucked. “While I was in her home, among family for a rare holiday visit, I thought it better to be kind than to always be right. Once we’re back at the academy, however, your headmistress will return to her strict disciplinary ways.”

  Christine’s sigh escaped more loudly than she intended.

  “It doesn’t hurt that your brother exudes such an honest, unstudied charm,” Miss Vanderbilt went on. “Far more effective than confronting others with a prickly-pear expression, and an attitude to match.”

  Christine now wished she’d kept her comments to herself. The prim little woman beside her had been waiting for just such an opening.

  “It wouldn’t have hurt you to accept the quilt Mercedes made,” the headmistress continued, in a voice so low Christine had to listen carefully. “If you reject her at every turn, Miss Bristol, one of these days—when you need her help the most—she’ll be tired of trying to pleas
e you. Mercedes will forgive you, but she’ll never forget the way you made her feel this week.”

  “But I worked just as hard making those linen napkins as she—”

  “Did you now?” Miss Vanderbilt’s single arched eyebrow told her she was really in for it. “You have no concept of hard work, Christine. No idea what Mercedes gave up to homestead on the prairie because the man she loved would be happier there. No idea how every sunrise brings another day in which survival takes up her every waking moment.

  “Not that you can help that,” the little spinster went on more gently. “I understand why you detest that little house, where the wind whistles in and the lamps never burn brightly enough. I couldn’t live there, either.”

  Miss Vanderbilt paused, as though this admission had cost her something; as though her usual fortitude had fallen short. “But I admire their courage. Their faith that they can make a living, and make the land their own. Twenty years ago I might’ve tried it myself, but I’ve become too accustomed to my comforts.”

  Christine watched, horrified, as the headmistress reached over to grip her gloved hand. The other passengers, who’d been following their discourse, looked on with great interest.

  “You were blessed with a different destiny, my dear, and Mercedes has recognized that. Study hard. Develop your talents,” Miss Vanderbilt said with a glitter in her pale blue eyes. “Your association with our family will open doors to you, Christine . . . introductions to many a prince of industry who needs a wife worthy of the fine home and elevated social station he can provide.”

  But what about finding Mama? Christine mused. She nodded her agreement, however, so this tiresome lecture would end and these people would stop staring at them.

  And what about Tucker Trudeau?

  Chapter Eighteen

  May 1, 1867

  Dear Mother and Father,

  We’ve come through another busy winter, and the prairie is now vibrant again. As I write this, the new leaves on the cottonwood trees shimmer like sequins on the gown of Spring. What a joy, to realize this homestead will be ours in just two short months!

  Judd continues to raise fine Morgan horses as part of our contract with the Wells Fargo express company. Several foals now graze the pastureland alongside their mothers, frisky and sleek when they play.

  Our boy, Billy Bristol, is shooting up, too. I’ve had to let down the hems in his new pants twice now, and he’s no longer the skinny little waif who came to us. He’s a natural with the horses, and Judd gave him his pick of the new foals this past Christmas, in exchange for all his hard work. He’s very proud of his colt, which he named Mr. Lincoln!

  He was also thrilled when a black-and-white herding dog stayed behind its wagon train to have her puppies last week. He plans to keep one he calls Spot, and find homes for the other three this summer, when they’re weaned. One of our hired hands is teaching him to play the guitar, and he’s got a good ear for picking up the music.

  His sister Christine continues to be an exemplary student at Aunt Agatha’s academy. She has designed and created a new school uniform, no less! We’ve heard no word from their mother after all these months, so we’re assuming we never will. A sad situation indeed, because these children are such a blessing.

  And, we’re not such an isolated outpost anymore! The Kansas Pacific Railroad is now completed through Abilene, a sign of progress and people to come. This means you could ride the train here to visit, rather than getting bumped and shaken on the stagecoach. July 4th marks the date we prove up on our land, and we would love to have you help us celebrate!

  Please pass along my love to everyone there, and do consider a visit!

  Your loving daughter,

  Mercedes

  “And what did you tell your parents about our hired hands? And the way your husband makes you slave in the kitchen to feed stagecoach guests?” Judd murmured over her shoulder.

  His breath tickled her ear, and she grinned up at him. “I told them only what they need to know, dear. They’d faint dead away before they sat down at a table with two Negroes. I invited them out for our proving up, but I’m guessing our little secrets will stay safe. Unless Aunt Agatha’s filled them in.”

  When he shrugged, his muslin shirt pulled against his powerful shoulders. “And what if she did? There’s no shame in treating Asa and Nathaniel well, or in working hard for land that’ll soon be ours.”

  “Certainly not. Refusing to become one of Father’s foremen was the best decision you ever made,” she whispered. She giggled when his lips met hers in repeated kisses.

  “No,” he breathed, inhaling her clean, satisfying scent. “Pursuing you was my best move, far and away. Not that marrying you six years ago means I intend to stop chasing after you, honey. Happy anniversary. And a happy, happy birthday.”

  The hand he brought around from behind him held a bouquet of wildflowers in a riot of pinks and yellows. The love in Judd’s deep blue eyes made her hold her breath. What had she ever done to deserve such a very special man?

  And what if the perils of the prairie—or difficulties with the Bristol children—came between them, in years to come? Mercy took the colorful flowers, inhaling their sweet freshness to clear her head. Did she dare ask him the other question on her mind?

  But his was a kind and giving spirit. He knew of her quandary, even if they rarely spoke of it.

  “Judd, I love you so much,” she murmured. “I’m just so—disappointed that I haven’t yet given you a child. I hope you won’t come to doubt—”

  He cut off her worries with a kiss that lingered even after they heard Billy enter the front room. When he raised his head again, Judd remained focused on her, as though no one else in the world existed. He gently brushed a strand of hair from her face.

  “From this moment on, Mrs. Monroe,” he replied in a low voice, “that’s not your responsibility. We’ll pray about it, and we’ll bring our bodies together with all the joy and passion we’ve always shared—and the rest is up to Mother Nature and God. They’re a potent pair, you know. Between the two of them, they’ll give us the answer that’s meant to be.”

  He pulled the red bandana from his pocket. “Now wipe those pretty brown eyes, birthday girl. Let’s cut the cake Billy and Asa made for you.”

  “Today, on this momentous Fourth of July, when so many in our midst prove up on their homesteads,” Gregor Larsen spoke out above the crowd, “it seems only fitting to share that joyous psalm we all learned in our youth.

  “Stand with me,” the circuit rider called out, raising them from the benches with his outstretched arms, “as we say together the One Hundredth Psalm. ‘Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord he is God—’ ”

  Billy looked up into Mercy’s shining eyes, reciting the familiar words with the chorus around them. It was a day for celebration, all right! On Mercy’s other side stood Agatha Vanderbilt, whose confident voice rang out with all the joy the psalmist had intended. Beside him, Christine recited the verse with less fervor, fiddling with the folds of her pretty summer frock.

  But her coolness—and the way she looked, at fourteen so very much like Mama—didn’t rattle him. What really mattered was that Emma Clark and her family stood directly in front of them—and Emma’s cousin Gabriel kept glancing back with a light in his bespectacled eyes Billy hadn’t seen before. Surely it was a sign! The mute, orphaned boy was grinning like a kid today, instead of turning in on himself like a little old man whose bent shoulders bore the weight of a silent, desperate world.

  After the preacher offered a prayer, everyone sat down, eagerly awaiting the announcements of the federal land agent. Billy realized how important this ceremony was to Mercy and Judd, and to Emma’s parents and the others he’d come to know at these parties.

  But after the ceremony, there was all that fine food covering the long tables. And then, he could take Emma and Gabriel to meet Mr. Lincoln, his co
lt—and he could show them Spot, his border collie pup! He was so sure his friends would want one—or maybe two!—of Spot’s litter mates, he could hardly sit still.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Ira Barstow,” the agent called out. He was a tall man, barrel-chested, and his voice rolled with a theatrical flair.

  Cheers went up as the skinny fiddler and his stout wife went to the platform to claim their deed, with four cotton-headed kids in tow. Iry waved the paper above his head with unaccustomed glee, his ruddy face alight as the crowd clapped long and loud.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Judd Monroe,” came the next announcement.

  As one, everybody stood up, applauding as Mercy joined Judd on the platform beside the frock-coated land agent. Billy’s heart was pounding. He scrambled to stand on the bench so he could see better.

  “It’s a proud moment for us all,” Miss Vanderbilt twittered, clapping just as wildly as the rest of them. “A testimony to hard work, with help from faith, family, and friends.”

  From his left came his sister’s long-suffering sigh. “Really, Billy! Must you climb around like a circus monkey where everyone can see you? Get down this minute!”

  But Billy had caught Gabriel’s attention—and the lanky boy started laughing! And then he, too, hopped onto the bench, so he could see the goings-on up front. Judd and Mercy were sidling back between the benches as the land agent called Clyde and Nell Fergus forward, and before Billy sat down, Judd wrapped an arm around each boy’s waist.

  “You kids can go out to the barn if you’d like,” he said beneath the cheering of the crowd. “It’ll take a while for folks to witness each other’s deeds, and this ceremony stuff isn’t nearly as exciting as puppies.”

  The O of Gabriel’s mouth matched the size and shape of his eyeglass lenses.

  It was all the excuse Billy needed; he wiggled out of Judd’s arm, shot past Mercy and his scowling sister, and grinned widely when Gabriel followed him. Months it had been since he’d teased and tussled with another boy! This kid was still way too quiet to be quite right, but he was at least a potential friend. Emma seemed more interested in the proving-up ceremony, and that was fine by him.