Chip Shatto (Perry County Series)
Page 13
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The more he thought about it, the more he decided he had better get to courting. It suddenly seemed likely that others would come knocking at the Shuler door and he didn't relish having to whip off a bunch of people that had no business nosing around—or so he told himself.
He went to Bloomfield and purchased Tinker a gift which he showed to his mother when asking her to wrap it nicely.
Amy examined the quart of witch hazel with some dismay. Old Rob had been the same in his courting. Shatto men acted like young bears and only their good intentions made them tolerable. She wondered how men, otherwise so capable, could be so damnably clumsy and ill-informed around women.
She smiled, thinking that Tinker would undoubtedly love the witch hazel for the thought behind it, but she said "Chip, sometimes you are as blind as a mole. Women do not use witch hazel—men do. Ladies prefer delicate scents that come in small amounts and are touched on a tiny dab at a time. Do you want Tinker to smell like a barbershop or some blacksmith all gussied up for Saturday night?"
She chose an unopened bottle from her own collection and passed it under Chip's nose." Now this is perfume from France. Ladies like to smell like this and Tinker will use it on special occasions." Then she added, "Give the witch hazel to Tad and make sure he knows to rub it on. That uncurried old woods louse might think he was supposed to drink it."
When he got to Shulers' he couldn't decide what to do. He ended up talking to old Tad when he didn't want to and got almost desperate trying to figure how to get started.
It really was confounding. He'd bought a young squaw for a winter without sidling around and getting tongue-tied. Here among his own people he got red in the face and so tightly wound he could hardly think clearly.
Luckily old Tad got about as weary of it as he did.
The old man sighed and got down to business without a lot of fooling. As embarrassing as it was, Chip was overwhelmingly grateful because Tad saved both him and Tinker a month of fencing and maneuvering. Tad had darn sure spared them hard work and worrisome confusions.
Tad shook his head, "Chip, I just can't stand no more of your sittin' around here crackin' your knuckles an' jumpin' up an' down for no reason. You've near worn out your britches from the inside just wrigglin' and squirmin' since you got here. So we've got to put an end to it.
"Now, you've come to pay attentions to Tinker. Ain't that so?" Chip nodded dumbly, feeling about fifteen instead of full grown and not daring to look over at Tinker.
"And Tinker? Dang it girl, put down that work an' come over here! This is serious talk goin' on." Tinker cane cautiously closer, completing a sort of triangle and hiding her hands under her apron. Then, the old man went on.
"Now I reckon I know how you feel about Chip, but he don't, an' the way this is goin' he won't never find out! So I'm askin' for his sake if you're welcoming his courting? All you've got to do is nod 'Yes' or shake your head 'No.'" Chip waited a hundred years until she nodded, her shy glance catching his and setting his heart to thumping like a Sioux medicine drum.
Tad heaved a relieved sigh. "Well, we're all glad that's over! Never did know why young people make such hard work out of it. I never did! Every woman I married I just up and asked, an' of course they jumped at the chance."
Not satisfied, he urged Tinker over close to Chip and wasn't content until her shoulder touched his arm. Then he nodded, "Now that's about the best I can do.
"The rest you'll have to manage, but I'm goin' to bed an' I'm deaf enough that I won't hear you whisperin' an' findin' out that you're both walkin' the same path."
He laboriously climbed into the loft before looking back down at them still standing where he'd left them. "Glad it's you, Chip. That Roth's kind of peculiar—ring in his ear and all." He disappeared into the depths of the loft and gave a last gentle urging." Alright, get on with it now. Time's still passin' by."
Chip ventured a hand around Tinker's slender waist and she leaned her head against his chest. After that it got easier and they began talking and acting like grownups instead of half-grown children.
The longer they talked the closer they felt and the surer Chip was that by spring he had better have his buildings ready to put up for the special appreciation of a brand new bride.
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Shatto men had always been interested in house building. The first Rob Shatto had built a great wood and stone home that had been long destroyed but Chip had seen its remains. His own father had built uniquely and the Little Buffalo home had walls insulated with tanbark filling. Chip too had an idea or two that he intended to incorporate in the Pfoutz Valley house.
Talking the house over with Tinker was gratifying; her suggestions were female ones, mostly about window placement and flue positions. She was exasperatingly unable to visualize room size even after he paced off distances but she had perfect confidence in his knowledge of how the rooms should be, so that made it all right.
Carter Roth was a real pain to talk to. He questioned every line and had so many suggestions that Chip could end up almost forgetting what his original idea had been. As Carter was planning his own house, Chip managed to even the score.
If the war allowed it, Chip intended to start building as soon as the ground thawed. Because the fighting had taken many of the skilled men, not much building had been going on, but Chip found a man who could dig and lay up a strong limestone cellar. The carpenters would have to come later. He contracted with a sawmill to cut his lumber while the ground was frozen so it wouldn't be full of sap, and then sled or cart it to the building site before the thaw. They would stack the boards so the material used first would be on top and the heavy floor sills would hold the pile in place if the wind blew hard. Stacking wood so the stuff in the middle got air to season was a special job but the old men Chip employed knew how.
Chip's woodcutters lived in Liverpool and as Carter agreed to using the same men they were often in town seeing how the work progressed.
One load of good straight oak was coming up from New Buffalo by canal and Chip and Carter loitered near the Water Street dock to see its arrival. Chip was poking around a craft being built in the boatyard when he heard Carter's barely muffled exclamation of astonishment.
"Great God above!"
Chip looked over and almost agreed. Marching from the cabin of a barge tied alongside was enough woman to make any eyes pop. Tall and Hereford busty, the woman's hair was braided into a pair of thick golden ropes. Her cheeks glowed rosy in the cold air and when she looked across at them her teeth shown white as tombstones and her eyes as blue as ocean water. Carter appeared stricken and Chip had to say, "Now that's a lot of woman!"
Roth gathered himself immediately. He beat a few wrinkles from his coat and straightened his hat. The girl had gone into the store and Carter wasted few words before he took after her.
"Chip, excepting for a lady I lost years back, that is my dream girl! All my grown days I've seen a woman like that in my mind and by damn there she is!" He speculated an instant longer. "You reckon her being on a boat is some sort of an omen—like we had that in common sort of?" He didn't wait for an answer but went plunging off toward the store walking as though in water up to his waist.
Chip watched him go, wondering at how a woman could turn a strong man into a cabbage just by passing by. He didn't fault Carter any. He'd been at least as bad around Tinker I until they got to know each other. Now they could talk and work together without spending most of the time making sheep's eyes back and forth. She still made his heart pump and he supposed she always would at least a little.
He left Carter alone, giving him maneuvering room, and after a while he appeared carrying a huge basket of goods, walking the blond woman back to her barge. He bowed her aboard as courtly as a prince, then ran the empty basket back to the store before he came over to Chip.
"Whew, she's more than I expected."
"Just like that, Roth? This is the one? You bother to ask if she was married or spoken for?"
"Probably just looking for someone to carry all those groceries."
Her name was Hella Wolfe and she and her father worked their canal boat along the Pennsylvania system. Everyone seemed to know Hella and most young men at the river ports had made moves around her. To date, no one had captured her heart but Carter Roth got his hair cut, shaved every day, polished the hoop of his earring, and began earnest courting. He forgot house plans and farming needs. He followed the Wolfe boat up and down both rivers and when allowed, he went aboard as crew.
Chip saw him only in passing, but he expected it wouldn't last long. Even a female Viking like Hella would either have to accept or flat out reject as persistent a pursuer as Carter Roth. Still, the few times he managed conversation with the girl—without Roth's continual interruptions—Chip thought she might be a match for his impatient friend. She had an almost bovine but somehow attractive way of letting things just go on without getting upset—until she decided to make her move. Then she hauled like a man or laid down the law with a firm-mouthed determination that could intimidate the bravest.
Carter loved it of course. They could talk of boats, but Hella wasn't wed to them. If farming came up, she knew more than he. She handled the teams that towed the barge with a practiced ease that Carter could not match, and she swapped banter with other crews and lock masters without giving an inch. If Carter got her, Chip suspected she would keep his life interesting.
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Chapter 15
Chip expected that the summer of 1864 would be special in his life. It would be the summer he put the last of his wild times behind. Old Rob had mentioned that his son was a little old doing it. His observation was that most men settled into their groove at age twenty-eight. Chip thought that conclusion a little rigid but did not question his father's evidence. Instead, he commented that it had taken him a few years longer because he had done so much. Old Rob answered that most men knew when it was time to stop and Roth added that Chip hadn't done so much, he was just slower than most.
Roth was the slow one. Here it was mid-July and he still hadn't nailed his golden Amazon's scalp to his lodgepole. In fact, he spent so much time riding around that his house wasn't far along and his fields looked more like raspberry patches.
Chip wished Hella would reel him in. The boat girl was just what Roth needed. She'd get his nose to the grindstone and fit his hands to the plow. Chip liked the thought of old Carter sweating in the fields. A few good seasons of work would settle down his irascible nature. Chip figured to watch a lot of it from the cool of his front porch.
He had to admit his own fields weren't much but he had a man farming some of them and the rest were just lying fallow, sort of regaining their strength.
His house on the other hand, was just about done and when the last coat of paint dried he and Tinker would marry and move in. Old Tad had a room for himself and there were sleeping rooms for his folks and Doug Fleming when they came up.
Chip thought it a handsome place. He had porches on three sides and the house nestled in a bit of a hollow almost up against Turkey Ridge. The way he had it placed, the ridge cut off the bitter north winds and the house got some protection from the west, which could also blow cold in winter.
From his front porch he could look across his land as it sloped down to the valley road. He had already leveled a good lane coming up to the house and he had planted long-lived shade trees along it the way he had seen in the south. Someday the tree limbs would crisscross above the lane and shade it into a beautiful archway.
He had enjoyed his carpenters' consternation when he had insisted on tanbark filling the walls behind the plaster. Old Rob had told him how; as one of the first to try it, he had been warned of rats, bugs, and snakes living in it, but none had. Probably the acidity of the stuff actually kept them away.
In Chip's case, one thinker feared the worked-out hark would rust away the house nails. It had not damaged old Rob's place so Chip wasn't concerned. Being snug in the winter and cool in summer was important, and he filled every wall cranny and laid the stuff solid under the attic floor. The painters were already remarking how cool it was inside, but one, perhaps inevitably, wondered if the tanning juices wouldn't bleed through the plaster. Builders didn't change their ways easily, that was for sure.
It was comforting to walk around his place, seeing the progress and visualizing the things he would like to do.
He could stand inside the new barn and imagine it filled with hay, tools, and grain. He could almost hear the cows munching and moving under the barn floor and the smell of the fresh pine siding kept him sniffing.
He often kicked at the thin coal vein that lay hard against the ridge. He would get useful amounts of stove coal out of it but he wasn't sure there was enough to make tunneling for it worthwhile. Maybe he'd give it a try later on. The vein could widen and he might be wise to dig back a few feet to see.
Well off to one side he planned on digging limestone and cooking it into lime for his fields. He still hadn't put down a well, but Earl Kiner had come over with his willow fork and marked the best spot. He had a big load of rocks sitting ready to line the well, but unless Carter got squared away with Hella, he'd be digging alone. One man digging a well was purely wasteful, as you needed someone on top to haul up dirt or let down rocks or boards. He supposed Tinker could help, but well digging was man's work and together he and Carter could get both of their wells down in two weeks' time.
He liked to run the rich valley earth between his fingers and imagine the gardens he would have. The real farming he would share out, but the roots and other eating plants he wanted to grow. He would have hills of potatoes and rows of sweet corn. There would be beets and beans, squash, and even a patch of rhubarb for pie making. He would have to get the cherry and apple trees in as soon as fall came and he figured on peaches and pears as well. A grape arbor would be nice on the east side of the house but he planned to leave room all around for the flower beds Tinker wanted.
Sometimes he would stand in the empty rooms trying to visualize how they would look with furnishings in place, but he couldn't see them clearly the way Tinker could. She knew exactly what she preferred and when Chip said she should get whatever she thought was right she had to sit down and cry a little over it. Chip supposed a man didn't put as much stock in chairs and such as a woman did. He had lived reasonably content with nothing more than what his saddlebags held, but it would be nice having a wife who kept a home that was comfortable and that they could be proud to show their neighbors.
Doug Fleming rode up on about any excuse and Chip supposed that if it weren't for the horses he would choose to live with him or Carter. Between training horses and farming, it would be a rare youth that would opt for plow pushing. Instead, young Fleming rode the mountains, learning to extend his mounts just enough that they would steadily improve.
The boy improved too of course. His lithe young body hardened like a well-tempered spring and his hands became calloused and unusually powerful. Bent close along a horse's neck with his blond hair flying he was a sight to behold. Hella Wolfe about swooned at the sight of him and, in truth, the two could have passed for brother and sister. Carter grumbled that it looked as though the only way he would get Hella to marry him would be to adopt Doug Fleming.
The boy was a pleasure that allowed Chip and Carter to enjoy a growing youth without the day in and day out wearying responsibilities of parenthood. They were like uncles, busy with their own affairs, yet pleased when the boy rode up the lane.
One slow summer day they went fishing along Cocolamus Creek. Fleming had a box of night crawlers and Tinker had made a double handful of dough balls that old Tad assured them would tempt the big ones.
During noon heat, when no self-respecting fish would bite anyway, they ate their lunch where a small rivulet fed into the summer-turgid Cocolamus. The boy lay on his stomach w
atching a school of minnows darting about in a still backwater. The men watched idly from more comfortable rests, and old Tad packed his pipe for a smoke.
Like a streak of silver, a larger fish slashed through the minnows sucking in one or more en route. The minnow school scattered frantically but soon regathered to mill in the same pool as though nothing had occurred.
"Wow, that was a big one, Chip. You see him?"
"Yep. Maybe he'll take a dough ball after he gets settled back down. He's probably lurking under that little overhang where the water runs clearest."
Fleming watched the minnows silently before speaking. "You think that minnie that just got eaten cared about living the way we do? It was just zip and he was gone."
Half asleep, Carter mumbled, "Who cares?" But Chip heard the boy's seriousness and answered considerately. "Hard to tell of course, but it seems to me that every living creature'll do anything to stay alive. That shows they care about living. I doubt animals plan out their lives like we do though. They live sort of day to day, I reckon, and never get to thinking about the winter ahead or how good last summer was."
"Squirrels store nuts, Chip."
"Guess there's exceptions, but they do it sort of instinctively too. I suppose way back somewhere a few squirrels learned to store and those that did survived more often until finally there weren't any squirrels left that didn't store nuts."
"Might still be a lot of squirrels that don't store nuts and just live off them that do," Carter put in.
"I'd hoped you were asleep, Roth, but as I said, 'There's exceptions. '"
"Any of you ever hear of a porpoise?"
"Some kind of fish, isn't it?" Chip ventured.
"Sort of, but it breathes air, same as a whale, so it isn't a fish."
"I've seen a million of 'em." Doug Fleming was smug with sea experience.
"Anyway, porpoise've been known to push a drowning seaman to shore or to something floating and they've kept circling keeping sharks off of men gone overboard. So that sort of proves that animals do think sometimes."