The Hired Man

by Lynna Banning

  “Good. Fill a big cup and dump in a couple lumps of sugar and bring it on up.”

  Danny thumped down the stairs and Cord laid his hand on Eleanor’s forehead. Cold. “Molly, help me get this quilt over her.” Together they worked the blanket out from under her shoulders, then her hips, and spread it over her inert form.

  “How come she doesn’t wake up?” Molly asked in a small voice.

  Cord didn’t answer. He was wondering the same thing. Danny reappeared with the coffee in Eleanor’s favorite mug. “It might be too hot,” he said. “It was boiling.”

  At that moment Eleanor opened her eyes. “What happened?” she said.

  “You fainted,” Cord said. “Danny came and got me and I carried you upstairs.”

  “Oh, yes, I remember now. I was setting the coffeepot on the stove and all at once things got gray and spotty and I couldn’t see clearly.”

  “You just crumpled up by the stove,” Danny volunteered.

  Molly scooted closer. “You scared me, Mama. You looked all funny.”

  Eleanor tried to sit up but Cord pressed her shoulders down and offered the coffee. “Drink some of this,” he ordered.

  “I can’t when I’m lying down,” she said, her voice weak.

  He helped her sit up and folded her hands around the mug.

  “Danny brought the coffee from the kitchen.”

  At her first sip she wrinkled her nose. “Too sweet. Danny, you know I never use sugar.”

  “Cord said to—”

  “Drink it anyway,” Cord said. “I figure you fainted because you were plumb out of strength. Maybe you’ve been overdoing it the last few days.”

  “I have a farm to run,” she countered. “But I did feel extra-tired after all that square-dancing last night. And then I didn’t sleep much.”

  Cord looked at her sharply. “How come?”

  “I...” She looked down at the quilt covering her. “I must have been overtired and keyed up. Anyway, I couldn’t sleep. And this morning I felt perfectly fine until I went to set the coffeepot on the stove and things went all gray.”

  “Lucky you didn’t crack your head on the stove or a corner of the kitchen table.”

  “It’s lucky I didn’t fall on top of Molly or Danny! They were standing right there next to me, helping with breakfast.”

  “You probably just folded from the bottom up. I saw plenty of that threshing wheat in hot weather.”

  Danny perked up. “Where was that, Cord?”

  “Kansas. Hotter ’n—” He caught himself. “Hotter than blazes.”

  “It wasn’t that hot in my kitchen this morning,” Eleanor said.

  Cord stood up. “Maybe not, but you’ve had enough activity today. I’ll finish cooking breakfast and you catch up on your sleep.”

  She pressed her mouth into a line. “Cord, I hate it when you order me around.”

  He gave her a long, amused look, and then he grinned. “One egg or two?”

  * * *

  The rest of the day felt perfectly decadent. Eleanor ate the scrambled eggs and bacon that Danny brought up on a tray, and then she slid down under the blue quilt and lazed away the morning. After a few hours she got up, slipped off her half-unbuttoned dress and curled up under the quilt again.

  She was deeply asleep until she heard voices coming from the front yard. She stumbled to the window and pulled the curtain aside to see what was going on, and there was Cord, standing squarely in front of Todd Mankewicz and two others, Red Smalley and someone she couldn’t identify because his back was toward her. Her hired man wasn’t saying anything, but the three male visitors were being plenty vocal. She raised the window so she could hear what they were saying.

  “Look here, Winterman, you got no right to tell us Miss Eleanor isn’t receiving visitors.” The speaker was Todd.

  Red echoed his words. “This ain’t your house, hired man. You got no place tellin’ us to shove off.”

  “Yeah,” the third fellow, Gus Garner, shouted, his blond beard quivering. “Let her tell us herself. Where is she, anyway?”

  “She’s upstairs, asleep.”

  “How come?” Red bellowed. “It’s two o’clock in the afternoon.”

  Cord stepped to the edge of the yard. “That’s none of your business.”

  “Heck, yes, it’s our business,” Todd shouted. “We’re keepin’ an eye on Miss Eleanor.”

  Eleanor bit back a bubble of laughter. Keeping an eye on her molasses cookies would be closer to the truth. Then she heard Cord’s low voice.

  “Mrs. Malloy—” she liked the subtle emphasis he achieved by using her full name “—doesn’t need you or anyone else to keep an eye on her. She’s managed on her own for the last seven years with no one’s ‘eye on her.’ Plus she’s got an almost grown son and a hired man.”

  Todd puffed out his chest. “You’re out of line, Winterman. You got no right to speak for Miss Eleanor. Got no right to even be here, far as I can see.”

  Cord advanced a step. “I work here, Mankewicz. Mrs. Malloy hired me to work for her.”

  Todd edged back a step, followed by Red. Gus, the pudgy blond one, stood his ground, shaking his fist in Cord’s face. Cord reached out and brushed the meaty arm aside, then took another step forward. All three men edged back toward the front gate.

  Danny appeared at Cord’s side, and Eleanor’s chest tightened. Her son was trying to protect her right along with her hired man.

  Red stopped and lifted his bristly chin. “Just what’s your interest in Miss Eleanor, Winterman?”

  “My interest? Doing the chores she can’t manage. Keeping an eye on her children. And right now I’m interested in protecting her.”

  “From what?” Todd shot. “From us?”

  Cord made no answer, just took another step forward.

  Eleanor almost cheered. Maybe her hired man would permanently discourage her stream of Sunday-afternoon visitors. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to sit on the porch swing without being invaded by visitors and having to pour lemonade all afternoon?

  Red’s back was now pressing into the gate. “I’m not leavin’ ’til Miss Eleanor herself tells me to leave.”

  At that, Eleanor raised the window even higher and leaned out. “I want you all to leave!” she cried.

  The three male faces tilted upward and she ducked behind the curtain. Then she peeked out to see the men shake their heads, yank open the gate and crowd through. After a moment they all climbed into the buggy in which they’d driven out from town and rolled back onto the road.

  Cord followed them, swung the gate closed and bent to ruffle Danny’s hair. He said something to her son, but his voice was so low Eleanor couldn’t hear the words.

  Smiling for the first time all day, she tiptoed back to the bed and crawled under the covers. It was simply wonderful to feel protected! Her two brave knights, one tall and lean and one short and bony, deserved a special dessert after supper tonight. Blackberry cobbler, maybe.

  But by suppertime Eleanor found she could scarcely drag herself out of bed again. Cooking supper was out of the question. She curled up and tried to think.

  What was wrong with her? Was Cord right, that she had simply overdone it on Saturday? Or was it something more serious?

  She got her answer an hour later when another buggy rattled up to the gate and a few minutes later Doc Dougherty mounted the stairs. She heard a tentative knock on her bedroom door and Danny peered in.

  “Ma? Cord rode into town and got the doctor. Can he come in?”

  The tall, dark-haired physician walked to her bedside, plunked down his leather bag and withdrew a stethoscope. He checked her pulse and her breathing, listened to her heart and thumped her on the back, then listened to her chest again.

  “Eleanor, I don’t need t
o tell you how difficult it can be to recover from pneumonia, and you had a particularly bad case. Getting your strength back can take months.”

  “That’s too long,” she moaned. “I can’t wait months!”

  He patted her shoulder. “I suspect that’s the problem. You’ve been working too hard, doing too much. And there’s something else I’d like to say. Maybe it’ll wake you up. If it weren’t for your hired man, you’d probably be dead.”

  Eleanor stared up at him. “But I feel perfectly well, really I do. Except for this morning, I mean.”

  “I believe you. But I want you to pay attention to what I’ve said. When you’ve been seriously ill, as you were last winter, recovery will be slow. It’s a ‘two steps forward and one step back’ proposition. I want to be very clear about this—if you want to live to see your children grow up, you must, absolutely must, take better care of yourself. Do less. Rest more.”

  “I have a farm to run, Doc. And children that need attention.”

  He leaned closer. “Eleanor, are you listening to me?”

  “Y-yes. But I honestly thought I was doing better.”

  He smiled. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. Just be more careful, all right?” He folded up his stethoscope and dropped it in his medical bag. “I think you did a smart thing to hire that man downstairs in your kitchen.”

  Eleanor sat up. “In the kitchen? Whatever is he doing in the kitchen?”

  Doc Dougherty chuckled. “I’d guess he’s making supper. See that you eat some of it. And,” he added in a mock serious tone, “do not wash up the dishes tonight.”

  She heard his laughter all the way down the stairs.

  Well! Cord was making supper? Her curiosity built until she threw off the quilt, found her blue gingham dress and crept downstairs on bare feet to see what was going on in her kitchen.

  She found Cord standing at the stove pouring pancake batter onto the griddle. Molly and Danny were setting plates on the table, followed by two milk glasses.

  Danny caught sight of her just as he was laying out the forks. “H’lo, Ma. Are you all better?”

  “I am much improved, Danny. I thought I would come down and see what was going on.”

  Cord spoke from the stove. “Supper is ‘going on.’ Are you hungry? We’re having jelly roll-ups.”

  “Jelly roll-ups? What on earth is that?”

  “You’ll have to wait and see.”

  “Very well, I’ll wait. The name, jelly roll-ups, sounds very appetizing.”

  Cord sent her a grin. “Molly, set a place for your mama.” He turned back to the stove, grabbed the spatula and started flipping the pancakes.

  “I’ve, um, never heard of jelly roll-ups,” she ventured.

  “Cord knows how to make ’em, Mama, and I found the strawberry jam in the pantry.”

  Eleanor sank down on her usual chair to watch. “I can’t imagine what a ‘jelly roll-up’ is.”

  Cord sent her another grin, wider this time, and scooped up three large pancakes, which he stacked on a plate and put in the oven. “Never had a jelly roll-up, huh? Danny, pour some milk for you and Molly.”

  While her son filled the two glasses, Cord set a plate of very thin, lightly browned pancakes on the table. “Quick, now, take one of these and spread it all over with jam and roll it up tight.”

  Danny speared one, followed by Molly, and both smeared on strawberry jam. “Come on, Ma, grab one!”

  “Yeah, grab one,” Cord echoed from the stove.

  She did, slathered the delicate pancake with jam, rolled it up and took a bite. To her surprise it was delicious, the pancake light and slightly sweet and flavored with something, maybe vanilla? She cut off more bites with her fork while the children ate theirs with their hands and licked the oozing jam off their fingers.

  Cord set another plate of the thin pancakes on the table and sat down across from her. He spread jam on one, then laid another on top and spread that one, too. Then he rolled it up into a double-thick creation that made Eleanor smile.

  “Oooh,” Molly cried. “I want one like that!”

  “Go ahead,” Cord urged. “That’s called a double jelly roll-up, and only members of the Malloy family are allowed to eat them. And me,” he added.

  While they constructed their double roll-ups, Cord poured coffee for Eleanor and himself. “Kind of a funny supper, I guess, but it’s all I could think of. Anyway, it’s keeping them busy instead of worrying about their mama.” He tipped his head toward Molly and Danny; their jam-smeared faces looked intent.

  She caught his gaze. “Thank you, Cord. For getting the doctor and for making supper.”

  “Doc says you need to rest more.”

  Eleanor nodded. “I will try,” she said. “But it’s hard. I look around and see so many things that need doing that I get carried away.”

  “Have you always been like that? Or is it just since you’ve been alone on the farm?”

  “Always. Before I was married I needed to keep busy because...” She glanced at Molly and Danny, still absorbed in rolling up their pancakes. “That was a way to escape.”

  “Escape what? Were you mistreated?”

  She sipped her coffee. “Not in the physical sense, no. But there were other things I needed to...not be aware of. My father and mother argued and bickered and shouted at each other, and at me, and...” She lowered her voice. “I needed to escape.”

  Cord tipped his chair back. “Molly? Danny? If you’ve finished your supper, why don’t you gather up the plates and put them in the dishpan. I’ll wash them up later.”

  “Sure, Cord. Kin we go outside, Ma?”

  Eleanor nodded and the children tumbled out the door into the backyard.

  Cord sent her a penetrating glance. “I don’t know which is worse,” he said slowly, “parents who argue all the time, or parents who whip you, or parents that die. At least when they die, it gets real quiet at home.”

  She blinked. “Cord, what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that even bad parents might be better than no parents. But then again—” he clunked his chair back onto the floor “—bad parents are pretty hard to take.”

  Eleanor sucked in her breath. “Were you beaten as a child?”

  He didn’t say anything for a long while, and when he did speak, his voice was low and hoarse. “Don’t ask me anything more, Eleanor. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  She said nothing, just reached over and briefly touched his hand. The sound of the children’s laughter drifted through the open back door.

  After a while Cord stood up and moved to the sink, where the dishpan full of plates and soapsuds waited.

  “I think I’ll finish my coffee on the front porch,” Eleanor said. “Now that you’ve cleared it of unwanted guests,” she added with a laugh. She pushed through the screen door and settled herself in the porch swing.

  After a while Cord joined her, bringing with him the coffeepot. He filled up her cup and then his own and set the pot on the porch, then eased down onto the swing beside her and pushed it into a slow back-and-forth motion.

  They rocked away for over an hour without saying a word. Eleanor thought it was the most peaceful evening she could ever recall.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Blackberries are ripe in the cow pasture,” Danny announced the next afternoon. “And the apple trees are loaded with big red apples!”

  Cord hoisted the water bucket and headed out to water Eleanor’s flower bed. “Guess summer’s really here,” he remarked.

  “Already,” Eleanor added.

  Her flower bed had burst into a riot of color. Looking at them in the evening after supper made her giddy with joy, especially when the red nasturtiums began to twine over the gravestone at the far end of her garden.

&n
bsp; She picked lush bouquets for every room in the house, even the kitchen, where a fat mason jar of black-eyed Susans, blue delphiniums and frothy white baby’s breath appeared on the kitchen table at supper one evening. Molly wanted to make a daisy chain of the black-eyed Susans, so Eleanor went out at dusk and picked another handful. When she returned, Cord had stuck one blossom in his buttonhole and Danny was washing up the supper dishes while Molly worked on her daisy chain.

  Cord poured a second cup of coffee for each of them. They didn’t talk, just sat at the supper table and listened to the children’s sporadic chatter. Eleanor was feeling stronger than the day she had fainted. She was resting more, and she felt in increasingly good health since the pneumonia had sapped her strength and her spirits. And she was feeling happier.

  Especially pleasing was the thought of picking bushels of Anna and Fiesta apples and taking them into town to sell. Already Carl Ness at the mercantile was asking when he could expect them. His storefront was now painted a rich turquoise blue, and Edith Ness was spending the summer painting the fronts of other establishments up and down Main Street. Even the sheriff’s office now sported a bright sunshiny yellow facade. Eleanor laughed every time she and Cord drove past in the wagon.

  Today Cord was delivering a wagonload of apples, eight bushel baskets, to Samson Northcutt at the mercantile in Gillette Springs. He left at dawn, and drove the hot, dusty forty miles. It took him all day, and by the time he unloaded all the apples he was dead tired. He thought about staying at the hotel in town, then decided he didn’t want to be away from Eleanor and the kids all night.

  He collected Samson’s payment for the apples, grabbed a steak and a beer at the Shady Lady Saloon and fed the horse a hatful of oats. Then he headed for home.

  Dusk threw lavender shadows across the road and he worked to keep his eyelids open. Probably shouldn’t have had that beer—it cost two bits of Eleanor’s hard-earned money—and now he regretted not topping off his meal with a few cups of strong coffee to help him stay alert.

  This was the loneliest damn road between Smoke River and Gillette Springs, and it was studded with potholes deeper than one of Eleanor’s dishpans! Made him wish he’d brought Danny with him for company, but he knew Eleanor would have had a fit if he’d even suggested it. She coddled the boy too much. Cord felt halfway guilty about secretly teaching him to ride, even though Eleanor now knew what they’d been doing, but he had decided it wasn’t safe for Eleanor to live miles out of town with no way to get help in an emergency. Soon the boy would need a horse of his own.