Prairie Romance Collection

by Cathy Marie Hake

“Uh-huh,” agreed Jake.

  “And the surrey is pretty,” she added.

  “Uh-huh,” agreed Jake again. He caught the glimmer in Pamela’s eye and had to look away to keep from laughing.

  “And I like it better being with you, Sheriff Moore, and with Miss Kottis.” She smiled at her friends. “And, of course, I like the picnic.”

  Jake nodded with a solemn air.

  “And the surrey bumps and rocks you, and I like that ‘cause the train jiggles and jostles and jambers your nerves.”

  “Jambers?” asked Jake.

  Amanda nodded hard twice, making her curls bounce.

  Pamela came from behind her and sat on the log with Jake.

  “Why did you get off the train, Amanda?” Pamela asked.

  Amanda’s face went red. She looked over at the bushes and then back at her friends. Her face reflected a war between telling and not. Finally, she giggled and climbed into Pamela’s lap.

  “I was looking for a fresh privy,” she said. “The one on the train smelled.”

  Pamela admirably did not show any amusement at this confession. Jake tooka sudden interest in a hawk flying over the field.

  “Where was your sister?” asked Pamela.

  “Sleeping.”

  “And did you find a privy?” asked Pamela.

  Amanda nodded. “There was one at the station, but it wasn’t much better, and when I came out, the train was going away with my sister on it.”

  “And so began,” said Jake in a deep, dramatic voice, “the adventures of Miss Amanda Greer of St. Louis, Missouri.”

  Amanda laughed and wiggled out of Pamela’s lap and into his. As the child passed from one set of arms to the other, the looped crocheted edging on Pamela’s cuff snagged on the sheriff’s gun belt.

  “I’m stuck,” said Pamela.

  “Hop down, Miss Amanda,” said Jake.

  Amanda looked on as Jake carefully disengaged the delicate threads from the belt at his waist. She didn’t notice how quiet her two friends became. She didn’t see the flush spread to Pamela’s face. She certainly didn’t understand why the sheriff held Miss Kottis’s hand carefully in his after he succeeded in freeing her sleeve.

  As they went farther down the road, Jake told stories about going to school in Indiana with his cousins, Bill and George. His cousins had been larger than he was and twice as ornery. Jake had had to use his wits to survive. Amanda listened attentively and laughed when Jake got the better of his cousins in their childhood pranks.

  “Sheriff Moore,” she asked, “didn’t you go to a country school?”

  “Yes,” he answered. “Remember, I said there were four grades in one room and four grades in the other. I never could get away from those rapscallion cousins.”

  “Rap-skal-yun,” echoed Amanda, letting the unfamiliar word roll over her tongue.

  “Mischief makers,” explained Jake.

  Amanda nodded. “Father is going to send me to a first-class private school for girls of refined civility in St. Louis.” Amanda looked puzzled. “Father says that you can’t learn to talk right, or act right, in the common schools.”

  Jake and Pamela exchanged a look over the head of their passenger.

  “You talk proper,” said Amanda to Jake with a sigh.

  “Actually,” said Pamela, “I’ve noticed that, too. You do speak with more precision than most farmers.”

  “Well,” said Jake, “I always knew that I wouldn’t be on the farm when I grew up. So I took pains in my studies at school and visited with the two schoolmasters, Mr. Ted Bishop and Mr. Edward Bishop, after school and sometimes on Sunday afternoon for extra tutoring. They were brothers and had more books than a library. They gave me odd jobs to do around their place. I cut their wood andsuch—neither one of the brothers was very strong. And I ended up with good grades and came to Lawrence to go to the university.”

  “You didn’t!” exclaimed Pamela.

  He looked sharply at her. “You don’t believe I’m smart enough?”

  “No, that’s…that’s not it,” Pamela stuttered in confusion. “I just…I didn’t think…” She broke off and looked at him. “Did you finish?”

  “No, I took a job as a deputy because I was studying law,” he explained. “Then I discovered I liked arresting the criminals better than defending them.”

  “Jake Moore, I’m impressed,” said Pamela.

  “Because I went to the university?”

  “Well, that,” she admitted, “but more because you did what you wanted to do. You went to school when you wanted to, and I’m sure you had to work to make the grades and work to make the money. Then you had the gumption to take another course when the first one didn’t turn out to be what you expected. Some people just decide to do things and even when they know it’s not what they wanted, they just plow ahead.”

  Jake grinned at her. “Well, I’m glad I told you. Next time I get to thinking I’m not as good as I should be ‘cause I dropped out of college, I’ll remember that you think I made the right choice.”

  “Well, I do!” she exclaimed. “God wants us to enjoy this life He’s given us, and that means doing a life work that gives us pleasure. He’s just as delighted with a shoemaker who makes a good boot and enjoys his trade as He is with the president of the United States.”

  Jake laughed out loud. “Sometimes I’m sure He’s more delighted with a shoemaker, especially if the lowly man is walking in the Light.”

  “Walking in the Light?” asked Amanda, her face turned to Jake’s and a furrow on her brow.

  “It means following Jesus,” he explained.

  Amanda shook her head. “You can’t follow Jesus. He doesn’t go anywhere.”

  Jake grinned at her. “Following Jesus means finding out what He wants from reading your Bible and praying. His Holy Spirit helps us to understand what we read and guides us in our decisions.”

  “I have a Bible,” said Amanda.

  “You do?” said Pamela.

  The little girl nodded her head, causing her silvery blond curls to bounce. “In my basket,” she explained. “Pastor Jarmin talked about journeys the Sunday before Althea and I left on our trip. He said God would protect our steps so we wouldn’t get lost. I packed my Bible and carried it with me so Althea and I wouldn’t have troubles.” She sighed. “It didn’t work. I got lost from Althea, Althea got hurt, and the tornado nearly swooped me away.”

  “‘Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me,’” quoted Pamela. “Psalm 119:133.”

  Jake looked at Pamela and shrugged. He didn’t have any inspiration, so he willingly let her handle it.

  “Amanda,” said Pamela, “that text and many like it tell us to choose to do things that God has told us are good. The Bible tells us how God thinks about things, which things are good and which are bad. When a person chooses to do bad, then the bad things get control of him, and he can be very unhappy. This is important. God says it often in the Bible, so He must think it is very important. You must follow the paths that He has labeled to be good. If you do that, then you will be a happy person, and you will know God is helping you.”

  “But I still have troubles,” lamented Amanda.

  “Yes, but you have God watching over you. Carrying the Bible doesn’t make Him closer to you,” Pamela explained. “You have to carry Him in your heart. You have to love Him. Being a Christian isn’t something you can pack in your basket. It’s your attitude toward your heavenly Father.”

  “You started out on a journey,” said Jake, “thinking the Bible in your basket was going to keep you safe. If you had left that Bible on the train, God still would have led you to my office. He still would have given you shelter during the tornado. He still would have put people in Big Springs to take care of your sister. The things that happen aren’t dependent upon your having the Bible; they’re dependent on God. You can’t put God in a basket or leave Him behind on a train.”

  “Yes,” said Pamela, “and that is so mu
ch better, because no matter what happens, you know He is there with you.”

  “So my journey can have bad things happen, but I still have God,” said Amanda.

  “Right,” said Jake. “And the Bible also tells us that all things work together for good for those who love Jesus. I know that’s true because even though getting left by the train was a bad thing, look how much good came from it.”

  “I have new friends,” said Amanda.

  “Yes,” agreed Pamela.

  “And I get to ride in a surrey,” she continued.

  “Yes,” said both adults.

  “And you and you get to go on a trip with me.” Amanda clapped her hands together.

  Jake turned a smile filled with admiration and charm to his female companions. His gaze rested on Pamela, and she blushed under the warmth of it.

  They stopped for lunch under willow trees by a stream. Amanda proudly displayed her peach tarts, and Jake ate his dessert first, which made both of his female companions laugh.

  “I won’t eat my tart first,” said Amanda in her old stuffy voice. “It isn’t proper.”

  “Being proper isn’t necessary on a picnic,” said Pamela as she took a huge bite of tart to prove it.

  Amanda gasped and then giggled. She ate her tart first as well.

  After cold, fried chicken and baked potatoes filled with cheese, Pamela and Jake rested, leaning against the trunk of the tree. Amanda played for a while with her doll.

  “I need to go freshen up,” she announced to Pamela.

  Pamela started to get up.

  “I can go by myself,” said Amanda. “I’ll go wash my hands in the stream and then go over there for the other.” She pointed to some bushes not ten feet away.

  Pamela looked at the gentle brook, debating whether it was safe to let the girl go alone. It was deep enough to be dangerous.

  Jake took hold of Pamela’s arm so she couldn’t rise.

  “All right, Amanda,” he said to the child while tenderly keeping Pamela by his side. “Miss Kotchkis will sit with me, and you can call if you need anything.”

  Amanda thrust her doll into Pamela’s arms and skipped off to the water’s edge.

  “Don’t worry,” said Jake. “We can see her from here if she falls in, and nothing is going to happen to her in the bushes.”

  They fell into conversation again. Pamela kept an eye on the little girl as she dawdled by the water, more playing than washing.

  By the time Amanda skipped over to the bushes, Pamela had relaxed again against the tree trunk, listening to Jake tell of one of his classes at the university.

  “What did she say?” asked Pamela abruptly.

  “She’s talking to herself,” answered Jake. “If she was in trouble, she’d yell.”

  “She’s talking to someone,” insisted Pamela.

  “An imaginary friend,” said Jake, but he cocked his ear toward the bushes.

  “Here, kitty, kitty,” he heard Amanda call. He started to rise.

  Pamela had heard her, too.

  “Don’t touch a stray kitten, Amanda,” she called. “It may not be friendly.”

  “Come see him, Miss Kottis. He’s pretty,” said Amanda. “He’s all fluffy and very little. I think he’s lost. Here, kitty, kitty.”

  Jake put out a hand to help Pamela stand. They started toward the bushes.

  “Oh! Nasty kitty!” cried Amanda.

  Jake and Pamela quickened their steps, but they knew before they rounded the bushes what kind of cat Amanda had found. Amanda held tight to the small black-and-white critter even as the air took on a most horrendous odor.

  “Put the baby down and let him go back to his mother,” said Jake.

  Amanda bent and released the “kitty” as she was told, but tears filled her eyes. The skunk scurried into the underbrush and disappeared.

  Chapter 7

  We can’t return her to her sister like this.” Pamela crossed the little clearing to stand next to poor Amanda, but she couldn’t bring herself to embrace the sniffling child.

  “You’ve got a suitcase,” said Jake. “Doesn’t she have something else to wear?”

  “That’s not going to solve the problem,” snapped Pamela. “She’ll still stink.”

  Amanda gave up trying to be brave and started crying.

  “Oh dear,” said Pamela, crouching down beside her. “I’m sorry, Amanda. I’m not mad at you. I know you’re miserable, and Sheriff Moore and I will think of something.”

  “We can rinse her off in the creek,” suggested Jake.

  “Yes, that will help some,” agreed Pamela. “Don’t cry so, Amanda. We’ll take off this dress, and Jake can bury it.”

  She started untying the pinafore and glanced up at Jake, who seemed to have frozen on the spot.

  “Sheriff, do you have any soap in your saddlebags?” Pamela asked.

  “I have a cake of shaving soap.”

  “That will have to do,” said Pamela.

  Amanda took a couple of big sniffs. “I have pretty soap,” she said.

  “You do?” asked Pamela.

  Amanda nodded. “In my basket. A lady takes her own soap so she doesn’t have to use the soap in the common washroom.”

  “Well, then,” said Pamela, “we’ll use Sheriff Moore’s soap first, because it is probably stronger, and then we’ll use your pretty soap because it probably smells nicer.”

  Amanda sniffed and nodded again. Jake went off to find the soaps and the clothes.

  Pamela removed her own shoes, socks, and skirt. That left her clothed decently enough, she decided, with her shirtwaist, shift, and bloomers. She coaxed Amanda into the stream.

  The water was warm from the hot summer days. Pamela held both of Amanda’s hands as they waded deeper into the gently flowing water. Once it was up to the little girl’s waist, Amanda began to treat her stream bath as an adventure. She let go of Pamela’s hands.

  “Look, I can dog paddle.” Amanda demonstrated her splashy technique.

  “Very good,” said Pamela. “But let’s take off that smelly shift.”

  “All right.” Amanda put her feet back down on the sandy bottom and tugged at the wet shift, trying to get it over her head.

  “Let me help,” offered Pamela. She took a step forward, and at that moment the shift slid over Amanda’s head and slapped Pamela in the face. Pamela sputtered and fell. She landed on the bottom of the streambed, sitting with her head and shoulders above the water. Amanda grinned and slapped the water to splash her friend.

  “Amanda, stop it,” said Pamela, grabbing Amanda playfully. “We’ve got to get that smell off of you.”

  “I’ve got the soap.” Jake’s voice startled Pamela. He stood, looking tall and handsome, at the edge of the stream with the two suitcases at his feet. Pamela looked down to make sure the murky water covered her.

  “I can’t come get it,” she answered.

  “I’ll toss it to you,” said Jake and swung his arm back to pitch the first cake of soap.

  “No,” she squealed. “I’ll drop it in the stream.”

  “Then I’ll just have to bring it to you.” Jake sat down and began pulling off his boots.

  “Sheriff Moore,” protested Pamela, “this isn’t proper.”

  Amanda bubbled over with giggles. “Sheriff Moore doesn’t know what’s proper, Miss Kottis.” She hopped up and down in the water. “He can’t take a bath with us, but he can come swimming. I’ve gone swimming with my cousins, James, John, Jordon, and Jacob, and even their father, Mr. Jenkins, and my sister Augusta.”

  Jake threw down his last sock and stood up.

  “Here I come,” he warned.

  “Splash him! Splash him!” squealed Amanda, and she did her best to scoop up the water and send it flying across to the advancing sheriff. Her efforts weren’t very threatening until Pamela joined the onslaught.

  Jake laughed and plunged on. He put the cakes of soap in his shirt pockets. Then, with his hands free, he shoveled water fast and efficien
tly, sending it showering over Pamela and Amanda.

  The ladies shrieked and splashed all the harder as he came near. The fun continued even after Jake brought out the soap. Amanda wiggled as the two adults soaped her from head to toe, twice with Jake’s shaving soap and twice with her perfumed soap from the finest mercantile in St. Louis.

  “Now you must go up to the horses,” said Pamela.

  Jake laughed at her with a roguish twinkle in his eye and the two dimples deeply set in his smiling face.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “Because,” Pamela said, her own face beaming with the joy of his teasing, “Miss Amanda and I want to get out of the stream and into some dry clothes.”

  “You have to go, Sheriff Moore,” insisted Amanda. “Miss Kottis and I are proper ladies.”

  Jake leaned back in the shallow water and let his body float. “I’m not finished with my swim,” he said.

  With one swift movement, Pamela reached over and dunked the sheriff’s head under the water. While he sputtered, she grabbed Amanda and plodded through the shallow water and up the bank. She put Amanda down and snatched the suitcases, hustling her little charge into the bushes.

  Jake trudged to the bank and came out dripping. He grabbed up his boots and socks, but he couldn’t resist rattling the bushes as he went by.

  The girls squealed and he chortled. Without stopping, he made his way back to their picnic site.

  “You’re no gentleman, Jake Moore,” Pamela called after him.

  Jake turned on his heel and walked backward a few steps as he answered, “Never said I was, ma’am.”

  He stretched out on the blanket in the sun, hoping to dry some while he waited. He closed his eyes and felt the warmth of the sun on his face. He couldn’t imagine a more perfect afternoon, smelly skunk and all. Dear Jesus, You have awakened a desire in my heart this past week. I find myself thinking, dreaming of this woman. I watch her every move, knowing I’m letting myself get drawn in closer and closer to that sacred state of matrimony. I dont want to hurt her or do anything that will shame You. I’m expecting You to give me a peace about this decision. I don’t want to be guilty of taking this holy covenant of marriage lightly. Guide me. When I listen to her speak, may I hear words of encouragement from You. Amen.