“I always enjoy your company, Frank. In any case, it doesn’t seem I have much to say about my escorts, even as to whether I shall have any.”
Jason met her belligerent gaze as evenly as possible. He was tired of all the silly disagreements. Did everyone think it was easy to run this place, to make all the decisions, to be the person responsible for all the lives the farm touched? It made him weary all the way to his bones, and he lifted a silent prayer for continued strength.
Pearl stood against the wall of the station house, wishing there were lamps in the area. She should probably have let her parents take the horse-drawn bus home, but they deserved a warmer welcome when they’d been gone for three weeks. She rather hated to meet the night train. Tramps had broken into nine boxcars last week. Another night tramp had fired shots at passengers on the midnight train, then stolen potatoes and chickens waiting for shipment.
What would Jason think of her meeting the midnight train, which was infinitely more dangerous than traveling alone at night across a few miles of barren prairie. A chuckle rose in her throat at the thought.
Strange, but the railroad that the early settlers had hoped for and worked to make a reality, which brought growth to the town and prosperity to the farmers and merchants, was one of the largest causes of crime and pain in Chippewa City. Accidents among the railway workers and between trains and buggies kept her father and other area doctors busy.
Were the things one hoped for always that way? Never the way one thought they would be when realized? Always accompanied by unexpected problems?
Her thoughts were interrupted by the train roaring and wheezing into town, the huge lamp on the engine lighting its way, its wheels grinding against the track as it slowed to a stop. Black coal smoke settled over the people waiting on the wide plank platform.
Lantern light framed her mother on the top step of the train in her gray traveling suit with a fashionable hat on her silver-striped chestnut hair. A moment later Pearl’s father joined her, and they descended to the platform. For an instant Pearl lost them in the crowd. Then pushing forward, she came face-to-face with them.
“Mother Boston!” She pressed her face against her mother’s soft cheek. “Dr. Matt! It’s so good to see you both again. I can’t wait to hear all about the world’s fair.”
The doctor gave her a quick, tight hug, almost dislodging her smart hat with its feathers dyed to match her suit. “Reckon we’d like to hear what’s happening with you first, young lady.”
She laughed up at him. Goodness, she’d forgotten how tall he was! With his silvering blond hair and fair coloring, he could almost have been mistaken for the man who had given her and Johnny birth. “Nothing so exciting as Chicago and the world’s fair.”
“You and Boston wait here for me. I’ll get the baggage.”
“Howdy, Young Doc!” An old settler greeted Dr. Matt with the affectionate term by which everyone called him since he had first come to the area. She and Mother Boston exchanged smiles. The doctor was a well-loved man in town. She and Johnny were fortunate he and Boston had raised them.
He returned a few minutes later loaded down with bags, and they were soon on their way home. Pearl smiled broadly from the buggy’s backseat. “Remember when you brought me and Johnny down to see the first train arrive in town back in ’78? I thought the engine looked like a dragon from our storybooks!”
Dr. Matt didn’t return her smile. “More serious dragons than that around, I’ll wager.”
“Matthew,” Boston whispered urgently with a shake of her head, and Pearl wondered what in the world they were sending signals about.
“Did you see the Minnesota exhibits?” Pearl asked eagerly.
“Yep. The local elevator won a medal for its grain.”
“That’s wonderful!” It was quite an honor for the small town. She couldn’t wait to tell Jason.
“Going to tell us what’s been going on ‘round here while we’ve been gone, young lady?”
“Well, the oil tank we just passed is new. There’s one on each end of town now, to make it more convenient for the night marshall to fill the lamps. And new street lamps have been placed on the hill.”
“What’s been happening with you?”
Pearl shook her head, bewildered by his unusually stern tone. “What do you mean?”
“We’ve been hearing tales for the last thirty miles about you and young Sterling.”
“Jason?”
He nodded sharply. “Yep. Boston and I trust you, but when we hear the same tale from three different people—and respectable citizens at that….”
Pearl could feel her backbone stiffening. “I haven’t done anything to set people’s tongues wagging.”
“So you haven’t been spending time at the Sterling farm?”
“Well, yes. Yes, I have.”
He pulled Angel up short beneath a street lamp, and both he and Boston turned to look at her. She felt blood flooding her face as she met their searching gazes.
“We’re listening.”
In the light of the gas lamp, she could see the concern, almost fear, in his eyes beneath the determination to hear her side of the story. Boston and Dr. Matt had always played fair with her and Johnny, always trusted them to be truthful, and she knew they would listen to her now.
“So you can see it’s all innocent,” she finished her story. “Jason needed help, and there wasn’t anyone else to give it.”
“Yes, he’d tried to find a hired girl,” she answered Dr. Matt’s question. “And, yes, Jason refused to allow her to go out to the farm at first. But when harvest was claiming all his time and Maggie and Grace couldn’t keep up with everything…”
“What about Serena?” Mother Boston asked, referring to the hired Scandinavian farm girl who helped at their own home a few mornings each week.
“I asked if she could help, but she’d already hired out to another farmer for the hours she had free.”
Dr. Matt urged Angel out of the light and toward the steep road that climbed the bluff to the prairie where their home was located. “Well, I can see you were just being bighearted, like Boston here. However, a girl has to watch out for her reputation. I don’t want you going out there unchaperoned anymore. Three people mentioned your visits to us tonight. Three!”
“But…”
“Matthew is right,” Boston added in her soft voice that still had a touch of an Eastern accent after eighteen years on the Minnesota prairie—and was responsible for the nickname her husband had given her. “You’ll be of no use to Jason and his family if you ruin your reputation and besmirch his also. Believe me, dear, I know how tempting it is to try to help him, but you’ll have to find a more discreet manner in which to do so.”
“I can’t simply walk away from him now. Neither of you would pay any attention to gossip if it meant not helping a friend in need.”
In the moonlight she saw Matthew’s lips tighten. “You know how we’ve always tried to avoid making demands of you and John, but I can see no other way. I refuse to allow you to return to the Sterlings’ farm.”
Fury filled her chest at the injustice, and her eyes stung from the heat of her anger. “They need me!”
Boston reached over the low leather seat to take her hand, and Pearl’s gaze bored into hers. “Please, Mother Boston…”
“Matthew is right. Proper decorum won’t allow your visits. We’ll have to ask the Lord to help Jason and his family some other way.”
“But…”
“Surely you don’t think God incapable of helping them without you?”
Mother Boston’s question was gentle, but her voice held a spark of laughter, and Pearl had to look away. Of course God could help them without her. It was the one argument she couldn’t possibly win out against.
“No.” The whispered answer hurt her throat.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want God to help Jason. But with an unflattering, humbling glimpse into her own heart, she realized that she didn’t want God to find a
way to help him without her.
CHAPTER 5
Pearl smoothed her hands over the skirt of her new, butter yellow gown as she stood beside the buggy on Main Street. Laughter and gay voices mingled with music from the dance in the new Rollefson building a few doors down. Excitement swirled through the evening breeze, spicy with the scent of autumn leaves. She took a shaky breath and greeted a young couple passing by.
It wasn’t the music and the crowd that sent shivers tripping along her nerves, she admitted to herself. It was the knowledge that Jason would be here tonight. Only last evening she’d been at his home, yet it seemed a lifetime since she’d seen him. What would it be like if she did as Dr. Matt commanded and stayed away from the farmhouse altogether?
If she had any regard at all for her heart, she’d welcome the excuse to stay away and protect herself from heartbreak. Always before she’d thought of Jason as belonging to Miranda. Sharing Jason’s struggles, knowing Miranda had rejected his marriage offer, she’d opened her dreams to what it would be like to share his life forever. Now that she’d let the hope of experiencing his love slip inside her heart, she didn’t know how to push it back out.
Whatever was she going to do when Jason took a wife? Yes, she should run from all association with him. But she wouldn’t, even though it meant defying Dr. Matt. With the knowledge came a clenching about her heart at the vision of pain to come.
“Haven’t seen you since church last Sunday,” a familiar voice said in her ear, and she turned eagerly to grasp her brother’s hand.
“Johnny! Is Jewell doing well?”
A grin split his wide face beneath the hair that was as blond as her own. “She’s doing fine.”
“I must stop by and see her soon.” A sliver of guilt poked at her. Jewell, as was proper, only left home to attend church now that she was eight months along with their first child. Usually Pearl stopped by to visit her every couple days. She hadn’t been there since she had begun helping at Jason’s farmstead.
Johnny was nodding. “She’d like that. I wouldn’t have come tonight, but she nearly pushed me out the door. Said to be sure to come back with all the news of the neighbors, knowing everyone and their brother would be here tonight.”
“Did Billy come?” she asked, referring to the orphaned eleven-year-old boy Johnny and Jewell had taken into their home when they married two years earlier.
“Not tonight.” He crossed his arms and watched the passersby as he said with an exaggerated attempt to be casual, “Boston and Dr. Matt stopped this afternoon. Dr. Matt wondered why I hadn’t been watching out for you better while they were in Chicago.” He glanced sidewise at her.
Heat flooded her cheeks. “I haven’t done anything improper.”
The warmth in his gaze calmed her somewhat. “I know that. But you know how some people will imagine the worst and glory in the telling of it. Boston and Dr. Matt are only concerned for your reputation.”
She nodded glumly.
He glanced over her shoulder and waved. Turning, she saw Jason coming toward them with Grace in his arms. Fireworks seemed to go off in her stomach. Dressed for the dance, his shirt blazing white against his tan, Jason looked better than ever.
Johnny and Jason visited with a comfortable familiarity while Grace talked excitedly with her. She noticed Jason studying the new two-and-a-half-story brick building where the dance was being held as they talked. Was he admiring the design or thinking what he would have done differently?
“Good to see a number of brick buildings going up in town,” she heard him say over Grace’s chatter. “A lot safer in case of fire. Would hate to see Chippewa City lose most of its business section, like nearby Canby did recently—twenty-three business places gone overnight.”
Johnny, a volunteer fireman, nodded. “Wouldn’t mind seeing electrical service supplied to the town either. It was an exploding lamp that caused the Canby fire. On the other hand, when lightning struck just fifteen miles away in Granite Falls last month and lights burst in almost every home on the electrical service, there were no major fires.”
Grace demanded her attention once more, and Pearl didn’t hear any more of the men’s conversation until the group decided to enter the dance.
Even with the cool August air and the open windows, it was hot from the swarm of people. Men’s bay rum cologne battled with women’s toilet water in fragrances of lavender, violet, and rose, and both competed with the always present cigars. Rustling gowns splashed the room with color.
Jason’s laughter over a comment of Johnny’s cut off sharply, his face suddenly taut. Following his shocked gaze, Pearl caught her breath. Miranda!
She couldn’t take her eyes off her friend. Her escort, Grant Tyler, had Miranda’s hand tucked intimately in the crook of his arm, and his possessive manner disgusted Pearl. Miranda’s pointed chin was tilted up, and she smiled boldly into his face. She’d never seen Miranda with any escort but Jason, and Grant Tyler was the last man in Chippewa City she would have suspected Miranda would agree to see.
Grant must be five years older than she and Miranda. He’d come to Chippewa City two years ago and opened a hotel—a fine one. He dressed more elegantly than most men in town, always wearing flashy vests crossed by a gold watch chain. He loved to spin that chain while watching the ladies as they passed his business establishment. Pearl always thought his smile had an oily quality to it, beneath the carefully groomed mustache that was as shiny as freshly applied shoeblack. How could Miranda refuse Jason only to turn up with this… this dandy?
She darted a quick glance at Jason out of the corner of her eye. His jaw was rigid.
He set his little sister down carefully. “Will you watch Grace for a few minutes, John?” Without waiting for an answer, he took Pearl’s hand. “Dance with me, Miranda.”
It wasn’t a question, and he didn’t seem to realize he’d called her by his former fiancée’s name. Pearl followed him onto the dance floor, her throat too swollen from holding back the sobs that suddenly filled her chest to protest.
The band was playing a waltz, and Jason drew her stiffly into his arms. He smelled of shaving soap, and his white shirt of fresh starch. She remembered ironing the shirt the day before, and a queer little tightening twisted in her stomach. It had seemed such an intimate thing to do for him. Now here she was, dancing with him, her face only inches from his broad chest covered by that same shirt, and he was thinking only of Miranda.
She stumbled, and Jason caught her, drawing her tight against his chest to prevent her from falling. “I’m sorry,” she apologized at his look of surprise. “I’ve never danced a waltz before.”
If he’d asked her to do him the honor of a dance, as was proper, she would have reminded him that her parents considered the waltz too intimate for unmarried couples. But he hadn’t asked. He’d only assumed that, of course, she would dance with him, grabbed at her as a shield against the embarrassment of Miranda showing up with another man.
He grimaced. “Sorry. I forgot.” The steel bands of his arms relaxed, and he guided her from the floor, his hand gentle against her back.
When they reached Johnny and Grace, the little girl held up both arms to Jason. “Dance with me!”
Pearl thought his smile looked forced as he lifted Grace. “I’ll be honored to dance with the prettiest girl here.”
Grace’s tiny teeth flashed with pleasure.
Jason glanced over her shoulder at Johnny. “I’m sorry,” he said through tight lips. “Don’t know what I was thinking, dancing with Pearl like that.”
Johnny nodded solemnly.
Frank slipped up beside her as one of the townspeople claimed Johnny’s attention. “Must be hard on Jason, Miranda being here with Grant and all.”
“Yes.” She didn’t want to talk about it. It seemed disloyal to Jason. He wouldn’t want people pitying him.
“Never thought anything would come between those two. Can almost forgive him for being so touchy lately.”
“It’s awfu
lly warm in here. Perhaps you’d accompany me to get some punch?” Her diversion was successful. Frank took her elbow, and they worked their way through the crowd to a table that had been set up to serve refreshments. After picking up their punch cups, they moved slowly about the edge of the dance floor, greeting a couple here, a group there. Scandinavian and German accents mixed with “American” accents to form a music that rivaled that of the band.
“Amy!”
Pearl heard Frank’s strangled whisper at the same time she saw the willowy girl in a pink gown. Impulsively, she reached out to give her a quick hug. Next to Miranda, Amy was her dearest friend.
“I stopped by your house a few times this last week. Where have you been keeping yourself?” Amy asked in her soft voice.
The sly look that tall, skinny Ed Ray, Amy’s escort, slanted at Frank did not escape Pearl, and anger heated her cheeks. She looked him straight in the eye. “I’ve been helping out the Sterlings. It’s been difficult for Maggie, taking care of everything, with their parents gone and the men in the fields.”
“Oh, I do wish you’d told me! Perhaps I could have helped.” Her instant, sincere response poured oil on Pearl’s anger, though she noticed the distaste with which Ed greeted her words. Evidently he didn’t care for the idea of Amy helping at the Sterlings.
Before she could reply, Amy reached a hand in a lacy glove to gently touch Frank’s hand. It lingered on his no longer than was proper, but Pearl noticed the flush that rushed across Frank’s face. “I was so sorry to hear of your loss. I’ve been remembering you and your family in my prayers.”
“Thank you, Miss Amy,” Frank murmured, his dark eyes on hers.
Ed’s hand closed over Amy’s elbow, drawing her away from them slightly. “Yes, Sterling, sorry to hear about your parents. Wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Let’s dance, Amy.”
She smiled at them over her shoulder as Ed led her away.
“I understand Mr. Ray is attending Windom Academy again this fall,” Pearl said, attempting to make conversation.
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