Sweet Dreamin' Baby

by Mary Kay McComas

  "Okay. Tell me about these plans of yours." He was trying hard to be congenial, but, Lord, she was a cantankerous female.

  "They ain't none of your concern," she stated, drawing a startled look from him. Feeling she owed him for the apology, she added in a softer voice, "They ain't no one's concern but my own."

  He studied her intently, and for the second time in as many minutes, he amazed her with a mild reaction. He simply nodded and said, "All right. Let's hurry this along, then, so you can get down to Looty's. I feel like I'm holdin' up progress."

  Instead of knocking he entered the house shouting, "Anne? Buck?" The strain brought on another coughing episode that lasted long enough to plow a furrow of concern in Ellis's brow. When he could catch his breath, he pointed toward the back of the house with his thumb, saying, “Water. I'll be back directly."

  She excused him with a nod of her head and turned her attention to the interior of the house. She'd seen pictures in magazines of elegant houses with fancy furnishings; she'd lived in a shack with rough pine fittings and a dirt floor; but she'd never seen anything that looked more like a home to her.

  The heavy overstuffed furniture with the bright pillows, the polished tables and shiny floors, the rag rug in the center of the main room, and the fire crackling cheerfully in the hearth pulled at her heart. Envy stormed within her. Not for the house or the material possessions inside it—the LaSalles weren't exactly what she'd call stiff in the heels, or eatin' long corn. They weren't rich. But it was too plain to see the wealth of love, care, and pride that they'd poured into making their house a home, a stable and peaceful place. They had what Ellis wanted—something she'd never had. Begrudging the LaSalles their great fortune wasn't in her, but, still, she couldn't help wishing . . .

  Footsteps from the second floor caught her attention, and she watched a pregnant woman slowly descend the stairs. A skilled eye judged her to be in her sixth or seventh month and as healthy as the horse Bryce had spoken of. Half-way down she caught sight of Ellis and smiled.

  “You have to be Ellis," Anne LaSalle said, her striking blue eyes bright and welcoming. "Bryce said you'd be the prettiest little thing I've seen in a month of Sundays."

  Ellis almost turned to see if someone was standing behind her. Bryce thought she was pretty?

  With no response forthcoming, Anne continued to speak. “I'm Anne LaSalle, and I've very pleased to meet you, Ellis," she said, holding her hand out in friendship. They touched briefly, measuring and assessing each other in a split second.

  Anne met Ellis's gaze openly and equally. There was no pity, prejudice, or condescension. There was no air of employer inspecting employee or of a married woman examining a female intruder in her home. There was only Anne and Ellis, two female human beings standing two feet apart at a crossroad. What was behind them was behind them, and they could choose to take separate roads and go on about their lives or travel together on the same road as friends.

  They intuitively chose friendship.

  "Mornin', ma'am," Ellis said by way of a greeting.

  "Oh, not another one," Anne cried in mock despair. "Every time I think I'm free of that title, I run into another southerner who calls me ma'am." She laughed. "Please call me Anne. Ma'am makes me feel as old as these hills." She paused. "Of course, now that I look like one of them . . ." She looked down at her belly.

  Ellis smiled. "After the babe comes, you'll miss havin' it so close to ya."

  Anne palmed her distended abdomen fondly and gave some consideration to her words. She looked almost sad for a moment. "I shouldn't be so impatient, should I?"

  "No, ma'am . . . No, you shouldn't." She noticed that Anne was looking at her thoughtfully. Hastily she added, "But it seems like all the mamas I ever met didn't know about the missin' feelin' till after the first one come, either. They was all hankerin' to be done with it too."

  “Well, it's just one of the many things I don't know about having babies. I haven't even held a newborn before."

  "Some of it comes to ya natural, and the rest ya learn real quick. Little ones are tougher than they look and just sorta live in spite of ya," she said, trying to be reassuring, a pang of guilt tearing at her.

  Anne laughed. "That's good to know. Have you had breakfast yet, Ellis? I'm starved."

  “You're always starved," came Buck's voice from the stairway several feet away. "A camp of lumberjacks could live for a week on what you eat in one sittin', sugar." He stepped to his wife's side and planted a kiss on her cheek. "Hey, Ellis. Mighty glad to have ya with us."

  "Glad to be here," she said.

  "We gotta talk fast to keep her though," Bryce said, coming up behind his brother and sister-in-law. "She's lookin' to hire on at Looty's too."

  "Well, let's move away from the front door and talk about it over breakfast, shall we?" Anne suggested politely.

  "Annie's starvin' again," Buck said, interpreting her remark for Bryce, who chuckled.

  "We gotta feed her then. Last time she missed a meal she started gnawin’ on the furniture."

  Anne sniffed and gave them both a haughty glare. She reached out and looped her arm with Ellis's, saying, "Do you see what I have to put up with around here, Ellis? Please say you'll come and stay with us for a while. I'm in dire need of help."

  She found herself being pulled toward the kitchen and wasn't at all sure of what to say. She'd never seen such goin's on. Them sassin' one another and sayin' the most outrageous things. It was the beatin'est thing.

  "What kind of help were ya needin'?" she asked in all seriousness.

  Anne was quick to pick up on Ellis's tension. It wasn't the first time she'd been made aware of the fact that men like the LaSalle brothers were few and far between and that she was one lucky woman to have fallen in love with a man who wasn't afraid to treat her as an equal.

  "Actually, I need someone to help out a little with the house and the cooking. Do you cook?" she asked.

  “Course." Didn't every female over the age of seven? she thought.

  "Anne was a Yankee before she married Buck," Bryce said simply.

  Bryce's candid explanation shed a great deal of light on the situation for Ellis. Though the war between the states had come to an end over a hundred years earlier, it was common knowledge in the South that circumstance alone had kept the better army from winning.

  "Oh," she said, wiser but not thinking any less of Anne as a person. "Well, I reckon I can do most anything that needs doin' if ya tell me what ya want. I ain't up on my book learnin', but I can cook and mend and clean and plow— course you won't be needin' that done till spring, but I can chop wood and—"

  "Oh my," Anne said, holding up a hand to stop her, laughing. “You're going to make me look bad if you don't stop. You wouldn't believe the time I had getting Buck to marry me when he found out I couldn't chop wood or plow a field. Please don't remind him of what a terrible bargain he made on me."

  Ellis opened her mouth to deny that she'd ever dream of doing such a thing, but Anne winked at her and grinned. Buck and Bryce were chuckling, too, she noticed, which added to her confusion. They were the strangest people she'd ever met, and they fascinated her.

  It was hard to tell what they spoke of in earnest and what they were funning about, but underneath all the words and theatrical facial expressions there was a current of caring and understanding, a prevailing relationship between the three of them that was close and loving—and she was in total awe of it.

  Under Anne's direction, she helped prepare breakfast while the two of them discussed what would be expected of her in return for room and board. Mention was made of a small salary for her services, but she refused it. The bottom line in the deal revealed that there was very little that needed doing. In all honesty, she ought to be giving them money for putting a roof over her head. Luckily, she wasn't foolish enough to be that honest.

  The four of them sat together over the meal, something not unheard of in Stony Hollow, but a custom she was unacquainted and uncomfortab
le with.

  She liked listening to Anne speak with her proper northern accent. She said isn't and not – instead of ain't – the way it was written in the books that had belonged to Ellis's mother. She didn't drop her g's the way the rest of them did, and she didn't end every other word with an uh sound. It was nice, sort of fresh and crisp and clean sounding.

  When everyone had finished eating, Ellis stood and began to clear away the dishes.

  "I'll do these," Bryce said, standing with his plate and reaching for Anne's. Ellis froze like a statue, staring at him. "Stop gawkin'," he said, a little defensive. "It's my turn."

  "He and Buck took turns doing the dishes and the rest of the chores for years before I arrived on the scene," Anne explained with tongue in cheek. "Who was I to march in and change everything?"

  Both men groaned as if they had a mouthful of bad moonshine.

  "Is that the way you remember it?" Buck asked Bryce, handing over his plate with a befuddled expression.

  "Nope. Seems to me like she marched in and changed everything except takin' turns at the chores."

  Buck's gaze was loving and filled with laughter as it came to rest on Anne. "Remember the day she told us that she was my wife and not some fancy maid?"

  "Like yesterday," he mumbled, turning toward the sink.

  "And that if she was goin' to work full time at the mill alongside us, then we could just keep on doin' the housework alongside her." Anne smiled serenely but did not comment.

  "She don't chop wood though," Bryce reminded him, humor twitching at the corners of his lips when his eyes made contact with Ellis's. He was being playful, as if he didn't care a whit whether Anne could chop wood or not.

  "Well, I can't give birth to a baby, so I reckon we're pretty well matched there," Buck said, then added, “Course, I'd feel better about keepin' her, and I could hold my head up down at the Wheel again if she'd just go barefoot and learn to plow fields."

  Anne was very northern and very big city, so it was a comic thought to the LaSalles, who laughed heartily until they noticed Ellis.

  "Are ya makin' game of me?" she asked, soft voiced, stiff necked, and uncertain. The ribbing hadn't been aimed directly at her, but she felt mocked just the same. She was ready to cry from the hurt and spit in their faces with pride at the same time.

  "No. Oh no. No," they answered at once, looking mortified and guilty of being insensitive. A short tense silence followed the disclaimer as the LaSalles frantically sought words to explain themselves and put Ellis at ease again.

  Bryce spoke first.

  “You gotta lighten up, Ellis," he said, not ungently as he pried the plate from her hands and took her coffee cup from the table, going on about his business. "We pull Anne's chain every chance we get to keep her head from swellin' up like a hot-air balloon. See, about eighteen months ago she saved Webster from becomin' another ghost town in these parts, and there ain't a soul in the whole damn town—includin' Buck and me—who don't think she's the best thing that's happened to the world since safety pins and sliced bread."

  "And ball-point pens and flip-top cans," Buck added, winking at his wife.

  "Don't forget Velcro, sweetheart," she said, grinning before she lowered her eyes in what looked to Ellis like embarrassment.

  Bryce picked up Ellis's coat on his way back to the table and was holding it out for her as he continued. "We tease her 'cuz it's our way of tellin' her we care about her. It didn't have nothin' to do with you."

  She slid her arms into the big woolen coat feeling humbled and in the wrong. Confused too. Was she being handed her coat and asked to leave because she hadn't understood their banter? Because she was more used to ridicule than tomfoolery? She hadn't meant to make them feel uncomfortable, but she wouldn't abide anyone throwing off on her if she didn't have to. Should she apologize or not? She had a feeling that she'd just kissed her warm, safe bed good-bye.

  "Saturdays are busy for Looty," Bryce was saying. "You'd best get a move on. You can do your unpackin' when ya get back."

  She turned to look at him. There was nothing in his expression that implied anger. He nodded and gave her an encouraging smile.

  "Good luck, Ellis," Anne said. Both she and Buck were looking on with kind faces and friendly smiles, perplexing her all the more.

  She nodded her thanks, feeling she ought to do something to repay their generosity. She looked around at the messy kitchen.

  "No now," Anne said, laboring to her feet. "Don't look at Bryce's dishes like that, or he'll have you doing his chores and I'll never get him whipped back into shape after the baby comes. You run along and get that job at Looty's, and when you come home, you and I'll sit down and make a list of all the things I can't bend over to do anymore."

  She silently expressed her understanding and turned to leave, then turned back.

  "Thank you for the meal," she said. "And I'm sorry I made a fuss before."

  She beat it out of the house and sighed with relief in the frigid morning air. She jumped when she heard Bryce coughing behind her.

  "Are ya all right?" he asked when he could.

  It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that she was just fine, but she wasn't, and different words came forward.

  "I made a fool of myself," she said, dismayed.

  He didn't deny it or try to offer words of sympathy, and she couldn't seem to stop more words from coming forth.

  "They're very strange," she said, in case he hadn't noticed. "Them teasin' and flirtin' like they're courtin'. And none of ya get mad like you're supposed to."

  He chuckled. "Would ya feel better if we did?"

  She thought about it. She was conditioned to anger, but she didn't enjoy it. On the other hand, she knew how to deal with anger, and kindness made her feel . . . queer.

  "Maybe I would," she said.

  He laughed again. He slipped his hands into the bends of his arms to keep them warm and stepped off the porch to the stone path beside her.

  "Well, first off, ya ain't done nothin’ for us to get mad about, and secondly, you'll get used to us. Though I'll warn ya," he said, motioning back to the house with his head, "they get a lot worse than what ya saw this mornin'. They're crazy in love and they kiss and hug till it makes ya wanna vomit, but ya get used to that, too … after a while."

  "You're humbuggin' me again, ain't ya?" she accused him.

  “Yeah." He grinned and she trembled, but not from the cold. His arms unfolded and slipped loosely about her waist. "We do that when we like someone."

  Did that mean he liked her? Well, of course he must like her, or he wouldn't be helping her, but ... in what way did he like her? How much or how little? He was standing awfully close to her, she noticed, her muscles tensing, her nerves in a state of chaos, her heart racing.

  "What do you do when ya like someone, Ellis?" he asked, his voice as soft as goose down. He sensed her discomfort at being touched. She wasn't repulsed or he'd have sensed that, too, and withdrawn his hands. It was more as if she wasn't used to being touched, and it puzzled him.

  Her eyes lowered slowly away from his while she thought about his question. There weren't so many people in her life that she'd noticed a great distinction in her behavior toward them. There were those she'd loved without reservation, those she'd tolerated or endured . . . but liked?

  Ellis liked to see the sun dancing on water, and she liked the smell of spring after a heavy rain. She liked the way babies laughed and the taste of honeysuckle. She liked hot Sunday afternoons and … she liked Bryce, she admitted with some difficulty. It wasn't something she'd had occasion to acknowledge about another human being before.

  She did like Bryce. She liked his sense of self, his confidence, and his easy manner. She liked his common sense, his obvious devotion to his family and friends, his willingness to help a stranger in need. She liked the control he had on his emotions, his patience, and his persistent attempts to understand her.

  "You best get back inside," she muttered when his cough broke
into her thoughts.

  He wasn't inclined to argue, nor was he going to press her for an answer to his question. It was no revelation to him that personal disclosures weren't something that came easily to her. He wished her well at Looty's, planted a quick good-luck kiss on her lips because he couldn't resist the impulse, then took the steps two at a time back to the porch.

  "Thank you," she said, her lips steaming, her cheeks flushed.

  "For what?" he asked, turning to look at her.

  "For ... for carin'."

  His smile was slow and small, but it was the sweetest, gentlest smile she'd ever seen.

  "My pleasure."

  Four

  Looty Miller was sixty years old and as busy as a bee on a watermelon rind.

  "Are ya sickly?" the pursy woman asked. Her stout body brushed past Ellis, wafting the odor of grease and onions behind her as she poured coffee into two mugs and set them in front of two men sitting at the counter.

  "No ma'am," Ellis said, watching the woman's hands. They seemed to fly with speed and accuracy as they set napkins and spoons beside the mugs and pushed the cream and sugar closer.

  "Do ya read and write?" The woman went to the grill and turned bacon strips and eggs with one hand and put bread in a toaster with the other.

  "A little."

  "Try this," she said, thrusting a menu in Ellis's hand.

  "Welcome to Looty's ..." she read slowly.

  "Lower."

  "Breakfast. One egg, bacon or sausage, grits or hash browns, toast or biscuits. One dollar, seventy-five. Two eggs, bacon or—"

  "When can ya start?"

  "Right now?"

  "Grab that there apron then," Looty said, serving two customers their breakfast. "I've had my husband's niece aworkin' in here for two years now, and she never comes on time and she forgets to call when she ain't comin' in at all. I been waitin' for a good excuse ta get rid of her, but I reckon most folks thought not to ask for a job here, thinking I'd keep her on just 'cuz she's kin. What'd you say your name was?"

  "Ellis, ma'am."

  “Well, Ellis, I got news for my husband's niece. She ain't no kin to me, and I'm tired of not bein' able to count on her. Ya picked a good day ta come lookin' for work, girl. Take that half of the place," she motioned to the entire right side of the diner, "and if ya get into trouble, holler."