by Mona Hodgson
Following the woman through the doorway and toward another, Willow passed row after row of stocked bookcases and drew in another deep breath. She’d much rather work in a library than in a store full of wooden iceboxes.
In a room that Willow supposed had once been a formal dining room, they stopped in front of a wooden dowel rack where the librarian selected the most current edition of the Cripple Creek Times.
“Here you are, Miss.”
“Mrs. Peterson. Thank you.”
“I’m Alice. Let me know if you need anything else, Mrs. Peterson.” She smiled, then left the room.
Willow carried the newspaper to the oak library table located at the back of the resource room and flipped the pages until she found the classified advertisements for employment on the next to the last page. She drew in a deep breath and began reading.
Wanted: Muckers: Irish or Chinese, all shifts.
Wanted: Powder monkeys, young and quick.
Turning the page, she moved on through domestics and chambermaids for the wealthier residents to advertisements for cooks, for a laundress, for woodcutters, and even for girls for the purpose of entertainment.
Willow kept reading.
Painter Wanted: A skilled portrait painter to work with photographer.
Send letter of application and a sample of your painting to The
Photography Studio at North First Street.
She blinked and read the listing again. “A skilled portrait painter.” She would more readily choose the word experienced to describe her portrait painting, but if experience produced skill, then she was qualified. And if the job involved painting a portrait from a photograph, it would be much easier than trying to capture the facial features of a squirming neighbor child or a sleepy grandmother. Admittedly, she didn’t know much about photography, but if she could trust the ad, that didn’t seem to be a requirement. She pulled a notepad and a pencil from her reticule.
When she’d copied the information from the advertisement, she closed the newspaper and returned it to the rack on the wall. Showing her work in a photography studio could be the first step to having her paintings hung in an art gallery. That would be much better than selling boxy appliances. And if she already had a lead for a more suitable job, Ida wouldn’t feel obligated to hire her. She’d return to the boardinghouse, compose a letter of application, and select a sample of her painting. Then she’d go tell Ida of the exciting possibility.
Ida pulled the bed sheet to her chin. The Lover’s Knot quilt Aunt Alma made for her wedding lay draped over the rocker.
Her legs felt like anchors, and she hurt everywhere. If she could, she’d roll onto her side. But she couldn’t, not with Doc Susie bent over her bottom half. If only she could move onto a dry spot, away from the wetness. She’d feel better if she could go back to last evening when her family was gathered around the dinner table at the boardinghouse. Miss Hattie was hostess to her mother-in-law, Tucker’s Aunt Rosemary, and Willow. All three of her sisters and their husbands had joined them for dessert. If only she could turn the clock back to before the first spear of pain.
This morning she’d awakened first. Tucker lay on his back, his left hand tucked behind his head. She’d watched his chest rise and fall and then rolled to her right side and laid her sleepy head in the cradle of his shoulder. He’d wrapped his arm around her, pulling her close. They’d both drifted back to sleep, her dreaming of sitting on the bench at the creek. In her dream, her daughter sat beside her, dangling little legs and twirling the golden curls above her ears.
That was when everything was right … before the aching began. An ache that felt like the jaws of death gnawing at her womb. Chomping at her baby’s developing heels.
Doc Susie stood and pulled the bed sheet over Ida’s legs. No words were necessary to tell her what she already knew—death was feasting on her emptiness.
“Mrs. Raines.” The voice drifted in a fog above her. “I am afraid you have miscarried.”
Ida pressed her hand to her aching abdomen. Miscarried. What kind of a word was that? Failed to carry? Mistake? Or had she just failed?
What had she done wrong? She’d made cherry pie for dessert last night and eaten a piece rather late. Ida cringed. She didn’t remember feeling sick. She’d worked at the icehouse showroom yesterday. Did this happen because—
“I’ll go find your husband.” The door clicked shut.
Ida’s chest cramped and her lips quivered. She’d just lost her baby. The child for whom her sister Nell was knitting a blanket. The one Willow had said was the living answer to her father’s death.
And Tucker. She’d lost her gift to him. What would she say to him? He and Otis had already started work on the cradle.
Muffled voices permeated the fog that enveloped her. Was someone crying? Or was it her own sobs trapped just below the surface that she heard? Death had paid her another visit. First her mother. Then her father-in-law. Now—had she lost a son or a daughter?
Footsteps pounded the wood flooring outside the bedchamber. Why were they so loud? Any life left behind should be silent, still in death’s wake.
The door creaked open, and Tucker entered the room, his face solemn and his steps suddenly tentative. Ida didn’t want to move, didn’t care to open her eyes, but she sat up anyway. Tucker arranged their bed pillows to support her.
He stroked her mussed hair. “Are you all right?” His brown eyes were dulled but dry.
Biting her bottom lip, she nodded, lying. She wasn’t all right. Children were a heritage, and God had just taken back His gift.
Willow walked into the room. Tears shimmered in her green eyes as she knelt beside the bed and captured Ida’s hand. “I’m so sorry.”
Ida sniffled. Her sister-in-law had buried a husband. Willow hadn’t failed to carry a baby, but she understood. Ida could see it in the lines framing Willow’s mouth.
“You’re not all right, are you,” Willow said.
Ida shook her head. The dam broke, and the tears stinging her eyes ran down her face.
Tucker squeezed her arm through the bedcovers.
Ida met his clouded gaze. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.” He looked past her, at the wall. “All that matters is that you’re well.”
That wasn’t all that mattered. The baby she carried had mattered.
He brushed her forehead with dry lips. “I’ll be in the parlor.”
Ida held her breath to stifle her cries and nodded.
When he closed the door, Doc Susie stepped up to the bed, and Willow stood.
“What you’re feeling is normal,” the doctor said. “When a woman conceives, her body reacts with feelings of euphoria. An opposite reaction occurs when her body aborts the—”
“Baby.”
“Yes.” Doc Susie moistened her lips. “Your body expelled the baby naturally. It may take a few days, but your body will soon return to normal.”
Normal would have been her body clinging to a life and her midsection expanding to accommodate a growing baby. Like Kat’s. Like Vivian’s.
Doc Susie leaned forward. “Are you experiencing any more bleeding?”
“No.”
“You should be fine then.” The doctor looked at Willow. “Telephone me if she has any problems.” She laid a hand on Ida’s shoulder. “You can come by my office in a few days, or, if you’d like, I can stop by the icehouse to check on you.”
“Thank you.” Gratitude was the last thing Ida felt right now, but none of this was Dr. Susan Anderson’s fault. Her own body had betrayed her, and no one else was to blame.
Trenton positioned his camera and framed the family of three seated on a deacon’s bench. He’d seen bait worms less squirmy than this toddler. How was he to capture a good shot with her looking everywhere but at him? No wonder he preferred capturing landscapes. Too bad the Indian paintbrush, Dome Rock, and the Rocky Mountains didn’t pay to have their images recorded.
The mother sighed, the lines at her mouth deepening. �
��I apologize, Mr. Van Der Veer.” She glanced at the man beside her. “Perhaps we should reschedule for another time when she’s tired.”
Midnight? Trenton stepped out from under the cape of his Kodak. “I have an i-idea.” He’d seen Timothy O’Sullivan use distraction, and it had even worked for him a time or two. He pulled a metal tub full of toys from a cupboard and dug out a bright yellow cloth bird. He met the mother’s gaze. “Her n-name?”
“Ruby.”
As in ruby-throated hummingbird with very busy wings. Trenton held the felt-billed duck at the child’s eye level. “Ruby, this is Bo the bird. Can you help me?” When the words finally came out, they ran together as one.
The child nodded and reached for the stuffed animal.
He pulled it back. “Not yet. B-Bo wants a picture, b-but he likes to wiggle. Can you keep him still?”
This time the little girl’s nod was so big it sent her chin to her chest. Trenton couldn’t help but smile.
“I do it.” She snatched the bird from him. Her fingers tight around the toy’s middle and her knuckles white, the child could have been a statue.
Trenton returned to his camera and retreated under the cape to focus the grouping on the etched glass pane. He pulled the photo plate off the small table beside the tripod and pushed it into the camera. The slide came out in one smooth motion.
“Ready.” He squeezed the bulb and held up a tray of flashpowder. Poof! “P-please hold s-still while I change the p-plate.” He flipped the plate and refilled the flashtray. Another poof. “Th-that should d-do it.”
Mr. Flinn blew out a long breath. “Are we finished?”
“We are.” And none too soon.
The man loosened his tie. “My family lives in Cleveland. Never seen Ruby. I know folks who had their photographs colorized back East. You do that? Can you show them Ruby’s blue eyes?”
“I’m hiring someone who can do that.” Trenton pushed the bellows back into the body of the camera and latched the wooden door shut. He’d received a handful of applications for the job of portrait painter. If he had the right person, they could add appropriate color to his sepia prints. “I’ll have your p-prints ready by Thursday. I’ll let you know about the c-colorizing then.”
The man led his family out of the shop.
Exposed plates in hand, he headed to the darkroom. As he was about to enter, the bell jingled on the outside door. “One moment,” he called.
“I have a delivery.”
A courier. Another application? Trenton set the plates on the worktable and stepped into the front office.
The postmaster’s son stood at the counter holding a thin, two-foot-square, string-wrapped package.
Trenton reached into his pocket and pulled out a dime. “Thanks, son.”
“Anytime, sir.”
When had he become a “sir”? Probably the day he’d pulled that first gray hair from his temple.
A thick string double-wrapped the white butcher paper that was addressed to the studio. The sender had printed, “Do not bend or fold” across the front and back of it. Definitely another application for the job of portrait painter. Hopefully this applicant would hold more promise than the first four.
The package held an envelope and more paper folded over a wooden frame. He slipped a piece of stationery out of the envelope first and unfolded the letter.
To whom it concerns:
Please accept my application for the job of portrait painter. I am a sketch artist and a painter. My formal training includes several art courses with Mrs. Agnes Gibson of Stockton, California, whose work is sold in galleries in Sacramento and San Francisco.
The sample I’ve chosen to include is the portrait I painted of my husband, Samuel Peterson. Please note that whether or not I gain your employment, I require the painting be returned to me.
I look forward to hearing from you in respect to the details of the position available at your photography studio.
With best regards,
Mrs. Peterson
Miss Hattie’s Boardinghouse
Golden Avenue, Cripple Creek
Trenton dropped the letter on the countertop. A female applicant. He unwrapped her sample painting. Dark cherry wood framed a stunning portrait of a young man. Mrs. Peterson’s work displayed a keen understanding of composition and shading. Her abilities with depth of field were unmatched by the previous applicants. Leaning against the counter, Trenton pinched the bridge of his nose.
Jesse stepped onto the boardwalk outside the door, and Trenton waved him inside. His childhood friend looked around the studio. “You ready for some lunch?”
Trenton grinned. “You buyin’ today?”
“Yep.” Jesse hooked a thumb in his overalls. “Sold that black stallion.”
“Then, yes, I’m ready.” Trenton tucked the latest application into the drawer and pulled his hat from the hook. Mollie Gortner might be in a hurry to have a portrait painted from her photograph and Mr. Flinn might be anxious to have his daughter’s eyes colorized, but he couldn’t be in such a hurry that he hire the wrong person for the job.
After he locked the door, Trenton fell into step beside his friend. “Since you’re buying, I might even indulge in a generous slice of pie.”
Jesse chuckled. “You looked awful intent back there. You hear from another artist about the job?”
Trenton waved at the elderly woman sitting in front of the cobbler’s shop across the street. “A Mrs. Peterson submitted an application.”
“A married woman.”
“Yes.” Trenton turned left on Bennett Avenue and headed for the Third Street Café.
“S’pose neither of us should be surprised. More and more married women are working now.” Jesse raked his yellow hair with one hand. “Reverend Tucker Raines’s wife is a businesswoman. She manages the ice company and sells iceboxes.”
A pastor’s wife, no less. Trenton patted the pocket watch in his vest pocket. “Times are changing, all right.” He didn’t have anything against women who took jobs away from their home. That was a woman’s business to work out with her husband. But he’d assumed he would hire a man.
“Did your female applicant send a sample painting?”
“Yes.”
“Any good?
“Didn’t expect to hire a woman.”
“That good, huh?
Trenton nodded.
“Not all women are like that one in Kansas, you know.”
It would be far easier to believe that if he didn’t still have the sour taste of duplicity stuck in his throat.
Hattie covered her mouth, but the giggle escaped anyway. Boney Hughes lay under her kitchen sink, his upper body concealed by the cupboard. His legs sprawled over her linoleum flooring.
Boney scooted out from under the sink and peered up at her. “You think me rappin’ my old knuckles on these leaky pipes is funny?”
Unable to stifle her amusement, Hattie nodded. “You look like a …” She fanned herself, trying to regain her composure while he stood. “Like a fish out of water.”
Boney’s winter-white eyebrows arched. “A big old river catfish?”
Giggling, she studied him from his wiry beard to his worn boots. “A smaller fish perhaps, but surely one with a big heart.”
“You’re still a charmer, Hattie.” He hooked his thumbs in his bib overalls. “Wore my best duds for coffee this morning. If I knew you planned to put me to work—”
“You would’ve shown up anyway.” She smiled and pulled two mugs from the buffet.
“You know me all too well, Adeline Prudence Pemberton … Adams.” He said her married name with an air of reverence.
George had died within months of finishing the boardinghouse. He would have relished the ever-changing company the house afforded. Hattie sighed, picturing her late husband leaning against the sink.
Boney cleared his throat and looked out the window. “I still miss him too.”
She poured the coffee and set their cups on the kitchen table
beside the lemon-meringue pie she’d baked that morning.
Boney washed his hands under the running water, then bent to look at the pipes beneath the sink. “Fishy or not, ma’am, I fixed it. Not a single wayward drop.” His eyes shining like polished silver, he joined her at the table and gulped his coffee.
Hattie stirred a pinch of cinnamon into her cup. “You’re a good man, Mister Hughes.”
Bracing her cup with both hands, she sipped and savored the bold warmth as she did the same with the memories. “It’s nice to have someone to share coffee and a chat with. The house has been too quiet lately.”
“You got spoiled having the Sinclair sisters in the house.”
“I surely did.” Melancholy softened her tone. She missed witnessing the first hints of affection between the ladies and their gentlemen, the questions, the discoveries, the surrendering of two hearts to become one. Their journeys to the altar. She missed the excitement of the weddings.
She couldn’t love those four girls—young women—any more if they were her own daughters. George would have too. Each of them had found a good man and married him. Vivian, the last born and the last to arrive in Cripple Creek, had wed nearly a year ago.
The house had definitely been too quiet these past few months. Willow Raines Peterson was back in town, and she was as close to being a Sinclair sister as one could get without the blood, but—
Boney cleared his throat again, derailing her thoughts and drawing her gaze. Her friend had cut the pie and dished up two pieces. “Where’d you go?”
“I was on Tenderfoot Hill, May 30, 1896, watching Kat and Nell wed Morgan and Judson. The next minute, at the church, listening to Ida and Tucker’s vows. Then in the parlor remembering Vivian and Carter’s ceremony. And just now, I was wondering about Willow. Praying she is … content.”
“You think she’ll marry again?”
“I don’t know.” Hattie spread a napkin on her lap. “Widows aren’t easily convinced.”
“Don’t I know it.” Boney slid her pie plate across the table to her. “You ever miss Missouri?”