She held up the apple-green bonnet made from scraps she’d scavenged from Mrs. Sinclair’s shop. “We’ve made seven and received orders for four more. I’m pleased.”
“You got any here tonight? I’m headed to Clarkesville tomorrow and will show them around town. Kate gave me a poster to put up at the post office in town.”
How kind everyone was! Sally dropped her hands into her lap and beamed at Josiah. “I’ll send Lena to fetch them and you can choose the best. Perhaps you could take two?”
He stretched out his long legs. He wore a crisp cotton shirt, neatly pressed. His boots were polished and the buckles on his suspenders gleamed. She felt proud sitting next to him where all the townspeople could see.
“I’ll take all you’ve got. They’re a good example of your ability and will impress the seamstress over in Clarkesville. It’s always good for people to get a sense of your skill when you’re in business. You said you want to own a shop one day. What do you like about sewing?” Josiah asked.
“I love the feel of the material and the creativity in putting it together into a garment or hat. I enjoy seeing women walking down the street wearing items I created with my own hands. It gives me satisfaction knowing I made a woman’s life prettier and better. Don’t you feel the same way about helping people at the bank?”
He shrugged. “You need to make a living with a business. People need clothes, you provide; just make sure you turn a profit so you can stay in business. Most people are undercapitalized and don’t always pay attention to where their money goes.”
“What do you mean, undercapitalized?”
“I assume you’re not in business yet because you don’t have enough money to begin.”
Sally nodded. “I’ve been saving, but haven’t made much money, so far.”
“Do you have an account with our bank? We pay interest on money invested with us.” Josiah hooked his thumbs under the suspenders. “If not, come in and I’ll open an account for you.”
Sally thought of the fifty-seven cents stored in a glass jar under her bed. She knew she’d need much more to begin a business. Calico cost seven cents a yard and cashmere for winter clothing thirty-three cents. A spool of thread could be had for a dime. While she had enough money to make the sunbonnets, nothing else was affordable yet.
“Thank you, but I’m content with my system right now.” She said, embarrassed to have him know how little money she had.
Lena returned with a fresh glass of lemonade and promptly retrieved the sunbonnets at Sally’s request.
Josiah examined the stitching. “My mother said you can tell the quality of work by how messy the backside is. I can scarce tell the difference.”
“Ma taught me how to make invisible knots,” Lena said.
“I can see you do excellent work. Which two do you think are your best ones?”
Lena indicated a red-checked sunbonnet and a blue calico. Sally wished she didn’t have a pang of misgiving about giving away the bonnets now she knew the cost to make them.
She shook her head. She’d do the right thing even if it cost all the money she had.
Josiah set the bonnets aside and sipped the lemonade. “How’s your Pa? Things look mighty difficult out in Sterling.”
“He’s building a lean-to; Malcolm’s helping him.”
“I saw MacDougall out there the other day with his grasshopper brother-in-law. He looked as disheveled as ever.”
The way he referred to Malcolm and Ewan bothered Sally. “They’ve given up their time for others.”
“Some work with their hands and brawn, others use their brains.” Josiah fanned himself with his immaculate straw hat. They sat in a circle of light spilling from the window. The peepers were in full chorus now, and a full moon rose. “He’s been building a shack for himself over by his sister and brother-in-law. Imagine, he constructed a barn first for those horses of his.”
“Farmers always build the barn first.” Sally didn’t mean to be short. “They need to take care of the stock. Pa’s been searching the countryside for his lost cows.”
Josiah sniffed above his precise moustache. “I bet you’re happy to be in town. It’s much more comfortable here.”
“I’ll say,” Lena agreed.
Sally knew the answer this man expected, but she couldn’t bring herself to speak disloyally about either her father or Malcolm. She looked at her hands. “The people of Fairhope have been very generous. We’re excited about the dance. It’s good when church people reach out to help others.”
“Of course. That’s what they’re here for.” He pulled out a gold pocket watch and frowned. “I must be on my way. I’ve got to leave early tomorrow for Clarkesville. I hope to have good news for you when I return.” He picked up the bonnets. “Good night.”
They bade him the same. As he went into the moonlit night, Sally rubbed her hands together and wondered if she really understood town people after all.
Chapter 5
Malcolm helped Sally onto the bench seat and set her picnic basket into his wagon amid the building supplies, rope, hardware, and four cases of canned goods his father sent from the mercantile. Sport leaped in with a yelp.
“Don’t you worry about Lena,” his mother called, her arm circling the girl’s waist. “We’ll enjoy our time together. She’s going to help me bake before we visit Kate.”
Lena waved good-bye as Malcolm climbed onto the seat and called to his horses.
The early morning dawn felt cool as they traveled the well-worn road east. Blackbirds soared through the grasses and into the cornfields on the outskirts of town. One farmer burst through his field waving his hat and shouting at the persnickety birds. Sport agreed with him and barked in greeting.
“Does Pa know I’m coming?” Sally asked.
“He’s looking forward to seeing you, but worried about how rough life is on the farm these days, especially after you’ve grown used to town.”
“I’m coming to help, not visit.”
Malcolm shrugged. “There’s plenty to do. If it weren’t for the tornado, where would you prefer to live?”
“I’m better suited for life in town, which is why Pa arranged for me to work for Mrs. Sinclair.”
“What do you like about it?”
“You see so few people when you live on a farm. It’s one long round of tending the livestock, praying for rain at the right time, and preparing for winter. I want to do more with my life.”
“Like what?”
Sally sat up straighter. “Don’t you think God created us with unique gifts we should use for his work?”
His shoulders were still stiff from all the hauling he’d been doing the last week. “Yes.”
“I like to create with fabric and needle. A town has more folks who can use my talent than a little farm in the country. It’s a friendlier place with more people to visit with than on a farm.”
“Growing up in the mercantile, I had my fill of seeing people. Driving a rig means I talk with folks all the time. I never thought much about how lonely it might be on a farm, especially for a girl as lively as you,” Malcolm said.
She glanced up at him, coloring. “I don’t mean to complain. I’ll always keep chickens and horses, but I like to make things with my hands rather than grow food. That’s all.”
Her eyes went dreamy, and Malcolm deliberately turned his head away to watch the road. The angel beside him distracted him too much. He tried to think of another conversation topic.
“Where do you see yourself in the future?” Sally asked.
“Working with Ewan and the mercantile when Da gets too old or Ewan decides not to teach anymore. We’re saving our money, and I’m going to buy another team. We’ll then do business hauling to the outlying small towns, the places the train will never go, like Sterling.”
Malcolm snuck a look at her. “I’d like a wife and family, hopefully a pretty church-going woman who likes town life.”
Sally went still. “All you want is beauty, church goin
g, and a woman who likes town living?”
He tugged his hat low over his eyes against the rising sun as they crossed a low hill. “I think marriage is a partnership, a couple working together to make a life. Each is necessary for comfort, encouragement, and entertainment. You’re not going to agree on everything, but part of the fun is learning to live together in spite of your differences. You get the basics right, the rest will fall into line.”
Sport thrust his head between them, and Sally absently scratched his ears. They traveled in silence.
At a flattened field near where Malcolm had picked up Joe and Anna, he turned off the road toward the ramshackle sod hovel the family called home. The rutted passage bumped him sideways into Sally. “Sorry.”
She laughed. “Maybe we should have walked.”
A pack of mutts streamed from the fields barking and yipping. Malcolm ordered Sport to stay. The flimsy door opened, and Archibald Owens stepped out, pulling up his dirty suspenders and yawning. “Yer out early, Malcolm.”
Joe and several smaller children spilled out from behind him.
“I’ve brought supplies today. Do you need anything?”
“No way to pay you.”
Malcolm had expected his answer. “I’ve got a case of food to help. How’d your house fare?”
“We’ll get by. Unless you got a sack of nails in your wagon and a piece of stovepipe.”
Malcolm handed him a three-foot piece of stove pipe and a handful of nails. Owens squinted at him. “I can’t pay anything.”
“Make sure the children get to school in the fall so Ewan can teach them a new song. Sounds like they know the times tables.”
“That right?” He looked at his oldest son.
Joe began to sing the multiplication song.
“He learned them a lot younger than I did.” Malcolm shook Owens’s hand and climbed up beside Sally.
“I’ll do my best to get ’em to school. Pretty odd courting buggy you got there, but I suppose it will do the job.” Owens slapped his knee and laughed as they drove out of the yard. The children and dogs ran after the wagon shouting and barking.
Malcolm swallowed and hoped Sally, who had been leaning over her side of the wagon to hand something to Anna, hadn’t heard.
Sally bounced against him and grabbed his arm for balance. “Kate told me about you learning math by singing.”
He stiffened.
“I’m impressed you stuck with it and learned mathematics well enough to run your own business.”
Malcolm could only nod, his tongue too twisted to explain the pleasure he got from turning numbers over in his head now. Ewan had set him to studying geometry and the straight-forward logic of figuring out proofs and angles made long hours on the road go faster. “It pleases me Joe and his brothers and sisters won’t learn mathematics as late as I did.”
Even as he spoke, he winced. He should be talking to Sally about more romantic things, but maybe it was too early in the morning.
They stopped at the Hull farm where Malcolm off-loaded two cases of food and building supplies. “Thank your father for me,” Mr. Hull said. “I’ll pass cans along to the neighbors west of here. They’re scrambling like the rest of us. Due east, the farms weren’t even touched.”
“Why would God allow a tornado to destroy one farm and not another?” Sally asked as they drove away.
Malcolm shrugged. “Hard to know why God does the things He does.”
Like fixate Malcolm’s heart on this pretty girl.
Her father was hoeing the remains of the garden plot when they reached the farm. Sally hugged him and tugged the picnic basket from the wagon. “I’ve brought you biscuits and a loaf of bread with Mrs. MacDougall’s butter and jam.”
“A real treat. I’ve been living on eggs boiled over the fire. Good thing the chickens are still laying.”
The men spent the day strengthening and fixing the barn. “I’ll live with the animals this winter, but we need to make sure the whole thing won’t collapse on me,” Pa said.
Sally scrubbed clothes and stretched them over bushes to dry. She inspected her father’s food supply and put together a list of items to send out. He’d found the iron stove in the rubble, and she cooked a hot meal.
“Smells mighty fine.” Pa rubbed his hands together. “Thank you.”
He looked thinner and worry lines crossed his forehead. Sally kissed his cheek. “Maybe you should move to town with us, Pa.”
“Who would look after the livestock?” He smacked his lips and forked a piece of fried ham onto his plate.
Sally’s heart sank. “I’m sure we could think of something.”
“I might have room in my barn, Mr. Martin,” Malcolm said.
“I can manage out here for now.” Pa waved him off. “You’re a good worker, Malcolm. I appreciate all you’ve done for me and the other folks around here. Not sure I’d be as well off as I am without your help.”
“It’s about loving your neighbor as yourself.” Malcolm’s face turned red.
Pa elbowed her. “He doesn’t live on the next farm over, but he calls me neighbor.”
“Sally works across the street from the mercantile,” Malcolm said.
“She’s your neighbor, then, not me.” Pa laughed.
Pa lay down in the shade for a rest after dinner, but Sally had another need. She led Malcolm down a well-worn path to the creek not far from the homestead, carrying a wooden bucket and a sharp knife.
He rolled up his pant legs and Sally tucked her skirt between her legs and tied it high around her waist. They waded into the slow-moving creek to the green reeds growing along the water’s edge, and he filled the bucket with water. “Watch for leeches,” she called.
Malcolm grimaced and shuffled in the water to discourage their latching onto his skin.
A friendly breeze blew up, flapping the ends of Sally’s bonnet as she scrutinized the green reeds. She called him over, indicating the pliable narrow reeds she wanted.
He fingered them. “How many should I cut?”
“Let’s fill the bucket. I don’t know when I’ll get back out here.”
“Are you giving away all the money you make on these sunbonnets to the tornado fund?” Malcolm asked.
“Yes.”
“After you pay for the supplies?”
Sally stopped, and the creek water eddied around her knees. “What supplies?”
“Reed is free, but what about the cloth and thread? You can give the cost of supplies to the cause, but no one expects you to go into debt to make them. What would be the point?”
She hadn’t considered it that way. Mrs. Sinclair had donated fabric scraps and she’d used her own, but she only had enough free fabric for about a dozen bonnets. “What should I do?”
“Once they sell, pay yourself back the amount you spend on making them and put the rest in the donation box. No one would quarrel with you.”
Sally stared at him and licked her lips. Trust Malcolm to see the right answer to a problem she hadn’t even anticipated. She took a step closer to him and plunged into an unexpected hole.
Malcolm grabbed for Sally and then tumbled into the water on top of her. They floundered, the heavy skirts tripping Sally, while Malcolm gulped a mouthful of the creek.
When they finally spluttered to shore, Sally laughed at the water streaming down Malcolm’s face. “Look how well my reed brim kept its shape.” Her clothes were a soggy mess, but the brim shielded the water from dripping into her eyes. “Thank you for saving me.”
“That’s a might clever bonnet you got there.” Malcolm took a deep breath, leaned in, and kissed her, sweet and gentle.
“Where are you?” Pa shouted from the knoll above.
Malcolm spun away, slipped, and floundered in the current.
Pa climbed down the path, reached the creek bank, and put his hands on his hips. “You may be a man of action and few words, Malcolm, but surely you know better than to fall in.” He reached for Sally with a frown. “You better s
tay away from him until your clothes dry off.”
Sally put her fingers to her lips and watched Malcolm float around a bend in the creek. Despite the clingy, wet clothes her cheeks flared hot, and she wondered what else Malcolm knew that she had not anticipated.
A man of action and few words, indeed!
Chapter 6
Helping Sally cut reeds reminded Malcolm of his childhood and the reed flutes he’d made with Kate and Ewan. Ewan had taught the Fairhope school children how to make and play reed flutes last Christmas; you could still hear them piping around town.
But the Sterling children didn’t know about reed flutes and the joy of making music.
He’d watched Lena shake when asked about the tornado, but he’d also seen her face light up when Kate blew her ridiculous bagpipes. Music might help calm Lena’s jittery soul.
Malcolm decided to find out.
He visited the Martin sisters sitting on the front porch after supper Monday night.
Dusk came, and the first bats flickered in the dying light. Playing children shouted down the street, and the heavy scent of honeysuckle hung in the air. Mrs. Campbell waved at him after she set the kerosene lamp in the window.
“What’s in the bag?” Lena craned her neck and sat taller on her chair.
“A present for you.” He brought out two reed flutes. The teenager’s eyes grew wide, and she set aside her embroidery. “One for you and one for me.”
He looked at Sally. “Did you want one, too?”
Her eyes gleamed, and she shook her head. “Thank you for thinking of Lena.”
Malcolm demonstrated how to cover the holes with his fingers and blew. He played up the scale, nowhere near as clearly as his sister, but good enough to satisfy.
He’d already taught Lena to play “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” when Kate and Ewan joined them.
“Sweet piping!” Kate called. She took the flute from her brother and blew. “It’s new, but has a nice tone. What are you up to?”
He looked at Ewan, who clapped him on the back. “He’s seen the kids out in Sterling who’ve lost everything and thought he’d make them a gift, right?”
The 12 Brides of Summer Novella Collection 1 Page 9