“Thank you, Mr. Mason,” Jesse replied matter-of-factly. Her eyes sparkled. Augusta thumped him on the back and offered him more tea.
“Tea?” Jonathan Daniels asked from across the room.
“Imported!” barked Augusta as she poured him a cup. “Goes with the dessert better than coffee. See if you don’t agree!” And she set a huge piece of cake down at his place.
The gentlemen from Omaha were softening toward Lincoln. Pythias began to think that perhaps his editorial might not be so brazenly negative, after all. Jonathan despaired of having the brilliant anecdotes he had hoped to share at the club upon his return.
“Uh, just what was the delicious soup you served this evening, Mrs. King?” he asked in his smoothest voice.
Jesse could not resist. “Dog meat stew, sir. It’s a specialty of Hathaway House.”
The three men from Omaha were aghast. Pythias gripped the edge of the table with both hands and forced himself to retain his supper. Jesse pursed her lips, arched one eyebrow, and allowed a tiny smile to curve up the corners of her mouth. From the kitchen doorway, LisBeth giggled.
The gentlemen looked at Jesse, then at one another. “Ah, a joke. A frontier joke. How amusing!” They smiled broadly—laughing to cover their sighs of relief—and Jonathan, the clever one, guffawed, “Dog meat stew, specialty of the Hathaway House! Great! I love it” Jonathan had his anecdote for his next evening at the club. He warmed toward the Hathaway House and Lincoln. The little village was coming of age, after all.
Having eaten enough cake to “kill a mule” according to Augusta, the gentlemen mounted the stairs to their rooms. The other boarders joked and mimicked them while Jesse sincerely tried not to enter in, and failed. When the last boarder had left the dining room, the three women shared triumphant smiles.
The next morning, Jonathan, Pythias, and Timothy left on the 7 a.m. stage for Elkhorn and on to Omaha. The Republican carried a short article some days later that Tom Mason rushed over to Augusta.
The proprietors of The Hathaway House in Lincoln do nothing by halves. They serve the finest meals, making use of the bounty of the prairie to create delicacies this writer found completely palatable.
“I guess he did!” snorted Augusta when she read the article to LisBeth and Jesse. “He ate two platefuls of greens!” The article concluded:
The author is most impressed by the rapid growth of Lincoln. Thanks to citizens like those encountered at The Hathaway House, and with the development of the salt industry, it will, no doubt, develop into a fine city.
In spite of the grudging praise from Omaha, however, Lincoln still had its problems. The commissioners failed in their first attempt to raise the $50,000 needed to erect a capitol building.
Augusta went to the first land sale and hurried home, the proud owner of the lot adjacent to her claim. She boasted of the bargain price of just twenty-five cents over the appraised value of forty dollars and lamented the foolishness of those who refused to speculate. But hers was the only purchase made that day.
“It’s a well-thought-out city, Jesse,” Augusta argued. “They’ve set aside blocks and lots for schools, parks, churches, and a market square. Why, they’ve even allowed for three lodges! Folks’ll come from all over. I just don’t understand why these fool men don’t see it. Just like men—they get their own way and then they’re afraid to get on with it! Why on earth don’t you buy yourself a lot? I’ll certainly loan you the money.” Augusta was expansive in her desire to share the future of her beloved Lincoln.
“I don’t argue that someday Lincoln will be a great city, Augusta. It’s just that I’m content,” Jesse replied. “The more a person owns, the more he has to worry over. LisBeth and I have enough.”
Augusta couldn’t understand. LisBeth, who was stirring a kettle of apple butter, secretly questioned her mother’s wisdom. But Jesse would not be moved. Augusta stopped scolding and tried to empathize.
“I tend to go overboard sometimes, Jesse. So, I guess we’ll balance each other out. You don’t seem to want anything, and I want to own the whole town! You keep me from going too far—and maybe I’ll force you to think of LisBeth’s future a bit more.”
Jesse bristled visibly. “Augusta, the Lord is perfectly able to take care of LisBeth’s future. I don’t think my acquiring material wealth is the way to teach her security. I want her to put her whole faith in the Lord. He always takes care of his own.”
“The Lord helps those who help themselves, Jesse!”
Jesse smiled and quoted, “My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.”
“That’s the trouble with you, Jesse. You always have an answer to everything. And it’s usually from the Scriptures, which makes me sound like a heathen if I try to argue!” Augusta changed the subject abruptly, going to the door and staring across the open land. “Now where’s Joseph with that string of fish he promised me for supper? All these newcomers can’t have fished Willow Bend dry yet!”
Joseph arrived soon with the promised string of fish in hand. Twelve regular boarders now dined at Hathaway House morning and evening, with a lunch available to those who required it at a minimal extra charge. Most of the boarders were the skilled laborers recruited to help build the new capitol. Some had come from as far away as Chicago, and their opinions of the prairie city provided lively debate at most meals.
“Know what, Miz Hathaway,” Tom Mason would begin, delighting in stirring up trouble, “I heard today that the railroad is headed clean around the salt flats—won’t come near Lincoln for fear some Sioux on the warpath will scalp the crews.”
Whatever the device used to “rile Miz Hathaway,” it always worked. Augusta bristled. “Tom Mason, you and I both know there hasn’t been an Indian scare in these parts in years. And tell your ‘source’ that around here all we have are Pawnee, and they’ve been peaceful for a long, long time!”
A sod dormitory was erected on the capitol grounds. Boarders from the east grumbled about living in dirt houses, and Augusta defended again. “I suppose you easterners would have just laid down on the prairie and died before now. Got no gumption! Well, Nebraskans know how to make do, and if the Good Lord don’t provide trees, Nebraskans just look around and use what he has provided. Our sod houses will still be standing when your children have children!”
All the while Augusta argued and defended, she moved around the table, taking up plates, refilling coffee cups. Jesse worked just as hard, but very quietly. Both women kept LisBeth busy in the kitchen, out of sight and sound of the men. “For your own good, dearie,” insisted Augusta. LisBeth was fast becoming a young woman, and neither Jesse nor Augusta wanted it noticed.
Augusta was wrong about Jesse’s lack of ambition for LisBeth. When Jesse saw Hortense Griswall’s ad in the Commonwealth, she was one of the first to respond.
Miss Griswall’s select school will open October 1 on 10th Street. Come to the first door south of Dr. Patton’s Drug Store. Tuition per term of 12 weeks: Primary Grades, $4, High English and Latin, $7, French and Music extra. Tuition to be paid half in advance.
“LisBeth, look at this,” Jesse called out, the first night the ad appeared.
LisBeth laid her knitting down and peered over her mother’s shoulder at the ad. “Oh, Mother… I’m too old for school!”
“Nonsense, LisBeth. ‘High English and Latin.’ We have enough for that. Now I wonder how much extra music and French are.”
LisBeth wrinkled up her nose and returned to her knitting. “I don’t need to go to school. I know all I need to know to do sums for Aunt Augusta’s bookkeeping. I know how to cook and clean…”
Jesse interrupted her, “And you don’t know how to do a thing else.”
“But, Mother, I don’t want to do anything else. All I want out of life is a home and a family.” Seeing that her pleading was making no headway with her mother, LisBeth changed her attack. “Mother, you’ve said that God’s highest calling is to be a wife and mother. Did you suddenly change your min
d?”
“Of course not, dear. It’s just that…”
“It’s just that you’re afraid I won’t be able to meet the highest calling, so I’d better get busy and prepare for something else. That’s it, right?”
“That is not it,” Jesse retorted, feeling defensive.
LisBeth changed her strategy again. “Mother, if we trust that the Lord will do what’s best for me, then why should I need a secondary plan to his best plan? Why not just be patient for him to work it all out? That’s what you’ve always told me to do. Be patient. He makes all things beautiful in his time…”
Jesse’s mind whirled for an answer. She went to retrieve her sewing basket from her room, buying time to concoct a reasonable answer. By the time she returned, God had provided it. “LisBeth, of course we wait for God to answer our prayers. However, that doesn’t mean we do nothing while we wait. Do you remember when Joseph shared about the brick wall with us? He said, ‘There’s a brick wall, and the Lord says, “Joseph, now I want you to go through that.” I ain’t going to say, “Lord, I can’t. I’ve got nothing to do with that.” All I have to do is push against the wall, and it’s the Lord’s business to put me through.’
“LisBeth, the future is a brick wall. Only God can put you through the wall into a happy marriage. But you have to step up to the brick wall and push against it. You have to put yourself into society. And to be in society, there are certain things a young woman needs to know… things I’ve never had a chance to learn. Things Augusta never learned. We’ve both been too busy surviving to worry about them. But you don’t have to worry about surviving, LisBeth. I’ll provide for you. You can learn all those things, and I want you to. God has provided the opportunity. We must not neglect to push against the brick wall!”
“All right, Mother,” LisBeth sighed. “I’ll go to Miss Griswall’s school,” she added, “but she’d better be nice!”
Hortense Griswall was nice. She was really nice. The first day of classes, she wore a nut-brown calico dress adorned with a gold clasp engraved with the initials H.G. in fine script. Expertly sewn tucks covered the entire bodice of the dress from the high neck to the perfectly fitted waist. The hem swept the floor at just the right length.
Unfortunately, in spite of her meticulous wardrobe and perfectly coiffed hair, those who described Hortense with Christian sensitivity could only expound upon her being so nice, so well groomed. Bobby Miller, who at the age of six had sported no Christian sensitivity, had said it when Hortense, also aged six, had smiled at him in hopes that he would invite her to the May Day celebration. “You’re real nice, Hortense, but I don’t wanna go with you. You’re just too ugly.”
But she was nice. Hortense never complained. Although she found primary classes a bore and young children very trying, she was an excellent teacher.
Only a little older than LisBeth, Hortense wanted to resent LisBeth’s loveliness. But she found she could not, for the girl was unpretentious and, after her initial grumblings to her mother, honestly eager to learn.
So Hortense Griswall plodded through elementary grammar with her five small students, refreshed her toilet at noon, and then swept into the afternoon, her energies renewed for the conjugating of Latin and French verbs with LisBeth King.
One night long after LisBeth had gone to bed, Jesse and Augusta were startled by an urgent tapping at the door. “Who’s there?” demanded Augusta, reaching for her husband’s rifle, which she kept over the door.
“Tom, ma’am, Tom Mason.”
The rifle was returned to its place over the door, and Augusta let Tom in.
“Land sakes, Tom, you nearly scared us both to death! What do you want at this hour?”
Tom looked down, embarrassed. “Miz Hathaway… you got any more rooms? Any room at all? I’m sick to death of the varmints that we gotta share that soddy with! I went to turn in tonight and a snake fell outta the ceiling and curled up right on my cot! Please, ma’am… anything’ll do. Even a bedroll on the floor… just so I don’t have to sleep in no dirt houses anymore!”
Jesse was already moving the rockers away from the fireplace. Augusta read her meaning. “Well, now, Tom, all the beds are taken, but if you’re set on it, you can sleep here by the fireplace.” The young man nodded gratefully and reached outside the door to grab what proved to be his bedroll. He had known Miz Augusta would never turn him away.
The two women bid him goodnight. When they came down at dawn to begin breakfast preparations, Tom was out back milking the cow while LisBeth put on coffee and mixed up biscuits.
Augusta chortled, “Well, now, this may be a man that’s worth somethin’ after all! First one I ever met,” she said, adding abruptly, “except, of course, for Mr. Hathaway.”
“And Joseph,” LisBeth reminded her.
“And Joseph,” Augusta agreed.
When breakfast was finished and the diners scooted their chairs back to head for their work at the capitol building, Augusta proffered a plan. “Any of you men interested, I need a two story addition on the back, here. Joseph’ll have all the timber cut by next month. You can all have room and board and your choice of a new room for as long as you like if you decide to stay in Lincoln.”
“I’ll set up the foundation, Miz Hathaway.”
“I’ll help Joseph cut timber if he’ll tell me where to find him after supper.”
“I’m good at carpentry… hangin’ doors and such.”
By the time the men had gone out the door, Augusta’s addition was well underway. She nodded with satisfaction. “We’ll cut a door here,” she said, outlining the new doorway on the back wall of the cabin. “Narrow hall, three rooms down, three rooms up. Stairway right on the other side of this wall—convenient for you and me. When the addition’s done and the rooms are all rented, we’ll bump out the other side of the kitchen for you and LisBeth to have new rooms, then I’ll take over your room for my private sittin’ room. It’ll be kind of a hodgepodge building, but it’ll serve us well.”
“Augusta,” Jesse said, “I appreciate your being so generous, but as hard as I can work, I’ll never be able to pay for the construction of a wing just for LisBeth and me. Please, don’t feel obligated to do such a thing.”
“Now, Jesse King, you listen to me. You two are the closest thing to family I have, and if I want to see you comfortable, you just hush and let me be happy doin’ it! Sometimes I’m all bristles and quills, but don’t think I don’t appreciate them prairie flowers that LisBeth brings in for every supper table. And don’t think I don’t know that you put extra care in them quilts and comforters you made for all the beds in this place. Land sakes, woman! You more than earned a new room,” Augusta turned her back to Jesse and swept the floor vigorously as she croaked. “You’ve both earned a special place in this hard old heart. So you just hush and let me do what I want. I own this place, and I’ll build on to it if I want to!”
Jesse patted Augusta’s ample back and said softly, “You don’t fool me one bit, Augusta Hathaway. You’re all bluster and bother, but I see through it. Inside there’s a golden heart just waiting to show itself. I thank the Lord for letting me see it.”
Augusta was suddenly serious. “I wish I could see inside you, Jesse King. You’re all civility and manners. You never raise your voice. It drives me crazy. Haven’t you ever been so mad or sad you wanted to scream? How is it you’re always so… far away?” Augusta’s clear blue eyes met Jesse’s. Jesse looked over her friend’s shoulder. On the back of her rocker by the fire was the quilt that told her story: the log cabin, the broken dreams, the wagon wheels, the Indian tepees, the True Vine who had carried her through it all.
She whispered, “Oh, I’ve had my moments.” Loneliness made her yearn to share the story with Augusta. Fear held her back. What would Augusta think? Would she understand? Jesse looked back at the unflinching blue eyes that still questioned. She stiffened her shoulders, lifted her chin, and shut Augusta out.
Augusta dropped her hands from Jesse’s arms wit
h a sigh, “But you can’t talk about it, can you? Your kind never can. There’s fire behind those gray eyes. I see it, Jesse. I’m a good judge of people, and there’s a lot more to you than you let on.” She sighed again before abruptly changing the subject. “Now we’ve got to get to those chokecherries or the men’ll have twenty-minute chokecherry pie for lunch.”
“What’s that, Aunt Augusta?” LisBeth came in with a bouquet of flowers for the table.
“Why, that’s chokecherry pie with the pits left in. It takes twenty minutes to eat one piece!” Augusta’s laughter boomed.
Jesse’s eyes crinkled at the corners and she winked at LisBeth. “That’s one way to keep the boarders from eating more than their share!”
The three women joined in the now-familiar preparations that they would repeat day after day, week after week, month after month, while Lincoln’s boom continued, Hathaway House grew, and Joseph Freeman’s livery stable and blacksmith shop met the needs of travelers from near and far.
Twenty-six
A naughty person, a wicked man, walketh with a froward mouth. He winketh with his eyes… Frowardness is in his heart, he deviseth mischief continually.—Proverbs 6:12-14
By 1868, the population of Lincoln had grown from thirty to five hundred. Augusta crowed, “One hundred forty-three houses, Jesse, and we’ve got our first bank now. God bless James Sweet and N. C. Brock and their new stone building!” The newspaper rustled and Augusta leaped out of her chair. “And Hathaway House needs a change too. Enough of this frontier log cabin, Jesse. We’re going to have brick! And a fancy dining room, not just these plank tables anymore.” Augusta grabbed a pencil and began making notes in the margin of the paper.
Jesse and LisBeth smiled at each other over Augusta’s bowed head.
“Joseph!” she shouted, “Joseph!” Joseph came hurrying in, mopping his brow. Augusta began to share her plans. “Now, when you have time, Joseph, could you locate that stonemason that’s been working for George Atwood and ask him to stop in?”
Walks the Fire Page 22