On the counters he had filled his hard candy jars, set close to the edge where small children could see them. Alice loved that there were now many children in Tutchone. Joseph’s cash register was from his original Lancaster shop and it rung a cheerful bell with each sale. Beside it stood the scale for the gold.
Joseph had spent several hours teaching Alice how to use the register and weigh the nuggets and dust. The only item that had not yet arrived was the safe. It was expected on the afternoon steamer. In the morning the shop would open.
Chapter Seventy-Eight
Early morning found Alice tying bright ribbons around the pillars to the porch while Joseph arranged the barrels of brooms and the checker sets on the porch. There was room for four to play.
They went over everything inside, Alice assuring Joseph that she knew where each item was in the shop and how to measure the gold. She promised him she would ask if she had any questions. He was so nervous she laughed.
“This is important,” he said sternly.
“Oh, gosh,” Alice said. “I thought we were killing ourselves because we were bored with having all the damn money in the world. What could go wrong? I could undercharge someone?”
Joseph laughed in spite of himself. “I want it to be wonderful,” he admitted.
“Don’t you see?” she said. “It already is. Look!”
He peered out through the doorway window and could see an obviously excited crowd gathering on the street. Two elderly gentlemen were already setting up a checkerboard on the porch.
Joseph took her hands. “You’re right,” he said. “I didn’t even get to tell you thank you for the aprons. I nearly forgot.” He stepped back and admired her in her crisp apron. She had added cheerful ruffles along the straps of a purchased apron and wore her hair softly pulled from her face and tumbling down over her shoulders. Her dress was a fresh shade of blue and her eyes were bright and her cheeks rosy.
He thought about the recurring dream he’d had where he first saw Yvonne in an apron in the store and then it wasn’t her at all, it was Alice. His heart had known it all along.
“You look beautiful,” he said and pulled her to him, kissing her and then stepping back and taking a deep breath.
“It’s time,” he said.
Alice stood proudly beside him as he pulled open the front door. The little bell above the door chimed cheerfully.
She watched him greet his customers, freshly shaved and smart in his white apron. Alice thought about how she had always wanted to see him running his store. She smiled that now she would.
The morning rushed by, Joseph mostly working around the store helping customers and answering their questions while Alice ran the register. She saw him genuinely helpful with everyone, taking time in the busy store to look into each one’s eyes. If they wanted credit he was prepared with a form he had designed so that he or Alice could look at it and easily make a quick decision on the amount. Alice was surprised that so few had actually asked. It seemed everyone had money and appreciated the wide variety of merchandise.
Throughout the day Alice heard remarks about how thankful the women were that he had irons and watering cans. They seemed to treasure the little everyday items they felt represented civilization. Alice was sure there were more women in Tutchone who wanted now to iron than anywhere in the world when she sold the last of forty irons.
The checkerboards were popular, and when Joseph stepped outside in the early afternoon he introduced himself to the players.
“This here is damn genius.” Alice heard their voices through the doorway. “I never once had such a fine time shopping with me Missus for her house stuff. And with the young un’s full o’ candy it was the first peace and quiet I think I’ve had since I came up this way.”
After several moments of conversation it was clear all of the men were quite pleased with the arrangement.
“You otter sell some groceries too. I hates grocery shoppin’ too,” one man said.
Alice wondered how a few bonnets might do. She hung up the Out to Lunch sign on the door and beckoned Joseph inside.
Joseph shared his excitement with Alice over lunch. He was thrilled by the sales and the reaction of the local customers. He was happy, Alice thought. It didn’t matter to her so much what he did, but how much he loved it.
Chapter Seventy-Nine
As the summer passed, Joseph and Alice settled into regular hours at the store and the customers were generally respectful enough to avoid disturbing them on the days they remained closed. Alice convinced Joseph to close two days a week and they found that a Sunday and a Monday to themselves gave them plenty of time alone together. They spent many of those days either making improvements on their home or stealing away to the cabin.
Joseph pulled away a section of wall beneath a cabinet in the kitchen, opening it to the outside and Alice wondered what he could possibly have in mind with this new project.
“It will give us cold storage,” he told her and then fastened the cabinets from the inside so she couldn’t open them. When he wasn’t actually working he threw a large tarp over the project and eventually she gave up trying to understand his plan.
Unable to plant a garden while working on the store, Alice dug out the old plot and did manage to get in a few vegetables. She also received many more from the local women who were eager to trade in the store. Alice canned sauces and vegetables of all kinds and soon filled the shelves in the cool basement with a variety of goods.
One afternoon Joseph met her on the stairs and told her to close her eyes. She smiled at the excitement on his face, thinking he was finally ready to show off his cold storage locker. At the bottom of the staircase she put her hands over her face.
He led her to the kitchen and told her to open her eyes.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t see anything different,” she said.
“Open the cabinet.” He stood next to her, grinning broadly.
The cabinet was tall, nearly up to Alice’s hip with two wide doors. She bent and pulled the doors open and gasped.
Joseph had fashioned a large chicken coop that sat up against the wall outside the house and could be accessed from inside the house in the kitchen. There was a mesh wire between the house and the coop and a nesting box with a tiny door for collecting eggs.
“This is amazing,” Alice said in awe. She could see through to the yard where there was a pen for the chickens in the sunshine and a roof that covered their coop.
“In the winter you can open the cabinet and hear them. They’ll be warm up next to the house, but you don’t have to have them inside making a mess. The coop will close up from outside so the kitchen doesn’t get cold.”
Alice got down on her knees and saw that three fat hens pecked in their little yard. “Joseph this is wonderful. I missed the eggs from the cabin so much. I love this!”
He grinned broadly.
“You surprise me every day. I fell in love with a bearded prospector and found this wonderful man underneath. You can’t imagine how touched I am by this. Can we look outside?”
He held open the screened door as she rushed out to see the chickens, fat and content within their pen.
“This is magnificent!” Alice threw her hands around his neck.
After supper that evening Alice gathered the crumbs from their sourdough bread in her apron and stepped inside the chicken’s pen. They hurried to her feet as she scattered the crumbs with a wide smile on her face.
Joseph watched her from a workshop window. She looked content and satisfied in the yard. Her cheeks were rosy and she was shapely and attractive. He was pleased she liked the coop. The look on her face was beautiful. Joseph Southers felt like he was exactly at the place in his life where he had wanted to be all along. He decided his traveling days were over.
Chapter Eighty
Alice looked at the calendar card that Joseph kept on the counter in the store and could not believe it was nearly September. The months were passing and she had a problem she
could no longer ignore.
The following Monday she announced to Joseph that she was going to do a bit of shopping. She kissed his cheek and walked up the side of the yard, her basket on her arm.
She was always open with him, even in the beginning when she had reason not to be, but Joseph could not shake the feeling that Alice had just lied to him. He considered following her and then decided that perhaps she had a surprise in mind, like he’d had with the coop. He turned his concentration back to his work.
Alice looked up the street behind her to make sure he hadn’t decided to join her. It was not unusual for him to share her shopping trips, but today she did not want him beside her.
She looked up at the shingle hanging beside the door and slipped inside.
An older woman opened the door and directed Alice inside. “The doctor will be with you in a moment.”
Alice eyed the examination chair wryly. She’d been in similar contraptions half her life being checked for one thing or another. She suppressed her nausea.
The doctor entered and recognized her immediately. “It’s a pleasure to see you, Mrs. Southers. What brings you in today? Are you feeling poorly?” Doctor Gardner gestured for Alice sit on the stool across from him.
“I need to speak to you. I have some things I need to explain first. I hope I don’t shock you too terribly,” Alice began.
The doctor was a bit surprised. Alice Southers seemed completely devoted to her husband and was certainly not the kind of wife that tended to stray. He prepared himself that she was about to ask that he terminate a pregnancy. “Go ahead,” he said.
“Doctor, I’m sure you do not know that I was raised in a brothel. When I was very young, before I became a woman and had a time each month, I had something done to me. A doctor that worked for a nearby rancher had a wire of some sort put into me so I would never have children.”
The doctor sat back in his chair. “How old were you when this happened?” He knew the kind of device she was talking about. They were crude and illegal and very dangerous.
“I was eight at the time,” Alice replied.
The doctor rubbed his chin. It was unthinkable that anyone could do such a thing to a child.
“A few months ago,” she continued. “I had the most horrible time of the month. I was terrified. The pain was unbearable. We had a puppy that died the next morning and I was distracted and the pain just seemed to go away. After that, my time just stopped. It had been difficult for several months before that.” Alice took a deep breath.
“That was a few months ago and I have not had my time since. I have not told anyone, but I am getting very worried.”
Doctor Gardner explained that, before he could go any further, he would have to examine her. He already had his suspicions what had happened.
Alice removed her undergarments behind a screen and stepped up into the examination chair and the doctor draped a sheet over her. He began first by feeling her belly over the sheet and then examined her more closely and reached discreetly beneath her skirt. Like many doctors of his time all his examinations were done by touch only, never seeing a patient in an intimate way. He asked that she dress.
Alice stepped out from behind the screen and sat on the stool nervously.
“The device that was put inside of you should never have been there. It is completely illegal, even now, and out of the question in a female that is not even close to a childbearing age. Such a form of punishment and abuse is inexcusable.”
The word punishment stood out in Alice’s mind. She had suspected that the device was meant for that as well. “Go on,” she said quietly.
“Mrs. Southers, it is my professional opinion that, while you were suffering those particularly difficult months, your body was trying to rid itself of the device. The night your puppy died was very likely the night it happened. That’s why the pain stopped.”
“What does that mean?” Alice tensed. “Why would my time stop? Is something wrong?”
“No, Ma’am. One might say that something is right. Quite, right actually.” The doctor smiled reassuringly.
“I don’t understand,” Alice said.
“Mrs. Southers, you are with child.” He waited for her reaction.
“I’m expecting? Now? But how? When?” Alice stood up and blinked her eyes in shock.
“I would say not long after you lost the device. It’s designed to prevent a child from growing inside you. Once it was gone that all changed. I would say you are about three months along now. It may have happened right after you lost the wire.”
“That day at the cabin. This can’t be.” Alice paced the tiny room. “But what about the baby? Would the baby be alright?”
“Do you ever have pain now?”
“Never,” she said.
“Then I see no reason why the baby shouldn’t be just fine.”
Alice sat back on the stool. “How will I tell Joseph?” she said aloud.
“Is there some reason why he would not find this to be good news?” The doctor asked, somewhat surprised.
“I don’t know. We talked about it after we got married. He said the time was wrong, but now we’re settled. I just don’t know.”
“Go home, Mrs. Southers. Speak to him. You might be surprised.” Doctor Gardner could not imagine that Joseph Southers would be anything less than completely thrilled.
Chapter Eighty-One
Alice walked home as if in a daze and when she entered the workshop Joseph stopped working and froze. She was as pale as a ghost and he thought she looked faint.
He dropped the hammer on the table, took her elbow and tried to take her inside.
“No,” she said.
Alice looked up at his face and into his eyes. She searched for the words.
“I’m terrified right now and I don’t know what to say.”
He stood silent. She was clearly frightened and he could not imagine how he could help her. “Anything. You can tell me anything.”
“I’m pregnant.”
“What? But I thought..?” He took a step back, afraid to believe what she was saying.
“That rancher had them put that wire in me so I would not have children and it came out. The night the puppy died it came out. It had been hurting me and that night it stopped. You made love to me at the cabin the next day. Now I’m carrying a child, our child. I don’t know if you want…” Alice looked up at him expectantly.
“Is it true?” He took her hands. “You’re really having a baby and everything is fine and you’re expecting?”
“I am,” she replied nervously.
“Alice, that is wonderful! It’s more than wonderful, it’s a miracle!” He pulled her to him and kissed her.
“W-wonderful?” she stuttered. “You’re happy? Really happy?”
“Alice I am just about the happiest man in the world right now!”
“But I thought…”
“When we talked about it before we were getting ready to make the trip here. I was afraid it would be too much, the travel, cleaning the house, opening the store. I was selfish and I wanted to do everything in some crazy perfect order. Then, when you told me there would be no children, at first I was relieved. Then I just tried not to think about it. It wasn’t your fault and there was no way of changing it. When you found that puppy I watched you with him and it broke my heart. Oh, Alice, I am thrilled!”
She leaned her head against his chest and she could feel his excitement. He held her close to him and felt her take a deep breath.
“Now what?” she asked.
“I’m not sure. Maybe build a cradle?”
It suddenly occurred to her that she would have a child of her own and she began to cry.
“What’s wrong?” He stepped back and searched her face.
“I just love babies. I’m going to have my own and no one can take it away. A baby of my own. Our baby.” Alice sobbed against him and they stood in the sunny workshop together.
“You deserve it,” Joseph said sof
tly. “I can’t imagine a more wonderful mother.”
Chapter Eighty-Two
Joseph Southers set the cradle in the middle of the bedroom and thought about how small their new baby was going to be. His heart swelled with pride when Alice stepped into the room and inspected the piece.
“It’s adorable. I love the little hearts you carved into it and look, it rocks so smoothly and easily. It’s perfect.”
She stepped up beside him at the window and he pulled aside the curtain.
“Look,” he whispered.
Alice looked out over the mountains in the distance, across the pine covered hills nearly black in the darkness, and watched the lights grow. They rippled across the sky like a rainbow over the top of the world, flowing green and then red, a ribbon of pure light across the sky.
“Magnificent,” Alice said. “They have a name, don’t they?”
“They do,” he said. “A very pretty name.”
Alice put her head on his shoulder. “I love you, Joseph Southers. It’s been worth every step in my life to be here.”
Little Aurora Southers was born on a bright, March evening in the year nineteen hundred. The little town of Tutchone would survive the great Klondike Gold Rush, though many towns and prospectors did not. She would learn to crawl on the kitchen floor where she could imitate the chickens through the coop in the wall. She would take her first steps in her parent’s hardware store to the delight of the old men who played checkers on the big porch.
Aurora would grow up knowing every single person in town and listening to the tales of the old timers and the stories of her own parents. She would love her home and her land and the history of the people there. When she stood on the beach and watched an eagle in flight, she would know peace and happiness. Aurora would be the first of a new generation to lie awake at night and watch the Northern Lights.
Ill Repute Page 28