by Cathy Marie Hake, Lynn A. Coleman, Mary Davis, Susan Page Davis
Vivian put an arm around her shoulders. “This is Betsy. She’s going to live at the children’s home.”
Was she the only one? He’d thought Vivian said there were five children. Before he could ask how he could help them, Vivian spoke again.
“I need your help. The boys won’t come. They would rather freeze to death this winter.” Vivian’s eyes were wide with concern.
“What do you think I can do?” He raked a hand through his hair. She was the one who knew the children; he’d only left food for them on his back porch.
“Talk to them. Maybe they’ll listen to you.”
If all the children didn’t go to the home, Vivian would go back to the beach every day to feed them. It was in his best interest to see she didn’t feel like she had to. He couldn’t believe it when she had told him she’d been going down almost daily to the beach … by herself.
“I need to wait for Finn to get back from a delivery, then Martin and Todd can handle the store for a little while with Finn here to help.” A warmth wrapped around his heart at her look of appreciation and relief.
“I’ll take Betsy over to the home and come back.”
He could read in her eyes that she didn’t want Betsy to change her mind. He watched the door long after she’d left.
An hour or so later, Finn was back, business was slow, and Vivian walked back through his door. He called, “Let me grab my coat.” He got it from the back and headed out the door with her.
When they arrived on the beach, Vivian sat on a drift log, and he stood next to her. “Do you think they will come?”
“I told Peter I would be back and that he should bring the other boys.” Her eyes widened. “Oh look, here he comes.” Disappointment crossed her fine features. “He’s alone.”
He turned and watched the boy approach slowly.
Peter stopped twenty feet away. “Who’s he?”
“He’s a friend of mine,” Vivian said. “You can come closer.”
Peter shook his head. “He might grab me and take me away.”
Someone must have told this small tyke tales, so Conner sat on the log next to Vivian. “I promise not to grab you.”
Peter stayed where he was. “What do you want?”
He could understand Peter’s lack of trust all too well. The image of his mother’s painted face popped into his thoughts. He pushed it away immediately. “I know you. Did you know that?”
Peter scrunched up his face and shook his head.
“I own the general store. You are one of the children who comes and takes food from my back steps.”
Peter backed up a few steps. “We didn’t steal nothing.”
“I know. I left that food for you.” He remembered what it was like to always have that empty, hungry pain in the pit of his stomach, wondering if it would ever go away. Pain so bad he had wondered if his gut was eating him from the inside out.
“You gived it to us on purpose?”
“I did.”
Peter walked over and sat on the log next to Conner. “I liked the sweetbread best.” Peter hadn’t been an orphan so long that he was incapable of trusting adults.
“Where are Sam, Tommy, and George?” Vivian asked.
“Sam and Tommy are under the dock.” He pointed to the shadows under the dock on the other end of the beach. “They won’t come on account he’s here. George said he ain’t never going to an orphanage again, so there ain’t no point.”
So George was the leader of this little band of wayward children and the one who’d told them tales. “Will you go tell Sam and Tommy I’d like to talk to them?”
“Won’t do no good. They won’t go to an orphanage, neither.” Peter leaned closer to him. “I like you. You didn’t grab me or nothing.”
He stifled a chuckle and reached into his pocket, pulled out a nickel, and handed it to Peter. “You tell Sam and Tommy I’ll give them each one if they come over and talk to me.”
Peter looked up at him with one eye squinted shut. “You got more of these?”
He pulled out two more nickels.
Peter’s eyes rounded. He scooted off the log and ran across the sand shouting. “Sam, Tommy, you gotta come! Look what I got!”
Two boys came out from the shadows and gawked at Peter’s nickel. The threesome started walking in their direction, Peter in front and Tommy and Sam cautiously behind.
“You sure know how to get to those boys. I knew you’d be able to make them come.”
Conner was bolstered by Vivian’s confidence in him but wouldn’t kid himself. “They’re only coming over to get money.” He wanted so very much to please Vivian and to help these poor children.
She nodded. “But once they are here, you’ll win them over.” She smiled at him, and his heart tripled its beat.
Sam and Tommy stopped at the same place Peter had stopped when he first arrived, but Peter came over and sat next to him. “They don’t believe you got another nickel. I told them you had two.”
Conner opened his hand to reveal two nickels on his palm, then closed it. “First, I want to tell you about the children’s home. It’s a two-story house and has room for all of you. Widow Parker will look after you and cook for you.”
The younger of the two boys licked his lips. “Every day?”
“Every day. Three meals a day. Would you like that?”
The younger one nodded, and the older one shook his shoulder. “We ain’t going there, Tommy.”
“I want to eat every day,” Tommy whined.
“We ain’t going. He could be lying to us. George said not to trust no growed-up people.”
Conner needed to talk to George. He obviously had filled their heads with terrible stories of orphanages, stories that he himself knew were probably true.
“Come on, Tommy.” Sam turned to leave.
“But I didn’t get my nickel.”
“He ain’t gonna give us nothing.”
“I will, too.” He flipped one nickel into the air toward Tommy. The boy missed it but plucked it out of the sand. Conner flipped the second one to Sam. Sam caught it and stared at him. “I have another nickel for each of you if you talk George into coming to my store and talking to me.”
They exchanged glances and ran off.
Peter jumped off the log and faced him. “Me, too, mister? Me, too?”
He smiled. “Of course you, too.”
Peter ran off across the beach as fast as his little feet would plow through the loose sand. “Wait. I’m comin’.”
After the three boys were out of sight, Conner turned to Vivian. A tear trickled down her cheek. He brushed it away. “Don’t give up. George is the key. I’ll talk to him. I’ll convince him everything will be okay.”
She sniffled. “I know it will be. George will listen to you. I just know it.”
He mentally kicked himself. How was he ever going to convince this boy who was set against it? Lord, You and I both know I’m doing this mostly to win Vivian’s heart, but I do want to help these children, too. I just never would have thought to do anything more than set food out for them. Soften George’s heart for the sake of the other children.
Chapter 15
The next day, Conner’s store was teeming with customers when he saw an unkempt boy of about fourteen enter, looking quite uncomfortable. He hoped this was George and didn’t want the boy to get away, so he quickly finished ringing up his current customer and hurried over to the boy. “Are you George?”
George nodded.
“I’m Conner Jackson.” He held out his hand to the boy.
George stared at his hand a moment before he shook it. “I’m not going to no orphanage. I only came so the others can get their nickels.”
As he suspected, George looked out for the others. He could use that to sway him. “Winter is coming on. I think this might be a cold one. We might even get a little snow. It won’t be good for those kids to be out in the cold.”
“We’ll manage.”
“Have you been in a
n orphanage where you were treated poorly?”
George looked down shyly. “I don’t want that to happen to the others what happened to me.”
“That’s very responsible of you. But Widow Parker is not going to treat anyone poorly. She is a very nice woman who is as much in need as all of you. She has a son and she loves children.”
“You could just be saying that. Grown-ups say a lot of things they don’t mean.”
True, but he had to win George over to get the others. “If Widow Parker and the children’s home isn’t everything I’ve told you, you and the others can leave.”
“You don’t leave no orphanage once they got you. You have to escape like I did.”
“There are no bars on the windows, no fence around the grounds. You and the others can leave anytime you like.”
George just stared at him.
Conner reached into his pocket and handed the boy three nickels. “For the boys.” Then he gave George two bits. “That’s for you.” He shook George’s hand. “Thanks for coming. I know you’ll do the right thing.”
George seemed to consider that, gave a small nod, and walked out.
Conner had a feeling that George would make the right decision and talk the others into giving the children’s home a try.
Vivian looked out the front window of the new children’s home again. Where was Conner? He said he’d be there for Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone else was gathered at the children’s home: Abigail; her son, Harry; Betsy; Sam; Tommy; Peter; Martin, who couldn’t pay Abigail enough attention; Maggie, who helped prepare the meal; and Scotty. Even George was there. The only one missing was Conner. As she turned from the window, Conner came in through the kitchen door.
“Mrs. Parker, I have a surprise for you. Come with me.”
Abigail put on her coat, as did everyone else, following in a cluster behind Conner and Abigail out to the barn. In the middle stall stood a black-and-white milking cow. Abigail squealed like a schoolgirl. “Thank you, Mr. Jackson.”
“The children need fresh milk.”
Vivian saw Martin scowl at Conner’s back.
If she didn’t know that Conner wasn’t interested in Abigail, she might be jealous, too. But what if he had developed feelings for her? She would have to talk to Abigail about Martin and see if she had any interest at all in him.
They all headed back inside as a pack, and soon Maggie, Abigail, and Vivian had Thanksgiving dinner on the table. After everyone had eaten their fill, Vivian offered to do the evening milking. Conner accompanied her, saying she shouldn’t have to carry the milk bucket. Now she found herself alone in the barn with Conner.
“I think I made a big mistake.” Conner sat on the milking stool, squirting milk into the pail. He’d taken over the job she had volunteered for.
Was he trying to win more favors with Abigail? “What would that be?”
“I should have had Martin present the cow to Mrs. Parker.”
“Why?”
“Did you see the look on her face?” He shivered.
Yes, she had. It had been the look of deep gratitude. “Are you afraid of Abigail or of all women?” She hoped he wasn’t one of those men who chose to remain a bachelor all his life. After all, he was twenty-seven, had never married, and had turned down her offer to have Randolph bring him back a bride. Now she was glad he’d turned it down.
“Only women who look at me with that glimmer in their eye of cornering prey.”
“Are you against marriage?”
“No,” he said quickly.
That was a relief. “Will you ever marry?”
He stroked the side of the cow and stood, picking up the pail. “If the right woman falls in love with me.”
“She need only to fall in love with you, and she’d be the right woman?”
He cocked his head a little to the right. “The right woman would be the woman I’m in love with.” He walked away, milk sloshing to the rim of the pail.
She stood staring after him. She wanted to be the right woman. But how did she make sure she was? For one thing, don’t look at him like cornered prey.
Nearly two weeks later, Vivian headed to the children’s home one afternoon. The roof was being repaired, and she looked forward to seeing Conner for more than just the evening. When Scotty drove her carriage into the yard, she saw Martin Zahn climbing down a ladder from the roof.
She took Scotty’s hand as she stepped down. “Mr. Zahn.”
He came over to her. “Mrs. Carlyle.”
“I see you and Mr. Jackson are fixing the roof. Thank you so much.”
“Just me and the boys.” He waved his hand toward Tommy, Samuel, and Peter.
“Conner’s not here?”
He raised an eyebrow at her use of Conner’s first name.
She would pretend not to notice … either her slipup or Mr. Zahn’s observation of it.
“He’s at the store. Sent me over to do this job. My uncle was a carpenter in Port Angeles. I worked for him when I was a boy. I didn’t much care for the work and came here. But I’m rather enjoying it today.”
That was because he was sweet on the recipient of his labor. She would have to encourage Abigail to consider Mr. Zahn as a suitor. Vivian took off her hat as she went inside, then sat at the kitchen table and had tea with Abigail. “I didn’t see George outside helping Mr. Zahn.” She was hoping to start a conversation about Mr. Zahn to gauge Abigail’s interest in him.
“George left three days ago.” Abigail took a sip of her tea.
“No.” The boy needed a roof over his head.
Abigail’s teacup clinked on the saucer as she set it down. “He signed on a ship. I got up when I heard someone stirring during the night. George was packed and preparing to walk out the door.”
“Did you try to stop him?” She’d worked so hard to put a roof over all these children’s heads.
Abigail shook her head. “His mind was made up. I cooked him some eggs. I didn’t want him going off on an empty stomach.”
Tears stung the back of her eyes. “Who will leave next?”
Abigail covered one of Vivian’s hands with her own. “George told me this was a fine home, but he just didn’t have a mind to stay. He told the others that this was a good place, and they were to stay here. They all seem content.”
“I’m glad to hear that.” Vivian took a drink of tea and heard banging on the roof. “Mr. Zahn sure is working hard.”
Abigail stood. “Come look what he’s done for us.”
She followed Abigail upstairs to the large room the boys shared. Four wood-framed beds lined the walls.
“Every couple of days he brings another bed he’s made. He started with one for Betsy. Now she’s in love with him. He also brought yards and yards of mattress ticking. Betsy and I have been sewing mattresses and stuffing them with hay. He also brought two hens and ten chicks the day after Thanksgiving, all laying hens. Come summer, and we have a producing garden, we’ll have food enough.”
It sounded like Mr. Zahn was doing everything he could to win Abigail’s heart, and Conner was staying away. Both thoughts eased Vivian’s mind and heart.
They went back to the kitchen and found Mr. Zahn waiting there. “I’ve taken care of the roof. You shouldn’t have any more leaks. I’ll come by after work and fix the railing and step out front, then get started on the other work, but Conner needs me back at the store so he can go over to the shipping office.”
Vivian picked up her hat and pinned it to her hair. “Mr. Jackson is going over to Carlyle Shipping?”
“He goes over there at least twice a day and then in the evenings.”
“Evenings?” He couldn’t go in the evenings; he spent evenings with her.
“I think he goes over late at night. Stays until midnight or so.”
So he went after his visits with her. No wonder he was looking so tired. He was going to drive himself into an early grave. “I’m going to Mr. Jackson’s store. Would you like a ride?”
“I ha
ve his delivery wagon. I’ll let him know you’re coming so he doesn’t leave before you get there.” Mr. Zahn tipped an imaginary hat to Abigail and left.
“I’d better hurry so I can catch Mr. Jackson.” She hugged Abigail good-bye and went to Conner’s store, which was teeming with customers.
She directed a couple of customers to what they were looking for, then went behind the counter, where she knew Conner would want her. She watched Mr. Zahn ring up a sale. The cash register didn’t look too hard to operate. “Mr. Zahn, if you would give me a little instruction on how to use that, I could ring up sales while you and Mr. Jackson help the customers.”
Mr. Zahn looked unsure but showed her, then went about the store.
Conner did a double take at Martin helping a customer. Hadn’t he asked him to mind the cash register? He looked to the counter. His heart stopped for a moment. Vivian stood at the register, smiling at a customer. He strode over behind the counter. “What are you doing?”
“I’m helping,” she said to him as she handed change to the customer. “Thank you, and come again.”
“I didn’t ask you to help.”
“You didn’t need to. You were quite busy. I asked Mr. Zahn to show me how the cash register works so he could help you out on the floor.” She turned, smiled at the next customer, and began ringing up the sale.
When she was through, he said, “I want you to go home. It’s not—”
“Safe. I know, I know, but you need help. Mr. Zahn told me you’ve been working here at the store and at Carlyle Shipping.”
He shot a glare at Martin’s back. He didn’t need Vivian coming down here because he was busy. “I’m doing fine. When William gets here, he will share the work.”
“Which isn’t until spring. At the rate you’re going, you’ll be dead by then. I’ve decided to come down and help in your store every day.”
“No, you won’t. I won’t allow it.”
“If you’re at the shipping office, you won’t know. Excuse me, I have a customer.” She smiled at the blond-haired man who eyed her with interest.
Conner raked a hand through his hair. If she were going to be here, he’d never be able to leave or work at the shipping office. A customer across the store caught his gaze and held up a can of beans. “Don’t move from behind this counter.”