by Gail Sattler
He heard John’s sharp intake of breath.
Heinrich raised his eyebrows. “Really? But this is a good job and an outstanding section. John’s section has won many awards in past years.” He stood to meet Elliott eye-to-eye. “I know I came with a warning, but I’ll be sorry to see you go. Is there another section you wanted to be working with?”
“No. It’s a position not with the railroad.”
Their gazes met, Heinrich nodded, and they both sat again.
“I’m glad I came. I shall make it clear at the district office meeting on Monday what your intentions are, in order for the parties involved to wind down their plans to make this an issue. How much longer does that mean that you’ll be here?”
Elliott didn’t need to calculate it. Even though he’d only recently considered the possibility of staying, he had been counting almost to the day his remaining time with the Demchucks. “I have four more weeks.”
John didn’t rise but extended his hand to Heinrich, who reciprocated it in an unspoken gentlemen’s agreement.
“I really appreciate you coming out all this way on your own time to pass on that warning, and I’m glad we were able to defuse this matter before any damage was done. There must be something I can do to thank you.”
Heinrich smiled and glanced outside to where Louise was busy planting her peonies. “I must admit, there is another reason I came today. With your permission, I would like to take your lovely daughter to the movie theater tonight.”
❧
Louise cast her line into the water. “So the city boy does know how to fish.”
He didn’t look at her as he spoke. Instead, he bent his head and looked beneath him, past the trestle to the water far below, and swung his feet back and forth a few times. “I do know how to fish, but I must say, I have never had to watch the time so closely while doing it before. Fishing is supposed to be relaxing.” He turned his head to stare down the length of track, then pulled her papa’s pocket watch out of his pants pocket. “I’m glad this bridge isn’t in your father’s section,” he muttered as he checked the time.
Louise couldn’t hold back her giggle. While she enjoyed fishing, she’d never fished for relaxation. She fished to catch a fish. The railway bridge was the best fishing spot, as long as she was careful to be off the bridge before a train came by. Because she knew the train schedule every day, she knew in plenty of time when to get off the bridge. “If you catch something, will you be able to eat it, even after looking it in the eye?”
He grinned, and that funny thing happened in her chest again. “You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?”
She smiled back. She would never forget the day they’d gone to pick up the chicks, but soon it wouldn’t matter. In under a month he’d be gone.
Something in her stomach went to battle with the lunch she’d recently eaten, and she lost her smile. She wasn’t going to fool anyone, least of all herself. It did matter.
Louise turned her head and concentrated on her line in the water, far below. “Heinrich told me you aren’t going to take the lead hand job on a permanent basis and that you will be leaving when Papa’s cast is removed.”
“That was the arrangement from the beginning.”
“I was kind of hoping you’d consider staying on. Papa says you’re doing a good job.”
“I gave my word to Edward about the other job already. I have to admit that I briefly considered staying here, but really I can’t. Besides, I won’t be the cause of problems for your father because he’s bent the rules for me. He’s already done so much. When the time comes for me to move on, I will go—and trust that’s the path God has laid out for me.”
“Your decision has been made, then?”
“Yes.”
There was nothing more she could say, so she remained silent.
“So how did your evening with Heinrich go?”
“Fine.” It was horrible. She’d always liked Heinrich as someone her father had to answer to, but as to anything else, she had no interest. As funny as Heinrich was in a group, in private all he did was talk about himself. He was amusing to listen to, but only in the same sense as listening to an entertainer on a radio show. The conversation, what there had been of a conversation, had been all one-sided. However, if Louise wanted to be fair, she had to admit she hadn’t made much effort to contribute. Heinrich was nearly fifteen years her senior. She felt the differences in the things he and his friends liked to do in their spare time. The contrast was so clear, she couldn’t seriously consider him as a suitor.
Louise preferred to date men who were, and she mentally counted on her fingers, five or six years older than herself.
At first, she’d been so angry with her papa for sending her out with Heinrich that she could barely think straight. It had been so bad that she’d been forced to hold her tongue rather than be rude to Heinrich. And then, when Heinrich told her that it was definite Elliott would be leaving in under a month, she hadn’t been able to think at all.
She’d been praying that Elliott could stay. She wanted him to stay on and move into the bunkhouse when her papa was out of the cast. When Elliott no longer lived under their roof, then they could start a real relationship. Until then, Elliott carefully behaved as a perfect gentleman, maintaining a careful distance, even the night she caught him in his pajamas in the kitchen. For now, it was best this way. Still, it didn’t mean she had to like it.
She didn’t want to be courted by her papa’s supervisors. She wanted to be courted by his present lead hand.
She turned her head to study Elliott as he reeled in his line and put a new worm on the hook.
“Aren’t you going to ask for more details?” she asked.
He didn’t turn his head as he cast the line. “What you did is none of my business.”
Louise gritted her teeth. She wanted it to be his business, but all the wishing in the world wouldn’t make it so. First she’d heard it from Heinrich, now she’d heard it from Elliott himself.
He really was leaving, and there was nothing she could do about it.
“Louise! I think I caught something. Quick, get the net!”
Louise shook her head. There was something she could do. She couldn’t force him to stay, but she could make the best of the time that he was here.
She grabbed the net and helped to contain the fish.
“It’s just a perch. You may have caught the first one, but I’m going to catch the biggest.”
He grinned at her, then froze. For a split second, she thought that if they hadn’t been laden with fishing rods, and if she didn’t have a squirming fish in her net, and if they hadn’t been precariously seated on the railway bridge above the river that he might have kissed her.
“Is that a challenge?” he asked, but his voice carried the same husky undertone as the day he’d helped her bring home her chicks.
Louise gave him a shaky smile. “Yes.” Although she had a feeling the challenge had extended beyond a little fish.
Sixteen
“It’s from Edward.”
Elliott didn’t bother to sit down, nor did he take the time to remove his boots and overalls. He wiped his hands on the rag he kept in his back pocket, then ripped open the envelope right where he stood in the doorway.
While he ripped the top, Louise stepped closer, smiling. “Mr. Sabinski teased me because this letter actually had our address on it.”
Elliott smiled as he pulled the letter out of the envelope. “It was easier to just give Edward the complete address than explain why it wasn’t necessary.”
Louise opened her mouth, but Mrs. Demchuck’s voice cut her off. “Louise! Give the man a moment in private to read his letter.”
“Oops. Excuse me.” She backed up, but only one small step, and waited.
Elliott skimmed the paragraphs until he found the words he wanted to read. “This is good,” he said, unable to stop grinning. “The job I had originally wanted is gone, but there will be another one opening
up at the time I will actually be arriving, and Edward has reserved and promised it to me. This is great! The Lord really does provide.”
“That’s wonderful!” said Mrs. Demchuck.
“I think I’ll read the rest of the letter in the living room.” He handed the letter back to Louise to hold while he slipped off his boots and overalls, and John hobbled out of the kitchen and into the living room until dinner was ready.
In his prayers before the meal, John extended an extra word of thanks for Elliott’s new job opportunity and the letter from his friend.
While the general mood of everyone present was of joy and genuine happiness for him, he also experienced a strange undercurrent of sadness at the same time. It wasn’t until they had finished eating that he realized what it was and why.
The news also served as a final confirmation that he would, in fact, be leaving.
He didn’t want to go.
Knowing the job was his also solidified in his mind that if the opportunity to stay had arisen, he would have taken it and moved into the bunkhouse and lived as the previous lead hand had done. And that way, he would have been in a position to begin courting Louise.
But that couldn’t happen. Heinrich had passed on the warning, which had to be genuine and very serious for him to have come on the weekend to deliver the message unofficially.
Elliott only partially listened as the Demchucks talked about an unfortunate incident with one of the Charumkos’s cows.
He didn’t want to think of Heinrich, but he had to. Louise apparently had enjoyed herself with him, but then again, he’d expected she would. Not only was Heinrich a good man, but he was considerably young to be holding such an important position with the railroad. That meant Heinrich had a promising future and a very good-paying job, certainly better wages than Elliott could make at the logging camp and certainly with more stability.
He guessed that Heinrich lived fairly close to Pineridge, which meant that Louise wouldn’t be too far away from her parents when they got married.
Elliott’s mouthful of ham suddenly turned to cardboard. Instantly, he lost his appetite.
“Elliott? I said I have good news for you.”
Elliott blinked twice in rapid succession. “Pardon me? I’m sorry. I was thinking about something else.”
Louise smiled at him, her green eyes sparkling, and Elliott temporarily lost his ability to swallow.
“I said Mama’s going to do the dishes by herself tonight, because it’s time to put the chicks outside.”
He couldn’t stop his smile. It had taken over a month, but he had finally managed to get used to the trains passing at night. He would have been able to sleep through the nights if it hadn’t been for the chickens in the kitchen, scratching at the paper and cheeping and peeping at varying times during the night, then rising to full volume at the crack of daylight, which was earlier than he needed to get up.
“Yes, that is good news.”
“I’ll show you where Papa’s cutters and the bundle of wire are.”
He blinked again. “Cutters? Wire?”
Louise nodded. “Yes. You’ll have to repair the holes in the fence around the chicken coop or they will escape.”
“But it’s Wednesday night. What about Burns and Allen?”
John snickered. “I’ll let you know what Gracie is up to this time.”
Elliott sighed. He would do anything to get rid of that annoying racket the chicks made at night, even miss his favorite radio program.
The second everyone had finished eating, Louise sprang to her feet, grabbed his arm, nearly dragging him out of the kitchen. It took him several trips to the basement and storage shed in the back of the property, but he managed to collect everything needed to repair the fencing around the chicken enclosure.
He did his best to repair the holes while Louise cleaned out the inside of the old wooden chicken coop.
Their last duty was to lay out the straw collected from the cuttings along the railroad, so the chickens could make their nests and lay their eggs.
Despite the work, Elliott enjoyed her company, even amidst the hay and chicken wire.
By the time they finished, the sun had dipped low in the west, making the skyline glow with hues of pink and purple as the sun fell to the flat prairie ground. Elliott walked carefully along the darkening ground as he carried the orange crate full of chattering and bouncing chickens out to the coop. The fuzzy little round creatures he had carried into the house not that long ago had nearly doubled in size. Now, besides the yellow fuzz, some white, black, and gray striped feathers were showing through. He also thought it was getting mighty crowded in that orange crate.
He gently lowered the crate in the straw, and Louise closed the gate behind them to prevent their escape. One by one, they released the baby chickens into their new home, then stood to watch them peck and run in the straw.
Elliott couldn’t help but scratch his arms. He wondered if straw contained fleas or if it was just the dry dirt and pieces of straw that caused the itch.
“You should wash your arms right away. I know the straw can be irritating.”
“You can say that again.”
He stood beside Louise as her brood of chickens bounced around their feet. It wasn’t like having children, but he knew these chicks were the closest he could ever come to that with Louise. He turned to tell her that he looked forward to a relatively quiet night, except for the trains, but when she raised her head toward him and smiled, his words caught in his throat.
“Well, city boy, I guess you’re glad they’re finally outside.”
“Yes,” he mumbled, then raised his hand to touch her cheek. “You have something on your face.” As gently as he could, Elliott tried to brush the offending dirt, but the feel of her soft skin beneath the roughness of his own fingers distracted him.
He wanted to kiss her. But he didn’t have that right.
Elliott quickly lowered his hand and stepped back. “You’re right. I’d better go wash up.”
And with that, he nearly ran into the kitchen.
Despite the absence of the chickens from the kitchen, Elliott knew it was going to be a long night.
❧
Louise poured the iodine onto Elliott’s finger where she’d pulled out a splinter, then gritted her teeth in sympathy when he blinked repeatedly.
“All better?” she asked meekly. “You don’t want it to get infected.”
He blinked a few more times, then swiped his sleeve over his eyes. “Wow, that made my eyes water. But, yes. Thank you.”
“Did Papa not warn you that some of the window frames were rough?”
Elliott stood at the foot of the ladder and gazed skyward, up to the window on the second story of the house. “Yes, he did, but it started to slip out of the clip, and I had to catch it quickly before it fell to the ground and broke. I’ve never had to take storm windows out and put up screens before. The barbershop didn’t have windows that opened.”
Louise glanced briefly at her papa, who was busy painting the wooden frames of the storm windows that Elliott had taken off the house while her mama diligently washed the dust off the screens before he put them up. “At least Papa is able to do something. I’ve never seen him enjoy painting before. I hope he doesn’t get too much paint on the cast.”
Her mama stood and handed Elliott the cleaned screen for her bedroom window.
Louise held the ladder steady while Elliott scaled it. He fitted the screen into place, turned the clips, then came down the ladder very, very slowly.
She could tell by his unsure footing on the ladder that not only had he not changed windows before, it didn’t appear that he’d spent much, if any, time up a ladder, especially one so large. Of all he’d done for them since he’d been there, Louise thought this chore to be the most daunting for him.
Overall, she couldn’t help but admire his willingness to tackle without complaint all the jobs given to him. Since he arrived, he’d chopped all the wood they needed
for the cookstove, as well as carried it into the kitchen. Then, as the weather continued to warm with the coming of summer, came the weekly chore of cutting the grass.
The last time he’d tended to a lawn had been in his teen years, when he’d lived at his parents’ home. Since he moved into the upstairs suite at the barbershop, which had been a space of five years, he hadn’t touched a lawn mower because being in the business area of Katona Falls, there had been no lawn. Unfortunately, it showed. Her father had to teach Elliott both how to repair and how to sharpen the blades of their lawn mower. The first time he’d done it, Louise had worried that he might be cut by the twirling blades, but of course, she’d worried for nothing.
Last week, her mama had done her spring cleaning, and she’d had Elliott help move all the furniture, including the piano, so she could wash behind everything.
All through the years, Louise had never realized the tasks her father carried out concerning the house and property, jobs neither she nor her mama could do, especially in the spring. Now, when her papa was unable to do them, she didn’t know what they would have done without Elliott.
Her mother appeared at her side as she steadied the ladder for Elliott at her parents’ bedroom window.
“This must be very trying for him. I can tell he’s never done this before, either. His life must have been very different in the city.”
Louise nodded, not letting her attention wander from Elliott, perched high above them. This time the clip to hold the storm window had rusted into place, and he was banging at it with the handle of a screwdriver to loosen it. “I couldn’t believe his face when we asked him to fix the roof of the outhouse.”
Her mama nodded back. “I know. But it was a job that needed doing.”
Louise couldn’t help her smile. “I’ve noticed no hesitation when we ask him to drive the car. I think driving us around is the only job he finds fun.”
“Yes. He will be taking your papa to have the cast removed next Saturday morning. I think Elliott will enjoy the drive, but your papa will enjoy it more.”