Log Cabin Christmas

by Margaret Brownley

  Richard stood with the men, looking dapper with his top boots. Marynoticed that a few of the younger men had latched on to that look by sporting new top boots, too. Smith must have ordered in several pairs because Cooley didn’t carry such; he relied on catalog orders he’d fill when he went to San Francisco in a week. Or at least Cooley hadn’t. Maybe Smith had changed Cooley’s routines, too, just as he’d changed Mary’s.

  Mary stood behind her table with her wares, nodding to people or calling them by name. Off to the side sat a group of women with their embroidery hoops, stitching or appliquéing quilt blocks as they chatted. Mary saw Nelia in that group. Ruthie chatted with the saddle maker. Matilda and Bessie and even Abigail, the blacksmith’s daughter all the way from Lebanon, were chatting at the punch table, and then they moved slowly back to the sewing circle.

  The pastor announced the juniper tree game, and young boys and girls not yet in their twenties lined up to play. They’d all sing together as they stood in a circle:

  “Oh sister Mary how happy we’d be

  The night we sat under the juniper tree.

  The juniper tree, heigho, heigho!

  Take my hat off it will keep your head warm,

  Take a sweet kiss, it will do you no harm.

  The juniper tree, heigho, heigho,

  The juniper tree, heigho, heigho!”

  When the song ended, each boy attempted to grab a girl and kiss her. Mary had laughed when she and Dale first saw the game played. “It would be better if the Presbyterians would just let them dance,” Dale had whispered to her. But the next time, the two of them had joined the children, and Dale had kissed her right there in front of everyone.

  “Mrs. Bishop.” Jennifer pulled on her sleeve. “Mr. Taylor wants you.”

  “Does he?” Mary looked over at Richard. He wasn’t watching the commotion in the center circle; he was staring at her.

  “What makes you think he wants something from me?” Mary asked.

  “The game has your name in it,” Jennifer said. “And that’s how Mr. Lawson looks at my ma,” Jennifer added.

  “Oh.”

  Just then the Widow Mason signaled Jennifer to join her and her brothers and sisters clustered around their mother … and Mr. Lawson.

  Mary watched as Laird Lawson signaled to the musicians to wait before beginning another juniper tree game. He cleared his throat. “This is a fineevening to make a special announcement.” He looked younger than he had in years, and Mary could see just what love did to a person: gave them back new life. “I’m pleased to tell you folks that the Widow Mason, Elizabeth Jane to me, has agreed to be my wife, and Pastor Blaine here has agreed to marry us.”

  Applause and cheers rang out. The musicians played a short ditty of joy. “And we won’t be calling her the Widow Mason anymore—now will we, fellows?” Murmurs of approval followed his proclamation.

  Mary thought the evening would end on this sweet note, but Nelia Williams stood up, quilt block in her hand. “What do you mean you’re going to meet the test?” Her voice carried above the crowd as she shouted at Abigail, who Mary saw held a block with the exact same border and set block color as Nelia’s. Ruthie came to stand beside her sister.

  “Test? Who else has a test?” This from Matilda, the wedding-dress maker. She stood, too. “If there is anyone who can claim to be the finest seamstress in the region, it has to be, well, me. I don’t mean to brag, but most of you would agree, wouldn’t you?” She scanned the crowd to nods of heads. At Richard Taylor’s spot in the room, Matilda stopped. “Why don’t you tell them, Richard—Mr. Taylor. Go ahead.”

  “What’s he got to tell you?” Bessie said. “If anything, it’s me who should do the talking here. Look at my block. The stitches are perfection. Better than perfection with my glasses. Some of you girls would do well to wear glasses, too. Richard likes a woman who has the courage to wear glasses.”

  “You know Richard, too?” Matilda stared at Bessie. “And you, Abigail and Nelia and Ruthie?”

  “I know him,” Ruthie said, “But I’m not having an interest in marrying him. He didn’t promise me like he did Nelia.”

  Matilda gasped. She turned to Richard. “You promised me!”

  “Is that why our set blocks are all the same color?” Bessie said.

  “Oh boy,” said Laird. “Let’s just have a little music.”

  The musicians started up, and Mary hurried to Nelia and Bessie, Matilda and Abigail. Ruthie stood beside her sister, Nelia, where tears made tracks through her powder makeup, saying, “There must be some mistake. He said he liked my quilt block best.”

  “He may have said he liked yours well enough, but did he say you met the test?” Matilda asked. Her voice rose so high the musicians stopped once again.

  “No. But I was certain—”

  “So was I.” This from Bessie. Each held material in her hand, and by this time, the men of the party had pushed Richard toward the small circle of women, clapping him on the back and saying, “Prepare to meet your Maker.” Then they darted to the side far enough to be away from any thrown dishes but close enough to hear.

  “You … didn’t you say ours were the best quilt blocks? Didn’t you say that?” Nelia said.

  “I—I may have implied that, but you see, I love them all,” Richard said. “Just as I am so fond of each of you. I never meant my conversations about what I’d want in a wife to mean that, well, that if I saw some of those features in you that it would mean I was ready for marriage.” Sweat beaded on Richard’s face, and Mary actually felt sorry for him having to face this line of women who obviously cared deeply about him and who were very, very disappointed.

  “I can’t believe you’d let us all believe you were interested in us,” Matilda said. “You’re … you’re despicable.”

  “I am,” he said. He hung his head.

  Bessie chose that moment to throw her quilt with hoop around it at him, the hoop thumping his forehead before he could dodge it. Her aim was perfect, and she said so. “Because you got me to wear glasses,” she said. “Now look at me!”

  “You look wonderful in the glasses,” Mary said, deciding to enter in to the fray. “You really do. And your quilting will only get better because of them. And you, Matilda, didn’t you say you now had the confidence to open your own tailoring shop in Brownsville?”

  “Well, yes. I could make it as a businesswoman,” she said. “But that’s beside—”

  “Indeed, you could.”

  “But I’m not sure I’ll buy material or thread from you, Mary Bishop. You should face some consequence for sending this … this … rapscallion—”

  “Cad—”

  “Rogue—”

  “Knave above knaves,” finished Abigail.

  “But each of you gained, too,” Mary said, “from this rascal’s hand. Bessie, you can see better. Ruthie and Nelia, didn’t you tell me that the two of you had worked on something together for the first time since your Papa had died? And Abigail, we haven’t talked about this at all, but I bet if we did, you’d tell me of something good that’s come of Richard’s circuit sales from my old log store. There’s always something good to come from the bad.”

  “Well, I did finish up a bunch of blocks I’d had stacked beside my bed for years,” Abigail said. “And took them to the circle in Lebanon, where I quilted and had a fine afternoon with the women. My father’s not always the best company, so it was good to be out and about and have a reason to tell him he’d have to heat up his own dinner ‘cause I had an appointment. I’d just rather have had an appointment with Mr. Taylor there, at an altar.”

  “Wouldn’t we all!” the women said in unison. And then as one, the remaining women tossed their quilt pieces at Richard; some with hoops and some without, colorful designs and with only the red-set pieces the same for each quilt, all stitched with Rosa Red. Richard tried to dodge, then to catch them, but ended up pulling them from his face and shoulders to fold them into his arms like a man carrying linens to the was
h tub for his wife.

  There was nothing Mary could do to stop them, and they gathered their fathers and brothers, who had brought them, pulled on their heavy shawls, and headed out into the night, a fierce group now defined by a common foe.

  “Not the perfect sort of finale,” Laird said to Mary. “But not the worst it could have been either. No need for an undertaker, at least.”

  Mary sighed as the music started up again. “Thank goodness something wonderful happened tonight for the two of you.”

  “And maybe for you, too, Mary,” Elizabeth Mason said. Her glance moved past Mary, and when Mary turned, Richard Taylor stood, his face red, his arms filled with partially finished quilts and blocks of color that took him on the Road to Jerusalem and through a Storm at Sea, and with moisture in his eyes to match Job’s Tears.

  “What’s that one?” Mary asked, pointing to the block Abigail had thrown at him.

  “Robbing Peter to Pay Paul.”

  His answer so surprised Mary that she laughed. “Really? There’s a quilt block with that name?”

  “From the Bible quilt-block book,” Richard said. “I guess it’s better than Walls of Jericho because that would have been a premonition of my walls of charm come tumbling down.” He took her elbow and moved her back toward her table. “I’m so sorry, Mary. I hope Matilda will change her mind about buying material at your store and that the others will see it was me and not you that brought this disaster their way.”

  “We can hope,” Mary said. “But I suspect this is the time for you to make your escape.”

  “May I at least help you take your unsold items back to the mercantile? And I don’t know what to do with all these quilt blocks in various stages of finishing.”

  “Bring them back. I’ll think of something.”

  They put the items in the cart that Richard had brought to the bazaar. He led his horse, and Mary walked beside him. It wasn’t snowing anymore, and Richard pointed to the moon. “Moon breaks?” he asked. “Like sun breaks in the daytime?”

  “I guess,” she said. She was aware of his closeness and wondered if he was. Better if he wasn’t. She couldn’t quilt; she didn’t want to, and that’s who Richard Taylor was drawn to. But her association with Richard wasn’t all lost. The cart sales had been effective, and by next spring, perhaps the women would be willing to buy from her cart store again … with her as the saleswoman instead of a man. Yes, that could work. She’d just have to buy a mule.

  Back at the cabin, Richard stoked the fire as Lacy scampered off the bed she’d been lying on while her mistress had been at the bazaar. Mary pulled her rabbit-trimmed bonnet from her head, pulled off her gloves, and then lifted her hair with her fingers. Richard watched her.

  “You have the loveliest hands,” he said.

  “Do I?” Her heart fluttered again. It mustn’t!

  “I noticed them the very first time we met, even before the terrible accident that cut your palm. May I?” He reached for her hand and turned over her palm. He ran his fingers along the scar. “It’s healed well,” he said.

  “But it’s quite sensitive to cold,” she said. She didn’t pull her hand away.

  “And to heat?”

  “Yes, that, too.”

  He folded his hand over her fingers, cupping them in his own. “Mary. I made a terrible mistake—”

  “Yes, you did. Those women will be some weeks if not months recovering from your—”

  “No, the mistake I made was in thinking of you as an older woman, one set in her ways and devoted to her deceased husband.”

  “I am,” she said. “Both older and adoring of my Dale.”

  “But you are also a woman willing to try new things like the circuit cart sales, like trusting a stranger to give him a chance, like making a way for the Laird Lawsons and Elizabeth Masons of the world to come together. And your wisdom and gentle spirit found the good things in each of my errors with the women. You reminded them of the eyeglasses, the changed relationships, the business opportunities. They’ll come to see that new things await them. And what kind of a husband would a man who chooses a woman by her stitching skills really make?”

  Mary chuckled. “Well, in my house, he’d probably face frustration unending as I’d never meet his test,” she said.

  “Nor would you need to. Because I can do all the stitching necessary for both of us.”

  “Both of us?” Mary’s voice cracked.

  “Indeed. I adore the wisdom of your age”—he corrected quickly—“and I’mnot all that much younger than you, I’d guess. And I adore your hands; your fine mind; your faithful, giving heart.” Mary swallowed. “Those are much more important details in the quilt of life than how many stitches you might make to the inch.”

  “What are you saying to me, Mr. Taylor?”

  “I’m asking for the winter to see if I can redeem myself in your eyes and that in the spring you might accept my offer of marriage.”

  “I’ve met your test?”

  “You met it a long time ago; now you’ll have to see if I can meet any test you might have for me.”

  “I’m not the testing kind,” Mary said, and then with boldness she added, “Just love me, Richard Taylor. That’s what I’m used to, and that’s all I ask.”

  “Ah, that I do. And this old log store and your dog and even the rain that marks the season. I just hope you can forgive me for my … troubling charm.”

  He kissed her then, and Mary felt a flutter in her stomach that wasn’t hunger, at least not the kind that would be satisfied with food. She opened her eyes to see the candle glow against the peeled logs, this place of such comfort. It would continue to be whether by spring they found they’d made their way together or not. It had served her well, this log cabin; it would again, and this Christmas there’d be a man to help trim the tree they’d go out and cut together.

  Richard blinked over his one blue eye and one brown. “I have an idea,” he said as he stepped back but still held her hand. His voice shook a little.

  “Will I wish I hadn’t heard of it?” Mary asked, but she smiled.

  “I’m going to stitch those blocks together, Mrs. Bishop, and have the most amazing courting quilt when I’m finished. I’ll give it to you in the spring, if you’ll have it, as a wedding gift.”

  Mary thought for a moment. Would she want a quilt made up of blocks stitched by women who’d hoped Richard Taylor would seek their hand in marriage and be reminded of it as they slept beneath it? Yes, she would.

  “What woman wouldn’t want a quilt stitched by her husband-to-be?” Mary said. “But I’d want something more.”

  “Name it,” he said.

  “You’ll have to sew on buttons when they come off my dresses or your shirts, too. I may know how to do it, but I never really liked to!”

  “Agreed,” he said and kissed her again. “I’m partial to Rosa Red regardless of the button color.”

  “That’s just fine,” Mary said. “It will always remind me that Rosa Red brought me you.”

  She saw God in Richard’s words, a loving God who stitched her life withcolorful flax. Red thread through ivory buttons? It was a detail she could live with.

  The following spring, Richard finished the quilt, and he and Mary were married in the Presbyterian church in Brownsville. They kept the log store that Mary and Dale had built, rechinking the logs tightly. Mary took up the circuit route soon after leaving Richard to manage the store until she announced they’d have to change the log cabin after all—they’d need another room for their growing family. Regardless of whether the infant was a boy or girl, Richard promised to teach their baby how to sew.

  Award-winning author, Jane Kirkpatrick is well known for her authentically portrayed historical fiction. She is also an acclaimed speaker and teacher with lively presentation style. She and her husband live in Oregon and, until recently, lived and worked on a remote homestead for over 25 years.

  Under His Wings

  by Liz Tolsma

  Dedicat
ion

  To Doug.

  Thank you for encouraging me to follow my dream and for loving me and supporting me as it came true. Always and forever yours.

  Chapter 1

  Camp Twelve, Wisconsin, 1875

  Adie O’Connell pictured the farm in her mind as if she’d dropped in a thousand times before. In a way she had. The little log cabin would be snug and cozy, with tight chinking and real wood floors. At one end there would be a big stone fireplace and, at the other, a loft with a ladder leading to it. She’d have a red barn, milk cow, a chestnut mare, and lots of laying hens. In the garden she’d plant tomatoes, sweet corn, pole beans, and peas.

  “Howdy, Miss Adie.”

  She jumped a mile, scolding herself for daydreaming again. She’d been knee-deep in her fantasy and had walked right over to Derek Owens. He leered at her as tobacco juice ran down his dirty brown beard. His perpetual habit of tobacco use had stained his teeth. The husky lumberjack spit a stream onto the floor then raked his gaze over her slender form.

  “Got anything for me this morning?” Derek wiped the back of his huge hand across his mouth. A few of the men seated near him at the large U-shaped table in the mess hall tittered, though no one dared to speak. Cookie, busy in the kitchen, ruled the roost around here and tolerated no talking in his dining room.

  Drawing herself to her full five-foot-three-inch height, Adie raised her chin and thumped a bowl of sausages on the wood plank table. “Here’s your breakfast. Enjoy.” She hoped her curt reply hid her nerves. If she let him know how much he flustered her, he would come on stronger. She’d learned that much in the years she’d worked in lumber camps.