He sighed yet again. "Sorry, ma'am, truly. Real gold ore don't look nothing like that."
"Well, what does real gold look like?" she asked with a doubtful sniff.
He grunted, but then pulled a few nuggets from the safe. She looked at the rocks skeptically. He weighed them out to prove the point.
"Well, I never..." she said, trailing off in amazement. She screwed up her face as if in thought, then suddenly asked, "This is the only way it comes, like this?"
"I suppose," said Hobling. "I hope you don't mind my asking, ma'am, but are you in some kind of trouble?”
She sighed. "I suppose that is shows.”
Jessica explained her circumstances, how she was a widow with only the deed left, this mining claim. She had gone out to see it that very day. She was going back to her dead husband's family in New York, some how, some way. Since the mine was worthless, she would be lucky to sell it at all and didn't expect much.
"I only want to go back to some kind of home. My own people were from Atlanta, of course, but I have none to go back to now. That's why I'm hoping my husband's family in New York will take me in and . . .”
"Well, sorry is what I am, ma'am, but—“
Before he could continue, it came as if a sign from the Almighty: The afternoon sun came streaming in the open doorway, flashing the minuscule highlights on the skirts of her widow's weeds.
Hobling cleared his throat and swallowed. She watched the huge Adam's apple bounce in his scrawny neck as he blinked.
He continued, carefully, "Yes, ma'am, gold comes just like this. We call these rocks nuggets. But if you're wanting to sell some land, I know a man.”
She said tentatively, "On second thought, I'm not sure that would be right, selling something so useless as a gold mine with no nuggets, Mr. Hobling."
"Mr. Pennbrook is always looking for investments. And he's a gentleman from the South, same as you."
"Well, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to meet him, as long as he knows that these—what did you call them?" she said, pointing to the stones.
"Fool's gold, ma'am."
"As long as he knows the difference between nuggets and fool's gold," she said. "I'm staying at the Grand Hotel.”
An hour later, as the two men watched the stage pull out, Pennbrook slipped Hobling some gold coins. Hobling immediately started counting.
"It's all there, you idiot, don't count it here. Or can you even count?"
"I can count," said the land officer, insulted.
Pennbrook grunted, "Well, count on keeping your mouth shut, you understand? We'll have to wait a few days until she's out of the territory. We don't want her reading something in the papers when we find the strike and making trouble, come after.”
~~~
After Mrs. Amelia Webber arranged for her baggage to be sent to the Springwater Hotel, she headed for the church. But the once white building was no longer there, all that remained were ashes, still smoldering.
Someone nearby said, "Caught fire in the thunderstorm not too long ago. The reverend and his missus are still practicing their good works out of the house by the feed and grain.”
She nodded and asked directions. Mrs. Webber slowly made her way to the make shift chapel set up on the porch of a large dusty white house. Amelia picked up her skirts and trudged up the steps, only to nearly collapse as she knelt down in prayer.
A woman who had been picking flowers nearby said, "Oh my dear, you look exhausted. You must come in the parlor and out of the hot afternoon sun. It must be horribly uncomfortable in those widow's weeds. I'll get my husband, he's the pastor here, and we'll have lemonade.”
Amelia smiled weakly and nodded, but her expression changed to a grimace when the woman was gone. She whispered, "God, here we go again. I hate lemonade."
The End
Widow’s Weeds
~~~
Story from:
Women of the West
Copyright © 2010 by Marilyn M Schulz
* * * * * * * * * * * *
BONUS STORY
From Shadow Reads
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Be grateful for luck. Pay the thunder no mind – listen to the birds. And don’t hate nobody.” – Eubie Blake
Never trust anyone who wants what you’ve got. Friend or no, envy is an overwhelming emotion.” – Eubie Blake
“I don’t have any bad habits. They might be bad habits for other people, but they’re all right for me.” – Eubie Blake
~~~
Gladys Barlow
Somewhere in the UK, 1950s
Gladys Barlow didn’t remember her mother, but she loved her father dearly. Her mother was a British woman named Iris, by the way, and her father was an American named Tom. He had been a pilot in the War, came over early to fly with the RAF before America joined in the fighting against the Nazis. But after the war was won, he was just good for nothing—at least, that’s what Gladys was told later on.
She only had eleven years with him, and her life then was interesting and fun—the parts that she remembered. She never had to go to class like other kids, though she had learned much more than them in what her father called the School of Hard Knocks.
He made her do plenty of lessons though, just not in school like most other kids. She’d already read books far beyond her years, including history, biology, social and cultural studies—all from books that they usually swiped from village libraries. Most times they managed to take them back again, dropping them in through the mail slot or the drop-box like other folks might do.
She learned about bugs and birds and fish, and all sorts of mammals too. Gladys read about rocks and geology, about the atmosphere and weather, and the solar system—even knew the difference between astronomy and astrology and that Galileo had been imprisoned for his views.
She read about witches, the Inquisition, and various religions from around the world, including the concept of heresy (and Galileo again), which she thought was terribly unfair, especially the part about burning them.
There were lessons about the continents and countries with borders that were natural (rivers or mountain ranges) or man-made, including about wars through the ages—especially that none of those wars seemed to have accomplished much, though maybe the last one would hold for a bit.
That was just the start of her quest for knowledge. By the time she was ten, Gladys could recite the Periodic Table and the chemical composition of water and salt, of benzene and anti-freeze. She knew what cars ran on too and how, and also planes and anything else with an internal combustion engine.
She built a model plane with her father too, as he carved the little pieces out of wood in the evenings over campfires. He explained then about the parts—the fuselage, the empennage, the wings and landing gear. There was roll, pitch and yaw—something pilots knew how to do. Gladys asked about how something so heavy as a plane could fly in something so light as air. What he said made sense at the time, but she secretly still thought it was all a little bit magic.
There wasn’t much that she didn’t like to study, but her favorite hobby was to play with numbers. She could do just about anything you gave her that required arithmetic—adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing—even fractions. And Gladys was even quicker with mathematics—algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and even some calculus.
“Arithmetic is to mathematics,” her father said, “as spelling is to writing.”
She hadn’t fully comprehended that yet, but he knew, because he had been to college. That’s why he thought her education was so important—and Gladys was assured that her mother had too, and how proud she would have been of her.
Gladys liked anything to do with numbers, but was completely enthralled with what her father called probability—the odds. Her father thought that was quite a kick the way she could do things in her head as that seemed to be his biggest interest in this world too—besides his daughter and the memory of his dear sweet wife, whom he never forgot for long.
The
odds, however, were also his biggest failure.
~~~
They didn’t really have a home, though she was always traveling with her dad in just a few towns on what he called the Circuit. They stayed in lovely hotels once in a while, and sometimes in modest affairs with bathrooms down the hall for all, or even over the common room of a pub. But more times than not, they camped out in the woods with food in tin cans cooked over a campfire, and tea or coffee made in an old shallow pot.
Sometimes they managed to sneak into an outbuilding when it was wet or cold, and she particularly liked the barns or sheds with animals—though her father complained about the smell, and who could blame him? Still, it was worth it to keep sheltered such times, and allowances had to be made. Their life had always been that way.
She’d been keeping a journal since she was seven or eight, and all told, she had completed three so far—though she had to write small. It was harder to haul them around these days with everything else, and sometimes they had to make what her father called a quick getaway. He told her to leave them behind more than once, but she knew that was a bad idea for the both of them. She knew too about the laws of the land, and about the punishment for some of the things they had done.
She regretted writing them down just then (didn’t mention that part to her father), but it wasn’t long before she got over it.
Besides, Gladys was convinced that someday, someone would love to hear about her adventurous life. She imagined herself as a Gypsy of Royal Romany Blood, trekking through her dominion in disguise like some old king of England must have done—now secretly home from the Crusades to check on how his kingdom had done in his absence, and how much he was still loved—or not.
Or perhaps she was a lost Grand Duchess of Imperial Russia, fleeing from Soviet Cossacks who had assassinated the rest of her family . . . or even an Allied spy on the run from Nazi storm troopers, stragglers left after the War who had finally managed to invade England in the 1950s, which is what these years were in time.
Other times, she thought maybe she was just a bum, but that thought only came when she was wet and cold and hungry.
Then suddenly, one day, her father was gone. Usually he left her some place safe and secure and went to do his business affairs. He called them that, always had, in fact, but she’d known for years that he loved betting on the horses. Sometimes he won, most times he lost and for days after that, they both had to do odd jobs to make up the difference, but always her father came back.
That day she waited, hungry and growing more alarmed as the church tower chimes rang the lateness of the hour. Finally, she ventured out. No one seemed to notice her until she approached the racetrack here that her father just called The Downs.
There was a commotion, a crowd had gathered, but it appeared to have nothing to do with the races. She pushed her way through, though a few tried to stop her, saying things like:
“There now, my girl, this is no place for you.”
“Shouldn’t you be at your homework, sweeting?”
“Now, now, love—what in the world are you doing here?”
That last question came from a policeman, and she knew to avoid them as a rule—it had always been her father’s best policy. She drew back a bit, hoping to blend into the crowd, but he grabbed her coat and added, “Come along, let’s get you away, nothing you’d want to see here.”
She managed, “What happened? I’m looking for my dad.”
“Your father? What’s he look like then? Maybe we can have a look-see, try to find him? I’m much taller, you see, I can see a bit farther than you,” the copper said, with a little smile of reassurance.
That didn’t seem to be a hostile attitude towards folks like Gladys and her father—so she described him: his hair, his height, his coat and hat—she even described his laugh.
The copper stopped, chewed on his lip, but then finally said, “Wait here a minute, dearie. Don’t go a-wandering.”
Then to ensure compliance, he called a lady copper over and said, “Here’s a schilling, buy the child something to eat, would you, Bernice?” Then to Gladys, “You go with the WPC, she’ll take good care of you.”
The WPC said, “Of course, Sergeant, I’ll just take her along while I have tea with the Queen, shall I?”
“That’s enough of that, just do as I ask, I have to look at the vic—er, I need to check a few facts.”
Vic? Victim?
The lady copper just said, “Oh! Oh dear, oh my! I hadn’t thought of that. Come on then. Let’s get something lovely. I know, let’s have a treat. How about some jam rolls and tea. Come along with me, I know where the best ones are to be found around here.”
They had their treat a few streets over, but Gladys had questions, mostly to do with her father. The WPC didn’t have any answers, though helped herself to most of the jam rolls and wouldn’t talk with her mouth full, so that could have been why there was nothing forthcoming.
Gladys wouldn’t have minded wrapping up a few for her father, but they wouldn’t let her go now. Seems he’d been right about avoiding coppers—once they got you, they wouldn’t let go again.
Maybe her father got pinched for sneaking a bit of something from an office or a house near The Downs. It might have been where no one would notice or know for a while—usually. Not the first time they had to run from a dog or an angry resident, but her father said those who had more would go to Heaven for helping those who had none at all—which sometimes was the two of them. So it was like helping those folks out in the long run, even if they were angry about it just at that moment.
Even so, Gladys didn’t want to ask about something like that.
Normally, after eating like this after such a long stretch of not eating at all, Gladys would get a bit sleepy, but she wasn’t now . . . instead, she was worried. When they finally went back to the racetrack, the sergeant pulled the WPC aside to speak—both still kept their eyes on her though. They whispered there amongst themselves, and then the WPC came back and seemed kinder than before.
The WPC said as she patted Gladys’s shoulder, “Come along, love, let’s go someplace warm to sit for a bit.”
They had already been doing that. Maybe this copper wasn’t very bright. In any case, Gladys didn’t really want to go into the police station, given that all her life with her father had been avoiding that particular situation. Still, with no better options, and the WPC’s grasp firmly on her coat and rucksack now, she walked along without struggling.
In the station, another copper (this one much older) asked, “Can I get you anything, my dear?”
“A pencil would be lovely, one with an eraser,” Gladys said, feeling she might as well take full advantage.
They pushed her into a room with a huge mirror, a table and some chairs and also brought her a cup full of brown water that might have tasted like stale coffee if it was hotter. She took out her journal and began to write down what had happened since her last entry went in, but finally her head got quite heavy, and she set it down on the table . . . just for a bit.
~~~
It was later that evening when some strange old lady came to get her with no explanation. The woman pulled her along, leading Gladys from one place in the station to another.
The woman said to the lady copper first, “I’ll take the child, I’m all she has now and she’s all I have, and we are stuck with one another, God has seen to that.”
Next down the hall, Gladys was made to sit on a creaking bench while the women went into a darkened room with several beds—all with lumpy sheets laying over them. A man in a white coat then came from another door and went inside too. He left the door part way open.
Gladys heard the woman murmur, “Yes, that’s my sister’s husband. She was the same age as me, but far prettier—we weren’t identical twins, you see. I’m afraid she was overly spoiled, and I was just as guilty of that as everyone else. In the end, she did just as she pleased and married someone quite unsuitable. I’m not surprised he came to such
a bitter end, I only despair that it took him this long.”Ó
The sergeant went in next and said, “You’ll have to sign this form then, ma’am. Since you don’t wish to claim the mortal remains, it will go to the pauper’s field. Will you be taking the child?”
“Yes, of course, that’s already been settled. I’m all she has now, I keep repeating myself. Do try to pay attention, though I wasn’t expecting the burden at my time of life.”
Seems Gladys was to have no say as to what would come next, which is why she paid more attention now. The old woman walked like a frump, and clearly her hair had never been done, nor did she wear stylish clothes or even perfume or lipstick. Gladys only knew to a pay attention to those things because it was good to know where those kinds of women lived.
They were the kind that had interesting things to pinch, and wouldn’t mind a bit . . .
But now up close, the woman wasn’t that old at all. And she was Gladys’s aunt, it turns out, and what are the odds of that?
The notion was new to Gladys—family—but she liked the concept, and on the way home, she asked very politely, “Will Daddy be joining us soon?”
That’s when she was told the total truth, and brutally too: Her father owed money to the wrong sort of people, a sort of family of crooks, and they had stabbed him to death in the losing horse’s stable as a message to others who would not or could not pay their gambling debts.
~~~
She never did like her aunt much after that, but the family home was comfortable enough, though it had been converted into a boarding house instead of a large city manor with a favorable address, as it once had been. Both the house and the neighborhood had seen better days, but had gone down in the world since the Great War. She only knew because of the pictures on the walls of the foyer: grand ladies and gents, some playing tennis in old-fashioned clothes, some posing near a big-wheeled bike with smiles all around, others with horse-drawn, as well as, horseless carriages.
A Little Romance: Stories for Hopeful Hearts Page 31