by Debby Lee
Esther smiled. “Well then, you will have to raise your prices, won’t you?”
Maggie hesitated. “If I raise the prices, I may get fewer customers.”
“Not when every man in Gold Bar wants to win your hand,” Esther said, giving her a conspiratorial wink. “Besides, the men are used to paying higher prices. Every other business owner in California is doing the same thing, raising the cost of goods and services sky-high to lay claim to some of the miners’ gold. The cost of supplies to fix up the place Parnell left you will be far more expensive than you are accustomed to back east.”
“That doesn’t seem fair,” Maggie’s mother protested.
“It’s not,” Esther said, patting her hand. “That’s just the way it is.”
Maggie’s mother sat down on the bed and frowned. “I still do not think it is proper etiquette to overcharge one’s customers.”
“It isn’t overcharging if I charge the same high rate as others, like Eben Nash,” Maggie insisted. “Why should women be underpaid for performing the same work as men? Besides, we need food so that we will not starve.”
“Surely we would never starve,” her mother exclaimed. “I’m certain that you will find a decent man to marry who will provide for us so we do not have to dwell on such things. For now, we’re thankful that Agnes and Charles have allowed us to earn an adequate wage through them. For everyone knows a single woman cannot be a business owner.”
“Oh, but in California, a woman can,” Esther said, her face beaming. “There are not many women who wish to live in such uncivilized conditions as we have out here, yet there are thousands of men who would like to take a wife. To try to solve this problem, and draw more women in, the governing officials in California have decreed that women can own and operate a business the same as any man. And if she marries, any land or property she may have inherited does not fully transfer to her husband, but half remains her own.”
Maggie gasped, thinking of the possibilities. “I can run my own business? Free of a man’s input or control?”
Esther nodded. “This bakery is not my husband Samuel’s, but all mine. I make the decisions and name the prices, the same as Agnes, down by the river.”
“Then why doesn’t Agnes charge more for her services?” Maggie asked.
Esther laughed. “Because Agnes doesn’t have your pretty face and she knows full well that if she raised the cost of laundry, the men would prefer to wash their clothes themselves.”
My own business.
If she raised her prices for mending, she could afford to purchase new material. Design and sew new clothes. Fix up Cousin Lewis’s shack and turn the front part into a shop like Esther had done by putting the bakery in the front part of the hotel. She and her mother could live in the back until they could afford to build a separate house.
They’d never have to depend on a man or worry about money again.
Then maybe one day she’d meet a man whom she truly respected, who shared her dreams for the future and loved her for more than just her pretty face.
Ben had spent the day at the river with Samuel Watkins. At first he’d wondered where all the other men were, but as they trickled in with their pickaxes and panning supplies, he quickly learned they visited Maggie at the wash shed to drop off their mending.
And ask for her hand in marriage.
Ben clenched his jaw, and Samuel grinned.
“Do you want to try your luck at a new location I found?” his friend asked, arching his brow.
Ben blew out a ragged breath. “Why not? It can’t be any worse than here.”
But it was.
“It’s a river cave.” Ben stared into the opening and shook his head. “I told you, it’s too dangerous.”
“Kendrick’s men have been finding several small pieces in the mouth of caves like this.”
“Yeah, and this one is too close to the one he’s been digging in.” Ben pointed to the mouth of another cave fifty feet away. “He may think we’re encroaching on his territory.”
“Hugh already thinks you’re encroaching on his territory by befriending Miss McDermott,” Samuel pointed out. “And since when have you ever cared what he thinks?”
“I don’t.” Ben scowled. “Still, we all remember when Eben Nash got hurt, and now look at him—he has to tailor clothes instead of panning.”
Samuel shrugged. “There are always risks.”
“But some places are safer to dig than others.”
As if to prove his point, a small landslide from the hill above spilled over the cave entrance. Ben pulled Samuel back just in time to avoid getting hit on the head with a rock.
“See?” Ben demanded. “What did I tell you? It’s not worth risking our lives.”
Except, as the days passed, and the other men found more gold and boasted they were getting closer to winning Maggie’s hand, Ben found himself eyeing that cave entrance more and more.
One evening the following week when he stepped into the bakery, Maggie took him by surprise when she demanded, “Why don’t you bring me your mending?”
He slid his gaze over the case of fresh-baked muffins to avoid looking at her. “I’m trying to save money.”
“Is that the only reason?”
“Well, you did raise your prices,” he teased. “Not sure I can afford what you’re charging these days.”
“I would gladly mend your clothes for free,” she said softly.
Ben gave her a quick glance and grinned. “But that wouldn’t be good business, would it?”
“It would be if it built good relations.”
He moved over to take a better look at a plate of puffed pastries filled with a white pudding that smelled of vanilla cream. “I wash and mend my own clothes when needed.”
She stepped up beside him and leaned her head around to catch his eye. “You aren’t trying to avoid me?”
He straightened, smiled, and dared to meet her gaze. “Why would I do that?”
“Don’t know,” she said, her Irish creeping into each word, a sign she was as nervous talking about this subject as he was. “I just haven’t been seein’ ye as much of late. I thought—well, I thought—it might be nice if ye helped with Phillip’s arithmetic, you see. I’ve been able to help him with his reading and writing while I mend clothes, but I’m afraid I’m not as advanced with numbers, which is a wee bit discouraging. Especially when I’m trying to calculate how much to charge for my sewing services.”
Samuel had said he’d learned from his wife, Esther, that Maggie would hold off on accepting the men’s marriage proposals if she could afford to open her own sewing shop. Ben’s pulse leapt in his chest. Perhaps if she learned how to run a business it would buy him time.
Time for what? You can’t afford to marry her.
Time for him to find more gold.
He cleared his throat. “I can help with Phillip’s lesson tonight. Does he have a pencil and paper?”
“Right here,” Phillip called over from his seat at the table. “But why should I have to learn my numbers?”
Ben had yet to establish a real bond with the boy and tried his best to keep his tone light. “If you find gold in the river, you will know how much it’s worth.”
“So no one cheats me?” Phillip asked.
“Yes,” Maggie said with a smile. “And so you will know how much it will cost you to buy and keep a horse.”
The boy’s eyes widened with interest, and when Maggie gave Ben a pointed look, he realized she’d just given him the opening he needed to finally connect with his nephew.
“Let’s say a packhorse costs twenty-five dollars, and you find a nugget of gold in the river worth fifty dollars. How many horses could you buy?” Ben picked up the pencil and jotted down some figures.
Phillip thought for a moment. “Two?”
Ben nodded. “Yes, you could buy two, but not if you need to feed that horse. Enough hay to feed a horse for a week can cost roughly two dollars. If you bought just one horse, how many wee
ks could you afford to feed it?”
Phillip leaned toward him and raised his brows. “Twelve?”
Ben shrugged. “What if the horse needs a saddle blanket? Or new shoes?”
“I’m going to need a lot more gold!” Phillip exclaimed. “Do you think I could go back to the river to pan for gold with you tomorrow?”
“Of course,” Ben assured him.
Maggie had walked away, in what Ben suspected was an attempt to give him and his nephew time alone, but she appeared to still be listening to their conversation as she hovered in the hall between the bakery and the hotel rooms in the back, for she was smiling.
“Let me give you another example,” Ben said, glancing back toward Phillip. “If Maggie charges twenty cents for each piece of clothing she mends at the wash shed and can finish ten items in one day, how much would she make?”
Phillip smiled. “Two dollars.”
“But what if she doubled her prices?” Ben asked.
“Four dollars.”
“And in six days’ time?”
“Twenty dollars?” Phillip asked, rapt with attention.
“Twenty-four,” Ben corrected. “And in two weeks’ time she’d have forty-eight dollars, almost enough to—”
“Buy two horses!” Phillip exclaimed. “Or one horse with eight weeks of hay, a blanket, and new shoes!”
Ben watched Maggie raise a hand to her mouth to try to smother a laugh, and he grinned. “Yes, but she might want to first buy herself some more thread, sewing needles, and material to sew new clothes, so she’d have to calculate those costs on a weekly basis. Then if she sews ten new clothing items and sells each one at ten dollars each, she could cover the cost of the wood beams to repair the shack near the camp entrance and turn it into her very own shop.”
Phillip smiled. “Then she could make even more money!”
“Yes, but Maggie would have to subtract her costs from her profits each week to restock her sewing supplies. She and her mother also need to pay rent for their room and pay for their food. So she might keep track of her income and expenses by lining them up in columns.”
As Ben drew lines down the page to illustrate his point for Phillip, Maggie walked back over to them, her face filled with wonder. “Where did you learn to budget expenses like this, Ben?”
He shrugged. “I used to work at a bank.”
“A bank!” Maggie stared at him in surprise. “I would never have guessed it. You do not seem the type to sit indoors behind a desk.”
“I’m not. That’s why I came out here.”
Maggie nodded. “To find gold. And what will you do with it?”
“For starters, I might invest in your sewing business and ask you to sew me a new set of clothes.”
Maggie blushed. “With your skill at calculating numbers, why don’t you have your own business?”
“I hope to have a horse-breeding business—one day. I already have a place picked out in the valley, just a short ride north.”
Phillip gasped. “Really?”
He nodded. “I just need more gold first.”
“How much do you have?” Phillip asked, and Maggie eagerly leaned in also, awaiting his answer.
With a pang of regret, Ben shook his head. “Not enough.”
Chapter 5
Maggie eagerly returned to her room to make a list of the supplies she would need before opening her own seamstress shop. She tapped the pencil against her paper as she ran the calculations through her head. If Esther was right, and the men still paid the new rates, and Maggie followed Ben’s instructions on how to budget her income, she could save enough to start buying supplies in three weeks or less.
And she did. Handing Agnes and her husband, Charles, some of her earnings, she requested they purchase set amounts of new fabric and thread for her during their next trip into Sacramento in mid-May.
Of course, Maggie had mended Phillip’s shirt for free. She couldn’t have him going around camp looking like a common street urchin. Nor could she accept money from Ben after all he had done to help her business succeed. Whether or not he’d intended for her to overhear how to budget expenses while tutoring Phillip, she paid close attention, and learn she did, to both her and her mother’s delight.
One problem remained before her. Although she’d saved more than enough to purchase the windows and wood needed to fix Cousin Lewis’s shack, no one would help her make the repairs. Esther said that Samuel told her Hugh Kendrick wouldn’t let any of the men volunteer.
“Hugh thinks if you have your own home, you will be less inclined to marry,” Esther had told her.
“Why does anyone listen to Hugh?” Maggie demanded.
“Because he pays.” Esther shrugged. “Most of the men follow Ben because he’s a good friend and helps everyone, and Hugh hates that. So, he pays out large quantities of money, thinking he can buy loyalty and respect.”
“And a wife,” Maggie added in disgust.
“I’m sure our sweet, kindhearted Ben would help fix up your cousin’s place if you asked him,” Esther teased.
Maggie’s cheeks warmed. Could she ask him such a favor? After all, Ben needed to pan for gold as much as the other men if he was ever to afford his horse ranch. Time away from the river to help her could cost him dearly. Unless she paid him. But would he take her money?
She smiled as the beginning of a plan leapt into her mind. Perhaps there was something she could do for him first, before she asked, to sweeten the deal.
One evening later that week, instead of tutoring, Maggie asked Ben and Phillip to meet her in the grassy field behind the post office.
“What’s this?” Ben asked, eyeing Maggie, Tom Green, and the horse the self-appointed postmaster used to retrieve the miners’ mail from San Francisco—for a price, of course.
Tom pointed at Maggie. “Her idea, not mine, but I’ll go along with it since she gave me a cherry pie.”
Maggie nodded. “Which I bartered from Esther at the bakery in exchange for mending some of the hotel room linens.”
The postmaster handed the reins to Ben. “You can use Scout each week for an hour, as long as I continue to get my pies.”
Maggie met Ben’s questioning gaze. “I thought you could give Phillip some horseback-riding lessons.”
Phillip’s squeal of delight made everyone smile. “How fast can he go? How many miles do you think he can travel in a day?”
“One step at a time,” Ben told him. “First let’s get you up into the saddle.”
Maggie could hardly hold in her own delight as she watched Ben’s expert precision in handling the animal, one of the few horses in camp, as most of the men used sturdier mules to pull their wagons up the steep terrain. And Phillip’s eagerness to learn how to properly hold the reins so he might turn the horse and direct its steps had been worth the extra work required for the arrangement.
Yet the look of appreciation Ben gave her is what really captured her heart, and she hoped before long he would not only grow closer to his nephew, but also agree to accept her money and help with the repairs she needed to open her own shop.
Ben thought Maggie was very clever in the way she’d bartered services throughout the camp to procure a horse for Phillip to practice on. Yet, he was now faced with a dilemma that kept him on edge.
During their riding session the following week, Phillip fell off the horse and tore his trousers right up the midsection. There was no question the garment was beyond repair, and the tailor’s price to sew a new pair of trousers for the boy was much too high.
But if he went to Maggie, would she think he was trying to court her like the rest of the men? He didn’t want to do anything to mislead her. Neither did he want to risk losing his heart to a woman before he could afford to do so, a real danger each moment spent in her presence.
With an inward groan he decided there was no helping it. The boy had to have new trousers and that was that. He’d have to go to the wash shed and ask for Maggie’s help first thing in the morning
. And pray for the strength to keep his heart intact.
Ben shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he waited his turn in line. He’d risen early, but ten men stood in front of him, eagerly waiting for the opportunity to speak to the ever-popular Miss Maggie McDermott. He’d hoped to speak to her privately about sewing Phillip’s trousers and get to the river the same time as usual, but it looked as if that was not going to happen. He’d have to be patient and accept the delay.
What was the adage Maggie quoted? Always look for the positive in every situation, and thank the good Lord that things are not worse.
He could be thankful for his tent that sheltered him at night and for the money he had already saved toward his horse ranch. He also had to be grateful he was not still at odds with his young nephew, thanks to Maggie.
Although he did not appreciate Hugh Kendrick or the fact he was now smiling at her and making a show of presenting her with a spool of gold-colored thread.
Ben stiffened. Wondering what the rich rogue was saying to her, he inched forward to listen in. All he heard was Maggie telling the guy, “Mr. Kendrick, all the gold in the world could not convince me to dance with you.”
Ben grinned. He could be thankful for that. Very thankful.
Twenty minutes later, after watching others converse with her and ask for her hand in marriage, Ben had his chance to speak.
“It is a pleasure to finally have you step forward,” Maggie said, her eyes shining as her pink lips parted into a wide smile.
Heat crept up his neck as she continued looking at him that way, as if she’d been waiting for him, only him, and hoped that he, like the others, would propose.
“I’m not here for myself,” Ben said, his voice strained. “Phillip tore his trousers, and I was hoping you might be able to sew him a new pair?”
Her smile faltered, but only for an instant.
“I have a proposal for you,” she said, giving him a direct look.
A proposal for him? His heart thumped hard in his chest as he cleared his throat. “What—what kind of a proposal are you suggesting?”