Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
S ummer was Elsie Bailey’s favorite time of year because Pa sometimes begrudgingly allowed his family to attend church. Not that her father was against religion and observing the Sabbath. But the labor on the farm needed for the family to survive seemed never ending, and the trip to Sweetwater Springs took three hours in good weather for a total of six hours round-trip, plus the time attending the service and perhaps shopping at the mercantile.
To Elsie, Sundays in Sweetwater Springs meant socializing, singing, and learning, all rare opportunities on a homestead so far from town. The Bailey family, Pa, Ma, Ricky, Elsie, and Mary, led lonely lives, often going weeks without sight of another soul, so a few precious hours in the summer had to sustain their spirits enough to last a long time.
This morning, Elsie stood in her parents’ bedroom, trying to see herself in the small, round mirror hanging on the soddy wall over the chest of drawers, which also held a pitcher and ewer of water. In the dawn’s rosy light, she could only dimly view her face and her neck. No telling how her best shirtwaist and skirt looked on her. She stroked the calico, a pansy print on a yellow background made over from a dress that had been her ma’s, wishing the fabric wasn’t old and faded.
At least, it mostly fits , she consoled herself. All except the too-short sleeves. Up until a year ago when she’d stopped growing taller, she’d worn patched and washed-out dresses that were frequently too small for her, even after Ma had let out the seams and lengthened the hem. Her mother had often threatened to put rocks on Elsie’s head to stop her from shooting up so fast.
Elsie touched the lace collar she’d crocheted and ran a finger over the flowers she’d embroidered around her cuffs—probably a mistake, because the cheerful pansies stitched in bright thread made the rest of her dress look shabbier.
What’s in your heart is more important than what’s on your person . Or so Ma often said when Elsie longingly perused the Montgomery Ward catalogue, coveting some of the ready-made clothing she saw there.
Today, at least, they would visit the mercantile after church to purchase a new shovel. Elsie would have a chance to peruse the bolts of fabric and mentally choose her favorite. Even if she couldn’t make a new dress, she could dream of the perfect one. Imagining the outfit—the style and the buttons and trim—was the next best thing to possessing and wearing one.
Elsie smoothed her brown hair, pulled back in a plain braided bun, fluffed the fringe of bangs on her forehead, then picked up her hated green sunbonnet and set it on her head, tying the strings at a jaunty angle under her chin. She sighed. Sometimes, it’s hard not to wish for something new, like a straw hat with flowers on the brim.
Or adventures.
She frowned, remembering the straw hat she’d made for herself, spending hours braiding the wet straw and coiling it in a circular pattern. She’d used her egg money to purchase a yellow satin ribbon to tie around the brim and a pair of hatpins with a gold glass bead on each end. But two weeks ago, before a visit to their nearest neighbors, an unexpected, sharp gust of wind had torn the hat from her head, scattering the pins, and deposited her creation in the pigpen, where the pig had promptly stepped on the brim and begun chewing the crown.
After fifteen minutes of searching, Elsie found her precious hatpins,
Although she’d rescued the ribbon and done her best to clean the soiled areas, the damage was done. She’d cut out the worst of the stained part and gave the two ribbons to her younger sister to tie on the ends of her braids. Mary had been happy with the gift, for when made into bows, the stains didn’t really show.
But Elsie still had to endure Ma’s scolding about extravagance, vanity, fanciful notions, and the need for her to make practical decisions. All the while, she had to listen, keeping her face impassive instead of rolling her eyes or otherwise showing her frustration, which would get her in more trouble for being disrespectful. She’d heard variations of the lecture for years and could probably recite paragraphs.
Her mother walked into the bedroom, interrupting Elsie’s musings, and shut the door behind her.
Ma was tall and spare, with wide shoulders and a square face. Her white-streaked brown hair, which she usually left down in a long plait, today was tightly coiled into a bun. The green fabric of her best dress was almost as faded as the one Elsie wore. The tight sleeves marked the outfit as years out of date.
Ma wore her most precious possession—an amber pendent with a miniscule leaf embedded inside. The necklace had belonged to Ma’s grandmother and had traveled all the way from the Baltic Sea area in Germany when Elsie’s great-grandparents had emigrated to America.
Elsie had inherited her mother’s big, brown eyes. But her softer features and curvy body came from her grandmother, or so she’d been told, because the family matriarch had died a few weeks after her parents’ marriage.
“I want to talk to you.” Ma walked over to sit on the bed and patted the mattress for Elsie to join her. She pursed her lips together.
Elsie’s stomach dipped. That stern look didn’t usually bode well. Gingerly, she took a seat.
Her mother’s expression relaxed, but her eyes looked sad. She reached up and grasped the amber pendent. “Now that you’re seventeen, it’s time you found yourself a husband. I was married at your age.”
Elsie gasped. No! Her hand fluttered to her throat, feeling the crocheted lace under her fingertips.
“You’re a good daughter. A big help to me. I’m going to miss you. That’s a fact. But I can’t stand in your way. When we’re in town today, I want you to look around. See if a man catches your fancy. I know we usually keep to ourselves and don’t talk much except to those we know. But I want you to be more friendly-like. I’ll try to do the same, and so I’ve told your pa.” She shrugged. “We’ll see if he manages to bestir himself.”
Elsie spread her skirt. The few times she’d been to church last summer, she’d seen the other girls wear nice gowns. “I need a new dress.”
“Can’t spare the money for a new dress, you know that,” Ma said sharply. “The shovel just broke, and your pa’s going to need a new pair of boots before winter, and we must save up for them. You’re decently clad, and that’s what’s important.”
Like the rest of them, unless he was going to town or to the neighbors’, Pa went barefoot as soon as it was warm enough to save on shoe leather.
While Elsie disagreed with Ma about her need for a new dress, her father’s boots were more important. She wiggled her toes in the stiff, black shoes, an old pair of Ma’s, the soles thin and tops scuffed, although she’d polished them with a combination of soot and tallow. “I know.”
“Truth is, Daughter….” Ma sighed and lowered her eyes. “Now that you’re a young lady, we can’t afford to fit you out. Best you find a man who can. Keep that in mind when you’re looking around.”
“It’s just…” Elsie rushed out the words. “How can I find a husband if I don’t look pretty?”
Ma harrumphed and glared. “I’ve taught you better than that. You need to stop your flights of fancy, girl. As you well know, pretty is as pretty does. A sensible man will look past your outside trappings to your inner qualities.”
Elsie sighed. I don’t want a sensible man. Well, I do. But I want romance. That is, I want romance someday. Just not for a few more years. She knew she didn’t dare say so to her mother. Her parents were second cousins and had grown up expecting to marry. She had no doubt they had caring between them, but she wanted more. She yearned for more.
“I’m not pandering to your vanity when I say, you’re pretty enough, a hard worker, and a tolerable cook. A good man don’t want more than that.” Ma’s lips pressed together again, and she rose. “I’ve said my piece.”
Elsie swallowed down the lump in her throat. “I feel like you’re running me off.”
Her mother frowned. “You know that’s not the case. If I had my way, you’d marry a neighbor. But the only one available is Bob Smithson, and you’ve never taken to him.” She gave Elsie a searching stare as if double-checking the truth of her words. “’Sides, everyone around here, excepting the Smithsons, is as poor as we are, maybe even poorer.”
She stepped close and touched Elsie’s cheek in a rare gesture of affection. “I want more for you, Daughter—a man who can afford a new dress every year.”
Something about her mother’s tone made Elsie wonder if Ma ever wished for a new dress. She couldn’t ask. The question would only call into account Pa’s ability to provide and hurt her mother’s feelings.
Ma lowered her arm. “I want you to have a husband who can afford supplies from the mercantile, so you won’t have to live with the fear of running out of food if there’s a long winter or the crops fail. I never want you to wonder if your family will starve.”
With a pang in her chest, Elsie gazed mutely at her mother. I never knew Ma worried so.
“I want you to afford a doctor and medicine if your children sicken.”
Neither mentioned the fever that had carried off the Baileys’ firstborn son before he was even baptized. Or the baby boy who came after Mary and was too puny to thrive in a cold winter.
“To be able to make new clothing for your oldest children when they outgrow the ones they have and, when passed down to the youngers, aren’t practically rags.” She turned and, stiff-backed, walked out the door.
I don’t want a husband. Mutinously, Elsie stared after her mother, feeling guilt and a rare rebelliousness tightening her chest and rising into her throat. I don’t want a man to buy me a new dress or supplies. I want to make my own dresses and buy my own supplies. If only there was a way to earn more money!
Reluctantly, she paced to the mirror and peered at her face. Despite what her mother said, Elsie knew she was too young for marriage. She bit her lip and pinched her cheeks to redden them, but the flush soon faded.
With a frown at her reflection, she then moved to the chest of drawers and pulled open the bottom drawer to find her small basket of handkerchiefs. She lifted the worn and tattered-edged ones to reach her best handkerchief underneath and tugged it out, inhaling the scent of sweetgrass from the basket and remembering the journey she, Ma, and Mary made two years ago to collect the grass from a swamp. She’d embroidered her initials in one corner and surrounded them with violets.
“Elsie,” her ma called from the other room. “If you don’t stop primping and get out here this instant, we’ll be late for church.”
Elsie wrinkled her nose in her mother’s direction—an expression she wouldn’t dare do in Ma’s presence—and grabbed the gray knitted shawl she’d dropped on the foot of the bed—early summer was still cool enough to need one in the mornings. Reluctantly, she walked out of the bedroom, not at all eager to begin her husband hunt.
When the Baileys arrived in Sweetwater Springs, they were early enough to park under a tree. With the bed of the wagon in the shade, they could leave behind the basket of eggs, each cushioned in sawdust, which they’d brought to trade at the mercantile.
After Pa helped Ma, Elsie, and Mary down from the wagon, the women hurried to the privy behind the livery while Pa and her older brother, Ricky, tended to the horses. Mack Taylor, the livery stable owner, had two privies—one for the men and a bigger one for the ladies, so a woman could take one or more children inside with her.
Once they’d finished, they pumped clean water to wash their hands at the nearest horse trough. Mr. Taylor had one in back by the corral and also one in front. Elsie had often wished their homestead had two pumps—one close to the house and one by the barn, instead of their single well. Then she wouldn’t have to haul a heavy bucket of water so far.
After the long ride to town in the back of the wagon, even if a blanket over straw cushioned the hard wooden bed, Elsie was grateful to stretch her legs. She smoothed her skirt, so painstakingly ironed yesterday. But, to her annoyance, some creases remained.
She glanced over at the new hotel, rising several stories above the other buildings. A pair of elegant ladies in flowered hats emerged and strolled toward the street, making Elsie conscious of her worn-out, wrinkled attire and despised sunbonnet.
Ashamed, she looked away from the women, trying not to envy them. Envy was a sin, after all, and she was on her way to church. God won’t care how I look . She took comfort from the thought. Only what’s in my heart .
They left the horses and wagon at the livery and walked down the street of Sweetwater Springs to the white church. The steeple with a cross rose into the blue sky.
“Now, Elsie—” Ma spoke so only she could hear “—I expect you to look around at the young men and smile at any who don’t walk or drive with a wife.”
Holding in the heat of rebellion flaring in her chest, Elsie obediently nodded. But soon she became too engrossed in studying the women’s attire to notice the men. Some had clothing as shabby as hers, but more wore nice gowns, and some, like the ladies from the hotel, looked as though they’d stepped from the pages of a catalogue. She envied the balloon sleeves of the fashionable gowns and imagined what they’d feel like on her shoulders—like wings, perhaps.
Even if she could have a new dress, using so much fabric for puffy sleeves was wasteful. Ma would never allow such an indulgence. Elsie suppressed a sigh.
Two couples stood at the base of the stairs to the church. On one side was the elder Reverend Norton and his wife, Mary, and across from them was their son, Reverend Joshua, and his bride, Delia. Last summer, the Baileys had met Delia Bellaire and her father, Andre at church. The wealthy Southerners had found themselves stranded in Sweetwater Springs when Mr. Bellaire had a heart attack on the train.
The new Mrs. Norton wore a fashionable gown in a shade between yellow and orange—almost the color of a sunset—with leg-of-mutton sleeves and twice as much yardage in her skirt as Ma had in hers. She wore plump, amber beads in her ears and around her neck. Elsie wondered if any of the beads had leaves inside like Ma’s pendant.
Seeing Delia Norton’s elegance made Elsie wish she could have witnessed the woman in her bridal finery. The Baileys had missed the Norton wedding due to spring planting.
Rain had kept them indoors on many days, so when the weather cleared—at least for the most part—all five of them labored in the fields and the garden from early morning to late at night. In addition to their already cultivated acreage, Pa had plowed an extra field out of the tough prairie grass, using their neighbors’ oxen. In exchange, the Baileys took care of the Smithsons’ livestock while they attended the wedding. Pa thought he’d gotten the better of that bargain. Elsie didn’t agree, although she wasn’t foolish enough to say so.
The next day, Elsie had gone with Pa to drive back the oxen, and they’d stayed for tea and cookies.
Mrs. Smithson had returned home with plenty of details about the wedding and the reception, which Pa only listened to for politeness’s sake. But Elsie had eagerly absorbed every word.
The Smithsons also subscribed to the Sweetwater Springs Herald , and then, after reading the newspaper, they passed it on to their neighbors. Sometimes the information was weeks old by the time the Herald reached the Baileys. Elsie read the account of the Nortons’ wedding several times and studied the accompanying photographs, noting all the details of the gown, copied from a French designer. But reading the article wasn’t the same as being there. How she’d wished she could have seen the gown with her own eyes!
Ma went first to greet the newlyweds, extending a hand to Delia Norton and including Reverend Joshua in her social smile. “We met last summer. We’re the Baileys. I’m Anne and this is my husband, Richard. Our children, Elsie, Ricky, and Mary.”
Pa, never a talkative man, only nodded a greeting.
The bride’s smile was genuine and charming. “Yes, Mrs. Bailey, I remember. We spoke of your plans for your farm.”
Elsie usually found the endless discussions of crops that passed for conversation among her family and their neighbors tedious and tended to close her ears after a few minutes. Now she wondered if the woman was telling the truth. How can the new Mrs. Norton remember a family she only met twice and recall a tiresome mention of crops? But she’s a minister’s wife, which means she can’t fib.
Mrs. Norton must have caught the expression on Elsie’s face, for her smile turned impish. “I heard plenty about other crops but growing tobacco in Montana was a first.”
“Why, yes,” Ma said, her expression softening with obvious pleasure. “We just finished the planting. Tobacco is a new crop for us, and we can’t risk more than one field.” She glanced at Pa and then back. “Congratulations on your wedding. We’re so sorry we couldn’t attend.”
“Of course,” Delia Norton said in an understanding tone. “It’s hard to get away during planting season.” She turned to Elsie and held out her hand in greeting.
Initially, Elsie was only going to smile and say hello. She changed her mind, recalling that if she was old enough to wed, then she was a young lady and no longer a child, who should be seen and not heard. “The photo of you in the newspaper was ever so lovely.”
The bride’s hazel eyes sparkled. “Thank you. Reverend Joshua and I had the most wonderful day.”
Elsie would have liked to chat more. But a nudge on her back from Ma reminded her other people were lined up behind them, waiting to greet the younger Nortons.
Hurrying up the steps, she entered the church, still looking at dresses. When the sister of the town banker and hotel owner stopped to greet the shopkeepers, Mr. and Mrs. Cobb, sitting at the end of a pew, Elsie slowed her steps to peruse Mrs. Grayson’s outfit of shimmering mauve.
The elegant woman appeared as beautifully attired as Delia Norton. With a nod to the Cobbs, Mrs. Grayson took the arm of her tall handsome son, Ben, a year or so younger than Elsie, and paraded up the center aisle.
Her gaze on the lace of Mrs. Grayson’s balloon sleeves and hem and breathing in the spicy-rose scent that trailed in her wake, Elsie followed. She paused near a pew, about two thirds back on the right, in the general location the family usually sat.
While she waited for the rest of them to catch up, Elsie raised her eyes to the front of the church and gasped, freezing in place at the beauty of the stained-glass window. The newspaper reported the window was installed by Andre Bellaire to commemorate his daughter’s marriage, but the black and white photo she’d seen in the newspaper hadn’t done justice to the rich colors. I could stare at that window all day.
Ma frowned and nudged her to move into the pew.
Elsie wanted to rebel, to throw off Ma’s controlling hand. Instead, she moved into the pew, took a seat, and proceeded to study the window.
From the corner of her eye, she saw her mother throw her a reproving glance.
Repressing a sigh, Elsie looked down, resentment making her chest tight. If Ma thinks I’m old enough to marry, why can’t she leave me alone? Enjoying the beauty of that window isn’t a sin.
Not for the first time, she wondered how her practical parents could have given birth to such a dreamer. They probably wonder the same thing. If I didn’t have their brown eyes, I’d think fairies switched me at birth.