Chapter Ten
By Saturday morning, Lottie had learned a town preparing for Independence Day behaved much like a henhouse after a fox sighting.
Everyone had important opinions. Everyone wished to be useful. No one walked in a straight line.
Mrs. Schulte arrived at the meeting hall with a list of supplies for bunting, hymnals, chair placement, lemonade distribution, and acceptable patriotic enthusiasm.
Mrs. Beck followed with two baskets of ribbon and three unnecessary suggestions for where romance might be improved by garlands.
Mrs. Hanford brought a copy of the Declaration of Independence, a jar of paste, and a warning that public readings could become dangerous when young people were encouraged to emote.
Lottie stood beside the library shelf with the lending ledger open and wondered if Wild Rose Ridge understood how close it lived to civic collapse.
“The library table should be placed near the front,” Mrs. Beck said. “Everyone will see the books when they come in.”
“Too near the front encourages handling,” Mrs. Hanford replied.
“Handling is the purpose of books.”
“Reading is the purpose of books. Handling is merely the path to it.”
Mrs. Schulte tapped her pencil against her list. “We must also decide who will read for the Independence Jubilee.”
Lottie looked up. “Read?”
“Yes. A passage from Scripture, something patriotic, perhaps one poem if Mrs. Hanford survives the notion.”
Mrs. Hanford’s mouth thinned. “Poetry should be selected with moral caution.”
“I volunteer Mr. Sutton for Scripture,” Mrs. Beck said, “and Cornelia for the patriotic piece.”
Cornelia, who had been quietly shelving primers, turned. “Do I receive a vote?”
“No,” Mrs. Schulte said. “You read clearly.”
“That is difficult to argue with.”
“Charlotte can read the poem,” Mrs. Beck added.
Lottie’s hand settled over the ledger.
A month ago, she would have agreed at once. She liked reading aloud. She liked giving words breath and shape. She had read to Mrs. Whitmore through long afternoons in Chicago when the old woman’s eyes had failed and loneliness sat heavy in the room.
Now the thought of standing before all Wild Rose Ridge with Peterson somewhere in the crowd made her heart behave foolishly.
“What poem?” Lottie asked.
“Tennyson would be lovely,” Mrs. Beck said.
Mrs. Hanford made a sound of grave concern. “Tennyson is not American.”
“Neither is tea, yet we manage.”
Cornelia coughed into a stack of schoolbooks.
Lottie looked at the empty place on the shelf where Tennyson still belonged. “Mr. Peterson has that volume until Tuesday.”
Mrs. Beck smiled too widely. “Then perhaps Mr. Peterson should return it in time for you to choose something.”
Mrs. Hanford looked toward the door as if Peterson might appear for the sole purpose of proving her fears correct. “I hardly think a logger needs to be entangled in poetry before a public gathering.”
“He is already entangled,” Mrs. Beck said cheerfully. “It is in the ledger.”
Lottie closed the ledger before anyone could inspect his name again. “We have several days to choose a reading.”
“We have one week to organize an Independence Jubilee,” Mrs. Schulte said. “There is no time to waste.”
The door opened before Lottie could answer.
Peterson stepped inside with two books beneath his left arm. The room immediately became too interested in him.
To his credit, he did not turn around and leave, though Lottie could see the impulse pass through him. His gaze moved once over Mrs. Schulte’s list, Mrs. Beck’s ribbons, Mrs. Hanford’s paste jar, and the half-decorated meeting hall.
“Am I interrupting?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Hanford said.
“No,” Mrs. Beck said at the same time.
Lottie came around the table. “Good morning, Mr. Peterson.”
His eyes found hers, and a small line of ease appeared at the corner of his mouth. “Lottie.”
Mrs. Beck’s ribbon slid from her hand to the floor.
Mrs. Schulte stopped writing.
Mrs. Hanford looked as if she had witnessed a procedural irregularity.
Peterson seemed to realize what he had said in public. He lowered the books to the lending table with more care than necessary. “Returning these.”
“Both?”
“Aye.”
Tennyson lay on top. The botany volume beneath it was tied with a strip of clean cloth.
Lottie touched the knot. “Did the flower press properly?”
“Might need another day.”
“Then you should have kept it.”
He glanced toward the women by the shelf. “Thought best to return library property before it became town discussion.”
Mrs. Beck opened her mouth.
Cornelia reached out and took her basket of ribbon. “Beatrice, this blue has tangled.”
The distraction worked only because Mrs. Beck loved ribbon nearly as much as she loved romance.
Lottie kept her voice low. “You are allowed to borrow books even when people comment on it.”
“Allowed, yes.”
“Not willing?”
His left hand rested on the top book. He did not tap his fingers or fidget. Peterson did not waste movement that way. He simply stood with his hand over Tennyson as if returning it cost more than he meant to show.
“The men have work enough without making sport of books,” he said.
“Are they making sport of books?”
His answer came after a pause. “Not only books.”
There it was.
Lottie wanted to reach for the volume and push it back into his hands. She wanted to tell him the men in the logging camp did not get to decide what he read, what name he used, what tenderness he kept alive. She knew pushing him would not make courage. It would only make a corner.
Instead, she opened the ledger.
“Then I will mark them returned.”
His gaze lowered to the page.
The two entries sat there in his hand.
Peterson. Tennyson. Botany.
She wrote the return date in Delly’s neat system and sanded the ink. Then she looked up. “You may borrow something else.”
“Not today.”
“All right.”
That answer made him study her.
Perhaps he had expected coaxing. Perhaps he had expected disappointment dressed as persuasion. Lottie gave him neither.
“You read the Tennyson?” she asked.
“Some.”
“Enough to dislike him?”
“Enough to know he thinks too much at night.”
She smiled. “That is a fair criticism.”
“He grieves honestly.”
The words were quiet, almost hidden beneath Mrs. Schulte’s renewed instructions about chair rows.
Lottie’s smile softened. “Yes. He does.”
Peterson looked down at the book and drew one narrow scrap of paper from between the pages. “There was a loose bit inside. I did not know if it belonged.”
He handed it to her.
Lottie recognized the paper at once. It was one of the scraps she had cut for field notes. On it, in Peterson’s uneven writing, were two words.
For winter.
She looked at the botany volume.
The knot suddenly mattered.
Peterson took half a step back. “Don’t open it here.”
The instruction came too quickly to be casual.
Lottie laid her hand over the tied book. “I won’t.”
Color rose beneath his beard.
Mrs. Hanford’s voice came from the shelf. “If we are having poetry, I must approve the selection.”
“We aren’t.” Lottie turned to Mrs. Hanford. “I mean I would rather attend this year’s event not being a participant. You have much to do without having to worry about another person.”
Peterson reached for his hat. “I should go.”
“Wait,” Mrs. Schulte said.
He stopped with obvious reluctance.
“We need men to help hang bunting after church tomorrow. Above the meeting hall door, along the porch rail, and across the windows if Mr. Prentiss will stop complaining about nail holes.”
Peterson looked toward the door. “There are younger men.”
“Younger men hang bunting as if trying to lasso cattle,” Mrs. Hanford said. “We require steadiness.”
Mrs. Beck clasped her hands. “And height.”
Lottie looked down at the ledger.
Height was unfortunately true.
Peterson’s attention moved from Mrs. Schulte to the high beam above the meeting hall door. “Tomorrow?”
“After the church service,” Mrs. Schulte said. “It will not take long.”
“Nothing ever goes quickly when women say it won’t take long,” he muttered.
Cornelia’s shoulders shook.
Mrs. Schulte chose not to hear him. “Excellent. Charlotte will be here with the ribbons.”
Lottie lifted her head. “I will?”
“You are the librarian. The meeting hall is temporarily under your influence.”
“That sounds official and dangerous.”
“It is both,” Cornelia said.
Peterson’s gaze met Lottie’s. “Perhaps Wild Rose Ridge needs a proper library? It should be its own building.”
“Someday, but for now I’m grateful for use of the meeting hall.”
The thought of working beside him tomorrow should not have warmed her so much. They would be hanging bunting, not walking through a meadow. They would be surrounded by churchgoers, Busy Bees, children, and at least one man complaining about nail holes.
Still, he would come.
Perhaps.
“I can help a little,” he said.
Mrs. Schulte wrote his name down before he could reduce the offer further. “Good.”
Peterson looked at the pencil as if it had trapped him. Lottie almost laughed, but she was too fond of him in that moment to do it.
He tipped his hat and left before anyone could assign him lemonade duty.
The women waited until his footsteps had crossed the porch. Then Mrs. Beck whispered, very loudly, “He called her Lottie.”
“I heard,” Mrs. Schulte said.
“So did everyone,” Mrs. Hanford added.
Lottie lifted the botany volume and held it against herself. “I am going to the back table.”
“Why?” Mrs. Beck asked.
“To check the flower.”
“He told you not to open it here.”
“I know.”
Mrs. Beck’s eyes widened. “Oh, that is much better.”
Lottie escaped before anyone could say another word. The back corner of the meeting hall was mostly hidden by stacked chairs and a curtain once used as scenery for a Christmas program. Lottie slipped behind it, set the botany volume on a small table, and untied the cloth.
Her fingers were careful with the cover.
The book opened to the field pages.
The camas lay pressed between papers, faded but lovely. In the book’s margin, Peterson had written the name, where it grew, and one blunt warning about not confusing it with the poisonous kind. His handwriting filled only the space required, but each word had been placed with care.
Behind the next sheet lay the wild rose.
Lottie forgot the noise in the meeting hall.
The little rose had kept more color than she expected. Its petals were no longer bright, but a soft pink remained, fragile against the cream paper. The stem had dried cleanly. Two tiny leaves lay flat beside it. Beneath the flower, Peterson had written one line.
Proof of summer.
Lottie sat down.
Not quickly. Not dramatically. She simply needed the chair because her knees had become unreliable.
Proof of summer.
He had remembered.
She touched the edge of the page, nowhere near the flower. The rose was not a proposal. Not a promise. Perhaps not even a confession.
It was not nothing.
Peterson had taken a sentence from his mother, carried it into the woods with Lottie, pressed a wild rose in her book, and returned it with the words made smaller, simpler, his.
Proof of summer.
A man did not do that because he felt nothing.
Outside the curtain, Mrs. Hanford said, “Where is Charlotte?”
Cornelia answered, “Cataloging.”
“Behind the curtain?”
“Some books require privacy.”
Lottie pressed her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. Tears came instead, which was inconvenient and entirely unreasonable.
She wiped them quickly. Delly would have said tears near dried flowers were a preservation hazard, and for once, Delly would be right.
When Lottie returned to the main room, Cornelia took one look at her and said nothing, which was a mercy.
Mrs. Beck, however, had no such gift. “Was the flower satisfactory?”
Lottie set the botany volume on the table and smoothed the cloth around it. “Very.”
The rest of the afternoon moved in a blur of Independence Jubilee planning. Lottie copied Peterson’s field notes onto cleaner pages. Cornelia and the Busy Bees disappeared to the beach to continue their preparations for the festival.
Lottie remained at the meeting house, flipping through the Tennyson book and trying to imagine it in Peterson’s hands. It was turning dusk when Delly arrived, carrying a wrapped parcel and wearing the expression of a woman who had lost an argument with domesticity.
“What is that?” Lottie asked.
“Bread from Mrs. Dawes. For Jeb.” Delly set it on the table. “Apparently marriage causes women to hand one another baked goods.”
“That seems pleasant.”
“It is logistically burdensome.”
Lottie laughed and reached for the botany volume. “I have something to show you.”
Delly’s eyes narrowed. “Is it dangerous?”
“No.”
“Romantic?”
“Possibly.”
“That can be dangerous.”
Lottie opened the field page and turned the protective sheet back.
Delly leaned over the table.
For once, her sister had no immediate comment.
The wild rose lay between them, delicate and unmistakable. Peterson’s three words sat beneath it in careful, uneven script.
Proof of summer.
Delly read the words twice.
Then she looked at Lottie. “He returned this today?”
“Yes.”
“With the flower inside?”
“Yes.”
“He wrote that?”
“Yes.”
Delly straightened slowly. “No, Lottie. A man does not press a flower by accident.”
Warmth rushed into Lottie’s cheeks. “I know.”
“Do you?”
“I think so.”
Delly tapped one finger against the table, stopping well away from the page. “This does not mean certainty.”
“No.”
“It does not mean he is ready.”
“I know.”
“It does mean he is paying attention.”
Lottie smiled down at the flower. “That is what I thought.”
Delly studied her sister for a long moment. The warning Lottie expected did not come. Delly looked tired, married, and gentler than she wanted to be.
At last, Delly said, “Then give him room to decide what his attention costs him.”
Lottie nodded. “I will try.”
“Trying is sometimes sufficient for one day.”
That sounded unlike Delly and very much like something Jebediah might have taught her without using a single direct lesson.
“Where’s your husband?”
“Down on the beach. He’s helping to build a gazebo.”
Lottie closed the book with care.
“Then walk with me because tomorrow is going to be busy.”
“How so?”
“They are calling it bunting day.”
“Is your Mr. Peterson coming?” Delly asked as Lottie closed the meeting house and locked the door.
“He isn’t my Mr. Peterson, but I hope so.”
The light faded as they reached the hotel. After dinner, Lottie went to her room and pulled out her journal to capture her thoughts.
Outside, the last light faded beyond Main Street. Tomorrow would bring church, bunting, too many witnesses, and Peterson with a hammer in his hand if he did not think better of it before morning.
Lottie did hope he would come.
She did not write that hope down, as Delly would have. She held it close to her heart.
Some things were safer left uncatalogued until they had enough courage to stand on their own.