Page 5 of Hank and Elsie
“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. Sheyearnedfor 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 dresseveryyear.”
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 smallbasket 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 Baileysarrived 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 bythe 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.
