Page 4 of Hank and Elsie
He clenched his jaw. Any bride he chose would have to prove she possessed a loving, understanding heart and the necessary discretion to protect the childbeforehe’d ever introduce her and her family to Torin and Jewel. Oh, yes, he’d pay close attention to how the woman treated others. A kind heart was a must.
Torin and Jewel, still walking hand in hand, disappeared around a bend.
Surely, his future bride couldn’t help falling in love with one little girl who wasn’t “quite right” but to him was just perfect.
CHAPTER 2
Summer 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 yellowbackground 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 yellowsatin 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.”
