Six

With the weather being nice, folks of Reliable were showing up for church each Sunday, same as they had since Miriam arrived. Dragging benches out into the barnyard for the service didn’t take much time. Daniel helped—not because he wanted to attend, but because Hannah would have wanted him to rear their daughters that way.

“What are the two of you fiddling with?” he called to Titus and Paul.

Titus must not have heard him because he kept whistling—until he banged his thumb with a hammer and let out a yelp.

Dan posed the question again. Paul picked up the hammer and pounded in a nail as he explained, “It’s too hot out here for our wives. We’re setting up a canopy.”

“Could have told me,” he grumbled. “My girls could use some shade so they don’t freckle.”

Logan overheard that comment and hooted. “You’re fretting over your daughters’ ladylike complexions? Oh, brother. Just wait ’til—”

“Just you wait ’til you have daughters,” Gideon interrupted.

Dan cleared his throat. “While we’re at it, we probably ought to put up shade for the MacPhersons’ brides.”

“Actually. . .” Titus scowled at his banged-up thumb as he spoke. “I’ve been thinking we need to have a real church building.”

“You thinking of saving souls,” Dan asked, “or saving your fingers?”

“He might not have any fingers left if he helps build the church.” Gideon chuckled.

“We could donate half an acre over where the road forks between here and the MacPhersons,” Paul suggested. “In fact, if we made an announcement today at church, we could have one built so they’d be wed in a church.”

Daniel scowled. “Forget that nonsense. If they’re following through with that cockamamie plan Delilah cooked up and marrying those girls on a whim and a letter, they’ll need houses, not a chapel.”

“Delilah’s plan was brilliant.” Paul stopped hammering and looked mad enough to spit nails.

“The only reason you’re saying that is because it kept them from courting her.” Daniel stared straight back.

Tension crackled for a moment, then Paul grinned. “So you figured that out, did you?”

“Even Bryce figured it out,” Logan said as he nudged a bench to rest parallel to the others.

“What’re the conditions at their place?” Gideon folded his arms across his chest.

“Single cabin ’bout the size of Daniel’s. Those men hammered a big, old bent serving spoon to the door as the handle.” He winced at the memory. “Lovejoy shoved the men out to the barn. Those four gals are sleeping on pallets on the floor.”

“So they do have spoons,” Logan deadpanned. “Even if they don’t know how to use them.”

Daniel grimaced at the memory of Polly innocently suggesting the MacPhersons use silverware to eat when they’d slurped stew directly from their bowls. “Before we go off half-cocked and plan cabin raisings, let’s see if the women are willing to stay there.”

Miriam had come out to place the Bible on the table they used as a pulpit. “They’ll stay. Obie, Hezzy, and Mike are good men, and they’ll be protective and solid providers.”

“That’s dim praise. There should be more to marriage than feeling safe and full.”

“Daniel, after you left the breakfast table the day they were here, Lois started crying when we offered her a second flapjack.” Miriam’s voice quavered. “To a woman who’s lived in want, the promise of a home and a full stomach must sound like heaven.”

“The promised land.” He looked at his sister-in-law and cleared his throat. “Lovejoy said this place was like the promised land.”

Conversation came to a halt as neighbors started to arrive for worship. It wasn’t long before the MacPhersons arrived. Daniel stood rooted to the ground in utter amazement.

“Their hair—it’s sandy-colored, not brown,” Logan whispered.

The MacPherson brothers’ clean hair was just part of the shock. The hillbilly women had come and done the impossible: The MacPhersons were duded up and looked downright decent. Freshly bathed, hair clean and trimmed, rowdy beards clipped and disciplined, and white shirts crisply ironed. A man could have himself a real belly laugh at the henpecked transformation if the MacPhersons weren’t positively beaming with delight.

“Yoo-hoo! Miriam! Delilah!” Lovejoy scrambled down from the wagon and hastened up. “Where’s our Alisa? She still peaked?”

“She’s inside braiding the girls’ hair.”

“And your lassies, Dan’l Chance—are they chipper?”

“Fair to middlin’.” From the look in her eyes, she’d wanted an honest answer instead of a polite “just fine.” Daniel surprised himself by continuing the conversation. “I’ve kept them sipping plenty of water like you suggested.”

“Good. Good.” She bobbed her head. “It takes young’uns time to shake a cough.” Lovejoy tugged on his sleeve.

“What?”

She drew another of her nitroglycerin tubes from a pocket and handed it to him. “I fixed up a fresh batch of elixir last night. Thought you ought to have it on hand just in case they need it someday. Mike tells me you cain read jist fine, so I pasted a label on it.”

He held the tube and nodded. “Obliged.”

She flashed a bright smile at him. Then her eyes popped open wide. “Well, imagine that!”

“What?”

“Reba White brung a saloon gal to worship! I’ll go on over and welcome her.”

Daniel choked and held her back. “That’s Reba’s daughter, Priscilla. She came back from a fancy young ladies’ academy gussied up like that.”

“Oh my. Thangs are different here. Back home in Salt Lick Holler, rouge and false yeller curls like that—well, it don’t matter. God looks on the heart.” She waved and called out, “As I live and breathe, Reba White! How wonderful ’tis to see you again.”

Daniel stood off to the side as folks got settled for the service. His brothers managed to slap together a decent sunshade for all the women. Just as the hymns started up, he walked the girls over to sit at the women’s feet. Lois and Eunice promptly pulled his girls onto their laps.

The MacPhersons must have told them to bring their instruments, because Lovejoy played her dulcimer and Tempy accompanied on her mandolin. Titus played his guitar. All in all, it made for some of the best-sounding music they’d ever had.

Once Titus finished leading the hymns, Mike stood up and hollered, “Fellers, that pretty one in the green dress what just played the mandolin’s mine. Y’all cain listen and look, but that’s it, ’cuz she’s spoken for.”

“That ain’t much of an introduction,” Marv Wall called.

Mike nodded. “Her name’s Temperance Linden for now, but she’ll be Tempy MacPherson soon as I get the parson here.”

Obie rose, patted Hezzy on the shoulder, and said, “Other two are ourn.”

“Which two? There’re three left,” someone called.

“The purty ones.” Hezzy boasted. “Lois and Eunice come from back in Salt Lick Holler to marry up with us.”

Daniel’s eyes narrowed as he sought Lovejoy’s face. Hezzy meant to compliment the other two, but in his backhanded, clumsy way, he’d just announced Lovejoy was plain. Only he caught a glimpse of her face as she sat down and turned to swipe Ginny Mae from Lois—and Lovejoy didn’t look the least bit put out. She was smilin’ to beat the band.

Maybe she just hides her hurt.

That thought stopped him cold. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d thought about someone else’s feelings. Well, that didn’t matter. The important thing was, this conversation shouldn’t disintegrate further and cause Lovejoy any more upset, so he stood and announced, “These gals deserve homes of their own. How’s midweek looking for you men?”

❧

“If’n Hezzy didn’t already have claim of me, I’d marry up with Daniel Chance at the drop of a hat,” Eunice claimed as they rode back home. “Imagine him a-standin’ there, rustlin’ up holp for us to have cabins!”

Lovejoy gave Hezzy a piercing look. “So you’ve proposed?”

“Yes’m, I shore ’nuff did. Whilst Eunice helped me hitch up the wagon this mornin’, I told her I was ready to get hitched myself. Eunice and me—we’ll step together right fine.”

As proposals went, it wasn’t the most romantic thing Lovejoy had ever heard. Then again it was much better than Vern Spencer’s shoving sugar and a length of copper tubing at Pa, then yanking her by the wrist and declaring, “Yore mine now.”

Tempy nestled closer to Mike. “My man took me out to look at the North Star last night. Said he’d be constant as that star if I’d but wed him.”

Her sister already had shared that sweet news with her, but Lovejoy knew Eunice and Lois were hearing it for the first time. Mike shot her a grin. He’d sought Lovejoy’s permission for that walk, and he was prouder than a rooster with two tails.

“Don’t you go looking to me to ask for your hand right now.” Obie glared at Lois from the wagon seat. “A man’s supposed to pick the time and place, and I’m not gonna have my plans all ruint.”

As it turned out, Obie’s plan unfolded at the lunch table when Lois found the ring she’d been mooning over at the mercantile. Obie managed to stick it in her mashed potatoes while Hezzy distracted her. “Reba tole me you liked that one the best.”

Lois wound her arms around Obie. “I like you the best!”

“Hold yer horses there.” Lovejoy set the bowl of peas down on the table with a loud thump. Several jumped out and rolled across the warped surface. “When we set out on this venture, I had a firm understanding—no weddings ’til I was satisfied the matches would last a lifetime. The sap might be running, but that’s something y’all are gonna have to suffer. I don’t want no spoonin’ or sparkin’ betwixt you. These boys cleaned up right fine and boast plenty of fertile ground and a decent herd.” The girls all nodded emphatically. Lovejoy turned to the men. “These gals are hardworking, decent, God-fearin’ women. There’ll be years and years ahead for them to be your wives and bear your young’uns.”

“Yeah, but—”

“No yabbuts.” Lovejoy gave Hezzy a withering look. “A woman makes for a better wife if she’s got memories stored up of how her man courted her. On cold nights when the babes are sick and the money’s tight, a gal needs to harken back to her sweetheart days when her man promised her he’d stand by her side through thick and thin.”

Lovejoy knocked her knuckles on the table. “I’m holding you all accountable. In six weeks, if’n you’re all still moon-eyed, we’ll have a dandy wedding. ’Til then, hand holdin’ and maybe a kiss on the cheek’s all yore ’lowed. Plenty wants doin’ ’round here that’ll keep you busy. You men, I want you fillin’ the smokehouse.”

“What smokehouse?” Obie muttered.

“The one we’re going to build,” Mike promptly said.

Lovejoy nodded. “That’s the spirit. Onc’t the new cabins are up, these gals are each gonna take one and get finicky as any broody hen does on her first nest. Gonna fix up a home you men’ll each be proud to own.”

“I’m already proud of this’un.” Hezzy’s brows furrowed as he licked honey off his knife.

“Rightly so,” Tempy said. She looked at Mike. “Are Hezzy and Eunice keepin’ this one, or do you reckon on buildin’ three new ones so this’ll be the extry one what serves as the family kitchen?”

“I get a new cabin, don’t I, Hezzy?”

Hezzy wore the look of a man going under for the third time. “If that’s what you want, Eunice.”

Eunice beamed at him.

Lovejoy clapped her hands. “Now looky there. That’s what I’m a-talkin’ ’bout. Hezzy, years from now, Eunice is gonna recollect the time you promised her a home of her verra own.”

Hezzy looked doubtful. “For true?”

“Oh, yes.” Eunice gave him a starry-eyed smile. “I stitched a sampler with mornin’ glories and made the purdiest geese in flight quilt you ever seen. I brung everything I could. We’ll have us the grandest house of anyone in Reliable.”

Tempy glanced at Mike then shamefacedly dipped her head. “I only had a few things to tote along here. Mostly, I’ll fill our home with love.”

“Darlin’ that’s all your man wants or needs.”

Lovejoy took a serving of peas and relaxed a little. Lord, things are turnin’ out better than I dared hope. Please let this all work out.

Mike turned to his brothers. “What say I take Tempy and go to town tomorrow? We’ll buy up the glass for everyone to get windows for their cabins.”

“Glass winders?” Eunice squealed.

“We need to bring down more trees,” Hezzy decided. “Pick up another saw, will ya?”

“Sure. Since we’re havin’ neighbors by, we’ll need to stock up on vittles.” Mike nodded toward the door. The men got up, walked out, yammered in a knot for a few minutes, then came back in. Mike looked at Tempy. “Best we make a list of what we need after supper.”

“We cain make do with what’s on hand,” Lois said.

“Shore cain.” Eunice nodded. “I’m a fair hand at tyin’ lairs for hares and such, and you got beans aplenty.”

“I’ll go gathering with my sister.” Tempy patted her. “Lovejoy knows what’s good to eat, and we’ll have greens—”

“I cain’t do it,” Obie said mournfully as he looked at his brothers. “I jist cain’t.”