Diehl Farm, north of Parker, South Dakota
Sunday, October 11
“An experienced milliner is capable of designing entirely new and original patterns of shapes; and without even measurements as her guide, she produces the idea which her brain has conceived.”
—Practical Millinery
Edmison-Jamison building, 9th and Phillips Avenue, Sioux Falls Monday, October 5, 1908
Reba clasped her hands together on the lap of her black skirt to hide their shaking. She refused to look like a female wilting under pressure. She could do this. She had to stay calm, to not look like she was panicking or that her pulse was racing. Was she sweating? She was. She could feel the moisture on the back of her neck.
“Mr. Smyth,” she said with a smile, “Brookings is sixty miles north of Sioux Falls and one-third the population. Three women there own millinaries, a fourth manages a music store, a fifth the general store, the sixth is the superintendent of the hospital, a seventh a school principal, and everyone in this part of the state knows Mrs. Gerlach, the proprietor of the ever popular Wayside Inn. If Sioux Falls is to overcome her past of being the divorce capital of the country, then, in honor of Helen McKennan, creator of the city’s first public park, let us work together to make Sioux Falls a city of opportunity … a city of prosperity for both sexes.”
Mr. Smyth leaned back, his chair squeaking. He smoothed his bushy gray mustache as he looked from Reba to her father and back to her. “Impressive speech for one so young.”
Father nodded. “Reba has spent the last year interviewing women business owners. She is not venturing into this lightly.”
Mr. Smyth crossed his arms. “Are you sure you want to do this? Do you realize how risky opening a new business is, especially for a female as inexperienced as you are?”
Reba kept her gaze on the building manager yet swallowed to ease the tightening in her throat. His questions echoed the ones Father had begun asking after she’d told him she wanted to open a millinery, and had continued to ask even as they’d ridden the train to Sioux Falls this morning. Was she sure? Yes. Did she realize the risk? Yes. Now, though, was not the time to let caution restrain her dreams. With great risk came great reward.
She motioned to the proposal she’d prepared. She’d spent more time on it than any essay in high school. “On page three is a list of the benefits to me of leasing a street-level shop in the Edmison-Jamison building. Phillips Avenue is the principal retail thoroughfare in Sioux Falls. Having my millinery there is the key to its success.”
“In good conscience,” Mr. Smyth said, “I must recommend you lease a less expensive location, build up your clientele, and in time move to Phillips Avenue, if you deem it worthwhile.”
Father shifted in his chair and looked her way, silently expressing his agreement with the building manager.
“I considered that,” Reba admitted. Her straw hat seemed to have doubled its weight, and the stuffy room needed a window opened.
“Mr. Diehl, please talk sense into your daughter.”
“I have tried.” Father turned to Mr. Smyth. “We discussed the benefits and costs. Reba is an adult, and this is her money—thus her decision. You could lease the space to her and have a guaranteed six months’ rent. Or you could reject her offer and gamble that another interested person will come along. You lose nothing by leasing the space to her. Any loss is Reba’s to bear.”
Mr. Smyth tapped his desktop. “Mr. Diehl, I’m a father myself. Both of my girls are about your daughter’s age. One has a child already; the other is carrying. I’d be remiss not to point out that what your daughter would spend on six months’ rent would buy one of those mail-order houses from the Sears catalog. She needs a husband, not a business.”
“She—”
Reba touched her father’s arm to signal that he should let her respond. “Sir, I want to be a milliner, not a wife. What I decide three—four—years from now could be different.”
Mr. Smyth continued to tap his desk.
Reba added quickly, “I am not naïve enough to believe the moment my millinery opens I’ll have customers. Please give me a chance.” She motioned to her proposal again, which he finally opened. “You’ll see my plan includes realistic one-month, three-month, and six-month goals.” Thanks to her father’s insight. She would’ve asked Levi for advice about her proposal and for accounting tips, but he’d been avoiding her since the fair. “All I’m asking for is a six-month lease. If in that time I’ve not met the agreed-upon goals, then your prime lease space returns to you.”
Mr. Smyth turned his attention to her proposal. He lifted a page then flipped to the next and then the next. With a shake of his head, he closed the cover. “Come back tomorrow and I’ll have the contract ready for you to sign. And bring a bank check.”
“Oh thank you, thank you, thank you.” Reba stood and shook his hand. She claimed her tapestry bag.
As they walked to the door, Mr. Smyth said, “I recommend you rent a room at the Cataract Hotel just next door. Or at Fogerty’s Boardinghouse. It’s about an eight-minute trolley ride from here.”
Father shook Mr. Smyth’s hand. “We will be back in the morning.”
Reba hurried to the stairs. She paused until her father caught up. “I told you God’s will was for me to open a millinery. I won at the fair. People were willing to pay me many times what my hats cost to make. And now I have a prime boutique space on Phillips Avenue. God has piled on the blessings. Every time I’ve thrown out a fleece, He has answered in confirmation.”
Father gave her an odd look. “I hope you have that same confidence when circumstances don’t go in your favor.”
Reba released a loud sigh. “You sound like Levi. Have faith!”
“It is not faith I am lacking,” Father muttered. “I know how much you dislike math.”
“Accounting is not like doing algebra. I’ll be fine.”
They turned the corner and descended from the second floor.
“Mr. Smyth will eventually see the merit in leasing to me,” Reba said, her excitement speeding up her words, echoing them off the walls. “He will.”
Father pointed his hat at her. “You will have to work hard to bring in customers. You will need to spend extra money on advertising. You must pay the bills promptly and keep a detailed budget. No rounding up. You must add and subtract to the penny.”
“Oh, I will.” She stopped at the ground floor and pirouetted. “I’m so happy I could dance.”
Father plopped his hat on his head. “Before you dance, we need to examine your shop. You need to make a list of what needs to be done to prepare your boutique for customers. Come along.” He nudged her to the arched front doors and outside onto the ten-foot-wide paved sidewalk.
Two shop spaces were next to the entrance to the Edmison-Jamison building. One was taken by Huss Bakery.
Reba breathed deeply. “I am going to love working here for the smell alone.”
Father’s gaze shifted to the building to their right. He frowned. “We should check the boardinghouse first. The hotel looks expensive.”
Reba eyed the five-story brick building. Its first-floor café had street access. She’d heard the restaurant inside was one of the finest in the city. But as lovely as the Cataract was, a boardinghouse was a better use of her funds. She motioned to the left, to the west side of Ninth Street. “The Metropolitan Bank is right down there. Should we get the bank check now or wait until morning?”
Father checked his watch. “Let’s wait. We’ll take the streetcar to the boardinghouse then walk back this way. It’s a good day to check walking time. Remember, time is money, so you must always calculate how much you could accomplish if you didn’t have to spend time traveling to work. Also, when running a business, it may be worthwhile to pay someone to do a trivial job so you have time to do the one demanding greater skill. Consider costs and dividends.”
“I don’t want to spend money on an employee until business is more than I can handle.”
“It’s your millinery.” She could tell by his tone he disagreed with her decision.
They waited until the electric streetcar came to a stop.
Reba hitched her tapestry bag in the crook of her arm then lifted the front of her skirt to keep it from brushing against the dirt-hardened street. When she had the time, she would alter her work dresses to ankle length. No sense letting the streets ruin a hem. Come to think of it, in light of the number of times she’d have to walk to the trolley if she lived at the boardinghouse, the added cost of living at the Cataract may outweigh the inconvenience of crossing muddy streets. Thankfully, it hadn’t rained in over a week.
Father helped her into the streetcar.
Reba slid onto a wooden bench, the car bumping as passengers climbed on and off. She rested her bag in her lap.
Father sat next to her and crossed his legs, “What about Levi?”
That took her aback. “What about him?”
“You broke his heart.”
“I did not.” She shifted to face him. “Why do you bring this up now?”
Father did nothing but raise his brows, which she suddenly realized (like his beard) were more white than ash blond. Sixty-seven wasn’t old. Or at least it hadn’t seemed old until today.
The streetcar started into motion.
“You can look at me like that all you want,” Reba said, smiling, “but I don’t know what you’re trying to say.”
“Levi’s a good man”—he patted her arm—“and good for you.”
Reba sighed. That he was good for her was irrelevant. She liked Levi. She really did. She missed talking to him, missed confiding her fears and insecurities. He was smart. Far smarter than she was. So how could he have presumed they were engaged? How could he have allowed Mother and Mrs. Webber to plan his—their—future? And why? One thing she’d learned with her mother was that if you gave her an inch she’d take a mile. Levi knew that, too. Not everything parents wanted for their children was the best thing. Someday he’d have to realize that, or else he would lose out on doing something God wanted him to do because he was too committed to what his parents wanted him to do. He was going to miss so many wonders because he was stuck on the farm.
“Levi has been my closest friend my whole life.” She growled under her breath. “But he allowed Mother’s and Mrs. Webber’s plotting and planning to ruin our friendship. There’s no telling how many other people believed we were engaged because he told them we were. An engagement always begins with a proposal. There was no proposal. I want a proposal. I want a man to say he can’t bear the thought of life without me. How could Levi just assume we were engaged?”
Her father’s lips tightened at the corners, his eyes almost amused. “Could you consider marrying him?”
For a moment Reba was speechless.
Something began to tug at her. It twisted and turned in her chest. She had long learned to live with being a disappointment to her mother, but she simply could not bear to disappoint her father—her dear Vati. She swallowed to ease the tightening in her throat.
“Do you want me to?” she said quietly.
Please, say no. Please, don’t make me feel selfish like Mother did.
Father’s brow furrowed. His gaze focused on something outside the trolley window. “I want you to marry the man you want to marry, not the man your parents or anyone else has chosen for you to marry. Marriage is hard, Reba. But it can be wonderful, too. Love makes the hard seem less hard and the wonderful more wonderful, especially when you know your mate was your choice because, as you say, you couldn’t bear the thought of life without that person. So choose wisely.”
Had Mother been his choice or his parents’? Had the marriage been arranged, as Levi said his parents’ had been? She wanted to know, wanted to ask. She’d never heard Father criticize Mother to anyone. Her parents had eight children, thirty-two grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren. They’d been married for almost fifty years. She wanted to believe they had married by choice and for love. When Father said things like this, though, she wondered.
The truth was, Mother was a hard person for anyone to love.
The trolley came to a stop.
Passengers climbed off and on.
Reba leaned forward and placed an affectionate kiss on her father’s bearded cheek. “If God desires for me to marry Levi, then God will have to show me.”
In a gentle tone, he asked, “Would you be open to his courtship?”
She thought for a long moment. She’d never looked at Levi as a suitor. While he had his good traits, his future had been laid out by his parents. A dairyman he would always be. She was never going back to the farm. If she had to live in that smothering environment, she’d become as bitter and spiteful as her mother. It wasn’t that farm life was torturous. She knew many people who loved it.
Life on the farm merely wasn’t for her.
As the trolley started in motion, Reba settled back against her seat. “Any possible feelings for him are inconsequential. I don’t believe Levi actually wanted to marry me. I’m not his choice. I was convenient for him. He’s never had to make an effort to court a girl, because I was always there.”
Father nodded with apparent understanding … and maybe even agreement. “What if he makes an effort?”
“He won’t.” That strange ache was back again in her chest. She turned to the window. The dust from the road, even if blown occasionally in her face as the trolley whizzed along, was a minor inconvenience compared to travel on a wagon or inside a suffocating carriage. “I know Levi. There’s nothing he loves more than raising corn and cows.”
“Have you listened to him talk about his work at the Extension Office? That boy loves horticulture more than cows.”
Reba released a soft humph. That was news to her. “Clearly he and I aren’t as good friends as I’d thought.”
Father patted her hand. “Sweetheart, know one thing: men don’t like to change. Ever.”
“Then that’s proof he won’t make an effort.”
Diehl Farm, north of Parker, South Dakota
Sunday, October 11
“May I speak to Reba?” Levi asked as politely as he could with Mrs. Diehl glaring through the screened door at him, her usual expression. He tapped his cap against his thigh. “She wasn’t in church this morning. Nor Mr. Diehl. I figured they were sick.”
Her lips were tighter than the pinned gray curls around her head. She dried her hands on the apron around her waist. “The pair left over a week ago for Sioux Falls.”
Left? Levi ignored the burst of panic in his chest. He needed to talk to Reba. He had to make things right.
He clenched his cap. “When will they return?”
“If they had any sense,” she said haughtily, “they would have never left, but everyone in Turner County knows Mr. Diehl can’t say no to his youngest daughter. Don’t matter that the girl is as senseless as they come.”
Reba had her flaws, as did everyone, but senseless? She was smart and good-hearted, and could cheer anyone up, because she knew how to make the best of any situation.
Levi looked at the setting sun. Red-gold streaks painted the horizon. He’d spent many an evening on the Diehls’ covered porch in the swing, watching the sun set. Every time he returned home from college, he could find Reba on the porch waiting for him.
He faced Mrs. Diehl again, her scowl unabated. “How long will they be gone?”
She shook her head. “Go home, Levi. She’s not coming back. Ever. She filled a wagon with those crates of hat goods she ordered from the East Coast. She might as well just burn her money. You should be thankful she jilted you. Mr. Diehl’s youngest daughter has a wanderlust that can’t be tamed. She rebels against all that’s good for her. Better for her to leave you now than leave you after you marry.”
He felt his spine stiffen. The need to defend Reba prodded at him. Mrs. Diehl, though, was the type of woman who never admitted when she was wrong. Trying to convince her of that was futile. Could he fault Reba for wanting to leave home? Her mother had none of Abraham and Sarah’s joy at having a child in old age.
Why Sioux Falls?
The air was fresher out here in the country. They could have married and lived on the land Reba had inherited from her grandmother. Sixteen miles down the road on one hundred and sixty perfect acres.
“All right then.” He started to leave then stopped before backing onto the step. “When will Mr. Diehl return?”
“Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week.” She muttered something under her breath. “He’s helping his youngest build hat stands. If he calls, I’ll let him know you stopped by. It’ll be dark soon. Grab one of Peder’s lanterns from the barn.”
“Thank you, but I rode over instead of walking.” Levi tried to smile. Every time he spoke to Mrs. Diehl he felt worse for wear. Too often he’d sat by in silence, listening to her rebuke of Reba. What kind of man did that make him? A coward who wouldn’t defend the woman he loved. But not anymore. He straightened his shoulders. “Mrs. Diehl, her name is Reba, and she’s your daughter, too. She has as much sense as anyone.”
After a pffft, she closed the door. The bolt latched.
Levi slapped his hat on his head. He slid his hands in his coat pockets then trudged down the steps. As he walked to where he’d tied his gelding, he spared a glance over his shoulder. Light glowed in the front window of the two-story white-framed farmhouse. The Diehls had never had to worry about money, not any more than any other farmer in Turner County did, but neither were they wealthy. Save for Reba, their daughters had married well and their sons had found good women. If Reba wanted something different, who was he to criticize?
Mrs. Diehl was right. Better for Reba to jilt him now.
There were girls back at SDSU whom he could court. Nice girls. Girls who loved life on the farm. Girls who were content being a wife and mother.
Levi stopped at the hitching post and untied the reins. He rested his forehead against his saddle. Why did Reba do this? What was she thinking?
Reba didn’t know anyone in Sioux Falls. She had never lived away from family. She had never been gone from home for more than a few days. During the six years he attended SDSU, he’d missed his family. He’d come home at every opportunity. What Reba needed wasn’t life in Sioux Falls. What she needed was a place she felt loved and valued. Where she felt like she was a valued contributor. Where she wasn’t criticized and belittled.
What she needed was to marry him and move into his parents’ home. They loved Reba. They’d welcome her. The four of them could have the perfect life, just as he’d imagined. Everything Reba needed to be happy was here in Turner County. It was just at a different house—his house.
Tomorrow, he’d go to Sioux Falls and convince Reba to come home. And if she still wanted to make hats, she could make them here. His mother crocheted. Every woman needed a hobby. A good husband supported his wife’s leisurely interests.