Wade put the ink pen in its well, sat back, and rubbed his eyes. The odors of the pork packing operation filtered into his dusty, closet-sized office. After two weeks of employment, he’d become, if not oblivious, at least accustomed to the smell of the place.
An unexpected sense of contentment washed over him. A month ago he never would have imagined he’d be keeping books again and certainly not for a pork packing company, but it felt good. He’d forgotten how much he enjoyed the mathematics of accounting. With less than five dollars in his pocket when he’d disembarked the sternwheeler River Star three weeks ago, he thanked his lucky stars for having made the chance acquaintance of Edwin Applegate outside the Madison Hotel. Or, as Ma would have said, reciting the first line of the Doxology, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.”
As exciting as he’d often found life on the riverboats, the vagabond existence had grown stale. The monotonous moving from card game to card game, hoping and praying that Lady Luck would bring enough money to keep body and soul together while not garnering so much that it angered a drunken card player to the point of shooting him, had become tedious. The day he watched a man shot to death in front of him, he knew he had to leave that life. Ma’s voice reciting Proverbs 4:14, “Enter not into the path of the wicked, and go not in the way of the evil men,” had sounded as clearly in his ear as if she’d been standing beside him. The next day he got off the boat at Madison, trusting God to provide him a living. God provided him with Applegate Pork Packing.
Wade leaned back in his chair that creaked in protest with his movement. Yes, he could well abide the malodorous smells coming from the processing side of Applegate Pork Packing knowing that he had a home and featherbed waiting for him every evening and that on Saturday Edwin Applegate would deliver his wages in the form of a bank draft. And of course, there was Edith.
A soft sigh puffed from his lips before they stretched in a smile he couldn’t suppress. The sight of her last Friday had set his heart galloping. He couldn’t help smiling again at the memory of her armed with her broom as if ready to do battle. His pulse quickened. While her coppery hair and flashing brown eyes had fit the October day perfectly, her spunk reminded him more of a summer storm. In truth, he couldn’t blame her for viewing him as some sort of adversary. Of course she must see him as a usurper, especially since Edwin had given her no prior warning of the arrangement he’d made with Wade. She might even wonder if Wade intended to somehow finagle the property away from her and the senior Mr. Applegate.
That first night in the Applegate home, Wade had vowed to win Edith’s friendship. So when Edwin mentioned that his father desired to stay informed of the company’s business, Wade had offered to deliver a weekly accounts report to the elder Mr. Applegate in Lancaster in hopes of seeing Edith. He hadn’t imagined he’d have an opportunity to speak with her alone, so Friday’s visit to Lancaster had far exceeded his hopes and felt like a small but definite step toward his goal. The memory of their shared gaze as they commiserated over the loss of their mothers wiped the smile from Wade’s face but sent pleasant warmth radiating through him. In that moment he’d felt a connection with her. He must build on that connection and find a way to disabuse her of the notion that he harbored any nefarious schemes to legally wrest her home from her and her father. Something he’d noticed last evening on the bedroom chifforobe dresser might be just the thing to help win her trust.
Excitement for his plan bloomed in his chest then withered. Friday seemed a long time away from midday on Tuesday.
He blew out an impatient breath. As Ma always said, “Anything worth having is worth waiting for. “And Edith Applegate was certainly worth waiting for.
The clock in Mr. Applegate’s office down the hall began chiming the noon hour. Wade closed the open ledger book on his desk and stood. Perhaps he would avail himself of the restaurant in the Madison Hotel for his midday meal.
“Wade.” Edwin Applegate poked his ruddy, bespectacled face into Wade’s office. “Sophie mentioned this morning that she and Edith would be making pork and vegetable stew today and asked me to invite you to our noon repast.”
Wade’s heart did a little hop, not because of the stew that did sound delicious, but at the opportunity to see Edith three days earlier than he’d thought.
“Why, yes. Thank you, Mr. Applegate. I’d like that very much.” Forcing a nonchalant tone to his voice, he tried to rein his heart to a slow canter. “Restaurant fare does get tiresome.” A smile he couldn’t control stretched his cheeks taut.
As they walked the three blocks from the company building to Edwin Applegate’s home, Wade allowed Edwin to monopolize the conversation, which ranged from the week’s business to the latest antics of his eighteen-month-old son, Archie.
“Neither Sophie nor I can imagine how the little scamp got out of his crib, let alone opened the pantry door. But there he was on the kitchen floor, all covered in molasses and cornmeal.” Edwin leaned his head back and let out a hearty guffaw.
Wade managed to produce the expected chuckle as he turned up the collar of his wool coat, fending off a chilly breeze blowing from the Ohio River. “My mother loved to tell about all the mischief my brother, Jube, and I would get up to.” As much as he would like to inquire if Edith would be joining them for the meal, three years of playing card games for a living had taught him not to reveal his hand.
Edwin turned a curious face to Wade. “Is Jube your only sibling, or do you have other brothers and sisters?” He angled a shamefaced grin at Wade. “Sophie’s always scolding me for not inquiring more into the lives of my employees.”
“No, it’s just Jube and I.” Wade managed a tight smile and focused on the street in front of them, hoping Edwin would move on to another subject. He’d rather not divulge more about his family or the real reason he left their plantation outside Natchez.
“Ah, here we are.” Edwin stopped in front of a two-story brick home, situated about halfway down the block. “And there is Father’s horse and buggy.” He nodded toward a handsome roan mare attached to a neat black phaeton—the same one Wade had noticed parked behind the Applegates’ little stone house in Lancaster. “I’m not sure if I mentioned that Edith holds classes here on Tuesdays now.”
Wade’s heart thumped harder. Before he could get a word past his drying lips, Edwin spoke, his smile widening. “I can almost smell that stew now.” He unfastened an impressive wrought-iron gate gaining them access to a neat leaf-strewn yard bisected by a brick walkway that led up to a white-pillared front porch. He turned and fastened the gate behind them. “Can’t be too careful,” he said with a grin. “Or we’re liable to be chasing Archie all the way down to the river.”
Wade followed Edwin inside where delicious aromas welcomed them into a narrow foyer, making Wade’s mouth water.
Edwin took off his hat and coat and hung them on a coat tree in the corner and invited Wade to do the same. “There’s a water closet down the hall if you’d like to wash some of that ink off your hands while I let Sophie know we’ve arrived.”
Wade glanced at his ink-stained hands and grinned. “A hazard of the accounting trade, I suppose. Yes, thank you, I think I will.”
A few minutes later he exited the washroom and nearly bumped into Dahlia carrying a chubby toddler.
Dahlia shifted the little boy whom Wade assumed was Archie Applegate on her left hip and smiled up at Wade. “Hello, Mr. Beaumont. Are you havin’ lunch with us?”
Wade smiled back. “Yes. I understand we’ll be dining on pork stew.”
Dahlia nodded as Archie squirmed in her arms. “I helped Miss Edith cut up the carrots and taters before we had class.” She set Archie, who’d begun fussing, on his feet and glanced down the hall behind her. “I’ll show you the music room where we have class after I take Archie to his ma, but you can go on in there if you want.”
“I’d like that, Dahlia. I’ll see you in the music room.” He gave her a parting smile and headed down the hall, a tendril of sadness curling around the wonder sprouting in his chest. If only Ma could have seen this. Wade had found the world that he and Ma dreamed of back in Mississippi, a world where black and white children learned together and grew up as equals. On the southern side of the Ohio River, such a world had seemed fantastic, but here the Applegates and others like them were making it happen. While the scourge of slavery still existed here on the north side of the Ohio River, the winds of change were blowing in as surely as the autumn gusts off the river. And Edith Applegate numbered among the driving forces. Mahli chito. The Choctaw word for tornado that he’d learned from the old Indian who’d taught him and Jude to fish along the banks of the Mississippi River came to mind. Yes, Edith Applegate was a whirlwind—a force of nature.
Wade stepped into the room at the end of the hall and stopped short, his heart bucking against his chest like an unbroken colt. Edith stood over a writing table gathering lined papers—much like the one Dahlia had asked him to deliver to Edith last week—into a neat pile.
She looked up and greeted him with a smile. “Mr. Beaumont. I see you’ve accepted Edwin’s invitation to dine with us.” She put the papers away in a desk drawer. “I trust you’ve worked up a good appetite. Sophie, Dahlia, and I made enough stew to feed a small army.” A beguiling dimple dented her left cheek, making Wade wonder why he hadn’t noticed it before, and then he realized he hadn’t seen her smile until this moment.
Dahlia skipped into the room. “May I show Mr. Beaumont where I sit for our classes, Miss Edith?”
“Of course, Dahlia.” Edith stepped from behind the desk.
Dahlia grasped Wade’s hand and towed him across the room’s oak floor to a spot about a yard in front of Edith. I sit here in front so I can help Miss Edith. ’Course I sit in one of them chairs.” She pointed to several folding carpet chairs propped against a wall.
“Those chairs,” Edith corrected in a gentle tone, her fetching dimple becoming more pronounced with her suppressed smile. “You should know, Mr. Beaumont, Dahlia is my true right arm.” She smiled at Dahlia, who beamed beneath her praise. “I’m not sure I could get through a class without her.”
Edwin walked into the room with Archie in his arms. “Sophie tells me that the lunch table is set, so I suggest we all head that way.” His smile stretched his thin mustache into a straight line above his lip. “My good wife may be small in stature, but I’d advise you not to get on her bad side.”
Everyone except for Archie, who had a thumb stuck in his mouth, shared a laugh and followed Edwin and his son across the house to the dining room.
“Wade, let me introduce my wife, Sophie.” Edwin strode to the end of a long cherrywood dining table to stand beside a pretty young woman who would have looked much shorter if not for her blond curls piled high on her head. He glanced down at his wife, whose height barely reached his bicep. “Sophie, this is Mr. Wade Beaumont, our new accountant.”
Sophie Applegate rounded the table and held out her hand to Wade. “I am pleased to meet you, Mr. Beaumont. Edwin was quite pleased to find someone of your caliber to fill the accounting position and care for the Applegate home.”
“Thank you, ma’am. So kind of you to say so. And thank you for inviting me to your lovely home to share this meal.” Wade thought he detected the hint of a frown on Edith’s face the instant before he bent to plant a cursory kiss on Sophie’s hand.
Dahlia sat beside Archie in his high chair while Edwin held a chair out for his wife. Wade hurried to do the same for Edith, earning a tepid smile and murmured expression of thanks from her.
When all were seated and Edwin had offered a prayer of thanks for the meal, the conversation turned to family matters.
Feeling awkward, Wade focused his attention on his bowl of stew.
“Is the stew to your liking, Mr. Beaumont?” Sophie’s kind smile suggested she sensed his unease.
Thankful to be brought into the conversation, Wade dabbed his mouth with his linen napkin and returned her smile. “Very much, Mrs. Applegate. In fact, I must say this stew rivals the stew our Hattie used to make back home.”
Edith, seated across the table from him, set her spoon down with a clink and fixed him with an unsmiling glare. When she spoke, her voice held a sardonic dryness. “I assume Hattie is your slave?”