Chapter 4
Adam couldn’t believe he was walking back from the Reagans, holding a high chair slung over his back with one hand and cradling a baby potty chair against his chest with the other. It was only a three-block walk from the pastor’s house to his, but he’d found more people on the street watching him pass like he was a parade. Dang that woman and her child. No, dang it for Sam dying and leaving him to take care of his new family.
Mrs. Reagan could have filled a wagon with all the things she thought Adam should take to Sam’s intended new son. Adam tried to tell her that Millie and the boy didn’t need all this stuff, but he wouldn’t be surprised if Mrs. Reagan wasn’t walking behind him with her six boys carrying more things to his house. He was the grand marshal of a potty parade, not the respected marshal of Clear Creek.
Finally reaching his front porch, Adam stomped up the porch steps and set the high chair down so he could open the door. He turned the door knob, flung the door open—and jumped a foot off the porch floor when the toddler streaked past him, screaming at the top of his lungs—and buck naked. Good golly, now what will the townspeople think of their marshal?
Adam stepped back, expecting Millie to run past him next to sprint after the kid. After a few seconds he looked inside his house and saw no one, but he could hear female voices in the backyard.
He looked back to follow the path of the boy and realized he wasn’t in sight. Adam bolted off the porch not bothering to use the steps, frantically searching for the kid as he jogged down the street. He hated to have people hear him calling for the kid—if Adam could remember his name—but he didn’t think the kid would answer anyway. The boy seemed almost scared of him, but then Adam was a stranger.
Adam closed his eyes, with relief, and embarrassment. The boy was standing in front of the mercantile, petting—no, more like slapping—Henry Barclay’s old dog, who always laid at his master’s feet while Henry and his old friend Homer Johnston sat on the bench outside the store. And of course there were another five people standing around laughing at the child’s antics because it was a busy Saturday morning, as people were coming into town to do their weekly shopping.
“Okay, fun’s over everyone. I think this runaway citizen needs to be rounded up and carted off.” Adam tried to be official about it, but that was hard to do when the kid shrieked at the top of his lungs and dodged out of Adam’s path again.
He scooped the child up on a run and kept jogging back to his house, trying to get out of sight of everyone on Main Street. Adam slowed to a walk when he reached his porch. Just as he reached for the door handle, he felt a warm liquid running down the side of his body. He jerked the toddler back to see a little stream coming from the boy’s front.
Oh great, I’ve just been peed on…
***
“Tate? Tate?” Millie called to the boy, realizing he wasn’t in the bedroom sleeping when she went to check on him. She and Sarah had set up the wash tub in the backyard to wash clothes while Cate took her grocery list to the store. Now they were bringing in wood for the cold stove in the kitchen to fire it up to heat water for the washing.
“Was Tate just wearing a diaper when you laid him down for a nap?” Sarah asked as she pointed through the kitchen door to where a soiled diaper was lying in the middle of the living room rug.
“Oh my word! The door’s open! Where is he?!” Millie panicked running into the living room just as Adam stepped into the house, his mouth set hard and his eyes shooting bullets at her.
“Your son, was running naked a whole block from here!” Adam spoke through gritted teeth—as Tate howled and reached for Millie.
How did mothers handle one child, let alone a full house of them? Millie was just as frustrated as Adam, but she didn’t have the luxury to just hand Tate over to someone else like he was doing now.
Cate came through the front door next, looking first at Millie holding Tate, and then at her glaring son—who was holding his arm away from his wet right side. “That was quite a show you and Tate put on, Adam,” she said as the corners of her mouth turned up.
“He should not be out running around, naked, Ma!” Adam glared as he pointed at Tate with his left hand, since his right was still holding out straight from his side.
“Oh, lighten up Adam. I can’t remember the number of times you three boys ran around naked outside when you were little.”
“But we lived out in the country, not the middle of town! He could have been run over by a wagon…or….”
“You could have been embarrassed running after him?”
“And he peed on me!” Adam blurted out, his face so red Millie thought he’d explode.
Cate and Sarah were laughing so hard their eyes were tearing up. “I…I remember the first time you squirted your father, Adam,” Cate tried to talk between bursts of giggles. “He was leaning over your little body with his mouth open saying ‘ah’ and you…” Cate laughed so hard tears run down her face.
“Ma…” Adam closed his eyes and hung his head, embarrassed, thinking of himself doing that.
Cate walked over and hugged her son around his waist, not worried at all about his wet shirt. “It’s just one of the joys of raising children, Adam. It’s a big responsibility, but a parent has to relish the good as well as take care of the bad…and the wet and the smelly. Yes, Tate could have been hurt, but he wasn’t and you and Millie will know now to always keep the front door locked.”
“It was shut. I just opened the door to walk in and he streaked past me.”
“And so you also learned today that toddlers move really fast.” Cate patted the front of his shirt. “How about you change your shirt so Millie can wash it with her boy’s things?”
Adam turned on his boot heel and stomped up the stairs to his room like a mad teenager.
“See what you have to look forward to as Tate grows, Millie? All stages of stubborn.” Cate smiled as she saw her adult son go up the stairs. “Now while your boy is naked, as Adam kept saying, let’s get him in the wash basin to clean him up and into a fresh diaper. The groceries will be delivered after lunch.
Thanks be again to Saint Catherine, or simply Cate. How was Millie so lucky to cross paths with her and her family?
***
This time Adam tiptoed down the stairs and eased out the front door and porch steps, trying to get away from the house before his mother found more things for him to do for his two unwanted houseguests. He had a job to do, and he tried to walk with authority down Main Street, past the people still standing and talking on the boardwalk.
Where was law and un-order when he needed it? Apparently not in Clear Creek at the moment. The drunks were home sleeping off last night’s liquor, and there were no runaway horses and wagons to chase.
Adam let himself in the jailhouse and sank into his desk chair. Then he strummed his fingers on the desk wondering what to do. Lunch was still an hour away, and he was going to eat in the café, not go back home to see what mess might ascend on him as he opened his door next time.
With a little hesitation, Adam opened the desk drawer where he had stashed Millie’s letters along with the four photographs. He pulled out the string-wrapped bundle and carefully laid them on his desk. Now that he thought about it, Millie talked like she wrote, with her Irish accent and word use. He studied each portrait, looking for any resemblance to Millie in them. The fourth one looked like her now that he looked closer, and the photo had the name of a Chicago photography studio stamped on the lower right end of the cardboard. But the woman in his house looked much thinner in the face and more solemn than the photo. There was no date on the back, so he didn’t know how old it was. With the fire two years ago Adam doubted her family escaped with more than the clothing on their backs. He guessed she had a portrait taken when she started looking to become a mail-order bride.
The door opened and his brother Jacob walked in and plopped down in the chair in front of the desk. Dang it. He got caught looking at Millie’s things again.
“Don’t need to pine for the woman anymore, Adam. I hear she’s living with you now,” Jacob teased.
“What are you doing in town?” Adam asked, ignoring Jacob’s remark. “Ma and Sarah have already badgered me today and it’s not even noon yet.”
“Well, in all this week’s commotion, I forgot to buy Rania’s wedding ring,” Jacob sheepishly confessed.
“Glad to hear I’m not the only Wilerson who’s having problems today,” Jacob uttered as he shuffled through the envelopes on his desk. “Here’s a ring for ya,” he said as he tossed an envelope towards Jacob.
Jacob took the envelope and shook out the ring that was inside it. Sam had already bought Millie’s ring and it was found with the letters in Sam’s house. Jacob palmed the ring and looked at Adam. “It’s too small. Rania tried it on when we found the letters.”
The door opened again and Adam cringed when his mother walked in.
“Perfect,” She said while holding out her palm to Jacob, “that’s what I stopped in for.” After Jacob dropped the ring in her hand, she opened up her reticule and slipped the ring inside, causing Adam to panic because…he confessed he had claimed all of Millie’s things for himself as he was waiting for her to come to town.
“Why do you need the ring, Ma?” Adam asked with suspicion.
Cate sighed, but answered him willingly. “Millie has not said yet whether she should be called Miss or Mrs. I think it would be best for her reputation, since she’s living with you as your housekeeper,” she paused and waited for Adam’s cringe to pass, “if she wears this ring and we introduce her around town as Mrs. Donovan.”
His sister moved in the doorway with the little boy in her arms. It might just be his imagination, but his sister seemed more confident at carrying the kid around on her hip than Millie did.
“Where’s Mille?” Adam asked his sister.
“She was exhausted, so we thought we’d take wide-awake Tate out so Millie could take a nap.” Oh yes, Tate. I have to remember the kid has a name since he’s now living with me. Sarah tickled Tate’s chin and he gleefully babbled something to her. Sarah was a natural with children and Adam hoped she would have a house full—or would it be a hotel full?—of children to love and tend. That caused Adam to worry for his sister. Ethan had said more than once he wanted one son to carry on the family name, but never mentioned wanting more than one child. Ethan was the only son of his parents, and Ethan assumed that’s the way it would be for him and Sarah once they were married, too.
“Adam, did you hear what I said?” His mother pulled him from his thoughts.
“Sorry Ma, what did you say?”
“Let’s go, I want to eat an early lunch at the café then get back to your house to put away the groceries when they are delivered…unless you want to do that yourself.” Adam looked up to see Jacob wearing his hat and standing to go.
“Come on, you just as well eat with us all while we’re in town,” Jacob interjected.
Adam’s eyes zeroed in on the little boy in his sister’s arms. How will the kid act and what will people think when seeing the child eating with Adam’s family? Then he looked up at his mother, and stood, reaching for his hat. No use to balk when his mother’s right eyebrow shot up.