Becca and Mrs. Locke were hulling butter beans when Fran went in. Fran told them to finish what they were doing, but Becca emptied the unshelled pods out of her lap back into the bucket and jumped up.
With a little shake of her head, Mrs. Locke went on opening the hulls and dropping the beans into the dishpan on the floor beside her. “I reckon she and Sadie can take a rest for a mite. Seeing as how you’ve come to check on how they’re doing.”
“One little girl is looking good.” Fran touched the top of Sadie’s head. “Have you been helping your mother with the beans?”
“Yes’m. I like hulling these beans. Ain’t they pretty? All purple speckled.” The little girl ran her fingers through the pan of purple-and-white beans.
“They are pretty. Don’t think I’ve ever eaten purple beans.” Fran moved past Sadie to the water bucket on a little table next to the door and dipped out some water in the wash pan to soap her hands. She always carried soap with her, but here, as in most houses, she didn’t have to dig hers out of her saddlebag. A chunk of lye soap was usually in a dish by the wash pan.
“They turn dirt brown when you cook them,” Becca said. “Lose all that pretty color.”
“But brown or purple, they taste fine. We’ll give you a mess,” Mrs. Locke said. “Sadie, fetch Nurse Howard a clean towel.”
Fran dried her hands. She liked coming to the Lockes’ house. Woody was the first person to help her when she got to the mountains, and she felt blessed to be assigned to the district where his family lived. Mrs. Locke had a way of making Fran welcome each time she came to treat Sadie. And now she would get to continue her midwifery training with Becca. Fran wasn’t as sure what to think about the man painting the roof over her head, but she wasn’t there to see him. If he was working on a roof, his arm must be all right.
“Sadie’s had a good week.” A smile softened Mrs. Locke’s face. “We all have.”
Fran hadn’t often seen the woman smile—or frown either, as far as that went. Stoic. That was the word that described her. But now she looked almost happy.
“That’s good to hear,” Fran said.
“A mother likes having her children around her table.”
“And it won’t be long till you’re a granny.” Becca whirled around to hug her mother’s shoulders. Stoic didn’t describe Becca. Not in the least. She was more like Woody. Ready to spill over with something all the time.
Fran smiled. “Well, let’s see how that baby is doing.” She measured Becca’s belly and listened for the baby’s heartbeat. “Looks like you’re doing fine. Do you have any complaints?”
“Plenty of them. Too hot. Too poor.”
“Too silly,” her mother put in before she could say any more. Sadie giggled.
“That too.” Becca swished her skirt and did a couple of jig steps.
“I was thinking more about backaches or stomach upsets,” Fran said.
“I get a mite queasy now and again and have some burning here.” She touched her chest.
“Heartburn,” Fran said.
“I guess, but Granny Em give me some dogwood bark to chew.”
“Does that help?” It was a good thing Betty wasn’t there to hear that Becca was trying mountain cures. But Fran had never heard anything about dogwood bark being harmful.
“Most of the time. Granny Em promised me it wouldn’t hurt nothing to give it a try.”
“You could also watch what you eat, and not eat whatever bothers you.” Fran could at least suggest the prescribed way to handle heartburn.
“Yeah, that’s what Nurse Dawson told me last week. She’s a stiff one, ain’t she?”
“Becca.” Her mother’s voice was sharp and her look sharper.
“Well, she is.” Becca didn’t take back her words. “How come she’s not with you today? Somebody on the mountain having a baby?”
“We had visitors from Chicago.”
“All the way from there.” Becca sounded amazed. “That Mrs. Breckinridge brings the folks in, don’t she? I heard tell Mrs. Ford—you know, the wife of the fellow that makes automobiles—has been down here to check on you nurses.”
“Mrs. Ford is a good supporter of the Frontier Nursing Service.”
“Wouldn’t it be fine to be so rich you could just sling money around wherever you took a notion?” Becca threw her hand out as if she were throwing some of that money around.
“There are all different ways to be rich, Rebecca Jane. And just as many to be poor. Most of them don’t have much to do with cash money.” Mrs. Locke dropped a handful of butter beans into the pan and grabbed more unshelled pods out of the bucket. She settled her gaze on Becca even as she kept hulling the beans. “Me, I’m feeling the riches of having you children here with me, and soon you’ll know what that means, daughter.”
“Oh, I know, Ma.” Becca looked from her mother to Fran. “Don’t pay no mind to me, Nurse Howard. I do have a way of running on, but I’m tickled as an’thing that you and Miss Stiff Nurse will be here to help me when my time comes around. Probably have a foot of snow on the ground then.”
“We’ll get here somehow.” Fran curled her stethoscope back into her bag.
“If’n you don’t get lost.” Becca grinned and lifted her eyebrows at Fran.
“I see you’ve heard about my tendency to do some wandering around in the woods.”
Becca laughed, but Sadie stepped between them to take up for Fran. “She knows how to get here.”
“I do that, Sadie. I have to know how to find my favorite patient. But don’t go around telling people that or I’ll get in trouble for playing favorites.” Fran put her hand on Sadie’s shoulder. “Now let me check those ears of yours.”
Sadie’s ears were clear with no sign of redness. Even better, she had some snap to her step. Becca being here and Ben too may have eased her sadness of losing her father.
“Those ears are good as new.” Fran pretended to look at Sadie’s doll’s ears then. “And Priscilla looks fine too. Purple-speckled butter beans must be good medicine.”
“We haven’t eat but one mess. Priscilla don’t like ’em much, but I tol’ her she had to eat at least one bean. Whether she liked it or not. They aren’t as bad as turnips.” Sadie stuck her tongue out the side of her mouth.
“So did she eat one?” Fran poked the doll’s stomach. “A bean.”
“She nibbled on one a fair while.”
“Then they must be extra-powerful medicine if just a nibble can keep her well. Maybe I’d better tell my next patient about purple-speckled beans.” Fran started packing up her instruments.
“Woody’s done rode off on your horse, so you might as well sit a while.” Becca peered out the door and then pointed to a straight chair. “Sadie and me, we’ll entertain you with a song or two. We might even get Ma to join in.”
“I reckon I can sing and hull beans at the same time,” Mrs. Locke said.
“Can we sing the frog courting song?” Sadie hopped up and down.
When they started singing “Froggie went a-courting,” Fran laughed. “My grandmother used to sing that song to me. Some of the words were different, but the tune was the same.”
“Oh yeah?” Becca stopped singing and grinned at Fran. “Then you have to sing them for us so we can add your verse to ours.”
“I don’t know if I remember.” Fran hedged. She couldn’t sing right here in the middle of them all, with Ben Locke right outside the door.
“You remember.” Becca gave her a considering look. “You’re just pulling a shy on us.”
Sadie tugged on Fran’s sleeve. “You have to sing it for us, Nurse. You have to.”
“Don’t be a pester, Sadie.” Mrs. Locke spoke mildly. She emptied the hulls out of her apron and looked up at Fran. “But I’m thinkin’ you might have a fine singing voice, Nurse Howard. So if’n you’re a mind to, we’d be happy to hear you sing it for us.”
“Oh yes. Please, Nurse Howard,” Sadie begged. “Pretty please with sorghum molasses on top.”
Fran laughed. “I don’t guess I can turn down sorghum molasses. I’ll sing it through once. It’s real short, and then you can sing it with me. All right, Sadie?”
Sadie’s eyes sparkled as she nodded.
Fran felt silly, but then sometimes it was good to be a little silly. She cleared her throat and sang her grandmother’s words.
“Froggie went a-courting, he did ride. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Froggie went a-courting, he did ride. Uh-huh.
Jumped so high he thought he’d fly. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Went right up and hit the sky. Uh-huh.
Bumped his head and said, ‘Oh my.’ Uh-huh. Uh-huh.”
Sadie bounced up and down and clapped her hands. “I can sing it now. Uh-huh.”
They were singing the verse again when Ben stepped inside. Fran let her voice fade away as warmth exploded in her cheeks. Betty was right. She did forget her position sometimes.
Sadie ran over and grabbed his hands to pull him into the room. “Nurse Howard just taught us a new verse to the froggie song. You want to hear us sing it?”
“I heard you when I came in just now.” Ben’s lips turned up a little as he looked at Fran. “Didn’t sound like anything I ever heard a sergeant sing. Sergeants mostly bark orders.”
A smile tickled Fran’s lips, even though she knew she shouldn’t grab the bait he was shaking in front of her with the talk of sergeants. “Orders you followed?” She swept her gaze across his face and to his arm.
“I generally got in trouble if I didn’t.”
When he laughed, Fran couldn’t keep her smile under wraps. She did have the sense to keep her head ducked so the man couldn’t see her eyes.
“What are you talking about?” Becca sounded bothered. “Us singing don’t have a thing to do with your sergeants.”
“I think we might’ve come in late to this particular story, Becca.” Mrs. Locke didn’t stop shelling her beans, but Fran knew she was watching her.
“If it’s a story, I want to hear it.” Sadie jerked on Ben’s shirt.
“Watch out. You’re liable to get paint on your baby doll,” Ben warned her. “And could be I’ll tell you the story some of these days. Or maybe Nurse Howard will.”
“Maybe.” Fran didn’t look up as she took extra time buckling her saddlebag.
Ben Locke changed the whole feel of the room when he stepped inside, bringing in the smell of the outdoors and the sweat of working. But it would be the same with any man coming into a room full of women. It was only their meeting in the woods that had her feeling so off balance.
But she was the nurse. It was up to her to get the balance back right. Betty would have told her it was up to her to keep things in balance from the start. Fran straightened up and looked at Sadie. “It’s not that good a story, Sadie. I just told your brother to keep his arm in a sling a little longer, but as you can see, he’s not good at following a nurse’s orders. I’m glad you did and that your ears are fine this week.”
“My arm is fine too.” Ben held out his arm and twisted it back and forth.
“Did you go to the hospital and let them x-ray it?” Fran finally looked directly at Ben. That was easier to do when she was talking like a nurse instead of singing about frogs going courting.
“I haven’t had time to make the jaunt down that way, but Granny Em came by. She said it appeared to be healed nicely.”
“Granny Em?”
Mrs. Locke looked up from her beans. “Granny Em has a right good feel for bones.”
“I’m sure she does, but an x-ray might confirm that.” Fran kept her voice even. She didn’t want Mrs. Locke to think she was dismissing Granny Em’s doctoring skills.
“Now, Ma, you know the nurses don’t like us to depend on mountain grannies instead of them.” Something about Ben’s voice changed, as though he’d heard disapproval in Fran’s voice, even though she had intended none.
Fran wasn’t sure what about the man made her so nervous. She had treated plenty of the mountain men and their wives without feeling a bit shaky about her skills. But when Ben Locke settled his gaze on her, she seemed to lack sureness about anything. Maybe because she knew he’d had medic experience in the army. She didn’t want to believe it had anything to do with his dark blue eyes.
“Not at all,” she said. “We’re not in competition with anyone. We merely want to do our best to be sure everybody gets proper care.”
“Well said, Nurse Howard. Did you have to memorize that when you came to Hyden?” The smile in his eyes was gone.
This time Fran didn’t shrink from his direct look. “No. No, I didn’t. But it is true for all the nurses I’ve met.”
Sadie hugged her doll close and scooted over to lean against her mother.
Mrs. Locke looked ready to say something, but Becca gave Ben’s arm a whack. “What’s wrong with you? Don’t be running the nurses away. Granny Em’s fine, but I want the nurses here when little Carl is ready to show his face.”
“Don’t worry, Becca. We’ll be here if someone comes after us, but it will be a while yet.” Fran pushed a smile out on her face as she looked at Becca and picked up her saddlebag. “Nurse Dawson or I will be back to check on you in a couple of weeks. If any of you need something before then, just send Woody down for us.”
She looked out the front door, relieved to see Woody back with Jasmine. A strained silence had fallen over the room where moments ago all had been friendly and easy. Maybe Betty was right. Maybe she was wrong to try to be friends with her patients. Just get the job done. But she’d always thought smiles were part of the job.
She directed a big smile toward Sadie. “You and Priscilla keep drinking your milk.”
“Yes’m.” Sadie didn’t move away from her mother.
Mrs. Locke’s eyes narrowed as she stared past Fran toward Ben just inside the door. But he wouldn’t stop Fran leaving. He appeared more than ready for her to be gone. She was definitely more than ready to be gone. He had changed from friendly to antagonistic in a heartbeat, but being in a war could make men volatile. She knew that, for it had surely changed Seth from a man of promises to a man of betrayal. She needed no more of that.
She kept her eyes away from Ben as she stepped past him.