Stephanie Grace Whitson - [Quilt Chronicles 03] (24 page)

“Just remember that in exactly two days the Bugeaters are depending on you to win a baseball game or six for them. The championship game is at high noon on Independence Day. Don’t do anything to hurt your home-run potential.”

“Bugeaters?”

“Don’t blame me. I didn’t name the team. I’m just the captain.”

“I’ll be ready,” Noah promised.

“You’re a good man, Noah Shaw. And a lucky one, too.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because the girl feels the same way.”

Should he deny his feelings? There didn’t seem to be a point. Bert was a good man, too. “And you know that because…?”

“You musical?”

“Not particularly.”

“Then maybe you didn’t notice all those missed notes tonight.”

“Everyone has a bad night now and then. I told Emilie as much.”

“Maybe, but when it comes to playing the piano, Em doesn’t have bad nights. I wondered if she was feeling sick. So I kept an eye on her.”

“Hartwell on the job again?”

Apparently Bert understood the reference to his being asked to check the cottages for unwanted critters. He laughed. “Exactly. Hartwell on the job. And once again, there was nothing to fear. Em wasn’t sick. She was just nervous. Feeling self-conscious. When I realized why, I knew I didn’t have to worry.”

“You don’t?”

“Nope. Like I said. You’re a good man.” Hartwell grinned. “If you really do come out to help with cleanup, that house to the left of the gates would be the place to check in.”

Noah nodded. “And thanks.”

“For what?”

“Putting me on your team.” Noah hefted the bundle to one shoulder and headed for town.

Friday morning was overcast. A scud of rain passed through around breakfast time, and hearing from Bert the night before as to the status of things over at the Bee Hive, Emilie and her cousins were content to have breakfast with their parents and attend morning prayer as a family before reclaiming their rain-soaked abode.

No one was prepared for the sight of the tree limb that had ripped away from the tree. It was still lying to one side of the street running between two long rows of tents.

“Oh, Em.” June looped her arm through Emilie’s. Her eyes filled with tears.

“Can you believe there were people out playing in that storm? Papa said one group was riding the current down the creek.” May shook her head. “Foolish. I’m glad we had the cottages to run to.”

Emilie didn’t know what to say. She could have been killed. Lesser storms had killed people—without ripping huge tree limbs off trees. Just this past spring, a young woman in Wymore had been killed sitting in her own parlor when lightning struck the house and traveled down the chimney. Thinking about how close to death she’d been last night made Emilie shiver.

“We should get to work,” May said. “The storm’s gone, and no one got hurt. Thank the Lord and move on. That’s what I say.”

June was first to duck inside, and the first words out of her mouth were, “Bert Hartwell!”

When the others joined her, Junie was beaming. “Look at all this. Bert said all he did was get help to put the tent back up. He’s got us almost ready to move in!”

“Not quite,” April said, nodding to the pile of wet bedding in the middle of the floor. She smiled at June. “But he did do a lot.” She looked around them. “You’d never know it was a wreck last night.”

“And look at that.” Junie pointed to Emilie’s side of the tent. “He even brought in a new desk. That Bert. He’s a gem.” The words were no sooner out of her mouth than Junie flushed bright red. “Well he is,” she said, defensively.

“It’s all right, June,” Emilie said. “We all agree with you. We love Bert. And he
is
a gem.”

“Even if he is nearsighted when it comes to my little sister.” May dodged the pillow Junie flung at her.

Emilie ran her hand over the surface of the small table Bert had set up by her cot. He’d even brought out a coal oil lamp. Emilie looked over at May. “When did he have the time? He must have been up half the night.”

“He probably felt bad about throwing out the desk,” May said.

Emilie sighed. “Mother was
not
happy. I had no idea it meant so much to her. It’s just been sitting in the basement by the coal bin ever since we moved to the new house.” She paused. “Do you think there’s any chance I could find another one? I know it wouldn’t be the same, but it would at least show her how sorry I am about what happened.”

“You could ask around at the encampment on the Fourth. Maybe some G.A.R. gent will take pity on you.”

“That’s a good idea.” Emilie stood up. “Let’s get this bedding hung out to dry. Then I need to see if I can find Professor Ellinwood. He’s next on my interview list, and according to the program, he’ll be lecturing over at Tennyson Hall this morning.”

“Think you’ll be finished in time to go boating with us later today?”

“I certainly hope so,” Emilie said, “but even if I can’t go out on the water, I’ll meet you at the boat dock so you don’t have to wonder.” She ducked out of the tent, just as Bert and another man hefted the tree branch that had come down in the storm. It took her a moment to recognize Noah, dressed as he was in overalls and a chambray work shirt. “I suppose now I know why you missed morning prayers.”

“I didn’t miss praying,” Noah said. “I just didn’t come to the Tabernacle to do it.”

“So Bert hornswaggled you into helping with cleanup?”

“Did not hornswaggle,” Bert said. “He volunteered. Although the city boy had to go buy himself some real work clothes before he could lend a hand.”

“Bert told me about the boating later,” Noah said. “Mind if I join you?”

Not only did Emilie not mind, her heart rate ratcheted up at the idea that Noah would be there. “Not at all,” she said, hoping she sounded much more nonchalant than she felt.

“See you then.” Noah nodded. “Hope E. J. Starr has a good day. If you see him/her, give him/her my best.”

“I’ll be certain she/he gets the message.”

The storm seemed to have sapped momentum out of the usual Chautauqua crowds. It took most of Friday and Saturday for the campground to return to normalcy. Attendance was thinner than usual at the events scheduled at the Tabernacle, and Emilie heard more than one person wonder if attendance predictions had been exaggerated.

A general atmosphere of frustration and worry reigned, although events went forward as scheduled. The Penner twins read their papers on the sovereigns of England as part of the C.L.S.C. meeting demonstration, but only a handful of people signed up to receive more information about forming a new circle. Miss Jones’s instruction in elocution proceeded as scheduled, although Emilie was privy to her private disappointment in regards to poor sales of her self-published booklets. Only a few hundred people attended Sabbath services at the Tabernacle, when at least two thousand had been expected.

Emilie, who’d been largely soaring above the disappointment thanks to a combination of her reporting life and her romantic life, finally settled into the gloom with everyone else after the Sunday morning service, although it had nothing to do with poor attendance and everything to do with the news that Noah was having dinner with the Penners.

When Flora and Fern came to fetch him as soon as the
amen
sounded at the closing prayer, Noah looked what Emilie hoped was an apology her way. The twins pointedly did not invite her—or anyone else—to join the luncheon party. Emilie assured her cousins that she had no particular claim on Mr. Shaw’s time. She wished them all a delightful afternoon and retreated to the Bee Hive to get some writing done.

“Here you are,” May said, moments after Emilie had plopped down on her cot. “Don’t sulk. He can’t spend every minute with you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Emilie retorted. “I have work to do.” She reached for a pen, nearly knocking the ink bottle over in the process. A mild curse escaped her lips. She looked over at May, who was sitting, wide-eyed, staring at her.

“Whoa. You really are in love if you’re this upset over one meal.”

Emilie just shook her head. “I cannot possibly be in love with Noah Shaw. I haven’t even known him for a week. What an absurd notion.”

“‘Methinks thou dost protest too much.’” May fluffed her pillow and lay down on her cot facing Emilie. “Remember how you said that you hoped that if you ever fell in love, you’d want to feel like Junie does about Bert?”

“That was completely hypothetical.”

“Maybe, but it seems to me you do feel that way about Noah.” She grinned. “Maybe you could make him a roast beef sandwich and serve it up on good china. That’s what Junie did to rope Bert.”

Emilie looked over. “Has Junie roped Bert?”

“You haven’t noticed?”

“Noticed what?”

“All weekend long he’s been different. He wanted her in his boat when we went rowing. And he took her on the torchlight cruise last night.”

“He did?”

“You’d know that if you hadn’t been mooning over Noah. Where were you last evening, anyway?”

“Noah walked me into town to submit tomorrow’s journal article.”

“And then he walked you back, I suppose.”

“What if he did? Today he’s having dinner at the Penners’. Next you’ll be thinking he’s courting Fern or Flora.”

“Well it had better not be both.” May laughed. Emilie threw her pillow at her. “All right, all right. But take it from me, Em. You have nothing to worry about. I wouldn’t be surprised if he speaks to Uncle Bill this week.”

“About what?”

“Oh, puh-leeze, Emilie Jane.” May sighed and shook her head. “Why do men speak to fathers about their daughters, anyway? Who started that custom?”

“I have no idea,” Emilie said, “and any man who has a notion to do something like that had better speak to me first.”

“Duly noted.”

“We’re strong women, remember? We want something different—a man who respects us for our minds as well as our ability to produce little replicas of themselves.”

“Preaching to the choir,” May said. “I personally have turned down three proposals since the beginning of Chautauqua for the purpose of proving my sincere devotion to the cause of a woman’s right to choose her own destiny.” She counted on her fingers. “One: Will Gable proposed that I skip choir practice and take a walk with him. I went to choir like a good girl. Two: Bert proposed that I trade my piece of Mrs. Riley’s pie for an unknown glob of something he’d gotten stuck with. I declined. And let’s see…oh, yes. Three: Mother proposed that we all abandon the Bee Hive and come home to the cottage where it’s safe. Three proposals. Three refusals. I think, therefore I am…woman.”

The two friends whiled away the Sabbath together. May read while Emilie worked on another article—this one a behind-the-scenes discussion of all the hard labor by mostly unseen folks that enabled the Chautauqua to proceed. They took a nap, and Emilie mostly managed not to obsess over Noah, who was likely charming the daylights out of Hazel Penner and her twins even as he impressed Mr. Penner, who taught English, with his knowledge of literature. Noah had dozens of quotations stuffed into his handsome head.

S
he might have wandered from the fold, but even Madame Jumeaux had her limits. When a plethora of opportunities presented themselves on the Sabbath, Grace looked the other way. Once, she even warned a particularly inattentive young lady. “You should keep a better watch over your bag, dear.” When the young lady in question scowled at her, Grace handed her the coin purse she’d just lifted. “This practically fell right out of it.”

“Th–thank you, ma’am,” the girl said.

When Ladora looked over with surprise, Grace shrugged. “Wherever there are crowds, there are pickpockets. Unfortunately, the larger the crowd where people are inclined to assume goodness on the part of their fellow event-goers, the more tantalizing the prospects. Have you heard of London’s Metropolitan Tabernacle?”

“Who hasn’t?” Ladora said. “The colonel dreams of hearing Spurgeon speak there one day.”

“I have had the honor,” Grace said, “and I was warned that those crowds are considered prime targets for some of London’s less savory elements.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Ladora sighed. “But I don’t like to think on it. Someone who would take what’s not theirs from the Lord’s own people on the Sabbath must have a very dark heart, indeed.”