He laughed softly and pulled her close. She couldn’t help it. The thought of three months without him was like a piercing pain in her chest. The tears started again as she buried her head against his shoulder.
For a long time Nathan didn’t speak, just held her close and stroked her hair over and over. He only let her go finally when she dropped off into a troubled sleep. Then he lay back and stared at the ceiling until after midnight.
Chapter Two
In western Missouri the sky was overcast and gray, and there was a stiff southerly breeze blowing. To the west it was much blacker, and there would be rain—if not hail—by afternoon. This was not untypical weather for Jackson County in mid-June, but Jessica Roundy Steed did not mind it at all. After several days of heat and humidity the cool felt good, and she had always enjoyed having the wind blow in her face and tousle her hair.
She looked up. Two young children were approaching on the boardwalk. They smiled at her. “Good mornin’, Mrs. Steed.”
Jessica nodded and smiled. “Good mornin’, Miss Lou. Mornin’, Walter.” The girl was about sixteen, her brother three or four years younger. They were the children of the new Baptist preacher and his wife, come to Independence just a few months before. The girl curtsied slightly as she spoke.
“Right blustery, ain’t it?” Walter said.
Jessie glanced upward. “More rain comin’ for sure.”
The two nodded solemnly, then moved on.
Jessie watched them for a moment, marveling. How swiftly things changed! Just a year ago when she walked down the street, respectable folk—of which there weren’t a lot in Independence—either passed her by without a flicker of recognition or, worse, averted their eyes. Jessica was the daughter of Clinton Roundy, who owned two of western Missouri’s more raucous saloons, one in partnership with his son-in-law, Jessica’s husband. She would see their shocked glares or hear the whispered comments: “Ain’t that the barmaid?” “Imagine a father keeping a girl in a saloon. Shameless!”
That had been then. Now she was the wife of Joshua Steed, largest hauler of freight in Independence and fast on his way to becoming one of the leading men of Jackson County. They lived in a large cabin down near the far end of town, south of the courthouse. By Eastern standards it wasn’t much; but compared to the sod huts, tiny cabins, or, in some cases, lean-tos and tents that many lived in, it was palatial.
Her status had changed overnight, though it made little outward difference to Jessie, who was still shy to the point of pain, especially around other women. It was one thing to take the girl out of the saloon, but...Her mind slipped back to that day a few months ago when Joshua had stunned her at breakfast one morning. “No wife of mine is going to tend bar for a bunch of Missouri wildcats,” he abruptly announced. “I don’t want you working in your father’s saloons no more.” She still marveled at it, but had gladly complied with his wishes, touched that it mattered to him. She had not stepped foot inside a tavern or saloon since that day.
Unfortunately it wasn’t nearly that easy to change her nature. For almost twenty years she had lived in a setting almost totally devoid of women, at least women of any repute. To sit in a parlor with a circle of ladies, chatting, sipping tea, and sharing the local gossip over their knitting, was as foreign to Jessie as standing behind the bar serving beer or whiskey to an unending stream of unshaven and foulmouthed ruffians would have been to them.
But Jessica didn’t really mind being alone. In a way, she always had been, even in the midst of a tavern full of bawdy men. She tried knitting, crochet, needlepoint, and all the other things women supposedly did, but her hands were hands that drew beer or polished glasses or mopped up tobacco juice from around the spittoons. She had no patience for tedious work. Mostly she read—a skill acquired just a year or so earlier—or took long walks into the countryside. She also thought a great deal about getting pregnant for the second time, and tried to push back the dread she felt whenever she thought about that. She had already lost one child. Would she be able to carry another?
“Mrs. Steed! Mrs. Steed!”
Jessica turned around. Running toward her was nine-year-old Thomas Jefferson Thompson. Thomas was the son of the Negro slave who belonged to Joshua’s yard foreman. He had brought the family with him when they came from Georgia. Thomas often helped his father and Mr. Cornwell around the stables and barns, and Jessica had spoken with him often. He was a bright boy, always grinning and with skin like polished ebony.
He pulled to a stop and dipped slightly, executing something between a bow and a curtsy. “Afternoon, Mrs. Steed.” He grabbed his hat off his head and started twisting it round and round as he looked up at her.
“What is it, Thomas?” She smiled down at him.
That banished any vestiges of his natural shyness. “The wagons, they’re comin’, ma’am.”
Jessie’s head jerked sharply and she stared down the street. “Are you sure?”
“Yes’m. My pa rode out two days ago to see if he could find them. He just got back. Mr. Steed’s in the lead Conestoga. They should be here by late afternoon tomorrow, my pa says.”
She reached in her pocket and took out a coin purse. The boy’s eyes widened with expectation. She took out a silver half dime. “Thank you, Thomas. Thank you for bringin’ me the news.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he crowed as his fist clamped over the coin. “Yes, ma’am.”
Lydia McBride Steed closed the Book of Mormon and leaned back, arching her back to lessen the stiffness. She glanced out of the window. It was nearly full dark now, which meant she had been leaning over the table for more than an hour.
She sighed. Dark meant bedtime, and she knew what was waiting for her there. Nothing! Just the emptiness of the mattress beside her and the loneliness pressing in upon her until she thought she would suffocate. There might even be a tear or two, and she hated that. She would lecture herself sternly about being a blubbery wife. During the day, when she was busy and occupied, it worked. At night, she was not so successful.
There was a sound of footsteps on the porch, then a soft knock. Surprised, Lydia looked up. “Come in.”
The wooden latch, attached to the leather thong outside, lifted and the door pushed open. Melissa Steed, Lydia’s sister-in-law, stepped inside. She was carrying a small basket with a cloth laid over the top. Instantly the smell of warm bread touched Lydia’s nose.
“Hello.”
Lydia stood quickly, a sudden gladness dispelling the gloom that had started to settle in on her. Melissa always seemed to sense when Lydia was in need of some company. Her visits had averaged three or four times a week in the two weeks since Nathan had left for Colesville. “Come in, Melissa.”
“Mama baked some rolls. She thought you might like some.”
“They smell wonderful.” She felt a quick burst of gratitude for the whole family. They all rallied around her now, and she never failed to be touched by it. She took the basket, breathed deeply of the aroma, then set it on the table. “Sit down, Melissa. I have a crock of butter out in the smokehouse. Let me fetch it.”
“There’s some in the basket, with a little jar of blackberry preserves too.”
Lydia shook her head as she sat down beside Melissa. “Your mother...”
“Come on,” Melissa said, putting on her little-girl face. “Let’s eat some before they get cold.”
For the next ten minutes they sat that way, shoulder-to-shoulder, eating hot rolls smothered with butter and jam and giggling like two girls playing kissing games with the boys.
Finally, Lydia pushed the basket away. “I’ve got to stop,” she moaned. “Nathan will have to use the hay winch to get me into the wagon when he comes home.”
Melissa looked down, rubbing her stomach. “Don’t you just love it, though?” she laughed. “I hope there’s eatin’ in heaven. If not, maybe I’ll choose to stay in that other place.”
Lydia looked shocked. “Melissa Mary Steed!”
Melissa started to giggle again, pointing her finger at Lydia. “When you say that, you sound just like my father.”
That set them off again, and Lydia had to hold her stomach. When their laughter finally subsided, she rubbed at the tears which had squeezed out of the corner of her eye. “This is your way of punishing me, isn’t it? First you feed me, then you make me laugh so hard it hurts.”
Melissa sobered. “It’s good to hear you laugh, Lydia.”
Instantly Lydia felt the pain again. “I know.” She took Melissa’s hand. “Oh, Melissa, I miss him so much.”
Melissa’s head bobbed momentarily, then she looked away, deciding this was exactly what she had not come over to do. Her eyes fell on the Book of Mormon. “Don’t you just love that book?” she said, forcing her voice back to a lighter tone.
“Yes, I do. I’m nearly finished with it for the second time now.” She reached out and picked it up, caressing the cover. “I thought I had a testimony of it the first time I read it. But this time I feel even more strongly about it.”
“I know. That’s how Mama and I are.” Melissa took the book from her, looking more closely at the cover. One part of the light brown leather had a dark, ugly stain. “What’s this, Lydia? Did you spill something on it?”
“Don’t you know that story?”
Melissa set the book down. The stain bothered her in a strange way. She had strong feelings for the Book of Mormon, and this was like a blot of profanity on it. “What story?”
“This is the book you brought to the store.”
“The one I gave your father?”
“Yes.”
Melissa wrinkled her nose, the impish smile returning now. “I guess I was pretty rude that day when I told you what I thought of you for not responding to Nathan after he went to so much trouble to send the book to you.”
“Oh, Melissa,” Lydia said softly, “when I think what might have happened if you had not come that day...”
She sighed, the memories now bringing their own kind of pain with them. It was partly her father’s cavalier attitude that had led to her conversion. When she found out that he had thrown away her package without telling her, it had made her angry enough that she read the Book of Mormon just for spite. And that had led to her conversion, which had led to her estrangement from her family.
She shook off the somber mood, not wanting to think about the separation from her family right now. “My father threw it in the bottom of a trash barrel. By the time I discovered it, a lot of other trash had been thrown in on it too.” She reached out and rubbed the dark stain with one finger. “Including some coffee grounds.”
“So that’s it.”
“Yes.” She picked the book up and held it to her body. “When he saw it, Nathan wanted to buy me a new one. I wouldn’t let him.”
Melissa looked surprised. “Why not?”
“Because this is the book that saved me,” she answered quietly. “I don’t want another one.”
“Good mornin’, Sister Steed.”
Mary Ann looked up in surprise, then smiled immediately. She hadn’t seen Martin Harris coming towards her across the fields from his house, which lay just south of the Steed farm. “Good morning, Martin.”
“Goin’ after that mornin’ glory, are you?”
Mary Ann leaned on her hoe and looked down the rows of her vegetable garden. She had neglected it lately and it showed. The tendrils of the morning glory, with its dark green leaves and white flowers shaped like small bells, were snaking everywhere.
“I think morning glory is what the good Lord meant when he told Adam about the ground being cursed for his sake.”
She laughed. “I think you’re right. ‘Morning curse’ would be a more fittin’ title, I reckon.”
He chuckled at that, then swept off his hat and wiped at his brow. “Benjamin around?”
“No. He went down to Waterloo to buy a new plow. He’ll be back tomorrow.”
“He gonna get one of them that’s all iron?”
“Yes.” She tossed the hoe over to the edge of the garden, then walked over to join her neighbor. “You know Benjamin,” she said. “He don’t put much stock in old wives’ tales.”
“That’s what makes him a successful farmer.”
Mary Ann nodded. That was true. Just before the turn of the century, a man in New England had invented a plow made entirely of iron. It was a great improvement over the wooden plows in that it could be operated by one man using only one yoke of oxen. Newbold had patented the invention, then found to his disappointment that he could sell only a few of them. Mary Ann could clearly remember that when she was a girl someone had tried to sell one of the newfangled plows to her father. He absolutely refused to consider it. “Iron poisons the soil,” he said flatly. “A wooden plow is the product of the earth. It comes from trees which grow from the soil, so when you put it back into the soil, it has returned to its mother.” The poison-plow delusion was finally dying out now, but there were still a few of the old-timers around who steadfastly refused to believe it wasn’t true. Mary Ann was grateful that Benjamin was not one of them. For all his conservatism in personal and spiritual values, he was quite forward thinking when it came to running his farm.
“Got a letter from Brother Joseph on Saturday,” Martin said.
Mary Ann’s head came up. “Oh? Has he seen Nathan yet?”
“No. He said he and Emma were going up to Colesville towards the end of this month. The Knight family are going to be baptized.”
“Wonderful! Mr. Knight and his wife are the salt of the earth.”
“Yes, they’ve been a wonderful support to Joseph from the very beginning.”
“They have indeed.” She brushed back a wisp of hair. “I’ll have to tell Lydia. That will please her to know that Nathan and Joseph will be together again.”
Martin pulled at his suspenders, watching her out of the corner of his eye. “Mind if I ask you a question, Sister Steed?”
She looked up. “Of course not. What is it?”
“How’s Benjamin feeling about the Church by now?”
A frown instantly furrowed her brow.
“If it’s none of my affair—,” he started quickly.
She gave a little shake of her head to cut off his apology. “No, it’s not that, Martin. You know that. You have been a good friend to Ben. If he has made any progress at all, it’s because of you.”