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“A judgment?” Miss Jones challenged her. “What could a little child have done to deserve being judged?”
Mason looked at his once-intended bride. She’d said what he’d wanted to.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Mrs. Ashford apologized. “I’m just sad for the child.” Then the woman looked worried. “How long will your sister and her little friend be visiting here with you?”
“I have adopted both girls,” Mason said, bracing himself for the backlash, not looking toward Miss Jones.
Mrs. Ashford’s face widened in shock. “How can you take care of two little girls all by yourself?” Before he could answer, she turned to Miss Jones. “You two will have to get married right away.”
He couldn’t help himself. With a quick glance, he sought Miss Jones’s reaction.
She looked as if someone had slapped her.
Mason had not expected her to be pleased with the change in his circumstances, and it was worse to find out here in such a public place where they couldn’t talk this through. He closed his eyes in defeat.
“Mrs. Ashford,” Miss Jones began, “Mr. Chandler has just returned—”
“Aren’t you going to go through with your engagement?” Mrs. Ashford asked.
Here, right here on Main Street—was this where Miss Jones would let him down?
At that moment he heard someone approaching. He turned and saw Levi Comstock, the burly blacksmith and his good friend, coming. Or, he had been a good friend. Would he remain so?
Still in his leather apron and with his soot-blackened face, Levi held out his hand. “Good to see you back. Asa’s still got your cow and—also a new heifer—”
“A heifer?” Mason asked with surprise.
“Yes, your cow had a nice little calf in the spring.”
Mason couldn’t speak. Such good news.
“And those two and your chickens are all in good order with Asa. I still have your horses and wagon at my place. When would you like to come get them?”
In reply to all this warm welcome and news, Mason clasped Levi’s large, strong hand and shook it heartily.
“Well, Mr. Chandler,” Miss Jones spoke up, “I am happy to have met you and I will see you again soon, I’m sure.”
“But Miss Jones,” Mrs. Ashford spoke up, “you’re on your way to your sister’s home today, aren’t you? Mr. Chandler’s homestead is just up the road from there. You two might as well keep each other company on your way. You can bring Mr. Chandler up to date about all that’s happened in our little town while he was away.”
Mason did not appreciate the storekeeper’s wife’s suggestion. The last thing he wanted was to “keep each other company.” And it was more than obvious that Miss Jones didn’t want to, either. But what could they do here on Main Street but comply?
* * *
Emma literally clamped her teeth on her tongue, holding back a sharp retort. She wanted to get away from Mason Chandler. Coming upon him without warning had jumbled her thoughts and emotions in a way she had not expected. But what could she say to Mrs. Ashford? She could not be rude on the main street of town. “Of course,” she said politely.
Mason appeared uncomfortable, too.
She liked him better for that.
“You’re pretty,” one of the little girls said, looking up at her with big brown eyes and chubby brown cheeks.
Emma wished once again that people wouldn’t point out her outward appearance. She knew that they meant it in a complimentary way. But she was more than just a pretty face. However, saying this would not be polite, so she merely smiled at the little girl.
Mason asked Mrs. Ashford for the few items he needed to purchase, and then soon the four of them started up Main Street, heading toward her sister’s place. Then Mason could go on from there to his homestead.
For the first few minutes while they were walking through town, neither of them said anything. She didn’t want to be thrown together with Mason, the man she planned to let down lightly. She wasn’t rejecting him personally. After losing Jonathan, she’d never wanted to marry. Only dire need had forced her to accept a proposal from a stranger. But she did not need to marry now as she had in March. So she would be polite and distant.
Soon the four of them were walking a grassy track up a rise from town, thickly guarded on both sides by towering maples, oaks and fir trees. Emma decided talking was better than this awkward, heavy silence. Besides, she wondered how had he come to adopt two little girls. “I don’t mean to pry, but I’m interested in your girls.” She left the question open for any way he chose to answer it.
He cleared his throat. “My father, a widower, told me about losing Charlotte’s mother. When he died, I went to Illinois to find my little sister.”
That commanded Emma’s attention. Some men might not have been concerned enough about a little sister, especially a little half-sister, to go looking for her. Again, this was to his credit. She wanted to ask about the other little girl, but again her desire to keep her distance and her idea of politeness held her back.
“Birdie also lived at the orphans’ home in Illinois,” Mason continued as if sensing her unspoken question. “When Charlotte came to live at the orphanage well over a year ago, the woman who runs it, a Mrs. Felicity Gabriel Hawkins, located someone in Chicago who knew sign language and hired her to come teach it to Charlotte. That teacher said that it was better to have two pupils because they could help each other. And Birdie was already Charlotte’s best friend.”
“I liked Charlotte right away,” Birdie said. “And I wanted to learn how to talk with my hands.”
At that moment Charlotte looked up to Emma for the first time.
Emma was moved by the lost expression in Charlotte’s green eyes. And she was fascinated as she watched how Birdie worked her hands, communicating with the quiet girl walking beside her. Emma suppressed the urge to hug Birdie and silently promised to be a good friend to this little sweetheart. “I’m glad you did, Birdie. I like Charlotte already and I like you, too.”
Birdie smiled up at her as she evidently signed to Charlotte what Emma had said. Charlotte almost smiled.
Suddenly Emma realized that somehow Mason was slipping past her carefully constructed defenses. He was kind. Generous. And not hard to look at, either. Blushing, she quickened her step, hurrying them as much as was polite.
Another question niggled at Emma. Should she ask it? Yes, it would distract her from her awareness of him and not give him time to turn the conversation to “them.”
“So you were allowed to adopt both girls?”
“That was what caused the further delay in my returning,” Mason said. “Mrs. Hawkins questioned me about my qualifications to take charge of my little sister. Which wasn’t surprising since she didn’t know me.”
“Of course,” Emma murmured. A blue jay sounded its raucous song as if jeering at her, trapped in this uncomfortable situation, talking politely to a man she had agreed to marry but no longer wished to.
“I told her I was homesteading in Pepin, Wisconsin. That’s when she said her childhood friend, Noah Whitmore, was also homesteading in Pepin.”
“She knew Noah Whitmore?”
“Yes, they grew up going to the same Quaker meeting in Pennsylvania. And she decided to write to him to gain a character reference for me.”
“It’s amazing how God orchestrates matters.” Emma believed this, yet felt the old tug of disappointment. She’d prayed fervently for her fiancé Jonathan to survive the war. But evidently God had denied her request. Someday she hoped she could accept that with peace. She drew in a slow breath, wishing the brittle feeling around her heart would leave her.
“I suppose,” he said.
His uncertain tone caught her attention. What disappointment had he sustained? She brushed away this sudden sympathy and went on. “Since you are here with your girls, Noah Whitmore must’ve given you a good character reference.”
“I am very grateful for my girls.” Mason glanced with obvious affection at the two little ones.
The paternal glance softened her resistance again. She would have to be careful around this man, so as not to mislead him. She’d given all her love to Jonathan and she had nothing more to give.
“Some man kilt Charlotte’s mama and she couldn’t hear no more,” Birdie said. “The doctor say she ’sterical deaf.”
Shocked, Emma glanced at Mason. Was this true?
His jawline had tightened.
Emma could tell he did not like this being spoken of. And she didn’t blame him. “Bad things happen in this world,” she commented, trying to bring the uncomfortable topic to an end.
The little girl nodded solemnly and began to sign to Charlotte.
Without looking at Emma, Mason said, “Birdie, please don’t sign what I’m going to say now to Charlotte. It upsets her when people talk about it.” Then he did look at Emma. “The doctor called Charlotte’s condition hysterical deafness. He said he couldn’t find anything wrong with the structure of her ears, inside or out. We fear that Charlotte’s mother was murdered and perhaps Charlotte witnessed it. That’s what Mrs. Hawkins was told by the person who brought Charlotte to the orphanage.” He appeared to want to say more but he didn’t.
The hair on the nape of Emma’s neck prickled at the horror this sweet little girl might have witnessed. Emma completed his thought. “I will not speak of this.”
“I think it’s best for the girls if we don’t. People somehow transfer what a person’s family has suffered to them—as if they have been judged, as Mrs. Ashford said.” He glanced downward. “Will you remember that, Birdie?” he asked gently.
“Yes, sir!” Birdie said. “I only said it ’cause I can see Miss Emma is a fine lady.”
This uncomfortable conversation ended as they turned the bend and ahead lay her sister’s farm. Judith was doing laundry in the shade of an old oak tree beside the cabin.
“Judith!” Emma called out with sincere relief. “You’ll never guess who this is!” Emma made an attempt at teasing, trying to lighten the moment. She hoped Judith’s husband, Asa, would appear and relieve her of Mason Chandler. She wanted to be alone to sort out her unexpected reactions to him. Or better yet, talk it over with Judith in private.
* * *
Hoping to distance himself from Emma, Mason wished Asa Brant would appear and he could claim his livestock and then head on to his place. He wanted to be alone to sort out his unforeseen response to Miss Emma Jones. But he glued a smile onto his face and pulled up all his reserves of courtesy.
Emma led him toward Asa’s wife, who appeared flustered at his finding her in the midst of the weekly chore. Of course, he knew she was Emma’s twin sister, but they did not favor one another. Judith had brown hair and eyes to match, and possessed none of Emma’s startling beauty.
Then blessedly, the familiar tall and tanned, dark-haired Asa Brant stepped out of his barn. His face lifted into a welcoming smile and he hurried forward, his hand outstretched.
Emma continued on toward her sister.
Dropping the baggage, Mason gripped Asa’s hand, once again grateful to find another person who remained a friend—so far. “I’m just on my way home and wanted to stop and get my cattle. I hear I have a calf.”
“Yes, both of us increased our cattle this spring.” Asa beamed.
“Asa, I can’t thank you enough for taking care of them. I’ll pay you back—”
“Not a word about that.” Asa forestalled him with an upraised hand. “What are friends for?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Mason glimpsed another little girl, a blonde about Charlotte’s age, who had come out of Asa’s cabin and who was staring at his two little girls. Then he noted a boy with shaggy brown hair around eight or nine years old standing near the barn door.
Mason paused, wondering who they were.
“Before we take care of the cows, I need to introduce you to my wife. Or, I should say, my family,” Asa said with obvious pride. Asa led Mason to the woman who was now his wife, standing near the little girl. And the little boy hurried to Asa’s side. Asa rested a hand on the boy’s shoulder.
Acute envy caught around Mason’s heart. If he hadn’t been called away, he would be settled now with Emma as his wife. He wouldn’t have spent the whole growing season away. Leave it to his father to interrupt and bring disaster to his only son. Mason forced himself to relax his face, tightened by regret. He tried to focus as Asa introduced him to Judith and to the two children, Lily and Colton, whom they had evidently taken in.
He noted that Lily continued to stare at Charlotte and Birdie. Perhaps the little girl was just shy. He hoped that explained her lack of welcome.
Emma stooped to eye level with Asa’s girl. “Lily, say hello to Charlotte and Birdie. They will be your new neighbors. You can play with them.”
Lily turned her face into Judith’s skirt.
“I guess Lily is a bit shy today. But you three will get to know each other over time,” Emma said gently.
Mason was grateful for her attempt. It was obvious that Miss Emma Jones was not only beautiful but kind. He needed to go before he revealed even a hint of the sadness that had begun years before when his father had changed for the worse. And his secret now separated him from everyone, not just Emma Jones. “I need to get home, Asa. I want to get the house straightened up and everything settled before evening comes.”
“I’d come and help you,” Asa apologized, “but I’m right in the middle of something.”
“I don’t need any help,” Mason said.
“Yes, you do,” Asa replied. “You have that luggage to carry and the girls and the cattle. I can bring them over later—”
“I don’t want to cause you any trouble.”
“I would come along,” Asa’s wife said, motioning toward the laundry tubs, “but I’m right in the middle of this week’s clothes.”
“I don’t expect any help,” Mason said again. He held up his hands and stepped backward. “You all have your own work to do.”
“I’ll come and help,” Emma said. “I can drive a few cows.”
She surprised Mason into silence. He wanted to study her face to find out why she’d offered help, but of course, he couldn’t.
“It’s settled, then,” Asa said, sounding relieved. “Emma and Colton will lead the cattle, Mason.”
“And you’ll come back here for supper,” Judith said. “We have plenty and would be glad to have your company.”
“That’s right. We insist,” Asa agreed.
After the slights and reflected shame he’d suffered over the past few months, Mason felt humbled by their warm welcome. He only hoped no one here ever discovered the truth about his father, how he’d lived and where he’d died. That might be a bitter pill too big to swallow even by friends.
Soon Mason, still burdened with the baggage, walked beside Emma with Colton.
“I’ll box up your chickens and bring them over when I’m done!” Asa called after them.
Mason called back his thanks. The road turned to the north at the beginning of Asa’s property, going around it and leading to Mason’s homestead.
Emma and Colton carried prodding staffs they barely needed. The cow and young heifer strolled along, pausing occasionally to nibble grass. Mason wished he could hurry them, but no one hurried a milk cow. A contented cow gave more milk, and he would need it. Without a crop, he would depend much on his chickens and cows to keep the girls fed this winter.
“I’m sorry to trouble you,” Mason murmured to Emma as they rounded another bend in the road.
“It’s no trouble. I was raised on a farm. I like cows.”
He didn’t know what to say to this. “You’re too pretty to be herding cattle” didn’t seem appropriate. And they were certainly well chaperoned with the silent boy, and Birdie chattering in word and sign, and Charlotte, as always, guarded and silent. All the words he wished to say to Miss Emma must be held back. And she probably didn’t want to hear them, anyway.
“That little girl back there didn’t like us,” Birdie said. “She wouldn’t talk to us.”
The boy on the other side of the cattle said nothing in explanation.
