Suddenly A Frontier Father

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Jacque, the sheriff’s son, raised his hand, as did many others, though some students looked hesitant.

“Jacque, you’d like to learn it?”

“Yes, miss, I think it would be fun and I like to know how to do things. Can she, the black girl, show us how to do that sign?”

“Birdie, will you come up and teach us how to say hello to Charlotte? I will sit in your place because I will be the student, too.”

This announcement caused a hubbub of murmurs from her students. But Emma passed Birdie, who was nearly skipping to where Emma had been standing.

Birdie beamed one of her contagious smiles. “I was already livin’ at the orphans’ home when Charlotte come to live there, too. She was very sad and scared because she couldn’t talk to anybody. I mean—wouldn’t you be if you had to go somewhere you didn’t know anybody and you couldn’t tell them nothin’ and couldn’t understand what they were sayin’ to you?”

Emma felt the interest of the students. And the aroused sympathy.

“To teach Charlotte ’merican Sign Language, Mrs. Hawkins, who runs the orphans’ home, hired a lady who come all the way from Chicago.”

A few students ohhhhed when they heard “Chicago.”

“I told Mrs. Hawkins I wanta learn to talk with my hands, too. I wanta to be Charlotte’s friend ’cause we all need a friend.”

Again Emma felt the empathy for Birdie and Charlotte swell all around her. Every child here had come from somewhere else and had gone through the painful process of making a friend. “Excellent, Birdie. Now teach us how to greet Charlotte. We want her to know she is among friends here. Isn’t that right, students?”

Different but heartfelt words and sounds of approval flowed around Emma.

“This is how you say hello in sign.” Birdie demonstrated the hand motion in total and then part by part. Emma along with her students mimicked the sign.

“Y’all did good!” Birdie crowed. “Now, Charlotte, your turn.” Birdie signed to the little girl sitting beside Emma.

Hesitantly Charlotte rose and faced the classroom. Shyly she signed, “Hello.”

And everyone, including Emma, signed it in return. The children were beaming at this new knowledge.

Emma rose. “Thank you, Birdie. I think tomorrow you will teach us to sign ‘How are you?’ I think that would be the next thing we would say to Charlotte, don’t you, class?”

Affirmative replies sounded around the room and soon Emma moved the children to their first lesson. Matters had gone much better than she’d expected. Her schoolroom hummed with productive energy. Birdie was not only a sweetheart, but she understood people and how to charm them. Or perhaps Birdie was just being Birdie.

Emma realized something else, too. All through the daily routine of lessons she tried to figure out how to help Charlotte even more. She kept coming up with one answer—no matter how many times she tried to find a different solution. She didn’t want the obvious answer to be true because it involved her being with Mason.

And she did not want to give him or anyone else in town the idea that she might be interested in him as a suitor. She could only hope that with time, people’s expectations for their becoming a couple would dim. The one thing she was thankful for was that Mason never tried to sway her to look upon him with favor. And then she wondered why that was so.

* * *

Emma waited till the end of the school week, and then she walked through town toward her sister’s place. She had a standing invitation to supper there and she looked forward to family time with Judith, Asa and the children. But first she passed her sister’s clearing and proceeded to Mason’s. “Hello, the house!” she called when his neat cabin came into view.

Birdie with Charlotte’s hand in hers ran around the house toward Emma. “Teacher! Teacher come to see us!” Birdie called out, her face bursting with joy.

Emma would have had to be solid granite not to respond. She caught the girls as they cannonaded into her. “Girls, girls. You just saw me at school.”

“But you came to our house again,” Birdie said.

For the first time, Charlotte took Emma’s hand in both of hers.

For this one moment, Charlotte’s lost expression vanished. Emma’s heart sang.

“Miss Jones.”

At Mason’s subdued greeting, Emma looked beyond the girls. Mason had come around the side of his cabin. He had rolled up his sleeves and his sinewy, tanned arms drew her unwilling attention. “To what do we owe this kind visit?”

Switching focus, she contemplated his tone—something about it definitely sounded restrained. No doubt he must also feel the awkwardness over the demise of their plans to marry in March. And here once more there were only the girls as chaperones.

He moved a bit forward. “How may we help you, miss?” he prompted.

She tried not to study the way he stood so easy within himself yet with sadness lurking in his direct gaze. “Has Birdie told you that she is teaching the other schoolchildren a new sign every day?”

“Yes, she told me. It’s not easy to learn.”

“No, it isn’t.” She gripped her intention tightly and announced, “That’s why I’ve come. I think as the teacher, I should know more sign language than just what Birdie teaches the class daily. I was hoping that Birdie could give me private lessons.” Preferably after school—without you nearby to distract me, she thought to herself.

Before Mason could reply, Birdie squealed, “Then you can come to our house to the lessons I give our pa every night!”

Emma’s heart sank. Exactly what she didn’t want.

“Birdie,” Mason said with obvious patience, “maybe Miss Jones can’t come every evening. She’s a busy lady. Why don’t you girls run back and finish your chores while Miss Jones and I talk about this?”

The girls looked up at her and then ran, hand in hand, toward the rear of the cabin. A red cardinal flew overhead. Birdie pointed it out to Charlotte.

Emma walked forward and met Mason, trying to shed her response to the kind way he treated his girls. This seemed to be her Achilles’ heel when it came to this man. She could resist his good looks but his character drew her.

“I’m sorry that Birdie put you in an awkward position, miss. She doesn’t understand gossip and such. Tongues will wag if people find out you and I are seeing each other regularly—even doing something this innocent.”

As he said the words, she felt herself stiffen inside. “I am not one to pay attention to gossips.”

“You are in the minority, then.” He sent her a rueful smile.

The smile hit her directly around the heart, chipping at the ice there. She resisted this. Learning sign language was the right thing to do. And she was not a weak-willed woman, vulnerable to any handsome man. “Mr. Chandler, when does Birdie usually give you your signing instruction?”

He eyed her. “Usually after supper, but if you’re game, why not begin now?”

He had thrown down his gauntlet and she picked it up. She would not be swayed by fear of gossip. “I have time now. I’m expected at my sister’s for supper.”

Mason studied her for a moment and then called over his shoulder, “Birdie! Come inside! Miss Jones wants her first lesson now!”

Emma followed him inside, wondering at how she had ended up doing the exact opposite of what she’d planned. She didn’t think Mason Chandler was manipulative. He’d merely stated the truth about how people might misinterpret this, and that had goaded her. Well, let the gossips enjoy themselves. She had nothing to explain.

However, the ice around her heart had cracked the tiniest bit and that frightened her. I can be with him but not let down my guard. Love is a risk I cannot test again. And then her mind chided, Mason Chandler has not given you the slightest hint that he wants you to reconsider his original proposal, has he? But the words he’d whispered after his fall might hint otherwise. Or not?

Chapter Four (#ubdc00e85-5f05-5cbd-a5c9-2ca880e6a0a0)

Another Saturday morning had come, marking half of September had already passed. Emma dressed in one of her plainer frocks, a faded blue cambric. She wanted to blend in with the ladies coming for their day of sewing and knitting while the men did what was necessary to prepare the school for the coming hard winter. She looked forward to today’s community gathering and could not understand why she felt as if she were carrying some heavy weight. Today would be a congenial day of chatting and doing something charitable and useful. Her mind tried to suggest why the weight hovered over her. She refused to listen.

Bustling about, she opened the schoolroom door. The warming wind wafted in the scent of pine. Then she set a coffee kettle sputtering and perking over the fire in her quarters, releasing its enticing fragrance. Yesterday before the children went home, she had directed them in moving the school benches into a large circle. Then they set up the long tables that would hold the food brought for the cold lunch all the workers would share. With a lift of satisfaction, she walked over the room, making sure everything was spit-shined and in place. Not a speck of dust.

She paused by her neatly organized desk that had been pushed back out of the way. There had been some talk of raising funds to purchase real school desks for the children, but that would be in the future. Emma then dragged out the chairs from her quarters for a few of the grandmothers who would have difficulty sitting on backless benches for hours. But all this busyness didn’t help her keep her mind off Mason Chandler. Of course he would come today. And what of it?

Foolish question. The man was a constant speck in her eye. The three sign language lessons this week had been times of testing. I should not feel this way. Going to his home and learning signs should not affect me. Truer words had never been spoken, but Mason had the power to stir her feelings and cause her to think thoughts she shouldn’t think about the breadth of his shoulders or his deep voice. She would just have to be stronger today. She could not care for a man again. Could not. Not would not.

She shoved away memories and marched around, pushing open the windows and letting more warm September breeze in. She caught a hint of cedar this time. Wagons began creaking into the school yard and families arriving on foot. Emma welcomed their cheery voices and distraction. Soon women crowded the schoolroom, all setting down sewing baskets and knitting bags. Outside the children began playing in the school yard, their happy squeals and shouts causing Emma to smile.

She would not be alone with Mason today. She could keep him at a distance. Though at this resolve a silent sigh eased through her. He hadn’t arrived yet, but she was already straining to hear Mason’s voice. Irritating but true.

Many mothers of her students paused to look at papers that had merited gold stars and which had been pinned to the back wall of the room. Then Sunny Whitmore, the preacher’s wife, entered with her friends, Nan and Ophelia. Everyone noticed but did not comment about the fact that Sunny had loosened her corset stays to their maximum and wore a loose jacket that sought to conceal her condition. The Whitmores were expecting their third child sometime this fall.

Then Charlotte and Birdie burst into the room, the soles of their shoes slapping on the wood floor. “We just wanted to say good morning, Miss Emma!” Birdie announced in her endearing way. Charlotte gifted Emma with one of her rare smiles. Then both girls signed, “Good morning. So glad to see you,” to her and she signed a similar greeting in return.

Everyone near her had paused to watch the exchange of sign language. Emma glanced over Birdie’s head and there was Mason standing squarely in the doorway, motioning for the girls to come out.

“Now, you girls go and play,” Emma said, nodding once toward Mason.

He returned her nod without a hint of a smile.

“Yes, Miss Emma,” Birdie said, and the two hurried out to join the children playing.

Emma turned away and caught many, many speculative glances shifting between her and the girls. She raised her chin and smiled as serenely as she could.

“We heard you were going to Mr. Chandler’s for special lessons,” Mrs. Stanley—the woman with the wobbly wart—said with thick innuendo.

Emma merely glanced at the woman she really tried to like—but couldn’t.

“Someone needs to teach those two little ones how to knit and such. Mr. Chandler can’t do that,” Mrs. Ashford said in a considering tone, and then she sent Emma a pointed glance.

Emma ignored it and was grateful when her sister, who had been unusually silent, said, “I’ve started teaching Lily. I’ll invite Mason’s girls over to join us.”

Emma smiled and moved next to her sister in the circle of women.

Lavina, the song leader each Sunday, said, “Ladies, let us start our workday with prayer.” Lavina prayed for the Lord to bless them as they toiled on the practical gifts and to ensure the items would be a blessing to those who received them.

After the “amen,” the ladies found places on the benches and began taking out yarn and needles or cloth and needle and thread. Several ladies had most of a quilt top done and sat close together, discussing the finer points of their quilt design.

Feeling the uprush of joy at being here with her sister, Emma sat beside Judith and began crocheting a scarf of red yarn. Judith was knitting a pair of matching mittens. Both of them were using pairs of their late mother’s wooden needles. Judith glanced at her and smiled. But something in Judith’s eyes looked worried. Was it just that she and Asa were facing a lean winter? Or something else? Emma regretted she and her sister had not had a moment alone to talk for days. It almost felt as if Judith were distancing herself from Emma. Surely not.

And above the ladies’ quiet chatter, still Emma could not stop herself from straining to hear Mason’s voice outside with the men. Near the open windows the men were talking about wood supply and about checking the chinking of the log building and the shake roof against the coming winter winds.

“How is Isaiah doing in the Northwoods?” Sunny asked Lavina as she knit a child’s navy-blue stocking.

“My son is courting a Chippewa woman there,” Lavina said, head down.

Silence greeted this.

“She is a strong believer and is well thought of,” Lavina continued, glancing up in a way that repelled dispute. “My husband and I may travel there to meet her as soon as the harvest is in and before snow flies.”

Emma drew in a breath. Many women were frowning, but evidently because of Noah’s recent sermon, none spoke of the prejudice against a mixed marriage.

“I’m sure she will be a help to Isaiah in his mission,” Emma said.

“Yes, but that’s not why he’s marrying her. He fell in love,” Lavina said with a sweet smile.

The way the woman said the words physically hurt Emma’s heart. Two young people in love. She bent over her knitting, hiding the tight “stitch” within her.

Then Mason’s voice floated through the window. The men were going to hoist someone up on the roof. Her fingers tightened in her yarn. Not Mason. Not Mason.

“No, not you, Mason,” Noah said with evident humor. “You’ve fallen off one roof this fall. That’s your limit.”

The men all laughed.

“I must agree,” Mason said without evident embarrassment.

“Can I go up on the roof?” The voice sounded young. Emma recognized it as belonging to Jacque Merriday, the sheriff’s son. “I know how to check the wooden shingles. My dad taught me.”

Rachel, his stepmother, looked up and shook her head. “That boy knows no fear, and he frightens me at times.”

“That’s the way boys are,” Mrs. Ashford said sagely, her knitting needles clicking.

The workday proceeded, and sitting beside her sister, more and more Judith’s near silence worried Emma. What was wrong?

At noon the men trooped inside. After the children had been helped through the line of generous sandwiches and cookies, the women waved the men to go first to fill their plates, saying that stacking wood gave a person more appetite than handwork. Emma gauged the distance she would maintain between her and Mason, glad for all the people in between.

However, her sister thwarted her by absently drawing Emma outside with her to sit by Asa, who of course had Mason at his side on a quilt under a blazing red maple. Enjoying the balmy fall day, everyone had settled either on the benches or on quilts outside. A vee of migrating geese honked overhead. What had Judith so preoccupied? Though wondering, Emma did not let her serene smile or her cool demeanor falter.

Mason appeared to be of the same mind as she. He was polite but did not try to catch Emma’s attention, instead giving it to Asa and, of course, his girls. Emma sat quietly, trying to come up with a way to ask Judith surreptitiously what was wrong.

Nearby the sheriff was discussing the newest project nearing completion in town, the new jail, which would be his office and headquarters.

Emma heard a familiar voice calling from up the road, “Hello! I’m here!”

Emma and Judith set down their plates, leaped to their feet and hurried toward the familiar voice. “Father! You’re home!”

Emma and Judith threw their arms around the slight, silver-haired man in welcome. Emma had been fearful that he might not return. She knew it was selfish of her to want to keep her father close, but she couldn’t help it. She stepped back and studied him. He did not look upset. He looked happy. So his visit with their brother and his wife must have gone well. A relief.