Poppy: Bride of Alaska (American Mail-Order Bride 49) (10 page)

“Well, you need a hat. Come with me and we’ll get you another.” She grabbed his hand but paused before leading him down to the supply room. “But you must promise not to give this one away, okay?”

The boy’s face held heartache she could never hope to comprehend. A look like that should be reserved for old men who suffered through war and disease and death. Very old men, not children. Never children.

“Missy, I no lie. If brother need hat, I give. Always.”

Before the tears could spill down her cheeks, a spark of an idea whisked them away. Excitement pinked her cheeks, and she couldn’t stop from grinning. She’d need help, but she knew just the people. Mrs. Austin wouldn’t approve, of course, but Poppy couldn’t care less.
 

Tugging the little boy along, she said, “Kalemste, let’s hope you won’t have to.”

* ~ * ~ *

“Mr. Turner, may we have a word with you?”

Reverend and Mrs. Austin must have been waiting for him to finish with his last patient. Ha! Patient! As if yet another boy with the sniffles counted as a patient. A nurse could do his job. Heck, one of the children he tended to could do it.

“Certainly, please come in.”

They crowded into the cramped office, hardly making eye contact with him. Mrs. Austin in particular looked rather piqued.
 

“Mr. Turner, your wife—“ she started but was cut off by her husband.

“Dear, please,” he said, patting his wife’s shoulder. “Matthew, it seems that Mrs. Turner has been breaking several school rules.”

What a surprise. Headstrong Poppy doing whatever she wanted, regardless of the consequences. She knew better than anyone their precarious situation. Neither of them could afford to lose their positions. She’d kindly — some might think ‘rightly’ — shared the money he’d left for her and bought a few needed items, but there wasn’t even close to enough to pay for his passage back to Boston.

Raking a hand through his hair, he sighed.
 

“What’s she done now?”

The Austins glanced at each other with deep worry.
 

“Son, she’s calling the children by their Indian names.”

They stared at him as if they expected a response.
 

“And?”

Mrs. Austin pursed her thin lips.
 

“And she…
hugs
them. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

Matthew frowned. “Of hugging children? Believe it or not, I have.”

Her lips grew thinner, so the reverend took over.
 

“She also supplied one of the children with an extra hat. Without permission.”

The last was said with a knowing look that Matthew didn’t understand. As much as he wanted to be angry with Poppy for jeopardizing their situation, he couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about.

“Is that it?”

They looked at him like he’d just claimed to be the King of Prussia.
 

“Why, Mr. Turner, this is quite serious. The reverend and I worked with Sheldon Jackson himself to develop the rules for this mission. When they are followed to the letter, everything runs smoothly and everyone is happy. When they aren’t, it all turns to chaos.”

Matthew barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes at her melodramatic tone.
 

“Honestly, I think this is getting blown out of proportion, don’t you?”

Mrs. Austin huffed.
 

“Of course, you would say that. I’ve heard you speaking Indian to the children. You’re both a couple of troublemakers. Perhaps you should never have come here.”

Matthew couldn’t have agreed more but he didn’t dare say such a thing. She was already distraught, and mouthing off to her wouldn’t make things any better. They were kind people doing what they believed to be the best thing for the children.

As silly as he thought the stringent rules were, they’d just have to abide by them until they were free of their contract — or until they saved enough money for Poppy to survive on her own and for him to go back home where he belonged.

He could curb his use of native words to soothe nervous children, but Poppy…he knew her well enough by now to know that nothing would deter her from doing what she thought was right. If he couldn’t stop her — which he had no hope of doing — he at least needed to figure out some way that she wouldn’t risk their positions.

Mustering his most charming smile, he clasped her cold, thin fingers in his hand.
 

“Of course, you’re right, Mrs. Austin. I do apologize for my part in breaking the rules. It won’t happen again.”

“And your wife?” Reverend Austin asked.
 

Matthew sensed the man was in a more reasonable state of mind than his wife, which gave him some hope that Poppy wouldn’t be summarily fired.

“Reverend, my wife has a big heart and, if I may be so blunt, an even bigger mouth.”

The reverend chuckled while his wife loosened up and smirked slightly.
 

“She means well, she truly does, and I know she loves the children with all her heart.”

They nodded, eager to hear what he had to say.
They’re circling the bait…

“I just wonder if she might be better suited to…oh, never mind. That’s ridiculous.”

He turned and started tidying up from the last patient.
Wait for it…wait…wait…

“No, please go on,” Mrs. Austin insisted.
 

They took the bait.

“I just wonder if there might be an opportunity for her to — and I don’t know if there is, so please forgive my stupidity…”

“Spit it out, son.”

Time to set the hook.

“It seems to me that a woman of my wife’s passion might be better suited to outreach work, rather than being cooped up in a school where she will undoubtedly, if unknowingly, cause issues.”

Time passed slower than the nights in Alaska in December — something he’d grown very familiar with. The beating of his heart pounded in his ears as he waited for them to react. Only when Mrs. Austin broke out into a beaming grin did he realize he’d been holding his breath.

“Oh, what a splendid idea,” she said, clapping her hands. “She could see to the Indians at the Rancherie and try to recruit new students.”

“And distribute blankets or whatever is needed to see them through the winter,” the reverend added.

As they prattled on with ideas for Poppy’s new duties, Matthew leaned back and smiled. She would be so pleased to be out from under the watchful eye of Mrs. Austin, not to mention to work directly with the Tlingits at the Rancherie. Eddie had dragged her down there several times and the silly girl had already made friends.
 

Maybe she’d be so happy that she’d give him a kiss.

“Thank the good Lord above that you’re finally out of that stodgy old school.”
 

Eddie ambled alongside Poppy, leaning heavily on her cane, on their way to visit some families at the Rancherie. Poppy was grateful for the company on her first day of ‘outreach’. A skinny dog ran past, chased by an even thinner boy. But instead of trying to hit the dog with a stick when he finally caught it, like the boys back home would have done, he hugged and petted it while the dog licked his face clean.

“The Austins aren’t really as awful as you led me to believe,” Poppy chided. “I think they genuinely care and want to help these children, many of whom are actual orphans, you know.”

Eddie huffed at her.
 

“Never said they didn’t care. But you know how their parents died, don’t you? Diseases
we
brought with us.”

“It’s terrible, I agree, but the question is, what do we do about it now? Pretend they don’t exist?”

“Of course not! But I’ll be hanged if I’ll help you drag away anymore children from their parents, Poppy. Don’t even dare to think of it or I’ll hit you with my cane!”

“I would never dream of it, you know that. In fact, I’d like to use my position as outreach liaison, whatever that means, to teach the children at the Rancherie. That way they wouldn’t have to leave their families, even the orphans living with aunts and uncles. Of course, if the families
want
them to go to the school, I’ll help arrange it but wouldn’t it be wonderful if they could stay together?”

“The good reverend and his wife would never allow it.”

“I’m not saying it’ll be easy, or even happen quickly, but it’s a worthy goal to work toward, isn’t it?”

Eddie gave Poppy a shrewd look.
 

“If you don’t watch out, you might just become the next headmistress out there.”

Poppy laughed at the ridiculous comment. They’d already demoted her from teacher to ‘outreach liaison’, thanks to her willful nature and sassy mouth. She’d be lucky to last another month, if she didn’t take Matthew’s warning to watch herself.
 

“One of the things I’d like to start with is making sure all the children out here have warm clothes. One of my students gave his hat to his brother, leaving him without one. Why should only the school’s students have warm clothes?”

“Sounds like you have something in mind?” Eddie was a sharp old lady.

“Well, the steamship will get here in a couple of days. If I were to place an order for children’s clothes then, it would be at least a month and a half or more before they arrived. Now Vladimir has a nice selection of wool fabric in his shop, but I obviously can’t afford to buy any and I can’t ask him to just give it to me…”

She gave Eddie a sly smile, batting her eyes for the full effect. The older woman cackled at her ridiculous attempt at manipulation.

“Child, you’ve got a lot to learn about the art of subtlety. But you got me. I’m in. You get Vinchenko to sell you the goods at cost — and make him show you the invoices — and I’ll foot the bill.”

They visited five families in the Rancherie that day, including Kalemste’s family, and Poppy loved every minute, even if the families were a little standoffish. The homes the government built for them were large, by her standards, and built as one open room. Eddie explained that’s how the Tlingits lived before the Russians came — longhouses, they were called — and the design was the only one the natives would live in. Sleeping benches lined every wall, and in the center was a large fire pit.
 

Snow a few inches deep covered most of the landscape, except down here by the Rancherie. The houses sat so close to the water that most of the snow refused to stick to the ground, not that there was much ground between the tightly packed homes for it to stick to. What was there existed in an almost permanent state of mud.

The ladies picked their way through the mud-field, skirts lifted obscenely high, and Poppy couldn’t help laughing.
 

“What would Matthew’s mother think of all this?”

She loved Eddie’s laugh, and how free she was with it, like it didn’t cost her a thing to offer it up.
 

“Child, every summer I see the blue-blooded snobs who traipse around town, thinking they’re on some grand adventure, wrinkle their noses at the people who live in the Rancherie, calling them savages or worse. Not a single one would be where we are right now — not that I think we’re something special, mind you. The way I see it, it’s my duty as a Christian woman to help those who need and want it, no matter the conditions.”

By early afternoon, they headed back down Lincoln Street toward the mission while light was still in the sky. Aside from following all the school’s rules, the short days had been the hardest thing for Poppy to adjust to. Once she recruited enough students to hold classes at the Rancherie, she’d have to check out a buggy from the school’s stables so she could stay later.
 

“So how’s that handsome husband of yours,” Eddie asked, eyeing Poppy in a way that made her skin itch with awkwardness.

“Shh.” She looked around to make sure no one could hear their conversation. Keeping her voice low, she said, “You know very well what the situation is, and you promised not to blab it all over town.”

Eddie pretended to be shocked and offended, but Poppy thought maybe
she
needed the lessons in being subtle.
 

“I was simply asking about Matthew’s well-being, child. Has he learned to love Sitka as much as you and I do?”

A gloom whisked away the joy she’d been feeling after connecting with so many Tlingit families. It pressed down on her until she felt as if she would choke on it.
 

“No, he still can’t wait to go back to Massachusetts.”

“Will you go with him?” The twinkle in Eddie’s eye irritated her. Nosy ol’ busybody! But she’d somehow wormed her way into Poppy’s heart, becoming something like a grandmother to her. The closest thing she’d had to a grandmother was Old Lady Johnson, the neighbor who taught her to read.

“Of course not. This is my home now. It’s only been a month and I’ve never been happier in my life, Eddie. The scenery, the people, the quiet solitude.” She stopped on the boardwalk and caught her friend’s gaze. “I never want to live anywhere else.”

A touch of sadness colored Eddie’s smile.
 

“Even if it means doing so without him?”

It felt as if a heavy weight was pressing on Poppy’s chest, making it harder to breathe. But she refused to show such weakness in front of anyone, even Eddie.
 

“I’ve lived this long without a man to take care of me, Eddie, I think I’ll get along just fine without him.”
 

Tears prickled behind her eyes, and she was glad for the gloam of dusk to hide her pinkening nose. Over the last month, she’d grown to enjoy Matthew’s company. In the evenings, after the rest of the staff had retired, they would talk late into the night, sharing stories of their lives. She laughed at the high-fashion mishaps he suffered through at balls and galas, and he gasped in horror at some of the tamer stories from her tenement days.
 

They’d even exchanged Christmas gifts during the mission’s big holiday dinner. She gave him a new shoe polishing kit because he was forever buffing and cleaning his footwear, and he gave her a shiny new chain for Ma’s locket. It now lived nestled against her heart, a constant reminder of her mother.