Adela's Prairie Suitor (The Annex Mail-Order Brides Book 1) (8 page)

“I’ve put by a little pin money, but with winter coming, that won’t last. If we don’t come up with that bank note, you won’t have a house to put a bride in—no place for us either.”

He gave her shoulder a pat. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll figure out something. We should have a good crop next year. I might be able to extend the loan.”

She smiled and handed him another plate. “I know you will.”

“Ma, will you do me a favor?”

“Sure, what?”

“Be a little more welcoming to Adela. She wants to help out, and you’re giving her the cold shoulder.”

Ma huffed. “I thought she’d want to take her leisure. Thought a lady like her would like to sit around and read.”

“Well, I don’t think she’s like that. You saw how excited she was to have a dress to sew up. She wants to learn how to be a farmer’s wife, and there’s no one better to teach her than you.”

Flattery usually worked on Ma, but not tonight. “Don’t know that I can, when I think you’re making a mistake.”

He clenched his jaw and had a ready retort, but she caught him off guard. “All right. I’m not going to fight it. I’ll be canning tomorrow, so she can help with that.”

It was a small victory, but he’d take it. “Thanks, Ma. It’s still light out. Why don’t you join us in the parlor for a spell? You need to get to know Adela better.”

They found Adela sitting on the sofa by the window with her needle and thread flying. Byron sat beside her and Ma went to her rocker.

“Sure is bright today.” Byron craned his neck to look out the window. Something was different. He got up and walked past Adela to inspect the window more carefully. “Ma, did you wash the windows?”

Adela looked up from her sewing. “I did that this morning. I washed them inside and out. Don’t they sparkle?”

“I’ll say.” He dropped the curtains and jerked around. Curtains? What curtains? “Where’d the curtains come from?”

Adela sent a fugitive glance to Ma before answering. “I bought them in town this afternoon. I hope you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind,” Byron said, trying to put as much approval in his voice as possible. “You washed the windows outside, too? How did you get up there?”

“I borrowed the ladder—oh, I put it back against the barn wall.”

“That’s all right. Windows look like new, don’t they Ma?”

Ma didn’t even take her gaze away from her embroidery. “I noticed earlier. Yes, they look very good. Thank you, Miss Mason, but it wasn’t called for. Hilda Jane and I have been making velvet drapes for winter. That’s why I took the old curtains down, so’s I’d have the pattern.” She raised up in her chair and looked, not at the windows, but around the room. “Where is my sewing basket? Have you seen it, Byron?”

“No, ma’am.”

Adela sprang to her feet. “I put it over here.” She went to the bureau and bent down beside it, coming back up with the lattice basket. “Is this it?”

Ma shoved herself to a standing position. “That’s it. Where is my
Ladies Journal
? Where is the Bible?”

“I put them inside here.” Adela opened the door to the cabinet and retrieved the magazine and Bible.

Ma strode to the bureau, her eyes wide. “What happened to my bureau, the one my grandma gave me on my wedding?” As if there could be another bureau in the room.

Byron ran his fingers over the surface. “It looks the same to me.”

“Well, not to me it doesn’t,” Ma said. “It’s dull, like it’s aged fifty years.”

Adela took a step back. “I washed it, but I didn’t have any wax.”

“What did you wash it with?”

“Just soap and water.”

Ma nodded slowly. “You washed it with lye soap.”

“Maybe if I buff it.” Adela looked around as if she was trying to spot something to rub with.

“It’s not a calamity, Ma. Maybe with some linseed oil, it’ll be good as new—better, since it’ll be clean.” Byron laughed, trying to ease the tension.

Ma pressed a hand to her forehead. “I have a headache. I think I’ll go to bed. Good-night to you both.”

“I’m sorry,” Adela said with a little quiver of her bottom lip.

He took her hand and led her back to the sofa. “Now, don’t you worry none. Ma gets het up about the silliest things. Go back to sewing your dress, and I’ll read to you.” He retrieved a leather-bound book from the low bookshelf. “Have you read
Great Expectations?
”

“I have, but I’d like to hear you read it.” She gave him the prettiest smile.

Desire to kiss her flared in him again, as it had out on the porch, but the pain in her velvet brown eyes told him she wasn’t in a kissing mood. If he couldn’t find a way to bring peace between Ma and Adela, he might as well forget about kissing, much less a wedding.

After the disaster of yesterday, Adela didn’t know whether she should get up or just stay in bed the next day. But that wasn’t the stuff she was made of. She’d find some way to please Mrs. Calhoun if it killed her. Might be better to let the woman let off her steam, though. Adela worked on her dress all morning until her eyes began to cross.

She decided to help Mrs. Calhoun with lunch. When she asked if she could help, instead of rejecting the offer outright, Mrs. Calhoun put her fists on her hips and faced her. “Nothing to be done for lunch, but I’ll be canning pumpkin and making apple butter this afternoon. Byron favors crabapple jelly. You can make that while I’m doing the wash. You know how to make jelly?”

“I do. I used to help my uncle’s cook. We made grape and blackberry, but I’m sure crabapple must be done the same way.”

“I’ll write down the instructions for you. That boy is in the barn, mucking out the stalls, go tell him to collect a basket of crabapples down at the cow pond. He knows where that is.”

“Are there many crabapple trees around here?” Adela wondered how the town had gotten its name.

“Used to be a whole orchard of them. Wife of the man who first settled here sent off for apple seedlings, and they sent her crabapple.” Mrs. Calhoun laughed, the first full-hearted laugh Adela had heard from her. “Used to find them all over town. Not many survived the grasshoppers and draughts, but there’s enough to get some fruit for jelly.”

“Then I’ll go tell Dick to gather them now.”

“Basket’s on the back porch,” Mrs. Calhoun called after her.

Dick didn’t dawdle, but brought her a whole bucket of fruit.

As soon as the men had gone back to the fields after lunch, Adela peeled and chopped the knotty crabapples. They didn’t taste good to her, but she figured with enough sugar anything would taste good.

She measured out the sugar and water and got the fruit to cooking. She’d have to strain it before it thickened, but that would take some time, so she sauntered outside where Mrs. Calhoun was stirring the wash pot.

“May I help you while the jelly is cooking?”

“No, but you can hang out those sheets.”

Adela took one sheet at the time to the line. Because she was so short, she had a time getting the sheets over the line, but she managed. When she’d finished with the last one, she returned to the wash pot and noticed Mrs. Calhoun had wrung out some articles of clothing.

She started to reach down to get another piece of the wash, but Mrs. Calhoun jerked out her hand, then pulled the basket out of Adela’s reach. “I’ll hang these. They’re long johns and a young lady shouldn’t be handling men’s under clothes.”

Adela started to laugh at such silliness, but the woman looked serious. “Shouldn’t you go check on your jelly?” That was true. Adela wiped her hands on her apron and trekked back to the kitchen.

She strained the syrup and put it back on the stove to magically turn into jelly. The stuff bubbled and thickened, but refused to jell. Adela went back over the directions. She thought about going back outside and asking Mrs. Calhoun, but decided she was just being impatient. Besides, she was afraid to turn her back on the pot. It had boiled over once and a hideous smell of burnt syrup permeated the kitchen.

After the stove cooled, she’d have to clean that up. In the meantime, she raised the kitchen window and breathed in the cool air. Making jelly was a hot, endless job. She didn’t remember it being this much trouble. By this time, her apron and a good bit of her dress was covered in amber syrup that stuck to her arms and legs.

No matter what she did, it became evident after a couple more hours the stuff wasn’t going to jell, and she was at the point she didn’t care. If Mrs. Calhoun came in to complain, Adela would take the whole pot to the pig pen and let them eat it out of the pot. Give Mrs. Calhoun something to really complain about.

But when Mrs. Calhoun came in to fix supper, she just shrugged. “Sometimes it won’t jell. Nothing you can do about it.”

Byron came in. Adela had hoped to take a bath and change clothes before he saw her.

“What’s that I smell so good?” he asked.

Somehow that struck her as funny. As if one could think burnt syrup smelled good. She started giggling and couldn’t stop. “I made a mess of your crabapple jelly, Byron.” Another burst of giggles followed, though she noticed both Mrs. Calhoun and Byron looking at her in a strange way. “I guess you’ll have to settle for syrup.”

Byron found a teaspoon and dipped it into the gooey mess and popped it in his mouth. “It’s good, Adela. Really good.” He pointed with his spoon. “You have the jars all ready. I’ll pour it in for you.”

Laughter died in her throat, and she sent him a hard look. Was he serious? He wanted to can the syrup. Whoever heard of such a thing? Mrs. Calhoun hadn’t. She just rolled her eyes and left the kitchen.

Byron was serious. He took a towel and, holding the sides of the pot, lifted it off the stove. Adela stared as he filled each of the four jars, then fell into a chair and burst into tears. He was only doing this to make her feel good, which was the sweetest thing she’d ever known.

With a glance of alarm, Byron returned the pot to the stove. He squatted down beside Adela. “What’s wrong? It really is good, no sense in wasting it.”

She pulled the end of her apron to her face and sobbed into it. “You don’t have to do that to spare my feelings.”

“I’m not, honestly.” He looked around as if for inspiration, then sprang to his feet. Returning a moment later, he held out a biscuit left over from breakfast. “Look.”

Adela peeped over the edge of her wadded apron. He poked a hole in the biscuit with his finger and spooned some of the crabapple syrup in the indention. Taking a bite, he smacked his lips. “Gooood. Here take a bite.” He waved the biscuit in front of her like she were a small child he was trying to get to eat.

She’d have to humor him. After dropping her apron, she took the biscuit and sank her teeth into it, chewing thoughtfully. Her eyes widened as the tangy sweetness exploded in her mouth. “It is good.” Who would have believed crabapple would taste like nectar?

“Sure. We can put it on flapjacks, biscuits, maybe even baste a ham with it. You’ve invented a whole new dish, Adela.” He laughed. “You’re not the first one to discover a good thing by accident. Pasteur discovered how to vaccinate for diseases by accident I heard.”

She had the feeling he wanted her to know he wasn’t ignorant. How could she let him know she thought he was as smart as any man she’d ever met? His face was so close, she got lost in his soft gray eyes. Without thinking, she stroked his cheek with her free hand. The bristles of a day’s growth sent tingles up her arm, and she dropped her hand, yet unable to break contact with those eyes.

“You’d make any man a wonderful wife, Adela.” Was that his way of proposing?

Byron leaned in. Her pulse raced. He was going to kiss her right here in the kitchen. She’d never been kissed. How was she supposed to act? She tilted her head so their noses wouldn’t bump together and ran her tongue over her lips to remove any remaining biscuit crumbs.

The back door slammed open, and Byron jumped. He stood and looked over her head. She turned around to find Dick standing with a gunny sack in his hand. “What is it, Dick?” Byron asked, sounding irritated.

“I found this hanging in the rafters. Are you sure you want it hanging there?”

“What’s in the sack?

Adela knew what it was. The popcorn she’d harvested last week.

“Looks like corn,” Dick said.

Looks like? Couldn’t he tell corn when he saw it? “That’s the popcorn I hung in the rafters to dry.” Adela couldn’t image why Dick thought it needed Byron’s attention.

But Byron looked at her funny like he couldn’t believe it. “You hung it up? In the sack?”

Dick pulled out an ear. “Thought it might be hog feed. A lot of the ears are bad.” He’d started to shuck one. Some of the kernels had popped on the cob.

Something must have been wrong with the popcorn. “Maybe I should have taken them out of the sack,” she said, “but I thought if I hung it from the rafters, the mice wouldn’t get it.”

“Mice could get it no matter what.” Byron ran his fingers through his hair. “We have four barn cats. Mice aren’t a big problem.” He addressed Dick. “Shuck the good ones and spread them out to dry, Dick.”

Dick closed the bag and scratched his head. “I doubt there’s many good ones left.”

“Well, however many there are, do it.” Byron’s annoyed tone didn’t brook any more argument. Adela didn’t know if he was annoyed with Dick or her, but it was obvious she’d ruined the popcorn.

After Dick left, Adela drew in a deep breath. “I didn’t understand, but if I’d have thought about it… I seem to be doing one stupid thing after another.”

Byron shook his head. “It’s my fault. I should have explained to you that you have to shuck the corn and lay it out in the air to dry. There was no reason for you to have known that.”

No reason for anyone who didn’t use her brain. That beautiful moment when she’d thought he might kiss her was gone. She walked ahead of him to the parlor. Maybe she could finish her dress tonight while listening to Byron read. She loved to hear his voice, and at least she knew how to sew.

A week later, Dick ran off during the night, and Byron saddled up to go hunt him. He ought to be in the fields helping Lem, and here he was wasting time chasing after the boy. And what was he going to do with him when he found him?