Teaching Miss Maisie Jane (16 page)

“Two feet solid,” Jake said as he shucked his clothes and burrowed under the covers.

Maisie
Jane gave a screech when he touched her but he just grinned. “Maisie Jane, you’ve got to stop being a lazy wife and get up and fix your husband some food.”

“Me!”
Maisie Jane protested. “You were the one who wouldn’t let me out of bed yesterday. Every time I tried to get up, all you wanted to do was cuddle and…”

“Darling,
I was just teaching sweet little Maisie Jane how to be proper wife,” Jake teased. “How’d I do?”

Maisie
Jane giggled. “Why sir, I think you did a proper fine job of it. Now what was your name again?”

Jake
growled and gave some time to kissing, and then gave her a swat. “Brat!  Up and at ‘em gal. We have a homestead to run and I need some food.”

Jake
stoked up the stove in the kitchen and made a fire in the front room, letting the fire in the bedroom stove go out. They didn’t need to be burning wood in three stoves. It took the better part of the morning for Jake to shovel paths to the barn, the chicken house and the privy out back. Except for that big brass tub, that fancy water closet was a waste of space. It was nice not to have to go out in the cold to run to the privy at night, but someone had to empty the pot and that someone was him. With all the animals taken care of Jake finally returned to the house. Maisie Jane had baked up some cinnamon rolls that almost made his eyes roll back in his head. She’d gone from trying to kill him with her cooking to now trying to turn him into a fat man.

“Hide
those things, darling, I can’t stay away from them,” Jake told Maisie Jane and then spent some time showing her how much he appreciated her efforts.

Maisie
Jane was curled up in one of the big chairs reading when Jake started going through all the drawers in the big desk. He finally found what he was looking for and set out some paper, an envelope, an ink well, and a fountain pen.

“Who
are you writing too?” Maisie Jane asked.

Jake
sat down at the desk. “I figure it’s about time to write that letter to Brett. He’s had time to work through his mad and maybe rethink giving this place to us. I’m also going to tell him I burned those books and that I didn’t appreciate my wife’s mind being fouled by those things. If they’re his, I reckon that his business. But, if they belong to his wife, he should know about it.”

“Maybe
he already does.”

Jake
looked over at her. “If he does, he’s not the man I thought he was, because no decent man would want his wife reading that trash.”

“Don’t
get mad again, please.”

“It
might take me a while to get past all that mad, Maisie Jane. But, you’ve already been corrected for that so we don’t need to revisit that again.”

“Jake
I need to write a letter too,” Maisie said.

“To
who?”

“I
need to write back home and tell people I’m okay.”

“I
thought you didn’t have any people left back there,” Jake said frowning.

“I
don’t have any family left, but I do have friends. I left over three months ago, and they don’t know what happened to me. I was supposed to go back to Baltimore.”

“You’re
right, you’ve probably got people worried sick.”

Jake
wrote his letter and sealed it without telling Maisie Jake what he’d written. Maisie Jane waited until Jake went outside to do a chore and she wrote her letter, praying that he wouldn’t ask to read it, and sealed it quickly.

When
Jake came back in he picked up her letter and looked at the address. “This is to a lawyer?”

Maisie
Jane nodded. “He was a friend of my brothers. He’ll know how to spread the word.”

Jake
propped the letters between two of those china figurines on the top of the mantle to mail next time he got to town.

The
next piece of business was for Jake was to set his accounting book. He’d been a man of action for the last twelve years, bookwork wasn’t something he wanted to do but he was smart enough to know that he had to keep accounts. He pulled out the receipts from his last trip to town and wrote down all the amounts he’d spent during his last trip to Elco. Then, he pulled out his money pouch and counted it. He did some figuring, refiguring and recounting again.

Maisie
Jane had gone back into the kitchen to do whatever women did in there.

He
called for her and she hollered back that she’d come in minute she was in the middle of something.

He
stretched back in that real comfortable desk chair and waited.

“What
do you need Jake?”

“Sit
down, honey,” Jake was watching Maisie Jane face real close and as soon as she noticed the piles of coins she looked uncomfortable.

“Something
strange is going here. I have counted and recounted and somehow I have six hundred more dollars than I’m supposed to have. And the strangest thing about that is that the Judge paid me in fifty dollar silver pieces but there were six one hundred dollar gold pieces in this money pouch. You wouldn’t know anything about that would you?”

“Of course I do. It was from me.”

“Where’d
you get that kind of money?” Jake demanded.

“Jake,
I came across the whole country. I couldn’t travel without money. I had it sewn into my petticoats so it would be safe.”

“But,
where’d you get that much money?” Jake repeated.

“My
Grandmother Louise died in April; it was my inheritance.”  Maisie smiled. “I didn’t want keep carrying it around because it’s heavy so I put it your pouch. I forgot to tell you.”

“Maisie
Jane, I can support my wife. I don’t want your money.”

Maisie
Jane shrugged and smiled. “Then, put it the bank. I have to get back to my soup. You don’t want me burning your food again. Is that it?”

Jake
nodded, “I guess.” But when she turned to go into the kitchen he raised his voice. “But, next time we go into Elco, I’m depositing it in the bank.”

Maisie
Jane gave her soup a quick stir and went to the water closet. She closed the door and clutched her stomach tight.

Someday
her secret was going to come out and she didn’t want that to happen until Jake loved her so much he’d never let her go. She knew she was being bad. Holding back a secret from her husband was really bad.

Maisie
Jane’s stomach lurched and she ran over and lifted the lid to the pot before emptying her stomach.

There
was a tap on the door and Jake peered in. “Maisie Jane, are you sick?”

Another
round of violent round of vomiting brought Jake to her side, holding back her hair and holding on to her as she became faint.

When
she finished, Jake carried her into the bedroom, went out and came back with a bowl of water and a cloth. He wiped her face and mouth and then re-wet the cloth laid it on her forehead. Maisie Jane was weeping and she couldn’t seem to stop.

Jake
rummaged through the bureau and found a nightgown. He undressed her gently and slipped the nightgown over her head and tucked her in, and kissed her forehead.

“What
made you sick, honey?”

Maisie
Jane shook her head and didn’t answer but she knew what it was, it was her guilty conscience.

“It’s
all right. You stay tucked in and get some rest. I’ll get the stove going in here and warm it up.”

Maisie
shook her head again. “I’ll be okay, and it feels good to be cooler in here. Don’t forget the soup on the stove. Don’t let burn.”

Jake
removed the wet cloth and felt her head for a fever. He didn’t feel one, but then he’d just taken a cold cloth from her head. He’d have to check again.”

A
couple of hours later, Maisie Jane staggered out of the bed and had another violent bout of vomiting, but she didn’t make it to the water closet in time. By the time Jake reached her she was faint. He carried her back to bed, washed her up, changed her and tucked her back in. Then he had to clean up the mess. This cycle repeated itself several more times, but Jake got a little smarter and put a bucket beside her bed.

By
nightfall Maisie Jane seemed to be settling down. She said she was feeling better but Jake wouldn’t let her get out of bed and when he got into bed, he pulled her close and held her in her sleep.

By
morning Maisie Jane was up and feeling fine. Jake was already missing from the bed, but he always got up earlier than she did to tend the animals. She slipped out of bed, fired up the stove stop and got the coffee going.

Jake
was coming up the back steps when Maisie Jane flew out the back door. He caught her around the waist and carried her back inside. “Whoa there, gal, where to you think you’re going?”

“To
do my chores,” Maisie Jane exclaimed. “I’ve got eggs to gather and a cow to milk.”

“Not
today,” Jake said firm. “You were sick all yesterday and last night.”

“But,
I feel fine this morning,” Maisie Jane protested.

“No,”
Jake said pulling her boys coat off and hanging it on the hook by the door.

“Jake!”

“No,” Jake repeated. “No sass, either. I want you taking it easy today.”

Maisie
Jane gave in because when Jake said ‘no sass’ it meant he wasn’t going to change his mind. “Can I make breakfast?”

“I’ll
settle for the rest of the cinnamon rolls you made yesterday.”

“I
ate all of them,” Maisie Jane said with a smirk. “What do you think made me sick?”

“All
of them?” Jake exclaimed looking disappointed. “I was looking forward to them.”

She
giggled and kissed him. “No, I hid them so you wouldn’t. I’ll warm them up in the oven though.”

“Brat!”

There were two more major snowstorms over the next month. Maisie Jane and Jake settled and did what most young homesteaders without young children did during the winter months. They did their respective chores and spent a lot of time making love. Once a week, Jake would drag the big brass tub into the kitchen, set it up in front of the stove. They’d keep the big pots boiling on the stovetop for hot water and share a bath.

The
first break in the weather came in the second week of December. Levi visited, and the men planned a trip into town. The road was so muddy that they decided to ride horses and take packhorses instead of the wagons.

Maisie
Jane begged to go, but Jake was firm. He bundled her up and took her over to Cora’s for the day.

Levi
and Jake did their business and were back home by nightfall. Both men were worried. Jake needed a supply run of feed for the animals and what two packhorses could carry wouldn’t last long. The Madison homestead had gone fallow during the summer months after Brett had left and by the time Jake had arrived the quality of the hay was bad, and had gone to seed. It would keep his livestock alive but there wasn’t any value to the late crop for fattening up stock. If the road didn’t clear up, they’d have to pack in for rest of the winter which was dangerous as bad storms could whip up in a matter of hours.

More
storms hit, harder, with deeper snow. Jake spent part of his days cutting the logs he’d dragged up and left to cure behind the house two months early. Now he spent his time outside in the bitter cold chopping firewood. Maisie Jane had gladly taken a few whacks to her bottom for defying him and took him hot coffee as often as she dared.

Christmas
came and Maisie Jane moved what she called “the ugly table” from between the two large chairs and put up a little green tree. She searched through the bureaus and chests again and found a summer hat and used the straw flowers from it to decorate her little tree.

Christmas
morning Maisie Jane cried because all she had to give Jake as was a used shirt that had belonged to Brett and a pair of socks she’d tried to knit but they didn’t look very good because she was still learning.

Jake
held her in lap and dried her tears and they made love, first slow and easy and then hard and urgent.

“I
have something for you,” Jake said after they’d eaten dinner and were back sitting in one of the large side chairs in front of the fire.

Maisie
Jane turned those beautiful surprised green eyes to him. “How? You haven’t been able to get out.”

“I
picked it up the last time. I probably should have given it to you then, but I waited.”

Maisie
Jane thought of what he’d promised and thought she was getting a new coat. But, Jake pulled a very small envelope out of his pocket and handed it to her.