Page 45 of The Heart of Bennet Hollow

“I hate radishes,” Lacey whined.

“Well”—Jayne wedged a trowel into the earth—“you don’t have to eat them.”

Lacey tugged at a carrot that had wintered in place, only to fall back onto a mound of dirt. “Besides, it’s not even warm yet.”

“You just sow your row the way I’ve asked and stop your fussin’, li’l missy,” Ma called from the laundry line.

Nearby, Kit and Maryanne lifted a damp sheet to dry in the sunshine.

“Radishes don’t mind cooler weather.” Lizbeth reached for a paper bag with seeds. “Then we’ll be done and can reap the rewards this summer.”

Lacey flicked a messy braid off her shoulder. “Speak for yourself. I don’t know that I’ll be here by then.”

Jayne’s trowel stilled against the damp earth. “What are you talkin’ about?”

“None of your nevermind.” Lacey peeked in Ma’s direction as she ambled farther down the line and out of earshot.

“I agree. What do you mean by that?” Lizbeth sat back on her legs, not minding the dirt on her work skirt.

Lacey jabbed at the spring soil with a trowel bent by her own doing. She struck a pebble and tossed it aside. “Well, it might have somethin’ to do with my fine fella, West.”

“Mr. Westgard?”

“Ugh. It sounds so formal when you say it like that.”

As was right. They scarcely knew him. “I don’t think he’s all you imagine him to be.”

“I agree.” Jayne dug through the basket of the rattling seed packets and squinted at a handwritten label. “You’d do well to end this correspondence between you two.”

“Nonsense. I’d never dream of doin’ such a thing.” Lacey’s own hands, thrown up in argument, were much too clean considering the chore before them. “And he’s plenty able. He’d provide for me good and well, you’d see.”

Lizbeth shook her head. “Please don’t do anything foolish. You don’t know enough about him.”

“Maybe you just want him for yourself.”

“Not in the least.”

Lacey aimed her chin toward the sky. “Then you won’t mind if I take him off the market.”

“Do Ma and Pa know you’re talkin’ this way?” Jayne angled to where Ma was finishing up.

Kit carried the empty basket into the house as Maryanne pinned the final sheet into place, all of them flapping briskly in the breeze.

The only response Lacey gave was to throw her hands up in the air again. “Can I be done now? I’ve got readin’ to finish for school.”

Lizbeth sprinkled a smattering of radish seeds into a furrow. “Finish your row and you can be off.”

Lacey did, sulking all the while and lumping too many seeds together before discarding her tools for Jayne and Lizbeth to gather when they, too, were finished.

Over the garden gate, as Lizbeth shared her worries with Ma, she was countered that Mr. Westgard was a fine man.

Handsome and capable with a good position as a miner in Pennsylvania.

He could offer Lacey a decent future. “When Lacey’s of age in a year or two, he’d make a good match for her,” Ma explained.

“I’m not so sure. I fear they’d be the ruin of one another.” Lacey was much too childish, and the man she was sweet on, questionable in return.

Ma waved away the concern. “Well, there’s time enough to worry about that. Lacey ain’t goin’ away from us just yet.”

“I hope you’re right.” Lizbeth watched as Ma shuffled off to cluck at one of the barn cats for swatting at her clean sheets and wished that rogue suitors might be as easy to shoo away.

A luster lived in the evening, one akin to optimism as Lizbeth stood upstairs in their bedroom, tying a rag into Jayne’s hair. “These curls should set up real nice come mornin’.”

Jayne touched her rag-covered head, then raised Mrs. Jorgensen’s used magazine that she’d given to Lizbeth along with Mr. Jorgensen’s unwanted newspapers.

There on the cover of McCall’s stood a woman in high fashion, her hair done up in the latest style.

“I wonder how they managed these folds in the front.”

“I suppose we’ll just have to practice.” Lizbeth tied the last rag at the nape of Jayne’s neck.

“Don’t wind it too tight. It says here the curls are just for body and’ll be brushed out in the mornin’.”

“Too late.”

Using the magazine, which held everything from new dress patterns to an advertisement for Heinz Tomato Soup, Jayne swatted at Lizbeth’s arm.

“You best be careful with that, now. May be the last one we ever see.” Lizbeth bent to better inspect her handiwork. “Though I saw in the back that if you become a subscriber, they’ll send you nine doilies in the mail.”

Jayne laughed. “At fifty cents a year, I better get the job down at the mine office to afford it.” Her smile in the mirror was hopeful as she gently smoothed the cover of the magazine.

“Thank you for the help. I’m sure I’m goin’ to too much bother.

It’s only for an afternoon. But I mean to present myself as neatly as possible tomorrow.

This is a good opportunity. Eighty-five cents a payroll. Just to do sums.”

“I’m already proud of you.” Lizbeth adjusted a rag.

“I’ll be glad for the work. Just think how quickly that could add up and I could give all of it to Pa. Do you think Mr. Jorgensen’ll hire me? I didn’t get as high of grades as Hattie but came in third on the state exams our last year of schooling, right behind her.”

“I think you have a better shot than anyone. And he’ll need someone until the mine sale goes through. There’s a good chance the future owner would keep you as well, just like the miners.” Lizbeth tucked the unused rags back into their lidded basket.

“Exactly. It’s one of the reasons I want to try and get the position now,” Jayne said. “And as for you—I hear you have more stitching to do. I’m so proud of you, Lizzy, for what you did for Pa. All of us.”

Lizbeth glanced to the new piece of linen now draped over a chair that already held the first row of alphabet letters.

“Lots of stitching to do, which I don’t mind.

And I’ve been thinking I might help Pa fix up the pasture fence.

I haven’t done that sort of thing yet and it’s time I learn.

I wonder if there’s a way to make a living carin’ for mules. ”

There was a smile in Jayne’s voice as she crawled beneath the quilt of her bottom bunk. “If anyone can find a way, it’d be you.”

Lizbeth climbed the ladder to the top bunk and settled in. Jayne blew out the lantern. In the silence of the room, she sensed Jayne just as awake.

“Jayne?”

“Yes?”

“Will you tell Callum about your interview in your next letter?”

“I will,” Jayne answered in the dark.

Sitting up, Lizbeth fumbled for the matchbook. She found it, struck a flame, and lowered the glow to the stub of a candle on the windowsill beside her, then peered over the edge of her top bunk. The soft spark flickered across the room. “What do you think’ll happen if he asks you to marry him?”

Jayne pushed aside one of her rag curls to squint sleepily up at Lizbeth. “Do you reckon he’s thinkin’ about that already?”

“Oh, I believe he was thinkin’ of that the first night he met you.”

Jayne smiled. “I hope so, but we’ve only written a few letters back and forth.”

“Well, I suspect there’ll be many more.”

Jayne smiled again. “It’s so good to hear his voice.

Even in a letter. I can imagine him. His heart and his kindness.

It’s a gift like no other. I want to cherish it for as long as I can.

I’m so thankful to his friend, Mr. Drake, for helpin’ us as he has.

Lizzy, he’s really not as bad as you once described.

” Jayne tucked her pillow back beneath her head.

Not yet brave enough to admit how wrong she’d been about him, Lizbeth reached for the candle and blew it out. Along with the scent of smoke came her sister’s soft words in the dark.

“But...” Jayne sighed. “Maybe I don’t know as much about love as I thought I did. I’m glad we get to figure it out together. Makes the road a mite less lonely.”