style="font-size:15px;"> She wanted to know about Mrs. Callender as a person. What kind of woman planted brilliant scarlet flowers in a thin, straight line like carefully spaced soldiers marching toward the front steps? Had Mrs. Callender been a kind woman? Did she like to laugh? Was she warm and caring as well as beautiful?
“Miss Tess never cared much for. Ah, well, never you mind. The bairn’s beginnin’ to wail, do ye hear? You’d best warm that milk you set such store by. I put your bucket in the pantry cooler. After that, you can help me with the ironing. I got too much starch in the doctor’s shirts again, and they scorch easy.”
Tess never cared for what? Erika wanted to shout, but Mrs. Benbow dismissed her with a wave. She pondered the unanswered question all the way up the stairs to the nursery. Perhaps later. She would spend all afternoon in the sweltering kitchen, helping the housekeeper with the ironing. Maybe then the old woman would finish that intriguing sentence.
But she did not Erika labored for hours over the starched white shirts as the baby slept in the nursery upstairs. By late afternoon her hands ached from lifting the heavy, nickel-plated sadiron and guiding it over the pleated shirtfronts. The six-mile walk out to Cyrus Peck’s farm and back early this morning hadn’t bothered Erika’s strong legs a bit, but pushing the heavy iron back and forth over acres of white linen made her shoulders ache.
The housekeeper smoothed sheets and pillowcases with a second iron until she plopped exhausted into the single chair next to the stove. “Teatime,” she announced in her raspy voice.
The thought of drinking a cup of scalding tea made Erika groan out loud. The kitchen was stifling, the air hot and heavy with moisture, the smell of scorch and tomato puree suffocating. She longed for a cool drink of spring water.
“You have a complaint, missy?” Mrs. Benbow queried, an unpleasant edge to her voice.
“Nein. No. Is very hot. I warm easy.”
The housekeeper sniffed. “A hothouse girl. But you work hard, I’ll say that for ye.”
“Papa used to say I do everything ‘hard.’ I do not like halfway things.”
Mrs. Benbow glanced up. “Your father is dead?”
Erika nodded. “Mama, too. Of fever, last year. We do not have doctor in my village.”
A curious look crossed the housekeeper’s face. “You mean you came to America alone? All by yourself?”
“Ja. No other way. No one in village want to leave, even though things there very bad. So I come alone.”
“Were…weren’t you frightened?”
“Oh, yes. I come anyway. Nobody see how I shake on inside.”
The housekeeper rose and set the teakettle on the stove. “I came with my Donald. I didna want to leave my home, but Donald wanted to build ships in America. Men are like that. They want to do things.”
“I also want,” Erika replied. “I want to speak good American, and be able to write, so I can become citizen. Maybe someday vote.”
“Vote! My stars, girl, are ye daft?”
Erika fished in her apron pocket for her notebook. “How spell ‘daft,’ please?”
“Never you mind. All a woman ought to want is a husband and babes of her own. All I wanted was my Donald, but he up and died in Philadelphia three years after we were married. I have been with the Callender family ever since.”
The kettle began to sing. Erika lifted it off the hot stove and poured the steaming water into a flowered china teapot. “I am sad you lose husband,” she said in a soft voice. “But glad you are here in Plum Creek.”
Mrs. Benbow jerked upright. “Are you, now? Then it’s daft you are for sure! I haven’t been—” She broke off. “Why in the world are ye glad?”
Erika handed the older woman a mug of tea. “Because,” she said slowly, “you learn—I mean, teach me things.”
“I do? You’ve been here just three days, missy! Just what is it I’ve taught you?”
Erika cradled the warm mug of tea in her hands. “You do not like me, but you care for doctor. I learn is possible to ‘get along.’ And I watch at dinner. You show me what spoon to eat soup with, which glass for water.”
She purposely avoided mentioning how she learned the difference between the blue flowered vegetable dish and the ceramic washbowl she now used for bathing the baby.
Mrs. Benbow gaped at her, her snapping black eyes widening as she peered over the rim of her mug.
“And I learn also about doctor’s wife,” Erika continued.
“Miss Tess? Now, why on earth.” The older woman’s voice trailed away.
“Tomorrow I replace flowers. Want to do what is proper, like real lady would.”
The housekeeper’s thin gray eyebrows went straight up. “If you don’t mind some advice, child, I’d leave well enough alone about those flowers. You’ve done enough for one week.”
She plunked her mug down on the table and rose. “Now, let’s just finish up these few pieces of linen before I have to start supper.”
A fluttery Tithonia Brumbaugh swept open the front door of the mayor’s two-story house on Chestnut Street. “Why, good afternoon, Dr. Callender,” she warbled. “I didn’t expect a call so soon after—”
Jonathan cut the plump woman off with a curt nod. The mayor’s wife had an unerring knack for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. “Is the mayor in?” he inquired, his tone brusque.
“Why, no. Plotinus is over at the bank, where he spends most Tuesdays. Won’t you come in?” She peered at his face. “Forgive me, Jonathan, but you look dreadful. Is anything wrong?”
Jonathan ground his teeth. Everything was wrong.
“Thank you, no. I’ll drop in at the bank.” He tipped his hat and retreated to the buggy. Daisy jerked forward before the whip snapped over her head.
So he looked “dreadful,” did he? And he’d forgotten again what day of the week it was. At this rate, he would never regain his equilibrium.
Damn Tess, anyway. It had been an uphill struggle ever since the day he laid eyes on her, all ruffles and furbelows, in Colonel Rowell’s Savannah drawing room. She’d torn up his heart and tossed it away as casually as she poured tea and ordered the servants about.
When he reached Main Street, he slowed the mare to a walk. By the time he stopped the buggy in front of the bank, Jonathan had calmed himself and tried to forgive Tess for the hundredth time for setting her cap for him and then dying.
“Summon Mr. Brumbaugh,” he ordered the young man behind the wire cage. “Tell him it’s urgent.”
“Yessir, Dr. Callender, right away. Say, Ma’s sure been feelin’ better since you gave her those pills
