he have been the first? “I didn’t much care for the way Betsy watched you.”
“Miss Morgan is very pretty, isn’t she?”
Far too pretty to be single. But that mattered not to him in the least. “She’s passable, I suppose.”
Auntie May, mussing about in the kitchen, snorted loudly. Emmet chose to ignore it.
“You might like her better than me.”
“Oh, Ellie.” He pulled a stool close to her side and cradled her in his arms as best as the body cast allowed. “I will never like anyone better than you. Not so long as I live.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.” He held her close a moment longer, then she squirmed free.
“Tell me a story.”
“I’m not much good at storytelling.”
“Tell me about Grandma and Grandpa.”
He sucked in air. All she knew was they had died when he was nine. He never talked about them. It was another life. This was his life now. “How about if I tell you about the night you were born?”
“Okay.” She sounded less than enthusiastic. Perhaps because she’d heard the story before.
So he tried to up the drama and suspense of that long-ago night when the doctor had come in the middle of an October snowstorm and the electricity had gone off. His little daughter had been delivered by flickering lamplight. And he’d fallen smash, dash in love with his tiny girl. “I loved you from your first breath, and I will love you until my last breath.” He squeezed her gently.
Ellie giggled. “Daddy, you’re silly.”
“Silly about you.”
“Then you won’t make me do schoolwork?”
Emmet laughed, pleased at her wily ways. “You’ll still have to do schoolwork.” He scooped up the gray cat and put it on the bed beside Ellie. “You play with the cat while I do some chores.” He didn’t intend to sit around and let Auntie May do everything. He’d noticed a number of neglected things he planned to take care of while he was here.
Later, after he fixed a broken step and cleaned out weeds blown around the back shed, he returned to play with Ellie.
“I wish you would stay with me all day.”
“I wish I could too, Button. But I can’t.” Having Louisa Morgan spend a few hours each day with Ellie would make it better for both him and his daughter.
Next morning, Emmet waited at the front door for Louisa to arrive. He’d had a restless night, wondering if he did right by Ellie, forcing her to take lessons while confined to bed. But Louisa said she’d spent time in a similar situation. Had she been ill? It was hard to believe. She looked in perfect health.
A battered-looking car, a Model A, wheezed to the front gate. Louisa stepped daintily from the vehicle. She moved as if she anticipated what life had to offer. Her cheeks glowed. Her skin was like pure silk, and curly dark hair framed her oval face. A dark pink dress with a flowery pattern accented her chinalike complexion and swirled about her legs as she turned. If she had any physical flaws, he did not detect them, and if she suffered any chronic illness, it didn’t reveal itself in the way she moved.
She leaned into the backseat and pulled out a satchel so heavy it required she use both hands to set it on the ground. Then she dragged an awkward board out, set it beside the satchel and bent to extract some lengths of wood.
All this to teach Ellie a little reading, writing and ’rithmetic? He stepped outside. “Can I give you a hand with those things?”
She sent him a smile full of gratitude that sneaked through his defenses and delivered a king-size wallop to a spot behind his heart.
He sank a mental fist into the area and pushed it into oblivion. “Seems you’re serious about this tutoring business.”
She laughed. Music seemed to fill the air. He glanced around to see if a door was open, if someone was playing the piano. All doors were closed. He shifted his gaze to the trees. Birds sang an accompaniment to the sound. He concluded the music came from Louisa’s laugh. “I like to do a good job.”
“I’ll take the bag. It looks heavy.” He grunted as he hoisted it from the ground. “Did you bring bricks?”
Another musical chuckle. “Just books. Some Adele—Miss Ross—loaned from the school and some I brought from home.” She tucked the longer pieces of wood under one arm and tried to tackle the bigger piece, but it was almost as big as she.
“I’ll take that. What is it?”
She turned it to show the other side. “A blackboard. My brother-in-law, Judd, made this tripod. See, the legs extend so I can write on the board then raise it so Ellie can see it from her position in bed. Isn’t that clever?”
“Oh, very.”
She chuckled. It seemed everything amused her, pleased her.
Obviously, he thought with a shade of bitterness, she had not encountered major difficulties in her life.
They struggled toward the house and dropped the items on the floor.
“Is that all?”
“Yes. Thanks for helping.”
They stood in the doorway to catch their breath. “We sure need rain.” Clever conversation, Emmet mocked himself. But what did it matter? He was only being polite.
“Rain, an end to grasshoppers, better commodity prices. So many things. I know my sister thinks the government should fix the country’s problems, but I prefer to trust God. He’ll change things when He sees fit. In the meantime, I will trust Him for my daily needs.”
Her faith sounded nice. But would she trust if everything she valued was snatched away? Would she say God was treating her fairly? Would her faith falter? But he didn’t want to talk about trials and how they affected one’s faith. His own hung on by a tiny thread. “I neglected to ask about your family. Do you come from a large one? Tell me about them.”
“I have two younger sisters. Madge is a year younger. She married Judd last fall. Sally is two years younger. She lives at home as do I, with our mother.” She paused a beat then went on. “My father died four years ago. I still miss him.” Her voice thickened.
Emmet stilled an urge to squeeze her shoulder. “My parents died eighteen years ago and I still miss them.”
“Oh.” Her lips formed a little circle, and her eyes widened. “I thought it would get easier with time.”
“It gets easier. Just never goes away.”
“I remember him at the silliest times. A certain hymn will bring tears to my eyes. Or the smell of molasses cookies, which he loved. Or—” She shrugged. “I suppose it’s the same for you.”
