Instant Prairie Family

Taking in a slow, deep breath, she prayed silently that God would protect her and lead her to the right place. The smoky air from the train did little to settle her stomach, but her nerves calmed slightly as she closed her eyes and imagined God watching her step onto the wooden platform. It didn’t manage to go quite as smoothly as she’d imagined. Between the noises, the smoke and the bright sun, she tripped, lurching forward.

A strong and calloused hand reached out and caught her upper arm and kept her from falling. She blinked, finding herself face-to-face with a stern frown chiseled into a bronzed face, piercing blue eyes focused on hers. His face was shadowed by his straw hat, as if shrouded in mystery.

“Careful, miss.” His voice were low and gentle, surprisingly cultured for a man in ripped overalls, a faded black vest and a threadbare cotton shirt. He held a child in his other arm. The boy clung to his shoulders as the man stepped back and released Abby. Strangely, she felt drawn toward him. He made her feel safe.

“Thank—” Her words were cut off by the shrill of the train’s whistle and the belching of smoke that followed. The man looked past her, obviously searching to find someone else. It shouldn’t have bothered her to so quickly lose his attention, but he had seemed nice...sincere.

Now was not the time to consider her confusing feelings. She needed to look for Mrs. Hopkins. Maybe the woman would be waiting with a wagon over by the station so they could get Abby’s luggage off the train and head home. Abby made her way through the throngs of people to the end where men were unloading the freight. Seeing her three chests set to the side, she sighed with relief. She turned to study the faces of the people rushing around her.

Suddenly she felt very small and alone. What would happen if she couldn’t find Mrs. Hopkins? The thought had never even occurred to her until she stood watching the other passengers meeting with their families or heading off to the livery to procure transportation. Soon she was completely alone. Minutes passed, but there wasn’t a woman nearby who could have been Mrs. Hopkins.

She took a seat on one of the benches and prayed, hoping Mrs. Hopkins would arrive before she concocted a backup plan. The sun shone bright and the air stifled her very breath. It was hotter here than it ever got back at home in May. Her stomach churned, reminding her that the last thing she had had to eat was a greasy sandwich of scrambled eggs and some unidentifiable meat she’d barely swallowed down at daybreak at a tiny train stop.

Where could Mrs. Hopkins be? Did something happen to keep her from coming? Abby tried to pray, but the thoughts all got jumbled up in her head.

* * *

Will waited while a large family with a passel of kids piled off the train. A few men and a pretty, young lady who needed some assistance disembarking followed. Maybe Miss Stewart was having trouble gathering her things or had difficulty with the jerky motion of the train’s stop. Did she need aid to exit the train? Will hoped he hadn’t hired someone who was too feeble to be able to carry out basic chores.

“Excuse me, sir. Could you tell me if there are any more passengers getting off at Twin Oaks?” he asked the conductor.

“No, sir. Everyone’s disembarked,” the man answered. “Is there someone you’re looking for?”

“Our auntie House,” Tommy replied before Will could get a word in edgewise.

“He means our new housekeeper.” Willy offered the information before Will could intervene.

“Yeah, her. She’s old like our other mean auntie, but she’ll be nice ’cuz Pa’s gonna pay her to be nice and teach us lots a’stuff like how to be gent’men.” Tommy picked up the story, hanging off his father’s neck precariously to peek into the train.

“I’ll bet she saw the prairie and got off the train back in... What state is that where the prairie starts?” Willy questioned midsentence.

Taking control of the conversation before the boys told all of the family secrets, Will eyed the conductor again. “Are you sure Miss Stewart wasn’t onboard? She should have been in her fifties. She was coming to fill a position of housekeeper and tutor for my children. She would have been coming from Ohio.”

“Nope. The only woman traveling alone was Miss Stevens.” The conductor’s gaze followed the girl who had just tripped off the train, and he pointed toward her. “That’s her. She was going to be a housekeeper, all right—but for a widow woman...” He looked deep in thought as if he was trying to remember something. “Mrs. Hopple or Hope.”

“That young lady?” Will clarified.

“Yes, sir.” The conductor looked Will over from head to toe through narrowed eyes. “You had better behave around that young lady. She’s very special,” he warned in spite of his obvious disadvantage in height and build. Will looked down on the smaller man and wondered wryly just exactly what the man thought he would be able to do if the situation arose.

There was no reason to upset him, though. “I don’t doubt it,” Will said in a pacifying tone. “I have no intentions of bothering anyone. I just came to look for my new housekeeper. Are you sure she wasn’t on the train?”

“No, sir, I’ve been on the train since we headed out of Illinois three days ago. There was no other woman that came alone except for Miss Standish. I hope everything is all right with your new housekeeper. Maybe she will be on next week’s train.”

Will felt the stirring of annoyance, then something akin to anger. If Miss Stewart wasn’t on the train, she had just made off with five dollars’ worth of his hard-earned cash. He had sent her a ticket and asked her to let him know if there were any obstacles that would keep her from arriving on this train. There was plenty of time for her to have sent a letter or a wire. He knew that she hadn’t because he’d checked both at the post office and at the mercantile for any messages before coming to the train depot.

“Thank you for your time.” He barely remembered to be civil as embarrassment and frustration warred within him. What kind of fool must the conductor think he was?

“Let’s go get something to eat.” Will forced a pleasant tone even though he was simmering inside.

“But shouldn’t we wait for Auntie House?” Tommy questioned innocently.

“She didn’t come. She’s just like all the rest of the women. They won’t live out here in the wilderness and let the Injuns scalp them. She won’t come to live out here. Even our own mother didn’t want to stay with us here.” Willy shouted the last part and darted off, not paying attention to the wagons or horses on the dirt street.

“Willy! Wait, son! You can’t go running—”

He caught up to Willy two blocks away. The boy was hunched over, hiding in an alleyway with his face in his hands. Just before Will reached him, he let out a sob.

“Willy.” Will set Tommy down and pulled Willy into his arms, holding him tight. “I don’t know why Miss Stewart didn’t arrive when we expected her, but it’s all going to work out. Maybe she wasn’t the one God wanted taking care of you and Tommy. Or maybe she is, and she’ll come on the next train.”

Even as Will said the words, he realized he was too far behind with the farm chores to make the trip again in a week. He would have to leave some kind of message at the train station just in case. And if there was a next time, he certainly would not be bringing the boys with to have their expectations dashed to the ground.

“No one wants to live out here. Auntie Shelia said it and so did Ma. It’s a savage land with savages running around with no clothes on, killing people. I’m glad she didn’t come. She would have been mean just like Auntie Shelia. Women are just trouble. I’m glad we don’t have any at the house.” The boy straightened his shoulders and pulled away from his father.

Will wasn’t sure exactly what he should do. Willy’s speech just showed him how much he had failed his boys. His own mother was wonderful... It was a crying shame the boys hadn’t had a chance yet to know a woman like her—kind, generous and loving. But how could he possibly convince his sons of that if the only women they had lived with were women who had made life miserable at home? Was it time to think of sending the boys back to Philadelphia to be raised where they could get an education and where his mother could instill some appreciation for women into them?

“I know it’s hard to believe, but there are some women who are good and gentle. Like your grandma and my sisters, your aunts and then there’s Mrs. Scotts. You like her….” The boys did like Mrs. Scotts, and the other women who attended their small church. But with the busy lives these farmers’ wives led, there wasn’t much time for visiting with neighbors. They only saw them for a little while at church the one Sunday a month they had services. And that short amount of time wasn’t enough to really know anyone. Even Caroline had been pleasant enough to their neighbors for a few short hours at church each month. It was when they were home that her mood had changed.

He stood and took Tommy’s hand in his right and Willy’s in his left. “What d’ya say we go get something to eat now? We need to head back in an hour or so if we’re going to get to the river before nightfall. Maybe we can bag that stag we saw last night.”

Tommy happily started chattering about their trip back and what animal he wanted to hunt as they headed back down the main street to the hotel. Willy swiped at his face with his hands and then his nose with his sleeve before Will could produce a handkerchief.

“Where’s your kerchief?” he asked.

“I forgot, Pa.” Willy blew his nose soundly.

“I ain’t got no kerchief, Pa,” Tommy reminded him. “You were gonna give me one and then you forgot.”

“Sorry, son. We’ll get you a few at the house.” At least he hoped that there were still some hankies somewhere in the house.

A few minutes later, Will and the boys sat at a table in the dining area of the hotel, perusing the menu. “Pa, what are you going to eat?” Tommy’s questions never stopped. Without letting his father answer him, he launched into his own opinion of the food, what he wanted, and ended with another question. “Why don’t you cook like this, Pa?”

“Well, son,” Will hedged. “I guess some things I just haven’t learned yet.”

“Maybe our auntie House...I mean our Miss Auntie could do it better,” Tommy reassured him.

“Don’t you understand anything!” Willy yelled at his brother. “She’s not coming!”

“But I want her to,” Tommy whined. “I want someone to cook better than Pa and fix my clothes so we could go to the meeting with nice clothes like Jill.”

“Boys!” Will exclaimed, glaring at his offspring. He gave a short lecture on the right way to behave in public. Even as he was speaking, he remembered his father saying something very similar when he was young. When both boys calmed down, he nodded approval.

The waitress came and took their order, smiling and teasing the boys before she left. Comfortably plump, the woman looked to be about Will’s mother’s age. “Maybe we can ask her if she wants to be our auntie... How do you call it again?” Tommy quizzed his brother when the waitress left.

Before Will could stop the conversation, Tommy turned his attention to the door. Standing up in his chair, he grinned, pointing and then waving at someone who had entered. “There she is, Pa. That lady that you caught at the train. Maybe she’ll be our—”

“Tomas, sit down and put your arm down!” Will was about to pick both boys up and take them to the wagon. It was downright embarrassing that he had come all this way for nothing, and now the boys were making a ruckus here.

“But she’s here, Pa. She looks really nice,” Tommy whispered this time, dropping back into his seat but still staring at someone behind Will.