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“So?”
“You carry bolts of fabric, do you not?”
“Yep.” Leah gritted her teeth. “May I see some?”
The mercantile owner glared at her without speaking, and her pulse began to throb at her temple. The man was being deliberately rude. Well, she could be just as deliberate.
“Never mind, Mr. Ness.” She swept her gaze over the empty aisles. “I can see how busy you are this morning. I will find the bolts myself.”
She pivoted away from the counter and marched up and down the aisles of shovels and skillets and lanterns until she found what she wanted. Bolts of wool, blue denim, and a variety of calico prints were stacked high on one shelf. Denim, she decided. And the red calico for a shirtwaist.
She muscled the heavy bolts off the shelf, returned to the counter, where Mr. Ness was still bent over his newspaper, and dumped the load next to the black iron cash register.
“Five yards of the denim, please. And three of the calico.”
Ness shuffled a few feet to his left, lifted a large pair of scissors tied to the counter with a grimy string, and measured out the fabric along a yardstick nailed to The counter edge. With a vicious twist of his bony arms he ripped off the measured yardage. The sound jarred her nerves almost to the breaking point.
“That’ll be seventy-five cents.”
“Please add it to the MacAllister account.”
“Thad MacAllister don’t have an account here,” Ness stated.
Stunned, Leah stared at him. “Why, of course he has an—”
“Not anymore, he doesn’t.” The mercantile owner shuffled back to his newspaper.
Leah slapped her palm down on the counter so hard it stung, but she got his attention. “My husband does have an account at the mercantile, Mr. Ness. And you will please add this purchase to it.”
She reached out, spun the wheel of brown wrapping paper next to the cash register, tore off a length and neatly bundled up her fabric. Ness stared at her, but she swept past him to the entrance.
The jangle of bells on the door mocked the words echoing in her brain. Her father’s words. Turn the other cheek.
No! This time she could not follow Father’s teaching. This time she was here in Smoke River where she was fighting to belong, and this time she would fight back!
Furiously Leah pumped the sewing machine treadle up and down with her foot and struggled to tamp down her anger. When the blue denim gradually turned into a four-gore Western-style work skirt, her frown began to lift. By the time she cut out pieces for the red calico shirtwaist, using her old one as a pattern, she had calmed down enough to unclench her jaw and let herself cry it out. She basted and wept for an entire hour.
At dusk Thad tramped in, followed by Teddy, who had been out clearing weeds from her kitchen garden. Thad took one look at her reddened nose and swollen eyes and swore aloud.
“Carl Ness, is it?”
Leah nodded. “How did you know?”
“Heard about it from Whitey Poletti next door.” Thad laid his hand briefly on her hunched shoulder. “I let Carl know he won’t get away with insulting you.” He chuckled deep in his throat. “One was all it took.”
She blinked. “One what?” Thad looked up at the ceiling, down at the plank floor, anywhere but at her. When he spoke she had to strain to hear him.
“One, um, punch. Straight to his gut.”
“Oh, Thad, you shouldn’t—”
“Yes, I should, Leah. I had to.” He chuckled again. “Sure felt good.”
By Christmas, Leah’s life had settled into a work schedule for cleaning the house, doing the farm chores that fell to her and helping Teddy with his homework. On Mondays she hauled the tin washtub into the side yard, built a fire in the pit Thad had dug and filled with bricks, and boiled the mud and grime out of their jeans and shirts and smallclothes and her own work skirts and aprons.
Tuesdays she heated the two sadirons on the stove and ironed everything except for her pink silk night robe. That she smoothed by hand and hung by the fireplace. Wednesdays she mended Teddy’s jean pockets and frayed knees and Thad’s split shoulder seams, and cut and sewed new striped-ticking skirts and lawn shirtwaists for the warm weather she prayed would come soon. the cold, dreary winter months were eating away at her spirits.
Thursday was baking day. By noon, eight fragrant loaves of bread crowded the kitchen table, and by evening at least one apple pie or dried-peach cobbler was bubbling in the oven. On Fridays, Leah sewed and later sat hemming her new garments in the armchair by the fire. She was also knitting a muffler for Thad. Red, for good luck.
Each week was a repeat of the one before. She cooked and scrubbed floors and swept the kitchen and the porch, made up the beds with clean sheets, dusted and straightened Teddy’s loft, and put out clean towels.
