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She slid a plate of fried eggs and biscuits in front of Teddy and joined them at the breakfast table. Thad reached over and snagged one of the biscuits from Teddy’s plate.
“The dance will be out at the Jensen place. We’ll take the wagon.”
Teddy hung his head over his plate. “Pa, do I hafta dance with a girl?”
“Sure you do, son. Girls are nice.” He sent Leah a secret look, and then jerked upright. Girls were nice! And Leah…well, Leah was more than nice. All at once he couldn’t breathe.
“Aw, Pa, I don’t like girls. At school they all tease me. All ’cept Manette Nicolet, and she’s only five.”
“Tease you about what?”
Teddy studied his half-buttered biscuit. “About, um, about Leah.”
Two forks clattered onto china plates. Leah stared at the boy. “What do they say?” Thad demanded. His voice was barely under control.
Teddy’s gaze moved back and forth from the flour-sack tablecloth to the butter dish. “They say all kinds of stuff, Pa. About how Leah don’t belong here, an’ she’s too pretty to be…to be…They say she’s prob’ly a—”
“Teddy!” Thad raised his hand. Leah knew what he was about to say. “They say I must be a bad woman because I am Chinese,” she finished.
Teddy’s head drooped even lower. “’Cept they don’t say ‘Chinese.’ They say ‘filthy Chink.’”
Ice water flooded Leah’s veins. Thad’s fist smacked the table so hard the sugar bowl jumped. “Do they, now?” he roared.
“Yeah. I punched Edith Ness on the nose, an’ Miz Johnson whaled us both good. My rear end was sore for a whole day.”
“And?” his father asked, his voice suddenly quiet.
“And now Edith an’ her sister Noralee won’t speak to me.”
Leah sat rooted to her chair, torn between anger on Teddy’s behalf and humiliation at being called a—Well, she need not think of that. The cruel slur cut deep. She wanted to cry, but at the same time a small part of her wanted to laugh over Teddy’s girl problem.
Thad’s russet eyebrows lowered. “Will Edith Ness be at the dance?”
“I s’pose so, Pa. Mr. Ness is gonna supply the apples for bobbing.”
Leah laid her hand on Thad’s forearm. “Do not make an issue of it. I have been called names before.”
Frown lines creased his forehead. “I won’t have it,” he said heavily. “Not as long as you’re my wife.”
Leah’s cheeks grew hot and she looked down into her lap. Oh, no. Already she could see him bloodied and battered after some fight on her behalf.
She stood up abruptly. “I—I am going out to feed the chickens.”
“Again?” Thad gave her an odd look. “You fed them once already this morning. Don’t you remember?”
Oh, yes, she remembered. She had purposely crawled out of bed before the sun was up, tossed a handful of grain into the yard for the hens and then clambered back under the covers next to Thad. What had happened after that she would never forget.
She could not help smiling. But she noticed Thad was staring intently out the window. And not smiling.
Teddy hung around all that day while Leah baked bread and made apple pies and scoured out the butter churn. For a while she thought the boy was hoping for a sweet snack, but he refused the bread and strawberry jam she offered, and he even turned up his nose at a slice of fresh apple pie.
Something was wrong. Finally, late in the afternoon, he sidled up to her while she was rolling out another piecrust.
“Leah? Kin I ask you somethin’?”
“You can ask me anything, Teddy. What is it?”
“Remember when you showed me how to run fast? Like you learned in China? Well, I was wonderin’…Do you know anything about, well, about fighting?”
“Isn’t your father teaching you how to box?”
“Yeah, but he keeps talkin’ about playing fair and not hittin’ below the—you know.”
Leah propped her floury hands on her hips. “And you want some tricks, is that it?”
“Yep.” His grin told her everything.
“And you think I know about these tricks, do you?”
“Yep. You told me about the bullies chasin’ you back in China. I bet you were good at gettin’ away from ’em, huh?”
Leah had to laugh. she had been very good at defending herself, she acknowledged. The proof was that she was alive, she was here and she was whole in body and spirit.
“Yes, I could defend myself, Teddy. An old shopkeeper in our town took me aside one day and taught me some things.”
