Part 5 (1/2)
”Good morning,” Carrie said to each person she pa.s.sed. ”Good morning.”
People stared and nodded at this fas.h.i.+on plate vision of loveliness, too dumbfounded to move or reply.
Carrie stopped the horse-if the poor thing could be called that-in front of the mercantile store, where the owner had paused in sweeping the front porch to gape at her. Nodding to him, she said, ”Good morning,” then went inside the cool, dark store.
When the store owner had recovered himself, he leaned his broom against the wall, smoothed his ap.r.o.n front, and went into the store.
Carrie had seated herself on a chair near the empty wood stove and was removing her riding gloves.
”What can I do for you, Miss, ah...”
”Mrs. Greene,” she said confidently. ”Mrs. Joshua Greene.”
”I didn't know Josh got married. Hiram didn't tell me anything about it.”
That was the second time Carrie had heard mention of Hiram, and she had no idea who he was, but she wasn't going to let this man know that. ”It was rather sudden,” she said demurely, trying to make it seem as though she and Josh hadn't been able to help themselves, that their marriage had been a love match.
”I understand,” the store owner said. ”Now, what may I do for you?”
By this time a quarter of the townspeople had decided that they had to buy something at the mercantile store and so had slipped through the door as quietly as possible. They were lining up against the wall opposite Carrie, standing quietly, looking at her as they would have a circus performer.
”I should like to make a few purchases,” Carrie said.
Carrie knew that Josh thought she had no talents because she didn't know how to wash dishes or open cans, but there was a talent that Carrie had in abundance and that was: She knew how to buy things. That statement might cause laughter in some people, but the ability to use money properly is an underestimated talent. Some people with great wealth squander their money on bad investments; they hire incompetent people; if they buy art, they buy fakes.
But Carrie knew how to handle money. She knew how to get ten cents out of every nickel. There was a joke in her hometown that it was better to work for any Montgomery other than Carrie, for she'd get twice as much work out of you for half as much money. Carrie had a way of looking at people with her big blue eyes that made them fall over themselves to do what she wanted.
”I wonder if someone in this lovely town could help me,” she said innocently. ”My husband has asked me to do a few things for him, and I really don't know how to get started.”
When she held up the list of tasks Josh had written out for her, the store owner looked at it, then gave a long, low whistle and pa.s.sed the list to the man behind him, who pa.s.sed it to the person beside him.
”Why, you poor thing,” one woman said upon reading the list. ”What in the world was Josh thinkin' of?”
Carrie sighed. ”I am a brand-new wife and have no idea how to do anything. I don't even know how to open a can.”
”I'd like to show her how to open a can,” one man mumbled, but his wife poked him in the ribs.
”I may not be able to actually do the things my husband wants, but I thought perhaps I could get someone to help me.”
They were willing to give lots of sympathy, but no one rushed forward to volunteer to repair the roof on that shack of Josh's. Compa.s.sion was one thing but sweat was another.
Carrie removed the fat purse from her wrist. ”My father gave me a bit of money before I left home so I wondered if I could hire some people to help me.” She opened the drawstring and poured several coins into her pretty little palm. ”Does it matter that the only coins I have are gold?”
After the initial intake of breath, all h.e.l.l broke loose as people began shoving, kicking, and shouting as they offered Carrie their services to do anything that she wanted them to do. They were her slaves-or perhaps highly paid employees would be more accurate.
Standing up, Carrie went to work. She was a sweet-voiced drill sergeant, but a drill sergeant nonetheless. First, she hired half a dozen women to clean that pigsty Josh called a house, then she bargained with two other women to take Josh's chipped and cracked dirty dishes away in trade for three rose bushes that grew in front of their own houses. Planting was part of the trade.
She bought home-canned goods from nearly every woman in town (all of whom were in the store by now), and she purchased produce from gardens. For the future, she arranged with a woman named Mrs. Emmerling to cook meals and deliver them to Josh's house every other day, paying for a month in advance.
When she was finished with the women, she started on the men. She arranged for the roof to be repaired and the shed to be mended, then hired a carpenter to repair the front door. When she asked if anyone had a porch on his or her house, a porch that they'd like to take down and put up on the front of Josh's house, there was a bidding war on the porch. Carrie went with the man who had the porch with the white posts. She arranged for the house to be painted.
”How soon do you want this done?” one man asked.
Carrie smiled sweetly. ”For every job that's done by sundown tonight, I will pay twelve percent more than the agreed-upon price.”
About twenty people tried to get out the door at the same time.
”Now,” Carrie said, turning back to the store owner. ”I'd like to make a few purchases.”
She bought one can of everything he had in his store. She bought bacon and ham and flour, as well as anything the store owner's wife told her she'd ”need” as a wife. Smiling as though she knew what she was doing, Carrie purchased a can opener, a strange-looking contraption that made no sense to her. She purchased a cookstove that the store owner said anyone could cook on.
She bought lace curtains and panes of gla.s.s, then hired people to install them.
By this time people were running into the store and offering Carrie things to buy, for Eternity was a poor town, and people used any opportunity to earn money. Carrie bought rag rugs, more rose bushes, a solid oak kitchen cabinet, four matching chairs (she traded Josh's chairs for these), quilts, blankets, pillows, and sheets. She bought dishes and silverware (plate, unfortunately, not sterling) from a widower, and she hired women to come once a week and do the laundry.
When a wagon full of furniture came rolling by, owned by a family moving out of Eternity, she bought several pieces, including a big tin bathtub.
By two o'clock she rode out of what was nearly a deserted town, for most of the townspeople were already at Josh's house working, but two big, strong boys came running up and asked what they could do. Carrie hired them to go into the mountains, dig up four sapling trees, and plant them in Josh's front yard.
By three she was back at Josh's house. A circus would have seemed calmer than the chaos around his house, as women tried to plant roses right where men wanted to stand while they painted. Women stole ladders from men fixing the roof, then the painters stole the ladders back. Tempers were short, and there was a great deal of shouting while everyone tried to get his or her job done before the sundown deadline.
Carrie sat on the sidelines, eating bread and b.u.t.ter, feeding tidbits of this and that to Choo-choo, and paying men and women as they finished their jobs. She didn't have to worry about quality of work, for the people were glad enough to report any task that was only half done.
It was summer, so, thankfully, sundown was late in coming, and by the time there was a reddish glow on the horizon, the house was unrecognizable. Smoke poured from the repaired chimney, and over the stench of fresh paint, she could smell roast beef and possibly carrots simmering.
It was almost dark and, thankfully, there was still no sign of Josh or the kids yet when the last tired woman left the house, her money clasped in her hand. Carrie left her place under the shade tree and went back to the house, knowing that what she most wanted was a long, hot bath. She certainly deserved one after the day of work she had done. Having antic.i.p.ated this need, she had arranged for several buckets of hot water to be waiting by the tub set up in the bedroom, so all she had to do was undress herself-a task in itself, considering all the b.u.t.tons on her habit- and step into the water.
Sighing and smiling, pleased with herself and antic.i.p.ating Josh's forthcoming apology, she went back to the house.
Chapter Six.
When Josh and the children rode up the path toward the house, all of them on the same horse, they halted and stared in disbelief. At first Josh thought he'd made a wrong turn, so he reined the horse away and started back down the path. But there was that big clump of aspens that he knew was at the corner of the woods and there was the old fence post so he knew he was in the right area. Turning the horse, he started back toward the house and halted in front of it.
Moonlight shone down on the little building, but the wreck of a house he'd left this morning was gone. In its place was a house with a porch on the front of it. This house was whitewashed instead of being covered with dingy gray boards, and roses grew in front of it; there was sparkling clean gla.s.s in the windows.
”Did the Good Fairy come?” Dallas asked, rubbing her eyes, thinking she was asleep and dreaming.
”Something of that nature,” Josh said through clenched teeth. ”A good fairy with lots of money. Her father's money.”
Josh urged the horse forward, helped the children down, and opened the front door of the house-a door that now moved easily on oiled hinges.
Inside the house, light reflected from several candles and lanterns set about the room, and against one wall set a new cookstove, enameled in bright blue and looking very cheerful. The walls, no longer bare but covered in pretty, rose-printed wallpaper, gleamed. There were rugs on the floors, furniture in the room, the table laid with a cloth and pretty porcelain dishes.
”It's a fairy castle,” Dallas said and Josh winced. The child was too young to remember a time when she'd lived in anything but a hovel, and she didn't remember anything but poorly cooked food and bare floors and an unhappy father. She didn't remember a time when it was her father rather than an outsider who gave her what she needed.
When Josh looked at his son, he saw that Tem, too, was impressed by his new surroundings, and Josh felt angry because he had not been the one to give his children simple, basic things such as good food and a pretty house. Instead, some rich, empty-headed do-gooder from the East Coast had come into their lives and decided to bestow her charity on the poor little family in the mountains. It must have given her great satisfaction to act the Good Fairy, as Dallas called her, Josh thought. When Carrie left, she could tell herself that she had done well, that for a whole week she had given happiness to the dreary little family. She would be able to leave with her conscience clean and free of guilt knowing that she had done so much for the poor dears. But it was going to be Josh who'd have to hold the children when they cried.