Teaching Miss Maisie Jane (12 page)

Finally,
nuzzled against his chest Maisie Jane lifted her head. “Are you still mad at me?”

Jake
shook his head. “No, I’m not mad at you. It would have been easier if I had been mad, but I wasn’t.”

“But,
you still spanked me,” Maisie Jane said confused.

“I
know,” Jake admitted. “And it was hard thing for me to do Maisie Jane. It was something I didn’t want to do, but something I had to do. And, I’m ashamed to say, but part of that spanking was my fault.”

Maisie
Jane just looked up at him with confused eyes.

Jake
nodded. “Two nights ago, when you pointed my Colt at Juan Alvarez I should have spanked the tar out of you right then. But, I let you down. Instead of correcting you, I was more concerned about being embarrassed in front of my old friend. I let it go, and I shouldn’t have. If I’d done my duty, and corrected you immediately, you probably wouldn’t have pointed that rifle at Levi Campbell. You would have thought about it and known what the consequences for such actions would be. I failed you, and you paid the price for it.”

Maisie
Jane swallowed. “Are you apologizing?”

Jake
pulled her to him tightly and gave a sigh. “I reckon I am, for being so hard on you. Maisie Jane, sometimes you are so spoiled and willful; it sorely does try a man. I’m not apologizing for the spanking, you earned that, but I am sorry for not taking you in hand and correcting you two nights ago. If I had, that second part of the spanking wouldn’t have had to happen. As new as you are to being a wife, darling, I’m new at being a husband.”

“Do
you want me as a wife, Jake?”  Maisie Jane whispered with a hitch in her voice. “Not because you had to marry me, but because you want to keep me?”

Jake
smiled. “Yes, of course I want to keep you as my wife. On some of your wifely duties, you’re making me a very happy man. Now, dry those tears up and give me kiss.”

Maisie
Jane did just that, and Jake tilted her sideways just enough to be able to trail and line of kisses down to her breasts. Maisie Jane gave a sigh of contentment and looked over to the saddle on the floor.

“Jake?”

“Hmmm,” he said a little distracted by making circles around her nipples with his tongue.

“Do
you think, it’s time to put the saddle on the bed again?” Maisie Jane asked turning beat red at her daring.

Jake
froze for only a second and then he raised his eyes to hers. “Oh, you are making me a very happy man.”

Jake
lay spread eagled again, exhausted and the cause of that exhaustion was lying across his chest on her back, her were feet propped on the saddle so her sore little bottom wouldn’t rub so much against the linens.

“Woman,
you’re trying to kill me,” Jake exclaimed fondling her breasts and giving her a long kiss.

Maisie
Jane laughed. “Well, I don’t want to die, so maybe you can take that saddle to barn where it belongs.”

Jake
shook his head. “No ma’am, that saddle’s going to have a permanent place right here in this bedroom.”

“Jake?”
Maisie Jane said with a teasing tone in her voice.

“Yeah
?”

“I
have the squigglies.”

Jake’s
head came up but he was grinning. “Lord, I’m going to die a happy man. Where’s that saddle?”

Jake stood in the front door looking out over the barnyard. Just looking. It was a pretty place. A wind came up and a shower of leaves fell to the ground. Fall was setting in, but fall was short season in the Nevada high desert. September only had a few days left in it, and snow could come as early as next month. He had a lot to get done if they were going to winter here.

Maisie
Jane came out to stand beside him and he drew her in, and put his chin down on the top of her head.

“It’s
pretty here,” Maisie Jane said as Jake’s arms tucked her into him. “It looks like home.”

“Do
you miss Baltimore?”

Maisie
Jane shook her head. “It was pretty there, but we lived in the city so there weren’t many trees around. Some parts of the city are pretty, but it’s a harbor city, so it’s smelly too. And, it was awful lonesome after my Grandma Louise died.”

“How
come you didn’t marry? You’ve been of age for a while,” Jake asked. “Lots of men must have come sniffing around as pretty as you are.”

“I
didn’t like anyone that come calling,” Maisie Jane answered honestly.

“But
you like me,” Jake said kissing the top of her head.

“You’re
growing on me,” Maisie Jane teased, and “Ouched,” as he tapped her bottom.

“Brat!”

Maisie Jane blushed.

“I’m
hungry, woman,” Jake said turning and giving Maisie Jane a push toward the kitchen. “Now that we’ve got a cabin, you have got to learn how to cook!”

“I
can’t get the water to come out of the pump, and I don’t know how to start a fire in the stove,” Maisie Jane admitted.

“More
I got to teach you,” Jake grumbled but he was grinning.

“Jake,
did Mr. Madison’s wife die?” Maisie Jane asked.

Jake
turned to look at her. “I guess I haven’t gotten around to telling you that part,” he admitted.

“She
did die?  What about the baby?”

“No,
Brett’s wife if fine and the baby is too, I guess. Charlotte left him, moved to California to be with her parents and took the baby with her. She just run off one day and left him high and dry. Brett tried to write to her, make her change her mind, but I reckon when she wouldn’t, he went to them.”

“Is
he bringing her back?” Maisie Jane asked.

“It
doesn’t sound like it from the letter he left. He left this place to me, that’s what Mr. Campbell came over to talk about yesterday. Brett deeded this place over to me, lock, stock and barrel. The livestock is over at Mr. Campbell’s place. That’s why I said we’re going to winter here. I’m going to write Brett, make sure he hasn’t changed his mind. Come spring, we’ll see.”

“But,
what about all their belongings?  I peeked around and it looks like they didn’t take much with them.”

“Lock
and stock and barrel, was what I was told,” Jake said. “I’m going into Elco today. I want to order up some winter supplies and get to the land office.”

Maisie
Jane’s face lit up and then it fell and she put her hands on her behind.

Jake
laughed. “You don’t have to go on this trip. You should be safe here.”

“But,
I wanted to go,” Maisie Jane pouted.

“Not
this trip.” Jake said sternly. “Even if I did doctor up your sore bottom, it would be mighty uncomfortable. You need to stay here, get some rest and find out what-all’s here that we can use. From Brett’s letter, he made it pretty clear he wasn’t freighting the furniture or his wife’s things to San Francisco. I guess I can use the men’s things; Brett and I are about the same size, and women’s things are yours. I’m more concerned with the legalities of the land, so I’ll be checking on that today.”

Jake
primed the pump and got it working and told Maisie Jane not to try to light any fires while he was gone. He didn’t tell her, but he was worried about coming back to a burned down house. He hitched up the wagon and headed off to Elco to do his business. Seeing that his wife, still wasn’t listening to him, and was still running around barefooted, he took one of her shoes and tucked in his pocket.

Maisie
Jane went on a grand scavenger hunt. She wasn’t really interested in the kitchen, but she knew food was real important to Jake so she went through all the cupboards. She found a door that went down into a scary earthen cellar and found some canned goods, peaches, beans, a pile of potatoes and a barrel with a few apples in it. There were also, spider webs. She went through all the drawers in the desk and tables. She stacked up magazines, mostly ladies magazines, to go through later and spent some time looking at the fashions.

Then
she turned to the bedroom. One of trunks held men’s clothing, most of it very similar to what Jake wore. One bureau had four drawers full of women’s clothing, and the bottom drawer had work shirts like Jake wore. Most of the women’s clothes were very well made and looked store-bought rather than hand sown. They were very pretty, although they would be a bit big on her. She found a pairs of women’s shoes, too large for her feet, and to her utter delight a set of hoops. Jake had ripped her favorite set and thrown them away the first day she’d met him. And her extra set of hoops had gone missing, as had her curling irons. The second bureau was more women’s clothing in the top two drawers and then baby gowns in the next two. The bottom drawer was full of thin books. Maisie Jane opened one of the books to a middle page and her eyes widened. She gasped and gulped and turned one page back and read some more. She was reading about a man ripping the bodice of a woman’s dress off, exposing her bosoms. It was a dirty book!  She dropped the book back in the drawer and shut it, looking around guiltily.

Elco was two hours from the homestead and the town hadn’t changed much since Jake had been there last. The sign over the Emporium read Grint not Bundy, but other than the new land office, that was it. His first stop was the land office and with two signings of his name, 640 acres became legally his. With his deed carefully tucked into his money pouch along with his marriage license, Jake was now officially a settled man.

The
next stop was the bank where he opened up an account and deposited a thousand dollars in silver coin. No questions were asked, no explanations were offered. The bank manager, Mr. Lester Findley had already been told by Brett Madison to expect him. He also cashed in two fifty dollar coin pieces for ten  greenbacks.

The
Grint Emporium was operated by Mr. and Mrs. Simon Grint who appeared to be sour couple. Jake introduced himself and told them he was taking over the Madison property.

“I’m
going to need supplies for winter,” Jake told the man, “but I haven’t wintered over this far north yet so if you could come up a fair list of what we’ll be needing, I’d appreciate it. It’s just me and my wife.

“I
don’t offer no credit until a man’s been in town a year,” Simon Grint said sourly.

“I’ll
be paying cash,” Jake answered. “I reckon a four month supply should get us started. Double up on the flour, sugar, lard and bacon.”

Jake
could almost see Simon Grint rubbing his hands together in greed. The man hustled into the back of the store. Jake handed Maisie Jane’s shoe to the woman. “I need a size bigger than that, shoes with no buttons if you have them.”

“All
ladies shoes have buttons, Mr. Maddox,” Mrs. Grint answered.

“All
right,” Jake agreed. “Give me whatever you have. Do you have a book on how to cook?”

The
older woman grinned showing several missing teeth. “Newly married?”

Jake
nodded.

“We
got two cookbooks,
Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management
and
Directions for Cookery in Various Branches
,” Mrs. Grint offered.

Jake
looked at the two books. Since he’d met Maisie Jane, to his knowledge she’d never cooked or baked anything except the biscuits with Maria and they had been hard and tasteless.

“I’d
better get both,” Jake said with a sigh, thinking it might take his wife a little bit of time to catch on to cooking and she could use all the help she could get.

Mr
. Simon Grint returned to the counter and added up the cost of two barrels of wheat flour,  twenty-five pounds of corn meal, coffee, dried beans, molasses, soap, lard, corned beef and the sugars, both brown and white and other sundries. “That’s forty-six dollars, cash and I ain’t putting in your wagon ‘til I see my money.”

“Add
on this other stuff,” Jake said motioning the cookbooks.

“That’s
$1.80 for Mrs. Beeton’s Cookbook and $1.75 for the other one,” Mrs. Grint hollered. “And, $2.25 for a pair of ladies shoes.”

“That’s
$61.80 cash money,” Simon Grint snapped.

Jake
wasn’t caring much for Mr. Grint’s attitude but he just nodded.

“Throw
in a tin of tea, and about a pound of peppermint candy,” Jake said looking around the store for anything else they might need.”

“That’s
$64.30,” the old man grunted.

“That
should do it,” Jake said and counted out $70.00 in greenbacks.

With
his money in hand, Simon Grint was much friendly and he helped Jake load the wagon.

Jake
headed back to the homestead. He was thinking about those cookbooks and wondering how much longer he’d be doing the cooking and other woman’s chores before Maisie Jane learned how to be a wife. He was formulating a whole list of things in his head he needed to ask her if she knew how to do. He was pretty sure milking a cow and churning butter hadn’t been on Maisie Jane’s childhood chore list, if she’d even had a chore list.

Maisie Jane tried real hard to divert her attention to her completion of going through the Madison’s belongings. Under the bed she’d found a brand new Family Singer Sewing machine still in the box, and she found a box with real pretty dress goods and dress patterns. She also found another box of dirty books.

By
mid-afternoon Jake still wasn’t back. She’d already done everything he’d told her to do. She’d gone through all the bureaus and cupboards. Then, she went into the water closet and rubbed some more salve on her backside and then lay down on the bed to rest like he’d told her. But, drat, she wanted to peek at one of those dirty books. She bit her lower lip, and tried to talk herself out of it. She knew Jake wouldn’t approve, but he wasn’t around so he wouldn’t find out.

Maisie
Jane pushed the box of dirty books way back under the bed and opened the bottom drawer of the bureau and picked up the book she read from before. She closed the drawer, then reopened it and laid the uncut dress goods on top of the books to hide them.

Then
she lay down on her stomach and with wide eyes and a mouth that would drop open once in a while from astonishment she read the
Kidnapped Bride
.

Maisie
Jane jolted and sat straight up in bed. She winced, grabbed the book and shoved it into the bureau drawer. Jake was home. She scrambled to straighten her dress and pat her hair into place and ran to the front door.

Jake
came in carrying an armload of packages. He dumped them onto the fancy table. He picked her up and swirled her around with a long kiss. “Little darling, I missed you.”

Maisie
Jane glowed from his greeting.

They
unloaded the wagon and Jake showed Maisie Jane how to build a fire, and then he fixed them a dinner.