Part 3
She did not. On Thursday, however, Silas arrived carrying a brown-paper parcel. He laid it beside the cheese scale and spent an unnecessary amount of time explaining that the cook had obtained more cloth than he needed.
Lydia opened the parcel. Blue calico slipped across her hands, bright and clean against the scrubbed table.
“I don’t take presents.”
“Consider it a premium for satisfactory cheese.”
“There’s no such provision.”
“I’ve added one. Clause four.”
He looked so grave that she laughed before she could stop herself. Eli came running from the barn to see what had happened.
Silas waited until she had folded the cloth. Then he cleared his throat.
“There’s another matter. The social. Would you permit me to take you?”
Lydia laid her palm on the blue bundle.
“Yes,” she said, before caution could supply another answer.
Silas’s eyes dropped to the scale as though he needed to check its balance. Eli looked from one adult to the other and wisely said nothing.
Lydia cut the dress after the evening milking. For two nights, the lamplight shone through calico draped over her knees while Eli slept in the next room. She fitted the bodice twice and took small stitches along the hem, refusing to hurry where a crooked seam would show.
On Saturday, she faced the cracked mirror with her hair pinned high. The glass divided her reflection, but she could still see the line of the new dress and the unfamiliar brightness it brought to her face.
Eli came to the doorway.
“You look like one of those little blue birds.”
“Should I change?”
“No, Mama. That’s the good kind.”
Silas waited by the church in a brushed black coat. He took off his hat when she approached and then seemed unable to remember what came next.
“You make it hard to speak, Mrs. Voss.”
“Usually that’s Eli’s accomplishment.”
“I’ve never seen a prettier woman in this territory.”
“You ought to travel more.”
“Travel won’t improve this view.”
She took his arm before he could see how pleased she was.
He danced twice and proved hopeless both times. After stepping on her foot, he apologized so earnestly that he missed the next turn and stepped on it again. At the lemonade table, Eli laughed until he developed hiccups. Silas heard him and lifted an accusing finger without letting go of Lydia’s hand.
By August, the dairy order had grown troublesome.
Amos reported that each man wanted a pound of butter a week. Eleven of them had joined the cheese discussions, and their recommendations arrived on folded scraps of paper. Lydia read them beside the milk pans, then looked at Mallow through the shed door.
One cow could not satisfy fourteen men determined to make up for months without butter.
Silas offered his solution while she washed the churn.
“Two Jerseys,” he said. “There’s a fellow in Ardell with good stock. I’ll have a dairy barn put up here, with proper cooling space, and find a girl to help you.”
Lydia stopped moving the brush.
“You’ll do none of that.”
He looked genuinely taken aback.
“This is my business,” she said. “What it earns will pay for what it needs.”
“Lydia, the ranch is creating the demand. The expense properly belongs—”
“No. You may buy butter. You may not buy my dairy for me.”
He had never called her Lydia before. The sound seemed to reach him a moment late.
“It could take years your way,” he said.
“Then years it will be.”
She set the brush down. His face had closed, and she waited for the voice men used when they had finished listening.
Instead, he drew a long breath.
“I’ve made a mess of this.”
She said nothing.
“I saw a problem and began ordering materials. That works well enough with a broken corral.” He rubbed his jaw. “Had someone offered to build my first barn for me, I’d have sent him off the place.”
Lydia picked up a cloth and dried her hands.
“There might be another way,” he said. “A loan. No interest. You repay it out of deliveries. We write down every term.”
He waited while she considered the milk yield, the feed, the customers she still served in town. Outside, Eli was trying to persuade Mallow to move from a patch of shade.
“One cow,” Lydia said at last. “A Jersey already milking. She begins earning immediately. I’ll repay the price in butter over two years.”
“Agreed.”
“And no buildings.”
“No buildings.” His mouth twitched. “Clause five?”
She laughed, and he joined her. When she reached for fresh paper, her hand was steady.
The Jersey settled into the barn, and the orders left on time. Lydia kept separate columns for the bank, the cow loan, feed, and household expenses. She could begin to see room in the figures for improvements of her own.
Then Eli brought her an envelope while she was skimming cream.
The paper was heavier than anything her customers used. Belvane appeared at the top in a lawyer’s formal lettering, with an Ardell return address beneath it.
Lydia wiped her fingers before breaking the seal.
The writer represented Everett Dace, a cattle buyer. Warren Voss had borrowed two hundred and ten dollars from him in the spring of 1884, offering the north pasture as security. Interest had brought the demand to three hundred and forty dollars.
At the bottom, beneath several lines of careful explanation, was the deadline: payment or agreed terms by November first…
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