Free Smoke River Bride by Lynna Banning

If you were in China, I believe
you
would look and sound just as ‘funny’ to the people there.”
    Verena glared at her and snapped her jaw shut. Ellie coughed politely. “Could you have the garments ready by Friday?”
    “Friday! Well, I dunno. I—”
    “Mrs. MacAllister will pick them up on Friday, when she visits the mercantile,” Ellie announced.
    “Oh. In that case…I’ve always been happy to see Thad. He’s always been…well, not exactly a stranger.”
    The schoolteacher frowned, took Leah’s elbow and firmly steered her out the door. “Let’s have some tea at the hotel, shall we? It may help take the sting out of Verena’s sharp tongue.”
    Mute with fury and hurt feelings and questions about Verena Forester she could not articulate, Leah could only nod. They seated themselves at a small table in the hotel dining room and ordered tea.
    “What did I do wrong, Ellie?”
    “You did nothing wrong. That old maidwas rude and insulting.” An odd expression came over Ellie’s face. “I have just realized something. Verena may be a trial, but I shall never again describe any woman as an ‘old maid.’ For more years than I wish to count, I was considered an old maid, too. It was an extremely unhappy time in my life, but it taught me something.”
    Leah folded her hands in her lap. “What did it teach you?”
    The plump waitress brought a fat china teapot and two cups.
    “Thank you, Rita.” Ellie reached for the teapot. “I learned how people see other people. How unthinking folks can be.”
    Leah tried to smile. “What will being insulted by the dressmaker teach me?”
    Ellie sipped her tea and set the flowered cup back on its saucer. “Verena is a fine seamstress. And perhaps she has what we call a chip on her shoulder. You see, Verena was close to Thad and Hattie. Perhaps what you learned today was how to pet a porcupine?”
    Both women laughed. Even Rita, who was unobtrusively listening by the coffee stand, chuckled and twitched her apron. Verena Forester had sewed it, and the mean-tempered dressmaker had insulted her, as well. “It’sgood enough for a hired hotel waitress,” she’d said. Rita had been too humiliated to respond.
    Now the waitress rubbed her palms together. This new woman in town might prove interesting.
    That night, following the instructions in Miss Beecher’s recipe book, Leah dumped the entire pot of boiled beans into a baking dish and added some molasses and the mustard she had purchased at the mercantile.
    Her reception by Mr. Ness, the proprietor, had been so unfriendly she’d forgotten all the other items on her list except for the mustard. Mr. Ness had insisted she buy the most expensive brand, “imported from France.” Now she wondered if Thad would even notice.
    Teddy noticed right away. “What’s that awful smell?” he shouted from his loft.
    “Boston baked beans,” Leah answered.
    “We don’t live in Boston,” he yelled back. “And I ain’t eating’ any of your stinky ol’ beans.”
    Leah sighed and then studied the biscuit dough she had mixed. Let him protest all he wanted; she had found instructions for making biscuits on her own.
    Half an hour later she spooned the baked beans onto three plates and arranged two hot,fresh biscuits alongside each serving. She didn’t have to announce supper was ready; both Teddy and Thad beat her to the table. She noticed their hair was slicked down, their faces were clean and their hands were scarcely dry from washing up at the pump. She added another small log to the firebox and slid her sliced apple crumble into the oven to bake.
    Thad downed a forkful of beans while Leah fervently prayed she had followed Miss Beecher’s recipe correctly.
    “What in tarnation…?” He scooped up another bite. “What didja put in these, anyway? No beans I ever ate before tasted like these.”
    Leah’s heart tumbled down to her slippers. She rose, clenched her hands under her apron and faced him. “I added some mustard. Mr.