~ Piecrust Promises ~
by
Roberta Olsen Major
Prologue
Williams Trace, Texas
March, 1857
Nellie smoothed the crumpled paper flat with a quick pass of her heated flat iron, then set the iron on the mantle to cool.
The nib of her pen had broken again, and she was just too blamed glum to make the walk over to Charley Fugg’s mercantile this evening to buy a replacement, so she rummaged through her box of pencil stubs and fished out the best of the bunch. Licking the tip, she set pencil to paper.
Dear Phyllis,
It was dandy to get your letter! Thank you for remembering my birthday was January and for wishing me well. You were the only one to do it--not that I’m complaining, mind you, but in years past Verna Louise’s brother-in-law, Garrett Galway--You’ll remember him from five years back at the New Year’s sociable?--has been known to recollect. But never mind. I’m sure he’s busy running that fancy restaurant of his up Dallas way and can’t be called upon to mark another year in the life of Nellie Jane Farmer.
Nellie licked the tip of her pencil again, and reread what she’d written. It wasn’t fancy writing, and maybe the former schoolteacher would be critical? No, she decided, not Phyllis, who hadn’t a mean bone in her body.
I was pleased as can be to read that you are increasing at last. I figure one of your own will be a joy after the Reverend’s four--Not that they weren’t sweet children, mind you, but it’s a brave soul who takes on the raising of another woman’s children. That Johanna must be quite the young lady by now. She always was a pretty little thing. Just like her mama, or so Bess used to say.
I’m increasing as well, though the cause is from too many cookies and pies, and not from the particular attentions of a man. But I was already as round as Charley Fugg’s pickle barrel to begin with, so I figure a bit more girth won’t matter.
Have you heard from Bess and Benjamin? I expect you have and don’t mean to tell me in case I let my tongue slip around Sheriff Caldwell, but I’m sure it’s all blown over by now and they are in no danger from the law. Milt would no more leave Williams Trace to track them down than he would give up his visits to that bawdy house over at Six Gun Hollow. Scandalous, how Eunice lets him get away with such behavings!
Business is good, though my two rent rooms are empty at present.
I had a nice couple from over by Stafford’s Point stop in for a few days last week, but didn’t see much of them as they had just been married by Reverend Galway and had more pressing matters on their minds, if you know what I mean. Which of course you do, being a married woman yourself.
Well, now that I’ve managed to depress myself completely, I will close, being too cheap to pay for extra pages anyhow. But it was grand to hear from you, Phyllis, and to receive your good news.
Your friend,
Nellie Jane Farmer
Nellie sighed and folded the page into thirds.
She’d baked herself a little cake, three layers, rich with butter and drizzled with a sugar glaze that should by now have hardened to a decadent crunch.
"I almost don’t have the heart to eat it," she muttered, then got to her feet. Almost, but not quite. A nice slab of cake washed down with a cup of tea would maybe fill the hole brought on by Phyllis’s reminder of this year’s unremarked fortieth birthday.
Though why Garrett Galway hadn’t sent along a little note like he had five years running was still a mystery that the two months since her birthday hadn’t dimmed.
Well, cake wouldn’t solve the mystery, but it might make the presence of it easier to swallow. Though it would surely take more than one puny slice of it to do the trick.
Might as well take her fork to the whole thing. There was no one here to share it with anyhow.