Prairie Lotus: Chapters 19–27

Basting was sewing with large, simple stitches, using a contrasting color of thread that was easy to see. It was a temporary, intermediate step; all the basting threads would be removed from the final garment.

“I don’t know about exciting,” she said, “but it’s certainly a lot faster than hand sewing. And some things like pleating or tucking are much easier on the machine. But you still have to do all the finishing work by hand. Including buttonholes.”

Hanna wasn’t sure why she had offered to make tea, but as she filled the kettle, she remembered yet another axiom of Mama’s. “For the person who is sour, do something sweet.”

These days more people were drinking coffee, but Hanna remained steadfast in her loyalty to tea, both green and black.

As a little girl, Hanna had loved watching the tight dried leaf buds unfurl in hot water, like tiny fists opening; she loved it still.

She sat down, bent over her needle, and began working assiduously.

Hanna was as loath as anyone to talk about disagreeable subjects, but she hated the thought of them lurking, waiting for the moment when they could rear up again.

When they reached the building site, Mr. Harris was up a ladder, nailing rafters.

In her mind’s eye, she saw images of Wichapiwin: eating soup, proffering the braid of timpsina, pulling a tuber out of the ground.

“Yes. Illegal, for a white person to marry someone Chinese.”
Hanna bit her lip, chilled by a nameless fear. She didn’t yet understand the depths of dread possible when unfairness was sanctioned by the law.

She had been meticulous about measuring herself and adjusting the pattern accordingly.

“Rotten eggs!” Hanna cursed, half under her breath. “Rotten, smelly, putrid, stinking eggs.”

Hanna had to laugh, but then she sobered and shook her head.

“I’d like to come to the opening, but I wouldn’t be able to buy anything,” Ellie said wistfully.

As Hanna left the hotel, the screen door of the next building banged open, and two men lurched out of the saloon.

He had a broad florid face and was dressed like a homesteader in boots, trousers, a dirty plaid shirt.

“You know what they say about Chinese girls, Swenson?”
His leer was repulsive.

His expression was so befuddled that she might have laughed if she hadn’t been desperate to get away.

“I’ll not warn you again! You stay away from my hotel, you and your no-good, drink-sodden, feckless friends! This establishment is for nice people! I’ll call the law on you, I will!”

Livid finger marks and an ugly scrape marred the skin on Hanna’s shoulder.

Livid finger marks and an ugly scrape marred the skin on Hanna’s shoulder.

“My pa will believe you,” Bess said stoutly.

She forced herself to rise and dress before his return; perhaps if she fixed a good dinner, he would not notice anything amiss.

Maybe the wave of gossip and rumor would ebb and eventually fade from everyone’s memories.

She paused, then added, “It’s not the first time that Mr. Swenson has been involved in—in unpleasant altercations.”

“If that’s so, miss, the ladies might...might listen to what I have to say—” She stopped, seeing misgiving in Miss Walters’s eyes.

“It’s pretty clear that folks have heard about what happened Saturday. But they haven’t heard the truth. They think that I misbehaved. Badly. So badly that they’re not going to come to the opening. Or buy from our shop. It’s just not right that my family’s whole livelihood is about to be ruined. Because of lies.”

Hanna spent most of the day working on the dress: the last stretch of hemming, the piping on the sleeves, and twelve vexatious buttonholes.

And, while she wasn’t proud of it, she couldn’t help the petty, spiteful thought that Bess had left her to do all the buttonholes herself.

“Good night, Papa,” she said, the words stilted by the lump in her throat.

If someone were to nudge her shoulder, she thought, she would collapse to the floor, crumpled like a threadbare rag.

Papa was still in the shop, sweeping, dusting, polishing, by the light of a lantern. He had already cleaned the whole place but was doing it again, as if buffing the woodwork until it gleamed would bring in the customers.

But the overall sense of gaiety bubbling through the room helped her ignore any unpleasantness.

"That’s what I told Ma, too. And Mrs. Blake said—” Bess stopped, her expression suddenly aghast.

“Your ma didn’t come,” she said.
“Oh! Ma got all the washing in off the line and had to iron this morning,” Bess said blithely. “She said she’ll come one of these days.”

During their first meeting, Wichapiwin could have observed that no one except Papa was making the journey with Hanna. Wichapiwin might well have surmised that Hanna was motherless.

Pearl returned to her perusal of the button box.

Sam beckoned Hanna surreptitiously, and they stepped a few paces away.

She had been wrong earlier, when she thought that her work as a seamstress would endear her to all of LaForge. There would always be those she would never win over, no matter how many fine dresses she made.

“Would you do as I say this once?” His words were curt, but in his voice she heard more amusement than exasperation.