"Mother" of the Year

by MagdalenMary495

Disclaimer: The characters and situations of the TV program "Big Valley" are the creations of Four Star/Republic Pictures and have been used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended by the author. The ideas expressed in this story are copyrighted to the author.

Part 1

“Mr. Barkley, Sister Patience is here to see you.” Miss Anderson announced one spring-like afternoon, interrupting Jarrod’s work on a particularly difficult case. The last thing he needed, with his head already throbbing from intense concentration, was to be faced with a Jenny problem.

“Show her in, Miss Anderson,” he said, managing to keep the groan out of his voice. What had she done now? A visit from Jenny’s teacher could only amount to one thing...trouble. Trouble with Jenny right in the thick of it. Whatever it was, he hoped he could solve it quickly.

Miss Anderson held open the door for the nun, standing aside with a smile while Sister Patience came into the room looking stern and forbidding in her black and white habit. Poor Mr. Barkley. He’d had a hard enough week without having to face his daughter’s teacher. That Jenny! If she had a child like that, she’d find a good boarding school somewhere. Maybe Europe. Sighing softly, Miss Anderson closed the door and went back to her desk.

“Sister,” Jarrod stood up politely, coming from behind the desk to offer Sister the comfortable red leather chair in front. “Please sit down.”

“Thank you, Mr. Barkley.”

After he’d seated Sister Patience, , Jarrod moved back to his own chair. Sitting on the edge of the seat, he braced himself to hear the worst. “Well, what has she done now?”

To his amazed astonishment, Sister Patience burst into hearty laughter. Laughing until tears came out the corners of her eyes. A reaction he hadn’t expected. “It isn’t as serious as all that, Mr. Barkley.” She wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes.

“Jenny hasn’t done anything to call for such a serious frown .” Showing her quick sense of humor, Sister Patience furrowed her face into a fierce scowl that mocked Jarrod’s. He laughed in spite of his misgivings. Did one laugh at a nun?

“I’m afraid I don’t understand the purpose of your visit..” he said slowly, “if Jenny isn’t in trouble. Was it about a donation to the church? Or something else?”

Sister Patience clasped her hands in her lap, clearing her throat in a decisive way, “I am here about Jenny. She did get into a bit of a tussle today with Emily Parker...”

“I knew it!” Jarrod slapped a palm down on his desk. That child! “What happened? Was Emily hurt?”

“Oh, no, it wasn’t that serious. Jenny just pulled Emily’s hair and knocked her down. I was able to stop it before it went further. If that were all to the story, I wouldn’t even bother you with it, Mr. Barkley. It’s what provoked Jenny that I felt I must discuss with you.”

“It’s been my experience, Sister, that Jenny needs very little provocation where Emily is concerned. They’ve been fighting like cats since the day they met.”

Sister Patience shook her head a little sadly. “In this instance, I felt that Jenny was completely justified in her treatment of Emily. In fact, right before I stopped her, Jenny threatened to punch Emily in the nose. I don’t mind admitting, that I had the same temptation myself. Emily can be an insufferable child.”

“I don’t understand,” Jarrod couldn’t keep the puzzlement out of his voice, leaning back in his chair, he steepled his fingers together, “what did Emily say or do?”

“This is a little difficult.” Sister Patience pulled herself up straight in the chair, stiffening to speak the words that had distressed Jenny. Not knowing if speaking of his deceased wife would upset Mr. Barkley too. “Emily’s Mother is having a Mother/Daughter Tea tomorrow afternoon. Jenny wasn’t invited. Or I correct that statement...Emily told Jenny she wasn’t invited because she didn’t have a real mother.”

What that all? Jarrod frowned, unable to see what caused Jenny to throttle Emily. “Why should not receiving an invitation bother Jenny? She doesn’t have a Mother.”

Sister fought the temptation to roll her eyes. She’d always thought Mr. Barkley an intelligent man, but then, thoughts could sometimes be deceiving. Could he not see how this would hurt his child? “I believe that’s what Jenny took umbrage at, that Emily was treating her differently because she didn’t have a Mother. Most children don’t like to feel different than the other children or left out. When all the other girls were invited, I think Jenny felt singled out because her Mother is no longer alive. She felt cheated.”

“Oh, I see.” Explained that way, he did begin to understand Jenny’s feelings. Jenny rarely spoke about her Mother now. Only a few times had she expressed any desire to have her Mother back. He knew she still cared deeply, that many nights she wept for Louisa and often she called out for Louisa in her sleep. It had never occurred to him that Jenny looked at the other little girls in Stockton, with their Mothers, and felt herself deprived. “I’m sorry that Jenny must be disappointed, Sister, but there is nothing I can do. I can’t bring her own Mother back. And, even if there were prospects, I can hardly see myself marrying before tomorrow so that Jenny might receive an invitation.”

“Happily, that won’t be necessary.” Sister smiled broadly. “ Because Jenny was so upset, I took the liberty of paying a call on Mrs. Parker after school let out. She assured me that Emily had been under strict orders to tell Jenny to invite her Aunt or Grandmother instead. Sarah Jennings mother is out of town and Sarah’s Aunt Abigail is bringing her to the tea. So Jenny wouldn’t be the only one without a mother there. In Emily’s words, a “real” mother.”

“Well, that seems a reasonable solution,” Jarrod agreed, happy to have the problem solved so ably by Sister Patience and Mrs. Parker. Relieved that he didn’t have to stop work on his important case to deal with this minor crisis in his daughter’s life. With Jenny involved, even simple problems had a way of mushrooming into gigantic proportion.

“Doesn’t it? I just wanted to come by to let you know so that you can pass the word along to Jenny. She left before I’d had a chance to speak to Mrs. Parker.”

Jarrod stood up as the Sister rose, going to walk her to the door. “Thank you for going to so much trouble, Sister. I’ll see that Jenny is properly appreciative. It’s kind of you to care.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Sister told him at the door, “You probably never knew this, Mr. Barkley, but I lost my own Mother when I was younger than Jenny. Jenny’s plight is one I understand completely. No matter what age one is when one’s Mother dies, there are always girls like Emily who take every opportunity to push your face in the fact.”


Going home that evening, Jarrod had found his tearful daughter setting the table for dinner. Her red rimmed eyes and downcast mouth gave him the first clues that Jenny had taken this whole situation harder than he imagined. When he told her about Sister Patience’s visit to Mrs. Parker, Jenny crimped her lips tight to keep from sobbing again. Sniffing back tears, she shook her head determinedly. Giving him her answer in no uncertain terms.

“I don’t care,” Jenny thrust out her bottom lip, glaring at him in sullen fury after his announcement that she did indeed have an invitation to the Mother/Daughter tea. “I’m not going.”

Why me? Jarrod felt that familiar sinking in the pit of his stomach. Ruefully, he laughed to himself. A simple solution? Only in his dreams...

Part 2

“I won’t go.” Jenny repeated, walking from place to place setting out the dinner plates.

“Of course you’ll go.” Jarrod stated, an edge of impatience creeping into his voice. “You can take Audra or your grandmother.”

Jenny stuck out her chin defiantly. “No! I won’t go with Aunt Audra or Grandma.” Jarrod could hear the veiled threat in her voice, ‘and you can’t make me.’ “If I don’t have a mother then I’m not going.”

Hands on his hips, glaring at his daughter, Jarrod began to wish heartily that he’d stopped for a brandy in the parlor before he shared what he thought would be good news. “Don’t be ridiculous, Jenny. You won’t be the only girl there who isn’t bringing her mother. Sarah Jennings is coming with her aunt. I believe Sister Patience mentioned her Aunt Abigail.”

“I still won’t go.”

“Sister Patience went to a great deal of trouble to see that you were invited. You owe it to Sister to go to the tea. “

Jenny sat down the last of the dinner plates with a clink. Blue eyes smoldering, she looked at him as she grumbled, “Well, I never asked her to go to any trouble.”

“Jennifer!” The long hours of working late began to wear on him. His mouth quirked in annoyance at the Parker’s, the Mother/Daughter Tea and his own stubborn child. Any second his patience would snap. He rubbed a hand over the back of his aching neck, trying to ease a tight band of tension. “Whether you asked Sister Patience to intervene or not, she did go to more trouble than she needed to so that you could have an invitation. She felt sorry for you because Emily teased you. Now, I insist that you ask Audra and go to the tea.”

“Why do I have to go?” Jenny began her annoying habit of kicking at the leg of the table. “I don’t wanna go to any dumb old tea. I don’t even like the tea Emily’s mother makes. It always tastes like it’s got a geranium leaf in it.”

“You’re going to the tea!” He snapped in a you will or else voice. Maybe Silas had some headache powders. When he got through talking to this stubborn little Barkley, he’d need a dose. “Stop kicking that table!”

Jenny gave him one desolate look before bursting into tears, pleading, “Please, Daddy, don’t make me go! I don’t want to go. Emily will make fun of me.”

“Why on earth would Emily make fun of you?” Jarrod asked, as his dark eyebrows shot up in surprise. Wondering, as he had so often before, if he would ever understand the secret life of little girls. “Tell me, Jenny. Why would she make fun of you? Is it because you don’t have a mother?”

Sobbing, Jenny ran to throw her arms around his waist, almost knocking his off balance. “I don’t want to go!” She cried into his shirtfront in heartrending sobs. Whatever Emily had taunted earlier, it had hurt deeply. Jenny held tight, pouring out her grief

Jarrod pulled a chair away from the table, sat down and lifted his weeping daughter into his lap. So much for this being a simple problem. He let her cry it out for a few minutes, stroking her soft hair and soothing her with calming words of comfort. Although he still wished he’d stopped for that brandy, maybe two, before having to deal with this perplexing dilemma. When her crying ebbed to a few, shuddering sobs, Jarrod lifted her chin so he could look into her tear washed eyes. “Now, why don’t you tell me why you don’t want to go to the tea? Sister Patience thought you were upset because Emily didn’t invite you. But I get the feeling it’s more than that...why don’t you tell me.”

“I didn’t care if she invited me to her dumb old tea,” Jenny sobbed out, “I didn’t care and I told her so. But she said very mean things to me, Daddy. It hurt awful bad, right here.” Jenny put her hand over her heart.

A few tears welled up in Jarrod’s eyes. He hated to see his daughter in pain, especially needless pain. As much as he tried to protect her, he’d found there was little he could do to stop the sometimes cruel behavior of other children. Children who wanted to question her about her Mother’s murder, or about her brother. Even with Sister Patience standing vigilant guard in the school, the questions, the malicious teasing sometimes caught them all off guard. From the very beginning, Emily Parker, fueled by her mother, had been the worst. Emily had an endless list of jibes. Jenny, your dress is the wrong color. Jenny, why do you always smell like horses? Jenny, doesn’t your Father love you. My Mother says if he did he wouldn’t be running off to San Francisco all the time. Jenny, doesn’t your father feel guilty cause he wasn’t there to protect your mother?

“What did she say this time?” Jarrod reached into his pocket for a handkerchief. He handed it to Jenny to wipe her dripping nose. “Was it about your mother?”

“No...” Jenny gulped out, twisting the handkerchief in her fingers, “Sister Patience got after her a few weeks ago about saying anything about Mama.”

“What did she say?”

“Daddy, she said awful things.” Jenny’s lips quivered as if she’d just like to bawl again, remembering Emily’s words. “They hurt.”

Struggling to understand Jenny’s pain, without knowing what Emily said, Jarrod searched for some balm he could offer Jenny. “Honey, you know there are always going to be people in our lives who say mean, hurtful words. You have to learn to be strong enough just to ignore those words. If you don’t pay attention, if you don’t let the words inside you, they can’t hurt.”

“It did hurt,” Jenny protested. “It hurt a lot. That’s why I pulled her hair and knocked her down. I wanted to punch her in the nose too but Sister Patience wouldn’t let me.”

“Jenny, what did she say? Can’t you tell me?”

“Oh, Daddy,” Jenny did let the tears began to fall again, “Emily said I don’t have a real mother.”

Jarrod sighed, God save him from fools like the Parkers. “Jenny, we’ve talked about this before.” Over and over and over. “You do have a real Mother. Mama was your mother and now she’s in Heaven. Maybe someday, if Daddy ever gets married again, then you’ll have another Mother hear on Earth to take her place...”

“But, Daddy, I already have a real mother here. You’re my mother ever since Mama is gone.”

Where on earth had she gotten that idea? Jenny stared into his eyes so anxiously, that he knew with his heart sinking fast, that this was at the crux of the Jenny and Emily feud.

“I told Emily you were my real mother, just like hers, but she made fun of me.”

“Honey,” Jarrod tried to speak as gently as he could, knowing she’d be hurt no matter how hard he tried, “Emily was right. I’m your father. I’m not your mother.”

“Yes, you are, Daddy. I heard you tell Uncle Nick once that since Mama went to Heaven you had to be my mother and my father. Didn’t you say that?”

Looking down into her confused, yet hopeful, face, Jarrod felt a painful squeezing in his own heart. “Jenny, I’m sorry if you misunderstood, but that’s just an expression people use...something that people say. It’s doesn’t mean that I’m really your mother. Not like Mama was. What is means is that I’m taking the place of your mother.”

“I didn’t misunderstand! I didn’t! I heard you say it so it’s true.”

“Jenny, it’s true but not in the way you mean.”

Jenny’s face crumpled. Her disappointment was so heartbreaking, Jarrod wanted to close his eyes so he wouldn’t have to watch. Why was it always so much harder to bear her pain than his own? “Then Emily was right. Emily said you weren’t really a mother, not a real mother, but I told her she was wrong!”

“I’m sorry...” he tried to speak but Jenny interrupted, determined to have her say. Clearly too upset over Emily to hear anything he had to say anyway.

“I told her you could do anything every other mother could do! I said you took care of me when I was sick an’ you bought me pretty dresses. I said you knew how to fix my hair and tie my hair bows. She said you didn’t know how to cook or sew an’ I told her you knew how to cook lots of things and Grandma always said she never raised a son yet who couldn’t at least sew on his own buttons. Emily said you didn’t know how to do anything like a real mother could but I told her she was wrong. I told her you know how to dress dolls and you play tea party and you know all the hard words in the Godey’s Ladies Book...but she just kept saying you couldn’t be a real mother.”

“Jenny, knowing how to do all those things doesn’t make me a mother.” Jarrod wondered how to even begin to explain. If he could find the words, it still wouldn’t take away the hurt of what Emily had said. He wished fervently that Mother/Daughter teas had never been thought of. There were so many other ways that Jenny might have met injustice...as a Barkley, an American, a rich child...but to meet it because she had no mother? If Jenny hadn’t been so hurt, he’d have found the whole absurd situation laughable. With the tears coursing down Jenny’s cheeks, the own grief he felt because he couldn’t make it all better, this was no laughing matter. Jenny was hurt and he couldn’t fix it.

“You are like a real mother! You are! You do everything Emily’s mother does except you don’t make tea that tastes like it’s got a geranium leaf in it! I told that dumb Emily you could do anything every other mother could do and she laughed at me!”

“Jenny, I’m sorry that Emily laughed at you. I’m sorry she hurt your feelings. But, honey, you just have to learn to ignore people like her.”

Jenny got that stubborn look on her face that Jarrod knew well. She didn’t believe a word he’d said. “Do I still have to go to that dirty darn old tea party?”

“I think,” Jarrod hoped again that Silas were somewhere handy with headache powders. He had a feeling he’d be needing them soon. “I think that since Sister Patience went to so much trouble to make certain you had an invitation, that you should go with Audra. Or Mother.”

Seeing that determined pout on Jenny’s lips, Jarrod cringed a little. Just that lip could speak volumes. Right then it was telling him she was NOT happy. She was NOT going unless he planned to drag her there. “Emily will make fun of me.”

Not that. Not again.

“Jenny, you aren’t the only little girl who doesn’t have a real mother...”

Nothing he said seemed to change Jenny’s determined mind. If she didn’t have a “real” mother, if he wouldn’t go as her “real” mother, she wasn’t going. He comforted, he tried logic and courtroom reasoning. He resorted to bribery, pleading and just about got down on his knees and begged his hard headed child. Jenny refused to budge even when threatened with dire punishment. Finally, just to end the whole ludicrous idea, he found himself caving in and telling her she didn’t have to go at all.

“But I have to go or Emily will make fun of me!” Jenny wailed. “I have to go! She said I wouldn’t come because I didn’t have a real mother an’ I told her I did and I would come!”

Never, ever would he understand the logic of any female, of any age. “Then you’ll have to go with Audra!” He shouted, just to have the dirty darn plans finalized so he could get some headache powders for his thundering headache.

“No!”

After a few more minutes of Jenny’s incoherent wailing and carrying on, Jarrod didn’t know exactly what the tears were about. Going or not going to the tea? The fact that he wouldn’t admit to being her mother. Or if she’d gone off on another tangent and was crying because her dress was yellow instead of blue. He’d lost track. Finally, he admitted defeat and surrendered Jenny over to her Grandmother’s capable arms.

“I give up,” he told Victoria as she tried to shush her inconsolable granddaughter, “If you can figure out what she wants, let me know. I’ll help her in anyway that I can. With the possible exception of eloping tonight. And the next time I see that Emily Parker, I just might punch her in the nose myself!”

Part 3

“Good afternoon, Mr. Barkley,” Mrs. Parker greeted Jarrod, opening the door at his knock. “Hello, Jenny. My, don’t you look pretty in that green organdy dress.”

“My Daddy bought it for me in San Francisco,” Jenny answered after saying hello. Smiling pleasantly although she’d just been corrected for calling Mrs. Parker an “old crow” before she got out of the buggy.

“It’s lovely, I’m sure,” Mrs. Parker gushed insincerely, secretly thinking that only a man would buy such an impractical dress for a child and then expect her to wear it to a tea. Especially a child like that Jenny. Just see if she didn’t get a rip in that gauzy green fabric or muss it up before the afternoon was over. “And your Grandmother fixed that sweet bow in your hair to match.” Victoria always did have a flair for hair. As a child, that Audra Barkley always had such pretty hair done up in interesting fashions. Clara’s mother thought the only hair style suitable for girls like Clara were braids.

Jenny shook her head. “Grandma had to go to a friend’s house. Daddy fixed my hair. He can do anything any other mother can do.”

Jarrod gave her a warning swat with his hat. Just as a reminder that riding here in the buggy he’d warned her not to call him Mama. Or else.

“Really?” Mrs. Parker’s eyebrows shot up at this revelation, giving Jenny’s hair a closer inspection. Yes, now that she looked closer the ribbon didn’t seem to be as neatly pressed as Victoria liked. It might be a touch lopsided too now that she studied it better. Had he brushed Jenny’s hair at all? So sad that a child like Jenny was motherless. That girl certainly needed a mother’s touch. “Jenny, all the other little girls are out back in the garden. Why don’t you go join them?”

“Thank you, Mrs. Parker,” Jenny answered politely. Stopping for a hug and kiss from Jarrod before jumping down all three steps of the porch at once. Jarrod watched until she was out of sight behind the house before turning back to Mrs. Parker. Waiting.

Mrs. Parker seemed a bit surprised that he didn’t take his leave as Jenny left. Her eyes wore a bewildered expression as she searched politely for a way to close the door. “It was very kind of you to bring, Jenny, Mr. Barkley. I had thought perhaps your Mother or Audra would come with her.”

“No, just me,” Jarrod smiled, enjoying himself immensely, holding his Stetson in his hand. Having never been to a Mother/Daughter Tea, he found himself looking forward to the confusion his being there would cause.

Even more puzzled, Mrs. Parker didn’t know quite what to do. It seemed rude to just say good-bye and close the door. And surely...oh, surely he did not expect to be invited in! Yet, there he stood, with an odd grin on his face...almost as if were waiting to be invited inside. “Mr. Barkley, I’m sure you must have a hundred things more important to do this afternoon than wait for Jenny. I can have someone walk her to your office when we finish if you like.” She stammered, realizing how impolite it would be to just ask him to leave so she could return to her other guests.

“That’s quite alright, Mrs. Parker. I am free the entire afternoon.”

Well now! This was a puzzle. Had Jenny misunderstood the invitation? Surely, Sister Patience made it plain that it was a Mother/Daughter Tea. “You don’t have to stay,” she finally said boldly, cringing a little at whatever social rule she’d just broken, “I’m sure Jenny will have a lovely time.”

He smiled again, twisting his hat in his hands, waiting. This just was not possible! Such a thing had never happened to Clara Parker before. A MAN...wanting an invitation to a Mother/Daughter tea. Pressing her lips together with barely concealed fury, she tried to figure out the best social response to this predicament. “I really must get back to my guests,” she said in a strained voice, desperate to close the door on this impossible man. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Mr. Barkley?”

“Tea would be fine, Mrs. Parker.”

Of all the unmitigated gall! He expected to be invited inside! To a Mother/Daughter Tea! Clara felt her face flame at the idea of a MAN sitting down in her parlor considering the conversations she had just left to open the door. Her face flamed at the impropriety. Well! She just would not invite him in! If he refused to leave, she’s send the maid down to Harry’s Saloon to get Mr. Parker. Then see how fast that Cheshire cat grin got wiped off Mr. Barkley's smug face.

“May I come in?”

Incredulously, the nerve!, Clara put her hands on her hips, determined to stand her ground. “Perhaps,” she simpered, in a sickening sweet voice that grated Jarrod’s nerves, “little Jenny misunderstood the invitation. This is a Mother/Daughter Tea. Gentlemen are not allowed.” Jarrod noticed her emphasis on gentleman and the implication that he didn’t qualify.

“Jenny understood perfectly.” Jarrod smiled, oh, he was enjoying this more than he’d expected, “and, of course, since I am the only parent Jenny has I am in a sense her father and her mother.”

Clara’s mouth gaped open. “Surely,” she sputtered in indignation, “you don’t expect to be invited to a Mother/Daughter tea?”

Smiling pleasantly, he answered, “I was under the impression that the invitation would include me, in a legal sense, of course.”

In the entrance hall behind Mrs. Parker, a sweet voice asked, “Clara, did you want me to start passing out the teacups?”

Molly Richards, Sarah Jennings aunt, came into view. What a pleasant view, Jarrod thought, bowing his head in greeting. It had been awhile since he’d last seen Molly. Funny how he’d forgotten how beguiling, Sarah’s unmarried aunt could be with that cloud of strawberry blond hair framing a flawless face and those merry, twinkling blue eyes. Yes, this might not be such an afternoon to endure after all. “Oh, Mr. Barkley,” she blushed prettily, “Did you bring Jenny?”

“Yes, I did.” He stood his ground, hat in hand. Molly looked a little bemused staring first at Jarrod and then at Clara. A Clara who seemed close to having an apoplectic fit.

“Did Audra or your Mother come with Jenny? I was so hoping to see Audra while I’m back in Stockton.”

“No.”

Mrs. Parker, exasperated beyond social convention, turned to Molly and behind a cupped hand whispered loudly, “He won’t leave. He expects to be invited in! Can you imagine?”

Molly’s lips twitched. It didn’t take her long to see the humor in the situation. Clara with her feathers ruffled, trying to keep the rooster out of the barnyard and Jarrod Barkley standing there refusing to be moved. “Well, then,” She grinned wickedly at Jarrod, reached out boldly to grab his arm and spoke to the startled Clara, “invite him in. Won’t you come in, Mr. Barkley. We’re just about to sit down to a cup of tea?”

“Thank you, Miss Richards, I’d enjoy that.”

Molly took his hat from his hand, hanging it on the hat rack in the immaculate entrance hall of the Parker home. As Clara hurried past, silk skirt rustling in anger, to warn the cackling, gossiping crowd in the parlor, Molly giggled. Leaning toward him, she whispered, “What are you doing here, Jarrod Barkley? This is suppose to be a Mother/Daughter tea.”

“I might ask you the same question. I thought Abigail was bringing Sarah.”

“Abigail had the grippe so I brought Sarah instead.” She held him back from going in the parlor, “But why are you here?”

“I’m the only parent Jenny has. My daughter has endured enough disappointment and hurt in her life without being reduced to tears over not having a mother take her to this ridiculous social event.”

Molly smiled, an engaging smile Jarrod had quite forgotten, “You, Jarrod Barkley, are a very caring man. I always suspected it but now you’ve confirmed my suspicions.”

Jarrod had the grace to redden a little at this compliment. Yet, it warmed him more than he’d care to admit knowing that Molly still admired him. Maybe this afternoon would give him the opportunity to renew his acquaintance with Molly. He’d known Molly since she was five and cried to go home on the first day of school. As a young girl, he’d had the honor of taking her to her first Sweetheart Dance. If he hadn’t met Beth and Louisa, who knew what might have been. Although Molly was young enough to be his sister, he couldn’t deny that his feelings had often been far from brotherly. Through the years, he’d heard about Molly as she and Audra kept up a correspondence. He’d have to have a word with his little sister about this. She hadn’t mentioned that Molly was back in Stockton.

“Shall we go into the parlor?” Molly asked with a wicked grin on her face. As he graciously held out his arm to escort her into the parlor, she whispered in delight as she squeezed his arm, “This is going to be fun! Those old crows . . . just wait until they see you. You’ve spoiled all their gossip for the afternoon! A man! At a Mother/Daughter tea! Dirty darn, I’m going to enjoy this!”

Part 4

As Jarrod entered the Parker’s parlor, every bitter, irritated and vexed voice stilled. Instantly. Cut with a knife of silence. Molly stood beside him, a bemused smile on her pretty face. Still acutely aware that her arm was entwined with the arm of the handsomest man in Stockton. Even with every eye in the room staring at Mr. Jarrod Barkley in appalled outrage, Molly couldn’t help sneaking peeks from the corner of her eye. Very debonair, she decided, in his gray linen suit, crisply pressed white shirt and dashing black tie. She couldn’t help preening just a little. Glad that she’d taken special pains to finish sewing the light blue shirtwaist she wore with the pin tucks down the front. The length of her dark blue linen skirt must look quite nice next to his gray trousers. He was by far the “prettiest” mother in the room, Molly chuckled, letting a giggle escape her lips.

“Ladies,” Jarrod spoke a polite greeting, smiling as if he spent every Saturday afternoon as the lone male at a hen party. “Good afternoon to you all.”

“What’s HE doing here?” Miss Agnes Montgomery broke the silence first, whispering in a voice loud enough to wake the dead in the Stockton cemetery. When none of the other ladies answered her question, she turned to Jarrod, “What are you doing here, Nicholas Barkley?”

“It’s Jarrod Barkley, Miss LUCY,” Molly deliberately addressed her as the wrong sister. A bit of daring not many would attempt no matter how often the sisters manhandled identities. Jarrod’s mouth went through an agonized contortion as he struggled bravely not to laugh. Spunk! He liked that in a woman.

“I am Agnes.” Regally drawing herself up in a violet dress that matched Lucy’s, she bristled at the outrage. To be mistaken for LUCY! A stern, piercing look darkened her eyes as she glared at Molly.

“Are you certain?” Molly asked, giving her a look of scrutiny with her blue eyes, questioning the truth in this statement. Agnes, not usually one to back down from confrontation, tossed her gray curls and hissed to her sister, Lucy, “Impertinent Miss, isn’t she?”

Jarrod fought hard to control the unexploded laughter at this brief second of verbal sparring. Yes, this was going to be a very amusing afternoon. He’d have to thank Jenny for giving him the opportunity. And Miss Richards for enlivening an otherwise dull event.

“Won’t you sit here, Mr. Barkley?” Molly led him to a green settee. Jarrod stood as Molly took her seat first, happily sharing the settee, before he sat down. He noticed as she smoothed her blue skirt over her lap that she darted a very pleased smile over the seating arrangement in his direction. Jarrod had no complaints himself.

“So, Mr. Barkley,” Miss Agnes asked again, careful to avoid the use of his first name. She still thought he must be Nick. “What are you doing here? I was under the impression that this was a Mother/Daughter Tea?”

Before he could answer, Molly jumped in with a sassy reply, “It seems to me that Mr. Barkley might ask the same thing of you, Lucy.” Jarrod noticed Miss Agnes’ face redden in suppressed fury at being mistaken for Lucy again, “you are neither a mother, nor a daughter. Neither are you escorting your niece as I am.”

“Miss Richards!” Clara Parker found her voice of indignation at last. Anger wiping the horror stricken look she’d worn since Jarrod entered her parlor off her face. “The Miss Montgomery’s are here as my respected guests. The fact that their dear Mother departed this life in the flu epidemic of ‘06 does not discount them as her daughters. They are most welcome at this tea. They were invited.” She stressed the word invited with a frigid glare at Jarrod.

Jarrod caught the veiled threat and Clara Parker’s look of contempt for a man who’d defy social etiquette by forcing an invitation. Holding out his hand for the delicate china cup and saucer Molly placed into his hands from the table in front of the settee, he smiled ingratiatingly at Mrs. Parker. A false smile. One that told her he was not about to melt under her icy stare. She had the decency to blush, lowering her eyes. Surrendering to a momentary defeat. Jarrod had a feeling the battle had just begun.

“Tea, Mr. Barkley?” Molly asked. At his agreeable nod, she poured him a steaming cup from the tea service. All of the other women, he noticed, were already served but not a cup had touched a lip since he’d arrived. Jarrod lifted his cup in a mock toast, noting by Molly’s quizzically raised eyebrow that this was not standard tea party protocol. As he sipped at the bitter tasting brew, fighting down an urge to gag, Molly spoke up pertly, teasing to the crowd of silent women. “Mr. Barkley is here standing in for Jenny’s mother.”

“Ha! Ha!” Old Mrs. Bentley, Clara’s mother, half rose up from her comfortable chintz armchair and rapped her cane sharply on the wooden floor, “That’s the most absurd thing I’ve heard all week!”

“Isn’t it?” Clara Parker agreed, not attempting to hide her indignation at Jarrod’s boldness. Fanning her face vigorously with a lace handkerchief.

“Well,” Mrs. Bentley snapped, “What can’t be cured must be endured. Pass out the cakes, Clara. I’m hollow as a gourd!”

Under cover of the momentary distraction of Clara and Mrs. Duncan passing a round of cakes, cake plates and forks, Jarrod took another cautious sip of tea. Leaning toward Molly to whisper, “Is it just my taste, or is there something wrong with this tea?”

“Tastes like she put a geranium leaf in it,” Molly whispered back after a wary sip at her own cup. Crinkling her nose at the bitter brew.

Surprised, Jarrod almost chocked, “That’s what Jenny said she did.”

“Very perceptive child,” Molly smiled over her teacup, eyes twinkling, “She must take after her father.”

Before he could quite make up his mind if Miss Richards were actively flirting with him, Mrs. Bentley caused another minor disturbance by tilting her leg and toppling a plate of seed cake to the floor. A flurry of concerned voices, fluttering napkins and mothers jumping up to clean up the spill caused only to irritate the older woman. Sitting like Queen Victoria in a black delaine dress, she brushed them all away as she would a swarm of flies, voice cackling, “Get away! Get away, all of you! Quit hovering over me. Can’t a body’s leg fall asleep without the whole world coming to an end?”

“Mother!” Clara’s incensed voice corrected, “Your limb feel asleep. Your limb. We are in the presence of mixed company.”

“What?” Mrs. Bentley looked confused at her daughter’s crimson face and the sudden flurry of red faced woman finding intense interest in looking at the floor, the ceiling or down into their teacups to avoid Jarrod’s eyes. “Oh, HIM...” She dismissed Jarrod’s presence with a commanding wave of her gnarled hand. “Jarrod Barkley’s had two wives. I’m sure he knows women have legs. Don’t you now?”

A shocked “Mother!” Clara hissed in an effort for decorum. Beside him on the settee, Molly snickered, neither shocked nor embarrassed by the conversation.

“Yes, I am certainly aware of that fact,” Jarrod replied as diplomatically as possible. Thinking of several other very incendiary answers he could have spoken, he smiled openly. A smile that did not go unnoticed by all of the assembled, furiously blushing women.

Molly leaned toward him to say, “You’re incorrigible, Jarrod Barkley. I do believe you’re enjoying this.”

“I never knew a mother/daughter tea could be so entertaining.” He parried, just to hear her laugh.

“My, isn’t it hot in here today?” Mrs. Duncan spoke up suddenly, in an effort to steer the talk to more general topics. Clara Parker threw her a grateful look, adding her own opinion on the heat for this time of year. A general consensus taken up by several of the other mothers who all gave a small comment about the weather, the lack of rain and the state of various flower gardens that could do with a good soaking.

“It’s so hot,” Clara Parker made the mistake of mentioning, “that it seems a body just can’t draw a decent breath.”

“Harump!” Mrs. Bentley contradicted, “You’re probably just laced too tight. If you wouldn’t wear that corset so...”

Clara’s face blanched white. “Mother! Please, “ she begged near tears, “let us change the topic of conversation.”

“I’m sure that Mr. Barkley knows what a cor...” Was as far as she got before Mrs. Duncan interrupted rudely to say, “This is just the best seed cake you have ever made Mavis.. You really must give me the recipe some day.”

Mrs. Bentley sneered, giving Jarrod a very unladylike stare, but she stopped her mention of unmentionables. Beside him, he felt Molly shaking a little with suppressed laughter at his discomfort.

Picking up his fork, he sampled the thick slice of seed cake he’d been served by timid, blushing Mrs. Whitcomb. A mistake he discovered when his teeth cracked ominously against the cake. He struggled with a desperate urge to spit.

“Don’t try to chew it,” Molly whispered behind her napkin, “It’s Mavis Buchanan’s and isn’t fit to eat. Swallow a few bites whole and leave the rest. Everyone does.”

Jarrod had forgotten he’d been warned by Victoria of the real possibility of being served Mavis Buchanan’s inedible seed cake. Victoria’s description applied perfectly, “it has the consistency of a dried cow chip and tastes like flour and water paste.” As a child, he’d sampled flour and water paste. To compare the mixture to Mavis’ seed cake was an insult...to the flour and water.

Mavis, attired in a black and white pinstriped silk dress, simpered a little under the attention. Failing to notice the discreet chocking, bites of seed cake slipped into napkins or Mrs. Bentley’s protest to Clara, “Is that Mavis’ cake? Don’t give me any of that pig slop. Last time I broke off the tip of one tooth trying to eat that disgust...”

“I’d be glad to give you the recipe any time you ask for it, Clara,” Mavis took a sip of tea. Jarrod marveled at her ability to drink it without gagging. “I’m also thinking of entering it in the county fair again this year. Everyone raves over it so. I just cannot imagine why I have never won a ribbon for it.”

“You know as well as everyone else, Mavis...” Old Mrs. Bentley began, rapping her cane for emphasis. Ready to let Mavis know the carefully concealed back biting gossip about her cake. Clara Parker, with the agility of Nick on a cattle drive, jumped in to steer the flow of that conversation by interrupting again with, “Now, Mavis, you know that none of us ever stand a chance of winning a blue ribbon when Audra Barkley enters that White Cake she’s been winning with the past six years.”

“Rightly so,” Molly spoke of in defense of the absent Audra, “Audra takes special care with that cake. It deserves a blue ribbon.”

“Maybe so, but I really think it would be nice if she had the decency to step down once in awhile. Let some of the rest of us win,” Mrs. Duncan spoke forcefully from her seat on the parlor sofa. “My spiced cucumbers have lost for the past six years. Audra, of course, always taking the blue.”

“Is Audra entering her spiced cucumbers again this year, Mr. Barkley?” Clara Parker asked, an edge of venom in her voice. Her spiced cucumbers having been beaten by Audra’s too.

“I believe she did mention it,” Jarrod remarked pleasantly, glad of an excuse to put the plate containing the seed cake down on the table, his napkin draped over the uneaten part.

“Of course, she’s entering,” Mavis spoke bitterly. “Doesn’t she always? She might have the decency one year to pass along her recipe to the rest of us. It might be a fair contest then.”

Clara Parker, fanning herself with the lace handkerchief, studied Jarrod for an intense moment. “Tell me, Mr. Barkley, since we are all Audra’s friends...” yes, he thought, she was actually simpering at him, “perhaps you can tell us some of those secret spices Audra always puts in her spiced cucumbers. You have seen her make them, I’m sure.”

“Yes,” Jarrod admitted, mentally rubbing his hands together at the direction of the conversation. A gleam of retribution in his eyes. He had not so easily forgotten Jenny’s tears of the night before. Or Emily Parker’s constant harping questions. “I have. I know that there is one very special spice she uses. A rather rare one. With an unusual name.”

Every woman in the parlor, with the exception of a perplexed Molly next to him, seemed to hold her breath in anticipation of his possible revelation of Audra’s secret spiced cucumber recipe. Would he? Did they dare ask? How gullible was Jarrod Barkley?

Drawing a tight breath, Clara Parker smirked, “Being Audra’s friends, I don’t think she’d mind in the least if you told us that secret ingredient. Do you Mavis?”

“Absolutely not!” “Dear Audra, she’d want us to know.” “There are no real secrets among friends.”

Jarrod heard the cackling of the disparaging voices, all professing undying affection for Audra. Dear, sweet Audra. Since Audra had just that morning at the breakfast table called the crowd gathered before him a bunch of “gossiping, grasping backbiters,” he was certain he knew the true reason for the sudden interest in Audra’s spiced cucumber recipe. Jealousy. And a sneaky hope that he was too gullible not to know that Audra would have him drawn and quartered if he divulged a teaspoon of spice to her rivals.

With a supercilious smile, Jarrod looked at the women. Enjoying the fact that they were so tense waiting for him to spill the secret Mrs. Duncan’s knuckles were white on the arm of her chair and Clara Parker was biting the lace edge of her handkerchief. “Perhaps I shouldn’t tell,” he tantalized. Fully intending to give them exactly what they deserved. Molly and Jenny were both wrong. He could see a definite resemblance to buzzards, not crows.

An audible gasp of dismay came from both Sister’s Montgomery. Mrs. Whitcomb stared at him wide eyed with anticipation. Inwardly, Jarrod couldn’t ignore a feeling of pleasant satisfaction.. He grinned at the group, earning himself another puzzled look of distress from Molly. Hoping she would not disapprove of him for long.

“Won’t you please tell us, Mr. Barkley?” Clara Parker wheedled, giving him an insincere wide mouthed grin that set his teeth on edge. “Since we are all your dear sister’s friends?”

“Audra will kill you,” Molly hissed from behind her handkerchief, held over her lips. “Surely you aren’t stupid enough to tell them.”

Smiling pleasantly, Jarrod lowered his voice until the women all leaned forward in their seats, mouths gaping, eyes wide. “I’m certain Audra wouldn’t mind if I tell you. It is just among friends.”

Part 5

“We’re all ears, Mr. Barkley,” Mavis Buchanan said coyly, “What is that secret spice your dear sister, Audra uses in her spiced cucumbers?”

Jarrod, just to drag out their agony, picked up what looked to be an edible oatmeal cookie from a platter on the table. Mrs. Whitcomb actually groaned at the delay, watching as he ate each bite as slowly as possible. Thankfully, with all eyes on him the cookie wasn’t as awful as the seed cake. “Oh, yes, the secret spice...”

“Audra is going to kill you,” Molly hissed again, holding a napkin up to hide her lips. “If she loses at the fair because you told these old biddies her secret, you’ll never be able to go home again, Jarrod Barkley.”

Jarrod gave her a bland smile before telling the anxiously waiting women before him, “It’s very unusual. I believe it’s called tieced.”

“That is unusual,” Clara Parker’s brow puckered. “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of that spice before. Have any of you?” A general head shaking of ‘no’s greeted her question. Jarrod enjoyed watching as they worked over the name, questioning one another on it’s possible resemblance to dill or perhaps allspice.

“No,” Mavis rolled the word over her tongue, “tieced. No, I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of that before. Could it be an oriental spice?”

Jarrod smiled again, enjoying this immensely. It bothered him not a wit that he had just spelled the word, deceit, backward and let the ladies think it was the name of Audra’s secret spice. The only regret he had was the peeved look on Molly’s face as she fussed with a plate of cookies on the table in front of the settee. She took her anger out on arranging the oatmeal cookies, totally vexed with what she considered his insensitive stupidity. She was the only woman in the room Jarrod took no delight in teasing.

“I wonder if Mr. Davis would have it at the Emporium?” Mrs. Whitcomb asked Mrs. Duncan. “Perhaps we would all have a chance at the blue ribbon for spiced cucumbers this year if we had the special spice.”

“Would you mind spelling that, Mr. Barkley?” Clara asked. “I’m afraid I must admit I’ve never heard of that spice before?”

Oh, haven’t you? Jarrod thought You serve it with every insincere word you say.. obligingly spelling out for her, “T-e-I-c-e-d.”

There was a slight risk that one of the women might realized her leg...ah, her limb...were being pulled if she spelled it correctly, but most of them didn’t. As they talked among themselves, Jarrod watched old Mrs. Bentley studying him, her sharp mind working over this puzzling new spice. He saw the moment her piercing brown eyes figured out the secret spice. Cackling out loud, she nodded her head in his direction with a wicked smile on her face. Her lips formed a word Jarrod had no difficulty reading. “Touche.”

“Might I have another cookie, Miss Richards?” Jarrod asked pleasantly, intending to mend this bridge immediately. Her disapproval of him rankled.

Molly gave him a stare so icy, he almost shivered. “Yes, Mr. Barkley,” she said in a frosty tone, “help yourself.” She shoved the plate of cookies at him a little more forcefully than necessary.

Temper, temper, he thought, then could stand her obvious annoyance no longer. Under cover of the conversation about the secret spice and whether it might be found at the stores in Stockton or would have to be purchased in San Francisco, Jarrod leaned closer to whisper, “Spell it backward.”

Molly gave him a perplexed look but he could see her quick mind working it out. As realization hit, her blue eyes twinkled with glee and laughter spurted past her lips. She hid it as best she could by faking a coughing spell, jumping up red faced to mumble, “I think I need some water,” before she raced out of the room shaking with suppressed laughter. Jarrod heard some very undignified, unladylike snorts before she managed to reach the sanctuary of the Parker’s kitchen. He hoped she could regain her composure enough to rejoin the party. He’d never expected to have such a delightful time.

The ladies, having exhausted the conversation about the spice, began to search around for what Clara Parker called, “other topics of general interest.” Unfortunately, Jarrod realized three oatmeal cookies later, they had decided to focus on him as the next unwilling victim.

“Tell me, Mr. Barkley,” Clara Parker asked as she got up to pour another round of the undrinkable tea. “Have you given any thought to marrying again? Or giving that sweet little Jenny another mother?”

“No, I really can’t say that I have,” Jarrod answered with a level voice. Sweet little Jenny! He wondered that the woman could lie with such a straight face. Last Sunday, he’d overheard her call Jenny an “unmanageable little hellion” twice.

“Oh, come, now,” Mavis simpered at him, “you can’t tell us the thought has never crossed your mind about getting married again.” She lifted her eyebrows at Mrs. Duncan, smiling a secret, ‘just between us women’ smile. “He wouldn’t have to go far to find a prospect, would he Laura, dear?”

Mrs. Duncan smiled the same provocative smile. “Not past a certain unmarried young woman in this very parlor.”

Jarrod let the meaningful snickers wash over him as he nonchalantly brushed cookie crumbs from the legs of his gray trousers. Audra had warned him that the women often indulged in making scathing comments about one member among them. Reputations might be diced, friendships destroyed and secrets revealed when they got in that frame of mind. “Like a bunch of tabby cats circling a helpless mouse.” At home, sitting safely in his own parlor, Jarrod had laughed at Audra’s exaggeration. Now, in the midst of the battle, he could see that a mother/daughter tea was a notoriously dangerous place to be. And Jenny had told him all he had to worry about was the geranium flavored tea.

“Perhaps you weren’t aware of this, Mr. Barkley,” Clara Parker said with false reticence, “but my younger sister, Olivia, once told me that when she and Molly Richards were girls your name came up quite often in conversation.”

“Did it now?”

“Oh, yes,” she continued, much to Old Mrs. Bentley’s disgusted sneers, “why when they use to play that game where you throw the apple peelings over your shoulder...”

At Jarrod’s pretended puzzled expression, she explained further, “Oh, surely, Audra’s told you about the silly game girls play. You toss the apple peelings over your shoulder to see if they spell out the initials of who you want your beau to be. And Molly always wanted hers to be...”

It was unfortunate that Molly had gotten over her laughing spell and chose that moment to reenter the parlor. Jarrod felt sorry for her as she heard her name, saw the jubilantly taunting smiles of the other women and heard Clara Parker finish her sentence, “J. B. J. B. Now, who’s initials are those, Mr. Barkley?”

Molly’s face flamed with embarrassment. Sudden tears sprang to her eyes but she staunchly blinked them away. For just a moment, she looked so much like Jenny when someone had hurt her feelings that Jarrod fought down an irresistible desire to wrap his arms around her. He resisted. Imagining the gossiping that would cause. Or maybe, he thought chuckling inside, they’d all faint at the scandal and leave them alone. It had exciting possibilities.

“I happened to be a child then, Clara!” Molly said with spirit, obviously furious to be singled out for teasing. “And I know for a fact that if you could have gotten Nick Barkley to even look at you . you wouldn’t have settled for Harry.”

“Well, well...” Clara sputtered, too enraged to form even a word of protest.

“She’s got you there, Clara,” Mrs. Bentley shrieked in delight, “I can recall a few apple peelings that spelled out N.B. too. Very contorted N.B.’s.”

Coming to the aid of her friend, Mavis jumped into the conversation with a cheery laugh, “Oh, I’m sure we’ve all done silly things in our past. Let’s talk of something else, shall we?”

The Miss Montgomery’s agreed. Miss Lucy taking umbrage at the very idea that she had ever done anything silly over any man. None of them, she stated, were worth it.

Molly, sitting stiff and still, fumed beside him. In an effort to ease her sudden discomfort at sharing a seat with him, Jarrod said from a corner of his mouth, “I’m really very flattered.”

“You would be.” She said in icicle words that let Jarrod know he’d said the wrong thing.
An embarrassed flush crept over her cheeks as she stared intently down at the tips of her shiny black shoes.

“You couldn’t do any worse, Molly,” Shy Mrs. Whitcomb spoke up from a corner of the sofa dominated by Mrs. Buchanan. “Any of the Barkley men would make a great catch. They’re all swimming in money and good looks. And you, Mr. Barkley, you aren’t getting any younger. Might be you’ve still got time to have a few more children. You might get a few that are more well behaved than that Jenny.”

Coming from this usual quite source, Mrs. Whitcomb’s words silenced every wagging tongue in the room. Everyone was too shocked to speak. All except Molly. “How dare you?”

Molly stood up, bristling with rage. “I will not stay here another instant and be insulted in this way. The only reason I came to this hateful party was because it meant so much to Sarah. You are all vile, despicable women and I...” Jarrod almost expected her to do what Jenny would do...scream she hated them and stamp her feet. Or burst into tears. She did neither. Instead, she turned to Jarrod, looking down at him she took a deep breath. “Mr. Barkley, I must apologize for the rude behavior of the women present today. I assure you I am NOT cast from the same mold.”

“I demand that you apologize to my guests at once, Miss Richards!” Clara Parker stood to her full imposing height, hands on her hips. “You have insulted every one of us.”

“Seems you insulted her first, Clara,” Mrs. Bentley made the mistake of interjecting. “Trying to foist her off on Jarrod Barkley. Can’t say I can picture him trying to keep her under control any better than he does that daughter of his. Most men don’t like marrying a feisty woman. Although he looks like he’d like to try.” Mrs. Bentley gave him a very unladylike wink. Jarrod shifted uncomfortably on the settee. Perhaps it was time for him to leave? The room seemed to have become unbearably warm.

“I beg your pardon?” Molly turned to the older woman, “What gives you the right to speak about me that way?”

“Old age. I figure I haven’t got much time left to speak my mind. Might as well speak plain without hiding behind a lot of fancy words. You adore him. It’s written all over your face...and he don’t look like he’d take much persuading.”

Molly put her hands to her hot cheeks. Was it that obvious? She was too ashamed to look at Jarrod. Should she go? Stay? Before she could decide the better course of action for this upsetting turn of events, Miss Agnes had to get in her biased opinion.

“You’d do better to stay single like Sister and I,” she told the flustered Molly, “Just think, if you did marry him you’d be the stepmother of that awful child of his.”

Jarrod’s anger rose at that insult to Jenny. He tried to think of a scathing, yet due to Miss Agnes’ age respectful, reply. An effort in futility because Molly jumped to Jenny’s defense before he could think of the proper response. “I’d can’t think of any other little girl in Stockton that I’d rather be stepmother to than Jennifer Barkley.”

“Molly, dear, don’t speak such a thing, even in jest!” Mavis said, although she’d just been pushing the union a few minutes earlier, “You don’t know the child like we do. You’ve been in Kansas City for the past year and a half. She is always getting into t-r-o-u-b-l-e.”

“She’s incorrigible,” Miss Lucy spoke up, forgetting in her near sited way that the incorrigible child’s father was present in the room. Or maybe she still thought that Nick had fathered Jenny. With the Montgomery Sisters it was difficult to tell. “One day, she pulled up all the dahlias in our garden and sold them to us! Our own flowers. Can you imagine?”

“I can imagine it takes someone pretty stupid not to recognize their own flowers in the first place,” Molly retorted. “And I hardly call that kind of behavior incorrigible. Audra Barkley has written me wonderful things about Jenny. Any woman would be proud to have her as a daughter.”

Realizing suddenly, how bold this sounded, Molly flushed again. Why couldn’t she ever learn to think before she spoke? Why? Her mother had always told her it was her worst failing. She was practically throwing herself at Jarrod Barkley. Saying she wanted to mother his daughter. What must he think?

“Clara,” Miss Lucy, with a considerable amount of straining and pushing managed to rise from her chair, “I refuse to be insulted in this house. I am leaving. I will not stay here and be called stupid by an impudent, redheaded child.”

“No, Miss Montgomery, please, “ Clara begged, running to almost forcibly push Miss Lucy back into a seating position, “You must stay. I’m sure Miss Richards has other things to do this afternoon.” She gave Molly a pointed look of dismissal. “We won’t detain her here any longer.”

Molly, grim and tight lipped stood up. What would Mr. Barkley think of her now? Being asked to leave a Mother/Daughter tea? Molly searched for a properly biting remark to leave the old biddies with but could come up with nothing more caustic than a curt, “Thank you for the tea.”

“Ladies,” Jarrod stood up as Molly made her way through the glaring eyes of the crowd. “It has been a most enlightening afternoon but I fear that I have overstayed my welcome too. I must be leaving.”

“Yes, Mr. Barkley,” Clara Parker hissed through her teeth, “now that you have ruined the mother/daughter tea, please let me see you out.”

“Thank you, that won’t be necessary,” Jarrod remarked. He studied the faces before him, angered at the way they had treated Molly, the mean spirited remarks they’d made about Jenny and found the right stinging words to leave them with, “I look forward to seeing you all at church tomorrow. I believe I heard the topic for tomorrow’s sermon was going to be, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself.’ Good afternoon.”

As he lifted his hat from the hat rack, he heard Mrs. Bentley’s cackling laugh. “Took you all down a peg or two didn’t he? Now, if I was just forty years younger I’d go after him myself. Shut your mouth, Clara, you trying to catch flies?”

Part 6

“You take that back, Emily Parker, or I’ll punch you in the nose!”

“I’d like to see you try, Jenny Barkley!”

Dirty darn. Why did I ever come to this stupid tea party anyway? Any second I’m going to have to break my promise to Daddy about not fighting with Emily. She can’t say that and get away with it! Why did I ever come in her old backyard anyway?

By the time Jarrod had worn out his welcome with the Mothers at the tea, Jenny’s welcome had already been torn to shreds. If she’d ever been welcome at the Mother/Daughter tea at all. By the unwelcome she got, Jenny doubted it. Not long after Jenny let herself in by the white picket gate into the Parker’s garden, she began to get the idea that none of the other girls wanted her there. Her first clue came with Emily, smiling her sickening, sweet smile of greeting. Or maybe it was when Clara Buchanan stuck out her tongue and Addie Duncan held her nose and whispered, “Why is she here?” .

Jenny barely had time to notice how pretty the Parker’s garden looked, all decorated in pink and white for the Mother/Daughter tea before events started unraveling like a ball of Grandma’s yarn. In a quick glance around, she caught a glimpse of several white wicker tables covered in Mrs. Parker’s third best lace cloths. Fragrant centerpieces of pink and white peonies graced each table along with plates of cookies and iced cakes.

“Jenny,” Emily simpered, coming toward Jenny her pink silk dress rustling. “I didn’t expect to see you here today. Especially since you don’t have a real mother. Did you come with your Grandmother or your Aunt Audra?”

“My Daddy brought me.” Jenny held her head high, determined to keep her promise to Daddy not to get into any fights. Although maybe she could keep her promise if she just snatched those huge pink bows out of Emily’s lank blonde hair and stomped them into the dirt. “Just like I told you he would.”

Dirty darn. Looked like Emily had her fangs out already. Jenny tugged nervously on the back of her green hair bow, looking for a friendly face as four girls in pastel colored dresses began to circle around her. Emily Parker. Her best friend, Clara Buchanan. Two bigger girls from class, Annie Whitcomb and that awful, Addie Duncan, Billy’s sister. Grandma had tried to tell her last night that most of the nicer girls in school wouldn’t be at the tea. That their mothers would have nothing to do with the kind of gossiping Mrs. Parker liked to indulge in. Jenny wished she’d listened. Boy howdy, she wished she’d listened.

The only friendly face she saw in the crowd was poor, thin Sarah Jennings. Sarah stood off to the side, shying away from the other girls. From the way she kept surreptitiously wiping away tears, Jenny knew the girls had been tearing into Sarah . Jenny had no doubts that the girls had finished ripping Sarah apart and were looking for a fresh victim when she walked in the gate.

Dirty darn. Why did I ever come? And why did I promise not to hit anybody?

“Your Father didn’t bring you,” Addie Duncan objected, coming to tower over Jenny with a fierce frown on her face. “You’re a little liar.”

“I am not!” Jenny ground out. She glared at Addie, fists clenched so tight in her palms she drew blood. If she just hadn’t promised Daddy, crossing her heart and everything, she’d punch that Addie right in the nose. Addie might be Billy’s sister but they were nothing alike. “My Daddy did bring me.”

“He did not!” Annie taunted.

“He did!”

Emily looked at Addie for support. “Maybe I’ll just go peek in the parlor window and see who came with Jenny. Everybody knows Jenny wouldn’t know the truth if it walked up and hit her in the face.”

“Are you calling me a liar, Emily? Because if you are...” Jenny held up a fist and let the threat hang in the air. Oh, if she just hadn’t promised...

Stepping back a few feet gave Emily the bravery she needed to hiss, “You just better not try to punch me, Jennifer Barkley. This is my house and my mother is inside. She said if you make any trouble she was going to throw you out herself.”

“You leave her alone,” Addie took up for Emily. Naturally. There had never been any love lost between Addie and Jenny. Not since the afternoon Jenny and Billy had left ten spiders in Addie’s bed. “I’m bigger than you so you’d better not try anything.”

Jenny stuck her tongue out at Addie. Addie scowled back, sniffing and holding her nose in the air as if she were too good to pay attention to a mere child.

“Go look in the window, Emily,” Clara pressed her. “If Jenny’s Grandmother is in there, we’ll go tell how she’s misbehaving. We’ll say Jenny threw cakes all over of poured tea on Mrs. Parker’s tablecloths. We’ll make a mess and blame it on her.”

“You better not!” Jenny threatened, crossing her arms over her chest and standing her ground. “You’re worse liars than I am.”

“You should know one when you see one, Jenny,” Clara jeered back, her brown pop eyes narrowing with disdain. “Have you ever told the truth?”

Jenny turned her back on Clara, ignoring her while she swallowed past a lump in her throat. Why did they always have to be so mean? Jenny knew she could never be that mean, even if Daddy or Grandma would let her. She could never tell Annie that she looked even fatter in that bright yellow dress or that Clara wouldn’t be so ugly if she didn’t always have that hateful smirk on her lips. She couldn’t even be mean to Emily, no matter how many hurtful words Emily said to her. Jenny knew how much teasing made you ache inside. Even when Addie called her and Billy vile names, Jenny couldn’t see hurting Addie back with words. Punching her in the nose, that was different. Jenny knew she could do that without an instant’s hesitation. If she just hadn’t promised Daddy. Dirty darn.

Snickering, giggling, and acting like the idiot she was, Emily crab walked on all fours around the side of the house. She was too short to reach the windows, even standing on her toes. “Addie,” she mouthed, motioning the older girl, “come see if you can peek inside.”

Addie crouched down and ran alongside the house. Jenny hid a smile at watching Addie in so undignified a position that her drawers and petticoats showed. When she got near the window, she stood up until her eyes were level with the windowsill. Bobbing back down in a hurry as someone walked past the window inside. Eyes wide, she put a finger to her lips and motioned Emily to follow her back to the other girls.

“You won’t believe this! Jenny didn’t lie. Mr. Barkley is in there! Jenny brought her father to a mother/daughter tea!” Addie began to laugh so hard she held her stomach and doubled over with laughter. The other girls looked at Jenny with incredulity and then burst out laughing.

“You are so dumb!” Emily taunted, joining Addie and the others in laughing at Jenny. “You brought your Father. I can’t believe you could be so stupid! No one brings their father to a mother/daughter tea!”

“I’m not dumb and I’m not stupid!” Jenny stamped her foot wishing she could do something to stop the embarrassed flush burning her cheeks. Jenny blinked back tears. They weren’t going to make her cry. Ever. What was so stupid about bringing Daddy? He was the only mother she had.

“You are,” Clara stopped laughing to wipe her eyes, “you are dumb, stupid and a baby. Is wittle baby gonna cry?”

Jenny’s throat ached and her eyes stung. She would not cry. Not in front of that stupid Clara Buchanan. Or Emily Parker or Addie. Ever. Pressing her lips together as tight as she could, Jenny stared back at Clara as mean as she dared. She fought hard not to burst into tears while the girls laughed and laughed, pointing at her and calling her names. It took every ounce of willpower not to bash them all in the nose and run out of the garden. If she just hadn’t promised Daddy she wouldn’t fight. Daddy didn’t really want to come in the first place. The only reason he had was because he couldn’t stand to hear her cry about it anymore. He’d made her promise to behave nicely and no fighting or name calling. He’d been pretty clear on what punishment she could expect if she did.

“Come on, Clara,” Addie called after the girls had laughed until their sides ached, “Let’s sit down and have our tea. We can talk while we eat. I’ve got some ideas.” She raised her eyebrows nodding in Jenny and Sarah’s direction. Jenny could guess the ideas would be to tease her or Sarah or get them into trouble.

Emily and her friends, chattering like hens, all ran for one of the wicker tables. It held four chairs which meant that Jenny and Sarah were left out. Mrs. Parker, anticipating that all of the girls in the school would bring their Mothers to the tea, had set up five tables. It didn’t take Jenny long to figure out that Emily had grabbed the nicest table with the rose sprigged china tea service and the biggest plates of cookies. She had the cakes iced with pink icing too.

The other tables went from nicely set to one table placed farthest away from Emily’s. It held a few simple tin cups, Mrs. Buchanan’s inedible seed cake and all the broken pieces of cookies. The table for the Modoc girls in the class, Jenny guessed. Mrs. Parker would never want Sister Patience to know she had deliberately left the orphan girls out. But she wouldn’t set out the best china or give them cake with pink icing either.

Sarah still stood off to the side, pressing back against a honeysuckle bush, her usual quivering self. Although she had on a nicer dress than usual, a pretty pale blue with six tucks piped in white trim on the bodice. Her light brown hair was brushed until it shone and tied with a dark blue hair band. Sighing, Jenny walked over to join her. “Hi, Sarah.”

“Hi, Jenny,” Sarah whispered as if she dare not cause any more trouble than necessary by speaking louder, “Do you...do you think we can sit down and drink some tea too?”

Jenny made a face. “I wouldn’t drink that if Mrs. Parker gave me a million silver dollars. She puts a geranium leaf in it.”

“She does?” Sarah’s eyes got wide, “I would drink it...if she gave me a million silver dollars. Even if it did have a geranium leaf in it. If I had a million dollars I could help my Mama.”

Uncomfortably, Jenny bit her lip. Talking about Sarah’s Mama always made her feel uneasy. Like she might be about to say the wrong thing. “We don’t have to drink the tea but let’s get some cakes before those pigs eat them all.”

“You are so brave, Jenny.”

“Dirty darn, Sarah, what’s so brave about eating cakes. We were invited to this dumb tea in the first place. Probably just so they could make fun of us, but we were invited. Just don’t eat any of Mrs. Buchanan’s cake. My Uncle Nick says it tastes like sheep dip.”

Jenny and Sarah found a table with a plate of oatmeal cookies and plain sponge cakes. They must be at the third nicest table, Jenny decided. The lace cloth was patched in several places, most of the china cups had chips and the cookies were burnt on the bottom. Still, they didn’t have to sit with that awful Emily or her other nasty friends. Sarah dared to try the tea, even after Jenny warned her, and ended up spitting it out on the ground.

“Yuck!”

A gale of laughter came from Emily’s table. Jenny pretended not to notice how Emily and the other girls kept pointing at her and Sarah, whispering in one another’s ears and laughing at the outcasts. It hurt so much Jenny could barely swallow a bite of sponge cake past the ache in her throat.

“It was nice of your Daddy to bring you,” Sarah broke the silence. “He must love you a lot.”

Jenny felt worse hearing Sarah praise Daddy. Guilty that Sarah’s daddy wasn’t as nice as hers. Everybody said Sarah’s daddy was a “black sheep.” Jenny couldn’t understand that at all. Or the mean things people said about Sarah’s Mama. How she took off and left Sarah and her brother with their Aunt Abigail.

“Did your Aunt Abigail bring you?”

Sarah’s whole face lit up, happier than Jenny had ever seen it before, “No, she got the grippe. My Aunt Molly brought me. She made me this pretty dress to wear too. You’d like my Aunt Molly, Jenny. She reminds me of you. Sometimes she even says dirty darn.”

“Lots of people say that,” Jenny laughed feeling happier because Sarah was smiling. She didn’t much. Not since her Mama left her with her Aunt Abigail, who was too busy working at the Cattleman’s Hotel to care much about Sarah. Emily always found worse things to say about Sarah’s Mama than she did Jenny’s. Jenny had been trying to teach Sarah to take up for herself but Sarah sure was slow at learning to hit back.

“Maybe so,” Sarah agreed around a mouthful of sponge cake, “but you really would like my Aunt Molly. She’s pretty and funny and guess what? I told her how you’ve been getting Mr. Silas to send extra food in your lunch pail for me cause Aunt Abigail is too busy to fix anything. Aunt Molly said that sounds like something your Mama would do. She said you sounded like a good friend and she hoped she would get to meet you soon.”

Jenny blushed a little at the compliment, surprised that Sarah had strung more than two words together at a time. Usually Sarah was quieter than Uncle Heath. “Did she know my Mama? Your Aunt Molly?”

“Not really knew her,” Sarah explained, brown eyes animated with a happy sparkle, ‘but she met her a couple of times at Grandpa’s store in Grove City. She met you too before, Jenny, when you were real little. Your Daddy brought you and Nicky into the store. She said that you...”

Suddenly, Sarah stopped talking to stare fixedly down at her plate. Surprised at the change, Jenny looked up to see Emily and Addie coming toward their table. Uh, oh...trouble.

“You two aren’t being very sociable,” Addie scolded, smiling maliciously, “you’re suppose to talk to other people at a tea. Don’t you want to talk to us?”

“Not particularly,” Jenny fixed Addie with a level stare. Picking up a cookie and eating it as if Addie and Emily were not staring at her with their eyes seething.

I promised my Daddy. I promised my Daddy.

“How about you, Sarah? Don’t you want to talk to us? We could talk about some topic of general interest.”

Sarah couldn’t speak. With her face downcast, Sarah hid behind the light brown curtain of her hair afraid to look up.

“Did you answer, Sarah? It’s very impolite not to speak when you’re spoken to,” Addie voice was thick with insinuation, “of course, we must make excuses for you. You never have a mother at home to teach you good manners.”

Jenny bridled at the rude remark to Sarah. “You leave her alone!” She clenched her fists tight in the lap of her green dress to keep herself from jumping up and pushing Addie to the ground.

“Who’s going to make me? You? You aren’t any better than her. My Mother says you’re the most ill-mannered child in Stockton. You’re always getting my brother, Billy in trouble.”

Clara and Annie, having finished stuffing cakes with pink icing in their mouths, came to join the teasing. Annie still had a big hunk of cake, thick with pink icing in her hands. “Yeah, Jenny,” Clara leaned on the table, bringing her face close to Jenny’s as she smiled wickedly, “Everyone knows that Mrs. Duncan only lets Billy play with you because the Barkley’s own half the valley. Nobody really likes you. If they do, it’s just because your family is so rich no one wants to offend them.”

Jenny pursed her lips with suppressed fury, determined not to cry. Like Sarah, she found herself looking down at the yellow roses on the chipped china plate, avoiding the sneering eyes of the other girls.

“People do too like Jenny,” Sarah spoke up unexpectedly in her behalf. “Lots of people like Jenny. I like Jenny.”

“Who are you?’ Emily hissed. “A nobody. Who cares who you like.”

Sarah’s head ducked back down. Under the table, Jenny reached over to grab Sarah’s hand and squeeze. Sarah squeezed back but Jenny still saw the tears begin to drip down her cheeks, landing in the cup of Mrs. Parker’s horrible tea with tiny plops. How dare they hurt Sarah?

“You leave her alone,” Jenny repeated, her face hot and pinched with anger. “Leave her alone or I’ll tell Sister Patience you didn’t have charity.”

They laughed at the threat, knowing as Jenny did that Sister Patience never listened to tattling.
Addie walked around behind Jenny, tugging at her hair bow a little too hard as she passed. Jenny bit back the “ouch!” she wanted to yell.

“So we don’t have charity do we?” Addie made sure she was back in front of Jenny so that she could see the withering look in Addie’s cold blue eyes. “I’d say you have even less than we do, Jenny Barkley. You act like you love that Daddy of yours but you don’t. If you did you’d run away or something. My Mother says that your Daddy could have his pick of any number of fine women in this town for a wife but no one would ever want to marry him. You know why?”

Tears in her eyes, threatening to fall, Jenny shook her head.

“I know why,” Emily piped up happily, “it’s the same thing my mother says. No one would want to marry Mr. Barkley because then they’d have Jenny for a step-daughter.”

Jenny struggled hard not to let those pesky tears fall. Was it true? That no one would ever want her for a daughter? Jenny didn’t think she was that awful. Her stomach twisting in knots, she bit her lip anxiously. “Maybe..” she tried to defend herself in a strained voice, “maybe Daddy doesn’t want to get married again.”

Addie smiled wisely, “My mother says that every widower wants to get married again. They all do. All but poor Mr. Barkley, stuck with you for a daughter.”

“My Aunt Molly would marry him!” Sarah, tears damp on her cheeks, stood up with her fists clenching the sides of her blue party dress. “She says that Jenny is a nice person and she’d be proud to someday have a daughter like her!”

Clara advanced on Sarah, glaring at her until Sarah sank back into her chair, trembling. “Your Aunt Molly! Ha, ha! Mr. Barkley probably wouldn’t have anyone like her.” She said the word HER in such a sneering, dismissing tone that Jenny flinched. Dreading, but knowing, just what Clara would say next. “She’s probably just like your mother.”

“Don’t you...don’t you say bad things about my mother,” Sarah whispered in a scared little voice that brought out the protectiveness in Jenny.

“Why shouldn’t we?” Emily asked. “It is a topic of general conversation. Most of the town is talking about how your mother ran off after...”

“Stop it!”

Jenny jumped up, knocking her chair over backward. Rosy indignation flamed her face as her hands balled into tight fists. “Don’t you say anything else about Sarah’s mother.”

“Who’s going to stop me?” Emily, braver with the other three girls lending her support, walked toward Jenny. Her mouth quirked in annoyance, “You wouldn’t dare hit me. And since this is my tea party I’ll say whatever I want. It would be better if Sarah was an orphan. Least then she’d have somebody care if she got fed and didn’t come to school in dirty, smelly dresses with her hair unbrushed.”

“Take it back, Emily.” Jenny didn’t care if it was four against one. She didn’t care if she did promise Daddy not to fight. Emily Parker wasn’t going to get away with teasing Sarah anymore. Teasing hurt. “Take it back, Emily or I’m going to punch you in the nose.”

“I’d like to see you try, Jenny Barkley.” Addie and Clara made a protective circle around Emily, daring Jenny to act. Annie stood there, the wedge of cake in her hands, licking at the icing as if she were watching recitations at school.

Dirty darn. Daddy wasn’t going to like this one bit. After she’d promised and crossed her heart and everything. Jenny knew it wouldn’t do any good but she gave Emily one more chance. “You take it back, Emily. Take it back and tell Sarah you’re sorry for talking mean about her and her Mother.”

“No!”

Jenny grabbed the cake from Annie's startled hands, gave an instant to wondering how much trouble she’d get into for this kind of fighting, and smashed it into Emily’s nose. Daddy hadn’t said a word about not hitting Emily with cake. Had he?

Part 7

For one stunned second, Emily stood motionless while most of the cake slid down her nose, past her frowning lips to land on the tips of her shiny shoes. Jenny, shocked at her daring, stood just as still without attempting to wipe the pink icing from her hand. Daddy would not be happy. Oh, no, she could just see those angry blue eyes giving her a Look.

Dirty darn. I am in big trouble now. Very big trouble.

Before Jenny had a chance to run, Emily gave a scream of pure rage. Her face contorted with fury, Emily put her hands roughly on Jenny’s shoulders and pushed her down to the ground. Jenny fell backward into the dirt, landing hard on her bottom. It hurt but not as bad as Emily , who was no lightweight, plopping down on her stomach and pushing Jenny flat while she ordered Clara, “Give me some cake.”

“Get off me, Emily! Let me alone!” Jenny tried to kick her way clear of her enemy but Emily sat tight, determined to get revenge. Wiggling around on the dirt, Jenny fought to free herself without a thought to the once pristine state of her party dress.

Addie ran to grab hunks of cake from the wicker table, smiling maliciously as she handed it over to Emily. Jenny put her hands over her face to ward off the attack. Too bad that Addie and Clara took sides with Emily, grabbing Jenny’s hands so she couldn’t protect herself. They each held a hand while Emily, with a gleeful chuckle, began to smash cake into Jenny’s face.

Having cake smooshed in her face wasn’t too awful, except for Emily’s fat hand pushing it up her nose. Jenny fought her off as best she could. Gagging and coughing. She managed to jerk her arms away from Addie and Clara.. Kicking and squirming and fighting hard to get away. Emily, breathing hard, quit smashing the cake at her face and started to smear it into her hair. Dirty darn, Jenny thought, shoving at the insides of Emily’s arms with both fists, now I’ll have to get my hair washed again. Aunt Audra will use that nasty soap that burns my eyes and it’s all that hateful Emily’s fault. Dirty darn. It made her mad enough she found a renewed purpose in getting away.

Jenny managed to heave her stomach up and upset Emily’s balance. Just enough that she could start to scoot away but not fast enough to get away completely. Emily grabbed the sleeve of her new dress, yanking hard and holding on with a surprisingly strong grip. Jenny ended up half sitting, half leaning back with Emily’s pudgy knee pinning down her left hand. With her free hand, Emily started to slap Jenny’s cheek as hard as she could. The first smack brought tears to Jenny’s eyes. Her ears rang . As more and more slaps landed, she began to be dizzy and confused. Jenny tried to hit at Emily’s hands with her free hand, to protect her face. Finally, she just gave up and bit her lip to keep from whimpering. It was too hard to balance herself and strike at Emily at the same time.

“Stop hitting her!” Jenny heard Sarah’s screams, mingled with Clara shouting, “Smack her good, Emily.”

“Be quiet!” Addie hissed out a command. “Our Mothers will hear.”

“Let her alone!” Sarah screamed again, paying no attention to Addie. “You’re hurting her!”

Jenny’s eyes swam with tears she dare not cry. The slapping hurt. It stung and it smarted and Emily wouldn’t quit. Each time Jenny thought she’d managed to grab Emily’s hand to stop her, Emily came up with a new burst of energy and began to slap again. Jenny wanted to bawl and howl and smack Emily back but she knew she couldn’t afford to cry. Uncle Nick always said the most important thing to remember when you were fighting was never let the opponent know how much you hurt. Never, ever let them see you cry.

“Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” Sarah screamed. Before anyone could stop her, Sarah ran toward Emily, jerking hard at the back of Emily’s hair. Tugging, pulling and crying, “Let her alone!”

Clara caught Sarah by the pale blue sash of her dress jerking her away from Emily. Shoving her roughly to the ground, Clara leaned down into Sarah’s face. Clara’s eyes narrowed into mean slits, “You hush up! If our Mothers hear we’re all in trouble. Your little friend is getting exactly what she deserves. She thinks she’s better than everybody else. You keep quiet or we’ll let Emily smack you to.”

Crying, trembling with fear, Sarah sat on the ground and flinched at each smack on Jenny’s face. I have to help Jenny. I have to! But I’m too afraid. Sarah opened her mouth to scream. Maybe, if she screamed loud enough a grown up would come and make them stop. She tried but no sound came out, the scream frozen in her throat. Sarah pulled her knees up to her chest and buried her face against them. Maybe when they stopped hitting Jenny they would start hitting her. It was a terrifying thought. Please, please, please someone come along and stop them.

“Stop it, Emily!” Jenny’s anger surged like an ocean wave breaking over a beach. Pulling away from Emily’s grip, she heard the tearing sound of her sleeve. No time to worry about ruining her new dress now. With just a bare thought of promising Daddy she wouldn’t hit Emily, Jenny did the next best thing. Grabbed a hank of Emily’s hair on both sides of her head and jerked as hard as she could. Emily screamed in fury. Daddy had said ho hitting. Jenny couldn’t remember hearing a word about hair pulling. Or pinching.


As Jarrod left the Parker’s front door, he was blissfully unaware of the minor skirmish taking place in the backyard. Setting his gray Stetson firmly on his dark hair, his only thought was relief. He was heartily glad to be away from the sharp tongues at the Mother/Daughter tea. He also send a small prayer of heartfelt thanks Heavenward that his Mother and Audra were not cut from the same cloth. A small smirk touched his lips as he wondered how long it would take the women to figure out they’d been duped by the secret spice. He couldn’t wait to share the story at home. Mother and Audra would be delighted.

Jarrod strode to the porch steps, intent only on finding Jenny and shaking the figurative dust of the Parker’s from his feet as quickly as possible. If he hadn’t heard a quiet sniff that sounded as if it came from around the corner of the wraparound porch, he’d have been on his way. Another sniff. A discreet sob.

Wondering which little girl had gotten her feelings hurt and run off for a secret cry, Jarrod followed the sound around a corner. Surprised to find not a little girl but Molly Richards, wiping her eyes and a very red nose into a delicate lace handkerchief that looked thoroughly damp and useless.

Molly, thinking she was hidden from prying eyes on the street by the morning glory vines climbing the porch railing, turned at his approach. Startled to see him come up behind her so suddenly, catching her in a moment of distress. Dirty darn! What a fix she’d gotten herself into this ti me. Nowhere to run and hide. And her nose as red as an American Beauty rose.


“Miss Richards? Is there something wrong?”

Red eyed and teary, Molly turned her back on him, embarrassed to be caught unawares. Dirty darn! Why must her nose always turned such a bright shade of red when she cried? How utterly mortifying. Worse than listening to the old crows inside shoving her into his arms. Not that it would be such an awful place to be...

“Is there any way I may help?” Jarrod repeated, thinking of a graceful way he might exit and leave her to her obvious discomfiture at his presence. Like all men, he felt uncomfortable around a crying woman.

Molly clenched her handkerchief. She fought to keep her voice level, “No, thank you, Mr. Barkley. You have done quite enough.” How utterly awful! What must he think of her?

“If you’re certain..” he hesitated.

Leave, just leave, Molly thought desperately, before I start bawling like a child. She clenched and unclenched her handkerchief, fighting back more tears that threatened to fall.

“I wouldn’t pay any attention to the gossip inside if I were you,” he offered comfort as he would to Jenny or Audra. Nick always joked that it was his Pappy instinct kicking in. “You should consider the source and shrug it off. Although it has been very entertaining. I rather enjoyed it.”

“Oh....” Molly wailed. Was he making fun of her? Had she been entertaining? Her flustered embarrassment? Had she lost any chance of him thinking of her as anything but a little girl? Molly dared turn to look at him. He didn’t seem to be teasing. Taking a clean handkerchief from the breast pocket of his jacket, he handed it over to her. Noticing, Molly flushed, that her own was damp and beyond using.

“Here, blow.” He said, holding it out to her as he would to Jenny.

Molly’s anger flared up. How dare he? Only dire necessity made her snatch the handkerchief from his hand and blow. Loudly. “I am not a child!” She flung the words at him, miserably aware that her dripping nose told him otherwise. “Oh, what’s the use! You’re never going to see me as anything but a little school girl with her hair in braids.”

Swiping at her eyes with his handkerchief, Molly turned and flounced over to the porch swing. She sat down, her shoulders slumped in dejection. First those horrible old crows at the tea, then having him catch her crying her eyes out like a five year old. This was absolutely the most mortifying afternoon she’d ever endured. And hadn’t her big mouth just told him that she CARED what he thought of her? She’d better keep her lips tight before humiliating herself further.

“Would you like a lemon drop?” He asked, reaching into his pocket and bringing out a red and white striped bag. He held it out to her. “Jenny always find them a great comfort in times of stress.”

A lemon drop? A lemon drop? Did he think she was still six? Molly looked up at him incredulously, two bright spots of color appearing on her cheeks. “I am NOT a child. I am not your child, Mr. Barkley . No, I do not want a lemon drop!”

Jarrod had the grace to look flustered himself. Molly’s anger cooled some as he shifted nervously from one foot to another. Realizing how ungraciously she’d sounded, he was just trying to help after all, Molly mustered the courage to apologize. “Forgive me. It’s just...I feel like such a fool.”

“Why should you feel that way, Miss Richards? You’ve done nothing foolish that I can see.”

Kind, just like he’d always been. He made it easy, Molly thought, to open her heart. “Yes, I have. I never should have come here today. I should have known better. It hasn’t been that long since I lived in Stockton. Not long enough to forget the likes of Mrs. Parker and Mrs. Buchanan.”

Acting as if he had all the time in the world, Jarrod perched himself against the porch railing. “It’s a fact that I forgot myself.” He smiled, those blue eyes not laughing at her but at himself. “Mother warned me to forget the whole idea.”

“Then why did you come?”

“It meant so much to Jenny.” He looked off, down the street of Stockton, pretending intense interest in a matched set of bays pulling a wagon load of lumber. “She misses her mother more than she says. Today was just a way to help her forget she’s different than most of her classmates.”

Molly ached for him. It wasn’t only Jenny who missed her mother. “I know. It’s the same with Sarah. That’s why I came too. It meant so much to Sarah to be included. She has so little happiness in her life right now it seemed the least I could do for her.”

Turning back to look at her, Jarrod wisely kept silent. He and Jenny had already had several conversations about Sarah’s predicament. He’d been glad to hear from Audra that she’d written to Molly Richards hoping she could come to Stockton. Abigail Jennings hadn’t seemed to do a proper job of taking care of her sister in laws children. Not from what Jenny told him. Or Silas, who worried that the food he sent along in Jenny’s lunch pail wouldn’t be enough for two growing children. Any efforts to offer other help to Abigail Jennings had been rebuffed.

“I suppose you’ve heard all the rumors about Sarah’s mother...”

“All I’ve heard,” Jarrod answered kindly, “was that she’d gone to a mining camp to find her husband.”

Molly felt quick tears moisten her eyes again. You could always count on a Barkley not to pay attention to rumor. “That’s a decent way to put it. It’s true that Josie went to find Patrick. Again.” Molly didn’t try to keep the bitterness from her voice. Why pretend when most of Stockton, including Jarrod Barkley, knew the truth about her sister? “That’s all she’s ever done. Chase him down from one mining camp to another to get him to provide for his family. Papa tried to tell her years ago to just give up on him. If she’d come back to Kansas City, she could work in Papa’s store and we’d help her with the children. But, no...she’s always had a mind of her own. Someday, Patrick is going to make a home for them all. She’ll go to her grave believing there’s hope he’s going to change. She refuses to face the fact that he’s beyond redemption.”

“Perhaps she loves him too much to believe he’s beyond redemption.”

Molly looked up at him. Seeing her sister, Josie in a new light. If she were Josie, if Jarrod were the black sheep, Patrick...would she chase him all over California hoping to bring him home? It was a novel idea. One she’d have to think more about. “You might be right. But she should never have left Sarah and Petey with Abigail. If your sister, Audra, hadn’t sent me a letter telling me they weren’t being cared for or even fed regularly....well...” Molly chocked up just thinking how much gratitude she owed the Barkley family. “We owe Audra a debt of gratitude for being so thoughtful. And your, Jenny. Sarah has told me all Jenny has done for her. I’m sure when I get back to Kansas City, Papa will want to pay you for all the food your Mr. Silas has sent to school for Sarah and Petey.”

“That’s not necessary. Silas would be outraged if you offered.” Jarrod, noticing that Molly looked as if she’d gotten her composure back, tried to force a smile back to her lips. “He enjoys feeding people. And as long as I’ve known him, he’s never served seed cake or tieced in his spiced cucumbers.”

Molly burst out laughing. “How did you ever think of that? It was positively brilliant.”

“I’m a lawyer,” He told her with false modesty, bowing from the waist as he accepted the compliment, “positively brilliant is my specialty, Lovely Lady.”

Lovely Lady. Did he really think that? Or was it just an endearment he used for any woman? Hadn’t Audra mentioned in a letter that he called her that? Molly suspected that Audra didn’t feel the same shivers of delight she felt as the words rolled caressingly off his tongue. Was she really a lovely lady? Or was he just kind enough to look beyond her ridiculous red hair and the fact that she’d been crying until her eyes were raw?

“Well, I’d better go round up my daughter and be off.” He tipped his hat gallantly as he stood away from the porch railing.. “It’s been a pleasure, Miss Richards. Perhaps we’ll see one another again soon.”

He was leaving! She couldn’t let him leave! Not without apologizing for the indignities he’d suffered in her behalf at the tea. “Mr. Barkley,” he stopped, turned politely. “I’m really very sorry for what was said this afternoon.” Molly laughed nervously, not thinking before she spoke, “They practically had us walking down the aisle didn’t they?” Stupid! How mortifying! Why couldn’t she learn to think before she opened her mouth? Blushing furiously, she lowered her eyes not daring to look up at him. Embarrassed beyond hoping the porch would crack open in an earthquake so she could slink silently away. So humiliated that his next question caught her by surprise, taking her breath away.

“Did you really hope to find my initials when you threw the apple peelings?” He asked. Molly looked up startled to see a slight grin on his face.

Oh, he was going to laugh at her! Offering her his handkerchief and lemon drops as if she were still the same silly little girl who use to tag after him at school. Or Jenny’s age. She might have saved all those wishes she’d make on the first stars at night. Hoping that someday he’d see her, notice her. It was hopeless.

“Everyone does stupid things when they’re a child,” Molly retorted, angry that she didn’t have whatever Jarrod Barkley had admired in Beth and Louisa. Saying the first stupid words that came into her head, “ I don’t know why I ever gave you a second glance. I always thought your brother, Nick, was the handsomest boy in Stockton School.”

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Molly wished heartily that Mr. Jarrod Barkley would just leave. Leave and let her wallow in her mortification. Or that a convenient earthquake would give them somewhere else to direct their attention. Maybe a tornado...no, that was Kansas City not Stockton.

“Really?” Oh, those lifted eyebrows, that quirk of a teasing smile around his lips, “Then why did you propose to me?”

“Jarrod Barkley! I never did such a thing! How can you say that?” He couldn’t possibly remember, could he? Why would he remember that? A memory she’d cherished all her life. Surely he’d forgotten.

“You were six. You had two front teeth missing and new pink ribbons on your braids.” He did! He remembered.! Molly listened to him, clenching her hands together in the lap of her blue skirt. “I took special notice of the ribbons because you pointed them out to me. Right before you asked me to marry you.”

Molly groaned, wishing she could hide the bright redness of her cheeks. Naturally, he’d remember how silly she’d been back then. And only Jarrod Barkley would still know the color of hair ribbons she’d worn.

“I believe you also mentioned that if I married you, your mother would bake us cookies every day.”

Humiliated, Molly put her hands up and covered her face. He did! He knew every detail.

“It was a little difficult to pass up an offer like that,” He jested, gently teasing, “your mother was one of the best cookie makers I’ve ever known. I seem to recall it was one of the best proposals I received that year. It was a little hard to turn you down.”

Molly, hands over her eyes, let the words sink into her mind. One of the best? ONE of the best?
“One of the best! How many proposals can a twelve year old boy receive?”

“Four.”

“Four!” Molly dropped her hands from her eyes. Looking into his smirking face, she narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Who else?”

“You. Audra. One of my cousins and Edith Bannister.”

“Edith? Edith with the blond corkscrew hair, huge blue eyes and the brain of a butterfly? That Edith?”

“That Edith.”

Molly looked at him. Jarrod looked back at her steadily. Together, they burst into laughter.
Molly had to use his handkerchief to wipe her eyes, she laughed hard enough to bring tears to her already red rimmed eyes. Goodness! She must look a sight. Almost as silly as she’d looked without her two front teeth.

“You must have thought what a silly little girl I was.” Molly blushed prettily, “You were just too polite to tell me. You answered me and told me that your parents wouldn’t let you marry anyone until you’d finished school.” Molly glanced up demurely to see him watching her with a slightly bemused smile on his face. “Wasn’t I such a silly little girl?”

“You aren’t a little girl anymore.” He spoke softly.

Well! He had noticed she’d grown up! Even if he had offered her a lemon drop. Molly dropped her eyes to the hands clenched on her lap. Wondering quite boldly just how nice a wedding ring would look on her left hand. A thought that caused that infernal blushing to spread across her cheeks. Dirty darn! How could it be possible that the adoration she’d felt for Jarrod Barkley at six had never dimmed?

Unable to speak more than one word, Molly whispered, “No.”

Shrieks and screams and the shrill voices of little girls, excited little girls, reached the porch. Molly jumped off the swing, rushing to stand beside Jarrod. He leaned over the railing, shoving aside morning glories that impeded his view. Unable to see into the backyard, he turned quickly and started to walk toward the commotion.

“That sounds like there might be trouble,” Molly said, grabbing the sides of her skirt, running behind him as he strode across the porch to the steps.

“No,” he corrected grim lipped, “it sounds like it is trouble. It sounds like Jenny.”

Part 8

Huffing, puffing, taking one step at a time, Mrs. Bentley made it to the second floor landing. Her cane more hindrance than help, she heaved her hefty weighted skirts and petticoats upstairs. Glad to be away from the gossiping and cackling of her daughter and friends in the parlor. Wondering, not for the first time, how Clara had gone so wrong. Clara hadn’t been raised a pinched faced, gossip. Shaking her gray head, she pondered the injustice of having a wayward child.

Easing her tired bulk down on a settee Clara kept on the landing, she chuckled again over Mr. Jarrod Barkley showing up for the Mother/Daughter tea. What an upset to Clara and her cronies. And that secret spice. Mrs. Bentley laughed in a rusty, not use to laughing voice. What a man! Quite a catch, Mr. Jarrod Barkley. He’d make that Molly Richards a fine husband if she knew enough not to let him slip away. A sudden commotion outside drew her attention away from Jarrod and closer to home.

Turning her head, Mrs. Bentley glanced out the small window overlooking the backyard. What the devil? What were those little hellions up to?

From the looks of things below, it looked as if the parlor hadn’t held the only skirmish that afternoon. Little Jenny Barkley appeared to be getting the stuffing smacked out of her by her own bratty granddaughter, Emily. Frowning, Mrs. Bentley rapped smartly on the window. Too bad it was one that didn’t open. Apparently they were too involved in taunting Jenny to notice. Looked like they were all in on it too. There went that simpering Addie running to get cake so that Emily could smash it into Jenny’s face and hair. Why those little fiends! Look at that awful Clara Buchanan! Yanking Sarah Jennings away from Emily and pushing her down.

No gumption that one! Sarah fell to the ground, burying her face against her knees. Hm, a lot of help she was to Jenny. Pity she didn’t kick a few shins or yank on some hair ribbons. Mrs. Bentley rapped harder on the window with her cane. You’d think one of the little hellions would look up. But no, they were too busy beating up that poor little girl.

Mrs. Bentley took a deep breath, heaved herself off the settee with one shaking hand holding tight to her cane. If she could make it to her room, she could get the window open and yell down into the yard. She looked down the hallway, slick and slippery...Clara never stinted on the waxing. Mrs. Bentley thought she did it on purpose. She sighed heavily. Maybe she could make it to her room before the Barkley girl got it too bad. No use yelling down to Clara for help. With all the cackling going on downstairs, none of them would hear her.


Sarah cowered on the ground, teeth and fists clenched tight. Once, she peeked and saw that Jenny had managed to get up and grab Emily’s hair. For just a second it looked like Jenny might be able to win. To get up and run away. Then that awful Clara grabbed Jenny’s hair in the pretty green hair bow. She yanked hard and Jenny had to take her hands off Emily's hair to reach back and protect her own. Once Jenny lost her grip on Emily, Clara and Addie ganged up and jerked Jenny back on the ground. Both of them started to pull her hair, twist her ears and pinch her arms. That horrible Emily even grabbed her arm and tried to twist it behind her back. Before Sarah’s terrified eyes, Emily and Jenny rolled around the ground coming dangerously close to one of the tables. As they got near enough, Jenny managed to reach out catching hold of a tablecloth. When she pulled, a cascade of cake, china and tea poured down. It crashed and shattered on the ground, giving Jenny a brief minute of escape while the other girls jumped out of the way. Getting to her knees, Jenny tried desperately to crawl away from Emily, whimpering. Jenny didn’t get very far before three of the girls caught hold of her again. Knocking her back down.

Sarah could see the tears of pain that sprang in Jenny’s eyes. Jenny was her friend. She’d always been nice, even that first day Sarah had come to school. Everyone else made fun of her because her dress smelled. Sarah knew it did...she could smell it too. Aunt Abigail didn’t have time to wash clothes much or brush hair. Jenny had taken up for her that day, when the other girls teased. She even went at recess and asked her Daddy if she could buy a hairbrush at the General Store. When she came back, she fixed Sarah’s hair; even used her own pretty hair ribbons to tie back Sarah’s blond braids. Sarah knew that after all Jenny had done for her, she had to help. It would be wrong to let Emily and Clara and Addie keep hurting Jenny. Good thing that stupid Annie still stood there, eating another piece of cake instead of fighting. That only left three Sarah would have to stop. Jenny would be brave. She wouldn’t care if it was three against one. Jenny would find a way to fight back. Sarah moaned. If she could just think of some way to help Jenny.

Almost like a miracle, Sarah remembered that once Aunt Abigail had thrown a pail of water on two dogs fighting in the alley. Sarah jumped up. There didn’t seem to be a pail anywhere around, but there were pitchers of lemonade and cold tea on the tables. If it worked on fighting dogs, would it work on fighting girls? Sarah jumped up. She ran to the closest wicker table, snatched up a pitcher of lemonade and ran back to toss it over the fighting girls. Clara screamed enraged as the cold lemonade hit her back. Addie jumped up, a lemon perched on one ear as the liquid dripped down her hair and soaked into her green silk dress. Lying on the ground, Jenny felt the lemonade full in the face. Coughing and sputtering, she struggled to push Emily off her stomach. Emily didn’t seem to notice, too intent on pulling Jenny’s hair. And after one surprised second, Addie ignored Sarah and began to pummel Jenny again with her fists.

“You...you...” Clara couldn’t think of a word awful enough. She jumped up with rage in her eyes...ready to grab Sarah and strangle her.

Sarah ran back to a table, caught up another pitcher and tossed it in Clara’s face as she came after her. Sputtering, sticky and dripping, Clara opened her mouth and began to bawl. Pleased with her success, Sarah ran to another table and snatched up a pitcher in both hands. Dumping one each on the startled Addie and Emily. Too bad Jenny had to get caught under the waterfall of each, Sarah thought, hoping she didn’t mind.

The third pitcher of lemonade threw Addie and Emily off balance enough that Jenny was able to finally stand up. Forgetting any promises she’d made, Jenny shoved Emily down and sat on her stomach ready to punch her in the nose. Remembering just in time that she’d promised not to hit or punch, Jenny did the next best thing. Grabbed up Emily’ s arm and bit...hard. And dirty darn, wouldn’t you know that Emily would be screaming bloody murder just as Daddy came around the corner of the porch.

I am in trouble. Very, very big trouble.

“Jennifer! What have you done?”

Jarrod looked around in stunned disbelief at the shambles of the daughter portion of the tea. Shattered china , cake and cookies littering the yard. Puddles of lemonade and tea and three very muddy, dripping, dirty little girls, breathing hard, their faces red with exertion. Sarah Jennings didn’t appear to be muddy but her blue dress was soaked, her hair flew about her face in wild disarray and she had a smug smile of satisfaction on her face. Jenny, on the other hand, sitting on Emily’s stomach appeared to have been mud wrestling. She had cake in her hair, a smudge of pink icing on her forehead and what was left of her green dress had been ripped in three places.

Emily kept up her screaming while Jarrod strode across the yard to his daughter. He reached down, yanking her none too gently up by one arm. His face darkened. “Didn’t you promise me no fighting?”

Bleakly, this did not look good, Jenny answered quietly, “But, Daddy, I wasn’t fight...” Her voice trailing off. What was the use?

Jarrod stared at her, eyes wide. Surely, she wasn’t stupid enough to deny she’d been fighting? Not when he’d just caught her biting Emily and sitting on her stomach. “Do not lie to me, Jennifer.”

Stopping close behind him, Molly took in the shambles of a backyard, eyes wide. Little girls did this? She looked at the girls, wet, bedraggled. Clara bawling. Annie calmly standing there, licking icing off her fingers. Apparently unconcerned with the fight going on around her. Emily, muddy hair swinging in her face, sat in a puddle of lemonade crying loudly. The other little girl. Was that Jarrod’s daughter? It must be, Molly thought. The way Jarrod held her arm tightly, leaning down to speak to her. The way his blue eyes flashed anger, Molly could tell he was not pleased with his daughter’s behavior. Molly’s heart went out to Jenny. She knew the same heart plopping to the pit of your stomach feeling of having an angry father lace you down in public.

She hadn’t seen Jenny since she was four, but Audra had sent a recent picture of an angelic looking little girl dressed in white with huge white hair bows on either side of her head. It was hard to believe this was the same child. Not with cake smeared in her dark hair, eyes wet with unshed tears and a petulant pout on her mouth. This was not the angel Audra and Sarah spoke of so often. Yet there was no denying she was Jarrod’s daughter. Not with that same stubborn little chin, the determined way she blinked back tears at her father’s forbidding frown.

“I didn’t start the fight, Daddy,” Jenny plead in her behalf. Looking up at her father with beseeching eyes.

“Maybe not,” Jarrod said exasperated beyond his patience, “but it looks like you were finishing it. Doesn’t it Jennifer?”

Oh, dirty darn, dirty darn. Her whole name.

Molly missed the next words Jenny spoke to Jarrod. Sarah, seeing her aunt, ran toward her and threw her arms around Molly’s waist. Holding tight, she burst into tears.

“Oh, aunt Molly,” she wailed, crying so incoherently. Molly couldn’t get a sensible word out of her. Molly could do nothing but stand there helplessly, patting Sarah on the back and wondering what on earth had happened to cause such a mess. Dirty darn. Wouldn’t you know...Clara’s howls and Emily’s screeching had brought the Mother’s of the tea pouring out the kitchen door into the backyard. Their shocked screams of outrage mixing with their muddy daughters as they each ran to her own offspring to question and lament.

“Oh, Mama,” Emily stood up, mud plopping off her skirt, wailing, “Jenny ruined our tea party! She started a fi...iii...ght.”

Part 9

“She started hitting Emily in the face with cake!” Addie tattled. “And Emily didn’t do a thing!”

Emily blurted out, pointing to the destruction of Mrs. Parker’s second best china, “Jenny, pulled a tablecloth off the table, Mama. Just to be mean! When we were trying to be so polite to her.”

“She grabbed cake right out of Annie’s hands,” Clara’s shrill voice chimed in. “Then she smashed it in Emily’s face.”

“Oh, Mama,” Emily wailed again, “she ruined the nice tea you made for us! After all of us were nice as we could be to her too!”

Addie and Clara joined in the lie that they had done nothing to provoke Jenny to such destruction. With her mouth full of cake, Annie kept nodding her head in agreement. Sarah, who knew the truth, was too distraught to defend herself. Even when the complaints grew to include her.

“Sarah, threw the lemonade and tea! For no reason!” Addie let fake tears well in her eyes, a practiced habit Jenny detested, “She ruined my green silk dress!”

Molly looked down at the top of Sarah’s blond head. Sarah? Throwing tea and lemonade? Absolutely not! Sarah would never think of it. Suspiciously, she studied the faces of the accusing girls all yapping to their mothers. If she had to lay the blame at anyone’s doorstep, it would be Emily, Clara, Addie and Annie.

Each girl, with a mother’s undivided attention, loosed their tongues in a torrent of lies. Throwing the blame for the disastrous backyard on Jenny and Sarah All the Mother’s eyes grew wider and round with revulsion as each crime was added to Jenny’s list. The Montgomery Sisters, who had followed the rest of the Tea party outside, stood on the kitchen porch clucking their tongues, gray heads wagging. Miss Lucy wondered out loud why little Audra Barkley was such a ruffian. Miss Agnes thought the fact lay in having all those brothers. Especially one named Nick.

“And then,” Emily finished a recital of lies she’d begun to convince her mother, “Jenny pulled my hair and it hurt!”

At each revelation, Jenny’s pout was more pronounced, Jarrod’s grip tighter and the angry set to his mouth sterner. Poor Jenny, Molly thought, she wouldn’t want to be in her shoes.

When the girls stopped to catch their breaths, sure that all the mother’s were properly horrified, they stared at Jarrod. The mothers too were eying him with disdain. Waiting for him to make the next move in this stalemate. Withering him with eyes full of recrimination. Dirty darn. Some days it was hard to be Jenny’s father.

“Apologize at once.” Jarrod commanded Jenny.

Jenny looked up at him, begging him to understand, “But Daddy I didn’t do any of that. They’re lying.” Molly’s heart went out to her. “I didn’t fight. I didn’t.”

“Did you hit Emily with the cake?”

“Yes.”

“Did you pull her hair?”

“Yes.”

“Pull the tablecloth off the table?”

“But, Daddy..”

“Apologize.”

Hopelessly, Jenny hung her head staring at her muddy boots. Dirty darn. Wasn’t anything to say to make him believe. Not with all those liars poisoning his mind. She scuffed the ground with her toe ashamed to be the focus of so much angry attention.

“Now!” His voice was quietly controlled but Molly stood close enough to hear the edge of anger underneath. When Jenny didn’t obey at once, he tightened his grip on her arm. “I’m not going to tell you again.”

“I'm sorry, Emily,” Jenny sulked out not meeting anyone’s eyes.

“Mrs. Parker,” he hissed under his breath.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Parker.” The words were spoken grudgingly, while Jenny stared mournfully at the ground. Catch her apologizing to that old crow’s face.

Clara Parker drew herself up a little. Vindicated in her point to the other women moment’s before that a child like Jenny Barkley needed a mother. With her chin stuck out, she nodded knowingly to Mrs. Duncan. “Well, Jenny, I’m sure it’s not entirely your fault. A child without a mother’s firm hand can’t be expected to know how to behave properly. Your apology is accepted.”

Molly stood close enough to Jarrod to see his jaw tighten. The hand not holding tight to Jenny clenched at the side of a gray trouser leg. Mrs. Parker’s barb about Jenny’s motherless state irritated him more than he’d let her know. It surprised Molly that he could answer the woman so calmly, in such a controlled voice. “I will thank you, Mrs. Parker, not to make excuses for my daughter. Even without a mother, she has been taught how to behave properly. I can assure you that she will be punished for her role in this mess.”

“Oh, surely, Mr. Barkley,” Molly interrupted, catching a sly look or two among the other girls, “you don’t think your daughter caused all of this? The other girls look guilty as sin. I’d guess that simpering Emily Parker and sassy mouthed Addie Duncan started this altercation. The others were only too glad to follow along. Sarah has told me how these girls treat Jenny.”

“Are you insinuating?” “How dare you?” “My Addie would never...” “Neither would my Emily! You Miss Richards have spoken out of bounds.”

In the midst of the sudden spate of bickering among the mothers and Molly, Jarrod jerked Jenny close enough to whisper in her ear. “Go to the Livery and wait for me in the buggy! Don’t you dare stop anywhere along the way. You hear me? We will be discussing this later.”

Jenny had to chock back sobs that threatened to burst out to answer him, “Yes, Daddy.”

Darn that old Emily anyway! Why’d she have to invite me to this stupid tea. Now I’m in awful, awful trouble because Daddy thinks I was fighting. When Jarrod let go of her arm, Jenny couldn’t run away out the Parker’s prissy white picket fence fast enough. Running to the buggy, the tears began to tumble out.

Jarrod, shifting uncomfortably from boot to boot, felt honor bound to stay and offer his own apologies. If he had to grovel to the old crows, he hadn’t wanted Jenny to watch. It was humiliating enough for both of them to leave the Mother/Daughter tea in disgrace. Waiting for an opening in the conversation, a snatch of prose came to his mind. “One mistake brought dishonor to his whole family.” Being thrown out of the tea might not have brought shame to the entire Barkley family, but Jarrod knew Nick would never let him live it down.

The shrill voices of the women rose in anger. Molly, with a still weeping Sarah clinging to her waist, appeared to be defending Jenny for some unknown reason. How could she be so certain of his daughter’s innocence? Jarrod had never seen a guiltier little girl than the one he’d pulled off Emily’s stomach.

Bang!

A loud snap of wood being shoved into place startled everyone in the backyard into silence. A voice thundered overhead. “Dad blame it, Clara! If you’d get that good for nothing husband of yours to do something besides take up a seat at Harry’s Saloon, you might get him to see these windows stay unstuck. I just about had a stroke trying to get it open!”

“Mother,” Mrs. Parker remonstrated, “Please, let’s keep family business in the family. If you have a complaint about...”

“Aw, shut your trap, Clara!” Mrs. Bentley snapped. “Where is she? The little Barkley girl?”

They all gaped upward at the unexpected question. Jarrod wore a look of puzzlement which he shared with Molly. Shrugging her shoulders, Molly asked the obvious question, “Why?”

“Is she alright, woman? They didn’t hurt her too badly?” Mrs. Bentley asked in exasperation. Fools! Must be her lot in life to be surrounded by fools.

“Who hurt her, Mrs. Bentley?” Molly asked, hoping they were finally getting to the bottom of the mystery.

“All those brats there,” Mrs. Bentley leaned dangerously out the window, her arm sweeping to include the wet, bedraggled girls in the yard. One by one, Emily, Addie and Clara lost their smug expressions, their ill concealed glee that Jenny would be punished for their mischief. “Emily. Clara. Addie. That addlepated Annie would have been in on it if she hadn’t been stuffing her mouth full of cake. Ganged up on the little Barkley girl and gave her a smacking she probably didn’t deserve. Ask ‘em. The lot of ‘em. Fighting and rolling around on the ground like a bunch of drunken sailors on Saturday night.”

“Mother! Surely, you can’t be saying that your own granddaughter would stoop so low as to brawl like...like Nicholas Barkley in a saloon.”

Mrs. Bentley made a face of disgust. “Get your head out of the sand, Clara! That brat of yours started it. Shoved the Barkley girl on the ground and shoved cake in her face and hair. Then started slapping her in the face. You ask me, she should get the same thing.”

“Emily?”

“You know how old people are, Mama!” Emily backed away from her mother, hands up to protect herself. “She doesn’t see so good.”

“I see fine, Missy!” Mrs. Bentley thundered from above. “You were slapping her and pulling her hair. When she tried to get up, you yanked her back down and started again. If that Sarah Jennings hadn’t gotten enough gumption to toss that lemonade down your back...oh, yes, Missy...I got to my room in time to see that too...you’d still be beating the stuffing out of her.”

“Emily Parker! Is that true?” Mrs. Parker turned to her daughter, hands on her hips.

“She started it, Mama! Jenny started it! I just had to defend myself.”

“You’re a liar, Emily!” Sarah spoke up fiercely, taking her tear stained face away from Molly’s waist. “You kept saying mean things to Jenny until she just hadta smash that cake in your face. It was you and your nasty friends who caused all the trouble. You wouldn’t even let her get up!” Turning back to lift her face to Molly’s, Sarah cried, “Oh, Aunt Molly, they were hurting Jenny. They were so mean. And she didn’t do anything to them. Why were they so mean?”

Faces that had worn self satisfied looks before, slowly reddened in chagrin. With the possible exception of Molly and the Montgomery Sisters, there wasn’t a woman in the crowd who wanted to fall into disgrace with the Barkley family deliberately. The Duncan’s shared water and grazing rights. Clara Parker’s husband, handled shipping of some of the Barkley crops and considered them one of his best customers. Jake Whitcomb, Annie’s father, worked in a Barkley mine. While Mavis Buchanan had no direct ties to a Barkley family member, she didn’t plan to run afoul of Victoria Barkley’s noticing her once in a blue moon.

“Told you so,” Mrs. Bentley couldn’t help rubbing it in. Teach that Clara to stick her nose high and put on airs! Ha! About time she saw that sneaky Emily in clear light. “You should stop gossiping about the other women in town and tend to your own business. Like that brat of yours. I’m ashamed to call her my granddaughter.”

“Emily! How could you?”

“I only hit her a few times, Mama,” Emily howled, realizing that her grandmother’s tattling had tilted the odds against her, “She pulled my hair and bit me!”

Mrs. Parker hid her discomposure but grabbing Emily by the ear. “Just you wait until your father gets home! Apologize to Mr. Barkley at once!”

Emily, who realized only too well the implications in her mother’s threat, began to blubber and plead, “Oh, please, Mama, please, don’t tell Papa. I promise I won’t do it again.” As her mother began to drag her toward the house, she was twisted around to face in Jarrod’s direction to sob out, “I’m sorry, Mr. Barkley. I’m sorry.”

“Mother!” Addie’s cries filled the yard too as Mrs. Duncan, grim faced, began to walk purposefully toward a nearby bush. “We were only teasing her! We didn’t mean to hurt her. I only punched her and kicked her a few times!” Mrs. Duncan selected a switch, began to strip off the leaves as Addie screamed louder, “Oh, Mother, I didn’t mean to hurt her!” Mrs. Duncan caught tight hold of Addie’s arm and led her around the side of the house. Mrs. Duncan was a firm believer in actions speaking louder than words as apology.

Molly knew it wasn’t right to be pleased, but she couldn’t help it that at least two of the girls were getting exactly what they deserved. Annie Whitcomb, calmly walking among the tables eating cookies, passed a few along to her equally unconcerned mother. Butterfly brains. Just like Edith Bannister.

“My apologies, Mr. Barkley,” Mavis Buchanan spoke stiffly. A clout on Clara’s back produced a muttered, sulky, “I’m sorry, Mr. Barkley.”

While Mavis Buchanan refused to believe that Clara, her darling Clara, could have done anything so common as to brawl at Mother/Daughter tea, she was puzzled over Clara’s disheveled appearance. She led Clara toward some trees to scold in private. Concerned more over the state of Clara’s dress, muddy and torn, than any damage to the Barkley child. Mavis had hard feelings still about the Father of the Year essay contest Jenny had won. Secretly, Mavis believed the Barkley’s had bought the judges.

As she scolded, Mrs. Buchanan glanced at several of the tables still standing. Was that? No, it couldn’t be... “Clara? Didn’t any of the girls eat my seed cake?”

Sticky, wet, uncomfortable and thoroughly irritated at that brat, Jenny Barkley, Clara forgot to guard her tongue. “Aw, Mama. Nobody ever eats your seed cake. It tastes like sheep dip.”
Which earned her a sharp smack across the mouth as a reprimand.

Jarrod, standing by the gate, hat in hand felt a sardonic grin spread across his face. He felt lighthearted suddenly at this unexpected turn of events. Instead of apologizing in shame to the old crows, they were left with having to apologize to him! It almost made the whole Mother/Daughter tea worthwhile. Noticing that all the mothers were busy with their errant daughters, that the Montgomery Sisters were staring at the crowd round eyed, mouths open and Miss Richards was bent over speaking quietly to her niece, Jarrod let himself out of the gate. Tipping his hat upward to Old Mrs. Bentley, leaning out on her windowsill, laughing in her rusty voice. Realizing, as he slapped the Stetson down on his head, that he still had his own naughty daughter waiting. The corners of his mouth began a downward slant. Fighting! After she promised. What was he going to do with that girl?

Part 10

“Oh, Aunt Molly,” Sarah had been persuaded to sit down on a garden bench beside Molly. Wiping her eyes with the hem of her damp blue dress, she told the whole story in halting words, “They were so mean to Jenny but it was all my fault. They kept talking awful about Mama. Jenny tried to make them stop.”

Molly’s heart clenched in sympathy. She too had heard many of the same “awful words” about Josie.

“Is Mr. Barkley angry at Jenny? He said he was going to punish her, didn’t he?” Molly nodded. “ But, Aunt Molly, he can’t. It was because of me Jenny had to fight with them.”

Molly reached for her niece’s hand. “Then let’s go tell him, Sarah.”

The closer Jarrod walked to the Livery, the more disgruntled he became. It was bad enough, he thought with a scowl on his face, that he had to disgrace himself by appearing at a Mother/Daughter tea. Not that it hadn’t been without some compensation. A slight smile crossed his lips as Miss Richards flit across his mind. Still, wearing out his welcome in the Parker’s parlor, wouldn’t be a memory he cared to cherish. Then finding his disobedient daughter brawling on the ground he suffered more shame at her behavior. Mrs. Bentley might have seen the other girls giving Jenny a trouncing she ill deserved, but Jarrod couldn’t excuse Jenny so easily. He knew his daughter too well. There was little doubt in his mind that Jenny had given as much as she got. After she’d promised too!

As Jarrod stood on a corner waiting for the afternoon stage to pass, he heard shouting from behind. “Mr. Barkley! Wait!”

Jarrod looked back perplexed to see a red faced Molly Richards running toward him, hand in hand with her niece, Sarah. A dripping Sarah with flyaway hair and a ripped sash trailing along the boardwalk behind her.

“Mr. Bar...” Molly had to stop to catch her breath, holding her side to ease the stitch from running. “Mr. Barkley, Sarah and I wanted to tell you that you just can’t punish Jenny.”

“I beg your pardon,” He tried to speak politely, yet Molly sensed the annoyance at her impertinence.

“Mr. Barkley,” Sarah reached up and caught hold of his hand, “Please don’t punish, Jenny for fighting with Emily. It was my fault. All my fault. It was cause of me that Jenny got hurt.”

Sarah spoke the last words in a tearful little voice, her eyes spilling over. As Molly put her hands on Sarah’s shoulders to steady her, Sarah began to tell Jarrod the story of how Jenny had defended her against the insults of the other girls.

Saturday shoppers passed them on the board walk. Horses and riders went by sending up puffs of dust from the street while Jarrod stood and listened to Sarah’s trembling tale. When she finished, Jarrod gave her a tender look and a pat on the head. “Thank you, Sarah, for telling me.” Still holding her hand, he gave a tug, motioning with his head toward the Livery. “Why don’t we go see if Jenny is alright?”

“You won’t punish her, will you, Mr. Barkley?”

Jarrod leaned down until his blue eyes could look directly into Sarah’s green ones. “No, Sarah, I promise I won’t. I think instead that I might just tell her how very proud I am of her.” Sarah’s story softening his heart toward Jenny a little. Jenny, like Nick, could never stand to see anyone else picked upon. They would both jump into a fight with little or no chance of winning. Neither of them thinking a second before letting their fists do the talking. Jarrod was beginning to despair of ever teaching Jenny that there were other ways of settling an argument. Come to think of it, he’d never made much of an impression on Nick either.

“Let’s go see....” Jarrod began to say when a tall, lanky boy came rushing up to meet them. Snatching off the battered hat from his head, he nodded at Molly before addressing Jarrod. “Mr. Barkley, Pa wanted me to come tell you that your littleun come to the Livery awhile ago. She hadta ask Pa to lift her into the buggy, said her knee was hurting something fierce. Then Pa said she was acryin’ about her arm hurting too. He wanted me to come find you and tell ya that he had me tote her over to Doc Merar’s office.”

“Doctor Merar? Why? What’s wrong with her?”

Jarrod didn’t wait for an answer. Dropping Sarah’s hand, he reversed directions walking as fast as possible to Dr. Merar’s office. Pushing open the door, Jarrod rushed inside glancing around the room for any sign of Jenny. The waiting room was empty, although a muffled sound of talking came from the examining room beyond. Jarrod sat anxiously on one of the wooden chairs, starting up when the office door opened as Molly and Sarah came running inside. Molly’s eyes were wide with fright, Sarah’s face bleached pale and her green eyes too big. They sat beside Jarrod, breathing hard from their race to the office. Sarah and Molly held hands tightly.

“We’ll let someone else worry about that,” Dr. Merar’s calm, reassuring voice spoke as he opened the examining room door and walked into the office. Pulling the door shut behind him, he noticed the three perched on the waiting room chairs. “Oh, good, Jarrod, Toby got word that he’d brought Jenny here.”

“What’s wrong? How badly is she hurt?” Jarrod stood up, tossing his hat down on the chair.

“Now, Jarrod, get that look off your face,” Dr. Merar chuckled at Jarrod’s obvious fear, “she’s going to be alright. Just a few bumps and bruises. Her right knee is badly swollen.”

“Addie kept kicking her there,” Sarah whispered in an aside to Molly. Jarrod frowned at the interruption. Dr. Merar raised his eyebrows at Sarah’s revelation but went on unperturbed. “It might be stiff for a day or so. And that sprain in her wrist....”

“Her wrist is sprained?” Jarrod’s voice rose frantically. “ How the devil did that happened?”

“Emily twisted her arm behind her back,” Sarah answered. “I knew it hurt cause Jenny had tears in her eyes.”

Jarrod looked at her, eyes wild. Why had he ever agreed to take Jenny to the Mother/Daughter tea?

“Not a bad sprain,” Dr. Merar spoke sedately, eying Sarah. “I bound it up, put a sling on it. She should be using it in a day or so. The only thing was, my wife and I had to cut her dress off because it was too swollen to pull the sleeve over her wrist.”

Jarrod made a discounting motion with his hand. Who cared about a dress? “That’s all? She isn’t hurt anywhere else?”

Dr. Merar began to chuckle. “Well, after my wife and I got the cake and mud wiped off her face, we did discover she’s got a beaut of a shiner...”

“A black eye!” Jarrod said bleakly, “How am I going to explain that to my Mother?”

“Hope you got a better explanation than Jenny did,” Dr. Merar suggested with a slight twinkle in his eyes, ‘She told me she got beat up at a tea party.”

“She did!” Three indignant voices told him in unison. Molly’s eyes blazing at him to dare contradict her. Hands on her hips, Sarah also glared at the Doctor. Like Jenny would lie about that!

Dr. Merar’s eyebrows shot up. He didn’t often hear anything that perplexed him. “I always thought the purpose of a tea party was to drink the tea and eat the cake. Jenny was wearing it. Strangest business I ever heard. Course, I’ve heard a lot worse.” Shaking his head, he went to open the door leading into the examining room. “Maybe it would be a good idea to work on her party etiquette then. I’ll mix up some powders in case she’s in any pain tonight.”

“Thank you, Dr. Merar.”

Jarrod was first into the room, first to see Jenny sitting on the examining table. Dressed in one of Dr. Merar’s white shirts, bare feet dangling down the side, Jenny sniffed pitifully ducking her head so that her stiff dark curls hid the black eyes. Painfully aware that she was not where her father had told her to wait for him.

Mrs. Merar, bustled around, folding Jenny’s wet clothes. Smiling, she placed them in a basket and sat it on the table beside Jenny before leaving the room. “Here are her clothes, Jarrod. She was soaked to the skin so I took everything off. I’m sorry I couldn’t find anything else to dress her in. We wiped her off fairly well but she wouldn’t let me touch her hair. I don’t envy Victoria the job of washing out all that cake. Nor that lemonade.”

While Jarrod offered his thanks to Mrs. Merar, Molly and Sarah pushed their way into the examining room. Watching while Jarrod walked to his daughter, lifted her chin in his hand so he could see the black eye close up. “Jennifer Victoria Barkley, what am I going to do with you?” He spoke sternly.

“I don’t know,” Jenny sobbed out not quite willing to meet his eyes.

“Do you see where fighting gets you now?” Jarrod persisted, determined to get through this stubborn little head. “Haven’t I always told you that you should try to reason your way out of an argument before you start hitting?”

Jenny’s eyes snapped up to meet his, “I never hit anybody!” She defended herself through tears of anger and frustration. “I never punched anybody either!”

“Jennifer Barkley, did you not admit to me that you pulled hair and smashed cake in Emily’s face and ...”

“Pulling hair and biting and smashing cake aren’t fighting, Daddy. You never said not to do that. You just said not to hit anybody or punch Emily in the nose. That’s all you said not to do!”

“Jenny,” Jarrod sighed, resigning himself to Jenny’s ability to find any loophole in what he’d said. “You’re right. I concede the point that I did not tell you not to pull hair or bite or use cake as a weapon. But right now I am telling you that I want no hitting, punching, kicking, hair pulling, biting, throwing, hitting with objects. I do not want you to fight with your hands or your feet. Do I make myself understood?”

A mournful Jenny nodded. Dropping her eyes again in shame to the buttons on Dr. Merar’s shirt.

“If you can’t use words to defend your point...” Jarrod began to scold but got no farther when Molly gave an inelegant snort behind him.

“Poppycock!” She snapped, face flaming, “You can’t use words with a brat like Emily Parker. All she understands is a good punch in the nose.”

Jarrod turned to stare at her appalled. Snapping his gaping mouth closed, he remonstrated, “Miss Richards, if you please, I am trying to teach my daughter a lesson. I would like her to learn to think and use words before she starts punching.”

“Wrap it up in brown paper and tie it with a bow,” she sassed back, noting that Jenny had stopped sniffling and stared at her with a matching expression of shock on her face, “It’s still a scolding Jenny doesn’t deserve. Not after those little hellions beat her up. I for one am very grateful to Jenny for taking up for Sarah.” Coming closer to Jenny, she held out a hand in greeting and smiled past her displeasure at Mr. Jarrod Barkley. “Thank you, Jenny, for standing up for your principles and giving that Emily Parker exactly what she deserved. Sarah and I are most grateful. I for one wouldn’t have minded if you did punch that Emily Parker in the nose.”

“Who are you?” Jenny demanded rudely, brows drawn together in consternation. Ignoring Molly’s out held hand.

“Jennifer!” Jarrod reprimanded. “Where are your manners today? This is Miss Richards.” Still exasperated at Molly over her interfering, he blurted out without thinking, “She’s just a little girl who use to go to school with me.”

A little girl! A little girl! Molly felt an angry flush spread across her cheeks. How dare he? Just as she opened her mouth to tell off the pompous Mr. Jarrod Barkley, Jenny’s small voice spoke up, “She don’t look like no little girl to me.”

Flustered over his mistake, Jarrod looked down at Jenny before he turned a bemused smile on Molly. Quietly, he answered his daughter with more meaning behind the words than Molly cared to admit, “No, she doesn’t. She’s quite grown up. Say hello politely.”

Jenny gave Molly a grudging hello and a limp handshake. Wiping her hand noticeably down the side of Dr. Merar’s shirt when she was through.

Molly’s anger cooled. Blushing furiously, she looked down at her hands. The words whispered through her mind. “She’s quite grown up.” It sounded, almost, as if he might have noticed she no longer had braids and two missing front teeth. Just as he had on the porch before they heard the shrieks from the backyard. Before she had time to look up into his eyes, to read whatever meaning they held, Dr. Merar bustled back into the examining room.

“Here you go, Jarrod. If that wrist gives her any pain tonight, give her a little of these powders in water. And you, Missy, see that you swallow it.”

Jenny made a scowling face. Wasn’t no pain bad enough she’d rather have one of Dr. Merar’s biter old witch’s potions.

“You might be glad to have it.” He said, checking over the sling on Jenny’s arm to make sure it wasn’t too tight. “Take her home, Jarrod. Oh...by the way...did you see Ben Simms on your way over here?”

At Jarrod’s negative nod, he continued, “Forgot to tell you he was looking all over town for you. Said old Mr. Atwood and his father were pacing out front of your office fit to be tied...”

“Mr. Atwood’s will!” Jarrod smacked his forehead. “How could I forget I was suppose to meet him this afternoon?” Ruefully, he looked at his daughter, sporting her first black eye, “Don’t answer that. What am I to do with you now, Miss Barkley? I can’t take you parading about town dressed only in one of Dr. Merar’s shirts. While your Grandmother has many progressive ideas, even she would quail at the thought of your wearing only that.”

Molly was quick to see his dilemma. “Sarah and I could wait here with Jenny, Mr. Barkley, while you take care of your clients. If that is alright with Dr. Merar.”

“Certainly.” The doctor waved his agreement, gathering up his black bag as he spoke. “I need to ride out to the Randall farm to check on a broken arm. Make yourselves at home.” He patted Jenny on top of the head while she squirmed impatiently away, picked up his black hat and bade them all goodbye. Nice girl that Molly Richards. Might not be so bad if Jarrod took some notice of her. Maybe two parents could keep Jenny in line. A black eye from a tea party. Dr. Merar chuckled. Now he could positively say he’d heard everything.

“That’s very kind of you to offer, Miss Richards.” Jarrod smiled his thanks after Dr. Merar left. “My business shouldn’t take long. The will is already written up. It just needs to be signed and witnessed. And say, I have an idea! Why don’t you three lovely ladies join me for dinner at the Stockton House when I finish? The refreshments at the tea party left quite a lot to be desired. After Mrs. Buchanan’s seed cake, I’m certain my teeth will never be the same. As Mrs. Bentley so elegantly put it, I’m as hollow as a gourd.”

Pleased with the invitation, Molly worked at keeping a blush from her cheeks. “What a lovely idea, Mr. Barkley. Sarah and I accept with pleasure.”

“What’ll I wear?” Jenny spoke up, wiping her nose on the sleeve of Dr. Merar’s shirt.

Jarrod groaned, aware of the Atwoods and their bad tempers waiting for him. Thinking quickly, he reached into the back pocket of his gray trousers and pulled out a roll of greenbacks. “Miss Richards, would you mind doing me a favor?”

Would she mind? Molly hoped her tongue wasn’t hanging out of her mouth in her eagerness to be of service to him. Keeping her voice steady, she looked up into those blue, blue eyes, “Why, of course not.”

“I wonder if you would mind going over to Perkins General Store and buying Jenny whatever she needs to be properly clothed from the skin out.” He handed her the roll of money. Molly touched his fingers slightly as she took the money from his hand, wondering what it would feel like to have him hold her hand. “I insist too that you buy a dress for Sarah. She seems to have ruined hers coming to Jenny’s aid.”

Sarah beamed up at him. “Oh, Mr. Barkley, thank you.”

“No, we couldn’t,” Molly ignored her niece’s crestfallen face as she refused his kindness, “Sarah’s dress can be mended.”

Jarrod smiled at her. “Miss Richards, I insist. Sarah very bravely threw lemonade over the other girls to help Jenny. No telling what other battle scars she might have endured if Sarah hadn’t come to her aid. You must let us give Sarah a dress as a small token of our appreciation.”
Molly looked at Sarah’s hopeful face. At Jarrod with that melting smile and those commanding blue eyes almost willing her to accept. When he put it that way, how could she refuse? “Very well, if you wish. Thank you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Barkley,” Sarah sighed in pure pleasure. It wasn’t often, more like never, that she had a ready made dress from a store. “Oh, Aunt Molly, could it be a pink dress?”



Jarrod hurried away to appease the Atwoods after making arrangements for Molly to bring both newly dressed little girls to his office. Mrs. Merar offered to keep an eye on the two while Molly hurried to Mr. Perkins’s store. Taking special delight in picking out clothes for Jarrod’s daughter. Molly always secretly hoped she might have a daughter someday. A longing that seemed to be harder and harder to deny. As she looked over the little girl under clothes, choosing a chemise, drawers and a petticoat trimmed with pink ribbon, she imagined that Jenny was her little girl. After finding a pink dress that would suit Sarah, Molly took special care to find a green dress, sprinkled with yellow roses for Jenny. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if she could win over Jarrod’s little girl? If Jenny oozed enthusiasm for the new dress and opened her heart to Molly?

Back at Dr. Merar’s office, she came up against the Barkley stubbornness when she offered to help Jenny get dressed.

“No.” Jenny stared back at Molly, sticking out that determined chin. She crossed her good arm over the one in the sling making herself into a tight, unapproachable little self. Molly experienced a slight disheartening of her dream of showing Jarrod how well she and Jenny got along.

“Now, Jenny, your Father is waiting to take us to the Stockton House. Let me help you get dressed. You’ll never be able to do it yourself. Not with that sprain.”

“No. I want my Daddy.”

Molly bit her lip not knowing quite what to do. It seemed important that she help Jenny get dressed and deliver her to Jarrod ready for dinner. What would he think of her if she had to fetch him because Jenny wouldn’t let her help? Wouldn’t it look as if she couldn’t handle his daughter? What to do? What to do?

Fortunately, Mrs. Merar came back to the examining room to see how they were getting along. Sarah had lost no time in slipping behind a dressing screen and putting on the new pink dress. Eyes shining, she sat patiently on a chair smoothing down the skirt of her dress, enjoying the sheen beneath her fingers. Mrs. Merar smiled fondly at Sarah, made a pleasing comment about how it brought out the roses in Sarah’s cheeks and picked up the drawers Molly had bought for Jenny.

Under Mrs. Merar’s commands, Jenny obediently let the under clothes be pulled on. Whatever it was about Mrs. Merar, Jenny didn’t dare fuss. She stood, lifted her feet and didn’t complain when Mrs. Merar undid the sling. The petticoat and stockings went on next. Boots were snugged over the new stockings. Molly got busy with a button hook while Mrs. Merar shook out the new green dress, examining the wide openings on the sleeves.

“It’s going to take both of us, Miss Richards, even though the sleeves should be wide enough to pull over her wrist. I’ll hold it steady while you slip the dress over her head.”

Molly pulled the dress over Jenny’s head, brushing back the stiff, sticky curls as she did. Taking hold of one of Jenny’s hands, she pulled it through the sleeve. Noting how small and soft Jenny’s hand felt. Mrs. Merar guided the hurt arm through the other sleeve. Jenny whimpered a little, her eyes filled with tears but she didn’t cry out. Molly buttoned up the back while Mrs. Merar slipped the sling back on.

“Don’t you look pretty, Jenny,” Mrs. Merar said, “even with that black eye and your hair all stuck together. I don’t envy your Grandmother the job of washing it.”

“If there were just some way to cover it up,” Molly wondered out loud, tapping a finger against her lips. “Mr. Barkley has invited us out to dinner at the Stockton House.”

Mrs. Merar laughed. “Surely you aren’t thinking of taking Jenny like that? Victoria would never agree to that.”

“Then perhaps,” Molly decided, coming to a swift decision, “we had better wash it. Would you be willing to help me, Mrs. Merar?”

“No!” Jenny’s wail of distress was genuine. She purely hated to have her hair washed and didn’t mind letting the world know. “I won’t let you.”

Mrs. Merar looked at Molly’s determined face, “Seems like you don’t have much choice little lady. “ She looked at Molly, hands on her hips, studying Jenny’s hair. “Why don’t I go heat some water? Too bad we put the dress on her. Now we’ll have to cover her with towels so she doesn’t get it wet.”

“No!” Jenny cried again, struggling to get past the two women and run for the door. “I’m going to go tell my Daddy.”

“An excellent idea! Sarah, go tell Mr. Barkley that as soon as we wash and rub Jenny’s hair dry, we will join him at his office.”

“Alright, Aunt Molly,” Sarah agreed, ignoring Jenny’s pleas to tell her Daddy they were torturing her. “Don’t worry, Jenny, it won’t hurt a bit. Aunt Molly is very gentle.”

After Sarah left on her errand and Mrs. Merar came back with a basin, towels, a tea kettle of boiling water and a pitcher of cold, Jenny tired a different tack. “You better not try to wash my hair. I scream and I kick. Sometimes, I bite. Hard.”

Molly wanted to laugh at the proud tilt of Jenny’s head when she told them her strategy for avoiding a hair washing. Mrs. Merar passed it over lightly with a curt, “You might get away with such behavior with your Aunt Audra, Missy, but your Grandmother would never allow it. You wouldn’t dare to bite her or you wouldn’t be sitting for awhile. And don’t you dare try such things with us or I’ll see she finds out.”

Thwarted into accepting their tortuous treatment, Jenny’s face fell into a pout. As kindly as possible, Molly led Jenny into a chair and leaned her head back over a basin. Mrs. Merar began to pour the warm water, talking soothingly to a sniffing, struggling bravely not to cry little girl. It didn’t take long to wash out the cake, tea and lemonade. Molly was careful not to get any soap in Jenny’s eyes, remembering her own distress as a child to have her eyes smarting during a shampoo.

Sarah came back with a report from Jarrod as they toweled Jenny’s hair dry before the wood stove that kept the examining room warm. “Mr. Barkley said thank you very much for saving his Mother the work of having to wash Jenny’s hair.” Sarah giggled, covering her mouth and darting a teasing look in Jenny’s direction. “He said it’s probably best you washed Jenny’s hair in the Doctor’s office cause he had plenty of bandages available.”

Molly and Mrs. Merar smiled over Jenny’s head. Brooding over all the injustices this day had brought, Jenny ignored them all. Just see if she ever asked to go to a dirty darn tea party again. And just wait till she saw that darned Emily Parker again. Even if she got the worst punishment in the world she was punching that Emily right in the nose.

It didn’t take long for Jenny’s hair to dry by the warm stove. Molly had a cup of tea with Mrs. Merar, catching up on the goings on since she’d been away from Stockton. Sarah, ignoring Jenny’s pronounced pout and sullen expression, sat beside her and kept up such a cheerful chatter that Jenny let herself be talked back into a good mood. By the time they had wished Mrs. Merar a cheerful good day and started the walk to Jarrod’s office, Jenny and Sarah were once again the best of friends. Although Jenny kept a careful distance from Molly, ignoring her pleasant comments.

“Well, don’t you look pretty, little lady?” Jarrod smiled down at Jenny when Molly presented her at his office door. He looked up to bestow a dazzling smile of gratitude on Molly, “Thank you, Miss Richards...Dinner at the Stockton House can never repay you for your kindness this afternoon.”

Molly blushed, “I was pleased to help, Mr. Barkley.”

“Miss Richards, there is one thing I must insist upon.” At her bewildered look, he said, “We have known one another too long to stand on ceremony. You must call me Jarrod.”

Jarrod. He wanted her to call him Jarrod. Molly shivered with the thrill but kept her excitement to herself. “Then you must call me, Molly.”

“Molly, it is.” He tipped his gray Stetson. Looking down at the little girls standing by his legs, he asked, “Are you as hungry as I am?”

“Hungrier,” Jenny grabbed one of his hands, swinging it back and forth. With his free arm, Jarrod held it out to Molly. Molly hoped she showed the proper ladylike decorum and didn’t grasp his arm too quickly or tightly.

“Shall we go?”

Molly made the walk to the Stockton House not on the boardwalk but stepping on clouds. Aware that her arm linked with Jarrod’s felt very nice indeed. Better than nice. Like they belonged together. He made polite conversation, inquiring after her Father’s store, her mother’s health and what she’d been doing since leaving Stockton. Molly offered what she hoped were intelligent, interesting answers but was so unnerved by the rapid beating of her heart it was hard to tell.

“Daddy,” Jenny spoke up when there was a brief lull in the conversation. “Do you know what Sarah told me?”

Jarrod admitted he didn’t know and waited for her to tell him.

“Sarah said she saw a new essay contest in the San Francisco Examiner. It’s for Mother of the Year. Do you think....”

“Absolutely not!” Jarrod’s roar startled them all, including a Chinese laundryman who had the misfortune to be passing by with a basket of clean linen for the hotel. “Don’t even think of it, Jennifer Victoria Barkley!” The laundryman, who could not speak a word of English, saw only Jarrod’s enraged face in danger of turning purple and heard the shouts. He dropped the basket of linen and fled down the street.

“But, Daddy...you might win.”

“No!”

“It sounds like a charming idea, Jarrod.”

“Miss Richards, I will thank you not to encourage her!” Jarrod’s face went a mottled red as he looked in dismay from the young woman on one arm to his loophole finding daughter on the other. “Jennifer, do not even think such a thought! You are not entering me in a Mother of the Year essay contest.”

Dirty darn, Jenny thought, my whole name. Sure had sounded like a good idea, until her father yelled. She looked down at the ground, scuffing her toes in the dirt. Dirty, dirty darn.

Miss Richards, Molly thought chagrined, dirty darn. What happened to Molly and Jarrod?
Somehow she’d have to redeem herself during dinner. Perhaps she could compliment him on some of his more involved court cases. Molly prided herself on knowing everything Audra and the newspapers could tell her about Mr. Jarrod Barkley’s career. She subscribed to six just to keep up with his dazzling career.

“Do not even think about writing such an essay,” Jarrod went on chastising Jenny, “Do you understand me, Jennifer Victoria? I forbid you to write such an essay. I will not be the laughing stock of the entire state of California. Promise me now. You will not write a Mother of the Year essay.”

“I promise.” Jenny answered him glowering.

As they began to walk toward Stockton House, Jenny dropped behind Molly and Jarrod to walk hand in hand with Sarah. The two little girls whispered, Jenny throwing daggered looks at the back of her father’s gray suit coat. Sarah staring sternly in sympathetic disdain. Outside the door of the Hotel, a former client of Jarrod’s stopped him to inquire about a legal fee. Molly stood politely off to the side, keeping an eye out for the whispering children. It wasn’t hard for her to over hear an exchange between Jenny and Sarah.

“Sarah?” Jenny whispered, watching to see that her father wasn’t paying attention to her, “Did you hear my Daddy say I couldn’t print the essay?”

Sarah thought, puckering her brow with concentration. “He said you couldn’t write it, Jenny. But I never did hear him say you couldn’t print it.”

Jenny’s smile went from ear to ear, the black eye gleaming rakishly , “Then I’ll print. I won’t write.”

Dirty darn! Molly held her arms over her waist to keep from bursting into unladylike laughter. Jarrod Barkley, Mother of the Year! Dirty darn, wouldn’t she love to read that?

THE END