THE CHIPPEWA FALLS DAWSONS
Chapter Nineteen
Jack walked through the center of town,
holding Rose’s hand. It felt so good to be alone with her. There was no work to
get done, and they had all day to spend trying to have fun. The three-legged
races were fun to watch. But Jack really craved more alone time with Rose. He
pulled her over into an alley. "Rose, let’s sneak out to our house. We can
ride the horses instead of pulling a cart and we’d get there in just a few
minutes."
"But we don’t have any saddles."
"We’ll ride bareback, like the Indians.
Come on, Rose. It’ll be fun."
"Can we ride the same horse?"
"Sure. Let’s go get Daisy. She’s a
gentle horse."
Jack and Rose went and got Daisy, and Jack
helped Rose up top. Rose couldn’t sit properly because of her skirt, Jack sat
behind her and she sat sidesaddle. They started off to their farm. Rose had
told Katrina where they were going to be, in case anyone noticed they were
gone.
Jack and Rose got to their house quickly.
They tied the horse up under a tree, and walked arm in arm to the house. The
porch was now sturdy and Rose had no fear of going inside. They went in and
looked around. Rose was comparing it to the first time she had seen it. They
had already taken care of all the fire damage to the ground floor; in fact the
ground floor was ready to live in. Jack had insisted they wait until the whole
house was ready. The upper floors had been restored and the bracing walls were
up. All that was left was a roof and to finish the walls. Jack went and got some
blankets from where they had been stored and they laid down on them. They lay
there and talked. Jack explained to Rose what her mother had said, and she
agreed. She was married now, not a girl in boarding school anymore. But they
both agreed that they had had their friends’ best interest at heart.
"Jack, do you ever think about having
kids?"
"Yes, I do. But I want to be able to
provide for them first."
"I know. But I wonder what a child of
ours would look like."
"She’d be beautiful."
"She?"
"I’d like to have one of each, but a
girl first."
"I’ll have to remember that," Rose
said, laughing.
Jack laughed, too. "Any boy of mine
would be a handful, Rose. I drove my mother crazy."
"Really? So did I. Want to tell me about
something you did?"
"Okay, there was this one time, I had to
be about seven and it was Easter. We were at church in town, and me and some
other boys had snuck into the chapel early and put some frogs under the seats
where the choir sat. When they started singing, the frogs started making a lot
of noise, and the whole church started laughing. We wouldn’t have been found
out, except one of the boys told his older brother. He told his mother and she
found out who’d helped. I was grounded to the farm for several days. My mother
practically fainted when she found out."
Rose started laughing, picturing what it had
sounded like.
Jack leaned in close to Rose. "Enough
stories," he said, and started to kiss her. The kiss deepened. They spent
the next hour in each other’s arms.
*****
"I hope nobody missed us," Rose
said, once they were back on the horse.
"I’m sure they had plenty to do
themselves."
"Oh, I guess so. I’ve never really seen
fireworks before."
"Why not?"
"Mother always said it wasn’t proper.
That fireworks were for the poor."
"Oh, well. I guess she had her reasons.
I think you’ll enjoy them."
"I hope so. Here I am, almost eighteen
years old, and I’ve never seen fireworks." But Rose suddenly remembered
the distress rockets fired aboard the Titanic. She seemed to be lost, thinking
back. I hope that these fireworks aren’t anything like those. Jack had
never really asked what Rose had done before she came to save him. He didn’t
know that she had come close to getting on that lifeboat with her mother. In
fact, they never talked about Titanic.
"Almost eighteen? When is your birthday,
Rose?"
"January." Jack had managed to snap
her out of her memories. Maybe it was best that they didn’t talk about it.
"Mine’s in December."
"I know. I asked Mrs. Leary."
"I never thought to ask your mother."
"That’s okay, Jack. I would’ve told you
sometime."
"Well, we’re almost back. Ready to see
some fireworks?"
"Yes." Rose said. I hope,
she thought.