Chapter 4 - The White Boards at Pike House
By Sunday, half of Alderton had walked past Pike House.
Some pretended they were going to church.
Others pretended they were visiting the post office.
Everyone looked at Mabel’s west wall.
The boards were pale and clean.
The coating had dried harder than anyone expected.
Most importantly, it had survived two nights of mountain dew without chalking off.
Mabel stood on her porch as if she had personally invented it.
“I told Harriet from the beginning it would work.”
Harriet nearly dropped her brush.
“You told me it was disgusting.”
Mabel did not blink.
“That was before I became an investor in the idea.”
“You paid me to paint a wall.”
“Same thing.”
Edwin Marsh left with his samples Monday morning.
Harriet watched the stagecoach until it disappeared.
Then she turned back to work.
She had six days before her original account deadline.
Orson’s new notice worried her, but she had examined every receipt.
He could pressure her.
He could refuse more credit.
He could demand payment when the agreed date arrived.
But he could not legally seize land simply because he wanted it.
Not yet.
That did not mean he would stop trying.
Harriet spent the next two days repairing boxes and making small batches.
The process was laborious.
The curd had to be separated from whey, washed repeatedly, pressed, dried to the right condition, then converted into useful binder.
She made mistakes.
One batch smelled terrible.
She buried it.
Another hardened before she could apply it.
She discarded it.
A third became brittle.
Harriet wrote notes in the margins of a blank book.
Never the old ledger.
That belonged to her grandmother.
By Wednesday, she could produce something reasonably consistent.
Then Mabel arrived in a wagon.
She was not alone.
Beside her sat Reverend Samuel Price.
Harriet wiped her hands on her apron.
“Should I be worried?”
The reverend smiled.
“Only if you dislike work.”
Mabel pointed toward him.
“The church school has twelve desks coming apart.”
Harriet stared.
“All twelve?”
“Six are bad,” Reverend Price said. “The rest are heading that direction.”
Mabel continued.
“They have no money.”
The reverend looked embarrassed.
“We have some.”
“Not enough,” Mabel said.
Harriet glanced toward the barn.
“How much can you pay?”
Reverend Price named a figure so small Harriet almost refused.
Then she thought about twelve desks.
Twelve families.
Twelve children telling parents.
“I’ll do them.”
Mabel nodded as if the decision had been hers.
The desks arrived that afternoon.
Harriet worked until after dark.
Thomas came after his creamery shift and helped clamp joints.
At first they spoke only about work.
Then Thomas asked, “Why did you come here?”
“To the valley?”
“Yes.”
Harriet tightened a rope around one desk frame.
“Land.”
“That’s the official answer.”
“It’s also true.”
“Not all of it.”
She looked at him.
He smiled.
“You have the face of somebody omitting three chapters.”
Harriet sat back.
“My mother died when I was twenty-four. My father had already been gone six years. I worked in a hotel laundry in St. Louis.”
Thomas waited.
“I hated it.”
“That’s a strong reason.”
“I saved money. Heard land was opening farther west. Came out with a wagon train.”
“Alone?”
“By the time we reached Wyoming, yes.”
He did not ask what happened to the others.
Harriet was grateful.
Instead he said, “Most people would have turned back.”
“Most people had something to turn back to.”
Thomas looked at her differently after that.
Not with pity.
Harriet would have hated pity.
He looked at her as if he understood that remaining was not always bravery.
Sometimes remaining was simply the only direction available.
They finished the desks near midnight.
Before leaving, Thomas placed something on the bench.
A folded creamery invoice.
“What’s this?”
“Pratt’s waste records.”
Harriet frowned.
“You stole them?”
“No. Copies.”
“That sounds only slightly better.”
He shrugged.
“Orson bought every spoiled gallon from this week.”
Harriet unfolded the paper.
At four cents per gallon.
Exactly the price Pratt had wanted.
“Why?”
Thomas leaned against the bench.
“He’s storing it in the shed behind his feed warehouse.”
“Does he know how to use it?”
“Not unless he’s learned very fast.”
Harriet thought about the ledger.
“Then he intends to learn.”
Thomas nodded.
“Or stop you.”
The next morning, a wagon arrived at Harriet’s gate.
The driver was a stranger.
He handed her a letter.
Edwin Marsh.
Harriet opened it with shaking fingers.
Miss Voss,
Sold all adhesive samples in two towns. Three carpenters want more. One school superintendent wants coating for an outbuilding if you can match the sample. I have orders totaling $14.60 before commission. Deliver within ten days.
Harriet sat down on the fence rail.
Fourteen dollars and sixty cents.
More money than she had held at one time in months.
Enough to pay Orson.
Enough to buy feed.
Enough to repair the south fence.
Possibly enough to breathe.
Then she remembered the shed behind Bellweather’s warehouse.
Orson now controlled the creamery’s spoiled milk.
Her remaining supply would not fill half the order.
Thomas read the letter when he arrived.
“That’s good.”
“It would be.”
“If?”
“If I had milk.”
He thought for a moment.
“Pratt has good milk.”
“I can’t afford good milk.”
“What about farms?”
“What about them?”
“Every dairy loses some milk. Heat. Late collection. Small sour batches. Pratt isn’t the only source.”
Harriet looked up.
Thomas continued.
“You don’t need hundreds of gallons from one man. You need ten from one family, twenty from another.”
Harriet’s mind began moving.
“Waste they currently pour out.”
“Exactly.”
She smiled slowly.
“Orson bought the creamery.”
“Not the valley.”
The next three days became a race.
Harriet and Thomas rode from farm to farm.
They offered one cent a gallon for sour milk that met Harriet’s standards and would otherwise be discarded.
Some farmers laughed.
Then they realized Harriet intended to pay actual money for waste.
By Saturday, she had commitments from seven families.
By Sunday, eleven.
Orson heard Monday.
By Tuesday, he offered two cents.
Harriet raised hers to two and a half only for material that met her needs.
The farmers enjoyed the competition enormously.
For once, poor people owned something rich men wanted.
Then came Wednesday.
Her debt deadline.
Harriet entered Bellweather’s store carrying a cloth purse.
Orson stood behind the counter.
Caleb sat nearby.
Harriet emptied the coins.
Then placed three folded banknotes beside them.
Orson stared.
“Count it.”
He did.
Every cent was there.
Principal.
Feed.
Nails.
Lamp oil.
Salt.
No remaining balance.
Orson looked at the money.
Then at Harriet.
“You sold glue.”
“And paint.”
“You think that makes you a manufacturer?”
“No.”
“What do you think it makes you?”
Harriet picked up her receipt.
“Paid.”
Caleb turned away to hide a smile.
Orson’s face hardened.
Harriet walked out.
On the street, she let herself breathe.
For perhaps twenty seconds, everything felt possible.
Then Thomas came running from the direction of the creamery.
“Harriet!”
She stopped.
He was pale.
“What happened?”
“Your barn.”
Her stomach turned cold.
“What about it?”
“I saw smoke from the ridge.”
Harriet ran.
By the time they reached her property, there were no flames.
No burning roof.
No destroyed house.
But the barn door stood open.
Inside, every crock Harriet had prepared for Edwin’s fourteen-dollar order lay smashed across the floor.
And someone had poured kerosene over the workbench.
No match had been struck.
That was not an accident.
It was a message.
Harriet stood in the doorway.
Thomas whispered, “Whoever did this wanted you to know they could have burned everything.”
Harriet looked at the broken jars.
Her order was due in four days.
All her prepared adhesive was gone.
May you like
And for the first time since the third barrel hit the basin, Harriet understood exactly how frightened someone else had become of what she was building.
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