The Man from Stone Creek. Linda Lael Miller

since he oversaw Mungo’s investments, expected the mercantile door to be unlocked by nine o’clock sharp, and in the six years she’d been running the general store, she’d never failed to do that. It was now eight forty-five. “Is there some emergency?” she’d asked, already untying the apron strings she’d just tied a moment before.

      “He says it’s important,” Terran had insisted.

      And here she was, standing in the schoolhouse, staring in consternation at Sam O’Ballivan and the bathtub she’d sold him herself.

      “I want you,” Sam repeated patiently, “to show Violet Perkins how to take a bath.”

      Maddie knew Violet, of course, and had sympathy for her. The poor child hung around the store sometimes, when school was out, hoping for a hard-boiled egg from the crock next to the counter, or a piece of penny candy. She mooned over the few ready-made dresses Maddie carried—most women sewed their children’s garments at home, as well as their own—and huddled by the stove for hours when it was cold or rainy outside. Maddie often indulged her with a plate of leftovers from her own larder at the rear of the store, pretending the food would go to waste if Violet didn’t eat it.

      “Here?” she asked, noting that Sam had set out the bar of French-milled soap and the towel he’d purchased with the bathtub. “In the schoolhouse?”

      “What better place?” Sam reasoned. He’d been sitting behind his desk, wearing spectacles and poring over a thick volume when she burst in. At Maddie’s appearance, he’d set aside the glasses and stood. “A school is a place to learn, isn’t it? And Violet needs to know how to take a bath.”

      Flummoxed, Maddie spread her hands. “What about the other students?” she asked. “You can’t expect the child to undress in front of the boys—”

      Sam smiled. “Of course not. The girls can stay—I suspect some of them could do with a demonstration. I’ll take the boys down to the river for their lesson.” He held up the cake of yellow soap from yesterday’s marketing. “I’ve noticed that Violet is generally the first to raise her hand. Let her think she’s volunteering.”

      Maddie glanced at the schoolhouse clock, torn. It was nine o’clock, straight-up, and the mercantile was still closed. At that very moment Mr. James was probably looking out his office window, the bank being kitty-corner from the store, wondering why the customers couldn’t get in to buy things and whipping up a temper because of it.

      “Why me?” she asked.

      Sam smiled again. “You’re the only woman I know in Haven besides Bird of Paradise over at the Rattlesnake Saloon. I don’t guess it would be fitting to bring her in to teach bathing, though she’d probably agree if I asked her.”

      Maddie sniffed. “It certainly wouldn’t be fitting,” she said, wondering how Sam O’Ballivan had come to make the woman’s acquaintance. Damned if she’d ask him, even if her life depended on it. She approached the tub and peered inside, already unfastening her cuff buttons to roll up her sleeves. “We will need water, Mr. O’Ballivan.”

      “I’ve got some heating in the back room,” he said. “No sense in lugging it in here and pouring it into the tub if you weren’t going to agree.”

      She sighed. “What about the store?”

      “Well, I figured, as the owner, you could—”

      Maddie flushed. “I am not the owner. I manage it for someone else, and I am accountable to Mr. James, at the bank, who serves as trustee.”

      Sam frowned. “Oh,” he said.

      “Yes,” Maddie confirmed. “Oh. By now, there are probably people standing three-deep on the sidewalk, complaining because they can’t get in to buy salt and tobacco and kitchen matches.”

      Sam brightened. “I think I have a solution,” he said. “I’ll take the boys to the river another day. In the meantime, they can learn how a mercantile operates. We’ll make a morning of it.”

      “You intend to take over my store?” Maddie asked, affronted. “Do you think it’s so easy that any idiot can do it?”

      The schoolmaster smiled. “I don’t regard myself as an idiot, as a general rule. How hard can it be, filling flour bags and measuring cloth off a bolt?”

      Maddie came to an instant simmer, but before she could tell the man what she thought of his blithe and patently arrogant assumption that keeping a thriving mercantile was something he could do one-handed, the pupils began to straggle in. She swallowed her outrage and stood as circumspectly as she could, letting her gaze bore into Sam O’Ballivan like a pointy stick.

      When everyone was settled in their seats, Sam announced his plan. The boys would help him tend the mercantile, the girls would remain at the schoolhouse for a “hygiene” lesson.

      The boys cheered and stomped their feet, and rushed for the door at an offhand signal from Sam. The girls sat, wide-eyed, waiting for enlightenment. Maddie would have bet not a one of them could have defined the word hygiene, but they had noticed the bathtub. They were all agog at the spectacle.

      “Miss Chancelor will give the demonstration,” Sam went on, looking worriedly from face to face. “But we’ll need a volunteer to get into the tub.”

      Sure enough, Violet’s hand shot up. “I’ll do it, Mr. SOB,” she cried.

      “Mr. O’Ballivan,” Sam countered easily. “That’s good, Violet. I appreciate your willingness to take the initiative.”

      Violet beamed. “Can I go to the privy first?”

      The other girls giggled and Sam silenced them with a ponderous sweep of his eyes.

      “Yes,” he said. “You do that.”

      While Violet was gone to the privy, he brought in four buckets of hot water and emptied them into the tub. The remaining girls watched, barely able to suppress their amusement.

      When he’d set aside the last bucket, Sam turned to address them. “If even one of you makes fun of Violet,” he said, “you’ll find yourself writing ‘I will not bully smaller children’ one hundred times on the blackboard. Is that clear to everyone?”

      The girls nodded, subdued.

      Sam dusted his hands together. “Good,” he said, and turned to Maddie. “Now, Miss Chancelor, if I might have the key to the mercantile—”

      She surrendered it, slapping it down into his palm with a little more force than strictly necessary.

      “Thank you,” he said, tossing the large brass key once and catching it with an aplomb that made Maddie grit her teeth.

      And so it was that Maddie came to illustrate the finer points of taking a bath, using Violet Perkins as a model.

      * * *

      MADDIE HAD BEEN RIGHT, Sam thought as he opened the mercantile for the day’s commerce. There were eight women waiting on the sidewalk, shopping baskets in hand, tapping their toes in impatience. He greeted them with a nod and made his crew of boys wait until the ladies had swept inside.

      It was the contrary nature of folks, he reckoned, that on this particular morning, everybody in town wanted to get their marketing done. Had Maddie followed her usual routine, there most likely wouldn’t have been so much urgency.

      He set the boys to sweeping and dusting canned goods while the female population of Haven made their various selections.

      “Where,” demanded a narrow-faced old biddy with hooded, hawklike eyes and a nose to match, “is Maddie?”

      Sam opened his mouth to answer, but before he could get a word out, Terran cut him off. “She’s over to the schoolhouse, giving Violet Perkins a bath!” he crowed.

      “Teaching a hygiene lesson,” Sam corrected quietly.

      “Well,” huffed the Hawk