Jesse Peers arrived in the plains an unhappy despondent man. Rose Sikes entered his life through the manipulation of the mothers. Such matchmakers these women were. The young entrepreneur tried many things that always seemed to turn out well, make a profit or gain. Jesse managed a sheep camp, then developed an implement business with machines that moved Nebraska farmers into progressive ways of farming. Jesse Peers quilted together property: a patch of land here, a failed homestead there, and a piece of farm land nearby. Hessie, the Oglala Sioux woman, was protected and nurtured by Rose. Pearl Lux, in the background but very prominent in their lives, becoming a county sheriff and finally a US Marshall, directing the lawlessness into a time of peace and prosperity. Hans Sikes seeking to protect his daughter and keep her close. Rose’s family so close knit but troubled and sometimes volatile, ready to ignite and burn. Rose and Jesse married secretly sustained their vows and created a life. Rose’s desire to have a large family when Jesse had ambivalence about it all. The families were huge, the land holdings were vast, and the people industrious and ambitious. This story from the late 1800’s until the turn of the century and beyond, portrays the struggle of families who lived in the plains.

All The Pretty Children

By Donna R. McGrew

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2010 Donna R. McGrew
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4520-3884-1

Contents

Part I. A New Beginning.............................................1Part II. Lena Comes to America......................................8Part III. Hans Goes Home............................................17Chapter 1. Going Home...............................................21Chapter 2. The Boarding House.......................................26Chapter 3. Ernest's Recovery........................................42Chapter 4. Piss Ant Pie.............................................47Chapter 5. Hettrick House on Sweet Creek............................53Chapter 6. A Decent Proposal........................................60Chapter 7. Quilting The Pieces Together.............................65Chapter 8. The Ashbaugh Affair......................................73Chapter 9. The Shotgun Camp.........................................83Chapter 10. The Wedding.............................................91Chapter 11. Home at the Sheep Camp..................................101Chapter 12. Hessie Riddle Returns...................................111Chapter 13. Home from Europe........................................121Chapter 14. New Friends, Old Problems...............................132Chapter 15. A Time to Remember......................................141Chapter 16. The Implement Business in Cairo.........................149Chapter 17. A New Home..............................................156Chapter 18. The Quilting Bee........................................164Chapter 19. Sister Aimee Arrives from St. Louis.....................174Chapter 20. Moving on...............................................189Chapter 21. The Long Way Home.......................................204Chapter 22. The Children on Shady Grazeland.........................213

Chapter One

Going Home

The railway station at Grand Junction was swarming with people, shouting, gesturing, dragging suitcases, and hat boxes, in a mad scramble to board the train. People crowded from the station waiting room door onto the platform, a crush of relatives and friends carelessly hugging each other, a storm of heavy clothing, women's hats some with bows tied under the chin, amongst a mixture of porters hoping for a gratuity getting people stowed away in the passenger cars.

Rose, her sister Annie and Willie, her brother in-law, struggled across the platform and boarded the train, amongst passengers struggling to get off and on. They sweltered in their extra clothing. On the platform people were pushing angrily, pummeling the arms of departing sons and daughters. Children cried and clung to their mothers skirts; babies wrenched their mother's hair.

The conductor pushed aside the un-ticketed, hurrying people along. Down the length of the train people hung from open windows, crushing and kissing outstretched hands for one last time, their faces contorted with grief. The train moved and a cry went up from those remaining on the platform, watching the train cars glide by; their faces becoming the masks of strangers.

A man shouted and ran along beside the train, his legs taking large strides over the rough gravel of the right of way. As the train curved preparing to pick up speed, the man plunged with a horrible scream and fell beneath the train. He fell on all fours motionless between the steel wheels as the locomotive ground over him.

The conductor pulled the emergency brake while the engineer prepared to stop. A railroad official grabbed a side rail and hurried toward the front of the train. Everyone inside took a ragged breath as they became aware something had occurred. As the word passed quickly among passengers, men began moving up the aisle of the train, attempting to learn what had happened.

Rose and Annie remained seated while Willie jumped up. "Sit tight, I will go see what happened. It is going to be awhile to get us started again." A frown crossed his face. "We will be late arriving in Denver." He hurried out.

Willie was a conductor for the Great Northern Railroad and had some experience with accidents that happened. People drove onto or stalled at railroad crossings or occasionally hobos fell beneath the moving wheels. Often livestock and deer and elk wandered on the tracks and were struck. As he strode along the aisle some man was now telling another, "He is always at the station. He is crazy. He thinks his brother is on the train, always running and pleading his brother to come back."

The story shook Willie. It seemed a bad omen. He was reminded to get word at the next station to Hans and Greta they would be late. Likely they would miss their connection in Denver. It left him in a morose mood, he did not like dealing with his father-in-law Hans.

The smell of human sweat along with food and the close association of crowded passengers, assailed his nostrils. He could never get used to it. Not even the acrid smell of coal smoke blotted out the human odor in cramped quarters of the passenger cars, especially the train that came out of Grand Junction, always loaded to capacity.

The engineer and fireman were in a huddle with the company official. As Willie pressed forward, they recognized him even in his dapper clothes and neat bowler hat. They had crossed some invisible bar making them neither arriving or departing. As if time had suddenly come to a halt while they stepped into a pocket of apprehension of what they must do. The engineer said, "I didn't see anything. Knew nothing till the emergency brake was pulled."

The conductor filled them in. " I saw the man running fast along the passenger car. I saw him lunge under the train." The engineer and firemen both stated he must put that in a report. The official was scrounging in his briefcase for the appropriate forms.

The engineer said, "We won't leave until the incident is reported and the body is recovered." Trainmen hurried by with tools and a body bag. "I assume the man could not have lived from his lunge beneath the passenger cars."

The crew hurried outside along the passenger cars till they came to the body strewn haphazardly along the tracks. A hat wedged neath a wheel where a hand peeked out above it, pointing dramatically at nothing. The man's legs were crushed and the body caught between the axle rods between the rails of the tracks. The trainman set about lifting the body off the underbody of the car. One of the firemen dashed down the right of way and vomited into the weeds. The rest turned their faces away, embarrassed they might do the same. Slowly, they retrieved body parts and wrenched clothing from the couplings and rods under the train cars.

At last satisfied they had done an adequate job, the crew boarded the train while the conductor gave the official his story. Willie started back to the bedroom suite where the women anticipated his return.

Along the aisles passengers grabbed at him inquiring what had happened. They were anxious to resume their journey. The crewmen threw down their smokes and called, "All Aboard." The hollow rumble of the wheels on steel ground slowly along the tracks. With a brittle whistle the train moved away.

The shadows grew long among the pines on the wayside. The light swept along in shades of green and gold as the breeze blew coal smoke and dust along the ground.

Willie entered the compartment where the silence was profound. Annie's face registered fear while Rose's expression was inquiring. Annie's experience with railroad accidents caused her to say, "What happened? Are you injured ?"

He began by telling them, "A man fell under the train right after we left the station. The crew has done a good job but we will be late getting to Denver. We need to wire Hans and tell him we will be late so they need not linger at the station waiting for us. It will be midnight before we get to Denver. We should go to the dining car and have our evening meal." He did not want to linger on the truth of this matter.

Rose and Annie fussed with their hair and clothing, trying to freshen up. No one was terribly hungry especially Willie. In the dining car the waiter seated them and gave them menus.

Rose had forgotten her dilemma during the events of the day. She'd been troubled with thoughts crowding her consciousness that tore at her. The anticipation of arriving home was another bridge she must have the courage to face. "Will father be glad to see me?" She said this wistfully to Willie and Annie.

Rose had been in Colorado two years. Away from all the struggle with her Father, Hans Sikes. She knew she had been missed. Rose was a vigorous energetic person. She had proved that to Annie and Willie. As the train sped through the evening dusk she pondered on what might happen. The tracks led through shale hills to a train trestle across the Colorado river. The mountains in the distance were a soft mauve in the setting sun, the sky a brilliant backdrop as the sun sank into the western horizon.

Chapter Two

The Boarding House

The boarding houses were the mainstay of the early American culture. They provided places for transient workers as well as general clientele and provided a bed and three meals a day. Aunt Annie's boardinghouse was a coveted hostel for tired workers needed to maintain the economy.

Annie's boarding house kept Rose, Annie and several hired girls busy. Annie ran a tight ship and managed to keep out grifters and transients but catered to railroad crews and surveyors. Men were noted to come to town and throw good money at bad practices, but once someone had disproved themselves to Annie, the word got around of their risky behavior. They weren't allowed to stay anywhere. Often this was the incentive needed to correct their ways or leave town as other boarding houses were not open to them.

Annie Runge was a large woman with black hair and a smattering of grey. She was nearly six feet tall, a strong woman who favored her Father Hans. Her arched brows framed sunken blue eyes, her high cheekbones emphasized her angular face, her mouth twisted in a frown with thin lips gave a look of interest to her face. The forcefulness of her nature was apparent in her manner and the sound of her voice. She did not just talk to you she surrounded you. Her suggestions fell over each other, which was not shrugged off lightly. When Annie spoke you listened. If not, later, you would be reminded of what she intended. She backed up what she said and if you were a shirker you did not stay long. Late for dinner-no food. Room dirty-find yourself and possessions in the street. There were no gray areas, either black or white. She did not tolerate poor workers in the cooking and cleaning help. She had no qualms about firing women who were poor housekeepers and bad cooks. The word got around if standards slipped and she would not allow bad help to remain.

She sat across from Rose and looked out the train window, watching the landscape speed by. The train left the caverns and crags of the Colorado mountains and moved into a gentler landscape. The tracks unrolled through fields that were like leaden sheets under gray skies. The cars disappeared into the bowl shaped hills merging with the Platte River into the winter fields of Nebraska.

Rose's past came clawing at her. She could not push it aside, but it swam through her brain like wasps before they sting. Unanswered questions floated in her thoughts. She felt like a coward spinning away from a whirlwind of complicated thoughts. She was going home. How could she deal with Hans Sikes, her father, the reason she had left home to begin with.

It seemed so long ago since she had left her family, sister Maggie, brothers, August, Johnny, Peter and Ernest. Ernest was a quiet boy then. Harmless as a pet kitten, so vulnerable, yet kind, so sweet. Now she was going home because he had been injured. How could this be: Rose became aware of things she avoided thinking about. Maybe if she had stayed at home things would be different.

She was a figure of strength to Hessie and Maggie. They had been united with Mama Greta when things were strange and unsettled. She remembered how Ernest was always with the men and never in the house with Mama. He'd been like some dirty little secret that no one acknowledged, no one talked about. He was a human being after all, a growing man with a tiny boy inside. He hadn't breathed when he was born, a fat little baby caused a difficult birth. Mama had a long labor and forceps were necessary before he could be delivered. His head was misshapen and the doctor had struggled with him to get him breathing. Then he had put Ernest aside to work with Mama; awhile later he began mewling in his little bed before they realized he was still alive. It was not to be her last child, born at regular intervals all birthed alive; however, not all were healthy and survived. Ernest grew to be six feet tall. He followed Maggie in birth order.

Rose's fast exit from home to stay with Annie and Bernard Runge had caused rumors among the other families. Maggie reveled in the stories relaying them to Greta. One version was Rose was pregnant, or that she'd had a nervous breakdown, or she had some disease she needed to recuperate from. At the ripe old age of seventeen she was going home. For once someone besides herself was under scrutiny. Rose could deny all the rumors. She was not pregnant, did not have a nervous breakdown, Jesse had not jilted her.

Mama's phone call came late one night after everyone was in bed. Willie, a conductor for the Great Northern railway, was out on a run. Annie rushed to the phone assuming the worst since trainmen often were injured on the trains. It took a few moments for her to grasp what Mama was calling about.

Ernest was injured at the farm. It was not clear whether it was an injury from a horse or machinery. Greta feared the worst knowing the other children she had lost. She spoke between fierce wrenching sobs before Peter took the phone and was able to explain that Ernest was in the hospital in Grand Island. Immediately Willie planned to take the women home.

Annie and Willie sat across from Rose, but they avoided looking at each other. A strange silence gripped them. It would be two more days before they would reach Grand Island where Papa would have someone meet them. Rose slowly packed her things getting ready to return home. Carefully she packed her long white gown in tissue paper. She folded and packed the dress and small veil, along with a pair of blue satin shoes Annie had helped her shop for.

The good part about all this was Jesse would be there when she returned. She reflected blissfully about his recent visit to Colorado to visit her. He came to Denver selling beef cattle then came to Grand Junction to visit Rose.

At first, Willie and Annie had not known what to do as all they had heard was Hans' ranting and raving about Jesse and Pearl Lux. They were prepared to protect Rose should the occasion give rise to something unpleasant. But when they met Jesse, they were blown away by his manners, his knowledgeable conversations of the Great Northern railway and the general information he possessed of Grand Junction. Jesse had done his homework.

He had arrived mid-afternoon after Rose's arrival. Willie was on his way home from Denver after several non-stop runs, and came across Jesse's name on his ticket roster of travelers. Willie introduced himself and a little suspiciously inquired, "I am Willie Runge and my wife, Annie, has family over on the Middle Loop River. Maybe you know of the Hans Sikes' family?" A frown crossed Jesse's tranquil face. Jesse realized immediately who he was.

The trip gave them time to talk and Willie realized Jesse was being criticized much like he was before Annie decided to leave home with or without Hans' approval. Still he was guarded having heard secondhand from relatives and Rose about the vigilante' movement in the Plains. Especially about Pearl Lux, who had put Peter Sikes out of a job as county sheriff when Lux was elected overwhelmingly.

Being a little curious, he began to inquire about Jesse's role with the murder of Obediah Riddle and their resolution of the scandals surrounding Slats Mahoney. He had heard in detail about Jesse keeping Rose out late that night. "I believe you know Pearl Lux. He unseated my brother-in-law Peter in the last election," Willie stated.

"Yes, that is true. Pearl has found a niche there that suited him well. It is also true, the election could have gone either way." Jesse's explanation was clear about where he stood and what he had done. Lux had reservations about being sheriff.

Then Willie brought up the matter of Rose's departure from home. " Rose is a fine woman. Annie was lucky to have her come to us. The boarding house is work enough for them and several like her. Trouble is women are scarce around here."

Jesse pondered his words to be spent carefully before he spoke. "I believe she was missed at home too. She likes farm life. Would be happy to work in the fields but Greta would not allow it. Right now Obediah's daughter Hessie, that worked there, has inherited a whopping bunch of land and a large house. She has left the Sikes and is trying her hand at her father's place. There's talk she will eventually sell off at least part of the land. All the help will have to be hired. Obediah was a rigid man who insisted on everything going as he wanted. That may not be possible for Hessie although she has been a willing helper for Greta, that is hardly all she will need to know to own a farm."

Willie shifted in his seat of the club car. "What is she like? Few women are up to running a large farm. Unless I am mistaken she may not be able. I have heard of women throughout the plains who do run businesses or farms but it's unusual."

"She will have plenty of chance to try it. The house Obediah built is a sturdy well built one and the outbuildings are the best. Recently, he built two new silos which make it possible to produce feed for a large herd of cattle. It'd be quite a place to own if you could make it work." Jesse pondered on this, thinking about the adjacent property he'd bought several years before when Obediah, needing money, had sold that very property to him. There was a two bedroom cottage nestled in an orchard of trees right by Sweet Creek. Land enough surrounded it to raise corn, wheat and a sizeable garden. As he spoke, Jesse's expression reflected how pleased he was with the prospects the place offered.

It was late afternoon when the train arrived in Grand Junction. Golden sunlight shown through the evergreens and aspens along the way casting pinpoints of light on the train windows as they glided along the tracks. "Once you are settled with lodging call us. Here is my card and phone number. I will tell Annie and Rose you arrived today. I suspect if Rose does not already knows this, it will be good news." He walked swiftly down the aisle as Jesse hurried to his own car and gathered up his belonging.

As Jesse left the train he searched for someone to take him to a hotel. His leather jacket felt good against the Colorado evening. Jesse snugged his broad brimmed hat and rushed to a cab in front of the station. As he settled in the driver inquired, "Where you bound mister?"

(Continues...)

Excerpted from All The Pretty Childrenby Donna R. McGrew Copyright © 2010 by Donna R. McGrew. Excerpted by permission.
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