The Prettiest Girl in the Land (The Traherns #3) by Nancy Radke Page A

that. Wasn’t there a hat?”
    “Well yes, but...”
    “You put that on and impress those bankers. They’ll want their
picture taken with you, so you might as well look as grand as they do.” She
turned to me. “I’ve a hat you can wear as well.”
    So it was that the next day, Gage and I met the bankers all
gussied up, so we’uns looked mighty like city folk.
    They shook our hands and talked a lot, and we all got our
pictures took, but the end of the matter was that they handed us each a check
for five hundred dollars. This, too, was written up in the paper. We put most
of the money in their bank, as they said that way we wouldn’t have to be
carrying it around and could use it when we needed it.
    I’d never used a bank before, but with everyone knowing we got
that money, I didn’t want Mrs. Jones worrying about someone stealing it.
    Having money can be a bother, I could see that right off. When
you didn’t have it, you wanted it, but when you did have it, you had to worry
about losing it.
    I went right to the dress lady and paid her off, so I wouldn’t
owe anyone anything.
    That evening we joined the rest of the boarders in the living
room. It was big and comfortable and had a large fireplace.   
    One young man was especially attentive and I wondered if this
could be my Boaz. I was still praying hard. And then he spit.
    I backed off as he hit the spittoon next to me and could see
Gage grinning. He winked at me, and I nodded back. He’d heard me complaining
about trying to clean the rugs after Pa, and knew my opinion on chewing and
spitting, as I could give people an earful when I’d get riled.
    Gage didn’t chew. He didn’t spit. I knew that from our trip out,
cause several of the men took to it on the trip. But Gage hadn’t.
    We asked about a place for Travers to run. The only places Mrs.
Jones or any of the boarders knew of was out on the beach. We were a ways from
it and would have to hire a cab to take us there. By the time we took the cab
out and back, it wouldn’t give him much time.
    I didn’t like to see Travers cooped up in that back yard, so I asked
Gage to take Travers with him.  We both liked the idea. He could jump off
and run beside the wagon when he wished to.
    The next morning I went to work, wearing my new work dress. That
seamstress really knew how to sew, and my dress was the equal of any of the
other women on the streets.
    The company was all men. Mr. Debras’ brother showed me the
shipping manifests and I went through them, correcting the mistakes, costing
them some money, but saving more.
    “I never was one for figures,” he said. “I’m glad Henry sent
you.”
    “What else do you want me to do?”
    “Well, you just did in two hours what takes me the whole day. So
I don’t know what to have you do. Why don’t you figure out the wages? I pay the
men once a week, and if you can make sure that is being done right, it would be
a big help. How much is Henry paying you?”
    “We never talked about it. He said I’d saved him enough to pay
for my trip out, and then sent me.”
    “I’ll give you the same as any day clerk. And I’ll assign a man
to walk you to and from the cab area. This part of town can get rough,
sometimes.”
    “Thank you, sir.”
    “You’re welcome. I thought Henry was out of his mind, sending a
woman, but I see you are exceptional. I need to protect you here. The men in
the company will help guard you; it’s the riffraff in the streets who are the
danger.”
    I nodded. “It don’t look right, in this dress, to be carrying my
rifle.”
    He chuckled. “A lot of women carry a derringer in their purses.
But if you get caught in a mob, you only have one shot.”
    “Are there mobs around here?”
    “Yes. They form quickly for the slightest of reasons. The
country is still on the move now that the war is over, and people haven’t
settled and found their place. The restless, shiftless ones gang together. They
can be dangerous.”
    I told Gage this when