Chapter 12

Adam watched his father fuss over Ezra but the child refused to be confined to a lap so Ben put the child down on the rug and Hoss lifted the table and sat it on its edge across the fireplace so that Ezra couldn't get close to the flames. Then Hoss, Joe and Ben admired how Ezra crawled around and pulled himself up to a standing position using the settee and tested his legs by bouncing up and down.

"Strong boy," Hop Sing said and Ezra smiled up at him as he bounced. Then he hazarded a few steps but ended up sitting down with a thump. "Here." Hop Sing gave Ezra half a biscuit and the child, holding it in a fist, chewed on it. Soon his chin was a mess of wet crumbs.

"The child should be in bed already," Fiona said from the stairs as she walked down. She swooped him up. "And he's wet too. Did none of you men see that the babe needs changing…and what is this?" She pried the half-eaten biscuit from Ezra's hand and he loudly protested. "Did you wash the bottles I gave you?" she asked Hop Sing.

"I wash bottles," Hop Sing said frowning. Fiona handed the mess of dough to Hop Sing.

"Then fill a bottle and bring it up so that I can put the child down for the night…please." Fiona then turned her attention to Ezra as he began to fuss and rub his eyes sleepily. "Yes, it's been a long day, my beauty, and you need to sleep. Tomorrow you can be the Lord of the Ponderosa but tonight you're just a sleepy baby."

Ben came over and kissed his grandson on his dark, curly hair as he caressed the small head. "Goodnight, Ezra. Sleep well."

Fiona took Ezra upstairs and Hop Sing glowered after her. "I raise Hoss and Joe. Little girl not tell me what to give babies. Mistah Cartwright, she order me and tell what to do again, Hop Sig quit but I fix bottle for baby—but she not tell me what to do." Then he turned to go to the kitchen muttering in Chinese.

Adam shook his head, chuckling. "I hope I don't have to let Fiona go. She needs the work and Hop Sing is getting on in years. Besides, she has a good heart and Ezra has taken to her. Keeping after a baby is more work that I realized and I couldn't do it."

"Hop Sing done raised me good enough and Joe good enough," Hoss said.

"That speaks for itself and just proves that I shouldn't put Ezra in Hop Sing's care."

"Oh, you're funny," Joe said. "And on that insult, I'm going to bed. It's past 10:00."

"Yeah, I need to turn in too." Hoss went to the stairs but turned when Hop Sing called him. He rushed out of the kitchen, a full baby bottle in his hand.

"You take to girl upstairs." He still frowned. Hop Sing held grudges and as he remembered good deeds done to him, he also remembered any insult—even if the insult was just in his mind.

"Now, c'mon, Hop Sing. You need to get along with that bitty girl. She don't mean no harm."

"You take bottle." Hop Sing held out the bottle and sighing, Hoss took it and slowly climbed the stairs while Joe giggled.

"Looks like you were born to it," Joe said. "Hoss, the nursemaid."

"Shut up, Joe." Hoss scowled and stomped up the stairs.

Finally, Adam was alone with his father.

"Well, Adam, Ezra is a fine boy. I'm glad you brought him home. Have you any plans for what you're going to do now?"

Adam considered what to tell his father and how much to tell him. "I've asked Sylvia to marry me—I had made up my mind about her from the first time I met her here at dinner-and she's agreed." Ben started to say something and Adam cut him off. "Yes, I told her, Pa. I told Sylvia all about Ezra and his mother and the fact that someone else may be his father but to her credit, she didn't care—or at least she said she didn't." Adam moved the table that was still propped on its side in front of the fireplace and sat it upright on the rug, positioning it properly.

"There's a fire screen in the attic," Ben said. "Tomorrow morning we can find it and put it up. I remember that Joe was always knocking it down and Marie would become hysterical and once demanded that I wall up the fireplace. I asked her about the stove on the other side of the room. What about that? Would she prefer Joe freeze? She didn't know what to say then and stopped complaining but she never left Joe alone in this room. Fire draws children to it—they're like moths, drawn to what would harm them the most. But then adults are the same way, I suppose. We always think we can conquer anything until we get to a certain age or have been burned so many times we're nothing but scar tissue."

"All right, Pa, what's your point? You're talking in metaphors."

"I suppose it's that we have to think about Ezra now—our lives have changed. Adam, since you have a child, he has to come first. Fiona is a fine nurse for him—she seems to care for him and Hop Sing is older and probably can't keep up with an infant but please talk to her; I can't have Hop Sing threatening to quit every five minutes because he thinks she's a bossy girl."

Adam chuckled. "Fiona is determined and believes that her way is the only way—she and Hop Sing have that much in common but I'll talk to her."

"What about when you marry? Will you keep Fiona on or expect Sylvia to take over immediately?" Ben waited but Adam said nothing; he hadn't considered it. "As much as Marie didn't like handing Joe over to anyone else, even Hop Sing, she couldn't have taken care of Joe all day and all night; she wasn't raised that way. From what you've told me, Sylvia has no siblings either, no experience with infants and children. Will you expect her to do everything for Ezra?"

"I don't know. I suppose there's more to discuss than I thought. Fiona needs employment and…I suppose it's a lot to ask of Sylvia to be my wife and then expect her to immediately be both nursemaid and mother to Ezra…but I remember what you said about two women in the same house. Both of them together may be too much—but maybe not."

"Fiona, Sylvia and Hop Sing," Ben added, "all in the same house. The hierarchy will be turned on its ear."

Adam cleared his throat. "Pa, I don't think, well, I don't plan on us living here. I thought I might lease the old Richard's place until I can build a house. I was considering the property on the west side, building it so the lake can be seen from the back of the house. Sylvia fell in love with the lake when I took her there for the first time so I've always planned on it."

"I see. So you'd move out. Well, I can understand that."

"Pa, with me and Sylvia and Ezra…and Fiona, well, that would be eight people in this house. We'd be tripping over each other."

"I understand, Adam. I understand wanting your own house for your own family."

Adam stood up. "I'm heading for bed. Ezra's always awake at the crack of dawn. Oh, I almost forgot." Adam pulled out his wallet. "I have Ezra's record of birth. Ann named him Ezra Thomas Cartwright—I guess she was hedging her bets."

"When is his birthday?"

"May 24th. He'll be a year old in almost three months."

"Put it in the Bible, would you, Adam? I'll add his name tomorrow."

Adam walked over to the table behind the settee where the large Cartwright family Bible sat. Ben had taken it with him long ago when he and Adam had stopped at his older brother John's place on their journey west. John had said that he was planning on taking his son, Will, and traveling to Asia. There was money to be made in Oriental spices and silks. He couldn't pack the huge tome so Ben grateful took it and it stayed on the table in the great room. Adam slipped the folded paper in the back of the Bible.

"Well, I'm going to bed. Goodnight, Pa."

"Goodnight, Adam. Sleep well."

"I'll have to sleep better than I have been. I swear I'm getting too damn old to sleep on the ground."

Ben smiled and Adam climbed the stairs, rubbing his back. Then Ben's smile dropped. He hadn't considered Adam moving out but it made sense. He would do the same thing if he were in Adam's position and yet he had fallen in love with the boy—his grandson—and the thought of being separated from him grieved him. But he was only the grandfather and needed to keep his opinion to himself. Ben packed his cold pipe with tobacco and lit it. One more smoke and he'd go to bed. And thinking about Ezra being up and around in the morning made him smile. He ached to see the child again.

It was early—too early really to be calling as it was a bit before noon when Adam rode up to the house that Polly Matthews had leased for herself five years ago. And then Sylvia arrived to stay for a bit at her parents' urgings; Sylvia needed a change in surroundings, they had said and they hoped to encourage her to stay awhile, to make it a lengthy visit.

It was due to her melancholy after her sad loss that her parents suggested Sylvia visit her aunt out west; her Aunt Polly was a spinster and would welcome the company, they suggested—she was so lonely out in Nevada by herself. But in reality, it was for Sylvia's sake that they wanted to send her. "Due to her fiancé's untimely demise, your brother and I believe that it would be beneficial to remove Sylvia from all that reminds her of Philip and the tragedy. If you wouldn't mind, my dear sister, may we send her to you for a visit?"

Polly read that section over and over before she took up her pen and wrote her sister-in-law that she understood the situation and would be happy to host dear Sylvia for a time until she recovered from the unfortunate, heart-breaking loss of her fiancé. "I hope that Sylvia won't be bored as I live a quiet life and do not entertain," Polly Matthews replied. Polly then sat back and wondered about the young man whom her niece almost married—the eldest son of a wealthy family, she had been told in an earlier letter.

It seemed that Sylvia, had been engaged to a young man who, although he had tragically died, had also—unknown to her family-proved himself in her eyes to be a reckless fool; she was more than happy to leave the city in which her milieu knew all about the situation in which Mr. Philip Stewart had gone down into the mines to show the workers that the timbering was safe and when he pounded on a support in brash hubris, a cave-in occurred. Although Philip was eventually pulled to safety after the rocks and dirt had been dug away, he died within a few hours; his lungs had been crushed—the five other men had never been recovered; they had died under the crushing weight of the heavy stones and tons of dirt. Sylvia had found it difficult to work up grief and she couldn't understand why. She came to the conclusion that she must be heartless and cold but she did have sudden insight to the fact that the better she knew Philip and his family, the less affection she had toward him and had actually found herself heartily disliking many things about him, his friends and mostly his family..

Philip was too materialistic in his desire for wealth-avaricious. She had witnessed the Pennsylvania countryside become barren and sooty due to the coal mining. Dirt and dust always seemed to fill the air and when she returned from a trip with Philip who was proud of the mine that he and his family owned because it seemed to belch forth tons of coal, Sylvia always found that she and her clothing had an coat of light, black dust that settled into the folds of her clothing and below her eyes as well as in her hat and hair.

At the mining site, Sylvia had seen young boys no older than eight or nine, the whites of their eyes shocking in their begrimed faces as they came out of the mines.

"Philip," she had said, "these boys should be in school, not working in a hole in the ground. What about sunlight and fresh air? How are they supposed to grow?"

"It's their families' choice that they work. We don't make them—their mothers and fathers send them."

"But you mustn't allow it! You should send them away—tell them to attend school." Sylvia was appalled. "There must be laws against it."

"It's not my choice, Sylvia. Listen to me. What you're suggesting would push the families deeper into poverty. They want their children to work. Do you want me to tell them that they now have to live on less?"

Sylvia sat in the buggy and thought quickly; something had to be done. "Pay the miners more. If you pay them more than the children can go to school." It seemed a simple solution to her.

Philip derisively laughed. "Sylvia, you know nothing about business and nothing about shareholders. And where is the money to come from? Do you think that's gold that they're taking from the ground? It's coal and it goes through many hands. A lot of people have to be paid."

"Mining inspectors? Do they have to be paid off as well?" Sylvia knew better than to fling insults—most unladylike—but she couldn't suppress her disgust.

Philip turned an angry face to his fiancée. "Don't talk about things that you know nothing about." He snapped the reins of the horse pulling the small buggy. "I don't think you should visit the mines again. Each time I bring you, you do nothing but criticize. Maybe it's best that you just enjoy what money can buy and not see how it's made. My father warned me not to bring you to the mines but I told him he was old-fashioned."

"Philip, I'm sorry but I'm not criticizing—I'm looking for solutions. You and your family and your partners'—all of you have a nice living, nice homes and such. All of you could spare a bit to make others' lives better. I don't see how…"

"Sylvia, I don't care to talk about it as you aren't grounded in reality." He sighed and then smiled gently. "Let's go visit the Brockingtons. I promised Cecily that I'd bring you by again. She has taken to you. I think that you two might become great friends."

Sylvia sat back against the padded buggy seat and looked out at the view, the landscape already changing as they came closer to the city. Something had to be done, that Sylvia knew. Her conscience would bother her if she lived a grand life and went to parties and socials while small boys coughed from the black coal dust coating their lungs. Why was life so difficult?

And then Philip had died in the cave-in and Sylvia felt it was a type of poetic justice—she felt God's hand was in it. Nevertheless, his death didn't change anything and now that Sylvia no longer had an in with the mining people, she was basically ostracized as her family was not one of the most wealthy in Pennsylvania. Besides, under the protection of her engagement to Philip, she had espoused her beliefs about the cruelty that mining engendered not to mention how it left the countryside bereft of any beauty and that when it rained, the ground became a mucky, back, tarry surface. Not only that, but she had championed having the children work on the surface if they had to work at all and releasing them at least four hours a day to attend a school on the grounds. These were not popular topics among the mining people and despite the fact that Philip had asked her not to discuss such things at gatherings, Sylvia always did. She took a perverse satisfaction from the other people's discomfiture when she told them what was reality, about the intense poverty of the miners' families and that their young children, mainly the boys but on rare occasions, even the young girls, were sent down into the mines or worked on the surface separating chunks of coal by hand and cleaving the larger pieces into smaller ones.

Philip would chastise Sylvia, saying that if she kept up her tactic of subtly insulting all the mine owners and investors, his parents may forbid him to marry her.

"I thought you loved me, Philip," she had said the evening before he died. "You once said that nothing and no one could keep us apart. Didn't you mean that?"

"Of course I meant it, Sylvia, but you wouldn't want my father to cut me out of the business would you? What would we do then?" Philip was terse and Sylvia knew then how angry with her he really was.

"I'm sorry, Philip." Sylvia glanced over at him as he drove the buggy. He had declined the family's driver for the night—Sylvia always said it was pretentious and chided him for having too many servants-so he drove the buggy himself. Philip was a handsome man with thick, wavy blond and with just a touch of ruggedness about his jaw and he did love her—Sylvia knew that but she also sensed that he would throw her over if his father insisted that he do so. "I just, well, I feel that…I don't know, Philip. Maybe I'm just not right for you." Sylvia sat back and said nothing more and Philip reached over and took her gloved hand in his. Sylvia turned and smiled at him and he, at her. "You're the right woman for me, Sylvia. There can't be anyone else." And the next day he was dead.

Philip Stewart and Adam Cartwright were polar opposites as far as Sylvia was concerned and when she met Adam and came to know him, she realized that there were different types of men to whom she was drawn. They were both sons in wealthy families and had to put the family name first but yet Adam was very different from the type of man Philip had been. But when Adam kissed her, it sent a thrill through her being that Philip's kisses never had. Whenever Adam would show up at the door of her aunt's house, Sylvia felt her heart step up with the joy of seeing his face and his smile.