Prayers for Sale by Sandra Dallas

thought.”
    “A hookhouse,” Nit whispered.
    “Well, you have to say it keeps the boys out of the saloons and pool halls.” Roy guffawed.
    Hennie waved him off, and Roy set the yeast on the counter and walked heavily to the back room, stopping to align a can of peas that was turned sideways. Hennie reached into the barrel for an apple for herself, rubbing at the loose skin before she bit into it. The apple was soft, but they were mostly all soft this far from apple season. She thought for a moment how nice it would be to have an apple tree in her yard, but apple trees didn’t grow at ten thousand feet. They grew in Fort Madison, however. She’d remember that when she got to feeling discouraged about the move.
    Nit set her apple in her lap. It had little rows of bites around it, like she’d made a bracelet for the apple. “I know about sorry girls. We had them at home, but I never met one before. I reckon they’re shameful.”
    Hennie caught a scent of vanilla and thought the girl had put it behind her ears. She was a clean little thing, and tidy, too. She must be a good wife to Dick Spindle. “Some are, some aren’t, just like folks in general,” Hennie said. “There’s girls that will cozy up to a miner and pick him clean, tough as a boiled owl they are. Even a pack rat will leave you something, but those hookers take the least little thing. Others are just as nice as you please. Most of them are regular women who chose that kind of work—or had it chose for them.”
    Nit seemed to study Hennie as if she wondered whetherthe old woman was trying to put one over on her. “I guess I never thought about it.”
    “I could tell you about them.” The older woman settled into her chair, glad for an audience, for she’d been cooped up at home in the storm for so long that it was a wonder her voice hadn’t rusted. Besides, it was cozy by the stove, like sitting on a log in the sun of a summer morning, and she was in no hurry to leave. But she wished she had her piecing. Storytelling was always nicer when she had her quilting to occupy her fingers. She reached into her pocket in hopes she’d put a patch and a needle there and forgotten about them, but she hadn’t. Coffee would be nice, too, but there was no sign of the coffeepot that Roy kept on top of the stove. Well, a body couldn’t expect him to give out free apples and coffee both, when she’d spent only a nickel on yeast.
    Of course, Roy Senior would have made coffee for her. He’d have given her anything in the store if she’d married him, but Hennie was always too particular about men. She wouldn’t wed a man, even one as decent as Roy Senior, just for a frame house and a lifetime supply of canned beans. She’d rather be alone with her quilting and her prayers than married to a man she didn’t love with all her heart and soul. Besides, being married to Roy Senior would have made her Roy Junior’s stepmother—and Monalisa Pinto’s mother-in-law. Hennie rolled her eyes at that thought.
    The girl leaned forward a little and watched Hennie with glittering eyes, making Hennie wonder why women always seemed to be so crazy to hear about hookers, even when they disapproved of them. Well, Hennie wouldn’t disappoint her. Besides, she knew some good stories about the girls, andenough of them to keep her at the stove until lunchtime. She wouldn’t have so many more opportunities to tell her stories. “I don’t suppose you ever heard of Silver Heels?” she asked.
    Nit shook her head, and Hennie settled into her chair. “Silver Heels worked in a dance hall thirty miles over the mountain in Buckskin Joe. She had the face of an angel, and she wore silver slippers to show off her feet, which were as tiny as a Chinaman’s wife’s. That’s why the miners called her by the name of Silver Heels. Some of those girls that worked in the saloons and dance halls were hard-boiled as rocks, but Silver Heels was just a little bit whorish, not enough to