The Last Letter by Kathleen Shoop Page B

Jeanie even realizing he was back from watering the horses or hiding in the dugout. “I like that notion, that Quakers hold as their guiding principle—finding the light within. Sort of how I make it my business to contemplate the beauties of nature. To really appreciate what beauty in that form means.”
    Jeanie had no idea where Frank had become informed of the principles of Quaker beliefs, but that wasn’t the time to ask.
    “Frank, darling,” Jeanie said putting her hand on his back. “Won’t you be a dear and bring in fresh water. I’d like some extra for the ladies as they may enjoy a fresh toilet before dinner.” Those words, the manner in which she delivered them felt good, normal, as though she could bring a little of the past into their present and in the future, perhaps, they could create the kind of society that demanded proper behavior and allowed for enjoyment of culture.
    “Sure,” he said. His face drooped a bit, sorry definitely to be removed from the conversation. But compared to the Zurchenkos, none of them had done anything and that was humiliating to Jeanie. She didn’t have time to work with Frank’s limitations, push him to perform as he should have been innately inclined to do.
    So, thanks to Ruthie, Greta and Abby Hunt, they enjoyed a rich dinner, conversation that revealed their little group as being slightly more intellectual than handy in nature and at that time Jeanie only gave that the label of interesting. It turned out Nikolai and Greta Zurchenko had only gone to school until sixth grade. And the current lot of Zurchenko children had barely attended at all. Ruthie had taught school for a year in Yankton before home-steading. Lutie had been promoted out of eighth grade, but showed no practical evidence of having done so. Ruthie had intimated that perhaps her parents thought Lutie had been secure in her beauty and standing, and hadn’t pushed her to do much more than revel in her own splendor.
    But, the flu took them and upon burial, the sisters discovered they were penniless. Lutie did the only thing she could imagine doing, and that was to get married, to attempt to bring some income to her and Ruthie. Greta discreetly told Jeanie that Lutie’s divorce was solely her doing, that she couldn’t stand being stifled by rules and a man’s place in the home as superior to hers. She simply drew up papers with her husband’s lawyer and walked out, requesting nothing.
    Had it been a different grouping, different circumstance, Jeanie might have offered her experience—her father’s death marked not only with typical grief, but laced with mind-numbing humiliation—as a means to bridging the enormous social gap, but Jeanie had never been the type to offer up weaknesses for conversational purposes. If she could pretend whatever was bad wasn’t there, then so could those around her.
    Jeanie enjoyed listening to the others anyway, shaping who each person was and was not in her mind. Frank, though, was blustery, gushing forth with all method of dreams and his latest in air castle construction as he suggested all manner of ways they might make quick money. Jeanie shuddered thinking that Greta would suppose Jeanie kept the same silly dreams tucked inside her as Frank did. But Jeanie’d never dreamed of something she couldn’t achieve. She resisted the urge to tell Greta, she wasn’t that kind of dreamer. She was practical in her wishes.
    Sheep and cotton were two of Frank’s latest areas of focus. He’d not yet researched each fully, but he pulled several stacks of literature from the bottom of the book trunk and shook the paper at everyone saying how the path to riches, though going through the township of Darlington, would not stop there.
    Frank wielded his dreams as though he could spend them like cash—money to make people impressed. And this made Jeanie want to crawl into herself, made her grateful that get-togethers such as these would be limited by daily responsibilities. She