The Proper Thing To Do

Elizabeth Duncan tried to move away from the sleeping man on her right side, but only managed to press her hip tighter against the man on her left. He looked at her and smiled, but didn't try to give her any more room. Neither did the man sitting in the center seat and facing her. It was embarrassing to feel his knee against the inside of her thighs, but the only way nine people could fit into the cramped seats of the stagecoach was by alternating their knees. Thankfully, her left knee was against an older woman's legs, and that wasn't quite as embarrassing.

It had been that way since she boarded the stagecoach in Little Rock, Arkansas. She'd hoped to take another train like she had from St. Louis, Missouri to Little Rock, but that railway was still just a proposal in some railroad company's last board meeting. The Grundy and Randolph stage line was the only way to get from Little Rock to Leland, Texas.

Elizabeth hadn't expected the stagecoach to be as comfortable as a train car. She'd read the accounts of other people who had ridden in stagecoaches, and they related the rough ride over uneven ground, the cramped seating, and the poor food served at the way stations. She'd expected the journey to be one she'd prefer to forget.

She hadn't expected to be seated between a man with a huge belly that seemed to spread out on both sides when he was seated, and a tall man who constantly smoked long, black cigars.

She had secretly named the fat man on her left "Mister Stinklazy " because of how he smelled and how he acted. Giving people secret names was something Elizabeth had done since she could remember. Her secret names were for people she didn't know but was forced to be around for a while. Her names always described the person as she saw them, and such was her name for Mister Stinklazy.

Elizabeth wasn't new to the smell of a man who worked for a living. Her father had worked the docks in St. Louis, and usually smelled of sweat. Mister Stinklazy had an odor that transcended that of any sweaty man she'd ever smelled. It was more like the smell of sweat mixed with the smell of really moldy bread.

She'd added "lazy" to her private name for him because he was indeed lazy. The stagecoach stopped at regular intervals -- the driver said about every ten miles -- to change horses. During the time it took to do that, the passengers could disembark and walk around, use the privy, and get a drink and something to eat at the way station.

Mister Stink-lazy was always the last out of the stagecoach, the last to make his way to the way station, and the last to return to the stagecoach when the driver said he was ready to leave. The other passengers would already be seated when Mister Stinklazy would walk slowly up to the stagecoach, sigh as he raised his foot to the step, and then groan as he heaved his bulk up on the step. The body of the stagecoach would rock violently then, violently enough that the only other woman inside, an older woman Elizabeth secretly named "Frownface" because she didn't seem to show any other expression, that woman would shriek in terror.

In getting his bulk from the step to the floor of the stagecoach, Mister Stinklazy would repeat those actions with the same result and the same groan. Once inside, he'd back up to his place on the seat beside Elizabeth, sigh again, and then lower his bulk down to the seat. Elizabeth would be forced to move as close to the man on her right as possible to avoid being crushed under Mister Stinklazy's fat hips. Once he was seated, his huge belly spread out so much it was touching the top of her thigh.

Mister Stinklazy made no apologies. He just smiled, squirmed in his seat a little and then looked out the window.

The man on her right, the man who was always smoking a cigar, she named "Mister Cigar". Elizabeth couldn't decide if she liked Mister Cigar less than Mister Stinklazy. He was just as obnoxious, but in a different way.

There was a sign inside the stagecoach that asked passengers not to smoke cigars if there were female passengers present, but Mister Cigar seemed to ignore it. Elizabeth thought he could at least have the courtesy to blow the smoke out the window, but instead, he filled the inside of the stagecoach with vile, acrid smoke. The breeze coming in though the open windows helped to clear the smoke, but at the last way station, Elizabeth could still smell it even when she used the privy. It was then she realized both her hair and clothing reeked of cigar smoke.

The man in the seat across from her she named "Mister Knees" because he would nudge her inner thigh with his knee every time the stagecoach rocked more than usual. It was just a touch, but it was enough to make her open her legs a little. The man would apologize, but Elizabeth could plainly see the grin on his face.

The other passengers inside the stagecoach ignored everyone else, so Elizabeth didn't give them each a name.

It had been the same since the stagecoach left Little Rock, hours of being squeezed between Mister Stinklazy and Mister Cigar and feeling Mister Knees trying to push her legs apart. There was no respite, even when darkness fell. The stagecoach kept driving all through the night. Mister Stinklazy would go to sleep and start to snore, but when he relaxed, his belly seemed to spread out even more. Mister Cigar stopped smoking for a few hours then, but Elizabeth often had to push his head off her shoulder. The only thing that really changed was when Mister Knees went to sleep; he didn't push on her thigh anymore. Then there was the constant clinking sound of the trace chains and the clacking of the wheels and the fact that they stopped every four hours. Elizabeth was able to sleep a little, but by that day she was exhausted.

At the last way station, the driver said their next stop would be Leland, Texas and that they'd get there in about three hours. Elizabeth steeled herself for another three hours of being squeezed, having her eyes and throat burn from cigar smoke, and trying to ignore Mister Knees.

Often over the past seven days Elizabeth had questioned whether she'd made a wise decision to leave her home in St. Louis. The offer of a job teaching school in Leland, Texas had seemed to be a way to get her life back on track again. That offer had come a few weeks after she'd responded to an advertisement in the St. Louis newspaper.

The advertisement said the town of Leland, Texas had built a new school building and needed a teacher to teach the fifteen students who lived in and around Leland. The requirements were simple. The teacher had to be female between the ages of twenty and twenty-five and be willing to make the journey to Leland.

Elizabeth had been concerned about the pay she'd receive. She was currently teaching school in St. Louis and was paid five hundred and fifty dollars per year. The job in Leland paid only four hundred and fifty but the offer included room and board at a boarding house. Elizabeth was living in her parent's house in St. Louis so she didn't pay for a room, but she did pay for food. When she did the calculations, it seemed like the pay in Leland would be about equal to what she made in St. Louis.

It was her need to put her situation behind her that finally tipped the scales in favor of moving to Leland. In April of 1861, she'd married Johnathan Duncan, a young man whose father was a reporter for the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Johnathan intended to follow in his father's footsteps, and was at that time proofreading articles at the same newspaper before they were sent to the typesetting department.

On May 10, 1861, a group of Union Army volunteers successfully averted a planned attack on the Federal Arsenal in St. Louis by capturing all those present at Camp Jackson. The Union Troops then marched the captives into St. Louis in order to parole them in front of the public.

Word had spread quickly about the advancing column and many people gathered to witness the spectacle. Most were secessionists, but among them was Johnathan's father. He was there to gather information for the St. Louis Post Dispatch about the capture and subsequent parole. The secessionists soon began to become unruly and from somewhere in the crowd, a shot was fired. At the sound of that shot, the Union troops began firing into the mob of people. Johnathan's father had been killed by one of those random shots.

As result of the shootings, on May 11, 1861, the Governor of Missouri formed the Missouri State Guard to protect the people of Missouri from further attacks by the Union Army. The day after his father's funeral, Johnathan had volunteered for the Missouri State Guard to avenge his father. Johnathan would not live to see his desired revenge. He was killed at the Battle of Carthage two months after enlisting.

Elizabeth was left with no husband to support her, so she took a job as a schoolteacher in a small school in St. Louis. She found that she enjoyed the job, but living in the same city she'd shared with Johnathan made it impossible for her to put aside her grief and move on in life. When she saw the advertisement in the newspaper, she thought it would be a way to leave everything she had lost behind and start a new life.

Now, she was just hours from accomplishing what she'd set out to do and the decision again seemed to be a wise decision. She would get off the stagecoach in Leland, retrieve her bag, and then find Mayor Wilfred Ellington, the man who had replied to her inquiry and had offered her the job. He'd written that he had arranged for a room at a boarding house for her and would help her get settled in.

When the stagecoach pulled into Leland, Elizabeth looked at the watch on her left wrist. That watch was her late husband's wedding gift to her and the only thing she'd kept that would remind her of him. The hands on the watch said it was ten minutes until noon.

Elizabeth's first thought was that Leland was larger than she had imagined it would be. She had anticipated only a small general store, a small hotel, a blacksmith shop, and a Marshall's office. That's what the older woman on the stagecoach had said were in most small towns in Texas.

Instead, as the stagecoach rolled down the main street of town it passed a large storefront with Madison's General Store painted on the windows, then a hotel that looked as if it must have had thirty rooms. On the other side of the street were an undertaker's business, a bank, and a barbershop. After the stagecoach went past a side street, Elizabeth saw a small building with a sign indicating it was the Marshall's office, and further down and across from the way station, a blacksmith's shop.

When she stepped out of the stagecoach, she saw a small church and what was probably the parsonage at the end of the one side street and beside the church, a building that looked newer then the rest. In front of that building was a sign that said, "Leland School".

There were a few people gathered at the way station, and when the driver helped the older woman down from the stagecoach, they walked quickly toward her. For the first time since the stagecoach had left Little Rock, Elizabeth saw the older woman smile.

Elizabeth thought it a little odd that no one was there to meet her. In his letter, Mayor Ellington had said he would meet her at the way station. She wasn't upset because she thought the Mayor of a town would probably be quite busy, but it would have been polite for the Mayor to send someone in his place. She decided she would have to find him on her own, but since Leland was pretty small, it shouldn't that difficult to do.

Elizabeth thought since the general store was usually the center of any community, someone there would know where she could find Mayor Ellington. She picked up her traveling bag and then looked both ways before starting to cross the street. That was something she always had done in St. Louis, because the streets in St. Louis were always full of vehicles from carriages to freight wagons to the simple buggies many families used for transportation.

When Elizabeth looked down the street, she saw nothing except for a one horse tied up to the rail in front of the blacksmith's shop. When she looked up the street she saw a large wagon pulled by four horses with a very large man sitting on the seat and holding the reins. Another man, an older man by the looks of him, was sitting on the seat beside the large man.

Elizabeth waited patiently for the wagon to pass her by, but instead, the large man pulled his team to a stop when his lead horses were abreast of where she stood. He touched the brim of his hat and said, "Mornin' Ma'am. Come ahead on."

Elizabeth crossed the street carefully avoiding the piles of horse manure here and there. When she reached the boardwalk on the other side, she turned and said, "Thank you, Sir."

The large man touched his hat again.

"No need for thanks, Ma'am. Just the proper thing to do. You have a good day now."

With that, the large man slapped the reins on the wheel horses' rumps, said "Giddup", and then drove on.

As Elizabeth watched the wagon leave town, she was a little taken aback. In St. Louis, she'd heard that in Texas most men were hard drinking cowboys who valued women only for what they could do in a bed. This man had behaved better toward her than some men she'd met in St. Louis. The other difference was that in St. Louis, people didn't usually do anything when other people walked or drove past them. As the large man drove his wagon down the street, everyone he passed waved and the large man waved back.

In the general store, she asked the clerk where she could find Mayor Ellington. The clerk had stared at her for a few seconds before asking why she wanted to find Mayor Ellington. Elizabeth replied that she was the new schoolteacher and wanted to tell the Mayor that she'd arrived.

She thought that would put the clerk at ease, but he was still frowning when he said, "He's probably at the hotel eating. If he's not there, try the bank."

As she walked down the boardwalk to the hotel, she passed several people, mostly women. They all smiled, and at least a couple said for her to have a nice day. That made Elizabeth smile too. Leland might be a small town, but the people seemed friendly.

When Elizabeth walked into the lobby of the hotel, the only person she saw was a clerk behind the desk. She smiled as she walked up and he smiled back.

"What can I do for you today, Ma'am?"

Elizabeth smiled again.

"I am Elizabeth Duncan. Mayor Ellington hired me to be the schoolteacher in Leland. I would like to meet him so he will know I have arrived."

The smile on the clerk's face was replaced by tight lips and a wrinkled brow.

"Yes, Ma'am. Mayor Ellington knew you would be here today. Unfortunately, some pressing business at the bank made it impossible for him to meet you. I have been instructed to offer you lunch and then to show you to your room. Mayor Duncan will meet you for dinner in our dining room tonight at six o'clock."

Elizabeth was hungry, so she accepted the invitation for lunch. After looking at the menu and deciding most of the meals were more dinner than lunch, she ordered a bowl of chicken soup and a cup of tea.

Eating by herself was something Elizabeth had not become accustomed to. Before she was married, she ate with her family and they discussed what they'd done during the day. After she married Johnathan, they always ate together and talked about their future. Since she'd left St. Louis, she'd always taken her meals at a way station and though she didn't talk with the other passengers much, she listened to their conversations so it wasn't eating alone.

Elizabeth quickly finished her soup and then walked back to the hotel desk.

"You said you would show me my room, but Mayor Ellington wrote that he had reserved a room for me in a boarding house."

The hotel clerk's expression wasn't one Elizabeth could really figure out. He seemed to be almost smiling, but his voice sounded like he didn't really like her.

"I understand that Mayor Ellington is planning to build a boarding house, but it has not yet been started. Instead, he said you would live in a room at the hotel. I am sure you will enjoy the accommodations. The room is part of Mayor Ellington's suite of rooms and he had this room prepared especially for you. Let me get your key and then I'll take you to where you will be staying."

When Elizabeth sat her bag down on the bed and looked around the room, she was surprised. She'd seen boarding houses in St. Louis and they were all pretty plain with just the bare necessities of a bed, usually one chair, and a small dresser with a wash basin.

This room had luxurious drapes on the window, the bed had posts on each corner with curtains that could be drawn around it, and there was a large chair and a matching sofa. Near the bed was a large, ornate dresser and beside it, a matching wash stand with a basin and a large pitcher for water. On a bar on the side of the wash stand were a towel and a washing cloth. On a shelf below the basin were more towels and washing cloths.

On one side of the room was a small desk with another chair, and pictures decorated the wallpapered walls. The floor was wood planks, but they were partially covered by two thick rugs, one beside the bed and one in front of the sofa.

Only one thing about the room concerned Elizabeth and that was a door in one wall that didn't lead to the hall between the hotel rooms. She assumed since the clerk had said her room was part of Mayor Ellington's suite, that door must lead to his rooms. She tried the door and found it to be locked, and when she looked at the doorframe, she found a brass key hanging on a hook there. That the door was locked and she had the key put her mind at ease.

Elizabeth's first task, since she was meeting Mayor Ellington for dinner was to wash the cigar smoke out of her long, dark brown hair and to change clothes. After closing the curtains on her window, Elizabeth took off her dress, then smelled her chemise. She decided it smelled too so she took it off as well. Then, in just her underbodice and pantaloons, she bent over the washbasin and wet down her hair. After working up a lather with the bar of soap on the washbasin, she rinsed her hair into the washbasin and then dried it with the towel.

Elizabeth took her other chemise from her traveling bag and put it on, then took out her other three dresses. She spread them out on the bed to hopefully let some of the wrinkles relax, then picked the comb from her bag and combed her hair until it was dry.

When her hair lay in shining waves over her shoulders, Elizabeth put on the blue dress, slipped on her shoes, and walked to the lobby. It wasn't yet six o'clock, but she thought she would see what the general store had to offer as she'd been too busy to look before.

Her walk to the general store was markedly different from her walk from the general store to the hotel. She passed a few people, but instead of saying hello or wishing her a good evening, all she saw were stares and frowns. Something had changed since noon, but she didn't have the slightest idea what that might be.

The clerk in the general store nodded when she walked inside, but he didn't ask if he could help her like he had before. He didn't say a word. He just started arranging the canned goods on a shelf beside the counter.

Elizabeth did look around the store, but quickly decided the clerk didn't like her for some reason. She left and walked back to her room at the hotel to wait until six. She also thought about what she would say to Mayor Ellington.

She'd thank him for giving her the job of schoolteacher, of course, but she'd also ask him about the boarding house. The hotel was nicer than any boarding house would have been, but it was unsettling to Elizabeth. She was basically living with Mayor Ellington except for the locked door between their rooms. That would look bad to anyone who knew of the arrangement, and it looked to her as if at least some people now did.