“How?” She finally looked at him. “If we don’t raise enough money, it will be an impossible task.”
“My pa made an offer the first time you met, and I know the offer still stands. He’d be happy to donate whatever you nee—”
“No.” Emma stood and walked around Hays. “I won’t let your father give yet one more thing to this town.”
“Why not?” Hays also stood. “We owe them a lot.”
“Because your grandfather founded the town?”
“Yes.”
“If anything, they owe you.”
“Why does it matter so much?”
She walked to the window and wrapped her arms around her waist. “They need to be loyal.”
Hays frowned. “Loyal to what?”
“I want the citizens of Hartville to be loyal to their children and to each other. If you don’t have loyalty, what do you have?”
He crossed the room. “Emma, what are you talking about?”
She turned, disappointment lining the edges of her mouth. “It’s nothing.”
“This isn’t ‘nothing.’”
She twisted her hands together and walked back to her desk, putting space between them. “When I was a little girl, my family was forced to spend three weeks inside a stockade when one of the Ojibwe chiefs threatened to attack the white settlers.”
Hays joined her by her desk. “I can’t imagine what that was like.”
“It was horrible, but what hurt the most was that the people I had lived with, our Ojibwe friends and neighbors, had become disloyal to us. Or, at least, that’s what I believed for a long time.” She let out a weary sigh and met his gaze. “Loyalty means everything to me.”
“That’s why this fund-raiser is so important?”
“Yes. It may seem insignificant—”
“I don’t think it’s insignificant at all.”
“So then you understand why I can’t accept your father’s money?”
Hays scratched his chin. He didn’t understand that part, not fully. “I suppose.”
“What will we do?”
He paced away from her, thinking about their options—which were few. “If you aren’t willing to accept Pa’s money, are you willing to accept some other kind of help?”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“What if he made an announcement encouraging people to attend the fund-raiser? Would you allow him to do that?”
Hope sparked in her gaze. “Do you think he would?”
“If you ask him.”
Pa wouldn’t turn down Emma. He had taken quite a shine to her after Sunday dinner.
In the meantime, they would continue to plan the fund-raiser, and Hays would track down that petition and find the scoundrel who’d started it.
Every moment of Emma’s spare time was dedicated to the fund-raiser. It was exactly what she needed to keep her mind off of her growing attraction to Hays. The only trouble was that he came into town almost every day to help.
Emma glanced out the window of the parsonage on Saturday morning and watched as Hays helped Papa and David build a table for the bazaar. The three of them worked well together, and Emma often found Papa and David laughing at something Hays had said. Even now, Papa was standing straight, his hammer in hand, as he listened intently to whatever it was Hays was saying as he sawed a piece of wood. Just as she expected, Papa bent over in laughter while Hays grinned.
“Your father and brother really like Hays,” Mama said, entering the parlor from the kitchen.
Emma let the curtain fall back into place. “Oh?”
Mama’s eyes twinkled with merriment. “You hadn’t noticed?”
They were two weeks away from the bazaar, and everyone was busy doing their part to help. Last week, GW had stood up after church and invited the whole town to attend the fund-raiser. Yesterday, Hays had located the petition and finally destroyed it, though he hadn’t found the person who started it. And right now, Mama, Hope, and Emma were sewing quilts for the raffle. If all went as planned, they would have three made before the bazaar.
“Has Hope finished binding the red, white, and blue quilt?” Emma asked, walking away from the window and taking a seat at the Singer sewing machine.
“Yes.” Mama set a pile of fabric squares on the worktable next to Emma and then took a seat on the settee.
Hope came down the stairs, a beautiful quilt hanging over her arm. She still limped on her tender ankle, but it had healed enough for her to get around without assistance. “I just finished.” She laid it over the back of a rocking chair near the front door. “I can start quilting the next one as soon as you finish piecing the squares together.”
Emma surveyed the stack of squares, and a sigh left her lips before she could stop it.
“What’s wrong, Em?” Mama asked, picking up a set of shears.
Emma stood and paced back to the window, where the cloudless blue sky beckoned her. “I don’t know.”
“Why don’t you take a break?” Hope asked, taking Emma’s place at the machine. “You’ve been working day and night for weeks now.”