Trellis Road, Gordon Hill, Tennessee 1997

Thick dust lay on every surface of the attic. Working around old boxes and trunks, two men measured and marked, planning the renovations of the historic four story home in Middle Tennessee. There were several buildings in the older part of town that were slated for major work but first preliminary plans had to be drawn and any significant artifacts had to be found and cataloged.

"These walls beneath this section are twice as thick as the rest of the walls in the house. They're are like that down to the second floor then they stop. I wonder why," one construction engineer asked the other.

"Who knows what these folks were thinking when they built these homes. They built them to last, though, that's for sure," his colleague answered as he knocked on the ceiling to emphasize his point.

"And they built them for their own families' needs. No 'one size fits all' for them. Each house and building had special features and each special feature had its use. They believed in doing a little work early to save lots of work later on. I'm sure there was a reason for these thick walls."

"And I'm sure there was a reason for this gun," came the surprised rejoinder.

"Hey, point that thing some other direction! It could be loaded!"

"No way! No one would leave a loaded...holy cow, it is loaded! Not just loaded, but cocked, too. What would a loaded and cocked gun be doing hidden in an attic floor like that?"

"Is that where you found it? Under that floorboard?"

"Sheesh, now what kind of family would build a house like this and hide a gun up in the attic above a bedroom with double thick walls?"

"I guess we'll never know."

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Rosemont Road, Gordon Hill, Tennessee August, 1895

"Look at this, Millie." Flora Beck showed her daughter a small slit in the seam of the petticoat where several stitches had split and the two edges separated. "If you'll just take needle and thread to this for one minute right now, you'll save yourself an hour's work later. As a seamstress, you should understand that."

Millie Beth looked at her mother. With her eyes, she saw a middle aged, well-rounded matron with several strands of gray in her long brown hair, now curled in a bun at the nape of her neck. With her heart she saw a lovely but oh, so lonely spirit fighting a desperate battle to carry on with life as normal on a day that must actually cause her terrific sadness.

"This is the third anniversary of Daddy's death," her daughter answered, "but all you can talk about is sewing? Come on, Mama. You've got to at least talk about it with me. I am twenty years old now, and not a child. I can understand you not wanting to cry in front of your friends or the ladies who come into the shop, but we're closed now and you'll have all day tomorrow to let your eyes rest up. It's all right to cry in front of your own daughter."

"I know it's all right, but it won't do any good, now will it? Your Daddy is gone and nothing will bring him back to us." She caught her daughter's telling glance and headed off her oft-repeated suggestions. "And nothing will make me want to replace him either. There's no sense in looking for another once-in-a-lifetime husband. I've had mine. Let some other poor soul find hers. I have my memories and my dress-making business. It's you who ought to be looking for a husband, not me. At my age, a woman doesn't need a man. Not if she's comfortably off as we are. But you, my dear girl, are not so much of a girl any more. You fix that petticoat so it will be ready for the party Saturday. You ARE going. Do I make myself clear?"

"Clear as day, Mama. But I'll never find the man of my dreams here in this sleepy little town. If I can't have a real man, a hero, bold and brave, then I don't want any husband," she declared dramatically. "There's no one like that here in Gordon Hill. I'm waiting until I visit Aunt Tessie in St. Louis next month. Surely out there I'll be swept off my feet. But right now..." Her voice trailed off in a melancholy sigh as she daydreamed of the lovely dresses she might be able to buy there once she was out from under her mother's watchful and economical eye. If we are so well off, why will Mama not let me spend more money on pretty things, she pouted to herself, like buying new petticoats instead of mending old ones. Her thoughts rambled for several minutes until she suddenly jumped up. "Oh, I don't have time to fix that petticoat. I've got to get dinner on the table. I forgot all about that chicken I wanted to fry."

Flora sighed as her daughter hurried into the kitchen on yet another rushed job. If that girl doesn't get her head out of the clouds...and if she doesn't learn to plan ahead, she worried to herself. Doesn't she see that it's time she found herself a man to settle down with? There aren't any perfect heroes out there like in her romantic dreams, but if only we could find her a man like my David. Reminiscence followed pleasant memory until Millie Beth called her for dinner.

The rest of the week passed in the easy rhythm of early autumn. Business in the shop was as brisk as the morning breezes. Days nipped by, shorter and cooler, then came the surprisingly hot days that took everyone off guard. Saturday sneaked in as one such unseasonable scorcher and Millie Beth hoped that the party, an outdoor affair, would be canceled. She liked the music and the chatter of her friends well enough, but her mother's insistence on her finding a man had grown tiresome and made the thought of the dance turn to dread. Besides, that new edition of Emily Dickinson's poems she had borrowed from Celia Robinson was calling to her. She simply must read every word before Celia wanted it back.

"And now I'll never mend this petticoat in time, Mama," Millie Beth called from her bedroom where she sat in her bloomers and chemise mending the offending petticoat. "That little bitty baby split has grown into a great big daddy rip. Let's just forget it and not go. I'll send over a message saying I have a headache and can't attend."

"Over a rip in a petticoat? You'll do no such thing, Millie Beth. If you had mended that when I told you, this wouldn't have happened. Just do a quick job for now and you can stitch it properly next week," Flora answered without leaving the kitchen where she was arranging roses to take to the party later.

"But Mrs. Sanderson is sure to have the band play lots of Mr. Sousa's marches so that folks can two-step instead of waltz. You don't even like that kind of music."

"My kind of music is out of style, anyway, so it doesn't matter about me. But this is the first party Jane Sanderson has given since she returned. She's been a widow for over two years now and it's high time she started mixing in society again. Jane is just about our best friend in the world and I for one want be there to help her party succeed. And you want to be there to help it along, too. If you pretty girls come, the handsome men will follow and everyone will have a good time," her mother declared loudly, so as to be heard down the hall.

This thought gave Millie Beth pause. If there are men to be met, she mused, maybe I won't be the only one meeting them. Mama could meet a man and fall in love again. It might be someone handsome and strong and tall like that Wild Bill Hickok. Well-acquainted with all the boys her own age in town, she dismissed them as uninspiring, but she still had hopes that an interesting older gentleman might attend today's party and charm her mother. Mama still has a lot to offer a man and just needs a slight nudge in the right direction, she told herself. She took to her work with a greater will after that thought, and stabbed her finger sharply with the needle. "Ouch!" she yelped, jumping in her surprise.

"And that's what you get for being in such a hurry to do your work," her mother chided for the thousandth time. She knew from the sound exactly what had happened in the other room. "Take the time to find your thimble, which should be in your sewing basket anyway, and then your work will go the faster."

Millie Beth grumbled and griped as she traipsed to the front room of the house which served as the shop where she hoped to find her thimble. Dressed only in her underclothes because she was sure the drapes were drawn against the unusually warm sun, she bent over a low table and rummaged through the bits of ribbon and notions, looking for her thimble. With her back to the windows, she had no idea that she was being observed until she heard the thud of a hatbox being dropped on the porch step. She whirled around to come face to face with the tallest, most rugged looking man she'd ever seen. He looked more than a bit incongruous amidst the late rose blooms that bordered their porch.

As if one man were not bad enough, into her bewildered embarrassment broke the sound of the voices of a wagonload of laborers making their way through the dusty morning. If that rough looking tall man moved out of the way, how many even rougher men would be able to see her through the open window? Her eyes more collided than met with those of the lone stranger and her embarrassed, yelping "OH!" brought her mother running. Her presence in the shop doorway kept Millie Beth from fleeing the room as quickly as she wanted, but provided the stranger with several more precious seconds of the glorious sight of her bloomers stamping and quivering in her rush to end the humiliating scene. Instinctually aware of the wagon jolting down the street behind him, the man moved forward to more fully block the window, protecting this forbidden scene from all prying eyes but his own.

Finally, Flora was able to push Millie Beth past her into the hallway and take in the spectacle of the huge stranger standing by her rose bushes gaping in her window with an expression of idiotic stupefaction. She matched it for a moment with her own expression of idiotic stupefaction, as they stood there goggling at each other in shock. Simultaneously, their expressions melted into respectful intent on his part and delighted realization her part.

"Jane's little Coleman," she exclaimed. "Only you aren't so little anymore!" Checking to make sure Millie Beth had skittered safely to her room, Flora opened the door to let him stride purposefully into the entry hall of their snug little home. "Last time I saw you was before your family moved away. When your Mama moved back last year, I wondered if we'd be seeing you again, and here you are. How tall and handsome you've grown up."

Respectfully removing his hat, he focused his awkward attentions on the mother, but his piercing eyes kept shooting back down the hall searching for the daughter. "Thank you Mrs. Beck. Glad to see you again. I 'm much obliged to you for taking care of my Mama as you've done since she's been home. She asked me to bring this hat over, hoping you could mend the bow on it before the picnic. That won't be too much trouble, will it?"

"And what hat would that be, Coleman?" Flora inquired.

"Oh, I guess I dropped it out there when I saw..." he began, but his voice trailed off as he realized what he had done and what he had almost said. The red that suffused his face may have been tardy, in Flora's opinion, but it did an adequate job of proving that, though lacking in sensitivity, at least the boy could recognize a breach of decorum eventually. He ducked back out the front door and picked the hatbox up from the porch floor then returned to the hall.

"What you saw was my daughter Millie Beth, who could use a good whipping for exposing herself in such a manner. She could not have known I left the drapes open, but that's no excuse for..." she paused and searched for a socially acceptable way to refer to a totally unacceptable behavior, "doing what she did. Thank goodness, it was a trustworthy man like yourself at the door, and I can count on your discretion. If it had been any other man, her reputation might have been ruined. In fact, she could have been in actual danger." She overstated her case rather drastically, but to make her point, she felt the exaggeration necessary. In truth, she had no way of knowing whether she could trust his discretion. She had to trust that Jane Sanderson's son would have been raised as a gentleman and if for no other reason than for friendship's sake, he would refrain from repeating the humiliating story.

"Yes, ma'am. I won't say a word, and if she needs a whipping, then you can count on me for that, too," he replied. It never occurred to him that this action on his part would be highly inappropriate or that Mrs. Beck was just teasing.

Flora laughed in response to his little joke and led him to the other side of the hall, into the formal parlor. "I'll appreciate that, Coleman," she chuckled as she took the hat and looked at it carefully. "I'm so glad your mother is finally putting away her mourning things. She'll look lovely in this sweet little bonnet." As she fussed with the lavender bow on the cap, she tried to think of something to say to this stranger who was not really unknown to her. After all, she had taught him as a young lad. He had been diligent if a bit uncreative in his studies. She tried to recall that last year she had taught school before she had married and started her family.

"My Millie Beth was born the year after y'all left to go out west, so you never saw her. But she and your Mama have gotten close since your Mama's been back." As she worked, she realized she could not fix the bonnet correctly without actually tacking the bow down. "A quick fold here and there might hold this for the moment, but to save time in the long run and really be sure it stays, I'll have to take it into the other room where my sewing things are. This will just take a minute, so if you will excuse me..." She left him alone in the parlor as she took the hat into the shop to make the needed repairs.

After Flora had been working for a few moments, Millie Beth appeared, now fully dressed, in the shop. "Who is that man, and why did you let him in?" she demanded.

"He is Coleman Sanderson, Jane's older son. He stayed behind to sell their place out in Kansas after his Daddy died. He sent his Mama back here with the other children when he could see that she was still devastated by Robert's death. I think Jane's mentioned him to you before."

"She may have mentioned his name, but she failed to mention the fact that he is a barbarian, without the least notion of how to act in society," Millie Beth hotly replied.

"You were the one who went into a front room of a house in her unmentionables," Flora reminded her. This only served to anger her daughter more.

"But what's he doing here? The shop is closed on Saturday, as Mrs. Sanderson well knows."

"Jane needs this nice little hat fixed. The bow is coming off and she wisely sent it over here to have it mended before it gets any worse. And perhaps it would be best for you to go into the parlor and do some mending yourself. Mend that young man's impression of you, I mean. Go in there and apologize, then offer him something to drink while I finish in here."

"But Mama," she exclaimed, aghast. "I couldn't go in there now. I'd be too humiliated. You can't expect me to face him when he..."

"He stood in the way of that wagon-load of workers getting quite an eyeful. You should be grateful. I expect you to go and be polite to our guest. A little iced tea and a cookie can go a long way to easing any social situation. Now, scoot!"

Coleman sat contemplating the last time he had seen Mrs. Beck. She had been the last school teacher he had studied under, here in Gordon Hill before he and his family had moved West, twenty years earlier. Had he been the type of man to ponder such things, he might have enjoyed the irony in what he was about to do. He could not count the times he had been on the receiving end of a Beck's discipline and now, here he was about to turn the tables and give the reprimand. He was not, however, a man given to pondering, or to humor and Flora's interpretation of his comments had been mistaken. She had no idea that when she sent Millie Beth into the parlor to apologize and offer Mr. Sanderson something to drink while he waited, she was setting up yet another social disaster.

"My... my...mother wishes me...to...to..." Millie Beth began, still far too embarrassed to look Coleman in the eye, much less string together a coherent sentence.

Coleman interrupted her to save her from having to admit in words what was about to happen. "I know what she wants, so just come over here and it won't take long." He could see she was repentant and fearful. Being a kind man, once he saw her discomfort, he hated to see her suffer more than necessary.

She approached him slowly, thinking he meant for her to shake his hand in apology, but then her romantic heart overrode her good sense. "I want you to know that I consider you most unchivalrous," she told him, branding him with a word that represented to her a grave insult. "If you had been a gentleman, you would have looked the other way!" she hissed. "This is all your fault. I don't see why I have to go through this. You should have turned your back when you saw that I was...was unaware of your presence!'

"And you should listen to your Mama. And you shouldn't go 'round the house in your all-together," he countered, his ire mounting. "That sight of you 'bout busted my chest wide open, felt like."

"You are a brute and a peeping Tom," she rasped out at him again, now close to tears. "You should learn some manners."

"And you should save your squalling 'til I've done with you," he replied. With no warning and no hesitation, he caught her wrist and pulled her down over his knee. Feeling he had already seen her bloomers once today and another peek could do no more harm, he flipped up her skirt and applied several loud forceful whacks to her round, quivering buttocks. She squirmed and fought, but made not a sound, not wishing to draw her mother's attention to this further humiliation. Thinking he had her mother's mandate, he made no attempt to lessen the noise of the punishment he was meting out.

It took all his concentration to hold onto the thrashing, kicking girl, but his far superior strength won the day. The harder she rolled from side to side, the harder he spanked. If she rolled right, he whacked the left cheek. If she pitched forward, he struck low on her bottom or high on her thighs. When she threw her hands back to try to protect her rear end from the sting he was inflicting, he merely trapped her upper arms to her side and held on the more firmly. Smack followed resounding smack as he tailored his assault to counter her every defensive move. She soon realized that it was no use fighting him and her helplessness brought her to tears, which she fleetingly hoped might move him. She knew that any decent man would hear her sobs and take pity. This cretan paid less heed to her crying than he had to her struggling and continued the spanking with vigilant determination.

Flora's comments about what might have happened to Millie Beth had it not been he who discovered her in her underthings gave him the strength he needed to complete his task despite her protests. Normally a moderate man when it came to administering punishment, he knew that to teach this girl a lesson, it would actually be kinder to be firm now than to have to repeat the lesson later. Toward that end, he covered her whole bottom three times with ample hard, stinging smacks before he paused to scold her. "You'll think before you act next time!" Smack, smack, smack. "You won't put yourself in danger!" Smack, smack, smack. "You'll mind your mother when she tells you to accept your punishment." Smack, smack, smack. "You won't give me any more of your sass!" Smack, smack, smack. "And last of all, you won't fight me when I have to punish you." Smack, smack, smack. "Do you understand?"

"When you have to punish me?" she cried in a fierce incredulous whisper. "You'll never ever dare to spank me again, Mister. I'll guarantee I'm never alone in a room with you again, so you'll never get the chance!"

"That'll be a bit difficult to manage once we're married, Miss Beck. Best get used to it now or it'll only get worse," he informed her. With one last loud smack, he released her and she jumped up off his lap to spin around and face him.

"Married? To such a ....Oh, how I wish I had a gun." Again words failed her and she ran back out of the room, nearly knocking her mother down in her hurry to escape.

Coleman just sat there on the sofa and grinned until Flora came back into the room carrying the hat. "Is something wrong? Millie Beth looked upset."

"I guess she wasn't too happy about the idea of marrying me," he answered. "She'll come around."

"Oh, Coleman, you are such a card," Flora laughed. "Now, I'm sorry I took so long, but I had to run the hat out back for a few minutes to see it in the sunlight. I hope Millie Beth managed to keep you entertained."

"Oh, she did that, Mrs. Beck. I'm sure I enjoyed the conversation a lot more than she did though."

"Well, that's no matter. I think I've got the hat fixed, but if your Mama doesn't like it, just bring it on back."

"Sure thing, Mrs. Beck," he answered. It never occurred to him to compliment the hat. It looked nice to him, but he could not imagine that she might appreciate his words of praise. He simply rose to go.

"We'll see you later on today then," she responded as she escorted him to the door.

"Mama said I was to tell you that I'll come by for you at three o'clock, if that'll suit you. She also said she appreciates your offer of help."

"Well, it's not necessary for you to call for us, Coleman, but it is a lovely gesture. Please be sure to thank your mother for me and tell her that I will be very glad to help her in any way I can."

"Yes, ma'am. Will do," he promised and took his leave, silently vowing to himself that as soon as was humanly possible, he would make Millie Beth his. The girl had bewitched him as no other woman ever had. He hated the fact that the day of their meeting had been marred by his having to reprimand her, but knew it had been necessary. She would behave with more forethought after today's little scene, he felt sure. He could hardly wait for the clock to strike three.