“Once everyone got tired of my gossip, it strained my relationship with a lot of people, including friends of my parents. My father had to do a lot of work to repair some of his business interests.”
The mournful look George had grown to hate seeing on her face reappeared. “I honestly thought I was being helpful, telling people all those things, and that somehow, it raised my own status of being good. How wrong I was. I’d give anything to take my words and actions back.”
George smiled at her, wishing he could take her hand and give it a squeeze to let her know that it was all right. “We all make mistakes,” he said. “When I was a child, there was one little girl my friends and I used to tease for having a lot of freckles. We hurt her feelings so badly that her mother came to see my mother, and I got in a lot of trouble for it. Even though I could justify it by saying that she deserved it for teasing me, I should have realized that, as deeply as her words hurt me, mine probably hurt her as well.”
It was the closest to admitting their shared past as George could safely get. But he had to make Flora understand that this was not an unforgiveable sin and that they all made mistakes.
“Children can be cruel,” Flora admitted. “I was also teased for my freckles. Mother made me a special lotion I wore every night, and I take care to stay out of the sun. It was awful being made fun of, and I, too, should have remembered that when I tormented others. I suppose I thought that if people were making fun of someone else, no one would dare laugh at me.”
She shook her head. “It’s good that you learned your lesson early. It took me far too long, and I don’t know how to undo the damage. Even when you apologize, it doesn’t erase the hurt others feel.”
“No, it doesn’t. However, just as we are forgiven, we are called to forgive others, as well. You may have hurt people, but the Bible tells them to be forgiving. It’s my favorite part of the Lord’s Prayer.”
Flora smiled softly. “‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us.’ I find great comfort in that prayer. I have so much that needs to be forgiven, and therefore I’ve worked very hard to forgive others. I didn’t know what I was doing, so how could they?”
She’d learned. That’s what he saw in her words. Did the people who still shunned her take the time to listen? To hear how she’d allowed God’s word to transform her life? Though George felt he had a good relationship with the Lord, sometimes being around Flora made him want to grow even closer to Him.
“You make an excellent point,” he told her. “I just hope one day you learn to forgive yourself.”
Flora groaned. “Now you sound just like Rose and the pastor.”
“They’re smart people.” He grinned at her.
“They are, indeed.” Flora glanced again at the mining office. “Would you mind terribly if we crossed over and went to a different area? If I did see my father, I’m not particularly interested in speaking with him. I know he cares about me, and I adore him. But I hate feeling so much like a disappointment when I’m around him.”
One more thing George hated seeing in this delightful young woman. Surely her sense of her father’s disappointment in her was part of her inability to forgive herself for her past mistakes. But he wouldn’t argue this point with her. Though he was reasonably sure Mr. Montgomery wouldn’t recognize him, it was better not to take chances.
Still, it seemed interesting and, if George were to speculate, a bit funny that Flora’s father would show up at the mine when it was having so many problems. Could George’s father’s rants about not trusting the Montgomerys have been a foreshadowing of their current troubles?
They turned the corner in the opposite direction and began singing their song again. George noticed that some of the men would briefly stop what they were doing and smile, then go back to work. But no one approached them or even commented on how it was good to hear their native language.
The good thing about being here, in the guise of a miner, was that people talked more freely around him than if he were to have been here as a gentleman. The miners poked fun at the men in suits who frequented the office, and when those men tried talking to the miners, they all clammed up. Since George was a newcomer, and learning the ropes, some of the men had taken him under their wings, telling him details about the mine he’d have never learned otherwise.
The men had told him what they knew of the troubles at the mine, the cave-ins, the practices that seemed shady to them. All of which were helpful to George, in that he now knew that things were far worse than he’d imagined when he’d first learned of the situation here. And, all right, he’d own that Lance Dougherty, the mine manager, likely did not live on whiskey alone, but George found it troubling that the man often smelled of drink.
George intended to use everything he learned to make things better at the mine and prevent future accidents from occurring. George had come because of one cave-in that had nearly cost them several workers’ lives. But he’d learned that just before he’d arrived there was another odd explosion, one that none of the miners understood, since no one was supposed to be working in the area. Mr. Dougherty had supposedly investigated it and said that it was an old piece of dynamite that had gone off by itself, and no one was in the area, but George couldn’t help wondering if it was true.
The men all said Dougherty was a liar, and though George hadn’t let it be known yet, he’d noticed that when Dougherty hired him, he’d verbally told George one rate of pay but written a larger number in his ledger. George had listened to the men talk, grumbling about the lower wages at Pudgy Boy and saying that as soon as they found better jobs at other mines that paid more, they were leaving. George’s father had always prided himself on treating his workers fairly, so it seemed odd that now the mine had the reputation of having the lowest-paying jobs in Leadville.
Unless Dougherty’s mistake in writing down George’s pay wasn’t a mistake, and it was part of a larger scheme to embezzle money from the mine.
“Howdy, George!” Peanut McGee, one of the men who worked with him on the mining crew, tipped his hat at him, so George led his merry band over to greet his friend.
“Hello there.” George returned the greeting, then indicated Flora and Pierre. “May I present Miss Flora Montgomery? And this is Pierre, the little boy I was telling you about. Flora, this is one of the men I work with...” George paused for a moment, realizing he didn’t know Peanut’s real name. “Uh, Peanut McGee.”
Peanut tipped his hat at Flora. “Right pleased to meet you, ma’am.”
“It’s my pleasure, Mr. McGee.”
She treated him with all the courtesy she would have offered in the finest parlors in the state. Peanut noted it, too, and he blushed.
“None of that, ma’am. It’s just Peanut. Can I just say what an honor it is to know such a fine lady willing to take on a child like this? I do feel for the lad, and I’ve been asking everyone I know if they have any idea where his father might be.”
It was Flora’s turn to blush, and George liked the way the pink in her cheeks lit up her eyes.
“Anyone would be fortunate to have the opportunity to spend time with such a darling boy.” Flora ruffled Pierre’s hair and smiled, then bent down to whisper something in his ear.
“Please to meet you,” Pierre said haltingly.
George grinned. “Already teaching him his manners, I see.”
“A little.” Flora smiled. “Just as I am helping you with a few words to communicate with Pierre, I’m also giving him the skills to talk to others. When we find his father, I’m sure he’ll be pleased at how much Pierre has learned.”
Peanut shifted, looking uncomfortable. “Ma’am, I mean no disrespect, but none