“Spindles for the back of a chair.” Jake scratched his head. “Maybe I should stick to carving.”
“Nah. We can fix this.” Sam rolled up his sleeves and set to work.
Jake watched as Sam made all his spindles the same length, then planed them down where they were all equal diameter. They worked on the chair for a few minutes in silence, Jake watching Sam’s every move.
“I didn’t know you could make furniture.” Jake handed him a saw.
Sam shrugged. “I can put together a decent chair and table, but nothing to compare with what Jacobson can do.”
He marked the places for holes in the seat and handed Jake the hand drill. “Here, this should make holes small enough. We can whittle them out a bit if we have to.”
They were sanding the pieces when Sam spoke up, his voice low and thoughtful. “Amazing how you knew what you wanted when you started this chair and yet each piece turned out so differently.”
Jake glanced at him, noticing the somber expression on the man’s face. Jake concentrated on a rough spot on a spindle, buffing it smooth. He ran his hand down the wood, pleased with the texture. “What’s on your mind, Sam?”
“Where’d I go wrong, Jake?”
“With Will?”
Sam hung his head. “His mother and I tried to teach him right from wrong, but he’s bound and determined to do everything we’ve ever told him not to do. I’m grateful to you for bringing him home the other day, but it hasn’t done any good. If anything, he’s worse than he was before.”
“I’m sorry, Sam. I don’t know what to tell you.”
Sam started fitting the chair together, sanding the legs down just enough that they’d fit tight into the seat. Soon, the chair took shape. Sam talked and Jake listened, knowing the man needed an understanding ear.
“He’s come in drunk a couple of nights this week, and he says he’s tired of working for me in the mercantile. He keeps threatening to go to work in the mines.” Sam gave a nervous laugh, sounding anything but amused. “He doesn’t realize how easy he’s got it.”
“None of us ever do.”
“I could take it if he just wanted to work in the mines, but this drinking and gambling is killing his mother.”
Jake handed Sam another piece of the chair. “I reckon raising kids is like making this chair. It didn’t turn out like I expected, but I didn’t give up on it either.” Jake clapped Sam on the shoulder. “Well, I might have if you hadn’t come along. Don’t give up on him. He’ll come around.”
Sam smiled. “I hope you’re right, Jake. We’ve done a sight of praying for him, and I don’t want to see him going down the wrong road.”
Jake thought back to his early years, when he’d been ready and willing to try everything that came his way. He hadn’t had any money to blow on whiskey or gambling, but he’d given his mother grief in more ways than one. Young Will faced so much more temptation these days. But he still deserved a chance.
Just like the street kids.
Jake stopped sanding. He swiped at the wood again. If the kids were stealing from the merchants, there wouldn’t be much he could do to help them, but maybe Livy was right. Didn’t they deserve the opportunity to prove themselves just like anyone else?
He turned to Sam. “I’ll keep an eye out for Will around town. Maybe the next time, I’ll throw him in jail and let him stay a couple of days. That ought to cool his heels a bit.”
“It might.”
“You’d better square it with the missus first. I don’t want Mrs. McIver breathing down my neck.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Sam sanded a couple of spindles and tapped them into place with a mallet. He lifted the chair and gave it a steady thump on the floor. “Well, looky there. Just what the doctor ordered.”
* * *
Luke waited until the miners left before knocking on Emma’s back door.
“Back again?” Emma smiled.
He stepped inside, skittish about revealing too much to the woman, but she never asked questions, just smiled and gave him the bread for his handful of pennies.
“I’ve got a pone of leftover corn bread. Will that do?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He handed her the coins, and she wrapped the corn bread in a piece of old newspaper. He noticed movement through a split in the curtain separating the kitchen from the dining area. Someone else was here. He sidled closer to the