Sister's Choice by Judith Pella Read Free Book Online Page B

Dolman said this catalog will be replaced with a new one in a few weeks and I can have it after that. Until then, I’ve made a sketch to show Mama.”
    “Wow, Ellie!” Maggie said, her voice slightly rough with emotion. “You are really getting married! I’m going to miss you.”
    “It’s not as if I’ll be leaving Maintown.”
    “But everything will change.”
    “It won’t be long before you’ll be married, too.” But Ellie looked a little uncertain herself, as if the excitement of getting married had made her forget what being married meant.
    Maggie was worried they both might start to cry right there, so she quickly added, “Have you found me a bridesmaid dress?”
    Ellie flipped over a page in the catalog. “What about this? Perhaps in pink?”
    “Ellie, you really wouldn’t make me wear something so frilly!” Maggie forgot her previous melancholy. “It looks as if they used every inch of lace in the country to make it.”
    “Oh, but my heart is set on it,” Ellie beseeched.
    “Well . . . ”
    Ellie burst out laughing. “Even I wouldn’t wear that dress,” she said between giggles.
    Maggie gave her sister a playful punch in the arm. “I guess you got me good.”
    “It doesn’t happen often. Your mind must be elsewhere. Oh! That reminds me. I have a thought about—”
    Just then Zack poked his head into the store. “You ladies about ready?”
    They were in the buckboard and headed home when Ellie returned to the thought she had left incomplete earlier. “Maggie, I was thinking about what you said last night, you know, about how you’ll never get around Mrs. Stoddard to get to Colby—”
    “Ellie!” Maggie gave a quick, uncomfortable glance in Zack’s direction. She and Zack could talk about a lot of things, but never about her romantic troubles.
    “Zack already knows about you and Colby,” Ellie stated matter-of-factly. “I didn’t think you’d mind. Zack and I talk about everything.”
    “She didn’t have to say much,” put in Zack. “It’s pretty obvious how you nearly melt when he’s around.”
    Maggie groaned. “I suppose everyone knows! Even Colby.
    I’m such a fool.”
    “Only those who know you well can tell,” Ellie said. “It’s really not that obvious.” She gave a sideways glance at Zack.
    “Not at all,” Zack recanted, but rather lamely. “I could tell only because I already knew.”
    With a shrug Maggie asked, “So what were you thinking, Ellie? I obviously need every bit of help I can get.”
    “There is one thing that will surely impress Mrs. Stod-dard—your sewing ability.”
    “I’m doomed, then. If you and Mama couldn’t teach me, then it is impossible.”
    “You are forgetting the one person who can teach you to sew if no one else can—Grandma Spooner.” Ellie grinned triumphantly, as if it solved everything.
    “I don’t know . . .”
    “She’ll be able to teach you. I know,” Ellie said.
    “What if I’m just a sewing dunce?”
    “You have never learned because you were never properly motivated. You never cared about learning. You’ve got some motivation now, don’t you think?”
    “Maybe.” Visions leaped into Maggie’s mind of her making a fabulous quilt of fancy laid-on work with tiny stitches that would make one cross-eyed trying to find them. She saw Mrs. Stoddard’s eyes light up with admiration, immediately nudging her son into Maggie’s arms. The fantasy was enough to raise her hopes a little. “Do you really think so?”
    “Yes, and I think it is meant to be with Grandma coming now.”
    “Does Tamara Brennan sew?” Maggie asked, though she was pretty sure of the answer.
    Ellie replied honestly. “We learned needlepoint at Mrs. Dubois’, and she was very accomplished at that.”
    “I’ll never be able to learn before she gets her clutches into Colby.”
    “You’ve got to try.”
    “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to ask Grandma.”

FIVE
    Mama probably didn’t like the fact that she was a younger image of her