The Diary of Jerrod Bently by J.W. Osborn (large ebook reader TXT) 📕

“You mother was the next bride to wear that dress when she married your father,” he said as he held her in his arms “Now you will wear it as your mother and grandmother before you when you and Jerrod say your vows tomorrow. “
”Thank you, Grandfather,” she sniffed “ It is part of our family history, and Jerrod will love it..” Scrub Pot gently touched her on the tip of her nose with his fore finger. “Is the dress more what you had in mind than that contraption Lille brought from back East.?”
“Yes,” Sam replied “This changes everything!” As they wrapped the dress and its accessories in their protective covers again, an urgent knock sounded upon Scrub Pot’s front door. Grumbling he rose to his feet, and crossed the room to answer. He flung the door open, expecting Little Fox to be standing there, and instead it was his grandson and a very pretty young girl with strawberry blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes.
“Brian,” the old man said in great surprise “ Come in.” The couple stepped through the door and Brian removed his hat. He saw his sister standing by the table with the deer skin packages in her hands. “Sam?”, he said “I thought you were back at the ranch, getting fitted for your wedding dress.”
“I escaped,” she said proudly “What has brought you out here?’
Brian Dodge faced his grandfather. “I have never been a man to beat around the bush and not come right out and say what was on my mind,” he said “Grandfather. This lady is Essie Maureen Wilburn and I want to change her name to Dodge. Can you help us?”
At first Scrub Pot’s expression seemed doubtful as he looked back at his grandson. Then he grinned wide. “I can help you,” he replied “and gladly I will unite you and Essie in holy matrimony . However. First I must know if this is truly what the both of you want and not some passing fantasy.”
Brian put his arm around Essie and drew her close to his side. “I love this girl, Grandfather,” he said “and I think it all got started on a day nearly a year ago when I first laid eyes one her. I work hard and there is little time for socializing let alone properly courting a girl,” he added “I have met many young ladies. You know Aunt Lillie.”
Scrub Pot nodded knowingly, waiting for Brian to go on. “I always was polite, I was always cordial, but I always was thinking of Essie and hoping to find a way to convince her to marry me.”
“Hmmm,” Scrub Pot said thoughtfully as he crossed the room and began rummaging through the saddle bags that hung on the wall next to his cupboard. “I believe you have given this much thought, Grandson,” he said.
“I have,” Brian replied as he gazed into Essie’s sparkling blue eyes. “I’ve thought of nothing else since we got here.” The old man withdrew his tattered bible and book of services from the saddle bag. “And you, young lady,” he directed to Essie “Have you thought about the commitment you are about to make with my grandson and the children you will one day have? You know, marriage is not to be taken lightly.”
He glanced over at Sam who had seated herself in his wooden rocking chair and was pulling off her boots to try on the tall white doe skin moccasins. She was so absorbed in what she was doing that she did not seem to hear the conversation going on around her. She looked up and smiled, then went back to lacing the moccasin up the front. Essie seemed a little nervous at first. “I have admired Brian for a long time,” she said quietly “But I could not express my feelings for him because I am..., I mean, I was, his aunt’s housekeeper and personal maid.”
“Do you love him?”, Scrub Pot asked.
“Yes sir,” Essie replied, “I do.” Sam was still lacing up the white boots, they fit her perfectly as though they had been made for her. Without glancing up, she remarked “It’s about time you took a wife, Brian. Do you think that you might want to stay a while?”
Brian grinned broadly, looking like a younger impression of his uncle, Elliot Stevens. “If you want us to stay on at the ranch,” he said “I can start a new practice there. Essie and I are going to stay here in Texas.”
Sam got up from the rocker and walked around the room in her Grandmother’s wedding moccasins . They were comfortable and so unlike those tight high button wedding shoes Aunt Lillie had brought with that awful dress. After a moment she looked up at her brother and smiled “I knew you were going to stay,” she declared “But I sure didn’t expect to have a new sister-in-law too.”
“The Lord moves in strange ways, Granddaughter,” Scrub Pot replied “Now, if you will come over here and stand by your brother and Essie, you will be the witness to their vows.”
“I will be pleased to,” Sam said as she crossed the room and to take her place beside Brian. “But,” she added “I will need Essie to be my bridesmaid tomorrow. Will you do that, Essie?”
Essie nodded and smiled warmly at her. “It will be an honor,” she said quietly. Scrub Pot then instructed Brian and Essie to join hands there in front of his small stone fireplace. Proudly Scrub Pot looked at the faces of the young people standing before him and thanked God for them all. And so as he had done so many , many times before, he began “Dearly beloved...” Sam listened to him speak, dreaming of the next day when she and Jerrod would be reciting the same vows. Doc would be giving her away, Victoria was to be her matron of honor and now Essie would be her bridesmaid. She would wear the beautiful Blackfoot wedding dress, and then a thought out of no where came to her as she stood there dreaming. “If Brian’s marriage to Essie didn’t send Lillie Steven-Black packing back to Philadelphia with a few knots jerked in her tail, nothing would and Brian would be staying on in Texas with her. They would never be separated again. “Thank you Lord,” she whispered to herself “Thank you for all of it.”
“Brian Joseph Dodge,” Scrub Pot continued “Will you have Essie Maureen Wilburn to be your wife, to love, to honor and cherish until death do you part?” Brian smiled at his bride. “I will,” he replied confidently. Scrub Pot then focused on Essie, asking her the same and quietly she responded, “I will.”
Sam was dreaming again. She would be saying the same words to Jerrod, looking up into those misty blue eyes of his, wanting him to kiss her, to love her and make her his for the rest of their lives. “I am wearing that corset get up tomorrow,” she declared devilishly in her thoughts. She liked the way it made her look and knew Jerrod would like it too when they would be left alone for their first night as husband and wife.
“Brian,” Scrub Pot said, his voice bringing Sam back to reality again. “Do you have a ring for your bride?”
Brian reached into the pocket of his dungarees and withdrew a small gold band, the one he purchased back in Philadelphia when he had decided to ask Essie to marry him. “I just happen to have one with me,” he said with a sly grin. Then, taking Essie’s hand, he finished for his Grandfather. “With this ring,” he said “I thee wed.”
Scrub Pot smiled warmly at the young couple “I now gratefully , and with great joy and peace, pronounce you, Brian Joseph Dodge and Essie Maureen Wilburn are husband and wife. For what God has joined together, let no man put asunder.”
“Amen to that,” Brian declared as he kissed his bride. Then he turned to his sister. “You’re next, Sammy,” he said “and I will be standing up with Jerrod tomorrow and making sure he doesn’t go anywhere.”
“I can’t wait.,” Sam replied excitedly. Scrub Pot closed his book and returned it to his saddle bag. “By now Doc and Jerrod have probably burned that Mexican chilli or Esparanza and Victoria have decided that maybe beef stew would be a better idea for tonight’s dinner,” he said. Sam sat down in the chair, unlaced the boots and took them of. “Have faith,” she said as she wrapped them up again “Isn’t that what you have always told me?”
Scrub Pot shooed Brian and Essie out the front door of his cabin, and watched them get on their horses. “I have fath in God , Samantha Ann,”he said “But very little in your uncle’s ability to cook for a crew of eighteen people and one of them being his rather difficult sister.” A moment later, Sam and her grandfather were out of the cabin and mounted on their own horses for a wild race ride back to The Flying S , but with all the excitement, Sam had left without the doe skin dress and all its accessories. Later she would say it was because of “wedding nerves.”
All afternoon I had been Doc’s assistant. I must have made a hundred trips back and forth to and from the kitchen and the wood shed to the fire pit where he was cooking. The chilli had begun to smell good, and it steamed and bubbled, and I was encouraged , as when he started earlier that day, I was not at all sure that the end result of his endeavors would be a good one. Inside, his wife and Esparanza had been baking most of the day. And the whole ranch house smelled heavenly. Ely