He was relieved to be meeting the coach so the town would finally have a stable school. It had been a clever idea to advertise for a mature woman for the position. They’d had a difficult time with the last teacher Dogtown had hired. Miss Sally Fisher had stepped off the mail coach, looked around, and burst into tears. For two weeks she cried as she taught school until Mitch finally put her back on the mail coach with a month’s pay and wished her well.
This was not the town for a young woman. They wanted more stores, more social life, and more young men to flirt with. Miss Priscilla Cochran had sent her teaching certificate from a Normal School and said she was a woman of mature years, loved children, and teaching. She’d written that she would bring the list of schools she’d worked for with her. She was anxious to bring education and enlightenment to the children of a small town.
He envisioned a cheerful, plump woman of maybe fifty or so years, who would take the children to task and make them learn. If they ever expected to have the town grow by attracting more families and businesses, they had to have a stable school. The twenty or so children in Dogtown hadn’t had consistent teaching for the last two years since their last teacher, Mr. Hudson, had up and died.
“Ian, let’s go,” Mitch yelled as he headed to the front door. He wanted to make a quick stop at his gunsmith shop before he met the mail coach to make sure Ernest, the man who ran the shop in his absence, had everything under control. He was getting on in years and had a hard time hearing customer questions.
Mitch and Ian walked the length of the boardwalk, the heels of their boots thumping on the boards in rhythm. Mitch tried to see the town as the new teacher would. Up and down the street were his gunsmith shop, the church, a small schoolhouse, the general store with the telegraph office inside, Miss Janson’s dress shop, the bank, Mrs. Gillis’s boarding house, the newly opened restaurant, and the marshal’s office that doubled as Justice of the Peace and courtroom. Luckily the town saw very little in the way of crime so Marshal Anders performed more civic duties than anything else.
Doctor Benson attended to patients and mixed medicine out of his home two blocks over. There were many more businesses that would help the town grow, and Mitch worked hard on attracting them to Dogtown. The town desperately needed a blacksmith, a real pharmacy, an undertaker, and a barber. He also envisioned a butcher and bakery, but any new business he could attract would help,
The main street where the businesses stood was muddy from an earlier rainstorm, another drawback, especially for the ladies concerned about their skirts dragging in the mud.
“Run over to Mrs. Stevens’s house and see if she’ll part with a few of her flowers for us to give to Miss Cochran,” Mitch said to Ian as he entered the gunsmith shop. “I’ll meet you over at the mail coach stop in a little while.”
“Aw, Pa. You gonna make me carry flowers, too, like some girl?”
“If you ever want to have a girl, you better learn how important it is to the females.”
Ian made a face that looked like he’d tasted something nasty. “Ugh. Why would I want a girl?”
Mitch laughed. “I’ll ask you that in about four years. Now go on. Ernest, how’s business today?”
The man who had sold the gun shop to Mitch’s father years ago peered at him from behind his thick spectacles. “Is that you, Mitch?”
“Yeah, it’s me, Ernest.” Mitch sometimes worried about having a man who was half-blind behind the counter of a gun shop. One day he would have to hire another employee. Once he got the new teacher settled, he would have more time to devote to his business and to growing the town.
“That new teacher show up yet?” Ernest blinked rapidly.
“No. She’s arriving on the mail coach in about twenty minutes.”
“I sure hope this one stays. My granddaughter was upset when the last one left. Mary Lou said that goldarn teacher cried every day.”
“Well, I have that solved. I made sure the woman I hired this time was of more mature years. A young woman from outside just doesn’t take well to a town like ours. I’m sure Miss Cochran will be with us for a long, long time.”
The walk from his store to the mail coach was a quick one. Mitch looked around his town and smiled with satisfaction. There were a lot of things still needed, but they were on the right track to make Dogtown a nice town for families and a nice place to raise children.
He’d seen Dogtown for the first time when he was younger than Ian. His father, a French Canadian fur trapper, and his mother, a beautiful young woman from the Crow Nation, left Canada and moved south to the settlement called Dogtown in Colorado. So named because of all the dogs that roamed the streets of the tent town until the settlers rid the area of them.
Mitch had watched the settlement grow from tents to a thriving town that he hoped to see prosper even more. His father, Pierre Beaumont, had brought with him a cache of guns and rifles and set up the gun shop. His mother, Little Bright Star, made beaded clothing that she sold until she died of consumption when Mitch was eighteen. His brokenhearted father followed her to the grave not long after.
That was the year Mitch married Polly Gardner, who he buried nine months later after she died birthing Ian. Since then, it had been him and his son. Just the way he liked it. Loving a woman made a man weak and vulnerable. He suffered when Polly died, leaving him alone with an infant. He’d also watched his father wither and die after Little Bright Star had passed on.
Shaking off his somber thoughts, he headed to the general store where the mail coach made its stop. He flipped open his pocket watch. Ten minutes. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a movement. Ian slithered from building to building, looking behind him, hiding the fact he carried a bouquet of flowers.
Mitch smiled and waved his son over. “I’ll take that.” He accepted the flowers and leaned against the post holding the new gas lights the town had recently installed. Another improvement of which he was proud.
“We all ready for our new teacher?” Ray Morrow, the mayor of Dogtown, strolled up to Mitch, shifting his ever present cigar from one side of his mouth to the other.
“Sure are. I checked the repairs on the schoolteacher’s house yesterday.” A small house was part of the teacher’s salary. Rodents had eaten away a portion of the floor in the kitchen while the place had remained vacant since the last teacher left several months ago.
“I hear that mountain lion took out two of Casper’s sheep last night,” Mitch said.
“We have to get a group up to rid ourselves of that animal.” Ray poked the air with his cigar. “A hunting party needs to be brought up at the town council meeting tonight.”
Mitch nodded. “Good idea. We can’t have the creature terrorizing our farmers.”
The mayor slapped Mitch on the back. “Our teacher should be here soon. Smart move to hire an older woman this time, Mitch.”