The Golden Ledger
Copyright© 2026 by BillMax
Chapter 3: A Happy Day
All of a sudden, the fried rice at home didn’t smell so good anymore.
Caleb took Little Annie to eat at Mother Kelly’s Fried Chicken, the place she’d been longing for.
The little one was overjoyed. At the counter she ordered a big beef sandwich and a fried drumstick, and a heaping plate of fried potatoes on top of that.
“Papa, I want a sarsaparilla too,” she said.
“Order whatever you like. Today your papa’s going to fill every craving you’ve got.”
Caleb stroked her head. His little darling had always been so sensible, and he’d never managed to give her much before.
Now that he could earn real money, his daughter was going to be raised with plenty.
Starting with eating whatever she wanted at Mother Kelly’s.
Little Annie was easy to please. She hugged her very own family basket of chicken and beamed.
She was grinning so wide her teeth nearly went crooked.
Seeing that satisfied, innocent smile, Caleb couldn’t resist. A tintype man had set up his camera by the door, so he paid a few pennies to have her picture taken, meaning to pin it up on the Exchange Arcade picture board.
The shutter clicked a few times.
One picture showed Little Annie holding up a drumstick, another her sweet little face smeared with grease.
Caleb wrote his own little caption beneath: A happy day.
To him, watching his daughter grow up bit by bit and seeing her brimming over with smiles was a pleasure indeed.
It should be said that the Arcade picture board had only gone up in April of that year.
The moment it did, it became the rage all over town.
Stopping by to look at it whenever there was nothing else to do had soon become a little habit for most folks.
Caleb had only just pinned up his pictures when, to his surprise, the first person to scribble a note beneath them was his sister-in-law, Winnie.
“Little Annie is so well-behaved. You finally treated her to Mother Kelly’s,” she wrote.
Caleb couldn’t be bothered to answer her. His sister-in-law was studying at an arts academy in Sterling City, where every student was either rich or wellborn.
Over time she’d gotten into the habit of looking down on people.
Still, she was very good to Little Annie and often took her out to play.
Winnie had just happened by the Arcade and was idly browsing the board.
There were no moving pictures in 1872, and naturally no pretty girls dancing the latest steps in them.
That year was also called the dawn of the great railroad age.
The big titans of industry were all getting their start about then.
Stage lines were merging, express outfits were joining up with one another, and so on.
Of course, the hottest thing of all was still the railroad.
The express companies, the freight barons, the mining men, the Great Western Express Co. and a dozen others all announced that year that they were going into the railroad business.
Among them, the one who’d surged ahead of the pack and was hailed as a legend of enterprise was, naturally, the railroad tycoon Lyle Jennison.
All of that was still foreign to Caleb. He was a long way off from men of that stature.
All he longed for was to sell his oranges well and then let the Golden Ledger multiply the take at random.
That way his monthly income could double several times over.
“Papa, I’m full,” Little Annie announced, patting her tiny belly contentedly and letting out a dainty burp.
Caleb pinched her little cheek. “Since you’re full, let’s go fetch your mama from work.”
With the cold December weather and the pouring rain on top of it, it was truly freezing.
The mercury had dropped to twenty-five degrees or lower.
Caleb sat Little Annie in the saddle in front of him and tucked her snug under his big slicker.
Father and daughter rode the mule off to fetch Mama.
At half past four Caleb pulled up outside the brick building where Clara worked.
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