The Golden Ledger
Copyright© 2026 by BillMax
Chapter 4: Standing In
Back home.
Little Annie found herself shut out of the bedroom for no reason she could see.
She couldn’t figure out what her folks were up to, or why they had to lock her out.
She snuck a peek, but she couldn’t hide how eager she was to get back to her music box and her picture book.
Inside the room.
With a mysterious air, Caleb pulled Clara onto the big bed by the window with its pink curtain.
The room was small, but cozy.
“Caleb, what are you up to in broad daylight?”
Clara thought he wanted “that.” Ever since their daughter came along, such goings-on had grown rare.
Mostly because the room was small and the walls were thin as paper.
Put simply, conditions didn’t allow it.
“Clara, I want to hand over what I made today before anything else.”
As a true family man, it went without saying that his earnings were for his wife to manage.
Caleb never kept more than a dollar for himself, and barring anything unexpected, that could last him a whole month.
After all, he had no real expenses except the penny sack of Bull Durham he went through each day.
Everything else, clothes and shoes and such, his wife bought for him.
He counted eight silver dollars into her palm.
Clara’s brows rose in surprise. It was normal for her husband to hand over whatever he’d earned each day.
But eight dollars in a single day? That had never happened before!
The best they’d ever done was at this year’s harvest fair, when they cleared a little over six dollars in one day selling oranges.
“Caleb, you didn’t do anything crooked, did you?”
“Not a bit. I earned it helping folks move, and delivered a wagonload of oranges on the way.”
Caleb had already worked out his story. He cleared his throat. “That’s right, Clara. From now on I might be able to earn this much every day. You’d best get used to it and enjoy being a rich man’s wife.”
Enjoy what?
Still, Clara was very happy to hear it. For a family like theirs, nothing was more thrilling than making more and more money.
“Clara, I say we go out for one of those candlelit suppers your little sister’s always going on about.”
Clara gave him a look. “Why waste the money? Isn’t it just as nice to cook a couple of dishes at home and light a candle?”
Uh ... that did sound nice, at that.
No sooner said than done. Caleb actually went down to the corner store and bought a pair of red candles.
By the time he got back, Clara was already going over the household accounts.
With the money he’d made today, their little family’s total savings now came to seven hundred seventy-two dollars.
It sounded like a lot, but mind you, it was what five years of marriage had scraped together, going without decent food or clothes.
“Caleb, we only need another two hundred forty and we’ll have enough for the down payment.”
Clara said it with longing. In Sterling City in 1872, a house inside the Third Ward went for about fifty dollars a square yard.
Their plan was to buy a small place of eighty square yards, just enough room for the family.
That came to about four thousand dollars all told, with a down payment of roughly a thousand.
“Let’s save the romance for after we buy the house.”
Clara was even more frugal than he was. She’d wear a single dress for years on end.
A candlelit supper that cost a dollar or two would make her heart bleed with every bite.
Enjoying herself was absolutely out of the question.
Caleb didn’t press it. He was just heading for the kitchen when a messenger boy brought a note from his sister-in-law, Winnie.
She was letting him know they’d be spending New Year’s at the Suttons’ place this year.
Truth be told, going to visit the in-laws when you were a man of modest means was pure torment.
Anyone who’d been through it would know.
When supper was ready, Clara really did go through the ceremony of lighting the candle, which left Little Annie puzzled.
She figured a birthday cake must be coming next, but no, there was nothing. Her folks just giggled at the red candle.
She was too young to understand what they were laughing at.
They were laughing at the hope in their lives, a glimmer of the future.
That evening Clara even made a point of sitting down with her over the picture book, winding the music box up loud. Once Little Annie was completely absorbed, the two of them slipped off into the bedroom.
They had to be quick about it.
You never knew when the little one would come knocking.
Quick or not, he was a strapping young man, and couldn’t finish in under half an hour.
Which left Clara very satisfied indeed, near to tears with it.
The next day, after Caleb had seen his wife to work, he went straight to the teamsters’ board at the saloon.
Now that he had a clear little goal for his earning, he was keener to make money than he’d ever been.
Among the men who hired out through that board, the one they called the Young Marshal was his boyhood friend.
It was Caleb who’d brought him to Sterling City to make his living. A bachelor in his thirties, he could make better than twenty dollars a month and lived without a care in the world.
He was on very familiar terms with the red-lantern houses under the railroad trestle.
The teamsters’ board.
Young Marshal had chalked up: “Just got a job. Haul a cast-iron cookstove up to the seventh floor for twenty cents. I ain’t doing it for his granny.”
It was bound to be a building with no lift, and nobody wanted jobs like that.
The rain was heavy again today. With no oranges to sell, they had to rely on odd jobs.
Some days there was work, and some days they just sat.
The General had written: “Got a job here if anybody wants in. Just moving furniture, sixty cents a day.”
Young Marshal had answered: “What’s the point? I could spend that time strolling the Promenade. Might even find me a wife to take home.”
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