The Saddle Left Half Finished

When the service let out at noon, the whole town came down the church steps in their good coats, with their covered dishes, headed for the hall.

I was on a stool in front of the shop, with the saddle on its stand and Dewitt in a folding chair at my elbow with his hat pushed back. I had a thimble on my right hand, two needles threaded on a long arm of linen, and my heart going like a hammer.

Pastor Ellingson slowed on the sidewalk. Marit stood at the curb with her thermos. Hiram from the elevator had stopped mid-step on his way out of church, and three of the Lutheran women stopped with their casseroles and looked at me and at the saddle.

I had meant to say it plainly, and I found I could not start. Dewitt coughed beside me.

“This saddle is Hadley’s,” I said. I said it loud enough that the back of the line could hear. “My granddaughter. Some of you were told she left on her own account. That is not so.”

Nobody moved.

“Five and a half years ago I told that girl she had nothing in her for the real work. She was nineteen, and she was the best hand I ever taught, and I knew it when I said it. I said it because I was afraid, and because a lie was quicker than the truth.”

The pastor took off his hat.

“She did not turn her back on this family. I turned her out. I let you think otherwise, and I did it for the sake of my own name. I am sorry for that, to her and to you.”

A woman I have known for forty years stood gripping her car keys against her coat.

“She started this saddle at seventeen. It has sat on the third stand ever since, and I have oiled it the first Sunday of every month. Sixty-five times. Dewitt kept count.”

“I am going to stitch the seat now,” I said. “I would like it done where somebody can see it. After that, it is going to Billings.”

I turned the stool toward the stand. I bent over the seat. I could feel every set of eyes on the back of my neck.

My left hand does not close properly anymore. I used the heel of it to hold the leather and the right to push the awl. Marit’s grandson had brought me a clamp, but I did not use it. Everett never would have.

The first hole took a minute. My thumb cramped on the second. I breathed through it and set the needles, one from the left side and one from the right, and drew the thread down hard.