withering stare.
Asa chuckled.
"I assume you haven't had breakfast, Mr. Johnson."
"No. I haven't."
Not since 2013, anyway.
Asa extended an arm toward a counter. A large plate of pancakes and smaller plates of eggs, sweet rolls, and link sausages sat next to the coffee pot.
"My wife has prepared a feast. Please join us."
CHAPTER 10: KEVIN
Monday, February 14, 1910
Breakfast went well once Asa put his shotgun away. Kevin had coffee and pancakes at the same table in the same room for the second time in 103 years – or a few hours as the crow flies through time – and enjoyed every moment.
He learned more about his great-great-grandfather in an hour than he had learned in family albums, reunion books, and countless conversations with his father and grandfather. Asa Johnson, he discovered, was more than a shrewd businessman and a free thinker. He was also a standup husband and father.
In between eggs and sausages, Asa gave Kevin the condensed version of his transition from bachelor to family man. He had met Celia on a business trip to Spokane in 1902, when he was thirty-three and she was twenty, and had wooed her for more than a year with flowers and poems before she finally agreed to marry him. When she had insisted on a large home as her price for moving to the isolated mining town of Wallace, he bought his partner's second house on Garnet Street and filled it with the finest furnishings a successful speculator could buy.
Celia Blake Johnson was no less surprising and impressive. The oldest daughter of a district court judge and a Spokane socialite, she was an accomplished pianist who could speak fluent French and German and recite the poems of Byron and Blake as effortlessly as she could make and serve a four-star breakfast. With long, strawberry-blond hair, high cheekbones, and alabaster skin, she was also decidedly easy on the eyes.
Kevin asked the Johnsons many questions about their backgrounds and long-term plans. He shared very little about his own background and immediate plans. He didn't want to compound his predicament by adding new whoppers to his growing resume of lies, but he wasn't able to avoid the matter altogether.
In the new life he had constructed on the fly, Kevin Johnson was a college graduate from Seattle who was headed east in search of opportunity. He had knowledge of the sciences and a mastery of English but precious little teaching experience. He told his hosts that he intended to gain that experience in Montana, where he had heard the need for educators was great.
Kevin hoped that his story would close the door on additional scrutiny, but it succeeded only in opening it wider. Both Asa and Celia seized the opportunity to tout Wallace as a place to teach and perhaps settle. They told him that northern Idaho needed capable educators as well and offered to do what they could to make any transition to the area seamless and comfortable.
He wanted to tell them he would have seriously considered sticking around had he not had a graduate program to complete and a life to live in the twenty-first century. Teaching K-12 students in the age of slates and oak-and-cast-iron desks might be a kick.
Then Kevin remembered something, something potentially important, and checked that something out when Asa left the room for a moment. He retrieved the calendar from a pocket in his jacket and checked the lunar cycles for February 1910. The next full moon was Wednesday, February 23. He had nine more days in Wallace whether he liked it or not.
Kevin put the calendar away and smiled at Celia when she returned to the table and asked if he wanted more coffee. He declined the coffee but accepted Asa's offer of a carriage ride to a commercial building near Bank and Sixth, where the phone company maintained a telegraph office and great-great-granddad rented a small room and conducted business by appointment.
Kevin told Asa when they parted that he would give serious thought to teaching in Wallace and
Asa chuckled.
"I assume you haven't had breakfast, Mr. Johnson."
"No. I haven't."
Not since 2013, anyway.
Asa extended an arm toward a counter. A large plate of pancakes and smaller plates of eggs, sweet rolls, and link sausages sat next to the coffee pot.
"My wife has prepared a feast. Please join us."
CHAPTER 10: KEVIN
Monday, February 14, 1910
Breakfast went well once Asa put his shotgun away. Kevin had coffee and pancakes at the same table in the same room for the second time in 103 years – or a few hours as the crow flies through time – and enjoyed every moment.
He learned more about his great-great-grandfather in an hour than he had learned in family albums, reunion books, and countless conversations with his father and grandfather. Asa Johnson, he discovered, was more than a shrewd businessman and a free thinker. He was also a standup husband and father.
In between eggs and sausages, Asa gave Kevin the condensed version of his transition from bachelor to family man. He had met Celia on a business trip to Spokane in 1902, when he was thirty-three and she was twenty, and had wooed her for more than a year with flowers and poems before she finally agreed to marry him. When she had insisted on a large home as her price for moving to the isolated mining town of Wallace, he bought his partner's second house on Garnet Street and filled it with the finest furnishings a successful speculator could buy.
Celia Blake Johnson was no less surprising and impressive. The oldest daughter of a district court judge and a Spokane socialite, she was an accomplished pianist who could speak fluent French and German and recite the poems of Byron and Blake as effortlessly as she could make and serve a four-star breakfast. With long, strawberry-blond hair, high cheekbones, and alabaster skin, she was also decidedly easy on the eyes.
Kevin asked the Johnsons many questions about their backgrounds and long-term plans. He shared very little about his own background and immediate plans. He didn't want to compound his predicament by adding new whoppers to his growing resume of lies, but he wasn't able to avoid the matter altogether.
In the new life he had constructed on the fly, Kevin Johnson was a college graduate from Seattle who was headed east in search of opportunity. He had knowledge of the sciences and a mastery of English but precious little teaching experience. He told his hosts that he intended to gain that experience in Montana, where he had heard the need for educators was great.
Kevin hoped that his story would close the door on additional scrutiny, but it succeeded only in opening it wider. Both Asa and Celia seized the opportunity to tout Wallace as a place to teach and perhaps settle. They told him that northern Idaho needed capable educators as well and offered to do what they could to make any transition to the area seamless and comfortable.
He wanted to tell them he would have seriously considered sticking around had he not had a graduate program to complete and a life to live in the twenty-first century. Teaching K-12 students in the age of slates and oak-and-cast-iron desks might be a kick.
Then Kevin remembered something, something potentially important, and checked that something out when Asa left the room for a moment. He retrieved the calendar from a pocket in his jacket and checked the lunar cycles for February 1910. The next full moon was Wednesday, February 23. He had nine more days in Wallace whether he liked it or not.
Kevin put the calendar away and smiled at Celia when she returned to the table and asked if he wanted more coffee. He declined the coffee but accepted Asa's offer of a carriage ride to a commercial building near Bank and Sixth, where the phone company maintained a telegraph office and great-great-granddad rented a small room and conducted business by appointment.
Kevin told Asa when they parted that he would give serious thought to teaching in Wallace and
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