The Secret Bliss of Calliope Ipswich (30 page)

Warren
’s brows crinkled in a disbelieving frown. “All long and sloppy like that? Heck no!”

“Well, let’s just wait and see, shall we?” Shay said.

Warren frowned a moment longer and then exhaled a sigh of resignation. “You wanna walk around a bit longer or somethin’?”

Shay smiled. “How about we go down to the stream
, and I’ll show you how to sail frogs?”

Warren Ackerman smiled and nodded. “Now that sounds like fun!”

Stripping off his swallowtail suit coat and bow tie, he smiled as Shay tossed her bridal veil aside and kicked off her shoes. Hand in hand they ran away from the Ackermans’ barn and toward the sparkling stream that ran by the summer meadow.

###

The truth is, I’m not really a trilogy-type person, you know? Especially the middle, the second part of a trilogy. I’m sure a lot of it goes back to Star Wars (and so many things do, of course) and watching Han be encased in Carbonite and then having to wait, like, three years to see him released. Ahhhh! It was torture.
Back to the Future II
is another example. I
love
the first installment and the third, but that second one is not my favorite (though I do love the references to Clint Eastwood and his movie
A Fistful of Dollars
). The same goes with me for the Twilight books and movies. I’m just not a fan of the middle installment, you know? I like closure—a happy ending right away and to be able to sleep at night. Seriously, you have no idea how a cliffhanger affects me. And that’s why I trend toward writing what would be known as stand-alone books. I actually wish I enjoyed continuations of stories, but they stress me out so much it’s embarrassing!

However, when the idea knocked me upside the head for the Three Little Girls Dressed in Blue trilogy, I knew I had to persevere. And that would mean writing a middle book. And I’m not going to lie to you
, Calliope’s story was a challenge for me.

For one thing, Calliope is such a spirited, happy-go-lucky, positive young woman that I didn’t want her to have a ton of terrible drama in her life. I mean, losing her mother and baby brother was bad enough. It’s amazing she made it through to be as joyful as she was. In fact, I knew from the beginning—the very conception of this trilogy—that she would be the healer. Do you know what I mean? Calliope knows who she is and what she wants. She’s good and kindhearted and very concerned for the happiness of others. Therefore, I didn’t want to drag her through another heart-wrenching drama. And besides, she was in love with Rowdy
, and he obviously endured enough in his life previous to meeting Calliope that he was absolutely meant to find her and to love her.

Therefore, Calliope’s story isn’t the most dramatic cliffhanger in the history of the world the way most second installments in a trilogy usually are. Rather it reflects Calliope’s heart, soul
, and very nature. Calliope is a bright and beautiful young woman—warm and sunshiny—like summer, you know? She loves lilacs and roses and all things summery because that is her character, and she is an effigy of radiance and warmth. It’s why she has blonde hair and eyes as blue as the spring and summer skies. Which, by the way, was more challenging for me to write—being that I would linger in perpetual autumn if it were possible. Although I love summer—sunshine, heat, green, flowers, kids running through sprinklers in the backyard, summer thunderstorms—it’s not where I nestle in and feel happiest and most content.

In fact, I have a friend that gives me the hardest time about liking autumn and the holiday season more than summer. She loves summer! But everyone has
his or her own preferences. For instance, my hunk of burnin’ love husband, Kevin? His favorite time of the year is May through October. In other words, warmest weather and football! (He’s so cute sometimes—like the time he told me that he finally understood why I get so excited so early about Christmas. He said, “It’s the way I start feeling in June—knowing football season is only three more months away.” Exactly!) My favorite time of year is August through December—for obvious reasons—and thus, believe it or not, it’s more difficult for me to write books set in summer. Summer just isn’t where my heart lingers.

Having said that
, however, I love Calliope Ipswich for the very reasons some people love summer. So I’m hoping that you felt that while reading her story.

Another aspect of this book that I hope you enjoyed (because it was one of my very favorite things) was the whole Tom Thumb
wedding thread. I know that if you weren’t familiar with Tom Thumb weddings before, you certainly are now, right? But just for fun, let me give you a little more history on how the Tom Thumb wedding originated, okay? I’ll try to be brief (which is hard for me when referencing things I’m really intrigued by).

A boy named Charles Sherwood Stratton was born on January 4, 1838. Within five years of his birth, Charles Stratton (a little person) was touring the world with his distant relative, P.T. Barnum. Mr. Barnum gave Charles Stratton’s his stage name—General Tom Thumb.

Tom Thumb was somewhat the Shirley Temple of the mid- to late 1800s, in that he began performing at the age of four. By 1843, General Tom Thumb was a
world
-renowned performer. But it was in 1863 when General Tom Thumb really made headlines! On February 10 of that year, Charles “General Tom Thumb” Stratton married the woman he had “at first sight” fallen in love with. Her name—Lavinia Warren. Lavinia was also a little person in the employ of P.T. Barnum. She and Tom Thumb were married in an extravagant affair held at Grace Episcopal Church. Fellow little person performer George Washington Morrison Nutt (stage named Commodore Nutt) stood as General Tom Thumb’s best man. Lavinia’s sister (who was even smaller than Lavinia) was Lavinia’s maid of honor.

Following the wedding ceremony, Tom Thumb and Lavinia stood atop a grand piano in
New York City’s Metropolitan Hotel to receive reception guests. The beautifully bedecked couple greeted some ten thousand well-wishers! In fact, a sentence in the
New York Illustrated News
read, “The History of General Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren reads so much like some fanciful fairy legend that it is nearly impossible to regard the affair in any other light.”

During their honeymoon trip, Charles and Lavinia were invited to the White House for a visit with President Abraham Lincoln! I mean,
wow, right?

(The above photo is of “The Fairy Wedding Group”—including Commodore Nutt, General Tom Thumb, Lavinia Warren
, and Minnie Warren. At the time of their marriage, General Tom Thumb stood 2 feet 11 inches, and Lavinia stood 2 feet 8 inches.)

The Tom Thumb and Lavinia Warren wedding became known as “The Greatest Little Wedding” and was so adored by all that people began performing plays—miniature weddings with children as actors. These plays were dubbed Tom Thumb weddings. The popularity of these Tom Thumb wedding plays was so enduring that thirty-five years after the actual event itself, a publisher in Boston published
The Tom Thumb Wedding
in 1898. Many schools and churches performed Tom Thumb weddings merely for entertainment, while others performed them as fundraisers.

Performances of Tom Thumb
weddings strongly endured through the Edwardian period, and once in a while, you’ll still hear of one being performed today. If I were to ever jot down a real “dreams to do” list, putting on a Tom Thumb wedding would definitely be near the top! I’ve always been intrigued by the idea and would love to produce one. Naturally, I’d want to do everything in Victorian or Edwardian style—swallowtail suit coats for the boys, fancy, fancy dresses for the girls. Ridiculous excess would be the result of a Tom Thumb wedding I would do!

And seriously, didn’t you just love the Tom Thumb
wedding Calliope and everyone else in Meadowlark Lake pulled off? How fun! I would have loved to attend.

And now my thanks to you for taking the journey through Rowdy and Calliope’s story. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it for you!

Yours,

Marcia Lynn McClure

Snippet #1
—Wanna know what the most difficult part of writing
The Secret Bliss of Calliope Ipswich
was? The fact that Evangeline’s story was so, so, so strong and forefront in my mind that I found it hard to focus on Calliope’s! It took me so long to push Evangeline’s story aside so that I could write Calliope’s.

Snippet #2
—I don’t know what it was about this book, but whenever I mentioned biscuits and butter, my mouth would just start watering so badly that I would have to stop writing and go whip together a batch of biscuits. I’m not kidding! In fact, one evening I went down to make some biscuits (so that I could take them right out of the oven, slather them with butter, and then eat them as the melting butter dripped all over my fingers), and my oven wouldn’t heat up! Can you imagine the panic I felt at that moment? Fortunately, I have an angel for a daughter. I quickly called my Sandy and asked her if she would take pity on her mother and make some biscuits for me. Now, keeping in mind that this was at about eight p.m. and that she’s the young, sleep-deprived mother of two energetic little boys, the fact that she instantly agreed and showed up on my doorstep twenty minutes later with piping hot biscuits for me to slather butter on is proof that she’s an angel! And since Kizzy’s biscuits are made from my own recipe, I thought I’d share it with you here in the author’s note snippets. You’ll love them! But there are a couple of little things that will help them turn out extra yummy that aren’t in the recipe. First of all, make sure the dough is sticky. Not too wet and gooey but sticky. Also, when you cut your biscuits, make sure the dough slightly swells up in those two little holes at the top of the biscuit cutter. We don’t want our biscuits thin and wimpy, right? Lastly, be sure and dab a little bit of milk over the surface of each biscuit before you pop the
glass
pan in the oven. I always bake mine in a glass baking dish, and I never grease the dish before putting the biscuits in. Yummy!

Kizzy Ipswich’s Biscuits

(Makes 6
–8 biscuits in an 8×8 pan. Double recipe and bake in a 9×13 for more!)

Ingredients:

¼ cup
butter

1 ¾ cup
flour

3 teaspoons
baking powder

¾ teaspoon
salt

¾
cup + 2 tablespoons milk

Preheat oven to 450°F.

Combine all dry ingredients, and mix well. Cut in butter until butter chunks are about the size of peas. Mix in milk. Dough should be kind of sticky.

Dump dough onto floured surface, and press out or roll to same thickness as a biscuit cutter (approximately 7/8 of an inch). Cut into biscuits and place in glass baking dish. Smooth a little milk over the tops of each biscuit to help with browning. Bake at 450°F for 10–14 minutes.

Note:
I’ve been using this biscuit recipe since nearly the day I got married. I had to fiddle with it a little bit, but this one works just right! However, you may or may not want to increase the salt, per your personal preferences.

Snippet #3
—Why yes, Rowdy Gates is named in honor of Clint Eastwood’s character Rowdy Yates in the old TV western
Rawhide
! In truth, I’ve never seen one episode of
Rawhide
, although you know what a big fan I am of Clint Eastwood’s old spaghetti westerns like
A Fistful of Dollars
. However, for as far back as I can remember, my mom would tell me how handsome she thought Rowdy Yates was on
Rawhide
. And since the Three Little Girls Dressed in Blue trilogy was inspired by and dedicated to my mom, I thought a hero whose name
she
would associate with a handsome cowboy would be just perfect!

Snippet #4
—Mr. Longfellow and Evangeline are examples of my subconscious working without my knowing. I’ve always loved the name Evangeline. The meaning of Evangeline is very sweet: bearer of good news, or messenger of God. But I just think it’s a very pretty name. I will confess that I derive my knowledge of the existence of the name from the most famous source—the poem
Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Evangeline was Longfellow’s first epic poem and was published in 1847. It’s a story of profound devotion and faithfulness—but with a very bittersweet ending. Thus, I’ve never read it all the way through. However, being that I do love the name so very much, one of Judge Lawson Ipswich’s daughters was named Evangeline. It wasn’t until I was almost finished writing this second book in Three Little Girls Dressed in Blue that I realized I’d included the character “Dex Longfellow” in the first and second books (whose name I derived from glancing over at a Longfellow poetry book when I was writing Amoretta’s story)—and that I had Mr. Longfellow being somewhat smitten by Evangeline. Ha ha! Mr. Longfellow and Evangeline Ipswich—proof that my subconscious sometimes pops things into my stories without my realizing it!