Felicity had been lucky, though. In addition to teaching her the mechanics of making the pictures, her father had taught her the art, too. Indeed, he had been more than encouraged in this direction by the fact that she had a natural "eye" for a shot, and a way of dealing with people that calmed the most restive adult and stilled the most rambunctious child.
Today she would finally put all her father's teachings to use without his guiding hand. Pausing over the task of unpacking the glass plates from the barrel in which they had been so carefully placed, Felicity sniffed back a threatening tear. It wouldn't do to cry over him. Her father wouldn't have liked it. Any time he had spoken to her about the mother she had lost, he would quote the verse, "Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him."
Felicity knew that her father didn't approve of crying over those who had gone on to their heavenly reward. She should be happy for her father because now, after so many years, he was with the wife whom he had loved and missed so very much. Felicity was being selfish to wish him back. Still, she sent a small, sad smile heavenward and said, "I sure would like to have his help with the camera right now, though."
Just then Cody Wells stuck his head through the open door of the wagon. "Need any help?" he asked.
Jumping a little, Felicity remembered to send up a "thank you" before taking Cody up on his offer.
The camera with its tripod was as tall as Felicity and weighed almost as much, but Cody, accustomed to wrestling several hundred pounds of angry steer, had no trouble at all setting it up exactly where Felicity indicated. Then, with the help of the other men, they hung one of Felicity's backdrops on the barn wall. It was the one that pictured wide-open spaces and cacti in the far distance. While the men marveled at how realistic it looked, Felicity glanced anxiously around again. Still no sign of Mr. Logan. She put a hand over the flutter in her stomach and told herself, not to think about him. Quickly, before she succumbed to the temptation to look for him again, she ducked back into the wagon and closed the door securely to prepare her first plate in the resulting darkness.
After donning the heavy, black India rubber gloves that would protect her hands and putting on a huge rubber apron to cover her new dress, she thoroughly cleaned and polished the first glass plate. Then she poured the prepared mixture of collodion onto the upper left-hand corner of the glass. Balancing the plate carefully on the thumb and forefinger of her left hand with practiced ease, she slowly worked the thick fluid all over the plate until it reached the near right-hand corner.
When the collodion had set long enough to become tacky, she immersed the plate in a bath of silver nitrate to sensitize it. It was the silver nitrate with its capacity for turning a person's skin black that had given photography the nickname the black art, so Felicity was always careful to wear the rubber gloves, just as her father had taught her.
After about five minutes, she slipped the still-wet plate into the plate holder, where it would be protected from light until exposed inside the camera. She pulled off the rubber gloves. Then, juggling the bulky holder, she opened the wagon door and stepped out.
"Who's going to be first?" she asked brightly, slipping easily into the role of managing photographer, the role her father had always played before.
Suddenly all her eager helpers froze into silence and stared stupidly back at her. Felicity bit down hard on her lip to keep from laughing at them. It was always the same. None of them could wait, but none of them wanted to be first, either.
Felicity's ingrained modesty made her hesitate to order the men around, but common sense prevailed. If she didn't tell them what to do, who would? "Cody, step right up and let's show them how it's done," she commanded, sliding the plate holder into the camera. She didn't have time for coaxing. The plate had to be exposed while it was still wet, so she only had at most ten minutes in which to make the picture. "Is that your saddle?" she asked when he made no move to follow her instructions.
"Yeah, but-" he hedged, but Gus interrupted him.
"It sure is. He spent half the night polishing it up, too!" Gus hooted, drawing raucous laughter from the rest of the men.
"Well, put it over here," Felicity ordered, pointing to a spot in front of her backdrop. "Have you got a lariat handy? Here, this one'll do," she decided, snatching one from a nearby cowboy. "Come over here, Cody." Brooking no further argument, she took Cody by the arm and directed him to the proper spot. "Hold the rope like this," she said, placing it into his hands. "Where's that saddle?" While one of the cowboys rushed to move the saddle to the appropriate position, Felicity reached up and adjusted Cody's hat to a rakish angle. Then she showed him how to prop his foot on the saddle and how to hold his hands, before racing back to duck under the black cape to focus the camera on her subject.
Cody was in heaven. Miss Felicity had touched him. More than once, too. To a boy who rarely even had a chance to talk to a girl like Felicity, such contact was intoxicating. He didn't think he'd ever forget the way her little hands felt when they had brushed against his. Just thinking about it made him feel all weak inside.
"Look here at the camera, Cody," Felicity called.
Cody didn't have any problem doing that because that's where she was, too.
"Look tough, Cody," one of the men advised.
"He couldn't look tough if you put a piece of shoe leather over his face," another scoffed.
Cody knew he couldn't look tough as long as he was looking at Miss Felicity anyway, so he didn't try. He looked serious instead.
"That's perfect," Felicity decreed, ducking out from under the black cape again. "Hold perfectly still until I put the lens cap back on. Now ready." She reached up to remove the cap and recited the little verse her father had always used to time exposures because it was exactly ten seconds long. As soon as she had finished, she carefully replaced the lens cap and rushed to pull the plate holder out and return it to the darkness of the wagon.
Once inside, she removed the plate from the holder and applied the developing solution the same way she had applied the collodion. Then she rinsed the plate in clean water-water that would have to be changed frequently during the day, which was why she had asked the men to move her wagon over near the pump. After immersing the plate in a solvent of silver iodide to fix the image, she rinsed it again.
At last she could light a lamp, and she did so, holding the plate over the flame to dry it thoroughly. While the plate was still warm, she coated it with varnish to protect the emulsion until she would have time to make a print from it.
Like all good field photographers, Felicity had developed a sixth sense about being able to judge how good a negative was simply by looking at it. People usually didn't mind having their picture remade on the spot if the first one didn't come out, but if they came back the next day for a print and then discovered they had to have it done over, they got a little testy. Felicity judged that Cody would be more than pleased with his portrait.
As swiftly as possible, she prepared another plate, and when it was safely locked into the holder, she left the wagon again. This time, Cody was waiting right there to carry the heavy wooden contraption for her.
"Where's Cody's picture?" someone demanded.