Carolyn Davidson - Eden

The room was quiet, his deep, masculine tones but a memory, and Katie went to the window to watch as he strode toward the barn. Two men stepped out from the wide, double doors and waved at him, calling words she couldn’t hear, and then she caught the drift of their laughter as they slapped John on the back and went with him into the big building.

In just a few minutes, he was back and she slid his scrambled eggs onto a plate and found a loaf of bread in the pantry, slicing it quickly and locating the butter for his use. He ate quickly, intent on heading out to work, and she was silent, watching him and buttering a slice of bread for herself.

“I don’t want you working too hard today, Katie,” he admonished her as he rose from the table. “I think there’s plenty to cook in the pantry, and I’d like you to just settle in this morning. All right?”

She nodded, watching as he left the cabin and then made tracks for the bedroom. Her own clothing wasn’t nearly as warm as John’s shirt, but she sought out the plainest of the new dresses he’d bought for her and slipped it over her head, carefully buttoning the bodice and sliding a new petticoat and a pair of drawers beneath it. Back in the kitchen once more, she washed in warm water from the reservoir on the stove, thankful for the fire he’d built for her comfort.

While getting dressed, she’d noted a basket in the bedroom where he’d apparently tossed his soiled clothing for the past several days, and she sought out a container now to use as a washtub. In the small entryway hung a galvanized bucket, larger than a milk pail, not as big as a bathing tub, but a good size nevertheless.

In moments she had scooped warm water from the reservoir on the side of the big cookstove into it, then added soap from under the sink to make suds. His small clothes and shirts were readily doused in it, and she allowed them to soak while she made the bed and washed up the dishes.

The corner posts on the back porch were a handy place for a short line to hang clothes on, she decided, and searched out a length of rope from the pantry, stretching it from one end of the porch to the other, tying it as high as she could reach on the square posts that held up the porch roof.

Hanging on a nail in the pantry, she found a small scrub board, and she brought it to the washtub, using it to good purpose on his clothing. In an hour, the line she’d strung held John’s clothing, his trousers and shirts and the bits and pieces of his underwear. Her own drawers she washed and hung behind the stove on the back of a chair, unwilling to allow them to flutter in the breeze where any passing ranch hand might see them.

A dresser stood against the outside wall in the bedroom and she sorted out the clothing she found there; John’s supply of drawers and denim trousers were folded neatly and stacked closely. Emptying one drawer to make room for her own sparse assortment, she took time to brush all the wrinkles out of the things John had purchased yesterday at the general store, her hands careful as she handled the fine fabric of the chemises he’d chosen for her.

“I feel like a real housewife,” she whispered softly to herself, aware that the sweeping and cleaning, scrubbing and folding that occupied her morning were enjoyable because of where she was, and who she was tending. John was a kind man, still a man, but with qualities she had not seen before in the one man who had made up her limited experience.

John would be easy to do for, and she sensed that he would appreciate her work on his behalf. Returning to the kitchen, she found a broom in the pantry and set to work on the dust that hid in the corners. A bit of cardboard served as a dustpan and she dumped the residue into the fireplace, noting that John had built up the fire for her comfort before he’d left the cabin.

A sharp rap from somewhere near the back door brought her out of her daydreams and she looked up to find a middle-aged lady watching her through the window. With a quick smile, Katie opened the door and faced her visitor.

“I’ll bet you’re Berta,” she said quickly, opening the door wide, so that her welcome would be evident.

“I sure am, honey. And you’re John Roper’s hired help or I miss my guess.”

“I’m Katie,” she said, pulling a chair from the table and offering Berta a seat. “I can make some coffee right quick, if you’d like, ma’am. After all, you sent me a cup this morning, early on.”

“I figured you could use a bit of a lay-in your first day here,” Berta said. “I make a big breakfast for those men, and there’s always enough to go around.” She’d carried in a burlap bag with her and now she bent to open it and began removing its contents. “Here’s some potatoes and carrots for you and a sack of onions, too. I figured John might not think of getting them from the general store, and I’ve got bushels full in the fruit cellar under the house. I expect you’ve already found the food from the kitchen garden I put up last fall. I brought a few jars over and put them in the cupboard for you, along with that crock of eggs in the pantry.

“And here’s a couple of jars of beef I cooked up and canned when we butchered last fall,” she said, bending low to pull more from the burlap sack. “There’s pork in the smokehouse and fresh ham in the lard barrel in the cellar, but beef don’t keep good thataway. I just can it up every year, and in between butcherings I have plenty to cook with.”

Katie was awed by the generosity before her. “I never saw so much good food in one place in my life,” she said, her eyes lighting with glee. “I can fix John some dandy meals out of all that.”

“He told me this morning that you could cook and clean, but I knew there wasn’t much here in the way of stuff to fix for dinner today, so I raided the fruit cellar and brought a few things I figured you could use. There’s always more eggs in the henhouse and milk in the pantry, or the milk house out back. Or else fresh from the barn if you know how to milk a cow. But the men keep the new Guernsey milked morning and night for the house, so you can just have them bring you some ever couple of days.

“Oh, and here’s some butter, too,” she said quickly, searching the bottom of the sack. “It got a little flattened, but it’s wrapped up good. I must have set a jar of beef on it.”

Katie looked at the bounty Berta had arranged on the kitchen table and felt her throat tighten, even as her head swam with the generosity of the woman who was prepared to welcome her without question. “I’ve never had anybody do for me this way,” she said, fighting to hold back the tears that begged to be shed.

“Well, for goodness’ sake, girl. Don’t make a fuss about it, and sure enough, I don’t want you to be crying. I came over to welcome you, not make you feel bad.”

“Oh, I’m not feeling bad, just pleased that you’re being so nice to me.”

“Well, let’s get this put away and set your kitchen to rights. I’ve probably got enough here to do you for a week or so anyway, along with whatever you can find in the smokehouse.”

“John had a good piece of bacon in the pantry and I fried some up last night when we got in from town. Made him a sandwich out of it and opened a can of beans, so he wouldn’t starve to death before morning.”

Berta dug in her apron pocket and found a small tin of tea leaves, announcing that a cup of tea was just the thing for midmorning, sending Katie to the stove where she slid the big covered teakettle over the hottest spot. In a few minutes they were sharing the tea, Berta declaring that next time she’d bring along some milk to put in it, Katie happy just to have the treat of tea, something that was a rare delight at the Schrader farmhouse.

Before long, Berta had taken her leave and looking up to where the sun hung behind a cloud, bringing its glow to the eastern sky a bit, Katie decided it was more than time to begin John’s dinner. One of the Mason jars of beef made up the base of her preparations, and she added three potatoes from the bag Berta had brought, a big onion from the mesh bag, and then a handful of carrots that Berta had said were but a drop in the bucket when compared to the bushels in her fruit cellar.