Six

Mara groaned as she got out of bed the next morning. Every muscle protested the movement. Her arms ached, and, oh, her back! She limped over to her armoire and opened the drawers, each muscle aching with the movement. It even hurt to breathe!

“Sadie—!”

She sat on the bed and waited for the woman to come and help her. How would she get through the day if every movement signaled pain?

“Sadie—!”

The door opened. “Mara, hush, Child! Your parents are still abed,” Sadie said, closing the door behind her. “What’s the matter?”

“My whole body feels as if it’s been run over by a stagecoach—that’s what’s the matter!” She stifled a whimper.

“You need to get yourself moving. You’ll feel lots better after you—”

“I can’t move! It hurts too much.” She put out her hands, still pink and now sporting a blister from sweeping the floors. “And look at my hands! They’re ruined!”

“Now, Child, buck up.” Sadie patted her shoulder. “Nothing good comes easy. You have a fine little girl waiting over there for you and a whole mess of fixin’s cooking in the kitchen. “Here, I’ll get your frock.” She opened the armoire and reached in.

“But I can’t even move!”

Sadie stopped and nodded her head, pursing her lips. “Well, I s’pose I was right then.” She sighed. “I told Mrs. Stedman you wouldn’t make it a week.” She shut the cabinet and started to leave the room. “I guess Clay will just have to manage without—”

“You said what?”

“I told her you weren’t capable of hard work like that. I don’t know what Mr. Stedman was thinking, giving you the job—”

Mara stood, ignoring the ache in her limbs. “I can too do the work!”

Sadie turned in the doorway. “Well, then, Missy, you’d best get ready.” She left then, shutting the door behind her.

❧

One week and three blisters later, Mara showed up at the Stedman house to find Beth sick in bed.

“She feels hot, and she’s got a cough,” Clay said before starting to eat the fried eggs with the rest of the men.

Mara hoped she wouldn’t come down with it too. She checked on Beth while the others ate. She was sleeping, her body curled in a ball. The hair framing her face clung damply to her cheeks and forehead. She looked small and helpless. Mara had never nursed anyone, but her mother had always cared for Mara when she was sick, so she knew a little of what to do.

Poor child. She had no mother at all. Mara felt the girl’s forehead, surprised that she didn’t stir. Her skin burned against Mara’s hand. A wet cloth would be just the thing.

After wetting a cloth, she sat on the side of the bed and dabbed the girl’s face and neck. Beth stirred a little and opened her eyes. “I don’t feel good.”

Mara laid the cloth across her forehead. “I know, Darling. You just stay here and rest. I’ll check on you often, all right?”

The girl nodded then closed her eyes and seemed to fall asleep.

It was a good thing Beth had helped her last week, or she wouldn’t know how to do the chores. By the time she returned to the kitchen, the men had left for the day. She was clearing the table and had picked up the empty bacon platter when she remembered.

The hogs. Beth hadn’t been able to feed them this morning. And she would need to collect the eggs. The weight of her tasks hit her heavily, and for a moment Mara imagined herself buried beneath the load of chores that awaited her. The dishes, the laundry, the mending, the cleaning. The work went on endlessly. Would there ever be a moment when she felt she was finished? As soon as she completed one task, another rose up in its place. How did these women bear it?

Filling the basin with water, she decided the dishes would have to wait until she’d collected the eggs and fed the hogs. She picked up the basket and set about gathering the eggs. Except for one hen that tried to hoard her eggs, the task went well. Feeling a tinge of accomplishment, Mara set the eggs on the table and went to check on Beth.

The cloth on her forehead felt hot, so Mara took it to the kitchen pump and doused it with cold water. Back in the room, she eased her weight on the bed and dabbed at Beth’s flushed face. The child flinched at the cold cloth, stirred, and opened her eyes. Mara noted that a glaze of fever shone in her eyes.

Beth snuggled up to Mara, laying her head in her lap. Mara’s heart caught at the innocence and vulnerability of the movement. She lifted her hand and began to stroke the child’s hair away from her face. Then she laid the cloth over her forehead and cradled Beth in her lap.

Beth turned toward her, burying her face in Mara’s gown. She mumbled something.

Mara struggled to hear. “What, Beth?”

The girl shifted, her body burrowing against Mara. “You smell just like Ma,” she whispered then heaved a big sigh.

Mara’s heart lurched then softened. She looked at the child’s angelic face. Her tiny pug nose. Her long lashes, now sweeping the tops of her cheeks in sleep. Beth’s breathing leveled out, and Mara knew she was once again asleep. For the first time in her life she had tender feelings for a child. For the first time she could imagine what it would feel like to have a child of her own. To be protective, to put that child ahead of her own desires.

For a long time she sat cradling Beth, enjoying the slight weight on her lap. Only when Beth shifted away in sleep and burrowed once again in her pillow did Mara stand. After rewetting the cloth, she turned her attention to her next chore.

The hogs. Ugh! She dreaded going out to feed those filthy beasts. She looked down at her shiny black shoes and sighed. They would be ruined. And she never should have worn her petticoats.

She had watched Beth feed them only once, and it looked simple enough. She filled the pail with the grain and carried it out to the pen. Most of the hogs lay fat and lazy in the slop, apparently not caring that breakfast had been delayed. But a few stood near the gate and seemed to be protesting the late arrival of breakfast.

Arriving at the fence she saw the pigs had nudged the trough into the center of the pen. So much for dumping it over the sides. Now she would have to walk through that muck.

Mara unlatched the gate and tried to force it open, pushing against one of the sows. “Move!” The hog snorted, its face covered with dry mud, but it remained rooted to the spot. No doubt held in place by the thick layer of muck.

She pushed against the gate, leaning into it with all her weight. “Move, you big, ugly beast!”

Several of the other hogs wandered over to the gate. “No, back! Shoo!” She leaned heavily into the gate, and this time Mudface budged a bit. Mara took advantage of the momentum, pushing with all her might.

There! She was through the gate, and she paused to catch her breath. Now if these other oafs would just move—“Get back! Shoo, shoo!” She made her way through the throng, trying to step only in the drier spots. Finally she reached the feeder and dumped the bucket of grain. The hogs gathered and began eating noisily, as if they were famished.

“Ugh! Filthy beasts.” She tried not to breathe in the heavy odor.

She turned to walk away but was caught before she had taken two steps. She looked back and saw, to her horror, that one of the hogs was standing on her gown! She cried out with indignation and kicked at the hoof. The sow didn’t move. “Move! Shoo, shoo!” She kicked again, loathe to touch the dirty beast.

The big pig wasn’t budging. It was too busy stuffing its fat belly.

She gathered her skirt and pulled gently, hoping to ease it out. When that didn’t work, she kicked at the hoof again. “Get—off—my—gown!”

She gave a final yank, leaning back for leverage. At the same time the sow decided to shift closer to the food.

With the weight suddenly gone from her skirt, Mara fell back into the muck. The mud splattered up, and she felt herself sinking into the wet, slimy earth.

“Aauughh!” she howled and then opened her eyes to survey the mess. Before she could take stock, she heard something.

Laughter.

She looked around the paddocks and barns. Her gaze slid by then came back to rest on the figure perched not fifteen feet away on the fence. Clay was clutching his stomach with uncontained mirth.

Anger boiled inside her. She struggled to stand up and realized her skirts had risen to her knees revealing her frilled bloomers beneath them. “Aauughh!” she howled again and flung the sodden skirts back down around her ankles before trying to stand again.

Clay continued to display unbridled mirth.

“Of all the”—her hand slipped in the mud—“nerve!” She turned over on her knees, knowing she would ruin her gown but not caring anymore. “Instead of standing there laughing like a”—she pushed to her feet, aware that her backside was sticking up in the air—“a complete nincompoop!”

“Hold on there, Fancy Pants, and I’ll—”

She sucked in a breath of foul air. “Well!” She rose to her full height, albeit unsteadily. “You, Sir, are no gentleman! How dare you mention my—my—unmentionables!”

“No offense, Ma’am. I’ve never seen such fancy duds—”

“Will you stop speaking of them!”

He stepped near her and reached for her arm to steady her.

She swatted his hand away, her face flushing again at the mention of her undergarment. “And what were you doing spying on me?” She planted her muddy fists on her hips. “Your behavior has been most rude!”

“I was just—”

“And how dare you speak to me that way! A gentleman would have turned away—”

“I never said anything about being a—”

“A gentleman would certainly not have mentioned what he had seen.”

His lips twitched, and she knew he was stifling another round of his insufferable laughter.

She whirled and started toward the house, her angry stride hampered by the mud that sucked at her feet.

“Now, Fancy Pants, I—”

“Ohh!” She turned and shot him a look, silencing him. Reaching the gate she finally broke free of the mud and welcomed the hard-packed ground. Her gait quickened, but her sodden skirts clung to her legs.

The last sound she heard before entering the house was the unrestrained laughter of Clay Stedman.