| |
Just a few days later, they heard the blast of some sort of ocean-going vessel in their cove. Marion came down from her platform, halting work on the fireplace for now, and Barbara came running up from the woods where she had just cut down a tree and was clearing some of the branches.
“What was that?” she asked as she came over the hill. The children were already standing on the edge of the path, ready to go down but not without their mothers’ permission.
“I don’t know,” Marion admitted as they both headed over to look.
They encountered the oddest sight. It was a boat towing what looked like a barge with all sorts of junk piled up and bound down with nets and ropes all over it. The women exchanged a look as they heard a second blast, and the whole family headed down to the cove. They were spotted by someone on the boat, who started waving madly. As they came closer, they recognized Grady. She held up what looked like a sheep and used its hoof to wave.
Exchanging a look, both Marion and Barbara started laughing. As the towed barge came closer, they recognized a lot of the junk from Grady’s yard. The boat turned sideways suddenly, and the barge continued moving forward. The ropes were thrown from the boat and both Marion and Barbara were alarmed but waded out to grab them and pull on the barge. The boat turned sideways, dropped anchor, and a boat was lowered. They held onto the barge ropes and watched as a couple of cages were lowered to the smaller boat. They watched as Grady nimbly climbed down.
“What are they doing, Mom?” Brian asked, amused to see the birds in the cages squawking and batting their wings.
“I’m not really sure, honey,” she answered her son and looked at Barbara, who shrugged her shoulders. She had no idea either.
“Um, should we go tie this off?” Barbara asked, feeling stupid holding the ropes to the junk barge.
“I guess so,” Marion answered, and they walked the ropes up. The ropes weren’t quite long enough, but the barge had washed ashore just enough that it was stranded on the gravel spit for now. They tugged a couple of times to be sure it wouldn’t float off, and by then, Grady had nearly rowed to shore.
“Hey, there!” she called and pointed at the two cages stacked on top of each other. “I have your chickens,” she said unnecessarily.
“We see that,” Marion called back with a smile.
“Hi, Grady. Welcome to Whimsical Island,” Barbara put in with her own smile of welcome. “I hope you can stay for a while,” she added, glancing at the junk and having a suspicion about the visit. There were a lot of things on that barge they had discussed during their last visit.
“Oh, I’m here to help for a few days, if you all don’t mind the company?” she asked as she heaved the first coop out of the boat and splashed ashore. Barbara stepped forward to take it from her and put the squawking birds on the gravel.
“Absolutely! You are most welcome, we just didn’t expect...” Marion gestured helplessly at the enormous amount of junk on the barge, and she could see the sheep on the boat clearly now. She went forward and retrieved the second coop with Grady’s help.
“I figured you all would need it eventually, and as I’m going outta business, I figured we’d work out a payment plan or somethin’,” she said as she lifted the cage and they placed it next to the other one. “These are the chicks I promised you plus a few extra. I done found you all some sheep too,” she nodded towards the boat where the rowboat was already making its way back. “I also heard that guinea fowl are the best thing for ticks, and they make good alarms for your yard. I found a passel of them, and I traded for those as well.”
Marion and Barbara were overwhelmed and exchanged a look. They’d have to talk about that later.
“I brought the latest pile of pallets too,” she admitted. “I need a va-ca-tion...Never had one of those,” she added.
She’d brought so much junk, and eventually, they would use it all. It required a lot of time to get everything up on the beach, but they certainly couldn’t transport things like the cast iron stoves up the slope to the meadow without figuring something out first. The enormous weight would require some creativity. The men on the boat had been hired to tow the enormous barge and pick it up in a week, so the women would have time to empty it. They fought with the sheep, who jumped out of the rowboat and made their way by swimming ashore. Their naked bodies were bloated with young, and it surprised both Marion and Barbara that the farmer had been willing to sell them.
“I toldja that sheep were cheaper after shearin’,” Grady pointed out, “and they’re full of young.”
Both women were amazed at Grady’s generosity, but she explained that the town of Franklin had been warning her for years to take care of the junk in her yard. It had been her husband’s junk, but since she had inherited his mess, they were now holding her responsible. “I think it’s personal,” she said confidentially as she held one side of the guinea fowl cage. Marion held the other side of the cage, and they tried to work together to get it up the path, following Barbara who just lifted one on her own. “I’s heard there’s some sorta developer there, who wants to build G.I. housing, so they’ll populate Franklin and not wander away.” There was the G.I. bill that gave inexpensive loans to G.I.s who wished to build their own homes. It was also available to widows or families, but Marion and Barbara had not been able to obtain a loan.
“Apparently, they want the boys who went out into the world to now settle here with their brides, and they is building up a storm around town with new houses. They want my land, but I ain’t giving it up without a fight. I sold the cars for scrap, made a pretty penny too,” she confided. “I knews ya’ll would need this stuff, and we’d talked about you havin’ first option.”
They put the poultry down near the finished pen, and Grady eyed it, admitting it was a first-rate job.
“We can’t afford to pay you right now, Grady...” Barbara began. The only thing they owned outright were the chicks, and even those seemed like too many.
“You pay me when you can. I ain’t worried,” she answered. “I wanna see youse succeed,” she admitted, looking around at what they had accomplished. “That looks like a first-rate cabin there,” she added. “No garden?”
“We simply haven’t had the time,” Marion admitted. “There were all those rainy days, and then we had to get the cabin up first. It’s just us two, and it takes–”
Grady held up her hand to silence Marion. “I ain’t criticizin’. I’m here to help for a few days. It also will make them busybodies in town wonder if I’ve abandoned me place.” She chuckled, delighted at the idea.
Both women laughed as they understood busybodies. The letters from their families hadn’t been polite, demanding they return with the children. In Marion’s case, her mother-in-law had threatened to send the police since child welfare in Massachusetts couldn’t do anything now that she was a citizen of Maine.
“Let’s get the other cages up here and let them chicks get used to their new home,” she said. “You keep them keets in with ‘em, so they learn somethin’.”
“What are keets?” Richard asked, looking at the chicks, who were just getting their real feathers. They looked odd as the fuzz and feathers were mixed together, and they had bare spots all over.
“Keets is baby guinea fowl,” she explained with a smile, wondering what it woulda been like to have a son of her own. She saw that the children were dirty but happy and healthy-lookin’. She envied the two women and appreciated their friendship.
They carried all the fowl up and put them in the coop together.
“I don’t see any rooster in there,” Barbara remarked, watching them peck at the overly long grasses in their coop.
“No, and you don’t want ‘em until they is older either. Why, that black basta–” she stopped herself as the boys were listening, “bugger,” she corrected herself, “woulda killed them chicks and keets matin’ ‘em too young. Now, you wait until they is big enough to fight back and avoid a randy...bugger.”
“I’ve never been around guinea fowl. Do we need to do anything special?” Barbara asked as they returned to the beach to begin offloading the barge.
“Well, they’ll follow the chickens around, or the chickens’ll follow ‘em around...depends. But if you don’t insist they all come home to the coop every night, they’ll go wild on ya, and the owls or some other varmint’ll hunt ‘em.” She went on to explain that if they fed them all together like they were now, the guinea fowl might not wander off, and they would bond with the chicks. “If’n you are gonna let them free range—and when they’re bigger you’rn gonna want to—ya gotta train them to come home, or they’ll go wild on ya.” She further explained that if one got out, it wouldn’t go far because the flock instinct was so strong, and the guinea fowl don’t like dark places, so the only thing that was gonna roost in the pen was the chickens. “Still, you can’t beat nuttin’ like a guinea for pickin’ off ticks and fleas and no-see-ums.”
“What’s a no-see-um?” Brian asked, not understanding.
Marion and Barbara both grinned as they listened avidly to the woman’s explanations.
“Just what I said, boy, you no...see...um,” she explained and then slapped her knee and guffawed as realization dawned on him. They all had a good laugh.
“Sometimes you don’t see what bites you,” Marion gentled the explanation after they came down from their laugh.
He admitted that was true as he helped get the nets off.
“Them guineas may start roostin’ in trees or on the top of yer roof. They like high places, and it’s impossible to get ‘em down. They fly about five hundred feet or so, which is why they can get up in dem places.”
“Can guineas and chickens have babies?” Brenda asked innocently, enchanted by the small chicks and keets she had seen.
“Yep, they shore can. Guineas are faithful to their husbands, but occasionally, you got a randy rooster, and he’ll try to have a baby with the guinea.” She was trying not to be too graphic with the little girl and didn’t even realize that the girl thought ‘randy’ was the birds name. “If’n they have babies though; those babies can’t have babies.” She looked up at Marion and Barbara and said, “They’ll be sterile.”
They were learning so much that day and appreciated the extra knowledge. Still, all the added and unexpected work of offloading the barge wasn’t really appreciated, although the things she brought would be appreciated...eventually.
“Wonder where the sheep got to?” Marion murmured as they continued to put things under the trees near the pallets.
“I see them down at the end of the beach. I think the noise of the boat and the strange surroundings scared them a bit,” Barbara mentioned. “Look at Feathers.”
They both watched the dog, who obviously wanted to go down there and fetch those sheep. She was practically shaking in her eagerness. She kept looking from them to the sheep at the other end of the cove and back. She was telling them she was willing and able to do her job. The pup, Barkley, was watching her avidly, unable to see the sheep over the rocks but sensing her anxiety.
“Ya gotta be careful with them guineas. They’ll get picked off by owls and raccoons, and they nest in the darnedest places. They also share their nest with each other, so if’n you have a broody hen, it can have twenty eggs under it and they hain’t all hers!” Grady was still educating them, and they smiled at her descriptions in appreciation. “They herd like sheep. It’s a flock mentality. Where one goes, they all go, and if one gets lost, it’ll set up such a racket that the whole flock’ll come to find it. They is noisy, so if somethin’s in the area that they don’t recognize, they’ll let you know.”
“How long does it take for their eggs to hatch?” Brian asked innocently.
“About twenty-eight days, but don’t count on the mama bird to care. If they are sharing the nest with other mamas, they will march off without a thought once the eggs hatch. It’s like she forgets they exist. Not too bright. Them babies are very susceptible to cold and damp, so if you can get them to grow up, you are lucky. Their mates will guard ‘em during the day, but they are on their own at night.”
Her explanations and stories helped to make the work go by quickly, but there was no way they would get the entire barge cleared that day. They allowed Feathers to sprint down the beach and gather the sheep, watching as the dog expertly circled the animals. Feathers was thwarted only when Barkley scattered them. Finally, the boys captured the eager pup and let Feathers work. Neither Barbara or Marion knew the commands to get the sheep in, but Grady knew a few, and they finally had the sheep heading up the path.
“Need a step or two here,” Grady said as she slipped up the steep path carrying a sleeping bag and some other things she would need during her stay.
“Yep, that’s in our plans,” Marion admitted. She was a little embarrassed, feeling almost as though they should be further along than they were. The few steps they had managed to put in were nothing compared to the work that remained.
The sheep fell to cropping grass and Feathers eagerly sat down, panting happily, to watch her charges. They put Barkley on a leash and let the enthusiastic pup sit next to her but would let him get any closer to the sheep, which outweighed him by a considerable amount. One of the ewes eyed him angrily, taking a couple of swipes with her hoof on the grass as though she was going to charge. The others placidly ignored him, more worried about the bigger, adult dog, who was watching them avidly. Feathers was in her element; she had found her calling.
“You got a good bargain in that there dog. Now, if you can only teach that pup some manners.” Grady watched them momentarily.
“Well, we’ve rather let him go while we were working on the cabin,” Barbara admitted, seeing the children taking turns holding his leash and keeping him from going after the sheep, which had him fascinated.
“Yep, that can happen quickly,” she admitted as she looked over the work they’d done.
Grady didn’t even seem to mind them cooking over the camp stove as she had also brought a couple dozen eggs with her for their consumption. She settled down by their fire as though she was going to sleep there. Fortunately, for the first few days, it didn’t rain, and when it did, she didn’t need asking twice to join them in the now overcrowded tent.
* * * * *
Grady wasn’t too keen on only using dead or seasoned trees to chop down, but she helped sharpen the axes and chipped in. Both Marion and Barbara protested all her hard work, but she was there, she was willing, and they got a lot done with her additional help.
The walls were high enough, and they even managed to do the walls around where the bedrooms would eventually go. The large rectangular box with two doors and several window spaces looked proudly over the meadow and gave them the most beautiful view of their cove.
“Get a nice porch and some steps on here, and you’ll be all set,” Grady said as they managed the last logs up skids to the top of the wall.
“And the roof,” Barbara laughed with her as they looked up at the tree branches above the cabin and the sky above that.
Grady knew a lot more than they and helped them get the joists up to lay down some of the flat boards they had collected. “Now, we need that there tar sheetin’ and shingles. You can make yer own,” she advised, knowing they were tight for cash. If that hadn’t been apparent before, it had become very clear during her stay with them. They’d subsisted mostly on fresh fish and canned vegetables. “That won’t do at all,” Grady mentioned and made sure to help them dig an area they had decided on for the garden. Once the boards were on the roof and the tarp was over them and waiting for the tarpaper, she insisted they all work on repeatedly turning over the turf for the garden. She’d brought a few fruit trees, which she helped them plant on the far side of the meadow: two each of apple, pear, and cherry. “How they’s grown!” she mentioned after they dug up all the ground around the rather large trees. “These war bigger’n saplins,” she told them as they grunted to get them into the holes. She explained she had dug them up from her own yard, wanting to get them out and knowing that the two women could use them.
“Got to get this well-tilled,” she asserted, really pitching in on the garden and inspiring them all to work even harder than they had before. Although they had done a lot of labor on their own, her knowledge and expertise made them feel as though they hadn’t really been working.
“You know, you can probably get one of them loans since yer men were in the army,” she mentioned one night as they rested from all the hard work she had organized. “It’d go a long way to buying boards for them cottages you want.”
Marion and Barbara exchanged looks. They’d tried to buy a house back in the village in Massachusetts, but none of their bankers would give them a loan. Maybe this needed looking into again? Since they were now building in Franklin, their bank might give them the loan. They nodded in reply to Grady’s suggestion.
Using the boards from varying lengths of pallets, they built a nice front porch, two actually. One they planned on screening in to keep out bugs, and the second would be beyond that one.
“Now, hain’t that a nice shine,” Grady complimented Marion as she finished up with sandpaper on her favorite cast iron stove after removing the last of the rust and dirt. “We just gotta get ‘er up that slope.” She used her chin to point up the steep grade.
Together, the three women managed to get the stove up to the meadow and sideways into the cabin by pulling, pushing, and using the tackle that had been so helpful on the cut trees. It was too big to get through the doorway, so they temporarily removed the framing. It made the kitchen area of their living room look almost finished. They planned to purchase some ready-made cabinets and other things, so they could unpack their many boxes under the tarp.
“Now, don’t that look purty,” she drawled, grinning because she knew her English wasn’t posh or proper.
She helped them get started on their pier too. Using their idea of placing large stumps in the holes, they quickly dug right after the tide had receded. “That cement,” she said, making it sound like ‘see ment,’ “oughta hold right well.” They all knew some of it wouldn’t dry before the tide returned and would wash away, but they hoped most of it would harden, so they could use it. Using more boards from the pallets, they quickly constructed sturdy sections while the tide was in, which they carried out to the pilons and placed over them. Bolting everything together, it started to take on a durable and neat appearance. “You better paint this one white too. You got all the townies’ tongues a waggin’ with that there white pier,” she admitted with a laugh.
They painted it white once they were finished, laughing all the while but knowing it protected the neatly sawn wood that would have soon been weather-worn from the elements. It went out farther than the tide receded, but they used longer logs to set on the bed of the cove. They planned to use floats when they had the money to go out even farther. Now, for the first time, their Runabout didn’t need to be drawn up on the sand and was tied tightly to their own sturdy pier.
“We should start on one of them summer cabins,” Grady advised as they collected rocks for the foundation. She was having the time of her life helping her friends.
“We don’t want to use logs for these cabins,” Barbara explained. “We’d rather use planks, which will be thinner.”
“Yeah, but you’re gonna want a good solid foundation,” Grady agreed, pointing out the obvious and then explaining that having a log around the tops of these foundations would look good. Barbara set off to cut down some more trees.
Marion found her there later as she took a break. She was sick of Grady riding them to work so hard and left the children to be entertained by the woman for a while. “Hey, there,” she said, admiring her girlfriend as she chopped down the tree, her muscles rippling under the flannel shirt she was wearing. The sweat was beading on her forehead, and her dark brown hair was curling across it. Marion found her very attractive and the need to touch her just then was irresistible.
Stopping for a moment, her chest heaving from her exertions, Barbara smiled when she saw Marion. Feathers got up from where she was laying out of the way to greet the other woman. Normally, it was hard to pry her away from the sheep, but they were eating in a grove nearby as the women didn’t want them to eat all the grass in the meadow. Sheep would eat the grass right down to the roots if they weren’t careful, or so Grady had explained.
“Hi, there,” she said in return, wiping her brow with the sleeve of her shirt. She began to pull it off. It was getting too hot to wear flannel. She had been working hard chopping down the additional trees Grady suggested. “Playing hooky?” she teased, seeing the blonde.
“Yep, had to get away from collecting rocks for a while,” she answered with a smile that dazzled Barbara. “I wanted to see you for a moment,” she added softly, her meaning clear.
“Oh, yeah?” she asked, as she finished taking off the shirt, revealing a man’s white t-shirt underneath, her bra visible through the fabric. Her muscles bulged along her arms, and they rippled across her back as she bent to retrieve the shirt when it fell to the forest floor.
“Yeah,” Marion repeated as she took advantage of them being alone for a moment to walk confidently into Barbara’s arms.
“Careful, I’m sweaty,” she warned, but she was soon caught up in kissing the blonde, something they didn’t get to do as often as either wished since they were surrounded by children most of the time.
“I don’t care,” Marion murmured against her lips as she held her close and began kissing her ardently.
Barbara couldn’t help but respond as she crushed the smaller blonde against her heated body. Instantly, she was aroused, and her hands wandered over the petite frame of her girlfriend. Many was the time she had become aroused and had thought of this very situation with this woman as she worked hard at chopping and sawing down the trees they needed to build their cabin.
“I need to feel you,” Marion murmured, reaching for Barbara’s belt.
“No, not here,” she protested weakly; however, her words lacked conviction because it had been so long since they were together.
Marion reached for the dungarees once the belt was unbuckled, and the buttons at the front released beneath her nimble fingers. “What do we have here?” she asked as her hand plunged into the warmth, finding instant wet. “Oh, I think someone’s been thinking about me,” Marion murmured against the lips she was avidly kissing, plunging her tongue inside to increase both their ardor.
What else do I have to think about? Barbara thought as she arched back against the tree and into Marion’s hot palm. It had been too long since she’d had release, and it didn’t take long for Marion’s fingers to find her erect clit and the hole that was gushing wetness into her palm. Her fingers pistoned inside and Barbara quickly flung her head back against the tree, trying to muffle her cries of delight at being taken like this by her partner. “Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, my God!”
“That’s it. That’s what I want to hear,” Marion assured her, smiling at her prowess as she got exactly the response she wanted from this woman. She desperately wanted to get naked and crawl against her, rubbing and extracting the same excitement from her own needy body. For now, she was just enjoying making her partner lose control, even if only for this short moment as Marion made Barbara come. She leaned over her partner and pulled her shirt down, the bra following as she bared an erect and very aroused nipple to her lips.
There were unaware another set of eyes was watching them warily. The dog, Feathers never let on that Grady had come up. She was looking for Marion to ask about an outcropping of rocks she had found, and when she couldn’t find her, she decided to look in to see how Barbara was progressing. She had been shocked to see them kissing passionately. She was further shocked when she realized what Marion was doing to the taller woman. A piece of the puzzle slipped into place as she realized what the women were to each other. She’d heard of such women but had never personally known any lesbians. She found herself unable to look away as Marion pumped emotions from the bigger woman and made her come. She found herself strangely aroused by what she was watching and only moved to hide herself farther behind the trees when Barbara turned on Marion and stripped her pants down, burying her face between the blonde’s legs as she boosted her agilely onto the tree she had cut down.
“Careful there, baby,” she warned as her buttocks contacted the harsh wood of the tree. Marion was loving it. Barbara’s agile tongue was cleaning up the mess that had been made by her own arousal. She held onto her partner’s wide shoulder with one hand, the other slipping into her dark brown hair, grasping it hard as she was quickly aroused even more by Barbara’s ministrations. Was that Barbara’s tongue fucking her? The thought of it made her excitement soar. Oh, God, the sensations were sending her over the edge.
Barbara carefully balanced Marion on the wide tree trunk, holding her there where it was easiest to access her. She’d yearned for this intimate taste for so long. She plunged her face in, delighting in the odors that assailed her nostrils, her tongue cleaning up the mess that had been made and then slipping inside her partner. She plunged deep, holding her breath as her nose was covered by the lush folds of Marion’s womanhood. Over and over, she pulled out, so she could take a deep breath, only to plunge in again when she had filled her lungs with oxygen.
Soon, almost too soon, Marion was coming with her hand on Barbara’s head and the other in the brunette’s hair, squeezing painfully.
Barbara nearly stopped as her hair came out by the roots, but she carried on, not caring. She was going to enjoy this pleasure-pain for as long as they could get away with it.
“Stop! Stop!” Marion said quickly, her legs coming together and squeezing painfully on both sides of the brunette’s head. “I think I hear the children,” she warned and released Barbara.
Barbara allowed her to slide down her body and then let her deal with her own clothes as she pulled her pants up from where they had pooled around her ankles. She quickly fastened the buttons to her dungarees and then buckled her belt as Marion pulled her own pants up, an unrepentant grin on her face over their hurried lovemaking.
“You better wash your face,” Marion warned, seeing the moisture of her come all over the tall brunette’s face.
Barbara reached for her canteen and poured water into her hand to splash against her face, rubbing with the same hand repeatedly and then drying it on her shirt. It splashed down the man’s t-shirt she was wearing, which helped cool her perspiration. She adjusted the shirt, making sure her breast was neatly tucked back inside the brassiere, then reached for her cigarette pack and a lighter.
“Oh, my God, you look incredible,” Marion murmured as Barbara lit two cigarettes and handed her one. She looked puzzled that the children hadn’t arrived.
“If you wanted to stop, you could have just said so,” Barbara said low, amused.
“No, I really did hear the children, but it looks like they’ve gone off elsewhere,” she was surprised and not at all disappointed. They were underfoot all hours of the day, and as much as she loved them, they interrupted any time she had with this amazing woman.
Neither of them noticed as Grady too heard the children and the pup coming along looking for the adults. She turned and headed them off, redirecting them to an outcropping of stone, so they could help her gather rocks for the foundation to the next cabin. She had a lot to think about as they gathered rocks. By the time Marion returned carrying rocks, she’d decided she would never give any indication she had stopped searching, and Grady had also decided she would never let on what she now knew.