Chapter Six

 

After removing the supper dishes from the table, I placed a pile of smaller plates beside Pa, moved the pies in front of him, and sat back down to wait for dessert. I always got last choice and ended up with whatever no one else wanted, the smallest piece.

“What kind of pie would you like, Abigail?” he asked.

Everyone's jaws dropped open. I thought I heard a gigantic thud as my brothers' chins hit the table.

“Peach,” I said. “Thank you, Pa.”

He cut me a huge slice of pie and set it on a plate. Pa passed the pie to Adam, who leaned past Peter and set the plate in front of me. It was almost too much to bear, but I waited until everyone else had their dessert before digging my fork into the peaches. A piece of pie had never tasted so good, not even when I had to do all the supper dishes while Ma took Peter and Paul to the barn to do their chores.

When I finished, I sat on a chair in the parlor and worked on a doily, my newest idle time activity, as Ma had called it. She had handed me a crochet hook and announced last month I had to start helping her with the pretties she kept in the house, since I was now old enough to learn how to do it. My crocheting never looked as nice as hers, and I had to concentrate as I wove the hook in and out of the thin yarn. Hopefully, this doily would have an oil lamp on top of it, so no one would ever see all the mistakes I'd made.

Pa sat across from me and read from the Bible. Hearing him telling the story of the fishes and the loaves helped me focus.

Mark balanced a thick pad of paper against his knees from his position on the floor. Wrinkles appeared in his forehead as he sketched. I stopped working to look at him.

“Don't move,” he said.

“Huh?”

He showed me his latest drawing. Mark was very good at sketching our lives. Right about now, I wanted to burn every picture he had ever done. This one showed me with my tongue peeking from between my lips as I tried to shove the hook into the doily.

“Do it again.” He grinned. “I like how you try to do girl stuff.”

I almost threw my crocheting at him, but Ma walked into the parlor with Adam and Bart at that moment. She picked up her knitting and started on a sock hanging from the needles. She was so good she made a new pair for all the men every two weeks.

I wish I were as good as Ma. She makes it look so easy.

Adam and Bart crouched in a corner and pulled out their knives. After selecting thin pieces of wood from the container near the stove, they whittled until shapes of a star and a bell became recognizable. They always started early making the ornaments we hung off the fireplace mantle since Christmas trees were as rare as hen's teeth in the desert.

The sound of a harmonica on the front porch made me smile. Charles played right before we went to bed, to calm the animals.

“No smiling,” Mark said. “I'm not done.”

I looked down at my crocheting, which wiped the smile right off my face, and went back to work. He grunted, and I figured I had made him happy but didn't dare look up, even when the door thudded against the wall.

“Don't move,” he said.

While I wanted to find out what new excitement had come into our lives, I kept on crocheting.

“We found something the runt will like,” Peter hollered.

“Here it is,” Paul shouted.

Charles stopped playing his harmonica. Adam and Bart's knives clattered against the floor. Ma gasped. Tiny, needle-like claws climbed my legs, piercing my skin through the stockings. Shrieking, I jumped to my feet and flapped my skirt. Those claws skidded downward and then began climbing again. One hand on my shoulder to keep me from bouncing around, Ma reached under my dress and pulled out a frightened kitten.

We had what seemed like dozens of cats in the barn. They loved the sweet smelling hay and begged for a squirt of milk when we took care of the cows. This one had mottled black, white, and gold fluffed up fur. His poor body trembled as he meowed pitifully.

“You two get in the bunkhouse now,” Pa said in the angriest voice I'd ever heard. “How is Abigail, Louisa?”

I was only Abby whenever Ma wasn't around to object. She believed parents gave a good Christian name to a child for a reason and objected to us shortening ours. She turned to Pa, and I took the cat from her, stroking the animal until it calmed down and purred.

“I'll let you know as soon as I clean up her legs.” She headed for the kitchen. “Abigail, get ready for bed.”

Still holding the kitten, I walked into the hallway. The desire to beg my parents to let me keep it raced through me. I loved just about any kind of animal. Charles looked at my face and shook his head.

“Sorry, Abby,” he said. “I know you want to keep the kitten, but you know the rules.”

Rules made my life miserable. Everything I loved was against them.

“I know.” I handed him the bundle of purring fur, went into my bedroom, and changed into my nightgown.

Ma came in and checked my legs. Angry, red scratches up the right one led to my knee, and they hurt a lot. She cleaned the open wounds with carbolic while I bit my lip to keep from yelling.

“That should keep those scratches from getting infected.” She went out and closed the door.

A bit of warmth squirmed through me. Ma never comforted my brothers after tending their injuries. I smiled and began to think about how to handle training the horses, but my pleasant interlude ended when Paul and Peter squalled from the bunkhouse. I listened as the others said goodnight, not one bit tired.

After the house quieted, I lay awake. Things had looked so good when the man from The Pony Express asked us to provide mustangs. What would we do now?