Marion woke up the next morning to the smell of frying flapjacks. In the faint dawn light coming through the window, she saw Melody standing at the stove with a spatula in her hand. Maggie slumbered under her quilt in the next bed.
After she rose and dressed herself, Marion looked outside. The yard, the corral, and the area surrounding the cabin stood still and quiet except for the morning chorus of birds in the tree canopy. The same thick crust of frost covered everything. Ice crystals sparked on the pine needles. Only the blaze of the fire in the stove made the cabin comfortable.
Marion cocked her head and listened.
“Are the boys gone already?” she asked Melody.
Melody nodded and flipped one of the flapjacks over on the skillet. A groan issued from Maggie’s bed. Marion and Melody chuckled at her.
“I wonder if they’ll be back in time for supper tonight,” Marion pondered. “I wonder if they’ll be back tonight at all. I wish they’d said something to us about it before they left.”
While Melody made breakfast, Marion investigated the cabin in more detail. She examined the bedding on the beds. Even with two bodies to every bed, they would need more blankets and more quilts. The three women could start collecting scraps for quilting from the clothes they made. Then she remembered Paul’s comment about using animal skins as bedding. A fur or two over the top of each bed would provide more than enough insulation.
Marion strolled out to the store shed and found a supply of woolen Army blankets. If they used skins for bedding, she could hang some of these up for a changing closet. She didn’t fancy the idea of changing her clothes in front of…well, in front of whichever two brothers she didn’t marry.
She knew Maggie and Melody wouldn’t fancy it, either. And they couldn’t go pulling blankets off their beds morning and evening to rig up a closet every time. They would have to devise a permanent one until the brothers completed the construction of their bedrooms.
Also in the store shed she discovered the broom and found it wanting in the extreme. She brought it into the light of day to examine it, only to decide they needed a new one. She could make one out of willow. Plenty of it grew along the creek bed behind the house. After she made a new one, she would burn this one.
In the meantime, she took it back inside and swept out the house. The noise finally roused Maggie from her slumber, but she grumbled as she changed out of her night dress into her daytime work dress.
“How long have you two been up?” she asked. Then, without waiting for a reply, she began stamping around the room, glaring at everything. “They haven’t even got a looking glass. How am I supposed to straighten my hair without a looking glass? And this business about going outside to visit the outhouse. I don’t know how I’m ever going to get used to it.”
Marion snorted. “You’ll get used to it. And no one’s looking at your hair. Just fix it up as best you can and get on with the rest of your life.”
“Paul’s looking at it,” Maggie replied. “How am I supposed to win his heart with my hair in a mess?”
“If you manage to win his heart,” Marion answered, “it won’t be because your hair is arranged perfectly. You’ll have to come up with something more appealing to him than that.”
“Like what?” Maggie asked. “What would appeal to him?”
“I don’t know,” Marion replied, “but I honestly don’t think he’s taken the slightest notice of anybody’s hair.”
Maggie stroked her chin. “I think you’re right. I’ll have to consider the problem. I’ve got my work cut out for me there.”
“You’ve got a lot more work than that cut out for you,” Marion shot back. “Stop messing with your hair and make your bed. We have a lot of work to do to set this place to rights. You can tell these men have been living without a woman for a long time.”
A merry laugh tinkled across the room, and both Marion and Maggie spun around to see Melody enjoying their exchange.
Marion cast another critical glance around the room. “I’ll tell you one thing I’m going to do today. I don’t know about you girls, but I’m going to launder the bedding on that bed.” She curled her lip in scorn toward the bed she slept in the night before. “I don’t think the quilts and blankets have been washed in decades.”
The others laughed. Maggie wrinkled her nose. “Mine smells like mice.”
“Then again,” Marion remarked, “we might have to make up a batch of soap before we do that. I haven’t seen a bar of soap anywhere in this entire homestead.”
Maggie’s eyes flew open. “How will we do that?”
“Easy,” Marion replied. “There’s tallow in the shed, and a stove full of ash in the house. I’ll ask Parker to make us up a trough to leach the lye from the ash.”
“But that could take days,” Maggie pointed out. “Maybe even weeks.”
“We’ll make a small batch first,” Marion told her. “We’ll leach it on the stove top with boiling water. That will tide us over until we can collect a good supply of ash.” She pretended to look around the homestead. “I haven’t seen anywhere these boys collect their stove ash. We’ll get a barrel started and collect it over the winter. Then we’ll have plenty of ash come the spring to make a year’s supply of soap.”
“It sounds complicated,” Maggie remarked.
“No, it’s simple,” Marion answered. “Just ask Melody. I’m sure she’s made soap before.”
Maggie narrowed her eyes at the back of Melody’s head.
Marion held up the jacket of her travelling costume and brushed it with her hand. “I might give this a wash, too. It’s had a deuce of a time since I left Ohio. I’ll probably be getting married in it.”
Maggie cocked her head to one side. “You’re not really going to get married in that old thing, are you?”
“Why?” Marion asked. “What’s wrong with it?”
Maggie sniffed in the direction of the travelling costume. “It’s just so…well, it’s not the kind of thing a woman should get married in. It’s an ordinary traveling suit. It’s not even really a dress, when you think about it.”
Marion shrugged and lowered her eyes. “You might be right. But it’s all I have. I’ll have to make it do for any special occasions we may have up here.”
Maggie sat on the end of her bed and raised the lid of her trunk. “I’ve got lots of nice dresses in here for all kinds of occasions. Maybe you could wear one of mine.”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” Marion replied.
“Sure, you could. Take a look at this one.” One by one, Maggie lifted from her trunk the most beautiful dresses Marion had ever seen. They ranged in color from black velvet to white summer cotton. Maggie laid them out on her bed.
Maggie held up a woolen suit with a hound’s tooth pattern in white and powder blue. “This one is good for weddings and church picnics. I’m not likely to attend any of those up here, except maybe your wedding and mine and Melody’s. It’ll probably sit in my trunk for the rest of my life. You could borrow it. No!”
Maggie threw the suit down in a heap on the bed and pounced on the next garment in the trunk. “This is the one!” She held up a full-length chiffon gown of palest pink, trimmed with fuchsia ribbon bows and lavender lace. “There’s even a bonnet to match. I’m sure Prescott will love it.”
Marion gasped when she saw the gown. “I couldn’t wear that!” She should have looked away from it, but she couldn’t. It was the most extravagant garment she ever laid eyes on. She didn’t tell Maggie so, but she couldn’t have compelled herself, not even to please Prescott, to appear in public wearing such a dress.
“You have to wear it,” Maggie told her. “You’ve gone out of your way to take me under your wing. I’m wearing one of your dresses right now. I’m grateful to you for everything you’ve done for me since we got off the coach. Let me do this little thing for you in exchange.”
Maggie hung the dress from the rafter by Marion’s bed. “There. Now you can look at it and think about your wedding.” She dusted off her hands and sighed with satisfaction. “It’s perfect for you.”
“I can’t wear that,” Marion almost whispered. She hoped Maggie wouldn’t understand how literally she meant it.
Maggie faced her and took her hand. “This is one day out of your whole life. No one will see you in it except us and the preacher. When you leave the altar, you can take it off, put it in a trunk, and never look at it again. You can put the memory of yourself wearing it right out of your mind.”
Marion pressed her fingers, but she looked away to hide the tears springing up in her eyes. “How ‘bout I put the idea right out of my mind now?”
Maggie smiled at her. “This is the most important day of your whole life. You should wear something other than your travelling costume if you can. I would be honored for you to wear this dress.”
“I’d rather wear the other one,” Marion told her.
“All right,” Maggie replied. “Wear whichever one you want. I have a few others here that would be appropriate, too. There’s my black velvet dress, and my green town suit. Either would look better than your old travelling costume.”
Marion glanced toward Maggie’s trunk and looked away.
Maggie pulled Marion down into a chair and sat next to her. She clasped her hand and leaned toward her. “Please let me do this for you. I have some jewelry you could wear, too. You’ve become like an older sister to me in everything else. Let me be a sister to you in this. Let me take you under my wing and help you get ready for your wedding. It’s the least I can do to repay you for everything you’ve done for me.”
Marion wiped her eyes. “All right. Just put that thing away.” She nodded toward the dress. “I won’t be able to sleep with it hanging there.”
Maggie squeezed her hand one last time and folded the pink gown back into her trunk. “I’ll put the hound’s tooth suit and the green town suit on the top. When we get ready to leave for Boise, you can decide which one you want to take with you.”
Marion went to the cabin door and gazed out at the sunshine breaking through the trees. The rays sparkled on the ice crystals on the tree branches, and the melting frost dripped from the eaves of the roof.
Behind her, Melody placed a stack of flapjacks on the table.
Marion blinked back her tears and covered her face with a smile. She turned around to face Melody and Maggie. “Come on, you girls. Let’s eat breakfast and get to work.”
Marion and Melody spent the day organizing the cabin, chopping wood, and cleaning. As it turned out, Marion’s question about the brothers coming home for supper proved moot, because shortly after noon, Parker and Prescott rode up to the cabin, each with a stag slung behind their saddle. Paul walked behind them, leading his own horse with two more deer on its back.
Marion spotted them coming from the cabin door and bustled out to meet them. Parker grinned at her. “We had good luck this morning. Now we’ve got to get to work skinning them and salting them down before dark.”
“Let me help you,” Marion offered.
Parker dismounted and tied his horse to the rail of the corral. “That would be great. We’ll each do one carcass. You can do the fourth.”
Marion beamed at him. “I’ll get the knife from the house.”
“No, Marion,” Prescott objected. “This is men’s work. We’ll do it. You can help us clean up afterwards.”
“Don’t be silly, Prescott,” Marion replied. “There’s too much work here for three people, and I can dress out a deer as well as any of you. We’ve got to get these deer put up before dark, and many hands make light work.”
“Let her help, Prescott,” Parker interjected. “We can use all the help we can get.”
“Shut your trap!” Prescott barked to his brother. “I don’t want you doing this, Marion. If you’re gonna be my wife, you have to listen me and do as I say. You’re not doing this. It isn’t ladylike.”
“I told you before, Prescott,” Marion replied as calmly as she could, “I’m not a lady and I don’t intend to make myself into one. I can dress out a deer, and I’m going to do it. Now stop arguing. We’re wasting daylight. If you’ll just string up the deer for me, I’ll get to work. Melody can help me. I’m sure she knows how to do it, too.”
“I won’t string it up,” Prescott shot back. “I’m telling you. You aren’t going to do this. That’s my last word on the subject.”
Marion shook her head and smiled a little sadly at him. “I’m sorry, Prescott,” she declared. “If I’m going to live here, then I’m going to eat this deer and this is my business as much as anyone else’s. I’m doing it.”
“You won’t be able to do it if the deer isn’t strung up,” he sneered.
“Paul and Parker can string it up for me,” Marion replied. “I’m sure they won’t object to me helping out.”
Parker butted in. “What’s so wrong with her helping? Let her do it if she wants to. We can use the extra help.”
“No, Marion,” Prescott ordered. “I forbid you to do this. Leave it to us.”
“You can’t forbid me,” Marion returned. “We aren’t married yet. You aren’t my husband, and if I’m going to live here, I’m doing it.”
“We’re as good as married,” Prescott stated. “If you’re going to be my wife, you can’t disobey me like this.”
Marion paused before making her next statement. The weight of it almost crushed her, but in the end the words came out of her mouth of their own accord. “Then maybe I shouldn’t be your wife. If you want a wife who’s going to sit on her hands and be treated like a lady while you do all the work, I think you better marry Maggie, because that’s just not me.”
She turned on her heel and walked back to the house. Maggie and Melody watched the argument from the doorway. Marion shouldered her way past them into the house, picked up the knife from the chopping board, and faced her fellow brides.
“Come with me, you two,” she ordered.”We’ve got work to do.”
“I’m not cutting up a dead animal,” Maggie declared.
“You don’t have to cut it up,” Marion replied. “But if you want to eat this winter, you’re going to help us. You can bring buckets of water from the creek, and you can keep the fire going and heat water on the stove for washing up. You’re not going to stand idle while the rest of us work, no matter what Prescott says.”
Marion took the knife in one hand, grabbed up the hatchet from the wood pile, and strode down to the edge of the trees behind the barn, where Paul and Parker hung the deer by their legs from the branches.
Marion fell to work peeling the skin off her deer. As she suspected she would, Melody joined her, cutting the animal’s head off. Marion became so engrossed in her work she only noticed Melody’s absence when Maggie brought her a bucket of water.
“Where’s Melody?” she asked.
“She’s in the house,” Maggie told her.
“What’s she doing?” Marion asked.
“She skinned the head of that deer,” Maggie informed her. “Now she’s cooking it on the stove. I don’t know what she’s going to do with it. It looks positively evil, floating in a pot of water like that.”
A loud guffaw from behind them made them turn around to see Paul and Parker listening to their conversation.
Marion chuckled. “She’s a little treasure, that girl. She’s cooking it for our supper tonight.”
Maggie’s mouth dropped open. “But we can’t eat that! She cut off the ears and nose and cleaned its teeth. Then she cracked open its skull with the ax and took out its brains. She cut out its tongue and poked out its eyeballs. Then she tossed the whole mess into the pot of boiling water. I thought she must be some kind of wicked witch, brewing up a potion to poison us all.”
“She’s making head cheese,” Marion told her. “It’s good. You should try it.”
Just then, Melody strolled down the slope toward them. She smiled cordially at the four people staring at her. Then, without a care in the world, she bent down to wash the blood off her knife in the bucket at Marion’s feet.
Maggie scowled. “I’m not eating it,” she grumbled.
“You don’t have to eat eyes and tongues and brains, if you don’t want to,” Marion assured her. “There’s plenty of meat on a head, and I’m sure Melody will add greens and salt and pepper and maybe even some dumplings. Won’t you, Melody?”
Melody smiled at Maggie.
“Take my word for it, Maggie,” Marion continued. “Head cheese is delicious. I’ll be happy with the tongue and brains and eyes, if you don’t want them.”
“How can I take the word of a person who eats rats?” Maggie muttered. She walked away without waiting for an answer.
Parker laughed out loud, but Paul listened seriously to the exchange before going back to his own work.
The whole group worked continuously throughout the rest of the day. They tacked out the four skins on the wall of the barn to dry. They salvaged as much of the entrails as they could before discarding the remainder a safe distance from the house. They rendered the fat and poured it into ceramic crocks in the store shed. They hung the carcasses to age and salted down the three remaining heads.
“We’re going to be eating a lot of head cheese this winter,” Parker told Maggie.
By the end of the day, they were all grateful to Melody for making supper. As Marion predicted, even Maggie found something to eat in the seething pot and liked it.