The seed money that John supplied was all Paul and Ana needed to thrive. In the five years following that eventful day and evening, what John envisioned did indeed come to pass, and this year, 1864, was turning out to be another good one. The wagon trains continued to lumber off the plains south of town to form huge campsites. They would stay for three to five days to refresh and tend their stock, repair wagons, and buy things they’d discovered they couldn’t do without on the hard trail west. And they bought chickens: live chickens, dressed chickens, and even fully prepared, ready-to-eat, let’s-celebrate-Molly’s-birthday chickens.
And as Ana had thought, the feathers were sold too, as pillows and wagon seats, thin mattresses and chair cushions. When the wagons were not in town, unusual during the four-month rush, Ana sold to the town folks every egg the chickens laid. Though dogged hard work, all the children pitched in, and among them, they managed to get it done, the family back on an even keel.
Ana stood packing egg baskets one afternoon when she felt the tremor of a large wagon pulling up beside the house. She went out the open door and walked around the side to find a wagon, loaded with sawn lumber, tarpaper rolls and nail kegs. Up by the driver sat Paul, a fox-sly grin on his face. “Got this load of boards, lady. Could you make use of it?” He laughed as he climbed down the wheel.
“What on earth are you going to do with all that wood? From the looks of it, you’ve got enough to build another three coops, which we don’t need right now.”
“Got something else in mind. Something I’ve wanted to do for years. We’re going to finish the inside of the house.”
For years she’d suffered dirt in everything: in the beds, in the food, in their hair—dirt everywhere. The mud and straw-plastered walls held up for about a year, but one winter-spring thaw, and the cracks appeared, then pieces fell out, and the falling dirt was back; a battle lost from the start. She’d been in the Pierson soddy, just a half mile down the road. Mrs. Pierson had papered over the plaster, an expensive solution, but still short term—the dirt held at bay for an extra year or so. But wood-paneled walls? And most glorious of all, a wood floor? She could hardly believe it. Then Paul said that the wood could be reused when they built a real house. She didn’t dare to dream that wildly.
Over the course of the next two weeks, Ana would occasionally stop what she was doing and watch her man work. Using two different wooden planes, he cut a tongue on one side of the long boards, and a matching groove on the other. She enjoyed looking at his broad powerful back and the short, hard muscles that rippled in his arms and chest as he pushed the plane through the wood. And though he knew she watched, she could not still the sensuous thrill of excitement when he’d give his biceps an extra tweak at the end of a stroke.
The new house felt almost luxurious. She scrubbed the floor with lye and soap to bleach it a bit. New shelves on the wall gave her the much-needed room for the things that until then had been left on the dirt floor. But most wonderful of all, Paul built two wooden partitions, one with a door, to create a separate bedroom for them. Even in Spartan conditions, a person needed some privacy, and Ana had missed that the most.