before it was dark. There was no shortage of dry wood on the ground and soon
the pit was filled with kindling, with a tepee of thicker branches rising over it.
She’d also heaped piles of kindling and branches behind the cabin, enough to last for a few days. She’d have to get Mourning to build something like a spit over the fire pit, so she could cook outside.
She lifted her arms over her head and stretched. Lord, wasn’t that enough for
the first day? But she couldn’t lay down to rest while Mourning was out there swinging his axe. She hauled more water and then gathered their dirty traveling
clothes and her chemise into the washtub and carried it down to the river. She was on her way back up the hill for laundry soap and a bucket to use to fill the
tub when the woods grew silent. Hallelujah. Please God, let him have declared
the work day over.
She had never done laundry and stared at the tub for a few minutes. She knew
boiling water was supposed to be involved, but not today. For today “cleaner than they were before” was going to have to do.
Suddenly faint-headed, she knelt on one of the flat rocks and bent over to
stick her head in the river. Then she sat back on her heels and asked herself how
she was feeling. Was she glad they had come? Homesick? Optimistic? Excited?
Scared? She wasn’t aware of any strong emotion. Only two things occupied her
mind: how much she wanted to lie down and what she wouldn’t give for a plate
of Mabel’s fried chicken.
She sighed and began dipping the hard bar of laundry soap into the river and scrubbing it against a white rock. The suds that finally appeared burned her scratches and broken blisters and brought tears to her eyes. She held each
garment in the river, letting the current flow through it, before scrubbing it with
the soap and plunging it into the tub. Then she left everything to soak and trudged back up the hill to pick out two trees to tie a clothesline between.
A few minutes later Mourning drove up the hill. Long, thin, naked-looking
tree trunks rested across the back of the wagon, sticking out on both sides. She
had finished tying her line, but hadn’t the strength to nod or smile in his direction, let alone raise a hand to wave.
Chapter Sixteen
“You gonna help me unload, Miz Pioneer Lady?” Mourning asked. “I get the
trees, you get the bark. Spread it out to dry over there on that grass. Get all them
books a yours, anything heavy enough to flatten ’em out.”
He climbed down, removed his hat, and studied the sky. “They be clouds
startin’ to stir up over there, but I don’t think we gonna get rain tonight.”
He pulled one of the thin tree trunks from the wagon, strode over to lean it against the cabin, and then stood watching Olivia gather up some of the pieces of
bark. Shaking his head, he went to the barn and came back carrying another
floppy felt hat, which he plopped on Olivia’s head.
“You can’t work in the sun without no hat. Make yourself sick. And black as
a nigger.”
They worked in silence, until he emitted a loud “Arggh” as he hoisted down
one of five fat stumps, each about two feet long, with flat tops and bottoms.
“These be our chairs.” He patted it. “But make sure you watch out for splinters.”
He grinned and wiggled his behind.
He turned the log on its side and rolled it into the cabin, then did the same with the second one. The next two he placed outside, on opposite sides of the fire pit. He chopped at the earth with his hatchet and worked the “chairs” into the
ground until they no longer wobbled.
Then he rolled the last and largest of the logs off the back of the wagon and
