All That Makes Life Bright by Josi S. Kilpack

Author:Josi S. Kilpack
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shadow Mountain Publishing
Published: 2017-07-19T16:00:00+00:00

For the next several days, Hattie continued to focus on specific tasks and ignore other ones. They had bread and butter for dinner on the day she cleaned the kitchen. The next day she spilled some dried onions on the kitchen floor—­accidentally, of course. But since Hattie hadn’t chosen sweeping to be one of her tasks that day, the vegetables crunched underfoot. The bean soup she’d made had only been passable despite her dedication to it; they both ate extra griddle cakes to compensate. Hattie played with the girls every day, enjoyed tea with Mrs. Allen one day and with Mary Dutton the next. On Monday she ignored nearly everything and took the girls to see Catharine and Granny Beecher. She needed a break.

The first time Hattie had called her new stepmother “Granny Beecher,” the woman had made a sour expression, which made it impossible for Harriet not to make sure the name stuck. The woman, to her credit, had grown into it, and while she and Hattie had little love for one another, they both doted on the Beecher granddaughters and could come together on neutral ground.

Lunch had been set out at the Beecher house—chicken sandwiches and roasted potatoes—when they arrived, and Hattie enjoyed a nice meal before the party moved into the parlor.

“Thank you for watching the girls,” Hattie said once the girls were settled in Catharine and Granny Beecher’s respective laps. “I do appreciate the chance to prepare for the Semi-Colon Club meeting.”

“Certainly,” Catharine said, holding a string of wooden beads just out of Eliza’s reach.

Hattie made her way into Father’s study. Meetings for the Semi-Colon Club had been sparse the last year, due to Calvin’s European trip, the riots which divided some of the members, and now the ongoing financial troubles that were affecting several members. Uncle Samuel Foote, who had hosted the club for years, had been forced to sell his mansion, which had so easily accommodated the group. No one had said as much, but tonight might be the last meeting for the literary group.

Hattie settled at the desk, cut a blank piece of paper from her father’s stores, and smoothed it across the desktop. She’d had flits of thoughts and ideas the last few weeks as she’d tried to prepare for the meeting, but no time to make notes or explore the thoughts to see if they would support a narrative. Writing required a different focus from reading, which was easier to stop and start. It seemed these days she struggled to maintain her focus for either activity.

She often used humor for her Club writings, but the current tension of her home life made the idea feel out of place. Perhaps, instead, she could write an insightful piece about how living beyond one’s means was the culprit of the current financial climate. But it would be rubbing salt on a wound for Uncle Samuel, not to mention the other members who had been affected.

Though Hattie disliked Calvin’s constant penny-­pinching, she could concede that

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