Eliza's Lighthouse: Book 4 by Serena B. Miller

Author:Serena B. Miller [Miller, Serena B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781940283432
Publisher: L. J. Emory Publishing

Chapter 16

Light keepers are also required to give their attention to the preservation of dikes, fences, landing-places, boat-ways and houses, drains, etc. and to the premises generally in their charge, to the end that they shall at all times, be in good order and condition.

—Instructions & Directions to Light Keepers–1871

Trying to walk on crutches with his leg splinted was miserable, but it beat constantly sitting or lying. Isaac kept practicing until he was finally able to hobble out the back door to the outhouse behind the woodshed.

Fortunately, although the weather was still cold, it wasn’t quite as frigid as it had been. He was able to go out and come back without getting frostbite, even moving at a snail’s pace.

As the days passed, Isaac spent a great deal of time sitting with his bad leg supported by the stool. As he waited to heal—and he wasn’t healing nearly as quickly as he had hoped—he got to watch and participate in the rhythm of Eliza’s days. It was interesting to see how her household worked.

On the first Monday after Eliza saved his life, he watched with interest as she set out Zachary’s lessons for him to do as soon as he had finished breakfast. While Zachary worked on his schoolwork, she washed the breakfast dishes, tidied the kitchen, and began the tedious job of carrying in snow to melt for water. It took many buckets of snow to make a few inches of water, but Eliza was a determined woman. She kept at it, bringing in bucket after bucket. Then after heating the water near to boiling, she washed all the washcloths, towels, and kitchen linens in the steaming water before starting in on their dirty clothing.

He could tell it was arduous work, scrubbing laundry on a metal washboard, but Eliza paused in her task only long enough to brush an errant lock of hair away from her face from time to time.

There was a clothesline that had been strung in the woodshed in order to break the viciousness of the wind whenever she was hanging laundry. She made several trips out there until every piece of laundry was finished and hanging to dry.

After that was finished, she put the tea kettle on to boil. She made cups of tea for all three of them, but sat hers on the table beside her small rocking chair. Then she scrubbed the kitchen floor with the leftover laundry water while her tea cooled.

While she rested, and while the kitchen floor dried, she drank her cup of now-tepid tea while looking over Zachary’s morning lessons. Isaac noticed her hands were red and chapped from the morning’s work, but she did not complain. Instead she focused on her son’s progress.

“Your arithmetic is improving,” she said.

In the afternoon, she brought in the laundry that she had hung in the woodshed. It had frozen into slabs. The freeze-drying took most, but not all of the moisture out. The heat from the stove and fireplace finished the job after she draped clothing on every piece of furniture she owned that wasn’t occupied.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.