Lauralee by Linda Lael Miller

Author:Linda Lael Miller [Miller, Linda Lael]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 1990-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The sky was a brassy, glaring blue. After emptying a bucket of creek water at the base of yet another young apple tree, Lauralee offered a silent prayer for rain. Failing that, might she just have the strength and patience to go on carrying water from the stream to the orchard?

The buckets were heavy and their narrow handles seemed to cut into Lauralee’s fingers. The small of her back ached and she longed to collapse somewhere and sleep, but it was still early afternoon and there were hours of this drudgery ahead.

Lauralee was used to hard work, of course, but she was worried about Kate, who had insisted on helping. It would have been better for her to start with easier tasks, such as separating the milk from the cream, churning the cream to butter, pressing the butter into the special wooden molds that made it attractive enough to bring a good price from the owner of the general store in town. But Kate, raised to be a lady, had wanted instead to do “real farm work.”

She was doing that now, and Lauralee had to admire the way she struggled back and forth from the creek, lugging the heavy buckets, never complaining.

Of course, Joe Little Eagle should have been there in her place, but he had not returned from town yet. That was strange all in itself, for he always came back as soon as he’d delivered the dairy goods to Mr. Wallerman at the mercantile. By now, he should have been in the orchards.

“If it doesn’t rain,” Kate asked bravely as she and Lauralee started back toward the creek with their buckets, “will we have to keep this up all summer?”

Lauralee hadn’t the heart to answer honestly, so she pretended not to hear the question. The younger trees were not as strong as the older ones, which grew in the moist ground along the creek; their leaves were limp and withering, and even though the two women had worked since breakfast, taking only a short time out to eat sandwiches brought by Clarie, fully half of the newer orchard still needed to be watered.

They reached the creek and bent to fill their buckets; the hot sun pounded at the back of Lauralee’s neck and burned through the fabric of her oldest work clothes to draw sticky sweat from her flesh. And if she felt this way, all achy and raw, what must the uninitiated Kate be feeling?

“Lord in heaven,” Lauralee muttered as they straightened, ready to make the arduous return journey to the thirsty trees. “Kate McCallum, you are as gray as a dirty sheet! You go back to the house and rest this minute.”

Kate’s chin jutted out, but her shoulders were sagging under the weight of the two brimming pails she carried. No doubt her fingers felt as though they had been severed from her hands. “I won’t,” she said stubbornly. “Not unless you go with me.”

Lauralee considered the situation. She was going to be carrying water

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