Patience by Lori Copeland

Author:Lori Copeland
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Christian, Fiction, Romance, FICTION / Christian / Romance, Western, Historical, FICTION / Religious
Publisher: Tyndale House. Wheaton, IL
Published: 2004-07-15T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Patience lingered in the door of the dugout and watched the activity going on at the mine. Wilson spent most of his afternoons hanging around in the way, and even though she scolded him and so did Jay, he was so fascinated with the work and with Jay he couldn’t stay away. His assortment of animals was growing too. Where on earth did the boy find all of his pets and how did he catch them?

She hadn’t been back to Fiddle Creek lately. Seemed as if she had so much to do here, and like Wilson, she didn’t want to be away for very long. She thought of Mary, Lily, and Harper and felt guilty. She should make a greater effort to send word to them, maybe find someone going to Denver City who could carry a message, but it seemed that the longer she stayed away, the more remote her old life became. Right now, she was content to see Jay every day, cook for him and for Wilson, and look forward to the times they spent together talking. They were sort of like a family—a real family, something she knew little about.

She knew her way of thinking was dangerous. Jay Longer wasn’t interested in her that way. He was just being friendly, and as he had made clear, he was only working the mine because he needed money. Her needs were secondary. She had learned a lot about mining since they had started working the Mule Head. Of course there was a lot she didn’t know, but she was gaining in knowledge every day.

Jay said the Mule Head was a lode mine. Once the diggings were brought out, they were scooped into long flumes and sent to the bottom of the mountain. There they were washed in sluice boxes—long troughs, sometimes in several sections, from fifty to one hundred feet long, designed so water could run through them. Riffle boxes, which had false bottoms with cleats to arrest the flow of water and mud, were used to let the gold and heavier particles sink into the shallow boxes. Most of the equipment was in good condition from the old prospector’s time, and Jay had repaired the rest.

It was excruciating, backbreaking work, but Moses Malone and her crew didn’t seem hindered by their gender. Two of the women stood beside the sluice boxes with hoes and shovels, keeping the dirt stirred up. The residue washed down the trough. Two more women shoveled in material at the head of the sluice, while yet another pair hauled dirt from the mine in wheelbarrows.

Patience ceased trying to help; she only got in the way. But she could cook, toting large pails of food and piping hot loaves of fresh-baked bread to the mine daily. To vary the menu, she fried pans of rice with tomatoes, onions, and chili powder; baked pans of beans flavored with salt pork and thick, rich molasses; made crusty brown peach pies from canned peaches, and piping hot skillets of cinnamon-fried apples.

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