Violet Vanquishes a Villain by M. Louisa Locke

Author:M. Louisa Locke [Locke, M. Louisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: M. Louisa Locke

Annie sat in the dark on the front porch, waiting for her husband to escort her up to the house on the hill. The warmth of the day was bleeding off slowly, a crescent moon hanging over the line of mountains you could see across the valley to the west. Nate and his brother and father were in the barn discussing a stallion’s split hoof, and her mother-in-law had already retired. Violet was in the parlor reading a letter from her own mother that one of the ranch hands brought up to the house after dinner, having been to town this afternoon so he could pick up the mail.

It had been another long but pleasant day. But she was seriously short of sleep. She and Nate didn’t get back to the ranch until about eleven-thirty last night…and then…you could say that the entertainment portion of the evening hadn’t ended with the theater. Annie smiled at the memories. But she’d forgotten how cocks crowed and milk cows started lowing as soon as the sun rose in the country—which was just after five.

After breakfast—she’d paid very strict attention to how Nate liked his eggs and bacon so she could inform Beatrice––she and Nate’s mother went out to work in the garden again, before it got too hot, while Violet tended her son.

It took all of Annie’s willpower not to mention how poorly Violet looked at breakfast—especially when she saw Abigail’s look of concern when the young woman took her barely touched plate to the sink. But she feared if Nate’s mother even alluded to Violet’s obvious morning sickness, Annie wouldn’t be able honor her promise not to share the young woman’s secret. What she had resolved was to take over as many of her sister-in-law’s chores as possible today to give her a bit of a break.

Consequently, she’d spent most of this day helping Abigail. She did the dishes after each meal, helped her mother-in-law beat the carpets from the parlor, and mopped the kitchen floor. She’d even volunteered this afternoon to clean the kerosene lamps…a job she’d only done once before in her life and had hated. But at least it gave her an excuse to take a cold bath and change for dinner.

Despite the fact that she had over-worked a whole new set of muscles, the time spent with Nate’s mother had been wonderful. They’d discussed literature—Abigail Dawson had attended one of the first Ladies Academies in Ohio before the war––and Laura’s printing job, and Annie talked about how excited her servants and good friends, Beatrice and Kathleen, were about getting Nate in their hands in order to “fatten him up” and refurbish his clothes. Abigail had laughed heartily at Annie’s retelling of the very negative things these two women had to say about the cook and laundress at Nate’s old boardinghouse.

The porch screen door suddenly slammed open, interrupting these memories, and Violet came hurriedly out, throwing herself into the old wooden rocker, where she put her head in her hands.

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