Mail Order Marion (Chapman Mail Order Brides by Kate Whitsby

Author:Kate Whitsby
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mail order bride old west romance, mail order bride western romance, mail order bride romance story, mail order brides of the old west, mail order brides western romance
Publisher: Gold Crown

Chapter Nine

Marion woke up the next morning to the smell of frying flapjacks. In the faint dawn light coming through the window, she saw Melody standing at the stove with a spatula in her hand. Maggie slumbered under her quilt in the next bed.

After she rose and dressed herself, Marion looked outside. The yard, the corral, and the area surrounding the cabin stood still and quiet except for the morning chorus of birds in the tree canopy. The same thick crust of frost covered everything. Ice crystals sparked on the pine needles. Only the blaze of the fire in the stove made the cabin comfortable.

Marion cocked her head and listened.

“Are the boys gone already?” she asked Melody.

Melody nodded and flipped one of the flapjacks over on the skillet. A groan issued from Maggie’s bed. Marion and Melody chuckled at her.

“I wonder if they’ll be back in time for supper tonight,” Marion pondered. “I wonder if they’ll be back tonight at all. I wish they’d said something to us about it before they left.”

While Melody made breakfast, Marion investigated the cabin in more detail. She examined the bedding on the beds. Even with two bodies to every bed, they would need more blankets and more quilts. The three women could start collecting scraps for quilting from the clothes they made. Then she remembered Paul’s comment about using animal skins as bedding. A fur or two over the top of each bed would provide more than enough insulation.

Marion strolled out to the store shed and found a supply of woolen Army blankets. If they used skins for bedding, she could hang some of these up for a changing closet. She didn’t fancy the idea of changing her clothes in front of…well, in front of whichever two brothers she didn’t marry.

She knew Maggie and Melody wouldn’t fancy it, either. And they couldn’t go pulling blankets off their beds morning and evening to rig up a closet every time. They would have to devise a permanent one until the brothers completed the construction of their bedrooms.

Also in the store shed she discovered the broom and found it wanting in the extreme. She brought it into the light of day to examine it, only to decide they needed a new one. She could make one out of willow. Plenty of it grew along the creek bed behind the house. After she made a new one, she would burn this one.

In the meantime, she took it back inside and swept out the house. The noise finally roused Maggie from her slumber, but she grumbled as she changed out of her night dress into her daytime work dress.

“How long have you two been up?” she asked. Then, without waiting for a reply, she began stamping around the room, glaring at everything. “They haven’t even got a looking glass. How am I supposed to straighten my hair without a looking glass? And this business about going outside to visit the outhouse. I don’t know how I’m ever going to get used to it.

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