The Journey Home

by K'Anne Meinel

  She had the boys dressed and washed and sitting at the table while she scrambled eggs for them and poured them fresh cups of good whole milk. She would have to find that barrel churn and get buttermilk and butter and perhaps cottage cheese going. It would be nice to work with all these things again. Cass walked in looking like it had been a long night as she discretely hid a yawn behind her hand.

  “Good Morning,” she said sleepily.

  Stephanie brightened at their benefactor. “Good Morning!” she enthused. “I’ll have your breakfast up in a jiffy. Do you like scrambled eggs with your bacon or easy over?”

  “I like them sunny side up when we have toast but I’ll take them scrambled. That looks and smells good,” she smiled at the boys as she sat down.

  “What time did you get home?”

  Cass smothered another yawn, “Oh about six but I did the chores before sleeping on the sofa.”

  “I’m sorry you didn’t get much sleep,” Stephanie said shamefaced remembering the reason why and her boy’s contribution to it.

  “Don’t worry about it, it happens. I’ll catch up tonight maybe.” Cass smiled at her new friend.

  “Did your friend have a boy or a girl?” Stephanie asked as she gave the boys their eggs.

  “A little girl. She came really fast too, good thing I got there when I did. She has two boys already and Melanie’s been wanting a girl real bad. She was talking about naming her Melody. That’s a real pretty name.”

  “You helped deliver her?” Stephanie asked curious as she quickly broke two eggs and then two more into the grease of the bacon.

  “Yep, that’s what I do. I’m a mid-wife and sometimes doctor around here. My Maw taught me, she was one before she got too old.”

  “Why that’s wonderful,” the petite blonde exclaimed her hand unconsciously going to her own protruding stomach.

  Cass eyed her and asked, “What are you, about five months?”

  Stephanie nodded as she whipped the eggs with a wooden spoon in the pan. She glanced over at the brunette looking at her intently surprised that she had guessed so accurately.

  “So you’re due in August?” Cass clarified to be sure.

  Stephanie again nodded now curious as to why she wanted to know as she looked over at Cass.

  “Haying time,” Cass said shortly as though that explained all there needed to be.

  Stephanie didn’t want to sound foolish by asking what it meant.

  “Mama, can we go out and play with the puppies?” Timmy asked.

  Stephanie glanced at Cass who minutely shook her head before answering, “Not today Timmy. We have to get unpacked and get organized.”

  “But Mama, we want to play with the puppies,” Timmy started to argue.

  “The weather is pretty bad sprout; you wouldn’t want the puppies to get lost in a blizzard would you?” Cass asked him seriously.

  The little boy turned big eyes on Cass and shook his head solemnly.

  “We have to think up names for those pups, we can do that while we work in the house today okay?”

  “We can name them?” he asked excitedly.

  Cass pretended to think about it and then said, “Well, my girl dog is named Shia, her mate was Shem but he got killed. So we have to figure out names that are easy to call and fit those pretty little pups right?”

  He nodded hard, his hair flopping as he did so.

  Stephanie slid half the eggs out of the pan onto each of the two plates on the counter that already had several rashers of bacon on them. She turned off the stove and carried the plates to the table putting one in front of Cass and the other at the other end of the table. She poured a cup of coffee for Cass and another for herself before lowering the burner to its lowest setting to keep the coffee in the pot hot but not boiling. She handed one cup to Cass and took her own to sit at the other end of the table. Looking around she was happy to see their little family.

  Cass enjoyed the taste of the eggs. Using the bacon grease always gave it a good smoky flavor. The only thing missing was toast and she hoped that Stephanie knew how to bake bread or she would have to teach her. Sipping her coffee which was strong and black she knew she would need a lot of that today after her sleepless night.

  After breakfast Cass bundled up and went out to the garage and went up in the loft and found the rocker so that Stephanie could make butter. While she was doing that Stephanie was teaching Timmy to wash dishes which was something she had done in their own home. She put one of the kitchen chairs up to the sink and let him stand on it while she cleaned up the rest of the kitchen.

  “Up, up!” Tommy cried.

  “No Tommy, when your older,” Stephanie said as she put away the rest of the eggs from the basket in the flats that Cass had left on the porch. Cass had explained that when they were full they would take them into Merrill. The coolness of the porch meant that they didn’t have to be refrigerated as the ice chest didn’t really work well out here in the country and that the new-fangled electric ones were too expensive. It was cool on the porch but not cold enough to freeze.

  The kitchen was wiped down thoroughly before Cass returned carrying a barrel on two rockers. She showed them how tight it was and Stephanie was impressed with how clever to sit in a chair and rock it with your foot while you did something else. They filled it with water to make sure the cracks were sealed and to wash it out, wiping the outside down with cloths.

  Cass showed Stephanie where the cleaning supplies were under the sink and when Stephanie asked what her duties were, Cass turned to her with surprise.

  “I guess you take care of the house and I’ll take care of the farm,” she finally said after thinking about it for a moment.

  It was like that from the start. If Stephanie didn’t know where something was, she asked. Cass never begrudged telling her or sharing her home with her.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Over the next few days Cass was busy plowing the snow that had fallen into the fields, trying to catch as much of it as possible before it melted. Something about getting more moisture into the earth, she explained to Stephanie. She took Timmy with her a couple of times for half days, he would be exhausted riding behind the beautiful Belgian horses as Cass showed him how to hold the lines and talk to the two horses. She didn’t deep plow as the fields she was plowing had been plowed last fall. She saved the corn fields for later in the season when they would dry out a little. As it was both she and Timmy ended up filthy and had to change out of their clothes on the porch before entering the house. Timmy didn’t like that he couldn’t work all day with Cass, she was teaching him how to hitch up the two huge and gentle horses explaining that treating them as ladies always worked in their favor. He found it funny that one of them was named Stanley even though she was a ‘lady’ horse. Timmy also helped with the chickens, ducks, and geese. Now that the weather was better and the snow melting Cass let them out in their long runs to eat and search for bugs and grasses. He searched for eggs in the runs and in the hay of their pens, never going near the ones sitting on nests. The ducks and geese especially scared him as they hissed and bloated their bodies to protect the nests. Cass was letting several sit on nests to increase her flocks but there were still plenty of eggs and she decided that they had to make a trip into Merrill to sell the eggs and now the butter that Stephanie was creating.

  They carefully loaded cartons of eggs into the back of the wagon. They also took their surplus of apples and one bushel of pears. Few if any of the settlers hereabouts would have surplus but since Cass had stock-piled it as though for her entire family there was still a lot. Stephanie offered to bake and can more but when Cass showed her what was stored down cellar she agreed they could afford to get rid of some of the excess before it went bad and make a profit from it.

  Timmy proudly brought Stanley as Cass hooked up Stella with an envious Tommy watching his older brother. Cass watched him out of the corner of her eye to not only keep him from getting trampled by the big Belgian but he was a mischievous chi
ld and she didn’t want any accidents. Stanley walked carefully behind the boy leading her making sure she didn’t walk on the boy; she could have led the boy but respectively stayed behind him being led. She knew her place from long practice and Cass soon had the two of them hitched up to the wagon.

  “Do you think we could get anything for this?” Stephanie asked Cass who looked over to a basket that she was holding the cloth back on to see sticks of golden butter.

  “How did you make them so gold?” Cass asked dubiously. This late in the season with nothing but hay for feed the cow only gave off milk that made white butter, not golden.

  “I added a little carrot juice, just enough for coloring,” Stephanie confided.

  Cass nodded and smiled at her friend’s cleverness, “I’m sure we can sell it,” she took the basket and covering it put it under the front seat before helping Stephanie over the wheel onto the high seat. Swinging the boys over she looked at a hopeful set of dogs with their tails wagging happily and said instead, “Stay,” firmly and without a doubt in their minds that she meant it. Three tails went down slightly but they would obey, the pups looked to Shia and followed her lead.

  Chirruping the horses they were soon on their way down the long driveway. Cass looked along the way at the trees to see if any were budding on this late spring day. She could faintly make out a few on a couple of the trees but it really hadn’t been warm enough to bring out the buds. That late storm had halted any thought of them budding too early. “We’re going to have to get out the sugaring buckets when we get back,” she commented as she realized she had almost forgotten a very important source of income, last year she had been too busy to do it all herself so she hadn’t collected as much but this year she would have help and she was grateful for Stephanie’s presence.

  “Oh, I love maple syrup and sugar,” Stephanie clapped her hands together like a child in anticipation of it.

  “You do realize how hard you have to work for it?” Cass grinned sideways at her; perhaps she didn’t realize how much work actually went into it?

  “I’ve never been to a sugaring off but I’m willing and still able,” she patted her stomach with a smile. She had done a lot about the house polishing the furniture lovingly. Taking bees wax and making a mixture boiled down together to make the wood look beautiful. Even the door frames, foot boards, and floor had all gotten a new coat and polish and Cass loved how the house looked and smelled. She helped where she could, not allowing Stephanie to move some of the more heavy furniture. Their friendship was coming along nicely for both of them; it was working out well with Stephanie taking care of the house and Cass the outside.

  On the way to town they talked about what they would plant in the gardens. Cass had explained what seeds she had carefully preserved from previous years and what few they would have to buy. Stephanie had lived much farther south and here in the Northwood’s the season was too short for some of the things she wanted to grow. “Is it possible to start some of the seeds inside?” Stephanie asked worried.

  Cass shrugged, she had never tried but if Stephanie wanted to go to the bother she was willing and they would figure it out. They discussed it along with the gardens on the trip with the little boys interrupting occasionally until Stephanie turned to them exasperated and said, “Little boys are to be SEEN and not HEARD, interrupting adults is RUDE and I don’t want either of you to do so AGAIN!” They both subsided for a time.

  Their first sight of Merrill was nothing much. A few houses side by side on the muddy street that turned into a paved road with businesses on both side. As they came to ‘downtown’ where there were a few stores and the townspeople began staring at the two women on the wagon, Stephanie began to feel conspicuous. A pregnant woman wasn’t normally seen around too much in her later months and always hid her ‘condition’ but Cass hadn’t seen the reason why behind this. She felt Stephanie could go anywhere she wanted. Rumors of Cass’s new housekeeper had already spread from Wausau up here to Merrill despite the distance and their relative remote farm. Gossip was a main source of entertainment and enough of it was generated by the unconventional Cass anyway. Her neighbors who had seen or met Stephanie would have only had to tell one person to have the news spread.

  Cass pulled up in front of the Merrill General Store and hopped down. “Hi Cass,” a burly man greeted her jovially.

  Cass smiled as she went to shake the man’s hand. “How are you Hank?”

  “I’m good, I’m good, how are you doing out at that place of yours?”

  “Great, great,” she saw him glance at Stephanie and the boys. “I have a new housekeeper, I’d like to introduce you to Stephanie Evans and her boys Timmy and Tommy,” she indicated the three of them and the man tipped his hat.

  “Can I help you down Mrs. Evans?” Hank offered holding out his hand to Stephanie who gratefully and elegantly accepted. He lifted her easily as though she didn’t weigh a feather.

  “Hank is the owner of Merrill General Store,” Cass informed Stephanie as she helped the boys down from the wagon.

  Helping Cass take the eggs into the store, Hank and Cass followed Stephanie and the boys up the steps and into the store. The boys stopped to stare and Stephanie only paused long enough to get her bearings before going forward with her basket to the counter as Hank and Cass placed the eggs on it.

  “Well what have you got here for me Cass?” Hank asked as though he couldn’t tell the flats of eggs were full.

  “Ah, only five dozen eggs this time Hank but there is a few things we need around the place,” she answered easily. Stephanie was looking around the store and Cass remembered, “Oh and Stephanie has some butter for you,” she added.

  “Butter? This time of year?” Hank said delighted as he reached for the basket that Stephanie held out to him and took aside the cover. “It looks delicious, I’m sure we can find people who would buy this,” he smiled at Stephanie. Then he looked over at Cass and asked, “No skins from Cal this time?”

  Cass looked back from the seeds she was looking over and shrugged. “I forgot to check before we left but it’s still early for some of his pelts and I took a bunch into Wausau when I went there.”

  Hank nodded as he began to transfer the butter to waxed paper and wrap it, leaving one out to show off its beautiful creamy texture and golden hue.

  Cass picked up seeds for the garden and Stephanie joined her, admonishing the awestruck boys not to touch anything. She whispered a few things to Cass as Hank was busy helping someone else.

  “If you need it, let me know or just pick it out,” Cass laughed at her asking permission for things for the house. “Get what you need.”

  They left with quite a few packages and Cass made sure the boys had a stick of candy to share between them. She also helped Stephanie pick out fragrances for the soaps she had whispered about in the store. She helped Stephanie back up over the wheel and swung the boys up over the side, their mouths were already gooey from the candy.

  “Hey Cass, wait up there,” a voice called and Cass turned to see a slender man come running up.

  “Hey Whit, how are you,” she smiled and shook his hand.

  “Glad to see you, say I heard you got some new birds,” he smiled. He was a tall man with a huge Adams apple and looked gawky.

  “Yep, I sent away for some new stock, they came in a couple of weeks ago and I went to Wausau to pick them up.” She looked at him curiously.

  “I’d like to come out and see them, I’m thinking of getting some myself but I don’t know if I can afford them and I’d like to see them in person before I buy them.”

  “Sure Whit, come on out, anytime.”

  “Would you sell any of yours?” he asked hopefully.

  She scratched her chin thinking. “Well, I just got them, maybe in a year or two when they are breeding, but not what I have now, they are so young and all.”

  He nodded understanding. “I’ll come take a look and we can talk about them then, thanks Cass.” He smiled.

  S
he shook his hand again and climbed up on the wagon and talked to her horses and they were soon on their way.

  “What was that about?” Stephanie asked as she looked around at the houses in town and nodded at the men who lifted their hats to them.

  “Oh Whit, he aims at raising chickens, ducks, and geese like I do but he doesn’t know a lot, fortunately he knows he doesn’t and asks my advice,” she answered distractedly as she waved to a few women who were walking down the side of the road and who waved back, looking at Stephanie curiously.

  They discussed the plans that Cass had and she surprised Stephanie that she wanted to expand her poultry operation. She explained she had gotten involved in it when she was much younger and her father hadn’t let her help with all the farm work. Poultry was women’s work and he allowed her that but wouldn’t build her the pens she said she needed. Instead she had built them herself with her brother’s occasional help.

  “You won’t see much of Cal, he went wild years ago and hunts the deep woods all year around,” Cass informed her.

  After putting away their few purchases and the wagon, Cass began to pull out buckets from a storage area. She had the boys place them in the back of a cart she had there. Stephanie and her boys were surprised by the sheer number of buckets and according to Cass this wasn’t even all of them. The next morning after chores, the four of them began to place them under the trees where Cass tapped in a spout. Maple trees were all over the woods and she hung the bucket so that the spout would drip into the buckets. Depending on the size of the tree, some had more than one tap and then more than one bucket. As the sap began to rise in the tree it would drip out these spouts and into the buckets. Every day they would collect the sap from the buckets and pour them into a caldron in the yard where they would boil off the water and the syrup that was left would be strained and placed in jars, bottles, or rendered into cakes of sugar.