Nelly's Mail Order Husband

by Ruth Ann Nordin

  Cleaning the chamber pot? She not only used that archaic thing, but she also cleaned it? As he thought on it, he supposed she had to if she didn’t want the whole house to stink. With a shudder, he decided not to give any more thought to it. At this point, he just wanted to go to sleep. He’d gone through enough shock for one day.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked before she bit into another piece of her jerky. “You look pale.”

  Instead of answering, he changed the topic. “Do you mind if I change into my nightclothes in your bedroom since my trunks are in there?”

  “No, I don’t mind. Go ahead.”

  Since she turned her attention to the window, he headed out of the kitchen and got ready for bed.

  ***

  When Nelly woke up the next morning, she thought the whole wedding had been a dream. She breathed a sigh of relief. Thank goodness. She didn’t know what she’d do if she actually had a husband.

  As soon as she sat up in the bed, her gaze fell on two large trunks. Two very large trunks. They took up most of the space in the bedroom. And it was then that the reality of the previous evening came back to her.

  With a heavy sigh, she got up and wiggled past one of the trunks so she could get to her small dresser. There was no way two trunks’ worth of clothes could all fit in her dresser. At the most, she might make half a trunks’ worth of clothes work.

  She turned from the trunk and pulled out the clean shirt she needed for the day. After she dressed, she pulled her hair up into a ponytail. Then she left the bedroom.

  To her surprise, Val wasn’t sleeping on the couch. He was on the floor. She glanced at the couch. She supposed he was too tall to sleep comfortably on it. She had no idea what time he finally went to sleep, but she recalled seeing the kerosene lamp’s light from the space under her bedroom door around eleven when she’d stirred from her sleep.

  She studied him. What was she supposed to do with a husband, especially one that didn’t know the first thing about running a homestead? Sure, Val was attractive. Her sisters and ma had been right on that point. He was even considerate enough to let her set the rules. But what if he turned out to be a burden?

  No, he wasn’t going to be a burden. If the only thing he offered her was protection from Seth, he would earn his keep. Anything was better than being stuck with someone like Seth.

  Feeling much better about the marriage, she went to the outhouse then washed up at the well. She checked the animals, and since they were doing alright, she returned to the house.

  Val was still asleep. She checked the clock and saw that it was already six. Even if he went to sleep late, she couldn’t let him sleep in any longer. He would need to sleep earlier tonight, and the best way to do that was to get up early so he’d be tired when it was eight.

  She knelt beside him and shook his arm. “Val? It’s morning. You need to wake up. There’s a lot to do today.” She shook his arm again. “Val?”

  He finally stirred and opened his eyes. For a moment, he didn’t seem to know where he was. He was probably having the same experience she’d had when she first woke up.

  “It wasn’t a dream,” she said. “Because of my meddling sisters, we are married.”

  He focused on her. “What time is it?”

  “It’s 6:10.”

  “That early?”

  “Early?” she asked in surprise. “It’s late here on the homestead. I’ve been up for an hour.”

  “You get up at five in the morning?”

  “Usually, I get up around four.” She rose to her feet. “I overslept today. I’ll cook breakfast while you get dressed in my bedroom.”

  She headed for the front door, and he asked, “You cook outside?”

  Amused, she stopped and looked back at him. “No, I cook in the kitchen like everyone else. I’m going outside to get the eggs. Do you like eggs?”

  He got up and stretched his back. “Yes.”

  “Is there any way you prefer to eat them?”

  “I don’t suppose you know how to poach them.”

  “You’re supposing wrong. Making a poached egg is easy,” she replied.

  His eyebrows furrowed as if he didn’t believe her. “It is?”

  “Yes. All I need is to add eggs to some hot simmering water, take it off the heat, and put a lid on the pot. In four minutes, it’ll be done.”

  “That’s all there is to it?”

  “If you don’t believe me, you can watch. Then you’ll know how to make them, too.” She gave him a pointed look. “Cooking something would be a good way to prove you’re serious about helping me out around here.”

  He nodded and gathered the blanket and small pillow from the floor. “Alright. I’ll watch after I get dressed.”

  “After we’re done eating, I’ll show you how to milk a cow.”

  His eyes grew wide in disbelief. “You get milk from a cow?”

  She stared at him to make sure he wasn’t joking. Sure enough, he seemed downright serious. Because of that, she decided not to laugh. “Yes,” she replied in as serious of a tone as she could muster. “The eggs come from hens. Milk comes from cows. Do you want to know where steak comes from?” The last part, she said with a chuckle in her voice.

  “I know steak comes from a cow. I’m not that naïve.”

  “Just checking.” She laughed then and headed out of the house.

  ***

  After breakfast, Nelly took Val outside. “One thing that will be helpful is if you milk the cow. I only got one milking cow at the moment.”

  Val’s steps slowed. She expected him to get milk out of the cow? What was he supposed to do? Go up to the cow and ask it to give him milk?

  Judging by the fact that she was carrying a pail to the cow that was tied to a post outside the barn, he figured there was more to milking a cow than he wanted to know.

  She glanced over at him and stopped. “Aren’t you coming?”

  He released his breath and proceeded forward. He needed to do this. He had signed up to help her around here when he married her. It wasn’t like she had a servant to do this for her.

  He straightened his shoulders back and reached for his tie, but then, he remembered he wasn’t wearing a tie. She had advised him to wear clothes that weren’t fancy. Unfortunately, all he had were suits. Even leaving off the suit jacket, vest, and tie that went with this particular suit, he knew he was overdressed for the task she expected him to do. He’d kept waiting for her to point this out, but she hadn’t. Either she didn’t want to embarrass him or she didn’t care. He was just glad she decided not to bring it up. He felt out of place as it was. He didn’t want someone else to point it out.

  When they reached the cow, she set the pail under the large animal. “You’ll want to roll your sleeves up.”

  “Why? It’s not hot out here.” In fact, it was a bit on the chilly side.

  “It’s easier to pull on the cow’s teats if your sleeves aren’t getting in the way.”

  He was sure he didn’t want to know the answer, but he found himself asking, “What are teats?”

  “They’re the cow’s nipples. You pull them to get the milk out of the udder.”

  Should he ask what an udder was or just take the risk of not finding out? It was bad enough she was pointing to the teats. He’d never even realized cows had those before. He would just assume the big sack attached to the teats was the udder. With a shiver, he glanced away from it.

  “There’s nothing to it,” she said as she sat on the wooden stool in front of the pail. “All you have to do is reach up under the cow and pull on the teats like this.”

  He heard the sound of liquid hitting the center of the pail and shuddered. He might never look at milk the same way again.

  “Val?” she asked.

  He forced his gaze to her.

  “You need to watch what I’m doing so you can do this,” she said, her tone so matter-of-fact he had to wonder if she didn’t see how difficult this was for him.

  I can do this.
I can do this. I can do this. It was better than being stuck out on the street with nowhere to live. If he didn’t get his act together, she might toss him off the homestead.

  He knelt beside her and forced his attention to the teats.

  “You need to get a firm grip on the base of the teats and then pull down to get the milk out,” she said as she demonstrated how to do it. “Be careful not to yank on them. It’ll hurt the cow.”

  He tried to focus on what she was doing, but he ended up gagging. He turned away and took a deep breath to calm his stomach. If he’d known milking a cow was this disgusting, he would have waited until this was done before eating.

  “Are you going to be sick?” Nelly asked, turning toward him.

  “No. I’m fine.” He coughed and patted his chest. “I think a fly flew into my mouth.” It was a stupid thing to say, but it was the only thing he could think of in order to cover up for how inept he was at this. Besides, there was a fly buzzing around his head. If he turned his head the wrong way, it really might get into his mouth.

  “Flies are a real pest,” she said. “There’s nothing to be done about them. They’re not easy to get rid of like snakes and mice are. No matter how many you kill, they keep coming back.”

  His eyes grew wide. “Snakes and mice are on this homestead?”

  She nodded. “I let the snakes go when I find them since they help to keep the mice population down, but if one is poisonous, I have to kill it.”

  He was sure his eyes grew even larger as he asked, “Some of the snakes are poisonous?”

  “They rarely are. Most are harmless.” Her eyebrows furrowed in concern, and she reached out to put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “I only dealt with a poisonous snake twice in my entire life, and one wasn’t even on my land.”

  He was sure she meant to make him feel better, but she didn’t. Just knowing there had been one around here was enough to make him study the grass around him as if he might find one sneaking up on him.

  She offered him a smile. “They like to stick to the tall grass. You’re safe out in this area. I let the horses come out here to eat the grass. The most you have to worry about is stepping in a horse pie.”

  “A horse pie?” he blurted out before he could think better of it.

  “That’s what comes out after horses eat grass.”

  He rubbed his forehead. Learning to live on a homestead was not going to be easy.

  She patted his shoulder. “The only way to get used to everything is to start doing it.” She got up from the stool and gestured for him to get on it. “I’ll be right here to teach you what to do.”

  He had to do this. There was no getting out of it. I can do this. Or rather, I need to do this. Besides, did he really want Nelly to think he was weak? Mustering up what little pride he could, he settled on the stool and took a deep breath. He could do this. All he had to do was focus on the goal.

  “Remember your sleeves,” Nelly said.

  Oh, right. Val rolled up his sleeves and secured them so they wouldn’t fall back down. Then he stretched his neck and shook his arms to help loosen the tension in his body. Alright. He was ready.

  He leaned forward and grabbed the teats. And shivered in disgust. He let go of them and wiped his hands on his pants. How did Nelly do this without wanting to gag?

  “What’s wrong?” Nelly asked.

  “Nothing. I’m just getting ready.” To follow through with his lie, he wiggled his fingers and then rubbed his hands together.

  “That’s a good idea. You don’t want your hands to be cold when you touch her. She won’t like it.”

  Who cared what the cow liked? Fortunately, he was able to avoid saying this aloud. Nelly wouldn’t appreciate such a comment. He wiped his hands on his pants again. He had to do this. He couldn’t have Nelly thinking he wasn’t up to the task.

  He reached out and touched the teats that made him think of boneless fat fingers. Gritting his teeth, he pushed through his feeling of revulsion and squeezed them. Then he closed his eyes and pulled them down.

  “There you go!” Nelly gave him a pat on the back. “You got it on your first try.”

  He would have enjoyed her compliment if he wasn’t trying to fight past the urge to gag. Feeling the milk move out of the teats was even worse than wrapping his hands around them.

  Since she was still watching him, he continued milking the cow. A couple of times he ended up spraying milk on himself or the ground, but for the most part, he was able to get it into the pail. When the last of the milk was out, he muttered a prayer of thanks then got away from the cow.

  “You did a great job!” Nelly handed him the pail. “Take this into the house. I’ll put the cow in the pasture.” She untied the cow from the post. “Just put the pail on the worktable in the kitchen. Then come back out, and I’ll teach you how to muck a stall.”

  “You’re going to teach me how to do what with a stall?” he asked as she picked up the stool.

  “Muck it out.” When his eyebrows furrowed, she explained, “Clean it.”

  Oh. He was sorry he’d asked. “I can’t wait,” he dryly commented.

  She headed for the pasture, leading the cow behind her.

  With a grimace, he carried the pail to the house.

  Chapter Eight

  A half hour later, Val was cleaning out one of the stalls while Nelly was getting the milk ready for them to drink. He didn’t know what she had to do to make that possible, but he’d already decided he wasn’t going to drink milk for a very long time…if ever.

  He didn’t think anything could be worse than milking a cow, but he was wrong. Mucking out stalls was far worse. He wasn’t a stranger to the way animals smelled. In his past, he had made it a habit of riding horses, and going to the stables had been enough to teach him that there was a certain odor in the stalls. But up to now, he had never had to clean a stall.

  Even with the handkerchief pressed up to his nose, he could smell the potent odor of horse and cow droppings. At the moment, all of the animals were in the pasture, so he was spared the humiliation of having them watch him. Honestly, he had no idea if animals ever found a human’s reaction to them amusing or not, but why take the chance?

  His father had often commented that horses were smarter than people gave them credit for. All he needed was to lose the horses’ respect. If that happened, they might never let him lead them anywhere ever again.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he told himself as he put the handkerchief back into his pocket. “The horses will let me lead them where I want to go because I know how to deal with them.” He’d just never had to clean up after them before.

  He picked the rake back up and strengthened his resolve. The sooner he got this over with, the better. It was just a matter of getting it done. It wasn’t hard to figure out what to do. It was just difficult to get past the horrible smell.

  Try not to think about it. Things get worse if you dwell on them.

  He renewed his grip on the rake and continued to scrape the straw and horse manure off the floor. Imagine what Jim would think if he knew he was doing this. Jim probably thought he was sitting at a mahogany desk in a large den lined with books while he worked through the household ledger to get an idea of how much everyone under his employment was getting paid.

  He shoved the straw and manure out on the grass and took a good look at the homestead. Did Nelly have any money? Or was everything tied up in the land, buildings, and animals? If he’d been smart, he would have asked about that over the letters they’d sent back and forth. But who knew if that would have done any good? Her sisters might have lied to get him out here. They had lied about being Nelly, after all.

  Well, it was no matter. Not at this point. His course was set. He was married to Nelly, and he was going to honor his vows. Besides, he knew she wasn’t all that happy to have him around. She hadn’t come out and said as much, but he saw the expression on her face as her mother was explaining the situation to her. He didn’t think he’d eve
r forget how horrified she’d looked. Granted, she’d managed to compose herself by the time she talked to him. He had to give her credit for that. But the whole thing had been an unwelcome surprise.

  He went back into the stall and raked up more of the muck. This was going to be temporary. He was not going to spend the rest of his life like this. Just because he was doing this today, it didn’t mean he would always be doing it. He had learned a few things about managing money. He’d learned what not to do, and sometimes knowing what not to do was as important as knowing what to do. For one, his father had taught him to never put all of his money in one place. Val would make sure to spread everything out. That way, if one investment failed, he would have others to fall back on.

  He wouldn’t be stuck doing chores around here forever. He would figure out a way to make enough to hire help. The first person he’d hire would be a stable boy. There was no way he was going to keep doing this any longer than he had to. Nelly would still get to run the homestead, but he could hire a man or two to do the things she didn’t like. Then he could figure out what he wanted to do and focus on that. Surely, she wouldn’t mind that.

  As soon as he was done with the stall, he brought his handkerchief back up to his nose, willing the smell away. When that didn’t work, he left the barn and took a deep breath of fresh air. The smell wasn’t nearly so bad out here, especially with the nice summer breeze bringing in the scent of clover around him. It was a nice day. A day that was too nice to be stuck in a barn. If Nelly had had the kind of money he’d been expecting, he would take this opportunity to ride a horse.

  He was afraid of what chore she’d have him do when he was done with all of the stalls. With a heavy sigh, he wiped the handkerchief over his forehead then trudged back into the barn and went to work.

  He had just gotten through with cleaning the next stall when someone called out a greeting in the doorway of the barn. He glanced over at the person, surprised it wasn’t someone from Nelly’s family. Her father had mentioned stopping by to check on them, and even though her mother had cautioned her father on checking on them too soon, he wouldn’t have blamed her father for coming by here today. If Nelly was his daughter, he’d do that. He’d want to make sure his daughter was doing alright.