"There is a third one on the tree," he said to me.
Can you believe that he had not figured it out, Diary? It was almost too funny for me to continue pretending, but I did not want to spoil the surprise, so I gave him my best innocent look.
"There is?" I asked, "Why would that be?"
I took the tray of sweet rolls into the main room and slid it onto the dining table.
"Are we expecting someone?"
Could my darling husband be any more adorable? I walked over to the tree and picked up a little box I had wrapped in a red ribbon."
"We are," I said, handing him the box, "but I think you could probably eat the candy cane."
Ben looked at me strangely, but he finally opened the box and I have never in my life seen such a smile as when he lifted those bitty little booties I had knitted out of the box. For a few seconds, he did not say a word; he just looked between me and the booties. Then I saw the tears in his eyes and I knew for sure that he finally understood.
He put the booties back in the box, put it down gently, and then dropped to his knees on the floor so that he could kiss my stomach. There was not even the slightest hint of a swell yet, but he kissed it again and again as if he could see the baby's face.
"Merry Christmas," he whispered against my dress.
That is truly the most beautiful Christmas moment that I have ever had. I have been blessed beyond measure and I can only imagine how much more wonderful life will be once I give birth to this little one.
I wonder if I will have a son or a daughter. It does not matter, really, but it is fun to imagine what life would be like with either one. A boy to climb and play and work with his Papa, or a girl to play with dolls and teach to sew. Whatever the Lord gives us, I know that finally having a family of our own will enrich our lives so deeply.
Several months have passed since then and the anticipation is only growing – along with my belly – each day. I can feel the little one kicking and moving inside me and it is like a tiny miracle each time. Sometimes Ben puts his head on my belly while we lie in bed and talks to the baby. He says that it can hear him and that is why it wiggles so much when he does it. I think it might be more that his head is heavy and the baby is feeling a little crowded. Either way, I treasure those moments. A first pregnancy is something I can only have one time, and soon, it will be only a memory.
I am thinking of my family so much. It has been more than a year since I have seen them and I miss them more than I could ever say. I wonder if my sweet little sister Maggie remembers me, and if my mother and father have talked to baby Johnny about me. Even though I have missed so much, I hope that they will know me and that though I am not there with them, I love them.
Elizabeth
Chapter 23
"How are my two beautiful girls?"
Ben walked into the house, taking off his jacket and crossing to hang it near the fire so that it could dry from the light spring rain outside. Elizabeth stepped out of the kitchen, a bowl propped on her hip as she stirred the ingredients for a loaf of bread.
"You are still so sure that the baby is a girl?" she asked, crossing to the table in the middle of the main room.
She turned the dough out onto the flour that she had already spread across the surface and tilted her cheek up for Ben to kiss. She coated her hands in the flour so that they wouldn't stick as she kneaded the dough.
"Absolutely. I know in my heart that there is a sweet little girl in there just waiting to come out and meet me."
"Well you have always had a special way with the ladies," Elizabeth teased.
Ben laughed and she watched him step into the kitchen to sneak a bite of the stew that she had cooking on the stove.
"Yes, I have, and this one will be no different. She will be my very best girl."
Elizabeth mocked horror and offense as she continued to knead into the soft dough.
"I thought that I was your best girl," she said.
Ben came back into the room and gave her another, appeasing kiss.
"Alright. It will be a tie, then."
Elizabeth laughed and lifted the dough into the buttered pan so she could put it in the oven. She made her way into the kitchen and started to bend over to open the oven door.
"Do you think that you could do this for me?" she asked, placing a hand on her lower back and straightening back up. "It seems that your daughter is eager to get in on the baking with me, and I'm afraid my belly is getting a little too close to the oven."
Ben might not be right about her carrying a girl, but it made him so happy to think about having a daughter that she did not mind humoring him. He grinned and took the pan from her, letting her take a few shuffling steps sideways to get away from the front of the oven before opening the door and slipping the pan inside.
"You're going to have to start baking more than one loaf pretty soon," he said, coming over to wrap his arms around her waist.
Elizabeth giggled and kissed her husband on the tip of his nose.
"I think it will be a while yet before the baby starts eating bread."
Ben returned her smile and her kiss and then released her waist to walk over to his jacket.
"I almost forgot to give this to you. I picked it up while I was in town."
He held an envelope out toward Elizabeth and she grabbed it from his hand with a gasp.
"Ben! How could you leave this in your pocket! It could have caught fire!"
"You've never worried about my jacket catching fire when I have hung it there to dry," Ben said, his voice holding a distinct hint of pouting that brought her attention away from her letter for a moment.
"I'm sorry that I have not been concerned enough about your jacket, Darling. I promise I will worry about it the next time you come in from the rain and hang it up next to the fire."
Ben laughed and walked into the bedroom to take off his boots. Elizabeth eased herself down into her favorite rocking chair so that she could relax while she was opening the letter. Supper would be ready soon and she wanted to have a chance to enjoy the letter before it would be too dark to read except by candlelight.
Chapter 24
Dearest Elizabeth,
How we miss you, precious daughter. I know that you are enjoying your new life in California with that wonderful son-in-law of ours, but it has been hard to get through the last year without you. There have been so many times when I have started to walk over to your room to visit you only to remember that you no longer live here.
I have shown Maggie and Johnny a picture of you every day so that they will know you. Maggie remembers you so well, she often talks about your wedding and has even asked about Ben a few times. Soon, though, they will not have to just settle for stories. We are coming to California!
I wanted to keep it a surprise for you until we were already on the way, so by the time this letter has gotten to you, we will already be well on the trail. Carrie has packed a stack of paper and several envelopes and is determined to write to you during our travels. I hope that they get to you alright. I am not sure where we will mail them from, but I promise you we will do our best.
I am so excited to see you soon. It will be so wonderful to have our family all together again.
All my love,
Mama
Chapter 25
Elizabeth let out such an excited cry that Ben came running into the room from the bedroom, his shirt half-buttoned from where he was changing out of the clothing he had worked in all day. He looked frantic and ran to her side, grasping one shoulder and pressing his other hand to her burgeoning belly.
"Elizabeth! What's wrong? Are you alright? Is something wrong with the baby? Do I need to find the midwife?"
Elizabeth rested her hand over Ben's and shook her head at him. Happy tears had already begun to slide down her cheeks.
"No, No. Everything is perfectly alright. My family is coming to California to visit us!"
Ben beamed. An orphan with no family of his own, he had always thought o
f Elizabeth's family as his, and now that he was officially part of it since their marriage, they were all even closer. He was obviously delighted with the idea that his in-laws were coming to see them.
"When will they be here?"
"The letter says that by the time we got it, they would already be on their way. It should be just a few months from now."
Elizabeth was so excited she could barely contain herself. She had long harbored hopes that her family would take the long journey to visit her and Ben in California, but she knew that it was a tremendous amount to ask of them. The trip was months long and arduous, presenting challenges and dangers at every turn. It would be especially difficult for them now with a baby just one year old on the trip with them.
Despite her worries about them, she was absolutely thrilled that she would soon see her parents, her beloved sisters, and the new brother that she had yet to meet. She hoped that they planned to stay for an extended visit, as it would be much too hard on her to get them back only to have to say goodbye to them again so soon. After reading through the letter again one more time, she glanced up at Ben. He was standing in the center of the room, looking around with an expression on his face that said he was thinking deeply about something.
"Is something wrong?" she asked, tucking the letter back into its envelope so that she could tuck it away where it would be safe.
"There is not enough room in this house for two more adults and three children."
"Oh, that's alright," Elizabeth said, pushing herself up out of her chair so that she could go into the kitchen and check on the stew, "I'm sure that they will not mind staying in the hotel."
"No, Elizabeth," Ben said, "I am not having our family come all that way to visit us only to have them stay in a hotel that would require us to travel into town just to see them. Besides, the expense would be incredible. I want them to be here with us so that they can enjoy their visit and perhaps stay a bit longer."
Elizabeth felt warm, overwhelming love wash through her. It meant so much to her that Ben loved her family so much and was so devoted to them all being close and spending time together. She had heard many horror stories about young women getting married only to find that their husbands did not get along with their families and having to live their lives without ever seeing their parents or siblings. It was such a blessing that she came from a close-knit family of people who loved each other dearly.
"I would love to have my family come and stay with us, but this is the home that we have. How are we going to make more space for them?"
Ben looked around again and gave a deep, matter-of-fact sigh.
"I will build a new room on the side of the house," he said.
"A new room?" she asked, stunned by the suggestion.
"Yes. We will have a new room that will be perfect for your parents to stay in with Johnny while they are here. Your sisters can sleep here in the main room. We can put up a curtain for them to create a little sleeping area. After they leave, we will have the extra room for the baby."
"Is that really something that you can do yourself? Don't you think that we should hire someone to do it for us? I am sure that there are plenty of men in town who are eager for work and who could get it finished for us quickly."
"I do not need to hire anyone to do it for me," Ben insisted, "I have been very fortunate in the mines and have found enough gold that we not only were able to open your shop, but have savings in the bank. With that and the amount of business that you have, I can afford to cut down on the number of hours a day that I am at the mines, and the rest I can spend here building the room."
"But, Ben…" she started.
"Elizabeth, please. When I married you, I promised that we would build our lives together, and that is exactly what we have done. We got through the fire in the saw mill in Tennessee, and my injury while we were on the trail heading here. We have gotten through an entire year and things just keep getting better for us. I want to do this myself as a way to keep building our life for you and for our baby. I want for her to grow up in a room that she knows her papa built for her."
Elizabeth sighed and stepped toward Ben to curl up into his arms. He hugged her close to his chest and rested a kiss onto the top of her head. She knew that when he was serious about something, there was little she could do to dissuade him. He had made his decision about building the room himself, and that was what he was going to do. All she could do is pray that God kept him safe and gave him the strength and ability to handle the tremendous task on his own. In her heart, she knew that her husband was the strongest, most determined man that she knew, and that with faith and perseverance, he could do anything that he put his mind to.
Chapter 26
Several days later, Elizabeth was still brimming with excitement as she made her way into town to open her shop for the day. They had worked hard to save the money to open a little seamstress shop on the main street of town, and very quickly it had grown so much that Elizabeth had had to hire two other young wives to help with all of the work. They spent their days repairing shirts and pants that the miners, particularly those without wives at home to do the repairs for them, had damaged while they were mining, adding patches to blankets, and even making the occasional custom piece of clothing.
Elizabeth had never thought that she would enjoy having a job, but she found that she loved the chance to interact with the people around town and the sense of accomplishment that working in her little shop afforded her. Ben spent long hours mining and it was nice to have something to do besides tending to the home. Owning the shop meant that she could spend as much time taking care of the home and Ben as she wanted and then go to the shop to work. Sometimes she even brought small projects home with her so that she could be there when Ben got home.
It was the ideal situation especially now that she was so far along in her pregnancy. Some days she was more tired than others, and having her shop allowed her to go home and get the rest that she needed. Part of her worried about the days and weeks following the baby's birth and if she was going to be able to keep up with her work, but she knew that her two employees would be there to run the shop for her until she was able to return, bringing the baby along with her.
She had only had the shop open for a few minutes when Georgia, a middle-aged woman who had been living in the city for several years, swept in. A genuinely kind woman, Georgia was a bit of a gossip and loved when there was something that she saw as dramatic or sensational to talk about. Fortunately, most of it was completely harmless, so Elizabeth didn't mind indulging her by playing the part of a rapt audience when she decided to come into the shop for a visit.
This was especially true when she brought along an armful of her husband's shirts for Elizabeth to repair. Georgia had never been good with a needle, and her husband Peter had been vastly relieved when Elizabeth started offering seamstress services. No longer would he have to deal with uneven hems because Georgia attempted to fix a large hole without adding a patch, or stiff, heavy seams along tears.
"Elizabeth!" Georgia exclaimed in that funny way that she did that sounded like she was surprised to see Elizabeth there even though she owned the shop. "You would not believe what I heard just this week."
"Hello, Georgia," Elizabeth said, finishing folding a piece of pink calico that she would be stitching into a dress over that next few days, "It is a lovely morning, isn't it?"
"It is, it is." She came and leaned on the counter beside Elizabeth so that she could lower her voice to a conspiratorial whisper even though the other two women hadn't shown up for work yet and they were the only ones in the shop. "Now you know that I am not one to gossip."
"Of course not," Elizabeth said.
"I just have to tell you this, since I know that you arrived on the wagon train." Elizabeth nodded. Georgia made it widely known that she had arrived in town via a stagecoach, not a wagon train, and she liked to occasionally remind Elizabeth that she had not. "It seems that traveling on the wagon train is not like it used
to be. It has gotten dangerous."
"The wagon train was dangerous both times I traveled on it," Elizabeth said.
She reached for a spool of white thread and a large needle so that she could begin adding a patch to a shirt while she listened to Georgia talk. She knew by experience that the older woman might stay throughout the majority of the morning, and she figured that she might as well make the most of the time that she was there by getting some of her simpler work finished.
"Both times?" Georgia asked, her interest apparently piqued.
"Yes, Georgia. I have told you before that I traveled here before I married with my parents and my sisters, and then returned to Tennessee."
"Oh, yes. Your sister needed some sort of medical attention. Tuberculosis?"
Elizabeth couldn't help but giggle. Georgia was truly dear, but she was one of the flightiest people that Elizabeth had ever met, and sometimes it was funny just listening to her trying to piece together the information that she had picked up from other people.
"She had to get an operation for her legs," Elizabeth corrected, "We brought her from here to New York so that a surgeon there could fix the twisting in her legs, and then after her recovery, we went home to Tennessee. That's where Ben and I got married before we came here again."
Georgia gave a big sigh, her eyes wide as if this were the first time she had heard the story, though it obviously was not.
"You are amazing, my dear. To brave the wilds of the wagon train not once, but twice in your young life," she sighed again. "I just cannot imagine it."
"It was quite the adventure," Elizabeth confirmed, "Now what was it that you wanted to tell me about the trains?"
Georgia straightened up slightly as if Elizabeth's mentioning of her detoured gossip had reminded her that she was there on specific rumor-spreading business.
"I have heard that diseases are burning through all of the trains so that families are having to be left by the side of the road because they cannot go on."
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