“Hi there, want to shuck corn?” Cass smiled at her over her shoulder and then wondered at her blush.
“No, was just wondering where the milk was and if you all were going to come into supper?”
Cass looked beyond Stephanie to the open door and realized it was a lot later than she had thought. Glancing at the cows she realized she better get to milking. “I’ll milk and you take the boys in and start without me. We were having too much fun working weren’t we boys?”
Two identical roosters tails bobbed in agreement to her statement. As the boys followed their mother towards the house Cass heard Timmy asking his mother importantly, “Did you know that cows have four stomachs?”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“This is the life,” Cass said as she sat sprawled out in the easy chair in the living room. They had a big bowl of popcorn she had popped on the stove in oil between them, and the boys were in bed. Stephanie sat in a chair with baby Summer on her shoulder patting her to make her burp up the bubbles.
Stephanie smiled and Cass’s stomach did a queer little dance as she reached for a cup of the apple cider that was from this year. “You don’t know how grateful I am for all this,” she said quietly.
“I’m just as grateful for all the help,” Cass told her. “There always seems to be so much to do, this year I didn’t have to worry about anything in the house.” She said it earnestly and meant it. Stephanie did things differently than she did but it wasn’t less effective, sometimes it was better. They shared recipes, Cass’s from her mother and grandmother, Stephanie’s from her own experimenting and her mother. It was a wonderful relationship, both had to agree. They never seemed to run out of things to talk about, share, or compare.
Stephanie sighed as the baby began to go to sleep. “Tired?” Cass asked her, they were always tired; there was so much to do.
Stephanie smiled. “Yes, but I’m content too, I just don’t want to climb those steps with this little lump of lard,” she indicated the healthy baby in her arms.
“I’ll carry her,” Cass immediately offered.
“I’ll lock up,” Stephanie responded.
Cass had already done a walk around the barns, to check that everything was closed up and the dogs okay. They were snuggled down in the hay, the barn cats nearby sleeping, and the other animals giving off body heat, the barn was actually quite warm. The dogs could still get outside if they had to and being this close to the woods that was an occasional necessity. Cass had discovered a paw print of a bear checking out the secured well house the other day and planned to hunt it down before it hibernated. She didn’t want a repeat of last year and losing another dog or worse. She hadn’t mentioned her discovery to Stephanie or the boys.
Stephanie found Cass upstairs later looking at the baby as she slept in her crib. “Everything okay?” she asked quietly.
“Just watching her sleep,” Cass said just as quietly, the sound of wonder in her voice as she turned the lamp down and then off on the dresser before following Stephanie out of the room. “It amazes me how perfect they are,” she indicated the children with her head.
Stephanie smiled and Cass caught her breath when she entered their bedroom. “What’s wrong?” Stephanie asked her alarmed.
Cass mentally shook herself; she almost answered without thinking and caught herself. “Nothing, just daydreaming.” She quickly turned and began to get ready for bed. Tomorrow was Saturday and she looked forward to washing her hair. She hoped she had distracted Stephanie. She had almost said something that would reveal her attraction to her friend and ruin what they had.
Stephanie wasn’t fooled. Cass had been about to say something else, she was sure of it. She let it go though; she didn’t want to destroy what they had by pushing her into saying something. Her unnatural attraction was bad enough. She didn’t want to be asked to leave the only home she and her children had.
Stephanie woke up to an alarming feeling. Cass was touching her breasts, massaging them through the thin cotton material, she was responding to the ministrations too, her nipples were erect and her breasts hardening. Cass was kissing along her neck too murmuring quietly. Suddenly she stopped though and that was when Stephanie realized she was still asleep as she fell onto her back with her hand thrown over her head but still apparently squeezing and groping in her sleep. The soft light of the lamp they left burning for the boys in case they came in showed a peaceful look on her face as she obviously kissed someone in her sleep. Stephanie was aroused, her breasts were leaking milk from the stimulation, and she also felt an odd tingling between her legs that only her husband had caused. Carefully she got up and went to the bathroom quietly. She squeezed her breasts out into the sink hoping that Summer wouldn’t wake and demand a feeding until morning, she was a good baby that way, she hated to waste the milk but what choice did she have.
Cass never said a word to Stephanie, acting perfectly normal the next morning. Stephanie wouldn’t say anything. She thought a lot though as she went through her morning chores. Churning didn’t require a lot of work and left her a lot of time to think, often she would take knitting or mending but even that couldn’t prevent her thoughts. She thought about what had occurred the previous night, her own responses and her feelings towards Cass. She knew Cass would be horrified if she had woken and discovered what she was doing. She knew now that her unnatural impulses were getting stronger, she wouldn’t have minded if Cass had continued last night. She wondered what two women could do together. She thought about the night she had woken up curled up to Cass and wondered if she did things in her sleep that she was unaware of as Cass had. She could only imagine Cass’s horrified look, her demand that she leave this comfortable house, their leaving the house that had become their home. Perhaps she should look at leaving but what could she say to Cass? No, she and the boys loved living here, it provided them all with a sense of security, and not too many people needed a housekeeper these days and certainly not one with three children to feed who would require her time away from work. She knew she would just have to watch herself closer, keep herself under control, but was the previous night really any of her fault? She found she had churned the buttermilk into butter faster than she ever had before, her agitation causing her foot to rock the barrel faster than she had intended. She washed the lump of butter, salted and packed it down in the tub downstairs in the cool cellar. While she was down there she washed and rinsed out her nightgown, washing the milk stains from her breasts out of the material before hanging it outside on the line.
“Stained?” Cass asked as she brought a load of wood to the house.
Stephanie whirled from where she was hanging the laundry on the line. She hadn’t heard her approach. That was amazing since both boys were with her. “Stained?” she asked surprised.
Cass indicated the nightgown which was the only piece of laundry she was hanging. “I got blood on two last week.”
Stephanie realized Cass was saying she had her period the previous week which she had known as she did the laundry and the rags that Cass scrupulously washed out before putting them in the laundry. “No, I stained it,” she indicated her breasts, she wouldn’t lie but it would have been an easy out if she wanted.
Cass nodded to acknowledge it and then continued to bring wood into the house from the cart she had stacked full. It was a constant drain as they used it for the fireplace or the stove in the kitchen, the wood burner in the living room or the big one in the basement that heated the whole house. Fortunately there was a lot of wood around the place, it just required cutting and hauling. Cass had been hauling logs whenever she could to the woodlot. A few she had cut in the mill into boards and she was stacking these on special shelves along the side, out of the elements and off the ground so they wouldn’t rot. People bought them occasionally but it was also a source of income for her to take a load into town to sell now and then. They had a full time mill in town of course, in fact they had two but she could undercut them in price occasionally. The branches she cut off made
excellent firewood though as well as the ‘scrap’ wood.
“Timmy, get the door will you?” she asked and he proudly helped by taking a split log or two in for her or down into the cellar where the wood box was immense and could keep their supply for several days if necessary. Tommy had tried to help but it was too much for a little boy to handle, steps, wood, and coordination and after his first fall Cass had distracted him with another ‘chore’ to ‘help’ with.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Snow arrived and blanketed the farm in a deep coating long before Christmas. To Cass it didn’t matter. It just made it easier to pull the downed trees one by one from the forest and stack them by the mill to be cut. When it got too cold or windy to work out in the woods she would cut wood in the mill, the exertion keeping her warm. Only in February would it become too cold to work outdoors for any length of time up here in the big woods. She was pleased with the amount of trees she cleared slowly back from the ever widening path between her field and the longed for meadow. With all the leaves and foliage gone she saw clearer what needed to be done.
“Hiya Cass, are you there?” a voice called to her from the doorway of the mill where she was setting up another tree on skids trying to get it raised up enough despite her size, using weights to overcome her inferior strength against it and chains to hoist it.
She looked up from her work to see someone silhouetted and she squinted. Shia barked a hoarse bark, embarrassed from having not heard the stranger approach. The pups followed her lead but set up a racket of barks. “Shush,” she commanded and they immediately stopped but eyed the stranger warily.
“Hiya Cass, glad I found you, I need some wood,” a man came into the mill cautiously. It never paid to just walk in; you never knew what was being done in the mill. For a woman, Cass had it down pat, her father and grandfather had done it before her and her brother had absolutely no interest in it so she did what she had to.
“Ah Glenn, that’s fine, you pick out what you want or do you need something special cut?” she indicated the stacks she had on the side walls.
“I see what I need but I don’t have ready cash, will you trade?” he asked.
They discussed what he needed and what he had to trade. The cut lumber he needed to fix up sheds and barns around his place for his own stock and machinery. He had extra stock he could trade and wanted to know what Cass could use.
“Got any Turkey’s?” she asked knowing no one around here did.
“Turkeys? Who would raise those stupid things around here?” he laughed.
She didn’t answer because she knew she would.
They worked out a deal for the load of lumber they began to put into his wagon, the wind picking up snow and blowing it. They were warm from moving around but it had a nip in the air that had them both glancing west and northwest for clouds just in case.
“Okay, see you next week with the stock and another load,” Glenn said as he climbed onto the seat on the now heavily loaded wagon.
“I’ll have more wood cut by then,” Cass answered as she watched him thoughtfully drive away down her driveway before turning back to her work with vigor. She loved that her grandfather and father had provided her with a means to make money or trade and all on their own farm.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“I thought I saw someone come by earlier,” Stephanie asked when she came in for lunch.
“Yep, Glenn Grover came by for some lumber for his barn,” she said in between big spoonful’s of a delicious chicken soup. She sopped up the juice with homemade sour dough.
“Well that’s good,” Stephanie smiled, happy for her friend. Money was pretty scarce in these depression filled days, she hoarded her own close, grateful that the little she earned from the milk and the lump sum that Cass had obtained for her was still growing.
Cass reached for another slice of toast that she broke into the soup. “Have you ever made crackers?” she asked to change the subject.
“You want crackers instead of toast?” Stephanie asked suddenly concerned.
Cass shook her head. “I just wondered if you ever learned to make crackers, I haven’t made them in quite a few years.”
They discussed recipe’s, crackers, and baking for the rest of the meal but Cass was just as interested in that as in the secret she was keeping to herself.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Cass didn’t allow the boys to go outside on the cold blustery days and especially if she was working with heavy shifting logs. She didn’t have the time and didn’t want the worry of watching to see where they were. She couldn’t watch them and the heavy logs as she brought them in one at a time to be cut. The horses pulled them cheerfully snorting in the cold air and using their massive strength to pull them through the slowly deepening snow.
Stephanie didn’t mind having the boys in the house, there was a lot to keep them occupied and now Timmy had started book learning. For his birthday they had given him the slate and books and had been making learning fun for him. Cass had a knack of singing the alphabet song and he joined in exuberantly, even Tommy was catching on. She told Stephanie it was never too early to teach them and Stephanie heartily agreed as she watched Cass teaching them in subtle ways, making it fun, they were learning without realizing it. Over chores in the barn their singing could be heard, making the work go quickly and easily.
Cass banked the edges of the entire house in deep straw and pitched snow and a little manure over it to hold it down. She also banked around the beehives now that they were done for winter and hibernating, eating their honey to stay alive over the long winter months she explained to the boys.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
By Christmas the snow was coming down thick and furious. Cass hadn’t let the boys come out and help with the chores for days now. It wasn’t just the logs anymore she said she couldn’t worry about them getting lost just walking from the house to the barn. She herself had strung a clothesline from the backdoor to the barn and another from the barn to the well house and from there to the mill house. That way she could walk from one to the other if the snow came down really hard and she could get to the various buildings to work.
She found she missed having the boys around underfoot. At five, Timmy was actually a little bit of help, fetching things, looking for eggs, both boys could throw feed at the poultry. She wasn’t going to let them in the barn quite yet. She looked into the stall where their Christmas presents were hidden and smiled. She had traded a load of lumber for these and she thought she’d made a good bargain. She had been building up a good supply of lumber because Glenn was looking to add onto his barn and the trade she had made wouldn’t add to the productivity on the farm but she didn’t have to worry about that. When Glenn came to pick up all the rest of his lumber he would be bringing her some other things in trade, meanwhile she kept busy about the place doing her normal chores and stockpiling more wood or cutting as she could. Using the horses to haul tree after tree, using the clamps, counterbalances, and chains to get the trees to where the saw could cut them as she fed them along the platform, back and forth, slice after slice, getting them all uniform widths and then cutting them to size, she stacked them all along the walls in ever growing stacks. Smaller pieces in different stacks, their usefulness keeping the longer pieces from having to be cut smaller. Even the bark was put into baskets to be burned in the house fires as well as the culled pieces or scrap pieces from the trees, if it was thick enough it was stacked in the piles of wood that were drying out. Baskets full of sawdust were put on the compost pile to rot in the spring. When that got too full, she began to spread it on the plowed and now snow covered fields. She never spread pine sawdust there though, pine oozed sap and it was acidic so nothing would grow through this so she took it into the woods and spread near the paths where she wanted the weeds to die. The ever widening and thinning area of the patch of woods she was clearing attested to her hard work. She poured the solution once more to rot the stumps, wondering if it would work with winter’s icy grip on the woods.
<
br /> Christmas Eve dawned and she was helping in the kitchen with Stephanie, an easy camaraderie as they made popcorn balls and popcorn chains with Timmy. Tommy was just a might too young but he ate plenty of the popcorn, so much so that when he threw it up no one was surprised. Cass had hauled a blue spruce tree she had cut from the woods into the living room and they were decorating it with shiny decorations from years past in Cass’s family and making new ones as the two women made memories for the little boys. Summer wiggled in her familiar basket, her eyes catching the shiny trinkets as the light reflected off of them, her tiny hands reaching for the reflections.
“We should make our own candy,” Stephanie whispered to Cass, her warm breath in Cass’s ear causing a reaction that Cass hid well.
“We rarely did that except maple candy,” Cass whispered back knowing that Stephanie wanted to hide the idea from the boys. Their enthusiasm about Christmas was enormous. Cass had read aloud the Night before Christmas book last week and now both boys, Timmy more so than Tommy, were excited. They seemed a little confused about Jesus’ birthday but Stephanie wasn’t worried about that at this age.
During the boys naps in the afternoon they boiled up some sugar candy, some with maple syrup, some plain white sugar and used snow to rapid cool it they came up with a nice mess of candy for the following day. Stephanie had made some festive stockings for everyone and Cass was pleased to find one made for herself as well. They hung them from the mantle; each one had a name embroidered carefully across the stocking. It made Cass feel warm and fuzzy inside to see them all there. When the boys awoke from their nap, the candy was well hidden in the pantry but they were in awe of the empty hanging and waiting stockings.
The Journey Home Page 13
