Read Online Abiding Peace by Susan Page Davis - Free Book Online Page B

now?”

    After breakfast was over, Ruth was changed out of her night-clothes, the hearth swept, and the dishes cleaned, Christine began her washing. Ben carried the kettle of hot water out behind the house and emptied it into the washtub. He and John brought several buckets of cold water to add to it, and she wound up with a lukewarm bath for the family’s clothing and linens.
    Constance and Abby helped her. After Christine had scrubbed a garment on the washboard, she tossed it into the tub of rinse water. The girls’ job was to retrieve it, dunk it in a bucket that held a second rinse water, wring it again, and hang it on the clothesline. She kept the two little girls busy running back and forth. Constance couldn’t reach the line, but she handed the wet clothes to Abby, who was a head taller and proud that she could perform this task.
    Meanwhile, the pastor and his sons weeded the garden and picked the vegetables that were ripe. The peas were gone by, but beets, lettuce, Swiss chard, green beans, carrots, turnips, and onions would liven up their meals. Last year’s root vegetables were nearly exhausted, and what was left had gone soft. The new harvest cheered everyone.
    Christine attacked the pile of soiled clothing with a vengeance. She had brought her own and Goody Deane’s laundry over, to save time and resources. If she finished this daunting task by noon, she would do the ironing after dinner and perhaps snatch a couple of hours at the loom.
    Such a shame that the reverend had discovered the loss of his old trousers so quickly. She should have expected it on a Monday, she supposed. Samuel often took that day to catch up on chores around the parsonage. The worsted suit she now intended to sew for him would be suitable for Sunday best, however. It wouldn’t actually replace his work clothes. He could wear the older breeches, as he did today, but she knew he preferred his comfortable long trousers for dirty work.
    As she scrubbed, she racked her brain for a way to get him some serviceable trousers. Perhaps Jane or Sarah could help her, but if she asked them, she might have to reveal what she had done with the old pair. And making Samuel an entire new suit would delay weaving the thicker wool cloth she needed to make him a new winter coat.
    She sighed and wrung out Ruth’s nightdress, the last of the light-colored clothes. Stooping, she lifted an armful of darker clothing into the washtub. As she straightened, she looked out over the garden and corn patch. Was the outlaw watching them, even now, from the edge of the forest?
    He had come the past three nights, and she had taken him small amounts of food. It had become her routine. They met in darkness, while Goody Deane slumbered. Once the old woman had woken in her absence, and Christine had dodged her questions, feeling guilty. Each time she met the outlaw, he told her that he wanted to do honest work. Yet he continued to intimidate her into feeding him.
    Where was Ruth? A sudden panic seized Christine, and she whirled about. Ah. There she was, playing with her dolly, Lucy, near the woodpile.
    “Abby, bring Ruth closer, where I can watch her. She can sit in the shade of the rose bush.” Christine looked once more toward the line of trees beyond the cornfield. Perhaps it was her imagination, but she felt him watching.

seven
    Christine asked Ben to escort her and his three sisters to the Gardners’ farm on Tuesday. Leaving them there with Jane, he went to spend the day working with Richard Dudley and Charles Gardner, who were gathering hay from Charles’s field, within sight of the house.
    “What’s that you’re working on?” Jane asked as Christine pulled a roll of linsey-woolsey from her workbag.
    “It’s material Goody Dudley gave me last spring. I was hoping there would be enough to make some everyday trousers for the reverend, but I fear there’s not.”
    “He needs clothes?”
    Christine hesitated. “Well, I’m weaving some nice worsted for a new