Read Online The Windflower by Laura London - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Laura London
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woke daily to the sharp tang of charred sugar.
In October she husked corn with the housemaids. The project lasted a whole week because Aunt April despised as too plebeian the American custom of inviting the neighbors over to a husking bee. For days the fresh garden air was busy with the rustle of dry husks and the snap of cobs cracking and laughter as well, for Henry Cork did his best to claim the traditional kiss from any maiden who came across a red cob, and the housemaids pelted him with smut ears in lively battles.
November brought them chillier days. The itinerant woodchopper came in his coarse boots, carrying his broad ax and his canvas bundle. When he moved on again, there was an artfully balanced stack of wood by the horse barn for their winter fires.
Christmas! Mistletoe and red holly berries, ribbons and wax candles, chains cut from gaily colored paper and hung in swags around the drawing room, and Aunt April at the aging spinet playing "The Boar's Head Carol" and "When Christ Was Born of Mary Free." On Christmas morning Merry and April sat through services in the untreated church in itchy woolen mittens and heavy caps under their best bonnets and then walked home to the delectable meal April had prepared of stuffed roast goose, brussels sprouts with almonds, roast potatoes, apple yule logs, mince pie, and a plum pudding sprigged with holly and glowing blue brandy flames. In the evening they sat by the hearth nibbling on oysters cooked with lemon on toast that her aunt called angels on horseback, and opened and exclaimed happily over their gifts: light imported cologne to Merry from April, a lilac gauze scarf to April from Merry, and to both of them a generous length of pale-green mohair for new drawing-room window curtains from Merry's father, and a three-volume set of Mysteries of Udolpho from Sally. And that night as they walked arm in arm to their bedchambers they both agreed that no Christmas together had been happier.
In January Merry sewed the new drawing-room curtains with her aunt and made twelve fine, large cheeses, and in late February, when a traveling showman came to the village with a moose to display, Merry snuck off in Henry Cork's company to see it. For nine pence one purchased a ticket to see the beast and a handbill praising its excellence. The handbill read: "The properties of this fleet and tractable Animal are such as will give pleasure and satisfaction to every beholder." Fleet the Animal proved to be, but tractable it was not. Through some mysterious expedient that Merry suspected was related to Henry Cork's presence near its cage, the moose got loose, bit the showman, and galloped off into the woods, providing a great deal more pleasure and satisfaction to all beholders than its hapless owner had anticipated.
Far away the war raged, and the town children ran under gray skies shooting each other with stick rifles and hiding as scalping parties behind the starkly winter-bared trees. The parson's youngest son stole away to become a drummer for the 56th Virginia Militia, and the Richmond Enquirer was thick with advertisements like the one urging: ' 'Gentlemen wishing uniforms embroidered in a prompt and neat manner will please apply to No. 6 Babcock Alley."
The campaign against British Canada had failed miserably. At the Chateauguay River a sizable chunk of the American Army got lost in a swamp and shot each other up, while the main body fled in wild retreat before a small British force when the British buglers sounded a dramatically overconfident charge. Merry heard through her father that Carl had retired to winter quarters at French Mills with Upham's 21st Infantry, where the food and housing were abysmal and the sanitary conditions of such a nature that a gentleman could not relate them in a polite communication to his daughter.
And from Sally came the tidings that Jason was ill but improving from a Tower musket ball in the hip, taken in a skirmish against braves from Weatherford's Red
In October she husked corn with the housemaids. The project lasted a whole week because Aunt April despised as too plebeian the American custom of inviting the neighbors over to a husking bee. For days the fresh garden air was busy with the rustle of dry husks and the snap of cobs cracking and laughter as well, for Henry Cork did his best to claim the traditional kiss from any maiden who came across a red cob, and the housemaids pelted him with smut ears in lively battles.
November brought them chillier days. The itinerant woodchopper came in his coarse boots, carrying his broad ax and his canvas bundle. When he moved on again, there was an artfully balanced stack of wood by the horse barn for their winter fires.
Christmas! Mistletoe and red holly berries, ribbons and wax candles, chains cut from gaily colored paper and hung in swags around the drawing room, and Aunt April at the aging spinet playing "The Boar's Head Carol" and "When Christ Was Born of Mary Free." On Christmas morning Merry and April sat through services in the untreated church in itchy woolen mittens and heavy caps under their best bonnets and then walked home to the delectable meal April had prepared of stuffed roast goose, brussels sprouts with almonds, roast potatoes, apple yule logs, mince pie, and a plum pudding sprigged with holly and glowing blue brandy flames. In the evening they sat by the hearth nibbling on oysters cooked with lemon on toast that her aunt called angels on horseback, and opened and exclaimed happily over their gifts: light imported cologne to Merry from April, a lilac gauze scarf to April from Merry, and to both of them a generous length of pale-green mohair for new drawing-room window curtains from Merry's father, and a three-volume set of Mysteries of Udolpho from Sally. And that night as they walked arm in arm to their bedchambers they both agreed that no Christmas together had been happier.
In January Merry sewed the new drawing-room curtains with her aunt and made twelve fine, large cheeses, and in late February, when a traveling showman came to the village with a moose to display, Merry snuck off in Henry Cork's company to see it. For nine pence one purchased a ticket to see the beast and a handbill praising its excellence. The handbill read: "The properties of this fleet and tractable Animal are such as will give pleasure and satisfaction to every beholder." Fleet the Animal proved to be, but tractable it was not. Through some mysterious expedient that Merry suspected was related to Henry Cork's presence near its cage, the moose got loose, bit the showman, and galloped off into the woods, providing a great deal more pleasure and satisfaction to all beholders than its hapless owner had anticipated.
Far away the war raged, and the town children ran under gray skies shooting each other with stick rifles and hiding as scalping parties behind the starkly winter-bared trees. The parson's youngest son stole away to become a drummer for the 56th Virginia Militia, and the Richmond Enquirer was thick with advertisements like the one urging: ' 'Gentlemen wishing uniforms embroidered in a prompt and neat manner will please apply to No. 6 Babcock Alley."
The campaign against British Canada had failed miserably. At the Chateauguay River a sizable chunk of the American Army got lost in a swamp and shot each other up, while the main body fled in wild retreat before a small British force when the British buglers sounded a dramatically overconfident charge. Merry heard through her father that Carl had retired to winter quarters at French Mills with Upham's 21st Infantry, where the food and housing were abysmal and the sanitary conditions of such a nature that a gentleman could not relate them in a polite communication to his daughter.
And from Sally came the tidings that Jason was ill but improving from a Tower musket ball in the hip, taken in a skirmish against braves from Weatherford's Red
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