Chapter Seven
Spending Thursday and Friday with Bertie and cooking supper for Belle and Everett was an eye-opener for Sally. She’d always fantasized about the perfect life being staying at home, keeping house, and taking care of babies.
For the first hour after Belle and Maggie left on Thursday, it did seem perfect.
She washed the dishes while Bertie slept contentedly.
When the dishes were done, she looked around for something else to do.
She spotted the dirty diaper pail and decided to take care of the laundry to surprise her friend.
But the diapers were rather disgusting. She did them with a smile, but she couldn’t imagine how hard it was to wash them every day, as she knew Belle usually did.
Then the baby woke as she was hanging the laundry on the line. She went inside to find him upset, and when she picked him up, he seemed content for just a moment before he began wailing again.
She paced back and forth across the cabin, but still the baby cried. She tried swaddling him. She tried putting a finger in his mouth for him to suck on. Nothing worked.
When she finally got him back to sleep, Sally hurried to finish hanging the diapers and start supper.
There wasn’t much time to get supper ready, and she was feeling frazzled.
No wonder Belle and Maggie had wanted to take turns with the baby.
It was a long, mostly boring afternoon with little to do but tend to Bertie.
She couldn’t imagine having to spend all her time with a tiny human who did nothing but scream all day.
Perhaps she hadn’t thought about her future enough if she’d thought many children were a good idea.
She was relieved when Belle returned, but her friend seemed to have found new life in being outdoors. She had a smile that had been missing since Sally’s arrival. Was it possible Belle was unhappy to be tied down?
“Supper is on the stove. I made a big pot of soup for you.” Sally got to her feet, ready to get away from the house of screams.
“Thank you so much!” Belle said, putting the bow and arrow she’d hunted with away. “I was able to bring down a stag. We’ll all be eating well. How was Bertie?”
“He was fussy while he was awake.”
Belle sighed. “I believe he’s cutting his first teeth. I know what a handful he can be.”
Sally nodded. “It was fine. I managed to wash the diapers, so you don’t have to do that tomorrow.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t have! Washing diapers is the worst part of motherhood,” Belle said with a smile.
“Now that I’ve washed diapers, I would have to agree with you.” Sally wanted out, but she knew she needed to stay and be pleasant for a little while more.
Belle laughed. “I thank you for spending time with my Bertie.” She peered down at her son in the drawer where he slept. “He looks like such an angel when he’s sleeping! Wouldn’t you agree?”
“He does! Well, I need to head home. Tom is going to want his supper.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” Belle said. “Thanks again for watching him.”
As Sally walked home, she wondered where the magic was in being a mother, something she’d always looked forward to. It had been a very long afternoon!
As soon as Sally walked in the door, she started the fire in the stove so she could cook supper. What she really wanted to do was take a bath after washing all those dirty diapers, but she wasn’t about to let Tom go hungry for a moment longer than necessary.
She glanced out at her beautiful garden as she chopped Eskimo potatoes to go with the venison steak she was preparing.
Nothing was sprouting yet, but the fence was built, and the garden was ready for the seeds she would plant in two weeks.
She couldn’t wait to work more on her garden.
But first, she had to spend her time with the baby.
While they ate their supper, Tom talked to Sally about his plans for the pig pen. He wasn’t going to put the door on the building until it was cold enough to be required. He planned to give them a large area to roam around in, and he would build a trough for feeding and one for watering.
“I can’t wait until the piglets are here,” she said. “They are so much fun and so affectionate. You’ll see when they arrive.”
“I think you’ll be the one to spend the most time with them. I wish I could help more around here, but my job makes what we’re doing here possible.”
“We won’t be spending on food, thankfully,” Sally said. “With the way the other ladies and I have set things up, most everything we need from the store will be free to us.”
“Are you going to cook for the store at all?”
She shrugged. “I will can the vegetables we grow. I’ll sell some of the pork to the store, but I don’t know if I’ll ever do the baking Maggie and Belle do. If I’m in the mood to bake, I may make extra for the store, but I don’t really see a need.”
“Will you make jam and jelly from the foraged berries?”
“Yes, of course. I probably won’t make enough for the whole town though.”
Tom nodded. “You have a lot going on for as short a time as you’ve been in town. Do you realize it’s only been a week and you’ve put in a huge garden and gone into business with your two friends?”
“Is it strange for you to spend time with Everett outside of work?” Sally asked. “I know he’s your employer...”
“Not at all,” he said. “I worried it would be, but it doesn’t bother me. He’s much more personable than I imagined he’d be. I’m surprised at all the work they’re willing to do to help us.”
“You know Everett better than I do, but Belle has been my friend for a long time. She’s a good woman, and I would assume he’s a good man, simply because she so obviously loves him.”
Tom nodded. “He’s a very fair employer. I’ve been nothing but happy working there. The hours are long, but the pay is good.”
“Did you ever talk to your friend about getting a bride? I can’t remember his name...”
“Jasper, and yes, he’s already got a bride coming. I’m trying to remember her name. Does Agnes sound familiar?”
Sally couldn’t help but smile. “Agnes is the girl I told you about who was thinking of coming here! She’ll fit right in, I’m sure.”
“I’ll tell him you approve.”
“Not that my approval matters to anyone, but I’ll be happy to see her and help her settle in.”
“How did it go with the Thompson’s baby?”
Sally sighed. “It was a long afternoon. He fussed every minute he was awake, and I had trouble settling him. Belle thinks he’s teething.”
“I thought you’d appreciate the day off from the hard work you’ve been doing.”
“Well, I did the laundry while I was there, and I cooked their supper. So, it wasn’t an easy day. Those diapers were disgusting.”
Tom smiled. “I’m sure they were. It’s good practice for when you become a mother.”
Sally nodded, worried that she wasn’t patient enough to have a child. She’d always wanted them, but after one day with Bertie, she was questioning herself. “I learned a lot today. I’ve never really been around babies.”
He nodded slowly. “I suppose you wouldn’t have been. It makes sense to me.”
Her mind whirled for a moment as she tried to think of a new topic. Anything but continuing to talk about her day with Bertie. “Are you planning on building a log structure for the pigs or something more like a house?”
“Log. It will be a great deal cheaper that way. Though Everett did offer to donate the lumber since we’ll be sharing the meat from the pigs.”
“It’s up to you how you want to do it,” she said. “As long as there is adequate space for them, and they are kept warm enough, nothing else really matters to me.”
“Do you think I’m being prideful not accepting his offer of lumber?”
Sally shook her head. “I think it’s between the two of you. It’s fair that they help us build, but you decide if they should help with the cost of the pen.”
After the supper dishes were finished, Tom pulled her down onto his lap and kissed her. “I’m happy with everything you’re doing to improve this place. I can’t express how good it is to have a wife who looks toward the future.”
“I’m happy to have the opportunity. Remember, I’ve been dreaming about coming here since the first letters from Belle started arriving at the hotel.
We would all gather around and read the letters aloud after we’d finished work for the day.
She was writing a good number of us, so some days we’d get ten letters all at once, but we would only read one per night. It gave us all our dreams back.”
“What do you mean?” Tom asked. “How did it give you your dreams back?”
Sally frowned, trying to find the right words to explain what she meant.
“The hotel was fair, in that it paid us a decent wage and provided a place for us to live while we worked. But some of the men who frequented our restaurant were...well...they liked to corner the waitresses and touch them. Maggie was fired for how she reacted when one of them pinched her bottom. It was unfair, and we all knew it. I even went to the manager and tried to talk him into letting her come back, but he wouldn’t.
He thought as waitresses, we should be willing to do whatever the customer wanted.
” She shook her head. “After a few months of that, you start losing your dreams. Belle was the only one who seemed to be able to keep them, but when she left, we were all sad for a while. Then her letters started coming, and we dreamed about coming here. One of the waitresses had, so we all could.”
“I think I understand. I’m glad you’re not there anymore.”
“So am I. I know I’m much happier married to you.” She pressed her lips to his, and soon, he was the one in control, initiating passion between them.
*****
THE NEXT DAY WITH BERTIE was the same as the first. Sally didn’t attempt to wash diapers again, but she scrubbed the floors and fixed supper when the baby wasn’t screaming. Sally was starting to believe he simply didn’t like her, which was silly, but true.
When Belle returned from hunting, her cheeks were flushed and she looked as happy as Sally had ever seen her. Sally was pacing the cabin, trying to calm the baby.
“Oh, is he fussy again?” Belle asked, washing her hands and taking the baby from Sally. “What is it, little one?”
As soon as Belle’s arms wrapped around the baby, he melted into her, his screams becoming soft sobs. “How did you do that?” Sally asked.
Belle shrugged. “He’s the same way with Maggie. I think he just wants me to be the one holding him all the time. Sometimes I think it may drive me mad.”
“Really?” Sally asked. “You seem so good with him.”
“I love him more than I can say, but I need the time I spend hunting to rejuvenate and be a better mother. I need the breaks, but I’m sorry he’s fussy for you.”
“I feel better just knowing that he’s the same with Maggie as he is with me. I thought I was doing something wrong or that he hated me. I’ve never really been around babies.”
Maggie walked into the cabin then with two baskets full of forage.
“There’s still no new forage from spring, but I got a lot more lingonberries and Eskimo potatoes.
I’m surprised so much of it survives the winter, but other than over-ripening, they are good to eat.
The berries just need more sugar.” Maggie took a pail from the corner of the room and divided the forage into three parts.
One part went in the pail for Belle, and the other two were placed in baskets.
Sally gladly accepted the basket with her share. “Thank you! I’m going to make jam and a pie, I think.”
“I’m sure both will be delicious. Is Tom happy to have a variety of foods and not just jerky and hardtack?”
Sally shrugged. “I think he could have happily eaten jerky and hardtack for the rest of his life, but he always compliments me on what I serve, so I think he likes it. He’s a hard man to read at times.”
Belle took something wrapped in a towel and added it to Sally’s basket. “I baked an extra loaf of bread for you,” she said.
“Thank you! I didn’t take the time to bake this morning.” Instead, she’d had a bath because she still felt dirty after washing the diapers.
“I’m glad I did it then!” Belle said. “And we’re bringing lunch tomorrow. You catch up on the things you didn’t get done this week because you were planting and taking care of my Bertie.”
“Are you sure?” Sally asked. “I could make a venison pot pie or something.”
“Not this time. I’m cooking for us all tomorrow, and Maggie is taking care of Sunday. I wonder what we’re all going to do with our weekends when we’ve built everything you need on your farm?”
Sally smiled. “I think I want a cold house like yours. I know Maggie said she doesn’t have room on her property for one, but we do, and then we could store double the meat.”
Maggie and Belle both nodded emphatically. “That would help us all out tremendously. I’ll talk to James about it tonight,” Maggie said. “I’m sure he’s going to want to wait a week or two after so many projects, but if it’s finished by fall, it’ll be fine.”
“Wonderful! I wasn’t sure if you ladies would like that idea.”
“We like all ideas,” Belle said. “The more animals we have and the more room we have to store those animals, the easier all our lives will be.”
“What will we do next year when we have all the structures we want?” Maggie asked.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you! Agnes is going to marry Jasper.”
“That’s wonderful!” Belle said. “Any idea when she’ll get here?”
“None. But I’m glad she’s coming.” Sally shook her head. “I’ve been worried about her ever since I left the hotel for the last time.”
“I worry about all of the ladies we left behind,” Belle responded. “Soon, we’ll all be settled in, and we’ll be able to do anything as we work together.”
Sally left Belle’s with a smile on her face. Her first two days with the baby were behind her, and a good friend would be joining them soon. Alaska was starting to feel like home.