Chapter 8
Mary took her back to the store to help Martha with emptying out all those boxes from the teamster wagon into the store.
Even with a wet dress, she felt like a wet mop.
Mavis introduced her to everyone as her niece from New Orleans, Lydia would smile and wished she was anyplace else but there.
Mary went back into the kitchen to make dinner at about five o’clock, but the rest of them kept working until almost six thirty.
By then, Lydia just wanted to go to bed.
She didn’t want to eat dinner, she wanted a bath, and to sleep.
How did these people do so much work each day?
“Lydia, would you go with Martha and take down the clean clothes from the clothes lines. It looks like rain, and I don’t want to leave them up overnight. With the nice wind we had today, they should all be dry.” Mavis asked her and saw Martha start for the back yard.
Lydia followed her and as Martha took each item off the clothesline, she folded it and put it in the basket.
Lydia tried to do the same thing. She was amazed at how soft the clothes felt from blowing in the wind.
She helped Martha carry the baskets of dry clothes into the house.
They sure smelled good. That’s when Martha started heating up the irons on the stove.
“Lydia, we need to iron the dresses you washed before we can wear them. It won’t take long and then you can wear your dress tomorrow when you work in the store.
We won’t be scrubbing the floor or doing the washing, so you can wear your nice dress as you work.
” Martha told her. “Heat up the irons on the stove. Spread your dress on the ironing board and then press it with the iron, but don’t leave it on too long or you’ll scorch the material and ruin the skirt.
When the iron cools, exchange it for a hot one.
The wrinkles will fall out of the skirt easily enough.
If you have a problem with a wrinkle, sprinkle it with water, and then iron it. ”
She went to work on their dresses, and Lydia tried to iron her dress.
It wasn’t as easy as it looked. The wrinkles didn’t just fall out of the dress.
She ironed and ironed the dress. She sprinkled water on it and ironed it.
It helped, but it still didn’t look like when her maids had done it.
She cursed as she burnt her fingers and also made a small scorch line on the skirt.
Mary called them into eat dinner. Martha put the irons up until after dinner.
Lydia came with her and sat down to eat. She was tired and discouraged. “What am I doing wrong when I’m ironing, Martha? You make it look so easy when you’re ironing your dresses…I thought I was doing the same thing, but my dress doesn’t look near as nice as yours.”
“It’s the material your dress is made of. Our dresses are made of cotton. It’s easy to work with. Your dress is made of satin polonaise. It doesn’t wash up as well as cotton does, and it’s harder to iron.” Martha explained as she ate her meal.
“I think it’s what all my dresses are made of what am I going to do?” Lydia complained and looked like she was going to cry.
“You can trade them in on some simpler dresses in my resale shop to make it easier to wash and iron, for one thing. And it will give you some money to buy some more practical shoes, and some warmer clothes to wear this winter. Colorado is much colder than New Orleans in the winter. You have never seen snow like we have here. When we have a snowstorm, it can be three feet high when it stops.” Mavis told her and saw her mouth fall open.
“How do you survive in such high amounts of snow? Do your roofs cave in? What about your children…how do they go to school or even to the store to shop?” Lydia asked them. To not be able to shop was an appalling thought to someone who loved to shop each day with her father’s money.
“Well, for one, we stay home and we don’t go shopping.
Our kids don’t go to school for days on end.
We teach them at home when they can’t go to school.
We learn to walk on snowshoes, and ski on top of snow.
We plan ahead and make sure that we have plenty of food, so that our children don’t go hungry and we don’t run out of wood, so that we don’t get cold.
It takes a lot of work and planning to get that done. ” Mavis told her bluntly.
“You stay in the house and store and don’t go anywhere for months on end?
” Lydia said in a soft voice. She was still reeling from finding out that she might be cooped up in the store and bunkhouse for months on end.
Oh Lord! Can it get any worse? “What do you do for fun? Do you have parties or dances? What about men or dates or having beaus? Don’t you have time for any of that? ”
“Here in Colorado, we worry more about staying alive than our social life. We meet people while we’re working or shopping for essentials, not frivolous parties.
We don’t spend a lot of money on entertainment.
It just takes all our money to stay alive and keep our families fed, clothed, and a roof over their heads.
Common sense wins every time.” Mavis told her and then rose to start clearing the table.
“Lydia, it’s your turn to wash dishes, Mary will dry, and Martha will put them away.
I’ll start heating up water to take baths for all of us. ”
Didn’t this family ever stop working? Lydia wondered as she washed the dishes they put into the water, rinsed them, and handed them to Mary to dry.
It seemed that by the time the dishes were finished the water was ready to take a bath.
Mary went first, then Martha, Mavis, and finally Lydia.
Lydia was almost too tired to get into the hot water.
But one step into the water still made her sigh and she sunk into the water anyway. It felt so good!
She finally pulled herself out of the water and let it drain by pulling the plug. The soft bed filled with grass and clover felt even better! She was asleep before she knew it. Morning came way too early, but she got up and asked Mavis what she was doing today.
“Some of our items need to be washed up before we can sell them. Some even need to be repainted. I seem to recall that you are pretty good at painting. Didn’t you decorate your entire home back in New Orleans? Doing the painting yourself?” Mavis asked Lydia.
“I did, but I don’t know if I’m all that good at it.
Painting a wall and repainting something are two different things.
I’ll do what I can on the items you mention, but I can’t promise anything or how they’ll turn out.
” Lydia told her. She wasn’t sure what she wanted from her, and she didn’t want to disappoint her again on what she could accomplish.
Lydia took her to another room in the big old barn filled with mostly furniture. Most of it had been repaired, but it needed to be repainted to look almost new. There were some toys there, some lamps, and even some pottery jars. They all needed some tender loving care to make them fit to sell.
All along one wall were paint cans, paint brushes, and detail brushes.
Lydia looked around and smiled. She would like working in here.
She nodded at Mavis and went to work without saying another word.
She started with a vase. Cleaned it and then drew a design on it.
Then, she started painting to fill in the design and around the outside of it.
It took her half of the afternoon, but when she was done, it looked beautiful.
She set it aside and started on the next piece of pottery.
Mavis came to see how she was doing and stopped in her tracks.
The pieces of pottery were absolutely beautiful… they would sell in days.
“Lydia, I had no idea of the talent you had in painting. Those pieces of pottery are absolutely beautiful! I am so impressed. You could go into business selling vases and pottery that you’ve painted.
They will pay you big bucks for those painted pots.
” Mavis told her and smiled really smiled at Lydia.
“Are you sure? I just do this to keep me entertained. I don’t think I’m very good at it…would people really pay me for my painting?” Lydia asked her. She had never felt she was good at anything and living with Mavis and her girls really felt useless.
“Believe me, I’ll see if my teamster driver can bring me an entire big box of pottery on his next run.
We’ll get a lot of pottery for you to work with.
Do what you can with all this and then start on my stuff.
In a week, we’ll have enough for you to open up your own store.
You’ll see when people start buying what you’ve done.
” Mavis told her and patted her shoulder.
“Thank you, Aunt Mavis. I’d like not to be a burden on you or anyone.
I never felt like I had a talent to do anything but get married to a rich plantation owner and be spoiled by my husband for the rest of my life.
I would like to be known for something other than being useless. ” Lydia told her and smiled again.
“I think you’ll find that you have all sorts of hidden talents.” Mavis told her and then left her to start painting again. Who would have thought that Lydia was so good at painting?
Travis loved living with Sam, Tate, and all his children.
There was never a dull moment in their home.
If one of the twins didn’t do something funny, Cassie did.
Chris and Cam kept them in line most of the time, and for some reason Sam kept the entire family running and organized without any problem at all.
She was a terrific cook and really loved his brother.
She was also a very nice person. She went for walks with Travis and kept him laughing and talking about the war, which he really didn’t want to talk about.
It brought up all the memories that he didn’t want to remember…
but it was good to remember. It was a cathartic in a way.
It helped to lift it all off his shoulders for a welcome change.
He had held it all in…he felt guilty that he was here in Angel Falls and his friends were still in that hellhole of a war.
He was free and they were still fighting.
How could he feel so good when they could still die?
Sam was easy to talk to or maybe she was just really easy to listen to while he talked.
The kids were in the wagon as they pulled it along the walkways.
They must have walked all over the town while he told her all about the war, his friends, Leah, Tate, having to leave and going to fight in the war while Tate stayed here to take care of his sick wife.
He felt guilty leaving Tate, and guilty going, too.
Sam understood it all. It put the twins and Cassie to sleep in the wagon while they walked.
And then she told him the most amazing story about herself.
He couldn’t believe that she was a back-up for her brother who was a robber, thief, murderer, and rode with Quantrill’s Raiders for the last four years until he became a deserter after Laurence, Kansas.
Can you imagine killing one hundred and forty men and boys!
And then burning down half the town! It was incredible!
When her parents were killed and their home burned down, she was made to go with her half-brother.
He didn’t give her a choice, she either went with him, or he would hurt her really bad.
He made her learn to shoot a gun…really well.
She didn’t have a choice but to be his back -up.
She dressed like a boy for four years and did exactly what he told her to do, or he’d backhand her or worse.
She cooked and washed his clothes on the trail, he found game.
She made sure that she never spent a penny of the money he stole, she also made sure that she never shot anyone in any of their stage holdups, bank robberies, or train thefts.
They were wanted felons in Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, the Idaho Territory, and the Wyoming Territory.
Then the war came and Jimmy thought it would be fun to shoot people, and it would be legal for a change.
He joined the Rangers led by William Quantrill and found it to be everything he thought it would be…
they raided, killed, raped, burned, stole…
Jimmy was in seventh heaven. He left Sam behind and told her to stay put until he came back to get her after the war.
But as soon as he left, Sam sold her horse and used that money to go to a resale store and buy some women’s clothes.
She could finally dress like a woman again.
She took a stage to St. Louis, went to the Mail Order Bride Agency and chose Tate Buchanan’s letter.
She took a train the same day to Colorado and hoped that Jimmy would never find her again.
Unfortunately, he did when he took a train to California.
She had told the sheriff about Jimmy, and he knew what he looked like.
He saw him in town when they stopped to refuel.
He arrested her brother. She actually stood there with her own guns to help the sheriff.
Travis had listened and couldn’t believe it. His sister-in-law was a very interesting person and he loved it!