He nodded.“Jasper has already left to fetch her.I’ve been tasked with milking his goat.I think I’m going to bring it here because then I can do them both in the mornings together, and you can do them in the evenings when you milk ours.”
“Sounds good.I’m excited to see Agnes.I would guess she’d be here within the month.”
“I’m glad you had friends here when you arrived and didn’t have to spend time being lonely like Belle did.According to Everett, she had a bit of a hard time with no female companionship.”
“I’m sure she did.I cannot imagine how hard that would be.I spend most of my days alone, but I’m working, and I usually have lunch with Maggie and Belle, so I don’t feel like I’m isolated.”Sally took her first bite of salad and smiled.“The radishes are so crunchy and perfect with the spinach.”
He nodded.“You grew them well.”
“This fall, we’ll have to rake up all the leaves and put them in a pile so we can use them for fertilizer next spring.”
“We could use the pig manure as fertilizer as well,” he suggested.
She shook her head.“No, we’d have to age it, and it’s not great for crops.Pig manure kills most crops.”
“I had no idea!”
“My Ma taught me that.She tried some of the pig manure on her first garden as a married woman, and nothing grew.”
“I learned something new.”
“It’s good to keep learning!”she said.“I ordered a book on homesteading.I think I’ll learn a lot!”
“You should have plenty of time to read this winter,” Tom said.“There’s no real foraging in winter and no crops.You’ll be mostly taking care of the pigs.”
“That sounds fine to me.I’m sure we ladies will get together often as well.Perhaps we’ll sew together.Belle said something about us making a quilt this winter and selling it at the store.”
He chuckled.“You ladies are determined to make as much money as you can, aren’t you?”
“Why wouldn’t we be?We’ve all worked in a job that we hated, where we were treated poorly.We had no choice but to stay because if we didn’t, we’d lose our home and a way to make a living.There was no choice in our lives.Now there is.And we’re all determined to make the most of it.”Sally knew it must seem odd to him, but he’d never been a woman in a world where women were mere property.All of that seemed to be changing, but it hadn’t changed things for her or her friends.
He covered her hand with his.“You’ll never be in that position again.You’re free now.”
She nodded, a smile on her face.“I feel free, and so do my friends.This opportunity has meant so much to all of us.And we’re going to keep right on making all the money we can.We want our daughters to have better lives than we have.”
“I want that too.”
“Dessert?”she asked.“I made a rhubarb pie.”
“You know I will never say no to your rhubarb pie.I hope you canned a lot of the rhubarb to last us through the winter.”
“I did.But I also planted some in the garden.It’s a plant that will grow every year for us.I’ll need to weed around it and water it as I do the rest of the plants, but I won’t ever have to replant.Half of what we have is wild rhubarb and the other half is true rhubarb.True rhubarb tastes so much better!We won’t be able to harvest for a couple of years, but it will be worth it.”
“Sounds good to me.”Tom watched her as she got up and served them each a large slice of pie.“Thanks for always making sure I have a good meal even when you’re busy with your money-making.”
She laughed.“I married you, and I will always care for our home.I won’t let my other duties take me away from you and our children.”
“Good.”He ate his first bite of the pie.“How are the piglets doing?”
“Really well!In another few months it will be time to separate them, and then we’ll breed them in January.Herbert likes to follow me around, but I can’t let him do that when I’m working on the garden.I keep thinking about making a leash for him and walking him to the store with me when I go, but I don’t know how that would go over.”
“I would love to see that!But you’re right.It would cause some chaos.It would be amusing, but not amusing enough to really do it.”
“That’s my thought.”
“Will you harvest more tomorrow?”he asked.
“Yes, because then I can put in more crops.We’re going to have radishes coming out our ears.But our root cellar is going to be full!”
