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The three untangled themselves and swiveled around to lay their heads on the pillows, the two men pressing against Xonra, their arms around each other, closing her between them.
“I’ll get some coffee in a minute,” said Morgan, pulling the bedding up over them and snuggling his head onto Xonra’s shoulder.
“Mmmm,” she murmured, already almost asleep.
Glenn’s only response was a tiny snore.
* * * *
After a huge breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, tomatoes, mushrooms, and baby spinach, Xonra held her stomach and said, “I think we ought to walk to the village, use up some of those carbs.”
“No need. We’ll be walking miles and miles again, once we get there,” said Glenn.
“Besides, we burned up a lot of calories last night, and will do so again tonight,” added Morgan.
“I don’t know about you two, but I have to work tomorrow,” she argued.
“I didn’t say it’d be a late night, just that it’d be an energetic one,” replied Morgan, pushing her gently toward their car.
Knowing herself outvoted and guessing her legs and feet would be tired again by the end of the day, she gave up and climbed in.
This time, once inside the historical precinct, they turned left instead of right, going to the village houses. Xonra was especially interested to see them, as these were the women HR Resources was having such difficulty in supplying. She wondered just how hard these women worked. Surely not as hard as the candle-dipping ladies. Although, it was always possible they were paid more than minimum wage. She couldn’t imagine anyone doing that job for so little. Perhaps the new women would be baking the bread sold in the bakery, though. That seemed logical. Baking and laundry were two of the tasks mentioned, along with weaving and sewing.
The first house, like some of the shops in Main Street, was not made to be entered. It was simply a static display, with rocking chairs on the porch, a neat flower garden out front, and a carefully tended vegetable garden out back.
“Beans, corn, tomatoes, carrots. Someone’s done a lot of hard work here,” said Glenn.
“Hell yes. I had to weed the garden as a kid. It’s an endless task, and then the snails or cut-worms get the crops anyway,” said Morgan.
The second house didn’t have a garden out back. Instead, there was a huge old-fashioned metal drum, filled with water boiling on a stand over an open fire. Laundry poles held clotheslines filled with period costumes pegged out, flapping in the sunshine. Several young women were using scrubbing boards to clean garments, and another one was stirring the laundry in the vat with a long wooden pole. Yet more women were bent over tubs of water, rinsing and bluing white aprons.
Inside the house were several long trestle tables covered with blankets on which more women were ironing clothes. The irons were heated in the fire and at the final table, visitors were allowed to feel the weight and heat of them and iron a garment.
“I’ll never complain about ironing a shirt again,” said Xonra after pressing a man’s open-necked linen shirt. “That iron is so heavy it’d make my wrist ache in no time at all.”
Glenn nodded. “There was no such thing as easy-care, permanent-press garments back then.”
The next house was a totally different atmosphere. Spindles and shuttles flew and wheels whirred as the women weaved lengths of cloth and spun thread. By the window, an older woman sat sewing tiny, immaculate stitches into a baby’s garment. Xonra looked thoughtfully at the little dress. She’d seen a baby dress just like that in the drapery store and its price was astronomical. She hadn’t bothered to read the sign by it, but if the cloth was hand-woven, that would explain the price tag.
As the threesome walked down the path to the final house, their noses told them it was indeed where the bread was baked. Sweating young women were pulling a heavy metal tray of hot bagels out of the stone oven as they arrived and a crowd was lined up, waiting to buy them. On a metal rack, cooling, were several dozen loaves of bread. Morgan immediately joined the line and returned to them a few moments later with three hot bagels.
“Yum. So good.” Morgan popped the last of his bagel in his mouth and rejoined the line, but all the bagels had been sold and the women were already mixing the dough for the next batch.
“I can see why they need more staff. They could easily sell twice as many,” Xonra commented as they left the house.
“Absolutely. And lots of people would buy more to take home with them, I reckon,” added Morgan.
They wandered back into the village then took a ride in a horse-drawn carriage. “This place is really amazing. I’m so glad we came. I’ve gained a true appreciation for the past and our ancestors, as well as enjoyed it from a tourist viewpoint,” said Xonra.
“So much more real than learning about it in school,” added Glenn.
“Speaking of the school, let’s go back past the schoolroom. I think that was my favorite display,” said Morgan.
The children were different, but it was the same teacher, and once again they chanted their times tables once a crowd had gathered.
“I bet he gets bored teaching the same lesson every day,” said Glenn.
“But how would that work? With different children every day, they wouldn’t know what he expects. Plus, it’s way too long a day for the little ones, eight in the morning until seven at night.”
