Mittman, Stephanie Read Online Free PDF Page B

said. "Which is more than I can say
for fixin' the fence. Now go."
    Ethan
looked surprised, but he didn't argue with his sister. For that, Annie was
grateful.
    "What
did you mean," Annie asked once Ethan was out of the house, "about my
making a good wife?"
    Miller
looked up. Annie's hand rested on the table between their plates. The table was
as scrubbed as Annie could get it, but there were burn marks and pot charrings
that couldn't be cleaned away. And a new layer of dust had already settled around
them, as though she hadn't spent the hours between church and supper dusting
the very room they sat in.
    Not
surprisingly, Miller's hands remained in his lap. He sighed heavily. "You
are a fine woman, Sissy Morrow. Not to mention a good cook. You've kept a fine
house from a young age. And when poor Elvira was suffering so, you were a
comfort to her beyond measure."
    "And?"
    "And
I owe you a good deal. And I hope someday to repay it. After all, you surely
have the makings of a very fine wife. A man would be lucky to call you his
own."
    She
waited, but he seemed to have nothing further to say on the subject. He made it
sound as though it was his duty to marry her and that he felt he wasn't getting
too bad a bargain. She was a good cook, a good housekeeper, and an honest
woman. If he was looking for more than that, she didn't know what it could be.
    His
fingers played with the rim of her dishes. At least she knew they had started
out clean, tucked away carefully in the cupboard with the cheesecloth spread
over them. She wondered what would happen to her precious dishes if Willa had
china of her own that she wanted to use.
    Annie
had taken such care of their china. It had been her mother's treasure, brought
all the way from England by Annie's great-grandmother. The children had never
been allowed to do anything but eat off it. No setting the table, no clearing
the plates. It was Annie's responsibility, and she had taken it so seriously
that even now, seventeen years after her mother's death, all that the set lacked
was the one bowl her father had smashed the day her mother died.
    He
had been spooning broth into her, trying to build up her strength, when she had
pushed his hand away and shook her head. "Sissy," she had said,
calling the little girl to her side. "Love them for me, Sissy. Love them
all like they was your own." Then she'd smiled at the nine-year-old and
her father and sighed. It was her last smile and her last sigh. Her eyelids
hadn't even fluttered when Jack Morrow had thrown the bowl across the room, to
shatter into a million pieces.
    Less
than an hour later she was gone and Annie was diapering the week-old Francie
and giving her a sugar teat.
    "Bart
is plannin' to ask Willa to marry him," Annie told Miller. "Maybe
right now he might be talkin' to her pa."
    "Well,"
Miller said with a nod, "that'll be one wedding I'll be happy to perform.
Bart and Willa are both good people. I'm sure they'll do honor unto the
Lord."
    "Yes,"
she agreed. "But you see, Bart has managed the farm since well before Pa
died, and—"
    "And
done a good job too," Miller said, wiping his mouth with a napkin and
looking around the room. Annie saw his gaze linger on the dusty floor.
    "Drought's
been real hard on the house. Soon as I sweep, a new layer settles. Anyway, the
farm is really Bart's, and when he marries Willa, they plan on settlin' here.
Not surprisin', really. But it kinda leaves me in a pickle."
    "Oh,
I see." He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, then took her hand in his.
"Sissy, if you're asking me to accelerate our proposed nuptials—"
    "Ain't
nothin' wrong with that gate that I can see," Ethan said as he barged into
the house, the door slamming behind him.
    Annie
felt her cheeks pinken slightly as Miller quickly took his hand away. "I
can't," he said quietly. "Give me a few more months, for Elvira's
sake and Van Wert's."
    Van
Wert, she thought. The whole town had them as good as married already. Was
there anyone who would raise an