Surrendered on the Frontier Read Online Free PDF Page A

everyone was taller than I was, even Samuel’s brother Matthew. Geraldine was neat as a pin and lovely, her gleaming chestnut hair always immaculate, her skin smooth as silk. I envied her hair when I was tucking away my own dark tresses in a bun. She was a bit plumper now than when I first met her, and carried her wee one on her arm. Her eyes were shrewd and distant, and though Pearl said Geraldine was much kinder now than when she’d first met her, I found it hard to believe. We did not much care for one another and kept a respectful distance. If I hadn’t had so much respect for Ma, on more than one occasion, I’d have let Geraldine have a piece of my mind.
    As I stewed the chicken, I mulled over how I’d been bested by Samuel. I felt irritable and cross, in no mood to deal with Geraldine’s haughty ways.
    By noon, Ma and I were busily finishing up our preparations. Geraldine and Pearl were to the side, by the fire, Pearl knitting a pair of booties for Geraldine’s little Mary Jane. Geraldine sat with her baby, and I almost, for a brief minute, softened to the woman. I’d heard whispered stories about her having lost several babies before she’d given birth, and at least one—maybe more—she’d delivered and lost. I knew she had a handful of tiny, shallow graves she visited. It was the harsh reality we accepted, though I’d never lost a baby.
    But at the moment, as I looked to Geraldine, with her perfectly smooth hair and immaculate complexion, her straight-as-an-arrow spine and haughty air, I was not feeling any sympathy. I was still fuming about her dismissal of the books I liked to read. I longed to see her firmly put in her place.
    “How’s the chicken coming along, child?” Ma murmured next to me.
    “Quite nicely,” I said. Ma had beans and cornbread ready for the men when they came for dinner, but the chicken and biscuits would serve us all that evening. I looked forward eagerly to the meal, and not just because I enjoyed chicken and craved the taste of meat again. I loved being surrounded by the whole extended Stanley family. Geraldine typically behaved herself better when Phillip was around.
    “Be sure there are no bones, Ruth,” Geraldine said from the fire. Ma pursed her lips, but it was Pearl who spoke. Her eyes never left her hands, her knitting sitting atop her ample belly.
    “No one cooks a finer chicken than Ruth, Geraldine,” she said. “If you got a bone, it was likely a message to you from above.”
    Ma’s eyes twinkled but she kept her own counsel. I, on the other hand, could not keep my temper at bay any longer.
    “If you don’t like how I cook, you can cook your own damn food. No one’s forcing you to eat what I make.” I heard Ma gasp beside me and Pearl’s eyes lifted from her knitting, widening. Geraldine scowled. She sat with her baby over her shoulder, patting her back as she dozed.
    “No need for you to get your petticoats in a bunch,” Geraldine snapped.
    “Girls,” Ma chided, as she made her way to the door. “You behave yourselves. I’m going to pick some daisies for our dinner table.” She loved flowers, and was always adorning the inside of her home with the wild violets, daisies, and even dandelions that scattered like pebbles by the lake across our wide, open prairie. I waited until she stepped out before I spoke.
    “I’m behaving myself just fine,” I said, stirring the chicken so hard it splattered over the edge of the pot and hissed on the hot stove. “It’s this one over here with a mouth the size of a full moon that won’t stop.”
    Geraldine stood. Handing her baby to Pearl, she marched over to me with her hands on her hips and her eyes flashing.
    “How dare you call me names?” she hissed. Her eyes were bright and angry, her cheeks pink. She waved a finger in front of me as I turned and faced her. Granted, I had to look up to her, given that I was that much shorter, but what I lacked in stature I made up for in vim and vigor.
    “How dare