#237
"Well M'dear, you'd better get your hat off and an apron on. You just hired yourself as chief cook and dishwasher; and I can see that nothing has been started for supper. Whatever you plan, you had better make more than you feed us, these people will eat a couple of gallons of stew."
"Oh, do you really think that much, they must be gluttonous pigs."
"Yeah, well, I wouldn't be so mouthy, if I was you. After all, they are paying and you said you wanted the money and ran the other two ladies off."
Caroline audibly sniffed, but she did turn around and head for the kitchen. All the while she was peeling, chopping, browning the meat and making gravy, Caroline was furiously muttering that she had done all the Inn kitchen work she ever intended to do when she was a teenager. Now suddenly she was trapped into the same old drudgery, and by golly she didn't like it. Not one bit.
Raymond wisely retreated to the barn and as the afternoon wore on, he gathered in the dry sheets, and folded them more or less neatly, smiling as he imagined Caroline's reaction to a haphazard job. There was no room downstairs for the clean laundry unless he piled it in the office.
Once in the office, he looked around and discovered the two ladies had been neat and precise, the ledger open on the desk only detailed that the group was due in this afternoon as they had arrived..
There was a commotion in the front room as the herd of children went running through, toward the back kitchen door.
Now it might have been Caroline's foot that stuck out at the last moment and tripped the leader of the pack, but she was extremely agile and quick and if any of the slower kids witnessed her purposeful act, they said nothing.
The young man of about twelve, hit the floor with a resounding whump, his nose the first piece of his anatomy to feel the solidness of the old wood floor. There was a screeching that would have done a whole room full of rusty hinges proud.
Caroline kept her composure and continued working with her supper items, refusing to let the screaming child rattle her nerves. Almost instantly, there were Mama's crowding into the kitchen to check on their precious Johnny and Susie's.
The young man's Mother scolded her son. "Gerald, this is the second or third time this has happened. When will you realize that you either need to walk, or run in a more coordinated manner. Really son, your not hurt so much that you are dying; suck it up and understand that's what you get for running wild."
"But Maaaa, I didn't just trip by myself," Gerald started whining.
Caroline interrupted, "Really guests, I must ask you to leave the kitchen, I don't want anyone else hurt by bumping into the hot stove or be nicked by a knife."
The travelers obediently filed out of the room, the hapless Gerald holding a scrap of towel up to his nose. "Ma, this rag smells like crap," he tried to whine once again.
In the kitchen, with her back to the exiting group, Caroline smiled a wicked half grin of satisfaction. Gerald's mother was cutting her son no slack. "That's three way stations and three trip accidents; you don't suppose you'll be getting smart any time soon? I've told you not to run through these places, and do you ever listen to me, nooo, so this is your reward for disobedience."
"Yeah, but the other places gave us cookies to try and make us stop." Gerald was muttering under his breath, casting hostile looks toward the kitchen.
"Didn't work here, did it?" Gerald's Mama had no sympathy, and excellent hearing. "Get that rag up to your nose," she ordered; "you're bleeding all down the front of your shirt." and she not so gently helped her son press the rag to his face.
In the office, Raymond smiled as he listened to the goings on.
Across the road and down three houses to the clinic, Donny was attempting to walk and regain strength. He had seen the arrival of Reva and felt doubly blessed that they were going to have food. He couldn't cook, Sally wasn't a cook, and neither was Dr. Bruce. Doc Tricia seemed not to care much about eating and was fairly haphazard about her culinary attempts. Frankly, Donny was starving, and had rightly figured that there would be no healing until he could get filled up.
When Andy came to visit in the early afternoon, Donny quietly explained his predicament, and asked if Andy could go hunting.
"Better yet, you and the kids come bunk with us." Andy extended the invitation, "we have room and Judy can teach Sally how to keep a house and how to cook. Besides," and Andy dropped his voice and spoke directly into Donny's ear, "I don't like the way Doc's two boys look at you guys. Their kinda creepy.'
"Yes," Donny struggled to get up from the gurney, "let's go now." So Donny, Sally and kids trooped down to Andy's house and nearly caused Judy to have a heart attack when they clumped in the door unexpectedly.
"Oh my," she delicately fluttered. "So many of you."
"Not a good atmosphere up there," Andy obliquely spoke out of the side of his mouth to his wife. "Donny needs to eat, he's not getting enough food to recuperate as he should. Tomorrow we will go look at a couple of houses close to the horse barn, for Donny's family. I kinda gave Judy first choice of the houses, but she hasn't seen any of them yet," Andy gave his intentions to his brother, and the two men nodded their acceptance of the situtation.