"He's here! He's here!" cried Mary, running to the cottage. She set off sprinting back towards him through the light layer of snow, and so did Emma. Anne thought it was terribly unladylike, but she left the stew with Jane and ran out the door at him anyways.
It was a very quiet, yet happy, reunion. Iain took them all into his arms without a word, and the girls all quietly held him for a long moment. Anne noticed that Mary was only a bit shorter than Iain was, which hadn't changed, but now Emma measured almost as high as Mary, and Anne was only at Emma's shoulder. Anne felt small there, next to her tall, lanky brother and sisters, but she felt warm inside, too, like a fire burned in her chest.
"Come into the cottage," Emma bid him, and he walked with them the twenty feet to the door. Opening it, his green eyes took in the Jones girls.
"Who is this?"he asked, smiling, his deep voice a welcome sound to the girls- who had heard only feminine voices for such a long time. Lizzie hid her face and blushed, Jane grinned, and Maria stared.
"They're... well... wards of ours, I suppose," Mary said. Seeing Iain's confused and curious face, she added "You see, this morning, just before the noonday meal, their father -he's a terribly nice man- asked if we could take care of them for a bit. He couldn't take care of them and their mother had died, so we said that we'd keep them until he'd saved enough money to buy a house and provide for them." As it was getting dark, she lit a candle.
"I do imagine the farm's doing well, then?"
"Oh, yes," Anne told her brother before Mary could. She took the stew out of the fire, dishing it into bowls.
"We only need ten dollars until we can get a cow," added Emma. Iain smiled mischievously, reaching into his coat pocket. He pulled out five two-dollar bills.
Anne gasped, putting the bowls of stew on the table and slowly taking the money with a reverence.
"Do you mean it?" asked Mary in a hushed voice, coming to look at the money.
"Of course," replied Iain. "If a cow isn't good news enough for you, though, I have more good news."
Anne put the ten dollars in the small wooden box they kept their money in. "What would be better news than our own cow?" she asked.
Iain grinned ear to ear. "Ye are getting yet another sister."
"Do you mean- you're getting married?" Mary begged to know. Iain laughed.
"Aye," he replied.
"To whom?" Emma questioned madly, as though she were going to explode. Anne felt like she would explode with questions as well, but she kept her mouth closed for the time being.
"To a lass named Katherine Norris. Her parents ran the boarding house in Denver that I stayed in."
"Norris," mused Emma. "Where's that name from?"
"'Tis English," Iain informed her. "Her family came to America from England over one hundred and fifty years ago."
Anne shook her head. "To think we've only been here a few."
"Aye," Iain said again.
"When's the wedding?" asked Emma.
"Enough questions," Anne said before anyone else could say anything. "The stew will get cold."
As were many Irish, the MacEilans were devout Catholics. Iain sat at the head of the table and began the prayer, thanking God for the meal and safety, and it almost seemed to Anne like old times. Closing her eyes, she could picture their home in Ireland, when their father still loved their mother and they always had enough to eat. That was the golden days before their father had set eyes on the blue-eyed barmaid, Molly, there in Galway. Before he took their money and left them drowning in debts Mother didn't know existed, before they lost everything .
"Amen." Iain said, ending the prayer.
"Amen," everyone echoed, even Lizzie, Jane, and Maria. As Anne thought, she realised that they may never have heard a Catholic prayer. Most of the people in the area were Methodists, and she realised that they might have been as well. She turned to her stew, so absorbed in her thoughts that she was unaware of what her sisters or Iain were saying for a moment.
"Enough about what I've been doing," Iain commanded them. "Tell me what you have been doing- there's surely much more to tell than hammering pieces of metal into the ground all day."
"Mary's been around the ditch-diggers often lately," Emma got out quickly. "Taken a bit of a fancy to one- Thomas, was that it? Good looking fellow, but his kind don't often make good husbands. I mean-" She was cut off by Mary leaning over and clasping a hand over her mouth. Iain laughed.
"Well, if this Thomas fellow doesn't fancy her as she does him, I could take her to Denver," he joked. "Ye could be married in a month. Plenty of dashing young men just waiting to meet a lass and marry her-so many, in fact, that you'd have three coming to take you on a buggy ride every night."
Mary was a deep red, the color of a beet. "Ye watch, Iain," she insisted, "I'll never marry and that'll show you!" The other girls giggled. Mary hid her face in her hands and Iain innocently ate his stew, looking at Mary the whole time. Everyone else followed his example. Finally, after a long moment, he shifted his gaze to Anne.
"Are you still inside the house all day sewing?" he teased her.
"Aye," she teased right back, jade eyes sparkling. "I've done nothing else since you've been working on the railroad." She sipped the stew, then added seriously, "Someone has to keep this place clean and hot food on the table."
"Ye do a fine job of it," he told her equally seriously. "If left to these two, the place would be falling doon and they'd still sleep in it." Anne laughed at the truthfulness of his statement.
"That's not true," protested Emma. "I look after the chickens, and none of them have died."
"Chickens are a different matter than the cottage," he answered. "Ye'd never kill one for dinner either, not even if it stopped laying, so there'd be no food either." Even Emma laughed at his jest.
Lizzie, who hadn't spoken a word since Iain had been there, spoke up. "Speaking of food, Miss Anne," she timidly quavered, "I've finished."
"There's no need to call me 'miss', Lizzie. Please put the bowl in the washbasin," Anne gently informed her, "and rinse it off with a cup or two of water from the bucket."
The little girl did so, then went to the bed that had been made for her and her sisters by the fire. Pulling the crocheted blanket on top of her, she laid her head on the pillow and fell quickly into sleep. Jane and Maria followed the pattern.
"'Tis late," Mary observed, looking out the frost-covered window. "We should do the same." Slurping the last of her stew in a most unladylike manner, she took it to the washbasin, grabbed the soap, and washed both hers and the Jones's bowls and spoons.
"Ah'll sleep in the chicken coop," offered Emma quickly.
"'Tis not yet summer," Anne reminded her. "We can take the wider pallet, the three o' us, and Iain can have the feather mattress." She washed her bowl and spoon, then took Iain's and Emma's, doing the same.
As Emma and Iain dried the bowls and washed the pot that had held the stew, Anne took her turn behind a sheet that had been hung in a corner for privacy, changing into her nightdress. As she pulled a quilt -her mother's quilt- and drew it over herself, Mary blew out the candle, and Anne went out with the flame.
Remember to vote and comment! Please and thank you :-)