The cock crowed once early in the morning on the MacEilan farm, as the sun was just beginning its climb across the sky, shedding gray light on a layer of freshly fallen snow. The March day had dawned cold, and Anne shivered as she pulled her clothes on. She was always the first up, as it was her duty was to start a fire and put breakfast on the table each morning. Quietly creeping to the door, she put on her leather boots and took her shawl, tying it around her head. Before opening the door, she glanced back, looking at the sleeping Emma and Mary in the dawn light, still huddled under the thick quilt, and she longed for a moment to go back into its warm embrace. Then she saw Lizzie, holding Jane and little Maria tightly under their blanket, and Iain, the brother she hadn't seen in months, and she smiled. Opening the door just a crack, she shivered at the blast of cold air that came in, but slipped out into the snowy morning, now just tinged with pink.
The woodpile was just on the west side of the house, and it was still dark there. Singing softly to herself, she took two logs from the dwindling pile and brushed the snow off of them and tucking them under her arm. Crunching through the snow, she opened the door, wincing at its shrill squeak from the cold.
She stopped her singing as she went inside so as not to wake anyone. Closing the door, she still couldn't bear to take off the heavy knitted shawl or her shoes, so, still holding the logs under her arm, she silently tiptoed to where the Jones sisters slept deeply. There was a bit of space next to the makeshift pallet they slept on, so Anne knelt there and set the logs into the fireplace. On the mantle was a box of matches, and within two minutes, a fire was roaring in the stone fireplace.
A fire isn't silent, especially not a roaring one, and as Anne took the cooking pot from its shelf, the inhabitants of the cottage began to wake. Emma went behind the sheet- curtain where they kept their few dresses, and quietly, since most of the people were still asleep, she dressed and without a word went to gather the eggs from the chickens.
By the time bread had been baked and breakfast ham fried, everyone was awake. The first word of the day was spoken by Iain.
He looked around at the crowded cottage, observing the beds on the floor. "I had better make good on that promise of a loft," he remarked.
Anne went around making the beds- smoothing the sheets, setting the pillows to rights. "Aye. 'Twould be a great improvement." As she straightened the last bed, she took the plates off of their shelf. "Since we'll be going to town, another quilt would be welcome too," she added. "And 'tis a bit delayed, but good morning." She sliced the cornbread and set a piece on each plate, the ham beside it, and Iain started to eat nearly the second the food was put before him. Anne laughed.
"Mrs. Norris may have been a good cook, but I missed your cooking , " he explained. Within a few minutes his breakfast was gone, and he set his plate in the washbasin. Wiping his hands on a dishrag, he picked up the money box. "I'll go into town and get what you need," he offered, but Anne turned the offer down.
"I'll go with you." she said. "I haven't been to town for a long time."
Go into town she did, with Iain by her side. The town wasn't big, consisting mainly of a railroad depot, a lumber mill, a school, a tiny little Methodist church, and a general store, with scattered houses, but still the MacEilans knew almost no one. They seemed almost strangers, walking into the general store, the peculiar Irish person who stopped in once a week, and not for church. The children were only starting to arrive at the schoolhouse, and Iain was nearly trampled by the shopkeeper's son as he hurried out the door.
"Sorry, sir." The goodly man apologized for his child. "What can I get you? "
"A bag of sugar, if you please, " answered Anne, "and a bolt of cloth." As Iain paid for the two items, Anne settled on a bright blue calico. At Iain's questioning gaze, she answered, "for Lizzie, Jane, and Maria. And another blanket."
They set off to the lumber mill next. Iain bought enough wood for the loft which would be built that day, and then they headed home.
Anne was pleased to see that breakfast had been cleaned up, so she put the money box down and took her sewing outside, where it had warmed up a few degrees and the snow was just beginning to melt. She had just taken a wooden chair from inside as well, and she sat and watched Emma playing a game of Blind Man's Bluff with the Jones's. Their laughter carried up to Anne as she cut out pieces for their new dresses. The poor girls had slept in their clothes, and still wore them, as they had nothing else to wear. Hours passed with the girls playing, Anne sewing, and Iain hammering away inside at the loft's base, up in the peaked cottage roof.
Around noon Anne went to the icehouse, by the chicken coop, for a bit of meat for dinner. She opened the cottage door, setting her sewing down on the bed she and Emma shared, and looked up at the new loft.
The base of the loft was wonderful. It was just a framework, still, but it seemed as though it would serve the purpose wonderfully. It was built high enough to stand under comfortably, but low enough that the person inside would not be pushed against the roof as they slept. The whole cottage smelled of cedar shavings, and they littered the ground sparsely. Taking the broom in hand, Anne swept them into the fireplace, reigniting the now-smoldering fire a bit.
"How do you like it so far?" Iain called from his perch on one cedar beam.
"'Tis wonderful," she called back, cupping her hands around her mouth as though he was thirty feet above her instead of three. "If you're just nailing, why are there shavings on the groond?"
"Had to shave a wee bit off the end with my knife to have it fit. Has Mary come back from town yet?"
"I hadn't realized she had left," Anne admitted.
"She went to fetch a cow," Iain informed her. "Said that she'd go to the neighbors if there wasn't one in town."
"'Tis still early in the season," she said, getting out the leftover bread. "She may not be able to find one yet." Iain nodded and went back to hammering.
Their question was solved soon after. Jane came running into the cottage, throwing open the door and making it bang against the wall. "Mary found one," she yelled.
"Quiet, child," Anne scolded. "Don't just come running and yelling inta the house."
"She named it bon-ya," Jane went on, only a a tiny bit quieter. "What does that mean?"
"Bainne means 'milk' in the Irish language," said Anne, laughing at the choice of the name. Iain set down the nail he was about to put in and the  hammer, climbing down the ladder and going out the still-open door. Anne set down the knife she had been slicing the bread with, following Iain to where Mary stood with a small red-brown cow. Closing the door, she went to get a closer look.
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