Mail Order Motherhood (Brides of Beckham Book 8) by Kirsten Osbourne Read Free Book Online

your favorite dessert, Robert?”  She winked at her daughter, pleased to be making two people happy and not just one.
    Robert shrugged.  “I like them all.  Cake, pie, gingerbread, muffins, and even candy!”  He bounced in his chair as he said the words, making it clear that if it was sweet, and she made it, he would eat it.
    Clara laughed.  “Well, you’ll be easy to please then!”
    Albert reached over and ruffled his son’s hair with a smile.  “He’ll eat just about anything you put in front of him.  Especially now.”
    Clara didn’t ask why especially now, because she understood.  After the girls finished the lunch dishes she looked at the pot of beans and realized there were still more than enough for supper.  Since she’d made dessert to go with it, she wouldn’t worry about serving the same thing twice in one day. 
    “Let’s go for a walk this afternoon,” she suggested.  She was hoping there would be some fruits they could pick on the ranch or something she could use to spice up her cooking.
    The girls readily agreed.  They’d done a lot of what needed to be done that day, and she was happy to give them a rest.  Robert skipped along behind them, happy he didn’t have to nap. 
    They found some apple trees, and she looked at the apples on the ground, but they were all full of worms and decayed.  “It may be too late in the year for us to pick apples,” she said with a sigh.
    “The apples up in the tree still look okay, Mama,” Natalie protested.  “Do you want me to climb it and get some?”
    Clara thought about it for a moment, and back home, she’d have agreed in a heartbeat.  Here they were just too far from a doctor if one of them fell.  “I don’t think so.”  She looked at it carefully, thinking about it.  She could almost reach the lowest apples.  “I know!  Robert, do you want to get on my shoulders and pick apples?  You can drop them to Gertie.  Natalie, I’ll need you behind me, helping to make sure he doesn’t fall.”
    Robert nodded, his hair flopping with the movement.  “I’m going to have to cut your hair soon,” she told him absently.  It looked as if it hadn’t been cut in six months, and when she thought about when his mother had died, she realized she was probably right.  Albert needed a good sheering too.
    She picked him up and settled him onto her shoulders, allowing him to kneel there.  His weight wasn’t enough that it bothered her, but it gave him enough of a boost that he could reach at least some of the apples.  Clara held him by his thighs, while Natalie stood behind her mother with her hands against his bottom, to keep him from falling.
    He giggled over and over, obviously enjoying being up so high and picking the apples.  He would drop one, and Gertie would catch it.  She made a pouch out of the front of her skirt to carry them all in.  When her skirt was filled, she said, “That’s all I can carry.”
    Clara looked down at the amount they’d gotten and made a face.  It was probably enough for two pies, but not many more.  “Does your papa have a ladder in the barn?” she asked.
    Gertie nodded.  “He does.  We could come back tomorrow with the ladder and pick a lot more!”
    Clara smiled.  “We’ll do just that.”  She carefully lowered Robert to the ground.  Walking to Gertie, she made a pouch out of her apron, and had the girls pass the apples to her.  She didn’t want Gertie to be burdened with the weight of them on the way home. 
    They continued walking, going back a different way, and found some fresh berries.  “We’ll come back and pick those after supper tonight.  We’ll bring some buckets.  We’ll make fresh jam, applesauce, and lots of pie filling for the winter.”
    The children were obviously happy that she was thinking forward to the sweets they’d want to eat when winter came.  They hurried back to the house and she found an empty barrel for the apples.  It had apparently once held