The Widow Finds Love (Mail Order Bride Series) by Susan Leigh Carlton Read Free Book Online Page B

fine.  This is heaven.  I like to cook and this is a kitchen made for cooking,” she said.
     
    “It will be a welcome break from beans for Cassie and me.  I’ll just be a few minutes,” he said and headed out the back door to the barn.
     
    Sarah built a fire in the stove, and put some water on to heat, next, she mixed dough for biscuits, and after surveying the contents of the pantry, picked several of the canned vegetables for their dinner..  When Clint returned from his chores, it was time to have the girls wash up for dinner.
     
    “Cassie, Clint, at our house, we always gave thanks for the food we were about to eat.  I would like to continue that,” Sarah said.
     
    “We did that when Mama was here,” Cassie said.
     
    “Could we join hands, please, Sarah requested.  She then gave thanks for bringing them together as a family and asked that the food be blessed.  After saying “amen”, she squeezed Cassie’s hand and gave her a smile, and received a large one back.
     
    “This is better than beans, huh, Papa?” Cassie asked.
     
    “It sure is,” he agreed, “and these biscuits are straight from heaven.”
     
    “I told you Mama was a good cooker,” Rebecca said, to a chorus of laughter from the adults.
     
    After supper, Sarah asked, “Cassie, can you help me with the dishes?’
     
    “Yes, ma’am,” came the answer.
     
    After the dishes were taken care of, the girls went back to their dolls, while the adults settled in the living and began talking.  The conversation continued long into the night.

Chapter 11:  The Talk
    Sarah did not fancy herself as a talker, but found it easy to talk to Clint, she held up her end of the conversation.  She spoke of life in Yorkville, and the horrific losses sustained during the war,
     
    “The first year of the war, John did the planting and then went back.  When the bolls ripened, I picked until my hands were cracked and bleeding, but with the help of my father, we got the crop in.
     
    “The next spring, Papa and the neighbors did the planting and the group came around in the fall and helped pick.  The crop was smaller, and then last year, it was the smallest we’ve ever had.  After the war ended and some of the boys came back home, I share cropped and we had a decent crop, enough to pay the taxes.
     
    “The first election after the war, everything changed.  We had not been able to plant our land, and just raised food crops didn’t have enough help to plant and pick cotton.  I had no money to buy seed and borrowed money to buy what I needed.   There were crop failures two years in a row, and that made it worse.
     
    “Then a man came around and wanted to buy the farm.”  She laughed.  “Buy it, he wanted me to give it to him.  I wouldn’t sell.  He had a black man with him, who laughed and said he’d get it anyway.  The sheriff came around with papers and said I still owed taxes.  When I showed him the receipt, he said it was for the old taxes and he had come to collect the new taxes.  I did not have nearly enough to pay what he said was due, so he said if I didn’t pay by the end of the month, he would be forced to take the farm.
     
    “They came back and took the farm.  Rebecca and I had to move in with Mama and Papa.  Everyone had to pay the increased taxes.  With the money I had left from our share of the crop, Papa was able to pay his taxes so he was able keep his farm.  John’s parents were able to keep theirs also.”
     
    She was crying.  “It wasn’t fair.  The land had been in our family since before I was born.  Mama and Papa had given it to John and me as a wedding present.  They just took it.  I found out at church, it happened to a lot of the women who lost their husbands in the war.
     
    “We were desperate.  I didn’t know any unmarried men my age.  Not one.  They were all gone.  I asked our circuit preacher about it and he said it was the same all over the county.  That’s when I found