Laurel Ridge Ordinary 1795 Part II by beanerywriters

Part II of Foster’s piece, below, Laurel Ridge Ordinary 1795, was initially published in the Foothills Writers Group publication, Into the Foothills 2001. Parts III and IV will be published throughout the week. Part I is stored in the beanerywriters blog under the category BW Visitor Writings.

The traveler greeted her and inquired about room and board for the night. She said her name was Elizabeth Reed and that she had been travelling with her brother and a hired team. They were bound for Pittsburgh to meet her husband, who had established a small glass bottle business there. Her brother had ridden on ahead a day earlier to scout the land and had not been seen since. She was terribly worried but could only press on to Pittsburgh and her husband for help. She pursed her lips and tried to hide a tear that she wiped along the side of her head as she pretended to gather her hair in the back during the process.

Kessiah explained they would someday like to run an ordinary but they were not geared for operations currently.

"There's one near Cherry's Mill, but that is half a day's travel west from here," she said.

"Madame, could you put us up in the new framing? I am too tired to take another step and our wagon needs some minor repairs. We have money. We can pay," said the woman.

Kessiah pinched her chin and thought hard for a moment.

"It still gets very cold up here on the mountain at night this time of year. It is too cold to sleep outside in the new house. I recon we can put you in the loft with the youngins'. There is one spare straw tick you're welcome to use but that's all we have. I hope you don't mind a little dirt. The kids just put down a new pattern today and it hain't packed down yet," Kessiah said.

She knew she had very little to offer them at board but her heart often out-spoke her brain.

The travelers quickly accepted her hospitality. While the women and children marched to the house Ruben took out his huge needle and a ball of stagen and commenced mending the torn wagon cover.

Kessiah doubted if fried mush would suit this lady. It wouldn't be suppertime for several hours so she had a reprieve until then. Mrs. Reed seemed friendly enough but Kessiah feared she might be a little uppity. She noticed the grimace when she offered her visitor a drink from the gourd that floated atop the stave bucket near the door of the cabin. Kessiah had even rinsed the gourd with the remnant water from her drink feeling good etiquette was in order for her unexpected first customers. She wished Creed would get home, but with several hours of daylight left she knew he would most likely hunt until dark.

She sent Bedford to the spring for fresh water and poured Elizabeth a pitcher for bathing. Mary Polly was sent for mountain teaberry leaves so that she could make tea for the guests. Quilts were stretched from the bedpost in the main room to the walls for privacy while she bathed. Kessiah washed the mud and debris from Elizabeth's dress while she bathed.

She appeared shocked when Elizabeth said she would change into another dress but didn’t know if she should put on a red or blue one. Kessiah only had her everyday dress that she wore with two smocks and a couple of aprons and her special wedding dress Creed had bought her for the event. It hung on wooden dowels along the side of the cabin near the door. She only wore it on special occasions. She thought how wonderful it would be to have another dress to wear. She could see her flesh through the threads of the one she wore. Maybe this would be a good time to put on the dogs, having company and all. She called the children and told them to bath as soon as Mrs. Reed was finished. She felt there was no sense in wasting good wash water, especially if only one person had used it. She had some things to do and then she would take her turn even though it wasn't Saturday night.

When Kessiah finished, she put on her special dress and went to see Ruben and tell him he could take a turn if he wanted. It was spitting snow, so she pulled her shawl tightly around her shoulders with one hand and lifted the hem of her dress with her other to keep it from the sea of mud that surrounded the front to the cabin. She would even warm up the water for him with a fresh pour from the iron teakettle that hung on the crane that was pushed into the fire.

When Kessiah returned to the cabin her children were snuggled beside Elizabeth on the puncheon bench in front of the fire. She read to them from a book of poetry. Their eyes danced in the firelight and their freshly washed cheeks glowed like lanterns on a Philadelphia carriage. This woman had bedazzled them.

"I have two girls just about the same age as these two children and I miss them so. We felt it best that they stay with family until we get settled. Now with Randolph missing, I .. ., I . . . ," Elizabeth could not continue but wept quietly.

"Now, Mrs. Reed, you're just tired. You'll be all right. I have never been away from my two except when they stayed with Creed's people while we attended the wake for Will White, Creed's second cousin by marriage. He and Creed were close, they were," said Kessiah.

"These are well-behaved young ones and so polite," continued Mrs. Reed, dabbing the corner of her eyes with a handkerchief.

Kessiah could now see that she had been wrong about this woman. She wasn't uppity. She was alone without her husband or children. What would she do without Creed and her two children? How lost she would be. It was an instinctive thing only women understood.

Click back on the beanerywriters blog for the continuing saga of Laurel Ridge Ordinary 1795, parts III and IV, to be submitted to this site throughout this week.

The segments will be stored under the blog category BW Visitor Writings.
Rock Foster, Somerset, Pa., has authored two historical novels, When Gauley Ran Blood and On the Banks of Gauley. The books offer a life experience of children of the wilderness on the American frontier long before it reached the Ohio River. Journey with the Hughes family as they leave the security of the tidewater and travel into the forested Promised Land in western Virginia. Discover their dreams, joys and sorrows as they scratch out their forested empires. Discover how they found love in the midst of Indian captivity and lived to raise families whose true wealth lay in their faith in God and faith in each other. Relive the adventure, learn the history, and rejoice in the celebration of the lives of these early American heroes.

Information on the books, including the first two chapters of each, is available at:
http://www.lhtc.net/~rock/otbogpage.htm