Chapter 14

Engelbart was finally a self-satisfied and smugly contented cat. He lay stretched out in front of the log fire, protected from flying sparks by the fireguard. He thanked his lucky stars for the intervention of dear old Mother Nature, who had been kind enough to visit the land with the first mercilessly hard frost of the year. It was mid-November now and the world outside was a frozen hell, into which the pleasure-loving, lazy Engelbart ventured as little and as seldom as possible. Those two stupid girls were always outside, even now. How glad I am to be a sensible cat, he thought - that pair of madwomen don’t even have any nice long fur like me!

Caroline was staggering across the farmyard, two full and very heavy milk pails tied together on a pole, resting on her strong and calloused shoulders. She was having to be most careful not to lose her footing on the treacherous surface. From time to time she had long wondered why they needed such prodigious amounts of milk between the three of them. Even accounting for all the cheese and butter they made, there must be an enormous surplus of dairy products on this farm and a world out there wanting to be fed!

She had asked Grace about this and that mysterious and ever more beautiful lady had smiled, assuring Caroline that nothing was ever wasted. She sold nothing, but gave away what she didn’t need. Caroline was puzzled. Gave away to whom, though, and how? she asked herself.”

They had tried to spend the previous night outside as usual, but the inexorably penetrating cold had soon proved too much, even for their hardy and tough young bodies. They had both come inside and gratefully got together between the sheets of that lovely bed in that lovely room, surrendering themselves to the luxury of pampered warmth and to each other. Engelbart had grumpily moved aside to make room for the two lovers, and then had his good humor restored as he felt the precious warmth of the happy young women coming up to him through the bedclothes.

Finally reaching the dairy without mishap Caroline poured some milk into the churn and set about producing butter. This was a hard job and despite the building ‘s being unheated, she was soon sweating. She looked around her, as she worked, at all the large cheeses stacked on the shelves and she wondered again just who, apart from Grace, Engelbart and she, was ever going to get to eat them.

Grace had looked after the stables and fed the poultry, some of whom were getting beautifully plump as they unwittingly neared Christmas and the end of their days. She also was flushed with all her exertions, protected from the cold by her wonderful constitution and also by the never-ending stimulus of hard physical work. Her immediate tasks completed, she came into the dairy and watched Caroline toiling away at the churn.

She knew of the fateful and unwilling decision of Caroline’s grandfather to send the poor vulnerable little girl away to school - how it had almost broken the old man’s tender heart, as that recently bereaved little mite, with her tear-stained face, had been led away by the principal to begin her first day at her new and strangely terrifying school. Looking at the strong and self-confident young woman before her, she could see, now, just how wise the old man had been. In this rapidly and splendidly maturing girl lay so many of the hopes and dreams that the two of them had spoken of together as they lay beneath that same grove of oaks that had since become so precious to Caroline and her.