Chapter 2

August 12, 1845

Ah, a day of rest. A day to sleep in. Then why couldn't I sleep late? I woke up between three lovely naked women, and one naked little girl. I lay there, just watching them for a while. Then I had to get up and take care of my necessaries.

I managed to get out from among them without waking them, and got my clothes on. I climbed out of the wagon, and saw that Pris was already up. She had coffee made, so I went over and begged a cup from her.

"I haven't gotten to talk with you much since we've been here, Jase," she said as we sat sipping our brew.

"I haven't even gotten to talk with my wives, Pris. I knew it was going to be a lot of hard work, but this is a killer."

"Yeah, I can see that. You and John are doing a good job though. I'm pretty proud of Timmy, too. He's been working hard."

"You should be proud of him, Pris. I think Ab is a good influence on him."

We sat and drank for a while, enjoying each other's company without saying much. "Did Ab give you any idea how long he'd be gone?" I asked.

"He said at least a month, and maybe as long as a month and a half. I miss him, Jase."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I just nodded. A few minutes later, Tess came out, and stretched like a big cat.

"Morning," she said as she poured herself some coffee.

We told her good morning, and she came over and sat by me. She put her arm around me and leaned her head on my shoulder. I thought for a minute she was going back to sleep.

Then she said, "You know you're working my husband to death, don't you, Jase?"

"John's a hell of a worker, Tess. If I slow down, he keeps right on going. I think it's more like he's working me to death."

"I know that, Jase. I've tried to get him to slow down a little, but he just ignores me. Then, at night, he goes in the wagon, takes off his clothes, and is asleep before I can even lay down beside him."

"So, my little sister isn't getting any," I teased, and Pris giggled.

Tess smacked me on the chest and said, "No, and I blame you."

A little later everyone else got up, and we all had breakfast. Afterwards, Millie held up a bar of soap.

She looked at me, and said, "Jase, you stink. I think we should all take a bath."

During the past week, we had all washed on occasion, but not as a group. Our solitary washes had been quick and simple, and not very satisfying. All of us agreed that a nice swim, and a bath, would be great.

Millie said she had found a nice pool just downstream of the cabin, so we all followed her to it. When we got there, Abby undressed while the rest of us were still looking around. Millie, Lettie, Emma and Tess weren't far behind her. I was watching Timmy as my wives and sisters got undressed. His eyes were as big as saucers.

As I started removing my clothes I glanced over at Pris. She smiled and winked at me, then started removing her clothes as well. Wanda and Lelah had waited on their mother, but soon followed her example.

Okay, with five lovely naked women and three lovely naked girls, what man wouldn't get an erection? I know John and I both had them, and I suspected Timmy did, too. He was short enough that it was hidden by the water.

Wanda and Lelah were staring at me like they had never seen a naked man before. I looked at Wanda. When she looked up from my cock and saw me watching her, she turned red all the way down to the water line.

Wanda is either twelve or thirteen, and is just starting to develop physically. Her breasts are barely bigger than walnuts, but she has nice nipples and I caught a glimpse of pubic hair before she got into the water. She is going to make some young man a fine wife before too long.

Pris is the earth mother I thought she would be. Her breasts are large, but sag considerably. She might have a little extra weight on her hips, but she has a trim waist and a good shape.

Abby was her usual joyous self when she's in the water. She attacked me almost as soon as I got in. She was splashing me, and then trying to throw me under. She had gotten behind me. She had her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist. She was holding on like a crawdad, until Millie slapped her on the butt, and told her to wash herself.

We spent over an hour, swimming, bathing, talking, and playing, before Millie said it was time to get out of the water. Abby kicked up a fuss, but she was still grinning when we got dressed. She demanded I carry her on my back all the way to our camp.

We spent the afternoon just laying around the camp. We did do a little talking about what we were going to do next. "I think we want to go ahead and build the foundation," I said when Millie asked.

I thought for a minute then asked, "Have you guys managed to find any clay?"

Tess looked at me like I was crazy. "I told you a couple of days ago that we had. Don't you listen to anything I say, brother of mine?"

"Tess, I've been so tired I don't think I've heard anything that was said to me in the last week."

"Well, we found a good supply of it. It's in the main creek at the north end of the valley, so it's quite a haul. Would you like for us to start bringing some of it down?"

"Yeah, that would be nice, Sis. We'll start using it as mortar about six inches below ground level. That'll keep things sealed so that we don't have a wet floor."

Tess came over and gave me a hug. "We'll start tomorrow. We'll just bring a couple of wagon loads until we see how much we're going to need."

"Timmy," I said, "You've been doing a great job on getting that top soil out. I'll bet you've gotten over half of it, already."

"Thanks, Jase. Wanda and Lelah and Abby have been helping me the last couple of days. That makes the work go a lot faster."

Abby was grinning as I crooked my finger at her. She came over, and I gave her a big hug. "Thanks for helping Timmy, Sweety."

"You're welcome, Papa. I think you owe Wanda and Lelah a hug, too."

I couldn't resist teasing them a little. I stood up and went over to Lelah. She was sitting by Pris. I held my hand down to her. When she took it I pulled her to her feet. She came into my arms, and I hugged her and thanked her, as I winked at Pris over her shoulder.

Lelah was grinning from ear to ear as I let her sit back down. I repeated the process with Wanda, but when she came into my arms, she pressed herself to me. I rubbed her back as I hugged her, and told her how proud of her I was for helping. Before she stepped back, I felt her whole body tremble.

Later on, I got Pris off to herself and told her about Wanda's reaction when I hugged her.

Pris giggled and said, "Well, I guess the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. That's the same reaction I had when Ab hugged me, the first time."

"Pris, I already have three wives, and Wanda is way too young for me."

"Wanda is way too young for you right now, but if you were twenty and she was sixteen, she wouldn't be too young at all. You saying you already have three wives don't amount to a hill of beans. I haven't heard them complaining any."

I knew I wasn't going to win this argument, so I just kept my mouth shut.

Supper was nice. We'd all been eating together since we had gotten to the valley, but today we all seemed closer. We did a lot of joking and teasing. Millie had evidently noticed Wanda's reaction to me and she gently teased Wanda about finding a boyfriend for her.

As the evening wore on, I saw Wanda off to herself, so I went over to her and asked, "Wanda, could I get you to do me a big favor?"

"Sure, Jase."

"Would you ask Abby to sleep over with you guys tonight?"

"Ah, you want to..." she said and then she blushed.

"Yes, we want to..."

She nodded and I said, "Don't be embarrassed, Love. The reason I asked you instead of Pris is that it won't seem as obvious coming from you. I figure you're mature enough to do something like this, but Abby won't realize that."

Wanda's grin was a mile wide as she nodded her head.

August 13, 1845

After breakfast, John and I started sorting through the stones the women had brought in. We wanted stones as wide as we could get, that would still fit in the bottom of our footer. We decided the foundation would be two feet wide at the bottom and taper off to one foot wide at the top.

If the soil hadn't been so sandy, we'd have put a layer of sand in the bottom of the footer for drainage. As it was, we didn't need to. I started laying the stones in the bottom as John brought them to me. After about an hour of this, we changed jobs. We didn't get nearly as tired that way.

Timmy and the three girls went back to working on removing the topsoil from inside the cabin, while most of the women went off to get a load of clay.

We were making good progress and so were the kids. Timmy started out shoveling the topsoil into buckets. As he would get one filled, one of the girls would grab it and carry it off to dump in the garden plot. Timmy was a real gentleman and made sure he didn't get the buckets too full for the girls.

John and I soon found out that the stones had a mind of their own. Each stone felt as though it had only one place where it fit, exactly; only one place where it was completely stable. Sometimes we had to turn a stone over to find its place, but we always seemed to find the proper stone to fill in any gaps that were left when a stone found where it wanted to be.

Neither John nor I had ever built a foundation, but Caleb had told us what to do, so we weren't completely lost. After we had learned to let the stones find their own resting places, the building went quickly. It was hard work, but not nearly as hard as the digging had been. By the time the women got back with their load of clay, we had a respectable start.

After lunch, I noticed that Wanda was now filling the buckets and Timmy was carrying, along with Lelah and Abby. Since Timmy was carrying two buckets at a time, they were removing the dirt even faster.

Emma, Lettie, Pris and Tess volunteered to carry stones to us, so John and I both started placing them on the foundation. We had quite a respectable amount done by the time Millie called us to supper.

John and I were both exhausted, and so was everyone else in camp. Millie snuggled up beside me as I was eating. "You know, this being pregnant isn't all that bad," she said. "I'm not nearly as tired as the rest of you guys."

"Pris," I said as I put my arm around Millie, "It shouldn't hurt the baby if you tickle the mama, should it?"

"I heard it's good for the baby," Pris said with a straight face.

"No way," Millie said, giggling and trying to pull away.

I kept hold of her with my left arm and set my plate down. I then grabbed both of her arms and held her. "Abby, would you like to help tickle Mama Millie?" I asked.

Abby was kneeling in front of Millie in a flash and started tickling her ribs. Millie started cracking up. In no time at all, Millie gasped out, "If you don't stop I'm going to pee on myself."

I let go of her, and Abby backed off with a big grin on her face.

"And don't you forget it," I said, and everyone laughed.

August 14, 1845

As we were eating breakfast the next morning, Abby plopped herself on my lap. "Papa, we're not going to be working on the house for a little while this morning."

"Okay, that's fine, Abby. What are you going to be doing?"

"Timmy found a bunch of walnut trees, and we're going to go gather some nuts."

"Be sure and take Tess with you," I said.

"We already talked to her, Papa."

John and I got back to work on the foundation, and all of the women except Millie and Tess started carrying stones to us. We hadn't been working for more than an hour when we heard the first scream.

I was out of the footer and heading toward our wagon to grab my rifle, before we even heard the second shrill young voice join the first, screaming in terror. I grabbed my rifle and started running toward the screams.

They weren't too far away, so I came up on them quickly. What I saw nearly stopped my heart. The area under the walnut trees was nearly clear of brush. Tess was standing with her back toward me, and the four children were behind her.

Facing Tess, and not more than twenty feet from her, was the biggest bear I had ever seen. He had just raised up on his hind legs. He had to be at least seven feet tall. He was brown, with what looked like a gray overcoat. When he saw me, he opened his mouth and roared.