Chapter 6

This morning was not much different from yesterday morning, except that I had another body snuggled to my other side. Mildred had her head on my shoulder and a leg thrown across my other leg. She, too, had an arm thrown across my waist, pulling her as close as possible.

The dogs weren't moving around, so they didn't need out yet. I listened intently to hear if Ben was doing the chores yet. This was comfortable. I had never thought about waking up in the morning with a woman lying next to me, much less two women.

Now that I was awake, I needed the bathroom, and I was going to need a shower soon, perhaps this evening. I should be all right today, since I wasn't going to be doing anything with anyone except Mervin, and that was only around the house.

That reminded me; I could call Mervin and have him bring some Romex, a surface outlet, and some Panduit. He would know exactly what I was talking about. With some delicate effort, I slid from between the women, girl and woman, or something like that. I was going to have to find out Summer's age. She could be jailbait.

I went to the big room and let the dogs out. I turned my cell phone on and had a bar of signal, so I called Mervin's number that was still on my dialing list. When he answered, I asked if he would stop at a hardware store for what I needed. "Mike, I have everything you need, except the outlet. I'll stop and pick one up and we'll get you fixed up in no time. I should be there about eight to eight thirty. You're up mighty early. Are you enjoying being a farmer and getting up with the chickens?"

He laughed as we both hung up. I dressed and began the day by emptying the ashes from the stove and beneath the fireplace. Everything is used around here, and the ashes went to one end of the compost pile. I had discovered that huge night crawlers thrived in compost mixed with the ash. I had already promised myself that I would do some fishing this coming summer.

When the fire was going good and the stove was heating up, I gently woke the two ladies. Mildred looked up at me with a contented smile and reached out to touch my arm. "Thank you for letting me sleep next to you. That brought back many good memories. I think I might want to do that some more."

"Me too, Momma," added Summer, while smiling and yawning. "I really like how Mike feels when I'm next to him. It makes me feel a little funny, but it's a good funny. Do you get those funny feelings too?"

Mildred had a strange smile on her face when she looked up at me. "That's the feeling you get when you're with a man, Summer. It does feel funny, but it feels good. It is supposed to."

I needed to break up this train of thought. "Time to get up. I'll help Ben with the chores. If you will cook breakfast for all four of us, we can eat before you go to his place."

I was dressed warmly and out the door in minutes. The dogs were still romping around, playing in the snow. I did the chickens, ducks, geese, and turkeys real quick. My turkey population was thinned out from Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I only had a couple of orders for geese. I was going to have to begin giving ducks away pretty soon, as the population was growing too much. They did lay some big eggs that I gathered every day so they couldn't set on them. When I took the duck, goose, and turkey eggs to the market, several women liked those for baking. They traded me some great canned goods for them, so I was coming out at least even, if not ahead.

The cow was bawling, so I let her in the milking area, which is usually called a 'parlor', and gave her some grain and hay. It took me a couple minutes to get the washing and milk buckets ready. With the five gallon can ready with the filter funnel on it, I began milking. The cow was probably going to dry up soon as she should be less than three months before her calf is born. She still gave two gallons, so her body still wanted to produce milk. I would have to ask the vet if I should quit milking her. I'd hate for her bag to swell up from lack of milking. Drying up was supposed to be natural; I just didn't know when it would occur.

As I was finishing the cleanup, Ben slowly came up the road. He was acting tired lately, so it probably meant he overdid it yesterday in order to meet the women. He probably is going to need another trip to the doc for that checkup. Ben apologized for being late. "Don't worry about it, Ben. It's good for me to mess with my animals anyway. Come inside and have some breakfast."

After eating, I drove the three of them down to Ben's so he wouldn't have to walk. I told Ben, "When Mervin finishes, how about I take you to the doc for that checkup. I would really like you to feel good. If you keep feeling poorly, I'll be the one coming over to do the chores."

Ben agreed, "I'll go. I haven't had the energy to do much lately, and that flu really knocked me out. The stuff the doc gave me did make me feel better, but I'm just not right yet."

I left them to watch over each other while I was with Mervin.

The man was as fast as he was funny. With two of us pulling wire and hooking things up, we had a professional looking better electrical outlet by the fireplace and the TV cable connection ready in a short time.

Mervin and I discussed the cost of getting cable up the mountain and whether the signal would be strong enough for the distance. He asked, "How about I talk to your neighbors to see if they might be interested? They have satellite, but they don't have any internet unless they use dialup. I know the widow Fletcher has a telephone, but I'm not sure about Teddy. You could always get a phone and use dialup. It's slow, but it works. But you know what, getting a phone line up here might be the same price as cable."

"I'll have to think about it, Mervin. I haven't been spending a lot of money because I want to do some remodeling of the house, but I would like to have broadband like we talked about."

Mervin was thinking about something, "The feds and the state have a program for people like you — who live out in the country — that offers a subsidy in order to get broadband. I think I'll check that out. Since the cable company is going to use me and give me a commission on customers, I'll be able to stay in business. A lot of folks are going to want to keep their satellite service, since there is more programming. Those people will have both cable and satellite."

I fed Mervin a couple of ham sandwiches and helped him pack up. With cash for his work, he left with a smile.

I knew I probably smelled even worse than this morning, and I didn't want to go into the clinic like I was. It only took fifteen minutes to shower, shave, and change clothes. I put my usual fatigues and boots on. I'm always surprised that more people don't wear comfortable fatigues instead of jeans or overalls.

When I pulled up to Ben's, Mildred came out and asked if Summer and she could come into town with me. She said, "If you will take us home, we can clean up and put on fresh clothes. I want to meet people again."

That was a couple of shocks. First, she said to take her "home", then that they wanted to meet people again. Ben told me, "Take them home. I need to wash up a little so I don't smell either. I'll take a few minutes to shave, too. I'm lookin' a little scraggly."

I took the girls to the house and let them shower and dress. They were not fashion models in the clothes that were too big. When they came out and put their heavy coats on, I said, "We will stop in at Wal-Mart and get you both some clothes that fit. If you pick out what you need, I'll get the stuff to make the clothes you already have to fit. Can you sew?"

Mildred told me, "Yes, I can, and I have taught Summer a lot. We don't have much thread left at our place any more, but we were able to patch our clothes as necessary."

When I picked Ben up and we were riding into town, the situation kept playing in my mind about a bunch of farmers and their families coming to town. If the two women wanted to meet people, I'd bring them to market on Saturday and church on Sunday. Church might be a problem, what with all of the wagging tongues over me keeping a couple of women in my small cabin.

When we brought Ben into the clinic and told the desk nurse he was there for the doc's checkup, she immediately asked for us to wait just a minute, as the doctor wanted to see Ben.

The doc came out and congratulated Ben for coming in to be looked over. She looked at the two women before she looked at me and said, "I see you still have the two ladies. Mildred looks fine now. You'll have to fatten both of them up a bit. They are nothing but skin and bones."

She was grinning when she said, "It's going to take about two hours to run all of the tests I want to do. We're in luck today, since one of the specialists I told you about is here. Why don't you look around town for a couple of hours and come back for Ben?"

The first thing I wanted to do was to get any shopping out of the way. The girls had to be pushed into selecting clothing and trying everything on to make sure it fit. By the time we were done, we had a basket full. They now had jeans and heavy shirts to wear outside in the cold, and that included some long johns. I made sure the jeans were loose enough to wear long underwear beneath them.

We found some flannel shirts that fit, as well as a couple of nice blouses with dressy slacks. I wanted them to each get at least two dresses to go to church in. They could wear the dressy slacks, but a dress is always more feminine. Mildred didn't want to get a dress that fit too snug, as she said that both of them would gain weight and fill out the clothing better.

We found some outdoor brogans, a pair of tennis shoes, and a pair of dress shoes for each of them, along with socks and two pair of pantyhose. I didn't know much about women's clothing; I just knew they needed a lot of things. The last items were the personal things. Mildred had Summer pick out a bunch of panties and try bras on over her T-shirt to get the size right. She told me, "Summer and I aren't big enough to wear bras all of the time, but we should wear them and a slip under our dresses and blouses for church."

Mildred had me wait in the aisle as she and Summer went into the health and beauty aids area and came out with a big box of what I knew to be pads for women's periods. This made me have to figure out how to dispose of them. I decided I'd have to use the fire pit for those things. It made me wonder how they had been handling that without the modern pads.

We spent some time buying needles and thread before going through the checkout line. I didn't have enough cash on me, so I used a bank card. Mildred asked if I was charging what I had purchased, but when I told her no, that it was a debit card, she was confused. I told her I would explain it later.

You can bet other customers and workers were thoroughly checking us out at the Wal-Mart and again at the grocery store. I can imagine the phone lines were soon buzzing as word was sent around that Mike Grayson, the retired Army man who bought Bud's and Eliza's place, had brought two women into Wal-Mart. I'm sure they were guessing these were the same two as I had brought to the clinic. You didn't need a newspaper in a town this size. The only way you wouldn't hear any of the news around town would be if you were deaf or dead.

Mildred and Summer were really funny as we pushed a cart through the store. Since Stanton is the county seat, the town not only had a small Wal-Mart, but also a good sized Kroger store. This made the girls' shopping experience that much more fun. They touched and tried to read labels on at least half the store. I finally had to move them along as we needed to go check on Ben.

On the way to the clinic, I stopped at the meat locker for some beef and pork. With three, possibly four mouths to feed, I would need extra food.

The doctor was talking to Ben out by the front desk when we walked in. Ben was smiling, so his prognosis must be good. The doctor said, "Ben is in good shape, but needs to stay away from his shine for a while. It's running him down some." The doc looked at me. "I hear tell that you make some good wine, so give him a glass every day to satisfy his urge for a taste. You should bring me some too, so I can give it a more sophisticated taste test and declare it medicinal. That'll help you keep the wine making license." When the doc said that, she and the nurse broke up laughing. The nurse said, "Doc, you been sneakin' a sip of local shine for years and years. How would you know good wine if you tasted it?"

The doc puffed her small feminine chest out. "You know I did go to college and medical school. I even worked in one of the biggest hospitals in the State of Kentucky. Just because I'm a country girl doesn't mean I don't know what the rest of the world is about."

I thought it was nice that the doctor was just a good ole' boy, or in this case, a good ole' girl in a white coat. She had gone away to school to become a doctor and returned to where she grew up.

As we left the clinic parking lot, I asked Ben if he needed anything in town, and he said he didn't and couldn't buy anything anyway after giving the clinic almost a hundred dollars. I can imagine they gave Ben about an eighty percent discount. They knew he would bring them some eggs, goat meat or goat milk, along with some of the butter from my cow.

I was happy to get us back to the mountain. I convinced Ben that I would help him with his chores before we did mine, then we would eat a good supper.

We took the women to the cabin, unloaded everything, and turned around and drove back to Ben's. I milked my first goat, but it was three of them in this case. Ben only had a couple of chickens that did lay an egg or so a day, but Ben's chickens were for eating rather than for eggs. Ben had an ancient mule that he fed a little grain and a couple of cubes off a square hay bale to. Ben told me, "That mule is near twenty nine years old. She don't work no more, but I don't have the heart to sell her to the dog food people. She won't last that much longer, but she has been good company for all that time. I even trained her and her partner to work the field I have. Now I get a neighbor with a tractor to plow and get my field ready for planting. That neighbor being you, of course, since Eliza left."

Back at my place, I had Ben go inside while I did the chores and milking. The chickens were very prolific, and I was pecked a couple of times while checking under the setting guinea hens to see how many eggs they had.

The evening felt as if the weather might break soon to warm up for spring. I hoped so, since I was tired of being cooped up in the house.

I almost died laughing when I went into the house. Supper was being prepared, but it was taking a little longer than usual. Ben and Summer were sitting in rocking chairs in front of the fire watching the big TV above the mantel. Mildred was working on dinner, but kept being distracted by the TV, as Summer had figured out how to channel surf. With close to three hundred channels to watch, they could never make up their minds. My arrival did startle them, and Summer jumped up to help her mom finish the food.

As we ate supper, I gave Ben a small glass of my wine, along with a big glass of spring water. He didn't turn his nose up, but commented, "Amazing how good shine is, but isn't so good for a body. The doc says a little of this every day will help my blood. I'm going to try it her way and see if I get better."

After supper, the ladies did a quick cleanup and were soon occupying the other two chairs in front of the fireplace. I wasn't all that interested in the constant search for a channel that might be better than the last one they were watching, so I spent an hour reading over some information from the Farm Bureau. That place was a wealth of information, and they were always happy to help a guy out.

The Farm Bureau had become more than just a place to learn a little about farming. They had regular classes on forestry, crops, fertilizers, dairy business, even chickens and other fowl. The one thing they had that I was saving money on was insurance. My two trucks, the house, the buildings, and all of my equipment were insured by the Farm Bureau. The agent had even come out to the house to check the conditions of the buildings, equipment, and the antique truck. All of the people from that organization were an asset.

When Ben began yawning and stretching, I suggested, "How about I run you home to get some sleep. Don't bother coming up for chores in the morning. As a matter of fact, I'll come down in the morning to make sure everything is all right with you and help you with your chores."

I took Ben home and returned to find the women in their flannel nightgowns. I think I need to get them some more of those, and possibly a nice heavy robe and some slippers. I smiled to myself at how I was trying to make the ladies comfortable.

I took a few minutes to consider what my motivation was. Was I just being a Good Samaritan, or did I think something more could come of the relationship with the women? Maybe I just wanted some company and enjoyed the interaction with two ladies. At that thought, I realized I still had no idea how old Summer was. I'll have to ask when the opportunity presents itself.

When I told the ladies that I was going to go to bed, they worked furiously trying to find the 'off' button on the remote. When the TV was off, Mildred went to the bookshelf and brought back a large Bible. She brought it to the table and opened it to Psalms and asked me, "Would you read some from here? My man used to do that every night. I like this part of the Bible, and I want Summer to hear it."

I asked, "If you had a Bible at your place, what happened to it?"

"The animals got to some of our books when we were staying at the higher caves one summer. They ruined our Bible, especially this chapter."

I read the first chapter of Psalms and said, "We'll save the next part for tomorrow. Let's go to bed."

I was between the two women when Mildred softly said to me, "Do you know that man and woman are supposed to be together? Being together is how families are made. The Bible says that it is good for man and woman to be together and to grow their families."

This was becoming a strange conversation that I was uncomfortable with. Mildred continued, "You do make me feel that urge, which is why I wanted you to read the Bible to us. I wanted you to feel what we are supposed to do."

Mildred was moving around a little with her leg across mine and pressing against my thigh. Summer was listening intently, but was being still in her now usual position. She saved me with, "Can we turn the TV on? I want to watch what we were watching. They had people singing and playing music."

I had to reach across Mildred to retrieve the remote for the new set top box and turned the TV on. Summer took the remote and carefully pushed the buttons for the channel she wanted. Aha, MTV; I hoped she didn't start singing rap. I turned the sound down near off and leaned over Mildred again to put the remote back on the nightstand.

As I began coming back to lie down, Mildred smiled up at me and raised a hand to the back of my head. She pulled it down so our lips touched. We kissed, and not just a peck. Mildred gave me a real live, I want more than this, kiss. When we parted, she smiled and wiggled against me. The only words she spoke were, "I have the urge real strong. I hope you get the urge soon."

Oh yeah, I had the urge and was doing everything possible to keep down what was making every effort to get up. I couldn't just roll over and boink the mom while daughter was lying next to us. I really didn't have that much experience, except for years of some USO and enlisted women. The Army lectures took hold, and I kept thinking that I couldn't do this since I didn't have a condom. The reason you used a condom wasn't so much for birth control, it was to be protected from some horrible disease that would make your wanger shrivel up and fall off.

Next time I was at Kroger's or Wal-Mart, I would buy some of those things. Hmm, that might not be a good idea, because by the time I was in my truck, the entire town would know that I had purchased condoms. Any dummy could figure out what for. I would have to go somewhere else where no one knew me. I needed some beer, so I could go to Pine Ridge for beer and condoms. That was a plan.

When I let it sink in that I might do something like that, my lower regions were telling me they, it, or whatever, liked that idea too. Now to lie still so neither would feel that thing.