Hannah had been an early riser all her life. She was wide awake at 6:00 a.m. so she slipped quietly from the bed, dressed and went to the kitchen. She started a fire in the big range, then went to the pantry to see what kind of meal she could prepare for her still sleeping husband. She found a round crock and ingredients for biscuits, a slab of bacon, which she was almost sure Silas had bought from her father and a pan of eggs. She quickly mixed the biscuits, tested the oven with her hand and put them in it to bake. Then she put several slices of bacon into a cold frying pan and started it cooking. The smell of bacon frying awakened Silas, who hurriedly dressed and came into the kitchen as Hannah was setting the table by the window. She had already envisioned a potted red geranium and a brightly leafed coleus in that window to brighten up the room.
She turned as Silas came into the room and smiled at him.
"Hannah, my dear, you do not need to start the fire in the morning. That I can always do if I am home," he said.
"Oh, but I was awake and I have started a fire many times," she answered.
He went to the wash bench under the framed mirror, washed his face and hands, combed the black hair and neatly trimmed beard. Then he kissed Hannah and sat down at the table as she put the food on it. The bacon was done to a turn and the eggs looked fresh and appetizing on the small platter. She sat down opposite Silas and bowed her head in thanks. But no blessing came from Silas' lips. After a few seconds of silence she said, "We thank thee heavenly Father, for these thy gifts that we are about to receive. Bless them to the use of our bodies in the name of Jesus, our Savior. Amen."
Silas kept his eyes downcast for a few seconds, then praised Hannah for the good breakfast she had prepared for him.
"I have been cooking for years," she replied. She resolved to say her grace in private from then on.
After she had done the dishes and tidied the kitchen, she went to the bedroom, put the rest of her clothes away in the big dresser drawers, made the bed and then carried the bag of rug rags her mother had given her into the living room. She cut or tore long strips from the old garments, sewed them together and wound them into a ball.
Her father had made her a rug hook from the back of a comb. It was polished until it was as smooth as glass for he had spent many evenings working on it with files and sandpaper.
When Hannah had a good-sized ball wound, she started crocheting the first of the rugs she had determined to make the day she and her mother had come to see her future home.
She wondered where her husband was and soon he came into the kitchen with a big armload of wood for the kitchen range and put it into the woodbox behind it.
"I have been exercising in the woodshed so I would enjoy my dinner as much as I did my breakfast," he said. Hannah was pleased because she had pleased her husband.
Saturday came and with it her father. She saw that he had brought her big chest.
"We thought there might be something in it that thee might need or want."
Silas helped carry it into the house and place it at the foot of the bed. It made the bedroom look more homelike for it had been at the foot of her bed in her girlhood home. She knew just where she would use her treasures in her new home.
After visiting a short time, Father Russell left, but Silas walked out to the wagon and Hannah saw him give her father some money. When Silas returned to the house he said, "I ordered quite a few things from your father. What they grow on the farm and have to sell, we may as well buy from them." She felt a rush of gratitude for her husband and thanked him for his thoughtfulness. After she had prepared their dinner, washed the dishes and swept the floor she retruned to her rug making. Her mother had made many things to improve a house and turn it into a home.
In the afternoon Silas' sister came and brought some jelly and a loaf of homemade bread. She offered Hannah a starter of everlasting yeast, which she graciously accepted, although she had been baking bread for several years. In fact, there were few things that Hannah could not do, for she had helped her mother with the housework and cooking since she was a small girl.
After they had eaten their supper, Silas got a pan of apples from the cellar, but neither of them seemed apple hungry. Silas told Hannah he would have to go to Kentucky in a few days to collect the money he had due and try to get the final stages of his business settled, because the war was making it harder and harder all the time to handle out-of-state affairs. Men working in the South were being picked up almost daily and drafted into the Union army.
Silas feared that this might be his fate, but he did not mention this to his young bride.
As he carried the lamp into the bedroom, he admired the way she had cleaned and polished it. The bed was made with linens fresh from her hopechest. Silas brought her a blue and white reversible coverlid and a gayly decorated appliqued quilt made of homespun muslin. "These are from my father's wedding dot," he told her. I think they will fill a place in your chest."
Hannah was very pleased because he had brought them to her so soon.
Click here to continue to Chapter Twelve Click here to return to My Strong Family.....So Far
