When Love's Gone Country - By Merri Hiatt Page 0,21
warm they had been back in their beds.
Jacob was sitting around a roaring fire as they approached.
“You beat us,” Bobby said.
“Did you sleep okay, honey?” Meg asked.
“It was fine.”
“Did you see the rat again?” Purity asked.
“Yeah. You feelin’ okay?”
“Just tired, but who isn’t?”
“It gets better,” Frank said. “It don’t seem like it will, but it will. I know you’re cold and hungry and tired. Think about how the horses feel right now. How about the cows and chickens? They feel the same as you. You got a choice. They don’t. If they’re goin’ to eat, we need to feed ‘em. If they’re goin’ to drink, we need to provide water for ‘em.
The minute we took them in as ours, we made a commitment to put their care first. We’re second. And that’s how it is, plain and simple. So don’t waste my time by complainin’. I don’t want to hear it.”
“After all the mornin’ chores, you can go back to the ranch hand quarters and have breakfast,” Emma said.
“How will we know when that is?” Jeremy asked.
“We’ll tell you,” Red said. “We’re goin’ to split you into groups. Some will head down to the stables, others to the cow paddock, some to the chicken coop and so on. Each group will have a leader. There’s me, I’m Red. That’s Bart over there.”
Bart nodded his head.
“Next to him is Cal, Jake, Ronda, Bamma, Jessica, String, Sam, Miles, TJ and Joe Bob.”
“I didn’t know there were girl ranch hands,” Jeremy said.
“What do you think I am?” Emma asked.
Jeremy shrugged his shoulders. “Guess I never really thought about it.”
“The Double Y is a great place to think.”
“Any questions?” Frank asked. No one spoke. “You’ll all get a chance to work in the different areas, so don’t worry if you don’t get your favorite one right off.”
The ranch hands began picking the teams from among the group. Those without a team joined one of the already formed teams until they were all heading in different directions.
“See you later, Mom,” Jeremy said with a large grin. “I’m goin’ egg pickin’!”
Jacob and Bobby had been paired together and were heading toward the stables, much to Jacob’s displeasure. He had hoped to be teamed up with anyone except his family.
Emma had taken Purity and Meg by the arm and asked, “How’d you gals like to learn how to churn butter?”
Meg was delighted by the idea. Purity would have rather gone with Jeremy. The kitchen was not her favorite room in the house, as the moldy items in her refrigerator could attest.
An hour and a half later, the ranch was bathed in the glow of morning sunlight as they all found themselves at the dining room table back at the ranch hand quarters.
“It was so cool!” Jeremy declared. “I was scared at first. I mean, if I was a chicken, I wouldn’t want somebody stickin’ their hand up my butt. I’d peck at him ‘til their hand fell off.”
“Nice imagery,” Court said, passing a home-made buttered biscuit covered with strawberry jam to Jeremy.”
“Thanks.”
“I don’t know about you,” Brad said, “but it was totally worth it for this spread laid out before us. I thought we had a ton of food last night, but this is amazing.”
Scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon, maple sausage, pancakes, biscuits, fresh-squeezed orange juice, coffee and cream cheese Danish pastries made from scratch covered the table.
“Since I’m eating for two and all, I guess I can have more bacon, right?” Purity said.
“I’m eating whatever I want,” Meg said. “We’re only here for two weeks.”
“I have a feeling we’ll be burning off all the calories,” Court said. “I overhead String telling TJ that we’ll be working three times a day for at least as long as we did this morning.”
“How much does a ranch hand get paid?” Jacob asked.
“Not enough to clean stables first thing in the morning,” Bob said. “Are you thinking about making this your vocation?”
“Just curious. We’re paying to be here, but the real workers get a paycheck. If we weren’t here, more people would have jobs.”
“It probably helps the ranch out, though,” Meg said. “We’re not the most skilled work force, but maybe because we’ve paid a fee, it supplements the income of the workers.”
“I didn’t mind feeding and watering the sheep,” Courtney said. “Some of those rams were giving me the eye, though. Made me nervous. I was afraid I might piss one of them off and they’d take off a runnin’ and head butt me into the next paddock.”
“That would