HONESTLY DIARY Mary Ann Steele
"Lets take some of these down to the living room, and sit by the fire reading them, until the snow stops." Roseanne took a pile of them in her arms and went out onto the landing.
A flash of brown going into the smaller bedroom caught her eye.
The stack of books dropped.
Her heart began to race.
Her mind flashed over the sight.
It was too high to be a mouse, and too large for a rat.
"Someone else is here, Jason." She squeaked in fear, as she dragged herself from the wall that was keeping her from falling down, and followed the will-o-wisp.
"We'd have heard them come in. The doors need oiling. No one's here but us." He came out of the attic with some of the books in his arms, closing the door behind himself.
"I'm sure of it Jason. A person went into that bedroom." Roseanne crept into the empty bedroom.
No one was there. "I was certain there was someone going in here."
"You've already read too many of Adelle's notes." He put his arm around her shoulder. "Lets go downstairs and find something else to do."
The warmth radiating from his arm made Roseanne feel comfortably cozy, reassured, though she still looked over her shoulder as he guided her down the first few steps.
The living room was still cold, so Jason got a piece of coal from the basement, putting more in the furnace while he was at it, and laid a fire in the fireplace using the coal to generate more heat.
The sat, foot to foot on the couch, reading the stack of diaries.
"Hey, I found an early one Syl kept! Look, he really liked Adelle, before she started warming beds, even before she got...well you know, thickening, he intended to marry her, but her being sick and all, he thought she was, even earlier. Here in December of 74, it says, "Del come out to the stable today. She says she's got to marry. Nobody's got to marry lessen they's that way, and she don't look so good for a while now. I ain't never done it, not with her, nor nobody neither. Not nobodies as wanting a stable boy, but her en if she done that she isn't really wanting a stable boy neither, just needing a man. Who ever done it ought a make a decent woman o her. Not me."
"But look here, he's going to meet her any way. "March 75, Got a letter today. Adelle is a going to Mericka without me, lessen I can see me way clear to sign on the ship she's going as a cook on. I miss that girl something fierce. I at least got to say goodbye proper."
"April 3, 1875, My God, what have I done? Borrowed Old Seth's going to meeting suit, the one he weren't buried in, was in the tack room anyway. Went down to Ellesmere Port to say good-bye. Poor girl as big as a house. Next thing as I knew, t'other girl working wi' her gives her this dress, and we's married and shipping out. Never even got around to saying goodby. Jess Hello, and land sakes how I misses ya, and she says "I's leven at high tide, you coming or not? The parson's on the corner on the way down to the dock." This wee biddy gal a hauling a trunk full of things down to the dock. I picks up the trunk, and she stops by the parson's telling him as how the baby's pappy is here to see her off, and then the parson invites us in, says a few words, n, we's married n, sent on our way. Adelle's a nice enough girl, so maybe we can make a go of it. But that bairn in her ain't mine, and I'll never claim it."
"Boy, the man was cold, even if he did like her." Roseanne leaned forward to look at the faded ink on Jason's book.
Skipping pages, Jason took in the jest of information that he trained as a black smith in Duluth, taking his pay in the form of goods from his customers so he could get ready to go further west. Weather reports and budgets filled his pages. `Built plough share for someone, in exchange for the wagon box. Two plough shares for a trained bull and cow to pull wagon'.
Roseanne changed notebooks.
1896 the inside inscription read, skipping about, Roseanne came to a passage, "March 1896, gave Lizzy a notebook to keep track in. She be getting married soon, Billy comes by a lot to keep her court. Mericky not so happy. She came home big with a child in November, Horace was gone into the mountains to hunt bear and never came home. Her girl come already, but not Horace. Milly not be the fastest babe I ever seed."
Skipping some more. "July 1896, Billy just married Lizzy in time. The Methodist parson passed through yesterday. Billy and Lizzy done tied the knot, and Josie married the parson Rosen himself, she left with him, lock stock and barrel, as well as taking Blacky with them to carry her. Syl wasn't happy with neither match. Says he'll leave his land to sons, not daughters. They are too fickle. Running off with any pair of trousers."
"I gather Syl stuck to his word. You were his first male heir. I wonder what would have happened if you had not been born?"
"It has been held for two whole generations, for rent when my Grandparents died. It would have been held longer." The wind blew against the windows, rattling them in their frames. "The will stipulates that even I cannot sell it, not for five years. I have to live here for those five years too, not just own it."
`Write this guy off right now. There is no way I am going to live here for five ridiculous years. Go home girl. Now.' Roseanne grumbled inside her own head. Mice and weird things bedevilled.
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