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Chapter 37: Housekeeping
Betty just stayed quiet and let Ginnie blow off some steam. Ginnie was in one of those moods that only men could cause, plus she was also getting annoyed that they had to walk to the more distant of the oak groves to go and find the galls for the ink that she still hadn’t quite got right yet. In a word, nothing was going according to her plans and Ginnie was in no way used to not getting her way.
Betty was looking to getting back to the house herself though. She wasn’t all that young anymore and while she was certain that she could still be considered “spry” that standard was getting harder to achieve every year. A couple cups of hot tea and an aspirin would help her knees and her mood immensely
“You know, what made me the maddest was watching those three up there on top of the hill playing with those stupid drones and telescopes while I had to go hiking in this weather.”
Ginnie seemed to be closing down her rant now, so Betty felt she could insert a little bit of opposing view into the conversation, “they get to sit up on the top of the hill, not moving, while the wind is blowing cold, staring through a telescope and looking at a computer screen.” She smiled at Ginnie’s side-eye. “Might want to be more careful about what you hope for on a walk down here in the shelter of these trees.”
“I know I am being silly” Ginnie replied after a minute of determined tramping across the field that butted up against the north edge of town. “But playing soldier looks a lot more fun than what I have to do. I’m still amazed that we have to do so much digging just to see what needs to be done with that vault.”
“Girl, I am amazed too, but are you telling me that you can’t figure out how to get those men to do the bulk of the work for you?,” Betty said, hiking grimly on toward a reward of hot tea and getting off her feet, “they are hormone driven young males Ginnie, You might want to think seriously about how to get them cracking on the work that you have to get done. I’m supposed to be teaching you how to be one of the cunning folk? I think that maybe you had better figure out how we got that name.”
“I was just hoping that everyone would chip in when they saw it was important.”
“What they are doing isn’t unimportant,” Betty said, tramping up to her front door, and taking a shoe brush to her boots, “but if what I am thinking will happen comes to pass, what happens at the hell house is every bit as important.” They were in the house now, she checked the little cast iron stove and stirred up the coals and added a chunk of wood and a piece of coal (those Tcho Tcho folk had managed to come up with twelve tons of hard anthracite from Pennsylvania). She checked the water in the kettle that had been sitting on the stove and decided that it was already hot enough, then prepared a pot of peppermint, ginger and gentian tea and got it steeping. “So the men are going to be here after lunch, and you should have three hours of strong back and weak minds to use. What are you going to have them do?”
“All we can do now is clear the area around the door. That vault was well below ground level so I figure that it will take a couple of days to clear it so we can get in and out easily.”
“Remember that those young men were infantrymen.” Betty replied. “In the long time ago, Walt told me that the only people who knew more about digging and moving dirt were ditch diggers.”
They spent a couple of minutes by the stove, just getting warm. Betty poured a couple of mugs and came back with a bottle of aspirin. Ginnie took the proffered cup and looked askance at the bottle that had obviously originated from WalMart. She looked at Betty and just raised an eyebrow, “Really?”
“What?”
“Not willow bark tea?” Ginnie said.
Betty laughed.
Now Ginnie looked confused, “I don’t get it”
So the next half hour was a pleasant conversation about how witches who had any sense at all didn’t ignore what worked. Ginnie almost fell off her chair laughing when Betty said that willow bark tea tasted like shit and didn’t work as well as an aspirin. Then she went into the side effects of aspirin and how, when she needed to, she always took the aspirin with tea that helped the stomach so that the aspirin didn’t cause trouble with the stomach. Which segued into a long discussion about how to decide what to choose when treating things with herbs.
After they had finished their tea and the house was toasty, they had moved over to the beat up old leather couch and continued what had turned into a lesson in herbalism and pharmacology.
“Well, I am going to get out to the kitchen and start making some butter, the goats have been in winter production and I have a couple gallons of cream.” Betty said, and got up much more easily as Ginnie noted.
“I’ll take another crack at making the ink and do some writing in my journal until I go and meet whoever is going to be helping me at the vault.”
“Good idea,” came the answer from the kitchen as the sloshing and the sound of Betty turning the handle of the butter churn.” She smiled as she heard Betty humming “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”. She spent some time with the diary. After marveling at the penmanship of Eliza Towns (The woman who Betty had apprenticed for) she had finally figured that she needed to spend more time with her penmanship so that she wasn’t embarrassed when a student in the years ahead read her diary.
The two hours slipped past her before she knew it, Betty had slipped in and out of the room several times and then went back to the kitchen. She finally stretched, and looked at the wall clock and was startled to see the time. “Betty, I have to get down to the vault, someone is going to meet me there.”
“I made you a sandwich, get in here and eat it before you go.” Came the quick response.”
“You did? Thank you so much.”
“Tomorrow you can make lunch.”
“Absolutely will!”
“So what are your plans today?”
Ginnie held up her left hand, the right being occupied with holding the pork salad sandwich she was stuffing into her mouth in a decidedly unladylike manner. “Figuring out with whichever of the guys is there to help with what to do first,” she said. “I really want to just get into the vault and see what needs to be done.”
“Just remember that moving dirt and restoring things always takes more time and more money than you planned.” This statement did nothing to make Ginnie any happier.
“I know, and even though I get pissed at the men, they usually have a point.”
“Just remember, Yhoundeh wanted that place cleaned up, there is a reason for that. You might want to slow down and make sure things are done right.”
Ginnie finished up her sandwich and washed it down with a big slug of fresh buttermilk. “Betty, do you have any idea of what she wants?”
“None whatsoever except that she wants the area usable.”
“I feel like a maid.”
“Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself and get down there,” Betty said.
“I will head over to Walt’s first and gather folks up.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” said Betty. “I would just let Walt and the guys set up who is going to be there and be down there a little bit before they are supposed to be there, then you can get an idea of what needs to get done that day.”
“Betty, I need to make sure that things are right, Yhoundeh left me in charge.”
“Do what you need to do girl, but be careful, you are dealing with grown men.”
“I know that, but they are so busy doing other things that I just want to make certain that they know my job is important too.”
“Your job is important, girl” said Betty. “But last time I looked, the three of them were handed a pretty big plate at the same time you were.”
“I don’t like it when you call me a girl.”
“I’ll try to remember that,”
“You don’t think that I can do this,” said Ginnie.
“I think that you can do just fine, what I wonder if the effort you will have to put in will be worth the result.”
“The goddess has something planned for the vault, I need to have it done for her.”
Betty peered. “I notice that you are using ‘I’ a lot today.”
“It’s my job.”
“Carl and a lot of other young men are going to be doing the bulk of the work,” Betty said, “Yhoundeh put you in charge and it looks like I am going to be helping.”
“I am capable of doing it myself.”
“I know you are. I wouldn’t have taken you as an apprentice unless I was certain of that.”
“I know I can do this.” This time the word’s weren’t that certain.
“Girl, that has never been the issue, what you need to remember is that the town will be doing the bulk of the work.”
“It’s still my job.”
“I know it is. But you aren’t hearing me. Everyone here is working to keep things together when the world is falling apart around them. We just got handed a job that needs done and we have to figure out how to do it.
“I’m not going to let them boss me around.”
“You do what you need to, but I think that you might make it hard on yourself if you push too hard.”
“I have to get going, I need to get down there and get ready.”
“Do you want me to come and help?”
“I’ll handle this.”
Ginnie gathered up her coat and left a bustling. Betty just looked at her and sighed, gathered up the cups and straightened up and got back to cleaning and sorting the dried echinacea to get it ready for grinding.
Who is Janice?What has she done with Betty?
(Anonymous) 2022-12-09 05:21 pm (UTC)(link)You know, what made me the maddest was watching those three up there on top of the ___?_ playing with those stupid drones and telescopes while I had to go hiking in this weather.”
“Your job is important, girl” said (Janice). “But last time I looked,
OLfromNC
Gentian tea??
(Anonymous) 2022-12-11 12:41 am (UTC)(link)Re: Gentian tea??
It isn't great, but it doesn't quite get all the way to "nasty" this way
Re: Gentian tea??
Re-reading
Hm, and I seriously hadn't thought Ginnie to have a self-esteem Problem, what with her wanting to do everything "alone". This is also a generational-hand-over story, huh. Hadn't thought of that, so thank you!