The next morning, Jarrod rode into town to confirm the details of his mother's funeral service with Pastor Nelson. He also visited the newspaper to place the obituary, noting the funeral would be private, and telegraphed the details to those who were invited, a list initially compiled by Emily and Sarah and completed by the brothers over several whiskeys the previous night.
He also collected the latest arrival of telegrams, a collection that seemed to be growing exponentially. There were telegrams from each of California's US Senators and San Francisco Mayor Sutro, a political associate of Jarrod's. There was also a telegram of condolence from Hester Converse McNaughton Stewart Du Bois Linfield of Chicago and this brought an amused smile to Jarrod.
Nick and Heath rode to their father's grave and together the two dug their mother's alongside his. Not a word was spoken between them.
A fine coffin arrived at the house, carried by hearse. The undertaker generously offered to leave the hearse there to carry Victoria Barkley to her final resting place. It was an offer he never made before but one he wanted to make to this family.
Tom and Will were instructed to stick close to the house in case they were needed and indeed they were. After the women lifted their mother-in-law into her coffin, the young men helped to carry her into the parlor. They rested the coffin on a table that had been placed at the end of the room nearest the staircase. All other furniture had been moved to the periphery of the room. The lid had been closed only to make the carrying easier, it was lifted open once the coffin was positioned on the table and the women surrounded the woman's pale face with fresh flowers.
Nick gave Daniel some stable chores to keep him out from underfoot in the house and James was only too pleased when his father directed him to help. The boys were given explicit instructions, more for James' benefit than Daniel's since he already knew to stay out of the forge, away from the mustangs, and to not interfere with anything the hands were doing.
Daniel was not too pleased to have James tagging along. Privately, he told his mother he thought James was a "sissy boy," a term she was pretty sure he got from his older brothers.
"I think you mean 'city boy,' right?" Emily said as she knelt in front of her son, adjusting his shirt tenderly. "This is your chance to teach him how to be a rancher."
Bertie and Florence helped the women prepare the guest room for Audra, and Charles if he was coming. Contingency plans were made should others need overnight accommodations. Julia still slept in the nursery, a small room created years ago next to Nick and Emily's. Will, and even Daniel, could sleep in Tom's room and that would free up two rooms. There was a small guest room Grace and Leah could use, or they could sleep with Carrie. It was unofficially Grace's room anyway since she occasionally spent the night. She always liked the big house: She liked being surrounded by the commotion and activity the house contained.
Jarrod returned from town for lunch with a satchel bag filled with telegrams. The hearse parked in front of the house and Victoria's body in a coffin in the parlor reminded everyone why they were sad. The front door was left open so delivery people could simply enter and not disturb the family. Thus, the parlor seemed to magically fill with funereal floral arrangements. Lunch was a somber affair and Julia gave no protest to going upstairs for her nap afterwards.
Following the meal, Jarrod, Nick, and Heath went riding together and stopped at one of their mother's favorite picnic spots where they smoked cigars and shared a flask in her honor.
Bertie and Florence started the food and drink preparations for tomorrow's guests. The sisters-in-law went upstairs to finish readying the guestroom.
The girls had overcome their initial shyness with each other and, with permission from their mothers, removed themselves to the guesthouse for a tea party. There, they discussed school and hobbies and boys and parties. Grace pretended to be interested but excused herself and walked back to the main house where she was put to work cutting black ribbon for armbands.
The boys returned to the stable to continue their chores. Most of the hands were off gathering the herd for the upcoming branding. Tom and Will were tasked with making fence posts or they would have joined them.
James had been some help to Daniel with his morning chores but he asked an awful lot of questions. In the afternoon, Tom & Will put the boys to work cleaning and re-bedding horse stalls, a task James did not find fulfilling or glamorous, so he began to wander away from Daniel to other parts of the barn and stables and to pester Tom and Will with questions about roundup and branding and other aspects of cowboy life.
"Boy! Get outta there now!" Artie was the blacksmith and he had left his post for no more than two minutes when he returned to find James pulling something out of the fire, his sleeve just starting to smolder.
Tom and Will, just outside and around the corner, heard the large man's voice and knew instantly that James had just crossed a line.
Tom entered the smithy first and grabbed the startled ten year old by the ear and walked him outside and over to the house, walking so fast James was tripping over his own feet trying to keep up.
He dragged his young cousin through the front door, into the foyer and, forgetting the body of his grandmother lying nearby, shouted, "Mother!"
Jane and Emily and Sarah all rushed out to the upstairs bannister, three ladies in black, to see a furious Tom, a terrified James, followed by Will and Daniel, standing in a group at the the foot of the stairs.
"He was messing around in the forge after he was told to stay out," Tom said.
Emily looked at her son, scowling at him for shouting in the presence of his dead grandmother.
Jane looked at her son, worrying he might be hurt.
Sarah looked at her nephews and silently thanked God for giving her girls. It wasn't her first such prayer.
By the time the women got downstairs, their husbands had already returned to the stable and, hearing from Artie what had just happened, were walking quickly to the house.
James' sleeve was burned but the skin underneath was untouched.
"James," Will said gently but emphatically, "You could have been badly burned. You could have also burned down the barn."
Jarrod approached his young son and said, "Let's go to the library where you can explain to me why you found it necessary to defy specific instructions." He placed his hand on the boy's head and steered him to the library.
Nick and Heath went back out to the barn with Nick's boys. Daniel walked right behind his father, doing his best to keep up. Once in the barn, Daniel showed him the work he did on re-bedding the horse stalls.
"Uh-huh," said Nick, distracted, "Good job." Daniel was hurt; he had hoped for more.
Daniel had been born early after a miscarriage and another, even earlier son who lived less than a day. He was a quiet, sensitive boy who rarely balked at chores, partly because he had no siblings close in age with whom he could ally and partly because he seemed to live in his head. From his earliest childhood, Daniel was interested and uncommonly adept at taking things – any things – apart and putting them back together. Nick and Emily thought he might grow up to be an engineer and maybe not a rancher. Nick didn't entirely relate to the boy but he had a soft spot in his heart for him. Emily wished Nick would spend more time alone with him.
James sat quiet in the library, looking guilty as charged, while his father stood before him reciting every detail of what he had done wrong: Defied a specific instruction, played wth fire unattended, put himself at risk, put others at risk, put property at risk. He hadn't thought about those things, he simply wanted to know what tools were in the fire. His punishment was to sit alone in the library until dinner and then apologize, publicly, to his mother and father, to Uncle Nick and Aunt Emily, to Uncle Heath and Aunt Sarah, and to Tom and Will and Daniel.
Jarrod left the library and found he was alone, though he could hear the low voices of his wife and sisters-in-law from the kitchen. He had not had a chance to see his mother in her coffin so he took a moment to look and reflect. So lost in thought was he that he hadn't noticed Julia come downstairs from her nap till she was standing next to him, peering on tiptoe to see her grandmother. He leaned down and picked her up and they looked at mother and grandmother together.
"Grandma was a good lady," Jarrod said softly. And Julia leaned over and gently patted the dead woman's cheek with her small hand.
"Good night, Gramma," Julia said. Jarrod gave his small niece a kiss on the cheek and then carried her into the kitchen where they sat at the small table while the women finished dinner preparations around them.
The tea party had ended and the girls drifted over to the barn to see the animals, especially the horses. Grace was already there, in the hay loft, helping with the evening feed, while the men brought the horses in to their freshly bedded stalls and Daniel fed the chickens.