Ruth and Caleb's chapter of the "Thaw" series. Sorry that this chapter's shorter than the others, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. I'm still planning to write a "Thaw" chapter about each couple, and probably one extra. :)
The announcement that Millie was expecting a baby changed everything on the Pontipee farm that winter. It put an end to the girls' silly squabbles and united them in a common cause. They were each determined to help Millie as much as they could and make her pregnancy as easy as possible. They stopped arguing with each other and feeling sorry for themselves, for how could they go on pitying themselves when Millie wasn't complaining about her condition? Imagine being pregnant and trapped on a mountain farm in the middle of winter, with no way to get to the nearest town, and with the father of your baby gone off to some trapping cabin! But Millie didn't let herself despair over it, and her bravery was an inspiration to them all.
Millie's news also went a long way in thawing out relationships between the girls and boys. She broke the news to the girls one afternoon in their room upstairs – walking in on the middle of their last, worst cat-fight, with almost all six of them brawling on the floor. The evening of that same day, out in the barn, she told her brothers-in-law – though she was rather exasperated at how she had to spell it out for the six men. When she tried to say simply that she was expecting, Ephraim and Gideon had both asked in unison, "Expectin' what?"
The next morning, as she was washing the breakfast dishes, Ruth spied Caleb through the kitchen window, chopping up more firewood by the wood-pile. She quickly dried her hands, and without even bothering to make an excuse to the other girls, she threw her shawl over her shoulders and rushed outside to him. Liza frowned, and Alice shook her head in disapproval, her pretty golden curls bouncing, but Dorcas and a few other girls watched Ruth leave with pleased smirks on their faces.
The boys had shoveled a path through the snow from the kitchen door to the wood-pile, and Ruth rushed along it, grinning. In her excitement over the coming baby, she had completely forgotten that she hadn't spoken to Caleb since the night of the kidnapping. She had completely forgotten that she was supposed to still be mad at him.
"Say, Caleb, did Millie tell y'all the news yet?" she asked as she approached him, and when he nodded, she burst out, "Ain't it the most wonderful thing you ever heard?" as if babies weren't born every day.
Caleb blinked, taken aback by Ruth's sudden change in demeanor towards him, but he quickly decided to hide his surprise and not push his luck. Never look a gift horse in the mouth, his brothers always said. "Sure is," he answered casually, smiling back at her. "And sure will make for a change 'round here. Ain't been any young'uns on this farm since Giddy was a boy. Hard to even imagine it."
"You'll be an uncle."
"Yep, and Uncle Caleb's got a fine ring to it, I reckon." He looked so proud as he said it that Ruth's smile grew softer and fonder. It was touching to see so happy about his coming niece.
"Me and other girls are pooling all the yarn we've got," Ruth went on, still smiling. "We wanna try to knit somethin' for the baby. It ain't much, but Martha and Liza had their sewing bags on 'em when they... when they..." But here, Ruth faltered and suddenly looked away from Caleb. She couldn't bring herself to say the words when they were kidnapped. She didn't even want to think back to that horrible night. She quickly banished the thoughts from her mind and went on, "Well, we're thinkin' we get enough to knit a little blanket and a hat or somethin'."
Caleb had paused from chopping wood, and now, he leaned against his axe and rubbed his beard thoughtfully. "That's a right good idea, Ruth. Me an' the boys oughtta make somethin' for the baby, too." He squinted, peering across the farmyard, then snapped his fingers. "I got it! We'll make a crib!"
"Don't you all still have one from when you were babies?" Ruth asked, curious. It was hard for her to imagine Caleb or his brothers as babies, but it was sweet to think of putting Millie's new baby to sleep in the same crib that the previous generation of the family had used.
Caleb shook his head. "Nah, we burned that old thing up for firewood one winter years ago. 'Sides, Millie's baby oughtta have a brand-new crib, and we're gonna build the finest one this side of the Mississippi."
"Well, you just be sure you sandpaper it real smooth, Caleb Pontipee!" Ruth teased, wagging one finger at him playfully. "I don't want that baby gettin' one splinter in her finger!"
"Her finger?" Caleb teased right back. "Say, listen here, Ruth, that baby'll be a boy. It's a Pontipee, ain't it, and all Pontipees are boys!"
Ruth squared her shoulders stubbornly. "Well, Millie said it ain't comin' till spring, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see, won't we?" she asked. "But I still think it's gonna be a girl." She was already starting to feel as if the new baby would be her own niece, too, even though she wasn't related to it by blood, or and couldn't be related by marriage unless she married Caleb.
Unless she married Caleb! The thought caught her by such surprise that she blushed warmly in the cold winter morning, for only then did she remember that she was supposed to still be angry with Caleb. She glanced over her shoulder, made an excuse about getting back to the dishes, and hurried inside the house again, embarrassed and confused. This man had kidnapped her, and now here she was, actually thinking about marrying him! Should she have stayed angry at Caleb for a little longer? Should she not have started to speaking to him so soon? After what he'd done, it was hard to sort out her feelings towards him.
Despite how abruptly she'd ended the conversation, a little smile lingered at Caleb's face as he shouldered his axe and watched Ruth go back inside. Perhaps a part of her was still angry – and he didn't blame her for that – but he knew now that things had changed between them, that at least some of her anger had thawed. His mother used to say that every new baby was a miracle sent straight from heaven, and he knew that if Ruth was talking to him again, then Millie's baby had already accomplished one miracle.