Tasha smiled and gave Seth a quick kiss on the cheek. The two women quickly got out of the truck and rushed into the store. It only took them 25 minutes to make their purchases. To Seth’s surprise they purchased a nice looking used regular sized mattress for $35.00. They also bought two pair of denim pants, two flannel shirts, and a pretty sun dress for Charity from the used bins. They purchased a packet of sox and another of panties from the new rack. Tasha proudly handed Seth change in the amount of $2.17.
When Seth carefully drove up his access road he looked over his home. They had done a lot of work during the summer to make the place better to live in. On the days he was in town Gramps, Granny and Tasha had continued working on the old town site also unless they were working in the garden, hunting or fishing. Seth hadn’t done much in the old mine and at present didn’t have any plans to do so. He thought he might scrape some of the tailings from inside to see if he could pan out a few flakes of gold but he never seemed to have time to do so. Seth sighed. He still missed Gramps and Granny.
They unloaded the mattress in the office building then Seth drove into the machine shop where he unloaded the material they were going to use on the house/office. He had lucked out and managed to get a commitment from a couple of the people he worked for part time so he had work for the rest of the week. While he was at work Tasha would do what work she could on winterizing the building. If they were lucky maybe Charity would be of some help too. If she stayed or even if she didn’t they really needed to expand or find larger quarters elsewhere. He had been thinking about renovating the old store and bar. It was almost three times the size of the office. They had to pick up the mattresses they slept on every day so they could walk around in the office. In the store they could have private rooms to sleep in and still have a kitchen, dining and living area. That was probably a job for next summer though. He didn’t have the time or money to do much about better quarters right now. That was why he had winterized the old office building. That had not cost much because of the material he had been given that summer.
To Seth’s surprise when he got home the next day all the insulation had been installed in the office and they had begun working on the windows. He was pleased with the work and told the girls so. He got a squeal of happiness then to his surprise two beautiful women ran up to him, gave him a hug and a kiss. At least Charity kissed his cheek. The next three days when Seth got home he was surprised. The two young women worked well together and accomplished as much as if Seth had been working with Tasha. On the third evening Seth commented on their rapid progress and the two women beamed.
Charity smiled and said, “I grew up on a small farm. There were two of us girls and Daddy taught us to help him with the work. He said chances were we would marry a farmer and he wanted us to know how to help our future husband. Besides, even with mother’s help he needed us to do some of the work. Tony grew up on the farm next to us and we became friendly. We both decided we didn’t want to work as hard as our parents did so when we got a little money ahead we took off for Reno. He had a friend who had gone there and told us it was easy money and loads of fun. You know what happened to that dream. Anyway, I learned how to fix things and work. All I have is my body now. I owe you my life or at least I owe you for keeping me out of jail and fed. I intend to do everything I can to help and pull my own weight here.”
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