Cousins Prologue

So I’m going to start posting some (not sure how much) of my books in print and with recording. This is the prologue from ‘The Bobtails and the Cousins’, which is the second book in the Bobtails series.

Prologue

Miss Trenton, Miss Julia Trenton although both ‘Miss’ and ‘Trenton’ were soon to change, was on a step ladder, dusting the top of the book case when she heard a door open behind her and she turned, “Oh, your honour,  you startled me.”

The judge smiled. “Doing our spring cleaning, Miss Trenton?”

“Well, Your honour,” she said, climbing hastily down, “You weren’t here and it seemed a good time.”

“Yes, quite. I know how frustrated you are that I won’t let you clean in here while I am working. But, soon you will be married and some other poor girl will have to put up with me.”

Miss Trenton blushed. “Your Honour!”

“Well, I am in a mood to speak of marriage. I just performed what was probably the strangest marriage of my career. Not the people, but the situation. I wrote the husband out a license for his wife to sign. The husband and witnesses all agreed it would be good for the stiff young widow to be shocked, so I did it.”

“I don’t understand. I thought you went out to finalise an adoption.”

“I did. But the young widow who took the children, and that was one of the stranger placements I have ever made, has since gotten herself betrothed, and now married, of course, to a local farmer… well, horse breeder. When I did my rounds interviewing everyone they were all most pleased so I got to do both.”

“And the adoption?”

“Oh, that went well. All of the neighbours that I talked to, including the local pastor, were all of a mind that she would do well with the children, and together with her new husband they would do even better. She was a stiff young thing. Not that young, obviously… she’s been widowed.  Since the death of her husband she was all bound up in her duty. I’m sure that her new husband will be good for her. An interesting man… very loud and very blunt, but also very, very thoughtful. You wouldn’t think it to look at him.”

“And the children?”

“What about… oh, have they been good for her? Certainly. Everyone was agreed on that too. They said they had never seen her so nervous as before the children came but once they arrived well, except for a couple hiccups, everything went well.”

“You always worry, sending children off to live on a farm. Slave labor, some call it.”

“Well, they work hard enough, but she works right alongside them, harder than any of them, and they get plenty of time off to go swimming and climb hills and get in fights. And they are, by all accounts, fattening up nicely and getting routinely burnt in the sun, even for spring. The oldest boy is becoming quite a milker and drives a delivery route. Hates cutting wood but we can’t have everything.”

“Why did the widow get the children?” she asked. “It seems a strange placement.”

“It was a strange placement. They have three uncles, all married with children, and each of them could have taken them. But the one was too self-important, the other too lazy, and the third already has his dozen and was talked out of it. They would have done fine with any of them, but I think they will do well indeed with their aunt… and her new husband. I feel quite content about the way things have turned out.”

“Well, not about the uncles, I suppose.”

“Oh, well, they felt guilty enough, at least the first two. The third one has nothing to feel guilty about. I’m sure if I had let them argue a few more minutes he would have ended up with them, however much the old bossy one wanted to send them off with the poor one. It will be interesting to see how they turn out. Not that I’ll ever know, I suppose.”