Uncle Terrence headed back to his own small office. James nodded to the door, and Adam shut it.
“Why don’t we talk to Caleb? Maybe he can look into whether or not there are any bulletins out on those men who conned Reg?”
“That’s a good place to start,” Adam said. “But let’s not say anything to Pamela about that—or about this meeting the men will be having.”
“Of course not,” James agreed. “We don’t want to get her hopes up.”
Adam nodded. It really was a blessing that he had his brother, his best friend, to share the responsibility of being a husband. Both of them would take care of their woman, together.
Chapter Twelve
She was looking forward to a nice cold glass of sweet tea. Pamela was having the time of her life, but making jam on this scale was hot, and thirsty, work.
As she relaxed and looked around the kitchen, a kitchen filled with so many women, most of whom had already become dear to her, she thought her mother would have thoroughly enjoyed this particular project.
There were air conditioners in the big house, of course, but the grandmothers preferred fans and having the windows open for errant breezes. Screens prevented the incursion of bugs, and the day wasn’t as hot as usual. There actually was a bit of fresh air, here and there, that made it through to them.
Another treat, unexpected but added to what she’d anticipated, was meeting a young woman and new Jessop cousin, Abigail Parker. Maria had told her of the other woman’s arrival in Lusty. Aunt Kate had come upon her at the cemetery. She was a descendent of the Parker-Joneses, the granddaughter of Terrence, Jeremy, and Phyllis’s only daughter, Maude.
Both her grandmother and her mother had passed away recently, and the young woman had believed herself to be all alone in the world—until she’d stumbled across a box in her grandmother’s closet. The box had held photos and letters and a journal and had led Abigail to Lusty.
There’d been a moment for a private word. Pamela had offered her condolences on Abigail’s still recent losses and confided that her own mother had passed not all that long ago—a death that had been completely unexpected. Pam let Abigail know she was there for her, if she wanted or needed to talk.
I’ve been so warmly welcomed to this wonderful town. How can I not offer the same to her?
Chelsea began to recount her first experience attending a jam-making session, when she’d been quite young. She told how the men helped by keeping the outdoor fire going for the time it took to complete the job.
“Was it hard to regulate the heat, to keep the jam from burning?” Abigail asked.
“There was a trick to it, that’s for certain. Even with the wood stove, you learned, from the doing, from the making, how to keep the temperature just right for baking, roasting meat, or making jams and jellies and such.”
“You must think we have it easy today by comparison,” Pamela said.
“All the modern conveniences we have like the electric range and other appliances make it so much less work you must want to shake your head when you hear women of our generation complain about hard work.” Samantha nodded.
Kate and Miranda passed out the glasses of sweet tea as three large batches of jam gently simmered on the stove.
“Certainly, the doing of chores is physically easier today than when I was a child and, later, a young bride,” Chelsea said. “But there are other difficulties to modern living that take their place. I never questioned my future. I knew what I wanted from the time I was ten. Today, it seems, there are all sorts of pressures on young women. Do you get an education, become a professional, or get married and raise your children?
“Do you burn your bra or burn the supper until you get it right?” Chelsea shook her head. “I don’t understand why men today think they can be the lords of the castle just because they earn the money. Oh, not any of our men, because I can assure you their fathers knocked that foolishness out of them at an early age. But men in the rest of the country. My mother-in-law was a private investigator before the turn of the last century and worked with her husband, Warren, who was a lawyer. When she was pregnant and after she gave birth, she still worked, though she hired others to do the running around. Her husbands never would have considered telling her she couldn’t do anything.”
No wonder Grandmother Chelsea gets annoyed with Adam and James. This new information gave Pamela another insight. With examples like that, dating back to the end of the 1800s, how on earth could they be so…so dense?
They returned to the hot and busy work of jam-making. Since all of the jars had been washed, dried, sterilized, and awaited filling, Pamela and Samantha traded off with Abigail, who helped the grandmothers and Bernice, who immediately headed back to the ranch to give Maria a hand in putting lunch out for the men who were working there.
There was one final large batch to put together, and Pamela learned how to crush the berries so there were pieces of varying sizes.
“I suppose it would be easier if we used food processors to puree the fruit,” Grandmother Mattie said. “But the truth is I like the chunks.”
There was almost unanimous agreement that chunky strawberry jam was better than jam rendered completely smooth.
“Too smooth would look store-bought,” Chelsea said. “Now, there’s nothing wrong with store bought, but this is more than how the jam looks, or even in the production of the jam itself. This is tradition.”
And it’s more that tradition. Pamela looked around the kitchen, as they worked their way
