A Promise for Miriam by Vannetta Chapman Page B

own.
    Now she cocked her head and waited patiently.
    “The storm is quite bad,” he explained. “The fire will keep this room warm, and I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
    Grace reached up, patted his cheek, and smiled. Then she turned back to her cheese biscuit and her paper.
    That was what he’d remember later—the feel of her hand on his cheek and the smile in her beautiful brown eyes.

Chapter 11
    G race had every intention of minding her dad.
    She did well for the first hour or so, but there was only so much drawing even she could do.
    The snow continued to pile up outside until she had trouble even seeing the broken fence that bordered the pasture where the grumpy old bull was supposed to stay.
    In some ways she understood how he must feel. She could sympathize, another new word they had learned in school. He was so big and had so much energy. It must be hard to be told to stay in one place. She wasn’t big, but her feet were restless. They tapped a rhythm on the wooden floor as she drew the final details onto her drawing of the picture outside the window.
    Turning the page, she considered starting another picture, but her hand was a bit sore from clutching the pencil. She thought she should take a break. Looking around the kitchen, she wondered what she would do if her mom were here. Probably they would be baking cookies or making bread. She needed to learn to do such things, but her dad was too busy to teach her. And besides, his cooking experiments didn’t turn out so well.
    She walked over to the stove and picked up the pan he’d set on the back corner of the stove, away from the warmth of the fire. The grease had chilled and hardened.
    It looked icky.
    She stuck a finger in it and stirred. It didn’t look like something you would want to eat. She knew when you put it into some foods it added flavor. Grace had watched her mammi Sarah do that when she cooked back at their old house.
    But she didn’t know if she could figure out how to do such things. She had helped to separate beans before, looking for the occasional bad one and scooping the rest into the pan. The kitchen had been full of people and the oven full of good things to eat. Mammi Sarah had set her in front of the beans and shown her what to do. When she’d finished, the beans had gone on the back of the stove in a pot filled with water.
    Grace didn’t know how to soak beans. How long did you keep them in the water? Did you put some of the grease in while they were soaking? Did you add salt or pepper to the water before they started to cook? Maybe she could ask Miriam for a book that would explain such things. Her reading was much better now than when she’d left Indiana.
    Maybe Miriam’s mother, Abigail, would have time to show her a few simple dishes.
    Taking her breakfast plate to the sink, she washed it clean and placed it on the drain board. She had to stand on the stool her dad had made to help her reach the faucet handle, and the water that came out was ice-cold. She knew it was better to use hot water, but she didn’t know about boiling water on the stove and then carrying it to the sink. Instead, she had scrubbed the plate extra hard.
    Even so, when she was done it hadn’t taken much time. She walked back to the window and peered outside. Nothing had changed, except maybe there was more snow. She wasn’t sure.
    Snow or more snow. It all looked the same.
    She pressed her face to the window and noticed how her breath fogged the glass.
    Last year she’d gone outside in the snow and made angels with her cousins. They’d even had a sled that they’d ridden down the hill over and over again.
    With her finger, she drew a hill on the frosty window and set a sled halfway down it.
    What had her dad told her?
    To stay in the kitchen where it was warm and to follow the rope if she needed to go to the outhouse.
    She didn’t need to use the outhouse again. It was a funny place, not at all like their bathroom at their old house.
    But if she