Bitter Harvest by Sheila Connolly Page A

heat.
    “Depends. Once the roads are clear I’ll make some calls.”
    “Just try not to bankrupt me. My credit card is already groaning.”
    “I’ll do the best I can. Now, about that breakfast . . .”
    By the time they had finished eating, the first snowplow had gone past, making a quick detour to clear a portion of her driveway. Seth went out to confer with the driver, and watching from the kitchen window, Meg recognized John Taylor, who waved at her. He’d been so bundled up the last time she’d seen him that she hadn’t gotten a good look at him. He turned out to be older than she had expected, probably in his forties, with a lean dark face, sort of like a prebeard Abraham Lincoln. Seth and John chatted for a few minutes while Meg cleaned up. Did she dare risk boiling water so she could do the dishes? How long would it be until the power was restored?
    When Seth came back he said, “Good news. John says the power problem for this road is a downed line over toward town, where a tree fell on it. The rest of the town is back on line, and as soon as they break some trucks free they can fix the last wire. Figure you’ll have power by this afternoon. Look, I’ve got to go into town and coordinate the cleanup process. Will you be okay here? And can I leave Max?”
    “I’ll be fine. No problem about Max, but maybe you could stop by with some more firewood later? If the furnace won’t be ready for a few days?”
    Seth smiled. “So you really want to keep staying here, even without heat?”
    “Hey, we made it through the blizzard, and I’m getting pretty good at cooking over the fire. Once the power’s back, I can shift to the kitchen. I’ll be fine. You go and do what you need to do.”
    When he was gone, Meg turned to Max. “Well, pal, what now? You know, I think I vote for boiling a pot of water and then a quick sponge bath. If there’s any water left, I might make a stab at doing the dishes. How does that sound to you?”
    Max slobbered at her for a few moments, then turned and settled himself in front of the fire. Meg laughed. “Too much for you, eh, Max? Too bad.” She went back to the kitchen to find a stockpot, which she filled with as much water as she could lift, then hauled it back and settled it on the coals, adding a few split logs around it. It looked stable, which was a good thing, since it would probably take at least an hour to get hot. How on earth had women done laundry in earlier centuries? It must have taken a day just to get the water hot enough. At least they’d had fewer clothes, but the downside of that was that things must have gotten pretty rank. She definitely preferred the present.
    When she’d done what limited cleanup she could, Meg gave in to the siren call of the sampler. She still couldn’t power up her computer, but she could take a look at what her mother had put together on the Warren family first and see if any Coxes popped up. She’d been so busy with the harvest she really hadn’t had time to absorb the details her mother had so proudly assembled, beyond the barest outlines, and now was a good time to start. At least she could figure out who had lived in the house when young Violet Cox had made the sampler.
    Meg had put all the Warren family genealogy information into one banker’s box, which did little to distinguish it from the several similar boxes of materials she was working her way through for the Historical Society. But she’d needed the space on the dining room table to spread out her financial records. Great: now she felt guilty no matter which direction she looked, because nothing was getting finished. At least the family documents and printouts constituted the smallest stack of material.
    She pulled out the sheaf of papers on top, which included a family tree, tiers of boxes showing each generation lined up. Her mother had accomplished a surprising amount in a short time, given that she had no prior experience. Meg traced the line back from the two