Mail Order Annie - A Historical Mail Order Bride Romance Novel (Mail Order Romance - Book 1 - Benjamin and Annie) by Kate Whitsby Page A

Then he stepped away. “Now, swing,” he commanded.
                  Anne gaped at him in horror. “What do you mean?” she stammered.
                  “Swing,” he repeated emphatically. “Lift the ax up over your head and bring it down on the wood. What could be simpler?”
                  “You can’t be serious!” she stared at him.
                  “What’s the problem?” he looked at her, genuinely confused by her reaction.
                  “But…” she floundered, “I can’t.”
                  “Why not?” he asked.
                  “I…I don’t know how,” she whined hopelessly.
                  “Well, then, try,” he waved toward the piece of wood in front of her. “You haven’t even tried. How can you say you can’t or that you don’t know how? Just raise it up over your head and swing. Do it now. Stop stalling.”
                  Anne flushed in embarrassment at her own awkward ignorance. She hefted the ax up onto her shoulder, then pushed it up as high as she could into the air and let the heavy iron head fall toward the wood. It missed the target completely, and the sharp edge of the ax plunged into the soft earth next to the chopping block.
                  Moran indulged in the most transient smirk at this result. “Okay,” he conceded at last, taking the ax out of her hands. “Watch me.”
                  He planted his feet in front of the chopping block and, with an expert flick of his wrists, whirled the ax head up over his head and drove it down into the very center of the stick that waited there. It fell apart into two neat pieces like a slice of butter under a knife, and the two halves fell to the ground on either side of the chopping block, while the edge of the ax stuck firmly into the surface of the table underneath. Pulling the ax free, Moran picked up another stick from the pile, stood it on its end in the same place, swung the ax, and split it. Then he did another in exactly the same way. “Do you see?” he asked, letting the ax head fall into the wood. “No? Okay. Here, you hold it again. Hold the end of the handle with your right hand and slide your left hand all the way up to the ax head. Then lift it up. Use your left arm to lift the weight of the ax head. Then swing. You’ll just have to practice. You’ll learn quickly enough.”
                  Anne tried again, and missed the block again by a mile. Only on the third attempt did she hit the piece of wood that stood in front of her. The edge of the ax passed effortlessly through the stick and landed resoundingly in the surface of the block table. The wood fell apart, exactly as it did when Moran chopped it.
                  “There, you see? You can do it,” Moran assured her. “Now, keep going. I’m going back to work.” And he stalked away, leaving her to her chopping.
                  Anne chopped wood for the rest of the day, and by the end of a few hours, she had acquired the knack of swinging the ax and aiming it so that it landed where she wanted it to land. In the course of the afternoon, she took out every piece of wood she had hidden away and split them, stacked them by the stove, and burned them with great satisfaction. The exertion of chopping, no longer a tiresome chore fit only for drudges and servants produced a sensation in her body that seemed to transform her into a completely different person. The genteel lady she always fancied herself as gave place to a stronger, more robust frontier woman with a distinct self-assurance and a vitality that imbued her with power and certainty at the thought of the future. Whatever she needed to learn to thrive in this remote environment, she could learn and she would learn. She no longer needed to hide her ignorance from Moran, but could gain even greater independence by asking him for