“I’ll show y’all how it’s done.” Braden puffed up with pride on the way from the house to the barn. “It’s not hard, and you’re goin’ to love the new babies, Holly. They’re even cuter than a cat.”

“Not possible,” Holly declared.

The feeding chore only took half an hour at the most, but they spent another hour in the pen, petting and loving on the new babies. Holly was the child who begged for five more minutes when they had to go back to the house, and who pouted when she had to leave behind her favorite little black-and-white kid that was only a couple of days old.

After supper, Holly and Braden hurried to the living room to watch an old movie. They’d argued all during the meal about a funny scene. Holly said that one thing happened in it; Braden swore that it didn’t. That would keep them busy for a couple of hours, Lily thought. She went upstairs to take a long, soaking bath.

She adjusted the water, got it just to the right warmth, and then dropped all her clothes on the floor. Her phone pinged with a text from Sally. Her boss wouldn’t be in the shop until after ten the next morning. Then there was one from Mack saying that his meeting was running longer than he’d thought.

She sent a smiley-face emoji back to Sally and a message to Mack telling him that they’d taken care of the chores. She immediately got a heart emoji back from him. She laid the phone on the ladder-back chair beside her towel, added some scented oil to the bath, and sank down into the warm water.

When the water had gone lukewarm, she got out and wrapped a towel around her body, made sure the coast was clear, and padded down the hall to her bedroom. Once she was there, she dressed in flannel pajama pants and a faded T-shirt left over from Christmas several years before.

Both kids had finished their homework, and everything was quiet downstairs, which meant that the controversial scene in the movie had not played yet. After all the bickering that usually went on, Lily appreciated the moment. She took out the journal, peeked inside the velvet pouch with all the money, and sighed. She’d have to figure out where to go on a cruise when summer arrived. The Caribbean? Or maybe Alaska?

She tucked the money back into the secretary and was about to go over to Holly’s room when her daughter came in with her two notebooks. “The movie is boring, but I was right about that scene. Can we read some more about Jenny now?” She crawled up in the middle of Lily’s bed and opened her notebook.

“Sure, we can.” Lily joined her on the bed, opened the journal, and began to read:

Jenny Medford O’Riley, March 1908: Oklahoma is a state as of last November, but that hasn’t changed the way we live here in Dodsworth. I got a letter from Mama a few days ago, and I’ve read it dozens of times. My tears have made the ink run in places, especially when she told me my brother had died, leaving behind a wife and two children. I have such fond memories of the times I spent with Samuel when we were young. I hope that my daughter, Rachel, and her brothers have memories like that. Rachel is now twenty-one, married, and has a daughter and a son of her own. It’s hard to think that so much time has passed, but months and years stand still for no one. I’m glad that Rachel is happy. She was such a rebellious child, and I wanted to pull my hair out before I got her raised. We have settled into life here in Oklahoma, but I do miss Mama. She’s getting on up in years now, and I do wish I could see her once more before her time comes to an end.

“Mama, if I live a long way from you when I leave home, will you write me real letters that I can keep and read over and over?” Holly asked.

“Of course I will, but where are you planning on living?” Lily answered.

“Well.” Holly hesitated. “Faith is probably going to the Air Force Academy when she graduates next year, and I might do that, too, when I get out of school. The counselor is looking into what all she has to do to get into the academy. It sounds like a good program.”

“If that’s what you want to do, I’ll support you in your decision,” Lily promised, all the time hoping that she’d change her mind by the time she graduated.

“Thanks, Mama.” Holly gave Lily a brief hug. “I’m not going to think of Jenny dying, even though I know she will before we finish the journal. It makes me real sad to think that I’d ever lose you, so you have to live forever.”

Lily had to work hard to keep the tears at bay, but the moment passed quickly when Holly jumped up and grabbed her notebooks. “I’ve got to go get some of this written down while it’s fresh in my mind.”

Lily remembered the day that Sally had called to tell her that her mother had passed away. Jenny had had poor means of transportation and miles between where she lived and her mother, Matilda. Lily had only the excuse of being busy, and she had regretted not having visited her mother more often in the past five years.

Chapter Fourteen

Holly! Holly! Come quick! Hurry!” Braden yelled at his sister as he hit the back door with a thump after school the next day and rushed inside with a newborn baby goat in his arms. “I need help, Holly! We got to keep her alive.”

Holly had been in the living room watching television, but she didn’t waste time getting past her mother in the kitchen. “Good Lord, Braden. I thought Mama was dying.”

“Not Mama,” Braden huffed. “This baby’s mama died, and we got to keep her warm or she won’t make it. Get some old towels. Mack said to rub her fur until she’s dry, and then we’ll see if one of the other nannies will take her.”

Lily opened a bottom cabinet drawer where her mother always kept scrub rags and tossed a fistful into the utility room. Braden and Holly each grabbed an old towel and started rubbing the newborn baby. They were talking to the animal as if it were a human baby, and they weren’t arguing. Lily watched them, amazed. Who would have ever thought her kids would bond over a goat?

When Mack finally came into the house, the baby was on her feet and throwing a fit. Evidently, she was hungry and wanting either a bottle or a mama that had more to offer than dry towels.

“I’ve put two nannies that gave birth today into stalls,” Mack said. “We can take her out to see if either one of them will take her as their own.”

“Can’t we keep her in the house?” Holly asked. “I’ll give up my cat from Granny Hayes if we can.”

“She’ll be healthier if we put her on a nanny, but she can be your goat. You can name her and spoil her every day,” Mack said. “Since Braden carried her to the house, you can take her to the barn.”

“Her name is Star, because that white spot on her head looks like a star.” Holly wrapped her in a clean towel and scooped her up in her arms.

Mack winked at Lily, who was still in shock that Holly would even touch a goat. Life had sure taken a big turnaround since the first of the month. Lily fully expected Braden to hate the name or else put up an argument that the goat was his, but he just followed his sister out the back door with Mack right behind them.

The table was set for supper, and the food was ready to be put into bowls by the time they got back from the barn. Lily remembered a few times when her father had brought a calf into the utility room to warm it up and then took it out to put it on a cow that had just given birth. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. If it didn’t, then they had to bottle-feed the little critter until it was big enough to eat feed. She crossed her fingers that didn’t happen. Holly would not like getting up thirty minutes early every morning to go feed Star, or traipsing out to the barn every evening, whether it was snowing or raining, to take care of the goat again.