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servants and cooks to assist her in being the Quintessential Housewife as she’d come to be known in Des Moines.
    The Arthurs left Templeton’s home about nine a.m. Frank seemed back in good spirits. In the wagon, he was taken by his peppy, happy personality. He rambled like a train roaring down the track, ticking off the list of things they needed to do in order to claim the Henderson’s homestead as theirs. Two trips to Yankton. One to file papers, one to pick up the wood he’d agreed to work into furniture for some men they’d met when they stopped over there.
    “You all right?” Frank put his hand on her back as she curved forward, head on knees. Gripped by cramps so tight, Jeanie would have sworn she was in labor or miscarrying, she couldn’t even speak. She nodded into her lap then sat back up hoping that stretching her body would release the tension inside her womb. She’d desperately wanted more children, but considering the extensive work ahead of them, perhaps if nature stole her baby as it had the others since Tommy and Katherine were born, they’d be better off.
    “You eat some rabbit stew for breakfast?” Frank chuckled. “Man that Templeton’s not too bright, is he? Slurping down that stew as though the old cooks in Des Moines had actually done the work. It must feel good, though, to finally put all that advice you’ve doled out over the years to use, right?”
    Jeanie couldn’t respond as she bent into the pain tearing at her insides.
    “I’m joshing; just poking fun…you know after all, we need to laugh a little, right?”
    Jeanie groaned, trying to keep it quiet so the kids in the back wouldn’t hear. She forced herself to straighten reducing some of the pain.
    Frank clicked his tongue and slowed the horses. She stared into the great land, which looked much the same as Templeton’s had, except over the night, tinges of brown had taken the tips of the grasses muting the contrast of jade grass joining the cobalt sky.
    “Keep going.” Jeanie rubbed her belly.
    “We’re officially, here. On our very own homestead. Our very own land, the place where dreams live.”
    Without waiting for responses from anyone, Frank hopped from the wagon, dragged water and the horses’ feed bags out from the back of the wagon and signaled the kids to get out, unbridle the horses, and tie them to the railing that stood near a three-walled structure that could be used as a door-less barn.
    Jeanie stood and waited for a fresh wave of cramping. Nothing came and as quickly as the pains had gripped her, they were gone, leaving her wondering if they were as bad as her memory said they were.
    She couldn’t be sure how far along she was, but it was early— due sometime after Christmas, she guessed. Most women might not have realized such a subtle change in their body, such a quickening in their womb long before she would actually feel her baby stretch and kick. But, Jeanie’s body worked like a fine clock and any missed tick like her painful, monthly visitor, was noticed as clearly as a clock missing every other second.
    Jeanie braced herself to hop out of the wagon. As she began to disembark, the toe of the too-large boot brushed the wooden side, making her trip.
    “Whoa.” Frank caught Jeanie as she fell flat out from above.
    He set her down and she smoothed her skirts. Damn, ugly shoes. She lifted her skirts staring at the beastly shoes, the toes curling upward, further searing the family’s bad turn into Jeanie’s mind.
    Frank lifted his arms and dropped his head back, face upward at the sun, grinning. “Home. We’re home and it feels magnificent.”
    Jeanie shook her head. “There’s nothing here. There’s that barely a barn over there but…“
    Frank pointed into the empty expanse. “See that bank of trees there, below there, a little ways, take a look,” Frank said. He pulled her hand and they craned their necks peering around the wagon. “Templeton told me those are olive trees—straight from