Free Christmas Mail Order Bride - A Historical Mail Order Bride Novel (Western Mail Order Brides: Book 1) by Kate Whitsby Page A

In the dark of night, she woke once to find herself wrapped snugly in blankets. She heard the wheeze of snoring in the background, but she fell asleep again without remembering where she was.
    When daylight returned to the roof window and the people in the room stirred to life, Penelope emerged from her bed much refreshed and inspired by a renewed curiosity about her imagined captors. Because she couldn’t communicate with them using words, she watched their activities with interest to grasp any idea of their lifestyle. She noted the kindness they displayed toward their children, especially the affinity between the extremely aged, some of whom never moved from their bed rolls near the fire, and the very young, who engaged in constant chatter with their elders, brought them things to eat and drink, and even fetched things for them when asked. One young girl threaded her old grandmother’s needle, while another little boy rubbed his grandfather’s feet. Such relationships Penelope imagined, watching them together. The parents and other middle-aged adults came and went from the house without any concern for the welfare of their children, leaving older girls to tend the fire and cook meals for the aged and the younger children. Penelope saw none of the strife between the children she remembered among white children. A few words from one of the elders sufficed to settle all conflict almost before it began, and the children deferred to these judgments without question. They executed their duties with enthusiasm, but one and all strenuously ignored Penelope. Only one girl, almost teenaged in her willowy stature, served Penelope her meals in the absence of her custodian, but made no further effort to engage her in any interaction.
    The custodian herself, when she returned from her occupation outside (Penelope couldn’t imagine what that might be), tried a few more times to talk to Penelope, but gave it up soon enough. Each morning, the woman smeared some foul-smelling ointment onto a particularly nasty gash in Penelope’s forehead, but after a few days, the cut healed and the woman left Penelope to rest and recover from the remainder of her injuries. Penelope slept a great deal during those first three days, sensing each day the return of her ability to move and the fading of the pain in her limbs, head, and back. She dared not remove her clothing in that environment to examine her bruises but after three days, she felt well enough to walk around the room. The next morning, she ventured outside for a walk around the encampment. Her custodian observed her approvingly from the doorway and patted her on the shoulder when she returned. After that, Penelope enjoyed perfect freedom of movement around the encampment. Although she still considered herself a prisoner, no one attempted to stop her from going wherever she pleased. To test this, Penelope extended the range of her walk further and further each day, exploring the perimeter of the encampment, but only her custodian paid her any attention, and that attention only included the occasional approving smile at her improvement. In the end, her own shoes, so thin and tight and ill-suited to extensive walking, prevented her from walking any further. The cold of the frozen ground cut straight through them, and when she returned to the house of her incarceration, she often dropped onto her bed with an agonizing groan and spent the next hour massaging her toes and ankles to restore the sensation in her feet.
    Her custodian commented on the shoes and shook her head. She rummaged in a bundle in a dim corner of the house and proffered toward Penelope a pair of rugged buckskin boots, lined with sheep’s wool, and well battered from years of use. The woman shortened and extended her arm several times, holding the boots in her hand, thrusting them toward Penelope in a pantomime of inducing her to take them. But the prospect of adopting any of these people’s ways, or relinquishing any of her