Ardis Diary

 A new life?  I felt the movement today.  It was very faint, like the whispery movements of a butterfly.  How marvelous is this...that a man and a woman can come together to create another human being.  It is hoped that the creation would happen in love.  I can not say that love was the overwhelming feeling during my experience.  Tom makes love as he dances, with very little of passion and imagination.  I was always pleased when the experience was done.  

Well I must end that topic.  Billy can sometimes be sneaky.  I would not put it past him to try to find this diary and read what I have said.  This subject is far too advanced for him.  He still believes that somehow a baby mysteriously arrives.  He has no concept of the connection of man and woman that creates the child, nor the experience of carrying that child for nine months.

Mother Bee is also expecting.  She is not doing well with her pregnancy.  She is naturally quite thin.  Sick from her pregnancy she is almost gaunt.  Aidan is very excited at the idea of having another child.  At the same time I can see his concern about her as she vomits on and off all day long.  

I feel unsettled, my stomach roils but never to the point of vomit.  Sometimes I wish that I could throw up.  Surely I would feel relief for a short while after?  Actually, Mother Bee's biliousness doesn't seem changed when she does throw up.  She rides in the wagon most of the time now.  I don't think the oxen feel any difference when she is in the wagon.  Her weight is quite negligible to those noble creatures.

I try to do most of the chores so that Mother Bee can rest.  I did not tell anyone that I was expecting.  One day Father Aidan asked me about my pregnancy.  I was truly startled.  I didn't know how he could possibly have found out.  He assured me that he only knew from watching Mother Bee's symptoms during pregnancy.  He is such a sensitive, intuitive man.  I wish his son was more like him, and less like Mother Bee.

That's a terrible thing to say Leticia.  I should not put that in writing.  Mother Bee is just so negative, so much of the time.  She hasn't an ounce of imagination.  Life, to her, seems to be one long string of chores to be completed in an efficient, timely manner.  Sometimes it is more than I can bear.  I sometimes run as fast and as far as I can.  Then I come back more slowly to the plodding line of oxen who obediently follow our direction.

I plod just like the oxen most of the time.  It feels as though this journey will never end.  Day in and day out we perform the same chores, build a fire, make breakfast, or lunch, or dinner.  Oh, I forgot to mention, gather buffalo leavings to start the fires with.  I never in my wildest imagination ever thought that I would be gathering poop from another creature to make a fire.  This substance must be dried to get the fire burning.  I will not ever miss this particular chore at journey's end.  

Journey's end?  Sigh...will this journey EVER end?  I must end this missive dear Leticia.  Today is a day for washing our worn out, patched beyond recognition clothes.