Chapter 26 Success

Breakfast was fun, Naomi didn’t eat all of it, Minnie got hers and more. The day was planned out, but like all plans anything could change at the drop of a dime, and it didn’t have to be written in stone. Important things were discussed. The fact that Naomi didn’t like crusts on her toast or sandwich. Minnie found it hard to understand, “But the crust holds everything together, without it all the sandwich stuff leaks out, and there’s nothing to hold onto your toast with.”. Naomi countered with “Sometimes you don’t even eat your crusts, sometimes you do, I’m just a no crust person.”. “Dad…dad…, are you even paying attention?”, Minnie asked. “Um, you like crusts, Naomi doesn’t, is that right?” Will answered. “That’s it, who’s right?” , she asked. Shrugging he said “Just a matter of taste, I like tea and pickles, you don’t, I don’t like milk, you do. There’s no right way.”. “I guess, but it’s just weird.”, Min replied. “Tell you what, you can have my crusts.”, Naomi said and chucked a handful of crusts at Minnie. Will made the mistake of laughing, then he got that handful thrown back at him. It was an interesting few minutes. They were all a bit crumby afterwards, but brushed off nicely.

After breakfast was done, and cleaned up, Minnie and Will went on deck to start the boat moving. Dressing in the warm thick outer gear once more, them going onto the cold deck. “Not going to miss this much dad, just too much work.”, Minnie complained. “I totally agree, I’ve never been a winter person, and this is just long enough.” he answered. The anchors cooperated and were pulled in smoothly, Will hit half ahead and steered the Rose closer to shore, still heading south. After making sure things were going smoothly and Minnie had control, “I’m heading below, we have a ton of bedding and other laundry to wash, I’ve gotta empty and rinse tanks, fill our fresh water. You okay for a couple of hours?”, he said. “Oh yeah, I’ve got my bag of stuff, and I’ll keep an eye out for coal, right.”, Minnie replied. He leaned over and rested his forehead on hers, “Love you sweety, I’ll be back.”. She laughed.

He still had his winter clothes on, Minnie had stripped hers off and was comfortable in the big chair, so he slipped out the door and made sure it clicked shut behind him. Carefully walking on the slippery deck to the stair shed then below. Nice and warm here, but no time to dawdle. Chores awaited. He found Naomi cleaning the crew rooms so he gathered all the bedding and took it to the laundry room. There was quite a stack. He filled both washers with a load, added soap and water and started to spin the drums. Not too fast as the clothes would just stick to the inside, but not too slow as it wouldn’t agitate properly. Just a few minutes, then dump the soapy water and repeat for a rinse. Then run the sopping sheets and blankets through the mangle a couple of times to squeeze dry them, he figured each load took about twenty minutes from start to ready to hang dry. Doing two machines at a time helped and in an hour he had all the sheets ready to hang in the holds. Naomi had swept out the main hold and strung the lines while he was washing. They hung the sheets together, and left the access door open so warm air from the inside could dry the laundry faster. “That’s a lot of work, and there’s still more. Pillowcases, blankets, this is an all day job.”, Will said as they finally finished. “Oh yes, easier with two people though, Minnie helped last time. She didn’t like the soap on her fur much though.”, Naomi replied. Will went to the mess and whistled up to the wheelhouse, “Everything okay up there?”. “Yup”, Minnie said, “Just playing solitaire and drawing, no coal yet dad.”. “Roger roger, I’m still doing laundry, let me know if you need me.”, he closed the voice tube.

Back to it, he went and swept out the second cargo hold, the one used for ore. It was very clean from not being used in a while, since Laketowns last run. Stringing up the lines was but a few minutes work, everything was in place. While he was doing that Naomi had started two loads and was about to load them into the mangle. As he went to help he heard the steam whistle going off. Rushing to the galley he called up again. Minnie answered with “Found the coal dad, about a half hour ahead.”. “That’s great news Min, I’ll be up in a few to help anchor.”, Will replied. “Okay dokey.”, she said and closed off. He went to tell Naomi the good news and they quickly finished off the mangling and then hung the load to dry. As that was finishing they heard the engine wind down as Minnie conned the boat into place. Then it was dress warm again and on deck, Naomi too.

The cold wind bit into their hands through the woollen mitts so Will put on his thick leather over mitts on, that worked better. Same with his toque, it was just too windy for just that too, so up went the leather covered hood. The coast was about fifty yards away and on a point of land to the port bow was the familiar sight of a shoal, pushing its way into the lake. Still lots of snow but the black line was hard to miss. From this distance he couldn’t tell which kind of coal it was but it didn’t really matter, they needed it. Going to the bow he got Minnies attention and pointed at the anchors, she slowed the ship until they were barely moving and they dropped anchor. He pull the pin on the port windlass, then Naomi did the starboard. Surprisingly they only dropped about thirty feet and hit bottom, that was a bit unusual as the drop off from shore was surprisingly deep most of the time. But be as it may, not here. Port and starboard were down and holding, Minnie gave a bit of a pull forward and then in reverse but they held. The engine shut down and that deep vibration was gone.

They went into the wheelhouse to warm up and to collect Minnie. She was dressing in her gear, everything packed and ready, “Lunch first, before we start loading?”, she asked sadly, looking outside at the icy world. “How about lunch, finish chores below, dinner, sleep the night, then start loading tomorrow?”, Will said with a laugh, “This isn’t a job guys, this is our home, we do what we want to, remember?”. “That works for me dad.”, Naomi said with a smile, “Oh yeah, I’m ready to do laundry, at least it’s warm.”, Minnie added. “An automatic dryer would be nice about now, but I don’t see it ever happening.” Will mused. “What’s a dryer?”, Naomi asked, “You’ve mentioned it before but I always forget to ask.”. Hmmm, “It’s a box that spins the wet clothes, with electric heat to dry it fast.”, he explained. “Could we make one, it would be quicker?”, Naomi asked again. “I don’t think so, I’m not sure how to generate power, I know you could do it with wind, and with water. We have lots of that , but to make the thing that makes the thing to do that, I don’t know how.” Will replied. “Oh well, sounds like too much work to me, let’s just finish up the normal way.”, Minnie said.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

They had made it below while talking and Will went to spin some more loads while Minnie and Naomi used the mangle. With the three of them the backlog of dirty bedding and clothes were done in an hour, just in time for a light lunch. Just tea and biscuits for Will, a little more substantial for Minnie and Naomi though, they were, as Will put it, ‘Growing girls’. “Yeah, I think I am growing, outwards that is, not enough exercise lately.”, Naomi sighed. “I feel the same way, we can’t go swimming, play tag on deck, no water fights, just shovelling snow and that’s blah.”, Minnie agreed. Will had to have a think about that, what could they do to exercise? Running was out, limited space, what about jumping jacks or burpees, nope. Dancing is fun and can be great workouts but there were limited music options, so that was out too. But then he had it, skipping. Either by yourself or jumping rope with a couple of friends, it was great for exercise. He was going to work on if for a couple of days, then surprise them. See how it goes over. It would have to be done in the hold though, high ceilings, and less stuff to break. Right now they’re full of laundry and speaking of that…, “I think those first few loads might be dry, I’ll be right back.”, he left them to finish their lunch, took dishes to the galley and went to check things out. Mostly dry, a good ironing would finish them off and keep the fresh smell longer. Next ones to use these would probably be a coal crew from Newton, or maybe Laketown. It was nice to take care of the kids, they sure worked hard enough.

Ironing would have to be done in the mess, keeping irons hot on the galley stoves, but that could wait til everything was ready to iron. Pulling these ones down and starting to hang more was pretty mindless work. He had still been thinking about skipping ropes, but couldn’t remember one thing and it was driving him slightly bonkers. One person jumping in and over two ropes, swung by two other people. Remembering his kids doing it forever ago, and even his sister and him even more forever ago. He hadn’t thought of those days in a very long time, “What brought that memory up I wonder?”, he spoke aloud. “What’s that you said dad?”, Minnie asked, standing behind him with yet another basket of laundry to hang. Will laughed “Nothing much, just remembered something from when I was a kid.”. She nodded, knowing he would probably get around to telling her, in his own time that is. “So this is the last of it, Naomi said our tanks are full of the grey stuff, I can dump that in a minute, maybe the yucky tank too, cause we’re not moving right now, but it might freeze into a, what’s that thing, the floating ice thing you were telling us about.”. “Ice berg, that’s the name.”, Will answered. “Yeah, but if we dump our tanks won’t it just sit around us and freeze, a poop berg.”, Minnie laughed . He sighed “I’m not sure I want to find out, go ahead and dump the grey one, but not the black one, k?”. She dropped the heavy basket, saluted and left with a “Seeya later alligator.”.

As he hung more pillowcases he could hear gurgling and clanking as Minnie opened valves, drained the tanks and rinsed them again, then dumped them once again. A high pitched “Ewww” came from the utility room, he laughed, sometimes the tank could blow back a little bit when the valve was mostly closed. They would have go and flush all the heads to make sure there was no back pressure, that would not be fun. “You all right, get any on you?”, he called. “Lucky me, no.”, she shouted back, “Next time you do this, I’ll hang the nice clean laundry.”. Naomi came in the hold, carrying yet another basket. “Did I hear right, she got sprayed doing the tanks, cause that’s yuck.”. “Nah, she said nearly, she’s quick and little, so it was all right.”, Will said. Together they hung the last two baskets, first in the main hold, then in the second, then carried the sheets to be ironed. It looked like a lot of work but ironing sheets was the easiest thing. Same with pillow cases, couple of swishs, fold and done. Towels and kitchen linens were just folded, along with their clothes. The matériels used were very sturdy and long lasting, not like the cheap mass produced junk from his previous life. Most of his wardrobe, summer and winter, and his foot ware were all bespoke, same with all the clothes he had stored in a storeroom. Now if he suddenly gained weight, that would be a problem. “Don’t see that happening anytime soon”, he grumbled under his breath.

“Don’t see what not happening?”, Minnie asked, when she entered the mess, her flushing task all done with. Oh right, he thought, good ears on that one. “Just thinking out loud, about gaining weight and how that would mess up my clothes.”, he replied. “Oh yeah, that Darren guy would be upset, then maybe not, he’d have to make more.”, Naomi said. Minnie laughed, “I liked him, when we get to Newton I’m gonna see him for more shorts, and maybe pyjamas with feet, I like them the best.”. The irons had heated up on the galley stoves so Will cleared one of the big tables off, threw a thick blanket over it, and started ironing the clean sheets. As he worked away he was whistling, like he did sometimes when stressed a bit, or working at a task like this. Half remembered pop tunes, game music, classics, just whatever popped in to his mind. As he burbled away, Minnie or Naomi would ask what the music was, where it was from. It sure made the time pass quickly, talking about Elvis or what a video game was, then what a television was. Somethings were nearly impossible to describe like what binge watching was, having food delivered boggled Naomi but Minnie sure loved the idea of a drive through.

“You mean someone would cook for me then bring it to me?”, Naomi asked, “And I would ride up on a horse and people give me food too, that’s wonderful, but what do I do with the dishes, and where do I eat it.”, Minnie added. “Actually you drive up in cars, remember I told you about those.”, Will said, “and you get paper or foam plates and you take it home or eat in your car.”. Now that he said it, that sounded kind of awful. Much nicer to sit down at a nice tea house, or just eat at home. Again, just a different world but he was sure glad to be here. As they chatted about food, cars, what TV shows were and why he liked them so much, the sheets and other things were finished off. This had taken all of the afternoon and into the early evening, just in time to go out on deck. Dressed for the weather they had their fishing rods at the ready. Will was optimistic about catching fish for dinner. They were cowering in the lee of the wind so it wasn’t too bad and their luck was good, in fifteen minutes Naomi had caught two fine fat floaters, Minnie one long fellow, but Will had nothing. “You guys scared the fish away by talking.”, he said. “Right dad, you were the one yammering on about something called Buffy, how it was amazing and blah blah blah.” Minnie pointed out. “Well it was.”, Will said as they went below with their fresh caught dinner.