What was the day really like?
Before dawn breaks over the Texas prairie, Rosalind is already awake. The dark is quiet and cool—her favorite moment, when the world feels gentle and the day’s demands are still sleeping. She stacks kindling in the stove, coaxing the first flames to life and warming her small cabin for her still-sleeping husband and children.
Her hands know the rhythm of morning by heart: grind a little coffee for her husband, roll out biscuits, and ladle yesterday’s bacon grease into the skillet. By the time pink stains the horizon, she’s poured steaming mugs, dished up cornbread, and set out a jar of last summer’s preserves. The family gathers, exchanging sleepy smiles and plans for the day.
As the sun rises, the real work begins. Rosalind wraps her calico skirt above her sturdy boots, covers her hair with a sunbonnet, and heads outside. The summer garden waits: tomatoes heavy on the vine, rows of beans, corn seeking the sky. She sweeps a hoe between plants, pausing to finger tiny green shoots. Every vegetable is precious—meant for supper, or for canning and salting against winter.
Mid-morning brings laundry. Buckets of creek water slosh to the fire behind the house, where a cauldron bubbles. Soap she made from lard and wood ash scents the steam. She scrubs her family’s clothes until her back aches, pinning them along the fence to dry in the baking sun. Her youngest helps, earning a sticky kiss and a splash of cooling water.
A stranger might be surprised at the constant company. Neighbors drop by to trade news, borrow sugar, or share a scrap of gossip. Rosalind always offers a cup of coffee and something sweet—hospitality is life here, where distances are vast and friends are precious.
At noontime, there’s bread to bake, meat to stew, eggs to collect from complaining hens. She patches her son’s overalls, embroiders a new handkerchief, and sets aside the most delicate tasks for afternoon shade: a letter home, or mending her best dress for Sunday.
When a storm rolls in, Rosalind gathers quilts, checks the roof, and soothes her babies with songs her mother sang. Sometimes the wind sounds like a wagon train, rattling shingles and shaking windowpanes. But when rainbows arch from horizon to horizon, she feels a hope as wide as the sky.
Dusk returns her husband and children from the outside. Supper is simple but hearty—succotash and hot bread, blackberry preserves on the side. Afterward, there’s music if someone fetches a fiddle, or stories by lamplight, or the comforting silence of a family together, safe in the middle of a wild, beautiful land.
When Rosalind finally lies down, her bones are tired but her heart is full. She’s a builder, a caretaker, a dreamer—carving home from hardscrabble prairie, one small, steadfast day at a time.
Read more about how Rosalind came to her home in Jesse and the Mail Order Bride.
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