Millie worked extra hard the following day, trying to get everything ahead, so she’d be able to sit down with Bess and have a nice visit, rather than having to do chores while her new friend was there. She did the weekly wash and baked bread for the next few days. Now that she was caught up, doing wash one day per week would be easy.
She’d finished the major cleaning, and now it was just a matter of keeping things up. The worst of the catching up was finally done. The one thing that bothered her was the girls’ dresses, but while she was washing the lunch dishes on Monday, the solution came to her.
She’d bought several yards of fabric to make some new dresses for herself but hadn’t had time to sew them. Now that she was here, and saw how simple life was, she knew she didn’t need more than two dresses for church and two for work and she already had those. She could use the fabric she had to make six new dresses for her girls, and they’d have two for play and one for good each. She smiled to herself. That’s exactly what she’d do.
Once the two little ones were down for their afternoon nap, she brought out the pretty calico fabric she’d bought and spread it on the table. Thankfully, Patience knew where Martha had kept her dress patterns and brought them to Millie, practically dancing at the idea of new dresses.
“Do you want to help me?” Millie asked.
Patience nodded. “Oh, yes, please!”
Millie smiled. “Well, the first thing we need to do is measure you and make sure we make the right size.” She took a piece of string and wrapped it around Patience’s waist, and carefully held the string over the yardstick, writing down the measurement. As she took the measurements and wrote them down, she showed Patience what she was doing, so she would learn to be able to do the same.
By the time the little ones woke from their nap, she’d cut out all three dresses for Patience, and had carefully folded the rest of the fabric. The first seams had been sewn and some of the preliminary basting had been done. She would continue to work on the dresses as much as she could, and hopefully by Sunday, both her girls would have a pretty new dress to wear to church.
She tucked away the dresses in time to cook dinner for her family all but dancing through the chore. She was so happy to have a plan for the girls’ dresses and she had a friend coming over tomorrow to just chat. Her new life was much better than she’d imagined.
After the children were in bed, she pulled out the pieces of Patience’s dress and worked on sewing in tiny little stitches. George didn’t pay attention to what she was doing as he pulled down the family Bible and continued their reading of Matthew. She found she looked forward to her time listening to George read, while she worked on whatever mending or sewing needed to be done. It was a good way to end a busy day.
That night, George read from Matthew chapter six. She listened carefully, enjoying the words. She liked the idea of not having to worry about anything as long as she put God first in her life. After George was finished reading, she asked, “Do you think that’s really true?”
George raised an eyebrow. “Do I think what’s true?”
“That we really don’t need to worry about anything as long as we put God first in our lives.” Millie had never heard those verses and liked what they meant. Not having to worry about anything would make her life so much better. Could she really trust God to provide her with what she needed?
He sighed. “I do think it’s true. I don’t think it means we won’t have hardship. My losing Martha goes to show we’ll all have hardship. But God promises that he won’t put more on us than we can bear.”
She tilted her head to the side thinking about it. “So we shouldn’t worry about where our next meal will come from as long as we worship God? So why do we even have to work? Or cook? Won’t God provide?”
He grinned at her simplistic view of the scripture. “He will provide. Haven’t you heard that ‘God helps those who help themselves’? We can’t sit around and wait for him to provide, though. We need to be hard workers. God expects husbands to provide for their families. That means I need to work to provide for you all. Just like you need to do your share by keeping our home clean and fixing the food I provide for our table.”
She nodded. She’d always heard that’s how it should be, but the new verses in Matthew had given her something new to think about as well.
“What are you working on there?” he asked, noticing for the first time she was busily sewing away at something and not mending.
“I’m making dresses for the girls.” She smiled as she held up the pieces of fabric on her lap. “This one is for Patience.” She was proud of how much work she’d already gotten done on the dresses. She hoped he’d be pleased with them.
An angry look passed over George’s face, and he took a deep breath. “Millie, I told you we didn’t have money for fabric for clothes for the girls right now. Did you put it on an account at the store?” His voice was mild, but she could see how angry he was.
“No.” She shook her head emphatically. “I brought fabric with me to make some dresses for myself. Now that I’m here, I can see I don’t need more dresses than what I already have, so I decided to use the fabric to make dresses for the girls.” She was hurt that he thought she’d deliberately disobeyed him like that.
“I’m sorry. I just automatically assumed the worst and I shouldn’t have. Thank you for being willing to use something you’d earmarked for yourself for my girls.”
“It’s for our girls, and I don’t mind using the fabric for them. They need the clothes a lot more than I do.”
He reached across the table and put the dress pieces she was still clutching onto the table and took both of her hands in his. “Will you forgive me for assuming the worst about you?”
She nodded smiling. “Of course, I do. How could you trust me when I came out here under false pretenses?” She was happy he was holding her hands for the first time. Did that mean he was starting to love her as she loved him? Her eyes widened. Did she love him? She hadn’t realized it, but she did. She loved this gruff, godly man who put his children above everything else in life. How could she not?
“I’ve forgiven you for that. I need to stop dwelling on it.”
“You have?” He hadn’t told her he’d forgiven her. Hearing him say so sent a small thrill through her. Their marriage was getting closer to working out every day.
“Of course, I have. How could I trust you with my children otherwise?”
“Thank you for giving me the chance to prove to you I can be a good mother to them.” She promised herself then the children would never want for anything she could provide. If it meant giving them the food she was about to eat, she would do it.
He smiled. “I’m glad you’re here, Millie. You’re making my life a lot easier with your presence.” He still missed Martha, and felt like he was betraying her by letting another woman come into her home and take her place, though. But he didn’t have a choice. Their children needed a mother, and Martha would see things the same way he did. He needed to remember to thank Agnes for her meddling at church on Sunday morning.