I heard soft voices in the other direction, too, through the open kitchen door—Jamie and Mandy, evidently pointing out stars they liked to each other. I smiled, arranging the cookies on the platter. He probably could charm a rabid hedgehog, I thought.
With his own good instincts, Jamie waited until the mob had reassembled and were eagerly sniffing the warm cookies. Then he carried Mandy back in and deposited her among the other children without comment.
“Thirty-four?” he said, assessing the array at a glance. “One for Oggy, aye?”
“Yes. How do you do that?”
“Och, it’s no difficult, Sassenach.” He leaned over the platter and closed his eyes, inhaling beatifically. “It’s easier than goats and sheep after all—cookies dinna have legs.”
“Legs?” said Fanny, puzzled.
“Oh, aye,” he said, opening his eyes and smiling at her. “To know the number o’ goats ye have, ye just count the legs and divide by four.”
The adult members of the audience groaned, and Germain and Jem, who had learnt division, giggled.
“That—” Fanny began, and then stopped, frowning.
“Sit,” I said briskly. “Jem, pour the milk, please. And how many cookies does each person get then, Mr. Know-it-all?”
“Three!” the boys chorused. A dissenting opinion from Mandy, who thought everyone should have five, was quelled without incident and the whole room relaxed into a quiet orgy of cold, creamy milk and sweet-scented crumbs.
“Now, then,” Jamie said, and paused, carefully brushing crumbs off his shirtfront into his palm and licking them off. “Now, then,” he repeated. “Amanda tells me she can read her book by herself. Will ye maybe read it to us, a leannan?”
“Yes!”
And with only a brief interruption for the wiping of sticky hands and face, she was ensconced once more in her mother’s arms—but this time, the vivid orange book was in her own lap. She opened the cover and glared at her audience.
“Everybody shut up,” she said firmly. “I read.”
THE SURGERY WAS the only room with complete walls, so once the cookie crumbs were all devoured, and Mandy’s book read aloud several times, Ian and his family left for their own cabin and the children lugged their pallets down the rudimentary hallway, excited at the prospect of sleeping in their own house.
I went with them to make up a fire in the brazier, the second chimney not being yet complete, and hung tattered quilts over the open window and doorway to discourage bats, mosquitoes, foxes, and curious rodents.
“Now, if a raccoon or a possum should come in,” I said, “don’t try to make it leave. Just come out of the surgery and get your father or your grandsire. Or your mother,” I added. Bree could certainly deal with a rogue raccoon.
I threw a kiss to the room at large and went back to the kitchen.
The smell of molasses had faded, but the air was still sweet, now with the scent of whisky. Brianna, sitting on a wooden box of indigo, raised her tin cup to me.
“You’re just in time,” she said.
“For what?”
Jamie handed me a full cup and tapped the rim of his to mine. “Slàinte,” he said. “To the new hearth.”
“For presents,” Bree said, half apologetically. “I thought about it for a long time. I didn’t know if I’d ever find you—any of you—” she added, with a serious glance at Roger. “And I wanted to bring something that would last, even if it got destroyed or lost.”
Jamie and I exchanged a puzzled look, but she was already delving into her canvas bag. She came up with a chunky blue book and, eyes dancing, put it into my hands.
“What—” I began, but I knew instantly from the feel of it and let out a noise that could only be called a squeal. “Bree! Oh, oh …！”
Jamie was smiling but still puzzled. I held it out to him, then clutched it to my bosom before he could take it. “Oh!” I said again. “Bree, thank you! This is wonderful!”
She was pink with pleasure, her eyes shiny in response to my excitement. “I thought you’d like it.”
“Oh …！”
“Let me see it, mo nighean donn,” Jamie said, reaching gently for the book. I could hardly bear to let go of it, but relinquished it.
“Merck Manual, Thirteenth Edition,” he read from the cover, and looked up, brows raised. “Merck seems a popular writer—that, or he makes the devil of a lot of mistakes.”
“It’s a—a—medical book,” I explained, beginning to get hold of myself, though little thrills of elation were still washing through me. “The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy. It’s a sort of compendium of—of the state of general medical knowledge.”