“We’ll put some of the yeast in milk,” I said, spooning a large dollop from the small crock in which I kept the starter into a clean one. “To make more for next time.”
Jamie’s head appeared in the doorway.
“Will ye lend me the wee lass for a minute, Sassenach?”
“Yes,” I replied promptly, grabbing Mandy’s hand an inch away from the full—and open—sack of flour on the table. “Grandpa needs you to help him, sweetheart.”
“Okay,” she said affably, and stuffed one of the raisin cookies we’d made earlier into her mouth before I could stop her. “Whaffoont, Gmp?”
“I need ye to sit on something for a moment.” Jamie’s long, straight nose twitched at the scent of butter and raisins, and his hand snaked out toward the tray.
“All right,” I said, resigned. “One. But eat it in here, for God’s sake; if the boys see you with that, they’ll be in here like a swarm of locusts.”
“Wasslocst?”
“Mandy! Have you got another cookie in your mouth?”
Mandy’s eyes bulged as she made a heroic effort and swallowed most of what was in her mouth.
“No,” she said, spraying crumbs. Jamie finished his own cookie and swallowed, somewhat more neatly.
“That’s good, Sassenach,” he said, nodding at the tray. “Ye’ll make a decent cook yet.” He grinned at me, took Mandy by the hand, and headed for the door.
Lacking anything like a cookie jar—could I make one? I wondered. Doubtless Brianna could, once she’d resurrected her kiln—I shoveled the fresh cookies into the smaller kettle and put a large plate on top, then picked up two of the big river stones we kept by the hearth to use as bed warmers when the truly cold weather came and put them on top of the plate. It wouldn’t deter the boys, but it would keep insects and—maybe—marauding raccoons out. The kitchen walls were sound, but there was no glass in most of the windows as yet.
I gazed thoughtfully at the kettle for a bit, envisioning the possibilities, and then lugged it down the hall to the surgery, where I shut it up in the cupboard where I kept distilled spirits, bottles of saline solution, and other items unlikely to attract anyone’s interest. I heard Jamie and Mandy out on the front porch, talking, and went to the front door to see what they were up to.
Jamie was on his knees, scraping the wood of what was clearly meant to be a toilet seat—Mandy-sized. “Try that,” he said, sitting back on his heels. “Sit on it, I mean.”
Mandy giggled, but did.
“Whatsis for, Grampa?”
“Ken the wee mouse that got into your room last week?”
“Jes. You caughts it in your hand. Did it bites you, Grampa?” she asked with sympathy.
“Nay, a leannan, it ran up my sleeve and jumped out my collar and made off across the landing and into our room and hid under your grannie’s good shoes. D’ye no remember that?”
Her small brow furrowed in concentration.
“Jes. You scweamed.”
“Aye. Well, now and again we have wee mice—and other wee beasties—who run to hide in the privy, if something’s frightened them outside. Now, such things mostly willna hurt ye”—he raised a finger at her—“but they might give ye a start. And if one does, I dinna want ye to loose your hold and fall down through the hole into the privy.”
“Eeeeyewww!” Mandy said, giggling.
“Dinna laugh,” Jamie said, smiling. “Your uncle William fell into a privy some years ago, and wasna best pleased about it.”
“Who’s Unca Willam?”
“Your mam’s brother. Ye’ve no met him yet.”
Mandy’s small black brows drew together in a frown.
He glanced briefly up at me and lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. “Nay point in not talkin’ about him,” he said to me. “Likely we’ll see him again, before too long.”
“Sure about that, are you?” I said dubiously. True, there hadn’t been any open acrimony the last time Jamie and William had met in the flesh, but there hadn’t been any indication that William had reached a sense of resignation regarding the circumstances of his birth, either.
“I am,” Jamie said, eyes on the hole he was drilling. “He’ll come to see about Frances.”
I heard a tiny intake of breath behind me and glanced round to see Fanny, who had come down the trail from the garden, a basket full of greenery on her arm. Her lovely face had gone pale and her eyes quite round, fixed on Jamie.