Emma, Fanny and Louisa slipped off their shoes on the bank of the river. Each carried a basket and walked barefoot on the grassy sloping bank towards the waterfall. The white water cascaded over the rocks as if poured from a never emptied bucket.
Within Emma’s basket was soap, two washboards and laundry bats. In the baskets of the younger women were the family’s clothes divided into lightly stained and heavily stained fabrics.
Emma waited somberly on the riverbank as Fanny and Louisa tucked their skirts under their petticoats. She handed them the tools required to launder. Fanny scrubbed and beat the children’s clothes in the icy flowing water. Louisa scrubbed and beat the blood and brains from her husband’s clothes.
None of the women spoke. Aside from Fanny’s whimpering, the only sounds were the flowing water and the birds chirping high in the treetops. Mother nature’s music broke the melancholy silence among the three sorrowful sister-wives.
Their man, Joseph, died brutally a week earlier as he tried to escape a mob of men who fiercely opposed their lifestyle. Emma refused to believe their lifestyle was the reason for his murder. Fanny was frightened for her life. Louisa was sad but relieved their husband would no longer hurt her.
The pregnant widows continued working quietly, keeping their thoughts to themselves. Once the chore was complete, the women carried their baskets up the hill to the home they shared. Hungry children greeted them wearing dirty clothes.
A mother’s work is never-ending.