Page 22 of Mail Order Moose

But Ella let it remain.

Chapter Eight

Ella decided to invite people to supper on a morning when the cold seemed to be the only thing anyone could think about.

It was not the first cold of the season. That had already come with wind and snow, and the storm that left the town half-buried. This was different. The early panic had passed, and in its place came the steady understanding that winter would be here for a good long time.

People had begun to move less easily from cabin to cabin. Visits were shorter. Errands were planned by daylight and temperature. Conversation at the cold houses had turned from what should be stored to what might make life better as they finished out winter.

Lula had said that someone ought to host an evening before they all forgot how to sit in a room for pleasure rather than planning.

“You have the neatest cabin,” Lula had added, looking directly at Ella in a way that was not subtle enough to be called anything else.

Ella had thought of saying no. She had several good reasons. The cabin was small. The stove was temperamental. David owned only two chairs, and one had a leg that needed watching. She did not know how to make people laugh. She did not know how to keep conversation moving if it stalled. She did not know where everyone would put their wet boots.

But she knew how to count bowls. She knew how to make stew stretch without tasting thin. She knew which corner of the cabin was farthest from the door and least likely to catch a draft. She knew David liked cards and Sebastian liked noise and Belle liked a chair with good light if she brought mending. She knew Maggie would need somewhere to set the baby if she came.

So, she said, “Saturday evening, if the weather holds.”

Lula clapped her hands together as if Ella had announced a wedding. “There. Settled.”

*****

Ella made a list that afternoon, then another list beneath it when the first one became too crowded to trust.

Stew, because stew forgave timing. Bread, because people expected bread and because David had said once that the smell of it made a cabin feel inhabited. It made sense to have Myrtle bring the bread. Coffee for the men. Tea for anyone who preferred it. A little dried apple warmed with sugar. Cards on the table after supper. Extra blankets folded near the wall. A quiet corner by the bed, screened as much as possible by David’s spare coat hung from the line.

David came in while she was measuring the distance between the table and the stove with her eyes.

“You’re building something in your head,” he said.

Ella looked at the two chairs, the table, the bed, the stove, the shelf, and the narrow strip of floor between all of them. “A gathering.”

His brow lifted, but not in alarm. “Here?”

“If the weather holds.”

David took off his gloves slowly. “Do you want it to hold?”

That was a more difficult question than it should have been. Ella looked down at her list. “I think so.”

He came to stand beside the table, leaving enough room between them for her to breathe. “Then I hope it holds.”

She handed him the list before she could decide not to. “I need more seating.”

David read the page with the seriousness he might have given to a mill order. “I can bring in the bench from the shed and borrow two stools from Sebastian. The crate by the woodpile will be another seat if no one minds sitting low.”

Ella made a mark beside seating. “The card table?”

“We can put the cards on the trunk after supper.”

“It will be crowded.”

“Likely.”

She waited for him to suggest that perhaps another cabin would be better. He did not.

“If you want,” he said, “I can stand near the door and catch coats before they fall into the stew.”