Moonlight on the Millpond (47 page)

He didn't want Maddie to know just then. He still had much thinking to do, but the enormousness of his wife's news was hitting him very hard. A new life. A small person completely dependent on them for everything. And what did they know? Jace couldn't think of a thing at the moment.

He wouldn't mention to Maddie just yet what had been going on in his heart for days. He would wait and take good care of her for this time, but soon, before the baby was even born, he knew he needed to make his own trip to see Mr. Muldoon.

 
Glossary
 

I learned many things about life in the late 1830s. Here are just a few…

  
buttery:
pronounced but'ry, it's a room where dairy goods are worked into various products, cheese and butter for example.

  
dinner:
the noon meal, always a full-blown affair.

  
flume:
a long wooden box that carries water from the millpond to the waterwheels below a mill.

  
green:
also called the center or common, it's the middle of town—a grass area around which homes and shops sit in a square or rectangle. I know of one in Connecticut that's a mile long.

  
hard cider:
fermented apple juice.

  
meetinghouse:
a building for public assembly, including the church on a Sunday.

  
millpond:
the pond of water that feeds the mill and is fed by spring thaw, or in the case of Tucker Mills, by a huge river that doesn't run dry in summer.

  
millrace:
the canal where the water from the pond enters the flume.

  
parlor
or sitting room: where people sat in the evening, entertained visitors, and unless the house was very large, ate their meals. The table in the kitchen was mostly for work and not for eating.

  
pew rental:
the way the pastor was paid in some meetinghouses.

  
pins:
straight pins were often used to hold dresses on. Buttonholes were a lot of work, and women avoided making them.