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Page 209
Chapter Thirteen
Holly Smith, scrubbing down the seat and walls of the outhouse with lye soap and coarse rags, was happy. No, rapturousas if she'd died and gone to heaven.
Not that serving at the inn wasn't hard work. But compared to farm life, it wasn't any too taxing, even with Mariah gone for the day and all the chores falling onto her. She was still a little weak from her prior misfortune, but she wasn't one to lie around and mope. She had to be doing things, she did.
Though she wasn't pleased with the smell of her current chore, it wasn't much worse than mucking out a stable or chickenhouse. Plus, there weren't all them animals to tend: cows to milk, eggs to collect from peevish hens, pigs to slop. Nor was there the backaching job of dealing with crops: plowing, planting, watering or picking.
Not that this place didn't have a little garden. Too little. She'd see to expanding it, if she was here long enough.
Depending, of course, on that Thorn. He was a strange bird, he was. Though Holly took pride in the way she could read people, that one was a mystery. Nasty at times, and

 
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