Second Harvest

"Well, it may not be much money, but it's more than what I had in my cookie jar."

"Sara, turn to the last entry. Look on the last page."

She sighed heavily and started thumbing the pages again. When she saw the last entry, Sara let out an abrupt scream and covered her mouth. "Sweet Jesus; Roy, is this number correct?"

"It seems that there were several rewards out for the capture of the Dixon gang and recovery of the money for Wells Fargo. Grover, down at the bank, put the reward money in my bank account."

"That's a lot of money Roy. I hope the new bank is much safer than the old one."

"Me too."

"Did you have any plans for this cash?"

"Well, I did hear back from the Porter Lumber Mill in the White Mountains. They said they could sell me logs to repair the cabin and lumber if I needed some. They will ship it down here on the train. If we're going to live together, the boys are going to need rooms, and if we ever have a baby that's additional room."

"Oh Roy," Sara hugged Roy's neck, "you really want to have a baby?"

"Sara, I said if!"

She was giddy with excitement and cuddled against Roy. "Your 'if' is good enough for me."

Roy was regretting his comment already. He changed the conversation. "Anyway, like I was saying, we're going to need a bigger home than my old cabin. Perhaps we can sit down make some plans; like how big it should be and the number of rooms."

"Sure Roy." But Sara was not really listening. She was so excited, she could hardly contain herself. She looked up at Roy. "Can we have lots of windows?"

"Sara, windows are expensive." Roy shook his head in resignation. "Sure Sara. Lots of windows." He glanced back to check on Abe and Billy and the two boys were curled up and sleeping.

"I've already thought about it Roy. Let's sell my farm."

"Are you sure this is what you want? You haven't seen the condition of your place yet."

"And I don't want to now. I made up my mind. We'll sell my land."

With unsolicited help from many folks in town, Roy and Sara managed to assemble the plans for their new house. Every person offered sage wisdom, expressing what they thought Roy and Sara's house was supposed to look like. Reverend Daniel engaged the foreman from the church project by having him speak to Roy and provide further assistance. Sara and Roy made their plans to include disassembly of the windmill at the Johansson farm and moving it to Roy's place. In addition, a new well would need to be drilled and another barn constructed. In no time, their list of projects grew longer, and Roy worried about having enough money. Tom, the blacksmith, volunteered his men to help in the construction.