Jerusha Jensen's Intro

Eighteen-year-old Jerusha Gentry awoke to the sound of Ole Ben, the rooster patriarch, of the chicken coop out back cawing on a fence post beneath her bedroom window. (For once can't that loudmouth bird find another post to do his crowing on!) she thought with a groan as she turned over in bed and tried to get a few more minutes of shuteye before her busy day began.

She had barely drifted back to sleep, when she heard light tapping on her closed bedroom door, then a feminine voice call out, "Rise and shine Jerusha. There's chores waiting to be done afore we open the store."

"I'm getting up." Jerusha called through the door and heard her mother mumble an ineligible answer as she started down the stairs and into the store.

(Why couldn't I have been born to rich folks with servants." She muttered as she slid out of her warm and comfy bed and started across the cold floor in the direction of the ancient wardrobe in one corner. She immediately felt sorry for the comment, knowing that it was unfair. Her Ma worked long, hard hours every day in order to give her a proper growing up. Never had she wanted for food, gone without clothes or had a warm bed to sleep in at night. The least she could do in return was to help her Ma out in any way she could, without letting on that she hoped that one day she would find her someone to love, who would take her away from such a dreary, simple life.

Jerusha dressed quickly in a clean, but faded blue calico dress with tiny sprigs of daisies all over it. As soon as she was dressed, her face and hands washed, and her shoulder length golden hair pulled back into a long strand at the nape of her neck with a piece of ribbon, Jerusha left her bedroom and headed downstairs.