She leaned against the wall and looked down at him, shaking her head. “Out in all hours and all weather, and he comes home to nothing!”Joshua shrugged. He had a good idea where this was going.“So where’s Mrs. Doctor? You need to get married!

Now do you want me to give you something that’ll help you, or would you rather move into the outhouse and try to shoe horses there?

Joshua Gibbs felt sun on his face and thought about opening his eyes. He decided to wait. He had some blessings to savor that wouldn’t need sight.

He staggered and might have toppled sideways if Clara had not been there, grabbing his arm and steadying him. He turned toward her and saw her read, and then reflect, the anguish in his face. Her grip on his arm went from support to a more frantic clutch. She said under her breath, “You can get through this.” And after a long, shaky breath: “I’ll get you through it.”But her hand was trembling on his arm.

He kept eating, with a stubborn determination like something in a dream, until he heard the door open and close again. There was still some soup in the bowl. He set it on the floor for Major, let his head fall into his hands, and sobbed like a broken-hearted child. Or like a young man, barely more than a boy, waking up with only half a leg.

There was no one waiting, but before Joshua had time to do more than take a book down from the shelf, the door opened and a woman walked in. No, more like sailed in, a proud vessel, a four-master.

It shouldn’t surprise him that she quilted. And helped run the library. And made dresses. And tried to find him a wife. No wonder she was short of breath sometimes — she never slowed down.

Waterloo teeth, so named for the battle when the first human vultures thought of raiding the bodies of the dead for the teeth in their jaws, selling the teeth for dentures.

All through his childhood, he had wished he had brothers instead of, or in addition to, three sisters. That wish, too, had died in the war.

The moment the spoon clinked the bottom of the bowl, she grabbed the bowl and filled it back up to the brim. “Eat, eat!”He was feeling full to the brim himself, but he thought it likely that if he dared to stop before the bowl was empty again, she would seize the spoon and feed him like an infant. He made his way manfully through.