Summers in the Virginian countryside were infamous for their unbearable heat, and the summer of 1918 was no different. With the arrival of the Bookers' visitor, Jack could no longer go outside in only her knickers, so she contrived to shorten her skirt by tying it in a knot just above her knees. Though Matilda Tuttlebrook would certainly find the innovation scandalous, Jack supposed it was better than being caught out of doors in her undergarments. She would have worn her trousers, but even they were too hot for the sun's melting golden beams.

Saturday had arrived, and without her duties at the factory, Jack had many chores to complete. The first, she knew, should be the cleaning of her small house. She needed to scour the floors with hot water and lyme, and there was laundry to be done, but Jack hated such tasks. She would much rather tend to her chickens and goats and put off the domestic tasks for some day in the distant future. Perhaps when winter fell and she no longer had the luxury of spending long days out of doors.

After tying her skirt at her knees, Jack abandoned her shoes at the door, swept her hair off her neck into a loose knot at the top of her head, and hid it beneath a bandana soaked in icy water from the pump she shared with the Bookers. There was little else to keep her cool, but it would suffice. Despite the sulfuric sun, it was still cooler than he suffocating, confined factory.

Barefoot, Jack left her house and walked to the small barn, which was in much better shape than Jack's house. In fact, Jack had often contemplated sleeping with her goats and donkey for company instead of her house when the weather grew tempestuous. Her feet crinkling the fresh grass, Jack swung open the heavy wooden door and greeted her small collection of milking goats and Theodore, her undersized donkey who did little more than eat too much and bray in the middle of the night.

"Good morning, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy," she said, her goats named for the characters of her favorite childhood book, Little Women. "And good morning, Lawrence," she said to the billy goat, with his mottled hair and long beard.

A few of them bawled in response from behind the heavy wooden gate, and Jack untied their bag of feed, shoveling their daily ration of corn and oats into a bucket. As she filled the bucket, Woodrow, Jack's stray tabby cat named for their president, appeared. He purred as he rubbed against Jack's leg, his pale eyes begging her for attention.

Jack sighed and crouched on the dirty floor of the barn to pet the proud creature who accepted Jack's affection as if it were fitting tribute. Woodrow came and went from Jack's barn whenever he pleased, but he often liked to spend the summer months with her. Jack blamed it on the Bookers' beautiful calico next door and her kittens who bore a striking resemblance to the stray tabby.

Theodore stuck his dusky head through the gate and brayed at her, so Jack rose to her feet, carrying the bucket of food into the pen. A feeding trough was attached to the gate, and Jack dodged Theodore's charge as she stepped inside, throwing the food into the container. The goats and donkey assailed the feed as if they'd never eaten before. Jack stood back with her hands on her hip, sweat trailing down her forehead.

Jack's goats were no longer in milk, but come spring, they would have kids again and Jack would be forced to milk them day and night for several months, selling the milk for a meager profit. Beth the goat gave little milk, but Jack didn't have the heart to separate the four nanny goats she'd come to see as sisters, so she tolerated the deficiency as a character flaw, for Betb was the kindest of the four goats and the least likely to cause a rampage through the barnyard, unlike Laurie who was annoyingly stubborn.

Satisfied that all was well with the livestock, Jack made for the gate but was accosted by the dastardly Laurie as she tried to make her escape. He bulled into her legs and Jack yelled at him, kicking at him with her bare foot and wincing as his horns rammed against her.
"You lousy oaf!" she cried, taking him by the horn and pushing him back inside, locking the door behind her as she exited. "See if I don't replace you with one of the preacher's handsome Alpines!"

Laurie only howled at her, again ramming his horns against the gate, but Jack glared at him, safely separated. Though she threatened, Jack was too soft-hearted to send any of these goats to the market. She struggled enough when the time came to sell their kids.

Giving one last affectionate pet to Woodrow, Jack left the barnyard and headed towards the chicken coop. Jack's animals had become family to her in the absence of human companionship, and if Jack's house were in any better state, she had no doubt she would let them share the space.

Jack opened the door to the chicken coop, reaching into the chicken's nests and pulling out the mottled assortment of brown and white eggs. She slipped them into apron, hoping she would be conscientious enough to remember to remove them before they all cracked. Jack counted each of her chickens--there should be twenty three, but today she only found twenty two. She glanced into the pen and looked at each familiar face with their beady eyes and ruffled feathers.

"Martha?" Jack called, searching for her favorite chicken who appeared to be missing. Jack's heart quailed when she couldn't find the one-legged Rhode Island Red, the cream of the crop. When the chicken's leg had been lost to an unfortunate accident with the fence "Martha!"

She turned and exited the coup, her eyes scouring the nearby plains for the chicken. "She only had one leg. How far could she go?"

But as isolated as Jack and the Bookers were from the rest of the Irvington, she knew it was all too possible that a hawk or fox or raccoon had found the escaped fowl who could not run as quickly as her sisters. Still, Jack refused to give up. She raced to the garden and searched the bushes furiously.

"Martha? Martha, where are you!"

A squawk interrupted Jack and she craned her neck back to find the source. The one-legged bird had somehow managed to climb to the uttermost branch of a huge tree by her house. Martha perched on the branch with her one lag, cawing into the air with gusto.

"You wicked bird!" Jack cried, lifting her fist against the vile creature.

Jack eyed the bird, her hands on her hips, and debated whether the old poplar would sustain her weight so she could rescue the miscreant. Well, there's no getting around it, Jack mused. I'm climbing this tree to fetch a chicken. Jack hefted her skirts and reached for the lowest branch, pulling herself up. It hadn't been long since Jack had played with her young nieces in trees much like this, and Jack's skill at clambering to the top had not deteriorated with age. She climbed higher in the poplar, the eggs jostling in her apron as she pulled herself limb by limb. As she neared the top, she gritted her teeth as the tree swayed in the soft breeze.

"Martha, you get down here!" she cried, leaning against the willowy trunk of the tree and grasping for the chicken. She caught Martha's one remaining leg and the chicken squawked, flapping her wings and pecking at Jack's unprotected hand.

"Excuse me, Miss, is everything alright?"

The sudden voice shocked Jack and she nearly lost her grasp on the tree as she jerked around to find its source. A man stood at the foot of the tree with a crooked grin on his face, watching Jack grapple with the one-legged chicken. His hair was long and black, tied at the nape of his neck, and his skin was gold in the sun. Jack felt the immediate mortification of her precarious position, and all of the embarrassment of the stranger finding her here.

"Who are you, and what do you want?" Jack cried, climbing down the tree a few branches so she could find solid ground. "Why are you trespassing on my property?"

The man crossed his arms and gazed up at her with one dark eyebrow raised, obviously amused, and Jack's consternation escalated. Her mind raced as she considered how she could defend herself. Were she in her house, she could fetch her shotgun and teach the man something about trespassing, but as it was, there was little she could do from the tree. And then she remembered--the eggs.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude," the stranger said, taking a step forward, "but you look in need of assistance."

Jack glared at the man with as much dignity as she could muster while sneaking one hand into her pocket, fetching the largest egg she could find. No matter what the man's intentions, she was a lone woman too far from town and she knew better than to trust him on countenance alone. Martha clucked in Jack's hand as she readied the egg, drawing back her hand.

"Get out of here!" Jack yelled, releasing the egg.

The man had little time to dodge the speeding bullet and the egg caught him in the chest. The gooey yellow yolk exploded across his chest and he staggered backwards in shock at the unlikely assault. While he was distracted with the shattered egg, Jack scrambled the rest of the way to the ground, pelting another egg at him as she clambered down the tree.

Jack leapt from the final branch of the tree into a fighting stance, hair askew and skirt still knotted at her knees. The man continued to watch her, wiping the yolk from his chest with a tight, bemused smile on his lips. In Jack's left hand, Martha clucked and squirmed her way free so she could squawk back to her pen, hopping on her one foot.

"What brought you here?" Jack cried, her final egg readied in her hand. "If I had my shotgun, I swear I'd send buckshot straight through you."

To Jack's shock, the man was laughing at her display and he threw his yolk-covered hands in the air, backing away. "I surrender, I assure you. That first egg was enough to convince me that my presence was unwanted. I only thought you might be in need of help. I saw you climbing your tree from the Bookers' window."

Suddenly, Jack put the pieces together--the speeding Model T, Minnie's mysterious visitor, and the strange man who showed up at the foot of her poplar while she was fetching her one-legged chicken.

"You're the visitor!" Jack cried, her caution quickly replaced by curiosity as she stepped closer to the man, tilting her head sideways to better scrutinize him. "You're also the fellow who nearly ran me over in your car the other day."

"I am," he said. "Donovan, at your service." He outstretched his hand, but Jack was too busy studying him to respond at first.

There was something about him that only amplified the mystery surrounding him--though he smiled at her, his dark eyes were guarded and there was a refined, lofty air to the upward tilt of his chin. His skin was darker than Jack's warm and coppery in the sunlight, dark enough to mark him as another nationality.

"Excuse me? Miss?"

Jack realized she had been staring at the man, and her face colored. "Uh, yes. Sorry. Donovan?" she asked, wondering if that were his first or last name. She stuck her hand into his face and gave him a plucky smile. "Jack Harrison."

He accepted her hand and shook it with a smile, the gooey yolk transfering to her own hand. His eyes were as warm as they were dark. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Jack Harrison," he said, holding her hand for a moment longer than courtesy required. "I don't suppose you're available for dinner? Julius and Minnie sent me over to invite you."

"And to scare me out of a tree?" Jack said, unable to resist a grin as she gestured ruefully to the poplar.

"I doubt they expected me to find you climbing a tree to fetch a one-legged chicken." A suppressed grin played at his lips and his dark eyes twinkled.

"I suspect they won't be all that shocked to find that it was so. They're rather used to having me as a neighbor," Jack continued, blabbering to the stranger as if he were an old friend.

He again laughed, but rather than laughing at her, he seemed to laugh with her, finding mirth in the same things she found ridiculous. "Shall you join us then?"

Jack glanced down at her dirtied dress and half-tied skirt and sighed. "I suppose so. I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

"Then let's go," he said, gesturing towards the Bookers, and Jack left her house behind to follow Donovan to the Bookers.

Jack studied Donovan's profile against the setting sun as they walked forward--the sharp cheekbones, dark flashing eyes, stately dignity. This enigma of a man had arrested Jack's attention, and she'd always loved a good mystery.

Introducing Donovan, Jack's new neighbor! What was your first impression of him? Would you have thrown eggs at a stranger who showed up in your front yard? Let me know in the comments!