Bathing Is Relaxing Chapter 44

Time passed rather quickly and the two teenage boys had managed to lug just enough water inside so that Miriam could take a bath.

"So heroic! How did you both get so strong?" Miriam said in awe as she put a little hand to her mouth and forced herself to blush a little.

Nathanial sent a weird glance in Miriams direction before saying, "Follow me, I'll take you to a tub you can use."

Toddling behind her older brother, Miriam made her way to a small room two rooms over from the kitchen.

There was a sad looking tub in the corner of the small room, next to it was a large to medium sized mirror.

The the warmed up water was poured into the tub by a few buckets that Henry and Nathanial had carried into the room.

It only filled the the water level up in the tub to her the height of her lower shin.

As the teenagers were exiting the room Miriam had the audacity to say out aloud, " Okay bring back three more trips worth please! Boiled please!"

Nathanial almost tripped when he heard his little sister say these words to them.

Were they really her maids now? His fingernails dug into the flesh of the inside of his curled fists.

This newfound little sister of his better not expect to always get her way...

Remembering that she needed her own personal handmade soap Miriam dropped the cover that had been wrapped around her, and ran to the upstairs room where the parrot and snake now rested. Before trying to open the door, she remembered she needed fruit for the birds breakfast.

She ran feebly into the kitchen in which Ms.Kitty was still being interrogated by her father further. Miriam into the kitchen went and got a handful of fruit and showed it to her father briefly as if to explain her appearence, before trudging out of the room with much haste.

Working her little calves to the utmost, Miriam finally got up to the second floor of the house once again, and went to the door of the bedroom of where she was currently staying.

Carefully twisting the doorknob, she entered and closed to door behind her rather quickly.

The abrupt noise caused Twinkle to let out a "Twii Chii!' noise.

Following by the flapping of his pretty leopard like patterned wings.

The little girl patiently made her way over to the window sill on which the water dish was placed and set the fruit down next to it.

Only two or so pieces of the fruit, which should be plenty enough for a small birds breakfast.

The rest would be saved for later, Miriam had determined.

Going over to the travel trunk located at the end of her bed, Miriam opened it up and took out clean clothes, a large bathing towel she had made for herself, hard soap, and some home made shampoo. The last item she retrieved from the chest was a small pail that she would use to scoop water up out of the tub and pour water onto her head with.

Having finally gathered all the hygienic necessities one required for bathing, she quietly and swiftly exited the bedroom and firmly shut the door upon getting her body past the doorsill.

Traveling down the wooden stairs carefully, she made her way slowly to the small room where the bathing tub was located.

Setting the pale down on the floor in a spot which she thought looked the cleanest, she proceeded to learn over and to carefully inspect the tub which was slowly being filled with water.

Touching the metal parts of the wooden tub with her small porcelain like fingertip, she safely concluded the metal parts of the barrel did not seem to have any large amounts of lead coated on them.

A small sigh of releif left her mouth after coming to this conclusion.

While she coyldnt be 100% sure, her quick bath in it wouldn't seem to be too detrimental to her over all health.

Undoing the laces of her boots, Miriam slid them off jer feet and exposed her absolutely filthy footpads.

Yuck...

Miriam looked for a shelf somewhere nearby and finally found a small one covered in dust.

In order to remedy this dust problem, Miriam used the blanket and proceeded to wipe off and up most of the dust into the blanket.

"Sorry little blanket, we can always have you cleaned nicely with lye ash soap...." She whispered her quiet but sincere apologies to the blanket she had borrowed from this household.

Folding the blanket just so,, Miriam made it so that a relatively undirtied side was facing up and placed the blanket on the shelf she had just cleaned.

Completing her quick cleaning job Miriam moved onto her next little task.

The next thing the little girl did was to pick up her pail that she had just set on the ground moments earlier, and take out the clean clothes and towel inside it, before setting them all delicately and neatly atop the clean and folded blanket.

Her boots she set on the ground next to the shelf, and tucked her laces neatly inside the boot.

Going to the side of the tub, Miriam waited until her brother and his broody cousin brought enough water to satisfy her bathing requirements.

After they were about to pour the last two handfuls buckets of water into the tub, Miriam then asked of the boys,

"Thats enough, can you set those pails on the ground next to the tub please?"

Upon hearing her request Nathanial and Henry gave each other a look and did as she asked and set the two pails each of boiled and clean water next to the tub for her.

On the way out of the room Miriam conciousnessitly thanked them.

" Thank you both for your help. This isn't something you should both normally do but I thank you anyway since I am not large enough to do the task myself yet. I'll put in a good word for you brother when I next talk with our father."

The boys slowly left the room and closed the door on their way out.

Henry then remarked to his cousin "She is very peculiar. Does she actually know how to swim? Should someone watch over her in there and make sure she doesn't drownd?"

Nathanial looked at his normally quiet cousin and asked him woth all the frankness he could muster, " Ah, don't tell me you fell in love with my little sister.... all jokes aside. It is possible that she may know how to swim? I don't know since I only just recently met her. If I recall correctly you once said to me that one of your sister in-laws died from drowning not even three years after her marriage to your third eldest brother right?"

Henry looked at Nathanial and a grim look appeared on his face as he answered him with a short explanation of the events, "Yes. Indeed, she fell into a pond while admiring imported fishes from the east with some ladies of similar standing in her company, and her heavy garments weighed her all the way down to the bottom of the body of water. No men were close enough to come and jump in to rescue her at the time. All the ladies did not know how to swim, and though one lady in waiting tried to save her, she almost drown in the process and gave up."

Nathanials vague grin disappeared on his face and he said in response "Ah, abunch of noble ladies standing around watching their friend drown. She truly must have been the talk of the town..."

After the boys left the room and closed the door behind them, Miriam stripped her clothes off in the well practiced manner that a older person would be expected to do through years of repetition.

'Ah' was the only sound that was heard other than the ka-plunk sound of Miriam lowering her body into the tub of warm water.

"Ah bathing is relaxing...no matter what time period I'm in..." Miriam mumbled as she submerged herself wholey into the bath.