Snow Settling on a Covered Bridge - Prologue

During the brief daylight of Christmas Eve of 1865, snow had intermittently - and with increasing persistence - fallen across the six states of New England, adding to the white, winter blanket which had lain across the countryside since dusk of the previous day.  Now, dusk was again rapidly gathering; and the powdering of snow along leafless branches - and upon the boughs of conifers, was giving solitary trees a short respite from losing clarity against the sullen sky.  Ice - which had all day glazed the ponds and pools of New England - was reaching from the edges of numerous riverbanks, into stretches of water with normally rushing currents; but as if impervious to all of the Arctic manifestations of winter, the tiny, one-storey wooden school just north of the settlement of Copper Leaf Falls, looked out across the frozen and lifeless landscape, with leaded windows projecting the glow from oil-lamps illuminating a single classroom.  Upon the western end of the school roof, a small tower squatted as if to protect itself from the falling snow; and as the voices of thirty boys and girls, ceased filling the classroom with the strains of a much-loved carol, the bell in the tower - to the dislodgement of some newly-formed ice, commenced to solemnly toll the beginning of the Christmas holidays.

       The steady, south-westerly wind that was swirling the falling snowflakes and drifting their settled counterparts, found time to carry the tolling of the bell, far beyond the inevitably snow-covered grassy hillock upon which the school was built; and after she opened the outer door of the porch between two of the school’s three southern windows, a young teacher - holding a lighted lantern, and draped in a shawl - stepped outside, to be seconds-later joined in standing close to the porch, by her slightly older colleague.  Smiling, the two women watched all except one of their pupils - laughing and shouting, some throwing snowballs - head down what little was discernible of the course of an earthen path leading westwards to a road; and almost immediately after the bell had ceased to toll, the ten-year-old boy who had been delayed by his role as the bell ringer, all but tumbled out of the porch, and started to run to catch up with his fellow children.  Nevertheless, he briefly looked back towards the teachers, and cheerily called out to them.

       ‘Merry Christmas, Miss Emerson!  Merry Christmas, Miss Parker!’

       ‘The same to you, Henry!’

       ‘Yes, Merry Christmas, Henry - but don’t forget that school restarts on the second of January’.

       The younger teacher, Mary-Beth Parker, winced at what she had just said about the restarting of school; and then she looked towards Charlotte Emerson, who - at twenty-six years of age - was two years senior to Mary-Beth.

       ‘Perhaps I was a little insensitive, reminding Henry about when school restarts - I’m sure that when I was a child, I didn’t want such a reminder at the beginning of the Christmas holidays’.

       ‘Oh, don’t worry about what you said - I don’t think Henry was exactly crushed by it’.  Charlotte momentarily paused, coincidentally as she started to shiver.  ‘Let’s be getting inside - there’s plenty of tidying up to do, before I change into my dress’.

       ‘You go ahead and gather up the carol sheets - I’ll be back inside in a minute’.

       ‘Very well’.

       Having deliberately waited until Charlotte had disappeared through the porch, Mary-Beth took a few steps forward, raised her lantern, and slowly swung it several times from side to side, in what she intended to be a signal to someone whom she hoped was waiting beyond the bottom of the path.  Lowering the lantern, the younger teacher began to peer intently through the falling snow; and a few seconds later, she saw what appeared to her to be a yellow dot, rhythmically moving in acknowledgement of her signal.  Smiling, Mary-Beth made her way into the porch, closed its outer door, and emerged into the relative warmth of the classroom.

       Of rectangular plan, the classroom comprised of two-thirds of the floor space of the school; and a huge, velvet curtain suspended from a rail affixed to the ceiling, could be used to divide the classroom widthways, into junior and senior teaching spaces.  The curtain, however, had been drawn aside all of the school day, to accommodate the festivities of Christmas Eve; and it was in fact the curtains of the front windows of the classroom, that Mary-Beth - after extinguishing the lantern, and placing this object onto a shelf - seemingly hauled across glass upon which snowflakes were heavily building.  Relieved that the furtiveness of her drawing of the front curtains, had not roused the suspicion of her colleague, Mary-Beth crossed to beside the cupboard opposite the stage beneath the bell tower; and then the younger teacher watched Charlotte put into the cupboard, the sheaf of carol sheets which she had just gathered up.  Charlotte closed the cupboard doors, turned to face Mary-Beth, and then spoke.

       ‘So it’s either tidy the bookshelves next, or move the desks and chairs back into place’.

       ‘With due respect to your role as Headmistress, I suggest that we don’t do any more work until next year’.  Mary-Beth smiled mischievously.  ‘You’re keeping up a remarkably calm appearance - but I just know you can’t wait to change into that dress!’

       For a few moments, Charlotte looked impassively at Mary-Beth; and then Charlotte’s schoolmistress demeanor exploded into girlish, excited giggling, that sufficiently liberated the two women to dash through the doorway they had just been standing next to, into a short passage from which a door gave access into a cramped cloakroom.  Three walls of this room were lined with benches, and - except for where a southerly, frosted-glass window occupied space - with double hooks for clothes; and placed upon the bench underneath the window, was a large, flattish cardboard box.  In flickering light from the oil-lamp that was suspended from the ceiling, Charlotte laid the box lid aside; and by means of carefully holding the shoulders, she lifted out of the box, a white dress - adorned with white ribbons, and yellow ribbon roses - which she then held up as if she was wearing it.

       ‘That’s the most beautiful wedding dress I’ve ever seen’.

       ‘And’, said Charlotte quietly, ‘it’s of course the only one that I shall ever wear’.

       ‘Then please allow me the honor of helping you to put it on’.

       Smiling serenely, Charlotte nodded; and several minutes later, she was standing considering her reflection in the cracked picture-mirror hanging on one of the cloakroom walls, whilst Mary-Beth finished fastening the laces which were threaded up the back of the wedding dress.  Charlotte swept her long, dark hair over her shoulders, irrespectively as Mary-Beth’s face began to seemingly peer out of the mirror.

       ‘Do you think I make a beautiful bride for Captain Nathaniel Madison?’

       ‘His memories of the four years that he spent as a surgeon in the Union Army, will be banished forever into the deepest recesses of his mind, when you walk towards him along the aisle in just over an hour’s time’.  Mary-Beth fell silent for a short while, no doubt as she considered whether or not to say what she in fact summoned the courage to say next.  ‘Oh Charlotte, the only contact you and Nathaniel have had over the last two years, has been by infrequent letters mostly long-delayed by the chaos of the civil war - are you certain that you want to marry him on this day of his final return home from the army?’

       ‘I’m as certain as any bride could be’.  Charlotte turned to face Mary-Beth, and then grasped her gently by the arms.  ‘But thank you, my dearest, dearest friend, for the concern which led you to ask what you just did’.

       ‘I only hope that someday you shall have the opportunity to ask if I am certain I want to get married’.

       ‘A young, beautiful woman like you, living in Copper Leaf Falls?  I doubt that very much time will pass before I have the opportunity to ask you the question’.  Charlotte saw Mary-Beth momentarily avert her eyes, a hint of red, suddenly appearing upon the face of the younger woman.  ‘But for now, please help me put my cloak on over this dress, and then put your hat and coat on for the walk to the church’.

       ‘Do you think it’s inappropriate to pray that our hats don’t crush our hair?’

       Shortly after Mary-Beth had latterly spoken, she and Charlotte were fully attired for their proposed walk to the country church which lay almost three miles away, and which was to be found to the north-east of the settlement of Copper Leaf Falls; but instead of immediately departing from the school, the two women conducted a brief internal tour of this building, to the result of extinguishing every lighted oil-lamp that they encountered.  The darkened school seemingly settling into hibernation for the Christmas holidays, the two teachers - Mary-Beth deliberately in the lead - made their way to the porch; and as soon as she had opened the outer door, the younger teacher stepped to one side, to allow her friend and colleague to be the first to now emerge into the early evening.  However, what was to her the unexpected sight of the four-wheeled, two-seater buggy which was parked unattended only yards beyond the porch - and facing along the snow-obscured path, brought Charlotte to an abrupt standstill; the white ribbons that were bedecking the canopy of the buggy, and those wrapped around the rein of the horse harnessed to the vehicle, causing the Christmas Eve bride to give a gasp of amazement and pleasure.

       ‘This is a wonderful, wonderful surprise’.

       Those words were spoken almost underneath the breath of Charlotte; and therefore her bridesmaid failed to hear them, coincidentally as she now locked the outer porch-door, and moments before Charlotte herself advanced through the falling snow, to become standing alongside the horse - which was a chestnut mare of extremely steady temperament.  Gently - and by the yellowish light from one of the buggy lamps, Charlotte used her right hand to brush snowflakes from the face of the animal.

       ‘I gather, my gracious horse, that you shall be taking me to my wedding - but which thoughtful, generous person arranged for you to do so?’  Charlotte looked towards Mary-Beth, who was walking towards the buggy.  ‘Is the hire of this marvellous horse-drawn transport, a wedding gift from you?’

       ‘Well, I certainly wasn’t going to allow my best friend to walk to the most romantic occasion in her life; furthermore, I shan’t allow her to drive herself to it - I’ve been assured by the man at the livery stable, that even a buggy-driving novice such as myself, should have no trouble whatsoever in getting this horse to start and stop’.  With an ease that almost took her aback, Mary-Beth climbed up into the buggy, and then she settled onto the right-hand side of the seat.  ‘Climb aboard quickly, and allow the canopy to afford a measure of shelter for your wedding dress’.

       Charlotte walked round the front of the horse; and then - with Mary-Beth reaching across the seat to help her, the Christmas Eve bride pulled herself up into the vehicle.  Carefully, the wedding dress was arranged by its suddenly anxious wearer, to minimize creasing during the time that she was to spend upon the buggy seat; and when the arrangement had been completed to the satisfaction of Charlotte, Mary-Beth picked up the rein of the horse, and sent a ripple running along the rein itself, to gee the animal into motion.  Although the horse responded without hesitation, the buggy steadfastly refused to move; but after Mary-Beth had belatedly released a brake, the vehicle commenced to bounce down the snow-covered hillock, following the trail of children’s footsteps leading to the narrow road which skirted the western edge of the small hill, and which was known locally as the Brambleway.

       Northwards, the Brambleway steadily descended - on a route respectively altered and restored by a couple of gentle curves - for approximately a quarter of a mile, to where a wooden, covered bridge was stretching across the River Elder; and presently, the southern entrance of the bridge loomed gloomily ahead of the horse, like the mouth of some gigantic beast set to effortlessly devour the approaching animal, and the buggy and the two women who were onboard it.  Unsurprisingly, the horse brought herself to a standstill just outside the bridge entrance, reluctant to venture into the darkened tunnel of timber - a seeming curtain of snowflakes, separating the horse from the way to the far side of the river; and despite the ice which was spreading from the riverbanks, the sound of the strong central current of the River Elder, was clearly audible to Charlotte and Mary-Beth.  Nevertheless, it was the powerful smell of the flammable preservative that had recently been used to treat the covered bridge, which was now most apparent to the two women.

       ‘Whether it’s the preservative or the darkness or both of those things’, said Mary-Beth, ‘responsible for the horse being reluctant to negotiate the bridge, I shall attempt to use the bridle of our equine friend, to lead her through the structure’.  Mary-Beth looked down to the right of the vehicle front; and shortly afterwards, she had unclipped one of the buggy lamps, and was holding it by the ring upon its top - illumination from the lamp, highlighting the golden curls of hair, which were protruding from beneath Mary-Beth’s hat.  ‘Charlotte, you’d better take charge of the rein’.

       ‘Very well’.

       As Charlotte lightly wrapped the rein around her own right hand, her companion swung herself out until she was standing upon a running-board; and then - luckily not to the consequence of slipping - she jumped down onto a snowy verge of the road.  Mary-Beth walked to by the front of the horse; and after spending a short while, calmingly stroking the face of the animal, the younger woman firmly took hold of a brass-adorned bridle, and commenced to slowly move forwards.  Much to the relief of Mary-Beth, the horse responded without the slightest resistance, to the gentle pull upon the bridle - and so Mary-Beth experienced the strange illusion of seemingly hauling the horse and the buggy and Charlotte, towards the covered bridge; and indeed as Mary-Beth smiled at the illusion in question, she and her entourage clattered up the wooden ramp that led directly to the bridge’s southern entrance.

       Although the smell of the preservative with which the bridge had recently been treated, was more than powerful enough within the vicinity of the bridge itself, it was ten times more so within the confines of this structure of a hundred yards length; and so - yellow light from the lamp that she was carrying, dancing in front of her, and her eyes beginning to smart from the preservative fumes - Mary-Beth was longing to emerge into the fresh air beyond the northern end of the bridge, as she now steadily preceded the horse and the buggy across the River Elder.  The hooves of the horse were rhythmically pounding upon the bridge floor, which was groaning in protest at the weight of the buggy; but as this timber protestation seemed no more than to be expected as a result of a vehicle traversing the bridge, it was to the great shock of both of the women - and to an uncharacteristic shriek from Charlotte, that when the buggy reached approximately midway through the structure, the vehicle’s progress was suddenly halted thanks to a rotten plank giving way.  Pieces of the plank, falling to splash into the river, the buggy tilted alarmingly downwards to the right at the front; and as she pulled down hard on the bridle - to the prevention of the horse rearing in terror, Mary-Beth called out to her friend.

       ‘Stay in the buggy - I’ll find out what happened!’

       Tentatively, the younger woman let go of the bridle; and as soon as she felt reasonably certain that the horse was not going to rear, Mary-Beth moved to beside the wheel which had just become partially sunk through the floor of the bridge.  Disappearing from the sight of Charlotte, the bridesmaid crouched to examine the wheel as best as the present circumstances would allow her to; and by the light from the lamp in her possession, she saw that the wheel was trapped to a depth of approximately eighteen inches.  Mary-Beth stood up, and placed the lamp - at a precarious angle - upon the tray-like shelf along the inside of the buggy front.

       ‘Unless I can get the horse to pull it free’, said Mary-Beth, ‘we’ll have to abandon the buggy’.

       ‘Perhaps it would help if I pushed from the back’.

       Charlotte fastened one end of the rein, to an iron ring which was intended for such a purpose; and subsequently, she slid downwards along the buggy seat.  Unfortunately, the shifting of her weight, caused the trapped wheel to settle inches further into its hole; and the consequent tilting of the buggy, in turn caused the unhooked lamp to topple from the shelf.  The lamp glass shattered upon the bridge floor - the pool of oil then spreading from the lamp itself, igniting courtesy of a burning wick; and with the preservative with which the bridge floor had been treated, set to ensure that the newborn fire would spread far more easily than would have otherwise been the case, Mary-Beth realized that she was standing amidst flames.  Her screams seemingly filling the covered bridge - and after a moment of fearful hesitation, the younger woman made a short dash to safety, as Charlotte leapt down from the buggy to go to give help.

       Mary-Beth was wearing lace-up ankle-boots; and as her screams gave way to heavy sobs, she repeatedly stamped her boots upon the bridge floor, until she had extinguished the several flames that had begun to take hold upon them.  The sides of her feet, were feeling decidedly hot; and it was from thoughts regarding this uncomfortable feeling - and from a vague awareness of the smell of scorched leather, that Charlotte now concernedly roused the younger woman, who was standing gently rocking from side to side, perhaps in the beginnings of a state shock.

       ‘Are you all right?’

       ‘I’m fine...I’m fine - I just want to get off this bridge’.

       ‘Let me help you’.

       Charlotte slipped her right arm around the waist of her friend; and with Mary-Beth leaning against Charlotte for further support, the two women commenced to walk - the younger slightly hobbling - towards the northern exit of the covered bridge.  As if in protest at apparently being abandoned - and in fear of the fire that she could sense spreading beneath the buggy, the horse desperately pawed the bridge floor as the two women passed alongside her; and less than a minute later, Charlotte and Mary-Beth emerged onto a forested bank of the River Elder, at the point where the bridge led, without the presence of a ramp, onto a continuation of the Brambleway.  Irrespectively, a log which had been hewn to provide a crude bench, was hereabouts located upon the western side of the road; and after Mary-Beth - as if unaware of the snowstorm - had lowered herself onto the log, Charlotte decisively spoke.

       ‘I’m going back to rescue the horse’.

       ‘I think’, Mary-Beth said quietly to herself, ‘there’s no sight more typical of a New England winter, than snow settling on a covered bridge’.

       Although alarmed by the detached, rambling nature of the dozen or so words that she had just faintly heard, Charlotte turned away from where Mary-Beth was sitting, and walked to directly in front of the bridge entrance from which the two women had latterly emerged.  As if an image viewed through some gigantic, wooden apparatus for magnification - and partly silhouetted against the flickering light of the flames consuming the planking beneath the buggy, the horse was rearing as she hopelessly struggled to become free of the traces which were chaining her to the vehicle; and more fearing the smoke that was beginning to swirl around the horse, than either the flames, or the danger from the extremely agitated state of the animal, Charlotte nevertheless summoned sufficient courage to plunge back into the covered bridge.  Her running footsteps seeming to be indicative of her racing heartbeat, she was quickly within proximity of the horse; and perhaps through an equine realization that one of the women had returned to give assistance, the horse dropped back onto all fours, barely moments before Charlotte began to unfasten one of the several large buckles which were restraining the creature.

       Despite trying to control the panic-induced scrabbling of her fingers - and to the splitting of one of her nails, Charlotte quickly loosened the right-hand buckles of a heavy harness; and by the time that she then moved round to by the left of the horse, the smoke was causing Charlotte to intermittently cough, and tears to stream down her cheeks.  The heat from the inferno beneath the buggy, warming her to a deceptively pleasant degree, the young woman soon completed unfastening the harness; and as she pushed this piece of tack from the body of the animal, the horse surged forwards - only to immediately slew round as if skidding on ice, and as a consequence of still being attached to the buggy, of course by means of the rein.  Suddenly even more terrified now that she could see the spreading fire, the horse reared and tried to stagger backwards, her forelegs wildly flailing; and as this behaviour made an incredible risk of attempting to disconnect the rein from the bridle, Charlotte looked to where the rein was fastened onto the ring at the buggy front.

       However, the fact that the horse was pulling powerfully upon the rein, had already rendered the relevant knot impossible to loosen under the present circumstances; and so whilst standing pressed against the western wall of the bridge - and just out of the reach of the horse, Charlotte desperately tried to think of a way to free the animal of her tether.  Curiously, the answer was provided by flame reflections upon pieces of glass from the broken lamp.  The young woman sprang forwards and picked up the largest piece; and with a downwards stroke, she began to use the makeshift tool to cut through the rein.  The edge of the glass piece which Charlotte was using, had fractured into something akin to a blade; and therefore with far less difficulty than she had expected, the rein section under merciless assault, was rapidly reduced to a very short cord that stretched between badly frayed ends.  And then the rein snapped.

       For a few moments, the horse tottered backwards on her hind legs, as if about to overbalance; but then her fore hooves crashed onto the bridge floor, as a prelude to the horse hurling herself round leftward into a wild, thunderous gallop towards safety upon the northern riverbank.  Amidst snowflakes falling onto the Brambleway, the horse was soon prancing back and forth in a ragged semi-circle - an equine celebration of which Mary-Beth was barely aware, in spite of its proximity to where she was still sat huddled upon the log bench; and in fact even before the horse had commenced to joyfully prance in the snowstorm, a sudden increase of heat and of the intensity of the orange light close to Charlotte, had caused this woman to look away from towards the northern exit of the bridge.  Flames had begun to climb the eastern wall of the structure, and for several seconds, Charlotte had watched their astonishingly rapid progress; and now a tremendous cracking and splintering noise began to emanate from below the buggy, and Charlotte realized that the planks which were supporting the vehicle, were about to fully give way.

       Seemingly in slow motion - and as if blazing a trail down to the River Elder, burning timbers dropped from below the buggy in which the two young women had so happily set off to attend the Christmas Eve wedding of Charlotte to Captain Nathaniel Madison; but it was without any thoughts of this ceremony which had already become certain to never take place, that Charlotte herself stood at the edge of the just-opened chasm, transfixed by the sight of the buggy falling rear-wheels-first towards the river.  For a moment, there was a whizzing, rattling noise low to either side of Charlotte, as the falling vehicle dragged its chain traces along the bridge floor; and then the harness to which the traces were attached, caught Charlotte heavily upon the backs of her ankles, and effortlessly swept her into a mid-air world of numerous, swirling sparks.  She heard a terrible scream fill the void through which she was tumbling; and without Charlotte having been aware that the scream was her own, the equine tack suddenly entangling her legs, assisted gravity in pulling her beneath the surface of the deep, unendurably cold water of the River Elder.  An involuntary gasp let air escape - amidst an explosion of bubbles - from the mouth of the submerged woman; and then Charlotte had a sense of being gently, so gently assured that everything was somehow perfectly all right, and that the time had arrived to allow her spirit to forever take its leave of her body.

       Her right hand having just relaxed its grip, the piece of glass which Charlotte had used to sever the rein, sank onto the mud of the river bed; and as if the glass piece had been inexplicably weighing her down, Charlotte felt herself commence to gracefully rise.  She passed through the surface of the river, without even the disturbance of one drop of water; and then she effortlessly and successfully willed herself to cease rising, and looked down - with detached curiosity - at a snow-sprinkled leaf floating upon the strong current which was defying the weather’s attempt to completely freeze the River Elder.  Indeed the current forthwith tugged the harness free of its entanglement with the body of the woman who had just drowned; and as a consequence, Charlotte saw her body itself - face downwards, and having lost both hat and cloak - bob to the surface directly below her, and be subsequently propelled by the current, to soon emerge from underneath the eastern side of the covered bridge.  As she watched her bridal body float out of her sight, Charlotte felt no more than a tinge of sadness; and then she remembered Mary-Beth, and became hovering invisibly just in front of this young woman, who was still where Charlotte had left her sitting upon the log bench.

       ‘Mary-Beth, Mary-Beth’, Charlotte urgently thought, ‘pull yourself together, Mary-Beth’.

       Although she had sensed rather than heard in her mind, the latter communication from Charlotte, Mary-Beth opened her eyes wide, in indication of her sudden mental return to her present circumstances.  Nevertheless confused as to how long she had been huddled upon the log, Mary-Beth gazed round her into the snowstorm; and when she inevitably saw no sign of her friend, the bereft young woman stood up, and called out in the direction of the covered bridge.

       ‘Charlotte - Charlotte!’

       Alarmed by the lack of evidence of the person whom she was seeking - and by the intense orange light emanating from what was approximately the bridge centre, Mary-Beth hurried towards the burning structure; and as she did so, the horse trotted diagonally from one side to greet her, only to be dismissively fended off.  Great concern for the safety of Charlotte, easily overriding a natural fear of the raging fire and of its effects, the lone woman unhesitatingly ran into the smoky interior of the bridge; and shortly afterwards, she was stood peering cautiously down into the chasm which marked where the buggy had been when she had latterly seen it.  Assuming that Charlotte had somehow fallen into the river - and yet trying to remain calm in the face of this hideous and of course correct assumption, Mary-Beth turned about, and then ran faster than she had ever done before, until she was standing in the snow just outside the northern entrance of the bridge, and almost bent double whilst she gasped for breath.

       By now, the New England dusk had fully faded for another day, and moonlight was failing to even filter through the cloud ceiling from which snowflakes were relentlessly falling; but as if to partially alleviate the darkness that was covering the landscape, the fire had spread to the exterior of the bridge, upon the midstream section of the eastern wall, as well as upon the corresponding section of the roof.  Flame reflections upon the River Elder, seeming to lead her towards the river itself, Mary-Beth half-scrambled, half-slithered down a short, snowy bank; but when she subsequently stood by the river edge, the burning bridge stretching from just to her right, was not casting sufficient illumination for her to see very much of her surroundings.  Irrespectively, Charlotte’s body had already floated to over a hundred yards downstream; and with the fear and the horror and the desperation, which Mary-Beth was currently experiencing, predictably proving far too strong to be repressed, the distraught young woman commenced to cry - her body violently shaking as much as a consequence of hysteria, as of the unremitting cold that was biting through the clothes she was wearing.

       Mary-Beth would never be able to accurately recall how long she remained crying beside the River Elder; but for the rest of her life, she would affectionately remember the familiar, most welcome voice which - albeit to her initially being startled, and by tentative enquiry - summoned her from her riverside mourning.  The voice - frequent in its use of bizarre phraseology - belonged to Jeremiah Appleton, who along with his wife and their three daughters, ran the general store in Copper Leaf Falls; and as Appleton now raised a lamp to shine light onto the young woman gazing up from next to the river, Mary-Beth shielded her eyes.

                ‘Is that you, Mary-Beth?’  Appleton paused, grinning at a nod of affirmation.  ‘Rolls of calico, I knew it was you - no one can rightly accuse old Jeremiah of not recognizing one of his customers in a fearsome snowstorm.  Anyhow, I spied that the bridge was well ablaze - and then the two horses hauling my supply wagon, all but collided with their relative running loose hereabouts.  In the name of every bear on a frozen mountain, Mary-Beth, what exactly is going on?'

Copyright © Anne-Marie Neil 2011

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Snow Settling on a Covered Bridge is available to purchase as a Kindle E-Book, and as a mass-market paperback, on www.amazon.com, www.amazon.ca, www.amazon.co.uk, www.amazon.fr, www.amazon.de, www.amazon.at, www.amazon.it, www.amazon.es, www.amazon.co.jp and www.junglee.com; and as a Kindle E-Book only, on www.amazon.com.br.

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