Heart divided

You wouldn't think that it possible to grow up happy in a house full of sisters and one brother, but I love it. Not a day goes by without amusement.

My brother Adam went to the military when he turned 17, promising to return home on his first leave from the war.

He didn't.

He was now in some big city getting drunk and ruining the family name for the past three years. In the 1868 your ancestry mean't everything and by him doing this my mother is worried me and my sisters will not find suitable husbands, but I do not mind. The idea of marriage was always something I couldn't ever comprehend. Why would you want to give up a life full of journeys and adventures to be with someone you more then likely will marry only by an arrangement?

My mother told me she was arranged to my father and she was perfectly happy with it. She told me he was handsome and had a good line of work, what else could you want in a man? What I wanted to tell her was love and adventure. Someone you never grows bored or weary. I do not want a man with fortune and a high mighty attitude. I want someone to love, not a walk around piggy bank.

I finally decided it was time to get out of my lumpy bed and start my day. I arched my back and stretched my arms out feeling much like a cat.

Ah!!

I stood and looked at myself in my mirror in horror. Anyone else have a terrible bed head?

My cornstalk colored hair was in a frazzled mess looking poofy and snarled. My chocolate eyes looked barely awake and sense it was summer my freckles under my eyes and on my nose showed a little more. My oval shaped face and my figured frame is what my mother called a pond beauty. Which she mean't I was a great catch but I have asked her to not call me that because it makes me sound like a fish.

I quickly got dressed and put on my shoes and headed downstairs to see my family already around the table eating breakfast.

I sat down next to my younger sister Maria. She was very shy but that seemed to slip away when she was painting. She has created many masterpieces that she has sold for a good fortune in our town square. I guess she was the shy artist type. My two other sisters, Janet and Sophia were both older than me, Janet being the eldest. Janet's long brunette hair was the same color as Sophia's and Maria's. I was the only one who had my fathers hair color, when he was younger, and I looked the most like him. You could say I was a daddy's girl. Janet was always the most beautiful and well-mannered. When I was little I use to copy everything she did hoping to be just like her. Her only fault was that she was very tall for a girl 5"11. My mother blamed my father for her unnatural tallness, but he always said it only added to Janet's beauty. I was 5"8 still on the tall side but my mother said it was the perfect height. Tall enough to catch a mans attention but not tall enough to drive them away.

Our house was filled with beautiful dark wood that made everything look homey. Our kitchen was probably the brightest room. It's tan walls decorated with shelves and pictures with a piano for entertainment. My papa always liked it when my mother or his children made the food, he was a man who liked a good family to work together ,but my mama liked having cooks and cleaning ladies and always told him that we can do a lot more family things if we don't have to worry about dinner and cleaning all the time. He of course always agreed with her because she was his wife and he knew she was a stubborn mule at times.

"Caroline darling will you go to town today and fetch some goods from the market for your poor mama? I have been busy all day hemming your sisters dressing for the upcoming ball."

"Of course I'll do it right after I ate." I said with a mouth full of eggs.

"Now child!

"Proper ladies do NOT talk with their mouths open!"