Happy #LaborDay!

“You may have noticed I am wearing one of your shirts this morning.”
“Oh yeah,” Rand murmured. He’d noticed. Looked like she had two puppies in a sack in there, tusslin’ when she moved.
“The reason I am wearing your clothes is because the laundry needs to be done and you have not done it.”
That statement took him out of his contemplation of how much fun it would be to undo the rest of the buttons on his shirt and give those pups some air.
“What?”
“I said, you have not done the laundry, Washburn.” Julia turned back to the grate to squat down and flip the cakes.
“Yeah, well, that’s your job. You’re the wife.”
She turned her head and looked up at him with raised brows. “Is that what you thought? That because that magistrate pronounced a few words over us I would take over all the domestic chores? Who did your laundry before you had a wife?”
Rand shifted and ran his free hand through his hair. “I did my laundry. But I didn’t like it!”
“No one likes it. Here is what I propose… I will continue with the chores I have been doing, the cooking and tending the garden and keeping the cabin neat. I will even do the mending. But you will do the laundry. After all,” she said dryly, “it’s not like you have a lot of acreage to plow out there.”
“No, but I do have to hunt and fish to keep food on the table. I can’t be spendin’ all day doin’ women’s work!”
“If it is women’s work, it is not work this woman ever did. At the estate where I lived there were laundresses who did the cleaning for the entire household. I can cook better than you can, but it seems to me that if you have experience doing laundry, then you can continue to do a better job than I would. Not to mention that if I am spending all my time doing laundry, then I won’t have time to make the pork pie I was planning for dinner. With persimmon cake for dessert.”
There was something wrong with this logic, Rand knew it, but he couldn’t come up with a good argument. It became even harder to think about it when Julia waltzed past him into the house carrying a plate and leaving behind an aroma of griddle cakes, syrup, and woman.

--Smuggler's Bride

Happy Labor Day to all the hard working American women and men who keep the laundry clean, the fish caught, and the persimmon cake on the table. This is your day to be recognized, and for all of us to be aware of how much we depend on the labor of others. Thank you!