Disrupted: Day 3

Word Count: 18,042

Summary of Events:

Gwendolen met with a maid, as well as the maid's sisters and cousins and laid out her plan to use them as decoys in her escape. Ezra, fed up with the argument between his sons over the name of the wolf pup, named it himself. Gwendolen had the maid's brothers to put bricks in the decoy trunks to make them not seem empty while she went and emptied and closed her bank account. Ezra helped restrain a cow while her calf was being checked over and then had to do a high speed rope removal because the cow wouldn't stay still. Gwendolen arrived at the train station, purchased a ticket to Chicago, and got onto the train . . .

Excerpt of the Day:

"It didn't take long for the whistle to cry out, warning passengers that departure was shortly to come. The conductor then gave his call and the train whistled again before a great amount of steam was let off and there was the jerk of the train starting into motion.

Exhilaration shot through Gwendolen and she couldn't help but smile. She felt like relief was washing over her like the smoke and steam slid almost effortlessly into the distance from the great engine that was taking her, and many more besides, to Chicago, the first stop on her escape.

Despite her exhilaration, however, there was a twist of fear that turned her insides all directions. She was going alone, unescorted, to a wild and rather savage place full of natives who still would attack trains and wagons, as well as other men who ran about, unrestrained by the law, which really hadn't taken much of a foothold in the west.

She didn't possess any sort of a weapon for her own defence, which might be something that would actually be useful, really, and she felt badly that she hadn't sought one out before leaving.

As much as she was relieved that she was getting away from a marriage that could well take her life before her life ought to be taken, she could well be heading toward the same thing yet.

There were some civilised cities in the west, though, such as Sacramento and some of the other ones in California, and probably a lot of the communities along the railroad were more civilised than some of the frontier outposts were likely to be.

Not that she really intended to go to anything along the lines of a frontier outpost anyways. What would she do there?

In fact, what would she do in the west? She only knew that she wanted to go west, but she'd never really thought about what she'd like to do once she got there, or what she could even do when she got there.

She didn't really possess that terribly many practical skills. She knew how to sew and embroider, but she knew nothing of cookery. She might be able to teach in a school, except she had never really had anything to do with young children, having been the youngest daughter, and having only Wilford younger than her.

Additionally, her associations with children had only come as a child; as she'd gotten older she'd come to spend more time with adults, as children weren't allowed in attendance at parties. Would she be able to command enough authority to make the children manageable?

Working in sewing would probably be the best option, although it did seem below her; but really, was there anything she could do out west that wasn't below her? Not that she could think of."