Kate's been pillaging. Not randomly, not widely, just concentrating on the houses where Miss Jo had taken the curtains from. There's all kinds of useful things in those houses - in particular, fabric. Linens, tablecloths, towels. All can be re-purposed, reused, sown into additional clothes, unravelled for thread. Made into a woman's necessities (thank God and the Mother Mary that there are towels around, is all Kate can say).

So it is that after lunch today, she'd walked over the bridge to spend some time continuing her search. It's on her way back that she really pays close attention to the fabric drying on the trees, and the woman currently swearing at the water.

"The water gettin' in your house, Miss Peggy?" she calls out, coming to a stop. There's a basket on her hip, and with her hair plaited and tucked up under her red cap, she could look like a country girl out for a stroll. Except, at least, for the mud on her boots from where the bridge hadn't quite covered the new water's edge.