No chastising shock came immediately.  That didn't mean it wasn't coming.  The Captain was mean like that sometimes.  He didn't forget or forgive, and she'd learn sooner or later what he felt about the matter.  Mistis Serenity used a word once that meant something like the Captain was about keeping Elfi in line;  capacious or capricious or cavernous maybe.  Meant you couldn't predict when someone was going to do something.  Didn't matter.  Captain had the right to do it and Elfi didn't have the right to not expect it.<br/><br/>She sat the potatoes down where Sue wanted them, then left when he didn't need anything else.  Elfi had something that needed doing.  Something personal for herself.<br/><br/>The potatoes had come in a standard burlap sack, all rough and dust making and unraveling easily once you got it started.  She'd wiggled a coarse thread loose, then another, and extracted a square about the size of a handkerchief from the sack before folding it up so the missing bit didn't show. Elfi had stacked it in the middle of a similar pile then stuck the scrap of burlap under her apron and her shift.  It rubbed at her belly something fierce, making it itch and go red, but it was worth the discomfort.<br/><br/>Mya was out.  She'd seen the doctor headed towards the doctorin' room with mad in her every step.  Probably Master Early was rubbing it in again, like he wanted to rub his pecker into her but was too much the gentleman to do so.  What it did mean was that for a litle bit, Elfi was not going to have to worry about Mya peering in on her from behind her fancy cloth walls. Elfi's cell lacked anything but her neatly folded blanket on the floor, but she liked to pretend from time to time that the barred open wall she shared with Mya's area was her own, and the cloth was part of some fine curtains she'd pulled over the window.<br/><br/>Elfi reached under her shift and pulled out the burlap, then put her hand right back under it and scratched at her tummy.  The discomfort faded with the excitement she felt, and Elfi knelt in the far back corner of her cell and reached into a little ventilation shaft set near the floor.  Almost flush with the deck on her belly, her slender arms reached and reached and reached inside, twisting past the curve, and finally closed on Melly's leg.  Elfi drew the little rag doll out and sat with her back to the cell door, cradling it in her lap.<br/><br/>"I brunged you a present, Melly," she whispered to the doll.  "Remember how you told me you was cold up in there and scared?  And how being with me under the blanket at night made you feel safe?  Well, look," she said and presented her doll with the square of burlap.  "Elfi got you your own blanket, honey bunch.  Ain't it fine?  Feel it."  Her hand took the doll's arm and stroked it along the blanket, then mimed walking the doll across her lap and jumping up to hug her.<br/><br/>"That's sweet, Melly.  I love you too.  Now, go on and let's get you all wrapped up and back in the safe place.  I've got to get back to chores."  Patient, work roughened fingers folded the blanket around the doll, tucked it in, then she kissed the bit of rag and stuffing tenderly.  "Be good now," she whispered then pushed the doll back into its hiding spot.  Elfi stood, smiling, and left her cell to go about the next chore.