Triplets

"Brent! Brent. Aunt Jean says our cousin Diane is going to have twins. Oh, I hope I get to have twins, I love twins, it would be so fun to have two babies... and Mom’s cousin Jaime is having twins too!"
"Settle down, Lynae, you are so baby crazy and you're only thirteen. Don’t wish your life away! You want to know what having twins is like, let's go visiting. What do we have that can take us back to 1885, let's see, here's a coin that should work. Get ready to see all the twins you can handle."
"What are we doing outside in a barn? It's cold out here, and it stinks like cows and goats."
"Well, yes, it's a barn. Barns smell like this, and we're in Santa Rita New Mexico."
"Policarpio,” a voice interrupted, “have you got that goat milked yet. We will need extra milk, so you're going to have to milk on time every day. But for now, bring in what you've got, you have a new sister."
"A new baby, a little girl? Wow, OK, I'm coming right now, I'll finish the chores later."
Brent and Lynae followed the nearly eleven year old Policarpio into the kitchen and watched him strain the small pail of milk into a clean bowl, then run back outside in the cold January night to continue milking and cleaning with fourteen year old brother, Jorge.
Brent trotted after them and offered to help out with the chores. It was better than sitting around a house while a new baby was coming into the family. Lynae followed the sounds of women talking and cooing and the sound of the newborn infant cries.
A mid-wife ran quickly past, instructing her to find more blankets and bring more hot water. "There's another baby coming!" she told Lynae who hastened to obey. Taking the blankets into the room, Lynae saw two beautiful new born baby girls and offered to hold one, while the midwife began to clean up from the birth.
Ana María called out again to say another baby was coming, but the midwife claimed it was just the afterbirth coming from the first two deliveries. She cried out again, and Lynae called to the midwife -- I think it is really another baby, it looks like the head is coming out. Sure enough a third baby was being born.
Lynae felt dizzy and weak. With the tiny baby cradled in her arms she found a chair to sit in while the nausea passed. She decided that just because her stepmother had been a mid-wife, it sure didn't make seeing birth for the first time any easier to watch. Lynae sang to the baby in her arms: " María Clara, little abuelita, you'll grow up some day, and be the mama of my Grandma Lucy, and my Auntie Lola and..." She took a moment to gaze at the calico covered walls and admire the coarse xerga fabric spread over the floors. Looking upward she focused on the muslin tacked across the ceiling beams.[1]
When news of the second baby had come to the boys in the barn, Policarpio became excited and begin working faster to finish the chores. When the news came that a third child had been born to his mother's already large family of eight children he became enraged.
"I'm going to put a stop to this," he told Brent, grabbing his arm and marching into the house in protest. Jorge and Brent laughed at the small boy so determined to stop the natural process.
"Anyway,” Brent assured him, "there were only three babies, there won't be any more."
"Well, just eleven kids, I guess that's OK." agreed Policarpio, calming down. At least some of them have already moved out and started their own families."
“There would have been sixteen, but four babies died. One set of twins and two others. Even though they have all of us, Mama and Papa were really sad when those babies died." The Bustamantes were considered a wealthy family in their time, but this many children had to put a strain on life’s demands.
Twin sisters Angelita and Felicitas, now nineteen had married before they were sixteen. Both were there to help their mother in this difficult birth and little two-year-old Francisco Antonio ran from room to room saying “three babies, three babies. “ Marie Ana, nearly five, attempted to hold on to him to keep him out of the way, but could not, herself, contain the excitement of having three little sisters.
Lynae struggled to keep her excitement under control as she helped tend the three tiny babies, watching the two small children as they grew more and more excited.
The four boys came in from the barn with a blast of cold from the winter night following them into the kitchen. They stood by the cook stove warming their hands and faces before they attempted to wash up. "What's for dinner, we're starving," they all said looking around at the unusually empty kitchen.
"Everyone is busy with the babies," Lynae said coming into the kitchen on her errand to fetch milk for the baby girls. "Brent, you boys will have to find something to eat on your own, we women are busy tending to the triplets."
Policarpio and Jorge groaned in unison, and little Hipolito copied them with a sigh and imitated their body language. Brent looked around for a refrigerator or microwave to begin the dinner, as Policarpio suggested they go to the root cellar to get some potatoes, a fairly new food in New Mexico.
"I know how to cook potatoes,” Brent said enthusiastically remembering when he was, “and there's some meat hanging out there in the cold too, we can take the hatchet and cut off a piece, it’s frozen hard.”
Gradually the warm smell of cooking meat and potatoes with carrots and onions filled the kitchen and welcomed the busy family to a hot dinner.
"This is really good, Brent." Jorge said taking a second bowl full.
"It's just something we make when we're camping with our mom. Lynae and I learned to make tortillas last summer." Brent said modestly, glad he had learned to make the popular scout stew during their summer adventures.
Lynae picked up the genealogy charts. Two of the triplets died when they were just little, but Clara grew up to marry and have a family of her own. “You finish cooking the tortillas I have rolled out.” Brent directed from the couch near the apartment kitchen, “and I'll read you this story that Uncle Eliseo wrote about his mother, Clara Bustamante. You probably ought to stir the stew, too, so it doesn't burn on the bottom of the pan.”
“That would have all been right around the time the railroads came through. Another big change in travel and that really made a difference in the tools and fabrics available to our families.”
“Up ‘til then the only things brought into New Mexico were brought by mule train or wagons from Mexico or from Missouri. But the people kept up with the fashions. As soon as they began receiving woven goods they went back to wearing the brightly colored chaquetas, laced calzoneras for pants with brightly colored sashes and embossed leather belts. The ladies dressed in silks, satins, ginghams and lawns with embroidered crepe shawls, and gaudy jewelry, huge necklaces, rings, combs, and bows. The women painted their face with white flour paste and rouged vermilion on their lips and cheeks. The white paste was partial protection from the sun and partly cosmetic. The poorer people dressed in serapes and flannel, but the colors were just as bright and varied.[2]
[1] Samta Fe Trail pp 160-161
[2] Santa Fe Trail pp 1770-171