Yours Truly

by Heather Vogel Frederick

  “Good job, girls,” he said, checking his stopwatch as we completed our first set. “Truly, you keep turning in these kinds of times, and you’ll be going to state championships this year.”

  While I continued with the posted workout, Coach Maynard turned his attention to honing Mackenzie’s flip turn. Lucas spent too much time watching them—well, watching Mackenzie—but at least he wasn’t swallowing water like he did yesterday.

  “Good workout, people!” Coach Maynard said at the end of our session. “Stay away from the junk food today, and I’ll see you this afternoon!”

  Lucas was waiting for my cousin and me again when we emerged from the locker room a little while later.

  “We’re still meeting up after breakfast, right?” he managed to squeak, clearly still awed by my cousin’s magnificence.

  Mackenzie dazzled him with a smile. “Can’t wait!”

  Bolstered by this sign of favor, Lucas practically skipped off down the street. What was it about my cousin that boys found so bewitching? I wondered, watching him go. Whatever it was, one thing was for sure—I could use a big dose of it.

  Mackenzie and I jogged home, more because breakfast was waiting than because we actually had any energy left.

  “I’m starving!” I announced as we burst into the kitchen.

  “You’re just in time for banana walnut oatmeal,” my mother replied, ladling me up a steaming bowlful as I took a seat at the table.

  “Hello, thtarving, I’m Pippa,” said my little sister, collapsing in giggles at her own wit. She was at the age where stuff like that was still funny.

  “Nice to meet you, Pippa, I’m hungry,” said Mackenzie, stretching out her hand across the table. Pippa shook it, delighted that at least one of us was joining in on the fun.

  Lauren looked up from her book—she’d moved on from The Westing Game to The Sasquatch Escape—and rolled her eyes. She was at the age where she was eager to distance herself from anything that seemed babyish. Which meant pretty much everything Pippa did.

  “So what’s on the schedule today over at Camp Belinda?” my mother asked.

  “We’re going to make muffins,” Lauren replied, with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm.

  “And we’re going to learn how to play cheth,” added Pippa.

  “That sounds like fun,” said my mother. “I didn’t know Belinda played chess.”

  “All of the pieces on her chessboard are cats.” Lauren gave her a sidelong glance, adding, “and the pawns are kittens.”

  “The answer is still no, Lauren,” my mother said firmly. “We don’t need a kitten.”

  My sister heaved the deep, dramatic sigh of the misunderstood. Mackenzie’s eyes met mine across the table, glinting with amusement.

  “We’re just going to do boring stuff,” I announced to no one in particular. “Hang around here for a while, look at my bird books, that sort of thing.”

  “Well, I’ll be picking Lauren and Pippa up from Belinda’s around eleven thirty,” my mother told us. “If you change your minds, you’re welcome to join us for lunch and the movie.”

  Pippa scrambled down from her seat and ran around the table. Twining her arms around my cousin’s neck, she pleaded, “Come with uth, Mackenthie! Pleathe!”

  Mackenzie gave her a hug. “I’d love to, Pipster, but Truly and I have some stuff we want to do. How about we play a board game with you tonight instead?”

  Pippa perked up at this. “Candy Land?”

  “It’s a deal.”

  As soon as my sisters were safely off to Belinda’s, and my mother was settled at her dining room table desk, Mackenzie and I went back upstairs to my room. I drew the diary out of its hiding place. “Should we keep reading?”

  “Pleathe!” Mackenzie replied, mimicking Pippa.

  I opened to where we’d left off.

  January 7, 1861

  Today I baked Matthew’s favorite Apfelkuchen—apple cake auf Englisch. Mother Lovejoy says I am a fine cook.

  Yours, Truly

  January 23, 1861

  Matthew’s sister Charity made us a visit today. She lives in Boston. She brought with her much newspapers. Matthew reads to us what they say. So much sadness! So much cruelty! Mother Lovejoy and I both wept.

  Yours, Truly

  “What’s so sad and cruel?” asked Mackenzie.

  I shook my head. “She doesn’t say.”

  I skipped over a bunch of shorter entries that just detailed the housework she did and the things she baked. This one caught my eye, though:

  February 2, 1861

  Mother Lovejoy and Matthew have a secret. I hear them whispering sometimes late at night. I don’t know what the secret is, and I am afraid to ask.

  Yours, Truly

  February 5, 1861

  I ask. Matthew says the less I know the better. He tells me it is safer this way. “There is nothing to worry about,” he tells me. But that is all I do, it seems.

  Yours, Truly

  “More housework, more worrying, more baking,” I murmured, running my finger across the next few pages of entries. “Hey, she made pumpkin muffins! Aunt True would love that! And something called ‘Zwetschgenkuchen.’ ” I sounded the word out, but had no idea if I was pronouncing it properly.

  “I’m pretty sure ‘kuchen’ means ‘cake,’ ” said Mackenzie, looking over my shoulder. “Go back to where she talked about baking that apple cake.”

  I flipped back a few pages. From the looks of it, my cousin was right.

  “But what the heck is a Zwetschgen?” I asked.

  Mackenzie shrugged. “Dunno. I’ll add it to the list of words we need to look up. Can you spell it for me?”

  “Z-w-e-t-s-c-h-g-e-n,” I said, feeling like Annie Freeman. Mackenzie wrote it down.

  March 4, 1861

  I have a secret too! Matthew is so happy. I told him I am sure it will be a fine boy.

  “Wait, does that mean she’s going to have a baby?” Mackenzie exclaimed, perking up.

  I reread the entry and nodded. “I think so. It’s probably their son Booth. He’s the one in the portrait at the bottom of the stairs.”

  I continued reading:

  I would like to name him for my father. Gerhard is not very nice for a girl, Matthew said, making me laugh. I assured him that it will not be a girl. The firstborns in my family are always boys. I must write to Mutti with the good news. She will be glad for me, but also sad. Pumpkin Falls is so far from Lutterhausen!

  Yours, Truly

  “Why do you think she left Germany?” Mackenzie asked.

  I shrugged. “No idea. More work here, maybe? We’ll have to ask Gramps.”

  The next few entries all just had the same word: ‘Schwangerschaftsübelkeit.’ Mackenzie added it to the growing list.

  And then came an entry with another single word. One I could read and easily understand this time:

  April 12, 1861

  War.

  A pleat appeared between my cousin’s eyebrows. “Which war?”

  I heaved a Lauren-size sigh. “Duh—the Civil War, of course! It’s 1861! Pay attention!”

  Mackenzie made a face at me.

  April 18, 1861

  The war is all that we here in Pumpkin Falls can talk about. President Lincoln has called for volunteers. I am so afraid for Matthew, and for our baby. What will become of us, if Matthew goes to be a soldier?

  Yours, Truly

  “Well, we know he did,” said Mackenzie. “He’s wearing a uniform in the portrait, right?”

  I nodded, the flesh on my arms prickling again.

  May 3, 1861

  This morning I felt the baby kicking for the first time. “See?” I told Matthew. “He doesn’t want you to go either.” Matthew promises he will not leave before harvest.

  August 30, 1861

  Matthew left us this morning. He has gone with his friend Booth Harrington to Concord to join the Fifth New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry. Booth’s younger brothers will help us with the harves
t. Matthew looks splendid in his uniform, but oh, how I wish he did not have to go! Mother Lovejoy and I cannot stop weeping.

  Yours, Truly

  “Booth was Matthew’s friend’s name, huh?” I said. “I wonder if that’s where they got their son’s name.”

  “Guess we’ll find out,” Mackenzie replied.

  September 9, 1861

  Mother Lovejoy told me her secret. I have sworn to keep it.

  My cousin and I exchanged a glance.

  “All this talk about secrets is driving me nuts,” Mackenzie drawled, and I nodded in agreement.

  September 12, 1861

  The wind was from the south tonight. Mother Lovejoy let me light the lantern. My hands were shaking as I did. She says with Matthew away, we must be brave together.

  Yours, Truly

  “What’s she talking about?” asked Mackenzie, puzzled. “What’s so scary about lighting a lantern?”

  I shrugged. “No idea.”

  September 13, 1861

  Reverend Bartlett spoke with us after church. He says the package was delayed, but should arrive today. Tomorrow at the latest. I pray for its safe delivery.

  Yours, Truly

  I stared at the diary. What was the original Truly up to? Secrets? Packages? Lanterns? It all sounded so mysterious—and dangerous.

  A knock at the front door interrupted my thoughts.

  “Girls!” my mother called up from the dining room. “Your friends are here!”

  Truly and her secrets would have to wait. I shoved the diary back into its hiding place, and Mackenzie and I went downstairs.

  CHAPTER 12

  Scooter and Calhoun were waiting on the doorstep. Lucas was squeezed between them, scrubbed within an inch of his life. His hair was slicked back, and he was wearing a shirt I’d never seen before. It looked new. I peered at it more closely. It was new—he’d forgotten to take the price tag off. You had to give the kid points for trying, at least.

  My trio of friends nearly trampled me in their eagerness to get inside, and apparently closer to where Mackenzie was standing. I might as well have been invisible as far as they were concerned.

  “Hey, Truly,” said Calhoun, who at least had the grace to acknowledge my presence.

  “Hey.”

  “Are you guys ready to go?” asked Scooter, who only had eyes for my cousin.

  “Yeah,” I told him, and turned to Mackenzie. “You’d better borrow a pair of Lauren’s boots. It’s mud season.”

  Mackenzie’s brow furrowed. “Seriously? That’s an official thing?”

  “A-yuh,” drawled Scooter in an exaggerated New Hampshire accent.

  Mackenzie burst out laughing, and Scooter looked pleased.

  “You won’t laugh when you see where we’re going,” warned Calhoun. “We’re taking the shortcut through the woods, and it’s a mess out there.”

  “Bye, Mom!” I called, stuffing my size-ten-and-a-half feet into a pair of rubber boots and grabbing my jacket. “We’re going to show Mackenzie around Freeman Farm!”

  My mother waggled her fingers at us, barely looking up from her research project. “Have fun!”

  At the top of the hill the five of us left the road and struck out on a path across a field that led into the woods. The sun was fully up now, its light dappling down through the trees. I breathed in the pine-sharp scent of evergreen. Somewhere nearby, an eastern phoebe sang out its raspy, two-note call, and in the distance I heard the brief, lilting trill of a song sparrow. “Heralds of spring,” Gramps called them.

  I was glad I’d worn my boots. The ground grew increasingly squishy as we approached the flanks of Lovejoy Mountain, and pretty soon we were squelching and sliding with every step.

  “See? Mud season!” crowed Scooter. He stamped his feet, sending up a spray of brown glop as he showed off for Mackenzie.

  “Quit it!” I hollered, but my cousin just giggled. I frowned at her. “Don’t encourage him.”

  While it was a relief to have Scooter fixated on something besides me—I wasn’t hankering for another lip-lock, that was for sure—I still couldn’t help feeling a little overlooked once again.

  Fifteen minutes later we emerged onto the road across from Maynard’s Maple Barn. Judging by the number of cars in the parking lot, my swim coach was doing a brisk business with the breakfast crowd.

  We jogged on down the road to Freeman Farm. The parking lot was not nearly as packed as it was at Coach Maynard’s, but then the Freemans didn’t serve pancakes and waffles. Annie spotted us from her perch in the Snack Shack and waved.

  “Greetings and S-A-L-U-T-A-T-I-O-N-S!” she said, trotting out a championship word borrowed from my Aunt True. “Anybody want a maple donut?”

  “My treat,” said Lucas, shooting a glance over at Mackenzie as he pulled his wallet from his back pocket.

  “They’re on the house,” said Annie. “My mom heard you were coming.”

  Crestfallen, Lucas put his wallet back.

  “Thanks,” I said, helping myself to a donut.

  “Hey!”

  We turned around to see Franklin trotting over to join us. “Hi, Mackenzie,” he said, flashing my cousin a big smile. Scooter and Lucas both glared at him.

  “Hi,” she mumbled back, her mouth full of maple donut.

  I was beginning to get used to being ignored.

  “Do you guys want a tour of the sugarhouse?” Franklin asked Mackenzie. “I’m scheduled to give one right now.”

  My cousin nodded. The rest of us assumed his invitation meant us, too, and we followed them toward the cabin at the far end of the parking lot. I studiously avoided looking at Scooter as we passed the barn, but I couldn’t resist flicking Calhoun a sidelong glance. His face was stony. I sighed and looked away. I still really, really wanted to explain about the kiss.

  Woodsmoke drifted from the round metal chimney pipe poking out of the sugarhouse roof, and my cousin sniffed the air happily. “It smells like camping!”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, suddenly missing Texas again. Some of my happiest memories were of the camping trips that our families had taken together, along with the rest of my Gifford aunts and uncles and cousins.

  “Welcome to Freeman Farm, everyone!” said Franklin, offering the handful of tourists waiting by the door a wide smile. “Who wants to see how maple syrup is made?”

  From the practiced way in which my classmate kicked into tour guide mode, I could tell he’d done this before. He herded us efficiently through the front door and into a small entry room. The walls were paneled in rough wood and lined with tools and antique-looking buckets and other implements. We gazed at them curiously as Franklin launched into a history of the maple syrup industry.

  “Native Americans were the first to discover the maple tree’s sweet gift,” he began. “For thousands of years the Abenaki—that means ‘people of the dawn’—who lived in this part of New England harvested sap and made it into syrup. They called this time of year ‘maple moon.’ ”

  He held up a bowl crudely shaped from bark. “This is a mokuk,” he continued. “It’s made of birch bark and sealed with pine resin, and it’s what the Abenaki used to collect sap. Later, the early settlers used wooden buckets.” He plucked one from a peg on the wall. “Those evolved into the tin buckets with lids that have become an icon for the industry, and that you often see on syrup jug labels and postcards. Today, buckets are made of galvanized steel or food-grade plastic, although many large operations, like ours, have replaced buckets with plastic tubing that feeds from the trees directly into holding tanks.”

  As Franklin passed examples of each of these items around, Scooter took the opportunity to smack Lucas playfully on the head with a length of plastic tubing.

  “Quit it!” I warned, but once again Mackenzie just laughed.

  “So how do you get the sap out of the trees?” someone in the crowd wanted to know.

  “I’m so glad you asked!” Franklin replied.

  He’s really good at this, I though
t, impressed.

  My classmate held up a small object that looked like a wooden tube or spigot. “This is called a ‘spile,’ which comes from the Dutch word meaning ‘splinter’ or ‘peg.’ This one is made of cedar, but the Abenaki and other tribes also fashioned them out of sumac stems. The spile was inserted into a gash in the trunk of the maple tree, and sap would flow through it into the waiting container, such as a hollowed out branch or a mokuk.” He held up the birch bark bowl again.

  “Do people still use spiles?” asked Mackenzie.

  Franklin nodded. “Pretty much, except today they’re made of metal, not wood.” He pointed to a display board on the wall behind us featuring all different styles and sizes of spiles. “And of course we don’t gash the trees with axes these days—we use drills to make the holes.”

  I fingered the small metal spigot as it came around. A faint memory stirred. The sights and smells in the sugarhouse were giving me a flash of déjà vu, and I was pretty sure that Gramps and Lola had brought me someplace like this when I was little. Maybe even right here to this farm.

  “All we need—well, besides maple trees—is for the weather to cooperate,” Franklin continued. “Cold nights plus warm days equal a good maple harvest.”

  “Why is that?” asked another tourist.

  “It’s simple, really,” Franklin told him. “The alternating temperatures cause pressure changes in the tree, which makes the sap flow. If it’s too cold at night, the sap takes longer to warm up during the day. It’s a good thing the winter we just had finally decided to call it quits, otherwise we might not have had a sap run at all this year!”

  “He sounds like Mr. Bigelow,” Calhoun whispered, and I nodded. Mr. Bigelow was our science teacher.

  We exchanged a smile, and for a split second I thought maybe this would be the moment to explain about Scooter. Before I could, though, the smile vanished, and Calhoun looked away.

  I felt my face flush. I could also feel my cousin watching me. I forced myself to smile at her. If I wasn’t careful, she might figure out how I felt about Calhoun, and I didn’t need that complication right now.

  “So how does the sap get turned into syrup?” asked a gray-haired man in a bright red fleece jacket.