The Kissing Tree

by Karen Witemeyer

  “How about tomorrow? I was thinking of that place by the big oak tree. If you could bring some cut wheat—”

  “Hold on there, Adam. Why would I be giving you my cut wheat?”

  “I’m going to separate it for you. You’ll bring it to me on the stalk, and you’ll go home with straw and grain separated. I won’t even charge you.”

  “Charge me? The last time we paid for a show was that acrobat who came through town. He could juggle while standing on his head. Can you juggle while standing on your head?” Mr. Granger snorted. “I didn’t think so. I’d better get back to work. You should’ve known that harvest was the wrong time to come. Nobody has time for diversions while there’s wheat to bring in.”

  No time? They wouldn’t believe how much time his machine could save them. Harvest was the only time that he could help. But the sinking feeling in his stomach was growing—­that same sharp disappointment he’d met with in Anderson when no one else understood his dream. When no one gave him the chance to prove himself.

  Dr. Paulson looked at Mr. Granger with a condescension that was impossible to miss. “In a few years, no one is going to winnow wheat anymore. Every community will wait with joyful anticipation for the threshing teams to come to town. You’ll pay for the privilege of being the first in line to have your wheat processed. But it takes a man of vision to be the first. We’ll find our man. Follow me, Adam. We won’t accomplish anything else here.”

  Dr. Paulson had insisted on coming along so he could gather soil samples for his research. Adam wished he had offered to bring the soil back to the university and had made the trip without the professor.

  “It was good to see you again,” Adam said by way of amends. “Please send my regards to Mrs. Granger.”

  Mr. Granger spared him a pitying look. “Be careful, Adam. A man’s known by the company he keeps.”

  But Adam wanted to be known for being innovative and intelligent. He had felt that the good ideas of the classrooms needed to come out to the farmers, and he wanted to be their ambassador. If he could convince the farmers to give his machine a chance, he could bring prosperity to Oak Springs while making the payments that would keep his dream alive.

  And if he could find Bella Eden, then his joy would be complete.

  three

  You might think about bringing your students.” Ben Eden stole a piece of bacon off her plate. “It could be quite the spectacle.”

  Bella looked up from her sewing to watch her father eat half her breakfast. Just as well. She liked to get some handiwork done in the mornings before school and before her wrist started aching. The last thing she needed was greasy fingers to spot the bodice of the gown she was reworking. She picked up her spoon, her thimble clinking against the handle, and took a bite of cinnamon-­dusted oatmeal.

  “Do you think it’d be worthwhile?” she mumbled. “The juggler was amusing, but he didn’t help the students with their exams.”

  “I’ll tell you one thing. If your students let their education turn them into a dunce like that professor, we might as well close the doors of the school right now. It takes a lot of study to figure out how to be as disagreeable as that man.” Her father wore his dark hair longer than most men, but it was his glory, as untamed as a horse’s mane.

  “Maybe it’ll spark some imagination,” Bella said. “It’s good for the kids to see the latest technology.” Taking the thread between her teeth, she bit off the excess, wrapped it carefully around the spool for future use, then folded the dress and dropped it in her basket. “Time to go. That bell’s not going to ring itself.”

  Her hand lingered atop her basket. All day she’d be thinking of the new cut that she was trying to emulate from Harper’s Bazar. By the time she returned from school and helped her pa with chores, there wouldn’t be enough light to continue. But the town needed a teacher, and ever since she’d fallen from that tree, she hadn’t been able to do as fine a stitch as before. After a bit, her wrist started to hurt, and that was that.

  Bella picked up her lunch pail. Teaching hadn’t been her plan. She’d always been an eager learner but had never thought of herself as studious, mostly because of her poor performance under duress. Sitting in class, she soaked up the lessons that old Miss Hoyt had taught them, but when she looked down at the blank lines of the examination booklet, every fact simply vanished. She could no more produce the right information than she could create lace out of corn husks.

  That was why she’d told the school board no when they asked if she’d be willing to replace the retiring teacher. But even after her wrist had healed, she found that the future she’d planned was unlikely. She might as well help the community, if that was what they needed. And as it turned out, teaching wasn’t the same as testing. In fact, her struggles gave her patience with her less confident students, something that parents were generous to acknowledge.

  Bella patted their bird dog as she walked out the door, leaving it propped open so her mother could catch the morning breezes as she put away the breakfast dishes. Her spirits were lifted by the thick golden sea that rippled around her. Harvest time. The early summer had been gentle. No droughts, no pestilence, no storms, no fires. With their typical pessimism, the local farmers refused to celebrate a good crop yet, but beneath their grumbling, one could hear the careful hope that this year would make up for several lean seasons. She hoped so. It would be good to see her students well-­fed and unconcerned through the winter.

  Something up ahead caught her attention. Was that the machine her father had spoken of? It had to be. Bigger than the saw at the mill and twice as ungainly, it blocked the road next to the oak tree. As she approached, the sun reflected off the machine’s metal sides and warmed her face. The shape reminded her of a dragon. A dragon in armor. How fantastic would it be if it breathed fire while it worked? She put up a hand to shade her eyes, but even with that help she couldn’t see anyone around. Surely the owner hadn’t abandoned it.

  Then, from beneath the dark canopy of the oak, she heard a man’s voice projecting like he was doing oratory.

  “This tree is remarkable, I’ll grant you that, but there are hundreds of similar oaks in this part of the country. I’m afraid your admiration of this one is lost on me.”

  Pausing at the leafy edge of the tree’s spread, Bella took another look at the machine behind her. She tended to avoid the tree. It was the scene of the grandest embarrassment of her life, and one with dire consequences. The only way she’d come within a stone’s throw of the oak of shame was knowing that neither Jimmy Blaggart nor Adam Fisher had stepped foot within the boundaries of Grimes County since they’d finished school. Those were the only two people who knew what had happened that day. They were the only ones who could disclose her embarrassment.

  She saw the tapered trouser legs first, then the suit coat with tails. The gentleman’s eyes flew from her lunch pail to the books beneath her arm. He sighed.

  “I beg your pardon.” Bella would be polite due to his age, even if he’d dismissed her on account of hers. “Is this your machine? It looks very interesting.”

  His salt-­and-­pepper beard was trimmed to a sharp shovel’s point, and when he talked, it looked like he was digging a hole. “The machine belongs to him.” He motioned toward the tree. “He can tell you all about it.”

  The shovel stopped digging, and he walked toward town.

  Bella took another look at the massive hunk of metal. However it operated, it probably wasn’t as interesting as the armored dragon she’d imagined. Better to learn about it now than to interrupt lessons for no cause. Finding a gap in the limbs, she picked her way beneath the tree.

  The cool, fresh air surprised her. Although she walked past it with every trip to town, she’d forgotten the magical beauty of this spot that had always enraptured her. It was so magical that she nearly forgot what she was doing there.

  The second man had his back to her and was studying the trunk of the tree. She reached up to capture one of the extending branche
s. Her wrist twinged with pain, but it was expected and ignored as she rustled the branch to get his attention.

  “Excuse me. I’m sorry to interrupt you, but your friend sent me to ask you a question.”

  He straightened at the sound of her voice. His cotton shirt stuck to the small of his back, showing the strength of the morning heat, but he answered without turning to face her.

  “What’s your question?”

  Bella shivered in the damp air. It might be humid, but something about him gave her goose bumps. A sickly feeling of something being undone, of guilt, of a reckoning, made her lean more heavily on the branch. But she wasn’t about to walk away. It was her town, and he was a stranger. He would answer to her.

  “Your friend said that the harvesting machine is yours and that you could tell me about it.”

  He rested one hand against the trunk of the tree. Bella released the branch, suddenly and foolishly convinced that if they were both touching the same thing, then it was akin to touching each other. She looked to her feet. Did that include the ground? Sweet potatoes! Then she was touching everyone all the time, except for people who were jumping into the air, and she didn’t think there were enough of those at any one moment for it to deserve her consideration.

  But the short of it was that he hadn’t answered.

  “People are saying that you’re doing a demonstration.” She wrapped her left hand around her right wrist in a tight clasp that often stopped the aching. “If that’s so, I’d like to know what your demonstration entails.”

  He took a deep breath, and she braced herself for an answer.

  “Bella, how in the world have your initials gone unclaimed?”

  She clutched her wrist against her stomach. It was Adam. Adam Fisher. And he was tracing her initials inside the heart with his finger.

  “What are you doing here?” she gasped. And how were those initials still visible? She hadn’t thought about them for years. She longed to stomp away, but her feet were as rooted to the ground as the old oak.

  With the speed of a waterwheel, Adam turned, seemingly aware of the dramatic role he’d fallen into.

  “It’s my threshing machine,” he said. “I came to Oak Springs to bring our town up to date. It’s the 1870s. Progress needs to happen.” He patted the inscription on the tree like it was a cherished pet. “But you haven’t answered my question. What have you been up to, Bella Eden?”

  Her greatest fear had been that either Jimmy or Adam would talk and word would spread of her embarrassing spectacle. As far as she knew, both had been gentlemen, but now Adam had returned, and it seemed he had no compunction against broaching the delicate subject.

  With her lunch pail swinging, Bella hurried to the tree trunk. “I’m going to take my penknife to that bark and scratch it bare. I’d completely forgotten.”

  “I hadn’t, and don’t you dare deface it. This is a piece of history.” His eyes flickered to her wrist. “Are you all healed up now? It was pretty rough there for a spell.”

  It was so like him to remember that part too. After she’d fallen, it was Adam who’d taken her in his arms and tried to soothe her cries. Despite her anger at him, she’d been in too much pain to deny herself that comfort. When he’d seen the swelling in her wrist, he’d wanted to go fetch her parents, but she convinced him to help her home instead. She couldn’t take the chance that they would see the tree trunk and wonder what she’d been up to. It was bad enough that he knew.

  “That wasn’t the worst of it.” She turned away from the tree trunk. Seeing the empty space, unclaimed, above her initials hurt too much. Reminded her that she was unclaimed. And she couldn’t place the blame for that at Adam’s feet. “I’m fine. I’ve learned to live with it.”

  He was still handsome, with his inky lashes lining ice-­blue eyes, and the way his upper lip widened when he smiled. “I brought you something,” he said. He motioned to the machine. “It’s some spools of thread. They’re pretty colors. I remembered that you liked to sew, and whenever I saw a new color . . .” He shrugged. “They’re in my bag. Give me a minute, and I’ll fetch them.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I don’t want them.” He’d brought a gift for a seamstress, and she was a schoolteacher.

  The sound of a school bell being enthusiastically but unevenly rung reached them beneath the boughs.

  “I have to go,” Bella said. She’d never been late for school before. Not so late that the students took it upon themselves to ring the bell. Then again, the last time she’d run into Adam Fisher beneath the oak tree, she hadn’t made it to school for a week.

  He followed her out into the sunshine. The golden fields around them spoke of a different world than the one beneath the tree. A world with seasons, students, and toil, but no time for romantic dreams and kisses on birthdays.

  All fine and dandy, because Bella had no time for that either. And until Adam Fisher had made himself scarce, all she could do was fret over what trouble he would stir up next.

  four

  Adam watched as Bella hurried off with a quick, stiff-­legged stride toward town. He hadn’t spent much on the thread, but she could have at least looked at it. And where was she going? Did she have an appointment with a client? A fitting scheduled? Oak Springs was changing from the sleepy village he’d known. It could be that Bella’s business was thriving.

  She was prettier than ever. He’d figured she would have changed a mite, but he must have forgotten how sweet her face was, or how tender her eyes. His daydreams were too filled with making his payments on the equipment to leave room for many romantic musings, but now that he’d returned, they all came back. How jealous he’d been of that rube, Jimmy Blaggart. How he’d waited to tell Bella, but by the time he had worked up his nerve, he’d ruined his chance. That was the way it went, sometimes. Too late to rewrite history, but there was nothing wrong with planning for the future.

  And a big part of his future would be decided by his demonstration for the farmers.

  After picking out the flattest spot that didn’t block the road, Adam began to unload the gearbox, sweeps, and the tumbling rod. He used his two strongest pullers to get the treadmill situated and then measured the distance before settling the thresher in. Once the heavy pulling was done by the horses, he tethered them low so they could avail themselves of the tender grass before any more work was required of them. The assembling of the sweeps, the gearbox, and the traces all fell on him. The way the custom cutters he’d worked with operated, the farmer himself would pitch in when it was time to thresh his crops, but Adam could hardly ask that of anyone before they’d decided whether he was worth the trouble.

  By the time he’d assembled the machinery, he only had a few minutes to munch on the cold chicken leg that the boarding­house owner, Mrs. Doris, had given him for lunch. Taking the horses by their lead ropes, he pulled them so that they and he could practice for the trial to come. So much rode on this demonstration. True, there were other towns, but if he couldn’t do it here, what hope was there?

  The horses went willingly into their harnesses. They were well trained but hadn’t worked the long hours of harvest that would be required of them—­that hopefully would be required of them. Pulling the sweeps around in circles was still a game for them, not yet associated with boredom and monotony.

  The last harness was the hardest to buckle down, but perhaps it was due more to Adam’s nerves than the new leather and tight fit. He pulled the strap through the buckle, then yanked it tight. Wedging his fingers beneath the straps on the horse’s back, he lifted and shook it, ensuring the best fit.

  A crowd of men had gathered in town and were coming down the road. Dr. Paulson had done his job rounding up spectators.

  “Here we go, then,” Adam muttered to his team. And men weren’t just coming from town. Over the ridge, he saw Mr. Eden and Mr. Granger in a wagon, coming from their farms, along with more of their neighbors on foot.

  With a hand cupped to his mouth, Mr. Granger called out,
“Where do you want the wagon?”

  Adam directed him to the side of the thresher. As the wagon passed, he peered into the bed, and his heart sank. It was nearly empty. At the most, there were only five sheaves in the back. That was hardly enough to get the machine started up. Not worth the trouble. No way to show his prowess with this scant example.

  “I told you I would do as much as you wanted.” Adam tried to hide his disappointment. “If you want to get more—”

  “I don’t have any to spare,” Mr. Granger said. “If I’m going to ruin some crops, this is more than enough.”

  Ruin his crops? How would this machine ruin them? It didn’t eat them. Adam respected these men, but he’d underestimated how difficult it would be for them to make changes.

  The men from town had arrived, Dr. Paulson among them. The professor’s serene smile was appreciated, but what was wrong with the rest of the men? They hung back, as if unwilling to stand too close to him. Adam caught the glances they were sending one another. Something was awry. Had Dr. Paulson already offended them?

  Leaving the townspeople behind, Dr. Paulson stepped up in the wagon and motioned the men together so he could better address them. An academic speaker like Dr. Paulson had experience in setting the stage and making himself heard, but maybe he didn’t have experience in dealing with independent farmers like those of Grimes County. They never quite arranged themselves into a group that met Dr. Paulson’s standards, but he began regardless.

  “Gentlemen of Oak Springs and the surrounding farms, today you will witness a harbinger of your future. Today you will turn from the antiquated methods you and your forefathers used and become ambassadors for progress.”

  Unable to bear their scoffing looks, Adam focused on the buckles and tightened the harness again. He would have gladly gone unnoticed, but that was impossible when Dr. Paulson called him out by name.