“Beautiful,” Rebecca Lynn said.
Doctor Hensel closed his black bag. “Be sure to feed as often as possible.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Mrs. Miller said.
After he left, Mr. Miller said, “I’d like to have some time with my family.” He sat on the edge of the bed and placed a hand against his wife’s cheek.
“Congratulations,” I said.
Nanny walked Rebecca Lynn and me downstairs, out the front door, and down the porch steps. “You girls done a good job.”
Still holding hands, we headed down the hill as the rising sun sent morning streaks across a dark blue sky. I barely felt my legs. My head was spinning. The fireworks from earlier seemed like a dream.
When we got back to the cabin, Dad offered us breakfast, but the two of us girls were so worn out we skipped the meal, went up the ladder, and fell into bed, our arms wrapped around one another.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Rebecca Lynn played tag with Sully, and I sat on a log cooling myself with a fan I’d made from scraps of material and twigs, while Dad split wood. When he wasn’t painstakingly hand watering the field, or dragging trash to the other side of the barn, that’s what he did. Chop-chop-chop. It came to be that on the days when he didn’t chop, it felt like something was missing. On really hot days, like today, he chopped with his shirt off. His skinny engineer’s arms had become tan and muscular.
Rusty sat on a nearby tree stump, water dripping down his cheeks and onto the collar of his Metallica T-shirt. The end of July was so hot and steamy, sweat covered every inch of my body as well. My feet boiled inside my boots.
“We need to sell some things,” Dad said.
“What kinds of things?” I asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“How much money do we have left?”
Dad threw the ax down on a log, splitting the wood in two, creating a pair of matching halves. “Eleven cents,” he said, wiping the sweat from his neck with a dirty rag.
I picked up one half of the log and threw it onto the pile, did the same with the other, and went back to fanning myself. “Can’t we sell our crops?”
“Once they come up, and as long as they produce well, they’re going to have to sustain us through the rest of our time out here.”
As he split the next log into pieces, I thought about ways to make money.
“Maybe you could add lace to dresses, Brooke,” my sister suggested.
“I don’t think women in the backcountry care about fancy dresses,” Dad said.
He was right about that one, unless you included Prudence.
“Maybe I could bake goods for Wrightman’s Bakery,” I said. “Like bread pudding.”
“We’re out of sugar. And down to the dregs on flour.”
The gloom in my dad’s voice hovered around me for the rest of the day.
Later, after the sun had set, and Rusty had headed up to the Millers’ complaining of heat exhaustion, Wendell and I sat with our feet dipped in the pool. I shared my family’s dilemma.
“I overheard my father talking about the drought,” Wendell said. “It’s all over the state.”
There was no way the producers would let us starve to death, but it was hard not to feel the genuineness of the situation.
We sat and listened to the hooting of an owl that had recently turned us into a threesome. When the owl flew over our heads for his nightly hunting, and the golden moon was high in the sky, Wendell and I headed back to the cabin and said our goodnights. From the porch I watched his wagon disappear over the hill.
One morning, after chores were nearly done, Rebecca Lynn came running into the cabin. “Look!” she shouted, jumping up on a chair and unfolding her apron. A bunch of greenish-purple grapes rolled across the table.
“Are there any more?” Dad asked.
“About a kabillion.”
We grabbed a couple of baskets and followed her to the arbor sitting far off on a corner of the property. The entire trellis was covered in creeping vines, and colorful plump grapes were popping out everywhere. It only took a few minutes to fill two baskets.
“We can sell these!” I shouted, biting down on a grape. The juice was almost too amazing to bear.
“We can,” Dad said, smiling as he popped one into his mouth. “As long as we don’t eat them all.”
Dad’s trade plus the eleven cents got us a sack of white potatoes, a large bag of dried beans, a small bag of flour, a bag of chicken feed, and a bag of pig feed. The rest—a bushel of collards, a big glass jar of apple cider, and a pound of cured bacon—we put on credit.
Everything but the flour, potatoes, and beans were gone in a week.
Dad went to Mr. Miller and asked if we could leave Gretchen on their property so she could graze on their high grass. Our lot was mostly dirt and we couldn’t afford any more feed or hay.
“Sure,” Mr. Miller said. “Cattle ought to roam free anyway.” This meant we had farther to go to milk her, and farther to carry the heavy bucket, but I knew better than to complain.
I had to get creative in the kitchen. Rebecca Lynn and I made grape juice from the grapes that continued to produce. By adding just the right amount of fresh water and a tiny bit of molasses, it was as good as Welch’s. I made potato pie, potato bread, and potato soup. The soup was the best of the three, but even that seemed stale by the second meal, especially since we were rationing our salt. I used molasses instead of sugar on boiled oats for breakfast, and cooked beans every day for lunch. I switched to tea so there’d be enough coffee for Dad. With the fresh grass, Gretchen continued to produce milk, so between cheese and eggs, we were hanging in there.
Barely.
At night in bed, I prayed that our crops, especially the collards, would come up healthy. Dad said collards have the most vitamins.
Wendell started bringing goods from the store when he came for dinner; just enough to add to the meal so he wouldn’t feel like he was eating us out of house and home.
On the last day of July, Dad came running into the cabin like a mad man. “Real tomatoes!” he shouted.
My sister rode piggyback on Dad’s back as Sully followed us out to the field, and Rusty fought to keep up. Dad did a happy dance along the edge of the garden, grinning like he’d grown magic beanstalks. Almost overnight it seemed, a dozen or so deep red tomatoes had sprouted, hanging along the twine attached to sticks my dad jerry rigged to help the plants stand upright.
Rebecca Lynn crouched next to one of the vines. “These don’t look anything like the ones at Walmart.”
Dad laughed. “Because they’re fresh. But we need to pick them as they ripen. Whatever we pick, we eat. We’ve got some cucumbers already forming over here, and check this out.” He dug into one of the higher mounds and pulled up a carrot. He handed it to me.
“It’s so tiny,” I said, brushing off the dirt. It was the size of my pinky.
We plucked six tomatoes, one cucumber, and seven thin carrots. The collards would be ready in a few days.
“Hello there, salad,” I said, staring at basket of loot. “I didn’t realize how much I missed you.”
We also discovered our sunflowers had sprouted on the other side of the barn, reaching high into the sky like they were trying to climb up to the clouds. Rebecca Lynn had to sit on Dad’s shoulders to get to the blooms. One of the books in our kitchen said to “Carefully brush your palm over the face until the seeds fall into your hand,” which is exactly what she did, except we used a jar to catch them. My sister and I followed the book’s directions for drying the seeds, smoothing them out on the kitchen counter and laying packaging paper on top.
A day later, and still high from the harvest Dad called “Better’n gold,” he came through the back door with three bamboo sticks. “Surprise,” he said, handing each of us a stick. “All we have to do is find a great fishing spot.” He stood with one hand on a hip and the other holding the longest of the rods like a cane, as though posing for a photograph. “We can take care of ou
rselves, just like our ancestors did. We’ve got milk and cheese and eggs, and God knows we have enough dried beans to last us a year. With our garden producing, all we have to do is learn how to preserve. And now we can fish. We can be autonomous.”
“I’ve never fished before,” Rebecca Lynn said.
“I haven’t done it since I was a kid. But first we need to find a place to do it.”
I pictured the romantic pool that Wendell and I hadn’t shared with anyone, reminding myself we could go fishing in the daytime while the hooting owl slept and the moon was on the other side of the planet. It would be nothing like when Wendell and I went there. I had no choice. I had to give it away. “I know a place.” I picked up the fishing rod and placed it on my shoulder like Huck Finn. “I’ll take you there.”
We cooked in an outdoor fire pit so the cabin wouldn’t smell like fish. Dad boiled the fresh catch in a pot of rice with diced tomatoes and black pepper. Sully got a bowl of his own, his tail wagging wildly as he licked the dish clean. For dessert we ate biscuits with homemade blackberry jam. Rusty and Carl chose to eat with us, which was fine with me. I was proud of this meal. A meal we had made with things we either grew or caught on our own.
As we ate, two men in their twenties, dressed in Confederate soldier costumes and carrying satchels, appeared at our gate.
One man told us, “We’re on our way to town to buy provisions, but we got no food left to get us there.”
“We got nothing but hard knocks,” the other one said.
Dad offered our leftovers, which wasn’t much. They never offered a thank you, even after I made them coffee and gave them the last of our dessert.
The fake soldiers talked about stupid war stuff, and Dad played right along. I could see Rusty’s smile of approval as they recounted attacks on various Southern forts. At first I only pretended to be interested. But the longer they sat talking, the more authentic they became, sitting next to the fire in their uniforms, with their dirty nails and worn-out boots. Soon, it was hard to believe there wasn’t a war going on.
When the dishes were done and the sky changed colors, the two soldiers left for town as Rusty and Carl headed up the Millers’ drive. We let the fire die to a tiny glow, and nighttime country sounds surrounded us as we relocated to the front porch. As I sat strumming my guitar for my tiny audience, Wendell’s wagon came up the road. It was nearly dark, the sun setting earlier with autumn just around the corner.
Wendell jumped down from the wagon and came to the bottom of the porch steps. “Will you take a walk with me, Brooke?”
“Dad?” I asked.
In the dark, he looked like Abraham Lincoln. “One hour. It’s been a long day.”
We left Dad and Rebecca Lynn sitting on the porch rockers as we strolled around the side of the cabin.
“Why are you here so late?” I asked.
“Just wanted to see you.”
“You did?”
He nodded and took my hand.
We walked along the path that weaved its way down to the pool. On the bank, he took off his boots and socks. I did the same. I told him about the fishing poles my dad made. He agreed that fishing in the pool was a great idea.
“When we fished,” I said, “we stood right in the water. The bottom is like hard clay.”
“Is it?”
“I’ll show you.” I smiled mischievously and untied my apron.
“What are you doing?”
“Isn’t this the country? Aren’t we back in time?” I threw my apron at him and he caught it. Next, I took off my dress, letting it fall from my shoulders and down around my bare feet.
“Brooke…”
“A little skinny dippin’ nevah hurt no one no how,” I said with Southern sweetness. I took off my bonnet and threw it on a stump.
“Skinny dipping?”
“Well, maybe not all skinny…”
I stood before him in my slip and corset, feeling sexy under the moonlight. I undid my buns, slowly, methodically, until my hair fell around my shoulders. “Untie my corset.”
He slowly undid the ribbon, never taking his eyes from my own. I let the corset slide to the ground.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. “Like a painting.”
“I’m also a good swimmer. Last one in is a big old rotten egg.”
In my slip, I squatted on the edge and slid into the pool, floated in the cool water on my back, and waited. “Well?”
Wendell removed his hat and laid it on the stump next to my bonnet. He slid his suspenders down, pulled his white shirt over his head, and took off his wool pants. Underneath he was dressed like my dad, in a one-piece shorts and tank top combination. His arms were muscular and his legs were almost as hairy as mine.
He frog-dove into the water and popped up beside me. For the better part of an hour we treaded, not speaking, just listening to our occasional giggles, as the tree tops rustled in the nighttime breeze. We swam toward each other, wrapped our arms around one another’s necks, kissed, moved apart, and came together again. The ripples we made were wide and endless. If it had been up to me, we would have stayed in the pool all night.
“It’s getting late,” he said after a while, swimming to the edge. He pulled himself up and helped me onto the bank. When I leaned into him, he whispered, “I’m not supposed to fall for you this way.” He took my face in his rough hands and tilted it back until the moonlight fell across my cheeks. He pushed my wet hair away from my forehead. He placed his soft lips against mine and held them there for what felt like eternity. He tasted minty, as he always did, and I wondered if his mother had given him peppermint leaves to chew on. I heard my thumping heartbeat underneath the singing of crickets and frogs. When the gentle kiss was over, he leaned back. A deep furrow appeared between his eyebrows, his eyes like dark emeralds. “Are you falling for me?”
I nodded, speechless. There was so much I wanted to say, so much I wanted him to know. Real things from my other life. Another life that seemed light years away from where we now stood. I wanted to tell him everything, about my mom dying, about how sad and empty I’d been. But I was afraid Wendell wouldn’t care about the old Brooke; it was this Brooke he was falling for.
And as I fell into his kiss once again, and my heart swelled up bigger than a hot air balloon, I was suddenly confused about which Brooke was the real one.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Sully’s barking startled me out of a dream of kisses and sweet talk.
I sat up in the dark. “What’s wrong?”
Dad was already halfway down the ladder. “Stay here.”
As soon as the front door closed, Rebecca Lynn and I pulled back the cheesecloth from the bedroom window.
Dad was shouting, “Go on, get out of here! Shoo! Shoo!”
The crack of a gun exploded through the dark, and I ran down the steps. The rifle over the mantel was gone. Out the front door I went, my sister right behind me. I held onto Rebecca Lynn’s wrist so she didn’t go traipsing after him, and together we waited.
His footsteps brought him back to the porch, Sully by his side.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Deer.”
“Did you kill it?” Rebecca Lynn cried.
“Not it. Them. A herd. And no, I didn’t kill any.”
“Why did you shoot at them?” I asked.
“They were chewing on our crops.”
“How bad is it?”
Dad shook his head. “Won’t know until the sun comes up.”
We followed him into the house and ate our tiny breakfast in the dark, waiting for daylight to show us how bad it really was.
About a third of our crops were destroyed. Sprouts were chewed to bits. Split tomatoes sat rotting on the soil. The cucumbers were mostly trampled. Holes were all that remained of the mini carrots.
Sully ran through the early morning field sniffing the deer scat as Dad plucked shredded leaves from the mist-covered earth and walked the width of the field. His loud and angry voice bounce
d across the lifeless garden: “What in God’s name?”
My sister and I hopped over the holes and deer tracks to where Dad squatted at the field’s edge.
“Corn kernels,” he said.
I let a handful of dirt and kernels sift through my fingers. “But we didn’t plant any corn.”
The three of us followed the perimeter of the field. It was edged with corn kernels all the way to the border of the forest. Dad pulled off his hat, smoothed down his hair, and put his hat back on. “Boot tracks.”
We stood near the woods, our heads cocked to the side, as if waiting for the trees to solve the puzzle.
“Someone wanted those deer to pay us a visit,” Dad said. “Maybe I ought to speak to the sheriff.”
As Dad and my sister went to ready the wagon, something fluttered at the corner of the field closest to the road, catching my eye. I walked over to it. It was a bonnet, caught on a stick that held one of the tomato plants. A pretty purple bonnet. I yanked it loose and held it in my hands, rubbing the material and poking my finger through the tiny hole. My gaze moved up toward the blue house, the pit in my stomach filling with rage.
It was hard to be excited about going into town after someone had sabotaged our crops, AKA our food. Dad had worked his ass off to make sure our garden was tended to. Every day he slaved in his field, checking the leaves, praying for rain which rarely came, dragging buckets of water from the springhouse to his seedlings.
As we headed down the road in the wagon, I glanced up at the blue house. Prudence was jealous of Wendell and me, it was that simple. Who else would have a reason for killing our crops? Our family was lucky to have been spared an eviction for my earlier stunt, but that didn’t matter, since we’d be forced to leave as losers…or stay and starve to death while the Miller Family sipped tea and ate crumpets. My imagination heard laughter coming from the wraparound porch.
We passed Doctor Hensel’s house, the Duffys’ farm, and finally the schoolhouse. I stared at the empty building, ashamed I’d wasted most of my junior year, suddenly craving the smell of Sharpies, pink erasers, and loose-leaf paper.
Upside Down in a Laura Ingalls Town Page 21
