Hope in the Land

by Olivia Newport

  “Your responses must have been more than satisfactory,” Henry said, “or they would not have selected your family to continue. However, I will need your mother’s involvement going forward.”

  Polly said nothing. Henry would discover soon enough that her mother was not interested in exact quantities when she knew intuitively whether she had enough to feed her family or take to market.

  “I see your sisters,” Henry said.

  “We can go into the rows,” Polly said, “and you can see for yourself why we need everyone’s help.” Even Bea and Rebecca would be there, with their boppli napping within sight.

  “I thought you said they were digging potatoes,” Henry said.

  “They are.”

  “What are they swinging around?”

  “Sickles. Some of them are clearing the vines so it’s easier for the others to dig.”

  They kept walking.

  “I’ll never eat another potato without appreciating how it reached the table,” Henry said.

  “Did your family never have a garden?” Polly asked.

  “When she had cash, my grandmother just walked to the market a few blocks away and bought what she needed. When she didn’t, someone from church would show up with a bag of dried beans or rice. Nobody in my neighborhood had a plot for a garden.”

  Polly turned her head to glance at Henry, but he kept his eyes forward. The few sentences he spoke raised dozens of questions in her mind, and something about his tone saddened her. What a dismal childhood he must have had.

  “Come on,” she said. “I’ll show you what everyone is doing.”

  Polly lengthened her stride and led Henry past two wagons partially loaded with burlap bags of potatoes and to the rows where the Grabill family had arranged themselves for the greatest efficiency. Polly’s brothers lifted bags into the wagons. Lena and Nancy swung sickles to clear away vines. Nancy had always wanted to use the sickle. She was only twelve, but her courage never faltered—and she was far more coordinated with farm tools than Polly, who had eschewed the same task when given the opportunity. The rest of the family squatted and dug through the soil for potatoes.

  “So this is how it’s done,” Henry said.

  “Every year,” Polly said. “We can get closer. Maybe you’d like to dig for a few.”

  “We don’t have to do that.”

  “At least come and take a closer look.”

  Polly’s bare toes squished into earth as she moved between rows.

  “Hi, Polly!”

  “Hi, Betsy.” Polly rotated slightly to grin at her youngest sister. The loam beneath her right heel sank, and she stumbled back one step.

  “Watch out!”

  Betsy’s cry came too late. Nancy’s sickle sliced toward Polly’s foot.

  Nancy had been the one to scream, but Polly was the one who might have lost a foot. Betsy’s warning cry had disturbed the arc of Nancy’s swing enough that the sickle had not sliced across Polly’s foot but instead drew a long gash along the outside edge. Polly fell against Henry. The family dropped their implements and hovered, finally lifting Polly into one of the wagons for someone to drive her home while someone else galloped to the Swains’, the nearest house with a telephone.

  The doctor had come and gone now. Before he stitched the wound closed, the doctor assured everyone that Polly would heal. Polly’s foot was wrapped in white bandages and elevated on a boxy ottoman. She sat upright, but her eyes were closed. Perhaps she was awake and repeating the afternoon’s event the same way Henry was. He stood with one shoulder leaning against a wall of the front room, watching her. On the floor beside her chair were wooden crutches meant for someone shorter than Polly.

  “It’s all right, Henry.” Polly opened her eyes.

  “It’s not all right,” he said, coming away from the wall. “Your foot.”

  “I’m a clod,” she muttered. “I can’t even stand in the dirt without hurting myself.”

  “You were showing me the potatoes.”

  “I should have been digging them.”

  Henry swallowed and ran his tongue along the inside of his lower lip.

  “Would you like a glass of water?” he asked.

  “I can wait for supper,” Polly said. “I suppose I’ll have to eat off a tray to keep my foot up.”

  “I’ll go see.”

  In the kitchen Gloria and Lena were arranging platters of cold sandwiches and fruit. Betsy set a stack of plates on the table. They all looked up at him. No one spoke.

  “I want to be helpful,” Henry said. “If Polly is to eat her supper off a tray in the other room, I would like to keep her company.”

  “I’m sure she would like that,” Gloria said. “With all the commotion this afternoon, the meal will be simple, as you can see.”

  “We were supposed to have potato salad,” Betsy muttered. “No one wants it now.”

  “Hush, Betsy,” Gloria said.

  Lena opened a wide upper cabinet and pulled out a tray. Betsy handed her two plates from the table. Gloria arranged the roast beef and cheese sandwiches before adding a boiled egg, half an apple, and half a peach to each plate.

  Although today’s tour had not gotten as far as the orchards, Henry knew the Grabills grew apples and peaches. Most likely they’d made the cheese with their own milk, baked the bread from flour ground from their own wheat, collected the eggs from the poultry shed, and slaughtered a feed cow that might have been Henry’s neighbor in the barn not so long ago. As far as Henry could see, this meal had not required any cash outlay. He would have to double-check how to enter such a reality on the government forms.

  “Make sure she keeps her foot up.” Gloria poured two glasses of milk and added them to the tray before handing it to Henry.

  “I will.”

  “Are you a praying man, Agent Edison?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Make sure Polly has a moment of silent prayer before her meal.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “She’ll need to keep her foot up or the swelling will be awful.”

  “I’ll remind her.”

  “The doctor says she won’t be able to work in the field for at least two or three weeks. We can’t take any chance of infecting the cut before it heals.”

  Henry had only known Polly one day, but already he knew she wouldn’t stay down for three weeks.

  In the front room, Polly had dozed off again. Henry set the tray down. His hunger could wait until she woke.

  Polly swallowed a lump of sandwich. She had eaten only half of the food her mother put on the tray, but it was the best she could do. Pain and appetite were not pleasant companions. Henry had cleared his plate twenty minutes ago but sat patiently while she picked at hers. Apparently he was not one of those people who felt compelled to make conversation with a person who obviously did not feel well, and this suited Polly.

  “Here,” she said, “you may as well have the rest.”

  “Are you sure you’re finished?” Henry said.

  Polly nodded, more than sure. She lifted the plate toward him and he took it. This was his fourth meal at the Grabill house. How many would it take before his gaunt face would begin to fill out?

  Wincing, she sat back in her chair.

  “I wish I could do something to ease your pain,” Henry said.

  He bit into her leftover half sandwich with a mixture of timidity and enthusiasm. Polly would get one of her sisters to wrap up some food for him to take out to the barn later in case he wanted a snack while he worked.

  At least Thomas had not been on the farm to see her dismal performance in the field that afternoon. Yost would tell him soon enough though.

  The cleanup sounds from the kitchen were dying down. Thanks to her, the evening meal had been unadorned, making clearing away simple as well.

  Just as Polly’s eyes drooped toward closing and she wondered how she would get up the stairs to put herself to bed properly, Lillian’s discordant voice drilled into the silence.
/>   “I’ve misplaced my Budget.”

  It wasn’t Lillian’s Budget. The Grabills had always carried their own subscription to the weekly publication of Amish news. Lillian simply appropriated it as soon as it arrived. She was talking about last week’s issue, which by now everyone had passed around.

  “I haven’t seen it,” Polly said. “What did you want to look at?”

  “A Zimmerman girl in Indiana is getting married,” Lillian said. “I believe I knew the family while I visited with my brother.”

  Visited. Lillian had stayed six years.

  “Leah Zimmerman,” Polly said. “She is betrothed to Cletus Troyer, and they plan to wed on the third Thursday of October. The groom’s grandparents will travel from Nebraska.”

  Lillian rummaged through a stack on a side table. “I also wanted to look at a recipe to figure out why it deserved to be in the Budget.”

  “Which one?” Polly asked.

  “An apple ring cake.”

  “It has twice the cinnamon of any other recipe I’ve seen, there’s an extra tablespoon of butter, and the confectioners’ sugar is not melted as thinly on the top.”

  Lillian put her hands on her hips. “Well, if you see it, let me know.”

  She shuffled out of the room.

  Henry looked at Polly, wide-eyed. “How did you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Tell her everything she wanted to know.”

  “I’ve read the issue.”

  “So had she.”

  “I … guess I read more carefully.”

  He bit into the sandwich again.

  Her explanation had not persuaded him. Polly turned her head from Henry’s gaze.

  CHAPTER 9

  I’ll lose my mind if I have to sit in this chair all day.” Polly pushed away her mother’s effort to fluff the pillow on the ottoman so Polly could prop her foot up.

  “Your sisters told me they heard you moving all night,” Gloria said. “You didn’t sleep.”

  “My foot will hurt no matter what, so I may as well be upright and useful.” Polly picked up her crutches and steadied them on the floor. Getting up the stairs last night and down again this morning required the assistance of two sisters. Surely moving around on the main level would be simpler. She pushed up on her good foot and hunched over the crutches.

  “You have that expression on your face,” Gloria said.

  “Which expression?”

  “Even when you were a little girl, you never wanted anyone to know when something hurt.”

  Polly suppressed a wince.

  “You heard the doctor. You’re not fit to work in the field or the poultry sheds or the barn. You must rest.”

  “What about the peas?” Polly said. Most of their neighbors grew peas only in the spring, but Polly’s mother consistently coaxed another round to yield in the early fall. “I saw the basket in the corner of the kitchen. You must have been in the garden early. I could shell them and keep my foot up at the same time.”

  “I suppose.”

  “On the front porch,” Polly said. She could work in the shade but still watch the sun swell and saturate the day. The sweet taste of fresh-picked peas already tantalized her tongue.

  “All right,” Gloria said. “Let’s get you settled first, and then I’ll get the peas. We can have them with dinner. But I’m going to get you one of Daed‘s shoes to wear over your bandages. I don’t want any dirt getting in.”

  Polly didn’t argue. If wearing her father’s shoe on one foot was what it took to be outside, she would pay the price. In a few weeks, when the cooler weather settled in, the whole family would be wearing shoes. She was just getting a head start on the inevitable. A few minutes later she was seated on the porch with the peas within reach. Gloria left two large bowls on a table, one for the peas and one for the discarded empty shells.

  “I’ll just be in the poultry sheds this morning,” Gloria said. “Close enough to hear if you call.”

  “I won’t call,” Polly said. “I’ll be fine.”

  A farm was rarely quiet. Chickens squawking, cows mooing, wagon wheels creaking, barn doors heaving open and closed, voices rising and falling. Alone on the porch with her bowls, Polly felt at the center of a cocoon, familiar noises in symphony around her yet swaddled in stillness. Slowly the basket emptied and the bowls filled, peas in one, shells in the other.

  When the bushes lining the lane close to the house rustled, a sound lingered as one that did not belong. Polly’s impulse was to get up and investigate—at least go to the railing and lean toward the movement. She let her hands lull.

  There it was again.

  Polly huffed. With her injured foot propped up, peas in her lap, and her ill-fitting crutches slightly out of reach, she would never get to the railing in time to see what was in the bushes.

  Nervous or not, Henry was ready to begin interviews. After Polly’s injury, he reconsidered beginning with the Grabills. He would probably get better answers if he let the household find its new equilibrium for a day or two. He’d been on the farm for nearly forty-eight hours now. One night of tossing and turning. One night sleeping off exhaustion. Six filling meals. Fifteen Grabill family names sorted out, including the babies.

  Henry put several sets of forms in his satchel, even though he doubted he would need them today. Running a comb through his hair and straightening his necktie, he wished for a mirror. Then he walked past the empty stalls, out the front of the barn, and toward the spot where his car had been parked for two days in front of the house.

  Polly was on the front porch, her lap full of something while her head and shoulders tipped forward in precarious vigilance.

  Henry paused at the bottom of the porch steps. “Everything all right?”

  “Just thought I heard something,” Polly said. “Do you see anything unusual in the bushes?”

  What was usual? Henry glanced into the bushes and hoped the gesture was convincing.

  “I don’t see anything,” he said.

  “Hmm.” Polly leaned back, her hands gripping the rim of a metal bowl, and met Henry’s eye. “Heading out?”

  “Figured it’s time.”

  “Sorry I held you up yesterday. You were supposed to have a quick tour and be on your way.”

  “It’s no problem. Now I’ve had time to study your map.”

  “If you get lost, just ask anyone for directions. Folks are friendly.”

  If he got lost, it would be his own fault. No one could provide a better sense of the details of the county’s geography than Polly’s map. It was too bad none of his forms included a space to write excellent mapping skills as a mark of household productivity.

  “I thought I would introduce myself and see about setting up some appointments to interview and observe,” Henry said.

  “A good plan.”

  He’d read the handbook from cover to cover twice, in addition to the training he received before he left Philadelphia. If he wasn’t ready now, he never would be.

  “Will we see you back tonight for supper?” Polly asked.

  “I would think so.” Henry jiggled his keys. Where else would he go? The few coins in his pocket had not multiplied while he slept.

  “You’ll miss the peas at dinner.”

  Polly snapped open a pod, emptied it, and tossed it aside, provoking a memory of Henry’s grandmother repeating the same motions dozens of times.

  “Keep your foot up,” he said. “See you later.”

  He opened the driver’s door and slid behind the wheel. Even after Polly’s accident, he should have come out yesterday to start the car and drive up the lane and back. The Model T would be more temperamental after sitting for two days. Henry laid his satchel on the seat beside him before inserting the key. He pulled the spark lever up, moved the gear shift to neutral, checked to be sure the gas lever was in the proper position, and pulled the choke knob.

  Nothing happened.

  Gloria lifted one hen, suspecting it had stopped laying. Th
e feathers were too clean and smooth for a hen producing eggs and trying to sit on them, the wattle was pale, and the feet were slightly too yellow. The hen’s favorite nesting box had occasional eggs, but Gloria suspected they came from a less particular chicken that couldn’t be bothered to sit on them. She would give the hen two more days. After that, without evidence of an egg, it would be headed for the soup pot. The girls had collected dozens of eggs already that morning. Nancy was the one showing the most knack for inspecting the underside of a hen and pronouncing whether it was still laying. She was almost as accurate as Gloria.

  Mothers with new chicks were screened off in another section. A few pullets were old enough that they should begin laying soon. The yard was full of hens, with a few roosters, pecking at the ground. In addition to providing the family with chicken and eggs, the poultry sheds produced eggs to barter with in town and chickens to barter with the butcher for pork, since Marlin had decided he’d had enough of raising pigs. Gloria also sold chicks to other farms to replenish their chicken coops, or slaughtered chickens she sold to English families in town.

  The sheds were getting crowded, though, and it wasn’t good for the animals. Gloria vacillated between intentionally cutting back to a more manageable spread or talking to Marlin about another chicken shed. The boys could build something once the harvest was in. Maybe she’d even start over with a proper poultry barn instead of the cobbled sheds that marked the expansion of business.

  Gloria released the hen and brushed her hands on her work apron. She had dinner to think about. The three chickens supplying the day’s midday meal were already plucked and awaiting her intention in the icebox.

  Squinting, Gloria emerged from the sheds and into the main yard. There was no telling what Polly might be up to. Instead of rounding the house to go in the back door, Gloria circled to the front to check on Polly. By now even the slowest pea sheller in the family should have enough tiny green spheres shucked into the bowl for a meal.

  Henry slammed his car door and pounded on the hood.

  “What’s the matter?” Polly called to him.