“It won’t start.” He opened the engine cover. “Would it be too much to ask if for one day I could count on my car to do what I need?”
“Well, it got you here, didn’t it?” Polly leaned forward. “What do you think it is?”
Gloria rolled her eyes. As if Polly would understand anything about an English car engine.
Henry removed his suit coat and rolled up his sleeves. His head wagged in exasperation. “This is going to take awhile.”
Gloria strode toward them. “Agent Edison,” she said, “in an hour we’ll be sitting down to a nice chicken dinner. You may as well stay and eat first.”
“I don’t think I’m going anywhere in this contraption anyway.” Henry leaned his forehead into one palm. “I have to get started. There’s a schedule.”
“Polly can take you in a cart,” Gloria said.
Polly’s head snapped toward Gloria. “Mamm!”
“What about her foot?” Henry asked.
“Getting in and out of a cart will not be as difficult as using one of the buggies. Will you promise to make sure she doesn’t do anything foolish?”
“I can try.” He scrunched up his face, as if he knew already the strength of Polly’s will.
“Help her in and out of the wagon?”
“Of course.”
“Will you let her lean on you if she needs to?”
“Certainly.”
“Then we have a bargain.”
This was not what Polly had in mind when she said she wanted to be upright and useful. Driving an English man around the neighboring farms? What good would that do on the Grabill farm, where there was so much to accomplish? Her mother had arranged a chair and footstool at one end of the table so Polly could eat with the family. Polly didn’t look at Henry though. It wasn’t her fault his car wouldn’t start. Why was her mother so quick to volunteer her?
Once the last of the dishes was cleared from the table, Polly couldn’t avoid Henry any longer. She mustered pleasantries.
“Shall we go?”
“At your convenience,” Henry said.
Polly could hardly claim inconvenience when all she would do for the afternoon was sit, and she could do that in a wagon.
“I’ll need my crutches,” she said.
Henry fetched them from where they leaned against the wall, and Polly pushed up on her good foot.
“Do you know how to hitch a horse to a buggy?” she asked.
Henry paled.
Sylvia brushed past them. “I’ll do it.”
By the time Polly got out the back door, down the steps, and over to the stable, Sylvia had a buggy horse hitched to the family’s small open-air cart.
As Polly stood on one foot to lift her crutches into the cart bed and prepare to hoist herself onto the driving bench, Henry kept one hand under her elbow and the other at her back. His stance was preventive, his hands doing nothing more than brush the fabric of her clothing in readiness to steady her if her balance faltered. Still, the tingle was peculiar. Other than her father and brothers, no man had ever assisted her before. Thomas took her home from Singings, but she climbed up onto his buggy bench herself. Henry seemed to anticipate her movements in a way Thomas didn’t.
Polly shook off the sensation and picked up the reins.
CHAPTER 10
Henry had ridden in trolleys, automobiles, and train carriages but never in a farm wagon. Before he was old enough to go to school, the truck farmers brought their produce into Philadelphia in wagons, but the sight was rare now. Automotive trucks were the norm. Even the morning milkman had a truck now. Henry blinked away the memory and focused on the map in his lap. A sudden sway and a quick righting of equilibrium meant they were in motion.
“I thought to start at the Oberholzer farm,” he said, his finger on the square that Polly’s neat script had labeled as the Oberholzer house. “From there we can make a wide circle to the Wyse farm and then route back this direction for the Lichty and Rupp land—if I’m reading your map correctly.”
“You’re reading it correctly,” Polly said.
The horse trotted up the lane, and Polly, her injured foot resting on a pillow on the floorboard, slowed the animal to negotiate a turn onto the main road. Instead of turning right, toward the Oberholzers’, she turned left.
“This is not the way.” Henry tapped the map.
“This is Thursday,” Polly said.
Henry hardly needed the reminder. He was already a day behind his initial schedule.
“If you’d been able to start your car this morning,” Polly said, “your plan might have worked. But now it’s afternoon.”
Henry pressed his lips together. Couldn’t she just get to the point?
“No one will be home at the Oberholzers’,” Polly said. “Well, at least not the person you want to speak to. Thursday afternoon is when Mrs. Oberholzer goes to visit her mother-in-law, who lives with her husband’s sister. It takes all afternoon. She leaves a cold lunch for her family and they have supper late when she gets back. So you see, you’re too late.”
Henry threw back the outer flap of his satchel, exposing the contents to riffle through the files. His careful planning had been for nothing. At least he had not wasted valuable gasoline driving miles in a needless direction.
“Then where are we going?” he asked.
“The Rupps’.”
“What about the Lichtys?”
“I’m sure Mrs. Lichty only filled out the first set of forms because she knew the others had. She’ll wait to hear if they agree to see you before making up her mind.”
Polly had mentioned nothing of this in their conversations. Nor had she left any notes on her map. He could hardly argue with information he didn’t have when he made his plans. So much of the day was lost.
The horse made steady progress, but it was slow compared to an automobile, even Henry’s recalcitrant vehicle.
“Can we go any faster?” he said.
Polly moved the reins a few inches in his direction. “Would you like to drive?”
“No, thank you.”
If a young Amish woman with only one working foot could capably manage the rig, Henry could only diminish her opinion of him if he admitted he’d never driven anything but his hand-me-down automobile. He and his grandmother had walked everywhere they needed to go.
“Would you like to know anything about the Rupps?” Polly repented of ruffling Henry with her terse insights about the Oberholzer and Wyse routines. The information was needful, but her tone was not.
Henry touched the edges of several folders and pulled out the right one. He opened it and read aloud. “Husband and wife, both thirty-six, seven children ranging from fifteen to two.”
“That sounds right,” Polly said. “I can never keep them all straight. The twin girls are my undoing, and they have a sister not quite a year older who looks just like them. Once I get confused about which one is which, I trip over everybody’s name.”
“It seems like one of the smaller farms in the area,” Henry said.
“It is.” Inside its shoe, Polly’s foot ached. She left Henry to review the file again, though he’d said he had prepared both last night and this morning. He wouldn’t need to be an expert on anyone’s farm if all he planned to do was introduce himself and set appointments. Naerfich. His nerves were his own. Polly could not soothe them, but she could urge the standardbred to a brisker pace.
Henry noticed the difference and looked up from his papers.
They said little more until she turned the wagon onto the Rupp farm, where the house sat near the road and the acreage sprawled behind it. Polly pulled as close to the house as she could. She would have no choice but to let Henry help her down to the ground. As long as she was here, she may as well help make the introductions.
The dreaded question came quickly when Mrs. Rupp opened the front door with a toddler on her hip.
“What happened to your foot?”
Polly settled her weight on her good foot and stood straight, as if
she didn’t need the crutches in her armpits. “These things happen,” she said. “I’d like to introduce you to Agent Henry Edison. He’s from the government’s research project. I’m sure you remember answering some questions about your family and farm.”
Mrs. Rupp gestured toward some chairs on the porch, and Polly eased into one of them.
“Thank you for participating,” Henry said. “I’m here to gather data through the implementation of three additional instruments that will investigate closely the specifics of particular household behaviors, processes, and assets with the objective of drawing reliable conclusions regarding productivity and consumption.”
Confusion clouded Mrs. Rupp’s eyes as the child on her lap tried to wiggle down. Polly recognized everything Henry said as coming from his agent handbook, but if he wanted the Amish wives to agree to his interviews, he would have to stop talking like a government document and more like an interested human being.
“Agent Edison has forms the government would like him to fill out,” Polly said. “In order to do this, he’ll need to ask some questions about how you run your household and depend on you to give the best answers you can.”
“What kinds of questions?” Mrs. Rupp held tight to the squirming child.
“What you produce on your farm,” Polly said. “What you provide for yourselves, what you use cash for, what kind of equipment you have.”
“That doesn’t seem so hard.”
Henry leaned forward in his chair. “So you are willing to continue your participation?”
Mrs. Rupp nodded. “But not until next week. Most of the children go back to school. Come on Tuesday.”
Henry helped Polly back into the small wagon.
“You rescued me,” he said as she picked up the reins.
Polly shrugged. “Relax a little more.”
That was easy for Polly to say. She had a large family to look after her. She could be married by this time next year and running her own farm household. Nothing that happened in the next few weeks was likely to change her future. But everything could change for Henry. He took a small black diary out of his satchel and entered his appointment with Mrs. Rupp for next Tuesday before checking Polly’s map again.
“It would be logical to go to the Coblentz farm next, wouldn’t it?”
Polly didn’t answer.
“Since we’ve come this far out,” Henry said, “it would be on the way back to the main cluster of farms.”
Polly’s eyes did not leave the road. “This might not be the best day to go to the Coblentz farm.”
“Does Mrs. Coblentz also visit her mother-in-law on Thursday afternoons?”
“Of course not. Her mother-in-law passed years ago.”
Henry watched the road for a couple of minutes.
“Thomas Coblentz is a friend of your brother’s, isn’t he?” Henry said.
Polly nodded.
“I thought you all got on well the other day at dinner.”
“We did,” Polly said. “We do.”
“So you’re fond of Thomas.”
Polly stiffened.
“I mean, your family is fond of Thomas.”
“Yes,” Polly said softly. “Very.”
Two days earlier, when Henry observed Polly and Thomas at the same elongated midday table, their eyes had met. More than once. Her reluctance now made no sense.
“Is something … amiss … between you and Thomas Coblentz?” Henry asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“He’s already met me and knows my purpose,” Henry said. “Surely he mentioned it to his mother and she will be expecting me at some point.”
“At some point. But today is not the right time.” For the second time that afternoon, Polly turned the rig in the opposite direction of Henry’s expectation. “We’ll go to the Wyse farm. She’s not in the field as much as most of the wives on your list. We’ll probably catch her at home.”
By now Henry had studied the map enough to visualize the new route that was emerging. The Wyse farm was about as far from their current position as the Coblentzes’, but in the opposite direction. Rather than turn them back in the general direction of the Grabill land, the destination would double the length of their return.
“All right,” Henry said. “But it will still make sense to stop in at the Swains’ on the way back to your farm, don’t you agree?”
Polly’s head tilted back and she let loose a full-throated laugh, trapping Henry between amusement and befuddlement.
Minerva set a plate of cookies and a pot of tea on the coffee table that nearly met the knees of her two guests. When she answered the first round of questions, weeks ago, she reasoned the information was harmless enough. It was an opportunity to show the government how well they were doing. The inquiry had been general, and the young woman who collected the forms had been amiable. Now Minerva was less sure she liked the sound of the questions Agent Edison proposed to ask. She poured his tea and handed him the cup.
“The information will be invaluable,” he said. “Our country will have more complete information of the economics of farm life and in particular the role that women like you play in the home.”
“Please help yourself to a cookie,” Minerva said. She needed time to think. If there was a pothole waiting in the middle of this survey, she did not intend to fall into it. She handed Polly a cup of tea. At least Mr. Edison could see quickly that the Swains lived in more comfort than the Grabills. Drapes on the windows, pillows along the sofa, a delicate china pattern, a generously upholstered easy chair—the evidence was obvious.
Minerva perched on the edge of a straight chair. “If this is what the president wants,” she said, “then I suppose it is my patriotic duty to cooperate. I have no doubt that Mr. Roosevelt has in mind the best interest of the country.”
The front door opened, and Minerva’s daughter entered.
“Oh, Rose.” Minerva stood. “You’ve come home safely.”
“I’ve only been for a walk with Sally.” Rose removed the shapeless straw hat that Minerva suspected she wore to aggravate her mother and hung it, crooked, on the hat rack against the wall. The light catching the auburn highlights in her hair, Rose turned and grinned. “We have guests!”
“This is Agent Henry Edison,” Minerva said, “a representative of the government for the important work that President Roosevelt has specially commissioned.”
Mr. Edison stood. Rose offered her hand, and he took it.
“Very pleased to meet you, Agent Edison,” Rose said.
“Likewise, Miss Swain.”
If this strange man did not drop her daughter’s hand this instant, Minerva might slap him.
Rose withdrew her hand, but her eyes sparkled.
“Mr. Edison,” Minerva said, “I can see you Monday afternoon at two o’clock.”
“That’s Labor Day, Mother,” Rose said.
“Mr. Edison is here to learn about life on the farms,” Minerva said. “The first lesson is that farm life never stops.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Swain.” Henry turned and offered a hand to Polly. “Then we’ll be out of your way and let you be on with your day.”
Minerva moved to the door, opened it, and waited for Polly to hobble toward it on her crutches. She closed it behind her departing guests and straightened Rose’s hat on its hook.
“Rose, dear,” she said, “remember our dinner party tomorrow night.”
“You’ve reminded me a hundred times,” Rose said. “I’m going up to my room to put on a more comfortable dress.”
CHAPTER 11
Twenty minutes into his Friday morning walk, Henry regretted the black tie around his neck and loosened it. Ten minutes later he could no longer grasp what had prodded him to wear his long-sleeved shirt. The month of September was only four days old—practically still August with its ruthless sun and implacable humidity. So far he’d met only a handful of farmwives. No one else would recognize him as an agent of the United States government, so why h
ad he thought it necessary to dress like one? By the time he reached what the local residents referred to as town, a distance of about three miles from the Grabill farm, Henry’s sweaty shirt stuck to his skin and he had pushed the sleeves up to his elbows.
Twice he had tried to coax his diffident car engine to perform an appropriate electrical circuitry. The car was dead, and he had no idea why. But none of the women he visited the previous day had agreed to interview dates until at least Monday, so his Friday agenda consisted of two tasks: mail a letter and make a phone call. Neither required assistance, so he left the Grabills’ on his own, certain he could find the small dot on the map that served as the center of the surrounding farm community.
The closer he got to town, the more easily Henry saw the railroad tracks. The presence of a platform only two blocks off the main road, though no covered depot, reassured Henry that Philadelphia was not so far away, even without an automobile.
The streets were a methodical arrangement of an obvious business district and a series of arteries three or four blocks long in each direction. Redbrick structures occupied Main Street. A bank. A hardware store. A general store. A post office. A newspaper office. A café. A five- and ten-cent store. Assorted small businesses, including housewares and men’s and women’s clothing. A Baptist church and a German Lutheran church. The sight of a drugstore, with its soda fountain, magnified the parched state of Henry’s throat, but he did not dare spend any of the coins in his pocket on such an indulgence. A man slouched against the brick of the bank, and three more loitered across the street outside businesses bearing signs that said NOT HIRING.
Henry’s steps slowed. Philadelphia had its share of men like these—crossing the county or the country on the freight trains, hoping that in the next town there might be a job, or staying ahead of small debts they could not pay. Clearly there were no jobs here.
At the post office, Henry pulled his letter from his shirt pocket, lamenting the dampness it had absorbed and hoping it would nevertheless arrive at Coralie’s house smelling only of paper and ink. She would have his news next week, just as he had promised.
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