Clammy fingers on her eyelids startled her spine straight. A few seconds later she stared into Rose’s face.
“What are you doing here?” Rose asked.
“Waiting for Henry.”
Rose glanced toward the house. “I hope Mother behaves herself.”
Polly laughed. “I have a feeling Henry is tougher than he looks.” She knew almost nothing about his past, other than that he grew up attending a Lutheran church with his grandmother and had worked his way through college, but his brand of determination struck her as coming from experience.
“For Henry’s sake, you’d better be right,” Rose said.
“Come over tonight and form your own opinion.” Polly plunged into the unexpected opportunity. “It’s Labor Day. We’re churning ice cream and we’ll have three kinds of berries to put on top of it.”
“I’m sure Pop will let me use the truck,” Rose said. “Maybe it’s a good idea to make sure Henry doesn’t need gluing back together after interviewing Mother.”
They chatted until the front door opened and Henry emerged.
“Uh-oh,” Rose murmured. “He’s in a hurry.”
Polly had to agree that Henry descended the front porch steps at a rate more given to escape than to peaceful conclusion.
“Nice to see you again,” Rose said to Henry.
“Likewise.”
“I’ll see you both after supper.” Rose sauntered toward the house.
Henry climbed in the cart. “What did she mean?”
“I invited her for ice cream.” As she picked up the reins, Polly examined Henry’s face. Flushed. Perspiration at the temples. A misplaced curl hanging at the center of his forehead. “Was it that bad?”
“It was a satisfactory interview.” Henry took a handkerchief from a pocket and wiped his brow.
“Did she give you straight answers?”
“Circuitous might be a more apt description. At this rate, we’ll have to meet several times to finish all the questionnaires.”
Polly nodded and pulled onto the main road. “Ice cream will help your recovery.”
“I do not need to recover.” Henry bristled. “It’s a warm day. That’s all.”
“Henry, many people find Minerva trying.”
“Mrs. Swain is a research subject,” Henry said. “I am completely capable of maintaining my professional demeanor.”
“I never meant to suggest otherwise.” Polly glanced at him again.
“I realize we come from different backgrounds,” Henry said, “but I’ve been hired to do a job and I will do it.”
What had Minerva said to him? Henry had been a little nervous when he went inside, but now he was turning himself inside out.
“Henry, I’m sorry.” Polly did not know what she was apologizing for, but it seemed the thing to say.
“How hard can it be to drive one of these things?” Henry reached over and grabbed the reins, leaving Polly little option but to surrender.
He pulled too hard and unevenly, and the mare listed to one side in an attempt to stop.
Then he relaxed too fully, and the mare went into motion at an awkward angle.
“Henry—” Polly had offered to give him a lesson, not to thrust him into another situation he was unprepared for.
“I have a college degree,” he snapped. “I’ll figure it out.”
Polly gripped the bench with both hands.
CHAPTER 16
No matter how much oil Daed put on the front screen door, the hinges squeaked when someone came out of the house. Betsy and Nancy alternated turning the handle on one ice cream freezer in the yard, with Rose supervising, while Polly sat with the other braced between her knees on the porch. An old quilt in her lap kept the melting ice from drenching her dress. It wouldn’t have bothered her. In her mind part of the appeal of making ice cream was the cool mess it made on a warm evening. Anyone who took a turn would get wet.
Thomas hadn’t come. At least not yet.
It was Henry who came out the front door.
“I’ll take a turn,” he said. “I haven’t done this in a long time.”
“Did you make ice cream growing up?”
“Not too much.” Henry knelt on one knee and shifted the crank so he could reach it. “The soda fountain sold it. On my birthday my grandmother always treated me to an ice cream soda.”
“Only on your birthday?”
Henry shrugged. “Special days. It was just the two of us, but until I was old enough to at least throw papers, there wasn’t a lot of extra.”
Polly drew a breath as if to speak but closed her lips. If he wanted to say more, he would.
Henry cranked. If he noticed the water slopping over his shoes, he gave no indication.
“I wanted to apologize,” Henry said, “for earlier.”
“I’m … sorry if I said something to upset you.” Polly pushed the damp quilt off her lap.
“You didn’t. You’ve been nothing but a friend to me, extending every kindness. I don’t know what came over me to treat you that way.”
“All is forgiven,” she said softly.
“Friends?”
“Of course. After all, I got you into this.”
“I have no regrets. Do you?”
“None,” Polly said.
“Good. Then we can carry on getting to know each other.”
Polly smiled and nodded. Henry’s eyes lifted above and behind her, and she twisted in her chair to follow his sight.
“Thomas!”
How long had he been there?
“I’m not interrupting something, am I?” Thomas held his position at the edge of the porch.
“No.” Polly wished she could stand up, but trying to do so quickly would only make an awkward moment worse. “Henry and I were just talking.”
“It seemed … serious.”
“I took Henry to an interview today,” Polly said. “His car is not running. We were just talking about how the interview went. But you’re not interrupting.”
She looked up into Thomas’s clouded violet-blue eyes. He was half turned away, as if he was thinking twice about staying. Polly ransacked her mind looking for the right thing to say.
Henry cranked, the handle clicking as it slid into each revolution.
Rose chased Betsy and Nancy up the steps. “These two are ready to give up already.”
“It’s getting hard!” Betsy said.
“I’ll do it.” Thomas took the steps in two long strides and pushed the handle on the second freezer as if it gave no resistance.
Henry cranked.
Polly sighed.
Her brothers transferred both ice cream canisters into barrels of chipped ice under the porch, and the impatient wait for the mixtures to harden began. The cows got milked, the chickens rounded up, and the horses stabled. One by one the Grabills, and Thomas and Rose, assembled on the porch awaiting the declaration that dessert was ready. Lena and Alice passed around bowls with generous scoops. Betsy appointed herself in charge of berry disbursement. The last shards of daylight melted into silver shadows as spoons scraped the sides of bowls. Polly wasn’t sure Henry and Rose had spoken more than a few pleasantries, but at least they did not seem to be overtly avoiding each other.
She couldn’t say the same about Thomas. He had churned ice cream, teased her sisters, and shared farm reports with Paul and Yost. But he had not spoken again to her. Whatever he thought had transpired between Henry and her, he was mistaken.
Perched on the top step, Sylvia set her bowl to one side and leaned her head against a post.
“Sylvia?” Polly leaned forward.
Her inquiry was met only by a moan.
“She ate too much ice cream,” Yost said.
“She hardly touched her bowl,” Polly countered.
Lena picked up the dish. “Polly’s right.”
“I don’t feel well,” Sylvia said.
Lena put a hand on her sister’s forehead. “Mamm, she’s burning up.”
�
�Mamm?” Polly said.
Her mother was out of her chair and had a hand under Sylvia’s elbow. “Nancy, take some ice upstairs. And a pitcher of water. Lena, help me with Sylvia.”
Chatter around the porch ceased. Polly’s father followed the entourage of caregivers into the house, and the screen door slammed behind them.
“I hope she’ll be all right,” Rose said.
“Mamm knows what to do to break a fever,” Polly said.
“Sylvia won’t be able to work in your fields tomorrow.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Polly said.
Rose stood up. “Yost, you’re already down one worker because of Polly’s foot. Now Sylvia is sick. And tomorrow Betsy and Nancy go back to school.”
Yost scratched an ear. “I hadn’t thought about all that.”
“I want to help,” Rose said.
“Help with what?” Polly tilted her head and looked at Rose.
“In your fields. There must be so much work to do.”
“Yes, there is,” Yost said. “But we’ll manage. We always do.”
“I can work in the fields,” Rose insisted.
“Your father might be glad for the offer,” Yost said.
Rose waved a hand. “He has machines to do the harvesting, and he won’t let me near them. He says that’s what he has Jonesy and Collins for. But whatever your sisters were doing, I’m sure I can do.”
“Rose,” Polly said, “that’s very kind, but—”
“I’m coming,” Rose said. “First thing in the morning.”
Polly’s mother returned to assure everyone that Sylvia had been put to bed and summoned Nancy and Betsy to turn in as well. Rose said good night, and Henry headed for the barn. Yost and Paul gathered their wives and children to return to their own small houses. One by one the gathering on the porch thinned down to Thomas and Polly.
He stood up and cleared his throat. “Tomorrow’s a busy day,” he said.
Polly pushed out of her chair and balanced on one foot while she arranged her crutches and glanced around to be sure everyone else had left.
“Thomas,” she said, “you’ve been quiet tonight.”
He swished a booted toe back and forth on the porch planking.
“You heard me talking to Henry,” Polly said. “He had a difficult afternoon. That’s all it was.”
“It’s understandable that you are friends.”
“He’s staying with us, and he needed a ride.”
“My mamm will wonder what became of me.” Thomas moved toward the steps.
Polly gripped her crutches. Why must Thomas be so difficult?
He never had been before. He could not seriously think that Henry Edison had turned her head.
When a cough punctuated the darkness, Polly froze.
“Did you hear that?” she whispered.
Thomas nodded.
Her brothers had left and her sisters had gone into the house. Rose and Henry had said good night. Even Lillian had loudly announced her intention to turn in. Polly softly hobbled to the railing to peer over.
Thomas caught her arm. “Sit down,” he whispered. “Or go inside.”
“Someone is out there,” she said, “and it’s not someone from the family.”
They held still, but Polly could not maintain the pose and inched toward the steps.
“You heard it, too,” she said. “And our orchards are nowhere near the house, so you can’t tell me it’s someone stealing apples.”
“Fine,” Thomas said. “I’ll go look.”
“I’m going with you.”
“Polly.”
“I’m going.” Polly grabbed her crutches. They could not waste time arguing the point. If she stayed close to the porch, where the ground was level, she would be safe enough.
They followed the line of the wraparound porch to the corner of the house.
“Someone was right here,” Polly said. She thudded a crutch into a post on the underside of the porch.
“How can you be sure?” Thomas put one hand on the post.
“Because Betsy’s lunch pail and a brand-new cloth were right here just before supper. I saw Betsy leave it and warned her that Mamm would want her to take it back to the kitchen. She’ll need it for school tomorrow.”
“Maybe she did.”
Polly peered into the darkness beyond the reach of the yellow illumination coming from within the house. Betsy had ignored her admonition. But the bucket was gone now.
“I forbid it.” Hands on the walls, Minerva braced herself in the doorframe between the kitchen and the back porch.
“Mother, I promised to help.” Rose knotted a green scarf under her hair at the back of her neck.
“Surely the Grabills are not actually expecting you to pick tomatoes.”
“They might not be expecting me to keep my promise, but I expect it of myself.”
“How can they possibly have a lack of manpower over there?”
Rose sighed. “I’ve explained all this already.”
“I never should have let you go over there last night.”
“The only thing I asked permission for,” Rose said, “was to use the truck. And Pop handed me the key himself.”
When had the girl become so willful? Was there a moment when Minerva turned her head and Rose began to behave this way? Perhaps it was because Raymond and Richard had left. This was how Rose expressed how bereft she was without her brothers.
“Mother, I have to go. Pop needs the truck today, so I’ll bicycle over.”
“You haven’t even had a decent breakfast.” The coffee cake would be out of the oven in ten minutes. Rose’s hurry was unreasonable.
“I can eat at the Grabills’.”
Why must the girl insist on driving a knife into her own mother’s heart? Eat at the Grabills’? She would turn up hungry in the Grabill kitchen and let them all think there was insufficient food at home.
“Min, let her go.” Ernie looked up from the first of three cups of coffee he would have before he went out to his own fields.
“I will not.” Minerva glared at her husband.
“You will,” he said quietly and turned the page in the newspaper.
Rose ducked past Minerva and was gone. From the kitchen window, Minerva watched her daughter—in another old dress—push off on her bicycle. Richard had delighted his sister with that bike four years ago, claiming to have gained it in trade. Minerva never did hear what he had traded away.
Minerva spun to face Ernie. “How could you do that?”
“She just wants to go help the neighbors, Min. You raised her right.”
“Don’t call me Min.”
“Sorry.”
No, he wasn’t. Ernie was always saying he was sorry without changing the behaviors that annoyed Minerva most.
“She’s a good girl, Min. Minerva. Any mother would be proud to have such a generous soul for a daughter.”
“Are you implying I’m not?”
“I’m not implying anything,” Ernie said. “She just wants to help her friends. I don’t see why that makes you angry.”
He would never understand.
Minerva yanked the oven door open and removed the coffee cake. It would be soggy in the middle still, but she would not stay in the kitchen another moment. She set the cake in the middle of the table and slammed a knife down next to it.
Then she went into the front room and pulled a catalog from under the sofa cushion.
Only when she heard the back door swing shut behind Ernie did Minerva allow further audible protest to pass her lips.
CHAPTER 17
But I left my lunch pail right under the porch.” Betsy wailed too close to her mother’s ear, and Gloria took two gentle steps away.
“It’s not there now,” Gloria said. “You’ll have to find something else to pack your lunch in.” Seven other Grabill children had been to the same schoolhouse through the eighth grade. It could not be hard to find another gray bucket. The red-checkered cloth, an indulgenc
e from the general store in trade for a few extra eggs in observance of the new school year, would not be replaced. Betsy had to learn.
Betsy pivoted to stomp back toward the house, and Gloria continued to the poultry sheds with a pail of feed.
Rose Swain pedaled down the lane. If she was still planning to help in the fields, it could only be over Minerva’s objections. But that was not Gloria’s trouble.
Rose braked and balanced her bike with one foot. “How’s Sylvia?”
“Resting.” Gloria set down the feed. Rose carried the shape of her mother’s face. By God’s grace Gloria had never held that against the girl. “Her fever is not as high this morning, but I will stay close to the house today so I can check on her.”
“I want to do whatever I can to help.” Rose’s words rode a rumble from her abdomen, and she clamped a hand on her stomach. “I’m so sorry. My mother would be mortified.”
“Did you come without breakfast?” Gloria asked.
Rose looked off to one side. “My mother has a way of making even eating breakfast tense.”
Gloria knew what Rose meant.
“I’m sure there’s still something in the kitchen,” Gloria said. The girl could eat a biscuit and fruit if nothing else. And kaffi.
“You have your hands full,” Rose said. “I didn’t come to add to your labors.”
“I’ll feed you, and in exchange you can feed the chickens,” Gloria said.
“I’ve never fed chickens before.”
“You’ll manage fine.”
They turned toward the back porch, where Betsy was unstacking a tower of pails looking for one that met with satisfaction.
In the kitchen Polly sat at one end of the table reading the Budget. She must be more bored than Gloria realized. Polly had read that issue three times before, and Polly never needed to read anything twice.
“Good morning, Rose.” Polly set the Budget down.
“Your mother kindly offered me some breakfast,” Rose said.
“If you’re going to work in the fields, you need to eat.”
Gloria buttered two biscuits and opened the icebox for a slice of ham.
“I promise I won’t do this again.” Rose bit into a biscuit and chewed rapidly. “I won’t let my mother rattle me.”
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