Hope in the Land

by Olivia Newport

  Minerva knocked on the front door and waited. Any of a dozen people might have opened the door, but of course it was Gloria who came.

  “I was hoping to catch my daughter.” Minerva felt no compunction to smile but did make an effort to keep a scowl off her face.

  “Come in,” Gloria said. “She’s helping the girls with the last of the dinner dishes. They’ll go back out soon. I’ll go get her.”

  Minerva preferred to stand while she awaited her daughter. Rose would not be returning to the Grabill fields. Sitting would give the wrong impression. If the Grabills would join the twentieth century and put in a telephone, Minerva would not have had to come at all.

  Rose came through, with Gloria behind her.

  “Rose, dear, I’ve come to take you home. We don’t want to be late for your appointment.”

  Rose lowered her head toward one shoulder. “I don’t recall an appointment.”

  “I just arranged it this morning. Linda Danforth can get you in for a wash and style this afternoon.”

  Rose’s hand went to the knot of hair at the back of her neck. “I can wash my own hair, and it doesn’t need styling.”

  This would be easier if Gloria had the good manners to withdraw to her kitchen. Minerva focused her eyes on her daughter’s face.

  “We really must go,” she said.

  “I’m going back out to pick tomatoes,” Rose said. “You knew that. Why would you make an appointment for me?”

  “It was an unexpected opening,” Minerva said, her smile tight. “Let’s take advantage of it.”

  “No, Mother. Not today.”

  Minerva stepped closer to Rose and lowered her voice. “Don’t make a scene. I’m not leaving without you.”

  “Then you’ll be the one making a scene.” Rose’s volume rose twice as much as Minerva’s fell. She pushed past Minerva and out the front door.

  Now nothing stood between Minerva and Gloria.

  “I’ll talk to her,” Gloria said.

  “I can talk to my own daughter.”

  You’ve done such a fine job to this point.

  “Please sit down,” Gloria said. “Let me talk to her.”

  “You’ll tell her she must come home with me?”

  Gloria could not promise the moon. Rose was a grown woman even by English standards and every bit as willful as her mother. If they wasted much more time debating Gloria’s intent, Rose would be out of sight.

  “Just give me a few minutes,” Gloria said. “Sit wherever you like.” Minerva selected the rocking chair with the wide slats as she always did. Gloria had never found it comfortable, but Minerva apparently didn’t seem to notice, probably because her unyielding spine matched the shape of the chair.

  Gloria crossed the porch and took the steps quickly.

  “Rose!”

  Her bicycle was still there. She couldn’t have gone far.

  “Rose!”

  “I’m here.”

  The response, barely audible, came from the corner of one of the chicken sheds. Gloria walked toward Rose, who straightened from her crouch.

  “What is she doing here?” Rose said. “I just want her to go home.”

  “I know,” Gloria said. “You made a choice to help us today, and you want to keep your promise.”

  “That’s part of it,” Rose said.

  “What’s the rest?”

  “She does this all the time—swoops in with a plan for me without imagining that I might have an opinion about my own life.”

  Gloria nodded. Rose had said nothing she could dispute. Minerva’s superiority streak and insistence on being in charge were well known in the schoolyard decades ago. She didn’t know what a gem she’d found in Ernie. But it couldn’t have been easy to be Minerva’s daughter.

  “Are you going to ask her to leave?” Rose said. “Or should I just get on my bicycle and ignore her?”

  Gloria drew in a breath and released it to a slow count of five. “I think perhaps you should go home with your mother. We’ll put your bike in the back of the truck.”

  Rose stared. “Mrs. Grabill, why would you say that?”

  “I know what things can be like between a mother and a daughter.”

  “You’re not like this with your daughters. They all love you.”

  “And you love your mother,” Gloria said.

  Rose looked away but nodded.

  “We all have our moments,” Gloria said.

  “She doesn’t understand me.”

  “She wants what’s best for you.”

  Rose looked Gloria in the face again. “Then why doesn’t she trust me to choose what’s best for myself? Do I have to pay for what Raymond and Richard chose?”

  “Your brothers are in God’s care,” Gloria said.

  “Mother and Pop don’t think so. I’m happy in Lancaster County. I’m not going to do what the boys did. But if this is what it was like for them, then …”

  A flurry of chickens landed in the poultry yard. Reflexively,

  Gloria and Rose turned toward the commotion.

  “You know my mother,” Rose said.

  Better than you realize.

  “Whether to pick tomatoes or have your hair washed is not a decision that will change your life,” Gloria said. “Peace with your mother honors the Lord. Find the calm in the storm. If you try to talk in the wind, you only end up shouting at yourself.”

  Minerva should have asked the hairdresser if she was using a new shampoo. Rose’s auburn hair shimmered, shades Minerva had never noticed before peeking through the strands coiffed around her daughter’s face.

  Supper that evening grew cold as Minerva and Rose pushed food to the edges of their plates. Nothing stopped Ernie’s appetite. He complimented Rose’s appearance but then caught Minerva’s eye as if to ask, How did you pay for this? Rose admitted she liked the hairstyle but was quick to add that she had liked her hair the way it was just as well. Minerva pushed chicken around on her plate, wondering if there was any chance the meat she bought at the local butcher shop had come from the Grabill farm.

  “Are you going back to the Grabills’ tomorrow?” Ernie asked.

  Rose nodded. “I thought the tomatoes in our garden had done well. They’re nothing compared to what the Grabills’ tomatoes look like.”

  “This streak of dry weather will do that.” Ernie folded a piece of bread before tearing off a piece to put in his mouth.

  “Whatever the cause, they’ll have plenty to can and plenty to take to market. We just have to get everything picked.”

  “I’m glad for them,” Ernie said. “They’ve worked hard. They deserve a good harvest.”

  Minerva let her fork handle clink against her plate.

  “What’s the matter, Min?”

  “They work no harder than you do,” Minerva said.

  “I didn’t say they did. But they grow different crops. It’s a different sort of harvest than a dedicated crop like ours.”

  “Why must we discuss the Grabills at our supper table?”

  “Min.”

  Don’t call me that.

  Rose picked up her plate and carried it to the sink. “I’m going to turn in early. Don’t worry about breakfast for me. I’ll manage.”

  The swinging door between the kitchen and dining room flapped back and forth after Rose pushed through.

  Ernie used his bread to sop up the last of the gravy on his plate. “Something happen between you and Rose today?”

  “Why would you think that?” Minerva stood up and transferred the bread basket to the counter.

  His eyes followed her movements as she cleared the table and started the water running in the sink to do the dishes.

  “We have to figure things out together, Min. You and Rose. You and me.”

  Minerva turned the knob to run the water faster.

  “I see.” Ernie pushed his chair back and left the kitchen.

  CHAPTER 21

  It hardly hurts at all.” Polly wiggled her liberated toes and nud
ged the shoe away from her porch chair before seeking agreement in her mother’s face.

  Her mother shook her head. “If you’d like to sit with your shoes off for a while, you can stay right there in the chair. But the minute you decide to hobble somewhere else, the shoe goes on so the dirt stays out.”

  Polly knew better than to argue when her mamm used that tone.

  “It’s only been a week, Polly,” her mother said. “Healing takes time.”

  A week and a day. Polly would count the days even if her mother did not.

  “I know you want to be in the field,” Mamm said, “but you’ll have to settle for kitchen duty for a while longer.”

  “Are you going out to pick?” Polly asked.

  “As soon as I’m finished in the sheds.”

  “And Sylvia?”

  “She’s well enough today to go back to work in the sheds.”

  “So it’s just me here today.”

  “And Henry?”

  “He’s due at the Swains’ in the afternoon.”

  “I’ll leave the vegetables on the counter,” Gloria said. “Can you manage to put them in to roast?”

  Polly nodded in surrender. Gloria withdrew into the house, returning a few minutes later with Sylvia. Polly did not envy Sylvia the tasks in the chicken sheds, but she did want to be in the field with the family, steeped in the rhythms of the season and sharing the tasks as they did every year at this time. If she had to stay out of the field another week—at least, her mother said—Polly risked missing the entire tomato harvest.

  Her favorite moments were when Daed called a break time and she and her sisters each picked one last tomato and raised them directly to their mouths.

  The indescribable flavor.

  The dripping juice.

  The swallowing and savoring.

  Polly twisted her lips. Daed had always allowed them to sample the tomatoes or fruit in the orchard. Henry would probably want to know how many they consumed in the process so he could compare it to overall production.

  She wiggled her toes again. Every day they moved more freely, pulling against less resistance along the injured outer edge of her foot.

  “Guder mariye, Polly.”

  She sucked in a breath and turned in the direction the words had come from. How had she not seen Thomas approaching? Being that wrapped up in her own feet was inexcusable. Thomas had not been back to the Grabill land since Monday evening when Sylvia fell ill. She never knew when Thomas was coming. He and Yost seemed to arrange their meetings with no one else noticing. Thomas didn’t come to see Polly—at least not openly. That wasn’t the way their church district courted. Neither of them could have done what Coralie Kimball did yesterday.

  Was Henry courting? It was hard to tell what Miss Kimball’s visit meant. Polly was not even certain if she and Thomas were truly courting.

  “Hello, Thomas.” She smiled, hesitating to stand up because the attempt could too easily lead to an unsightly outcome.

  He stood at the bottom of the porch steps. “You look like you are on the mend.”

  “I believe I am.”

  “Did that bucket ever turn up?”

  Polly shook her head. “Betsy keeps looking for it, but it seems to be gone for good. We heard something, Thomas.”

  “I suppose so. It’s hard to know what to make of it.”

  Polly tucked her hands under her thighs. “Can we talk about what you heard—when Henry was turning the ice cream?”

  Thomas said nothing.

  “We didn’t get to clear that up,” Polly said.

  “It was between you and Henry,” Thomas said. “It’s not my business.”

  “But I want it to be your business.” Polly’s hands came loose and she spread them wide, palms up. “I want my business to be your business. Don’t you know that?”

  Disregarding her hesitations about clumsiness, Polly pushed herself up and limped to the railing.

  “Are you supposed to be walking yet?” Thomas came nearer, a hand ready for support if she required it.

  Polly glanced at her shoes. She couldn’t lose this moment.

  “I want you to understand about Henry.”

  “If you want to know him better, that is up to you. You will tell your daed if he needs to know.”

  Tell her daed?

  “Thomas, it is nothing like that. I let my irritation about my foot take hold. He was frustrated with his work. It made for unkindness toward each other.” She paused. “I’m sure that by the next Singing my foot will feel well enough to accept your invitation to drive me home.”

  His face softened, and he slid a hand along the railing, letting it come to rest close enough to hers that she felt the heat emanate from his skin.

  “So my business is your business?” she said.

  The porch rattled with Yost’s thundering ascent. “Thomas, you’re late,” Yost said.

  Thomas moved his hand. “I’m here now.”

  “And you are sure your family can spare you?”

  Thomas let his shoulders rise and drop. “Where’s the wagon you want me to drive?”

  Polly watched the men fall into pace. Thomas hadn’t answered Yost’s question.

  When Ernie spread his papers on the dining room table, ignoring Minerva’s long-held and emphatically stated preference to keep the room company-ready, Minerva vacillated between finding tasks in the adjoining living room that would allow her to watch Ernie or huddling out of sight, awaiting his pronouncement of their financial circumstances.

  Sitting still would be impossible.

  Minerva dusted the side tables and knickknacks, something she usually left for Maude. She tidied the bedroom. She rearranged the items in the icebox. Usually Ernie made this thorough assessment only twice a year, at the time of spring planting and again when he could judge more accurately what the fall harvest would bring. Lately, he’d been doing this every couple of weeks. Then he would close his account books and return to his outdoor work without comment.

  As busy as Minerva made herself, Ernie barely moved in his chair while he scratched numbers on paper. Finally she stood with her back to the wall, minding movements that told her nothing. She wanted to know. His fuss over the washing machine had alarmed her. Now it was only a matter of finding out how bad their circumstances were.

  “It’s getting harder and harder to farm without cash,” he muttered. “Even apart from what you need for the household, I have expenses and no cash.”

  “The harvest isn’t in,” she said. Fall was always difficult, with last year’s cash dwindling and this year’s corn silage crop not yet translated into its final value. The bank understood.

  Ernie looked up at her, his eyes locked on her in a way that made her want to squirm. She refused to do so.

  “I’m not sure we’ll get the price we need when we go to market.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean what I said. Prices are dropping, not rising. It’s going to be a difficult winter for us. We have to tighten our belts. The bank will want a good faith payment on the mortgage. I didn’t pay Collins and Jonesy everything I owed them last year, and I doubt I’ll have anything at all for them this year. I wouldn’t blame them for leaving.”

  Collins and Jonesy. The farmhands were the least of Minerva’s worries. Wasn’t it enough that they were fed and housed? What did they need cash for anyway?

  “You’ll have to let Maude go,” Ernie said.

  “You already told me to reduce her hours.”

  “She’ll have to look for other work. Having a maid has been a silly luxury for years. Doing without her is an obvious way to economize.”

  Minerva pushed down the lump in her throat that threatened her breath. Surely the cost of household help would not be their undoing.

  “The economic depression has caught up with us, Min,” Ernie said. “We have to face facts. The line of credit may be the only thing that gets us through this year.”

  “Of course,” Minerva muttered. She k
new exactly how much the line of credit offered but did not dare ask what figure Ernie had in mind.

  Ernie put the cap on his pen and stacked his papers. “I have to get back out to the fields.”

  Once the back screen door slammed and Minerva was alone, she knelt and pulled out the lowest drawer of the buffet cabinet in the dining room. Underneath neatly pressed tablecloths and napkins, she kept her own accounts. They were not the neat columns of her husband’s figures. Instead, Minerva’s records were turned-down corners on catalog pages and circled prices.

  She did not order everything she circled. Dreaming would never threaten anyone’s financial stability, after all. She was not completely reckless. But neither was she consistent with her own notes about what she listed on mail-order forms. Most orders were small. A certain amount of clothing and household items were to be expected and did not raise Ernie’s suspicions if she wrote checks. For the rest she was thrifty enough to save money from her household allowance and have a clerk at the bank convert it to a money order. Larger items, of course, were in their own category, and Ernie’s good name had always assured Minerva could manage payments on credit.

  Minerva lifted out the stack of old catalogs and assorted sheets of paper, some with items listed and others with numbers. It wasn’t enough to reconstruct which orders might yet be outstanding. She needed business hours and telephone numbers. Some of the calls would be long distance, and the nosy operator would know just whom Minerva was calling, but it had to be done.

  There had to be a way to stop delivery. And get refunds.

  “I’ll walk with you,” Rose said to Henry after Thursday dinner.

  “What about the tomatoes?” he said.

  “I would rather pick tomatoes,” she said. “It’s Mrs. Grabill’s idea for me to go home. She thinks I should find a compromise with my mother.”

  “She may be right,” he said. “But you have your bicycle. I’ll hold you back.”

  “I don’t mind.” She grabbed the handlebars and began walking the bike between them.