“So the Grabills have been your neighbors all your life?” Henry asked.
“Even before I was born.” Rose matched her stride to Henry’s. “My brothers were friends with Yost and Paul, and I struck gold with the girls.”
“Where are your brothers?”
“It’s a long story.” Rose shifted her grip on the bike.
Henry waited to see if Rose would begin the story to fill some of the two-mile walk, but she just rolled the bike forward.
“Let me push that for you,” Henry said. It was a man’s bike, a little too heavy for someone Rose’s size with a bar connecting the handlebars and seat, but it had a white basket on the front that looked like a girlish afterthought.
Rose released the bike to Henry, and he settled his satchel into the basket.
They talked about the rickety bike Henry rode when he delivered morning newspapers in primary school. Rose told him the location of the best fishing hole in the county and looked askance at his confession that he’d never been fishing. The topic led to a comment about Tom Sawyer, and they exchanged memories of books they loved best and their dread of high school Latin classes.
By the time they reached the Swain farm, Henry had forgotten to be nervous.
“You should keep the bike,” Rose said. “It will help you get around until Pop gets your car running.”
A bicycle. It would not get Henry to Philadelphia next Thursday, but it would give him some independence. Polly would be relieved. It would only be for a few days.
“I accept your generous loan,” he said. He leaned the bike against a tree and faced the house.
“Are you ready for this?” Rose asked.
Henry wondered if Polly had told Rose of his addled behavior after his last interview with Minerva. If Rose didn’t know, he was not going to tell her now.
“It’s a straightforward process,” he said. “I ask questions and record her answers.”
“Nothing with my mother is that simple,” Rose muttered.
“I’ll manage.” As they approached the house, he was less certain than the words he chose.
“I’ll try to stay near.” Rose opened the front door, and they went in.
Minerva was waiting at the polished dining room table cleared of everything but a bowl of late-summer flowers. Henry took the chair Minerva indicated and began arranging his folders. Rose sat across from him, beside her mother, and Henry found reassurance in her eyes.
“Today’s questionnaire is about the food your family consumes,” Henry said, “along with furnishings and equipment.”
“You can see for yourself the furnishings we have.” Minerva’s parsimonious smile was already unnerving Henry.
“Yes, of course,” he said. “I should be more specific. Our goal in the research is to determine what your household spends and uses in the course of a year, both for the home itself and to sustain the farm.”
“My husband handles the farm finances,” Minerva said.
“Then we’ll ask Pop,” Rose said, “or we can look in his account books. He won’t mind.”
“Let’s begin first with the household,” Henry suggested. “Do you by any chance keep records of what you spend for food, for instance? Or for home furnishings or appliances?” He would also have to ask her again about clothing purchases, a topic they covered in their first interview. When he studied her answers, though, they had not made sense. The value of individual items she listed as purchased seemed to far exceed the amount she said she spent even though she insisted she bought all the family’s clothing new. For now, he wanted her to think about food.
What food did they raise or grow on their property?
Where did she shop for items they did not supply for themselves?
Did she pay with cash, did stores extend credit, or did she have items to barter?
Henry went question by question down the forms. Meats. Dairy foods. Produce. Dry staples. The answers sounded tentative, and occasionally Rose offered a slight correction.
“No one can account for every morsel they put in their mouths,” Minerva said.
“Of course not,” Henry said. “Just think about your normal shopping habits. What do you buy, how often, and in what quantities? Rose tells me she tends the vegetable garden, so we should be able to put a value on what it yields.”
“I’m afraid I don’t feel up to this discussion.” Minerva stood.
“Mother,” Rose said, “Mr. Edison made this appointment at your convenience.”
“How was I to know I would have a headache?”
“I’ll make you some tea. We could all do with some refreshment.”
“I do not need tea,” Minerva said. “And I do not need to be examined by the government. I didn’t even vote for Mr. Roosevelt, if you want to know the truth, so I certainly do not owe him my time.”
Henry froze his movements. “Perhaps we can reschedule.”
“Just go. Both of you. Just go.” Minerva’s voice rose enough to startle both Henry and Rose.
“Another day, then,” Henry said.
“Or better yet, not at all.” Minerva spun on one heel and marched down the hall.
Henry looked at Rose. “Why do I seem to upset your mother every time we meet?”
“You did nothing wrong,” Rose said. “You’re just doing your job. Mother has these … fits.”
Fits? Henry’s grandmother would have called them tantrums and she would not have stood for them.
Henry needed Minerva’s data, however. While not every agent would achieve usable data from every interview, registering this failure was not something he wanted to do.
He bicycled back to the Grabill farm and withdrew immediately to the barn, where he laid out all the pages he had gathered from Minerva so far. It was incomplete, but worse, now Henry doubted any of it was accurate. How would he discern a grain of truth from utter fantasy? He would have to start all over and ask his questions in a way that would not provoke Minerva’s wrath. She could not see that he had the same forms in front of him in forthcoming interviews.
The one farmwife on his list who was not Amish ought to have been the one with whom he communicated most easily. Instead, they vexed each other.
And Henry didn’t know why.
CHAPTER 22
Polly had often wondered what Cousin Lillian did all day. The last ten days of being in the house herself more than usual answered that question. By Saturday morning, Polly had a list of Lillian’s activities that seem to rotate but rarely vary.
Lillian could sit and knit for hours on end without finishing anything. She worked on various sweaters and shawls and scarves, but it seemed to Polly she was recycling the same yarn most of the time.
Reading the Budget was a daily exercise no matter how many times Lillian had already perused a particular issue, and she could pass an entire afternoon looking through past issues for a recipe that might or might not be in the stack.
What she needed a recipe for, Polly didn’t know. In six years, Polly couldn’t remember eating anything Lillian had prepared.
And Lillian moved things around. She had strong opinions about how the bushels of fruits and vegetables on the back porch should be arranged. Polly and her sisters had long ago given up anticipating Lillian’s preferences, since they changed without notice, often between morning and afternoon. Lillian could drag the baskets around as much as she liked. Whoever was cooking would find the necessary ingredients.
Schnuppich. Snoopy. Cousin Lillian was the biggest gossip Polly had ever met. She gossiped not only about the families in the Grabills’ church district but about complete strangers who unknowingly exposed themselves to her assessments by writing friendly reports for the Budget.
Now that Henry had Rose’s bicycle, he planned to get around on his own. Polly hadn’t been out with him since the afternoon following Coralie Kimball’s surprise visit, a topic that Henry had been reluctant to discuss in any depth. With Rose’s bicycle, he’d been out on his own on Friday. Ernie hadn’t
been back to look at Henry’s car for days, and Polly’s father said Ernie had more on his mind, so it wasn’t likely Henry would be driving anytime soon. The bicycle was God’s provision for Henry’s time of need, her daed had said.
Polly’s mother showed no inclination to relent on Polly’s suspension from working in the fields. She didn’t even want Polly in the poultry sheds because the droppings could get in her shoes.
So Polly chopped vegetables, boiled eggs, churned butter—anything she could do with long stretches of sitting—and stayed out of Lillian’s path around the house. If she volunteered to cook a full meal, however, her mother always seemed to find an excuse for one of her sisters to turn up in the kitchen before Polly got very far. Lena made better piecrusts than their mother, and Alice, only fourteen years old, had a knack for seasoning a yummasetti casserole. Even Betsy would come home from school with suggestions to alter what Polly had planned for a simple supper.
Polly might not have the natural talents of her sisters, but she could make a perfectly edible meal if they would just give her a chance.
For the most part, Polly got by with one crutch now, and she was wearing her own shoes rather than a pair belonging to someone with bigger feet. During the last several afternoons, after the midday meal was cleared and before it was time to start on the evening menu, Polly would take a book from the shelf in the front room and limp out to what everyone had begun calling “Polly’s chair” under the maple tree in the middle of the yard. The book was just for show; anyone in her family could have taken a book off the shelf and Polly could give a thorough report on its contents without opening it.
On Saturday, she approached the shelf and pulled a thin volume from between two agricultural tomes.
Fundamentals of Household Necessities.
Why had she never seen this one before? Someone must have given it to one of the Grabill girls, probably Lena or Sylvia. Both were old enough to begin thinking of how they would run their own households.
But Polly was the eldest, and Thomas took her home from every Singing. Surely she would need these skills before her sisters. It was an old book, probably from the end of the previous century. Polly carried the book out to her chair, glad to have something she could not already recite. She settled in to consider the table of contents.
Chapter 1. Making Brooms for the House and Barn.
Polly turned to the indicated page and began to read.
Polly’s shuffle was a distinct enough rhythm that Henry heard it even when she was moving through dirt. Today she came in through the front of the barn and carried her thump-step-thump-step tempo past the workbench, past the cow stalls, and all the way through to where he slept and worked.
He looked up from the desk to find her leaning over the ledge of the half door.
“You have to help me,” she said.
“What’s wrong?” Henry lurched to his feet.
“I’m going to make brooms.”
Henry’s heart slowed. “Brooms? Does your family make brooms?” He would have to sort out where to record this evidence of productivity in his report.
“No. We provide our own straw and pay the broom maker twenty-five cents for each broom.”
About the cost of five pounds of flour, Henry calculated. He surprised himself at the values already sticking in his brain. The family could acquire ten brooms for about the price of a man’s shirt—if they were to purchase a man’s shirt rather than do their own sewing.
“Look around,” Polly said. “Straw everywhere. And I found this book with step-by-step instructions. Just think what we’ll save. You can put that number in the productivity column instead of the consumption column.”
Henry chuckled.
“Don’t laugh. I need your help.”
“You’re really going to make brooms?”
“We can use the handles from the brooms that have worn out.
We have plenty of twine. That’s all it is. Straw, twine, and a stick.”
“I suppose so.” Henry hesitated to get involved, but he suspected Polly would leave him no alternative.
“I’ll have to work out here,” she said. “It’s too messy even for the back porch. Besides, everything we need is here in the barn.”
“We?”
“I said I needed help, didn’t I?”
Henry grimaced. “Maybe there is a reason your parents have always chosen to pay the broom maker. Ten brooms is a lot of brooms.”
Polly rolled her eyes. “You’re thinking like a city boy. We use brooms in the house first, then we shift them to the porches. Eventually they’re no good for anything but the barn and sheds, or even the yard.”
Henry raised his eyebrows.
“We go through a lot of brooms. This is one thing I know more about than you do.”
Polly knew more about many things than Henry did. But making brooms?
Polly slapped the book down on the ledge and opened it to the broom chapter. Henry scanned the contents. He would be in over his head even if Polly wasn’t.
“I don’t know.”
“You’re here to study productivity and consumption,” Polly said. “This is what we do—try to find ways to produce more than we consume.”
What could be so difficult about twisting a few knots into twine? People had been making brooms for centuries. Polly saw no reason she could not learn. They had plenty of clean straw. A roll of twine hung on a hook above the workbench. They could spread everything out in the empty stall, and Polly could sit on a milking stool to spare her foot.
Henry followed instructions well. Polly was not surprised. He might not know much about farm life, but he was smart. Using a broom that had been cast off from the kitchen six months ago, Henry cleared a space in the vacant stall. It wasn’t long before they had ten small bundles of straw, of roughly the same length, laid out ready to be tied together.
“Hold one bundle tight, and I’m going to twist the twine around it.” Polly made sure Henry had a good strong grip and that she was sure of her own. They twisted together ten bundles and then tied them to each other. She would have to trim the ends to even lengths, but that seemed a simple enough task. They started on a second set of ten bunches of straw.
She heard voices. What were her sisters doing in the barn in the middle of the afternoon?
“What’s going on?” Lena asked. Sylvia was beside her.
“We’re making brooms.” Polly resolved to keep her answers simple.
“Why?”
“Because we all track dirt into the house.”
“What happened to the broom maker?” Sylvia asked.
“I’m sure he’s fine.” Polly pressed her lips together and twisted the twine as tight as she could. “Hold the next one, Henry.”
He complied by clamping his hands around the second bundle.
“Do you really know what you’re doing?” Lena asked.
“I have a book,” Polly said. “It tells me everything I need to know. Isn’t that right, Henry?”
Henry’s gaze was on Lena.
“Henry!” Polly said.
“I don’t know,” he said. “The instructions seem vague to me.”
“Then read them again.” Polly raised the first broom. How could Henry doubt their success when all they had left to do was add the stick?
Lena laughed. “There’s no time for this. Thomas will be here any minute.”
Polly’s head snapped up. “Thomas?”
“He asked me the other day if I would have time for a walk. I said yes.”
Thomas was walking with Lena? Only two days ago … on the porch …
“Here’s Thomas now,” Sylvia said.
Thomas’s head appeared over the wall. He stood next to Lena, and Polly’s stomach soured. She had imagined she might casually tell Thomas she had made brooms, perhaps even as she held one in her hands. He would know how resourceful she could be.
“Polly is making brooms,” Lena said.
“It’s not as hard as you might thin
k,” Polly said. Thomas could still see her resourcefulness. She leaned over and swung up the bundled bristles.
Straw showered both her sisters and Thomas.
“I told you that wasn’t a good idea,” Lena said, brushing straw off her prayer kapp. “Mamm will have egg money for the broom maker as she always does.”
Polly stared at the mess she had made. Sylvia was already kicking the straw back into a pile.
“Thomas,” Lena said. “We should have that walk while we still have time.”
Lena and Thomas paced through the barn side by side. Sylvia followed.
Holding the decimated broom head, Polly pushed off her stool at the wrong angle.
If Henry hadn’t caught her, she would have landed on her face.
CHAPTER 23
Marlin was the one who convinced Gloria that the front porch was worth the investment to shore it up when they bought the old farmhouse twenty years ago, and he was right. In those days they had only Yost, Paul, and Polly, but Lena was on the way. And it had been his idea to add on the side porch that connected front and back. At this time of year, the shaded outdoor space offered relief when the house became too warm.
Or too crowded.
This was a visiting Sunday. The family had gathered for a longer devotional time after breakfast, and Yost led the family in one hymn. Lena had baked enough yesterday to make today’s meals easy. Gloria was free to spend the Sabbath afternoon visiting, but she had instead waved most of her daughters off with one of the buggies to see their own friends. Marlin had gone to see Ernie. Wherever they all were, they would be home for supper. At the moment, Gloria had the porch to herself, her eyes soaking up the line of bushes, starting to look ragged from the drought, and the maple tree with the certainty of autumn beginning in its leaves, chickens in their enclosed yard, cows and horses in the pastures—a view of nature’s repose. Even the hues of the cracking, thirsty ground drew her into the details. The land was good, a gift from God. Gloria would visit with her own soul today and invite the Lord to sit beside her.
The front screen door creaked.
Hope in the Land Page 15
