His eyes were the same iridescent blue as Richard’s.
“I imagine there’s no cash,” he said. “If you could spare a bit of food and a spot in the bunkhouse, I promise I would work hard. You wouldn’t have to pay me anything more than that. It’s just until I make other arrangements.”
He pleaded with admirable politeness, just the demeanor Richard always showed. She owed this young man nothing. Having someone else on the farm might only complicate matters with Ernie, and she would have another mouth to feed.
But this could be Richard. Going west in search of paying work had not brought him any better fortune. Raymond seemed better off bouncing between factories in Chicago. It was Richard who needed someone’s good graces.
“I can’t promise anything,” Minerva said. “You’ll have to wait to speak to my husband. But if you’ll beat these rugs, I’ll let you stay until he comes in from the field.”
CHAPTER 29
Minerva gave Homer Griffin credit for his industrious display.
From the safe distance of her living room, with the windows closed to keep the dust out, Minerva watched him work. She had only a long-bristled broom to offer him as a beater. For all of her married life, she’d had a mechanical sweeper. Never had it crossed her mind that she should purchase one of the carpet beaters the general store still sold. With the rugs slung over the porch railing, Homer gained a rhythm and sustained it admirably as he systematically progressed from one section of a rug to the next, being careful not to overlook even an inch. As inclined as she was to find fault with his work, Minerva would have little to remark on when the job was finished. The dust swirling out of the rugs made Minerva wonder if Maude had been less conscientious than Minerva had supposed. The girl couldn’t have been doing more than getting a surface layer of dust out of the fibers. It was just as well she was gone. Homer was earning his lunch, and Minerva would not hesitate to tell Ernie so.
Minerva jumped out of her chair at the swish of purple coming into view outside her front window. The hue, and the quantity of fabric draping its bearer, could only mean an Amish visitor. And the closest Amish neighbors were the Grabills.
Lillian.
Goodness, it was tempting to pretend not to be home. Homer would tell the unavoidable truth though.
Minerva stepped outside and, nodding at Homer, went down the steps to greet Lillian in the yard before she came closer to the house than necessary.
“Good morning!” Lillian chimed.
“Good morning.” Minerva meant her response to be polite but not encouraging.
“I see you’ve put our new friend to work already,” Lillian said.
Our new friend? Hardly.
“He seemed eager,” Minerva said. “Ernie will decide.”
“Yes, of course you must defer to your husband in these matters.”
Whatever it is you want, just say it.
“How earnest he looks.” Lillian moved the basket she carried from one hand to the other. “The way he thwacks is so convincing.”
Get to the point.
“He reminds me of Gloria. She is so efficient.” Lillian leaned in. “I wouldn’t want to say this to any of my other many cousins, but I believe Gloria is the most efficient housekeeper I have ever known. Her house is always in order, and her poultry business grows more successful every year.”
Gloria, Gloria, Gloria. Minerva’s patience expired.
“Is there something I can help you with?” Minerva asked.
“Quite the opposite.” Lillian grinned. “I’m here to help you—on Gloria’s behalf.”
“How is that?”
Lillian moved the towel that covered the basket. “Gloria sent some bread and vegetables, in case you decided to keep the man on.
It was my suggestion, of course. Neither of us wanted to cause you any extra work just because Gloria thought your husband might want to take the man on.”
“It’s no extra work,” Minerva said. She was competent enough to feed six just as well as five.
“Where shall I put the food?” Lillian began to walk toward the porch.
Minerva moved into Lillian’s path. “It’s not necessary. We have plenty of food as well.”
“You must keep what Gloria sent,” Lillian said. “I’m sure she wouldn’t hear otherwise. I certainly wouldn’t want to be the one to explain to her that you sent it back.”
Minerva relented. Taking the food was the fastest way to make Lillian stop jabbering. But it would go straight out to the bunkhouse, not into her kitchen.
“I’ll be sure to get the basket back to you,” Minerva said.
Lillian beamed with satisfaction. “Just send it back with Rose.
She’s such a faithful soul, helping us the way she does.”
Minerva pressed her lips together, took the basket from Lillian’s grasp, and pivoted toward the house.
Henry scrunched another sheet of paper into a ball. If he kept this up, he wouldn’t have enough supplies to complete his work.
Coralie wasn’t like her mother. She would understand. At least she would listen to his explanation. On the phone he might get tongue-tied. In a letter he could choose just the right words and arrange them in the manner with most effect.
All day, since returning to the farm, Henry huddled at his desk making one attempt after another. He wrote—then crossed out. He wrote again before putting an X through the entire page. Next he tried typing. His explanation might seem more crisp and forthright if he typed. Henry was not a fast typist, and the effort was time-consuming.
And ineffective.
Typed words looked cold on the page. If the warmth that he felt toward Coralie, and his disappointment at missing their date, was to come through, it should be in his own hand. Yet page after page failed to satisfy. He should have been typing up interview notes, but Coralie did not leave space in his mind for anything else.
What if she thought he hadn’t tried to reach her?
What if she had gone to extra lengths to arrange an introduction, leaving her embarrassed when he failed to arrive in a timely manner?
What if he had missed meeting a businessman who could change Henry’s future?
What if she thought his absence meant his feelings toward her had changed?
She deserved an explanation. Phrases collided in his mind, rising from various attempts at this letter and swirling until at last they began to fall into orderly coherence.
Henry read the handwritten draft four times, looking for the flaw that must certainly be there. But the letter was—finally—warm, honest, and sincere. Most important, it did not sound pitiful.
He folded it just as he heard someone coming through the rear door of the barn.
“Henry?”
It was Polly’s voice.
He had distressed her a few hours ago and still did not know why.
“I’m here.” Henry stood to greet her.
Polly looked over the half door at the floor. “What happened here?”
Henry began scooping up his literary failures. “I’ll clean it up. Don’t worry. I realize paper is flammable.”
Polly looked unpersuaded. “I thought you might have some notes I could help you type up. I really do want to learn to use the typewriter.”
Henry didn’t see how Polly could be much slower than he was, even if she had never used a typewriter before. At least she would remember where all the letters were.
The sensation of a catalog page sliding under her finger, lifting and falling in an arc to reveal the offerings of the next page, soothed Minerva like nothing else. The descriptions, the drawings, the photographs—it was like falling through a mystical portal into a new world where a person, with a bit of imagination, could rearrange the elements of life into pleasing composition and patterns. The next day it would all be there again, wooing afresh into a limitless world of possibilities.
Ordinarily.
The current circumstances in the Swain household deterred Minerva’s pastime. In fact, it might
never please her again. Instead of dreaming and marking what she might hope to justify, she scanned only for something she might have ordered. She was forgetting something. But the hundreds of images and thousands of words spinning before her eyes did not answer the question. What had she forgotten to cancel?
The back door opened, and Minerva sprang up. Shoving the catalog under the sofa cushion with one hand, she put to work the dust rag in the other. Water ran in the kitchen sink, and a moment later, with his hands scrubbed, Ernie paced across the kitchen and into the front rooms. Minerva lifted a gas lamp and wiped the table underneath.
Ernie’s pace slowed. “The catalog is sticking out.”
Minerva ignored his tone, like a dog clamping its jaws closed around a forbidden growl.
“There’s a man you should talk to,” she said. “Gloria sent him over.”
“Min,” Ernie said.
“I’m not buying anything,” she said. “Talk to the man. I let him take shade at the side of the barn.”
“Who is he?”
“Homer Griffin. He’s just passing through and needs work.”
“A vagrant.”
“Just a man.” Minerva swiped the cloth across another surface, picturing Richard trying to persuade a housewife to give him a chance. “He’s a hard worker. He already beat the carpets and put them back in place for me.”
Ernie glanced at the floor and grunted.
“He’s earned his lunch,” Minerva said. “You may as well talk to him. He’s not asking for anything more than food and shelter.”
“It doesn’t seem right that a man with two sons has to take on a vagrant.”
Minerva bit back her response.
“All right,” Ernie said. “I’ll talk to him. I can use more help with the tractor out of commission.”
Only a few days ago Minerva would have spoken assurance that Ernie could fix anything. Now opening a discussion that might turn to money was risky.
“If you think you can feed him,” Ernie said, “I’m sure I can work him.”
“I’ll get lunch.” Minerva pushed past Ernie into the kitchen, where she rubbed her palms against her cheeks, wondering what Richard was eating.
“Someone’s out there.” Polly stilled her fingers above the typewriter.
Henry shrugged. “Seems to me people come and go all day long around here.”
“Yes, well, and you’re one of them.” Polly scraped the chair back and limped to the window. “This was different. I heard someone who doesn’t want to be seen.”
“I’m not sure that even makes sense.”
“Hand me my crutch.” Polly waved an outstretched hand. “I have to go look.”
“I’ll go,” Henry said.
“No. I’ll do it.”
Polly’s irregular gait took her out the back of the barn to see for herself. She listened under the clatter of chickens and around the nicker of buggy horses in the nearest pasture. If the man who was stealing eggs that morning was back, Polly would head straight to her mother. A kind deed did not deserve betrayal.
A slow rotation gave Polly a view of the backyard. A brush of brown caught in her peripheral vision just before a squash rolled unattended down the steps.
“Did you see anything?” Henry crossed the yard.
“I’m going to count the squash.” Polly started toward the porch.
“Count the squash?”
Polly wagged her crutch at the errant vegetable. “Can you pick that up, please?”
Henry followed the instruction. “Polly, what’s this about?”
Brown flickered through her vision. A blanket? A skirt? A sweater? Polly blinked. Whatever she had seen was gone, and the stewing sounds simmered into ordinariness.
It was gone.
CHAPTER 30
It had come to Minerva in the middle of the night, and of course she could do nothing about it then. The unspoken task paralyzed all through Saturday’s breakfast, as Minerva flipped pancakes for Ernie, the three hands at their table on the porch, and Rose. Any morsel going into Minerva’s mouth would be likely to come back up.
The measured swish of a broom on the back porch had broken into Minerva’s restless attempt at sleep before sunrise. Still in a robe and barefoot, Minerva looked out to see Homer Griffin stabbing bristles into a stubborn corner. She hadn’t asked him to do that, but at least he seemed to be working out. Ernie was satisfied with his industriousness, and Jonesy and Collins extended camaraderie.
Ernie said nothing to Minerva before departing with the hands, leaving Rose at the breakfast table in her overalls.
Overalls, of all things. When Rose insisted on working on the Grabill farm, Minerva had spared several of her daughter’s cotton dresses from the rag pile so she would have something to wear to the fields. Rose had said nothing about where the overalls came from.
“Aren’t those tomatoes just about in?” Minerva took Rose’s empty plate and carried it to the sink.
“Almost,” Rose said. “Some of us still dig potatoes when we get a chance.”
Us. We. Rose spoke as if she were one of them.
“Today I’m going to be in the vegetable garden with Mrs. Grabill,” Rose said. “You should see her garden. I can learn so much from her.”
“You planted a perfectly nice vegetable plot.” Minerva opened a gush of water into the sink. They’d eaten Rose’s vegetables for weeks. Beans and squash and carrots and peas grew in the same soil and under the same sun as Gloria’s. There was no reason for Rose to be enamored.
“If Pop needed another farmhand,” Rose said, “maybe next week he would like my help here.”
Minerva pictured her daughter in their fields, in overalls rolled up to the knees and black earth squishing up between her bare toes. She adjusted the image to include shoes. After what happened to Polly, no one could deny the sensibility of shoes around the farm.
“I want to help,” Rose said. “I’ve grown up on a farm, but I hardly know what Pop does out there all day.”
“Why would you need to know?” He tilled, he planted, he irrigated, he harvested. And he had machines and men to help him.
“He used to take the boys out with him,” Rose said. “I want to do it.”
Minerva scrubbed syrup off a plate. “You’ll have to speak to him, then.”
“He’s so tense lately.”
Minerva rinsed the plate.
“Is it because the boys are gone at harvest?” Rose twisted a kerchief to tie in her hair.
“Harvest is always a busy season,” Minerva said. “You know that much.”
Rose stood. “I’d better go.”
Minerva watched her daughter lope across the yard. She never should have given her bicycle to that government agent. Richard gave that bike to Rose, and that was reason enough for Minerva to want it returned in good condition.
She flicked water off her hands, not bothering with a dish towel, and raced into the living room for her hidden stash of papers. It might be too late. The set of new dresses for Rose might already have left the Sears, Roebuck warehouse in Memphis, but she wouldn’t know if she didn’t try to phone them. Then she would have to walk into town—if she took the truck she would have to explain to Ernie—to do something about that hat. One errand would take the rest of the morning. Surely this was the last of her humiliation.
With the letter secure in his pocket, Henry pedaled toward town on the borrowed bicycle. From there he could go visit Mrs. Lichty again to see how she was coming on her diary of foods the family consumed. He had to make himself concentrate on his work. Once he had mailed the hard-fought letter, Coralie would read it in a few days, and her response—if she sent one—would take another few days to arrive. In the meantime his work would lack no effort.
It was sweet of Rose to loan him the bicycle, especially since it had been the transportation that allowed her independence. Rose hadn’t let its absence disturb her though. She still turned up at the Grabill farm for at least part of every day, and she still bandie
d around her friend Sally’s name. Sally, apparently, could borrow her father’s car whenever she chose and they went out in the evenings.
If he’d had a car to drive to Philadelphia two days ago, this might be a different sort of morning. He might be mailing notes to follow up on prospective employment that would take him back to the city, instead of a tortured letter of apology to Coralie.
Henry sighed and pedaled harder. He’d had enough sense to leave his hat in the barn instead of fighting to keep it on his head while he bicycled. Until a few days ago he hadn’t been on a bike in more than a decade, but now he remembered how much he enjoyed it. The pleasure of pumping his legs and pushing for speed, wind in his face, gulping air to keep his muscles moving, the sun on his skin. Most of all, freedom from wondering how his car was going to behave exhilarated him.
A horn tooted, and Henry took the bike to the edge of the road. Instead of whooshing past him, the truck slowed and stopped. Henry braked and put one foot on the ground, realizing the approaching truck was Ernie’s.
“I haven’t forgotten about your car,” Ernie said.
“I’m sure you’re busy.” Henry felt in his shirt pocket for the letter.
“It’s going to take some looking around to find the part I think you need. I have in mind a few places to inquire.”
“I don’t want to put you out,” Henry said. The longer it took for Ernie to find the part, the more likely that Henry would be able to pay for it.
“I think if we’re patient, we can find it without spending an arm and a leg.”
Henry nodded into the glare, noticing that Ernie had a passenger.
“This is Homer Griffin,” Ernie said. “He’s helping me out for a while. Homer, this is Henry. He works for the government.”
The man lifted a hand in greeting. “Do you have one of Mr. Roosevelt’s jobs?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“You’re lucky, then,” Homer said.
“We have our work,” Ernie said, “and Henry has his. We should all get back to it.”
The truck rattled away.
Luck. Was that what it came down to? The difference between Henry and Homer, or between Henry and Coralie? Henry had no intention of relying on luck when hard work held so much more promise.
Hope in the Land Page 20
