Hope in the Land

by Olivia Newport

  Henry nodded in relief.

  “Each farm will have its own box or jar. Or as many boxes as it takes.” They wouldn’t get every piece right the first time—even Polly couldn’t promise that—but the more they sorted, the more they would know where they were going wrong. “The main thing we want to look for are any pieces we think are from your final versions.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “When we see where the gaps are, I’ll see what else I remember.” Polly would remember it all. She wasn’t one of those English recording machines, but once she had some reminders of a particular conversation, or a page she had read, the rest would come. Her mind whirred. Challenge sparked at the thought of something to do other than snap peas under the maple.

  “I will do whatever you say,” Henry said.

  “Good. Then once we get it all sorted out, I’ll do the typing. I have a feeling I am already faster than you are.”

  He gave a nervous laugh. “I don’t doubt it.”

  “And then we’ll have to get all the wives to look over the information and tell us whether they agree it’s true. I will not be part of committing fraud against the government.”

  “Of course not. I wouldn’t ask you to do that.”

  “We have a lot of work to do.”

  Henry’s arms flung out and around Polly, knocking the satchel from her hands and her crutch to the ground. Off balance, she leaned into him.

  “You are a true friend, Polly Grabill.” His grandmother would have done anything Henry needed, but she had been gone for years and no one else had occupied her spot of faithful affection. Until now. If Polly did not know how remarkable she was, Henry would rectify her perceptions. He kissed one cheek and then the other.

  Polly pushed away. “Thomas!”

  She spoke over Henry’s shoulder, and he spun around.

  “It’s not what you think,” Henry said.

  “How do you know what I think?” Thomas asked.

  “Henry has a problem with his work,” Polly said. “I just agreed to help him sort it out.”

  Her eyes fixed on Thomas. She had been soft under Henry’s touch—until she saw Thomas. Henry had not expected to feel pleasure in the shape of her shoulder in his clasp. If she had felt anything in their embrace other than being startled, she hid it now.

  “Can we talk about this later?” Thomas said.

  Polly stiffened. “There’s nothing to talk about. I just told you.”

  Thomas squatted, picked up the satchel, and pressed it into Henry’s abdomen. Then he grabbed the crutch, straightened himself, and handed it to Polly.

  “I need you to come with me, Polly,” Thomas said.

  “Thomas, try to understand,” Polly said.

  Thomas exhaled. “No, you try to understand, please. I don’t want to talk about this right now. I want you to come with me. It’s important.”

  CHAPTER 38

  Polly leaned into Thomas’s support. Without it she would not have kept up with the pace he set even if she’d had both crutches. Phrases and words and punctuation branched around her brain as if she were diagramming a sentence on the old blackboard in the one-room schoolhouse with Rose standing next to her. But she erased her mental work almost as quickly as she formulated it. Whatever meaning she was meant to ferret out by Thomas’s abrupt arrival and their joint departure from the Grabill yard eluded her.

  “Thomas,” she said, “I can’t keep up.”

  “You have to.” Thomas entwined his arm with hers more tightly. “If we don’t hurry, she could be gone.”

  Turning her head to take in his face only slowed Polly down, and Thomas tugged her forward.

  “You found her?” she said.

  “If it’s the same woman.”

  “Well done, Thomas!” Polly determined to lengthen her lopsided stride. She was so used to being careful about her foot that now she was not sure when the sensitivity of the fresh wound had diminished. “But did you see where she went?”

  She heard the grin his voice cradled. “She followed my trail.”

  “The milk and apples and beans?”

  “That’s right. She missed something here and there, but she collected most of it.”

  Or someone did. Polly wanted to believe the offerings had reached the recipient for whom Thomas had so carefully chosen the goods. When this was all over, Polly was going to make him explain where he got brand-new groceries.

  “Mamm said her name might be Eleanor.”

  “We’ll know soon enough. I suspect she’s in that empty outbuilding on the other side of the woods.”

  Stumbling steps behind her compelled Polly to break pace long enough to glance over her shoulder.

  “Henry, what are you doing?” she said.

  “Whatever the two of you are doing.” Henry’s toe hit a tree root and he danced around it.

  They were at the edge of the woods, where, as a little girl, Polly had insisted on helping her father tie ropes around the trees he had felled and would haul to be lumbered. She could still look around the Grabill home and point to the furniture and walls and flooring that had once stood among the timbers.

  “Who is Eleanor?” Henry huffed to keep up.

  “Someone we met,” Polly said. They weren’t yet certain it was the same person.

  “We just have to follow the trail I laid out,” Thomas said. “It will take us to the edge of the property, but from there we’ll be able to see footprints.”

  “Are we tracking someone?” Henry was getting closer.

  Polly did not spare time for his questions. To Thomas she said, “What will we do if we find her?”

  “That’s what I want to know,” Henry said, only a few steps behind them.

  Polly ignored him. “We tried to help her before. She wouldn’t come with us.”

  “This time will be different.” Thomas’s voice rang with confidence.

  “Surely I can help,” Henry said.

  Finally Thomas slowed and turned to face the interloper. “Henry, she’s skittish and we don’t know why. If you won’t go back, then promise you’ll do what I say.”

  “Not so much water, Mother.”

  Minerva’s eyes dropped to the pail in the kitchen sink, and her hand stilled on the faucet.

  “You’re mixing wood soap, aren’t you?” Rose crossed the kitchen.

  “Yes, that’s right.” Maude’s absence was showing up underfoot. Sweeping was no longer sufficient to constrain the grit that blew into a farmhouse. Minerva had made up her mind to give the floors in the front rooms a proper cleaning, even if it meant crouching on her hands and knees.

  “It’s better to use a smaller amount of water.” Rose pulled a pot from under the sink. “And it doesn’t take much soap. Murphy’s makes a good formula.”

  “Have you been reading the advertisements?” Minerva scowled at the bottle.

  Rose nudged Minerva away from the sink and poured half of Minerva’s pail into the spare pot. “No point in wasting the water.”

  “No, of course not.” Minerva was not in the habit of dumping well water down the drain. Why would her daughter suppose she would? “When did you become accomplished in cleaning floors?”

  Rose shrugged and measured soap from the bottle into her mother’s bucket. “Maude. Lizette. Mrs. Windham.”

  Rose named all the house help of the last ten years.

  “It’s nothing complicated,” Rose said, swirling the water and soap together. “Where’s the soft brush Maude used to use?”

  Rose turned her head toward the makeshift laundry room, where the recent increase in space irritated and humiliated Minerva every time she entered. She would sometimes open the door and throw in a rag without aiming for a particular target. Ernie picked up what bothered him. If Rose knew where the brush would be, why was she asking?

  “I can manage,” Minerva said.

  “I don’t mind helping.”

  In her overalls, Rose paced toward the gaping hole of a laundry room and returned w
ith supplies. With the brush tucked under one arm and a stack of rags tossed over a shoulder, she hefted the bucket of soapy water as if she knew precisely what she was doing.

  Minerva’s heart splintered, and she scrambled to keep the pieces from spilling out of her chest. This was not what she wanted for her daughter. Even if she’d had to do her own cleaning in the early days, she never meant for Rose to be on the floor beside a sloppy bucket.

  Rose started in on the dining room floor, beginning with the dark ring left by daily foot traffic around the table.

  “Really, Rose.” Minerva couldn’t restrain herself. “You needn’t do this.”

  “Mother, I want to.” Rose leaned into the brush. “There’s something satisfying about finding the true life of the wood all over again—like touching the land it came from.”

  Minerva pressed her lips together. Rose was young and naive. Once she’d scrubbed floors for a few years—especially after children traipsed through rooms with their sticky feet—she would see the higher purpose in her life. The Depression could not last forever.

  She was there.

  The baby fussed, and Polly leaned harder on Thomas’s arm, determined not to fall at the moment that clatter would give them away. Thomas turned his head to silence Henry with wide eyes of warning.

  At least Eleanor, if it was her, had found shelter. The shed, nothing more than a place to store a few bales of hay temporarily, did not belong to the Grabills. A scant three yards over the property line, it belonged to a childless widower who had let the field adjoining the woods go fallow the last two years. Polly had heard her father and brothers talking about it. With more land than he needed, no cash to plant, and no sons to inherit, he could have taken an offer on his farm and moved in with his niece. But he refused to accept that land values had fallen so precipitously and brushed off any suggestion that he should move off the land that for decades had cradled hope for his prosperity.

  And now, hundreds of yards away from the owner’s house, the shed harbored hope for Eleanor.

  But it was no place for a baby, whose cries muted the trio’s approach.

  Near the open doorframe, Polly released Thomas’s arm. If she went in alone, Eleanor might listen to sense. She shooed the men out of sight.

  “Eleanor?” Polly said.

  The young woman nodded, confused.

  “I’m glad you found the things we left for you,” Polly said softly.

  Eleanor startled, her eyes saucers.

  “It’s all right,” Polly said. “Thomas wanted you to have those things.”

  “I’ll pay for them as soon as I get work.” Eleanor shifted the baby to one shoulder.

  “There’s no need,” Polly said. “He meant them as a gift.” Polly scanned the shed, inhaling the odor of mold rising from an old bale Eleanor had managed to unroll. Thomas’s blanket covered it, and Eleanor sat with her legs crossed in front of her and the pillow in her lap. In a corner empty cans were stacked neatly, awaiting a new use. Thomas was right. She had found nearly everything.

  The baby was no happier on Eleanor’s shoulder than in her lap. Swaddled in a yard of flannel, the child was too young for Polly to guess whether it was a boy or a girl. Polly was not a mamm, but she had helped care for enough kinner to know a distressed cry.

  “Is the baby hungry?” Polly asked.

  “He has spells.” Eleanor laid the baby on his stomach and patted his back.

  They should have brought more canned milk. The early weeks were important to a new mother’s supply. If Eleanor was undernourished, her baby would be, too. She may have tried to suckle him and had nothing to offer.

  “Come to the house,” Polly said. “Let us help.”

  Eleanor leaned forward and kissed her son’s head.

  “The house is warm and dry, and you can have my bed.” Polly would sleep with Lillian if that’s what it took to know Eleanor and the baby were looked after.

  Eleanor grazed the baby’s downy crown with three fingers. “I’ve been too tired to keep walking.”

  “How old is he?” Polly asked.

  “Three weeks. Almost.”

  Polly limped over and knelt beside mother and child. Of course Eleanor would be tired.

  “He’s a tiny one. He needs to be somewhere safe so you can both get strong.”

  A gasp escaped Eleanor. Polly put a hand on her shoulder. Why was a new mother alone in the woods? Where had she come from and where was she going? Polly swallowed her questions. What mattered now was getting them to the house.

  The form that cast a shadow into the shed was Thomas’s. Polly looked up and nodded. Thomas entered and inspected the cans in the corner and picked up the flashlight.

  “Let me roll up the blanket for you,” Thomas said.

  Eleanor’s eyes filled. There was no telling when she last slept.

  “We’ll take everything,” Polly said. “It’s all yours if you want it.”

  The baby squalled again, and Eleanor nodded.

  “Henry,” Polly said. “Come and help.”

  Henry had never noticed before how the morning light caught the highlights in Polly’s hair. He had not seen much of her hair at all. Today, her prayer kapp had slipped out of place and she let it fall to the back of her head while with one hand she adjusted the baby’s swaddling and with the other sorted piles of papers. Henry was supposed to be helping, but his gaze kept swiveling from the task to the easy comfort of a baby in Polly’s arms, even in a modified barn stall.

  Polly glanced up. “What are you looking at?”

  “You.” Henry circled a hand. “All of this. It’s beautiful.”

  “He was hungry yesterday,” Polly said. “He’s had plenty of milk since then and he won’t do much except sleep between feedings. Eleanor may as well rest, too.”

  “You seem so comfortable.” Henry picked up the torn corner of a page, but he couldn’t make his eyes focus on the words.

  Polly laughed. “When you’re Amish, there’s always a baby within reach.”

  “I was an only child.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you want to have children?”

  “Of course.” Polly rotated a scrap ninety degrees and fit it beside another. “I think I have a whole sentence.”

  “You’re good at this.”

  “Sorting scraps? It just takes patience.”

  Henry looked again at the paper in his hand. Quarts: 27, it said. Twenty-seven quarts of what? He laid it on the desk.

  “Do you have any idea how exceptional you are?” he said.

  “Here’s another,” Polly said. “Look. We’ve got pieces from edge to edge now.”

  “Polly.”

  She spread another handful of scraps on the desk.

  “The more I get to know you,” Henry said, “the more I admire you. I could spend a lifetime and still never know everything about you.”

  Polly stiffened. “Henry.”

  “I’m serious, Polly,” he said. “I’ve been looking for all the wrong things. Coralie was a mistake.”

  “That may be true,” Polly said, scooting the chair back, “but I didn’t mean to give you any ideas.”

  “Any man would be lucky to have you.”

  “Luck has nothing to do with it.” Polly stood up.

  “We’re friends, aren’t we?” He hunted for her gaze, but she would not give it. “We could find out if it’s something more.”

  Polly took three steps backward. “That’s impossible.”

  “Is it?”

  “Three days ago you were heartbroken over Coralie Kimball.”

  “I’ve had my eyes opened since then. Nothing is impossible.”

  “This is.”

  Henry took a step toward her.

  “I’m taking the baby outside,” Polly said.

  Gloria led the steer toward the barn. It was putting on weight now, which had not been true three weeks ago, but the animal’s attitude vexed her.

  Polly moved through a shaft of sunlight and into
a patch of shade, both arms around the babe. Even under the eaves, though, her color was off. Absent.

  “Polly?” Gloria looped the lead through the handle on the barn door and laid a hand against Polly’s cheek. “Are you unwell?”

  Polly pulled away from her mother’s touch and blew out her breath. “I’ve made a mess of things again.”

  “You did the right thing bringing Eleanor and the babe here.” Polly shook her head and held the child closer. “I’ll go see how she is.”

  Polly wasted no step on her path toward the house. If her foot was bothering her, she paid it no heed. Eleanor was sleeping, and there was no reason to wake her. More likely Polly would seek a quiet corner to sit with the boy.

  Gloria turned back toward the barn. She stepped inside.

  “Henry?”

  “Here.”

  The response lacked enthusiasm, but Gloria moved toward the space Henry occupied. He stood in the middle of the stall.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked.

  Henry shrugged and turned up his palms.

  Gloria looked past him to the piles of paper scraps on the windowsill and desk and bookcase and cot. Polly’s description of the condition of Henry’s project had been understated. Gloria could see that now. But Polly was not the one who made this mess. If any order was to be found, it would be Polly’s doing. Gloria tilted her head and assessed Henry’s coloring, which was as pale and stunned as her daughter’s had been.

  “Henry,” Gloria said, “why don’t you and Polly work in the kitchen from now on?”

  He swallowed hard, which was all the explanation Gloria required of what had transpired before her arrival. When she volunteered Polly to drive Henry to appointments, she had not supposed this would happen.

  “Bring your things,” she said.

  “Polly said you would not want the typewriter in the house,” Henry said, his voice cracking.

  “She’s right about that. But you can use it on the porch.”

  CHAPTER 39

  Brakes whistled up on the main road, and dread flushed through Minerva. The idling engine was indisputable, the truck’s driver no doubt considering the accuracy of directions before turning onto the Swain property. Minerva squeezed her eyes. Someone else farther down must be expecting a delivery. Certainly she wasn’t, not after all her effort to cancel orders in progress.