Bitter Harvest

by Sheila Connolly

  “But we did that last night,” she said with a mock whine.

  “Yup, we did. Nobody ever said colonial life was exciting, except for the occasional Indian attack or war. Mostly you worked hard to stay alive, fell into bed, made a few babies, then got up and started all over again. On Sunday you might take some time off for church.”

  “Oh, come on. There had to be some socializing.”

  “Weddings and funerals. Quilting bees. Sharing the harvest chores and celebrating when it was done. I don’t think anyone should romanticize the lifestyle, but it worked, because here we are.”

  “Yes, we are. Just like all those forebears, sitting in front of the fire, grumbling. Soon to be followed by snoring.” She stood up quickly. “I’ll go look for that wine.”

  In the kitchen she found a bottle of red, and collected two glasses—and Lolly’s food, to save herself yet another chilly trip. Back in the front parlor she handed the bottle with a corkscrew to Seth, then refilled Lolly’s dish while he opened the wine. When she was done, Seth handed her a glass.

  “What should we drink to?”

  “Survival.” Meg raised her glass, and Seth echoed her motion.

  Dinner proved better than she had expected, especially after Meg had had the brainstorm to make up a corn bread crust and bake it on top of the stew for the last half hour or so. Or maybe the wine made everything taste better. Either way, she wasn’t going to complain. Stomach full, head swimming slightly, she sat cocooned with blankets in her chair staring at the embers of the dying fire, until she nodded off.

  She half woke when Seth nudged her gently. “Bedtime. I stoked the fire, and Max has done his stuff.”

  She was too sleepy to think of a comeback, so she followed him meekly to their now-familiar nest in front of the fire, where they snuggled in for the night.

  Maybe pioneer life wasn’t for her, but this she could grow used to.

  8

  The first thing Meg noticed was the brightness. She didn’t even need to open her eyes to tell that something had changed that morning: the sun had come out. She could hear Seth in the kitchen, talking on what had to be his cell phone. No doubt organizing the Granford digging-out process. She wondered if he had enough clout to get her driveway plowed quickly, and then felt ashamed of herself. She didn’t need to go anywhere, and Seth’s car was back at his place anyway. He’d have to hike back overland to get it, if that was even possible.

  She pulled off the blankets and stood up, once again dislodging Lolly. The sun rose on the other side of the meadow, but all she could see was blazing blue sky and an endless expanse of white. She couldn’t even tell where the fence around the goat pen was, the snow was so high. It was beautiful—and it was going to be a pain to get rid of. Couldn’t they all just wait until it melted? Not likely: Meg remembered mounds of snow in the middle of Northampton early in the year that had lasted weeks.

  “Hey, you’re awake.” Seth came into the room, looking ridiculously energetic.

  “Brilliant deduction, since I’m standing up. What time is it?”

  “Just past eight. I had to check in with the snowplow guys. They’ve got to dig themselves out before they can tackle the roads. It may be a while.”

  “Do you need to be somewhere?”

  “Not yet. Don’t you wish you’d gotten a plow blade for that tractor of yours?”

  “No! Then someone like you would expect me to use it. You want breakfast?”

  “Sure. I’ll build up the fire again—let’s hope this is the last time.”

  “Still no power?”

  “Not yet, but the guys I talked to said the electric company’s working on it. Maybe by the end of the day.”

  “Have you checked in with Rachel and your mother?”

  “Yup. All’s good there, and the kids are thrilled to get to stay home another day. Look, I’ve got to take Max out, and I’d better dig a path out to the barn and make sure the goats have enough food.”

  “Shall we do the traditional thing again? You make the fire, I’ll make breakfast. Unless you see a handy varmint out there and want to shoot it for breakfast instead.”

  “If I brought back a rabbit, would you be prepared to skin it?” he asked.

  “In your dreams. Go!”

  In the kitchen Meg assembled eggs, bacon, bread. She swabbed out the skillet they had used the day before, still unwashed since there was no hot water. Cold water and grease were not a pleasant combination. She could hear the rhythmic sound of Seth’s shovel out back. Given that the snow was three feet deep, it might take him a while to reach the barn. Good thing they didn’t have cows to milk.

  After a few more minutes Meg heard Seth outside the door now, clearing a broader path in front of the back door. Then he came tramping in, scattering snow, with Max adding his own. “Still cold out there! The goats are fine, if bored—much longer and they may chew their way out of the stall.”

  “I’ve got breakfast ready to go, if you think the fire’s ready,” Meg said.

  “Let me feed Max and mop up the melted snow first.”

  Meg carried all the fixings into the front room. Before she could set the pan on the fire, she decided to check her messages and powered on her cell phone. Bree had called not half an hour earlier, so Meg returned the call. “Bree? How are things in Amherst?”

  “Hi, Meg. Not too bad—the plows have been out already. How about at your end?”

  “Seth says he’s called them out, but I haven’t seen them. I can’t even see the road.”

  “So I shouldn’t try to get back there?”

  “Not yet. We still don’t have power, and who knows when we’ll have heat? Enjoy your free time—you’ve earned it.”

  “Yeah, I guess I’ll just have to make do.”

  Meg could hear Michael laughing in the background. “I’ll let you know when the roads are clear, but there’s no rush.”

  “Well, at least you’ve got Seth to keep you company. Bye!”

  Bree hung up before Meg could respond. When Seth came in, she told him, “It looks like Amherst has the plowing under control. I told Bree she didn’t need to rush back, even if she could. Maybe she should stay there until I get this furnace problem worked out. You have any idea how long that will take?” She set the skillet on the fire to heat.

  “Depends. Once the roads are clear I’ll make some calls.”

  “Just try not to bankrupt me. My credit card is already groaning.”

  “I’ll do the best I can. Now, about that breakfast . . .”

  By the time they had finished eating, the first snowplow had gone past, making a quick detour to clear a portion of her driveway. Seth went out to confer with the driver, and watching from the kitchen window, Meg recognized John Taylor, who waved at her. He’d been so bundled up the last time she’d seen him that she hadn’t gotten a good look at him. He turned out to be older than she had expected, probably in his forties, with a lean dark face, sort of like a prebeard Abraham Lincoln. Seth and John chatted for a few minutes while Meg cleaned up. Did she dare risk boiling water so she could do the dishes? How long would it be until the power was restored?

  When Seth came back he said, “Good news. John says the power problem for this road is a downed line over toward town, where a tree fell on it. The rest of the town is back on line, and as soon as they break some trucks free they can fix the last wire. Figure you’ll have power by this afternoon. Look, I’ve got to go into town and coordinate the cleanup process. Will you be okay here? And can I leave Max?”

  “I’ll be fine. No problem about Max, but maybe you could stop by with some more firewood later? If the furnace won’t be ready for a few days?”

  Seth smiled. “So you really want to keep staying here, even without heat?”

  “Hey, we made it through the blizzard, and I’m getting pretty good at cooking over the fire. Once the power’s back, I can shift to the kitchen. I’ll be fine. You go and do what you need to do.”

  When he was gone, Meg turned
to Max. “Well, pal, what now? You know, I think I vote for boiling a pot of water and then a quick sponge bath. If there’s any water left, I might make a stab at doing the dishes. How does that sound to you?”

  Max slobbered at her for a few moments, then turned and settled himself in front of the fire. Meg laughed. “Too much for you, eh, Max? Too bad.” She went back to the kitchen to find a stockpot, which she filled with as much water as she could lift, then hauled it back and settled it on the coals, adding a few split logs around it. It looked stable, which was a good thing, since it would probably take at least an hour to get hot. How on earth had women done laundry in earlier centuries? It must have taken a day just to get the water hot enough. At least they’d had fewer clothes, but the downside of that was that things must have gotten pretty rank. She definitely preferred the present.

  When she’d done what limited cleanup she could, Meg gave in to the siren call of the sampler. She still couldn’t power up her computer, but she could take a look at what her mother had put together on the Warren family first and see if any Coxes popped up. She’d been so busy with the harvest she really hadn’t had time to absorb the details her mother had so proudly assembled, beyond the barest outlines, and now was a good time to start. At least she could figure out who had lived in the house when young Violet Cox had made the sampler.

  Meg had put all the Warren family genealogy information into one banker’s box, which did little to distinguish it from the several similar boxes of materials she was working her way through for the Historical Society. But she’d needed the space on the dining room table to spread out her financial records. Great: now she felt guilty no matter which direction she looked, because nothing was getting finished. At least the family documents and printouts constituted the smallest stack of material.

  She pulled out the sheaf of papers on top, which included a family tree, tiers of boxes showing each generation lined up. Her mother had accomplished a surprising amount in a short time, given that she had no prior experience. Meg traced the line back from the two elderly sisters she had met years ago, who had left the house and land to her mother, their distant niece. Back through their parents and grandparents, to Eli Warren the carpenter, whom Seth said had been responsible for some substantial remodeling in the house in the nineteenth century, to his father (also Eli), and his father Stephen, and finally his father, likewise Stephen, who had built the house. Eli the younger had been the head of household in the years around 1800, with his wife Orpha—interesting name, that—and their three children. That gave Meg a place to start.

  But there were no Coxes on this chart. Meg riffled through the other papers and found no reference to any other Coxes, in any time period. So much for the easy route. Maybe a daughter? But Eli the elder had had only one daughter, according to what her mother had found, and she had married a Dickinson. Now Meg was stuck. She would have to go at identifying Violet Cox by some other route, and that would take some more research.

  Her thinking was interrupted by Max, who began barking frantically and pawing at the closed door to the kitchen. “You can’t be that hungry, Max. You need to go out?”

  In reply Max whined and turned in circles, watching her.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll take you out.” Meg pulled open the door to the kitchen, and Max rushed past her to stand by the outer door, quivering with eagerness. “Hang on, pal—I have to put on boots and a coat and all that stuff.” He watched her pull on outer garments, whining. In a corner of her mind Meg noted that this was not his usual “I gotta go” behavior—he seemed peculiarly anxious. Since she wasn’t the one who usually walked him, she wasn’t prepared when she opened the door and he rushed past her, almost knocking her down. “Max, wait!” she said, afraid he’d head for the road, or escape altogether.

  To her surprise he didn’t bolt, but waded purposefully through the snow that all but covered his head, toward the back of the house. Meg followed as best she could. Seth hadn’t shoveled here—why would he?—and it wasn’t easy going, but Max seemed very determined. When she made it around the back of the shed, she found Max turning in circles again beneath the back window of one of the rooms on the west side of the house—one of the ones she never used. She didn’t understand what had gotten him so excited, until she looked down and saw footprints—human footprints, made by someone wearing what she now recognized as snowshoes. She looked around quickly and didn’t see anyone moving. But the footprints lead both toward and away from the house, toward the back of the property and into the woods. She followed them with her eyes as far as she could see, but there was no point in actually trying to track them—she’d never make it through the thigh-deep snow. Could it have been Seth who made them? But why would he have been at the back of the house? There was only one set of doggy-prints, from Max’s recent headlong dash. No, Seth hadn’t walked him here. It must have been someone else.

  But who? And why?

  Max, frustrated, trotted back to the cleared part of the driveway and laid his signature on a snowdrift, then turned back to her expectantly. Time to go in, she guessed. Still, why would anyone be lurking around the back of her house? Suddenly she was glad that Max was there. He was large, and he could be loud, even though in reality he wouldn’t hurt a mouse.

  She whistled to get his attention, then opened the door for him to go into the kitchen. She followed more slowly—and made sure to lock the door behind her.

  9

  Back inside, Meg made the rounds of her windows, making sure that they all were latched. That wasn’t saying much, since most of the windows were held shut by antique latches, and the sashes were so loose that anyone could slip a knife in and shift a latch. It hadn’t troubled her before, mainly because although her house was relatively isolated from other houses, it was still plainly visible from the street, so any intruder would have been glaringly obvious. Plus there was really nothing much to steal, apart from her laptop, and even that wasn’t new. She’d already had one break-in since she had lived here, but that had been personal and wasn’t about to recur.

  So who was her mystery visitor with the snowshoes? And what would have happened if Max hadn’t been here?

  She shoved that thought out of her mind and studied the contents of her refrigerator. Feeding two people had depleted her supplies, and she had better figure on another trek to the market. Bree would be back eventually, and she would need to eat, too. Unless, of course, Bree didn’t want to stay in an unheated house, not when she had Michael to keep her warm. It wasn’t as though Meg needed to have Bree here during the off-season—once she had coughed up the paperwork she owed Meg.

  That was essential if she was to plan for the future. Meg wasn’t sure what financial results to expect, or even what to hope for. She would probably settle for breaking even in her first year, if she could figure out how to squeeze more efficiency out of her second. If there was going to be a second year. While she still had some cash in her business account, it wasn’t going to last long, and Meg wasn’t sure what other expenses were still outstanding. She also knew that there would be more expenses before she could expect any more income from the orchard. Her reserves were pretty thin. Bree had a stake in the success of the orchard operation, too: it was her first real job, postcollege, and it was generating her paycheck. The bigger picture was: no profit, no job, no check for Bree.

  She looked out the dining room window just in time to see Bree’s car slip-sliding its way into her driveway. Bree parked as far forward as she could in the cleared area, and a minute later Meg heard her at the back door, and went to meet her.

  Bree was simultaneously stamping her feet and trying to greet Max, who was bounding around her feet, apparently thrilled by yet more company. “Hi, Maxie boy. Hey, down! At least let me get my coat off! Hi, Meg.”

  “I thought you weren’t coming over?”

  “Hey, I live here, don’t I? The roads over toward Amherst were okay, and Michael’s place gets kind of claustrophobic after a while. And he’s got roomma
tes.”

  “I need to dig the car out. We’ll be out of food by tomorrow.”

  “Your car’s still in the shed? I’ll help you shovel it out. So where’s Seth?”

  “Off running the town, it seems. He’s coordinating the snow removal process, and he swears I’ll have power by the end of the day. The furnace is a different problem.”

  “Dead, huh?”

  “Looks like it. I’m sure he’d fix it if he could, but there’s some major part that’s just plain worn out. It’s probably at least thirty years old, so it’s due.”

  “Lousy timing, though, huh?”

  “It is. So I’ll understand if you don’t want to stay here and freeze. Mostly I’ve been huddling in front of the fire with a lot of blankets. Seth’s not sure when he can get around to replacing the furnace—looks like there are some other priorities out there at the moment.”

  “You been cooking over the fire?”

  “I have.” Meg felt an absurd sense of pride. “Just call me Pioneer Meg. But I don’t want to do it long-term. At least when the power’s back there’ll be hot water and a stove. Oh, speaking of snow-plowing, have you met many of the neighbors here?”

  “I don’t follow your jump from plowing to neighbors, but yeah, I’ve talked to some of them. I even give ’em a few apples now and then.”

  “Have you met the Taylors from down the road? John apparently does some plowing for the town, but I don’t remember seeing him before. He stopped by to talk to Seth the other day.”

  Bree shook her head. “Doesn’t sound familiar. Everything else okay?”

  “The goats are in the barn, and Seth says they’re bored. That about sums up the excitement since you left.”

  “You and Seth okay?”

  “We’re good. We did some cleaning to keep warm.”

  “If that’s your idea of a romantic adventure, I pity you.”