It took all the strength Sophia, Anna, Tanya, and little Ilya could muster to get the worn-out body of poor old Yevno Pavlovich Burenin onto their rickety cart and back across the field to the izba. The priest was already hastening along the road to the cottage by the time the family arrived with their fallen papa.
With the priest’s help, they managed to get Yevno onto the bed where the priest immediately began the ceremony of the last rites. Sophia quickly put together a makeshift straw pallet on the earthen floor at the “beautiful corner” of the cottage. As soon as she had it ready, according to custom, they transferred her husband to it, with his head pointing in the direction of the icon of St. Nicholas above. As the priest continued with the rites, Sophia prayed softly, sprinkling Yevno with kernels of grain and salt.
Yevno’s labored breathing gradually began to grow more relaxed. The priest had finished with Yevno and was praying in front of the icon when at last Yevno opened his eyes.
“What . . . where am I?” he sighed softly.
“You are safe in the cottage,” replied Sophia, who knelt at his side with tears in her eyes. “Go back to sleep, Yevno. All is well.”
The old man’s eyes widened and he began to take in his situation. “Why am I not in my bed . . . what is the father doing here?”
“We did not know, Yevno . . . we thought it best—”
“What?” interrupted Yevno, trying to rise. “He has not been praying me into the next life?”
The priest knelt down and tried to soothe him.
“Ah, now I remember. The scythe fell from my hand . . . I must have fallen as well. . . .”
“You collapsed, Yevno,” said Sophia. “We were frightened. We dragged you here in the cart and sent for the father.”
“That accounts for the bed. You are a good wife—you did not want me to die too hard, eh?”
Sophia’s tears of joy at seeing her man smile again were her only reply.
“But you have not cut open the wall yet?” asked Yevno suddenly in alarm. “Winter is too close for that!”
“No, husband, we have not had the chance yet.”
“Don’t touch the wall or the roof. I am not about to die yet! And even if I do, my soul can get out of the izba well enough without you cutting any openings.”
“Yes, husband. I will do nothing to the konek.”
“Then get me back into the bed. I am not so close to death that I need to be here. I can see the good saint well enough from the other side of the room.”
Seeing her father finally resting contentedly, Anna quietly stole from the cottage with the intent of working on in the moonlight. She found the great scythe where it had dropped, but the effort of lifting it and then trying to swing it with any effect showed her what a strong man her father was, even at his weakest. She laid it down and returned to the barn for the hand sickle, then attacked the standing grain with a hopeful, if weary swing. She was only able to work another two hours, and she felled stalks equivalent to what her father could have sliced through in twenty or thirty minutes. Yet with a feeling of satisfaction she dragged her tired body back to the cottage about midnight and dropped into bed next to her sister.
How she found the strength to rise at dawn was a mystery. All the others except Sophia still slept. Anna could not recall a time her father had slept later than she. But there he was, his breathing labored and noisy, his skin still pale.
Anna dressed, then picked up her coat from the floor where she had dropped it the night before. She joined her mother in front of the fire, took a chunk of brown bread, and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” asked Sophia.
“There is work to do, Mama.”
“The animals need tending, that is true.”
“In the fields, Mama. The younger ones can take care of the animals.”
“Anna, your face was nearly as gray as your father’s last night.”
“But I am younger, and strong. The work will not hurt me.”
“You cannot cut all the wheat. If the rain comes, it comes.”
“Even if I cut only a little at a time, it is something.”
The mother looked over her daughter from head to foot. “I think in your own quiet way,” she said with a smile, “you are nearly as stubborn as your papa.”
Anna took the words as high praise, as her mother had meant them. Sophia wrapped her arms around her daughter and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“I will help today,” she said. “I will leave all the children here to make sure your papa stays in bed.”
“That may be hard on him, Mama, to know that two women are doing his work.”
“He has himself said more times than I can count how pride goes before a fall. Now he has fallen, and I think only a reminder will be necessary to keep him in the cottage.”
“The butcher’s son, Peter, came by yesterday while we were in the field and said that their crop is small and he expected to be through in a day or two.”
“And . . . ?”
“He said he would help, Mama.”
“Bless him—if only the rains hold off.”
“And now you are taking Papa’s part and worrying about the rain, Mama,” smiled Anna.
“The land has been my life as long as it has been your papa’s. It is too much a part of my soul not to think about.”
Anna nodded. She was of peasant stock too, and understood.
“Now get along, child,” said Sophia, “and God be with you.”
Despite her aching arms and shoulders, Anna walked into the field with high hopes, attributing the previous night’s exhaustion to the full day she had already put in. She picked up the scythe where it still lay, and to her joy found it felt lighter than it had seemed in last night’s moonlight. She lifted it and began swinging as she had seen her father do. But by the time she was able to wield the clumsy instrument, her shoulders had already begun to tire, and within an hour her arms felt as though they had been wrenched out of their shoulder sockets. She set the monstrous scythe down and found she could barely lift her hand to tuck back several loose strands of hair.
It was no use. She was simply too small and weak. She would rest a while and then gather and bind what she had cut. After that she would have to be content for the rest of the day with the smaller sickle, and would just have to do the best she could.
The day wore on. Sophia made better use of the scythe than Anna had been able to. Vera gathered, and Anna alternated cutting with the sickle and binding and stacking. Near noon, her mother and sister returned to the house to check on Yevno and prepare their meager lunch.
The rain had still not come, but the air was heavy with its scent and the clouds in the north appeared darker than they had yesterday.
With increasing difficulty Anna tried to remember all the words of faith and hope she had so often spoken to Katrina. But the exhaustion of her body brought despair to her mind. Her right arm hung limp at her side; the tiny sickle had grown as heavy as the giant scythe. “Dear God!” she moaned, collapsing onto the ground, crying in hopeless frustration. She lay on the dry earth a few moments and wept, sweat dripping into her eyes and mingling with her tears.
Her dejection lasted only four or five minutes. She pulled herself up and glanced once more toward the north, in the direction of the ominous clouds. She swung her gaze around toward the west. From the village, she spied a man in the distance walking toward her.
With a pang of renewed hope, she thought immediately of Peter. He was coming to help earlier than he’d said!
But . . . the figure was taller and broader than the fourteen-year-old son of Katyk’s butcher. He was dressed in a peasant tunic, belted at the waist with an embroidered belt, his baggy trousers tucked into high black boots. And there was something familiar about him. . . . Perhaps one of the neighbors had sent one of their field hands to help. Still . . . she thought she recognized the gait. This man did not walk like a field hand. He walked like—
Suddenly Anna jerked to her feet.
It could not be! It was impossible!
The sickle, which had still been clutched in her hand, fell to the ground with a dull thud. Suddenly Anna was unaware of dirt or stubble or grain, of sickles or scythes or rain or her ailing papa!
She took several tentative steps toward the edge of the field, her eyes fixed on the approaching figure. Her fatigue left her in an ecstatic rush of joyous anticipation, and she broke into a run.
He had not seen her where she knelt, and was looking in the other direction as she rose and began running toward him. By the time Anna emerged from the tall stalks of grain onto the pathway to the village, she was certain her eyes had not deceived her.
Against all hope and reason . . . it was him, as though he had stepped from her very dreams into reality itself!
He saw her coming, and his face lit into a huge smile. His great military boots thudded heavily across the hard-packed earth toward her.