Cana
Wayne’s wedding came off really well. I sang “If Thou art Near” by Bach, and Evvie and I did “Loving Shepherd,” and Mom played organ. I can’t say that Wayne and Laura were a lovely couple, because they were both big and chunky and plainer than your shoe. But they were such good people.
After the minister married them we threw rice and oats and sweet feed and rolls of toilet paper at them and then followed them over to Pilchers’ and had ourselves a party. There was a huge table piled with all kinds of food, which I had helped make. Cousin Billy’s teenage nephew Jean-Claude from Quebec played fiddle for the dancing. He told me I could really sing and that he wanted to kiss me, so I kissed him right smack on the mouth and he asked me to write him letters.
The day after the day after that, Dad was supposed to come back to Mitchell Hollow. Two weeks after that I was going to ride Sam back home. I ignored this fact as best I could. I was working hard helping the Pilchers and their extra hired men with the new calves and the milking and then the haymaking. I also helped Bea cook the gigantic meals the men ate three times a day.
We made waffles with ham, syrup, jelly, honey, coffee, eggs and biscuits for breakfast. Lunch could be meat loaf or chicken, potatoes, carrots and peas, pie and cobbler. The big crockery pitcher of new milk stood at the ready at all times. For dinner we made pork chops or steaks, boiled potatoes, green beans, bread, gravy, cake, canned fruit and whipped cream. Maybe I didn’t want to marry a farmer after all, you just could not keep them filled up.
One day in a free hour I rode Sam up to the top of Ed’s hill pasture and into his wood lot. We wandered along the deer trails and stood looking over Colby Valley, with its green pastures and still waters shimmering in the midsummer sun. We stopped by the ring of rocks where we had made last summer’s campfire, and I got off and let Sam graze and sat there a long time.
Bea and I stayed away from our regular Church, “to give your mother some peace.” We went to the Congregational Church over Shiloh way. Bea said the Congregationals were too liberal minded but church was church so we went.
It was good to go; I could sit quiet in the pews next to Bea and meditate on the Life Hereafter (not the actual Kingdom of God, but the life Here, After Dad Came Back). I thought about how I was going to go home and practice charity, like Bea.
I needed to stock up on charity before I could face Dad. I did believe– on Sunday anyway, with the Bible words and the organ and the colored lights—that things really could be different. Now that I knew the story about Dad’s troubles maybe I could open my heart and forgive him for being so mean.
Sitting in the pew I suddenly felt all sort of womanly. Maybe I could cook him some nice meals and make it all up to him somehow. I knew I was growing up. I would be a real woman soon. I had kissed a boy and I was going to write him letters.