The rain blew in from the sea and slashed against the windows. They had to have candles lit all day long. The fire blazed on the hearth and kept the stew bubbling in the pot, so the good smell of cooking was always in the room.
Kotka and Tink were out with the sheep. Eidi sat spinning, filling the room with the soothing hum of the wheel. Old Glennie lay asleep in her place by the door, thumping the floor with her tail now and then when she had good dreams. The clicks of Rossan’s knitting needles mingled with the other sounds.
“If you’d like to knit yourself a sweater, just help yourself to yarn,” he said.
“Thank you. Yes,” said Eidi. “I’d like that.”
She stopped the spinning wheel and flexed her fingers. She had been spinning yarn for days now and wanted to use her hands for something else.
“Yes, it’s time for a change. It’s not good to do one thing for too long at a time,” observed Rossan.
He laid his knitting on the table and went over to stir the stew.
“We can eat as soon as the boys get in.”
Old Glennie woke at the sound of his voice, got to her feet, and shuffled over to him. Eidi went up to the attic and surveyed the skeins of spun yarn. She was looking for something left over from a shawl that Rossan had knitted for Lesna.
But when she found the little light-gray ball, she could see that there wasn’t enough for a sweater for herself. All the same, she couldn’t give up the idea. The yarn was so soft and fine, and it was the same pearly gray color as an overcast sky.
I’ll knit a tiny jacket, she thought, and took the yarn downstairs.
She began to cast on, but the yarn was so delicate and fine that it broke when she tightened the stitches. So she went back up into the attic and fetched down her own long braid, which was still wound up in her knitted head scarf.
She started again on the jacket, but now she knitted her own long hairs gradually into the rows one by one, to strengthen the yarn. Whenever she got to the end of a hair, she pulled a new one from the thick, golden-red plait.
“That will make a warm, well-wearing jacket,” remarked Rossan. “He’ll be glad of that.”
“Who will?”
“Your little brother, to be sure. Cam—isn’t that his name? He’s the only one that size I know of.”
And of course that was so.
At last one day it stopped raining. Kotka wanted to ride to town and see Lesna, and then he intended to come back in time to look after the sheep while Rossan made his trip to the big spring market.
Rossan packed provisions for him and gave him a shawl to take to Lesna that he had knitted for her. Eidi asked him to give Lesna one of her golden coins to pay for her board and lodging, not to forget to return the blanket, and to tell her thanks for the loan of it.
“Isn’t there something you’d like me to bring you from town?” Kotka asked Eidi.
She hesitated.
“You name it! I’ll be back sooner or later, you know. And if you’ve left by the time I get back, I’ll ride out to Crow Cove. I’ve always wanted to have a look at that place.”
“Well, if you could buy five mother-of-pearl buttons for the little jacket. No, just four, because I have one already. You can take it with you so you can get them to match.”
She ran up to the attic and brought it down to him. He put it in his jacket pocket and pulled his knitted cap down over his white, unruly hair.
“And—” she began, and then stopped.
“Yes?”
“A horse.”
“A horse?”
“Yes. Tink and I have such a lot of money, so I thought maybe we should buy a horse. Then we’d have something to ride to Crow Cove on. And we need a horse at home, too. The one Doup has is only big enough to carry him.”
“Yes! Let’s buy a horse!” Tink shouted happily.
Rossan thought it was a good idea, too. “Mind you, take your mother along when you buy it,” he told Kotka. “Nobody can pull the wool over her eyes.”
Kotka promised. Eidi gave him the money, and he started off.
One sunny day Eidi spun the last skein of wool. She rose from the spinning wheel, put it back into its corner, and went to wash the wool oil off her fingers. She would be paid for her work after Rossan had sold the yarn.
Then she sat down at the table and looked at the tiny jacket. It was finished now and lacked nothing but the five buttons. There was only a very small ball of yarn left, and with this she crocheted scallops around all the edges. Then she sewed in the yarn ends and folded it away.
The door stood open out to the farmyard. The low afternoon sun slanted in to her. She got up and went outside.
The air was crisp and clear and full of the wing-beats and voices of birds of passage coming home. Far away the sea lay sparkling blue in the sunlight. Feathery clouds floated across the sky.
Eidi drew a deep breath, stretched her arms over her head, and spread her fingers wide. A tingling ran all through her body. She felt so light, now that all the wool lay in neat skeins of yarn up in the attic. She had done the work she set out to do. Now she could do whatever she liked.
She went out behind the house and along the track that led toward Eastern Harbor. She picked some of the first downy pussy willows growing there. Then she heard a new sound, and far off she saw Kotka come riding along the track.
His flaxen-white hair shone in the sunlight, and she saw him lift his arm to wave as soon as he caught sight of her. He was riding Lesna’s horse and leading a roan mare with a glossy black mane and tail.
The dogs had heard them and came running, leaping, and wagging all over. When they got to the house, Rossan was standing in the doorway, and Tink stuck his head out of the stable. When he saw the horse, he rushed into the yard.
“Is that one ours?” he shouted happily, running to catch hold of the bridle.
Kotka had brought much more. First he handed down the big haversack, which he put into Rossan’s hands with many greetings from Lesna. He was to remember to say that she liked the shawl very much. He had a silver coin for Eidi from Lesna, because the gold coin was more than she was owed, his mother had said.
For Rossan he had bought tea and tobacco, as he had been asked to do, and a lot of different seeds that Rossan wanted Foula to have.
For Eidi, Kotka had bought five mother-of-pearl buttons, because he couldn’t find any others that matched the one she had sent with him. He fished all six buttons out of his jacket pocket and handed them to her. The new ones he had found glimmered in soft shades of gray. At first Eidi was disappointed, but when she tried them against the jacket, she found that they suited it perfectly.
For Tink there was a paper twist full of raisins from Bandon’s shop. Before Kotka had left, they had all agreed that it need not be a secret any longer that Eidi and Tink were staying with Rossan. Kotka had told no one but his mother. But Bandon was sure to know by now, because he and Lesna had begun to keep company pretty regularly.
“But now he’ll come after us,” Tink gasped, dropping a raisin that he was about to put in his mouth.
Eidi picked up the raisin. “No, he won’t,” she said, and handed it back to him.
But that night she dreamed about Bandon for the first time in a long while:
She was sitting on the big, flat rock off the shore by Crow Cove when he rose up out of the sea in front of her. He was wearing his fur-trimmed winter coat. It was quite dry.
He came toward her, holding out a big mussel shell full of mother-of-pearl buttons. She felt a sudden fear that he was trying to fool her in some way.
Her fear woke her, and she found herself again in bed in Rossan’s attic. She lay listening to Tink’s easy breathing, with a strange feeling that she had been fooling herself.