CHAPTER 32
In the early morning, Lucian hitched Old Joy to run a section harrow on the north field. He also hitched a newly acquired, however ancient, mule to the plow. Emily caressed the gray muzzle of the mule, Remnant, so named because he had been the last creature sold when her neighbor gave up trying to survive the war and the weather without her man, packed up her brood of children, and left for Alabama. Emily did not mind that the mule was old, and he did not seem to mind his new name. She tugged at his bridle and set her hand to the plow. This would be her first field on her own. She did not stop until she had turned a small plot for sweet corn.
At the edge of the field, she surveyed the tantalizing furrows, like a beginner’s quilt with an awkward pattern. She had done it. A plot of her own. She and Remnant, with Benjamin’s spotty dog trotting at her heels, lying down panting at the end of each row while she turned the mule and the plow. Now, he lay at her feet, eyeing her, resting and waiting. Her legs trembled, but she dared not sit to rest. A sudden desire to drop seed corn into the furrows caught hold of her. The ground was broken. But far from ready to plant.
The field was of insignificant size, a learning field. From the turn row, Benjamin limped out and surveyed her work. Emily was intensely aware of his whitening beard, his frayed shirt, and her deep regret.
“Well, I reckon now this ground is broke, you wanting to plant something,” he said.
“How do you know that?” she said, tilting her head toward him.
“Oh, been there myself. Remember the first field I plowed by myself. It was even crookeder than yours.”
Emily smiled. “How old were you?”
“Now that I don’t rightly remember. Real young. Skinny, little old thing. But I seen the dirt open under that plow and I wanted me nothing but some seed corn to drop in.” Benjamin wiped his eyes with a handkerchief. “Yes’m. Didn’t give a hoot that field wasn’t near ready yet. No turning plow, no section harrow, nothing. Just wanted to see the corn drop in that open ground.” Benjamin chuckled, deep and throaty.
“And did you?” Emily laughed with him, stretching her aching arms and back.
“Well, my Uncle Dothan—he wasn’t my uncle, but that’s what us kids called him. We didn’t have no daddy, you see. Well, we did, but he got sold, somewhere off down the river we heard, but we never did really know.”
Emily studied the crooked furrows, the image of her father flooding her. Benjamin cleared his throat. He bent awkwardly, favoring the injured leg, and picked up a clod of dark earth, working it with his fingers, sifting it down into the furrow below. Watching his hand, Emily thought how like the earth he was, as if he had sprung from it whole, warm and dark.
“Well, anyhow, Uncle Dothan come hunting me ’round dinnertime. I was that took up with my field, I didn’t even hear the dinner bell. He’s real quiet a while, just looking at me and my work. I hadn’t never done any work you could look at and see what you had done, right in front of your eyes. After a spell, he say, ‘Come on, boy, ain’t you hungry after all that work?’ But I couldn’t stop looking. Finally he say, ‘You wanting something to go in that dirt, ain’t you, boy?’ and I nodded.”
Benjamin scrutinized Emily’s profile.
“So Uncle Dothan, he say, ‘Now, boy, they ain’t no way from here to there, except from here to there. You go shortcutting and your work gone be lost. You and your corn, too. Ground ain’t ready yet. Got three, four more passes to go. But I know what you wanting. You wanting life to grow. Here, now, go put this in there somewhere.’ And he reach in his pocket and put something in my hand I can’t see. Then he say, ‘Get on now, boy, before I starve.’ ”
Benjamin reached in his pocket and held his hand out to Emily. She opened her palm. Both of them laughed, Benjamin’s broad face rounding out.
“Now, you go put that somewhere in that broke-up ground, Miss Emily. Then you best come eat,” he said.
In Emily’s palm lay a single hard kernel of corn. For a full five minutes, she stood with her fingers closed around Benjamin’s offering. With her eye on the center of the field, she followed the crooks and turns of the rows and slipped the hard, slight seed into the earth.
* * *
“Ah, child, now that’s an onion, sweet and juicy. Makes your Ginny want to cry. You want a slice of that onion. You might like it, baby. It only takes tasting. Looky here.” Ginny took the onion, put it to her lips, and bit it like an apple.
Rosa Claire pushed back, shaking her head, ready to cry.
“Don’t want none, do you, honey child? Sure make them butter beans tasty. Ain’t you gone eat nothing? How about some cornbread, baby? With fresh butter? And some pot liquor? You ain’t got to taste no old onion.”
Rosa Claire scooted closer, her chin resting on the table edge, watching.
“How ’bout some sweet milk with your cornbread, baby?”
Perched on a thick dictionary, the little girl raised her head and nodded, reaching for the handle of her dented silver cup.
A noise at the back door caught Ginny’s attention. Adeline scraped her feet on the step, a basket on her arm loaded with early peas, carrots, beets, and radishes. There was no telling when she might appear and disappear just as quickly. Once she had brought a rag doll small enough to fit into Rosa Claire’s pocket. Ginny uncoiled her long, lean body and bolted toward the door.
“Don’t be perturbed, Ginny,” Adeline said. “I won’t be staying and I won’t even ask if Emily is at home. I assume she’s not around.” She stepped inside. “Here, take these. Once they’re fixed and on the table, they will taste like she might have planted them herself.”
“Well, Miss Adeline, she out working the field. She don’t never rest.”
“Seems that is what women all over are learning to do for themselves these days, Ginny.”
The dictionary tumbled to the floor as Rosa Claire clambered from her seat and tugged at the corner of Adeline’s basket. Adeline handed the basket to Ginny and stooped level with the child. She fingered Rosa Claire’s blond curls, winding an unruly lock around her finger. Dancing on tiptoe, Rosa Claire threw her arms around Adeline’s neck.
“Grammy—” Her voice was hardly a murmur.
“Are you being a good girl for Ginny? Eating your dinner?” Adeline saw the untouched food.
“She ain’t too hungry today, Miss Adeline. We about to have us some cornbread and sweet milk, though.” Ginny smiled and nodded at the child for affirmation. “You hungry, Miss Adeline? I fix you a plate.”
“No, Ginny, thank you, though. This will have to do me for now. It’s not worth the risk for me to want too much.” She touched the top of Rosa Claire’s hand and waved. “Let Grammy go. I’ll see you again soon.”
Rosa Claire blew a kiss from her wrist, rather than her fingertips.
“Bye-bye, Grammy. I see you, too.”
Ginny resettled the child back on the dictionary and pushed aside the plate of food. In an empty saucer, she broke up the buttered cornbread, spooned pot liquor over it, and handed the child a small silver spoon. Rosa Claire spilt the juices on the table and on her bib, but she ate.
Ginny sat beside her for a moment, her eyes out the window. Then, putting her hands on her knees for leverage, she rose and emptied the fresh vegetables into larger baskets on the porch, tucking Adeline’s basket under a corner table. Stepping back, she assessed its visibility. The table wobbled as she held its edge. Another chore to put on Nathan’s list. Ginny tucked the basket farther back with her toe. When she straightened, Rosa Claire was finishing her milk, head tilted back to catch the last drop from the cup.
Ginny wiped the child’s face with the corner of her apron and took her upstairs for her nap. Though they still frightened her, Ginny was becoming accustomed to these visits. Almost always Adeline brought something. Now it was early produce from the garden: vegetables, wild strawberries, new potatoes. She made sure to bring enough to help, but not enough to attract attention. Ginny cooked it all as if she had plucked it herself. And Emily ate.
If Rosa Claire spoke of Grammy, Emily ignored her, and so the child gradually stopped, as if she understood how to carry the secret.