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They put the canvas cover back on the wagon, repairing the small tears first since Erin insisted on coating the material to make sure it was resistant to rain. Once the coating dried, they took it down, carefully storing the canvas and the rounded boughs in the box of the wagon. The wagon was simply too big for their barn when it was all assembled.
Erin started cutting and gathering their hay. First, she and Molly cut it with their scythes; lengthy swaths of long grasses were felled. Next, they raked the swaths into elongated windrows for the sun to dry it. After, they raked it again, turning it over and stacking it all over the fields. They drove their regular wagon out into the field, using wood slats up the side to contain the straw and pitching it into the box. Occasionally, they would get in to move to another set of stacks and one of them would stomp down the hay, packing it carefully into the wagon. Once they got in their hay harvest, it was time to move on to other fields.
Erin helped with several of her neighbors’ harvests in exchange for help with theirs. While Erin was gone, Molly gathered much of her garden produce, canning and drying what she could on her own. Going out into the field, she picked what she could gather: green beans, squash, and other foodstuffs including corn on the cob. Using mosquito netting screens, she allowed everything to dry in the sun, picking over the good and feeding the off-color foodstuffs to the animals to fatten them up. Already, the oxen were rounding out from their steady diet of good grass, hay, and the extra treats Molly fed them to befriend them. Occasionally, she went to the other farms with Erin to help the other wives with food and fixings.
When the harvesters came to their farm, she had plenty of bean soup and baked bread with fresh butter ready to spread on it. She and the other wives gossiped and cooked, preparing huge meals for the working men, and in Erin’s case, working woman. They gathered the grain into shocks that could be left around the farmyard and made them into little teepees to shed rain. The oats, wheat, and barley from the fields would be stripped from their stalks. They would be beaten out of their husks, then winnowed into the air, the chaff riding away on the wind. After, they would be carefully shoveled into bags that could be hauled to town to be sold.
The corn was the last crop for them to harvest. It was left till last because it could stand in the field the longest; even snow didn’t hurt it. The stalks would be eaten by their stock. Some farmers had silos to store their grain and stalks in, which created silage for their stock.
The men were used to Erin helping with the harvest. She had helped when her father and brothers were alive too, so no one found it strange. They did find it strange that she had her cattle and horses ready and waiting for them to arrive every morning. They didn’t know she was waking up half an hour early to do this because she didn’t want anyone going into the barn where they had hidden their wagon under the hay.
“What are you going to do with these oxen, Erin? Sell them?” someone asked.
“You must have gotten a real deal on them. I saw that couple when they came through town, and they couldn’t sell them there,” someone else put in as they worked.
Erin just nodded and agreed with almost all they said, but when the conversation turned to Molly, she stopped smiling.
“Why don’t you ask her out?” one of the single farmers asked another.
“I asked her out last spring, and she turned me down,” he answered, sounding bitter.
“Why don’t you ask Erin what it would take to get Molly to step out with you? Betcha she knows.”
“I don’t want to hurt Erin’s feelings. She might be thinking I should ask her out.”
“Ask Erin out?” he nearly shouted in laughter and then quieted, certain she couldn’t hear them as they worked. They didn’t realize the wind carried every word to her. She started whistling, pretending she hadn’t heard a thing.
They went on in this vein for a long time, and Erin had learned to tune most of it out when they discussed things about Molly that made her blood boil. Molly was hers, dammit, and she couldn’t tell a soul. ‘Molly wouldn’t have your fine selves, you, peacocks!’ If she didn’t need their help with the harvest, if she hadn’t invested weeks of her own time in each of their farms gathering their harvest, she’d order them off her place. She knew the way she felt was irrational, but Molly was hers!
Molly was going through her own version of hell as the women helped prepare the meals with the wives and daughters of the farmers helping in the fields. She had managed to get the children to play on the other side of the house, away from the barn, so they wouldn’t be tempted to go sneaking inside and see the wagon they had hidden there. She used the excuse that she had sitting hens, and while a few exclaimed over the lateness of the year, they also saw the increase in the flocks Molly had raised. Maybe she was trying to make more money off them. A couple took mental notes to do the same next year.
“Why don’t you go to the harvest party with Sven Gunderson?” one of the older women asked as she rolled out a crust for a pie she was making.
“That tall bean pole?” Molly scoffed, laughing. He was one of the single men who had moved in about eight years ago; one of a couple of Swedes, and the only one unmarried.
“Sure, but you’d have fine, healthy sons out of him,” another woman put in knowingly.
“He doesn’t even own his farm. His brothers all own it with him.”
For every man put forth by the women, Molly had an excuse. She’d considered them, she really had at one time, but once she realized it was Erin she loved, no man would do. She knew these women would consider it unnatural. She knew she’d be ostracized if anyone knew the truth. She’d been sleeping upstairs to make it look normal since these women had been in and out of the house and someone had put sleeping children on the beds upstairs as well as down. They were simply too nosy, but what better time than harvest to gossip and be sociable like this? Not everyone came every day. After all, they had their own gardens and produce to put up at their own farms. But those who came in rotation seemed to have the same gossip and the same conversations with her repeatedly.
“My, you put up a lot of preserves this year. Those raspberry bushes must have been teeming,” someone commented, going through her pantry.
Molly smiled, remembering the comments that Erin had made about making their own sugar as store-bought was so expensive. She’d also dried a lot of the berries, but they were down in the cellar in bags.
“Mama! Mama! That old goose has got Henry!” one of the children screamed from outside.
Molly put down the chicken she had been breading, and wiping her hands on her apron, she ran outside with the other women, edging aside a couple of them as she took off her apron and approached the gander. He did indeed have a boy down, pinching and whacking with his wings and honking loudly. The boy would have lots of welts from the bird’s beak. Molly began to flutter her apron, distracting the mean, old bird and shooing it away from the boy, who was sobbing in a ball on the ground, his arms wrapped around his head and face, trying to protect himself from the big bird. Once she got between the bird and the boy, she said over her shoulder, “Go to your ma. Run!” and continued to chase the gander, who weaved back and forth in front of her, trying to get at the boy again. Finally, she got him to give up, and he pretended he had intended to head towards the pond where they had two other geese for him to bully, and they were calling to him, all honking loudly.
“Why don’t we chop him up for dinner? He’s an old buzzard, and I bet he’d be tough,” one of the farm women commented.
“Isn’t that old Mr. Ferndale’s gander?”
Molly confirmed that it was.
“I heard he was mad at his missus for getting rid of it. I thought she probably chopped off his head and didn’t tell him. The mean old bird!”
“Mr. Ferndale?” another asked, alarmed.
“No, that old gander. He is the meanest thing in three counties!”
“Gonna chop him up Molly?”
“No, no. He’s a good watch dog, almost as good as King and Queenie.”
“Oh, my Manfred wants one of them pups. You think Erin will sell it for less than the two bits she was askin’?”
“No, I don’t think so,” Molly admitted.
“My Charlie would like one too,” someone admitted, “but twenty-five cents? That’s just too steep!”
“You gotta admit those pups look fine, and they are keeping the children amused.” They’d all watched as the pups chased after the children and then the other way around as Queenie looked on indulgently. The bitch was quick to check on any of her pups who squealed indignantly at the occasional rough play of the children. She was big enough, fierce-looking enough, that the children learned to play nicely with her pups. She hadn’t growled, but she was quick and scary-looking, the intensity in her look very knowing, almost human. Any child who got on the ground had puppies licking and nosing them like crazy. The giggles were a delight to everyone who heard them or saw the play.
“Now, you stay away from the pond like Miss Molly asked you to,” the mother of the downed boy was chastising him through his tears. He nodded as he hiccupped and continued to cry.
“I’m sorry that mean, ole’ gander went after you,” Molly apologized, leaning down to put her face level with the crying boy. “He’s just protecting his yard. It’s why I asked you all to stay away from the barn and pond. The puppies should keep you busy.” She knew Queenie was sick of watching her growing pups, and at eleven weeks, they were ready to go. All eight had grown fat and sassy. They’d sold two of them before the harvest at their own farm. There were six to go, and it looked like at least two would be sold locally. Erin was planning on taking the other four to the farmers’ market in Bentley. She wanted to find an in-pig sow for their Noah’s Ark...or rather, Naamah’s Ark.
Harvest seemed never-ending. As everyone returned to their own farms, the threshing continued until many of the bags were filled with the different grains. The corn would stay on the farm to be fed to the stock they were keeping. They took the threshed grains to town to sell, hoping to get a good price, but as they were one of the last farmers in with their crop, the price was low. Exchanging a look, she and Molly refused to sell their grain to the grain dealer. Erin had expected this. He was astonished when she told him no and took her wagonful of bagged grain and left the grain yard.
“We still have to stock up for winter,” Molly reminded her softly.
“You can bet the merchants haven’t lowered their prices either,” Erin said bitterly. She’d been the last in the rotation two years running. Were her neighbors, who she helped so willingly to gather their own crops, doing it deliberately to force her out? She and Molly had discussed it before they brought their crop to town and decided if the price wasn’t what they wanted, they would hold onto it until spring. It was a risky endeavor. Anything could happen to it over the winter, but usually prices were higher in the spring because no one was selling then.
“We’ll grind our own flour,” Molly said helpfully, knowing this small favor would at least keep them busy along with all the other chores.
“We can get some of our supplies in Melville,” Erin offered. “Maybe their prices on grain–”
“Will be just as low as here. We’re late. We discussed this,” she pointed out, interrupting.
Erin sighed. They had discussed it, knowing that all their crops were late, and they still had to strip the cobs of corn from the stalks and get the kernels off. It was hard, back-breaking work, but she didn’t shy away from hard work. To get some of the bags out of the way, off the floor of the barn and away from rodents or bugs, she would stack them in the Conestoga wagon until she had filled the large box. The cats enjoyed patrolling that wagon and would keep it free from vermin that loved to live off the grain the humans had harvested so diligently. Plus, the wagon was high off the ground, and many times, the mice or even the few rats that tried to indulge didn’t see the mighty hunters until it was too late. Erin was just grateful that the barn cats ate most of these things, so she didn’t have to keep shoveling out the carcasses.
“Why don’t you take some chickens, some bags of grain, and the pups and head down to the next farmers’ market?” Molly suggested, knowing how much Erin enjoyed the gathering. Most didn’t treat her like a woman. Some didn’t even realize she was a woman.
“Make out your list, and I’ll pick up what I can,” Erin promised as the horses plodded towards home with their still full wagon.
“We can go to Melville and pick up the rest after the farmers’ market,” she said cheerfully, knowing Erin was worrying needlessly.
“Do you want to check out the orphanage when we are there?”
Molly felt her heart leap in her chest. She would love to go to the orphanage. She looked at Erin, partly in gratitude and partly in fear for what they would be attempting to do. Two women alone couldn’t adopt children; no one would allow it, especially not the state. However, a young man and woman with their own farm would be looked upon as good, potential parents. She looked at Erin. She looked like a woman to Molly, a beautiful woman, but Molly knew she was looking with her heart and not her eyes. She saw things in this woman that others would never see. “No, not yet. I will go with you to the farmers’ market and see what I can gather there.”
Erin was pleased to take Molly with her to the market. She loved her company, and they could leave Queenie at the farm to guard it. “We’ll make a day of it,” she promised. The night before, they carefully packed the wagon with everything they wanted to sell or trade except the animals. Early the next morning after milking the cows, they caught the chickens they would be getting rid of, a few extra ducks, and the extra pups. Calling to King, they mounted up and headed out while it was still too dark to see. They watched the sun come up over the trees as they headed east to the farmers’ market over in Pittsville. Erin and Molly shivered in the cool, fall air as they huddled together under the blankets Molly had packed.
“Did we forget anything?” Erin worried as they plodded up a hill. She was forced to grab the reins a little more firmly as the horses sped up on the downside of the hill.
“No, I think we have plenty to trade,” Molly responded, looking back at their load and hoping they’d sell it all. She admired the cages that Erin made in her spare time. They were using a couple of them today. She was making them, so they could be hooked on the larger wagon, bending iron hooks the size of her hand to hang the cages alongside the straight sides of the box. It was a clever idea, and they’d determined they could probably put four geese, five to six ducks, and maybe six to eight chickens in each cage.
They weren’t the only ones going to the market. People came from all around. There had been a fire in Pittsville two days before. The fall rains had helped put it out but not before destroying the local granary. They heard all about it upon their arrival. The bags of the various grains they had hauled were sold first thing when Erin inquired. She unloaded the wagon with a small table for Molly to trade the fruit preserves, stacking cages of ducks and chickens around it next to a small pen for the exuberant pups.
“You better head back to the farm and get more of our crop,” Molly whispered when she saw Erin intended to stay with her.
“You think there is enough time?” Erin worried, but she was anxious to go; that was obvious to both women.
“Just don’t whip those poor horses,” she teased, knowing Erin wouldn’t do that to an animal if she could avoid it.
Erin wanted to give her a kiss and a hug but instead, satisfied herself with a brilliant smile as she left Molly in the shade of a big elm tree. Arriving home, she began to load up a few more sacks of grain, not in the farm wagon but in the big Conestoga, which had much more room for their harvest. She’d had plenty of time to think on the return trip and decided this was a better idea. Once she filled it, she wished she had more of the seed shelled from its husk, so she could take that too, but she’d take what she could get if the price held up. Examining her big, husky farm horses, she could tell they were still raring to go as she hooked them up to the larger wagon and set out. She worried about everything that could go wrong on her trip back to Pittsville: losing a wheel, getting there too late after other farmers realized the granary was buying, a million troubling thoughts. Driving the larger wagon required more concentration than their usual farm wagon. She could tell the weight was different to the horses too and didn’t rush them. The iron in the bottom of the wagon was only marginally heavier in comparison to the bags of grain. As she turned the corner with the wagon, she marveled that it didn’t tip but knew the smaller wheels in front were made so the wagon could turn easily. If they were the same size as the rear wheels, it wouldn’t turn properly. Such a simple idea but clever.
Molly chatted and gossiped with all the farmers’ wives. Occasionally, a few of the farmers expressed an interest in their poultry or the pups. She did a brisk business with her poultry. The twenty-five cents they were asking for the pups was considered steep, but when they saw King, who Erin had left to help guard her, and saw how diligent and fine a dog the Tervuren was, she quickly sold one of them. It was late in the afternoon when she sold the others, and by then, other farmers had sold their offerings and had ready cash. She traded her remaining ducks and chickens for an in-pig sow, knowing she’d paid a little too much, but she justified it when she traded some of her preserves for an Indian Runner drake.
Molly was relieved to see Erin but was shocked when she saw her driving the Conestoga wagon. Their horses pulled it fine, even heaped full of the bags of grain they had worked so hard to obtain. After selling the entire load, Erin was mightily pleased.
“People will see the wagon,” Molly hissed, alarmed at Erin’s audacity.
“Hopefully, no one we know. But I was able to carry more than twice what I’d be able to bring with our normal wagon, and we sold it all,” she crowed, looking around at what Molly had sold, bartered, and traded. “What’s with the drake?” she asked, looking at the odd duck who stood up so strangely in the wooden slatted cage.
“I heard from someone that he will force the Peking ducks to sit on their nests,” she said defensively.
Erin laughed slightly. Collecting the Peking’s eggs was a challenge. They were stupid ducks. They frequently left their eggs in the water of the pond, which meant they could not be hatched. “If you can find a hen, I think you can put the Peking eggs under her and hedge your bets,” she mentioned.
“Oh, I’m so tired of sitting here. Do you mind if I go look around and see what I can find?”
“See if you can find another yoke of oxen,” Erin murmured, having thought about it on the trip here with the overloaded wagon.
“Won’t the ones we have be enough?” she worried.
“If we can get a good deal, I think two yokes will be more than enough to pull everything in this wagon,” she whispered back. They shared a nod as Molly went off to see what she could find. Frequently, the wives knew more than the men realized as they often talked as though the women weren’t even there. Women were ignored, but Molly and Erin had both used this to their advantage time and again.
It was late in the day, and Erin left King to guard the wagon after the last of the preserves were sold to city folks, going in search of Molly. She found her chatting with a woman that was wearing homespun; her children in flour sacking and peeking shyly out from the edge of their wagon.
“Molly, it’s time to go,” Erin told her, glancing at the darkening skies. It got dark faster this time of year, and they still had chores to do.
“Erin, this is Mrs. Or...ski?” she turned back to the woman to confirm, smiling apologetically at getting the last name wrong.
“Or-in-es-ski,” the woman enunciated. “Please to call me Marta,” she said, her accent giving her away as a foreigner.
“Marta here has these fine oxen she’s willing to sell,” Molly told Erin meaningfully. “She’d like to find a couple of horses to pull their wagon instead.”
Erin understood the draw. The oxen were a little underfed, standing there chewing their cuds as they waited patiently for the woman. She saw the children now staring at her. She certainly wouldn’t trade her fine farm horses for these oxen, so she frowned slightly at Molly.
“That farmer there,” she pointed with her chin, so only Erin would see, “has horses that Mrs. Or..., um, er, Marta was interested in.”
Erin understood immediately and lowered her voice, so only Marta and Molly would hear her. “Maybe, if I can buy those horses, you’ll trade your oxen with me?”
Both women nodded immediately; glad she had understood so readily. “Why can’t–” she began to ask, but Molly shook her head.
“Later,” she whispered under her breath and gave a slight push to hurry Erin after the other farmer, who looked like he was getting ready to go.
Surprised at Molly’s actions, Erin walked over to look at the horses. There was nothing outstanding about either of them, but if this is what Marta wanted, she would attempt to make a trade. She started to talk to the farmer, asking about them and concluding he wanted far too much for them. She was only willing to pay less than half of what he was asking, but he thought her a foolish woman and didn’t hide his contempt for her or her bargaining skills.
“Well, if you’re willing to give up cash money for this deal and take them home to feed them through the winter, then that’s your concern,” she finally said, turning away, resigned to losing the deal. She could see Molly and Marta looking on anxiously from across the green. They now looked alarmed that she was leaving without the horses she had thoroughly examined and discussed with the man.
“Did you say cash money?” he asked, now wavering.
She stopped to look at him, remembering the derision. Many men didn’t like to deal with a woman. She understood that. She was tempted to show him her money and walk away to humiliate him, but her better sense got the best of her and she nodded. “I’ll give you cash money at the price I mentioned.”
He chewed on his moustache, considering, glancing from her and her clothes, which were odd on a woman but told him she was a farmer, to the horses he had hoped to get rid of that day. He turned back, looked her over one more time as he contemplated, and then reluctantly held out his hand for her to shake. Erin hesitated a fraction of a moment, just long enough to cause him to look from her hand up to her face in alarm, before she shook his hand, agreeing to the deal. She turned her back on him and the others packing up around them to peel off the money from the sale of her grain. After counting out the bills they had agreed on, she handed them to him. He counted them and then nodded, untying the horses and handing her the ropes. He watched her thoughtfully for a moment before turning away to his other horses to mount up and lead them away. He never saw her head for Molly, Marta, and the two patient oxen, still chewing their cuds.
“You got them,” Molly said delightedly, clapping her hands in glee.
“I did. You’ll trade these then, Mrs....um...Marta?” she questioned, and the woman nodded and smiled, showing brilliantly white, if uneven teeth.
“Da. Da. A deal is a deal,” she confirmed. “I thank ye,” she turned to begin unhitching the oxen from her wagon and handed the ropes to Molly. Erin hurried to help. After a fashion, they had the horses hitched up—a yoke of oxen and a team of horses didn’t use the same trappings, after all. Then, they led the yoke of oxen across the grounds to their own wagon and tied them behind. King looked at them curiously but then ignored them as they hitched up their own horses, put the small table in the wagon, and together lifted the cages that contained the drake and a duck hen. Next, lifting together, they tried to get the sow into the high box. They had to enlist the help of a couple farmers, who joked with them about putting the sow in the box of the big wagon. Erin helped Molly up, then boosted King, who scrambled to get up, before climbing up herself. Chirruping to her horses, they set out for home.
“That was definitely the best farmers’ market we’ve ever attended,” Erin commented, very pleased with how it had turned out.
“Ask and ye shall receive,” Molly murmured in return.
“Why couldn’t Mrs....Marta trade for those horses?”
“That man doesn’t like foreigners and wouldn’t trade for the oxen with her. In fact, he ignored her, pretended he didn’t hear her or understand her.”
Remembering his contempt in dealing with her, Erin understood how he had probably treated Marta. “The oxen were worth more than those two horses. If I hadn’t been able to talk him down from his original price, I wouldn’t have bought them either.”
“You talked him down?”
“Ayup,” she admitted, wondering if she had taken advantage of the foreign woman.
“Then, we really did get a good deal,” Molly said wonderingly, looking back but unable to see the oxen beyond the high bed of the wagon. She could see the tails but just barely as it was getting dark. “She was afraid of the beasties, as she called them, and felt that she could better handle the horses safely. They seemed rather placid.” She turned back to the front and asked about the money Erin had gotten for the wagon load of grain.
“Yes, and we can still sell to the granary in Pittsville if we can get a move on and finish shelling the rest of the grain,” Erin told her.
“I think my shoulders are still hurting from the last batch.”
“Then, maybe we should do it like they did in the days of old.”
“How’s that?”
“We’ll put it down and have the animals run back and forth across it instead of flailing it.”
“Won’t they get dirt and manure in it?”
“Hmm, probably,” she mused as she chirruped to the horses, encouraging them to move a little faster. She was anxious to get home, but she couldn’t go too fast; the oxen wouldn’t stand for it.
“Maybe we could tie something around their feet to keep the dirt out.”
They discussed it on their way back in between singing familiar songs they had learned growing up to help pass the time. They had planned to work it over the winter months since they couldn’t sell it in town, but with this opportunity coming up, they’d have to hurry. Erin was certain other farmers would hear of the need and want to get rid of any of the extra grain they may have been holding back like she was.
Erin hid the money they made that day under a loose panel in the wall in one of the bedrooms upstairs, less the price of the horses. She obsessively counted and recounted it before adding it to their stash, which she also recounted. The bank wouldn’t get their money. She only kept a few dollars in the bank, so she could use their services when she needed them. She didn’t want anyone knowing how much money they had.
They backed the large wagon into the barn, wishing they could hide it better. Hurrying their chores, they ate dinner and went to bed, only to be up again at first light. Molly made them breakfast and Erin hurriedly did the morning chores. They went out to the barn, expanding the floor to thresh their grain and cleaning it thoroughly.
“Let’s cut off the tops, so there is less straw in the mix,” Erin suggested.
“Won’t that make it harder to blow the chaff and pick it up with the pitchfork?”
“Look, we can rake it up and open the doors of the barn when the wind is blowing each afternoon.”
“It doesn’t blow every afternoon,” she pointed out, thinking how cold that would be. The barn was warm from the animals inside of it and the good, snug, build.
“We can hope, and we can try. We need to get as much done as we can. I wish we could afford one of those new-fangled machines that comes around and does the threshing.”
“Well, we can’t, and we’ve got work to do,” she answered practically. “I heard it chews up the straw, so it ain’t, um, isn’t fit to use.”
They bantered back and forth, never running out of things to talk about and singing together as they cut the heads off the wheat they were working with and strew it along the floor. The straw they left bundled up and stacked in a couple of the empty stalls of the big barn. When they had a bed several inches deep, they went and got four of the horses, tying their feet with gunny sacks before walking them back and forth across the threshing floor, then in circles, leading them round and round. The idea worked, but not as well as they hoped. Erin had to stop and shovel the wheat heads from under the horse’s feet and over again from the edges. They used bushel baskets for the threshed grain, the kernels having fallen from the husks. It didn’t help that the horses wanted to put their noses in the grain beneath their feet and they kept having to urge them along. A normal bushel of grain took an hour to thresh. They hoped that this method would prove a little more expedient.
When Erin determined they had enough to fill grain bags, they would tie off the horses and begin to rake the wheat heads aside, open the large doors at both ends of the barn, and rake up the grain, throwing it as a breeze whipped through the big barn to have the wind blow away the chaff before bagging it. It was cold, dirty, dusty work, and opening the barn doors allowed icy winds into the normally warm barn. They both wore handkerchiefs across their mouths and noses. In the end, they still had to use the long, flat threshing flails on some of it. Still, they managed, after a fashion, as they always had, and they slowly filled the sacks, which Erin piled in the regular farm wagon, not willing to expose themselves. They didn’t want someone to find out they had a Conestoga wagon and begin to ask questions. When they had another load, they continued to fill the bags. Molly continued to work while Erin took the load to Pittsville, hoping they still wanted the grain.
She was fortunate. The wheat prices were beginning to fall, but she got her price. It was still higher than back in Stouten. They still wanted oats and barley, so she hurried home, hoping to get started on those crops. They weren’t as abundant, but she was willing to sell them all at these prices.
“It’s too bad we couldn’t have a threshing bee,” she told Molly as they worked late into their evenings, getting as much done as quickly as they could.
“What is a threshing bee?” she asked, pulling the horses a little faster as she stomped through the grain, hoping to get lots of it separated, not only from the heavy horse’s hooves, but her own booted feet.
“It’s where the farmers gather to help thresh the grain and socialize,” she admitted.
“They should have offered to help you–.” she began but stopped herself as Erin looked up in annoyance. They both knew that the only reason they had helped was because she had helped with their harvest. They certainly weren’t going to help any further. They were both convinced now, that was why they were last on the rotation—their neighbors wanted them to fail as farmers, so they would have to marry or sell out.
Erin got the last of her grain in during an early fall snowstorm. Her horses knew the way well now, and they brought her home despite the swirling mess. She was ever so glad to put the horses up in the barn and saw where Molly had continued bagging what she could manage on her own while she was gone.
“We don’t have to rush now,” she told her.
“Well, I stopped when you took that load yesterday, so I could pull everything from the garden. I could smell the snow on its way.” She looked out at the blowing snow, glad she’d finished her gardening for the year.
“Did we lose much?” she asked, knowing Molly had put aside her normal gathering while they worked to get the grain sold.
“Nope. I even got all the green tomatoes. We still need to get the potatoes and of course, the corn.”
Both could withstand some snow, and usually, when it snowed this early, it melted, so they would have some time to gather. But they were competing with varmints like raccoons, opossums, and deer for the corn, so they had better hurry or lose that crop.
“Hurrying won’t bring it in any faster,” Molly teased Erin as she dug up the rows of potatoes from their raised hills a few days later.
“I know, but I feel the need to hurry. I worry we won’t get it all in on time this year.” Her words felt almost prophetic; however, they got in all the potatoes and most of the corn before winter set in in earnest. After the snow coming early, the cold set in and stayed. Harvesting the last of the corn was not pleasant. They were freezing as they gathered it in the fields. Still, there was some compensation. Molly was able to shoot a buck and then later, a doe who came looking for food, and added them to their larder. This, with the chickens, ducks, and cow they butchered should last them through the winter and more. They were drying, smoking, and packing as much of it as they could, putting it away for their travels.
“I don’t know why we weren’t invited to the butchering over at...” Molly began, sounding hurt.
“You know, we are being deliberately excluded more and more,” Erin pointed out. She didn’t want Molly hurt, but they had discussed the possibility as they realized they were being ostracized slowly and surely.
“We should start packing this stuff into the wagon, so we know where everything will fit,” Erin suggested, distracting her.
“Won’t the mice get at it?”
“Not with those cats patrolling. Nothing got at the bags of seed that I left in there; there were no frayed edges or signs of chewing on the bags. I want to get organized.” She wondered if she should build cages for the cats she wanted to take with them.
“You put out that ad we talked about?”
Erin looked away and then reluctantly back at Molly. “I’m almost afraid to,” she admitted. She looked out the window at the farm her family had built up. She had never expected it to be all hers one day. She had always expected one of her brothers to take it over, but the sicknesses had spread out here so rapidly. She wondered if it was going to be healthier and cleaner out west. She would be sad to leave what she had known all her life.
Molly came up behind her, putting her arms around her waist. “It will be all right. I’m sure if they are watching, they know we have to go, we have to do this.”
Erin turned around in Molly’s arms, smiling down at her and putting her own arms around her, returning the hug. “Do you think they would really understand about you and me?”
Molly shook her head. “No, of course not. They would have encouraged me to marry one of your brothers, but that didn’t happen. I didn’t intend to lose my folks either.” She pulled back slightly to look up more fully into Erin’s face and make her point. “But we’ve been planning this for a long time. It is time,” she said meaningfully.
Erin sighed. It was all so...final. She pulled Molly close once again to hug her. “You’re right.”
“While you’re down there taking out the ad, get yourself some boots...men’s boots that will fit you.”
Erin let go of Molly to look down at her shoes. They were women’s shoes. When she went out to the barn or the fields she had frequently worn one of her brother’s hand-me-downs, but some of them were wearing out. She nodded slightly, acknowledging the point. “I’ll go on the next sunny day and–”
“You’ll go tomorrow,” Molly insisted. “There will be work waiting for you whether you go now or later. I’ll continue to slice and dry this,” she indicated the meat they were slicing thin to smoke or dry and pack away for winter or future use. They knew they had to bring it all with them for the trip.
Erin knew she had been procrastinating. Selling a farm at any time could be a chancy thing, and in the winter, it was probably going to be near to impossible. She wasn’t as good with words, and she and Molly had labored over the wording of the advertisement for the farm, implying it would only be available in the spring. She’d plowed the fields in preparation for winter, leaving some fallow and open to absorb as much moisture as they could take. They both figured that a farm ready to go in the spring would be worth more. She nodded at Molly’s request and got back to work.
That afternoon, they sliced off some more hunks of meat from the carcasses in the meat house where they were hanging. Slicing these into useable sizes, they hung them in the chimney Erin’s father had built so long ago to smoke meat. Building up the fire using green wood, they closed off the doors and chimney, so the meat would be well-cured, and the smoke would keep out the bugs. Once the meat was dried, water could be added, and it could be cut up and made into soups. It could also be chewed, gnawed, and eaten as it was. They were also drying some of the meat to make jerky, sliced thin and with spices added. They’d coat these with fat to keep the bugs out, keep the flavor in, and preserve it for a long time. Bags of jerky would be going with them.
Riding one of her farm horses, Erin headed down to Melville to place the ad. It cost a pretty penny too. She was always shocked at the prices in towns. She knew it would be more expensive for things up in Stouten, which was farther from the train, so the merchants charged more for the hauling. While there, she followed Molly’s advice, buying boots that fit her for the first time in her life. Unlike the oversized boots belonging to her brothers that she wore with extra socks, these felt snug and hurt a little. The merchant pointed out that the leather would give a little in time. He found it odd to be selling such boots to a woman, but he didn’t voice this to the paying customer. Erin also looked at guns while she was there, knowing she would have to bring what she needed because they would be unable to resupply for a long time. She saw nothing newer than the ones she had inherited from her father and brothers, so she bought a quantity of lead and powder and left it at that. She also bought a quantity of canvas, intending to waterproof it to wrap things in the wagon in case of rain or water crossing. Although she was certain the sealing of the wagon box was good and tight, one never knew, and she didn’t want things damaged if she could prevent it. She saw many more things she wanted and could use, but she simply didn’t have room for it. Heading home, she passed by the orphanage, glancing at it thoughtfully as she rode. Reaching up, she felt the bun her hair was in and knew the time for cutting her hair was coming soon. She thought about all the changes they were about to make.