“Women don’t wear overalls,” said Caleb, running along behind her like one of Sarah’s chickens.
“This woman does,” said Sarah crisply.
Papa stood by the fence.
“I want to learn how to ride a horse,” Sarah told him. “And then I want to learn how to drive the wagon. By myself.”
Jack leaned over and nipped at Sarah’s overalls. She fed him an apple. Caleb and I stood behind Sarah.
“I can ride a horse, I know,” said Sarah. “I rode once when I was twelve. I will ride Jack.” Jack was Sarah’s favorite.
Papa shook his head. “Not Jack,” he said. “Jack is sly.”
“I am sly, too,” said Sarah stubbornly.
Papa smiled. “Ayuh,” he said, nodding. “But not Jack.”
“Yes, Jack!” Sarah’s voice was very loud.
“I can teach you how to drive a wagon. I have already taught you how to plow.”
“And then I can go to town. By myself.”
“Say no, Papa,” Caleb whispered beside me.
“That’s a fair thing, Sarah,” said Papa. “We’ll practice.”
A soft rumble of thunder sounded. Papa looked up at the clouds.
“Today?” Can we begin today?” asked Sarah.
“Tomorrow is best,” said Papa, looking worried. “I have to fix the house roof. A portion of it is loose. And there’s a storm coming.”
“We,” said Sarah.
“What?” Papa turned.
“We will fix the roof,” said Sarah. “I’ve done it before. I know about roofs. I am a good carpenter. Remember, I told you?”
There was thunder again, and Papa went to get the ladder.
“Are you fast?” he asked Sarah.
“I am fast and I am good,” said Sarah. And they climbed the ladder to the roof, Sarah with wisps of hair around her face, her mouth full of nails, overalls like Papa’s. Overalls that were Papa’s.
Caleb and I went inside to close the windows. We could hear the steady sound of hammers pounding the roof overhead.
“Why does she want to go to town by herself?” asked Caleb. “To leave us?”
I shook my head, weary with Caleb’s questions. Tears gathered at the corners of my eyes. But there was no time to cry, for suddenly Papa called out.
“Caleb! Anna!”
We ran outside and saw a huge cloud, horribly black, moving toward us over the north fields. Papa slid down the roof, helping Sarah after him.
“A squall!” he yelled to us. He held up his arms and Sarah jumped off the porch roof.
“Get the horses inside,” he ordered Caleb. “Get the sheep, Anna. And the cows. The barn is safest.”
The grasses flattened. There was a hiss of wind, a sudden pungent smell. Our faces looked yellow in the strange light. Caleb and I jumped over the fence and found the animals huddled by the barn. I counted the sheep to make sure they were all there, and herded them into a large stall. A few raindrops came, gentle at first, then stronger and louder, so that Caleb and I covered our ears and stared at each other without speaking. Caleb looked frightened and I tried to smile at him. Sarah carried a sack into the barn, her hair wet and streaming down her neck, Papa came behind, Lottie and Nick with him, their ears flat against their heads.
“Wait!” cried Sarah. “My chickens!”
“No, Sarah!” Papa called after her. But Sarah had already run from the barn into a sheet of rain. My father followed her. The sheep nosed open their stall door and milled around the barn, bleating. Nick crept under my arm, and a lamb, Mattie with the black face, stood close to me, trembling. There was a soft paw on my lap, then a gray body. Seal. And then, as the thunder pounded and the wind rose and there was the terrible crackling of lightning close by, Sarah and Papa stood in the barn doorway, wet to the skin. Papa carried Sarah’s chickens. Sarah came with an armful of summer roses.
Sarah’s chickens were not afraid, and they settled like small red bundles in the hay. Papa closed the door at last, shutting out some of the sounds of the storm. The barn was eerie and half lighted, like dusk without a lantern. Papa spread blankets around our shoulders and Sarah unpacked a bag of cheese and bread and jam. At the very bottom of the bag were Sarah’s shells.
Caleb got up and went over to the small barn window.
“What color is the sea when it storms?” he asked Sarah.
“Blue,” said Sarah, brushing her wet hair back with her fingers. “And gray and green.”
Caleb nodded and smiled.
“Look,” he said to her. “Look what is missing from your drawing.”
Sarah went to stand between Caleb and Papa by the window. She looked a long time without speaking. Finally, she touched Papa’s shoulder.
“We have squalls in Maine, too,” she said. “Just like this. It will be all right, Jacob.”
Papa said nothing. But he put his arm around her, and leaned over to rest his chin in her hair. I closed my eyes, suddenly remembering Mama and Papa standing that way, Mama smaller than Sarah, her hair fair against Papa’s shoulder. When I opened my eyes again, it was Sarah standing there. Caleb looked at me and smiled and smiled until he could smile no more.
We slept in the hay all night, waking when the wind was wild, sleeping again when it was quiet. And at dawn there was the sudden sound of hail, like stones tossed against the barn. We stared out the window, watching the ice marbles bounce on the ground. And when it was over we opened the barn door and walked out into the early-morning light. The hail crunched and melted beneath our feet. It was white and gleaming for as far as we looked, like sun on glass. Like the sea.
9
It was very quiet. The dogs leaned down to eat the hailstones. Seal stepped around them and leaped up on the fence to groom herself. A tree had blown over near the cow pond. And the wild roses were scattered on the ground, as if a wedding had come and gone there. “I’m glad I saved an armful” was all that Sarah said.
Only one field was badly damaged, and Sarah and Papa hitched up the horses and plowed and replanted during the next two days. The roof had held.
“I told you I know about roofs,” Sarah told Papa, making him smile.
Papa kept his promise to Sarah. When the work was done, he took her out into the fields, Papa riding Jack who was sly, and Sarah riding Old Bess. Sarah was quick to learn.
“Too quick,” Caleb complained to me as we watched from the fence. He thought a moment. “Maybe she’ll fall off and have to stay here. Why?” he asked, turning to me. “Why does she have to go away alone?”
“Hush up, Caleb,” I said crossly. “Hush up.”
“I could get sick and make her stay here,” said Caleb.
“No.”
“We could tie her up.”
“No.”
And Caleb began to cry, and I took him inside the barn where we could both cry.
Papa and Sarah came to hitch the horses to the wagon, so Sarah could practice driving. Papa didn’t see Caleb’s tears, and he sent him with an ax to begin chopping up the tree by the pond for firewood. I stood and watched Sarah, the reins in her hands, Papa next to her in the wagon. I could see Caleb standing by the pond, one hand shading his eyes, watching, too. I went into the safe darkness of the barn then, Sarah’s chickens scuttling along behind me.
“Why?” I asked out loud, echoing Caleb’s question.
The chickens watched me, their eyes small and bright.
The next morning Sarah got up early and put on her blue dress. She took apples to the barn. She loaded a bundle of hay on the wagon for Old Bess and Jack. She put on her yellow bonnet.
“Remember Jack,” said Papa. “A strong hand.”
“Yes, Jacob.”
“Best to be home before dark,” said Papa. “Driving a wagon is hard if there’s no full moon.”
“Yes, Jacob.”
Sarah kissed us all, even my father, who looked surprised.
“Take care of Seal,” she said to Caleb and me. And with a whisper to Old Bess and a stern w
ord to Jack, Sarah climbed up in the wagon and drove away.
“Very good,” murmured Papa as he watched. And after a while he turned and went out into the fields.
Caleb and I watched Sarah from the porch. Caleb took my hand, and the dogs lay down beside us. It was sunny, and I remembered another time when a wagon had taken Mama away. It had been a day just like this day. And Mama had never come back.
Seal jumped up to the porch, her feet making a small thump. Caleb leaned down and picked her up and walked inside. I took the broom and slowly swept the porch. Then I watered Sarah’s plants. Caleb cleaned out the wood stove and carried the ashes to the barn, spilling them so that I had to sweep the porch again.
“I am loud and pesky,” Caleb cried sud-denly. “You said so! And she has gone to buy a train ticket to go away!”
“No, Caleb. She would tell us.”
“The house is too small,” said Caleb. “That’s what it is.”
“The house is not too small,” I said.
I looked at Sarah’s drawing of the fields pinned up on the wall next to the window.
“What is missing?” I asked Caleb. “You said you knew what was missing.”
“Colors,” said Caleb wearily. “The colors of the sea.”
Outside, clouds moved into the sky and went away again. We took lunch to Papa, cheese and bread and lemonade. Caleb nudged me.
“Ask him. Ask Papa.”
“What has Sarah gone to do?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” said Papa. He squinted at me. Then he sighed and put one hand on Caleb’s head, one on mine. “Sarah is Sarah. She does things her way, you know.”
“I know,” said Caleb very softly.
Papa picked up his shovel and put on his hat.
“Ask if she’s coming back,” whispered Caleb.
“Of course she’s coming back,” I said. “Seal is here.” But I would not ask the question. I was afraid to hear the answer.
We fed the sheep, and I set the table for dinner. Four plates. The sun dropped low over the west fields. Lottie and Nick stood at the door, wagging their tails, asking for supper. Papa came to light the stove. And then it was dusk. Soon it would be dark. Caleb sat on the porch steps, turning his moon snail shell over and over in his hand. Seal brushed back and forth against him.
Suddenly Lottie began to bark, and Nick jumped off the porch and ran down the road.
“Dust!” cried Caleb. He climbed the porch and stood on the roof. “Dust, and a yellow bonnet!”
Slowly the wagon came around the windmill and the barn and the windbreak and into the yard, the dogs jumping happily beside it.
“Hush, dogs,” said Sarah. And Nick leaped up into the wagon to sit by Sarah.
Papa took the reins and Sarah climbed down from the wagon.
Caleb burst into tears.
“Seal was very worried!” he cried.
Sarah put her arms around him, and he wailed into her dress. “And the house is too small, we thought! And I am loud and pesky!”
Sarah looked at Papa and me over Caleb’s head.
“We thought you might be thinking of leaving us,” I told her. “Because you miss the sea.”
Sarah smiled.
“No,” she said. “I will always miss my old home, but the truth of it is I would miss you more.”
Papa smiled at Sarah, then he bent quickly to unhitch the horses from the wagon. He led them to the barn for water.
Sarah handed me a package.
“For Anna,” she said. “And Caleb. For all of us.”
The package was small, wrapped in brown paper with a rubber band around it. Very carefully I unwrapped it, Caleb peering closely. Inside were three colored pencils.
“Blue,” said Caleb slowly, “and gray. And green.”
Sarah nodded.
Suddenly Caleb grinned.
“Papa,” he called. “Papa, come quickly! Sarah has brought the sea!”
We eat our night meal by candlelight, the four of us. Sarah has brought candles from town. And nasturtium seeds for her garden, and a book of songs to teach us. It is late, and Caleb is nearly sleeping by his plate and Sarah is smiling at my father. Soon there will be a wedding. Papa says that when the preacher asks if he will have Sarah for his wife, he will answer, “Ayuh.”
Autumn will come, then winter, cold with a wind that blows like the wind off the sea in Maine. There will be nests of curls to look for, and dried flowers all winter long. When there are storms, Papa will stretch a rope from the door to the barn so we will not be lost when we feed the sheep and the cows and Jack and Old Bess. And Sarah’s chickens, if they aren’t living in the house. There will be Sarah’s sea, blue and gray and green, hanging on the wall. And songs, old ones and new. And Seal with yellow eyes. And there will be Sarah, plain and tall.
Read on for an excerpt from Skylark
1
“Stand on that stump, Caleb. Anna, you next to him. That will be a good family picture.”
Joshua, the photographer, looked through his big camera at us as we stood on the porch squinting in the sunlight. Caleb wore a white shirt, his hair combed slick to his head, Sarah in a white dress, Papa looking hot and uneasy in his suit. The lace at my neck itched in the summer heat. We had to be still for so long that Caleb began to whistle softly, making Sarah smile.
Far off in the distance the dogs, Nick and Lottie, walked slowly through the dry prairie grass. They walked past the cow pond nearly empty of water, past the wagon, past the chickens in the yard. Nick saw us first, then Lottie, and they began to run. Caleb looked sideways at me as they jumped the fence and ran to us, running up to stand between Sarah and Papa as if they wanted to be in the picture, too. We tried not to laugh, but Sarah couldn’t help it. She looked up at Papa and he smiled down at her. And Joshua took the picture of us all laughing, Papa smiling at Sarah.
Joshua laughed, too.
“Your aunts will like that picture,” he said to Sarah.
Sarah fanned herself.
“They hardly know what I look like anymore,” she said softly. “I hardly know what they look like anymore.”
I looked at Caleb. I knew Caleb didn’t like to think about Sarah and her aunts and her brother and the sea she had left behind.
“It’s Maine you came from, isn’t it?” said Joshua.
“Yes,” said Sarah.
“She lives here now,” said Caleb loudly.
Papa put his hand on Caleb’s head.
“That she does,” said Joshua, smiling.
He turned and looked out over the cornfield, the plants so dry they rattled in the wind.
“But I bet Maine is green,” Joshua said in a low voice. He looked out over the land with a faraway look, as if he were somewhere else. “We sure could use rain. I remember a long time ago, you remember it, Jacob. The water dried up, the fields so dry that the leaves fell like dust. And then the winds came. My grandfather packed up his family and left.”
“Did he come back?” asked Caleb.
Joshua turned.
“No,” he said, “he never came back.”
Joshua packed up the last of his things and got up in his wagon.
Papa looked at Sarah.
“It will rain,” he said.
We watched the wagon go off down the road.
“It will rain,” Papa repeated softly.
“Will you worry if it doesn’t rain?” asked Caleb.
“Yes, but we’ll get along,” said Papa. “We always get along.”
“Imagine having to leave,” said Sarah.
Papa took off his jacket.
“We’d never leave, Sarah,” he said. “We were born here. Our names are written in this land.”
When Papa and Sarah went inside, Caleb looked at me. I knew what he was going to say, and I didn’t want to hear it.
“Sarah wasn’t born here,” he said.
I picked up the pail of grain for the chickens.
“I know that, Caleb,” I said crossly. “Papa kno
ws it, too.”
Caleb took a stick and bent down in the dirt. I watched him write SARA. He looked up at me.
“I’m writing Sarah’s name in the land,” he said.
“You can’t even spell, Caleb,” I said. “You can’t.”
I walked away. When I turned to look at Caleb, he was staring at me. I wanted to say I was sorry for being cross with him. But I didn’t.
Read on for an excerpt from Caleb’s Story
1
“Come find me, Caleb!” called my little sister, Cassie.
She ran out the door and down the steps. Lottie barked and followed her. Nick was older than Lottie. He stayed on the porch and watched.
“I don’t have time. I mean it, Cassie!”
Cassie ignored me the way she always did when she wanted something.
“And don’t look!” she called.
I sighed and walked after her. I covered my eyes with my hand, but through my fingers I could see Cassie run to the barn.
“One, two, three,” I counted.
“Slower,” she cried.
“Four . . . five . . . five and a half.”
Papa was hitching Bess to the wagon.
“Don’t be long,” he said. “Anna’s almost ready to leave.”
“Don’t worry. This won’t take long, Papa.”
“I don’t know, Caleb. Cassie’s getting better at hiding.”
I laughed.
“At least you don’t see her feet sticking out anymore. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten,” I called.
I could hear Cassie laughing, but I couldn’t see her. I walked into the barn. It was cool and dark and quiet. A winter sharp smell filled the space.
“Cassie?”
There was no answer. There was a time when Cassie would answer me and give away her hiding place—she couldn’t help it. Not today.
May, my favorite of all our horses, was in her stall. I reached over and touched her nose, and she nickered at me. I could see her breath in the cold air. There was silence, the only sound the sound of May’s breathing. Then I heard Lottie’s bark outside, and Cassie’s voice.