Mary was feeling the strain. It was easy enough for her to say she must reconcile herself to her life with Jonathan, but her mind slipped too often into memories of Aaron. She worked hard, using work as an antidote for depression. She hoed the garden, pinched the tops of the newly sprigged seedlings of vegetables and annual flowers, that pinching of stems tinting her thumb green, that “green thumb” making the garden thrive. But this year she seemed to find less satisfaction in gardening. The strawberries were already ripe, and she put up the first of her summer preserves, putting aside several special jars to give to her cousin Catherine for her wedding. Not even the thought of the upcoming wedding celebration could lift her spirits. Most days, the hard, hot work was wearying, and she felt it wear her down long before the day ended. Sometimes the chore of canning seemed too enormous a task for her to handle. It was a small amount of work compared to what would follow when the bulk of the garden crops matured, but that didn’t seem the way of it as the berries continued to ripen and needed daily picking if they weren’t to be sacrificed to the birds. She had tried picking the partially ripened berries and holding them in the cellar for a few days, but it made even more work because they reddened at varying times and necessitated an extra sorting and handling each day. They ate as many fresh berries with cream as they could, but still more needed putting up.
She had spent a sickening, hot morning in the berry patch, squatting and stooping until the sun and the posture made her dizzy. When she finally finished picking and went to wash the berries at the barnyard well, the icy water was pure, sweet relief as she dunked her wrists into it. Then she took the berries up to the house and sat at the kitchen table to pick their green caps off during the time remaining before dinner. The house was quiet, and outside sounds were soothing. Here inside the kitchen the strawberries made a pinging sound as they hit the bottom of the dishpan.
It was times like these, lax times when her guard was down, that Mary’s thoughts strayed to Aaron. They seemed to move apace with the pinging berries. You know there can be no more between us, Aaron, she thought, so why don’t you go off down to the hall Saturday nights anymore? If you went, and I know you should, do you know how it would break my heart? But I have no right to you, nor you to me, so why continue salving so deep a wound when we both know that a swift cauterizing is what it needs? Did you know the lines are as deep as scars between your eyes these days? Your daddy’s smile and teasing are gone from you, and I cannot reach to smooth away the worry from your face as I once did.
Jonathan and Aaron had spent a morning of near-misery digging holes for the posts and setting them in under the hot sun. They were more than ready for a good, refreshing meal and a sit-down afterward. Coming in the back door to the kitchen, they saw Mary slumped over the kitchen table with one limp arm sprawled across the oilcloth and her cheek resting on it. Fear flashed through both men simultaneously, and they exclaimed at the same time:
“Oh, God…”
“Mary…”
Both men were at her side in the second it took to jump from the doorway to her chair. It happened that Aaron gained the side toward which her head was turned, and he saw her slack mouth pushed distortedly against the table-top, opened slightly. A very small, very delicate snore snuffled from her half-flattened nostrils. Her right hand was in a kettle of strawberries on her lap, and her left rested against a dishpan on the table near her head.
“She’s sleeping, Jonathan,” Aaron said as soon as he recognized the fact. Seeing her there like that, Aaron had a sudden flash of beautiful memory of her asleep in his bed. Too beautiful! He stepped back and let Jonathan awaken her, going to the sink to wash up so he wouldn’t have to watch the two of them together.
To his amazement, the first utterance from her as she woke was, “Aaron?” He began working the pump handle to create some diversion in the room, so he didn’t hear his brother’s reply.
They had an unusually quiet lunch that day, the only real talking done by Mary, who repeatedly apologized for the second-rate meal she slammed together in lieu of hot food. At the end of the meal she promised them a hot supper, but food was not really uppermost in their minds. Both men were hearing again Aaron’s name as Mary had murmured it in her half-conscious state. It was the nearest thing to an endearment that Aaron had heard since she’d told him she loved him in the rainy granary. It was the only hint Jonathan had that he might have been right. Mary knew she’d been dreaming of Aaron when Jonathan woke her up, and was glad that dreams could be perceived by nobody but the dreamer. She didn’t remember reaching out a caressing hand to Jonathan’s face as she spoke Aaron’s name.
13
The end of June was nearing. This was the last time of comparative restfulness before the onslaught of long harvesting hours. It was a time that lent itself well to weddings. The entire township was looking forward to Catherine Garner’s and Michael Garek’s wedding, for everyone was invited. Mary looked forward to it with relief, for it would bring relaxation that she sorely needed.
During the week preceding the great day, she imagined all the activity going on at the Garner house and offered to help Aunt Mabel with the preparations, but the red-faced woman shook her head, wattles rippling beneath her chin, and bellowed, “You done enough for me in years past, girl, and I got a tribe of my own to crack the whip to. You stay home and take care of those two big louts of yours, and don’t show your face at my place until you’re ready to have yourself a proper fling!” Appealing to her cousin Catherine did no good, either, for Mabel Garner would have her way, so Mary’s help was refused.
But the entire Garner family was put to work for days. While Aunt Mabel and the girls cooked and baked, Uncle Garner and the boys prepared makeshift dinner tables and benches, which would seat the crowd in the farmyard. Also constructed was a wooden platform to serve as an open-air dance floor. Those too busy helping in the kitchen on a wedding day often returned on the next evening to take their enjoyment on the dance floor. If it rained, the dancing would be held either in the partially empty hayloft or in the living room of the house. Mabel Garner said she’d be damned if any of her neighbors found a cobweb or smatter of dust behind her furniture, and she pushed her brood of children to work cleaning the already spotless house. But for once they didn’t mind because their mother, though an exacting taskmistress, was in the height of good humor.
Across Moran Township, men hurried through their chores before cleaning up and dressing for the long-awaited event. Some of these looked forward to the rarity of being excused from evening chores, having arranged for neighboring youngsters to tend these for them. Failing this, for most of the youngsters would also be attending the festivities, many hoped to convince some young lad to leave the regaling at dusk, long enough to do the chores. As the day progressed and kegs of beer were consumed by the men, they would become generous. Many a lad would end the day with a well-greased palm in return for taking care of someone’s evening chores.
Mary wore the yellow dimity dress again, and although she kept her hair in the familiar knotted coil, she wore it pushed higher on her head, sweeping it back from her center part rather than down over her ears. She left Jonathan closing the kitchen windows and door and walked toward the rig. Aaron jumped down to hand her up. She’d pulled on only her left glove. He reached out to take her bare right hand, and as he did so, his back was to the house, shielding her from Jonathan’s view. He brushed her hand with his lips, and with a relaxed smile, said, “Mary girl, you look beautiful.”
She withdrew her hand as if it had been burned, and quickly pulled her glove on. I’ve been doing so well all these weeks, she thought. I won’t let my resolve slip now. Still, Aaron’s manner held a trace of his old brotherliness, so she put on her own old way and responded, “Likewise, sir. The groom himself might feel overshadowed.” Then she jumped up into the carriage seat. And everything seemed okay between the two of them again.
Jonathan could hear them bantering as he approached the rig.
“I know what’s in the fruit jars I carried out, but what’s in the other package under the seat, Mary?”
“It’s the bean jar I had you and Jonathan buy last week when you went to town.”
“Isn’t that just like a woman? Here I’ve been expecting a mess of pork and beans to show up in that pot on our dinner table, but instead, I find it wrapped for another man’s table.”
“And isn’t it just like a man to buy a wedding gift and expect to try it out before he gives it away?” she rejoined.
Their laughter seemed genuine, and Jonathan joined in, thinking how good it was that they were all in a good humor again. It seemed as if there’d been too little laughter the last few weeks. He refrained from thinking of the probable cause of the strain that was beginning to show around the edges of their lives. Today the strain seemed to have gone. It promised to be a grand day.
The churchyard was filled with noisy Garners. Waving a greeting to the Grays, Mabel Garner yelled, “Ain’t this some day? Somebody said there was a weddin’ here today so I come along, but damned if I know whose ’tis. Can’t be none of my own, ’cause I sure ain’t feelin’ old enough to be a mother-in-law yet!”
Uncle Garner was spit-shined and smiling, proud of the robust woman on his arm. “Mother, you don’t look old enough,” he said, and for once her bellowing was silenced. There was a pleased gleam in her eye as Uncle Garner ushered her toward the church door.
The vows were spoken. Catherine was radiant and Michael was nervous and Mary cried. The church was crowded and stuffy. Women fanned themselves with gloves and prayer books. Toward the end of the service Mary felt the closeness become dizzying. But then the service ended and the back doors opened to let the air flow in. The new bride and groom ran out, followed by their parents and the rest of the congregation, their ears buffeted by Mabel Garner’s voice even before they reached the doors.
Everyone repaired to the bride’s home, the line of wagons, carriages, and calashes raising dust down the gravel road all the way from the church to the Garner farm four miles away. When all the guests had arrived, the yard was dotted thickly with wagons. The horses were turned into the near, fenced pasture, for they would spend a long day here. Their wedding feast would be the lush June grass. It was a day for children to pick up a prized penny or two by unhitching horses for the arriving guests or fetching horses from the pasture when a guest left. At a gathering like this, the kids outnumbered the adults, and the yard swarmed with them. Ladies were kept busy mixing lemonade and nectar at the well to keep the thirsty young horde happy. As the day wore on, some would be sick from too much sweet stuff and some would be tipsy from the beer they’d nipped when glasses were left unattended by grownups.
Uncle Garner had tapped the beer kegs under a shady tree and by the end of the day the grass would be flattened there, the mud smelling yeasty where the spigots had dripped. In another spot in the yard, ice cream was being frozen, and the call went up for another able-bodied man to turn the crank. Children ran past the washtub and stole any ice they could lay a hand on, considering it nearly as big a treat as the ice cream would be. Ice was a precious commodity in June. Uncle Garner had chopped it from a frozen pond in March, hauled it from there to his ice house, packed it with insulating sawdust, and kept it frozen all these weeks.
Mabel Garner’s front parlor was converted to a gift room, and the packages were left there. Most gifts were wrapped in brown paper or newspaper, but many were not wrapped at all. Since brides were not showered with gifts beforehand, the collection in the parlor was impressive. A good share of these were homemade: quilts, dish towels, feather ticks, doilies, pillows, and small pieces of furniture. There was also a large assortment of kitchenware, enough to set any new household on its feet. Dishes, crocks, porcelain and iron cookware, churns, paddles, mason jars (most of them filled with home-canned foods), silverware, and a variety of small kitchen tools—Catherine would need all of these.
She cried upon entering the gift room, moved by the magnitude of Bohemian generosity.
But the kitchen was the center of activity as a raft of cooks worked to feed the guests in shifts, starting first with the impatient children. Customarily, the bride’s mother was excused from kitchen duty after the week of hectic preparations she’d seen to, but Mabel Garner blustered her way in and out, saying, “That’ll be the day, when a bunch of whippersnappers put me out of my own kitchen!” And she helped serve the food she and her girls had been readying all week.
There were platters piled high with kolacky, rich, fruit-filled breads; mushroom-shaped kulich; roasters filled with meat-stuffed cabbage rolls, called sarma; and the ever-present dumplings, studded with caraway seeds and swimming in chicken-cream gravy. Mountains of mashed potatoes were carried to the tables in the yard. Ham in thick raisin sauce raised expressions of approval and made the children’s tongues circle their lips in anticipation. Coffee was brewed in two-gallon pots, the freshly ground beans mixed with raw eggs, shell and all, for Mabel Garner claimed the shells made it clear.
When the first shift of adults came to take their places at the table, the coffee had reached perfection. The children’s plates and silverware were being washed for the shift of adults who’d be seated at the table next. And the food kept coming.
Above the voices in the farmyard rang the sound of horseshoes. Children had begun making darts of corncobs, sinking long chicken feathers into the soft pith centers and hurling them in contests of distance and accuracy, the corncobs spiraling through the air in perfect balance. In the crowd were master storytellers and comedians. Two buffoons appeared from downyard, one crawling on hands and knees, harnessed in Uncle Garner’s horses’ gear, pulling a plow manned by his friend. The crowd milled around, and their impromptu comedy gained momentum from the hoots of laughter and knee-slapping of those gathered around.
Again Mabel Garner’s voice rang out above all those around her, as she called to the man holding the reins, “Seth Adams, you could plow your fields faster with the nag you’re steering there than with those two old pieces of crow bait you call horses!”
And surprisingly, Uncle Garner raised his voice to tease, “Never mind her, Seth. It takes one old piece of crow bait to recognize another!” And Mabel’s laughter swooped while her fist shook in her husband’s direction.
It was in the middle of this merriment, as Aaron was enjoying the antics along with everyone else, that he felt a tug and, looking down, found Newt Volence pulling on his arm.
“Hi, Aaron,” said Newt.
In a spontaneous action, Aaron scooped the little boy up in his arm, and Newt gave the man a big hug, pasting his sticky face against Aaron’s as he did.
“How’s my boy?” Aaron asked, feeling a keen pleasure at seeing the rapscallion again.
“My belly kinda hurts,” the imp confessed.
“Well, I think I know why,” Aaron kidded. “If your belly’s filled with half as much food as your face is, it’s bound to hurt!”
Newt proceeded to rub a grimy hand across a cheek and a corner of his mouth, leaving a smear of dirt plastered where only the food had been before.
“How come you never come to see me no more, Aaron?”
Much as he liked holding the boy, Aaron feared for his suit coat under Newt’s grimy paws, so he set the mite down and squatted beside him.
“Been mighty busy with the planting. I had to help my brother get the crops in, you know.”
“Aw, shoot, plantin’s done a long time ago. How come you ain’t come since then?”
“Well, I’ve been meaning to, but I just haven’t gotten around to it lately, I guess.” Then Aaron asked, “How’re you getting along with that new baby?”
“Aww, he ain’t no fun. He can’t play with me, and everybody yells at me not to get too close to him, and I can’t make no noise in the house or nothin’,” the child confided. But he wasn’t to be sidetracked.
“Why don’t you come to my house no more, Aaron? I like you better’n that old baby, a
nyway.”
“Well, I’ve just been too busy. You know Jonathan went clear down to Minneapolis on the train and bought a real special little bull calf, and we’ve been busy building a fence for him.”
“Aw, shucks, Aaron, one little bull calf don’t take much fencin’.”
The child was dauntless, and as Aaron stood up, laughing, he replied, “Shucks is right! I guess Jonathan and I should have thought of that ourselves, Newt.”
But just then Priscilla approached, and when she got to Newt she scolded, “Ma was wondering where you were. She said to tell you she saw you snitchin’ somebody’s beer and you are not to drink any more of it, you hear?”
“I hear,” Newt said, scuffling a foot in the dirt, his face downcast.
Pris looked up at Aaron then, squinting into the sun. “Hello, Pris. How have you been?”
“Howdy, Aaron. I’m fine. Busier than ever, helping Ma around the house with the new baby and all.”
“I says Aaron should come to see us again,” Newt put in here, looking up at the couple standing high above him. “Huh, Pris?” he asked when she made no reply.
“Yeah, sure. We’d all love it, Aaron. We really would.” But her voice was noncommittal.
He looked down at her pretty face and felt a lonesomeness for something she or he had missed, something they had missed together, and answered, “I’ll do that again someday soon.” He was sorry Newt heard it, for the little fellow would take him at his word and undoubtedly wait for the visit that would not come.