The sumacs were the last to leaf, and Jonathan caught glimpses of white through the redness of the licorice-whip branches, knowing what was out there again. He’d listened to Haymes’s carping and lived with Mary’s hopefulness long enough to reckon the days, counting them off from now until his trip. Not really admitting to himself their significance, he muttered, “Flap-doodling old fool!”
5
The following Saturday, they went to town with the double box buckboard to buy potatoes for seed. The seat was wider than that of the trap, so they rode uncrowded, Aaron handling the reins. His hands were raw, and he felt every shift of the leather in his palms.
They dropped Mary off at the Mercantile store and went off to see to the buying of seed potatoes. She shopped from a long list, for it had been a while since she’d come to town. She selected tinned foods, fresh crackers from the barrel, and visited with Sam Motz while he weighed the coffee beans and the seeds she’d selected for the garden, measuring them out by the ounce into small paper sacks. He drew vinegar from the wooden barrel in the strong-smelling back room and returned the crock jug to her, corked and filled. She treated herself to touching and admiring the bolts of materials, thinking of a dress for her cousin’s upcoming wedding. Sam asked if she’d care to buy a length, but she had no eggs to trade that day, and, knowing the bill would run high as it was, she said no.
She savored her time in the store as she savored its smells—pungent, dry, sweet, and spicy all mixed in one. Acquaintances from town came in, and she visited with them.
Later, she waited under the awning on the boardwalk for the men to come back for her, but when the wagon pulled up, Aaron was alone. He said he’d be right back and went inside to pay the bill, then carried the boxes of food out, putting them on top of the potatoes that now lined the bottom of the wagon bed. When Aaron came out of the store for the last time, Mary was sitting on the high-sprung seat. He had a brown-striped candy stick in his mouth and handed one up to her before climbing up to take the reins.
She took the proffered candy, a peace offering, self-conscious again with him beside her.
“Where’s Jonathan?” She knew they’d already finished at the feed and seed store.
“He stopped off at the railroad station,” Aaron answered.
“The railroad station?” Her rising note questioned why.
“To check out the price of a train ticket to Minneapolis and a schedule.”
“He really means to go, then?” she asked.
“Yes, it looks that way,” Aaron admitted.
The strain was showing on his face. There were two deep, parallel furrows between his eyes. Maybe it was from frowning into the sun all day, but she suspected it was less from the sun than from their situation. He looked thinner and tired. She wished she could smooth his worry from him, dust it away with a light brush of fingers, but she now dare not touch him.
It was just a couple of blocks to the railroad depot, and as Aaron turned the horses toward it, he knew he had only the space of that three-minute drive to convey the thoughts it had taken him weeks to straighten out in his head.
“Mary, if Jonathan leaves, I’ll have to stay. The place can’t run itself. But honest, Mary, I’d never lay a hand on you…you know that. What Jonathan said is bound to be running through your mind, and now with him getting set to leave us like he said, I just don’t want you worrying about what’s going to happen. Because nothing’s going to—I swear to you, Mary.”
It was the first time he’d said anything about it since Jonathan had brought it all up, and, try though she might, she couldn’t hold that heat from leaping to her face. Aaron was looking directly at her, holding the candy stick forgotten in his hand. She returned his gaze as steadily as possible. “Oh, dear God, Aaron, don’t you think I know that? Did you suppose I don’t trust you?” Seeing the color mount to his face, she knew what it had cost Aaron to say what he had.
“Well, it had to be said, Mary. We all shut up and never said a word about Jonathan’s wishes, but it can’t fester inside forever. Now it looks like he really means to run off to Minneapolis, and there’s nothing we can do about it. I just had to tell you, to put your mind at ease.” Then his attention turned again toward the team he was driving.
“Aaron,” she said, also looking now at the horses that pulled them toward the depot, “Thank you, but you know I’d trust you even if you hadn’t spoken up.”
“Even after what I said on the back porch that night?” The memory of his frank admission still burned him.
“I could ask the same thing after what I said on the porch, too.”
“No, you’re…well, you’re Mary,” he said, as if just being Mary put her above reproach, above compromise.
It was silent then, but Aaron heard what he’d said, and it suddenly sounded as if he’d said he could never consider her womanly, female, as if she hadn’t the wherefore necessary to attract him. That wasn’t the way of it at all, and he hoped she wouldn’t think so. Jonathan had already robbed her of enough pride, but God, how the girl had stood up and refused to be cowed. Not many would have shown the spunk she had.
They were pulling up to the depot building then, and he turned her way and asked simply, “Friends?”
And she nodded, her eyes lighting with relief and warmth. “Friends.”
Jonathan stepped outside just as they approached, and climbed aboard. When they were on their way home he said, breaking the silence, “The train pulls through at noon on Sundays. I’ll be going a week from tomorrow.”
“Time enough between now and then to get a good start on the spuds, if not finish them,” Aaron said, and Jonathan noticed an old, easy-going roll to his brother’s words.
“If the weather holds, we should get them all in this week,” Jonathan mused.
“Quartering spuds has never been my favorite job,” Mary put in. “I’ll be glad when the wagon is empty.”
“Maybe the day’ll come you won’t have to quarter spuds—if this Angus turns out to be all they say. I figure one Angus calf’d bring in the same money as ten acres of spuds.”
“First you gotta buy the calf, then raise the herd, Jonathan,” she reminded him, and there was the old note of teasing in her voice.
“How much do you figure the bull will cost you?” Aaron asked.
“I won’t know till I get there. The only prices I’ve read about are on-the-hoof for slaughter.”
Their ride passed in pleasant conversation that genuinely eased the tension among them for the first time in days. What Aaron had said so openly to Mary had at last relaxed the knot of wariness they’d been feeling. Jonathan too found himself drawn into the camaraderie that had been absent among them for too long.
When they arrived home, Aaron pulled up under the elms. The wagon didn’t need unloading. The potatoes could wait there until they were quartered for planting.
“If you don’t mind, Jonathan, I’d like to start the chores early,” Aaron said. “I’m thinking I’ll go down to Pris’s and see if she’ll go to the hall with me tonight.”
“That’ll be fine, Aaron,” Jonathan agreed.
Mary felt that Aaron’s plans put the capper on this healing day. He’s going back to Priscilla at last! If she’ll only take him back, everything will be fine.
Mixed in with her relief were small tuggings, whimsical longings to go to the dance herself. It had been so long since she’d been down to the hall on a Saturday night. They used to go often when they were first married. She was still young, and she felt the urge for a little socializing. It would do Jonathan good to get away from the farm for the evening, too. While he didn’t care much for dancing, he enjoyed a cold beer and a bit of visiting.
Jonathan was already unhitching the horses, and she hurried to speak up before he finished.
“Jonathan, I think we could all use a little relaxation. You’ve been working hard, and it’d do you good to get away a bit. Why don’t we go up to the hall, too?”
He was already re
leasing the traces from the collar. He didn’t think he needed to go to the hall to relax. He could do that right here at home, just sitting on the porch looking out over the fields. But Mary hadn’t been away much lately, except for Sundays at church and the visit to Volences’ a couple weeks ago. She probably could do with an outing.
He didn’t answer immediately, so Mary hurried on while he ducked under the horses’ heads to the wagon tongue. It didn’t look like he wanted to go. He was releasing the horses as if to stay home.
“I wouldn’t mind going in the wagon, and Aaron could take the buggy and the mare. It doesn’t matter about the potatoes. Nobody’ll bother them.” There was pleading in her voice.
He hadn’t meant to make her beg. After all, it was a perfectly natural thing, her wanting to go out for a bit of Saturday night fun.
“That’d be fine, Mary,” he said then. “I’ll feed and water the horses, though, and leave ’em off the wagon till we go.”
She was already racing up to the house as fast as she could, with a small box of groceries in her arms. Jonathan thought, I’d better hurry with the chores. Looks like she’ll slam supper together quicker than greased lightning. I’ll eat it cold if I don’t move myself. Leading the horses toward the watering trough, he felt pleased that Mary was snapping out of the mood that had kept her tight and silent these past weeks. But he’d known she’d come around. Just like lightning, too, she had too much spark to hide it long.
Mary met Aaron coming out the kitchen door after setting a heavier box of groceries inside.
“What did he say?” he asked her, but he knew from her flying skirts as she jumped both porch steps at once what Jonathan had said.
“He said you can take the mare and buggy and we’ll take the wagon.” She was slamming stuff around in the kitchen, hurriedly putting the supplies away, and he could hear the staccato sounds as he sat on the back step and pulled his work boots on. He knew full well it was she who’d said he could take the buggy. A man didn’t go a-courting in a wagon full of potatoes, but Jonathan would never think of that.
It was just as Jonathan had thought. She had her chickens and geese tended to in record time and was calling the men to supper while they hustled the milk pails up the yard. He didn’t have to worry about eating it cold, though, for she had been in too much of a tizzy to make a hot meal. The range was piping, though, and she’d found time to pump bathwater in the midst of her headlong hurry.
The meal was a hurried affair, and dishes disappeared from under their noses before the men could get around to seconds. What held the dishes in one piece was hard to say, the way she threw them into the dishpan, rattling and clacking and chinking as she rushed.
Aaron brought in the washtub from the porch. There was no need to ask who’d be first tonight. If they didn’t clear out and leave the kitchen to Mary, she’d jump into the tub with her clothes on.
Aaron decided he’d take a pail of warm water upstairs for his own bath rather than wait for the kitchen to be free. It would save time. It was getting late, and he’d better be on his way. He wished now that he’d taken the time to drive over during the week and ask Priscilla in advance, but there should be enough time to get down to her place, do the asking, and make it to the hall in time to get a table. But suppose she said she was going with Michalek? He made up his mind that if it turned out that way, he’d pursue her at the dance, Michalek or no Michalek.
Up in her bedroom after her bath, Mary opened the wardrobe and took out a dress of yellow dimity. Its raised twills caught the waning light from the window. She took a chemise from the dresser drawer and put it on, looking in the mirror at her image. During the week she wore a simple homemade binding over her breasts, but her wedding chemise was still good, and fit her youthful shape just as it had seven years before. She buttoned her long petticoat around her waist before taking the celluloid hairpins out of her hair. It fell down her back, and as she combed it she had to pull it over her shoulders to stroke its full length. She began to reform the knot at the base of her neck, but a thought crossed her mind, making her drop the hair back down.
She had already gotten Jonathan to agree to go to the dance. That was a step in the right direction. Perhaps she herself could do more to bring back the old closeness. For the first time, it crossed her mind that as the seven years of their marriage had progressed she had paid increasingly less attention to her toilette. She kept herself clean and neat, and the childless state of her body had kept it firm and youthful. But maybe there was more she could do to rekindle the light that, with the passing years, had faded from Jonathan’s eyes. Most farm women had plenty to keep them busy without fussing over affected hairdos and painted faces. She had been no different.
But here, tonight, in the favorable twilight that shone on her profile, she again raised her arms and combed the cascading hair high on her head. Securing it there with curved metal combs, she lit the kerosene lantern on the dresser, then dug through the bottom dresser drawer until she found what she sought, the long-unused curling iron. She heated it over the lamp chimney. Then, separating a tress of hair, clamped and rolled it up. She could smell the acrid odor of singed hair, but as she continued she got the feel of it back after all these years and gauged her heating better so the iron didn’t singe her hair anymore. When she’d finished the coiffure, she found a small jar of petroleum jelly and dipped her little finger into it, running it across her lips, leaving them glistening. The last thing she did, on impulse, was to turn to the faded old wallpaper that surrounded the room with red morning glories. Wetting her fingers with her tongue, she touched a morning glory, and its dye left her fingertips pink. She smoothed the color on her cheeks. She thought how lucky she was to have two men working the fields, so that she was spared that job most of the time. The sun had not had a chance to toughen her skin. Smoothing the color onto it, she wondered if Jonathan would notice.
The yellow dimity dress fell over her petticoat, and its buttons pulled it tightly over her midriff as she worked them as far up the back as she could reach. The neck was cut square and high, but it showed the shadows of fine, small round bones below her neck. She had no cologne, but in the bureau drawer among the linens was a small sachet pillow filled with lavender. She found it and pinned it on her chemise between her breasts, reaching in easily where the unbuttoned bodice was still slack at the top.
There was only one thing more she needed, and here it was, easily found: a smile, making her face a perfection, all for her husband.
Taking a last look at herself in the mirror, Mary clasped her hands together, pressing them tightly against her throat. Please, oh please, Jonathan, she wished silently. The simple wish encompassed countless hopes. If only he would know them.
Aaron, too, had taken pains with his preparations. He’d worked to smooth his curly hair until it lay thick and clean around his smooth-shaven face. He wore his worsted Sunday suit and a white shirt with a crisp, starched collar buttoned tightly onto the neckband. A black bow tie was giving him trouble now as he stood in the kitchen by the wall mirror above the sink. But he managed it finally and hoped the effort wouldn’t prove fruitless, that his appearance would speak for itself, telling Pris that he’d made a special effort for her.
He was splashing bay rum on his face when a golden reflection in the mirror stopped his hands in midair. Mary had rounded the corner from the steps and was coming into the kitchen. Her path held her in his mirror until she swerved toward the washtub on his right. She had come up near and behind him and bent down to squeeze the cloth from Jonathan’s bathwater. He turned and looked down at her bending figure and saw the honey-colored curls that fell on each side of her neck. The top three buttons of her dress were unbuttoned, and he saw the white cotton of a garment on her back beneath it. She seemed to be bending down a long time over the tub, and he continued staring at the back of her neck.
She straightened then and turned to face him, and the bay rum and lavender all mixed in the air between them, and it was hea
dy as warm spring wine. She saw his tanned skin redden slightly above the white collar. His russet hair glistened, and as she looked up at it, one unruly curl sprang loose onto his forehead. His brow shone. His blue eyes took in the details of her high, pink cheekbones and shiny lips. Her hair did not have the usual part down the center, but was skimmed back tightly, clearing her face before it and giving it an open look. Behind the yellow lace that ran across the top of her dress he saw without glancing down that her breathing was quick.
They had each prepared themselves for someone else. Yet, as they stood facing each other in perfection, a confusion of feelings made them glad they pleased each other.
“I couldn’t reach the last buttons,” she said. Her eyes dropped as she turned her back to him. He buttoned them for her without touching her skin, but the fluttering touch of the dress on her back raised goosebumps on her arms.
They heard Jonathan whistling his way up the walk then, and Aaron turned quickly to put away the bottle of bay rum underneath the sink. Mary went to the front room closet to find her coat in the small space there. She heard the screen door slam as Jonathan came in, but she stayed where she was, in the darkening room, because the light in the kitchen might reveal her agitated state. She heard the clink of the washtub handles as the two men lifted it to carry it outside.
Jonathan said, “What’s the matter with your hand, Aaron?” and Mary glimpsed them taking the tub out the doorway, a wincing expression on Aaron’s face.
“Just a bit tender, that’s all. Seems I got softer than a patty-cake over the winter.”