He scowled at me and shuffled off with the bunny killer cradled in his arms.
Rachel shrugged and went back to teasing out the tiny bones along a fillet. “You know, Harry, October’s passing quickly and it will soon be wintertime. Maybe we ought to consider what we can do with some Christmas carols.…”
It was peculiar watching how coolly Rachel received amorous advances from not just Gideon but also Luke, Matthew, and her handful of bachelor suitors at meeting. I suspected she didn’t plan on committing herself to anyone when she’d already promised Mrs. Linton she’d join her in the Genesee Valley.
One time, however, she confided, “I haven’t heard from her recently.” A little frown creased her brow. “Months, actually. And yet I’m sure she still needs me. Her children are a trial, and Mr. Linton”—Rachel sighed—“well, he’s a bit high-strung, too. You know, the missus was a great support to me when my parents took sick, and I swore, if the opportunity arose, I’d help her in kind. When she first left, she begged me to join her, and now that I have the opportunity, I feel obligated to do so. I can’t disappoint her at this late stage in our plans.”
“I’m sure your Mrs. Linton would understand if marriage prevented your going.”
“Perhaps,” she murmured, then changed the subject.
Middleton wasn’t going to keep Rachel, either because of her promise to Mrs. Linton or because she had no excellent reason to stay. One thing was clear: She hadn’t pledged her heart to Gideon or anyone else in these parts, at least not sufficiently to alter her inclination. Of course, she didn’t yet know that Gideon (who was still keeping his pioneer plans to himself, lest Luke decide to share them) would be following her in that direction. And that I would be, as well.
That was the plan, though I persisted in questioning it. My uncertainty kept me mute on the topic.
Strangely, the singing compounded my uncertainty and reluctance. Most of the old tunes Rachel and I sang I’d learned from my brothers. They were family songs.
And then there was Mr. Long. Our banter after meeting and during his occasional visits had resumed.
The last Friday of October marked a particularly playful exchange. Rachel and I were making apple butter. This required eight hours of stirring and sweating over the cast-iron kettle. We were singing, as usual, when my neighbor showed up with some neatly penned verses—“to add to your favorite ditty,” he clarified with a wink. “Mistress of the Tavern,” under Daniel Long’s influence, not only trounced every rowdy patron, but demonstrated a singular talent for concocting her own delicious liquor. In addition, this indomitable woman never, under any circumstances, “submitted” to anyone: not her father, not her husband, not even President Madison when he made the mistake of trying to convince her to become his secretary of strong spirits. Mr. Long loitered for a while to hear us try the new lyrics and wasn’t at all vexed when I failed to make it through a single verse without succumbing to laughter.
He and I were back to our old selves … though now somehow different selves. The pleasure I took from our encounters got so great that he frequently sprang as my first thought upon waking and lingered as my last thought before slumber. Indeed, throughout the day, whenever a horse cantered into the yard, I rushed to the door to see if it was him.
At times, however, my desire to stay in this place came from nothing more than the place itself. October passed, and the trees, robbed of their foliage, poked out of the mountainsides like brush bristles. The fields looked dead, lacking their thriving crops and, as of yet, unimproved with a whitewash of snow. And every day, for all of the first half of November, I awoke to a harsh wind slapping the house. But such bleakness only served to make the fire curling under the stew pot that much more welcoming and Mama’s steaming sassafras tea that much tastier and, in the loft, Betsy’s and Grace’s sleeping frames that much more delightfully warming. I was missing home already, and I hadn’t even left.
I carried my premature nostalgia to the woodlot. For the first time in a long while, I lacked my singing friend; Mrs. Welds had a weaving order she needed Rachel’s help filling. Cider milling and pressing kept Mama and my sisters occupied, so I spent five days in the middle of November on my own, doing my best to beat the squirrels in nutting. The recent high winds had shaken the treats straight out of the trees. I gathered from the ground big baskets of chestnuts and walnuts and returned home at dusk each day with my fingers stained dark brown from the juices and stiff from the cold.
Clouds shrouded the last day of my nutting. The trees encircled me like endlessly layered shadows, and the first snow began to fall as I trudged toward the house. The flakes swirled, large and light as down feathers. When the woods finally thinned, I stood at their scrubby edge and marveled at the sudden winter scene. Heavy gray swallowed the mountaintops, and snow fringed every available branch. It laced the fields, lined my trail, and veiled the air.
I hunched over my basket and set forth into the wind. Dusk settled around me. Yet the snow resisted the approaching nightfall and gleamed. By the time I reached the house, it had completely frosted the roof. Smoke wafted out of the chimney, and the window by the door beckoned with a golden light.
I shivered, more from a wave of bittersweet longing than from the cold. It was a beautiful sight, familiar and strange and magical at once.
Home.
CHAPTER NINE
When I entered the house, I paused for a moment on the threshold, the blowing snow and languishing light of the day behind me, the no-less-beautiful firelight before me, the nut basket heavy in my arms, and my heart heavy with love—love for hearth and home, for kin and neighbor. One neighbor in particular. In fact, I was so bursting with exquisite feeling that had anyone inside greeted me at the door, I would have kissed him on the spot.
As it was, although the family sat talking among themselves at the dinner table, only Matt acknowledged my entrance, and that was merely to look up from his plate and order, “Close the door. You’re letting in snow.”
So much for the ties that bind. I set down the basket. “And hello to you, dear sibling.”
He grunted.
While I turned to shut the door and latch it, Papa sighed, “Please don’t leave the nuts in the middle of the room.”
“I wasn’t going to,” I said through my teeth, collecting the basket.
Betsy glanced over her shoulder. “Why don’t you add a log to the fire?”
“Why don’t you?”
“You’re closer.”
I put the basket down. Again.
Betsy reached for a roll.
Grace rested her head on Papa’s shoulder. “Remember that day after meeting when Harry didn’t put away the foot stove, and I tripped over it and knocked out the hot coals? I almost broke my leg and burned myself.”
After using the poker to shift the log into place, I pushed myself up from the hearth, dusted my hands, and gave my little sister an exasperated look. While the others went back to their conversations, I transferred the basket to the chest behind the borning room door and sniffed appreciatively. Mama must have seen me coming. She had my dish ready.
Before I could sit, Luke interrupted what Gideon was telling him to hand me his plate and mutter, “Get me a little more cornbread and gravy, would you?” Without waiting for an answer, he grinned at Gideon and said, “I’d pay to see that. Ed Welds, the drover. Ha. A person ought to be at least as smart as the cattle he’s driving to try that for a living.”
“Shame on you.” Spooning jam onto her bread, Mama clucked. “Poor Ed. He’s such a nice boy. You shouldn’t pick on him.”
Luke shrugged. “What is he thinking? Nothing, probably. That’s the problem.”
I returned and rested the filled plate before Luke.