If only Mr. and Mrs. Trafton hadn’t up and died. He threw his pitchfork into the wheel barrow, the searing clatter made him cover his ears—allowing painful memories to crash through.
Unwanted tension squeezed his neck and rose to his temples in a throb. His stomach rolled. He wouldn’t make it to the kitchen in time. Red clouded his vision and sweat trickled down his face. He stumbled to the water pump, dropped to his knees and pumped before he could black out. Ice cold water gushed over his neck and face. Nausea receded but left a deep, raw chill.
He rested his forehead against the pump, breathing in and out, tired but grateful not to have been overtaken. This time. Served him right for becoming angry.
Ruth ran from the back stoop, unknotted her stained apron and wrapped it around his neck. “You gonna make yo’self sickern’ a pickle!”
“I like pickles, Ruth.” Wood fire and bacon scents wafted around him. Not altogether unwelcome. He stood, weak clear down to his knees.
“You never gonna eat any outta this kitchen. Ain’t natural.” She took his arm like his mammy did when he was five, not thirty, and led him through the back door of the kitchen. “My old masah died from eating pickles.”
He never knew when to take Ruth seriously. “Now your old master wasn’t fit to live, from what I hear.”
She buttoned one lip into the other before curling them into a snarl. “Ol’ masah, ol’masah...he did one good thing. Jes one good thing.”
“What’s that?
She grew silent, and he didn’t wonder. Or press. Some events didn’t need to be relived or talked about. What mattered was that she was here now.
He dutifully swiped his boots across the boot scrape and hung them on the rack. Thick chunks of mud still clung to the sides and threatened to drop any moment. Didn’t feel an ounce of guilt. He’d made a good effort after all.
She snagged her apron from his neck and poured his tea. He blew against the steam, sipped, the warmth easing down into his chest. Pure mercy. “Have yourself some, Ruth.”
“You know I already did.” The lines in her face softened.
He grinned. She was good medicine. He carried his cup to his study and burrowed into his favorite chair. A sunlit glimmer burst in at the edge of the window, highlighting towering bookshelves filled with treasured friends.
He propped his tired feet up on the cushy leather footstool and shut his eyes—tried not to recall the slight woman perched on Hammond’s wagon seat. She seemed harmless enough. What, I wonder, are her plans?
Chapter 2
FEBRUARY 24, 1880
I have arrived, though the tiresome lurch of the train and wagon wheels have not yet left me. A man watched my passing from the top of the hill. I suppose new people are of some interest in this rural place. I confess myself quite taken aback by the staring. Uncle didn’t wave, though it seems he is a neighbor.
My reception was far grander than I had dared anticipate. Indeed, I had not a single sure notion what to expect. Aunt and Uncle, their letters so full of kind approbations and earnest entreaties, might have been weary or even cynical on the other side of the pen. They had to fulfill an obligation, of course. I knew that. So did they.
I had not expected Aunt’s wedding china to be out in all its fineness and a buffet table laden with tea, cake, and sugar-powdered doughnuts. Nor had I anticipated such genuine bright smiles from all my cousins. As if they’d wished me here my whole life and I’d finally given in and come. Well, this may be in part, true. I had been invited numerous times to spend summers here in rural Paris, Kentucky. I had always declined. I feared farm life would shackle me to sweaty labor rather than the cool trips to the lake I usually enjoyed.
I can’t believe I am about to admit this: I may have been wrong all these years. This place has all the charm of a pastoral painting, with gentle slopes and cattle gathered in the distance. The wide, pale blue sky sweeping down over them with an ever-present, gently blowing peace.
Mother had emphatically argued that farm life would do my character much needed good. To be sure, it was all she’d known for her first nineteen years. That’s what scared me. In retrospect, I wish I had pushed back my selfish fears and listened, if only to give her the pleasure of my trust. Instead, I drove her to tears over this insignificant detail. Now they are both gone. Why must the good die this side of His glory? God may spend my life answering this irksome question. Their departure seems such a waste.
And so I am here, and not on summer vacation— avoiding difficult queries from Aunt and others. Perhaps for good, unless someone of noble character deems me worthy to wed.
Miraculously, I have my own room! With three girl cousins plus four boys, I hardly expected this honor. The farmhouse is itself large, but my room is small. The wallpaper is fresh, though, sprinkled with tiny bundles of yellow flowers and bluebirds. The furnishings are all my own, having arrived ahead of me by a few weeks. Feels good to be surrounded by familiar bedstead, rug, and deep-cushioned rocking chair. Aunt has added extra blankets to the end of my bed. Most of ours had to be burned. Ours...as if we were still we. As if they yet live...
My childhood world tilted and forced me to leap off its surface and into the revolution of another. I feel I have landed in a good space. Safe and I hope more certain. My clothing may be midnight, but my heart has lightened in this glowing, busy household.
Most girls in my situation would have ended up working at a dreadful cotton mill somewhere, in an overcrowded boarding house cooking for fifty hungry, rough menfolk. I am
