from the chimney. It was the kind of brilliant noon that would usually be invigorating, Indian summer having its last fling. But this flawlessly perfect day had the opposite effect as the three of them waited for the sound of wagon wheels on the road. The faint remains of the dinner's aromas tinted the air with hominess, but nobody had eaten much. Nobody'd said much, either, just the necessary last-minute instructions, the neces- sary lonely things. Some ashes gave way as a log collapsed in the cook-stove. Aaron came clumping down the stairs with his gear under one arm, and Jonathan said, 'They're here.' A buckboard full of men pulled into the driveway, and the men hoisted up bundles, jackets, bedrolls, keeping their eyes from Mary. Any last-minute thing they thought of to say seemed pointless. Neither of them liked leaving Mary alone in the house. Mary led the way to the door and stepped out onto the porch with a too-bright smile.
Aaron came past her first and kissed her cheek, leaning past the gear that encumbered him, saying, 'The time'll go fast. You'll see.' Jonathan came next, weighted down, too. He lightly kissed her quivering mouth, and they both said, 'Take care,' together before he made for the wagon. Aaron was already climbing aboard. The other men were in high spirits, feeling the fraternity of this all-male adventure. Their voices accompanied the sound of rocks being spit from under the wagon wheels as they left the yard.
Then it was quiet. Mary stood on the porch with tears sil- vering her cheeks. She blinked hard, trying to clear her vision, but the faces of the disappearing men were blurred. Finally she raised her apron, wiping her eyes dry momentarily, and saw Jonathan and Aaron squinting into the sun as the wagon jostled them with its motion. She realized they couldn't see her on the shadowed porch, so she came down the step into the sunny yard and waved as the wagon disappeared over the crest of the first hill. A long time later, it reappeared, climbing the second hill, finally disappearing for good.
Mary stood, tears washing over her cheeks. Her wet lips widened silently at the uncaring sky as she dropped to her knees in the middle of the silent yard, cradling her swollen body. And for the first time the child became someone, not just something. Inside her was a growing body, alive, someone to be with her through her aloneness. Kneeling in the yard with her arms around her middle, she rocked and cried until she had quieted, then spread her hands wide upon herself. 'Are you awake in there? I need your company. I know I haven't given you much of my good thoughts, have I? Maybe this time we spend alone-just the two of us-will help us get to know each other better. Sorry I cried. I guess I'm the last one who should feel sorry for myself.'
The grainlands of North Dakota sprawled flat, the farms so large they took weeks to reap. The small farms of Todd County, after giving up their golden grains, gave up their men to these sisterlands to the west. It was a common prac- tice for these harvest-hardened hands to hire out as threshers on the larger Dakota farms. Seven men were in the group that day. None of them relished leaving their homes behind, but a good year might find them returning with nearly two hundred dollars after a month's work. Since bunk and board were provided by employers, the only expense incurred was the price of the train trip, probably only as far as Fargo. From there the men caught rides to the outpost farms.
Jonathan had been returning to the same farm for several years. Aaron had, too, with the exception of the year he'd been to town. So they'd been expecting the letter from En- derland. Wallace Getchner's farm was as good as any, better than some. They remembered years when they'd hired out at places where the grub was bad, flies and filth in kitchens as slovenly run as the farms were. Sleeping accommodations weren't important-any mow with a decent spread of hay would do-but ample, good food was a must, for the days were long and the work hard. Getchner paid fair wages, and his wife knew how to lay a good spread of food. There's a thing about a misplaced man and good cooking that can take him closer to home than anything else. It brought the men back to Getchner's year after year.
They'd ridden by train and buckboard, reaching the Ender- land farm in the early evening. Getchner had hired six hands for this year's harvesting. Three were already there when the buckboard arrived with the remaining three. Getting settled took little time, not much more than tossing their bedrolls into the haymow. Their small packs of extra clothing and personal articles were kept there, too. Washing up was done at the well in the yard in tepid water warmed by the teakettle Mrs. Getchner sent out. Meals were taken in a crowded fashion around the family's kitchen table.
They began shocking the grain the following morning. Here the farms were so vast they weren't measured in acres but in sections, these sections stretching away endlessly across the flat prairie as far as the eye could see. Unlike the Minne- sota harvests, which were threshed in the yards near barns and granaries, these crops were threshed where they grew, in the fields. The threshing rig ate its way across the sections, chewing up shocks as it went, filling wagon after wagon with grain. Tiring day followed tiring day. The only thing to buck up the spirit was the promise of profits and an occasional letter from home.
Jonathan had written to Mary, a short note stating that they had arrived safely, telling of the good weather conditions, the number of workers Getchner had hired this year, ending with, 'Aaron sends his best,' and signed, 'your loving husband, Jonathan.' He wrote the same two letters each year, one right after he arrived, one just be- fore leaving for home. If Jonathan was inarticulate in speech, he was equally so when putting his thoughts on paper. Only his closings indicated they were personal letters. Mary had always treasured these closings, for they were the only written words of love she had ever received from Jonathan.
Mail was speedy, for trains ran with great regularity, two or more per day passing through Browerville from either direction. So Mary got Jonathan's letter the day after he'd sent it. She'd been sitting on the porch step in the noon sun, cracking hazelnuts with a tack hammer. The nuts, in their spiny husks, had been spread to dry on the roof of the granary, safely out of reach of the ever-searching squirrels.
It was another golden day like the one on which Jonathan and Aaron had left. The sun was warm on Mary's arms and face as she rapped the shells. She dropped another hazelnut into the fruit jar as an inquisitive squirrel rustled through the leaves, stopping a safe distance away. 'Hey, you,' she beckoned, but he scurried a bit away at the sound of her voice. 'Bet you'd like some, huh?' She tossed one near the squirrel, and its tail flinched, gray and shiny in the bright sun, before the animal grabbed it and hid it away inside its cheek. 'If it weren't for you, we wouldn't have had to dry those nuts up there on the roof. Now you pretend you're too shy to come and eat them.' Then she talked to the baby, as she'd begun to do often. 'You know, little one, Jonathan would have a fit, and so would Aaron, if they knew I'd been up that ladder after those nuts. You won't tell, will you?' Then she popped a hazelnut into her mouth. 'How do you like hazel- nuts, huh?' she asked her unborn child. The squirrel was back, looking for more nuts, his head cocked cutely to one side. 'Well, who do you think I'm talking to?' she asked it. 'All your babies are grown up now, but you're not the only one who can have babies. I'm gonna be a mama, too, so there.' And she gave the squirrel one more hazelnut. 'And don't look at me as if I'm crazy. I got to talk to someone.'
Oh, she was lonesome, no doubt about it. But since the men were gone she'd found an unusual response to the child that helped fill her days, while at the same time setting her mind straight about Jonathan and Aaron. The longer they were away, the easier it was to detach herself from the emo- tions that pulled her in opposite directions when they were both around her. She was able to analyze what she'd done and what was the right thing for her to do in the future, and there was less and less doubt that she had wronged Jonathan. Even if he'd asked for it, she'd been wrong to turn to Aaron, and she realized that she'd never asked for Jonathan's forgive- ness.
She wasn't trying to delude herself into believing she didn't love Aaron. She did, but she was also convinced that she could find the old love she and her husband had shared. She wondered if Aaron could ever forgive her for the choice she had to make or if he'd come to think she'd used him to get the baby. But if that were so, it was the price she'd have to pay. This had cost them all so much. Not only was Mary determined to set things straight between herself and Jonathan, she was determined to make him see that he must do the same between himself and Aaron. She told Jonathan so, that day, by letter.
Dear Jonathan, I received your welcome letter today and am happy all is well there. Here, too. Amos and Tony are handling the stock just fine. They refuse to let me make them a lunch before they leave, though it's midmorning by the time they finish. I'm already missing the cooking, but of course they have chores of their own and can't humor me just because I'd like company at the table. In the evenings they come after supper, and it's dusk by the time they leave.
Soon you'll be gone a whole week. I've had time to get clear of mind since you left. It's not good that we haven't made some kind of peace among ourselves, you know? You've got to accept what I have to say now, knowing it's long since time it was said. Our being apart could heal some wounds-I know you think you don't have any, but you do. And Jonathan, I'm sorry I gave them to you. I'm deeply sorry. What happened between me and Aaron will not be again. He and I have made a sort of peace, but you and I have to, too. And I believe you and he
