'Yes, do that.'
When they were done eating, she cleaned up the kitchen while they dismantled the black stovepipe and carried it in pieces out to the back porch, followed by the stove itself and the silver asbestos pad from the floor under it. It was dirty work, and they needed washing to get rid of the soot they'd gathered while doing it. Mary had finished putting the kitchen back in order and left it to them. Aaron's unaccustomed modesty had made her uncomfortable once already today while he was washing up. But he'd better snap out of it, and quick, she thought, because she wasn't catering to such foolishness after today!
Jonathan finished washing first and turned the sink over to Aaron. Aaron was dipping warm water from the reservoir when Jonathan said, 'You know that Black Angus we talked about this winter?' 'Yeah.' 'You still in favor of me buying it, like you said?'
'You know more about it than I do. If it sounds like sound business, then go ahead.' 'Mary said the same thing.' 'Then do it. You don't need our okays, but you got 'em just the same. So what's holding you up?' 'Nothin'. Nothin' at all,' Jonathan replied.
Aaron was bent over the washbasin lathering his face and neck when Jonathan continued. 'Except, I'll have to make a trip to Minneapolis to do it.' 'Mary'd enjoy a trip like that.' 'She agreed to stay behind and help you with the sowing. I figure we won't have it done yet when it's time for me to go.' 'You know she can't take the field work,' Aaron argued, not able to say that Jonathan must not leave her behind, no matter what. 'It'll only be for a few days, is all.' 'When you going?' 'Cattle Exposition is the last week in May. I'd want to go then to get my pick of the bulls. And so I can talk to the sellers and learn a little more about the breed.' 'There must be someplace around here you can buy one and save yourself the trip.' 'Like I said before, nobody in these parts ever tried breeding Angus. All they think of is pork. I mean to get the jump on the beef business around here. The magazines say beef is the way the whole country'll be eating before long, and they claim it's Angus they'll prefer.'
They'd talked this over during the winter, and Jonathan, as usual, made good sense.
'So go ahead if you've decided. Maybe we'll have all the crops in by then. It's hard to tell.' 'You sure you don't mind?' 'Naw,' Aaron mumbled into the towel. 'Good.'
Jonathan left the kitchen and headed upstairs to bed. Left behind in the kitchen, Aaron leaned both hands on the edge of the sink, gripping it, staring down at the floor. He felt drained. Only one day since Jonathan had brought this un- speakable idea up among them, and his nerves were already strung out like fence wire. Now his brother had taken it one step further, providing a time when he and Mary would be left alone. Hah! If it weren't so absurd, it would almost be laughable. But there was nothing funny about the situation at all. Today he'd acted like a schoolboy, flinching every time Mary came within touching distance, but he saw that this must end and knew he'd best treat her like he always had before. It seemed best now, too, if he patched up things with Pris. The sooner the better.
In the morning Aaron seemed more like his old self. 'Leave some walls standing,' he teased, 'don't scrub the plaster off.' 'No chance, the way this place is built,' she threw back at him as he left the yard with Jonathan, 'but I can guarantee it won't smell like fried-down pork tonight.' It was a relief having him treat her again as he had in the past. It worked on her like a tonic, and she tore into her work feeling lighter than she had since this whole thing had started.
She spent the morning scrubbing the walls with borax to combat the summer insects that might creep indoors. She boiled the lace curtains in turpentine water until they were bleached, rinsed them in gum arabic, and stretched them on the wood-and-nail frame to dry. She took the stovepipe pieces from the porch into the yard and brushed the insides of them, making them ready for summer storage. She was just finishing when Aaron came up the board path at dinnertime.
He laughed as she stood up to go into the house with him. 'You look like you're the rag that's been drug through the stovepipe,' he teased, touching some soot on her nose. But she instinctively shied away from his touch, just as he'd done from hers the day before. She brushed distractedly at her nose, annoyed by her skittishness. Then she turned toward the house. 'Dinner's hot,' she said as Jonathan came up the walk. They all went inside together.
In the afternoon she scrubbed the horsehair sofa with naphtha, took cold tea to the varnished woodwork, beat the rugs that had hung on the line all day, washed the windows with vinegar water, and ironed the antimacassars. She loved this old house and had felt comfortable with it from the very first. She had a feeling for it much the same as Jonathan had for his land. It was her domain, and she took pride in it. The house reflected her love just as the fields reflected Jonathan's. It had been built by his grandfather, the first Gray to homestead the land in the mid 1800s. Jonathan and Aaron both told the story of how their grandfather had earned it by doing stumping for others here in Todd County. Using nothing but a grub hoe, he'd removed stumps, clearing the land for a mere ten dollars per acre until he'd earned enough to buy his own farm. His first crops of corn and potatoes had been planted among the tree stumps he'd not had time to clear from his own acreage that first season. Thus, his first harvest had been taken from among the stubbled remains of the trees he'd felled and timbered for the building of his own homestead. Aaron was the one who was fondest of telling that story, maybe because the house was his now. But Mary often remembered it herself, and the spirit of that first homesteader burned in her with pride. True, the house was Aaron's, but she'd been its care- taker for seven years and there was no use denying it would be hard to leave it when Aaron got married.
It was late afternoon when the room was put back in order. The curtains hung in crisp peaks, scratching against the wall; antimacassars lay crisply on the arms and backs of chairs. Spirits of lavender on a lump of salt ammonia sweetened the air like summer, and the old decorative plate covered the chimney hole high up on the wall. Mary studied it, sitting in the kitchen rocker, which took the place of the heater stove for the summer. The plate pictured an old mill beside a brook, surrounded by velvety grass and heavy trees. She'd studied it often and knew it as well as the rest of the house. Most times the peaceful scene filled her with a homey con- tentment.
It lent no such satisfaction today. She was weary. While her hands were busy, she'd held her worries and doubts at bay, but now, when she relaxed her guard, they assaulted her anew. As if Grandfather Gray had come walking across the velvety grass by the mill up above her, wondering why she sat so forlornly in his old front room, she answered his unasked question. 'Seems like your grandsons need me between them to settle down this hornets' nest here, but I feel like I've already been stung by both of them. Jonathan first with this whole fool thing- he's the one who stirred it up. And then Aaron, acting so skittish. And both of them carrying on like fools. I wish you were here to talk some sense into them both. I could use a steadying hand, too, maybe.'
Then, realizing she'd been talking out loud, Mary thought what a goose she must seem. She stamped a foot and got up from the rocker to make supper, muttering, 'Great big fools…'
It was a busy week that left little time or energy for paying social calls, so they didn't make it down to Clem and Agnes Volence's to see the new baby. The field work started in full force for the men, and spring housecleaning filled Mary's days.
They were up early, worked too long, and ended the days weary. It really would be best to wait until Agnes was up and about again, Mary thought, and put off the visit to the following week.
Aaron hadn't had time to go down to settle things between himself and Pris, either. But they always went to the Bohemian Hall Saturday nights, and he figured they'd have time together then to straighten things out.
On Saturday night he cleaned up, hitched up the buggy, and headed down the hill to the west. As he turned into the Volence driveway, the corncrib seemed to accost him, and he recalled Pris's anger in its full force. She was going to take some gentling tonight, he knew, but he could handle almost anything after the week he'd just been through.
He left the horse and rig under the box elder and walked up on the back porch. It was bright inside, and someone was playing the organ in the front room. When he knocked, he heard footsteps running; then the door flew open and Newt and Gracie stood there grinning. 'How come Pris ain't goin' to the dance with you?' Newt questioned without preliminary. Cora nudged Newt's ribs.
Aaron chucked him under the chin and said, 'Well, I hope she is. I came to get her just like always, didn't I?' 'But her'n Cora already went with the Kveteks.' The Kvetek family lived across the road. 'I told her she best wait and see first if you was comin' to get her,' Gracie told him, 'but she was in a huff and said she wasn't waitin' around
