Bittersweet

5

THOUGH THE TREE BRANCHES WERE BARE IN NOVEMBER, THE FOREST floor was still fired with color. The dirt wagon track between the Tolstonadge place and Sam Ebbitt’s farm was bordered closely with trees and occasionally a field hacked out of the forest and put to the plow. The narrow track dipped and turned around outcroppings of rock and stands of trees that had proven too formidable for pick and ax. The road was littered with bright scraps of autumn; leaves, bitten red and gold, picked up the sunlight until each leaf seemed to glow of itself.

Sarah held her hands out from her sides as she walked, watching their shadows flicker over the ground. Gracie, skipping beside her, scuffed her feet through the fallen leaves.

“You’re going to wear your shoes out before they’re too little,” Sarah said mildly. The air smelled of winter; she pulled her shawl closer around her shoulders and tied it. She laughed, spinning herself forward in great leaps. “Look, Gracie, I’m a gypsy dancer!” Gracie tied her shawl at her thick middle, following her sister’s lead. They twirled until they couldn’t stand up, then threw themselves onto the bank by the roadside.

“I wish there was more Saturdays. I hate school,” Gracie said.

“You do not.”

“I do so. You’re the only one doesn’t. You like it ’cause Miss Grelznik is all the time letting you draw your pictures.”

“Only if I finish my work early. You could draw too, if you’d stop messing and finish.”

“I don’t mess.”

Sarah rolled her eyes.

“You got a crush on the teacher,” Grace said spitefully.

“I do not.”

“Do so. I see you sneaking looks at her when you’re supposed to be at your lesson. I’ve seen you sneaking peeks at her in church. That’s a sin. You got a crush,” Gracie chanted.

“You don’t know what’s what, maybe I’m making her likeness,” Sarah retorted. “Ever think of that, Miss Smartypants?”

“Let me see it.”

Sarah scrambled to her feet. “Leave it go, Gracie. It’s getting late. You’re stuck up with leaves. Come on, I’ll dust you.”

“Show me or I’ll tell Mam you’re making pictures in church. It’s a sin.”

Sarah grabbed her sister’s pigtail. “I’ll tell Mr. Ebbitt you like to look at his belly when he laughs.”

“Sare! You wouldn’t dare.”

“Quits?”

“Badger face,” Gracie muttered. “Quits.”

“You ready to go?” Sarah pulled her to her feet and picked the leaves out of her hair.

“I don’t mess.”

“Okay.” Sarah tugged a brown plait.

The road widened out, and a split-rail fence replaced the trees to the north. Beyond the fence lay a field, harvested and plowed under, looking rich with its jeweling of colored leaves. They climbed over the rails and struck out across the plowed ground toward the Ebbitt house and barn, a quarter-mile distant.

Gracie stumbled and caught her sister’s skirt to steady herself. “Mr. Ebbitt don’t like us walking through the field,” she said peevishly as the clods broke under her small boots, turning her ankles and tripping her. “Mr. Ebbitt says we’re to go around on the road like people, ’stead of traipsing through the field like rabbits.”

Sarah raised her skirts a little and picked her way daintily over the uneven ground. “Road’s the long way ’round, Gracie.”

Gracie gave her sister a baleful stare.

Beyond the barn, Sam, his shirtsleeves rolled down and his collar buttoned to his throat, stood with his back to them. Lifting his powerful arms over his head, he squeezed the wooden legs of a post-hole digger together before plunging it into the ground.

“Hey, Mr. Ebbitt,” Gracie called. She waved as he put his beard over his shoulder to see who was hailing him.

“Afternoon, Gracie, Sarah.” He set the post-hole digger against the rails and mopped the sweat from his eyes with a grayish handkerchief. “How’s your ma and pa?”

“They’re fine, Mr. Ebbitt; we come to ask you to dinner before the hayride, is all.” Sarah chewed on her underlip. She stopped when she realized he was noticing.

“Sarah,” Gracie piped, “Mam said I could ask, and now you went and did it!”

“You ask me too, punkin, and I’ll come sure. How’s that?” Sam leaned down, putting his hands on his knees; his torso was big for a short man.

“Come on, Gracie, we’d better be getting back.” Sarah squinted at the sun. “It must be after two.”

“Whyn’t we ride back with Mr. Ebbitt?” Gracie jumped onto the fence and sat on the top rail with her feet curled behind the lower one to steady herself.

“We ain’t been asked. Besides, we’d best be helping Mam with dinner.” Sarah took her sister’s hand and tugged, but the little girl clung like a monkey.

Sam pulled his watch out of his pocket and flipped it over in his palm. “It’s near three. You may as well stay put and I’ll run you home when I go over. No sense walking all that way.” Sarah started to protest, but Sam had turned back to his work. “I’ll square it with your ma.” Gracie shot Sarah a triumphant glance before bestowing all of her attention on Sam Ebbitt.

Sarah leaned against the fence, her face tilted back to catch the sun. The regular chuff- chunk of the post-hole digger biting into the earth was hypnotic and the day was still and dreamy. Sam worked on, lifting and plunging mechanically, a pile of dark earth growing beside the neat round hole. Gracie chattered, sometimes eliciting a grunt in return, but not seeming to mind when she didn’t.

Bored, Sarah walked along the fenceline back toward the farm buildings. The doors of the barn stood open and a block of sun fell on the mountain of chopped hay stored against the winter. On the back wall, up under the rafters, were row on row of mud-and-straw bubbles the size of a man’s two fists. The swallows had deserted them for the south but, protected from the rain, the nests stayed on. Sarah threw her arms back and, chin high, ran through the wide doors to fling herself into the hay.

There was a clanking as a length of chain was let out and Sam’s dog careened around the corner of the house, teeth bared, growling. Sarah sat up abruptly and started to scratch her way up onto the piled hay. The chain ran out when the dog was still twenty yards from the barn, and jerked him off his feet. She leaned forward, elbows on knees, chin in hands, and watched the yellow-eyed dog strain against his collar.

“Meow. Meeeow.” She cupped her hands over her mouth to make the sound carry. The dog went into a frenzy of barking, hurling himself against his collar until the tendons in his neck stood out against his hide and his eyes bulged. Laughing, Sarah crawled farther up into the hay.

A rope hung from the center beam, a half-dozen mud nests having been destroyed to make room for its thick coils. Taking hold of the rope, she yanked on it. It held, and lifting her feet from the haystack, she clamped it tight between her legs and shinnied up. She reached the beam and grasped it with both hands, but still moved against the rope as though she were climbing, enjoying the warm, tingling sensation between her thighs.

“Sar-ee.” The high voice ricocheted through the rafters. Sarah looked over her shoulder so abruptly that she nearly lost her grip on the beam, her face burning with embarrassment. Gracie stood in the retreating square of sunshine on the barn floor, peering up into the gloom, her little round fists planted importantly where her hips would one day be. “What’re you doing up there?”

“How long have you been here, you little sneak?” Sarah snapped. She slid down the rope so fast that she burned her hands. “Why don’t you just go away and leave me be? You’re always creeping around.”

“Am not!”

Sam stepped into the light beside the small defiant figure of sister Grace. “Here now. What’s the row