At the Edge of the Orchard Read online

  At last he got to his feet. He would not tell Robert he’d found the grafted tree. There were few secrets in a family who lived in such close quarters, but he would keep one now.

  As he walked back towards the farm he was overwhelmed by the need to look at the grafts in his orchard. They had shown no sign of budding on the top scions as Robert’s already had, but it was hard to tell with the spiked deer fences keeping him away. Now with the leaves emerging all around in the woods, he had to know if the grafts had been a success.

  He spotted it from the edge of the orchard: an applejack bottle tipped upside down and hung over one of the fence spikes. James’ stomach twisted. Drawing closer, though, he saw that the grafted trees were still intact, and in fact were all budding above the graft. Their leaves would open soon, to join the rest of the greening woods.

  The upended bottle was a reminder that Sadie was watching them too.

  James always said the best part about May was that the apple blossoms were out. He would say that. For me the best part was goin to Perrysburg for the first time since November. It was only twelve miles away but with the state of the roads it might as well be a hundred, we were that cut off. By May the snow was gone and the mud was bad but not as bad as April. And our stocks were real low then—wed been livin on bacon and squirrels and corn pone for months. It was always hard in the spring how everything was growin but we had so little food to eat. Id been dreamin of bread made with flour and of eggs—fox got most of the chickens—of coffee and tea and of a stir of sugar to go in it. Needed some lettuce seeds, some tomato seeds. Besides that, our boots all had holes and the plow blade needed mendin. Id run out of white thread and was havin to repair quilts and shirts the mice got to with brown. James wanted nails. We needed a couple of chickens.

  And all of us wanted to see other people. The Goodenoughs were sick of the Goodenoughs. Who wouldnt be, trapped in that cabin all the long winter. Back in Connecticut the winters were hard but there was family all around and plenty of neighbors too. If I got sick of one of those Goodenough wives I could go into another room and sit with another one. If James drove me crazy I could talk to Charlie Goodenough. I could run down the road to a neighbor or to my mother or sisters. Here the neighbors were too far to run to in the snow and cold just for fun. And they got that mad-eyed look from the mud and the cabin fever. None of them were people I wanted to spend my days with, though James said I was too picky. Why dont you visit with Hattie Day, he kept sayin. Ill tell you why. That woman was dull as a bucket of water. I sat with her once to sew and fell asleep over my patchwork. Id brought Sal with me and she had to kick me to wake me up. After that Sal and I got the giggles while Hattie Day jest sat there frownin. Looked over her specs perched on the end of her piggy nose and told us it was time for us to git home before dark even though the sun still had hours left in the sky.

  Perrysburg had some life to it—a few stores, a blacksmith, a tavern or two, a school. And people. Thats what it had. Every time I went I sucked up the people, starin at their faces till they made a face at me to stop. I could see em laughin at us swamp folk with our backwater ways and the mud we shed from our clothes. I didnt care, I was that glad to see other people.

  Best of all was that there was a big camp meeting every May, went on for days in tents pitched jest outside of town. We stayed a night or two, depending on James mood. They got preachers talkin all day and all night and I stayed up listenin to the God talk and singin the hymns. Bein at the revival set me up for a time, gave me a reason to smile. It wasnt the God talk that made me so happy, though I liked that well enough. It was the other people, especially the ones that stayed up late like me. At home nobody ever wanted to stay up with me, so at the meetings I was glad to be with my other night owls. Wed sing and share bottles—though lots of the preachers frowned on whiskey or jack and we kept the bottles low so they didnt see. James and the children would go to sleep back in the wagon and Id jest carry on all night with my new friends.

  It was always hard to leave the camp meetings. Id have stayed a week if I could but James never wanted to. Hed start talkin about gettin back home practically the minute we left the farm, fret about the corn or the trees or the snares hed set. Or he worried about the children left behind, that theyd set fire to the chimney or the cow would get loose or theyd get bit by a rattler. After a time all those worries would take him over and wed have to go back.

  We always left two behind. We had to, to protect our property and feed the animals and milk the cow and keep the fire goin. We had to leave one of the older ones, Nathan or Caleb, who could shoot an Indian or a fox or a rattler if they had to. Then we left another to keep em company and run for help. Nathan and Caleb took turns each time we went but the younger children drew straws. Sals a cheater and never had to stay behind. The last few times Martha drew the short straw. Typical of that gal.

  She drew the short straw this time too and you should of seen her face. Ill stay back, Robert said. You go in my place, I dont mind.

  Martha gave him a smile made me want to kick a cat. No, I said, that would jest defeat the purpose of drawin straws. Otherwise you might as well volunteer to stay every time. Straws means its fate and no ones fault, so no one gets the blame.

  But—

  No, I interrupted him. And dont you ever talk back to your mother or youll get a whippin will send you straight to Sandusky.

  He gave me that Robert look cause he knew I would never whip him. But he didnt argue with me. Sorry, Martha, he said. Im selling some squirrels tails and Ill buy you some candy. You want lemon or peppermint?

  Lemon, she said real quiet. Fool should of chose peppermint. The taste is stronger.

  We took the wagon for sleepin in and for the supplies but we walked most of the way to Perrysburg, takin turns to ride and rest our feet. Wed learned what we didnt know when we first tried to come through the swamp—you keep the wagon light on the corduroy road and it dont get stuck so much. Also we had a pair of oxen now that were used to swamp ways—the old Connecticut horses died, one of a leg broke goin through the logs laid across to make up the road, the other cause it was jest too damned tired of all the swamp work it had to do. The oxen were big and dumb but they knew how to step along a rough corduroy road.

  I didnt mind walkin cause we were goin somewhere and it was sunny and there was other wagons and people walkin to Perrysburg for the same reasons as us—supplies and the camp meeting. So I talked to em while James jest nodded and kept to himself. Made me some friends along the road I promised to find at the camp. Heard there was plans to start to macadamize this road in a month or two. Meant it would be easier to get around. Easier to leave too.

  Closer to Perrysburg the road was better and the oxen went easier and I was tired so I rode a while settin next to James while Sal and Nathan and Robert walked a little behind. We was quiet, content for a change. Jest for a little while I could forget James and me were havin a war.

  I hear theyre settin to start fixin this road soon, I said.

  James grunted.

  Be work there for some. Nathan and Caleb could work on it, bring in some money. Jest while we can spare em till harvest.

  James still didnt say anything. I could tell he wasnt really listenin to me.

  Then he said, Sadie, you ever think about goin back?

  I was so surprised I didnt say anything for a minute. Back where? I said then though I knew what he meant.

  Back east.

  I didnt know whether I wanted to lie or tell the truth. No, I said finally.

  Well, I been thinkin about it.

  Damn. I looked out at the trees along the road. The leaves were all bright and there were still some dogwood flowers out. A yellow butterfly was flappin over the road like a little leaf got caught up in the wind. Suddenly everything looked different. Why? I said.

  Its too hard here. Theres always something dying.

  We didnt lose any children last year. Thats somethin.

  We lost nine trees.


  I begun to laugh. Thats what this is about? Those goddamned trees? Five of our children died in this swamp and you want to go back because of trees?

  James gritted his teeth so his jaw flexed and I felt the thrill I got when he was angry. Are we goin to fight right here on the road with people all around? I thought. Cause there were people ahead of us and behind us, and they would all get to see the Goodenoughs go at each other. If I was lucky Id give him a buckeye he could show off in Perrysburg.

  But he didnt hit me. He surprised me again. This is a hard life to be passing on to our children, he said. I will feel guilty about that all my life, that we could have made it easier for them by staying in Connecticut. Then there wouldnt have been so many died, and so much death and hard work in their futures.

  Theyll be all right, I said. Five children. That aint so bad. Sides, we got nothin back east. Your familys got no land for you.

  I was surprisin myself by defendin us stayin in the Black Swamp. So many times over the years Id wished we could load the wagon and head back. But too much time had gone by, and when I thought about Connecticut it didnt make me smile. Instead I remembered how the wives all hated me. I could even admit now that Charlie Goodenough had probably been relieved to see the back of me. There was nothing to return for. Besides, we had five children buried in the swamp. We couldnt leave em.

  Sadie, James said, that swamp is defeating me. I cant even grow fifty apple trees.

  Numbers again. Dont worry bout that goddamn number, I said. Nobodys countin but you.

  Perrysburg always made James feel a little better and then a little worse. Seeing the small collection of rough buildings after miles of trees and marsh reeds made his heart beat faster. Here was smoke from chimneys. Here were right angles and pine boards planed at a mill. Here was whitewash. Here were curtains in windows, and windowpanes rather than paper greased with bear fat. Here were planks to walk on over mud, hitching posts, the sound of laughter, even the tinkle of a piano. Here were women wearing brightly colored hats and dresses with hems that weren’t muddy. Here was civilization that did not rely on Goodenough sweat to make it happen.

  Very soon he felt worse, though. For all the hardships of the swamp, there was a purity to it that Perrysburg lacked, or had destroyed. Buildings had been raised with no thought to the surroundings. Bits of wood had been left where they fell—splinters from planks, ends hacked off and strewn about, stumps half-chopped and then abandoned. Piles of earth left from excavated cold cellars had been rained and snowed on so that they solidified into ugly miniature mountains. Here and there were smoldering piles of leaves and rags. The outhouses stank of shit. No one cleared up the horse dung from the street. The planks outside the saloons were slick with spit and piss and puke. When anticipating a trip to Perrysburg, James always managed to forget about this aspect of the town. Now as he looked about him from the safety of the wagon seat, he had a sudden desire to be back on the farm, in the orchard, where the apple trees were blooming. It was the most beautiful time of the year there and he was missing it to come and be among people and their dirt.

  The Goodenoughs scattered the moment James pulled up: Sadie to look over the merchandise in Fuller’s General Store, Nathan and Robert to trade their squirrel tails, Sal to look for other girls. James would ride on to the blacksmith to drop off the plow blade, then bring his own furs to the trading post. He reminded Sadie that they would not have much to spend. She gave him a look. “Got to get flour and thread and nails and sugar. Fabric for new shirts for Caleb—he’s grown out of everything we got. Shoes need mending. We need seeds.”

  “No ribbons, that’s what I meant,” James said. “Brown sugar, not white. And leave the shoes—we won’t need ’em for the summer. We can get ’em fixed in the fall.”

  Sadie snorted and disappeared inside. Now that he had forbidden ribbons, she would probably buy some.

  He left the plow blade with the blacksmith, frowning at the cost, and arranged to pick it up the next day. That would mean only one night at the camp meeting, James hoped—though he knew the repaired blade could wait at the blacksmith’s for a few days. He was always looking for reasons not to stay at the camp. All those noisy people praising the Lord made him uncomfortable.

  He went on to the trading post to see what he could get for the furs and pelts he had brought in the wagon, a bundle that represented the winter’s hunting and eating: muskrats, beavers, rabbits. Nathan and Robert were already there, watching the proceedings and jingling the few coins they had made from their squirrels. From all over the area, men and boys were bringing in skins. Like the Goodenoughs, most of the swamp people brought in muskrats and beavers and deer, but a few had made more exotic kills: a polecat, a few wolves, a fox with a bushy red tail. One brought in a black bear skin, and everyone stroked it, though the greasy musk was so strong and persistent that James smelled it on his hands for the rest of the day.

  As they were leaving—James disappointed with the prices he got, for he was not a good haggler—a ragged man with a ginger beard entered and threw down the pelt of a panther. “There!” he cried, triumphant. “Betcha ain’t seen many of these!”

  They hadn’t, and stopped to look: the sleek midnight fur, the cat’s fangs frozen into a snarl, one eye gone, the other dead yellow. Nathan stayed behind with the crowd to admire it, but Robert followed his father out. James was not sentimental about animals; he’d killed to eat—pigs, chicken, deer, wild birds, rabbits, boars—without hesitation. But the cat’s snarl made him sad.

  He grew uneasy as they approached Fuller’s. It was bad enough that he would have to tell Sadie he’d gotten less than expected for his furs, so that even buying brown sugar was out of the question. He was also nervous about going into the shop at all. Though run by men, and with plenty of male customers, general stores were still a woman’s domain, something James had felt even back in Connecticut. The gossip, the laughter, the emphasis on the look of things—the yellowness of the cornmeal, the redness of the check cloth, the shininess of the silver pins—seemed to him to be misplaced priorities. He understood the pragmatism behind it—pale cornmeal was not as tasty; tarnished pins left marks on fabric—but James could not take an active interest himself. Stepping inside the shop, he noted that most of the other men there were standing around the edges of the room and remaining silent as well.

  Sadie was in the center, a few women gathered around. That was not new: she always found her way to the center. Her voice could be heard even from outside the store, and made him wince. She was talking about apples. As he sidled in she was saying, “Don’t know why he’s got such a sweet tooth he has to have eatin’ apples all the time instead of spitters. Cider’s what we need, not apples to eat. Don’t it feel good to have those barrels full of cider lined up, and the bottles of applejack. And the vinegar, of course.” James suspected Sadie tacked vinegar on to the list because of the reaction of a short woman standing nearby, who jerked her head at the mention of applejack. It was Hattie Day, the Goodenoughs’ closest neighbor. Two more different women you could not imagine in the same room: Hattie Day was short and stout and shapeless, with a broad, smile-free face and a sideways look that implied many thoughts, all held back. She had unfortunate taste in hats; today she was wearing a stiff straw one with a straight brim that sliced across her forehead, trimmed with tiny white silk flowers that had gone gray from swamp life. James did not notice women’s hats much, but he could see it did not suit her. Even Sadie’s ragged bonnet was better than those limp gray flowers.

  But he would not judge. The Days had been their neighbors for seven years, and Hattie had set aside her own wordless judgment many times in order to help out the Goodenoughs, whether through fever or flood or hunger or one of Sadie’s rages when she ran out of applejack. The Days were prudent farmers, John Day a good hunter, and they had no children, so they always had enough to spare.

  It wasn’t all one way. Sal and Martha had been sent over on wash day to help Hattie. James and the boys had helped
John Day build a bigger barn and harvest corn and hay. But the Days seemed to be in control of their farm, and treated the Goodenoughs’ help as if they could get by without it—which they probably could. James never talked to John Day about apples, or offered to trade scions or help him to graft eaters. He couldn’t help envying how the Day farm seemed steadily to grow, with a little more land cleared, an extra cow bought, a smokehouse added, a pantry filled with more jars of food than they could eat in a year. The only way in which they did not expand was children—which made the other expansion irrelevant in James’ eyes. For all his envy of the cows, the army of jars and an orchard planted with exactly fifty apple and pear trees, he would not want to switch places with them.

  “I’ll tell you what I did,” Sadie continued now to the group of women. “We only had a few eaters left, and I used ’em all up in a pie! You should’ve seen my husband’s face when he tasted it. You’d of thought he was eatin’ his own children, the way he went on about it!”

  The women around her laughed, except for Hattie Day, who seemed to take a step away from Sadie’s words, and began examining bolts of fabric. Her move away was not subtle enough, though. James could have told her there was nothing Sadie hated more than to have someone choose not to listen to her. Leaving her admiring circle, she followed the one person not taking in every word. “What would you do if your husband was crazy about apples, Hattie?” she said.

  Hattie Day gazed at Sadie. “I would be glad my husband was growing something good and plentiful to eat,” she said. “It’s a hard life in the swamp. Least he can do is enjoy his apples.” She turned her back on Sadie and went over to the shopkeeper, pointedly engaging him in conversation. Sadie stood alone for a moment, the other women smirking behind her at such a public slight.