At the Edge of the Orchard Read online

  It was a rare feeling, but James pitied his wife. She had never really learned how to get along with other women, he’d noticed. Those worthy of her did not take to her, and Sadie usually ended up with the sycophantic or the unsound. She’d had a terrible time with his brothers’ wives: seeing her with them was like watching someone pet a cat against its fur.

  He looked down, then stepped towards her as if he hadn’t seen her or heard what she’d said about him and the apples. “Got the fur money,” he said. “You can get some sugar, and a ribbon or two.”

  “White sugar?”

  “Yes, white sugar.” It was worth the further debt he would get into, just to see her rare grateful smile. Women might shun her, but James would not.

  Id never been to a camp meeting till we moved to Ohio. They aint something New England Methodists ever needed—we had our churches to go to every Sunday. But there were no churches in the Black Swamp, only one in Perrysburg. Imagine wadin through all that mud or snow or with a fever to get to a church twelve miles away, then find out the preacher was sick or stuck somewhere.

  So we got our religion readin the Bible, and once or twice a year at camp meetings held out in the woods outside of Perrysburg. People came from all over, and like us Goodenoughs they were straight out of the swamp and starved of company. Wed gone when there were a thousand people gathered, maybe even two thousand, sleepin in wagons or under canvas strung between trees.

  This time we left our wagon and went into the woods to find a place to set. James hung back cause he was always like that at camp meetings, leavin it to me to fit us in. It was crowded with people settin all over, spreadin out quilts to claim their place. Looked like there werent no space but I found a little opening between two families and spread out a Goodenough quilt—a frayed old nine-patch I would have to get Martha to mend again—and though they gave us the side eye, the people next to us shifted a little and we squeezed ourselves in. Five minutes later another family done the same thing, and by this time we were old hands and had the right to grunt and roll our eyes at them for makin it more crowded. But for the most part people was that happy to be with others that no one stayed mad for long.

  At the camps everybody brought food and cooked over fires, some families for themselves, others pitchin in together. Course James wanted the Goodenoughs to keep to ourselves, while I was all for joinin with others. But I was the cook so I decided what we were goin to do. Near us there was a big pot hung over a fire, and I added a knuckle of ham to it without askin James or anybody else. Once Id done that the women tendin the pot got a whole lot friendlier, welcomin me in to cook and chat. I sent Nathan and Robert off to look for firewood. Nathan complained that with so many people around and hundreds of fires, there wouldnt be wood close by and theyd have to go a long way to find any. But I made em go anyway, and Sal went off to find some other gals, and James went out to the road to stand by the wagons and listen to the other men without sayin a word himself. Then I could relax and start to enjoy myself.

  There were so many people campin that we were a ways from the platform where the preachers stood so everybody could see em and hear em. Once Id made sure people had seen me do my share of stirrin the pot and Nathan and Robert had brought back armfuls of wood, I slipped off to hear some God talk.

  I hadnt been to a camp meeting since the previous summer, and the only God talk Id had since then had been John Chapmans, with all his big words like correspondences and redemption and regeneration. These preachers were very different from him. They was usually Methodist ministers, but now and then youd get a stray Baptist or Congregationalist preacher come through and get a turn to speak. We wasnt picky that way. In fact of all the preachers I liked the Baptists best. The Methodists I was used to from my childhood, and they talked a long time without sayin anything new. But the Baptists shouted with fire straight from their bellies—straight from God, I expect. Also they asked questions and we could call back to em.

  When Id pushed my way up so I was close enough to hear I knew I was in luck and it was a Congregationalist preacher—they was almost as good as the Baptists. I couldnt see him but I heard him ask: Where do you think God is today?

  Hes here, people round me answered.

  Where did you say He is?

  Right here with us.

  Does He ever leave you?

  No he does not.

  Is He in your heart?

  Yes he is.

  Is He in your hands?

  Yes he is.

  No! You are in His hands. Where are you?

  In His hands.

  Right away I got that soarin feelin of not havin to think or make any decisions, jest answerin with the crowd what the preacher and God wanted me to say. Thats what I loved about camp meetings—lettin go of my whole life so I didnt have to think about James or the children or what we were gonna eat or the hardship of livin in the Black Swamp. I could jest be.

  Course it helped that I had a little jack in me by then. Somewhere between the cookin pot and the preacher Id managed to get handed a bottle, and I took a big gulp cause I didnt know when Id get another chance. It was powerful strong jack, stronger than what I was used to. It cut a path straight to my belly then spread out all over so that I tingled to my fingertips and toes. It loosened my tongue too so it was easy to shout back at the preacher.

  Then he got us to sing, and I liked that even better. The hymns were different from what I knew back home but they were easy enough to pick up, and more fun to sing too. I sang real loud:

  This night my soul has caught new fire

  Halle, hallelujah!

  I feel that Heaven is drawin nigher

  Glory hallelujah!

  Shout, shout, we are gainin ground

  Halle, hallelujah!

  Satans kingdom is tumblin down

  Glory hallelujah!

  I jumped as high as I could when I sang, Shout shout. People round me were singin too, but I noticed a couple of women were givin me those side eyes looks I knew too well, and the men were laughin and I knew it was at me. The good thing about camps is theyre so big you can jest move and after a few minutes youll be with new people who are more welcomin.

  I made my way round, callin and singin and movin, and then there was another bottle and I stayed a while havin a spree with those friendly people till they turned on me all of a sudden like a mean dog and I had to move on.

  Preachers changed a few times—some quieter, some talked so long I fell asleep and someone poked me awake cause I was snorin.

  Then along came a real Baptist preacher who was the best of all. He was jest a little man but with a long brown beard ended in a point. He had on a yaller checkered suit, and though he was in the sun and sweatin like a man choppin wood, he still kept his jacket on. He stood completely still on the platform and started off real soft so at first I couldnt hear him. Then he got a little louder, sayin: I feel the Lord now. Do you feel the Lord?

  Yes, a few people said.

  I feel the Lord now, he repeated. Do you feel the Lord?

  A few more said, Yes I feel the Lord.

  He jest said it over and over. I feel the Lord now. Do you feel the Lord? Each time he was a little louder.

  Yes I feel the Lord, I said all of a sudden. It jest popped out of my mouth without me even thinkin.

  Then the preacher started to shake a little bit—his hands, then his arms, then his chest. And he was repeatin himself over and over and shakin a little more and a little more until he was head to toe shakin, and then we were all of us answerin, Yes, I feel the Lord, over and over like a wave. And I couldnt help it, I started to shake too, it was like a force took me over. My teeth started chatterin like I had the swamp fever, and my arms were jerkin so I hit people round me without meanin to. But they was flailin too, we were all shakin together and sweatin and crying and shoutin, Yes I feel the Lord! Id never felt so good in all my life, not even when I went with Charlie Goodenough way high up in the new hay in the barn and lay with him. I was full
of joy, and full of the Lord.

  And in the middle of all that jumpin and jerkin and shoutin I opened my eyes, which had sweat rollin into them and stingin them, and I looked across the field of writhin witnesses to the Lord and I saw Robert standin still. It was easy to see him cause he was the only person not movin. And he was lookin at me.

  His look made me want to stop, cause there was no God in it, jest a boy lookin at his mother and thinkin, Why, Ma?

  I couldnt stand that, cause I didnt want to stop. So I turned my back on him. I turned my back on my son. Then I started jumpin and shoutin again, but it wasnt the same as before—not at all. Suddenly I saw myself the way he saw me, and it was so ugly I had to sit down in the middle of all those people and cry. Real tears now, not what the preacher had wrung from me. These were the real tears from God.

  James found the talk by the wagons tiring after a while. He liked to listen, and he had thoughts of what he’d like to say about the weather, or the corn crop, or the road being macadamized, or the rascals in Congress. But he never quite had the courage to speak them aloud. By the time he had formed words to his liking, the conversation had moved on.

  Then one of the men in the circle James was hovering near commented, “Lost eight apple trees this winter.”

  Without thinking James said, “I lost nine.”

  “Four,” another said.

  “Two, but I’ve got my eye on a third that’s still not blossomed.”

  “I didn’t lose any. Luck, I guess. If there is luck in this swamp.”

  “What kind you got? Seek-No-Further? Fall Queens? Milans?”

  “No—Early Chandler. From back east. I grew it from seed.”

  There was a pause, then James said, “I grafted fifteen Golden Pippins this spring.”

  “Golden Pippin,” the first man repeated. “Never heard of it. Where’s it from?”

  “A tree from Connecticut, and before that, England. My grandparents brought it over. It’s a yellow apple, an eater.”

  “What’s its yield?”

  “Usually ten bushels a year.”

  “Not bad. And the taste?”

  “Honey and nuts, then pineapple at the end,” James answered almost automatically. He had been describing that taste all his life.

  “You grafted them, you say?”

  “I did.”

  “You use wax on the strips?”

  “Don’t need to. Clay’s enough, as long as you mix hair into it to keep it from breaking.”

  “The grafts take?”

  “Yup.” James almost added that the grafts had blossomed, but decided he’d better not overstate their success.

  The talk moved on, but those few minutes were enough to elate him for several hours—all the way through the long evening and into the night of preaching and singing, eating stew and listening to folks talk. His good mood was ruined only when he was making his way through the woods towards the wagon to get to sleep, and stumbled upon Sadie, skirts up, being pumped by the ginger man who’d brought in the panther fur to the trading post. They were both so drunk they didn’t notice him, not even when he held his lantern high to shine down on them. He watched them for a moment. Then he knocked the man off Sadie like he was flicking a fly off a piece of pie. The man didn’t fight back, but lay in a slump and started to snore. Sadie looked up at her husband in the lantern light and laughed.

  “We’re going,” he said. “You coming?”

  “I ain’t finished yet.”

  James said nothing more, but turned away and continued threading through sleeping forms all over the ground. It was hard not to step on people, and his boot caught hands and ankles and shoulders, leaving shouts and mutterings in his wake. He did not respond, for he was in no mood to apologize to anyone.

  He found the oxen tethered in the field where he’d left them, asleep on their feet. James patted them for a moment before blowing into their nostrils, resisting the urge to yank them; he must not take out his rage on innocent beasts.

  The oxen were reluctant to start up again in the dark. A handful of oats and an apple—a spitter but they didn’t seem to mind—at last roused them, and James led them over to the wagon, where the children were asleep under the nine-patch quilt. He raised his lantern and studied it for a moment. The quilt had come with them from Connecticut nine years before—new then, finished in a hurry by Sadie and his sisters, for they had decided to go west suddenly. James knew the squares well, even in the dim lantern light. They were made up of fabric from dresses and aprons and old sheets and other scraps of family: a worn yellow bonnet of his mother’s, a blue skirt of Sadie’s that had torn, his brother Charlie’s breeches, also torn. His whole Connecticut family was sewn into it in quick, uneven stitches now unraveling in places. There were tears between the squares where the stuffing was coming through. But despite its ragged appearance, it was a comfort.

  James did not wake his children, but once he’d hitched up the team of oxen and they began to move up the road, Robert sat up. Soon he had joined James on the seat.

  “We going home?”

  “Yes.”

  James was grateful it was Robert who’d woken. Nathan or Sal would have peppered him with questions. “Does Ma know?” was all Robert said.

  “She’ll make her own way back.”

  They said nothing for a time, sitting in the dark, only the light of the lantern hanging on the wagon to guide them. “Pa,” Robert said after a while, “what about the plow blade and the supplies we left in Perrysburg? Don’t we have to pick them up?”

  James let the oxen continue on for a minute before he pulled up the reins. “Goddammit.” In his haste to get away from Sadie he had not thought about anything other than getting home as fast as possible.

  “It isn’t far, Pa,” Robert said. “Just a turning a little ways back.” He sounded like a parent soothing a child.

  James held the reins in his hands and listened. A deep darkness settled around him that would not shift for many hours. There was no moon, and the stars were very bright—a poetic rather than a practical light. He sighed, thinking about having to wait outside the blacksmith’s until the man opened for business.

  But there was nothing he could do except to turn the wagon around and start back, feeling foolish. Luckily it was only Robert he had to feel foolish in front of. When they reached Perrysburg, Robert joined his brother and sister back in the bed and soon slept as well. James remained awake, sitting and trying not to think about his wife.

  His children did not stir until the dawn chorus, which James noted was as loud in town as it was in the swamp. Then Sal sat up, hair in her eyes, looking like a younger Sadie. “Where’s Ma?”

  “At the camp.” James studied the blacksmith’s windows in the dim pink light the sun gave off to announce its arrival.

  “Why ain’t she with us?”

  James did not respond.

  “Where are we?”

  “Perrysburg.”

  “Camp ain’t far. I could go back and get her.” But Sal did not move, despite knowing she was her mother’s best chance. She was not a girl who would do more than the minimum required of her. She looked at her brothers, asleep on either side of her, and chose Robert to nudge awake. “Go and get Ma,” she said. Robert did not sit up, but turned his brown eyes on her.

  “Robert isn’t going anywhere,” James said. “No one is. We’re waiting here for the blacksmith and the store to open so we can pick up our supplies. Then we’ll head home. Your Ma can come when she’s ready.”

  “But she don’t know the way!” Sal began to snivel.

  It was true that Sadie had never been good with directions. There was only one road towards the Portage River, but she might find it hard to tell which turning to take off of it to get to their property—the old Indian trails all looked the same if you didn’t know them well, and if you were drunk. James had a vision of Sadie wandering in the woods and a grim smile crossed his face. “She’ll work it out.”

  Sal lay back down
but continued to sob; she seemed to enjoy the drama of it. Nathan still slept—he could sleep through the loudest thunderstorms—but Robert got up and rejoined his father. James reached into a burlap sack at his feet, pulled out two cold johnnycakes, and handed one to his son. As they ate, they watched the rim of the sun squeeze up over the trees to start another day.

  “How long do you think the blacksmith will be, Pa?” Robert asked.

  “An hour or so. He’s a big man—he’ll want a big breakfast.”

  Robert nodded.

  James glanced behind him to make sure Nathan and Sal were asleep. Then he cleared his throat to dislodge the words that were stuck there along with the johnnycake. “I saw the graft you made out in the woods,” he said quietly so that Sal would not hear.

  “You think it will take?”

  “It already has. That was good grafting.” James rarely praised his children. He had never felt he had to.

  “What if Ma finds it?”

  “She never goes out there.” Even as he was saying it, though, doubt wrenched at the part of him where he kept his love of apple trees. Robert’s graft was on one of the Indian trails near the main path to their cabin. If Sadie got lost coming back—which she was likely to do—she could easily take that path and stumble upon the graft. And if she were angry and scared, he knew just what she’d do to the tree.

  “You want me to go and get her?”

  Everythin was hurtin. My head from the jack. My throat from the screechin and callin to the preacher. My snatch from the wild ginger man. And I was lyin in some brambles that scratched me every time I moved.

  After a bit I managed to turn my head, then propped myself up on my elbows so I could see what was goin on round me. Everywhere there were people busy makin themselves presentable after the night—women brushin and braidin their hair, men pissin in the woods, people makin fires and mixin cornmeal into patties to fry. I smelled bacon somewhere.