Katie's Dream (19 page)

I hadn't noticed George Hammond. But suddenly he was standing beside us, telling us he had to get home.

“You got yer comp'ny,” he said. “An' I got me a' plenty to do. Don't worry 'bout gettin' to the field this afternoon, Samuel. I know you got your hands full.” He looked sideways at Edward. “Maybe some folks don't know that farmin's all work. Long hours, purty near ever' day. Don't have to be in no fact'ry to work your tail off, that's for sure.”

I smiled.

“I'll leave Joe an' Frank to finish them stalls, if you don't mind feedin' 'em, Mrs. Wortham.”

“No,” I said, thinking about the food I'd have to muster up. “I don't mind. Thank you.”

“Yes,” Samuel echoed. “Thank you.” He started walking to the shed with the chicken. I thought of how strong he'd had to be, facing the sheriff and his brother and even little Katie, telling them all the same thing. The truth. Why couldn't I have just believed him without question when he needed me to? And now he was facing a day like this, having to bury our cow and then stand and take Edward's ridicule. What was he thinking inside?

I glanced at Edward, who was still gawking at us with his cocky kind of smile. How could two brothers be so different?

I followed Samuel, and Edward spoke to me quickly, before I could get out of earshot. “You'd be loyal, no matter what. Rather that than do any thinking, I guess.”

Samuel was reaching for the hatchet, an old one, longer than most, which he kept good and sharp and clean. He was good about that, like he was good about so much.

There was a stump to one side of the shed. We'd killed chickens there last year when Emma was still living, and once in the early days of spring when we'd had to have the meat. Holding Wingy upside down, Samuel took her there, laid her across the flat old stump, and with one quick whack, took off her head.

Suddenly killing this chicken seemed awful, when Lula Bell had died and we'd killed a fine, healthy turtle earlier in the day. That was farm living, I knew. That was survival, even. But at that moment, I didn't like it one bit, because it just spoke of our need.
Oh, Lord, help us.

“So you pluck it now?” Edward asked us.

I was still watching Samuel holding the headless hen with its wings flapping and the blood oozing down onto the ground. “You want to do it?” I asked Edward right back.

“I don't have the slightest idea how.”

“Maybe you should learn,” I told him. “It's a useful skill. Someday you might want to settle down somewhere and provide for yourself.”

Samuel looked at me rather oddly. Edward didn't reply, but he was looking at me differently too. And I knew I was wrong to let bitterness do the talking. I knew what Emma would do. I swallowed hard, mustering my courage.

“God loves you, Edward Wortham,” I said. “He may not like the way you behave, but he loves you just the same.”

Edward stared at me in silence, glanced over at Samuel, and then back at me with some distant thing churning in his eyes. But whatever it was vanished away quickly, and he laughed again, loud and ugly.

“Mother told me about you! She said you and Samuel can't hardly take two breaths anymore without getting all religious! You gonna take up preaching? Huh? You gonna build you a church out here somewhere? Next to the outhouse, maybe, and preach to the chickens and the neighbor kids and anybody that'll come and listen?”

“We go to church in Dearing,” Samuel said. “That's good enough.”

“You think you're better, that's what it is,” Edward continued, addressing Samuel directly this time. “That's what I've been talking about. You act like you're better, but you're not.”

“Better than what?” Samuel asked, his deep eyes looking soft.

Edward didn't hesitate. “Me.”

I wished to goodness Edward had kept his mouth shut long enough for Samuel to answer that. It might've changed things for both of them. But Edward rushed headlong into
another tirade, not giving Samuel a chance for even a word.

“You'd be nothing without your woman here, and you know it! You don't know what to do out here on no farm. You're a city boy. Couldn't even make it in that factory! And now you think you're Mr. Christian Do-Good all of a sudden! Don't you think you owe her an apology—”

“No,” I cut in. “He owes me no apology at all. But you do, for coming in here and tearing him down. I don't want to listen to it.”

Samuel started walking toward the fire and the water that hopefully had gotten hot enough.

I followed, and Edward followed me, shaking his head. “Gads, woman. You must be in love.”

“Of course I'm in love!” I replied. “And I always will be.”

Samuel dunked the dead chicken in the bubbling water pot and back out again. I looked up at him, glad he'd heard me. Maybe I could redeem myself in his eyes.

“I know Samuel well,” I addressed Edward again. “Better than you do. So I don't believe what you say about him. Not any of it. About Trudy Vale or anything else. And he was doing fine in that factory. He'd been promoted three times. It wasn't his fault the place closed down. Everybody lost their jobs the same day. It had nothing to do with him.”

Samuel laid the chicken across a rock and started plucking feathers. I picked up a stick and poked the well-done potatoes farther to the side than they already were, and then started helping.

“You're being mighty generous,” Edward remarked with another shake of his head. “Julia Wortham. Quite a wonder.”

“It's Samuel Wortham who's the wonder,” I argued. “If you were in his shoes and he came railing on you in your
own home, do you think you'd be quietly plucking him a chicken? Or running him clear out of the countryside?”

He laughed. “Well, at least the hospitality here has improved a bit.”

“That's because God loves you,” I said again and took a deep breath. “We do too, and we're trying to show it, despite what you think.”

“You're incurable,” he said. But he got real quiet. He looked at us both and then past us to the road where the girls were still picking daylily bulbs.

“I think I'll work on my car while you're fixing,” he said. “It was sounding funny on the way out here this time.”

“Not bad,” Samuel ventured. “Just a bit of a knock.”

“What do
you
know?” Edward asked him, but without the malice his words had had before.

“Will you let me help you?” Samuel asked. “Just to take a look?”

Edward didn't answer. He just turned around and walked to the car.

I took the chicken from Samuel's hands, and he leaned and kissed me again. “Thank you,” he whispered and then headed over to Edward's side.

It was strange seeing them together, with their heads bent over that automobile. From the back, they truly looked like brothers. And working together that way, they almost looked like friends.

I had to run in the house for my knife, fry pan, and lard pail. Then I cut the chicken quickly while my pan was getting hot. Sarah came running up with the pail of daylily buds and a fistful of flowers.

“For you, Mommy.”

Maybe she knew I needed such a gesture then. I hugged
her and thanked her and then sent her inside for a vase and a bowl of flour for the chicken.

“Do we get chicken too?” she asked when she came back.

“You get some too. I cut a few more pieces than usual. That means they'll be small, but they'll go around to everybody before Edward digs in and finishes it off.”

“We don't get seconds?”

“Not this time, sweetheart. At least not till Edward finishes. After everyone has their piece, I want you to let him have all the rest that he wants, and that goes for everything we make, even if he eats it all. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said. “But why?”

“Because I'm making him a feast. Or at least the best that I can. We're going to celebrate your father's brother being here and pray that he comes to know the Lord, honey.”

“Oh. He don't know about Jesus?”

“Well, not much, I daresay.”

“Want me to tell him? Or Franky could. Only he's in the barn right now.”

“Either of you could, and it might be fine. Only wait a while, all right? Until we're eating, maybe.”

I glanced over at the men tinkering so quietly on that car. As far as I could tell, there'd been scarcely two words between them. Why didn't they talk? Why couldn't Edward just listen to reason? There must be some sort of a logical answer about Katie. Maybe they could think of it together. Maybe their mother had mentioned some relative or something. If Edward would only listen to reason, maybe he would go and leave us in peace.

And maybe Sheriff Law would put Katie on a train to her family and we'd be all back to normal. I looked across the farmyard to where Rorey and Katie were playing with Whiskers. We could write to her. It would be good for Sarah to have a pen pal.

“Can I flour the chicken, Mommy?”

“You can help me. We have plenty to do.”

Once the chicken was frying, I sent Sarah to rinse her pail of buds at the well, and I went to the garden and lopped off the tops of half a row of turnips. I used the big old soup pot for them and then pulled up a few carrots and onions, both smaller than I liked. Too bad the sweet corn wasn't ripe. And too bad what few peas we'd had were already burned up in the summer sun.

I cut the carrots and onions together with the daylily buds. I'd cream them along with some salt and the sorrel from my picking bag. I didn't know if Edward would like it or even try it, but my family had learned to eat pretty much whatever there was. I opened one of the ash-covered potatoes and found the outside crispy but the inside white and soft. They'd be fine, despite my neglect. I was surely flustered this morning, not to think about them or the cake. It wasn't like me to just stick them in the coals and leave without even asking Samuel or Robert to check them. Oh well. They'd come out all right.

After turning the chicken, I hurried to the house again for sugar and vanilla extract to make a glaze on the cake. We would let Edward eat the better side. I wondered if he'd ever had rhubarb. Samuel hadn't when I'd first met him.

Then I remembered the eggs. There were five boiled ones left from our breakfast, down in the cool pit, with what was left of the morning milk. By the time I came up from the basement, Katie and Sarah had both come in the house. They helped me peel and halve the eggs. Then I let them mash the yolks while I opened the second-to-last jar of pickles. We stirred a little cream, a cut-up pickle, and a dash of sugar and paprika into the yolks, and stuffed the halves as neatly as we could.

Katie said she'd never seen deviled eggs before, which surprised me. But maybe she just meant she'd never seen
any like those. Of course, we made do with what we had. Grandma Pearl had hardly ever had mayonnaise, and neither did I anymore.

After we finished, we marched outside with the plate of eggs, the rest of the jar of pickles, and a blanket big enough to spread on the ground and seat everyone. I realized I hadn't done anything with the sassafras, so I filled the coffeepot with water, dumped the sassafras in, and set it on the fire. But I'd forgotten bread too, so I had to run back inside for a loaf of the soda bread I'd baked that morning. Then we were ready to eat.