Aaron could see his breath this morning, and the chill Oc- tober air made the ax handle cold. Autumn was his favorite time of year, and he hated the thought of leaving these radi- ant, rolling hills for the flat, colorless prairies of North Dakota. Minnesota was a myriad of changing colors, at its best now in the full flush of fall. It even smelled better this time of year. It smelled of tucking in, of getting ready, like the squirrels were. They were all getting ready. Mary was getting their clothes ready, he and Jonathan were getting the wood ready…and I'm getting ready to leave Mary, Aaron thought.
She was coming out of the house with the clothes basket slung on her hip. Her hip didn't jut out anymore. She was bigger already. He wondered if the child moved inside her yet and what it felt like when that happened. How he wished he could ask her. Sometimes, thinking of her, his unasked questions made his throat ache. The forced restraint made him seek out the hardest physical work. But wood-chopping was a cold substitute for shared intimacies.
Mary was wearing an oversized red plaid
jacket, and he watched her hang clothes while he chopped. He thought of how it would feel to slip his arms inside the jacket and hug her, feel the baby between them. She hung the last wet shirt and blew on her hands to warm them. He kept up the wood-chopping, wishing he could go to her, open his shirt, and warm her fingers against his chest. She dropped the basket beside the path and headed for the out- house. As she walked along, the plaid jacket blended with the scarlet sumac and she became a part of the fall foliage. Sometimes at night he'd hear her get up and go out there, and he wished he could get up and just walk with her, wait for her, and walk her back in, ask her if the baby made her uncomfortable. He didn't think she'd been sick, but he knew there were lots of discomforts involved with pregnancy. He wished he could share them with her, if only by talking about them.
When she came back down the path, he shouted in her direction, "Don't lift that wash water, Mary!" "No, I won't, Aaron." He could see her breath as she called across the October morning.
The depressive moods of her first pregnant months had gone away weeks ago, but Mary was having difficulty keeping the lump from her throat this morning. The letter with the Enderland, North Dakota, postmark had arrived yesterday afternoon. The men had delayed leaving until today to give Mary a chance to get their things ready and also to allow them time to get a load of winter wood into the yard and chopped. They had cut the timber in the woods and spent the day since the potato harvest sec tioning it with the crosscut saw. If it was to dry, it needed chopping, but it looked like winter would catch them before they finished the job. Whether or not the wood supply ran out would depend on how long they stayed in North Dakota. If Mary got low, she could ask a neighbor to chop a supply for her. Thank heaven for neighbors, he thought. He'd miss Mary, but he needn't worry about her.
The morning warmed quickly, and the day promised to be a beauty. Jonathan headed the horses in with the last load of wood and stopped at the near pasture, where Vinnie would stay until the winter snows pushed him into the barn. The bull approached the fence and stopped full-face to Jonathan. "Howdy, big boy." The clean, cylindrical lines of the bull were already nearing maturity. His smooth black coat gleamed in the sun. His red eyes gleamed from his dished face. Looking at the beautiful creature who represented so much of Jonathan's hope for the future, the man found good reason in leaving his farm to work on another man's land. "I'll be bringing home money to buy you a missus. Now what do you think of that?"
The red eye blinked. "No. You wouldn't yet, but come next spring when your sap is up you'll thank me."
The eye didn't blink this time. "Sure hate to leave you, Vinnie. You'll do fine, though. Plenty of pasture time left before winter."
Again it was between the man and the bull as if they talked the same language. Vinnie made a snuffling, low noise. "I'll miss you, too. But just think about growin' up, and by the time I get back you'll be a little heavier." Then he added, "So will Mary."
His thoughts of the future held the image of his son and Vinnie's sons growing together on the land. It made his leaving easier. Turning his back on the bull, he hoped for no unseasonably early snow this year. No one would be here to put Vinnie in the barn while they were gone. Checking the azure sky of October, he felt the weather would favor him. Vinnie'll do fine, he thought, making his way up the lane toward the yard with the last load of wood.
The house had a curious stillness to it, as still as the au- tumn air that scarcely stirred the wood-smoke away from the chimney. It was the kind of brilliant noon that would usually be invigorating, Indian summer having its last fling. But this flawlessly perfect day had the opposite effect as the three of them waited for the sound of wagon wheels on the road. The faint remains of the dinner's aromas tinted the air with hominess, but nobody had eaten much. Nobody'd said much, either, just the necessary last-minute instructions, the neces- sary lonely things. Some ashes gave way as a log collapsed in the cook-stove. Aaron came clumping down the stairs with his gear under one arm, and Jonathan said, "They're here." A buckboard full of men pulled into the driveway, and the men hoisted up bundles, jackets, bedrolls, keeping their eyes from Mary. Any last-minute thing they thought of to say seemed pointless. Neither of them liked leaving Mary alone in the house. Mary led the way to the door and stepped out onto the porch with a too-bright smile.
Aaron came past her first and kissed her cheek, leaning past the gear that encumbered him, saying, "The time'll go fast. You'll see." Jonathan came next, weighted down, too. He lightly kissed her quivering mouth, and they both said, "Take care," together before he made for the wagon. Aaron was already climbing aboard. The other men were in high spirits, feeling the fraternity of this all-male adventure. Their voices accompanied the sound of rocks being spit from under the wagon wheels as they left the yard.
Then it was quiet. Mary stood on the porch with tears sil- vering her cheeks. She blinked hard, trying to clear her vision, but the faces of the disappearing men were blurred. Finally she raised her apron, wiping her eyes dry momentarily, and saw Jonathan and Aaron squinting into the sun as the wagon jostled them with its motion. She realized they couldn't see her on the shadowed porch, so she came down the step into the sunny yard and waved as the wagon disappeared over the crest of the first hill. A long time later, it reappeared, climbing the second hill, finally disappearing for good.
Mary stood, tears washing over her cheeks. Her wet lips widened silently at the uncaring sky as she dropped to her knees in the middle of the silent yard, cradling her swollen body. And for the first time the child became someone, not just something. Inside her was a growing body, alive, someone to be with her through her aloneness. Kneeling in the yard with her arms around her middle, she rocked and cried until she had quieted, then spread her hands wide upon herself. "Are you awake in there? I need your company. I know I haven't given you much of my good thoughts, have I? Maybe this time we spend alone-just the two of us-will help us get to know each other better. Sorry I cried. I guess I'm the last one who should feel sorry for myself."
The grainlands of North Dakota sprawled flat, the farms so large they took weeks to reap. The small farms of Todd County, after giving up their golden grains, gave up their men to these sisterlands to the west. It was a common prac- tice for these harvest-hardened hands to hire out as threshers on the larger Dakota farms. Seven men were in the group that day. None of them relished leaving their homes behind, but a good year might find them returning with nearly two hundred dollars after a month's work. Since bunk and board were provided by employers, the only expense incurred was the price of the train trip, probably only as far as Fargo. From there the men caught rides to the outpost farms.
Jonathan had been returning to the same farm for several years. Aaron had, too, with the exception of the year he'd been to town. So they'd been expecting the letter from En- derland. Wallace Getchner's farm was as good as any, better than some. They remembered years when they'd hired out at places where the grub was bad, flies and filth in kitchens as slovenly run as the farms were. Sleeping accommodations weren't important-any mow with a decent spread of hay would do-but ample, good food was a must, for the days were long and the work hard. Getchner paid fair wages, and his wife knew how to lay a good spread of food. There's a thing about a misplaced man and good cooking that can take him closer to home than anything else. It brought the men back to Getchner's year after year.
They'd ridden by train and buckboard, reaching the Ender- land farm in the early evening. Getchner had hired six hands for this year's harvesting. Three were already there when the buckboard arrived with the remaining three. Getting settled took little time, not much more than tossing their bedrolls into the haymow. Their small packs of extra clothing and personal articles were kept there, too. Washing up was done at the well in the yard in tepid water warmed by the teakettle Mrs. Getchner sent out. Meals were taken in a crowded fashion around the family's kitchen table.
They began shocking the grain the following morning. Here the farms were so vast they weren't measured in acres but in sections, these sections stretching away endlessly across the flat prairie as far as the eye could see. Unlike the Minne- sota harvests, which were threshed in the yards near barns and granaries, these crops were threshed where they grew, in the fields. The threshing rig ate its way across the sections, chewing up shocks as it went, filling wagon after wagon with grain. Tiring day followed tiring day. The only thing to buck up the spirit was the promise of profits and an occasional letter from home.
Jonathan had written to Mary, a short note stating that they had arrived safely, telling of the good weather conditions, the number of workers Getchner had hired this year, ending with, "Aaron sends his best," and signed, "your loving husband, Jonathan." He wrote the same two letters each year, one right after he arrived, one just be- fore leaving for home. If Jonathan was inarticulate in speech, he was equally so when putting his thoughts on paper. Only his closings indicated they were personal letters. Mary had always treasured these closings, for they were the only written words of love she had ever received from Jonathan.
Mail was speedy, for trains ran with great regularity, two or more per day passing through Browerville from either direction. So Mary got Jonathan's letter the day after he'd sent it. She'd been sitting on the porch step in the noon sun, cracking hazelnuts with a tack hammer. The nuts, in their spiny husks, had been spread to dry on the roof of the granary, safely out of reach of the ever-searching squirrels.
It was another golden day like the one on which Jonathan and Aaron had left. The sun was warm on Mary's arms and face as she rapped the shells. She dropped another hazelnut into the fruit jar as an inquisitive squirrel rustled through the leaves, stopping a safe distance away. "Hey, you," she beckoned, but he scurried a bit away at the sound of her voice. "Bet you'd like some, huh?" She tossed one near the squirrel, and its tail flinched, gray and shiny in the bright sun, before the animal grabbed it and hid it away inside its cheek. "If it weren't for you, we wouldn't have had to dry those nuts up there on the roof. Now you pretend you're too shy to come and eat them." Then she talked to the baby, as she'd begun to do often. "You know, little one, Jonathan would have a fit, and so would Aaron, if they knew I'd been up that ladder after those nuts. You won't tell, will you?" Then she popped a hazelnut into her mouth. "How do you like hazel- nuts, huh?" she asked her unborn child. The squirrel was back, looking for more nuts, his head cocked cutely to one side. "Well, who do you think I'm talking to?" she asked it. "All your babies are grown up now, but you're not the only one who can have babies. I'm gonna be a mama, too, so there." And she gave the squirrel one more hazelnut. "And don't look at me as if I'm crazy. I got to talk to someone."
Oh, she was lonesome, no doubt about it. But since the men were gone she'd found an unusual response to the child that helped fill her days, while at the same time setting her mind straight about Jonathan and Aaron. The longer they were away, the easier it was to detach herself from the emo- tions that pulled her in opposite directions when they were both around her. She was able to analyze what she'd done and what was the right thing for her to do in the future, and there was less and less doubt that she had wronged Jonathan. Even if he'd asked for it, she'd been wrong to turn to Aaron, and she realized that she'd never asked for Jonathan's forgive- ness.
She wasn't trying to delude herself into believing she didn't love Aaron. She did, but she was also convinced that she could find the old love she and her husband had shared. She wondered if Aaron could ever forgive her for the choice she had to make or if he'd come to think she'd used him to get the baby. But if that were so, it was the price she'd have to pay. This had cost them all so much. Not only was Mary determined to set things straight between herself and Jonathan, she was determined to make him see that he must do the same between himself and Aaron. She told Jonathan so, that day, by letter.
Dear Jonathan, I received your welcome letter today and am happy all is well there. Here, too. Amos and Tony are handling the stock just fine. They refuse to let me make them a lunch before they leave, though it's midmorning by the time they finish. I'm already missing the cooking, but of course they have chores of their own and can't humor me just because I'd like company at the table. In the evenings they come after supper, and it's dusk by the time they leave.
Soon you'll be gone a whole week. I've had time to get clear of mind since you left. It's not good that we haven't made some kind of peace among ourselves, you know? You've got to accept what I have to say now, knowing it's long since time it was said. Our being apart could heal some wounds-I know you think you don't have any, but you do. And Jonathan, I'm sorry I gave them to you. I'm deeply sorry. What happened between me and Aaron will not be again. He and I have made a sort of peace, but you and I have to, too. And I believe you and he have to do the same. You know that if left to fester, this thing will become enmity between you, and I can't let that happen. Jonathan, you were brothers long before I came between you. You have to be again. Maybe this time in Dakota was meant for you and Aaron to sort of sift the chaff from the grain in your lives while you sift in the fields. I'm like a bit of bother- some wind when I'm around. I blow the two together.
But now with me here and you two there, why not let the distance serve a purpose? Let it sift away your differences and get you back to being brothers again.
I've told Aaron that I'll stay true to you from now on. He knows, too, that the baby will be yours-that there is no other way. We all have to find peace for the unborn one. For you and Aaron that can't happen till you two talk. Then he can start in building his own life and so can we.
But now, for all of us, please do as I ask, Jonathan.
But mostly for your sake and Aaron's. Let me not add this to my guilt-that I tore you forever apart.
Please return my best to Aaron.
With deepest affection,
Mary.
Jonathan slipped the letter into his cambric pocket when Mrs. Getchner handed it to him, to wait until he was away from the kitchen flurry before he read it.
It was dark when they finished eating and headed for the barn. Jonathan claimed the lantern, sitting apart from the others, who jawed awhile before turning in. The floor of the loft was swept clean in a wide circle around the lantern to prevent fires. Jonathan knelt on the floor, holding the letter toward the lamplight, haunches low, hands high, as he strained to read the words in the flickering glow. A smile creased his eyes as he pictured Mary inviting Amos and Tony in for coffee. Nobody could make a cup of coffee like Mary, he thought.
But then his expression sobered as he progressed through the letter. When he finished reading, he lay it lightly on his lowered knee, holding it there loosely between two fingers. His other knee was raised, and he braced it with an elbow as he sat motionless, pondering. A picture of her as she must have looked while writing came to him. Then he looked toward the cluster of men, reclining in haphazard poses on the hay. Aaron was smiling, listening to Joe telling some story about how his kid had harnessed a chicken. A burst of laughter filled the loft, and as Aaron leaned his head back to join in, he glanced over to find Jonathan studying him. Jonathan's face was serious, unsmil- ing. Aaron's immediately became the same. He rose and came to Jonathan, asking, "Everything all right at home?" He knew the letter was from Mary. "Yup," Jonathan answered, snapping out of whatever had sobered him. "Mary sends her regards."
The men settled down, climbed into their rolls, grunting and yawning and shifting around to get comfortable. Someone turned out the lantern, and Jonathan considered again what Mary had said. She was right, but he needed time to sort his mind. Tomorrow was Sunday. They'd work the day as if it were any other, for crops came before worship this time of year in Dakota. But they'd probably cut the day short. He and Aaron'd have time to talk then.
As Jonathan expected, they came in from the fields a couple of hours before sunset the following day. The men were in- vited to stay in the kitchen to pass the evening, and Mrs. Getchner got out the tin popper and popped corn at the range, where the men settled to enjoy both the corn and the warmth.
Jonathan was thinking of asking Aaron to walk out toward the barn with him when Aaron stretched and said he guessed he'd turn in early. It saved Jonathan from making unnecessary excuses for their leaving. They went to the loft together, going through the familiar ritual of lantern and bedrolls.
It was darkly quiet, the dusty, sweet smell of the hay pleasant and familiar. There were few night sounds to be heard, but Jonathan could hear his brother's breathing, could hear his own heart beating at a stepped-up pace. He wanted to say things right, knew that if he failed, it could drive the wedge deeper between himself and Aaron. He began, with the words still unsure in his mind, "Aaron, you awake?" "Yeah," Aaron grunted. "It appears we got some things to settle between us," Jonathan began. "I figured this was coming." "Yeah?" The way Jonathan said it, Aaron knew how hard this was for him. "What took you so long getting around to it?" Aaron asked. "Thought it might settle itself." In his halting way he added, "Didn't, though."
Aaron wondered what Jonathan wanted of him, wondered what had finally prompted him to speak. He asked, "Did Mary say something in her letter?" "She, ah…" Jonathan cleared his throat, giv ing himself time to make his thoughts clearer. "Ah…she thinks it's best we talk about it between us, sort of, settle the air a bit. 'He paused, then added, "Reckon she's right."
Still, Jonathan didn't mention the baby. Did he want Aaron to admit he was the father or what? Aaron knew how hard this must be for his brother, and at last Aaron promp- ted, "About the baby?" "Yes." But still Jonathan didn't say more. He wanted to but couldn't. They lay side by side in the dark, listening to each other breathe, make small movements, thoughts of Mary glimmering through their minds. Thoughts of their brother- hood came, too, of the rift they'd suffered, how the rift had become a chasm. The silence grew lengthy, and Aaron waited in vain for Jonathan to say more. Drawing a deep breath, feeling a mixture of trepidation and release all at once, he said, "Mary said the baby is mine." "Yeah, I knew that," Jonathan said, his heart hammering fit to burst. "We didn't intend it, Jonathan. It just happened, that's all."
Another silence weighted them down while both men sought for an understanding. "I'm sorry, Jonathan," Aaron said, reaching his own under- standing. "I am, too," came Jonathan's voice. "I thought I wouldn't be, but I am."
The trepidation easing, Aaron asked, "What made you ask it of us?" "At the time it seemed the clear way. I guess I talked myself into it being the clear way."
"Have you got any idea the pain it caused Mary…and me? We didn't see it in the same light as you did, Jonathan." "I reckon I know that now. Even after I asked it I never thought you'd do it, you were so mad. But it's a funny thing how it worked out like I asked, anyway, about the baby and all. I can't say I ain't happy about the baby. Guess I gotta thank you for that." "If it was the other way around," Aaron said, "I don't think I'd be thanking you. If she were my wife, I'd kill the man who laid a hand on her."
Jonathan, in the darkness beside his brother, realized then the depth of feelings he'd been author to. He'd been so sure there was nothing between Aaron and Mary before the start of this. Chances are there hadn't been. But what a fool he'd been to think a thing like that could happen and leave people the same afterward. "You love her, then?" he asked, dreading the answer.
Should he lie and add to the damage already done? Or would the truth do more damage? Aaron plunged the rest of the way. "I love her, Jonathan. I can't deny it. I reckon she's what I was looking to find-only I never knew it till this happened. She was always too close for me to see."
A pang of sudden regret and fear hit Jonathan, his fear of losing Mary becoming a real possibility. "What about you and Priscilla?" he asked hopefully. "We tried, Jonathan, but it just wouldn't work for us." After a pause he admitted, "We never really loved each other. We were just convenient, I guess." "Seemed for a while there, you two got on just fine," Jonathan offered, but he knew it was wishful thinking. "It's not hard to get on fine with half of Moran Township marching you up the aisle before you know what's happen- ing. With everybody pushing and shoving at us, I guess I thought she was probably the right one for me. Aw, hell, I don't know, Jonathan. Sometimes I thought maybe I loved her. But I guess we don't always pick who we love. If we could, Pris and I would be married by now." "You don't intend to patch it up with her, then?" "No. Priscilla just doesn't measure up anymore. Mary's your wife. You should know she's not a woman you…" But Aaron found that any way he tried to say what he meant would reveal too much. "Aw, hell, Jonathan. I just need some time to get over this, that's all. I could no more rebound back to Pris right now than you could tell the good citizens of Moran that the baby is mine."
Oh, that hurt, but Jonathan guessed he deserved it. He knew it meant an even deeper involvement than he'd first suspected. At least on Aaron's part. And in spite of himself, he wanted to know the truth about Mary's feelings, too. "And what about Mary?" he couldn't help asking. "Does she love you, too?"
Aaron found he couldn't strip every shed of pride away from Jonathan by saying yes. "Like I said, she's your wife. That's for you to ask her, for her to say. What did she say in her letter?" "That there'll be nothing more between you and we'll say the baby's mine. She says you'll find things will work out best this way."
Of course that's what she said, Aaron thought. Hadn't she already told him the same thing that night in the barn? She was right, of course, but that didn't make it any easier. Still, it was up to him to confirm it to Jonathan. "That's how it'll be, then, Jonathan, and I swear that's the truth."
They could hear voices near the barn and knew the others would be mounting the ladder soon. But there was one more thing Aaron had to make sure of. Would Jonathan under- stand that even though he gave up any claim on the baby he was still concerned for the child's welfare and happiness? "About the baby…" Aaron started, then hesitated.
And for once in his life Jonathan grasped Aaron's feelings intuitively. "I'll love it, never fear. And it'll never know the truth from me." "Jesus, it'll be hard," Aaron admitted in a husky voice. Thinking of the life he'd helped create, of giving it up before it was even whole, he added, "It'll be hell, Jonathan."
The men arrived then, cutting short the sifting of the chaff. Both Aaron and Jonathan lay awake for hours, thinking.
Work made the days go faster, and Mary kept busy in an effort to hurry them. She'd put off making winter sauerkraut until this time when the men were gone. She'd stored the largest, firmest heads of cabbage in the root cellar and now sliced them, added salt and caraway seeds, and beat the mixture with a stomper, smashing it into its own juices and leaving it to ferment.
Navy beans from the garden had been drying since picking time. She spent a day winnowing these in the windy yard, pouring the beans noisily from dishpan to roaster many times until the dried pods were gone, blown free by the October winds. She stored away the cleanly blown kernels.
She dug up gladioli and dahlia bulbs from the garden, tearing their dried tops off, washing and storing them until next spring. The frosts had finished all but the last few resist- ing chrysanthemums, and she picked them and took them into the house for a bit of cheer. She burned the pile of dead stalks and leaves from the garden on a late, cool afternoon, feeling the days cooling toward winter, the westering sun lowering earlier each day.
She cleaned the coops, the last time before the snow flew, and went down to the barn to visit with Tony and Amos when they came to do the chores. But they'd never take time to come up to the house for a cup of coffee. They had work of their own to do and couldn't take time for pleasantries. So the house remained too silent, the tabletop too free of crumbs, the early-morning fires too lavish for just one.
She talked to the baby, referring to herself often now as "Mama," but never calling anybody "Daddy," feeling that she couldn't yet give that name to either Jonathan or Aaron.
The evenings were the worst, the time right before supper when families should be a-gathering home, but when she had the urge to feel sorry for herself she quickly talked herself out of it, saying again, "I'm a fine one to be feeling sorry for myself!"
She waited until she thought they'd be coming home very soon before she washed blankets and bedspreads, giving them their last prewinter airing. Hauling the heavy things up the stairs late one day, she made up her and Jonathan's bed first, then took the other fresh things into Aaron's room, where the slanted rays of sun sliced low through the west window. Tugging at the sheets and laying the fresh quilts and coverlet on his bed, she thought again of the night she'd spent there with him, of all it had yielded and all it had cost. She caught herself doing more than just dropping the pillows into place, then shook herself and freed her mind of Aaron once again.