The days returned to unvarying sameness. For Aaron they were long, hard days, days in which he missed Jonathan beside him. The neighbors' help had made the first plantings easy, but they'd planted more than they should have of some crops, and now Aaron worked long and hard at the cultivat- ing. The milking wasn't bad in the morning, but at the end of the day when he was worn down, his arms ached before he finished.
When Aaron came up at suppertime one evening and slumped into his chair with a heavy sigh, Mary put the food on the table, then sat down, studying his weary look. "I've been thinking, Aaron," she said as she spooned food, being careful not to look at him. "I'd like you to teach me to milk." She tried to make it sound offhand.
A wry, amused look flickered over his face. "You're not the best at milking," he said. "Well, I could learn," she offered. "I can handle it alone."
She grew piqued. "Well, if you'd give me a chance, I'd like to learn! I'm the only woman for miles around here who can't milk a cow!" She
reddened slightly and sat looking down at her plate. "Okay…okay," he gave in, slightly surprised.
She instantly softened. "I could try tomorrow night. I've got washing first thing in the morning, but I'd have time in the evening."
It was settled, and he left that night thinking the milking would take twice as long tomorrow. He'd have to do it all, anyway, after waiting for her to try her hand at it.
But she was a determined woman. She kept trying in just the way he explained, watching him first, then trying again until it was less difficult. Within a few days she could do it passably well, although she tired far faster than Aaron.
Sarah was a problem, though. Mary left her in the house alone a couple of times, but she hated doing that. So she asked Aaron if he could make a light box of some kind for her. "I hate leaving her inside when I do the gardening," was Mary's excuse. She was afraid that Aaron might think it too great an inconvenience for her to help with the milking.
Aaron made a light, small box with lattice sides to let the air through and a handle like a grape basket. When Mary brought Sarah to the barn in it the first time, the baby was asleep, and Aaron peeked at her, in pale green blanket and yellow bonnet, declaring she looked like a cob of corn all ready for market. Mary put the basket on two upturned milk pails, saying "Aaron! What a thing to say about your own daughter!"
She could have bitten off her own tongue. It had slipped out. She hadn't meant to say it. She turned away, stammering. But Aaron covered the uncomfort- able moment. "I see she likes the basket all right." He turned to his work, but a pleasant tingle of warmth shivered through him.
The mayflies paid their short-lived visit, and the deerflies came in June. One evening during milking, Mary and Aaron and Sarah were in the barn as usual when a sudden, frantic cry came from the baby, who had been asleep in her basket. Aaron had been on his feet between cows, and before Mary could break free of the pail, her skirts, and the stool that hindered her, Aaron had whisked Sarah out of her basket in alarm. "What is it?" Mary cried while the wails continued in full force. But as she reached Aaron, she saw the growing welt on Sarah's face. "A deerfly," he said. "She'll be all right."
Yet the little mouth squared and quivered and squalled, and Aaron kissed the welted cheek, murmuring to the baby. "Here, Corncob," he said. "You'd better go to your mother." He handed the baby to Mary. "I'd better put some soda paste on it," she said calmly, then added, "Sorry, Aaron."
Then she left him in the quiet barn, looking at the empty basket. Why had she said she was sorry? Sorry for the dis- turbance? Sorry to leave him with the milking? He decided he was most sorry she'd had to take Sarah from him. Holding her was not unpleasant. As a matter of fact, he'd liked it very much.
When he returned to the house, he took the basket, too. "How is she?" he asked. "It was just a bite, like you said. If Sarah's go ing to live on the farm, she'll have to get used to bites."
Wondering how long Sarah would be living on the farm, Aaron left again, saying, "I have to get the rest of the milk."
The next day, Aaron worked until noon and then went to town. For Mary it was an endless day. She gave him a list of supplies and watched him head away, wishing she could go. It had been so long since she'd been to town, but the ride was too hard with Sarah. She was still nursing the baby, and couldn't leave her with a neighbor.
The afternoon dragged on. She weeded the garden to fill the hours. It seemed an eternity ago when she had first grown dizzy, stooping over the garden rows. She took Sarah back into the house when the garden was done, and cleaned her- self up to start supper. Aaron should have been back by now, she worried, and found herself returning time after time to the porch rail, to look eastward.
When she saw the rig coming, a feeling of relief swept her, and she raised a hand in welcome. Aaron saw her on the porch waiting and hurried the horses. Her waving, waiting figure seemed to beckon him home in a way he'd never felt welcomed before. "I thought you'd never get here," she called. "Hurry in! Supper's ready."
He unharnessed the team and carried the box of supplies to the house. "What took you so long? What's in here?" She was pulling at the brown paper before he could set the box down.
"Back off, woman," he scolded with a smile, "and give me room to set this down."
But she grabbed the parcel and tore the string, saying, "I didn't order anything like this. What is it?"
She found a length of cheesecloth inside. "It's not for you. It's for Sarah-to keep the deerflies away."
It was so unexpected-his buying the netting for the baby. She floundered for something to say, but all she could think of was, "Why didn't I think of that?"
No answer was needed, but Aaron knew she was pleased.
She peppered him with questions about town, wanting to hear all the news, asking whom he'd seen. Aaron relayed what he could, and of course there were good wishes for her from everyone he'd seen. He could tell she was aching to go to town herself again.
That night, it was hard to leave. She seemed dejected as he left her on the porch. He stopped under the elms and called back to cheer her, "Next time I go to town, you're coming along. It's no man's job to buy things for a baby." Then he heeled the horse, wondering if she'd find some ex- cuse not to go with him because of what had happened on the train.
After that, he had no need to knock on his own door, for she was usually standing on the porch when he arrived. Sometimes at noon he'd see her under the clotheslines, stretching her arms up to hang clothes. There were always diapers and little clothes now. He loved seeing them there. She still did his laundry, refusing to have it any other way. She said it was the least she could do.
One evening when Aaron was leaving for the Dvoraks', she called, "Wait a minute, Aaron, you forgot your laundry," and came from the front room carrying the brown parcel. "Try not to smash it now," she said, as she usually did. Then she handed it to him, one hand on the bottom of the parcel, one hand on the top. As Aaron reached for it, her hand brushed his palm. Their touch was like an electric current, and Mary reacted as though she'd gotten burned. She jerked her hand backward and grabbed it with the other. Realizing what she'd done, she shot a look at Aaron, her cheeks flam- ing. "It's not necessary for you to do my clothes up, Mary," he said. "Mrs. Dvorak offered to do them for me." "Don't be silly, Aaron," she argued, "I love doing them."
But once again her response seemed to tell a secret. Aaron sought to cool the flame that suddenly leaped through him. He stepped fully out onto the porch, closing the screen door between them, and said, "I appreciate your doing them for me. Thank you, Mary."
When he was gone, she put her palms to her cheeks and called herself every kind of fool. She resolved to control herself from now on.
Haying time arrived, and Aaron began staying in the fields at noon to save time. The first day he did this, she came walking with his dinner in one hand and the basket-in- cheesecloth in the other.
When he saw her coming, he pulled up at the end of a row to wait. She set the basket down and handed him the covered plate, collapsing onto the grass. "It's too far for you to come way out here. Tomorrow, just pack me a sandwich and a jar of water in the morning." "A sandwich and a jar of water! A man can't work on scraps like that." But she was puffing from the exertion. "Sarah's getting too heavy to carry around in that thing." He pointed at the basket with his fork, then looked inside and said, "You're gonna break your mother's back, Corncob!" "Aaron! That's the most disgusting nickname I've ever heard!"
But Aaron leaned toward Sarah and said, "Hey, Corncob, you tell your mother that she did the naming and a papa should at least be able to pick a nickname." He'd been thinking of it ever since that time in the barn when Mary had slipped first and called Sarah his daughter. He knew Mary's face must be scarlet, for she turned her back on him fully, Sarah's little face over her shoulder, wide-eyed as only a baby's can be. The baby was all milk and honey and brown curls, and he'd have given anything to reach out and touch those curls, just once, on purpose. But he ate his dinner and studied her instead, immensely pleased, thinking he could make out a resemblance to himself.
When he finished eating, he said, "Okay, Corncob, tell your mother she can have the plate now-and tell her it's rude to keep her back to a person all that long. At least she's taught you some man- ners."
But Mary picked up the basket and took off down the lane without turning around again, saying, "Tell your father he can carry his own dirty plate back!" But Mary was smiling from ear to ear.
The next day Mary delivered Aaron's lunch in the wheel- barrow that also held the baby's basket.
When she arrived where he waited, Mary stated, "Sarah wishes you to know that she has no intention of breaking her mother's back."
He retorted, with a twinkle, "The point is well taken." Then reaching for his dinner plate he whispered loudly to Sarah, "Tell your mother she's a hussy," and a smile tugged first his cheek, then Mary's.
During the long, hot days when the horses worked like drudges, Aaron traced the fields behind them, dreaming of owning a tractor.
He was pondering this when a tug strap broke. Silently cursing, Aaron examined the damage. There was nothing to do but drive the team back up to the lean-to and exchange harnesses.
Back at the yard, while the horses drank, Aaron thought of how Mary usually kept cold tea around for a quick, cool drink. The baby must be sleeping, he thought, nearing the quiet house. He opened and closed the screen quietly, the spring on it twanging softly as he went into the kitchen. He found a fruit jar of cold tea in the buttery and carried it with him, raising it and taking long, deep swigs as he strolled absently around the kitchen. It was very quiet and cool inside the house. He strolled, still drinking, to the doorway of the living room, and there he stopped dead, his mouth filled with tea that he couldn't swallow. The heater stove was gone from the living room for the warm season, and the kitchen rocker had taken its place again. Mary sat in the rocker nursing the baby, who lay on a pillow in the crook of her arm, Sarah's skin as milky white as the breast that fed her. They both seemed asleep, Mary's head leaned back and to one side against the hard back of the rocker. But as if she sensed someone looking at her, she came awake with a start, and as she jerked, Sarah did, too, then began sucking again, one hand pushing against the breast.
Mary saw Aaron's crimson face, then saw his Adam's apple move as he swallowed the tea. "I thought you nursed the baby upstairs…or I would have knocked," he stammered. "It's cooler down here," Mary explained, her heart ham- mering. But she made no move to pull the baby away. Sarah was still sleeping as she suckled. "I only do it here when you're sure to be out in the fields."
He stared at the baby for a moment longer while his throat worked again. Then he spun from the room and hurried out of the house with the screen door slamming behind him.
Sarah awoke with a start when the door banged. The baby's eyes flew open, her chin quivered for a hesitant second, then she wailed, choky, milky-mouthed, with gusto. "Shh, Princess," Mary soothed. "Did your daddy scare you? Me, too, darlin'. Me, too."
While she cooed soft words to quiet the baby, she thought, Did Aaron really scare me, or do I fear myself? Do I fear the weakness that I felt just now, and did he see it written all over my face? Being here together all the time, it must seem to Aaron that I expect him to look after us and support us, Sarah and me. Does he think I'm coyly playing my hand, trying to force him into a role he doesn't want?
Aaron talked out loud to the horses to cool his heels: "What a flea-brained dimwit I am, charging into the house!" He mulled over what Mary's feelings must be. She'll think I asked her to stay on in the house so I could weasel my way back into her confidence, maybe even her holdings, and eventually her bed. She needn't stay here to exist! She has property, capital-that gives her independence. Suppose she saw the lecherous look that must have been plastered all over my face. Suppose she spooks and runs-runs with Sarah, too. Mary came to me willingly once, but it's different now. If I push too fast, too soon, she'll think I'm an opportunist. It can't be like that. We walk a fragile line, Mary and Sarah and I. I'll do well to bide my time so as not to snap it.
When Aaron came that evening, he again knocked on the door, even though he could see, through the screen, that she was only putting supper on in her usual way. She had pur- posely stayed inside, not waited on the porch as she'd done lately. She set the food on, and he watched her out of the corner of his eye. When she reached to set the dishes onto the center of the table, her dress molded itself to her swelling breasts, more generous in maternity than before. He had a mental flash of their naked whiteness as he'd seen them that afternoon, and the want of her crept over his skin, touching him in tremulous, forbidden places. But he warned himself: Down, Aaron! "There are some things I should get in town for Sarah," she said. "She's growing so fast, she's nearly out of her little saques. I ought to have supplies to make more for her." "Like I said, that's a woman's errand. When do you want to go?" "When can we?" She tried for a careless tone but couldn't bring it off. "Saturday?" "Saturday…Yes, Saturday." But a quick doubt puckered her brows. "What about Sarah?" "Well, what about her?" He sobered his face, raised his fingers, using them to count on. "Now, let's see…she's one, two, three, four, five-going on six months old. High time she learned how to travel without complaining, don't you think?" "Do you really think it would be okay to take her?" "You ah"-Aaron cleared his throat, made a vague gesture toward her shoulder somewhere-"don't have much choice, do you?"
Mary colored, but he missed it, for he was studying his plate just then. "How will we take her? The basket is okay for a short while, but she's nearly too long for it. It's an awful long way for me to hold her on my lap. And what if it rains?" "Hold up a minute, all right?" he calmed her. "Now, if it rains, we'll wait and go another day. You'll have to let me think on how she'll ride." "Okay." Then excitement got the best of her again. "But Aaron, it can't rain on Saturday. It just can't!"
On Friday evening Aaron rigged a plank as a divider, cre- ating a small crib on the single box right behind the rider's seat. He filled it with soft bedding straw, followed in his every move by Mary, who was giddy with anticipation for the coming day's trip to town. Watching her come arunning with a quilt to cover the straw he realized how long it had been since she'd been anywhere, that he should have seen to it she'd gotten away before this. He promised he'd see to it more often from now on.
She felt as if she should take credit for wishing up the perfect day. It dawned flawless. The myriad colors of the sunrise blushed the hills with rosy gold. Wrens warbled Mary awake, as if scolding her for tardiness. The pungent smell of wild baby's-breath lay heavy in the dewy dawn. Aaron came early, and yet it seemed an endless time before his morning work was finished. The dew was drying when he came up to the house to wash and change clothes. He knocked, and she beckoned him inside instantly. "I thought I'd wash up first and put on some other clothes?" He was asking her permission.
"There's warm water in the reservoir. I'll be ready when you are." She went upstairs with Sarah on her hip.
She washed only his work clothes, dungarees and cambrics. His better clothes, rarely needed, were still in his own room upstairs. There was a certain sensuousness about the two of them changing clothes, getting ready in the same house alone. She couldn't put it from her mind as she heard the sound of his washing. Hearing the sounds, she found her mind filled with the memory of Aaron, bare-chested, shivering from the icy well water, then standing with a towel slung around his neck while she touched his bare chest. She chided herself for remembering and hurried to finish dressing.
She wore a lavender sprigged muslin that cinched her trim waist, and her breasts, too. Although the neckline was de- mure, her bodice seemed unchaste because of its tightness. She smoothed her hands over it critically, then compromised on a light shawl over her shoulders to camouflage the tight- ness.
Aaron finished dressing before she did and went past her door again on his way out. "I'll bring the wagon up," he said as he passed.
When she and the baby came out, he was tacking a dish towel over the small area that would act as Sarah's crib. He had already spread the quilt beneath a sunshade.
She was pleased by his ingenuity. A thrill of pride rippled through her as she complimented him, "You think of everything, don't you, Aaron?"
"I try," he grinned. "There's a length of canvas under the seat in case it rains." "I left Sarah's things in the house. Can you hold her while I get them?" And before he could answer, Sarah was on his arm. She blinked up at him from under a scalloped bonnet, silently studying his face before she reached out one inquis- itive hand and caught the corner of his lower lip. It was a kind of introduction, one that caught on his heart and made him purse his lips to kiss the tiny hand. This was his daughter, whom he'd never kissed before.
When Mary had shut the house and returned, he laid Sarah in her spot and handed Mary up. It was a perfectly polite excuse to touch her hand, but their touch was brief. She clustered her sprigged skirts, stepped up, and they were away.
The ride couldn't last long enough for Mary. Eager as she was to get to town, the ride was probably the better part of going. There was a growing feeling of rightness about the three of them being together. Their increasing awareness of each other was at once multiplied and mellowed by the common, everyday thing they were doing, going to town like an ordinary family.
Unconsciously, Mary found herself counting the months since Jonathan's death. When she realized what she was doing, she brought her thoughts up sharply.
Both Mary and Aaron acted with the utmost propriety in town that day, knowing that curious eyes were on the new widow appearing in public for the first time. There was no hand to help her down from the wagon seat this time. Mary her self lifted Sarah from the wagon bed. She and Aaron separ- ated on the boardwalk before the dry-goods store, he going to the barbershop for a haircut and the latest gossip, Mary going to select goods for the baby, staples for the pantry. While looking through the bolts of cloth, her eye fell on one of a creamy ribbed faille. Its soft sheen tempted her fingertips, and as she touched it, she gave in to temptation and asked Sam to have a length of it added to her order. Next she went to the bakery and indulged in a jelly-filled Bismarck, giving Sarah a taste from her fingertips. The baby was the center of attention wherever she went. The taste of the jelly made Sarah demand more, and Millie Harmon at the bakery invited Mary to avail herself of the living quarters at the rear of the building so Sarah could be nursed.
The nursing finished, Mary walked to Doc Haymes's office to ask his advice on what to feed the baby. Sarah was growing fast and needed more than a liquid diet. Doc Hay- mes greeted Mary in his gruffly affectionate manner and chucked Sarah under her double chin. Noting the baby's obvious robust health, he advised Mary, "You should wean her now." At Mary's look of surprise he went on, "Babies get too fat when they nurse too long. Make it easy on yourself and better for Sarah, here." He instructed her on getting the baby used to soft foods, on binding her breasts and taking in less liquids when the time arrived, and finally sent her to the drugstore for Lydia Pinkham's Patent Medicine, to be taken for the discomfort.
Aaron was waiting at the dry-goods store when she got back. Sarah was grumpy after her long, unaccustomed outing. "Do you want a bite to eat before we head back?" Aaron asked.
Mary remembered the ham dinner they'd shared together once, but wistfully declined this time. "Sarah couldn't take it, I don't think, and anyway, I had a sweet at the bakery."
The baby was spluttering noisily now, complaining aloud. "It sounds like she's tuning up," Aaron joked. "You're right. We'd better roll."
The ride back went faster than ever, for they talked all the way. After getting away from the townspeople, once again a natural ease fell between them. "I splurged on a length of faille," she confessed. "Oho!" "But I still save by making it up myself." "You don't need to make excuses, Mary. You can buy anything you want, and it's okay with me." "Yes, but I really have no need for it." "You deserve it," he declared, angling a half-smile sideways at her before adding, "Besides, needing it takes all the fun away sometimes."
She smiled at his impracticality. "You're right, Aaron. I'm not going to worry about it or make excuses…just like you said." "So what else did you do?" he asked. "I visited Millie Harmon at the bakery and ate a big, fat Bismarck, and gave a taste to Sarah."
"And what did she think of that?" "Oh, she loved it! She fussed when I wouldn't give her any more."
He screwed his head around to glance at the sleeping baby behind them, smiling at the picture of Sarah eating Bismarcks. "See that you don't give in to her and spoil her. Nothing worse than a spoiled kid."
It was the first confidence about child rearing they had ever shared. She marked it in her mind for future reference. "We went to visit Doc Haymes, too," she said, changing the subject.
A fleeting look of concern puckered his brows as he glanced at Mary. "Is something wrong?" "Wrong? Oh, no. I just had to ask him about feeding her…ah…other foods, that's all." "Already?" He seemed surprised. "Well, you know Doc Haymes. He never prescribes the usual thing. Sometimes I think he amuses himself by shocking his patients. He's usually right, though." Then, quickly shifting, she pulled a knee up on the seat and faced his pro- file, asking, "So what did you do?" Surveying his hair with a twinkling eye, she noted, "I see you got your ears lowered." "That I did," he laughed. "Also got 'em filled. According to the boys at the barbershop, we can be expecting another wedding around here." "Whose?" She leaned toward him expectantly. But he hesitated and Mary thought he was teasing her again, so she grabbed his earlobe, pulling it. "If you don't want this lowered some more, you better tell me and tell me quick!"
He let her pull, feigning helplessness and pleading, "Okay, okay, let loose and I'll tell!" But she held on until he revealed the names of the lucky couple: "Priscilla and Willy Michalek."
She released his ear then and quickly faced front again. He could sense questions forming in her mind. They were quiet for some time before she ventured, "How do you feel about that?" "I'm happy for them," he answered without hesitation. "Nothing more?" "What else should there be, Mary? There's nothing between Pris and me." "But there was once." "Yes, I won't deny it. You know what there was between us because I told you." "Well, it's not a thing you take lightly, Aaron. I just wondered if you had any regrets about leaving her." "None whatsoever, Mary," he assured her. "Do you believe me?"
She looked at him then, studying him momentarily before shrugging. "I want to." Looking away again, she asked, "When is it supposed to be?" "Right after harvest, I guess, if you can believe all you hear in the barbershop." "That's a nice time for a wedding," she commented. "It should give you a chance to wear that new dress you're talking about making."
She cheered a little at the thought, and they talked of other gossip the rest of the way home.
Sarah was still sound asleep when they got there. Mary turned to pick her up, but Aaron asked, "Could I carry her in to bed, Mary?"
There'd be no harm in that, she thought. "Of course, Aaron."
It was turning dark when he left that night, acting as though he hated going. She walked down to the elms with him, twiddling some grass between her fingers, sorry he had to leave. "Aaron," she said, looking at the blades she toyed with, "you're awfully good to Sarah and me. Not just today, the trip to town and all. I mean…every day. I just wanted to thank you."
He steeled himself to keep from pulling her into his arms. "Hey," he told her quietly, "I told you once there's no need to thank me. You just somehow make me want to work for you. You do that to a man, Mary girl."
At his words a cherished, protected feeling stole over her. She crossed her arms and rubbed them under her sprigged muslin sleeves and for a moment imagined he held her. The words brought warmth, but she wished, too, for the warmth of his real arms around her.
But seeing her full, swelling breasts where she hugged them, he left quickly before he gave in to himself.