The two women fell silent, busy with the tasks before them. At length Sophia spoke.
“Anna,” she said softly, but with firm resolve, “you are not to worry about us. You have your own life in the city now. Your Papa and I both feel that is where you belong—”
Anna opened her mouth to protest, but Sophia shook her head vigorously.
“When you first arrived home, I saw that the time in St. Petersburg has been good for you. You have matured and grown into a lovely, genteel young woman. There are many changes in you, dear daughter, and they are all good. You are not a peasant girl any longer. You are being made into something greater. I feel it just being near you. You must return to your life there and let God finish this work He has begun.”
“But, Mama, now that I am home, it feels so right to be here again,” said Anna, voicing the dilemma she had not expected to face so soon. “How can I know if He wants me to go back? Perhaps I belong here with you.”
“You will know, child,” said her mother. She dried her hands on her apron and went to Anna, placing a loving arm around her shoulders. “We will all know. He will give us peace in our hearts when the time is right.”
“I hope so,” said Anna. “But it doesn’t have to be soon. Surely it is right for me to stay long enough to help you and Papa until he is better.”
“You are more than any father and mother could hope for in a daughter,” said Sophia.
She smiled and dabbed the corner of her apron at Anna’s eyes, which had begun to fill with tears. “Now, run along and find your papa,” she added, “and tell him his breakfast is nearly ready.”
42
Anna had missed many things about her home while in St. Petersburg. But as she entered the little barn attached to the back of the izba, she knew this certainly had to be foremost among them.
The great city had its gardens and parks. Anna and Polya often went to the Summer Gardens when they had free time together, where Anna enjoyed a taste of the outdoors she loved so much. There were no gardens within miles of Katyk to match the grandeur of the Fedorcenko estate’s modest private Promenade Garden, much less the public gardens of Peter the Great’s magnificent city.
But in all of St. Petersburg, Anna had found nothing to compare with her father’s earthy, warm byre. The pungent fragrance of dirt and straw and hay, combined with animal flesh and manure, brought a smile to her face. She drew in a long breath and filled her lungs with the homey aroma. The pleasant sounds of the doves cooing in the rafters, the old cow’s gentle moo, and Lukiv’s soft whinny floated through the air in response to Yevno’s quiet chatter.
Here lay the heart and soul of the Motherland—not in its army or its emperor or its resplendent capital that mirrored the great cities of the West, not even in its noisy radicals filling the times with their shouts for change. Russia was here, in ten thousand such barns and byres and peasant dwellings, many of them far poorer than Yevno’s. A foreigner traveling to this huge land where East met West would never really feel the pulse of this continent of a nation until he had stood inside the windblown, creaking, weathered barn of some rural peasant izba.
On her first day home, relishing anew the sights and smells of this place, Anna had recalled Paul saying that his new-thinking friends wanted nothing but to liberate the peasant masses. Their motives seemed to have changed in a short time. She herself hoped that one day the heavy burden of poverty, such as her own mother and father now faced, could be lifted from the backs of the vast Russian peasantry. But at the same time, she prayed that these humble, earthy roots of a people strengthened by labor and love for the land would never be lost. For if they were, the price of “liberty” would be too high.
“Good morning, Papa,” said Anna, walking up to her father where he stood rubbing Lukiv’s graying nose.
“Ah, you are awake early today, my Anna.”
“It has been light out for some time now, Papa.”
“Has it? I suppose I have been out here longer than I thought. Poor Lukiv has been restive lately, and I was trying to calm her.”
Anna drew nearer and laid a hand on the horse’s speckled flank. “She is a faithful old work horse.”
“The best I’ve ever seen.”
“She is getting old, do you think, Papa?”
“Like all good animals, her time must one day come.” Yevno sighed. “The same can be said of a poor old moujik.”
“Oh, Papa—”
Yevno held up his hand. “There, Anna . . . not to fret about me.”
“I can’t help it for love of you, Papa,” said Anna softly.
“Everyone’s time comes—with men and with horses. God calls for His people and His beasts to come back to Him sooner or later.”
“But, Papa, that does not mean we should give ourselves up to fate with resignation.”
Yevno let out a chuckle, as if humoring the idealism of youth.
“We mustn’t cease taking care of the temple God has given us,” Anna added.
“And that is what you think your papa has been doing?”
“So I have heard, Papa,” Anna answered quietly, not wanting to appear disrespectful.
“I have worked all my life,” Yevno sighed.
“Perhaps it is time to work a little less strenuously.”
“It is an old habit, and hard to break.”
“But Papa, Ilya and Tanya and Vera need you to be with them a good while longer. So do I, Papa, and even Paul.”
The mention of his son brought another sigh. Yevno shook his head wearily.
“But even if not for us,” Anna went on, “the little ones are still young, and they need you especially—not only to put food on the table for them, but for your love and wisdom as well. Don’t take that away from them—from us, Papa. I am not ready to say goodbye to you.”
“I am happy to hear that, because I am not leaving Katyk anytime soon!” Yevno smiled. “Now, if you are finished scolding your poor papa . . .”
“There is one more thing,” said Anna tentatively.
“My, but I have been a naughty papa to deserve such a tongue-lashing from my own shy little Anna!”
In spite of her attempts to remain earnest, Anna laughed at her father’s good-humored teasing.
“So, what else have you to say, my daughter?”
“Now that I am here, Papa, you must let me take on more of the work.”
“My little girl has become a hard worker in the city, eh?”
“I have always helped you and Mama. I can feed the animals in the morning, and you can have more time to rest. I can care for them and quiet them down in the evening, too.”
“Ah, but being in here does rest and soothe me,” said Yevno.
“I can work in the fields, too.”
Yevno turned serious. “The time for harvest is nearly here. The weather is already changing.”
“You know the harvesting is hardest on you.”
“It must be done. I am already too far behind. If the rains come—”
“Then let me help.”
“Just you, my little one? I fear you would be slower than your tired old papa.”
“I will find help.”
“And you expect me to sit on a cushion, like a boyar, while others do my work?”
“Yes, Papa, you must.”
Yevno rubbed his beard thoughtfully.
“Hmm . . . ,” he mused, with a hint of a smile about his lips and a crease still across his brow. “The city has changed you, Anna.”
“I am sorry, Papa.”
“I do not say it as something for you to be sorry about, dear Annushka.”
Anna tried to smile.
“They are not bad changes I see,” Yevno went on. “You have learned to stand and speak out. I believe that is good. But—” He chuckled again. “It will take me some time to accustom myself to it.”
“Then today you will let me go to the village,” said Anna with more confidence, “and find helpers? Some of the men are already finished in thei
r own fields. I am sure there must be one or two who can be spared to help in ours.”
“I suppose it will do no harm to allow you to ask about.” He paused. “I suppose also that now your papa will have to do a little changing too, eh? Just like his daughter.”
“What do you mean, Papa?”
“This stubborn pride of mine was never my best quality.”
“It won’t be missed, Papa,” Anna said with a laugh. “Not much, at least.”
“It has been with me a long time. I do not know if I can let go of it so easily.”
He scooped another handful of hay into Lukiv’s trough. “What do you think, Lukiv, eh? Will you mind putting up with a new Yevno Pavlovich, one who watches while others do his work?”
The horse whinnied, obviously unconcerned with such portentous changes.
“Well, I promise to make sure you always have hay,” added Yevno, giving the velvety old nose a loving rub, “no matter what.”
Arm in arm he walked with Anna out of the byre and around to the front of the house. Inside they could hear the sounds of the children scurrying about getting ready for the morning meal. Their young voices made Anna all the more grateful that she had summoned the courage to speak to her father. He must not work himself into his grave, not yet. His passing would be a grievous loss, but it would be hardest of all on the little ones. She did not want to think of such things, yet her father’s illness had forced many new and hard considerations upon her.
But he had taken her words to heart just now. For that she inwardly rejoiced. She was more determined than ever to take the pressing needs of the harvest off her father’s shoulders and not allow him to intervene.
43
As the fall of 1879 approached, the harvest—known as stradnya pora—lived up to the deeper significance of its name: the period of suffering.
Beginning with the severe winter, the entire growing season had been plagued by fickle weather. Reb Plotnik had predicted that the growing season would produce crops only for the most fortunate, and as the year progressed his words bore the ring of truth. Ground-freezing frosts had lasted too long, well into April and even early May. And then unseasonably heavy rains turned many of the newly plowed fields into bogs, delaying planting until much later than was safe. Throughout the months of summer the men of Katyk and Akulin and Pskov anxiously watched and fretted over the rising green shoots and developing heads of grain, hoping and praying that they would reach fruition before the colds of autumn returned upon them out of the north. But the summer seemed shorter than any previous summer they could recall. Crops that should have been put to the sickle and stored away in barns by the end of August were still struggling to ripen on their slender stalks in mid-September.
It was much too late; dangerously late. The stalks had long since browned, but the heads rubbed between the coarse hands of a peasant farmer revealed tiny grains with hints of green around their edges.
Anxiously they had watched the skies, walking to and from their fields many times daily, as if somehow one more test of the grain between their hard fingers could miraculously speed up nature’s process. But every day the sun’s rays grew less powerful, and still the grain contained too much moisture.
The harvest began prematurely, but in earnest, one evening when old Reb Plotnik made a second pronouncement.
“Rain is coming.” He rubbed his shoulder meaningfully.
“How many days, Reb?” asked someone.
Plotnik was silent several long moments, still rubbing his shoulder. “Days . . . weeks, who can tell?” he said finally. “All I can say is it’s in the air, and moving toward us.”
The old Jew was usually right in his weather predictions. He dictated the plantings and harvests of the surrounding region with a single voice, although it was not openly confessed by the independent farmers. Moreover, most of the Gentile citizens of Katyk were reluctant to give any Jew his due credit, even a lifelong neighbor like Plotnik. Skepticism and debate always followed any of Reb’s pronouncements.
Notwithstanding, later that night the sharpening stones were put to the sickles and scythes, and the stalks began to fall the very next day. This was no time to take chances with the crop nearing its peak of readiness. Another week, maybe two, would ripen the rye and wheat to golden perfection. But a rainstorm would ruin the crop, and a partial harvest was better than none at all.
A few farmers delayed, repeating the ritual of checking the grain in their hands and biting into the kernels, while their neighbors took their families to the fields with wholehearted resolve.
Yevno’s condition had been steadily declining throughout the summer, and although he had begun in his own fields with the first of his countrymen, he was only about a third of the way through. Most of the others were still at work themselves, and despite Anna’s optimism, she could find little help from her neighbors.
“As soon as my own grain is in, I will be there the next morning,” several men promised.
But that did not help immediately; people sniffed the air and looked northward with foreboding, anticipating the early fall storm that Reb had predicted.
Yevno refused to listen to his wife and daughter’s pleas to let them shoulder the brunt of the labor. Let the rain come when it would, they said; they would get in as much of the rye and wheat as they could and let the birds and the ground have the rest. But Yevno argued, and with good reason, that he must go to the fields too.
“My family will starve if the crop is lost,” he insisted.
“We will make do,” Sophia implored him. “We can eat less for a few months.”
“Months of snow and starvation?” said Yevno. “No, wife, stradnya pora is no time to rest.” He tugged on his coat and frayed work gloves. “I will have the entire long winter to rest once the harvest is in.”
He took up his scythe, sharpened the night before to a razor’s edge, and marched out to the nearest field, followed by Anna and Vera, who would gather the sheaves as their father cut them. Sophia carried a smaller sickle to assist him as she could between caring for Tanya and Ilya back at the izba. As they marched into the field of standing grain, all eyes looked up at the grayish-blue sky, hoping that the rumor of rain would be forestalled in its fulfillment.
Yevno attacked the tall, golden stalks of rye with a will, raising the blade over his head and swinging it down powerfully. He cut out a large semicircular swath from the very point he had left the day before. The girls trailed behind, gathering, binding, and stacking the sheaves. But Yevno’s huge scythe toppled the stalks much faster than they were able to gather them, and by midday both Anna and Vera were ready to drop with exhaustion. With their mother’s help, when time came for the noon meal, they had managed to bind and stack most of the morning’s harvest.
Appetites were scant from the exhausting labor, although a great deal of water was consumed before the small band of laborers took to the field once more. It had not taken even half a day for Anna to realize the absurdity of her plan to see to the harvest without her father. Throughout the afternoon, even as she prodded her ten-year-old sister not to fall behind, it was all Anna could do to keep up herself. After three years waiting on a pampered princess, she had forgotten the rigors of this kind of labor.
But the exertion told most visibly upon Yevno. The burst of energy with which he had begun the day waned as the day wore on. The scythe barely came waist high with each swing by mid-afternoon, and the swaths of its course became narrow and sloppy. His steps became more plodding and his breathing labored, coming in short, panting gasps. After every two or three swings he paused, looking back to see where the girls were, and then started forward again. With every stop it seemed more and more difficult for him to gather strength to move forward and raise the scythe once again into the air.
The afternoon proceeded slowly. As she watched him, her own arms hanging nearly limp from her shoulders, Anna recalled how tireless and strong her father had always been. When the men competed with one another, displaying
their skills, Yevno had been able to outstrip many a younger man with the great swings of his scythe. Now he could barely complete a day’s labor. Could three years have taken so much life from his powerful frame? With a trembling heart, Anna realized that the drama being played out fifty meters away had little to do with old age. Her papa was ill!
Gradually the sun completed its arc behind the persistent clouds. Steadily the two girls gained ground on their exhausted father and closed the gap between his work and theirs.
At last Yevno turned to see the two dirt-smeared faces a mere ten or fifteen meters behind him. He rested the large blade on the ground and leaned against the long wooden handle.
“Ah, daughters,” he sighed wearily, “you have overtaken your old father.”
“Papa,” said Anna, “it is nearly dusk. Do you not think we have done enough for the day?”
“Enough? It will never be enough until the crop is in,” he replied, although his tone did not sound as eager as his words. He turned and lifted the scythe high as if to emphasize his determination, but after a single swing paused again. “If you girls are too tired to go on, you go back to the house. I will help you gather tomorrow.”
“Please, Papa,” said Anna helplessly, knowing he would not listen, “it is time for you to rest also.”
“Nonsense! You go, but I must continue as long as there is daylight.”
“I will go on with you, Papa,” said Anna, as determined as he.
Yevno smiled through his exhaustion.
“I see you are as stubborn as your father,” he said. “Then, Vera, you go. Your mother will be out soon anyway to bring supper.”
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