The House on Malcolm Street

by Leisha Kelly

  “Mostly. A few pear and peach.”

  “Wonderful. You are exactly who I need today.”

  She took a bite of egg and buttered a biscuit, leaving me wondering what she was talking about. But when she was ready to resume the conversation, she changed the subject entirely. “I realize it might seem a little strange to have Josiah about. But he’s a good fellow. He may be standoffish part of the time, but I know he understands me asking you here. So don’t think nothing of it if he’s not always as friendly as last night.”

  I wasn’t sure “friendly” was the term I would use. And there were so many things I wanted to ask, about both of them, but this was probably not the time. “I appreciate you telling me.”

  “Now, about this little one.” Marigold abruptly switched subjects again. “Your darling Eliza Rose. Did she already start school in St. Louis?”

  “No.” I almost felt as though I needed to apologize. “She’s ready for first grade, but I – I didn’t want to begin the year there just to uproot her. I thought it would be better to wait until I knew we were settled somewhere.”

  “There’s a good school here,” Marigold said between bites of a biscuit. “And only three blocks, when you feel you’re ready.”

  I didn’t. I was far from certain we were “settled” in the long term. And though I expected Eliza to be excited with the idea of school, she seemed wary and glad I didn’t push the issue immediately. “Maybe when things aren’t so completely new,” I said. “We’re barely off the train.”

  “I realize that,” Marigold admonished. “But the sooner a routine is established, the better.”

  “I’ll visit the school,” I decided. “And talk to them. Soon. Just – just not today.”

  “Good enough. A child this bright ought to have an outlet for all that brilliance.”

  Eliza didn’t smile or say a word. I don’t think she knew how to respond, so she just sat watching me and buttered another biscuit.

  “Um – Aunt Marigold. About my orchard work – you said – ”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean I was going to farm you out or anything like that,” she chuckled. “I only meant I need your help if you will. Looks like we’re gonna have fruit to beat the band, and it’s more than I can handle by myself.”

  “What kind?”

  “Apple and pear. One tree of each. And if I don’t get some picked, the squirrels are going to wreak havoc. Already they’re knocking down aplenty, in addition to what’s been dropping off the tree on its own. But I’d just as soon have some fruit not so bruised and pecked upon. I hate to ask Josiah, as late as he’s been getting in. And I just can’t do it myself.”

  “We’re gonna pick apples?” Eliza brightened. “And pears? Can we really? Can I climb right up in the tree?”

  “I couldn’t say about that,” Marigold warned. “It’ll have to be your mother’s decision whether she wants you clamberin’ through limbs and branches up off the ground. But I can find a job for you one way or another.”

  Eliza was so excited she could scarcely finish her biscuit. And I thought of my father, how I’d loved climbing in his trees, and how he’d scolded me for it time and again. Not because he was afraid I’d fall; he was more bothered that I might knock down his fruit, even when I was carefully picking.

  “So did he sell the fruit commercially?” Marigold asked me.

  I looked up, only half sure of what she’d said. “What?”

  “Did your father sell the fruit himself?”

  “Oh. He sold some to the local market and a peddler he knew. But he also traded a good bit of it for other goods.” I didn’t tell her what goods. I didn’t want her asking more questions, requiring me to talk about him.

  “Was that near St. Louis?”

  “About forty miles south.”

  “Are your parents still living?”

  My breath caught in my throat. If I told her the truth, would she question why I’d come here instead of to my father’s farm? Yet how could I be deliberately untruthful? It wouldn’t be right, even for my comfort’s sake. “Mother died a couple of years ago,” I said with a sigh. “But Father is still living.”

  “Is he well?”

  “Yes, the last I knew.”

  She looked at me rather oddly and I knew she had more questions, but she didn’t ask them then. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “Yes, ma’am. But I can get it.” I jumped to my feet so she wouldn’t have to. “Would you like me to pour you one as well?”

  “Yes, please. And you may as well pour a glass of milk for your little Rose.”

  There it was again, her using Eliza’s middle instead of her first name. I wasn’t quite sure what to think. Maybe she thought the flower name should have come first. But I didn’t say anything. Just poured her coffee and then proceeded to get Eliza’s drink and my own.

  Marigold and Eliza were both nearly done eating. I didn’t have much appetite, but I hurried to finish the rest of what was on my plate, not wishing any of it to be wasted.

  “Does your father still have his orchard?” Marigold persisted.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, then, I suppose it must be nearly harvest time there.”

  “I suppose so.”

  Of course it might occur to her that for me to go there and help with the harvest would seem like an ideal arrangement for my father and me both. But she said no more about it, perhaps realizing that I wasn’t going to open up very much on the subject. When she started to clean up a bit, I hurried to help and soon had breakfast dishes washed and the whole kitchen looking neat and tidy. Eliza was itching to get outside, and Marigold seemed to be too, though I wondered how she’d manage it. She seemed to be having trouble with her legs again this morning.

  “Would you like me to carry a chair out for you?” I asked when she was ready.

  She frowned. “How am I going to pick apples from a chair?”

  “You can just sit and tell us what to do and we’ll do it. Or, if you like, we can carry the drops to you and you can sort or even start cutting some while we pick.”

  “I certainly need to be cutting a few if I’m going to get pies made. Josiah knows it’s high time we had an apple pie, and I’m sure Mr. Abraham’s had his eye on them too.”

  With my help, she gathered baskets, buckets, and boxes to hold the fruit we picked. Eliza thought we had an impossible number of containers, but I knew from experience that if Marigold had healthy trees, it might not be enough.

  While carrying everything out to the backyard, it was impossible not to think of Father and his trees again. Marigold might think it shameful that I knew so little about his health or his harvest this year. She might think I should have gone to him after John died. She might even get around to suggesting it if things did not work out well here. But I couldn’t. There was no way. The last time I’d tried to talk to him, the only time I’d been to the farm since Mother’s death, he was so hateful, so horribly painful, that I’d left, never wanting to go back.

  “Can we make applesauce and pie? An’ even cimmanum apple tarts?” Eliza asked, evidently remembering the fun we’d had when our good friend Anna had given us a bushel basket full of cooking apples last year.

  “Cinnamon apple tarts, hmm?” Marigold asked. “That’s something I’ve never done. You’ll have to show me how.”

  We set down the baskets and buckets beneath an old tree, rather small and misshapen but loaded with apples nonetheless. There would be plenty for tarts or anything else that Marigold wanted to make. The pear tree across the generous backyard, though taller, was not nearly so laden. But there would be plenty of those too.

  “Do you want to just pick what’s hanging down in reach?” Marigold asked me. “Or are you comfortable enough with a ladder to get some of the high ones too?”

  “I’ll pick whatever you want picked. A ladder won’t bother me a bit,” I promised. “As long as we give it level footing.”

  “I should’ve had Josiah set it up for
you. Do you think you can manage it? It’s in the shed over there.”

  “Not a problem at all.”

  Marigold smiled. “You’re a go-getter, aren’t you? I used to climb the ladder myself and do all of that. Might try it today, but – ”

  “I can easily do it,” I stopped her. “There’s no need at all for you to.”

  She nodded. “Then I suppose I might take the chair you offered. In a bit. I mean to take a load of weight off some of these low-hanging branches first.”

  I wished I could caution her even about that. I was a little worried about her limp and the stability of her footing in the yard. If she were to fall, would I be able to get her up again? What if she broke something? Such fears were probably completely unfounded, and though I couldn’t quite shake them, I kept my mouth shut. Marigold struck me as an independent sort who wouldn’t appreciate me thinking like that, at least not out loud.

  “May I climb in the tree, Mommy, please?” Eliza looked up with her shiny eyes twinkling in the sun.

  Before I could answer, my father’s red face and roaring voice came to mind again. “You knock another apple down outta that tree, an’ I’ll be knockin’ you out of it!” he’d yell. “My customers won’t buy bruised apples!”

  “Would you mind if her climbing shook a few more from the tree?” I asked Marigold, just to be sure.

  “Lord, no. I want most of ’em picked so they’ll keep a while, but drops’ll cook up good as the rest. Besides, I’ve got you here to help me cut them now.”

  Eliza was itching to get into that tree, and I wouldn’t have let her if there’d been any boys about. But there was not so much need to be ladylike on a job like this with only Marigold and me with her. I let her try, knowing how much I’d loved tree climbing when I was little, despite my mother’s cautions and my father’s scolding. I used to think I was trying to be like the son my father had lost, but that couldn’t be Eliza’s reason. Her baby brother had been far too little for climbing, and we’d lost him before we’d even had time to speak with her about the sorts of things a bigger boy might do.

  She didn’t try to go very high. Content to sit on the lowest branch, she leaned to pluck the apples within reach. I gave her a little basket with a handle she could hook over her arm.

  “I’m helping, Mommy,” she said with a smile.

  “And a fine helper you are,” I replied.

  It was a happy moment, but I found it suddenly invaded by my bitter thoughts. If everything were truly right in this world, Father would be a kindly sort who’d love having a six-year-old join him in his orchard. We could stay at his farm, helping with the peak of harvest, and perhaps even enjoy our time as a family. But Father had never wanted my help, as a child or as an adult. And if he cared at all for Eliza, he’d scarcely shown it. That was nothing but a dead and empty dream.

  I fetched the ladder. We were here now, so there was no point thinking of anywhere else. Eliza was smiling, Marigold truly did need us, and we would do the best we could.

  Marigold picked busily at the low branches while I reached as high as I possibly could on the ladder. I carried my own baskets down, so she wouldn’t have to reach up for them and then hand me empty ones.

  I had just stepped from the ladder when another train went through town. I jumped at the sound and Marigold smiled.

  “There’s no more than six or seven a day,” she told me. “You get used to it.”

  I took a deep breath. Hopefully I could. But this one didn’t bother me much. Perhaps I was already getting used to it. Four blocks, I told myself. I’ll not be able to see it, and it could not reach us even if it jumped the tracks.

  Maybe something about working with Marigold made my train anxiety fade into the background a little. It really wasn’t hard at all to turn it from my mind and focus with renewed energy on the work at hand.

  We filled five baskets in practically no time, and I thought Marigold must surely be getting tired. So I went to the house for a chair and a paring knife so she could do sit-down work. But she wouldn’t use them till we’d filled most of the baskets and started in on the buckets and boxes. By that time, she admitted she’d have to sit. Her legs just couldn’t keep on.

  So Marigold sat and peeled and cored the bruised apples that I brought to her. Eliza shifted several times in the tree in order to reach just a few more apples, but most of the fruit was hanging way outside of her reach. I let her stay in the tree anyway. It had occurred to me that she could fall, but she stayed low and seemed far more cautious than I’d ever been, so I had little to worry about. I just kept picking, bucket after bucket, at the same time looking around the yard a bit. A garden stood in one back corner, nearly spent and covered with weeds, a sure sign that Marigold had been unable to tend it regularly and that her nephew was not enough of a gardener to have taken it in hand.

  “Is that turnips you’ve got growing?” I asked from the ladder, trying to identify the healthiest deep green row of leaves among the jumble.

  “Such as they are,” Marigold confirmed. “Good year for apples, but not much of a year for root crops. Hardly anything below ground on any I’ve pulled, and they should’ve been fist-sized long before this.”

  “Looks like a splendid batch of greens, though,” I suggested.

  “Indeed you’re right,” she said with a smile. “And I almost forgot they were there. What a waste if I don’t make us up a mess. Would your little girl eat that for lunch?”

  “Oh, certainly. At least a little. I’ll not allow her to be too choosy.”

  She asked me to cut some so we could have fried apples and greens at noon. That sounded good to me, and whether or not it was anywhere near that time, I was already hungry and figured Eliza might be too, though she was good enough not to say so. I climbed down from the ladder and gladly fetched a bowl and knife from the kitchen. From the ground, the row looked longer than I’d realized. I knelt at one end of it and started cutting the leaves an inch or two above the ground. If I left the roots, they might get bigger. At the very least, they’d set on new leaves for another batch of greens, or even two, before winter. Grand! Renting in the city I’d missed having a garden and the extra security of knowing there was at least some small thing growing outside that we could pick and eat when we needed to.

  “Cut half the row today, and we’ll get the other half in a day or two,” Marigold told me.

  Eliza eased herself out of the tree to join me. “Doesn’t look like turrips,” she observed.

  “The part you’re used to seeing is still under the ground,” I explained. “We’re going to eat the leaves today. The last time we had that, you were a little bitty thing. Too young to remember, I guess.”

  She reached and touched a leaf and quickly pulled her hand back. “They’re prickly.”

  “Not too bad. Not nearly so prickly as some wild leaves get. And they cook up limp and soft. You won’t find anything prickly to them at all when we eat them.”

  Her little nose was all scrunched, and I knew she mistrusted the whole idea. “Are they yummy?”

  “They’re perfectly good. Not like cake or anything like that, but a decent enough vegetable. You’ll see.”

  She knew not to question me further. She’d accept them, like it or not. There was no use otherwise. She turned her attention to the weedy garden around us, turning in a circle to look at the green growing things. “Will we eat other leaves too?”

  “Oh, probably. The smartest thing to do this time of year is harvest all that can be harvested to eat or store for winter.”

  “That makes food without even any money,” she declared, catching the gist of what I was saying immediately. “Purty smart. But isn’t there any pickin’ food in the city?”

  “Not as much, unfortunately.”

  “Oh. That’s why we was so hungry.”

  Too late I realized that Marigold was listening to every word. I hadn’t wanted her to know how our last few weeks had been, struggling with so little and then nothing at all. Bu
t she didn’t look our way or comment.

  “Is there more things to pick right now?” Eliza asked eagerly.

  “I think those are cherry tomatoes there in the corner. Why don’t you see if there are any truly red ones on the vines? I’m sure Aunt Marigold wouldn’t mind if you were to find a few ripe tomatoes.”

  “Goodness, if you find anything at all worth pickin’ out there, you’re welcome to it,” Marigold called to us. “I thought the tomato vines had died and most everything had given up, the weeds are so bad. Sorriest garden I ever had in my life.”

  Eliza only found three ripe tomatoes, but there were more stubbornly coming on through bristle grass as high as my knees. “Mr. Walsh doesn’t garden much?” I asked, though such an inquiry was really pointless.

  “Goodness, girl,” Marigold half scolded. “You may as well call him Josiah. Or just plain Joe. He’ll wonder at you calling him Mister much longer after you’ve been proper introduced. But he doesn’t take to gardening natural, and he hasn’t got the time anyway. You’d be surprised how much I’ve put him to fixin’ on this old house of mine, besides his railroad job. He does enough already that I wouldn’t want to ask him for more.”

  I would’ve asked, I thought instantly. Just a few hours a week in a garden never hurt anyone and did a world of good. But it was none of my business to say anything about it. I finished cutting the tops of half the turnip row, and Marigold was happy that it filled my big bowl to brimming. I lifted her cane from the grass and steadied it for her while she got to her feet. Then we all went in the house with the greens, the little tomatoes, and Marigold’s bowl of cut apples.

  It was a dandy lunch, plain as it was, and almost seemed festive, with a scoop of turnip greens next to a big serving of fried apples and a plump cherry tomato for color. A biscuit left from breakfast was all we needed to round the whole thing out. Though it was an odd lunch to Eliza, she ate everything, even the turnip greens. “I sure do love fried apples,” she said happily. “And I love it here where there’s plenty of dinner.”

  Not again. I would have to speak to her later about such talk. Aunt Marigold would get the idea that she’d been without a decent meal her whole life. Or at least since John died. It was too late to give the impression that I’d been able to manage very well, but to keep bringing up our lack only made things painfully worse. At least for me. But maybe it helped Eliza somehow, as if voicing our struggle helped her to drive the reality of it forever into the past.