The House on Malcolm Street

by Leisha Kelly

  To my surprise, Marigold began singing as we cleaned up. I recognized the hymn immediately as one I had sung often enough in church with John. Eliza joined in happily. I didn’t feel like singing, especially not such a song as that, but I didn’t want to seem like a wet hen among such happy larks, so I did my best to sing along at least a little.

  It made me feel like a miserable hypocrite. The words were all light and praise, not at all the way I’d been thinking toward the Almighty. Maybe I should’ve felt deeply grateful, for Marigold’s hospitality and Eliza’s cheery good health. Perhaps I did, at least a little. But in a good moment when I might have felt warm and comforted, the darkness still filled my eyes and I feared I’d never see the sun.

  6

  Leah

  The afternoon was filled with apples. First we sat on the back porch and cut and peeled a bucket’s worth. And then Marigold and Eliza went in the house to make pies while I got back to picking. Alone with my thoughts and a fruit tree, my mind jumped to Father again. He’d grown potatoes and sweet corn in addition to his orchard fruits, and people loved his produce but not his demeanor. I’d overheard more than one customer cautioning another about the half-drunk, stony-faced farmer you had to be careful not to rub the wrong way. I’d also heard a few whispers about his awkward tomboy daughter. I’d been glad to marry, to move away and start a new life away from the wagging heads of that community.

  I picked until I could see apples with my eyes shut. Marigold had said I could stop whenever I wanted to, but she’d also said she’d like to get them all picked and put in away from the squirrels, so I did all I could. There was no way I could get the top branches, even with the ladder, and the tree branches were too thin there to hold me. There were scads remaining, but we’d have to wait till they dropped and use what we could for applesauce or something. Maybe the highest apples were the squirrel’s due anyway.

  There weren’t as many pears and they were still mostly green. That harvest could wait, but probably not for long if we wanted to get them while they were good and firm. “Pears like to ripen wrapped in newspaper or paper sacks,” Mother used to tell me. And they’d certainly ripened well that way for us every harvest. I wondered if Aunt Marigold had ever made pear honey, or apple pandowdy, or any of the other wonderful out-of-the-ordinary things my mother had done. John had loved apple pandowdy. The memory nearly brought back tears.

  I didn’t see much sign of the squirrels bothering the pears, probably because of the abundant apple supply nearby. But with that diminished, the pears would be in danger too. Despite that, I started moving the apple baskets and buckets to the porch instead of setting up the ladder again. We had enough to deal with for now. Many of these apples would store, but equally as many, maybe more, would have to be cut and cooked, or canned, as soon as possible.

  Aunt Marigold had no root cellar, but there appeared to be a generous basement under her house. I’d seen more than one window practically level with the ground. I was about to go inside and ask if she wanted me to carry some of the buckets down there when I saw movement from the corner of my eye. An old man coming from the yard next door. Just like Mari, he walked with a limp, and though his face was blotchy and practically shriveled with wrinkles, I saw the hint of good humor in his eyes as I looked his way.

  “Well, does Marigold McSweeney have new hired help? Or a new boarder today?”

  “A new boarder,” I answered, sure Marigold wouldn’t mind me speaking to him if this was the neighbor she’d mentioned before.

  “Making off with all my apples, eh? Did Marigold tell you I planted that tree myself, years ago? I came right over, dug the hole, and stuck it in the ground ’fore anybody come out of the house to tell me not to.”

  “I certainly hope you put it where she wanted it,” I ventured.

  He cocked his head a bit. “I put it in the very best place for it, and she knew it too. Didn’t move it an inch. I put the pear tree in too, but she caught me at that one.”

  No wonder Marigold wanted to make him a pie. I almost said it aloud but thought she might want to surprise him. “Shall I tell her you’ve come to call?”

  “Oh no. I haven’t done any such thing. I came to borrow the hedge trimmers from her shed. Got a lilac bough bent over and hanging at nose height over the garden path. Figured I better cut it ’fore I forget it’s there and whap myself in the head.”

  He was certainly a friendly enough sort. Far more willing to talk to me than I would’ve been to him. “Shall I go and ask her for you?”

  “Can if you wish,” he said with a tiny grin. “But I’ll probably be whacking with them ’fore you get back. She won’t care. We share things back and forth all the time.”

  “Just the same, I believe I’ll tell her, just in case she were to look for them.”

  He nodded. “Name’s Saul Abraham. What’s yours?”

  “Leah Breckenridge. Glad to make your acquaintance.”

  He nodded again. “Nice name. Aristocratic. You from around here?”

  “No. Sugar Creek, Missouri. Near St. Louis.”

  He nodded, as if he knew exactly where I meant. “Have a nice day, young lady.”

  “Yes, sir,” I told him. “You too, sir.”

  I went inside and found Marigold and Eliza busy with the rolling pins again, merrily making pie crust. So quickly my daughter seemed to belong here. Maybe I would eventually feel more comfortable too.

  “You have a very nice neighbor,” I told Aunt Marigold. “Mr. Abraham. He’s borrowing your hedge trimmers from the shed.”

  “Lordy sakes, those are his. That ladder you were standing on is his too, and he very well knows it. I never remember to return anything. It’s in my shed near year-round.”

  “If Mr. Abraham would appreciate the ladder being brought back to him, I could take it over there. But we’d need to borrow it again to pick the pears in a day or two.”

  “He hasn’t got the room in his shed for it. Don’t worry. He’s not mindin’ it being over here, and he’ll come after it if he needs it for anything.”

  Aunt Marigold seemed to have quite a remarkable and unusual relationship with her neighbor. But maybe such things were normal around here. I had shared pleasant conversation with Anna, my old neighbor in St. Louis, but not much else except the extra apples fallen off her tree. And I didn’t remember any particularly good relations with any neighbors back home, but that was because of Father’s gruffness.

  I asked her if she wanted me to carry any of the apples to the basement where they’d keep longer, but she said she’d rather sort them for spots first in case any had been bird pecked or affected by insects. “Separate a basket of the plumpest, nicest looking,” she instructed, “to take over to Mr. Abraham. That’s probably why he decided to trim the hedge on apple-picking day, to make sure we’d notice and remember to give him some.”

  The thought of Aunt Marigold and old Mr. Abraham purposely doing for each other made me smile. They must have been neighbors a long time for the trees Mr. Abraham had planted to be so big now.

  I separated out about a peck of wonderful-looking apples, just like she’d told me, and then set to work on the back porch sorting more. Quite a few had spots as she’d thought, but most were in good shape. There’d be far too many, though, to keep through the winter for eating raw. We’d have to can applesauce, apple butter, or pie filling to deal with the excess. Quite a marvelous problem to have. I wondered about the Kurcher family, if they had an apple tree. If only I’d been here in time to pick some yesterday, we might have sent a bucket or two with Josiah along with the biscuits and eggs. Aunt Marigold sure had plenty for sharing.

  My mother had always been delighted with harvest bounty. Father forbade her to give away fresh apples because he wanted the people we knew to buy from him. But she had found the occasional opportunity to share pints of apple butter, and even turnovers once or twice. Now the pleasant memory saddened me, and suddenly it seemed that sitting to sort was not nearly the job I needed. So I
set aside a box of apples to be cut and another for storage in the basement and headed for the weedy garden to see what I could do for it this late in the season.

  Physical work in the sunshine seemed to be just what I needed to keep my mind occupied away from troublous thoughts right now. Of course I needed time to think and make decisions about the future. That was at least part of why I was here. But I didn’t want to think yet when everything here was so new, lest I overwhelm myself with worry.

  I walked over every inch of Marigold’s garden, row by row, foxtails, chickweed, and all, certain I’d find something besides turnip greens and the few specks of red tomato in the weeds. Some of the rows were empty of anything useful, already harvested if they’d been planted at all. But in others I began to find hidden surprises: first scraggly carrot tops indicating an undug supply below, and then two abandoned pattypan squashes, covered with squash bugs and half buried in sedge grass.

  “Shoo, shoo,” I fussed at the beetles as I tried to brush them off. Big and grayish or little and white, they shared the same tenacity, but I was claiming these squash whether they liked it or not. Their vines were shriveled, but they didn’t appear too tough. There was no reason at all that Aunt Marigold shouldn’t get some good use out of them.

  I set the squash aside on the stone path that ran from the back door to the garden and threw myself into weeding with a will, uncovering more treasures as I went. Two gangly pepper plants and an eggplant were nearly choked but still surviving. Perhaps there’d yet be time for them to bear fruit before the frost if I cleared a little breathing room for them. A row of abandoned bean plants were brittle-dry and ready to be pulled. They’d been harvested green no doubt, but a few plump pods still clung here and there to the lifeless plants with beans now dry as stones inside. No reason I couldn’t collect them for Aunt Marigold to use for seed or add to a soup pot one of these days.

  I also discovered rhubarb and a patch of winter onions along one edge of the garden, and best of all, in what appeared to be an empty row, I began to discover tiny new growth: baby lettuce coming up volunteer from plants gone to seed earlier in the season. My mother used to love when that happened. She’d leave lettuce to go to seed on purpose, hoping for the fall surprise. Unless we had a serious early freeze, there’d be time for it to grow large enough for a salad or two.

  I pulled weeds around the lettuce and peppers until my back and arms grew tired, then I rested by sitting to sort apples again. That would be an ongoing job because even the best apples stored in the basement should still be checked every few days for the bad spots that could develop.

  We had filled four boxes, three bushel baskets, and buckets and smaller baskets besides, all from the one generous tree. With this many apples, Aunt Marigold could probably be cutting and cooking some every couple of days right into winter, even if we canned oodles this week and left many for eating raw besides. Even if she gave several baskets away. What a blessing.

  I stopped for a moment, staring down at the crimson fruit in my hands. A blessing? A gift from on high, like my mother used to say? Perhaps so. And perhaps that was just a wee inkling of gratitude I was finding in myself. For the plenty, at least of apples, that we were here to share. For Aunt Marigold’s kindness and hospitality. For an abundance of chores waiting, so I wouldn’t have to feel like a useless beggar.

  Maybe things were going to work out all right, and this new start would grow eventually to happiness. I should have voiced the spark of gratitude and hope that had risen in me, no matter how small. Maybe it could have been the beginning of a rekindling of matters of faith in my heart. But I was still afraid. It felt good to have something to apply my hands to, and to know for certain that my daughter would have plenty to eat tonight. But there was so much more to consider. So much more uncertainty about where we would go from here.

  I’d been sitting too long. Sorting apples all alone allowed my thoughts free rein, and I still wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. So I jumped up and pulled the row of bean plants, collecting the few dangling pods and stuffing them in my skirt pocket. The gangly dry vines I piled in a heap, along with the weeds I’d pulled, on a bare patch of blackened ground that looked like it’d been used before to burn off brush.

  A bushy-tailed squirrel scampered from the neighbor’s bushes into Marigold’s yard, and I watched for a moment to see what he’d do. The creature noticed me, but apparently unconcerned, skirted the garden and headed straight for the pear tree. Well. Maybe that harvest had better not wait. I ran at the tree to scare the pest away and then stopped to take a good look at the fruit. Obviously not ripe, just as I’d thought before, but if a fruit grower waits for his pears to soften on the tree, they’ll be full of bruises and half bad before he can get them to market, even if his market is a corner stand across the yard. “That’s just pears,” my father used to say. “Pick them three days before they’re ready.”

  As if I could tell exactly when that would be. But these pears were as good as I’d seen anywhere. They should ripen just fine.

  I wondered if I should go in and ask Aunt Marigold about picking them. But she’d already said she wanted it done. The problem was, we’d filled all our containers with apples. Present need or not, we might have to cut and can a while just to empty something to pick the pears into. With a sigh I turned back to the porch.

  We might lose a few of the pears, but to pick them all now would just overwhelm Aunt Marigold. We already had fruit lined up everywhere, waiting to be dealt with. Sit-down job or not, that was really what she needed me to help with first. So I carried in the pattypan squash and my pocket full of dried beans and got a pan and a knife from the kitchen to start cutting bruised apples for a batch of applesauce.

  Eliza was thrilled that I’d stepped inside again. “We’ve got three pies in the oven, Mommy! Three!”

  “You’re quite a baker today,” I told her with a smile.

  “And you’re a bit of a wonder-worker,” Marigold said. “Finding any squash in that weed patch. I thought it was long since dead and gone. Haven’t even seen any vines left in that corner.”

  “The vines are done, true enough. There won’t be any more squash, but these should still be good.”

  “Bless you, child. You’ve supplied the vegetables for lunch, and now supper too.”

  “It’s your garden. All I had to do was walk out there and pick.”

  “Oh, I expect it’s a bit more of an adventure than that.”

  “We’ll have to pick the pears soon. A neighborhood squirrel is interested in the tree. But I thought I’d better cut apples first, to empty at least a basket or two.”

  “Squirrels are in the pears already?”

  “At least one. I shooed him out, but of course he’ll be back if he’s not already.”

  That quickly, Marigold was incensed. “Get the washtub. Can you do that for me? We can fill it and have at least that many out of their reach. I had one year that I got nary a pear that wasn’t squirrel bit or bird pecked. Nary a one. But it’s not happening again. Not when I’ve got such good help.”

  Eliza was looking at me with a big smile, immensely enjoying such a fruit-picking day.

  “Squirrels are maddening as all get out,” Marigold talked on. “The way they won’t eat the whole fruit but just nibble a bite or two and then move on to the next one. The washtub’s below the shelf to the left of the door out in the shed. Bring me some more apples to cut. I’ll stay in and watch the pies and you girls can go and pick if you’ve a mind to.”

  She picked up a bucket of drops we’d carried in earlier to cut up, dumped what was left in the sink, and handed the bucket back to me. “You’re a godsend,” she told me. “An absolute godsend. I’d have never saved even half my crop working alone. And just think what we can do with all that fruit.”

  I wasn’t sure how to answer her. It was a little overwhelming to find her grateful for me, considering my circumstance. She was the one providing.

  Eliza jumped to join me. She was joyou
s, enough to worry me just a little. Quick and spontaneous like soap bubbles, such delight could be so easily broken. What if we suddenly had to move again? Or something happened to drastically dampen Marigold’s enthusiasm at having us here?

  “Did you set aside a basket of the best apples for Mr. Abraham?” Marigold suddenly asked me.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” She looked at me with a lively twinkle in her eye. “When these pies come out of the oven, I’d thank you to take the basket over to him. And invite him right over for tea.”

  Suddenly it occurred to me that Marigold might consider Saul Abraham more than just a pleasant neighbor. And if that were so, I had no doubt that the feeling would be mutual. What if the two should decide to marry? Marigold might not be running a boardinghouse at all anymore then.

  Feeling tight in my stomach, I stepped out to the porch and collected the bruised apples I’d already sorted. Eliza helped me carry them in to Marigold, and then we went together out to the shed for the washtub.

  “Daddy’s auntie sure is nice,” she told me on the way.

  “Yes. But remember, this is her house. And not ours. We’ll eventually have to find a place of our own.”

  She nodded, though she seemed less than convinced. “I guess so. But I think she’s going to need us here a really long time. She told me we made her happy just by coming, before we even started helping her any. And then we was working too, and she thought it must be like heaven on earth.”

  “She said that?”

  “Yeah. That people working and being happy together is like heaven.”

  I moved a rake to one side and started dragging the washtub from its place. “Aunt Marigold seems to be very religious.”