“Infection,” supplied Mama. “The infection—” She was getting awkwardly to her feet, leaving Adina fisting weary eyes.
“Yes, the infection.” Eliada drifted up to her feet. “It will be long, but it will get well. Already we are planning a Rejoice for when he walks again—our first Rejoice since—”
“Moorma—where’s Moorma?” Adina grabbed at Mama’s skirt and hugged a handful of it tightly to her face before Mama broke away to hurry stiffly toward the cabin.
“She is waiting for you,” Eliada said, smiling. “She found a—a play-people of yours. It looks like a little girl—”
“My doll!” cried Adina. “Where did she find it? I lost it—”
“It’s in the green growth by the animals’ house. She would not touch it until you came—but she is singing to it.”
“Moorma!” called Adina. “Moorma!” as she ran toward the lean-to, makeshift barn.
Eliada and Nathan went toward the cabin to meet Mama. Her face was smoother and younger. “He’s sleeping,” she said. And the breath she took seemed to push away all the burdens she had been carrying.
“Before he slept,” said Eliada, “he was much troubled because of— of the fields. That, we think we know. And the—the crops. That we do not know. We must know to put it right so that his rest will not be broken by worry.”
Mama turned to Nathan. He felt suddenly grown up.
“Our field was practically ruined by the floods,” he said. “We were trying to clear another field to get ready to plant. The crops are what we grow—” he half smiled at Eliada. “And we grow things besides corn, too. If we are too late with the planting, we’ll have nothing to eat when winter comes.”
“Oh! We know crops!” said Eliada happily. “We know growing and harvesting! At Home—at Home!—”
“Roth—” she called. “Marilla—Dor—”
They came sedately, quickly across the yard to meet Mama and Nathan halfway. Marilla held the baby with the wild-rose-pink dress against her shoulder, and Dor’s arm across her back steadied her in case of roughness.
The two groups looked at each other. Then smiled. Then they were strangers no more.
“Roth,” said Eliada eagerly. “The crops are the things—” She and the men—Nathan grew up some more—huddled under the tree to plan.
Marilla and Mama—who was now holding the baby and smiling— went back toward the cabin, talking supper and baths for a weary, hungry family.
~ * ~
There was never a happier made field in all the world, Nathan thought in the days that followed. Laughter and foolishness and fun— except when Papa came to watch the world, helped by Roth and Dor. Slowly out into the thin shadows near the field he would come, not knowing that even his one good leg never took all his weight. Then, settled cautiously in his big chair, sometimes with Mama sitting near him, he watched the effort and the sweating, the blister-raising labor that went with clearing and leveling the field.
Papa was satisfied when the men individually came to the shade to drink great, dribbling drinks of the spring water and to splash their sweating faces and heads with coolness, then pause briefly to catch their breaths. Papa could accept this, Nathan knew, because—by the sweat of your brows thou shalt—whatever you had to do to get things to eat. Papa distrusted anything that was too easy. But he could accept the neighborly help in time of need. He felt bound to do the same for those who had a need.
The making of the field was a long, hot, hard job—when Papa was watching. But, oh! when Papa had been helped back into the cabin! It was still hard and hot and heavy—but not blister-making. And Nathan had learned to laugh and he laughed often—with surprise and pleasure and astonishment—and just sheer enjoyment. And his ribs never quite broke—it only felt that way. They weren’t used to laughter movements.
He saw, one day, the reason why the roots around Eliada’s field looked like radishes. They had been pulled up, bodily, like radishes.
“Together like that, at the Home,” said Eliada as they watched Marilla, Dor, and Roth, hovering in a handholding circle above the last big tree to be uprooted. “Making the Circle. Remembering, ‘We are gathered in Thy Name,’ then the Power arrives to be used. That’s the way they sealed the ships, on the Home, before we left—”
Nathan turned, thoughtfully, away from her struggle with tears, to watch the tree. It lurched and creaked and lifted, rocks and dirt jolting off in chunks from its roots as it rose. It shook the roots free and drifted over to the edge of the field. And the three workers drifted down to a far shade, thinly, wearily still against the ground.
“But you didn’t pull up the ships,” said Nathan, wondering if he was just helping Eliada make up a story. But the stories she told—
“No,” said Eliada. “But I watched while the Old Ones finished our craft. The outside of it was made in pieces, you know, as the cabin is made of individual logs. So, to finish it, they made the Circle and—and the whole outside of the craft wrinkled and flowed and stilled and became one, a shell for all the craft.” Eliada was sadly-happy, back on the Home.
A shout across the field brought them to their feet.
“The last one!” shouted Roth. “Oh, rejoice—rejoice!” And the three grown-ups shot across the field, tumbling and soaring, diving and twisting like young wild things set free, up and up!
And Eliada was gone, romping in the air over the field, joining in the song that lifted brightly, clearly. Nathan heard the high, thin piping of Moorma’s voice, as she lifted jerkily, uncertainly, up from the edge of the field, to be gathered in by the others and tossed, with laughter and delighted shrieking, from one to another of the laughing, singing group.
Adina came through the underbrush and stood by Nathan, watching with longing, as Nathan was.
“I wish I could,” she said, lifting her arms and rising on her tiptoes. Then she sighed and lowered her arms. “Well, anyway, the baby can’t yet. I’ll go play with her.”
When she was safely gone on her way back to the shade where the baby lay in the cradle, Nathan lifted his arms and came, clumsily, to tiptoe. He gave a longing little hop. Then hunkered down on a fallen log, hunched over his soundless, welling cry—Oh, if only I could! If only I could!
Then the plows came! Theirs and Papa’s, snicking past the idle, astonished horses, slicing through the field, each with one of the workers hovering as an attendant, who at the first click of a rock, whisked it out of the way, arching through the air, to the rock pile filling in one of the gashes across the land.
Then, the first plowing done, came the rippling of the land as though it were a quilt on a bed, shaking across, filling hollows and smoothing humps, until the whole field lay smooth and dark and ready.
Papa watched some of the furrowing. And some of the planting. And said, heavily pleased, to Mama one evening, “Many hands make light work.”
And Mama’s eyes crinkled at Nathan as she snipped off her sewing thread with her front teeth and snapped another knot in her sewing thread and bent again to a wild-rosebud-pink ruffle for Adina’s new Sunday dress.
~ * ~
“Tell us a story, Eliada,” said Adina, softly, in the darkness of the loft. Because, in and out of the hours and days and the long evenings, Eliada had told Adina and Nathan much of the Home. She sighed for the lostness of the Home. They sighed for the wonder of her stories.
“Story!” Moorma’s voice was high and clear. “Story!”
“Shh!” said Adina. “Don’t wake Papa and Mama!”
“Don’t wake Papa and Mama.” Moorma’s voice was as light as a breath.
Eliada and Moorma were staying the night at the cabin because their folks had gone somewhere, at sunset, their eyes excited and hopeful, their attention long gone ahead of their last goodbyes.
“Tell us a story, Eliada,” Nathan repeated from his far, alone corner. “About the Crossing again.” If only Lucas could hear her! Oh, if only!
“—so when we found the Home would be destroyed,
we made ships to take us away. There were three in our valley and we were assigned to one of them. And my cousin was filled with sorrow—”
“Because her love had to go in another ship—” Adina’s voice mourned for them.
“Yes,” said Eliada. “And then, at the last moment, Eva-lee was Called, so she left the ship—”
“Called?” asked Adina, knowing the answer—
“Called back to the Presence,” said Eliada. “Her days totaled. Always, at Home, we were Called before we went back into the Presence. So we had time for our farewells and to put things in order and to give our families and friends the personal things we wanted them to have. And, most important, time to cleanse ourselves of anything that might make it hard to return to the Presence that sent us forth.” Eliada sighed deeply. “At Home—at Home—there was time. We could go quietly Otherside, loving hands holding ours, back into the Presence, and have our cast-asides put in some shadowy place among the growing things, in the cool, growing soil—but—but here—we were so snatched—”
“So snatched—” Moorma parroted in her light, now-yawning voice.
“Tell about the moon,” said Nathan, to turn Eliada’s thoughts.
“The moon—” Eliada’s voice crinkled a little in the darkness. “When we first saw the moon, we hoped it was our new Home, because we knew we could not go as far as another sun. But when we skimmed just above its surface for all those miles and saw it all dead and dry and pocked with holes and not a blade of green and with only a thin slice of shadow far on the horizon, we were afraid it would be our new Home!
“Then we swept to the other side, and saw—”
“Our world!” cried Adina, softly. “Our world!”
“Our world,” said Eliada. “All clouds and blue and wonderful! We sang! Oh, how we sang for journey’s end and the loveliness offered us—” Her voice broke abruptly.
“But you had forgotten—” reminded Nathan.
“We had forgotten,” sighed Eliada. “For so many years there had been no need to know how to move the ships, or take them into other atmospheres; so we had forgotten. During all the journey, the Motivers had sought back through all of us and our memories of our Befores, to find the skills they needed, but they were not wise enough. They knew too little. They could do so few of the things that should have been done. Our ship was alone now. All the others had other parts of the sky to search. They were too far for us to work together to get the knowledge we needed before—”
“Before the air—” prompted Adina.
“Before the air,” said Eliada. “Like a finger of flame pulled along our ship. By then we were all in our life slips—each all alone—to leave the craft before we died of the heating. Then we moved our slips—or our parents moved us, if we were not of an age to have the skill. And, out there all alone in the empty dark, I saw the ship glow brighter and brighter and—and flow apart and drip down and down—” A sob broke the story.
“Don’t tell any more,” said Nathan, groping through the multitude of new pictures tonight’s story fanned out in his mind. “We shouldn’t ask you. It makes you—”
“But telling it helps to end the pain,” said Eliada. “I cannot change what happened, but I can change the way I remember it.
“I saw the life slips around me dart down through the air like needles of light, and I got caught up in trying to remember how to move mine— how to bring mine down safely—”
Silence filled the loft, and the wind spoke softly to one corner of the cabin.
“It was so wonderful to find we could breathe unshielded right from the beginning. And that there was land and trees, and the food and water were friendly to us. And some of us had landed close together—”
“We put into the new soil the cast-asides of those who were Called by the time we landed. My brother. Moorma’s parents. Roth’s wife and little boy. But not—” hope glowed. “Not my parents. Not Roth’s daughter. Not Moorma’s older brother. So perhaps somewhere, they are still alive—maybe half the world away—wondering if we are still alive. But maybe—”
In the silence, the even breathing from Adina’s corner told that she and Moorma were sleeping.
Eliada lifted onto one elbow and spoke to the darkness where Nathan was. “That’s where they have gone, Roth, Marilla, and Dor. Roth thinks he has been hearing the Questing of the People. Somewhere, not too far away. If they can find—maybe it will be—”
She lay back with a sigh. “It is hard to wait. But—weeping endureth for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. That was in the book we read to comfort the one who lived in our cabin before he was Called from his broken body. To find a book that has the thoughts—the words—and even—” her voice was hardly a whisper—”even our Brother— Truly, though I take the wings of the morning—”
The wind spoke softly again. Moorma murmured in her corner. And the quiet breathing of sleep was the only sound in the loft.
~ * ~
“Tell us a story, Daddy,” said Little Lucas. “Tell about those People and the happy field.”
“Isn’t very happy now,” said Nat, roughly, pretending disinterest. “‘s where the lumber yard is.”
“Lumber yards are happy!” Dena protested. “They smell of forest and they build houses—”
“When it was the happy field,” said Nathan, leaning back in Papa’s big old chair, about the only thing left from the old cabin. “Ours was the only cabin for ten miles or so, except where—those People lived.”
“That’s where the school is now!” cried Dena, perching on one of the rockers, clinging to Nathan’s arm. “At the end of Koomatka road.”
“Koomatka!” scoffed Nat. “Crazy Indian names!”
“It isn’t Indian,” said Nathan automatically, his eyes far and seeking. “On their Home, the People had a fruit called koomatka. It tasted like music sounds and was for special holidays— They sang—they had songs for every—”
“Tasted like music—” The children snuggled down into themselves on the floor with quick, happy looks at each other. It had worked! Daddy was started on a People story!
“—and they came back the next day, so happy they could hardly land in our front yard. And they had brought three more of the People with them—starving—broken—raggedy. They had never found a settling place since their Landing. And Mama cried while she helped Marilla bathe and care for them. They had come to our place because two of the new People were Eliada’s parents. They had to let her know—and Mama could help. Eliada couldn’t help. All she could do was hover—half the time above the bed—so close they had to keep pushing her out of the way. Finally they told me to take her out under the big tree across the yard. So I did. And I held onto her there until she suddenly—like fainting—was asleep across my lap.
“The other one they found was Moorma’s brother—Perez. He had cared for the others and defended them and starved so they could eat and was strong until they got him to our place, and then he collapsed—”
“But they got well!” Little Lucas was anxious—as always—clambering up to lean hard against Nathan’s arm.
“They got well.” Nathan nodded, his arm tight about Little Lucas’ fragile shoulders, wondering that Lucas was in the face of his child as he had been in Papa’s face—Papa—
“Papa was pleased at how well the field did,” said Nathan. “He even thanked the People for helping him.” The children settled back around him, used to sudden changes in Daddy’s stories, after Daddy thought.
“Besides the field, we had our kitchen garden, and it grew more than enough to feed us—and them too, if they had needed it. But—”
The long, old sorrow was as piercing as when it was new. No, it couldn’t be—or how could you live?
“But they went away,” prompted Dena.
“They went away,” said Nathan. “Perez—his gift was communications—had spent an hour every day, sending out their Questing call. He changed the hour every day in case someone was listening at a different tim
e. And he finally got an answer.
“’A Group!’ Vera could hardly speak. A lot of families! So many! So many of our old Group! And they’re coming! They have a craft!’ he laughed, half crying. A little cobbled-together, busted-up thing!’ they said. ‘But they’re coming as soon as the dark of the moon, so no one—’ “
“And they went away—” Little Lucas’ voice was sad.
“In an airship!” cried Nat, his eyes big with his crowding dreams.
“And left the cradle for when Gramma’s little baby came.” Dena looked at the cradle by the fireplace, with Adina’s play-person, tattered and fragile, still in it. “And the baby was my Uncle Luke!” she said triumphantly.
“And mine, too!” hastened Little Lucas. “And I’m named after him!”
Ingathering - The Complete People Stories Page 66