He struggled upright. “Lolly, as much as I want to, I can’t.”
She turned her head, but not before he saw the flicker of pain that twisted her face. “Then don’t.”
“I don’t want to keep taking advantage of you.” He sought the words that simply would not come, and he shrugged helplessly.
“You’re not taking advantage of us,” she said, her words tight in the summer afternoon. “You work.”
“Not well.” He tried a laugh but it faded on his lips. “I’m not a farmer, Lolly. I’m a businessman.”
“Well, that explains it. You can’t be a farmer and a business-man? I suppose not, not in these times.” She still wouldn’t look at him.
He took her hands. They were rough, the fingernails split. A scratch ran across the back of one of them, and he ran his thumb down the raised red welt. “Lolly, I want to stay. I do. I don’t want to leave you.”
She turned at last. Her eyes brimmed with tears. “But you’re going to, aren’t you?”
The world spun crazily. He couldn’t.
He had her in his arms, and her face was in his shoulder, and his hand was in her hair, and then his lips were on her cheek, and on her mouth, and she was kissing him back, and everything changed.
He couldn’t live without her. He just couldn’t.
❧
Lolly paused, trying to identify the sound. Bruno was outside barking at something, a series of sharp excited yips—so what-ever she heard, he did, too.
Ping. Ping. Pingpingping. Ping. Ping.
It couldn’t be. Could it?
She wiped her hands on her apron and ran out the door. Her brothers and Colin met her by the coop.
“It’s raining!”
“It really is!”
The four of them stood in the yard, their faces up to heaven, and let the droplets fall on their faces.
“Thank You, God!” she called out. “Thank You!”
Rain! Had anything ever felt as good?
She smiled as the drops soaked her. Yes, something had.
Colin had kissed her.
eight
The last days of summer are filled with promises—promises given and promises kept. These days are precious, the final hurrah of the sun’s bright fire. He takes me in his arms, and he vows the great promises of summer. We speak of stories that will keep us warm through winter’s cold blast, of kisses that can catch snowflakes, of love that knows no end. He promises he will stay. . .
Bliss. That was what this was all about, Lolly thought. Just bliss. The chickens clucked happily as Colin spread corn for them. He’d learned quite a bit since his arrival there. She smiled as she remembered the first time he’d fed the chickens. He’d dropped the feed in a circle around him and found himself surrounded by a tight ring of hungry poultry that would not move for anything.
He’d had to stand there, motionless, until they’d finished their meal.
But now he knew how to do it so he wasn’t hemmed in. Maybe he could be both a businessman and a farmer.
She scolded herself at the thought. One kiss, and you’ve got yourself married off. Hold on, Lolly! He isn’t your mail-order groom!
Still, it was nice to dream. Now that the joy of the note-book was taken away—she didn’t even know where it had gone—she’d had to keep her story going in her head. It had taken a very interesting turn recently, too, she thought.
She smiled at the dish towel with the happy teakettle embroidered on it. She smiled at the hairbrush. She smiled at the petunias, now perky after the rain.
She smiled through church, even beaming at Hildegard Hopper and Amelia Kramer, who looked at her with ill-disguised interest. Reverend Wellman’s sermon, about the meaning of grace, seemed absolutely on track, and Lolly’s heart swelled with love for all her fellow human beings. The hymns were all familiar ones, and she sang with enthusiasm.
After the service had ended, Hildegard and Amelia made a beeline for her, exclaiming over the rain and how it must have truly benefited Lolly’s petunias.
“So,” Hildegard said, the magenta flower on her hat quivering as she took one of Lolly’s elbows and Amelia, in her usual navy blue dress, took the other, “are we having a nice dinner today?”
“We?” Lolly didn’t remember inviting them, but she felt so good that she was ready to serve soup and sandwiches to the entire world. “Of course, you’re invi—”
George swooped in, leaving Ruth standing in front of the church with an amused expression on her face, and rescued Lolly from the two women. “Dear sister, I’m so sorry to interrupt this conversation, but we really must go. Bud needs to get home. The chickens, you know.”
The two women recoiled in horror at the mention of the chickens. Bud shook his head and pointed out loudly that Colin had already fed them, but George was insistent and hustled them all into the truck. Bruno, who’d been sleeping under the truck, jumped in the back.
“Why did you do that?” she asked, so squished into the seat that she could feel Bud’s ribs on one side and George’s belt on the other. There really wasn’t room for all four of them in the cab. “We were chatting so nicely and—”
“There’s no such thing as a nice chat with those two,” George said, frowning at the road. “Plus you were just on the verge of asking them to come to dinner.”
Pandemonium broke out in the truck as Bud began railing about Hildegard and Amelia, Colin tried to calm him down, George started yelling at Lolly about her lapse in good judgment, and Lolly hollered back at him. Bruno howled over the entire thing.
At last they pulled up in front of the farm. As they spilled out, Bud said grumpily, “It’s a good thing we’re too poor to be fat, or we’d never fit in there.”
“Finally,” Lolly said, grinning again. “Something positive to say about being broke!”
After their dinner, Colin helped Lolly clear the table. “I’ll dry,” he offered as she filled the sink with dishes.
She felt that all-over smile coming on again. He needed a haircut. His dark brown hair was spilling over his shirt collar at the nape of his neck, and he had a little puff of soapsuds on one cheek. She’d never seen anyone as handsome as he was. Mail-order groom? Sure! She’d have picked him immediately from the catalog—if that was indeed how someone would get a mail-order groom.
George stood at the door. His face was solemn. “Can you two come into the living room, please?”
“You sound so serious,” she said. “Just let me finish—”
“Now.”
She’d never seen him look so grave, nor heard him speak so abruptly.
“Colin, come on.” She took her apron off and hung it over the back of the chair.
Bud was already in the living room, and from the baffled expression on his face, she could tell he didn’t know what this was about either.
George pulled his chair closer to the little table. In his hand was a ledger. Lolly recognized it. It was the same one that their parents had used. They’d just started it when they’d died, and George had used it ever since.
He opened the ledger and sighed.
“I hate to say this. I’ve gone over the numbers again and again. I was up all night praying, trying to decide if this was the right thing to do.”
As he paused, Lolly studied her brother’s face. Dark circles rimmed his eyes, and lines were etched deeply between his eyebrows into a constant frown. He looked exhausted.
Colin moved closer to her, as if offering her support.
“Go on,” she said to her brother.
“The wheat isn’t going to come in at all where I’d hoped it would. There just wasn’t enough moisture this year. We’ll be lucky if we break even.”
“But the harvest isn’t in,” Colin said. “Maybe it could rebound.”
George shook his head. “The kernels are shriveled. You can
walk through the fields and hear it, that rattling sound. The stalks are like the skeletons of the wheat. We can’t do it. I can’t keep the farm together any longer.”
“What are you saying?” she asked, unable to take in what her ears were hearing.
“I’m saying that we’re going to have to sell it.” His shoulders slumped. “That is, assuming we can even find a buyer.”
“But I don’t understand,” Bud said. “I thought we owned the farm, that it was paid for.”
“It is,” George answered. “But we’re in debt for the other things. We haven’t made a profit in a couple of years. Honestly, I don’t think anyone has.”
Lolly put her face in her hands. This was horrible, beyond understanding. How could this have happened?
Colin put his hand on her back and murmured something reassuringly. “There’s no other way?” he asked George.
George pushed the ledger to him. “You’re a businessman. Take a look and see if you can see an escape route. I sure can’t.”
Bud looked at Lolly, and in his eyes she knew was reflected her own fear. “Colin will find something. Just watch, he will.”
She knew what the answer was going to be—it would be the same for them as it was for thousands of others. They were going to lose their home.
Everything that their parents had sacrificed for, everything the three children had worked for with the goal of keeping the farm as their home—it was all going to be lost to creditors.
It was an entirely too-familiar saga.
She stood up and walked back to the kitchen. There were dishes to be washed.
Dishes that would be sold and put into cupboards that would belong to someone else. Spoons and forks and knives laid into drawers that would be used by another set of hands.
It all seemed unreal, like a dream that she would wake up from at any moment and wonder about. Like a replay of that horrible day five years ago, when George had told them that their parents had died. Time ceased making sense as her mind tried to sort through this life-changing news.
A horn outside announced visitors.
“Get rid of them,” Bud said to her from the doorway of the kitchen. “This isn’t the time for guests.”
Her mind wouldn’t form a coherent thought. All she could think of was that she was losing the farm.
She pasted on a smile and went outside. The two women had the doors to the DeSoto open, and Hildegard was heaving herself out with effort as Amelia delicately swung her legs onto the ground.
Hildegard immediately began fanning her face with her hand. “Whew! It’s muggy down here by the river.” Beads of sweat populated her forehead and cheeks. “I’d have thought the rain would have taken care of that, but it’s still so close.”
“I don’t think it’s this bad in town,” Amelia contributed, her face screwed into a dainty frown. “It’s probably all these trees and plants and such.”
Lolly held up her hand. “I’m sorry, but this isn’t a good time for a visit.”
Hildegard’s gloved hand flew to her rather substantial chest and with a great show of concern, she asked, “Is everyone all right? No one is sick, I hope! Oh, my goodness!”
The woman was a terrible actress, Lolly thought. Her false sincerity would fool no one.
“One person falls ill, and the next thing you know, everyone in town is sick, too,” Amelia said. “That’s the way plagues start.”
Hildegard nodded so vehemently that the feather in her hat bobbed crazily. “The plague. Like the flu epidemic in ’18. Of course, you’re too young to remember that, Lolly.”
“No, Hildegard, dear, she wouldn’t even have been born then,” Amelia said.
“I was born in 1916,” Lolly said, wondering why she was even part of this absurd conversation. What did it matter how old she was during the flu epidemic?
“Nevertheless, we learned then, didn’t we? One cough in church. That’s all it takes.” Amelia fairly quivered with self-righteousness.
“Who coughed in church?” Hildegard looked alarmed.
“No one coughed in church,” Lolly said, but the older woman was not going to be swayed from the idea.
“Was it Bud? George? Colin?” Hildegard leaned forward eagerly. “Is Colin the one who’s ill? Oh, poor thing! I’d better see to him right now.”
She began to bustle toward the door, despite Lolly’s protestations. “No one is sick! That’s not it at all! Please, stop! No one is ill!”
“But you said that Colin had the flu,” Amelia said, her lips pursing in disapproval. “And on a Sunday, too. Not nice to lie on a Sunday.” She shook a gloved finger in Lolly’s face.
“I didn’t—” Lolly began, but a great ruckus from the back interrupted her.
“Lolly! The chickens!”
Colin tore around the house, a frantic chicken in his grasp. Its wings flapped wildly, and feathers floated around him.
The two women retreated immediately to the DeSoto, and as Hildegard pulled out of the driveway, she called out, “Colin, you shouldn’t be out, not as sick as you are! Fluids, that’s the answer. Fluids and sleep.”
The chicken calmed down as soon as the automobile cruised out of sight behind the bend in the road, and Colin put it back on the ground. It immediately picked its way back to the yard behind the house.
“What was that all about?” She pointed at the chicken, which paused to shake its feathers into place.
“I thought you could use some help, so I intervened with the chicken.”
“What was wrong with it? It sure was upset.”
He grinned. “I was hugging it. Chickens don’t like to be hugged.”
“Ah.” She stood still, unsure what to do next.
“They don’t like to be hugged, but I do,” he said, and he opened his arms.
She stood in his embrace, drawing strength from him. She could feel his heart beating, the rhythm regular and strong. With each breath his chest rose and fell, while his fingers wrapped themselves in her hair, and the bun loosened, the ribbon sliding off, and she didn’t care.
When she was in his arms, there were no money worries. The farm was safe. Her future was secured. If only she could stay there forever.
If only.
She could hear her brothers in the background, and she didn’t care. This moment was hers and Colin’s.
He kissed the top of her head and hugged her tightly. “You’re so much nicer than a chicken to hug.”
“You say the sweetest things,” she answered.
“They call me sugar mouth,” he murmured.
“They do?” She felt the smile begin again as she lifted her head for what she knew was coming.
Kissing. What a wonderful thing it was, she thought as their lips met. She understood now why it was so valued—and why it was so dangerous.
She didn’t want for it to end, but something sharp jabbed into her foot, and she screamed against his mouth.
“I’m sorry!” he said, pulling away immediately, but she shook her head and looked down.
Around them were many of the chickens, pecking at their feet. She soon realized why.
“Colin, I hate to say this, but I believe we’re standing on an anthill.”
As if to prove the truth of her words, two chickens picked off more of the little black insects from her feet, and the rooster, Floyd, strutted over to see what the buffet was all about. He started in on Colin’s feet, his beak tapping rapidly on Colin’s shoes.
“You know,” he said with a laugh as he shooed the birds and they scattered, “I thought your brothers would be our chaperones, but they’re ignoring us. The chickens, though—do you suppose they don’t want us kissing?”
“They’d better watch it or they’ll end up as fried chicken,” she said, reluctant to leave the harbor of his arms.
A stray breeze picked u
p a strand of her hair and ruffled it. He smoothed it back into place and kissed her forehead. “You’re tough. But I like that. We need to—”
“Colin and Lolly are kissing, Colin and Lolly are kissing!” Bud sang from behind the chicken coop. Bruno dashed out and ran in circles around them, barking happily.
“Stop it, Bud,” she said. “That’s terribly rude. And childish. And stupid. And hush up, Bruno. Just because you’re with Bud doesn’t mean you have to act like him.”
“George wants you to quit smooching and come inside,” her brother said, ignoring her little tirade. “He wants to talk to you some more. Probably about the farm.”
❧
George was standing at the window, looking out over the farm. “Even if Colin can find some little bit of something I’ve overlooked—and I don’t see how, not as often as I’ve gone over the accounts—we’re going to have to figure out what to do. First off, like I said, selling the farm is going to have to happen.”
“How much do we owe?” Lolly asked.
Her older brother shook his head. “It’s not that. We really don’t owe anything except taxes and a small bill at the store in town.”
“Then we could cut back,” Bud said.
George sighed and rubbed his forehead. “We’ve cut our electricity use to almost nothing. Our food is pretty much what we get from the garden here, and what we don’t grow, Lolly gets through trade with the store for the eggs.”
“So what’s the problem?” Bud asked. “If we’re okay, why can’t we just stay on the farm?”
“There’s more than that. There’s gasoline for the truck—it’s not much, but it still has to be paid. Things break and have to be replaced. And let’s not forget that winter is coming, and this farm’s income comes to a complete halt then. How can we heat this place? And food? Lolly can put some aside with canning and such, but nowhere near enough to get us through a Minnesota winter. Even if I cut down every single tree on the property, it won’t keep us warm until next summer.”
She had never heard George say so much at one time.
“There are programs,” Colin said, “new things the government is trying. Like the Works Project. Have you looked into that?”
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