Remembering Maggie:The Complete Bread Sister Trilogy (The Bread Sister Trilogy)

by Robin Moore

  Maggie thought she might give him something simple to keep him out of her hair.

  "There's a woodpile out behind the house," she said. "You could split up some kindling for me."

  John rolled up his sleeves and took her long-handled axe down from the shelf where it lay. He glanced once at the keen edge she had put on it, then disappeared out the doorway.

  Maggie turned back to the bread dough she had been kneading. A moment later she heard a piercing yell. She dashed out the doorway and around to the woodpile. John lay on the ground, his face as white as a sheet. The axe lay in the grass beside him. Blood was seeping from a gash in his boot where the axe blade had slashed through the leather and into his foot.

  Maggie knelt down and eased the boot off his foot. "Lie back," Maggie instructed. "Don't look at it, for God's sake." Even though there was a lot of blood, Maggie could see that John still had all his toes.

  "You just slashed your foot along the side, you fool," she said.

  John groaned.

  "Oh, quit carrying on like you cut your foot off," she said impatiently.

  She used his sock to mop up most of the blood, then stepped into the meadow and carefully lifted a spider's web up off an arching grass stem. She laid the filmy web over the cut.

  "What are you doing?" John asked in horror.

  "Spider's web will help the blood clot up," Maggie answered. "It'll stop the bleeding quickly." She wrapped up the wound as she spoke.

  "I have a peck of things to do today," she went on. "You'll have to ride the mule down to the mill by yourself. Don't walk on that foot. It'll just start the bleeding up again."

  She went and got the tethered mule and brought it over and got John situated on the animal's back. John looked awfully pale. He clung to the pack-saddle, his teeth gritted in pain.

  "Give my regards to the family," Maggie said. Then she slapped the mule on the rump and watched it plod off down the trail.

  Maggie turned and picked up the bloody axe. She noticed that the axe handle was split. She sighed. She would have to whittle a new one now. And with so much to do today.

  She looked down the trail after John.

  "You know, Maggie," she said to herself, "taking care of a man like that would be a full-time job in itself." Then she went to wash his blood from her hands so she could get to the baking.

  When Maggie next went to the mill, she saw that John's foot was healing well although he still limped a little.

  "Too bad about John's foot," Maggie said to Mrs. McGrew when they were alone, working together in the kitchen.

  "I wouldn't worry about him," the older woman snorted. "He's milking that injury for all it's worth. He's gotten out of a week's work at the mill already."

  Maggie took a deep breath. "John asked me to move down off the mountain and take up here on this property as his wife."

  "I know," Mrs. McGrew said.

  "Well, what do you say about it?"

  "Marriage is one of the necessities of life, Maggie. It's a woman's entrance fee to adult life. Sometimes it's a high price to pay, but I don't know another way to do it." Then Mrs. McGrew shook her head. "No, listen, Maggie, I don't want to make it sound all bad. Life is too hard to go it alone. Don't pull a single harness all your life, that's what I say. It may not seem on the outside that Joseph and I have an ideal marriage, but it works well enough.

  "As far as I can tell, when it comes to marriage, men are pretty much the same—they are all equally unsatisfactory. But since marriage is what we must do, seems to me the trick is to pick one who is the best provider and who has the good sense to leave you the run of the house and leave you be the balance of your waking hours."

  Mrs. McGrew wagged a finger at Maggie. "Estab­lish your territory and defend it. Oh, you can give them the trappings of power, the looks of it. But you know, Maggie, the real power in the community is the power of the family, and that is the woman's domain. Without the women to hold the family to­gether, none of the sweating and grunting these men do would mean anything. Remember that, Maggie, and you'll have a better marriage than most. That's all I'll say to you, Maggie, knowing that you'll do what you want anyway."

  The older woman's words had a chilling effect on Maggie. She felt as though she were offering herself up as a great sacrifice for some unknown cause. When she returned to the cabin that night, her feet natu­rally guided her up the deer trail, to the mountaintop where she had stood so many times.

  She looked out across the peaceful valley, then turned her gaze, as she always did, to the west. And, as always, her thoughts turned to Franny. Her heart reached for Franny out across the miles of wilderness and she wished her aunt was back in the valley. "What would Franny say about all this?" Maggie asked herself. Then, an instant later, she knew. She knew what she would say: "Look past your nose, Maggie, and don't be afraid of nothin'."

  "Now what does that mean?" Maggie thought. "Does it mean don't be afraid to take the leap into marriage? Or does it mean don't be afraid to make your own way, husband or not?"

  Looking out across the dark mountain ridges, the answer came to her.

  "No," she said to herself. "I won't do it. As long as I have a place of my own and can stand on my own two feet, I won't give myself up to a man I don't want, even if his name is McGrew."

  She turned and went down the mountainside and climbed into bed, feeling settled and resolute. Mag­gie had no way of knowing this would be the last night she would spend in the cabin she loved so well.

  Chapter Eleven

  John’s foot seemed to be healed enough the next day for him to make his way up the cabin and resume his courting of Maggie.

  They had been talking for only a few moments when John laid a hand on Maggie's shoulder.

  Her voice took on a hard edge. "John," she said, "I don't have a millpond to pitch you in up here but I won't hesitate to bark your shins if you lay a hand on me again."

  John drew his hand back and responded with his usual good humor. "You'll come around to it, Mag­gie. All women do eventually."

  Then he changed the subject. "What can I do for you today? There must be a mess of things that need to be done around here with me laid up for so long."

  "Only women's work," Maggie said. "I'm boiling up clothes and blankets and washrags today."

  "I'll lend a hand just the same," John said.

  Maggie sighed. She had known mosquitoes like this man. They were troublesome, but hardly worth bothering about.

  "Oh, all right," she said, "get that big kettle and bring it out into the meadow. There's a hanging tripod out there. I'll carry some of this fire out and get the wood started."

  Maggie got the fire going before she realized that she was out of soft soap.

  She put her hands on her hips.

  "Now, we'll just have to haul all this gear back in and do it some other day," she said.

  John glanced at the sun. "Plenty of daylight left," he said. "I'm sure Aunt Maura has some she can loan you. Why don't I stay here and watch this fire for you and you can go down and fetch back that soap."

  "Well," Maggie agreed, "that would be a help. All right. Keep an eye on that fire, though. It's awful windy today and the fire could get away from you if you don't pay attention. I'll be back in an hour with that soap."

  Maggie tied on her bonnet and left.

  As soon as she was out of sight, John found himself a comfortable place in the shade. The late-afternoon sun was warm and full on the meadow. The smells of the crab apple blossoms filled the air. John lay back, his hands behind his head.

  The wind blew through the tree branches over­head, dislodging blossoms, which rained down and fell all around him. "Nothing like being in love," he told himself. Then he closed his eyes and let the drowsiness of the afternoon take him.

  When he woke, his first sensation was one of in­tense heat. He opened his eyes and they were in­stantly stung by thick smoke. Coughing, he sat up and looked around him.

  The worst had happened. The win
d had scattered the fire across the dead leaves. The whole clearing was on fire!

  The leafy ground cover had caught first, then the tall grass. A few dead pines, still standing, had begun to burn with a menacing crackling sound.

  John could see that the cabin was still untouched but that the wind was rapidly pushing an ever-widening ring of fire in that direction. A moment later, obeying his most primal instincts, John found himself running downhill, away from the flames.

  Maggie heard him before she saw him. He came crashing down the trail, sounding like a herd of stampeding woods buffalo. Then Maggie saw him, racing headlong down the trail, hollering in a voice scorched raw with heat and fear. She couldn't under­stand a word he was saying.

  "What is it?" she shouted.

  John collapsed against a tree trunk beside her.

  "Fire!" was all he could manage. "It's afire!"

  Maggie looked up the mountainside and saw a billow of smoke rising about the treetops.

  "Oh no!" she said. "Come on, you've got to go back up there with me!"

  John shook his head. "Can't," he gasped. "It's too much for the two of us. We've gotta go to the mill for help."

  Maggie grabbed him by the front of his shirt and shook him.

  "No time for that. The whole mountainside'll be gone by then," she shouted.

  She didn't wait for an answer. She began dragging him up the mountainside with her. At some point he began running along on his own. They topped the shoulder of the mountain together and dashed up onto the flat.

  When Maggie saw the clearing ablaze, she couldn't help but exclaim, "Good God! It's afire!"

  And it was. The underbrush had been burned black for a hundred feet on the upwind side of the fire. But it hadn't reached the cabin yet.

  "There's nothing we can do," John shouted.

  Even if we had enough buckets, we could never carry enough water from the stream—"

  "No!" Maggie said, her eyes ablaze. "You don't fight a fire like this with buckets."

  She reached down and picked up two sturdy branches lying at her feet. "We can use these. Are you with me?"

  John nodded. "All right. Where do we start?"

  Maggie glanced around. "I figure we can let it burn over there on the eastern side of the clearing. The stream's over there and it'll just get to the stream and burn itself out. I think what we got to do is scrape ourselves a path clean across the clearing in between the fire and the cabin. We can start here and take it all the way over to the banks of the stream."

  "Just rake back the leaves and brush, right?" John asked.

  "Sure, anything that burns. Let's get moving! I'll start here. You begin over at the stream. We'll work our way in and meet in the middle."

  John nodded and dashed across the clearing, keep­ing ahead of the flames.

  Maggie moved as fast as she could, clearing herself a path. She had to run ahead of the flames, working in the intense heat and smoke, coughing and wiping her eyes to see.

  She worked furiously, her breath coming in chok­ing sobs. The wind gusted, blowing the flames right up to where she worked. Then she saw John, his long arms flying, working up close to her. They were al­most there! They had made it! The path was almost complete. The heat was nearly unbearable now. Some of the flames caught on the edge of Maggie's billowing skirt. She tried to beat them out with her hands but the wind just blew them higher. Suddenly she was surrounded by flames. She was on fire! Seized by a terrible panic, Maggie dropped her stick and began running across the clearing, thinking she could outrun the flames. But her running just fanned the flames higher.

  John saw what was happening. He acted instantly. It took him a few moments to catch her because she was running so fast. He tackled her and rolled her on the ground, smacking out the flames with his hands. He tore off his shirt and used it to smother the flames on her dress.

  Maggie lay dazed in the dirt, her dress still smok­ing.

  "Maggie?" John's voice was urgent.

  She rose up on an elbow. "I'm all right. Where's the fire now?" She shielded her eyes with her hands and looked. The fire to the east was burning fiercely toward the stream. She knew she'd have to let that end of the clearing go. But the fire headed toward the cabin had stopped. Her idea had worked!

  "We did it!" Maggie shouted. "We stopped the fire!" She put her arms around John's neck and hugged him.

  "Lie back now, Maggie. You should see how badly burned you are. Stay right here. I'll get down to the mill just as fast as I can and get help up here. You lie quiet," John said.

  He got to his feet and dashed off across the smoking field, running in smooth, long-legged strides.

  Maggie laid her face down on the charred earth. She looked down at her body, then forced herself to look away when she saw the blackened skin and places where the clothing stuck to her flesh. But, she thought, the cabin was safe. That was the most im­portant thing.

  Then an incredible thing happened. The wind gusted strong across the clearing and the fire, like an advancing army, jumped the fire lane and roared to life in the tall grass around the cabin!

  Somehow Maggie managed to pull herself to her feet. She had no choice now. She was alone. And she knew she was going to have to build another fire lane now, closer in to the cabin, like a moat around a castle.

  She stumbled through the smoke and flames and found herself a branch to use as a tool. Then she began the exhausting, frenetic work of clearing a new fire lane. She would make this one wider, she told herself, so wide that no windblown flames could jump it.

  She worked furiously. But she was not fast enough. The woodpile caught first. The thin kin­dling she had split and stacked went up like matches.

  Then the hemlock-bark roof caught. Maggie tried to beat the flames back but it was no use. She was surrounded on all sides by fire, backed up against the log wall. Her clothing began to catch. She knew then that she couldn't save Franny's cabin. It would be all she could do to save herself.

  Maggie bent low and leaped through a wall of flame, running on sheer instinct, slapping out her burning clothes as she ran.

  She stumbled out across the desolate burned-over ground until she came to the stream. She fell head­long into the shallow water and lay there, rolling in the wet mud. She soaked her dress in water and used it to cover her eyes and mouth and nose so she would not breathe the hot smoky air. The trees overhead burned and dropped flaming branches down in the water all around her. She lay there for hours, listen­ing to the mountainside burn. Somewhere in the middle of the heat and the smoke and the flames, she lost consciousness.

  It was just before dark when John led the McGrews and a group of neighbors up to the site of the fire. The men stumbled around in the poor light, calling Maggie's name. There was no answer.

  "We gotta find her," he begged.

  John was horrified to see that the cabin had burned. The marks on the ground told the story.

  "I left her right over here," John said, pointing.

  "Easy, boy," McGrew said. Then, when the young man was out of earshot, McGrew said to one of the other men, "I just hope to God Maggie didn't go back into the cabin."

  They knew there was nothing to be done in the dark. Coaxing John away, the party left and headed back down to the mill, resolved to continue the search at first light.

  It was the early morning light that woke Maggie. That and the chill from lying in the streambed all night. Summoning up all of her strength, Maggie dug her fingers into the mud and pulled herself up onto the bank.

  In the eerie predawn light, the clearing looked like the aftermath of a terrible battle. Smoke still hung in the air. Here and there, small fires were smoldering. Everywhere, there was the blackened, charred ugli­ness the fire had left behind.

  Then Maggie's eyes fell on the cabin and a cry escaped from her heat-cracked lips.

  Nothing stood but a framework of charred timbers and Franny's stone chimney, towering above the smoking ruins.

  Dazed, Maggie rose to her kn
ees, then her feet, and walked across the clearing. She stepped through the charred doorway and into the ruins of the cabin. The floor was knee deep in ash, and the blackened timbers slanted dangerously down into the rubble.

  Maggie's legs gave way under her and she found herself kneeling down by the fireplace hearth. She began to rummage aimlessly through the ashes. Her hand struck something hard. She pulled it out. It was the broken paddle of Franny's bread-baking peel. She sat in the rubble, the broken peel blade cradled in her lap, and looked up at the chimney towering over her.

  "Well," she said in a cracked voice, "I always wanted a summer kitchen. Now I have one." She laughed. But the laugh got choked off halfway through and turned into an anguished cry. She bent her head and sobbed. Her tears dropped into the ashes. She knew this was the end of something.

  Chapter Twelve

  The search party found Maggie sitting among the ashes, holding Franny’s peel. They carried her down to the mill and did the best they could for her.

  It was two days before she could talk. All the while John sat faithfully by her bedside, helping Mrs. McGrew and Annie with the cold compresses and fetching water by the clipper for Maggie's parched throat.

  McGrew came in to see her when she seemed lucid.

  "A tragedy, no other way to say it," he remarked. "You're fortunate to be alive."

  Maggie nodded. "Yes" was all she said.

  "But tell me, child, how did the blaze start? John will say nothing about it. It's a mystery to me."

  Maggie looked over and saw John sitting nearby. His eyes searched hers, as though he were pleading with her to keep the terrible secret. She felt a sudden, almost overpowering rage toward him and she was about to speak up, tell them all what a careless fool he had been and how it had all been his fault.

  Then she looked down and caught a glimpse of his swollen and bandaged hands. And she remembered that he had saved her life by beating out the flames on her body with his bare hands. Despite her anger, her heart went out to him.