Of Needles and Haystacks

by Ann Elizabeth Fryer

  Even as I was thinking this, I remembered the small chest of father’s personal business papers, locked and under my bedstead with other keepsakes. How much would I find? My heart pounded with anticipation. I wanted to look immediately, rectify my ignorance. I had time before my walk to town with Aunt to buy a pair of thick farm boots.

  Father’s chest of papers is neither beneath my bed nor hidden within my wardrobe. Not in any of the crowded crates in my corner of the attic. I did discover where Mr. Bleu has been residing these several nights. A cot covered in a downy quilt was positioned by a window on the other side of the attic, along with a chair and a small table with an oil lamp. A dingy carpet bag sat at the end of the cot.

  Hams hung on hooks high above my head, assuring this family will not be out of pork any time soon. Made the air salty sweet. I wondered if the greasy spots on my ceiling were the result of these cured meats?

  If I dared, I might find those receipts and reread them. Perhaps with a smidgen more understanding. Footsteps pounded towards me as I rifled through the final crate. Mr. Bleu. I dared not look into his face.

  I sorted through candlesticks, some antique delft tile said to have been my Dutch great grandmother’s, and five salt cellars with tiny spoons. When I was a little girl, I thought they were porridge bowls for fairies. I wasn’t in fairy-land now but very much alone in an attic room with a single man.

  I must leave. I rewrapped my precious past with old newspaper and tacked the lids back on the crates as best as I could.

  He walked over and stood beside me, his leg brushing against the black billowed skirts of my grief. “What are you looking for?”

  “Answers. You know that.”

  His silence condemned me.

  “Mr. Bleu, I...I’ve made a mistake.” Only I had no idea what kind.

  He gave a slight nod.

  “Might I see the receipts again?” I wanted to fix this jumble. Restore some peace that had flown out the windows like a stray dove.

  “Miss Trafton, I beg you for privacy. Conversation closed.” No room for discussion. He began to unbutton his shirt, and I swirled around with burning cheeks. But not before I’d seen the solid breadth of muscles beneath.

  I left in flame and confusion. Attic dust smeared across my black skirts and sleeves. Some say that black never shows dirt. That’s a falsehood. I believe it shows more.

  When Aunt and I walked to town later, I tried to ignore the mental constraints of the day and have friendly conversation. But we each lugged large baskets of linen-wrapped butter meant to be sold at the mercantile. Talking was difficult. I tripped twice. The second time, one package went rolling ahead and ended with a splash in a puddle.

  Aunt simply shook it off and placed it back into the basket. “We’ll use that one ourselves.” Simple solution.

  I wondered why Uncle did not offer to drive us in the wagon? I couldn’t help but wish that he were as genteel as my father had been. Perhaps one cannot be both a gentleman and a farmer.

  I decided to avoid butter over the next week...or at least dip from the center. I would have used my coin to pay for the butter and avoid this shopping trip altogether.

  Buying farm boots actually means buying work boots. Mine, I suspect, are meant for helping Helen and Kirsten in the vegetable garden. I can’t think of anything more despairing than bending to pluck beans in smothering heat while wearing heavy boots.

  I do like beans, but at what cost do we enjoy them? Mother always bought everything from the market stalls and mercantile. Perhaps I should spend my last dollars on canned beans and save us the pain.

  My mood was doleful. I must admit, I don’t want to be told to work, or what to work upon. I wished my moments to be of my own design. When to wash and iron, when to start the bread dough, and when and if to pluck those beans. I am lazy and proud. Is the world’s purpose captured within a bean? To work and eat and work again?

  Lovely Mrs. MacDonald at Cedar Gate—her dashing figure and fine home—her life is not mine, but at least we can empathize with each other’s losses and grief. Yet my inheritance in no way compares. I imagine she does not own a pair of these sturdy boots that now weigh heavy upon my ankles. Ernest said I should wear them around the house to help break them in.

  Uncle looked proud when I strapped them on. “Now you are a true farm girl!” As if putting them on had been a good work in itself. I suppose it is a step in the right direction. I thought of mother’s dainty ankles shackled by such as these and laughed aloud. She must have worn them! And this gives me pause. If she wasn’t too good for them, who was I to complain?

  “Foals’ comin’!” Little Ruby yelled through the back door.

  Aunt sent me a troubled look when I followed the rest of the children to the barn to watch the birthing. I hadn’t a clue what I was in for. The children remained silent as if in church. I held my handkerchief over my nose. Mr. Bleu rolled his eyes at me while Ernst, brows knit, worked with swift, sure hands. Minutes passed and finally, Uncle gave gentle directions as they helped the mare birth by pulling its forelegs together in one great haul. They tore the sack away from its face and body— my goodness, the smell!

  The shimmering new life made the children smile. I became ill. Ironic how Mr. Bleu seemed completely unaffected by all the...mess. Ernest’s accident sent him tottering over some unseen edge, yet this...

  Ernest swept the afterbirth into a wheelbarrow while Mr. Bleu briskly rubbed down the mare. My stomach clenched. I ran to the opposite fence. No one seemed to notice me except for Aunt who kindly placed a cup of mint tea in my hands. At day’s end, I was able to laugh with the children while the foal tottered around its mother sniffing for milk.

  We are to have several more days such as this, but I’m told not be surprised if I wake to find a foal already born without any assistance. I think this must be the best way. Ernest and Mr. Bleu will sleep in the barn and keep watch. On hand, just in case. I can’t imagine what might go wrong with horses in labor.

  This was the perfect time to climb back into the attic and look for those receipts. How foolish I was to give them back to Mr. Bleu—so thoughtless. Now I tempted myself to sneak among a family whose trust I desired more than anything else. Would I be stealing if I took them? If they belonged to my father once, didn’t they belong to me now?

  After waiting two, long hours, no sound was heard save the distant tick of the mantle clock. I stood at my door, candlestick in hand ready to do mischief, hesitating at every instant. Just when I lay my hand on the door knob, light footsteps trotted past to the attic stair.

  I sank into bed, relieved that I had been prevented. Sweet, sweet relief! What had possessed me? Maybe Father’s private business matters should remain his alone. I snuggled into bed. Ignorance is bliss—at least that’s what everyone says.

  Along those lines, I wish I’d remained ignorant of Chess’s supposed inclination towards me. Why should he discuss this with Ernst? Suppose the MacDonald family desires more property? Well. I won’t be won over by all the scheming that happens around me.

  I’ll apologize to Mr. Bleu, tend to strawberries, and stick to sewing. Move along quietly, owner or not. This is the best plan. What everyone wishes.

  I found peace in this. What could I do about financial issues anyway?

  “Lord,” I prayed, “I just don’t know. Anything.” I paused. “Help.” Some may call this a cold kind of prayer, but I certainly meant it with all my heart.

  Chapter 13

  MARCH 18, 1880

  I can hear Mr. Bleu playing guitar from his attic room. He has not allowed himself this pleasure for the last few weeks, knowing I’m stationed just below. Does he play for me? The tones are soothing. The ancient Chinese believed that music played a part in healing a sick body. I am abed.

  Yesterday was my birthday, and by all rights, this farm belongs to me now. The entire family accompanied me to town with the exception of Ernest. I was attended with sacred pomp and serious faces to a law office and bank to sign p
apers seven times! Made me feel rather more important than I know myself to be.

  Uncle stood close to me, Mr. Bleu sat on the other side. Aunt and the rest waited quietly by the doorway. At the end, the lawyer handed me a newly scribed deed. I thanked him.

  This gift...this heavy gift! It jostled in my lap all the way home. I’d prefer to have the few packages and the small pink-iced cake I usually enjoyed. A book, a new pen, my parent’s blessing...

  I was not to be disappointed. Upon return to the farm, I found a table of small packages. Handkerchiefs, chocolates, a new apron. We drank tea, had a slice of spiced cake. Smiles trembled even while they gave much effort to celebrating my life, my cousins looked to their parents and slid out of doors.

  “Mighty fine day for a stroll...” Ernest’s invitation held a smile that did not waver, not one bit.

  “What are we waiting for?” We strode off. I thought he was being brotherly, and I still believe he wants to be. Looking back, I see a clear, ulterior motive. He did not flinch until afterward, when he’d failed.

  I took the farm, Uncle and Aunt would hand me its history along with it. Did they intend to give me pain? Did they know what this would do to me? Retribution? Or fear that I would learn of the past another way and sought to protect themselves from my wrath? No town, however small, is without whispers. But gossip rarely tells the whole truth...

  Our walk was amicable. Sheer relief from the morning’s events. He pointed out birdcalls and described their plumage in detail. Sometimes he cast his eyes upward and laughed at the clouds. “Make better pictures than the stars.”

  Clouds, ever changing; stars, set in their courses. I dared ask a question. “Do you want to be a farmer?”

  “I don’t want to be anything else!”

  “Are you sure? I mean, if you could do anything you want?”

  “As in go to sea or be a preacher?”

  “You want to be a preacher?”

  “Nope. Don’t want to go to sea either.” He chuckled. “How about you?”

  “Me?” I knew without thinking that I wanted a life like Mother and Father’s. I just didn’t know how to describe it to Ernest, so I didn’t answer. Perhaps he understood, wanting nothing but the life Uncle handed him.

  We arrived at the small graveyard, the place Helen had taken me on my first day. He swung his long leg over the fence and stood behind one of the larger stones. “Our great grandfather lies here. Elias Hammond.” He pointed. “And our great-grandmother, Lischen.”

  He stepped behind another pair. “One of their daughters and a son.”

  I bent to look at their names. “Marta, Jacob.” The dates told an early death. A familiar pang pierced me. Moss and tree roots crept around these memorials. Life would keep death in its place.

  Ernest did not stop. “Their other two daughters survived, and here are their places, beside their husbands and some of their babies. See,” he pointed “The small markers show where they were buried.”

  I wanted Ernest to pause, give some reasons toward this family history lesson, but he sped up. “And here is another son. His first two wives died early, and he is buried next to his third wife. She was our grandmother.”

  Olivia. Philip. I went to them, the parents of my mother. Grandmother’s headstone was simply inscribed, “In the shadow of the Most High.” Grandfather’s bore a simple cross. I appreciated Ernest making me look...but he wasn’t done.

  “Dorothy, come here.” I stood and saw him pulling old weeds away from a group of headstones.

  Lines crossed his forehead in thought, much like Uncle’s. I read the names inscribed there, “Abraham Birch. Lois Birch. Fredrick Birch. Amelia Birch. I’ve never heard of any Birch’s in the family. Who are they?” I could see that the headstones weren’t as old as the others.

  Ernest took a breath and slightly colored. Shifted from foot to foot.

  “Do we share this plot with a neighboring family?”

  “No.”

  I waited in the silence. Was this some guessing game? I’d never seen our family tree.

  He brushed a drop of sweat from his forehead and tapped the nearest stone with his hand. “They lived here before us.” He began to cough as though he’d swallowed a fly.

  “I thought this farm was always in the family.”

  “It has been.” He gulped and grew quiet. He waved me over. “Let’s go back.”

  Ernest moved so quickly that we nearly trotted back to the farmhouse. My feet pinched in the shoes I’d chosen to wear. He stayed a few feet ahead of me, did he know I’d plague him with questions?

  I would never have cared about headstones of people I knew nothing about, but he showed them to me with purpose. Became serious when he did so.

  We stepped into the kitchen, out of breath. Agitated. I snatched the tea that remained in my teacup from the earlier celebration. I’d much to swallow.

  Uncle’s eyebrows lifted in question, and Ernest shook his head and walked back outside, letting the screen door slap.

  Uncle glanced at me, pale. Aunt kept her back to me, working vigorously on mixing bread dough, kneading, pressing, forcing a wet lump into something good. Why don’t they simply speak?

  “Hammond.” Mr. Bleu spoke from the corner. I had not seen him there. “Just tell the girl.”

  Uncle cleared his throat. Aunt covered the bread dough and left the room. “Your mother lived here when she was first married.”

  “Oh?” Odd, since I’d heard newlywed stories of the house I’d recently left. “I can’t imagine father slopping the pigs, such a man of paper and ink!” I grinned, but no one else did.

  Uncle tucked his thumbs behind his suspenders, head down. “Your father never lived here.”

  “What on earth are you talking about?” Uncle was exasperating. He sat down and didn’t expound.

  Mr. Bleu held out his hand. “Come for a walk.”

  “I’ve just been on a walk.” Headstones, Father lived here, but Father didn’t live here? “Answer me, Uncle.”

  Mr. Bleu grabbed my hand and led me outside. At least I’d get a blunt answer. I hoped. His hand held tight around mine as a father holds a child’s lest they run. I’d already been running from this birthday, but time takes us where it will.

  We went as far the fence by the road. His grip softened into a warm hold. At that moment, I remembered my father’s hand. Large, slender, warm. I pulled away and held the fence instead. “Speak on.”

  “Your Uncle is not the coward you think him.”

  “I wonder how he fought in the war at all.”

  “Wasn’t in his nature. Still isn’t. He hates hurting people, he forgets how withholding news can also cause damage.” Mr. Bleu puffed frustration.

  “So, you fly to his rescue.”

  “Yes. As he has flown to mine more times than I can count.”

  “In the war?”

  He gave me hard stare, then nodded.

  “Just say what needs to be said.”

  “Your mother married someone else before your father. Had a family, lived here.”

  “What?” The pieces fell together. Chills crept through my body.

  “Ernest was supposed to tell you while at the graveyard. Obviously chickened out. You see, your mother’s first husband farmed this land, but a train accident killed all of them. Her husband and their children.”

  I barely made out his words. Mother. Father. A man she loved before him? How is this possible? Children before my brother and myself? She never came back here because she couldn’t. Her incredible pain presses too close to mine.

  Clouds darkened and thunder rumbled. Birdsong ceased. Mr. Bleu gently took my elbow and led me back to the house and up the stairs to my bedroom where he had hauled a large trunk. “Your mother’s things that she left here. I’ll leave you to it.”

  I stared at the old trunk as if it were a coffin carrying the bones of someone else’s past. Had I really known Mother? He turned to walk away.

  “Mr. Bleu?”

 
“Yes?”

  “Always be honest with me. I beg you. I can’t stand this...this...” My chin quivered. I closed my eyes.

  “Miss Trafton, I promise.”

  Tears blinded my eyes.

  Minutes later, Aunt brought me a tray of delectable tidbits. Pickles, olives, buttered bread with jam, another slice of spice cake and a pot of tea. She set the things down on my desk and wrapped her arms around me. The loving warmth and the spread before me only made me ache more for what I’d lost. Why had she walked out of the kitchen when I needed her presence the most?

  I am the sole survivor of Mother’s tragedies. The bearer of her heritage. The whole of it.

  Aunt poured a cup of tea and placed it in my hands. “When you are ready to hear about them, I will tell you. We grew up together, you know.”

  She left me alone. I sat by the trunk for a while, building up the courage to see Mother’s life and loves before Father and me.

  My throat began to sting.

  I did not delay opening the trunk. No mice had been there the twenty-three years these things lay dormant. Carefully covered in cedar sachets, a soft bundle of clothing covered the top. I set them aside, for I could guess them to be baby’s things. Wrapped in a shawl was the wedding photo. Mother, so young. Mr. Birch, tall with a top hat held to his side—the first face she loved. He was exceedingly handsome. I hate to admit that, because Father’s pleasant manner and a kindly beard made him attractive.

  I found a stack of letters, but I dared not read them. Could not. I set those aside also. Various childhood knickknacks followed. Were they Mother’s or her children’s? My other brother and sisters...

  I lifted a sketchbook found in the bottom dated 1840. First page inscribed by Abraham Birch, aged 15 years. I turned the pages. Life in detail! I wondered how this man chose farming rather than pursuing illustration.

  My younger boy cousins bounded down the hallway in a chase, knocking a picture off the wall, bringing me back to the present. I set everything back and latched it closed.