Part 2
Clara carried the first roots home in her coat, holding the muddy bundle away from the worn lining. She put a turnip in a pot for her lunch and left the others on the table while she found two baskets.
By the time she returned, the rabbits had moved away from her digging. Their little openings remained along the sheltered edge. Leaves had collected there more deeply than in the field, and the soil beneath them had held off the frost. The animals had been eating the crowns and scraps they could reach.
She started at the opposite end.
Working down a row was different from lifting a few vegetables. Each root had to be freed without damage, shaken clean enough to inspect, and placed where it wouldn’t be struck by the spade. Turnips with bites in them went into one basket. Sound ones went into the other. When both were full, Clara carried them home, emptied them onto boards, and went back.
The parsnips were the slowest. Several reached deep enough that she had to kneel and clear soil by hand before they would come loose. Rutabagas filled the baskets quickly. Near the far end, she found two short carrot rows, their roots narrow and crooked but still firm.
She made the trip four times before the light failed.
Inside her kitchen, earth sifted onto the floor as she sorted. Some roots had split. Others showed insect damage or places where the rabbits had fed. She kept the sound vegetables separate and set aside the damaged ones for immediate use.
Her shoulders throbbed when she finally sat down. She found a pencil, flattened a scrap of paper, and made a cautious estimate. The day’s work had yielded roughly eighty-eight pounds.
Less than a quarter of the garden had been opened.
Clara held the pencil above the paper for a while. Then she turned the sheet over and began again, checking the figures.
Before digging any farther the next morning, she went into Delswick. The man handling the Voss family’s business kept a small office adjoining the general store. He listened while she described the roots, then took an address from a drawer.
“A relative farther west,” he said. “I can send word there.”
“I’d like permission before I take any more. The ground won’t wait much longer.”
He asked what she had already lifted. Clara told him, including what she had eaten. He wrote it all down.
Two days later, she was called to the store’s telephone. The answer had come back. The family would not be returning that winter. She could recover the vegetables and use the farmhouse cellar to store them. In exchange, they wanted the buildings kept closed and the property watched.
Clara repeated the terms to be certain she had understood.
“Yes,” the man told her. “They’d rather see the food used.”
That afternoon, she returned with her baskets. An older rabbit sat beside one of the crooked posts, working at a strip of greenery. Clara put her spade into the ground several feet away from it.
She left their corner alone.
Over the next several workable days, the garden gradually revealed its size. Rows extended nearly fifty feet, with about twenty feet between the outer edges of the planting. Twice, a hard night’s frost stopped her in the morning. She used those hours to sort what she had already brought in and tried the ground again after the sun had been on it.
Blisters rose under her gloves. She changed the way she gripped the spade, which helped her palms and punished her back. At night she warmed her hands around a cup before trying to hold the pencil.
By November 15, more than four hundred pounds of usable roots had come out of the ground.
Along the southern fence, she found a few onions and a stand of sage half hidden under weeds. Woody thyme stems still carried leaves. Clara rubbed one between her fingers and lifted her hand to her nose.
Whoever had worked here had known what belonged in a winter kitchen.
She harvested what she could, leaving the living herb plants enough to recover, and carried the little bundles home on top of the last basket.
The following afternoon, she went to inspect the cellar. The doors were stiff, and one hinge complained as she raised them. Holding her lantern low, she tested each wooden step before putting her full weight on it.
Below, the flame hardly moved. Stone walls enclosed a packed-earth floor, and the air had the cool, damp feel she wanted. Four empty crates stood against a wall. Nearby were rough-board bins, dusty but mostly sound.
Clara pressed a thumb into the wood, checked the corners, and scraped away a loose splinter. Then she set the lantern on a step and went back up for a broom.
She could still picture her father showing her how to store roots. A damaged vegetable went to the kitchen, not into the winter supply. Sound ones needed cold without freezing, moisture without standing wet, and enough separation that a spoiled root wouldn’t ruin a whole bin.
For three evenings, she worked in the cellar after finishing the day’s other chores. She swept out debris, cleaned the crates, and brought in sand. She tested its dampness with her fingers before laying down the first bed.
The long parsnips fitted best in the deeper bins. She arranged the rutabagas with room around them and layered the turnips without allowing them to touch. Smaller boxes held the carrots. Each time she covered a layer, she checked that she hadn’t missed a soft spot or a broken skin.
Above her, the old house creaked in the wind. Downstairs, the lantern made a small warm circle around the work. Sand rasped against the boards as she smoothed it with her palm.
At home, she dealt with the roots that wouldn’t keep. Anything spoiled went out. Bruised portions were cut away, and the sound flesh went into her cooking pot. She sliced some vegetables thin and dried them near the stove, turning them until they no longer felt damp. The herbs hung overhead on lengths of string.
Her kitchen acquired smells she had almost forgotten: simmering onions, drying thyme, and hot bread made with something to eat beside it.
She also began carrying hay to the old barn.
The rabbits kept their distance at first. Clara left the hay near the hutches, where it would stay dry, and repaired a break in the wall that admitted blowing snow. Whenever she could, she brought water before the cold sealed it over.
She made no attempt to corner them. If a rabbit retreated under the barn, she finished her work and left.
A boy from the store spread the news without meaning any harm. Russell was twelve and delivered grain for people who couldn’t fetch it themselves. He saw a crate in Clara’s kitchen and stopped to look.
“Are those all turnips?”
“Not all.” She lifted the cloth covering another box. “There are parsnips under here.”
“Where’d you get them?”
She told him while he shifted his load by the door. Before he left, he wanted to know whether the rabbits were tame enough to touch.
“Not for you to try,” Clara said.
He grinned, but he kept his hands to himself.
His mother heard the account that evening. By Sunday, women leaving church were discussing a garden found under snow, although some were certain the quantity had been exaggerated.
A few days later, two women came to Clara’s door with Mr. Fenwick, an older neighbor who had spent most of his life judging things by examining them himself.
Clara welcomed them into the kitchen. She didn’t try to persuade anybody. Instead, she uncovered a crate she had brought from the cellar and reached into the sand.
Mr. Fenwick took the turnip she offered him. He rolled it in his hand, pressed the skin near the crown, then looked at the clean parsnip lying beside it.
“You’ve kept these properly.”
“So far.”
He nodded at that qualification. One of the women bent over the crate and lifted a rutabaga with both hands.
“Clara, would you let some of these go?”
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