Part 3
“I could trade a little,” Clara said. “I can’t promise how much yet.”
That was enough to bring offers. One woman had flour beyond what she expected to need. The other could spare dried beans. Mr. Fenwick knew a family short of vegetables and a man who still had bags of grain to exchange.
Clara listened, then fetched a small notebook.
She gave each kind of root its own place on the page. Beside those entries, she recorded what had been eaten, what had been discarded, and what she might safely trade. Before agreeing to anything, she counted what remained for herself.
The visitors waited while she worked. She didn’t apologize for making them wait.
After they left, she wrapped the pencil in the notebook’s cover and put it on the mantel. The best roots remained in the cellar until she had seen how they held up in storage. An agreeable afternoon at her kitchen table wouldn’t be much comfort if she had to go hungry in February.
On December 1, a wagon drew up outside with Edith Bannon on the seat.
Clara knew her by sight. Mrs. Bannon ran the boardinghouse in Delswick and had a way of looking at a person that made unnecessary explanations die before they reached the tongue. She tied off the reins, climbed down, and brushed snow from her sleeve.
“I’d like to see what you’re keeping,” she said.
Clara took her inside.
Mrs. Bannon examined the roots more thoroughly than Mr. Fenwick had. She asked when they had been lifted, where they were stored, and how often Clara checked them. She weighed a parsnip in her hand, then set it beside a turnip.
“Let’s cook these.”
Clara put water on the stove while Mrs. Bannon removed her gloves. They washed the vegetables, cut them into pieces, and added them to the pot with a little salt. Clara crumbled in dried thyme.
The boardinghouse keeper watched her do it but said nothing.
They sat at the kitchen table while the pot simmered. Through the window, Clara could see snow catching against the fence. Mrs. Bannon turned a loose button on one glove between her fingers and listened to the stove draw.
When the vegetables were tender, Clara divided the broth and pieces between two tin cups. Mrs. Bannon tried a spoonful, waited, then took another. She set the spoon down carefully.
“I need dependable winter food. Could you bring me vegetables every week into February?”
Clara reached for the notebook instead of answering.
Her final tally had come to a little over four hundred thirty pounds of sound vegetables. Some had already gone into meals or trades. She had reserved a portion for her own kitchen and a few particularly good roots she hoped to replant for seed. She worked through the remaining amount twice while Mrs. Bannon waited.
“Two small crates a week,” she said at last. “Fourteen pounds in each. I can promise eleven weeks.”
Mrs. Bannon took the notebook when Clara turned it toward her. She studied the figures, running one blunt finger down the page.
“Eighty cents a crate. I pay when you deliver.”
Clara calculated on the margin. A dollar sixty each week. Seventeen dollars and sixty cents if she completed the whole arrangement.
The sum would not carry anyone far in easy times. She glanced toward the flour shelf.
“I can do that.”
Mrs. Bannon extended her hand across the table. Her grip was dry and strong.
After the wagon left, Clara remained by the door until the sound of the wheels faded. Cold air slipped around her shoes. She closed the door, went to the mantel, and wrote the agreement on a fresh page.
The first delivery was due the following Monday.
She checked the vegetables before she weighed them, brushing sand from each one. A root that had begun to soften stayed out of the crate. She lined the boxes so the vegetables would be protected on the journey, then checked the weight again.
When the road was usable, she borrowed a small cart. When snow made wheels troublesome, she used a sled. The load was manageable, though a hill or a stretch of rutted snow could make her stop to catch her breath.
At the boardinghouse, Mrs. Bannon always looked over the delivery. She also always had the money ready.
Clara learned to bring her notebook and mark the payment before leaving. At first, she tucked the coins away so carefully that Mrs. Bannon waited with her hand still out, holding the empty crates. Clara flushed, took them, and heard the woman’s brief laugh behind her as she went through the kitchen door.
The roots went into meals for people Clara seldom met. The boardinghouse cook simmered parsnips in soup, served turnips with salt pork, and mashed rutabagas with potatoes when potatoes were available. Men with sample cases ate them. Railroad workers came in hungry and left their bowls clean. Families passing through town found hot food at a table they hadn’t expected to reach before dark.
Clara caught the smell of those meals when she made her deliveries. Sometimes she could identify the thyme before she stepped inside.
On her way home, she stopped at the Voss barn. Hay had to be kept dry, water checked, and the patched wall inspected after a wind. The silver-tipped backs were becoming familiar to her. She could recognize the larger rabbit even when it stayed half hidden under the timbers.
December passed in repeated tasks: lift the cellar covering, test the roots, weigh, deliver, write the payment down. Her own supper grew less meager as flour and beans came in through trade. Still, she never took a vegetable from storage without noting it.
Then the weather hardened.
During the night of January 12, the house made small, sharp noises as the temperature fell. Clara woke before daylight and reached for the water she kept near the kitchen door. Ice had formed across the top.
She sat still for a moment, listening to the wind.
The cellar.
Clara dressed over the clothes she had slept in, lit her lantern, and went out without breakfast. The creek no longer made its usual sound. Under her boots, the yard had become so hard that every uneven place threatened to turn her ankle.
She crossed the field with her head lowered. At the Voss house, frost traced the edge of the cellar doors. One warped board had pulled far enough from its neighbor to leave an opening.
Cold air came through it against her wrist.
She lifted the doors and went down. The cellar no longer had its settled, damp chill. A current of bitter air reached the lower steps and moved across the bins.
Clara pushed her fingers into the sand and uncovered a turnip. It was still sound. She checked another bin, then looked up toward the gap at the entrance.
The frost had reached the inside of the frame. Another night like this would freeze her winter food…
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