Part 4
The barn held scraps of lumber that Clara had passed a dozen times without wanting them. Now she tested each piece, rejecting rotten ends and carrying the sound boards back under her arm.
She set the lantern where it couldn’t be knocked over and went to work on the doorway. The boards didn’t fit neatly. She sawed one shorter, drove nails through another at an angle, and stopped once to hold her fingers under her arms until she could feel them again.
Dry straw filled the narrow openings around the frame. She kept it well clear of the lantern and hung old burlap inside the entrance to slow the air that still found its way through. More insulating material went against the exposed section of wall.
By afternoon, the wind had found every loose place in her own coat.
She went home long enough to warm herself and eat, then returned. The coldest bins worried her most. Working by lantern light, she moved the roots farther from the outer wall and added sand around the new layers.
Her shoulders began to tremble when she lifted. Once, the hammer slipped from her stiff fingers and struck the step. She stared at it, angry enough to leave it there, before bending to pick it up.
She kept working until close to midnight.
At home, she took off her boots by the stove and left them where they fell. She was asleep before the room had warmed.
The next morning, hunger sent her toward the flour sack, but she stopped with her hand on it. She put her coat back on and crossed the field first.
The burlap stirred when she entered the cellar. Below it, the air was still.
Clara knelt and worked her fingers into the nearest bin. The sand moved loosely. She lifted one turnip, checked it, and laid it back. Then she tested a parsnip and a rutabaga from the other side.
No frozen patches. No softening flesh.
She sat on the bottom step with the lantern beside her boot. For a little while, she let her hands rest open on her knees.
Outside, fresh tracks led around the barn.
The rabbits were pressed into their shelter beneath the timbers. Clara brought more straw, added it where the bedding had thinned, and strengthened the windbreak. Their water needed attention again. She brought a fresh supply and put hay where snow couldn’t drift over it.
One of the older rabbits remained near enough for her to see the bands of color in its fur. Along its back, the tips stood a little high.
She remembered asking her father once why one rabbit’s coat looked different from another’s. He had shown her the long fur of a silver fox rabbit, which could stand when brushed backward, then let her feel the softer, dense coat of an American chinchilla. She had remembered the animals chiefly by color then. He had wanted her to look more carefully.
These rabbits had the useful winter coat she knew. They also had the habits of domestic animals: a familiar retreat, a short route to food, little inclination to vanish into the country beyond the farm.
Clara pushed the last armful of straw under the sheltered edge. The older rabbit sniffed it before stepping forward.
The Monday deliveries continued. Through the rest of January and into February, she found the roots firm beneath their sand. Mrs. Bannon examined each crate less than she had in December, although Clara’s own inspections grew no less careful.
A woman who had traded with her came back asking for parsnips. Her youngest boy had begun requesting the soup. Mr. Fenwick brought a sack of oats and went home with turnips and carrots.
By the last Monday of the eleven-week agreement, winter still held the roads. Clara delivered both crates and entered the final payment in her book.
Mrs. Bannon watched her close it.
“Will you have a crop for me next winter?”
“I’m considering it.”
The older woman looked at her for a moment. “Consider the parsnips generously.”
That evening, Clara sat beside the stove and opened to a blank page. She wrote 1933 at the top.
Below it, she drew a rectangle.
The new garden would have four rows of turnips, three of parsnips, two of rutabagas, and two shorter rows of carrots. She marked the space carefully, leaving room to reach between them. The deepest soil would go to the parsnips.
Some seed would have to be bought. She might obtain more in trade. The roots she had reserved could be replanted and allowed to grow through their second season to produce seed, provided she managed them properly. That would not help with every row she needed to sow now.
She made a separate list of what she would have to find.
At the bottom of the drawing, her pencil paused near the barn. She added a strip beside the tree line and marked the old hutches.
Leaving the rabbits to feed in her vegetable rows would undo her work, and six rabbits would not necessarily remain six. She needed repaired housing, proper feed, and a way to keep the animals safely without letting their numbers run beyond what she could care for.
Clara turned back to the first page of her supplies list and added wire and sound boards.
In March, she heard water dripping from the barn roof while snow still lay deep on the shaded side. A dark patch opened near the fence. Each day, she watched it widen.
She waited until a handful of soil broke apart instead of smearing before taking her rake into the garden.
The old rows were covered with flattened stalks and a heavy mat of leaves. She gathered broken boards, dragged them out, and cleared the debris over two long days. The fence took two more. Several posts could be braced; others needed resetting before the rails would hold.
Then she began with the soil.
For the parsnips, she worked deeper, lifting stones that would turn a long root crooked. Elsewhere, she broke clods and spread well-rotted manure where the ground needed it. Near the barn, she checked where meltwater collected and opened the drainage before planting.
She came home with dirt in the seams of her gloves and discovered it again while washing her wrists.
By the middle of April, markers stood along the prepared rows. Clara knelt at the first one with seed in her palm. She measured the spacing, covered the seed to the proper depth, and firmed the earth gently.
Afterward, she checked the surface each morning. The first small green shoots were hard to distinguish from weeds until she learned the exact shape of their leaves. She counted what came up and resowed the empty stretches.
A heavy rain in May cut into one row and carried soil downhill. Clara stood beside the damage until the shower had nearly stopped, then fetched tools. She rebuilt the row and planted again where seed had washed away.
Insects found some of the young plants. She checked leaves while the light was good, removed what she could, and watched the damaged sections for new growth.
The old hutches occupied her spare hours. By early summer, several had solid floors or suitable resting surfaces, secure doors, and weatherproof roofs. A neighbor familiar with livestock helped her examine the rabbits and sort out how they should be housed. Clara made sure the arrangements would keep their numbers manageable.
The animals took time to settle into being handled, but their generally quiet nature helped. She learned how to support their weight without frightening them and how to approach without trapping them in a corner.
Water and hay became regular morning duties. Bedding had to be clean and dry. The housing needed air as well as protection, and the runs required shade.
In July, their dense coats became a different concern. Clara checked them through the hottest part of the day, refreshed the water, and made certain air could move through the hutches. In the garden, the same hot spell slowed some of the cool-weather vegetables.
She shifted her work to the cooler hours. There were weeds to pull, moisture to check, and another turnip planting to make for autumn. The rutabagas needed time to develop toward a later harvest. Each evening, she looked at the rows before putting her tools away.
Some days brought little visible change. On others, she could see that a root had begun to fill out beneath its crown.
Her notebook grew smudged along its edges. Beside the winter accounts, she entered seed, repairs, planting dates, and what had failed. A morning spent tending rabbits no longer felt like time stolen from the garden. She worked through the chores in an order her hands were learning.
The letter arrived in August.
Clara recognized the representative’s writing before she opened it. She read the first lines standing by the kitchen table, then drew out a chair.
The Voss family was offering a longer lease covering the garden, cellar, and farmhouse. If matters went well, there would be a possibility of purchasing the property later…
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