Part 5
Clara laid the letter flat and read the terms again. Then she opened her notebook beside it.
For several evenings, she worked through what she could reasonably expect from the garden, what the lease would require, and what had to remain untouched for another difficult winter. The offer stayed under a plate on the table so the draft from the door wouldn’t carry it to the floor.
Near the end of August, she went into Delswick to sign.
The office smelled of paper and an extinguished stove. The clerk indicated where her name belonged, waited while she read the agreement, and turned it so she could write comfortably.
Clara formed the letters carefully. When he had recorded the arrangement, he gave her a copy.
Outside, someone was unloading sacks at the store. A wagon stood crooked by the hitching rail, and two men argued mildly about whether rain would come before supper. Clara folded her paper to fit inside her coat.
During the ride home, she kept a hand over that pocket. When the Voss barn came into view, she took the agreement out once more, checked that it hadn’t torn along the fold, and put it away.
September brought nights cool enough to send her looking for a heavier quilt. In the garden, turnip shoulders widened above the soil. Rutabagas developed their weight, and the late carrots firmed along the short rows. The parsnips stood at the eastern edge, waiting for the colder weather that would improve their flavor.
Clara didn’t lift everything at once. She checked the roots, chose her time, and took the crops in as they became ready. A place that had produced poorly received a mark in her notebook. Another, where the soil had stayed loose and drained well, earned a note for the following year.
She had cleaned the bins before harvest. The crates were repaired, the sand ready, and the drying space cleared. Roots that would keep went into storage without being bruised. Damaged ones went to the kitchen. Herbs dried overhead while she worked below them.
By October 19, the cellar was almost full.
Clara went down that evening with the lantern held away from her skirt. Cloth bags of dried vegetables rested on the shelves. The sage and thyme gave off their scent when her shoulder brushed a hanging bundle. Beneath their layers of sand, the fresh roots lay where she had packed them.
She inspected the doorway repair from the previous January and pressed at the edges. It would need watching again when the bitter weather came.
Mrs. Bannon’s new winter order was written in the notebook upstairs. Two families on the east road had requested smaller deliveries. Clara had counted their portions separately from the food reserved for her own kitchen.
She set the lantern on the lower step and checked one last bin. A carrot lay too close to its neighbor. She moved it, drew sand between them with two fingers, and covered the layer.
The next morning, frost silvered the grass in the yard. Clara took her coffee outside and followed the fence toward the garden.
Leaves were coming off the oaks beyond the barn. She stopped at a rail, tested its fastening, and continued to the rabbit housing. Three American chinchillas were in the protected run. One came forward when it heard her steps. Another kept chewing hay, while the third watched through the wire with its nose working.
Clara crouched to check the water.
Almost a year had passed since she had seen five dark shapes moving near a broken fence. She remembered how long she had stood with the empty pail before deciding that their digging deserved a closer look.
The rabbit nearest her turned away and began searching through the hay.
It had wanted food then, just as it did now. The animals had followed a familiar route from shelter to something they could eat. Their paws had opened the leaves and snow. Clara had happened to see them at work.
She put her cup on a post and checked the latch. It caught properly. The wire held firm where she tested it with her fingers.
Across the garden, the old discovery corner remained easy for her to find. She could place the first turnip almost exactly, though the ground there had been worked and planted since. Beyond it stood the rows she had laid out herself, some harvested, some still waiting.
She finished her coffee beside the enclosure. A gust sent dry leaves skittering along the fence, and all three rabbits lifted their ears. Then one lowered its head to the hay again.
Clara thought of the notebook waiting on her table. There would be more to enter before winter: the last parsnips, the remaining carrots, the supplies needed for the cellar door. She would have to account for losses as well as sales. Weather could still spoil work, and money could still run short.
She picked up the cup and walked back toward the house. At the garden gate, she paused to look over the ground she would work that morning. The frost was already disappearing where the sun reached it.
Inside, she rinsed her cup and set it beside the stove. Her tools stood by the door, cleaned after yesterday’s harvest. Clara chose the spade, pulled on her gloves, and went out to begin.