John Casey: Compass Rose

“Yes,” Rose said, “but he was just leaving. He said to tell you not to wait supper. He’ll get something to eat on his way back, and then he’s going to work some more on the skiff. Might be late.”

Elsie wished it wasn’t Rose letting her know where he’d be.

The sea breeze came up while they ate lunch, not so salty as down by the marsh. A bit of pine in the air, a bit of forest mast, but mostly crushed grass and turned earth. May breathed deep. They’d got the better part of an acre cleared of rocks, and she was grateful for how hard everyone was working. That was part of why she felt so good. Another part was that what with sticking their crowbars and spades in and prying the stones up, they were loosening the soil, letting it breathe. She liked having a commonsense reason for feeling good.

She’d caught herself humming as she’d shoveled. If she went on like this, pretty soon she’d be like Mary Scanlon, bursting into song whenever she felt like it. But then May thought, If that’s how Mary feels, let her.

Mary had told her how Mr. Salviatti had gone in to see Mr. Aldrich, taking Mary in tow. “I don’t know why. He talked about fresh peas and then he said, ‘Ask Mary,’ and I nodded, and he said, ‘Fresh corn, a half hour from stalk to kettle. Ask Mary.’ I couldn’t get a word in, but neither could Jack. Finally Mr. Salviatti leans in and says, ‘Look, Jack. We don’t want that land for more houses. I’m in the road business, I know what it would cost to put a road in there. And water and sewage. No ocean view from that lot. We might not make our money back. What makes money for Sawtooth? It’s our oceanfront, it’s our tennis club and yachts. And it’s our good food. So this way we have vertical integration. Mrs. Pierce knows how to grow good vegetables; Mary knows how to cook them. And I know how to make sure nobody has problems.’ ” Mary had laughed. “People have been wondering for years. He was joking. You know how I know? Going down the stairs from Jack’s office, I said, ‘So how come you had me along?’ And he says, ‘You’re the muscle.’ And we both cracked up. You know what I think? Jack got his way with legal shenanigans and throwing his weight around, but he’s cut himself off. He’s up in his office with nothing but his maps and files. You’ve got a gang of friends. It’s them — them and your way with your old garden — that got Mr. Salviatti on your side. And he figures he’ll have more fun with us raggle-taggle gypsies. I’ve got to cook at Sawtooth on Saturday, but I’m bringing Mr. Salviatti over Sunday afternoon. His car can’t make it over that jeep trail, so we’ll use my pickup. It’s late in the season but time enough for some root vegetables. Turnips, parsnips, celeriac. You could use some of those rocks you pull up to line a root cellar. Eddie could help you make one. In the fall you could have a barn raising, a little red-cedar barn. It’d be grand.”

May had said, “Plenty to do before that. If we get a second acre cleared, I got to plant some winter rye.” It was just like Mary to run ahead like that, but now May thought she herself needn’t have got so tight-lipped.

Eddie started up the tractor. Elsie was the first one on her feet. She said, “Come on, Rose. Get your hands dirty. JB can drive the jeep.”

May said, “Rose has got her show tonight. She can drive the jeep. Is that all right with you, Deirdre? Tom’s been teaching her to drive.”

“Sure,” Deirdre said.

“I’m sorry, Elsie,” May said. “I just thought …”

Elsie waved and picked up her crowbar. “Come on, JB, get your shovel. You’re stuck with me.” Off she went, jab, jab, jabbing until she clinked on a rock, a small, sharp note that cut through the rumble and mutter of the tractor as it inched forward. That note got the rest of them going. May watched Elsie wave to JB to come shovel away some earth so she could stick her crowbar in under the lip of the rock. And there she was heaving on the crook end of the bar, putting her legs and back into it, all coiled up so her work pants pulled tight on her rear end. JB touched her back. Of course he would. All that hum of energy. He pointed the tip of his shovel at the other side of the rock. Elsie nodded, and JB dug out the edge. Elsie jabbed a couple of times, got the bar in deep enough to pry. The rock tilted up, a flat rock, not so big after all, about the size of a boat cushion. Elsie and JB crouched down to lift it, wiggled it a bit, and heaved it into Eddie’s front-end scoop.

May poked here and there, dug up a pretty melon-shaped rock with a white stripe around its middle. She walked back to show it to Rose before she dropped it in the cart. Right there between the tractor and the jeep it was too loud to talk, but when she got to digging again the noise wasn’t so bad, even a comfort. It put her in mind of a beehive.

She hit a fair-sized rock, waved to Tom to bring his crowbar. When he threw the rock in the scoop, Eddie turned off the motor. Eddie did this from time to time so he could tell a joke, give everyone a couple of minutes to stretch. May looked back down the field. The lay of the land was on her side. It tilted up a bit from the south, just about right to catch the fog when it blew in. A good overnight fog was as good as watering — it came up from the sea but left the salt behind, settled a freshwater dew.

Eddie started the tractor again. May pried up another rock, flipped a bit of sod in the hole, grass side down, so it’d rot. Another good thing that went on in the dark. She’d be like Dick when he got to lobstering again, setting his pots so the lobsters would creep in — all that went on in the dark, too. She’d go to bed tired and likely a bit sore tonight, and plenty of nights after, but she’d go to bed satisfied. She knew well enough that whatever got done by way of clearing and tilling and sowing was the least of it. Most of it was what came out of the earth, what came from the fog and rain, from the sun hitting the slight southerly tilt of the field. The work was to put her field in the way of these providences.

That was enough about that. Who’d be set for work tomorrow? She looked around. Elsie was doing more than her share but had something else to do Sunday. Eddie and Tom were on. And Deirdre — when all was said and done, Deirdre would do. Tran was on the payroll — Dick was paying him some so as not to lose him when Dick got a boat. She suspected that JB would be aching, but he could drive the jeep. Rose had her Sunday matinee. No Eddie on Monday, but he would leave the tractor for her. They’d use the jeep and wagon to move the compost from her old place, spread it on the little patch where they’d scalped the sod. Plant that patch next week, another patch the week after. Sow the second acre in winter rye, plow it under for next year. Plenty to think about, plenty to do. She wanted nothing better than to set herself to it.

At the end of the workday Elsie turned down a ride in Deirdre’s jeep. She walked past the barberry thicket and through the woods, the trees now heavier with green, the patches of late-afternoon light wavering on the mat of old leaves and roots. It was then she thought, Am I going to? Am I really going to? Before she reached the house she’d decided, and by the time she got there she was floating, drifting in the current.

Rose was there, walking around the living room bent over at the waist and chanting over and over in a low voice, “How now, brown cow.” Then Rose lay on her back and closed her eyes.

Elsie said, “Be sure to drink some water. You’ve been—”

“I did. I will. Right now I’m concentrating, okay?”

When Rose was in the bathtub, Elsie said, “Do you want something to eat?”