Трейси Шевалье - At the Edge of the Orchard

Illness had taken the bite out of Sal, subduing her enough that they were able to have a peaceful time in the orchard. Wearing a sack tucked into a belt, Robert climbed the trees and picked the hard-to-reach spitters while Martha gathered those closer to the ground. Sal picked up the windfalls-they were already bruised and would be used for cider, so it didn’t matter how rough she was with them. James reminded Robert and Martha to twist the apples so that they came off at the stem rather than taking part of the branch with them, and also to keep the stems on-otherwise a hole where the stem should be might turn mushy and rot. They must also place the apples gently into their sacks so they didn’t bruise. Though most of the spitters would be immediately cooked or dried or pressed for cider and so could be bruised without consequences, James remained a perfectionist, determined to keep his apples unblemished. He kept the windfalls separate from the rest, and he had the children empty their sacks slowly into the wheelbarrow to avoid knocks, taking them back to the house himself. Those that would be eaten he placed one at a time in boxes in the cellar; the windfalls went into barrels outside, to be pressed for cider in Port Clinton.

He brought a wheelbarrow full of spitters in to Sadie. She was busy making bread while the last of the tomatoes from the garden stewed on the range. “There’s good strong sun today,” James pointed out. “You can get a start on drying apple rings. You want me to send Sal back to help? She’s only collecting windfalls, and they’ll be all right for a day or two more on the ground.”

“Don’t tell me how to keep house,” Sadie muttered. She was kneading dough, punching and slapping it hard. Its surface reminded James of the smooth soft flesh of her buttocks back when they were first married. To his surprise the memory made him hard, and he had to turn away to hide it while he was unloading the apples.

He sent Sal back to help Sadie anyway, while he and Martha and Robert remained in the orchard to finish picking and storing the apples. As he trundled to the house each time with a laden wheelbarrow, he watched Sadie and Sal’s progress; by mid-afternoon they had cut up dozens of apples and laid the rings out on the nine-patch quilt to dry in the sun. He noticed, though, that the apples had not been cored-they were not rings so much as slices, with the seeds and tough membrane left in, forming stars in the centers.

When they finished picking the apples from a row, Robert celebrated by climbing the tallest tree in the orchard-a spitter James had planted next to the Golden Pippins the first year that was now twelve feet high. Martha watched, and James felt sorry for her. Though long past his tree-climbing days, he still remembered the freedom of being up in the branches, swaying with the sun on his face.

“Come up.”

For a moment James thought Robert was speaking to him.

“I don’t know how,” Martha said, standing at the base of the tree, her face turned up towards her brother.

“Put your right foot onto that low branch, and your left hand onto the branch above you, then pull yourself up and put your left foot up onto the next branch.” When Martha hesitated, Robert said, “You’re stronger than you think.”

That seemed to spur her on. As James watched, his daughter put her foot and hand into position, remained like that as if assessing her folly, then gritted her teeth and pulled herself a foot off the ground.

“All right, now, reach with your right hand and grab the branch, then put your left foot up as high as it will go.” Robert steadily talked Martha through the moves that brought her higher and higher off the ground. James resisted the temptation to go and stand under the tree, for that would just scare her into letting go. Besides, this was their game; it did not include him.

Eventually she was sitting in a fork in the tree, Robert a little above her. Both were smiling, and Martha was swinging her legs and humming “Blest Be the Tie That Binds.”

James did not want to break up their pleasure, and sought his own, moving aside part of the deer fence and picking a Golden Pippin. “Come down and try this,” he said.

Robert coached Martha down, then they shared the apple between the three of them, James nodding at the taste. The Golden Pippins were almost ready.

When they came in at the end of the day, their cheeks were flushed and their eyes bright as if they had fevers. They were not sick, however, but happy. The house smelled of apple butter Sadie was making from more of the spitters. The apple rings had been brought inside to dry overnight. James should have kept his mouth shut about them not being cored, kept the peace, protected that rare happiness he shared with his children. But he couldn’t help it: Sadie had a way of stamping her mark on everything, even on apple rings. “Couldn’t you find the corer?” he said.

Sadie was ladling apple butter into jars and ignored him.

“Sadie,” James said.

She didn’t look up. “What.” Her arm jiggled so that a ladle full of hot apple butter hit the table and splattered. James jumped back to avoid being burned.

“Why didn’t you core the apples before you cut them into rings? With those seeds in, the rings won’t go sweet but will taste bitter.”

“I did it for Martha.” Sadie glanced sideways at her daughter. “She’s got such a taste for pretty things now Hattie Day’s been here turnin’ her head that I thought she’d care more about the stars in the rings than the sweetness. You like them stars, don’t you, gal?”

Martha ducked her head as if trying to dodge her mother’s sudden attention. “Core the next batch,” James said, knowing as he spoke that telling Sadie would make no difference. Indeed, it might encourage her to do the opposite, and then he would have to respond to her deliberately disobeying him, which was what she wanted. And so their feud would continue, probably for the rest of their lives. The thought exhausted him.

There was no time to find out how she might have responded, however, for at that moment they heard John Chapman’s unique whistle. “John Appleseed!” Sadie dropped the ladle into the pan of apple butter and ran to the door. She was never so eager to see any of the family as she was John Chapman. James knew he should not care-it was understandable that someone you saw only two or three times a year would be more exciting than the people you were with every day. Still, he gritted his teeth and had to force a cheerful greeting when John Chapman followed Sadie in. She was clutching two bottles of applejack.

“Sit yourself down, John!” she cried. “Take the rocker by the fire. It ain’t that cold yet but you don’t get much time inside, so you need to warm up proper. Here, have a dish of apple butter. I jest made it. Must’ve known you were comin’.” Sadie set down the applejack with the sort of care James reserved for sweet apples, then ladled apple butter into a bowl. In her eagerness to serve him she handed him the bowl so quickly that hot apple slid over the edge and spilled onto the floor. “Don’t worry about that!” Sadie knelt to wipe it up with her apron. “There. Will you take some cream on it? Martha, git Mr. Chapman some cream!”

“No need,” John Chapman reminded her. “You remember I don’t eat animals or anything that comes from them.”

“Leave it be, Martha, you silly fool! Didn’t you hear the man?”

Martha stood stricken at the sideboard, pitcher of cream in hand, looking as if she might drop it. Then Robert was at her side, taking the pitcher and setting it back down.

Was it only five minutes ago, James thought, that we were happy with apples?

But John Chapman smiled at Martha and she gave a weak smile back. He looked as ragged as ever with his bare feet and his long hair and his coffee sack for a shirt. “I’m glad to see you’ve got your apples in.” He nodded at the drying slices. “Good crop this year?”