Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon Read Free Book Online Page A

patches of gardcn under the window sills and, along the fence, a bed of cabbages, their pale green heads set in perfect alignment, the rows meticulously tended. No weed, I felt sure, would dare show its face under the Widow Fortune’s careful scrutiny.
    My eyes traveled along the rows, to discover the old lady herself, kneeling among the cabbages. Oblivious to my arrival, she held herself upright, with bowed head, her hands clasped over her breast, and I guessed she might be praying, though why in a cabbage patch I had no idea. The soft morning light lay about her in a wash of water-color tints, all mist and mother-of-pearl, violet and gray and rose; and observing the motionless form, I thought, Here is someone who appreciates the joys of a solitary contemplation of the day. Presently she lifted her head, and, still not noticing me, she rose, digging her fisted hands in the small of her back to ease it, and scanning the sky overhead, lost in some cloudy reverie. Then, lifting her skirts that she had pinned up for purposes of convenience, she peered at the ground around her and spoke.
    “Come, now, slow one, have a bite.” She bent and broke off some cabbage leaves and dropped them beside a large brown stone at her feet. As though by some feat of sorcery, the stone moved. I blinked, then realized it was a large tortoise whose shell resembled a stone. While it proceeded to eat the cabbage leaves, she bent down and spoke to it like a witch to her familiar, then straightened, her black form real and corporeal amid the dissolving mists.
    “Good morning,” I called at last. She turned, peering at me through round, silver-rimmed spectacles, waiting for me to approach. “Watch your hoofs,” she said in a forthright tone, “don’t tread on my cabbages.” A sizable woman, she presented a handsome figure, Junoesque in its stateliness: large head, straight neck, full shoulders. Though time had tugged her here and there, causing the neck to sag under the firm chin, her skin was pulled tight and shone with a robust glow over the rosy flesh. How old
was
she? I wondered again. Age had not seemed to wither her; there was nothing crone-like in her appearance; her constitution appeared firm, her heart stout, and if her teeth were not her own she did not yet walk with a cane.
    If someone had driven up at that moment and asked me my first, surest impression of the Widow Fortune, I would have said comfortable and motherly.
    “You’re an early riser,” she said briskly.
    “ ‘
Carpe diem
,’ ” I quoted, watching where I walked.
    “Can’t speak French,” she replied; the merry twinkle in her eye told me she knew it wasn’t French.
    “ ‘Seize the day,’ ” I translated.
    “It’s the early mornin‘ that’s got the gold in its mouth, as they say. I like to be up before all the trammel starts.”
    When she spoke, it was with a firm authority, a distinct voice that knew what things were about. Listening, she had a gentle, luminous expression, humorous but not mocking.
    “Beth sent you some cinnamon buns for breakfast.” I nodded toward the back-porch steps.
    “Well, now, that’s neighborly. I’ve got the kettle on; let me put the cow to pasture, and you’ll come and have a cup of tea with me.” It sounded less an invitation than a command performance, and I found myself nodding in accord. Her step was spry as I followed her along a footworn path to the barn, where she disappeared for a moment, then reappeared, herding a large brown-and-white cow into a small pasture, carefully setting in the fence bar to keep the animal out of the corn.
    “Brown Swiss.” She spoke with a touch of pride, explaining that the cow, whose name was Caesar’s Wife, was descended from the first herd of Brown Swiss brought from Switzerland to New England almost three centuries before. Caesar’s Wife was the Widow’s treasure.
    She led me back the way we had come, stopping to stir the boiling pot with a large wooden paddle. “Hog,” she