The Springsweet by Saundra Mitchell Read Free Book Online Page B

from my lap and threw open the front door. What we hadn't seen through the oilpaper windows was the sky kneading itself darker and darker. Faint, lavender veins of heat lightning coursed through the clouds.
    Any sky could threaten, and lightning meant nothing when it was the threadlike, embroidered sort. But the wind turned, and it smelled of rain-—that distant, heavy greenness that comes before a storm.
    Leaving my sewing on the little chair, I said, "I'm going to put the chickens in, just in case."
    "You do that," Birdie said, and I felt her eyes on me all the way out the door.
    ***
    Chickens, it turned out, rather liked the rain.
    I'd had a devil of a time getting them into the coop the night before, and the following morning they splashed in the mud like unruly children.
    "They're eating bugs," Louella said, standing over the chickens instead of scaring them out of their wits.
    And she wasn't wrong—the storm had scoured the night, leaving morning full of twisting worms and newly bloomed flowers.
    Even the sky seemed scrubbed clean. The horizon that just yesterday faded into a dusty haze now stretched on forever. When I squinted, I made out the shape of another homestead in the distance.
    It gleamed gold in the early light, a timber house instead of a soddy. A curl of smoke rose from it, another family in the wilderness breaking their fast. Something about that made my heart swell. The world went on around me, and we were all connected by earth and rain and the bobbing heads of poppy mallow and indigo.
    This is a good place.
    I didn't so much think it as feel it—a certainty that didn't settle in the marrow of my bones but emerged from it. I smiled at the basin we'd set out, now full of rainwater to wash our clothes. Though my breast and bone still protested the lack of a corset, I had to admit I found the way the wind slipped through my clothes a singular pleasure.
    "Time for breakfast," I told Louella.
    I would have picked her up, but she'd run outside without stockings or shoes, and now she, like the chickens, wore a layer of mud. I laughed when she ran straight inside—yet another advantage to a soddy. Louella could hardly track mud in on a dirt floor!
    "I'll be heading into town this week," Birdie said as she sat with a tin pan in her lap. She'd baked a bit of corn cake and boiled last night's beans again to heat them. Louella got the biggest share of both because she was growing, but even her portion was small.
    As Birdie offered neither honey nor butter, I didn't ask for them. But, shamefully, I missed them desperately. The beans tasted only of beans and a bit of salt; the corn cake was gritty—not sweet or light the way Mama's cornbread was. My mouth watered for breakfasts I had bolted down without thought in Baltimore: fresh eggs, and bacon, and hotcakes shining with maple syrup.
    Apparently, my memories played on my face, for Birdie put her fork down and said, "I know this isn't much, but Caroline will be paying me for this month's lace soon. We'll have a proper dinner to welcome you then."
    Embarrassment slapped my cheeks scarlet. "This is good."
    "No, it's not." Birdie snorted and picked her fork up again. There was no sadness in it, simply matter-of-factness. "I've been putting a dollar aside each month to get a hog or a cow."
    "Milk," Louella sang, chasing a bean around her plate.
    "Yes, probably a calf," Birdie agreed. "It's a hard thing to balance. With a cow, we'd have milk and butter and cream, and it'll happily feed itself through the summer."
    Though I had never considered what keeping animals might mean, I guessed the converse. "Whereas a pig won't do anything but demand feed and scraps for months, until it's big enough to slaughter?"
    Impressed, Birdie nodded. "Exactly right."
    "I could take on some sewing too. My stitches are good, and..."
    "No, ma'am." Birdie ladled a bit of the bean broth into Louella's plate. "I need you to mind Louella and the chores. I can accomplish plenty of sewing when