She laughed, and Joe looked at her red-stained fingers. He knew without
being told that Barbara, and probably all the rest except the babies,
Alfred and Carlyle, had spent at least a part of their day gathering
wild berries. Plucking and preserving wild fruit was a job the women
folk and youngsters could do, and it was inevitable as summer itself.
Joe fell back on a stock question,
"Where's Tad?"
"He went off in the woods by himself."
"Didn't he help you?"
"Oh yes. Mother made him."
Joe grinned inwardly. Emma seldom raised her voice to any of the
youngsters and she never struck any of them. But somehow she managed
prompt and unquestioning obedience to any order she issued, and that was
more than Joe could do. There was about his wife a mysterious force
which was always recognizable, but which Joe could not explain. It was
strange, he reflected in passing, that this force did not carry over
into anything outside the immediate family. It was strange that the
thought of leaving the house should be so fearsome when in other
respects Emma was so sure of herself. But he brushed the thought aside,
as he had brushed it aside each time it came to plague him.
Joe entered the house and kissed Emma, and for the moment his weariness
lifted. He wrinkled his nose.
"Something smells good!"
"Raspberry preserves. We'll try some tomorrow, but we can't now because
it isn't done. We found good picking; some of those berries were as big
as my thumb."
A black kettle in which simmered the fruits gathered that day was pushed
toward the back of the stove. Spicy odors filled the room, and Joe knew
that, when snow lay deep on the ground, Emma would bring her jams,
jellies and preserves from the shelves where she kept them and they
would be a little bit of the summer back again. Joe remembered the
delights of winter morning feasts when all had spread pancakes a quarter
inch thick with jam, and he smacked his lips.
The four younger children, their hands stained like Barbara's, rushed
toward him and he braced himself to meet their charge. The youngsters
hadn't anyone except one another to play with and they always looked
forward to his arrival. He plumbed his brain for a story to tell them or
a little play to act out. Then Emma turned from the stove and spoke to
the children:
"Your horses are trampling everything in the house and I won't have it.
Tie them up again."
The happy youngsters returned to the game, obviously a game of horses
that they had been playing, and Joe felt a swelling gratitude. It would
be nice to rest, and Emma had known it. At the same time he felt a vast
admiration for his wife; she had relieved him of any more responsibility
without offending the children. It went to prove all over again what Joe
had always suspected; for all their supposed fragility, and despite the
fact that they were allegedly the weaker sex, women had strength and
power about which men knew nothing. Strength and power, that is, when it
came to dealing with their children. Regarding other things, though,
such as making a sensible move in a sensible direction--but again he
brushed the thought aside. He sank into a chair, and with a real effort
managed to keep from going to sleep.
"How was it today?" Emma asked.
"I had a good day."
All things considered, he had had a good day. There was much about ax
work that he enjoyed. An ax in the hands of a man who knew how to use it
ceased to be a mere tool and became a precision instrument. To an ax
man, an ax was much like a good rifle to a hunter.
"Are you going to cut more trees?" Emma asked.
"I'll work in the timber until the hay needs cutting."
That was all they said but that was all they had to say because the rest
fell into a precise pattern. When the trees were felled and trimmed some
would be split into rails for rail fences and the rest used for
firewood. As soon as snow eliminated the danger of forest fire the brush
would be burned. That was always a minor festival. The whole family
turned out for the brush burning. The children watched, fascinated,
while leaping flames climbed skyward through crackling branches. Then,
while Joe raked the unburned branches together and fired them, Tad and
baby Emma built a snow man or a snow fort for the delectation of the
rest. It usually ended with Emma and Barbara serving a lunch beside
still-glowing coals and Joe always saved enough branches so everyone
could have a dry seat.
Emma went to the door and called "Tad!" and as though the eight-year-old
were on some invisible leash that attached himself to his mother, he
appeared out of the lowering night. His seal-sleek hair proved that he
had already washed at the well, but no mere water could suffice for Tad
now. His face and arms were laced with deep gashes from which blood was
again beginning to ooze, and there were fang marks on his upper
forearms.