Strawberry Moon (5 page)

There was a long silence. Then Grandmother bent over and picked up the spinning wheel. “It doesn't appear to be broken. Thank God for small mercies,” she said.

Grandmother sat down at the spinning wheel. After a minute, the wheel hummed smoothly. “Sit beside me,” she said. Her feet flew on the treadle, and her fingers worked nimbly.

I sat on a chair and watched Grandmother spin for a long time. The only sound in the cabin was the hum of the wheel. My shoulders relaxed. A distant memory tugged at me. “Grandmother, did you spin in the house in England?”

At first I thought she didn't hear me.

Whirr whirr whirr
went the wheel.

Then she said, “I kept the spinning wheel in your bedroom. I spun every night after your mother died. You missed her so much. The sound of the spinning wheel was the only thing that would put you to sleep.”

“I think I remember,” I said softly. Grandmother stood up. “Now you try,” she said briskly.

“I can't,” I said.

“Nonsense,” said Grandmother.

Reluctantly I sat in her chair. She stood behind me and put her wrinkled hands on top of mine. “Take it easy at first. You do everything too vigorously.”

I chewed my lip. Up and down, up and down went my feet on the treadle. The wheel spun faster and faster. Slowly the bobbin filled with yarn. In a sudden burst, I told Grandmother about the coat and hat at The Landings.

“If you work every day, you could have all the wool spun by the fall,” said Grandmother.

The fall. A cold feeling spread through me. I swallowed. I had to tell Grandmother that I wasn't going back to England with her. My heart thumped. I bent over the wheel and concentrated on my spinning.

I was too afraid to tell her now. But I would tell her soon.

I checked on the baby fox just before bedtime. He wouldn't lift his head, and for a second I thought he was dead. I put my finger on his chest and felt a tiny heartbeat. I dipped the corner of my apron in the milk and squeezed drops on his nose and chin. His eyes blinked open and shut, but this time he didn't drink.

I shivered. The thick log walls kept the shanty cold even though it had been a sunny day. I mounded up hay around the little fox. My head pounded. What should I do?

Tap tap tap
. Grandmother's cane! She was right outside the shanty!

“Ellie, are you in here?” called Grandmother.

The shanty door gave a sudden creak. A strip of light slid across the wooden floor. I held my breath and tried to stay perfectly still.

“Whereever could the child have gone?” muttered Grandmother. I heard the door swing wide open. Then there was a long silence. My heart thudding, I turned around.

Grandmother and I stared at each other. “So this is where you keep disappearing to,” she said finally.

I felt sick. I knew that Grandmother would tell Papa about the fox. And Papa would kill him, the way he had killed the rest of the litter.

Grandmother's black dress rustled as she crossed the shanty floor. She stared down at the baby fox in silence.

“Max said there were six babies, but he was wrong,” I blurted out. “I found it in the
den.” I looked up at Grandmother's cold gray eyes. “I know you'll tell Papa, but I don't care. I'm going to keep it.”

Grandmother raised her eyebrows, the way she did when she found the sticks and leaves in her strawberries. Hot tears pricked the back of my eyelids. For a few minutes, when Grandmother was helping me spin my wool, I had liked her. But now I hated her. I closed my eyes and waited for her to tell me for the hundredth time how foxes killed all their chickens when she was a child.

She didn't. She tapped her cane on the floor and said in a brisk voice, “In that case, we better bring him inside. He'll freeze to death out here.”

We made a bed for the fox in a washtub. We lined it with an old quilt. I gave Grandmother one of my old wool scarves, and she folded it into a snug nest. We tucked the tiny fox into his new bed and carried him to the hearth. The fire was hot as I was still kindling it every morning. Soon I would
switch all my cooking and baking to the outdoor fire and bake oven.

“Now, we better see about getting some milk into him,” said Grandmother.

I told her what I had tried. “He doesn't want it anymore,” I finished.

“Nonsense,” said Grandmother. “He wants the milk. He just doesn't know how to get it.” She poured milk into a pan and set it on the hearth close to the fire. “We'll try warming it. Cold milk must be an awful shock to his stomach.”

When the milk was warm, Grandmother stirred in a spoonful of honey. “You hold him, and we'll see what we can do.”

Grandmother sat in the rocking chair. I kneeled beside her. I lifted up the little fox and cradled him gently in my hands. He was no heavier than a handful of leaves. I propped his head up with my fingers. Grandmother dipped the corner of a white cloth into the milk. It was one of her lace handkerchiefs from England! She squeezed a creamy white drop onto his chin.

His nose quivered. Grandmother squeezed another drop of milk. The fox opened his mouth. A sliver of pink tongue curled up.

I held my breath. Grandmother dipped the corner of the handkerchief back into the milk. Then she gently slid it into the fox's mouth. He clamped down and sucked.

I let my breath out with a rush.

Grandmother soaked the handkerchief in the milk again and again. Each time the fox sucked hard. His eyes were squeezed shut, and his belly went up and down. After a few minutes, he stopped drinking and fell asleep.

I tucked him back in his bed, folding the scarf around him gently. Grandmother said, “When your mother was your age, she found a baby crow. It had fallen out of the nest and been abandoned. She looked after it for a long time.”

A prickle ran up my back. Papa never talked about my mother. “Did the baby crow live?” I asked.

At first I didn't think Grandmother heard me. Then she said in a soft voice, “Yes,
it did. It stayed around for years and became quite a pet. Your mother named it Lucky.”

“That's what I'm going to call this fox,” I said. “Lucky.”

“Well, he's going to need some luck to make it,” said Grandmother. Her voice became brisk again. “Right now, he needs sleep. And so do you. Your papa wants you to finish planting the potatoes tomorrow.”

I was full of more questions about my mother and worried about Lucky. I tossed and turned in Papa's big bed for a long time, thinking about everything that had happened that day. In the morning, Grandmother was sitting in the rocking chair with her eyes closed, the washtub at her feet. I wondered if she had sat there all night! I peeked in at Lucky. He was sleeping too, his tiny body curled into a ball.

I dug hills for the last of the potatoes. I tried not to think about what Papa would say when he got home. At least I would have Grandmother on my side. Even Papa
had a hard time standing up to Grandmother.

When I finished in the garden, I slipped a rope around our cow Nettie and led her a little way into the forest behind the cabin. Nettie could eat grass during the day, and I would fetch her for milking in the evening.

I hurried back down the trail, suddenly anxious to see Lucky and Grandmother. I stopped when I came in sight of the lake. A birch bark canoe was pulled up at the shore.

My friends from the Indian village were here!

Grandmother was in the cabin alone. I remembered how scared Max and I had been when we met the Indians for the first time. I broke into a run.

I pushed open the cabin door. A tall man stood in the middle of the room. It was Peter, Sarah's son. He had long black braids and was dressed in fringed buckskin pants and shirt. A hunting knife hung at his side. Sarah sat upright on a chair, beaming at Grandmother. Her cheeks were
brown and wrinkled, and she was wearing a faded calico dress and moccasins.

Grandmother stood with her back against the bedroom door. She clutched her black shawl tightly. Her face was white.

Sarah pointed to her chest. “Sarah,” she said. She gave Grandmother a huge toothless smile.

Grandmother swallowed. “Agatha,” she whispered.

“Agatha,” said Sarah. She nodded, her black eyes crinkling. Then she rummaged in a big basket on the floor beside her and pulled out a pipe. She chewed on the end and watched Grandmother with interest.

Grandmother's lips tightened. Her eyes flickered around the cabin.

A girl burst through the door, her long black braids flying. “There you are, Ellie!” she cried. “I've been looking everywhere for you.”

It was Annie, Peter's daughter. Annie was my age. She had been living with a white family near The Landings to learn English. She had come home to the lake for the summer, but I hadn't seen her yet.

Sarah took the pipe out of her mouth. She pointed at Annie. “Granddaughter,” she said proudly.

Then she pointed at me. “Granddaughter,” she repeated. Her face broke into another huge smile.

Grandmother nodded faintly. Two red spots spread across her pale cheeks.

“I can stay for a long visit,” said Annie. “My father will come back for me tonight.”

I hugged Annie. Peter walked over to Sarah. He said something rapidly in Indian. Sarah shook her head hard. She beamed at Grandmother.

“I stay too,” she said slowly and carefully. “I stay with Agatha.”

I showed Annie and Sarah the baby fox. Grandmother had disappeared into the bedroom for a nap, shutting the door firmly.

Annie cradled Lucky in her hands. “There's a family of foxes behind our village. I've been watching them. Yesterday the mother fox brought the babies out of the den for the first time.”

Annie stroked Lucky's tiny ears. “The babies are pretty but not as pretty as this one. None of them are black.”

I felt a pang of envy. Annie didn't have to worry about the mother fox killing geese and chickens. The Indians lived peacefully with the wild animals.

I warmed up a pan of milk, and Annie held Lucky while I fed him. Sarah smoked her pipe and watched us. Lucky sucked eagerly at the handkerchief for a while and then fell asleep in Annie's hands. We put him back in the washtub. Sarah had fallen asleep too, her head nodding in the warmth of the fire.

Annie and I went outside. I showed her
my sheep, and we decided they looked silly without their thick woolly fleeces. We spent the rest of the day hunting for bullfrogs beside the lake and picking wildflowers.