The Cherry Harvest (4 page)

Not if I can help it!
Charlotte sat up straight, much taller than the other woman. “We don't have a boat bringing us food and supplies. We need men to pick the fruit. Surely you understand.”

“What
you
don't understand, Charlotte”—Marta splayed her hands flat on the table—“is that you are putting my husband and all the others who watch out for your safety at risk. With Nazis loose right here on the shore—”

Charlotte shook her head. “The prisoners will have Army guards. You don't need to worry—”

“Worry? In addition to all they had to do before, lighthouse keepers are now charged with protecting our shores from the enemy. The shores of the Saint Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes.” She leaned in. “And you think a few prison guards can protect us from that madman Hitler, who's bent on controlling the world?”

Charlotte shivered. What if a prisoner did escape? If there were submarines in Lake Michigan . . . no, no, she wouldn't let herself be drawn in by the fear.

“This is war, Charlotte.” Marta stood, hands on hips. “What do you want? What did you come for?”

Charlotte was stunned by Marta's hostility. She wanted to leave. Walk out. But what she wanted more were those fish. She took a deep breath and bent down and opened her canvas satchel. “I came to show you something I made.” She pulled out the blue vest.

Marta's eyes brightened. She sat back down and took the vest. “You can't buy anything like this.” She held it up. “It's just about right for Remy. Yes, just his size.”

“I could knit something for you, Marta.”

Marta's mouth opened, her eyebrows rose in a question.

“I'm willing to trade,” Charlotte said. “I have nothing for supper.”

Marta smiled. “The fish, eh?”

Charlotte nodded.

“You'd trade this beautiful vest for a basket of fish?”

“No, not this vest. But I'll make something special if you provide the yarn. Mittens, a hat, a scarf.” She paused, waiting. “Even a vest. I would do that for you.”

Marta touched the cable stitching. “I like this one.”

“I'll need eight skeins. Ellie's Dry Goods—”

“No,
this
one.”

Charlotte shook her head. “I made this for Ben.”

Marta looked at the vest, then at Charlotte, her mouth twisted into a self-righteous smirk. Charlotte felt tears welling.
I need those fish!

Marta's head cocked toward the ceiling, children prancing above, coming down the stairs. Charlotte stood and walked to the window. Three gulls cut through the sky, a freighter slid northward on the horizon.
What's the vest worth to this woman?

“Well?” Marta demanded.

Charlotte turned to face her. “I'll trade the vest for the fish.” She scanned the room. “And those grapefruit and oranges and lemons. That basket of green vegetables. A tin of coffee.”

Marta opened a cupboard and pulled out a burlap sack and began filling it, then another. “The Coast Guard boat comes tomorrow.” She said it as if she had won.

Charlotte looked at the table. “Cream and sugar.”
What else?
“And three of your pastries . . .”

“Three pastries?” Marta hesitated. “I promised the children.”

“One then, for Kate. Apricot.”

Marta wrapped an apricot pastry in butcher paper and added it to the sack.

Charlotte picked up the vest and fingered the blue cable stitching one more time before letting it go.

AFTER MOTORING BACK ACROSS THE BAY
, Charlotte tied the boat to the dock and stopped for a moment to gaze up at the house. To others it might look like any old farmhouse—traditional two-story, white clapboard—but to Charlotte it was beautiful. It was home.

Built in the 1860s, the Christiansen homestead sat on a knoll that rose up from the shore, and now the early sun shone golden on the wide front porch where honeysuckle vines blossomed. A bench swing hung from the rafters, and next to it was the wooden rocking chair Ben had made for her.

Charlotte hefted Marta's burlap sacks from the boat and carried them up the stone walk. On the porch she gave the rocker a little push to set it going.

Inside, the front rooms—living room on the right, dining room on the left—were bright with morning sun. All was in order.

Charlotte carried the sacks down the hall, set them on the kitchen table, and peered out the back door to the orchard. That was what drew her, Thomas's cherry orchard. It extended across sixty acres of flat, fertile soil, ninety trees to the acre, 5,400 trees in all.

Thomas had grown up here, and his father before him. Now Charlotte had lived here longer than she'd lived on the dairy farm down near Kewaunee. There she had learned about animals from her father and housekeeping from her mother. But what she enjoyed most was the vegetable garden—the dark rich scent of the earth, the miracle of seeds, and the feel of the cool soil on her bare feet when she ran between the rows, her cotton pinafore kicking up in the breeze.

Mama had served as cook and housemaid for the Romanos, the family that owned the dairy where Pa was foreman. Every evening, after an early supper, Charlotte helped her mother serve the Romanos and their dinner guests. Charlotte liked to peek in on them eating the vegetables she had nurtured—salad greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, beets, squash. They all cooed over young Charlotte—“Did you really grow these beans yourself? Oh, such a pretty child!” Then they'd turn away and go on discussing their grown-up things.

That is, until Mama served them pie. That was what everyone liked best, Mama's pies—strawberry, blueberry, and rhubarb in the summer; apple and pumpkin in the fall; and finally, minced meat at Christmas. The secret's in the dough, Mama told her. So Charlotte watched and listened and learned until Mama let her make the pies herself.

Charlotte was fifteen when the Romano boys took a calf to the state fair and invited Charlotte to ride along with her pies. She didn't win a prize that time, but people who tasted the pies wanted more.

The blue ribbon came later, the year she met Thomas. She was seventeen; he was twenty. “Your apple pie tastes like coming home,” he said. He was tall and lean with a pleasant face, and his eyes crinkled at the edges when he smiled. She was glad she had worn her baby-blue sundress.

After another taste, he said, “How many pies do you have left?” He spoke in a quiet, thoughtful way.

“Only three.” She smiled from under her lashes and pushed a strand of white-blond hair behind an ear.

He pulled a leather wallet from his pocket. “I'll buy them all.” He paused. “If you'll tell me your name.”

Heat spread to her cheeks. He winked and said,

There is a garden in her face,

Where roses and white lilies show;

A heavenly paradise is that place,

Wherein all pleasant fruits do grow
.

“Charlotte,” she finally whispered.

“Charlotte.” He closed his eyes as if savoring a favorite dish, and said,

Werther had a love for Charlotte

Such as words could never utter;

Would you know how first he met her?

She was cutting bread and butter
.

What's he talking about?
“Who's Werther?”

He chuckled. “Just a fictional fellow in a poem by Thackeray.”

Thackeray?
How was she to respond to that?

“Pleased to meet you, Charlotte.” He held out his hand, long fingers like a piano player, light touch. A mellow fragrance of cherry tobacco. “My name's Thomas. Thomas Christiansen.”

He wore a freshly pressed linen shirt, beige linen trousers, and fine leather shoes. He looked a bit askew—his jacket slung over a shoulder, his shoes dusty—but given the quality of his clothes and his educated manner, she judged him prosperous.

“I don't know many poems,” she said. She didn't want to tell him she thought poems silly, all those nursery rhymes about someone named Jack—Jack Be Nimble, Jack and Jill, Jack Sprat, Little Jack Horner. Her mind raced forward until she recalled one about Tommy and the words flew from her lips:

Little Tommy Tucker

Sings for his supper
.

What shall we give him?

White bread and butter
.

How shall he cut it

Without a knife . . .

She stopped. She hadn't thought it through.

“How will he marry / Without a wife?” Thomas concluded with a grin. “And now that you have no more pies to sell, Charlotte, would you go walking with me?”

When she blushed, he leaned in and said, “Your cheeks are like cherries. I'll just bet you make the best cherry pie.” He held out an arm for her and sang,

She can make a cherry pie

Quick as cat can wink its eye—

“I've never made a cherry pie.”

“Never? Well, whaddya know. I have an orchard filled with cherries, and no one to make me a pie.”

She took his arm. “You have an orchard?”

They strolled through the fairgrounds noisy with carnival rides and pitchmen hawking tickets to sideshows. Calliope music piped all about. She sat on a painted horse circling round the carousel. He stood beside her, his hand on her horse's mane, and told her he had intended to pursue a literary career, but when his father and brother died in a fire, he gave up his university studies and returned home to take care of his distraught mother and run the family orchard.

Over the years Charlotte would sense that Thomas had left behind more than just his studies, but she never asked because she was afraid he'd say yes. And even if he'd said no, she wouldn't have believed him.

Charlotte was a good wife. She took care of Thomas's mother
until the sickly woman died. She ran an efficient home, managed a bountiful garden, cooked and sewed, did the bookkeeping, and taught Ben and Kate the responsibilities of farm life. Thomas loved her, she knew. But he loved other things too. He loved his books, and whatever he had wanted before, whatever he had left at the university, Charlotte couldn't give him that.

She turned from the orchard and walked down to the dock to reel in the boat. Out in the yard, Mia, the nanny goat, gazed up from where she was munching newly sprouted grass. That first year without a harvest Charlotte had butchered the other two goats and kept this last one for milk. Who knew the war would last this long. Only families with small children got ration stamps for store-bought milk, so even goat's milk was in demand.

Chickens pecked about, ignoring her. Just five hens left. One night some weeks ago the rooster didn't return to the coop. With all his strutting and cock-a-doodling out there in the dark, he must have been easy prey for a fox or coyote. Until Charlotte had another rooster to fertilize the eggs, she couldn't afford to serve her family chicken.

She thought of the eggs she had traded for the yarn, deep blue like Ben's eyes. She had seen it in the window of Ellie's Dry Goods. How could she resist, even if it left her nothing to trade for stew meat? She had counted on Olga's credit. But now she had fish for two or three dinners and a bounty of fruits and vegetables, so the trades had worked well. A half-dozen eggs for all this.

No. She glanced toward the rabbit pen. Not when she factored in all the hurt and anger and mistrust. And the beautiful vest Ben would never wear.

After reeling in the boat, Charlotte returned to the kitchen and picked up yesterday's
Door County Advocate
. She spread open the pages to the local ads and brought the bucket of fish to the table. One by one, she scaled and gutted them, then put the pinky-white fillets into the icebox.

Charlotte typically saved knitting and mending for evenings, sitting
in the parlor with Thomas while he read his books. She had her daily chores—today was washday—but right now she wanted to make something for Ben. She carried her canvas satchel to the parlor and switched on the Philco—Glenn Miller's band playing “I Dream of You.” From the couch she could see the grove of budding birch and maple and the orchard beyond. Off in the distance Thomas was pruning. He couldn't possibly prune all the trees before the blossoms came.
When will those PWs arrive?

She opened her satchel—not much yarn left. What could she make with so little? Bingo jumped onto Charlotte's lap, startling her. Charlotte petted the cat in long strokes until he purred and settled.

When she looked up again, her eyes focused on the War Mother's Flag hanging in the window. Its big blue star told the world her boy served in the armed forces. According to the news, General Clark's army was positioned in the icy mountains of Monte Cassino. Charlotte didn't know much about the geography of Italy, but she knew the pattern for socks: knit one, purl two. Picking up her knitting needles, she cast on forty-two stitches.

Marta's children didn't like fish. Charlotte shook her head. She might have gotten the lot of them with a simple scarf. If only she hadn't taken the vest.

The music ended, and the local newsman announced a clearance sale at the dress shop, a woman injured in an accident down at the shipyard, a boy from Egg Harbor killed in the Battle of Saipan.
Killed!
Johnny Malone . . . in Ben's class!

The cat jumped away.

Charlotte's hands clenched the couch cushion, eyes focused on the War Mother's Flag, heart racing. She gulped for air. Gulped again and took a ragged breath. Then another.

The newsman was talking about the weather—mostly sunny—then Bing Crosby's voice was crooning “I'll Be Seeing You.” Charlotte tipped back her head to keep the tears from falling. Her shaking hands took up the needles. Keep going. Knit one, purl two.