That evening he showed Anna how to make yeast from the potato water, which he saved from supper, and a handful of dried hops. To this he added a curious syrup, which he said was made of the pulp of watermelons, a plentiful source of
sugar. The maple sugar, which he harvested, had too strong a flavor for bread, he said. So instead he boiled watermelon pulp each summer and preserved it in crocks by pouring melted beeswax over it.
With the yeast ingredients set in the warm chimney corner for the night, they all enjoyed cups of the remaining watermelon nectar, a treat Anna and James had never known before.
"Can I have more, Karl?" James asked. Karl emptied the jug into the boy's mug.
"It's delicious," Anna agreed.
"I have many more delicious things to introduce you to.
"You were right, Karl. It really does seem to be a land of plenty."
"Soon the wild raspberries will be ripe. Then you will have a treat!"
"What else?" James asked.
"Wild blackberries, too. Did you know that when a wild blackberry is green, it is red?"
James puzzled a moment, then laughed. "It's a riddle in reverse--what's red when it's green."
"But when it is ripe, it turns as black as the pupil of a rattlesnake's eye," Karl said.
"Have you got rattlesnakes here?" Anna asked, wide-eyed.
"Timber rattlers. But I have not seen many. I have had to kill only two since I am here. Snakes eat the pesky rodents in the grainfields, so I do not like killing a snake. But the rattler is a devil, so I must."
Anna shivered. They had not gone for their swim before supper because they'd been in too much of a hurry to eat. Karl suggested a swim now, but the mention of rattlesnakes made Anna opt for the washstand instead. James, too, agreed for this one night he'd put off their swim.
When they were tucked in bed, Anna spoke first, in a whisper, as usual.
"Karl?"
"H'm?"
"Have you thought any more about a stove for the new house?"
"No, Anna. I have been busy and it slipped my mind."
"Not mine."
"Do you think a stove will make you a better cook?" he asked, amused.
"Well, it might," she ventured.
But Karl laughed a little.
"Well, it might!" she repeated.
"And then again, it might not, and Karl Lindstrom will have spent his good money for nothing."A little fist clunked him one in the chest.
"Perhaps we make a bargain, you and I. First Anna learns to cook decent, then Karl buys her the stove."
"Oh, do you mean it, Karl?" Even in a whisper her voice was enthused.
"Karl Lindstrom is no liar. Of course I mean it."
"Oh, Karl ..." She grew excited just thinking of it.
"But I will be the judge of when your cooking is decent."
She lay there smiling in the dark.
"I'm going to make good bread tomorrow. You'll see!"
"I am making good bread tomorrow. You are watching me make it."
"All right. I'm watching. But this time I'm gonna remember everything," she vowed, "just like James does. You'll be going off to buy that new stove before the month is out, you'll see." She imagined how it would be to own an iron stove, and how glorious it would be to find cooking not a hateful job, to have things turn out right.
"Karl?"
"H'm?"
"How do you bake bread without an oven?"
"In a kiln in the yard. Have you never seen it?"
"No. Where is it?"
"Back by the woodpile."
"You mean that mound of dried mud?"
"Ya."
"But it has no door!"
"I will make a door by sealing up the hole with wet clay after the loaves are inside."
"You mean you want me to goop around with wet clay every time I make bread, for the rest of my life?"
"What I want is for you to come over here and shut your little mouth. I said I would think about the stove, and I will. I grow tired of talking about bread and clay and stoves now."
So she found a spot to nestle in Karl's arm, and she did what she was told: she shut her mouth. When his kiss found it, she refused to open up. He backed off, tried again in his most persuasive fashion, but could only feel her smiling with lips sealed.
"What is this?" he asked.
"I'm only doing what I promised to do. I vowed to obey my husband, didn't I? So when I'm told to shut my mouth, I do it."
"Well, your husband is ordering you to open it again."
And she did. Willingly.
Chapter Eleven
The bread-making was a larger undertaking than Anna had imagined, made so mostly by the fact that they were to make fourteen loaves at once, enough for two weeks.
In the morning the hop tea had turned into a crock of effervescent bubbles, which had to be strained through a horsehair strainer into the hollowed-out black walnut log with legs, which Karl called a dough box. Water and lard were added, and much, much flour. Anna got into the act at this point by kneading, elbow-to-elbow with Karl. Before the flour was all mixed in, her arms ached as if she'd been wielding Karl's axe instead of his bread dough. The dough box had a concave cover, also made of hollowed-out wood, and when at last it was in place, the whole thing was left beside the fireplace where it was warm and the dough could rise.
"And now you know how to mix bread," Karl said.
"Do you always make so much?"
"It is easier in the long run than having to mix dough more often. Are your arms tired?"
"No," she lied--a little white lie--not wanting him to think her too weak for such a task.
"Good, then let us go see about that tamarack we left lying on its side yesterday."
The day was different from any so far. Between Anna and Karl there was none of the light banter. There was, instead, a concerted avoiding of eyes, of touch, even of speech.
For this was the day!
They mounted the skid trail behind Belle and Bill. Today Karl took the reins instead of turning them over to James. The familiar reins felt comforting in Karl's palms. The familiar rumps of the horses were good to set his eyes upon when they felt like wandering to Anna. The words of command flowed in gentle but gruff tones to the horses, though Karl found little to say to his wife.
He was attuned to her every motion, though. He need not even look her way to sense each movement, each sound she made. The sigh of her pant legs through the damp morning grass, the quick tilt of her head at the bark of a pheasant, the accented swing of the basket she carried, the natural swing of her hips, the perk of alertness when a gopher caught her eye, the way she watched the small animal as she walked past it, the determination in her stance as she set to work on the branches, the way she raised the jug to her lips when she broke for water, the way she backhanded her mouth after taking the drink, the curl of her back as she bent to fill the basket, the way she put the first chip to her nose before dropping it in, the pause to push her hair back when the nape of her neck grew warm, the way she smiled reassuringly at James when he seemed to be questioning silently, why this sudden change between you and Karl?
Anna, too, knew a sense of content with Karl, as if suddenly, a tuning fork had been struck in her body and its vibrations matched his as they played out this new movement of a symphony started two weeks ago.
That first movement, with its light allegrolike gaiety, echoed and was gone now, high among the tamaracks. It was replaced by this sensual adagio that caught them in its slowly measured beat. Even Karl's axe seemed to match that slower rhythm, its mellow thud counting away the minutes until nightfall. It was as if Anna stood beside Karl, elbow-to-elbow, as she had earlier.
She knew his every movement, though she never looked squarely at him the entire morning. The brush of his hand upon Belle's haunch, the way it absently eased down to her thigh, the pat on her shoulder before leaving her in favor of curved ash, the squaring of shoulders and that last gaze skyward before hefting the axe for the first time that day, the great breath, the way he held it in his thick chest before that initial fluid swing, then the symmetry of motion, the flash of yellow hair back and forth in the sun as he nodded into each stroke, the rise of chin at the measure of trembling tree, the squint of eye as the bark cracked, the near shudder of satisfaction as it plunged, the one-handed way he unbuttoned his shirt, the rolling backward of shoulders to be free of it, the axe handle leaning upon his groin as he shrugged from the confines of cotton, the shirt flying through the air, his hands flexing wide before taking up the axe once more, making it sing, the sudden silence when James pointed wordlessly, Karl walking with catlike stealth to reach for the rifle and raise it, aiming at the squirrel who perched in mesmerized silence waiting to be their supper, the recoil that scarcely rocked Karl's shoulder, his look of amazement as the butt of the gun slid down to rest beside his foot while the squirrel scampered free, untouched.
And for one of the few times that day, Karl's eyes meeting Anna's, hers falling away, her head turning so she could smile at his missed shot without his knowing.
And all day long their thoughts ranged over parallel themes.
"What will she think of me?"
"What will he think of me?"
"Will she come along swimming?"
"He will want to go swimming."
"I had best shave again."
"I had best wash my hair."
"I wish I had better than lye soap to offer."
"I wish I had better than homespun to wear."
"Supper will seem endless."
"I'll hardly be hungry."
"Shall I go to the barn?"
"Shall I go to bed first?"
"When have two days been this long?"
"When have two days been this short?"
"Will she resist?"
"Will he demand?"
"She is so slight."
"He is so big."
"What do women need?"
"Will he be gentle?"
"Will she know it is my first time?"
"He will know it's not my first time!"
"I must wait till the boy sleeps."
"James, fall asleep early!"
"She will sure want the fire low."
"James will see in the fireglow!"
"Blast those cornhusks!"
"Oh! Those crackling cornhusks!"
"Should I take off her gown?"
"Will he take off my gown?"
"My hands are so callused."
"My hands have grown rough."
"What if I hurt her?"
"Will it hurt like the first time?"
"Will she know all my doubts?"
"Will he know all my fears?"
"There will be blood."
"There'll be no blood!"
"Let me do it right."
"Let him not suspect."
At noon they punched down the dough and Karl showed Anna how to shape the loaves. He sprinkled the hand-forged iron pan with cornmeal before placing the first loaf in it. He said they had enough tamaracks to begin hewing, so they need not return to the woods that afternoon. If she wanted, Anna could tend to some weeding in the vegetable garden, which had been sadly neglected lately. Also, those potato peelings needed planting if they were not to dry into uselessness. And the hardwood fire in the kiln would bear tending in readiness for the baking.
So Karl went to his hewing and Anna to her weeding. Alas, Anna could not tell the weeds from the herbs and pulled up Karl's comfrey, so much taller than the rest, and looking ever so unvegetablelike. Unaware of her mistake, she continued on with her task until Karl came to show her how deep to plant the potato parings. Eyeing the plot, then the weedpile, Karl asked, "Where is my comfrey?"
"Your what?" Anna asked.
"My comfrey. A little while ago it was growing right up along the end of this row."
"You mean that big, tall, gangly stuff?"
"Ya."
"That's ... comfrey?"
Karl again eyed the weed pile, then Anna bent to fetch up the abused comfrey. "Is this it?"
"I'm afraid so. It was."
"Oh no."
Another day they would have laughed joyously at what she'd done. Today they were too aware of each other. Anna shrugged, Karl smiled, not at her face but at the wilted comfrey. "Comfrey is tough," he said, reaching for it. "I think it can survive in spite of your gardening. I will put it back where it came from, but it will need a little drink to get it going again."
"I'll get it, Karl," she offered, and scampered away, jumping the vegetable rows, running toward the springhouse while he watched her whiskey-hair fly untethered with each leap and bound, the limp comfrey forgotten in his hand.