Skylark (2 page)

“What does she look like?” I asked.

“Small, brown,” said Papa. “She has some white on her face.”

Sarah looked at me over her cup.

“Your Papa says her face is as pale as the winter moon,” she said. “And to think that you said that sometimes he is not good with words.”

I smiled at Sarah.

“Moonbeam,” said Caleb. “We could call her Moonbeam.”

Papa laughed at the name.

“Finished,” Caleb said, his spoon clattering in the empty bowl.

“Finished,” I said.

And we ran out the door to the barn, where in the shadows Mame looked up at us, her eyes steady. After a moment Mame leaned over to lick the calf that lay in the hay.

“Sarah’s right,” whispered Caleb. “Mame likes her calf.”

Papa was right, too. Her face was as pale as the winter moon.

Sometimes Sarah dances, and she makes Papa dance, too, his face shy, his smile like Caleb’s smile.

Sometimes, when Papa worries about the farm or the weather, Sarah takes his hand and pulls him outside.

“Come, Jacob, come walk with me,” she says.

And he does.

They walk the fields and the country road, Lottie and Nick following them. Once they chased each other through the rows of corn and we could hear the sounds of their laughter.

4

P
apa came back from town with letters from Maine. Letters for all of us from Sarah’s aunts: Harriet and Mattie and Lou. It was evening, the oil lamp bright in the kitchen. Papa mended a bridle, Caleb leaning against him. I read a letter out loud.

“‘There was a storm,’ Aunt Mattie says, ‘and the porch shingles went to sea. . . .’”

“What does that mean, went to sea?” asked Caleb, interrupting me.

“It means that they blew into the sea,” said Sarah with a smile.

I began to read again. “‘My hat went to sea, too. The one with the bird on it.’”

Caleb climbed up into Papa’s lap.

“A real bird?” exclaimed Caleb.

“Stuffed, Caleb,” said Sarah. “Aunt Mattie will miss that hat.”

“‘Two inches of rain by the glass measure . . .’”

I stopped reading, staring at the word rain. I looked up at Sarah, and she was watching Papa, her face touched by the light from the lamp.

“A glass?” asked Caleb.

I tried to make Caleb stop talking. I didn’t want Papa to think about rain.

“What about your letter, Sarah?” said Papa.

Sarah shrugged.

“Just the weather,” she said. “Painting William’s boat.”

Papa looked up at her.

“Read it, Sarah,” he said softly.

Sarah took the letter out of her pocket. Slowly she opened it.

“‘The grass is green,’” she read. “‘Growing so tall that we’ve cut it dozens of times already. The trees are lush. Autumn will be beautiful. Come visit, all of you. Soon. Love, Mattie.’”

There was a silence in the room. Then
Papa kissed Caleb and got up. He stood at
the door, looking out at the red of the setting sun.

“It will be a beautiful sunset tonight,” he said, his voice low. “I can tell.”

Papa opened the door and went outside.

“A glass to measure rain?” asked Caleb again, still thinking of Mattie’s letter.

“Hush, Caleb,” I said.

Sarah didn’t answer Caleb. She put her letter on the table, walked to the door, and went outside. I picked up the letter. There was more that Sarah hadn’t read.

It has rained nearly every afternoon,
Mattie had written.
It cools down the day and leaves us with good nights for sleeping.

I watched Sarah put her hand on Papa’s arm as he stood looking over the dry fields.

My eyes filled with tears.

I knew Sarah was sorry about the letters from Maine and the talk of rain.

It’s not your fault that Maine is green,
Sarah
, I thought.
It isn’t
.

It was dark and the moon was up when Caleb came in from outside, Nick with him. Sarah looked up from her book.

“Caleb! I thought you’d gone to bed long ago,” she said.

“I had something to do,” he said. “For Papa.”

Sarah smiled and put her arm around him.

“Well, off to bed now. It’s late. Both of you.”

Caleb yawned and went up the stairs. Sarah went out to the porch. Papa came across the yard from the barn, and he stopped suddenly, then looked at Sarah.

On the fence post between them was a small glass, sitting empty in the moonlight, waiting for rain.

Roses grew on the fence when Sarah came. And the fields were filled with wildflowers. I learned to float in the cow pond and Caleb ran with the sheep in the green fields.

Now clouds come and go, and the hot winds, too. But there is no rain for the roses. Dirt from the fields blows over everything, and the leaves have crumbled. “Like dust,” Joshua said when he took our picture.

Like dust.

5

E
ach day Papa dropped a rope with a stone down the well to measure the water level.

“Is it past the mark?” asked Sarah.

Papa nodded.

“How much, Jacob?”

Papa held out his hands a foot apart.

Caleb and I got up into the wagon to go to town.

“Soon we’ll have to haul water for the animals,” said Papa.

“We can do that,” said Sarah.

“We’ll have to measure out our own water,” said Papa as he climbed up.

“But we already do that, Jacob.”

Papa looked down at Sarah.

“We’ll have to use less.”

Sarah stared at Papa, then got up to sit next to him.

“We can do that, too,” she said firmly.

We drove off down the road. After a while Caleb poked his head between Sarah and Papa. Papa looked at him.

“So, Caleb?”

“
I
put the glass on the post,” said Caleb.

Papa nodded but didn’t say anything.

“To measure the rain when it comes,” Caleb added.

“Thank you for that,” said Papa.

“You’re welcome,” said Caleb happily.

He sat back in the wagon and folded his arms. Papa smiled.

All the way to town I looked for green. But as far as I could see the fields were brown. The wheat fields were dry. Turkey vultures circled in the distance. There was no green.

Everything seemed slow in town, as if the heat had taken over. Papa left the wagon in the shade of the granary and slowly unloaded his last bags of grain from the wagon. Slowly he walked inside.

Mrs. Parkley’s store was cool. Rose and
Violet were there, Rose carrying Tom, who smiled at me. But Maggie had her arms around Caroline, who was crying.

“Caroline? What’s wrong, Maggie?” said Sarah.

“Their well is dry,” Maggie said softly.

“Caroline,” said Sarah. “What can we do?”

“There’s nothing to do,” Caroline said, drying her tears. “We’ve already packed up.”

“Packed up!” said Sarah, shocked. “Where will you go?”

“They have family,” said Maggie.

Caroline took her packages and went to the door. She turned suddenly, her face sad.

“Joseph says we’ll come back,” she said. “But we won’t. I know we won’t.”

She opened the door and left. Maggie walked over to the door and looked out.

“Surely we can do something,” Sarah said. “We could haul water, Maggie. We would all work harder.”

Sarah’s voice grew louder, and Caleb moved closer to me.

“You can’t just give up!” said Sarah. “You can’t just give up everything you’ve worked for. . . .”

Maggie whirled around, her face angry.

“You don’t know how hard this is, Sarah,” she said, angrily. “You haven’t been in this kind of trouble before!”

Sarah stared at Maggie, then at the others in the store. Maggie reached over and took Sarah’s hand. She opened the door and pulled her outside. I watched the two of them cross the dusty street. Maggie’s arm went around Sarah, but they kept walking. Papa came out from the granary and watched them, too, Matthew beside him.

“Is Sarah angry?” asked Caleb.

I looked down at his worried face.

“No,” I said. “Sarah’s not angry.”

Caleb sighed.

“Sarah likes to make things right,” he said.

We watched without speaking, and then Joseph and Caroline’s wagon passed, all packed with chairs and clothes and a cupboard, pots and pans tied on. Sarah turned to watch it, and Papa watched, too, from across the street. And then the wagon turned a corner and was gone.

6

T
he ride home from town was quiet, the wind blowing dust around us.

“Any news in town?” asked Sarah wearily.

“Some news,” said Papa. “Good news.”

“Good news? What good news?”

“Your birthday is coming soon. Mattie wrote to remind me.”

“She didn’t!”

“She did,” said Papa. “So—what do you want? Jewels, silk, travel?”

Sarah laughed.

“Travel? Where would I go, Jacob?”

“Somewhere green,” said Papa. “Somewhere cool.”

Sarah looked at Papa.

“Do you think I would
leave
?” asked Sarah softly.

Papa was silent.

“Can we sing, Sarah?” asked Caleb.

“It’s too hot, Caleb,” she said. “Too hot for singing.”

Papa flicked the reins over the horses’ backs, but they wouldn’t go faster.

“It’s even too hot for Jack and Old Bess,” he said.

I leaned back against the empty grain sacks and took out my journal, but it lay in my lap.

Caleb moved over close to me.

“Why aren’t you writing?”

“There’s nothing new to write,” I said, lifting my hair off my neck. “There’s nothing good. Just the heat. The fields are dried up. There’s no rain.”

“There will be rain,” said Caleb. “Papa said so.” He pointed. “That was the field where
the wildflowers grew, remember, when Sarah came? The pond was full then. We went swimming and fell asleep in the grass.”

I stared at Caleb, then out at the fields, remembering when the fields were green. Remembering when the days were cool. Remembering when Sarah came by train and Caleb and I were afraid that she’d miss the sea.

Suddenly, Caleb stood up.

“Papa! Fire!”

In the west meadow a thread of smoke rose.

“Hold on,” yelled Papa.

Sarah dropped to the wagon floor, and we held on as the horses raced for the yard.

Papa jumped down.

“Soak the grain sacks in the pond water! Hurry!”

Sarah and Papa ran to beat out the flames. We could see red flames in the dry grasses now. Caleb and I soaked the sacks, then ran closer to the fire, water dripping down our clothes.

“Stay back,” warned Papa. “There’s a wind coming up.”

Nick and Lottie ran from the barn, barking.

And then suddenly Sarah screamed. Her skirt was on fire. Papa turned and threw Sarah to the ground and smothered the flames with a sack. He pulled her up.

“Are you all right?”

When Sarah nodded, Papa began to shout at her.

“I told you to stay back. You never listen! I
told
you there was wind!”

Caleb took my hand.

Sarah began beating the fire, now nearly out.

“You can’t put out the fire alone!” she shouted. “Stop yelling at me!”

And then there was only smoke, the grasses all black and smoldering. Papa beat at one small flame. He stood back, and there was silence. Nick and Lottie stopped barking.

“We’ll have to watch for fires all the time, now, even at night,” said Papa, out of breath.

Sarah and Papa began walking back to the house. Sarah’s hair was down; her clothes were wet and sooty. Papa looked at her, then away.

“You’re a sight, you know,” he said softly.

Sarah didn’t answer.

Papa looked at her again, then smiled a small smile.

“You look . . . beautiful,” he said.

I held my breath. I had never heard Papa say such a thing to Sarah.

Sarah kept on walking. Then she turned and looked at him.

“Do you
really
think I would leave?” she said. “Just for somewhere cool? Somewhere
green
?”

This time Papa was silent. The two of them walked away from the blackened grass, past the dogs, and past us just as if we weren’t there.

And that night, when Papa went out to close the barn door, Sarah ran after him. I saw them from my window. Papa took Sarah in his arms and kissed her, and they turned around and around and around, dust swirling over them in a cloud.

My dreams are cool. They are cool and the color of the sky before rain, a dark and peaceful blue, the clouds edged in black before the rain comes and the earth smells sharp and sweet. I remember that smell.

The days are hot and still now.

Only my dreams are cool.

7

W
e sat on the porch out of the terrible sun, Maggie fanning herself, Sarah mixing batter for biscuits. Rose and Violet rolled a ball in the dirt to Tom. Caleb sat watching the sky for clouds.

“This heat,” said Maggie wearily. “I dream of my old home sometimes. And I dream of long, cool mornings of sleep without the baby waking!”

Sarah smiled.

“Night dreams or daydreams?” she asked.

“What’s a day dream?” asked Caleb.

Sarah sat back and looked at Tom crawling happily in the dirt.

“Sometimes, no matter where you are, you think of something sweet and cool. A place, maybe. And suddenly it’s there. Or maybe it’s something you wish for . . . and it is so near you can touch it, smell it . . . hear the sound of it . . .”

Sarah looked up suddenly as if caught up in her thoughts.

“She’s dreaming about Maine,” Caleb whispered to me.

No. It’s not Maine,
I thought.
It’s not Maine she’s thinking about. It’s something else
.

Tom grabbed the ball and held it over his head. Sarah smiled.

“I have dreams, Sarah,” Caleb said.

“Good dreams, Caleb?” she asked.

“I dream about rain,” said Caleb. “Do you? Do you dream about rain?”

Sarah reached over and took Caleb on her lap.