South of Superior - Ellen Airgood [16]
Mary had cobbled her place together and knew what it must look like to her visitor: a couple of wooden boxes Up on wheels. Which it was. Virgil Higley of Higley Logging had given her two old tool cribs when he was finished with them and she’d bolted them together and cut a doorway in between. The place suited her. Real small, so it heated Up good. The girl would find out, if she stayed north long enough. You only needed what you needed, nothing more. The woodstove was burning hot in the first room and it was warm as toast. A cracked leather armchair was pulled Up close by it, and six chickens sat in beds of straw in a long wire hutch on the floor, clucking softly. Jack gave them a calculating look and Mary growled, “Jack.” Jack sighed and trotted past.
The second room held a cookstove, a pegboard hung with pots and pans, a countertop and cupboards and a sink without spigots, a gas refrigerator, a footstool, a couple of old easy chairs. There was a bunk along one wall, covered with a quilt and bolstered with pillows, a metal wardrobe, shelves of food and books, an old card table with a puzzle spread across it, and finally another wire cage, Jack’s. Mary shooed him into it.
“He’s still got his puppy ways. Got to be able to get some peace now and then. John Fitzgerald brought him to me, you know John?”
Madeline Stone shook her head.
“Lives in town, you’ll meet him. A great knurl of a man, built like a stump. Runs the hardware. Anyway, John brought Jack to me and I told him I didn’t want a dog but he wouldn’t take no. Somebody dropped him off, looks like, left him to die or find a home. No collar, no tags, skinny, running loose. Maybe he just run off and got lost, I don’t know, but either way, John couldn’t find nobody to take him, so here he is.” Mary sat in the chair beside Jack’s cage and scratched his head through the wire. “Sit down, it don’t matter where.”
Madeline set her load of boxes on the table and eased into the other chair. Mary took note of her Unease. Well, what could you expect? She was from the city and she looked it—not fancy, but smooth. Smooth skin, smooth hands, a real modern short haircut showing, now that she’d plucked off the cap she’d been wearing. (It was the hat that made her look so like that face out of the past, Mary decided. She couldn’t recall if she’d ever seen Ada minus her hat. And the girl was bosomy too, like Ada had been. Bosomy and solid. She could do some work if she had to, not like some of these girls who looked as if a stiff breeze would blow them away.) She had on very clean blue jeans with a cream-colored sweater knitted in intricate cables, and shiny, smooth-soled leather shoes. Those would be Useless if she ended Up having to walk out of the woods. Mary wondered what she’d have to say for herself.
“Gladys sent some things for you,” Madeline said, then cleared her throat. Polite. Uncomfortable. She wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes around Joe. Though maybe that was wrong. Probably was. Mary knew this girl had looked after the woman who’d raised her for years and years when she was real sick, so she was no coward. And she had turned Up here, staying with Gladys to boot, so she had some spark to her. “Gladys made too much meat loaf,” Madeline was saying. “And cookies, and bread.”
“Did she now? Well, that was nice of her. You tell her she don’t have to.”
“Oh, it’s just extra—”
“Ha. Extra all done Up in its own pan, eh? Well, you tell her I’m grateful, and I’ll get her pan back to her directly, next time I’m in town. I’ll be bringing the maple syrup in, might be some people about if the weather ever clears. Ought to be some travelers showing Up by Memorial Day anyway.”
“Do you make the syrup?”
“Got near to fifty gallons this year.” Mary heaved herself Up out of her chair and went to the cupboard and pulled out a jug. She poured a dollop of golden brown syrup as thick as molasses into a teaspoon and held it out.
Madeline took the spoon and hesitated. Mary gave her