• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

I had ideas of my own about the small creature that was my sister, who now took the portion of Mama’s energy and attention formerly belonging to me. Papa was busy as ever with his seedlings, and now Mama, too, had a seedling of her own. As with my plant siblings, Heidi had succeeded me as the center of the universe, so it seemed only natural that this new sprout should be put up for sale in the farm stand like the others. One morning while Mama was cooking lunch I occupied myself by wrapping a roll of the green twist ties used for bunching vegetables around Heidi’s tender little body as she slept, fastening the paper-covered wire snugly at her neck.

“Oh!” Mama exclaimed when she found us, her face not a bit as pleased as I’d imagined. “Not so tight around the neck!”

The terrible clutching in Mama’s chest at the fragility of her children, the fear that they could so easily perish, played seesaw with the unbidden postpartum feelings of exasperation during which she wished we would, in fact, perish and just leave her in peace. She’d struggled with the baby blues after my birth and was again navigating the ups and downs that can come with the hormonal readjustment.

“Yesterday it touched me deeply to see a young visitor’s concern and love for her baby,” she wrote. “Sometimes it moves me so much, I fear getting too closely involved, thinking it might break my heart.”

Papa always said he admired Mama’s strength during childbirth but found her a different person in the aftermath, weepy and prone to depression. Deep down, perhaps, Papa also missed the strength and devotion of his helpmate.

“I fear Eliot is working too hard again this year,” Mama wrote. “He looks tired and like he really needs rest.”

And then she crossed out her June 7 entry in a moment of frustrated rebellion:

“I have got to remember that my main and most important job is keeping the home together, doing the chores, kitchen work, washing our clothes, keeping Heidi and Liss happy, milking and caring for the goats, and in my spare time cutting firewood.”

I wonder now if one source of Papa’s stress began as early as when I came along, adding the extra work to the homesteading lifestyle that Helen had so aptly predicted. As long as Mama was carrying her formidable half, Papa had superhuman strength for his. But when the balance began to tip after the birth of a child, when Mama’s side of the seesaw sank lower, nearly touching the ground, he had to use his extra gear to get it back in balance. Mama’s alliance shifted, too. We became her primary focus as she struggled with the challenges of being a postpartum nursing mother—leaving less energy for Papa.

Papa was working twofold in order to reach his goal of turning a profit at the farm stand that summer. The projected income of $3,200 seemed an incredible sum, almost $1,000 more than last summer’s earnings, but one that would finally support our family for the year. Due to Mama’s reduced role, he began to rely all the more heavily on the help of apprentices, Susan and David, Brett, and anyone else he could find. With this help the new farm stand was completed, featuring a cedar-shingled hip roof and tiered shelves covered in wet pebbles to keep the displays of harvested vegetables moist and fresh for customers.

Mama was still counted on for her creative arrangements of carrots in sunbursts of orange, and beets, yellow squash, cauliflower, and lettuces coaxed into colorful landscapes. Braided onions and garlic hung from the rafters alongside herbs and dried flowers. She also printed up recipes to give customers ideas for preparing vegetables in new ways, including a yellow squash dish that was a farm lunch favorite:

Combine in a large skillet three sliced large yellow summer squash, 1/3 cup chopped celery, one finely grated onion, one finely chopped clove of garlic, two tablespoons oil, two tablespoons chopped parsley, one tablespoon honey, 1/2 teaspoon oregano and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Bring to a boil, reduce