At the Edge of the Orchard

Black Swamp, Ohio: Fall 1838

“ROBERT, BRING ME SOME cold water.”

“Martha, git me another quilt!”

James and Sadie Goodenough spoke at the same time, and had to repeat themselves before their words could be untangled and understood. They were lying side by side in their bed, flat on their backs. James held himself as rigid as possible to counter the shakes that racked his body. This was how he had always dealt with swamp fever-fighting it by not succumbing to its demands. If he felt cold he refused to wrap himself in quilts. If his teeth were chattering he gripped his jaw tight. His only concession was water: if he was thirsty, he drank, demanding cold water freshly drawn rather than taking it from the pitcher left on the floor by the bed.

As expected, Sadie had a different response to illness: she indulged in it. If she was thirsty she drank the whole pitcher dry. When she shook she rattled the bed so much James thought he would fall off. During a spike in her fever she would talk all sorts of gibberish, laughing and swearing and holding imaginary conversations, sometimes with other men in a way that embarrassed him. Now she was cold, and rubbed her arms more vigorously than she needed to. Rolling around in the bed, she pulled the quilt off James, then called again for another.

Martha appeared with the nine-patch quilt in her arms, hesitating by the bed, her small face wary, as it always was around her mother. “It’s still damp from your sweat, Ma,” she said. “I been airing it but there hasn’t been enough sun today to dry it.”

“Give it to me!” Sadie snatched the quilt. Someone was calling out upstairs and Martha went to climb the ladder and see what they wanted.

James was less demonstrative, taking the mug Robert held out to him and managing a mild, “Thank you, son,” to contrast with Sadie. Robert watched while he gulped down the water, then took the mug from him, refilled it, and set it down on the floor within James’ reach. “You want anything else, Pa?”

“No. You fed the animals?”

“Yes, Pa.”

“How’s the corn? You brought any of it in yet?”

“Tomorrow. Mr. Day’s gonna help me now the hay’s in.”

“What are you doing today? You been working with Martha in the garden?”

“Yup. We’re gonna pickle cucumbers and stew tomatoes. Mrs. Day said she’d be along to help.”

“The Days are helping too much.”

Robert shrugged. There was nothing they could do about that: Nathan and Caleb and Sal were all sick too. One of them was going through the shakes now in the attic, rattling the floor above them. It was one of the ironies of swamp fever that it normally struck at the height of harvest when everyone was most needed. The crops were ready; the people weren’t, except for Robert, who had to be counted on to do the work of a grown man, though he was just nine. And Martha, unexpectedly: usually she was the first to go down with the fever and the last to get up again.

“You checked the apples?” James couldn’t help asking. He asked every day. “You sure they aren’t ready? Some of the spitters could be ready by now.”

“They don’t look ready, Pa.”

“Bring me one. No, bring me two. Bring me the reddest of the spitters and a Golden Pippin.”

Robert sighed, and James understood he was being a nuisance. His son would have to pull up some of the deer fence poles to get to one of the Golden Pippin trees. He knew the apples were not ripe, but he could not help fretting.

Sadie poked her face out from beneath the folds of the quilt. “Stop talkin’ ’bout those goddamn apples,” she growled. “If I wasn’t abed I’d chop down those trees!”

“Shut up. You’re even more of an idiot when you’re sick than when you’re drunk.”

Sadie kicked at her husband, but she was so weak that it did not have much effect. James inched himself to the edge of the bed, though he was still within kicking reach. Hearing the racket one of his children was making above him-the crack of teeth battering uncontrollably against each other-almost caused him to start shaking as well.

James and Sadie had not spent so much time together in months. Since returning from the camp meeting in May, she had avoided being alone with him, and kept quiet, throwing herself into cleaning the house, working in the garden, and even trying to clear a strip of land to plant with winter potatoes, something she had nagged James to do for years. James had watched her go at the trees-mostly elm and ash and oak-with an axe, chopping them down and cutting up the trunks and branches to stack and dry out for firewood. She had managed that much on her own. But the stumps defeated her. She hacked and dug at one, pulling off pieces of wood and making what was left even harder to get a hold on, until she collapsed and lay on her back next to the stump, sweating and swearing. James said nothing. Still bruised from her behavior at the camp meeting, he offered no help or advice. Sadie left the rest of the stumps, now an ugly strip alongside the garden covered with creepers and brambles.

Her new activeness coincided with a new sobriety as well, for the applejack had run out. She could only drink cider, and it was hard to get drunk on that. When she came to bed at night-the only time they were alone together-he no longer reached for her. They slept side by side, as far apart as possible, chaste as children.

Swamp fever brought back the meanness in her, though it left her too weak to act, so she had to resort to speech. James had to listen to endless complaints, accompanied by a torrent of swearing, and strange talk and sounds when the fever spiked each day in the late afternoon. Most of it made no sense, but she often spilled out names: of their children, of John Chapman, of family back in Connecticut. Never of him, though. Never James. He was not sure if he wanted her to say his name, for other names were often accompanied by mutterings and curses, and he did not want to hear what she thought of him in her delirium. He already knew anyway.

While he waited for Robert to bring him the apples, he lay as still as he could and studied the planks of the ceiling above him, with its distinctive oak grain festooned with cobwebs-a familiar sight from yearly bouts of fever. When James had built the cabin nine years before he’d used pine logs for the walls and oak he’d had planked in Perrysburg for the floors and ceilings. His father had used oak back in Connecticut, and James liked the familiarity of its whorls and knots and dense grain. Later he discovered he would have been better off using maple for the floors as it was lighter and more flexible. Only the English used oak for building, and James was made fun of for it. “English Goodenough,” he was called for a time by neighbors, a nickname taken up by Sadie, though she’d added to it, calling him “English Ain’t Goodenough.” Now, though, he was glad to have the close oak grain above him.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and then Robert was back, holding out a small yellow and brown Golden Pippin and a red and green spitter-more green than red. James took the apples and bit into the spitter. “Not ready.” He handed it back to Robert. “Give it to the pig.”

The Golden Pippin was clearly not ripe either, or it would have been yellower. James bit into it anyway. It was still sour. They would need another week, probably two, before they could be picked. By then he would be well enough to oversee their harvest.

James lay back and let the apple drop onto the bed. Sadie promptly kicked it, and it thudded into a corner. Then she began throwing herself back and forth and calling out-though it was still morning and she didn’t usually have a high fever then. She started to moan and rant, and James heard her cry out “Charlie!” and make unmistakable rutting sounds and moves. After it became clear what she was doing, he blocked his ears with his pillow.

I punished him with his brother Charlie. I didnt have no fever, I jest wanted to tug his chain. I seen him watchin me try to clear that tater patch full of stumps, not liftin a hand or gettin Caleb or Nathan to help me or even jest tell me what I was doin wrong.

I so badly wanted to make things better. Everyone was silent with me after the camp meeting. Wouldnt meet my eye or ask me how I did or fill my plate without askin. Not even Sal, who I could usually count on for the little things that showed she respected her Ma. It was like I had a disease and everybody took a step back from me.

I cleaned that cabin better than Id ever done before, scrubbed and swept every speck of dirt, brought down every cobweb, washed away the mold, aired everything that could be aired then aired it again. Washed all the clothes to get out the mud, scrubbed all the boots ready for winter. I weeded every inch of that garden, picked slugs off the lettuce, shooed away the birds and rabbits. Boiled the jars ready for puttin up the vegetables, and put up the beans soon as they was ready.

Then I had the idea to make me that winter tater patch. If you planted em in the fall in a trench full of manure and dead leaves, they grew even during winter and were ready earlier in the spring, when we usually ran out of food. My Pa did it back in Connecticut. I told James-one of the few things I said direct to him-and all he said was, Good luck. Caleb and Nathan and Robert looked on while I was choppin down the trees but their father must of said something cause none of them come over to help-though when Robert passed by he did whisper to me to sharpen the axe and it would go easier.

When I wanted to do something nothing stopped me doin it. That was how Id always been. Determined. My Ma called it ornery but she was jest jealous. Those stumps, though-they were one of the few things that ever defeated me. Id no idea trees got such strong roots clingin to the earth like that. Clearly they had no interest in ever movin. I spent a whole day trying to pry out a stump and couldnt get but half of it out. And this was jest one of twenty stumps. Sweated half myself away on that stump, got the worst headache I ever had, worse than a jack headache even. Had to sit down every few minutes cause I was so faint I had black spots in front of my eyes. Next morning I woke and knew I couldnt go back to those stumps or theyd kill me surer than any fever or rattler bite. There had to be a way to get em out but nobody was gonna tell me and I was too proud to ask. Maybe if John Chapman came along then he could of told me, but he didnt usually visit in the middle of the summer. So I left the stumps settin there like a whole line of rotten teeth I had to look at every day I was out in the garden.

Now in bed with James, both of us with the shakes, I got back at him. There werent many ways to wage a war when you got the fever, but I thought of one. I pretended the fever was worse and I started to call out names-any old names mostly but then I fastened on to Charlie Goodenough and kept repeatin it. I bunched up the quilt and stuck it tween my legs and started to hump it and called out Charlie, Charlie, give it to me good. And the thing was, it felt good, fever and all. I could of thrust for a long time. James muttered and shoved the pillow round his ears and I jest laughed. Thats for the stumps, I thought. Thats for carin more about your apples than about your wife.

James was thankful Sadie had finished with her rutting and was asleep when Hattie Day came by to help the children put up the vegetables. The first thing their neighbor did when she arrived was to string a rope across the room and hang the quilts Sadie had tossed off the bed over it so that he and Sadie were curtained off from the kitchen. “Tush,” she answered when James feebly protested. “You don’t need to see us and we don’t need to see you while we’re working.” She was so firm that he didn’t try to argue. He knew Sadie would have if she’d been awake, and he was tempted to nudge her. Instead he lay in bed listening to Mrs. Day’s efficiency on the other side of the quilt.

They got to work stewing tomatoes and pickling eggs. Normally the Goodenoughs didn’t need to pickle their eggs, as they ate and baked with what the chickens produced each day. But now with all but two of the family ill for over a week and consuming nothing but water, the eggs were rotting. Hattie Day declared they mustn’t go to waste and they’d pickle them before they did the cucumbers. She set the eggs to boil on the range as well as a pot of salted water and vinegar, and soon the house was filled with its tang. Then she had the children peel the hard-boiled eggs while she chopped the tomatoes and put them on to stew, and boiled and dried the jars.

For the most part Robert and Martha were quiet, with just the sound of eggshells cracking and sliding off to indicate they were there, and Mrs. Day clanking the jars and knocking the spoon against the side of the pot. James had a sudden desire to see his children bent over their work at the table, but he didn’t dare pull back the quilt for fear of the look Hattie Day would give him. Instead he traced a finger around the patchwork squares in blue and yellow and brown. Closest to his head was a square of green silk from an old dress of his mother’s that caught the eye more than any of the other patchwork squares.

“Brine’s ready,” he heard Hattie Day say. “You finished peeling the eggs?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Robert answered.

“You dipped ’em in water like I showed you to get all the shell off before we put ’em in the jars?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“All right, then. What flavorings you like to add? Mr. Day and me just like salt and pepper, but maybe your family does different.”

“Salt and pepper’s good.”

“Bring me the peppercorns, Martha. Put a little handful in each jar. That’s right. Now, sometimes I put in a little beet to color the water pink, just for show-it don’t make the eggs taste different. Want me to do that with these?”

“Hell, no!”

James started. He’d thought Sadie was asleep. Her voice was cracked and croaky, so she wasn’t as loud as she intended. Hattie Day must not have heard her, but she did hear Martha’s soft words. “We usually just leave the water plain.”

“Bitch is takin’ over my kitchen,” Sadie muttered.

“Leave her be-she’s just trying to help. God knows we need it.” But James shared Sadie’s sentiment. There was something too cozy about Hattie Day in their house, telling their children what to do. Worst of all, she said something he didn’t catch, and he heard a sound he hadn’t for a long time: Martha and Robert’s laughter. They never laugh around me, he thought.

That was it. The colored water was bad enough, but I couldnt stand it any more when that woman made my children laugh.

It took every bit of gumption I had left but I sprang from the bed and pushed right through the hanging quilt. Get the hell out of my kitchen! I shouted. That was all I could say before the quilt got tangled in my legs and brought me down and I knocked myself out.

When I come to I was back in bed with James next to me. The quilt was hung up again but it had a big rip down the middle where Id pulled it and the wool for the batting was comin out worse than before. Id have to get Martha to mend it, her stitches was more even than mine or Sals.

Stupid woman, he muttered when he saw my eyes open. Why did you do that? But he was smilin as he said it. You should of seen Hattie Days face, he added all quiet so the others couldnt hear. Look like a cat had crawled up under her skirt.

I chuckled. Whens she gonna go? I said, not loud but not quiet either. I didnt care if she heard me or not.

Hush now. Shes just being neighborly. Once were up and about we wont need the help.

Jest then Martha come in with a mug of cool water, helped me to drink it. I looked up into her face so pinched and felt a pain in my chest. But I couldnt think of a thing to say except, Them tomaters aint catchin are they? I think I smell em burnin. That made her run off to check. I could feel James lookin at me and I didnt want him to anymore so I turned on my side and pretended to sleep. It was murder havin to listen to that bitch bossin my children and busyin herself in my kitchen but I shut myself up and let her.

James was the first of the Goodenoughs to improve enough to get up. To start with he could only stagger around the kitchen to get Sadie water or sit at the table for a little while. Soon he was fetching wood, a log at a time, from the stack outside the door. Eventually he was able to stop using the chamber pot and go out to the outhouse, though the barn and the orchard seemed impossibly far away when each step tired him. He was glad to take in the fresh air and feel the sun on his skin, but it was jarring too, for all of his senses were heightened on first stepping outside. The sun was brighter, the breeze stronger, the rattle of the leaves and branches louder, the surrounding buildings and trees in crisper outlines.

Though warm enough in the afternoons, the sun was at a slant now, radiating a golden rather than a white heat. September always felt like a turning point to James, when the ease of the summer must be replaced by hard work and a gearing up to survive the winter. It was a matter of measurement. Were there enough oats and corn and hay to feed the animals for a year? Was the pig fat enough to slaughter soon? Had the garden produced enough to see the Goodenoughs through to the next growing season? He was always anxious until the barn was full, the pantry was full, the cellar was full. And they were not always full at the end of the harvest. The Black Swamp was fickle land: too wet, or too dry, or too rotten, or too dead. It was too unpredictable to guarantee a good crop.

Once he was able to walk further, there was a lot for him to catch up on. He needed to go to the barn to look in on the animals and see that John Day had brought in the hay all right, and check on the kitchen garden. The last of the corn needed bringing in: he should at least inspect the field even if he couldn’t help yet.

James should have concerned himself with his corn, his vegetables, his pigs. They were where he should have focused what little energy he had. Instead he went to see his apple trees-stopping twice to rest and joined midway by his youngest son shadowing him again.

To James an orchard in September was at its climax. The whole cycle of an apple tree-the sap and leaves and blossoms-peaked in its fruit. As he stood with Robert on the edge of the orchard and looked at the Goodenough trees, he saw a field full of laden trees that could feed his family for months. He knew you could not eat fruit and nothing else, but if it were possible he would be content to eat only apples every day.

Most of the apples were not quite ready. They had grown to full size but were still green, with red creeping across here and there. James preferred them now, before they could be eaten, when they hung on the trees and promised much. It was like finding a wife but not yet marrying her-lusting after her and not knowing about her temper or her laziness or her roving eye. These apples might end up mushy and full of worm holes or as bruised windfalls only good for cooking-but they were not yet. On the trees, they were perfect.

The three Golden Pippin trees were particularly heavy with apples, and of the fifteen trees he and Robert had grafted in the spring, twelve had leaves on them and were thriving. The deer fences with their spikes had held up all summer and kept out the deer, and Sadie. In two or three years they would produce sweet apples.

The fifteen seedlings from John Chapman that spring were all growing in their own small nursery, and could be transplanted the following year when James had cleared land for them. After the harvest and before the ground froze he would make a start on it.

“Looks like we’ll reach fifty trees producing in a couple of years,” he said, aware that he had said this before but for once truly meaning it.

Robert nodded. “That’s good, Pa.”

“Yes. Then we’ll really be settled. All right, let’s give these a week, then we’ll pick them.”

The next day James felt well enough to work again, though he had to rest often. Sometimes his heart beat fast like a bird’s and he went to sit in the shade of an elm next to the field where he and Robert were bringing in the corn. Soon Caleb was able to join them, then Nathan. Sadie and Sal were the last to get up from their beds, leaving Martha the bulk of the cooking and cleaning. Her face was becoming more and more gaunt, with blue rings hooking under her eyes and a vertical frown line growing between her eyebrows that should not be seen on a young girl’s face.

One evening James came back from the barn to find Sadie sitting on the bench outside the door, smoking a pipe in the late sun. She looked peaceful and rested and entirely clear of fever. There were no rings under her eyes, no frown line.

“Why aren’t you helping Martha?” he said. “She’s had enough to do looking after us all.”

Sadie leaned back against the house with her pipe between her teeth. “Ain’t that why we have children-to do our work for us?”

He did not even hesitate before slapping his wife. The pipe flew from her mouth and landed in a patch of dried grass, and James went to stamp it out to be sure it didn’t catch fire. When he turned back, Sadie was gone.

Inside she was not helping Martha. He could hear her up in the attic, getting into bed there. Martha did not look up from frying johnnycakes on the range. James was glad, for he did not want to see her frown line appear.

It suited me when he slapped me. I never felt easy when James and I was gettin along. Havin a common enemy like Hattie Day jest messed things up, put us on the same side and that didnt feel right. James hadnt been on my side since back in Connecticut. Maybe not even then.

Eventually I got bored pretendin to be sick. I made Sal get up too so I wouldnt have to face the little mouse in the kitchen alone. Cause I hated how without even sayin a word Martha made me feel like I was the worst mother ever in the world. Which I probably was.

At first I was weak as a rag doll so I did my work sittin at the table, let Martha do the fetchin and the stirrin. Thats why I didnt see the jar of pickled eggs for a few days. Then one day I went back in the pantry lookin for some cucumbers to set out with the bread and cheese and lettuce and tomaters. There were three jars of pickled eggs on the shelf, and one of them was colored pink. I brought the jar back with me and set it on the table. Whats this, I said to the little mouse.

She was mendin the nine-patch quilt and looked up all fearful the way she always did. Pickled eggs, Ma.

I know what they are. Whyre they pink?

Martha cleared her throat like maybe that would make a different answer come out. That was from the beet Mrs. Day put in to make it colored that way, she said.

I told you I didnt want colored water. I know you heard me say that.

Martha didnt make even the tiniest squeak. She tried to go back to her sewin but her hands were trembling so much she couldnt hold the needle. So she set it down and went to tuck her hair behind her ears.

Dont you touch your goddamn hair. Whyd you go against what I said?

Sorry, Ma, she said so quiet it was like she was hummin.

Sorry nothin. You like Mrs. Day better than me. Is that it?

No, Ma.

You want Hattie Day for your mother?

No, Ma.

I think you do. Maybe I should jest send you over there right now and be done with it. Let her dress you in one of them straw hats. Youd like that, wouldnt you.

No, Ma. The look on her face was a sight to see.

Then why did you do it when you know I didnt want my eggs sittin in pink water?

She didnt answer for a while. Then when she did I couldnt hear her. Whatd you say? I said.

I thought itd look pretty, she whispered. She was cryin by now.

Pretty? I laughed at that. You dont think its pretty enough around here? You dont think thats pretty? I pointed at the quilt in her lap. Martha had been fixin the tear down the middle but it still didnt look so good. What about my face? I added. Aint that pretty enough for you? Or Sal? Shes the good lookin one in the family.

Martha was fumbling with the quilt corner to dry her tears.

I didnt say anymore but kept gettin supper on the table. But as I was passin I let my elbow nudge the jar of eggs and it fell and smashed.

Oh dear, you better clean up that pretty mess, I said. Cause I sure as hell aint.

Once the corn was in, the apples were ready, apart from the three Golden Pippins, which needed a few more days. James had Robert and Martha and Sal to help pick them, while Caleb was digging up the garden and planting onions and cabbage. Nathan had gone back to bed with fever.

Illness had taken the bite out of Sal, subduing her enough that they were able to have a peaceful time in the orchard. Wearing a sack tucked into a belt, Robert climbed the trees and picked the hard-to-reach spitters while Martha gathered those closer to the ground. Sal picked up the windfalls-they were already bruised and would be used for cider, so it didn’t matter how rough she was with them. James reminded Robert and Martha to twist the apples so that they came off at the stem rather than taking part of the branch with them, and also to keep the stems on-otherwise a hole where the stem should be might turn mushy and rot. They must also place the apples gently into their sacks so they didn’t bruise. Though most of the spitters would be immediately cooked or dried or pressed for cider and so could be bruised without consequences, James remained a perfectionist, determined to keep his apples unblemished. He kept the windfalls separate from the rest, and he had the children empty their sacks slowly into the wheelbarrow to avoid knocks, taking them back to the house himself. Those that would be eaten he placed one at a time in boxes in the cellar; the windfalls went into barrels outside, to be pressed for cider in Port Clinton.

He brought a wheelbarrow full of spitters in to Sadie. She was busy making bread while the last of the tomatoes from the garden stewed on the range. “There’s good strong sun today,” James pointed out. “You can get a start on drying apple rings. You want me to send Sal back to help? She’s only collecting windfalls, and they’ll be all right for a day or two more on the ground.”

“Don’t tell me how to keep house,” Sadie muttered. She was kneading dough, punching and slapping it hard. Its surface reminded James of the smooth soft flesh of her buttocks back when they were first married. To his surprise the memory made him hard, and he had to turn away to hide it while he was unloading the apples.

He sent Sal back to help Sadie anyway, while he and Martha and Robert remained in the orchard to finish picking and storing the apples. As he trundled to the house each time with a laden wheelbarrow, he watched Sadie and Sal’s progress; by mid-afternoon they had cut up dozens of apples and laid the rings out on the nine-patch quilt to dry in the sun. He noticed, though, that the apples had not been cored-they were not rings so much as slices, with the seeds and tough membrane left in, forming stars in the centers.

When they finished picking the apples from a row, Robert celebrated by climbing the tallest tree in the orchard-a spitter James had planted next to the Golden Pippins the first year that was now twelve feet high. Martha watched, and James felt sorry for her. Though long past his tree-climbing days, he still remembered the freedom of being up in the branches, swaying with the sun on his face.

“Come up.”

For a moment James thought Robert was speaking to him.

“I don’t know how,” Martha said, standing at the base of the tree, her face turned up towards her brother.

“Put your right foot onto that low branch, and your left hand onto the branch above you, then pull yourself up and put your left foot up onto the next branch.” When Martha hesitated, Robert said, “You’re stronger than you think.”

That seemed to spur her on. As James watched, his daughter put her foot and hand into position, remained like that as if assessing her folly, then gritted her teeth and pulled herself a foot off the ground.

“All right, now, reach with your right hand and grab the branch, then put your left foot up as high as it will go.” Robert steadily talked Martha through the moves that brought her higher and higher off the ground. James resisted the temptation to go and stand under the tree, for that would just scare her into letting go. Besides, this was their game; it did not include him.

Eventually she was sitting in a fork in the tree, Robert a little above her. Both were smiling, and Martha was swinging her legs and humming “Blest Be the Tie That Binds.”

James did not want to break up their pleasure, and sought his own, moving aside part of the deer fence and picking a Golden Pippin. “Come down and try this,” he said.

Robert coached Martha down, then they shared the apple between the three of them, James nodding at the taste. The Golden Pippins were almost ready.

When they came in at the end of the day, their cheeks were flushed and their eyes bright as if they had fevers. They were not sick, however, but happy. The house smelled of apple butter Sadie was making from more of the spitters. The apple rings had been brought inside to dry overnight. James should have kept his mouth shut about them not being cored, kept the peace, protected that rare happiness he shared with his children. But he couldn’t help it: Sadie had a way of stamping her mark on everything, even on apple rings. “Couldn’t you find the corer?” he said.

Sadie was ladling apple butter into jars and ignored him.

“Sadie,” James said.

She didn’t look up. “What.” Her arm jiggled so that a ladle full of hot apple butter hit the table and splattered. James jumped back to avoid being burned.

“Why didn’t you core the apples before you cut them into rings? With those seeds in, the rings won’t go sweet but will taste bitter.”

“I did it for Martha.” Sadie glanced sideways at her daughter. “She’s got such a taste for pretty things now Hattie Day’s been here turnin’ her head that I thought she’d care more about the stars in the rings than the sweetness. You like them stars, don’t you, gal?”

Martha ducked her head as if trying to dodge her mother’s sudden attention. “Core the next batch,” James said, knowing as he spoke that telling Sadie would make no difference. Indeed, it might encourage her to do the opposite, and then he would have to respond to her deliberately disobeying him, which was what she wanted. And so their feud would continue, probably for the rest of their lives. The thought exhausted him.

There was no time to find out how she might have responded, however, for at that moment they heard John Chapman’s unique whistle. “John Appleseed!” Sadie dropped the ladle into the pan of apple butter and ran to the door. She was never so eager to see any of the family as she was John Chapman. James knew he should not care-it was understandable that someone you saw only two or three times a year would be more exciting than the people you were with every day. Still, he gritted his teeth and had to force a cheerful greeting when John Chapman followed Sadie in. She was clutching two bottles of applejack.

“Sit yourself down, John!” she cried. “Take the rocker by the fire. It ain’t that cold yet but you don’t get much time inside, so you need to warm up proper. Here, have a dish of apple butter. I jest made it. Must’ve known you were comin’.” Sadie set down the applejack with the sort of care James reserved for sweet apples, then ladled apple butter into a bowl. In her eagerness to serve him she handed him the bowl so quickly that hot apple slid over the edge and spilled onto the floor. “Don’t worry about that!” Sadie knelt to wipe it up with her apron. “There. Will you take some cream on it? Martha, git Mr. Chapman some cream!”

“No need,” John Chapman reminded her. “You remember I don’t eat animals or anything that comes from them.”

“Leave it be, Martha, you silly fool! Didn’t you hear the man?”

Martha stood stricken at the sideboard, pitcher of cream in hand, looking as if she might drop it. Then Robert was at her side, taking the pitcher and setting it back down.

Was it only five minutes ago, James thought, that we were happy with apples?

But John Chapman smiled at Martha and she gave a weak smile back. He looked as ragged as ever with his bare feet and his long hair and his coffee sack for a shirt. “I’m glad to see you’ve got your apples in.” He nodded at the drying slices. “Good crop this year?”

James opened his mouth to answer, but Sadie jumped in first. “Oh, it’s been the best season. More apples than ever. We’ll have plenty for cider and jack, besides the butter and the stewed and the dried.”

“How are your Golden Pippins?” John Chapman directed this at James.

James sat up, pleased to be asked. “A heavy crop. They’re never big apples, but there’s a good number. I’m giving them a few more days before picking. But there’s one or two ripe at the top of the tree. Do you want a taste?”

“I’d like that.” John Chapman sat back and rocked.

“Robert, run and pick Mr. Chapman a good ripe Golden Pippin. Get two if you can find them.” Because Golden Pippins were abundant at the moment, he could afford to feel generous.

The whole family watched while John Chapman bit into the Golden Pippin Robert brought him-even Nathan, who had come to sit at the top of the attic ladder when he heard the visitor come in. Though his expression didn’t change, John Chapman nodded. “There is that surprising taste. Pineapple, did you say it was?”

“That’s how my father described it,” James replied. “Though I never tasted pineapple myself. There’s a pine needle flavor to it too. It’s still a little tart just off the tree. They mellow over time. Here, take this.” He handed John Chapman another Golden Pippin. “Save it till Christmas, then eat it. It’ll be sweet as honey then.”

“Enough apples!” Sadie cried, clearly put out that she’d not had John Chapman’s full attention for a few minutes. “Have a bite of applejack. It’s too late to be medicinal-we’re over the fever already-but it’s surely welcome.” She pulled the cork from the bottle and poured a slug each into two mugs.

John Chapman pocketed the Golden Pippin. “Thank you, Sadie, but just a drink of water for now. I want to savor the taste of that apple.”

Sadie shrugged and drank the shot from one mug, then the other. “Martha, git the man some fresh water.” She shoved one of the mugs across the table at her daughter. Martha fumbled with the mug and it clattered to the floor.

After supper John Chapman told me the news fresh from Heaven. Everybody else disappeared to their beds or out to the barn, which was rude of em but that was all right with me as it meant I had him all to myself. Him and James had spent most of supper talkin apples, which jest about killed me. You would think after all these years theyd have nothing left to say about apple trees. Thank God the jack took the edge off. It was good and fiery. I was careful with drinkin it, as itd be a couple months before itd be cold enough to make more.

I let John Chapman go on with his God talk till real late and the fire was low and the candles burned out and everybody was asleep. He kept talkin about the need to take a moral inventory of our lives lived so far. I didnt know what that meant. I liked hearin him talk but it never moved me the way the preachers did at camp meetings. I tried not to think of the last camp meeting but of course once it was in my head I did.

John Chapman stopped talkin then and gave me a funny look. You all right, Sadie? Youre looking red. The applejack too strong for you?

No no, I said. Its not that. I didnt want to tell him about bein abandoned by my family at the camp meeting. Do you ever wish you was somewhere else? I said.

What do you mean?

Do you ever jest want to jump in your canoe and go?

John Chapman smiled. That is what I do. All the time.

Thats what I want to do too. Maybe I could go with you.

There is no room for more than me and my trees, Sadie. You know I go alone.

There was space-he had a whole canoe jest for his trees. There was space for me there. Goddamn trees, I muttered.

What is it that bothers you about trees?

I thought a second. It only took a second cause Id thought about this before. Ill tell you what it is, I said. When we come from Connecticut James brought his sticks from his damned Golden Pippins and planted em here. Stuck em right in the trees you sold him and they were like magic cause three of em grew up and are doin as well as any tree around. Its like theyve always been here.

Why does that upset you?

I aint upset, I said. But I was and John Chapman knew it. Its jest-well, those trees are doin better in the Black Swamp than I ever will. Theyve got used to it here. And theyre jest trees!

John Chapman didnt say anything, but looked at me with his flinty eyes.

Trees aint supposed to move, and then thrive when they do, I added.

Sadie, trees move all the time! My business is about moving trees. I go to Pennsylvania in the winter, get sacks of seeds from the cider mill there. Then I take them and hand them out to some, plant others in my nurseries. A year or two later I dig up those seedlings and sell them to people all over Ohio and heading into Indiana too. And they do fine. Most of this countrys finest apples have come from somewhere else-usually from Europe. When you think about it, trees always move at the start. A seed has to land a ways from its mother to grow, otherwise its in the shade and wont thrive. Birds can take seeds for miles in their bellies, hundreds of miles even, then shit them out and the tree grows where it falls just fine. Now you know Im not a believer in the grafting your husband does. But I have to admit its impressive that the branch of an apple tree in Connecticut has been turned into a tree out in Ohio. And that tree came from a branch back in England.

Well. Aint trees jest the best thing ever, I said. Guess theyre better than people. I jumped up and started rakin ashes over the coals to bank the fire for the night.

John Chapman chuckled. Actually trees are ruthless. They fight each other for light, for water, for all the good things that are in the ground. They survive only when they have enough space between them. You ever notice how your husband spaces his apple trees far apart? The closer you put them to each other, the less fruit they produce. You see all the saplings around in the woods? Most of them wont grow up. Just one will, and kill off all the others. Its a battleground out there.

I looked at him. In here too.

Im only talking about trees. I am no expert in people.

Time to sleep. Heres your beddin. I grabbed the nine-patch quilt that was layin on the floor with the apple rings on it and thrust it at him, letting the rings rain down all over without pickin em up.

In the morning John Chapman was gone and the apple rings were layin out on a sheet all tidy in rows. I never asked who did that.

Every day James checked the Golden Pippins, feeling the flesh for the slight springiness that would indicate they were ripe. Robert often came with him to inspect the fruit, and Martha sometimes too. Now that she could climb, she liked to go up the largest spitter tree and sit in the fork, smiling down at them.

During the last few days as they waited for the Golden Pippins to be ready, Sadie grew drunker. She’d had no applejack since May, and took up drinking it again as if it were water or coffee. The applejack John Chapman had brought was particularly strong, and it took only two mugs full to take her legs out from under her. At least the bottle would be empty soon. John Chapman had carried off three barrels of windfalls in his double canoe to Port Clinton for them, and James would make sure when he returned with cider in a few days that he wasn’t bringing more jack as well. Once Sadie had made her own, James would secretly water it down, as he usually did.

The applejack ran out the day the Golden Pippins were ready for picking. Though he didn’t really need them just to pick the apples from three trees, James had Robert and Martha help him anyway. First they pulled up the sharpened sticks that made up the deer fences around the trees and stacked them to one side. Then they started with the smallest Golden Pippin-James on a ladder reaching for the highest apples while the children picked the rest. When they’d filled the wheelbarrow, they took it back to the house, lifted the cellar door and transferred the apples to the wooden boxes, James crouching in the dark cellar while Robert handed them down to him. Sal was in the kitchen, churning cream into butter while Sadie lay still on their bed, sleeping off her hangover-or so James thought. When he climbed back out of the cellar, he glanced over and saw that his wife had her eyes open and was watching them, though she did not move.

“You all right, Sadie?” James said, surprising himself, as he never asked her such a thing-for he knew the answer.

Sadie just looked at him, the corners of her mouth pulled tight as a drawstring bag. James said nothing more, but picked up the handles of the wheelbarrow and trundled it out, Robert at his heels, the thump-thump-thump of the churn following them.

Back in the orchard, they were almost done picking from the second tree when Sadie appeared, heading towards them in a swift hobble, as if coming down a hill and unable to stop herself. The sight made James’ stomach tighten: hers was the gait of someone ready to cause trouble. She stopped at the bottom of the ladder he had climbed. “Where’s my bottle?” she said, running her hands up and down her thighs.

“It’s empty-you finished it last night.”

“You poured it out, is more likely!”

“No, you did the damage to that bottle all by yourself. But don’t worry-John Chapman will be back in a day or two with cider, and when it’s cold enough you can make your own jack.” James turned away from her fury and back to his apples. He could feel her eyes on his back almost as a physical presence. Then, suddenly, the press of them was gone, and he dared to look down. Sadie had fixed her gaze on the third Golden Pippin tree, still laden with fruit. It was the largest of the three-Robert would need to climb it to pick the topmost apples. James studied his wife as she studied the tree, every part of her lean frame alert now. “Leave it alone, Sadie,” he warned, knowing the moment he spoke that he’d made things worse by sparking the idea in her.

Robert and Martha paused from their picking and stared at their mother. Sadie saw them all watching her and snorted. “Git your Goodenough eyes off me.” Then she turned and strode back towards the house with the same jerky gait.

James let out his breath. “All right, now. Almost done.”

They were loading the last of the second tree’s apples into the wheelbarrow when she returned. “Pa,” Robert warned in a low voice.

James looked up. Sadie held an axe. He just had time to stumble after her, knocking apples from the heaped barrow, before managing to grab her arm as she swung wildly at the third Golden Pippin tree.

“Git your goddamn hands off me!” Sadie whirled around, brandishing the axe. “I’ll kill the whole lot of you!”

James took a step back. “What’s gotten into you, woman? Put that axe down, you’ll hurt yourself!” Out of the corner of his eye he saw Martha dart over to the large spitter and scramble up it. Behind him he heard rustling but didn’t dare to take his eyes off his wife. He guessed it must be Robert picking up the spilled Golden Pippins. Then he couldn’t resist, and turned. “Don’t put those back with the others, they might be bruised. Set them aside for eating now.” He needn’t have said it-Robert knew about apples.

It was the mistake Sadie had been waiting for. She turned back around, stepped up to the Golden Pippin tree, swung the axe hard and sunk it into the trunk with a thud. It bit deeply, but did not cut all the way through.

“No!” James cried. He ran to the tree and grabbed Sadie as she was wresting the axe from the trunk. They struggled together, then fell against the trunk, sending a blow through the tree that caused apples to rain down around them. Hugging each other, the axe between them, they stumbled and crashed into the neatly stacked pile of poles, scattering them into a pile of spikes that stuck out like a porcupine’s quills.

At last Sadie managed to butt her head against James’ forehead with a crack that sent him reeling away with a blinding pain. Shaking his head to clear it, he saw three flashes of his children: Sal striding down from the house, arms folded across her chest, looking just like Sadie; Robert, apple in hand, frozen by the wheelbarrow full of fruit; and Martha’s pale leg with a muddy boot on the end dangling from the spitter tree. Then he saw Sadie spinning with the axe to give the Golden Pippin what he knew would be a mortal blow, and all he could do was throw himself in between.

The axe sank into his side, cracking his ribs and collapsing a lung and filling his chest with blood. James fell to his knees, the shock of the blow blunting the pain. “Pa!” he heard over the roaring in his ears, but he did not know which of his children was shouting. Sadie was staring at him, her eyes as blue as her dress.

“Damn,” she said. “I guess I won.”

It wasnt what I meant to do. I meant to take the axe to every one of them apple trees and cut em all down. Without em we wouldnt have to stay in the Black Swamp. We could go anywhere we wanted. We could go west to the prairie where there werent any trees. Or we could go back east, back to Connecticut even. Anywhere but here, was what I wanted. We could move, like those seeds in the belly of a bird. But I made the mistake of startin with the Golden Pippin. Stupid of me. James would never let me touch the tree he loved best.

I went up to him and reached out for the axe in his side. There was blood everywhere and he was makin a terrible rattlin noise. I wasnt thinkin straight. Maybe I was thinkin if I jest pulled it out, his flesh would close over the hole in his side and he would be all right. Maybe I was thinkin I would continue cuttin down the trees. Whatever it was I was thinkin to do, thats not what happened. James saw me comin and kicked my ankles so I lost my balance and tumbled backwards, flappin with my hands and fallin right into the pile of fence poles. One of em was stickin up and went straight through me.

Funny, it didnt hurt more than a bee sting at first. I lay on the pile of poles under the tree lookin up. I could see Marthas leg hangin down but it wasnt close enough for me to reach up and touch it. It was real quiet. Then all of a sudden it got hard to breathe.

After a little while I heard the sound of a bob white out in the woods and wondered was that John Appleseed come back with the cider. I sure could do with some nice fresh cider.

Then Robert was standin over me. Ma, he said.

I looked up at him and though I was hurtin-in fact I was dyin-I knew it was time to tell him what he ought to know. Your uncle Charlie is your father, I said. Not him. I looked over at James. His eyes were open so I guessed he heard me. My last blow.

Somethin happened to Roberts face, like a jar that got broke, like a cracked mirror where I could see myself cut in two. It hurt too much to hurt him, my changeling son, the one I loved best out of all of em. Hes probably your father, I added, to soften the blow. Cant know for sure. At least you know youre your mothers son.

He stood there at the edge of the orchard, lookin like he would never be whole again, the way I wasnt whole either. You go now, I said. Get out of this swamp. Go out to the prairie where there aint no trees.

He looked up at Martha sittin above us in her tree, her foot swingin back and forth.

Leave her, I said. Shell jest hold you up.

Marthas foot stopped swingin.

You got to save yourself, I said. Go on out there now. Go.

So he went. And so did I.