"And Austin? And Laura Paisley?"
He said yes.
"And Peggy? And Jessie? Jacob Stoltz? And—" But he could tell that it was like when I tried to think of more people to bless, so that I wouldn't have to go to sleep. "God bless the postman," I would say, "and my cousins in Cincinnati—"
He closed the woman back up and hid her baby away. But I liked knowing it was there, and knowing now too that there was one like it inside my mother. "When?" I asked him. "What kind? And how long?"
He said spring. It took a long time. And we wouldn't know until it was born whether it would be a sister or a brother.
Then we turned out the lights and he took me home again, through our own yard and up our front steps, past the porch swing, and in through our own front door to where Mother was still sitting in the sitting room with her knitting in her hands, the white yarn going up and around, up and around. I could hear Peggy finishing the dishes in the kitchen. Naomi had hung up her apron, put on her jacket, and gone home, carrying a basket of leftovers for her own family.
"May I tell Peggy?" I asked.
Mother smiled. "She knows."
I ran to the kitchen anyway, to tell Peggy that now I knew, too.
It was Jacob in the stable. I knew it when the stable boy told Father. But I knew it for certain when I saw him there myself.
It was early evening, and I had been playing skip-rope on the front walk with Jessie until her mother called her home for supper. It was chilly out, Thanksgiving-soon weather, and there were still dead leaves in the yard, the last fallen not yet raked up. I thought to go in by the back door instead of the front so as to walk through the leaves, because I liked the feel of them on my feet and the sound of the whispery rustle they made.
When I neared the stable I saw a dog by the door, one I did not know, not one of the neighborhood pets. This one was brown with a white face, and it sat patiently the way dogs do when they are waiting. From inside I heard sounds: not just the stamp and snort and shiver of the horses, but the sounds of a boy's voice, a kind of singing.
Levi was already gone. After he fed and watered the horses each evening he always left to do his other odd jobs around town before going back to the little ramshackle house down near the railway station where he lived with his widowed mother and a great many younger brothers and sisters. A downright shame, Naomi said, that Levi's father had died two years ago of pneumonia, leaving that poor woman with all those little ones to raise alone and no chance, now, of any of them being educated.
It was not dark yet outside but I could see through the kitchen window that our lights were on, and I could see the figures of Naomi and Peggy moving by the stove and sink.
The stable door was partway open, and I pushed it further. Surely Jacob must have known I had entered because of the creak of the door and the whoosh of nippy outdoor air that blew in with me. But he didn't look over. He was stroking Jed's big, soft face, humming. From her stall, Dahlia watched; then she tossed her head and turned her dark eyes on me in a kind of question. So I went to her.
I wasn't afraid at all. Being with Jacob the day we took him to the mill, my father and I, had made me familiar with his gentleness, and Peggy, too, had spoken of his special way with animals, so I knew he was nothing to be wary of.
And I liked the sound he was making, a kind of singing that wasn't real singing at all. I wondered if he would mind my joining in, so I watched his face, tried to catch onto the same note, and kept at it when I saw that it didn't make him uneasy.
The horses seemed soothed by it. They stood quietly, and I stroked Dahlia as the touched boy was stroking Jed, so that we made a kind of rhythm with our hands and our humming.
I knew I would hear Mother call very soon and that I would have to go. So I went over to the oat barrel and took two handfuls. I knew I shouldn't, for horses must not have too many oats or they sicken. But the handfuls were small. I gave one to Jacob, pouring them into his open hand, and then we each gave our oats to a horse, the two huge wrinkled mouths opening and the long pink tongues coming out, eager and pleased.
"No more, though," I whispered to Jacob. "They mustn't have too much or they'll come down with colic."
Then I felt embarrassed to have said it. "You know that already," I told him. "Peggy says you tend the animals on the farm. It was foolish of me to remind you. I'm sorry."
But he paid no attention. He was back to stroking the great quivery nose of the horse.
"Katy! Supper!" My mother's voice came from the porch.
"I must go," I told Jacob politely.
"Remember, their names are Jed and Dahlia?" I said. "Jed's that one there."
"I'm Katy," I added. "Remember?"
He didn't look at me.
"Peggy's in our kitchen helping with supper," I said. "And your other sister, Nellie? She's next door. Right over there." I pointed toward the Bishops house, through the open stable door.
"Katy!" My mother's voice again.
"Goodbye," I said hastily. I left him there and left the stable, calling to Mother as I ran toward the house. "Coming!"
From my bedroom window that night I looked down and saw that the door to the stable was closed and the brown dog had disappeared. I knew that the touched boy was gone, that he had run the four miles home through the dark. That night was the first frost. In the morning the last apples hung frozen in our tree.
5. DECEMBER 1910
Snow! When I woke, I could feel the silence of it. There was frost on my window, and the room was cold. It had been cold when I went to bed, but now it was a different kind of cold, a quiet kind.
I didn't get up at first. I snuggled there under my blue and white quilt, thinking about how it would look outside. The world changes so, with the first snow. Ghost shapes appear where bushes have been.
Finally I heard Father and Mother talking in their bedroom, and then I heard Father's footsteps on the stairs, and I knew he would tend the furnace, shoveling in some more coal, and the house would warm a bit. Doors opened and closed below. After a moment I heard Naomi arrive and stamp snow from her feet in the kitchen, and I pictured her starting the oatmeal.
The door to my room opened and Mother, wearing her blue dressing gown, looked in at me. She was over what Peggy had told me was called "morning sickness."
"No school today, Katy! Naomi barely made it here. If she had a telephone I would have called and told her not to come. Peggy and I could have made breakfast. But Naomi's a real soldier. She trudged right through it."