Of Needles and Haystacks by Ann Fryer (interesting novels to read .TXT) 📗

Mr. Bleu looked down to the ground with fists clenched. How could he display such anger at a moment like this? He was not being particularly helpful.

Before I knew it, Ernest cried out, long and sharp. His breath came in puffs while Uncle and Chess hauled him to one of the sleds. For men, they were gentle settling him in.

Mr. Bleu staggered to the fence, one fist opening enough to grab the top rail, frosty puffs keeping time with his heavy breathing.

Uncle unstrapped a canteen from around his shoulder and handed it to me. “Stay here with him. I’ll be back.”

I wanted to say, “No, wait!” But in such a situation an argument would have been far worse for my character.

Uncle and the MacDonald boys trotted quickly down the gentlest slope toward the house pulling Ernest behind them while I stood five feet away from a man who was either suddenly ill or ill-tempered. Either way, his bewildering behavior appears to be expected by Uncle. I pulled my lavender-scented handkerchief from my sleeve, plunged it into the snow, and handed it to him.

He snatched it from my hand and mopped his face, trembling.

“Leave me.” His voice steeled. “Leave me now.” His scars splotched white against flushed skin.

“Uncle bid me stay.” I handed him the canteen, he snatched that too.

I trudged a good thirty paces away and stood facing the farmhouse. I’d have to suffer this man’s disrespect an entire fortnight. Surely, he wouldn’t impose on this family—my kin—any longer?

Fifteen odd-minutes later, Uncle returned. “David being cantankerous?”

I shrugged in silence.

Uncle patted me on the shoulder and whispered. “He was just a boy. Saw too much war too young.”

I’m afraid my mouth hung wide. Wasn’t sure what seeing “too much” meant. If it was anything like watching my parents die, then perhaps the chasm between himself and God was far larger than mine. Men in battle endured many deaths, not just two. How this connected to a minor emergency, I do not know. Certainly, Ernest is not dying.

“Come on, David. The giant’s dead now.” He looped an arm around Mr. Bleu. His trembling persisted. “You need some hot coffee.”

I led the way this time, the two war friends straggling behind.

Chapter 6

FEBRUARY 28, 1880, evening

I didn’t see Mr. Bleu until supper, and as I have mentioned before, no one speaks at the dinner table. I don’t believe I can ever embrace this tradition. Last night had been cheerful, even hopeful. This night, everything had changed. Aunt worries over Ernest who lies in bed with an herbal poultice. The lavender-minty fumes reach all the way to my room. Perhaps she was more worried about that other question...as well she should have been. Had I been party to such secrets, I would have hidden myself away too. Such goings on! I wonder that she didn’t just ask me from the start. I wonder a great many things now.

Helen, Kirsten, Henry, Tom, Ruby and even little Toliver—all the children of the house were downright sullen. I didn’t blame them. Ernest seems to be a great favorite—the leader of the offspring.

Mr. James-always-called-David Bleu behaved as though he caused the accident. Why—I have yet to determine. His head dipped down, slightly cocked to one side, brows squeezed together as if listening intently for a train to arrive. One that never did.

Does a conundrum pursue him? One certainly does me. At dinner time, I made a wish. I wished that I could become truly good at something. That I could be of some honest value. Become independent of my Uncle’s family. My mid-section squeezed uncomfortably at the thought of being out on my own. This worthlessness defines spinsterhood worse than living off relative’s bread. Heat flashes upon my face as I think about what I now know and how it has tailored my worries.

At my age, I assumed I might have my own family to care for. Or at least be spoken for. I have had no prospects. Zereo. I often used to sit in front of the mirror and worry over the slight crook in my nose. It is ever so small, but girls at school assumed I was a tom-boy and had broken it playing baseball. Wait. Stop! I am veering far from tonight’s dinner and what happened that has me scribbling away. It is easy to become so self-absorbed that I do not write what I intend to write!

After dinner, I insisted on washing up so that Aunt might tend to Ernest. I delivered a basin of hot water and heard him say, “My shoulder must have been cut by a poison spear—ceaseless fire.”  I pray to God that infection stays away. I remember faithfully praying the same for my parents...

When I returned to the kitchen, Mr. Bleu stood at the sink scrubbing my handkerchief I’d loaned him that morning with a hard lump of soap. One should always scrub one’s own handkerchiefs, but in this case, I was more than happy to let him. I did not care to be in the same room with him. Before he noticed me, I ran back upstairs to my room to give him five long minutes to finish. When I crept back down, he had removed himself to the kitchen table. Propped open before him was a thick book, open to the middle. His eyes stayed on the print. My sopping handkerchief now draped the back of a chair.

Never mind him. I rolled up my sleeves and prepared to work through thirteen plates, bowls, cups, and myriad of pots. I have to write about the mundane chore for greater contrast. I never, never expected my first few days here to be as they have been and I certainly never expected what happened next.

Mr. Bleu, in a stolid voice, bid me sit before him. What? Had I heard him correctly? I felt like a schoolgirl about be lectured.

“Your parents died?” He did not look up.

Did he have no pity? How would he feel if the question were