Robards, Karen by Nobody's Angel

Author:Nobody's Angel
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-11-20T23:45:06+00:00

21

Late that afternoon, Susannah was so tired she felt ready to drop. The day had been unusually hot, though it was beginning to cool down just a little as the broiling sun progressed in its westward migration. With Craddock gone, doubtless off on another drunk, the most onerous of the physical chores had fallen to her and Ben. Ben was at that moment mucking out the pigpen; Susannah, with Old Cobb the mule's sporadic help, was plowing the west field. Emily trailed along behind her, setting roots into the furrows so that they might, at some date that seemed impossibly far in the future, harvest a crop of sweet potatoes. Mandy was in the house preparing the evening meal, and Sarah Jane was out delivering baskets of food to needy parishioners.

"Gee up, Old Cobb!" Susannah said for what must have been the hundredth time, jiggling the reins against the mule's shiny brown back before reaching down to grab the tall handles of the triangular-shaped wooden plow as he started forward. Old Cobb was deaf as a post, and talking to him was useless. But talking to animals was a habit of hers, and, whether he heard her or not, Old Cobb understood the jiggling of his reins. Flicking his ears back and forth, he took maybe three dozen plodding steps before stopping again.

"Drat this mule!" If she had been prone to swearing, Susannah would have sworn a blue streak. Old Cobb was as cantankerous as an ailing octogenarian, and she wasn't in the mood to cater to his idiosyncrasies just then. She was wringing wet with sweat, dirty as a pig, and still had over a quarter of the field yet to plow. The reins looped around her neck chafed her skin. Blisters were forming on her palms. Her legs ached, and her back felt as if it would break in two at any moment. If rain did not threaten for the morrow, she would have called a halt and had Ben, or Craddock if he returned in a condition that permitted him to work, finish up the next day. But everything from the sheer oppressiveness of the heat to the behavior of the fuzzy brown and yellow caterpillars as they crawled across the ground foretold a storm blowing their way, and the sweet potato crop needed to be put in before it hit.

"Susannah, I am so tired."

Susannah glanced over her shoulder to discover that Em, who had caught up with her, was stretching, a hand pressed to the small of her back. Like Susannah, Em wore a deep-brimmed sunbonnet and her oldest frock. Her sleeves were turned back to well past the elbows and her skirt tucked up at the waist so that most of her muddied-to-the-knee petticoat was in plain view. She looked as miserable as Susannah felt, and Susannah had to smile at her.

"I know. I am, too. Come on, let's get this done, and then we'll go in and sit and let Mandy and Sarah Jane dish up supper.

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