A Season for Tending (16 page)

Mamm lifted Leah’s chin, studying her. The concern in her eyes caught Leah off guard, and she again wondered if her family cared more than she thought. If they did, she’d like to find a way to spare them from the humiliation if she was pregnant. But that would be impossible.

She pulled away from her mother. “Would you stop?” she growled and left the room.

Once at the stairs she sat on the bottom step. What if she was pregnant and Michael didn’t want to marry her? A shiver ran through her, and she couldn’t bear to even think about it.

“Leah?” Mamm called. “Kumm break ice from the trays and fill the glasses.”

Leah moved to obey, hoping she was as good at hiding her fears as she had been at covering her tracks.

Samuel rode bareback in the direction of the back tierce, the sun still strong at three in the afternoon. Eli and Jacob were helping Daed with the dairy side today. Samuel went through Jacob’s section of trees, inspecting them, and was
pleased with the abundance of maturing apples he saw there. The trees were healthier than they’d been in years.

As his horse carried him into Eli’s section, he noticed the leaves didn’t look good, a first indicator that a tree was under stress. His heart seemed to stop as he directed the horse to move closer. He pulled the reins, slowing the horse, yet directing her to move to a tree trunk. Coming to a halt, he watched as tiny bugs the size of a dot moved up and down the tree.

Spider mites. Thousands of them.

No
!

He dug his heels into the horse’s side and went to the next tree. He moaned. “Please, no.”

He went to the next. And on. And on.

All of them were infested.

“Eli!” he screamed, knowing no one could hear him. He turned the horse toward home and slapped the reins. His anger grew hotter the closer he got.

He should have checked on Eli’s work long before now. Why hadn’t he? He gave instructions every morning and followed up at the end of the day with questions about exactly what had been done. Eli gave his reports over dinner, but clearly he hadn’t been following Samuel’s instructions. Had he even sprayed his section of tree trunks with oil and water last spring?

If they used insecticide now to kill the spiders, they’d lose their organic status for the whole orchard. Besides, most of the damage had already been done.

Why hadn’t he made the time to verify Eli’s reports? Eli used to shirk his duties and run off with his friends the first chance he got. But last fall he’d asked for responsibilities in the orchard equal to his brothers’. They’d talked about it with Jacob and their Daed, and everyone had agreed Eli was up to the task and ready for the increase in pay that came with it. By springtime Samuel had stopped checking his work. He trusted him. What a huge mistake that was!

The July sun scorched the land as he crossed acre after acre. When he came
near his home, he spotted his youngest sister in the yard, playing with the puppy. “Have you seen Eli?” he called out.

“Last I saw him, he was in the barn office with Daed and Jacob.”

Samuel rode into the barn and got off his horse. “Eli!”

Jacob opened the door to the office. “We’re in here. Something wrong?”

Samuel pushed past his brother.

Daed sat in a chair behind the desk, and Eli was in a smaller one in front of it.

“What have you done?” Samuel threw his straw hat onto the desk. “Get on your feet and answer me.”

Eli stood. “Whatever you’re hollering about, I’m sure it’s because I didn’t do something as great and fantastic as you would’ve.”

Samuel pointed at the wall, imagining the orchard. “You mean do the job I was given? The trees on the back tierce are covered in spider mites. They’ll be good for nothing but cider apples.”

Eli doubled his fists. “Back off, Samuel.”

“Are you kidding me?” Samuel asked. “You’re going to challenge me? Because I’d love a fight right about now.”

Jacob moved between them, facing Samuel. “I’m sure it’s not as bad as it looks. Things rarely are.”

“All ten acres, Eli,” Samuel snapped. “You said you’d sprayed them in the spring when we were spraying our sections. Did you?”

Jacob blocked Samuel’s view of Eli. “We’ll find a solution.” Jacob stared into his eyes. “Samuel, we’ll find an answer. Now go cool off.”

Samuel walked out of the office, slamming the door behind him. He paced the barn a few times, trying to calm himself, and then went back into the small room.

Daed was still in the chair behind the desk, absorbed in lecturing Eli.

Eli stared out the tiny, dirty window.

“The trees in every section but his are doing fine. Thriving, even.” Samuel
pulled a bandana out of his pocket and wiped the sweat from his face. “You want to explain that?”

“I did a lot of work, Samuel. Maybe I didn’t do it as well as you, but I’ve worked hard on those ten acres.”

“Nonsense!”

Eli stood face to face with him. “Are you calling me a liar?”

“Did you spray the trees with oil and water or not?” Samuel held up his hand. “And before you answer, I can find out by running an inventory. It’ll take days to figure it out, but I will get the truth.”

Eli stormed out.

“And there’s our answer,” Samuel called after him. “He knew how important it was to soak every trunk. He just didn’t want to do the work.”

Jacob rubbed the back of his neck. “I was depending on the cash from this year’s crops to do more than just offset the financial struggles on the dairy side.”

Samuel scoffed. “This affects all my plans.”

If they couldn’t find a way to halt the infestation, none of the apples in their brother’s ten acres would reach their full color and size—not this year or next. And when produce was affected year after year, the family bills and taxes were in danger of going unpaid. Poor harvests the last three years had already depleted their savings. If the orchard again yielded more cider apples than eating ones, they’d have to sell off a good portion of the land just to pay the property taxes, and selling off land to make ends meet could eventually force them to lose the orchard altogether.

Samuel grabbed his hat off the desk and flung it across the room. “The back tierce is a sea of spotty leaves and damaged fruit. What am I going to tell Catherine? ‘Sorry, honey, but my irresponsible brother wanted to make some extra money, so he agreed to more work than he was willing to do, and now we can’t even think of getting married for another decade’?”

“It’s not that bad,” Daed said.

“Ya, it is. We’re looking at ten acres of cider apples, and I can’t imagine any solution. Not one.”

Jacob leaned his chair back on two legs, probably already resigning himself to their future. “Somehow we have to find a way to make up the difference between the price of eating apples and cider apples for ten acres of trees.”

“That’s not possible. If it were, we’d have been doing that for years. And what’s Eli’s punishment going to be? Paying back some of the money he took for work he didn’t do?”

“Leave it alone, Samuel,” Daed said. “Watching us struggle to make ends meet or seeing us sell portions of land to pay the taxes will be punishment enough.”

“He won’t get it, not at eighteen.”

Daed pointed at Samuel. “Just avoid Eli for a few weeks. He can increase his work with me on the dairy side until you cool off.”

Samuel walked out, too furious to respond. He strode into the orchard, unable to see anything but red. His mind screamed and railed, and at least an hour passed before he returned to the office. Daed and Jacob were still there with the papers and ledgers pulled out, reviewing information from the dairy side, probably trying to figure out a new plan.

Sunlight streamed through the dusty windows as Samuel took a seat in one of the rickety ladder-backs. No one spoke. The smell of the blackberry jam on his father’s half-eaten sandwich caught his attention. The thought of shelves of freshly canned jams and jellies in a Morgansville cellar came to mind.

Samuel watched dust particles float through the air, stirred into a frenzy each time someone moved. “The spider mites are so bad it could take three or four years before the trees are healthy again.”

Daed slumped and put his head in his hands. “That’s thirty-five hundred bushels of cider apples per year from that section alone. We won’t be able to find buyers for that quantity. If we pick them, they’ll rot in the storage house.”

Samuel tried to focus his thoughts, and soon his mind churned with ideas. All of them useless. His thoughts moved to Rhoda Byler and her business again. He wondered if some of her crazy mulch additives might help restore the trees to health sooner than usual.

“I may have a new buyer for some of the cider apples.” Jacob raked a hand through his hair. “He won’t pay as much as the folks we already sell to. But he might be able to take some off our hands.”

“It’s better than nothing, I suppose.” Daed sounded defeated.

Eli eased into the room. “I … I have an idea.”

Samuel figured he’d been somewhere out of sight but within hearing range.

Daed motioned Eli in. “Let’s hear it.”

Eli stayed near the doorway. “Maybe we should try to find someone who can make things from the overabundance of cider apples—like pies. That’d be more profitable than selling the apples themselves, wouldn’t it?”

“We already sell apples to everyone around here who makes pies,” Daed said. “Besides, Samuel ran the numbers on that a few years ago. There’s too much overhead. We wouldn’t come out ahead.”

Samuel thought of the rows of labeled jars in Rhoda’s cellar. Maybe Eli was onto something. “I have an idea, but it’ll sound crazy.”

Daed tossed his pencil onto the desk. “I’ll consider anything at this point.”

His brothers stared at him, their attention fully his.

“What if we found someone who’s already set up to do canning in large quantities? Someone who could make apple butter, jelly, jam, applesauce, maybe even pie filling.”

Jacob put the chair on all four legs. “So we get somebody to do the canning for us, then sell it as a Kings’ Orchard product. If we shipped some of it to the touristy places, I bet we could turn a decent profit, at least enough to keep our heads above water until we get back to having really good harvests again.”

Daed took a bite of his sandwich. “You got somebody in mind, Samuel?”

He shrugged. “It’s a long shot. And the person I’m thinking of isn’t from around here.”

“Amish, though, right?” Eli asked. “Because all our branding and reputation is built on being Amish and organic.”

Samuel didn’t want to answer Eli, didn’t even want him in the room, but he steadied himself and answered. “Ya, she’s Amish.”

His father choked. “Did you say
she
?”

“Ya. The owner of the canning business is a woman.” Samuel went to the far corner of the room and retrieved his hat. “But if she can help us out of this fix, I see no reason not to look into it.”

“You’ve at least met her husband and family?”

“She’s single.”

“Oh, this just keeps getting better and better.”

Daed’s tone bothered Samuel. He seemed ready to discount Rhoda’s worth based solely on her gender and marital status.

“Do you want a man, Daed? Because if that’s the answer, this room is full of answers, and you can see where that’s gotten us.”

Shock removed all other emotion from Daed’s face. “Go on.”

“You should see her setup. She’s got a little more than an acre in Morgansville, and she cans all kinds of berry products in her cellar. As far as business goes, it left an impression, and I found myself looking for her goods in a few stores while running errands this week. The ones I went into carried Rhode Side Stands products. I even saw an ad in that magazine for Amish women, and it said her products are sold at stores in Ohio and Indiana. But none of it is made from apples.”

“Morgansville, you say?” Daed picked up the pencil and put it behind his ear. “Is this the woman Leah worked for a couple of Saturdays ago?”

“Ya.”

Daed took a sip of water. “You think this woman would make a good business partner?”

“I think it’s a possibility that we have no choice but to investigate. Who knows if it’d be a good partnership, but it’s all we’ve got right now. Jacob, she makes fifty percent profit from every jar. Can we make the offer worth her consideration?”

Jacob stared into the distance, thinking, and then he popped his knuckles. “It’d be safe to offer her twenty-five percent profit per jar, and that’s a better deal than it sounds at first.”

Eli scratched his head. “But a bushel of fruit is a bushel of fruit, right? So why would she be willing to take twenty-five percent less per jar of goods?”

Jacob interlaced his fingers and cupped the back of his neck. “The actual weight difference between a bushel of apples and a bushel of blueberries isn’t all that different—not that blueberries are sold by the bushel. The real difference is found in other areas: how long it takes to fill a bushelbasket with blueberries compared to apples, and how many bushels one acre of apple trees can produce compared to one acre of berry bushes.”

“So she’d make more money overall?” Eli asked.