Her Own Devices (27 page)

“No.” I sighed. We had this same conversation every spring, and every spring I hated it just as much. The part about getting married and having my own farm hadn’t come up before, though. I wondered what had brought that on.

“Sophie.” Maman held out her hand. Gently, I put the chick into it and turned away. With no sound but a sudden rustle of the dark blue cotton of her sleeves, it was over. “Are there any more?”

“The one with the yellow spot on its head can’t walk. There, by the Wyandotte mama.” Another rustle of movement. “I’ll bury them, Maman.”

“Don’t be long bringing in the eggs. I want to speak to you.”

After I’d done my sad duty, I comforted myself watching the rest of the chicks tumble over each other, nip food away from their companions, and collapse in happy abandon for a nap under their mamas’ wings, which kept them warm on this sullen day in the hind part of April. The chicks could not know what had happened to the others, and their innocence was a joy in itself. But how fair was it that they’d only escaped because they met a standard they didn’t even know existed?

The chicken barn was sectioned off from the field horses’ stalls and the neat area where the buggies and tack were stored. That part belonged to Papa and the boys. This part belonged in name to Maman, and in reality to me. It was dry, cozy, and safe, and on rainy days the birds made themselves comfortable in the deep bedding of wood shavings or perched on the hay bales stacked along the wall. For me, it felt peaceful and industrious at the same time, as the hens got on with the business of laying, raising chicks, and eating. Once I’d collected the eggs, I walked slowly across the yard, drying now as spring advanced, to the kitchen door.

What did Maman want to speak to me about? We talked all day long. As the second eldest girl in the family, and since leaving high school in tenth grade last spring as was required of
les jeunes
, or Brethren young folks, I was her biggest help. That had been my older sister Rachelle’s place, but no longer. Last year, Rachelle had said in her letters that she’d fallen in love with life in Coeur d’Alene and would wait a little longer to come back to Minuit. Why wouldn’t she? She was in the period of life we called “running wild,” where she could stay out all night if she wanted. Talk to a boy without a dozen relatives leaping to conclusions and then into wedding plans. Drive a car like the Outsiders—meaning one with a combustion engine, not a hand-cranked magneto engine—and even finish high school and go to college.

That was all well and good—for her. But she shouldn’t wait too long to decide whether she was coming back. My father had taken to falling into silence whenever her name was mentioned, and that was not so good. The thought of having to treat my own sister as an Outsider made my skin go cold and coiled a sick knot of apprehension in my stomach. What crazy girl would sacrifice her family and her church just to stay out late and drive a car?

I ran warm water into the sink and began to wash the eggs while Maman put a couple more sticks of wood in the stove and sliced into the pile of scrubbed potatoes on the counter. Father and the boys were out planting our rocky, unforgiving soil, now that the Idaho winter had released its iron grip on the ground and the days were long enough, and they’d be hungry as bears when they came in.

“What did you want to talk to me about?”

On the rug my grandmother had braided as a bride when she’d come to Minuit, baby Marianne kicked her legs with great energy, and Maman glanced at her to make sure she wasn’t going anywhere. At this rate, she’d roll over and start crawling, without any of the in-between. My mother seemed to be taking an awfully long time to reply.

Oh, dear.

I ran the last several hours through my head, and when nothing popped up that would rate a talking-to, I ran through yesterday, too. I’d dropped an egg on the way out of the barn, but the birds had eaten it so fast there couldn’t have been any evidence left to tell the tale.

This silence couldn’t have anything to do with marriage and new farms, could it? I was only sixteen. I hadn’t even gone to the Assembly of Brethren over in Washington State this spring to meet boys, like several of my friends had. Didn’t even know if I wanted to. Then what—

“Gabriel Langford helped your father and brothers with the planting yesterday,” she began with a “this isn’t important but I thought I’d pass it on” kind of tone.

“That was kind of him,” I said, “though I’m sure he has plenty to do in Jean-Baptiste LeBrun’s fields.”

“He does. Which is why it meant something, Sophie, for him to finish there and then do nearly a full day’s work here.”

“Why would he do that? Does Jean-Baptiste think that if he works him to death, he’ll be less likely to want to join church?”

“That boy’s capacity for work puts even your father to shame,” Maman said. “Not to mention his willingness to try his hand at anything, from planting to construction.”

“Have the men got a competition going to see who can wear him out first?” I was only half joking. My friends and I complained to each other that even if Gabriel Langford was the one we most wanted to bump into, with him it was the least likely to happen. He worked from dawn till dark, and when he wasn’t working, he was taking French lessons with Elder Duvalle, or history lessons from one of the other elders about the Brethren from way back in the 1600s, when our French Huguenot ancestors fled to America to avoid religious persecution. When he wasn’t doing any of those things, he was in meeting. Head bowed, glossy black hair combed, clothes spotless, he occupied his bench in a way that made heads turn.

Well, the heads of all the girls in my circle, anyway. I never would have believed it would be so hard to keep one’s gaze facing front and not let it slide to the men’s side of the meetinghouse during worship. To ignore those long-lashed eyes and beautiful cheekbones turned up toward the preaching. To pretend not to see the sunlight make its way through a curtain or a window and light up that skin. A blemish would never dare appear on his face. What an awful thought.

Some of the boys—cornfed nobodies who had the mistaken idea they were somebody—had tried to pick a fight with him when he first came last winter, calling him “Gabrielle” and telling people he wrote poetry. That had lasted about five minutes. The boys said that Adam Berger had broken his collarbone falling out of the haymow, but his sister Katrine (who, as her best friend, I call Katie), told me the truth. After that no one accused anyone of writing poetry. Those boys kept their mouths shut and tried to look friendly when Jean-Baptiste hired Gabriel out to their fathers’ farms.

“There’s no competition that I know of.” My mother gave me a look. “A hard worker he might be, but he’s still an Outsider, and no daughter of ours will be thinking thoughts about him.”

She’d brought him up, not me. “I’m not thinking thoughts.” Was that a lie? Just in case, I sent up a breath of a prayer for forgiveness. “I just wondered if he planned to become a Brother. Have you heard anything?”

“I haven’t heard a word about his plans, nor do I want to,” Maman said with disregard for the life of any Outsider, which from her tone of voice, had nothing to do with hers, now or in the hereafter. Even though the alfalfa Gabriel had put in our fields would go to feed our cows and make the milk we sold to the cooperative every week. “Plans are nothing. When he actually kneels in front of the elders and gives his life to God, then his plans will have some substance. In the meantime, you’re not to behave as if he’s a Brother. No talking with him among
les jeunes
after
chanson
, no accepting a ride on a rainy day, nothing. Understood?”

“Can I say
bonjour
if I pass him on the road?”

Narrow eyes examined my face to see if I was talking back. Maybe I was. Or maybe I honestly wanted to know. The words had just popped out and it was too late to unsay them.

“Just good day,” Maman said at last, evidently not finding what she was looking for. “Nothing more than you would say to any Outsider in town. A Sister is always modest and polite, especially to people outside the church.”

I don’t think my lips moved in unison with hers, but they could have. I’d heard those words approximately ten thousand, five hundred and eighty times during the course of my life.

“And why are we discussing Gabriel Langford anyway?” Maman asked. “I wanted to talk about something else.”

Thank goodness
. “What?”

“After meeting on Sunday, David Martin asked your father for permission to walk out with you. What do you think about that?”

I dropped an egg into the soapy water and heard the sickening sound of a crack. “Me?!”

“Sophie Dupont, watch yourself!”

“Sorry.” I pulled the plug and let the broken yolk wash down the drain, then picked the shell fragments out of the trap. “Are you sure? David Martin? This isn’t Papa’s idea of a joke, is it? Who asks the parents’ permission anymore?”

Maman allowed herself a smile. “When it comes to the subject of courtship, your father does not make jokes. Just ask me. And there’s nothing wrong with asking his permission. I think it was a fine way to show respect and have everything above board. After all, it’s David. Why should that surprise you?”

My mouth opened and closed like a fish on a riverbank.
Surprised
didn’t even begin to cover it.
Astonished
might be a start. Me and David? That was crazy. We’d known each other since we were babies and I thought of him as another of my brothers—when I thought of him at all. There was no room in my brain for David when Gabriel haunted it. Oh, if only he were a Brother! Every girl in Minuit over the age of twelve would give her eyeteeth to walk out with him.

“Gabriel has to be planning to join the Brethren,” Katie had said after that very same meeting. No wonder I hadn’t seen David, if he’d been lying in wait for Papa by the hitching rail in the Moulins’ lane. “No one would devote so much of himself to work and worship if he didn’t.”

I couldn’t think of any other reason, either. Converts were rare in Minuit, and good-looking single male converts were . . . well, there had never been one in
my
lifetime. But even if that was God’s will for Gabriel, I didn’t dare let hope blossom in my chest and warm me with possibility. The simple fact was that there were lots more girls in our district than ordinary brown-haired, gray-eyed me. Girls like merry, laughing Katie or Ellie Duvalle, whose parents had left her a bed-and-breakfast when they died, even though her aunt ran it. Or Valerie LeBrun, who was tall, beautiful, and eighteen and lived right there where Gabriel was boarding. The fact that she had run through every boy under twenty-one within a twelve-mile radius just made it seem more inevitable that she’d settle on him . . . when he joined our church.

“Sophie? I asked you what you thought of David Martin.”

What
did
I think? With Gabriel in the neighborhood, did anyone think about David? “I . . . I don’t know.”

“Well, if he offered you a ride home from
chanson
, would you go?”

I stopped pretending to clean the sink and turned away to dry my hands on a dishtowel. “I don’t know.”

“Sophie.”

“I’m telling true, Maman. I don’t know what I’d say. I—I’ve never thought of David like that. He may as well be my brother.”

“He is your Brother in God.” She took the towel from me and dried her own hands. “He’s worth ten of Gabriel Langford.”

How fair was this? “You just finished saying what a hard worker Gabriel is. You don’t really know him.”

“My point exactly. None of us know him, except maybe Jean-Baptiste LeBrun.
Oui
, he is a hard worker and seems to be committed to the church, but I’ve seen it before. People get romantical notions about living as we do—until they actually have to do it. Then they’re running for their modern cars and electrical appliances and radios.”

“He’s been here since November and hasn’t run yet.”

“Maybe not, but I’ll believe it when I see it. Meantime, aren’t you going to ask me what else your father said to David?”

I could see where this was going. “What did he say?”

“He said it was up to you. That you were old enough to make up your own mind.” Again the narrow look, but it held no displeasure this time. Instead, I saw concern in my mother’s face. “Is it too soon,
cherie
? Would you rather Papa told the boys to go away and come again in a year?”

I had to smile at that. “You know no one would listen to him. All of us see each other all the time. It was nice of David to ask, though. Even though it embarrasses me.”

“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Maman said firmly, and lifted the stove lid to check the coals. “Your father asked my Papa if he could court me, and he never regretted it.” The smile fought its way free again, and I had to laugh at how she didn’t say which
he
she meant. My parents adored each other, though it would take an educated family eye to see it. The way Maman always gave him the choicest piece of the roast, or made dumplings fried in bacon and onions just because he loved them. The way he always handed her out of the jalopy as if she were a queen.

A tiny bit of a wonder about whether David would put his jalopy or his girl first whisked through my brain before I chased it away. I was going to have a hard enough time treating him the way I’d always treated him—as a friend, a brother, someone who sang parts in meeting—now that he’d made his feelings public.

Papa was as closed-mouthed as a rat trap, but if there were any guarantees in this world, it would be that a private matter between men would get out sooner rather than later.

When I didn’t speak, Maman finally said, “Ah well. You go and weed those front beds and think about it. There’s no rush. But I won’t ask your brother to wait for you Sunday after
chanson
.”

Smiling as if this was hugely funny, Maman got out the frying pan and I escaped into the muddy, bare garden, where the weeds were the first things to sprout.

Sunday after
chanson
. When I would see Gabriel again.

*