Read Online Elm Creek Quilts [07] The Sugar Camp Quilt by Jennifer Chiaverini - Free Book Online Page B

said Dorothea brightly. Constance made a noise of assent, so she set herself to work. On her hands and knees, she dug onions, brushed the dirt from them, and stacked them in the grass beside the garden.
    After a few minutes of silence, Dorothea said, “How was your journey north?”
    “You can see for yourself we made it safe.”
    “Have you had an opportunity to go into Creek’s Crossing? It’s not a large town, but it has some fine shops and friendly people.”
    “I saw enough.”
    “We also have a lending library, although it’s not much at the moment—two dozen books on a shelf in the post office. As long as I’ve lived in Creek’s Crossing, there have been plans to enlarge the collection, and possibly even build a room onto the school to hold it. Perhaps now it will finally happen. I understand a benefit is being organized.”
    “I don’t care about no library. I don’t read.”
    “Oh. I see.” Dorothea hesitated. “I could teach you. I used to be a schoolteacher—only for six months, but—”
    “Maybe you don’t understand.” Constance stuck her trowel into the ground. “I don’t need your charity. Not your teaching, not your help in the garden, not your mama’s food, not your fancy quilt. You’re here because my husband invited your people. I don’t want to be your friend.”
    “I see.” Dorothea sat back on her heels, brushed the dirt from her palms, and shaded her eyes with her hand as she looked up at Constance. “I suppose we needn’t fear that happening.”
    Constance frowned before taking up her trowel again. “There are plenty of colored families around here. I don’t see why we need to ask white people for help.”
    “My uncle and your husband have been exchanging work for years. It’s the neighborly thing to do.”
    Constance barked out a laugh. “You aren’t our neighbors. Abel says you live clear on the other side of Creek’s Crossing.” She chopped at a weed, hard. “I met our neighbor, and he ain’t nobody I want to speak to again.”
    “Whom did you meet? Was it a thin man, loud and unkempt?” Constance’s silence confirmed Dorothea’s guess. “I know that man, and I can tell you he is a drunkard and a fool. It is uncharitable to say so, but it’s the truth. Whatever he said or did, you must not assume all people in Creek’s Crossing are like him.”
    Constance worked on as if Dorothea had not spoken.
    “I’m afraid you’re wrong about something else, too. There are not plenty of colored families in Creek’s Crossing. There are only a handful in the entire Elm Creek Valley, and none of those nearby. I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for some white friends unless you’re determined to be stubborn and lonely.”
    Cross, Dorothea pushed herself to her feet, took up the spade, and began overturning earth along the edge of the garden. At first Constance ignored her, but before long, she stopped working to watch.
    “What are you doing?”
    “I’m adding another row to your garden.”
    “I can see that. Why? We won’t be planting until spring.”
    “Because every spring for the past three years, my mother has traded some of her seedlings for some of your husband’s cheese. Last year it was pumpkins. This year I believe it will be sweet potatoes.”
    “I didn’t know about no sweet potatoes.”
    Dorothea was tempted to retort that there seemed to be a good deal that Constance did not know, but instead she said, “If I overturn the earth and mix in some manure with the grasses, in the spring, the soil will be richer for my efforts.”
    Constance watched her work for a while, then picked up the hoe and began to help. When the new row was nearly complete, Dorothea left Constance to finish and went to the barn for a wheelbarrow half-full with manure. Facing each other on opposite sides of the new row, they mixed the manure into the freshly overturned earth.
    “A man came to the farm my second night here, so drunk he could barely sit his horse,” said