Wild Rose. Ruth Axtell Morren

She pinched her lips together. “I’m just glad those seedlings are hardy things.”

      He looked at her for a second without reacting, then slowly he smiled. Her own lips relaxed in answer. Suddenly she felt like his partner in the garden.

      “You’ve helped me more than I had any right to expect,” he said. “The least I can do is offer you some dinner.”

      She stared at him, too startled by his invitation to answer.

      “What’s the matter? Have I offended you?”

      She shook her head. How could she explain it to him? To eat at someone’s table was truly to be accepted as his equal. He didn’t know what he was offering. Captain Caleb Phelps III, son of a Boston shipping magnate, dining with Salt Fish Ginny, pariah of Haven’s End? No, she’d spare him the humiliation. He was suffering enough at the hands of the villagers with his own troubles. She wouldn’t add to them.

      With a heavy heart she said, “Much obliged, Cap’n, but I better be getting back. Got to feed Jake.”

      “Jake?”

      “My dog,” she added.

      “Certainly. Well, perhaps another time.” He began picking up the tools, as if the invitation was already forgotten.

      She hurried to help him, dumping the smaller items into the wheelbarrow. “I’ll just keep my things in your barn, if you don’t mind. That’ll save hauling everything back tomorrow.”

      “You won’t need them yourself?”

      She shook her head. “Not for a couple of days, anyhow.”

      He pushed the wheelbarrow while she carried the long-handled implements toward the open barn door. He showed her a space inside where she could set the things, then went back to the garden for the remaining tools. Geneva took a turn about the barn while she waited for his return. She wanted to thank him again for the invitation.

      She shook her head. No one in Haven’s End had ever invited her to eat. Even when her ma died, and then her pa, her nearest neighbor had brought a few covered dishes, but no one had invited her over.

      They’d tried to force her to the Poor Farm when she’d been left with no living relatives, but she’d had none of that. She’d fended off the town do-gooders with the help of her pa’s rifle and hounds. Since then, she’d been pretty much left to herself.

      Geneva kicked at the wisps of hay on the wooden floor, trying to understand how Captain Caleb could treat her the same as he would one of his own world.

      She reached the doorway leading to the shed that connected the barn to the house. There in the dim corridor sat a wooden crate. Its yellow slats of new wood made it stand out.

      Geneva stepped back when she saw what it contained.

      The crate was filled with empty bottles, stacked every which way, right side up, upside down, sideways. The sickly sweet smell of liquor reached her nostrils. She knew that odor well. It had lingered for months in her own one-room house after her pa died. Geneva held her stomach, feeling as sick as if she’d drunk the contents herself.

      Chapter Two

      Caleb swung the scythe back and forth across the lawn at the side of the house. It had taken him the whole morning to learn to wield it properly, but now he began to see some progress on the grass that reached his knees and gave the house a derelict appearance. Just like its owner, his mind echoed. He glanced down at his work clothes—denim trousers and rough cotton shirt, its sleeves rolled up on his forearms, revealing the undervest beneath—what would his father say of him now?

      Nothing that he hadn’t heard his whole life.

      Caleb abandoned that line of thought and concentrated on his strokes. He hadn’t had such a workout since he’d climbed the ratlines of a ship. He turned to look with pleasure at the swath behind him, ignoring for the moment the much larger portion that remained to be cut.

      Just then, he saw his neighbor coming down the road toward his property. Caleb wiped his brow with his bandanna, wondering what the strange Miss Patterson was coming to see him about now. He hadn’t spoken to her in over a week. Occasionally he’d glimpsed her at her tasks, up beyond the field and trees that separated their two properties or out on her boat, but she’d made no more silent ventures into his territory since the day she’d helped him prepare the soil for planting.

      The two of them had worked hard that day. Caleb chuckled, remembering how he’d felt when she first appeared at his door. He’d about forgotten her promise of seedlings.

      Working in a field in the full sun was not a remedy he’d recommend to anyone after the amount of alcohol he’d consumed the evening before. But he didn’t let on about his physical condition, though he suspected her sharp black eyes didn’t miss much.

      He watched his neighbor open his gate now and wondered what sage advice Miss Patterson was going to offer him on this occasion. At least he knew her name properly. He’d found out the last time he’d been to the village.

      She was making her way toward him with her purposeful stride. Did she ever wander aimlessly?

      She’d probably take one look at his garden and make a dour prophecy of doom. At least the seedlings had survived his inexperienced planting; several rows of seeds and the quartered potatoes with their eyes had sprouted as well. Except for that one row of beans, everything had looked promising to him this morning. Now he wasn’t so sure. His plants began to take on a thin and sparse appearance as he tried to picture them through Miss Patterson’s experienced eyes.

      “Morning.” She wasted no excess words in greeting.

      Caleb leaned against the scythe and touched his hand to his hat brim. “Good morning to you, Miss Patterson.” She gave him a sharp glance, as if his words held some double meaning. He returned her look blandly. “What can I do for you?”

      “Came to see how the seedlings were doing.”

      “Just getting around to worrying about their fate?”

      She flushed at that and looked away from him. “I been busy. Couldn’t make it back the other day.”

      “You were under no obligation. I am grateful enough for all your help.”

      “Still, it wasn’t right. I should’a finished what I begun.”

      “Shall we have a look?” He invited her to go before him with a gesture of his hand.

      Giving an abrupt nod, she turned and led the way to his garden, saying along the way, “You can set out seeds every week for another couple o’ weeks. That’ll give you crops right through the summer and into the first frost.”

      When she got to the plot, she walked the length of it, silently inspecting the inch-high rows of peas, the tiny pairs of leaves on the sprouted radish and beet seeds, the feathery carrot tops, the pale gray-green of the cabbage and turnip sprouts. She nodded at the taller seedlings she’d given him to transplant from her own supply, which showed a few new leaves. Caleb hadn’t felt so nervous since holding out his slate for his tutor’s scrutiny.

      “You water ’em when they’re dry?”

      “Yes, miss.”

      She gave him another glance, then bent down to pull out a thin weed Caleb could have sworn hadn’t been there that morning. “Hoe around the bigger plants after it rains?”

      “I will now.”

      Then she came to the pole beans. She squatted down beside them and took one little stem between her thumb and forefinger. It was thick and green, but where its two first leaves should have been was a shriveled, brown stump. Before Caleb could offer any explanation, any denial that he’d treated these seeds with any less care than the others, she pronounced her verdict.

      “Cutworms.”

      The word conjured up an