William Rosewood's Arc

Chapter 20 of 20

The pigs were penned and the field was ready, but William stood at the torn corner with empty hands. The soil was dark and turned deep. He had no seed to press into it. He had ground it all to feed the herd. He went inside and told Cecily the truth. She sat at the rough table with the children and did not look up from her mending. "There's no corn to sow," he said. Cecily set down the shirt. She looked at him until he met her eyes. "Then we buy seed," she said. "Or we trade for it." "I have nothing to trade," William said. "No coin. No feed to spare." Cecily reached down and pulled off her left shoe. She turned it over the table. Coins fell out and rang against the wood. The children stared. Eddie counted them with his eyes and said nothing. "Eggs," Cecily said. "Mending. All winter." She did not explain further. "You never felt it. That was the point." William looked at the small pile. It was not much. It might buy a sack of seed corn, no more. He felt shame rise in his chest, hot and quick. She had hidden this from him so he would not have to carry it. "You should have told me," he said. "You'd have spent it on the house," Cecily said. She was right. He would have. Tommy leaned over the coins. "It's enough for seed," he said. "If you go to the mill and ask plain." The mill. William had lost his work there. He had missed three days for the harvest and the mason had turned him out. He did not want to walk back and stand before that man with coins in his fist. But there was nowhere else to buy grain before spring. Eddie watched his father's face. "I'll come," he said. "I'll carry the sack." William swept the coins into his palm. They were warm from Cecily's shoe. He closed his hand around them. "All right," he said. He walked to the mill with Eddie beside him. The mason was grinding at the great stone. He looked up and saw William and did not smile. William held out the coins. "Seed corn," he said. "For the corner field." The mason looked at the coins, then at Eddie, then back. He named his price. It took nearly all William had. But he filled a sack from his own store and tied it shut. "Plant it deep," the mason said. "Ground's still cold." Eddie shouldered the sack. It was half full, no more. On the road home William did the sum in his head. This much seed would sow the corner field but nothing else. And the coins were gone now, every one. He had bought his spring crop. He had spent the only money left to finish the house.