William Rosewood's Arc

Chapter 3 of 20

William came home from the mill with stone in his head and no way to be in two places. The mason wanted days. The field wanted him too. If he left the crop to two boys, the weeds would choke it, and a choked field meant a hungry winter. He stood at the edge of the rows that evening and could not make the choice fit. Eddie found him there. He carried a hoe over one shoulder and a fistful of pulled weeds in the other hand. "You're thinking about the field," Eddie said. He dropped the weeds. "I can weed. It's the one thing I'm best at." "You can't weed and mend the fence and mind the pigs," William said. "Not alone. Not all summer." "He won't be alone." Tommy stepped out from behind the bean bush, his grey eyes steady on his father. He held a stake in one hand. He had been listening, the way he always listened. "I'm faster in the rows than Eddie. He's patient. I'm quick. We split it." William looked at his middle son. Tommy did not look away. The boy had thought this through already, the way he thought everything through before he spoke. "You're small yet," William said. "Small enough to weed between the plants without crushing them," Tommy said. "Eddie takes the fence and the pigs. I take the rows with him when he's slow." He stopped. He had said enough. Eddie grinned. "Told you he calls me patient like it's a curse." William walked the rows with them until dark. He showed Tommy how to tell a weed from a young bean, how to read the leaf. He showed Eddie the loose post in the wattle fence, the one that let the pigs push toward the grain. Ralph nosed at it as if to prove the point. Eddie set his shoulder to it and drove it deep. "Test it before you trust it," William said. It was the mason's rule for stone. It worked for fence too. The boys divided the work between them, row by row, task by task. It was not two grown hands. It was two small ones and one clever plan. William saw it could hold. Not perfectly. But enough. In the morning he took the mason's road at dawn. He looked back once. Tommy was already in the rows, bent low, pulling weeds by the leaf as shown. Eddie carried the trough water toward the pigs. The farm ran without him, barely, for the first time. That night Eddie met him at the gate. His face was tight. "A pig's off its feed," he said. "Won't eat. Won't rise." He looked at his father and did not soften it. "I don't know what's wrong with it. And I don't know how to fix it before it spreads."