Free Bittersweet by Cathy Marie Hake

gleaming brighter than a diamond-dust mirror.”
    “Elaine Louise,” Hilda said, tugging at her. “You’re to put on water to boil and make noodles. Stop daydreamin’ and be useful.”
    Laney nodded. She didn’t trust herself to say anything. Her faith and prayers hadn’t made any difference. Galen still treated her like she was Josh’s bothersome baby sister instead of seeing her as a mature young lady who’d be a good wife, so he’d grown interested in someone else and given her his heart.

    Ivy winced as she hefted the pail from the stream. She’d burned her hand last night—something she hadn’t done in ages. The calluses on her hands usually protected her, but she’d been distracted by Pa. By morning a blister as big as a robin’s egg had formed in the crease of her hand. The rope handle of the pail grated across it.
    “What’s takin’ you so long?” Pa hollered at her.
    “I only got two more rows to water,” she called back. Under her breath, she muttered, “If ’n yore in such an all-fired hurry, you could holp me out.”
    “Stop by me so’s I cain have a drink.” He didn’t even bother to look up at her. He kept shaving his knife across a small branch, making wood form curls that fell into a huge pile around him.
    She backtracked and switched the bucket to the other hand. Pa stabbed his knife into the side of the stump he sat upon and crammed that hand into the bucket.
    Yanking his hand back out, he snarled, “That ain’t cool ’nuff.”
    “I’ll use it to water the corn and fetch another.”
    He pushed the bucket, causing water to slosh all over her skirt. “Yore as stupid as yore ugly. How many times do I gotta tell you, a gal’s s’posed to put the men in her life first?”
    Ivy trudged back to the stream. The thin, soaking wet material of her skirt stuck to her legs. She dumped out the water, then chose a shady spot to refill the bucket. As she knelt, she studied the faded red and blue marks on the material. B-E-S-T.
    “That spells best ,” Ishmael had told her years back as she’d used the flour sacks to stitch the garment. “And that’s what you are, sis. Yore the best sister a man e’er got.”
    Fine quality flour came in pretty calico; middlings were sold in simple white sacks with some lettering across them. A quick glance, and folks could tell how her clothes marked her as mangydog poor. Nobody but Ishmael could look at her one and only dress and think of something nice to say.
    “What’s keepin’ ya?” Pa spat loudly. “I’m so parched, I cain barely e’en spit!”
    Pa’s sore as a billy goat with a boil on his tail. Ishy don’t know how lucky he is to get away .
    “Gal!” Pa let out a stream of curses.
    Ivy hoisted the pail and headed back to her father. “Here. It’s cool as cain be.” She held out the bucket, and Pa slurped as much as he wanted. “You shore got a pile of shavings thar, Pa.”
    “Yup. They’re gold in my pocket.”
    Gold? Ivy gave no reply. Pa couldn’t just take a handful of dried leaves and twigs to start the fire for his still. He insisted on using shavings from an east-pointing branch from an oak tree—at least today he did.
    “Don’t stand there the whole livelong day. Ain’t like yore purdy ’nuff for a man to wanna take a second look. We’ve gotta get us some corn right quick. All I got is one jug left, and it’s half gone.”
    She headed toward the far corner of the garden and emptied the bucket on the corn. It took five more trips to finish watering the farthest little patch where the water didn’t manage to seep when she diverted the flow from the stream into the irrigation ditches.
    During that time she watered her worries, and they grew. At best, Pa tended toward being surly. When he ran out of his oh-be-joyful, he turned impossible. The corn won’t be ready yet, and he’ll run out of his likker. Ishy always holped me when Pa took a bad turn like that. With Ishy a-workin’ at the farm down yonder, how’m I