Free The House on Malcolm Street by Leisha Kelly Page A

garden stood in one back corner, nearly spent and covered with weeds, a sure sign that Marigold had been unable to tend it regularly and that her nephew was not enough of a gardener to have taken it in hand.
    “Is that turnips you’ve got growing?” I asked from the ladder, trying to identify the healthiest deep green row of leaves among the jumble.
    “Such as they are,” Marigold confirmed. “Good year for apples, but not much of a year for root crops. Hardly anything below ground on any I’ve pulled, and they should’ve been fist-sized long before this.”
    “Looks like a splendid batch of greens, though,” I suggested.
    “Indeed you’re right,” she said with a smile. “And I almost forgot they were there. What a waste if I don’t make us up a mess. Would your little girl eat that for lunch?”
    “Oh, certainly. At least a little. I’ll not allow her to be too choosy.”
    She asked me to cut some so we could have fried apples and greens at noon. That sounded good to me, and whether or not it was anywhere near that time, I was already hungry and figured Eliza might be too, though she was good enough not to say so. I climbed down from the ladder and gladly fetched a bowl and knife from the kitchen. From the ground, the row looked longer than I’d realized. I knelt at one end of it and started cutting the leaves an inch or two above the ground. If I left the roots, they might get bigger. At the very least, they’d set on new leaves for another batch of greens, or even two, before winter. Grand! Renting in the city I’d missed having a garden and the extra security of knowing there was at least some small thing growing outside that we could pick and eat when we needed to.
    “Cut half the row today, and we’ll get the other half in a day or two,” Marigold told me.
    Eliza eased herself out of the tree to join me. “Doesn’t look like turrips,” she observed.
    “The part you’re used to seeing is still under the ground,” I explained. “We’re going to eat the leaves today. The last time we had that, you were a little bitty thing. Too young to remember, I guess.”
    She reached and touched a leaf and quickly pulled her hand back. “They’re prickly.”
    “Not too bad. Not nearly so prickly as some wild leaves get. And they cook up limp and soft. You won’t find anything prickly to them at all when we eat them.”
    Her little nose was all scrunched, and I knew she mistrusted the whole idea. “Are they yummy?”
    “They’re perfectly good. Not like cake or anything like that, but a decent enough vegetable. You’ll see.”
    She knew not to question me further. She’d accept them, like it or not. There was no use otherwise. She turned her attention to the weedy garden around us, turning in a circle to look at the green growing things. “Will we eat other leaves too?”
    “Oh, probably. The smartest thing to do this time of year is harvest all that can be harvested to eat or store for winter.”
    “That makes food without even any money,” she declared, catching the gist of what I was saying immediately. “Purty smart. But isn’t there any pickin’ food in the city?”
    “Not as much, unfortunately.”
    “Oh. That’s why we was so hungry.”
    Too late I realized that Marigold was listening to every word. I hadn’t wanted her to know how our last few weeks had been, struggling with so little and then nothing at all. But she didn’t look our way or comment.
    “Is there more things to pick right now?” Eliza asked eagerly.
    “I think those are cherry tomatoes there in the corner. Why don’t you see if there are any truly red ones on the vines? I’m sure Aunt Marigold wouldn’t mind if you were to find a few ripe tomatoes.”
    “Goodness, if you find anything at all worth pickin’ out there, you’re welcome to it,” Marigold called to us. “I thought the tomato vines had died and most everything had given up, the weeds are so bad. Sorriest garden I ever had in my