Free Summer of the War by Gloria Whelan

meet you at the Norkins’.”
    By now the sun had burned off the clouds. It was July-hot out. Even walking the short distance down the main road to the Norkins’ farm, I felt my damp shirt clinging to my back. In the winter when the city was all gray skies and wet slushy snow, I would dream of July days like this. The fields were gold with yellow mustard and the roadside blue with chicory. In the distance I could make out the Norkins’ white farmhouse and red barn. The martins were swooping in and out of the holes in Mr. Norkin’s purple martin house. When I got a little closer, I could see Mrs. Norkin fussing over her produce. She was particular about how the vegetables and flowers were displayed. There were freshly picked bouquets of cornflowers, marigolds, and sweet peas. Even the piles of beans and peas and lettuce were like paintings.
    The minute she saw me, she called out. “Belle, I just baked some peanut butter cookies. They’re your favorite.”
    I stood munching my second cookie while Mrs.Norkin filled one of the used grocery store bags she saved with lettuce and radishes and three jars of her strawberry jam that was Grandpa’s favorite.
    â€œWhere’s your cousin today?” she asked.
    â€œShe’ll be along. She stopped in town.”
    â€œThat girl is a pretty enough thing, but she thinks we’re all hicks.”
    It was like Mrs. Norkin to say what was on her mind. I felt I had to stick up for Carrie. She was family. “Oh, no,” I said. “I think everything’s just different for her.”
    Mrs. Norkin raised an eyebrow and, giving me one of the ironic looks she was famous for, said, “I hear she goes out sailing with Ned. I guess she’s not above a little slumming if he wears a pair of pants.”
    So that was what made her critical of Carrie. She didn’t like Carrie seeing Ned. Well, that was two of us.
    Carrie appeared down the road making her way toward us from town. When you see someone suddenly, you look at them differently because you haven’t gotten all your usual ideas together. Seen from a distance, Carrie’d lost her air of sophistication; she just looked like any girl. She was wearing a pair of my shorts and a shirt. For a minute I was confused. She looked like the cousin whom I had been expecting, the one I was going to be best friends with.
    Mrs. Norkin must have seen what I did. “I guess she’s just a kid,” Mrs. Norkin said. “If she spendsenough time with your family, she’ll probably outgrow that fancy attitude.”
    I wasn’t so sure. It was our attitudes, not Carrie’s, that seemed to be changing.
    I saw Carrie had a package, but I didn’t think anything of it, guessing it would be lipstick or nail polish. She was on her best behavior, greeting Mrs. Norkin in a friendly way. She admired the bouquets on display, and I saw Mrs. Norkin unbend a little.
    â€œI’ve never seen such bluets ,” Carrie said.
    â€œThose are cornflowers,” Mrs. Norkin corrected Carrie.
    â€œIn France we call them bluets .”
    Mrs. Norkin’s back was up. “Well, this is America, so they’re cornflowers.”
    I felt a little sorry for Carrie. When we were settled in the runabout, I said, “I think bluets is a prettier name. I don’t know why Mrs. Norkin didn’t like it.”
    Carrie shrugged. “Like all the people around here, she’s une provinciale .”
    A fancy French word for hick. Mrs. Norkin was right about Carrie. I didn’t protest because I had let Carrie think I didn’t know French. When she had asked me if I spoke it, I shook my head, afraid of her laughing at the way I garbled French words.
    Carrie was in a good mood. Usually when I asked her about France, she shrugged and changed the subject, so I had lost any hope of discovering what it waslike. I thought that wasn’t fair. Carrie had seen so much of the world, I