Free Voices Carry by Mariah Stewart Page A

to the henhouse?” Genna turned and asked, “If that would be all right, Mrs. Frick?”
    “I don’t see harm.”
    “Come on, then, Rebecca, and show me how you get eggs from the chickens.” Genna fell into step with the girl.
    Making idle chatter with the girl, who without doubt thought Genna strange for thinking a trip to the henhouse was one worth taking, Genna missed nothing on their way to the large fenced in pen where the chickens were kept. There appeared nothing out of order on this late summer morning, nothing to indicate that anything might be amiss.
    What did you expect to find, anyway?
Genna chided herself.
Boys in black, dusty from the fields, clustered behind the barn, drawing straws to see who gets to smoke the last of the crack?
    “You have to be smart opening the gate,” Rebecca toldGenna shyly as she slid back the wooden latch, “so the hens don’t get out.”
    The hens ignored the intrusion into their enclave, even when Rebecca lifted the nesting birds to take their brown eggs and place them carefully in her basket. When she had gathered twelve eggs, she looked up at Genna and said, “And that’s what you do.”
    “Thank you for showing me.” Genna smiled from the doorway.
    While Rebecca had been gathering eggs, Genna had been scoping out the lay of the land. The old barn stood to their right, a silo attached to the far end. Beyond the barn were separate fenced areas for the cows, pigs, and goats. The horses were kept in a smaller stable, to the rear of the property, and another outbuilding housed farm equipment and the family’s several buggies. Off to the left was a pond surrounded by endless fields of corn that had another month or so of growth to go. Plowed areas closer to the house provided gardens for the vegetables they grew to sell in their stands and to the markets, and for the use of the large extended family that called the farm home. Several long, straight rows dazzled the eye with their variety of summer flowers.
    But it was the depression near the center of the tall stalks of the hollyhocks that caught and held Genna’s attention on their way back to the farmhouse.
    “Rebecca was a good teacher,” Genna announced as they approached the porch, the railing of which was draped with a half-dozen colorful quilts.
    “You found eggs for Miss Wheeler, then, Rebecca?” Granny Frick asked, and Rebecca handed her the basket. “This should do fine. Now take them intothe house and put them in one of those cardboard egg holders.”
    “Yes, Granny.” Rebecca went into the house to complete her assigned task.
    “Mrs. Frick has several quilts completed,” Patsy stated the obvious.
    “So I see.”
    Genna smiled and stepped onto the porch to take a closer look at the array lined up for her inspection. Though all were lovely, the log cabin design in shades of blue with green and light yellow on a white background caught her eye. She held it up to take a closer look. It was just right for a baby boy.
    “They’re all lovely, but I do like this one. What do you think, Patsy?”
    “I like that one, too.”
    “That one it is, then.” Mrs. Frick nodded.
    “Mrs. Frick,” Genna asked as the elderly woman folded the quilt and set it aside, “do you still sell the cut flowers?”
    “You mean from the field there?” she asked as she neatly folded the remaining quilts.
    “Yes.”
    “Were you wanting a bunch?”
    “Well, those zinnias are tempting.” Genna smiled.
    “You go on out and pick yourself what you might like,” Granny Frick nodded, “while I get Miss Wheeler some of that strawberry-rhubarb jam she’s so partial to.”
    “Thank you. I’ll just be a minute, Patsy.” Genna searched her leather bag for the Swiss Army knife she usually carried, and tucked it into her pocket, and leaving Patsy and her old friend chatting on the back steps, headed off alone to the flower beds.
    “Pick some of those red zinnias, Genna,” Patsy called to her, and Genna waved to indicate that