Free The Harrows of Spring by James Howard Kunstler Page A

bright day will turn to night
    Bright day will turn to night my love, the elements will mourn
    If ever I prove false to you the seas will rage and burn
    Sarah could tell when Cinnamon was empty from the hash mark inside the pail and the shape and heft of the udder. She clipped the cover on the pail, took off Cinnamon’s halter, and that was that. With new spring grass up, Sarah knew that Cinnamon would want to go back out to her paddock for a while in the remaining light and wander back inside when it was full dark. They went their separate ways. As she stepped toward the door on the Salem Street side, Sarah misstepped and her left foot jammed up against the doorsill, sending a jag of pain up through her leg. She knew at once it was more than a stubbed toe. She was able to set the pail down without the lid popping off, and that was more immediately important to her than the injury. She limped outside, sat down in the early weeds, and tried to take her moccasin off but it would not come off. Lifting her lower leg close to her face, she saw a round metallic button at the tip of her shoe. She touched it and it seemed rigidly fixed to the meaty part of her foot between her big and second toe. Understanding instinctively what it meant, and without thinking the matter through any further, she pulled on the metallic button and drew out a brown five-penny, 1¾-inch box nail, manufactured in Elyria, Ohio, in 1957. The slightly bent nail had lain loose in the space between two floorboards for decades. Though she hyperventilated and shed some tears drawing it out the wound did not really hurt much afterward. She angrily tossed the nail into the street and removed her moccasin and sock. The tiny hole barely bled at all. Mostly, Sarah was afraid of getting in trouble, specifically of not being allowed back in the barn by herself. So she dried her eyes, put her shoe back on, got up off the ground, picked up her pail, and hurried home so her mama could make some fresh cheese out of the milk, as planned.

T EN
    Robert Earle, Loren Holder, and Brother Jobe met for breakfast in the town laundry in which they were all business partners. The venture was a great success in its second month of operation. They employed four townspeople in the old repurposed Union-Wayland mill building on the river, charging ten cents (in pre-1965 silver coin) for ten pounds of laundry, the problem being that nickels and pennies did not circulate, not being silver. Customers who brought in less than ten pounds could carry over their credit in cents to the next load. Accounts were recorded in a ledger. The three partners were surprised that the number of customers did not level off in the first month, but continued growing as farm people out in the county heard about it and began to bring their wash in on trading days.
    It was also evident just walking about town these fresh spring days that the people of Union Grove were looking better, taking more of an interest in their appearance. As their off-the-rack, mail-order casual clothing from the old times wore out, they began to sport some of the apparel sold in Brother Jobe’s “haberdash” on Main Street, where garments sewn in the New Faith workshops were sold, simple cotton shirts, canvas and wool trousers and coats, skirts and jumpers for women. Likewise, in the New Faith barbershop, where the gloomy but skillful Brother Judah presided, some townsmen said good-bye to their beards, so that altogether the denizens of Union Grove, both New Faith and regular, were looking more like one unified people in manner and costume. The Reverend Loren Holder now went in for a shave twice a week, while Robert Earle still wore a full beard but trimmed it in the manner of General U. S. Grant. Brother Jobe, of course, was shaved daily at headquarters by his factotum Brother Boaz.
    Brother Jobe had been waiting for the other two in the office down at the laundry for a little while. He came early, enjoying the look,