LITMIR.BIZ

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starting in the fields where, in the rich humus of the cleared pine-woods, they grew vegetables and fruits of every tint and texture. Bridie adamantly did not grow wheat, unlike the farmers in the townships east along the London Road or north along the Errol Road, who had to haul their crop to the grist mills where they “left half their profits,” or who had to accept that far-off wars would determine their prices.

      “Turnips are slow-growin’ but they eat easy and winter over,” Bridie cautioned more than once during their back-bending weeding marathons. Bridie’s bonnet framed her sharp features like a sapper’s helmet and a long linen shawl was covered her arms to her wrists. Her skin was not allowed to tan, even in August’s humidity when perspiration poured down her back and chest. Lily, wanting to cry out sometimes at her rebellious muscles, swallowed her aches and grew strong.

      Their produce and the eggs from a hundred Rhode Island reds, were taken to town each Saturday where they found a ready market. Although most villagers had gardens of their own, the three hotels and five boarding houses that served an army of bachelor workers at the new factories and on the right-of-way clearance out to Enniskillen, along with stopover sailors and excursion passengers, needed a ceaseless supply of provisions in season. Bridie had been the first to seize this opportunity, and though she suffered periodic competition from the local farmer’s market, her reliability, home-delivery service, and unfailingly superior produce had won her a steady and profitable business.

      “Take care of the pennies an’ the pounds’ll take care of themselves,” Bridie had coached Lily on the day she first took her niece with her into town to “learn the business” and “see for yourself how the other-half lives.”

      “Your Auntie’s the smartest woman in this township,” Chester said, helping her stake the beans that summer. “When we came lookin’ up here from London, she sees this pine-bush an’ she says here’s the best spot for what we want. I says, no, it’s a mile from town an’ nowhere near the cleared lots on the London Road. But she says the soil’ll be better here, and of course she was right, includin’ that sandy stretch towards the lakeside where the berries grow big as plums, an’ includin’ the pine itself, some of which we sold the first year and every year since.”

      Chester had lost his rhythm and a section of the bean plants toppled to the ground.

      “Mind you now, it was cuttin’ them pines that give me the crick in my back, so’s I ain’t been too good at weedin’ or any heavy work ever since, which along with my fluctuatin’ ticker don’t make me the hardiest farmer.

      “Then your Auntie decides to go in for eggs, so we buys the hens an’ I build the two coops and we’re in business.” Lily looked at the east field next to Bill’s makeshift barn where their only field-crop – feed corn – was greening in the sun. “Yessir, it’s your Auntie’s got the head for business.”

      The sun was fully up when Benjamin trotted past the London Road crossing and kept southerly on Front Street. To her right, Lily could see the cobalt of the River – the St, Clair River, she’d been told to call it – its beauty only slightly dimmed by familiarity. She had not yet seen the Lake, though every day steamers left the bay for distant points north, and its untouched beaches lay less than a mile through the pines behind her house. The muffled thunder of its breakers was audible below the wind on stormy nights in April or November. “Nothin’ to see up there but a lot of water,” Bridie admonished her, though Chester’s look said otherwise.

      Past the London Road lay the town itself, boasting more than a thousand souls. Already a second thoroughfare back from the River, Christina Street, was filling up with clapboard and split-log houses, with shops and a second tannery. Benjamin, unaided, drew driver and cart straight down Front Street to the Western Hotel opposite the Ferry Dock, no more than half a mile from the site of the last gift-giving ceremony. She always started with the hotels since their staffs were up at dawn and happy to welcome her wide-awake greeting. Then she did the boarding-houses on the five east-west intersecting streets that stretched, houseless, into cleared land for more than a mile. By then it was usually after seven and she moved on to the fifteen or twenty private homes on the route, abodes of the well-to-do who, though they could afford gardens and gardeners, preferred to be known to pay for their produce.

      Lily thought fleetingly of her first encounters, clinging to a straight-backed Bridie on the wagon seat, intimidated by these well-dressed women and their eccentric town accents. If introductions could not be avoided, she was Lily Ramsbottom, given Chester’s name. Mostly, she was allowed to stay silent, handing Bridie the proper boxes, rearranging those left in the cart, and feeding, watering and soothing Benjamin excessively. All the while she kept her ears and a curious eye open.

      “Good morning, Bridie,” said Mrs. McWhinney, the clothier’s wife, in an off-hand way from her watch at the rose bush. “Just take them right through the shed there and leave them on the bench by the sink, that’s a good dear,” she added, as if addressing her Sunday school class at the Church of England.

      Bridie set the eggs and a clutch of rhubarb on a table by the shed door. “No need to stir, Maggie,” she called out, “I’ll collect next time.”

      Maggie caught sight of the figure of a child in the cart and inadvertently cut the throat of a prize rose.

      “Morning, Miz Ramsbottom,” said the Reverend McHarg’s missus from the back door of the red-fronted brick manse, her voice carrying to the far pews.

      “Three dozen today, Clara?”

      “Who’s the little bundle you brung with you?” Pince-nez poking around Bridie, glinting towards the cart on the street.

      “Got some late raspberries I think the reverend would appreciate. Like to see ’em?”

      “I’ll come out and have a look, I will,” burbled Mrs. McHarg, brushing past a startled Bridie, who recovered in time to insert her body between the pince-nez and the cowering child on the cart-seat.

      “Oh what a dear little orphling! Where didyou pick up such a precious thing?”

      Bridie reached into the cart, drew out a quart of enticing berries, and said evenly: “These are free, for my best customer.”

      Mrs. McHarg, a Presbyterian inured to temptation, hesitated just long enough before accepting the offering in both hands, then quickly regained the offensive. “A foundling?” she asked, raising the tip of her Calvinist nose.

      Bridie touched the reins smartly and Benjamin lurched forward. Looking straight ahead she said, “My daughter,” and was already moving too resolutely for any exclamation to be heard. Lily thought she heard a berry-box crack open as it struck the ground.

      “My gracious, you’re early! Barely got my bonnet on! But ain’t you a sight for sore eyes; an’ you brought the wee one along for company. How’s my Lily Blossom doin’ today? Cat got your tongue?” Mrs. Salter was constitutionally cheerful despite her husband being a Methodist lay preacher who could, according to Auntie “rant and roll with the best of them hell-an-damnationers.”

      “Heard a box of your tomatoes went bad on you last week,” Bridie said from the side porch of the St. Clair Inn. “Here’s an extra two boxes of the best. Guaranteed.”

      The good lady blushed. “Goodness me, but it’s that big-mouth girl of mine blabbin’ an’ exaggeratin’ all over town. I’ll take the switch to her, I reckon.” She also took the berries.

      Vines of ivy and other exotica climbed about a third of the way up the walls of the stone cottage belonging to the Misses Baines-Powell, plump Caroline and fat Charlotte. The sign in front announced “Baines-Powell: Musical Instruction, By Arrangement.” Bridie tried to explain what that meant. Only one of the instructresses ever came to the back door, though not always the same one. The other hovered in the draped shadows of the sitting room beyond.

      “Found a slug in my cabbage,” said Miss Charlotte, peering past Bridie at Lily, who was holding a rack of berry-boxes, as if there were some direct but unnamable connection between slugs and girl-helpers of questionable kin.

      “Boil

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