Day Three, Second Moon, Hunting Year Five Hundred and Four
Today is Saturday. Dad took me with him to market on the Common today. Usually, Grandpa comes, too, but he wanted to tend the vegetable patch, and Mama stayed home to look after Michael. He's still coughing too much and sleeps most of the day. Dad and I took the horse and the cart he normally uses to carry the sacks of corn and beans back from the fields for us to dry in the sun. This time, he packed the cart with sacks of shelled beans, corn flour, blackberry preserves, and soap. Mama even gave him some loaves of blackberry quick bread with instructions to give a loaf to each of the families who had a child out sick with this strange curse that's making rounds and to sell the rest. Dad put a few barrels -- filled with our products -- and a couple planks of wood in the cart and the horse pulled it while we walked next to it. The Wilders passed us on the way in a cart with benches so Jacob could make faces at me from his seat inside the cart. Dad caught my eye and shook his head before I could make a face back at him.
On the Common, we set up beside vendors selling goats on one side and pigs on the other, because Dad says it's a good idea to sell next to people selling something different but complementary. If we set up next to people selling the same things we are, we'll have to compete for attention, but if we don't, people will go to purchase a pig and realize that blackberry sauce would taste nice on ham and beans will go with bacon at breakfast. We set the planks of wood across the barrels and used them like tables to set out our wares. His tactic worked. Most people who stopped to buy pigs or goats got something from our stall as well. Mama must have told people she was sending soap and preserves, because some people came straight to our booth just to visit that side. I managed that side of the stall while Dad managed the vegetables. I made sure to tell people to come back in another week when we would have the dried blackberry leaf ready.
Just before selling out, we took the last of our goods to the apothecary's booth to trade for some herbs to help Michael shake the curse and to give a few bars of soap and a jar of jam to the uncles as tithes to the temple. The uncle watching over the sanctuary today said we really should be giving a bigger gift considering how much help our family needs, but that would accept this offering for now.
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Happy Holidays! Wishing you good things to read in the coming year!
YOU ARE READING
The Wood
FantasyLike every other girl in her village, Kyla has been taught to ward off curses with the right concoction of herbs, but when a new plague falls upon the village, the elders begin to hunt for the witch who caused it. Kyla becomes the next target after...
