Emma Field Book I - coming of age in the changing times of the mid-19th century

Chapter III - The Planks

A deep grey hung over Jeremiah Field and the cows to which he was pitching forkfuls of sweet-smell-
 ing hay.

"Father?" Emma poked her head around the doorway.

"Father, are you in here?"

"Over here!" he called.

Emma squinted in the direction of her father's voice. She could barely see him, swinging hay to the cow in the last stall. The barn was warm, fragrant and dark. Emma loved the Coopers' barn more than any other building in the world. It was especially nice at this time of year, when the cold winds started to hurt. Her father had not lit a lantern to finish his chores; he knew where everything was. He didn't need to see, and besides, the Coopers were frugal people who valued hired men who did not waste their hard-earned resources. Jeremiah reached across the doorway to hang the wooden fork on the nearest peg. Emma stared straight ahead.

"Father?" she asked again.

"Yeeeees." He jammed his hands into his pockets. "Go ahead. I'm listening."

Emma blinked. "Oh...Yes...Father, was this really Mother's shawl?"

"Yes. Why do you ask?"

"Just wondering." She fixed her gaze on the calf tied in the far corner. "Father?"

"Hmmm."

"Who do I look like?"

"Your mother." He leaned against the satiny hip of the nearest cow.

"What part of me is like Mother?"

"Everything – the colour of your hair. The way you stick your tongue out when you concentrate. And the way you ask too many questions."

"Hmm." Emma curled her lips inward and dug her teeth into her upper lip. He'd never said that before. She'd asked him this question often, hoping for another glimpse of the mother she could hardly recall, yet he had never before given her that answer.

"Why did Mother ask questions?"

"Why do you ask questions?"

"Because questions can take your mind zig-zagging to places you've never been before."

"A little like a rail fence taking you across the neighbour's land?"

"I guess so. Sometimes I worry that my questions will take me to places I shouldn't be. Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes," he said with a nervous laugh. "Why do you think I am in this country in the first place?"

Emma's eyebrows came together like knitting needles. She thought about the wisdom about pursuing that comment further, then asked, "How do you know when you are crossing into places you shouldn't be?"

Her father smiled and rubbed his eyes with his chapped hands. "You will know. Believe me, you will know. The world has a way of beating down people who ask the tough questions."

"Then why do people ask them if they are only going to be beaten down?"

"Don't know. Maybe because they can't help themselves. I really don't know."

Emma noticed him rubbing his eyes again in the gloomy light of the doorway. She recalled how, several springs ago, he had covered his face with those hands when she'd previously asked him about her mother. They had been sitting in the doorway watching the Canada geese fly north. He had dragged his hands down over his face, taken a deep breath, and said, "Your mama loved geese. She always said she wanted to fly north with them each spring. Do you ever want to fly, Emma?"