Chapter Nine
Sally began her harvest in earnest in July. The growing season was so short that she had only planted crops that would grow quickly. With every radish she harvested, she felt as if she was finally contributing to their little community.
It was early afternoon when she hurried to Belle’s house with two baskets of her harvest, one for Belle and one for Maggie. “There will be more, of course, but this is what was ripe this morning. It feels so good to finally be able to contribute!”
Maggie shook her head. “Think of all the rhubarb pies you baked for the store. Think of the rhubarb sauce. The things you’re doing aren’t immediate, but they will help us long term.
Between the piglets and the garden, you’re doing as much work as we are, and sometimes I think more work than we are.
” Maggie was getting close to her time, and she was spending the day sewing for the baby instead of foraging.
Belle nodded her agreement. “Maggie’s right. Without you, one of us would have had to garden this year, and that would have pulled us away from other things we need to do. I need to take care of Bertie, and Maggie is working to get ready for the baby. We’re not able to do as much as you are.”
“But you’ve pretty much fed Tom and me since I arrived,” Sally argued.
“And now your crops are coming in, you’ll feed us in return. And you’re growing bacon for us!”
Sally laughed. “I should have named Herbert Bacon. I think you two would have liked that better.”
“Perhaps,” Maggie said with a grin.
“I’ll harvest more tomorrow. Hopefully a lot more. What I’m really waiting for are the potatoes I’m growing. Eskimo potatoes are fine, but they aren’t nearly as good as the kind we all grew up eating.” Sally sighed. “I do miss them.”
“I was gifted some by Katie last year, but they ran out quickly. Your garden puts hers to shame. Of course, she’s also running a store so we can’t compare,” Belle said.
Sally got to her feet. “I’m going to go see what more I can harvest. I just wanted the two of you to have what I harvested this morning while it was still fresh.”
“Thank you,” Maggie said. “For all you do.”
“Oh! I almost forgot. I got a letter from Agnes this morning. She should be halfway here by now.”
“Wonderful!” Maggie said. “It’ll be good to see her. She works hard enough that we’ll add her to our little endeavor.”
Sally tilted her head to one side as she thought back to conversations she’d had with Agnes. “I know she enjoys gardening, and I think she grew up on a dairy farm. Milk and beef.”
“We’ll talk to her about it,” Belle said. “I can’t believe so many of us are marrying men here. It feels right, doesn’t it?”
“It does.”
As Sally walked back to her little farm, she imagined what it would be like to add more crops. More pigs. She wanted to do so much more than she was, but everything had to be built up. It was hard to start everything she wanted to do at once.
After harvesting all day, she went inside to clean up.
She’d decided to serve a salad with spinach and radishes along with roast rabbit.
When there was a lull in the harvest, she had plans to do some fishing in the river that ran along one boundary of their land.
She missed fishing and eating fish. Though she knew Belle wouldn’t want it, she could serve it and share with Maggie.
Tom smiled as he walked in, seeing the fresh salad on the table. “You did some harvesting today.”
Sally nodded. “I have already given a third of my morning harvest to Belle and a third to Maggie. I’ll divide up what I harvested this afternoon for them tomorrow.
How would you like salted radish slices along with your jerky for lunch tomorrow?
” Tom had insisted she didn’t need to make him a lunch every day, and he would simply eat hardtack and jerky.
On occasion, she would make him a lunch anyway.
“That sounds good!” He drew her to him. “You amaze me sometimes, Sally. It seems there’s nothing you can’t do.”
She grinned up at him, thrilled at his words. “It’s so freeing to be able to cook what I want and do what I want all day. You have no idea!”
He washed his hands and sat down while she served them each a plate. “This looks delicious.”
“Do you like fish?” she asked.
He nodded. “I love fish. I love to fish, and I love eating what I catch.”
“We don’t have fishing as part of what we do because Belle detests fish, but I like it, and I miss it. Let’s go fishing this weekend. I’ll pack a picnic, and we’ll make a day of it.”
“I love that idea,” Tom said.
“I received a letter from Agnes, my friend who will marry Jasper. With the dates she gave me for travel, she’ll be arriving in Ketchikan soon.”
He nodded. “Jasper has already left to fetch her. I’ve been tasked with milking his goat. I think I’m going to bring it here because then I can do them both in the mornings together, and you can do them in the evenings when you milk ours.”
“Sounds good. I’m excited to see Agnes. I would guess she’d be here within the month.”
“I’m glad you had friends here when you arrived and didn’t have to spend time being lonely like Belle did. According to Everett, she had a bit of a hard time with no female companionship.”
“I’m sure she did. I cannot imagine how hard that would be. I spend most of my days alone, but I’m working, and I usually have lunch with Maggie and Belle, so I don’t feel like I’m isolated.” Sally took her first bite of salad and smiled. “The radishes are so crunchy and perfect with the spinach.”
He nodded. “You grew them well.”
“This fall, we’ll have to rake up all the leaves and put them in a pile so we can use them for fertilizer next spring.”
“We could use the pig manure as fertilizer as well,” he suggested.
She shook her head. “No, we’d have to age it, and it’s not great for crops. Pig manure kills most crops.”
“I had no idea!”
“My Ma taught me that. She tried some of the pig manure on her first garden as a married woman, and nothing grew.”
“I learned something new.”
“It’s good to keep learning!” she said. “I ordered a book on homesteading. I think I’ll learn a lot!”
“You should have plenty of time to read this winter,” Tom said. “There’s no real foraging in winter and no crops. You’ll be mostly taking care of the pigs.”
“That sounds fine to me. I’m sure we ladies will get together often as well. Perhaps we’ll sew together. Belle said something about us making a quilt this winter and selling it at the store.”
He chuckled. “You ladies are determined to make as much money as you can, aren’t you?”
“Why wouldn’t we be? We’ve all worked in a job that we hated, where we were treated poorly.
We had no choice but to stay because if we didn’t, we’d lose our home and a way to make a living.
There was no choice in our lives. Now there is.
And we’re all determined to make the most of it.
” Sally knew it must seem odd to him, but he’d never been a woman in a world where women were mere property.
All of that seemed to be changing, but it hadn’t changed things for her or her friends.
He covered her hand with his. “You’ll never be in that position again. You’re free now.”
She nodded, a smile on her face. “I feel free, and so do my friends. This opportunity has meant so much to all of us. And we’re going to keep right on making all the money we can. We want our daughters to have better lives than we have.”
“I want that too.”
“Dessert?” she asked. “I made a rhubarb pie.”
“You know I will never say no to your rhubarb pie. I hope you canned a lot of the rhubarb to last us through the winter.”
“I did. But I also planted some in the garden. It’s a plant that will grow every year for us.
I’ll need to weed around it and water it as I do the rest of the plants, but I won’t ever have to replant.
Half of what we have is wild rhubarb and the other half is true rhubarb.
True rhubarb tastes so much better! We won’t be able to harvest for a couple of years, but it will be worth it. ”
“Sounds good to me.” Tom watched her as she got up and served them each a large slice of pie. “Thanks for always making sure I have a good meal even when you’re busy with your money-making.”
She laughed. “I married you, and I will always care for our home. I won’t let my other duties take me away from you and our children.”
“Good.” He ate his first bite of the pie. “How are the piglets doing?”
“Really well! In another few months it will be time to separate them, and then we’ll breed them in January.
Herbert likes to follow me around, but I can’t let him do that when I’m working on the garden.
I keep thinking about making a leash for him and walking him to the store with me when I go, but I don’t know how that would go over. ”
“I would love to see that! But you’re right. It would cause some chaos. It would be amusing, but not amusing enough to really do it.”
“That’s my thought.”
“Will you harvest more tomorrow?” he asked.
“Yes, because then I can put in more crops. We’re going to have radishes coming out our ears. But our root cellar is going to be full!”
“I like radishes.”
“That’s a good thing,” she said, grinning at him. “I’m glad you like fish. I was trying to figure out if I would have to have fish for my lunches, which would be difficult with Belle hating fish so much. What can we fish for here?”
“Salmon. The river is full of them. I get a net and just fill it as full as I can. There’s pike, grayling, and whitefish in the fall or winter if you care to ice fish.”
“What’s your favorite?” she asked.
“Salmon. We have five different types that we can fish for from May through October. I like it smoked best, but I’ll eat it any way you want to serve it.”
“I may take an hour with a net and see if I can get some salmon tomorrow. I’ll mostly be harvesting and replanting.”
“I’d love salmon for supper tomorrow if you catch some.”
“You’ve never asked me to make a specific food. I’ll do my best!” She pondered for a moment. “Would you make me a smokehouse? It would help a lot if we had fish stored for winter.”
“Absolutely. I’ll do it this weekend on whichever day we don’t fish.” He looked at her. “It would sell well at the store as well if you can catch enough of it.”
“Then I will catch as much as I can. I’m so excited to have fish!”
“The river here is almost always full of them—except in winter of course.”
*****
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Sally found a net in the cellar where Tom had told her it would be. She glanced at the garden to see if anything was ready, and when there was, she decided to split her day. She’d fish in the morning, and then the afternoon would be all about the harvest.
She decided to let Herbert come with her, knowing she would keep the fish heads for the piglets. They would love it mixed in with their table scraps.
With Herbert at her side, she headed down to the river with her net. She talked to him as she cast the net, waiting a few minutes and pulling it out to see what she’d caught. It wasn’t a lot. Just a few salmon, but it was enough for supper that night.
She and Herbert walked back to the cabin, and after she secured the pig who had seemed to love the short outing, she went inside and slit the fish down the middle before chopping off the heads and setting them aside.
She removed the backbones and guts, adding the guts to the pail with the heads in it, and then she laid the fish aside. It hadn’t taken her as long as she’d expected to catch and clean the fish, so she went out to start harvesting.
She took half the fish she’d caught when she took Belle and Maggie their shares of the harvest. She put the fish in a bag made of oilcloth, so the smell wouldn’t be as bad, and she left the bag outside to avoid the smell lingering in Belle’s cabin.
She knocked once and walked inside, setting the two baskets down. “I know Belle hates fish, but do you like salmon, Maggie? I caught some this morning, and there’s enough for our supper as well some for you and James.”
“I love salmon!” Maggie said.
“I’m planning to smoke some for winter and sell some at the store. Do you want some when I do that?”
“Absolutely!”
“Oh good. I brought some with me, but I left it outside so Belle wouldn’t have to smell it.”
Belle pursed her lips. “I appreciate that. I want to try just a bit of your smoked salmon, if you don’t mind. I didn’t think I liked rhubarb until you made it, and now I can’t get enough. I think I should try it again and see.”
“Sounds good. It sounds like an almost endless source of food for winter. The river is so close, and Herbert liked fishing. I think I’m going to see if I can get Tom to set up a permanent net in the river that I can check every morning.”
“How will you smoke it?” Maggie asked.
“Tom is building me a smokehouse this weekend. This first batch that I caught today is for supper tonight. I love fresh salmon almost as much as I like it smoked!”
“Does he need help building it?” Maggie asked. “I wouldn’t ask Everett to join, but if we’re getting some of the fish, I think James should help.”
“It would probably help,” Sally said. “I’m so excited to have fish!”
Belle sighed. “I’m sorry if I made you feel like we couldn’t have fish.”
“I’m going to have it! Don’t worry. Tom said it would be good for the store once it’s smoked as well.”
“Another way to profit!” Maggie said. “I love our little industry.”
“Me too!” Sally agreed.
“And me!” Belle said. “Together we’re going to take over the world!”