Chapter 9
The next day the sky was a brilliant blue as Anita and Kevin stood in front of their table at the market. It was in one of the farmer’s fields close to the town, and folks were making their way there from all directions, it seemed.
They streamed in through the gate and began to fan out in the field, going from table to table, where folks from all over displayed their wares. It was a hot day, and Anita wore a light blue blouse and her straw hat.
Kevin was dressed in a work shirt and trousers, and although he had rolled his sleeves up, perspiration was still dripping down his face. To make matters worse, the day was turning out to be humid as well as hot.
Anita and Kevin had chosen a spot by a large tree that offered decent shade. Some of the folks who had come a little later had missed out on the shady spots and had been forced to set up their tables in the sun.
Across the way from them, Anita watched Mrs. Lewis smiling at customers.
She was already selling her cheeses. She had hard cheeses on sale, which was what Anita wanted to have and was working toward, but a wheel of gouda had to mature for anywhere from four weeks to a year before it was ready to eat.
The longer a cheese matured, the stronger the flavor.
Antia’s gouda had only been on the shelf for three weeks so far and was nowhere near ready to eat. She would only consider selling a cheese that was about two months old. Then it would have the right flavor, at least according to her. Otherwise, it was a very mild cheese with little flavor at all.
A woman came over to the table and looked down her nose at Anita’s wares. “What is that funny thing floating in the water?” she asked.
“The water is actually a brine to add even more flavor to the cheese. This is an Italian cheese that gets quite stringy when it melts,” Anita said.
“It’s soft and sweet and just a little salty.
” Describing mozzarella to people could be interesting.
It was well known in her Wisconsin town, courtesy of a local community of Italian immigrants, but when she and her parents had traveled to surrounding states, they’d found people often had no idea what mozzarella was—nor were people interested in trying something new and rather odd-looking.
So Anita was prepared. “I know it looks rather funny, but it’s wonderful on toast. You can also use it when you’re baking things. It goes wonderfully with spaghetti.”
“Really?” the lady asked. “But do you have something like cheddar instead? I really don’t like the look of this.”
“Our stock is still very new, so any hard cheeses haven’t matured yet,” Anita said with a frown. “But these cream cheeses are fresh and tasty.”
“Yes, but I don’t have much use for them,” the lady said with a sigh. Then she spotted the pats of butter. “Oh, but I will take one of those.”
Anita handed her one and she paid for it.
When the lady walked away, Anita gave a half-hearted smile. “I hope we sell more than just the butter,” she muttered. Usually her mozzarella spiel had gone over better in Wisconsin.
“I’m sure we will,” Kevin said. “It’s still early.”
But an hour later, they had sold one pie, five pats of butter, and one cream cheese.
People just didn’t seem to want to give it a try.
The mozzarella wasn’t getting any attention at all.
At this rate, they would have too much cream cheese and be eating it for days until it went bad.
And they would never make enough to finance the café.
“All right, plan B,” Kevin said after a long silence in which they watched Mrs. Lewis sell several wheels of cheese.
The dratted woman kept making a point of smiling and waving at them every time she made a sale, as though to rub it in Anita’s face.
Why she felt the need to be mean, Anita had no idea.
Kevin ducked down behind the table and began to rummage in their baskets.
“What is this plan?” Anita asked, confused.
Kevin reappeared with a serving platter that he put on the table. Then he set to work smearing the cream cheese on wedges of toast and sprinkling a little salt on them. He sliced up one of the cheese and onion pies and put that on the platter too.
When he was done, he picked up the platter and smiled at her. “I’ll be back in a bit,” he said.
Off he went, mingling with the crowd and offering them the things on the platter. It was a clever idea. Anita was bringing something different to the market, so folks were a little nervous about the things on her table.
She followed his example and put out some testers on plates as well. Now, when folks came to her table, she offered them a sample. Why had she and her parents never thought of this? She’d have to make sure to mention it in her next letter home.
A young mother with a baby on her hip tried some of the cream cheese. Her child had to be around eighteen months old. She let the toddler taste some of the plain cheese on her finger. The little one’s large blue eyes got even larger, and he tried to swallow his mother’s finger.
“Steady there, Jack,” his mother said with a laugh. “I think he likes your cheese, ma’am. He’s usually far pickier about anything he eats.”
The mother bought two plain cream cheeses that Anita was selling in glass jars. Then a couple came by and asked for two onion and cheese pies.
After that sale, Anita happened to glance up and saw that Mrs. Lewis’s expression had turned somewhat sour. She looked as though she had just tasted a lemon.
The day wore on. Kevin came back a couple of times to refill his serving plate, and more and more people stopped by to buy their goods. Soon, Anita had people waiting three or four in a line.
Her butter sold out first, then the pies and the cream cheese. Soon all they had left was the mozzarella. That was disconcerting. How to get these people to see that it was different but still perfectly delicious?
That was when Kevin came back to the table and finally put the empty sample plate down.
“My goodness,” he said. “That was a lot of work, persuading people. You wouldn’t think it would be so hard to convince people to taste completely free food! Especially not after everyone who tasted it clearly loved it so much. I really need something to drink.”
Anita smiled and rummaged in one of the baskets. “I have just the thing.” She pulled out two glass bottles of root beer and handed one to Kevin.
He took it and grinned. “Root beer? Where on earth did you get these from?”
“I traded Emily for them,” she said. “Her uncle is making them now. Something about her needing him to carry his weight around the place.”
“Well, I’m glad you did,” Kevin said, and he took a sip.
Anita watched him happily.
“You’re staring, you know,” he said.
“Shhh,” she said. “I’m watching my handsome husband, and you’re disturbing me.”
He chuckled and winked in a way that made her blush.
They drank their root beer and sat on tree stumps behind their table. The day had mostly passed, and the sun was heading westward. Anita felt as though she had been busy for four days, not just the one. Talking to people was always so exhausting. She was ready to head to bed.
The market was dying down anyway. A lot of the other vendors had also sold out of everything. Kevin had done his fair share of buying things they needed, and they ended up packing up a lot of their groceries into baskets that had previously held things to sell.
What Anita was most pleased about was that her purse was quite full. After that rocky start, things had certainly picked up. In fact, she was willing to say that they had done much better than she had thought they would do.
They were finishing up packing their things into the back of the cart when someone came stomping over to them.
Looking around, Anita saw Mrs. Lewis. She stood in front of Anita with her hands on her hips, looking angry.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but stealing another person’s livelihood is not Christian!”
Anita blinked and then frowned. “I’m sorry?” she asked.
“Oh, you’re not sorry yet, but you will be my girl; believe me, you will be,” Mrs. Lewis said angrily.
“And tricking people into buying your inferior cheeses was such an underhanded move.” She clicked her tongue.
“It was disgraceful.” She turned and stormed back to her own table, which still had quite a few wheels of cheese on it. More than Anita’s table had left.
“She is a sour woman, isn’t she?” Kevin asked, watching the woman go.
“I don’t understand,” Anita said. “We both did business. So, what’s the problem? And what does she mean we tricked people into buying our cheeses?”
Kevin shook his head. “We just came up with a better ploy to get folks to buy our goods, that’s all,” he said.
“Giving them a taste just helped them to get over their nerves about buying from a new person. That’s all we did, nothing strange or underhanded.
The woman doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
Anita,” Kevin said, taking her hands in his. “Are you okay?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m really not. How can she say such a thing? She doesn’t know us. Are you sure that we didn’t break some rule or something?”
Kevin smiled. “We didn’t do anything wrong. There is no law against promoting yourself and your business. We didn’t tell people not to buy from her; we just gave them the choice to buy from us. That’s all. So, chin up.”
They packed up the mozzarella and, as they left the market and Mrs. Lewis behind them, Anita’s mood improved.
Soon they reached the mine and went clattering over the wooden bridge to the town.
Anita looked over the edge at the swiftly flowing creek.
The level of the water seemed lower than before.
Why would that be? she thought in surprise.
Perhaps it was just her imagination. She pushed it out of her mind.
When they got home, they went to the well and drew up water to pour into the trough for the cows. Then they went inside, and Anita began to get supper ready. She had to really work the pump in the kitchen to get some water.
“Kevin, does the water generally fluctuate around here?” she asked.
He nodded from where he was cutting up vegetables. “It does a bit. Why?”
She explained her observations.
“I thought the bucket took longer coming up from the well,” he said thoughtfully. “I guess the smelter or the mine must have taken a little more water than usual. Maybe that was it.”
“Maybe,” she said. “Perhaps we should get ourselves some large barrels we can store rainwater in.”
“That’s a great suggestion,” Kevin said.
They had a vegetable stew and rice for dinner since it was the easiest and quickest thing to make. She enjoyed cooking side by side with her husband, learning some tricks from him about seasoning and how to perfectly braise the meat.
“Which weekend are Michael and Emily going to the Lucky Bull?” Anita asked, pushing back from the table with a satisfied groan. Marrying a would-be chef had been an excellent idea, she thought.
Kevin shrugged. “Possibly the next one.”
Just as they were cleaning up after supper, there was a knock on their back door.
“It’s open!” Kevin called.
The door opened, and a man Anita didn’t recognize ducked in.
“Sorry to bother you this late,” the man said. “He stepped forward and removed his hat from his head. “I’m Jeff, Andrew’s little brother.”
“Anita,” she said, shaking his hand. “It’s good to meet you.”
“You too,” he said and smiled. Then he turned to Kevin. “Andrew said he needs to see you, Kevin.”
“Me?” he asked. “What for?”
Jeff shrugged. “He didn’t elaborate, but it sounds important. He’s calling a whole bunch of us together.” He eyed Anita as though he wanted to say something to Kevin that he didn’t want her to hear.
She frowned. “What is going on?”
“Like I said, I’m not sure,” Jeff said. “But we have to go. Now.”
Kevin rose from the table. “I’m sorry, Anita,” he said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He kissed her cheek and then left through the back door. There were a few minutes of silence while Kevin saddled a horse and then the thud of hooves sounded, and the two men were gone.
Anita cleaned up and made another pot of tea, then settled in the parlor to read.
She would wait up as late as she could. She had the distinct feeling that Kevin wasn’t telling her things again, and she didn’t like that.
If it had to do with the mine, fine. She understood not getting all those details.
But if whatever the secret was involved the town they lived in, then she wanted to know.
She was certain all the wives would want to know, and she would bet that not one of them was included in this meeting.