Chapter 3

The next morning I was up at first light, too worried to eat, and slipped into Fairview like a thief.

I didn't dare go through the front gate. I crouched behind the big elm outside the wall of the Fox place, feeling every bit the sneak, and peered in.

The moment my head cleared the trunk, a shrill string of curses cut across from the far side of the wall.

"This land has always been ours! Don't push your luck!" It was Carrie's voice, but pitched so loud it sounded like a stranger's.

I turned toward the sound. It was Carter Lambert from next door, working a shovel, scraping the earthen ridge that divided the two plots over onto the Fox family's side.

Carter was a scoundrel known up and down the county. He kept digging and sneered, "Your name written on the deed for this? I'm taking it today. What are you gonna do about it?"

Carrie's parents stood off to one side, faces gone dark, but Carter's temper had them cowed, angry and silent.

That was when Carrie charged straight at him.

She wrenched the shovel out of his hands and flung it far into the drainage ditch.

Then she snatched up half a red brick from the ground, a jagged, sharp-cornered piece of it, and pressed it against her own forehead without a flicker of hesitation.

"Take one more step. Go on, try it. You lay claim to half a foot of this land today and I'll die right here at your door, and your family will never know a peaceful day again!" Her eyes were wide open, like a she-leopard gone rabid.

The reckless, life-be-damned look of her drove Carter back two steps. He muttered "crazy woman" under his breath, grabbed his shovel, and slunk off.

I stayed hidden behind the tree, staring, dumbstruck. Was this really the same Carrie who used to blush just talking to someone?

Right then she turned her head, and that fierce gaze swept straight to the elm where I was hiding.

"What are you doing skulking back there? Get out here!" she barked.

I shuffled out from behind the tree, awkward, and stood on the dirt road with no idea what to do with my hands.

When she saw it was me, she froze for a beat, plain as day, something complicated crossing her eyes.

Then, right after, that flicker was buried under cold contempt.

She looked me up and down and let out a sneer. "Well. If it isn't Nathaniel Dickerson. What, come to our village to beg? Or did you come to have a good laugh at my expense?"

The bitterness in her voice stabbed into me like a thorn driven deep.

I felt my pride thrown to the ground and stamped on. I didn't say a word. I turned and walked away without looking back.

Later, the young people in the village all decided there was no future in farming, and they started heading off in groups to the big cities down south to find factory work.

I went too. I figured I'd carve out something for myself in the city, and reality slapped me hard across the face.

I ended up in a sweatshop making hardware parts, fifteen hours a day in the deafening roar of the machines, worked so hard I couldn't straighten my back.

At the end of the year the workshop suddenly boiled over into chaos.

"The boss ran off! They hauled every machine out overnight!" The workers' furious shouts echoed through the emptied-out plant.

A whole year of work and I didn't see a single cent of pay. In the end I scraped together enough from picking through scrap to buy a hard seat on the green-skinned train, and I slunk home.

The moment I pushed open the door of the house and saw my parents' heads gone white and the roof letting in the wind, the shame in me was so heavy I wanted to crawl into a crack in the ground.

My parents didn't reproach me, not one word. My mother carried over a steaming bowl of dried noodles with two fried eggs nested on top.

My father drew on his pipe and sighed. "Nathaniel, money's gone, it's gone. But you're at the age where you ought to be starting a family. We're poor, sure, but a man's still got to leave a son behind."

Holding that bowl of noodles, I let the tears fall in big drops into the broth, and all I could do was nod, hard, and promise.

But matchmaking was never that easy.

Aunt Leila Lambert, the matchmaker, wore her legs down to nothing, taking me around to meet a few girls from the neighboring villages.

The moment they stepped into our yard and saw the half-collapsed pigpen and the blackened dirt walls, they left without so much as a sip of water.

"With the state of your place, I'll say it plain, even a mouse would come in the door and leave in tears. What decent family's grown daughter would jump into a pit like this?" Aunt Leila sat on our heated brick bed, mouth twisted, shaking her head.

My parents kept their heads down, wearing forced smiles, begging Aunt Leila to please keep looking a little longer.