Chapter 3: The Voice
The cabbage heads were large and fat and would be ready to harvest almost two weeks sooner than normal. In the late winter, Abri had tried something new. Using trays she started the cabbage seedlings indoors. Cabbage is a frost resistant plant and can go into the ground as soon as the ground is warm enough to work with a spade. So, when the first thaw came in mid February she put seedlings into the ground rather than seeds. She banked straw around the seedlings, but did not cover them. Before the late February snows she did cover them. Da had resisted this idea as he resisted any idea involving change or innovation.
“Da, it’s worth the risk. A two week head start on the planting means two weeks of mature growth later, ahead of the hatching of the worms and bugs that usually eat up our crops. We’ll have the best heads at market, for sure.”
Indeed, she had ten acres of the best heads, and another ten in beets, and five in onions. It was a small farm, but that meant that the rent was also small. Farming can be a roller coaster profession with lean years and fat years. Abri and Da always cleared enough to pay the rent, and usually enough to live by until next harvest. This year Abri could see that they would bring enough to live for five years. A fat year indeed.
As she admired her work, Abri felt a strong impression that she should harvest her crop now, take it to market early.
“That’s not a bad idea,” she thought. “I’ll dung the rows one last time, give ‘em a good watering, and harvest the biggest heads ever next week, and still beat the other farmers to market.”
“Harvest now,” came the voice accompanied by a twinge of panic, a feeling that it might already be too late.
Abri shook off the feeling. “It makes no sense,” she said out loud. “What’s the rush?”
She began making a mental list of all the reasons to harvest next week. But as she organized her mental resistance, the world around her began to turn bright. She felt intense pain as her muscles began to contract involuntarily. She fell convulsing to the ground and mercifully lost consciousness though her eyes were open.
The seizure lasted four minutes. And Abri lay between the rows of cabbage for an hour before regaining consciousness. In the moment before waking she dreamed.
In the dream Lord Gillingham was writing a new lease agreement for the farm with a dairyman she barely knew. The man asked, “What about the crops?”
Gillingham said, “Harvest them, sell them, bring me the proceeds, and keep 20% for your pains.”
The dream changed and Abri saw the locomotive running on the newly laid railroad loading milk from the dairy that was to replace her farm, and carrying it to the city before the morning breakfast. City dwellers were going to learn what a treat fresh milk was. The train would do this. She saw Gillingham rising to great wealth and prominence for his foresight.
As she awoke and the dream broke she saw herself, her father, and a young man running north pursued by a pack of dogs.
Her body ached as it normally did following one of her spells. At first she was confused and wondered why she had been so tired as to lie down for a nap. She knew, in general terms, that she had spells. But upon awaking from a spell, she usually denied having had one.
“I was tired,” she thought. There was truth in this because the spells physically wore her out.
As she reoriented herself, looked at the position of the sun in the sky, she realized that an hour had passed. It was coming up on ten o’clock. She tried to remember what she had been doing. Then she remembered the voice. And then she remembered the dream.
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