The Early Harvest

The Early Harvest by Mark A. Coram It was nearly noon and Stanley had almost covered the three biggest flat rocks on the riverbank with mayapple roots for the sun to dry. He'd started digging them just before dawn, cutting a slash in the underbrush of the mountain while the dew was still on the ground, making it easy going for the broken hoe he used for digging. The plants would all be back next year; mayapples didn't die easily. With the sun overhead, his real work for the day was done. He'd gather the roots at sunset and cart them home, then spread them the next morning after the dew burned off to finish drying. People at the store were real particular about the roots being completely dry. "We're paying for the roots, son, not the water," Mr. Vance would say as he handed them back. And if they were dried fast with a fire, Vance would pitch a conniption, because he could smell the difference. The middle of April was a little too early to be digging the "ground apples." By early 37 June they'd be a lot bigger, but Vance's needed them now and the paper was advertising $1.05 a pound instead of the usual eighty-five cents, so Stanley was willing to make the sacrifice. He could always dig more to make up the difference later on. Time was the most important thing to Stanley today, because his mother wanted more than anything else for him to go to church with her on Easter to hear the preacher talk about the Cross, the Romans, and being resurrected by the power of Jesus. With his daddy gone, it was important to her that Stanley grow up right. She'd taken him to church before Christmas the year before and had him baptized . The circuit preacher had waded him and the other boys out into the river that ran behind the church and dunked them in the water where the older boys had cut a hole in the ice with an axe. Everyone stood around and sang "Amazing Grace" while they tossed in bits of running cedar they'd pulled up from under the snow. Then everyone who was wet was wrapped in blankets and set in front of the wood stove in the church until they were dry. But she hadn't gone back since then because she'd been sick and he'd been sick—and she always said she didn't have anything good enough to wear for a dressing up day like Christmas or Easter. He thought of what the roots would buy her. Three yards of the cloth he'd heard her and his Aunt Maye carrying on about at Vance's, a spool of thread to match, and two yards of wide ribbon to tie the waist and edge the collar. And with the pattern Mrs. Dorothy Robbins had promised to loan him, he knew his mother could finish the dress before Easter if she got started—but not if he waited any longer. While he waited for the roots to dry, Stanley paced the riverbank, looking back every few steps to make sure a possum or squirrel hadn't gotten into his harvest. Vance's wouldn't take chewed roots. He could just barely see the trail leading along the bank, and that was strange since animals normally laid any path that close to the water all the way down to the clay. Since the trail seemed so unused, Stanley wondered if there might be any saleable plants along it that hadn't been grubbed up by passing deer. He pushed the cool underbrush back with his hands and looked for 'sang underneath. He remembered the sign in Vance's that said, "GINSENG, S130/POUND." He never failed to stop and look at that sign when he was walking out of the store and think of just how much money that would be—more than four months' work for his mother sewing together quilts from the cloth scraps his uncle bought for her at a sewing mill down the mountain. With a good patch...