There was still applesauce to be done, and peaches and pears and grape jelly and grape juice. School sewing, though, was on top of Ruth’s list. It glared at her from beneath the square silver magnet on the refrigerator—the yellow slip of paper where she had written what she needed. Ten yards of Swedish knit, three yards of black apron material, shirts for the boys, buttons, black thread, sewing machine needles, hair pins. School would start in a few weeks. The baby was crying from what seemed to be an angry case of heat rash that had developed overnight. Lillian had been stung by a carpenter bee—those wood borers that hovered around the barn’s entrance like little bombers protecting their territory. Ruth was unsure if Lillian needed to see a doctor, the way her face was swollen and puffed up on one side so her eye had become a mere slit. The heat had been unrelenting. It sapped Ruth’s energy, so she often slept later than intended and then battled frustration, unable to accomplish all she wanted to.
