Beneath the Apple Leaves(77)
The dull sound of each breaking shell against hard earth—one, two, three, four, five—thudded down and through the feet. Fire ripped through Andrew’s veins and he pushed the young man hard in the center of the back. “What the hell are you doing?”
The man met him length to length, eye to eye, scanned him and smirked. He pointed to the crates that were stamped in black letters: Kiser. “These eggs are rotten,” he said innocently, then leaned in and scorned, “They stink!”
And with that, the man turned, picked up the full crate of eggs and tossed it over. Andrew lunged, but Wilhelm stopped him with a steel grip, squeezed with both his eyes and his hands for Andrew to stop.
Andrew pulled his arm back, his fist so tight that his nails cut into his palm. Indignation crept up his legs and sizzled each nerve ending. The anger rose up his neck, flushed his face and raised the hairs at each pore. The eggs oozed under the crate, puddled the ground between Wilhelm’s feet and colored his boot sole.
Little Will’s breath came quick and he ran forward and hit the man on the back. “Don’t touch our eggs!” he cried, tears rushing down his cheeks.
The man laughed, raised his brows at Wilhelm as if to say, What you going to do about it, Pa? But with the crying of the child the crowd lost their pleasure and turned.
The tears touched upon a few of the boys’ humility. “Come on,” one ordered with a tilt of his head. “Let’s get outta here b’fore we step in this shit.”
They turned to leave, but the burly man turned around once more, picked up a solid, wayward egg and threw it at Wilhelm’s thigh, covering it with dripping yolk.
Immobile, Wilhelm stared stonily ahead, his jaw clicking in and out as the only movement or sign of life within the man.
Edgar tugged on his father’s sleeve. “Why didn’t you stop them?”
The boys had worked so hard to collect the eggs, spent days lining the crates with paper and cradling each egg they set in. Andrew put an arm around Edgar’s shoulder to quiet him, but the little boy blurted through his tears, “Why didn’t you stop them, Pa? Why did they do that to our eggs?”
Wilhelm grabbed the last crate of eggs, didn’t even seem to notice that half were broken and headed to the wagon, ignoring the boys as he did the broken shells. Will and Edgar turned to Andrew with confused, tear-streaked faces. “Why didn’t Pa stop them? Why didn’t he do anything?”
Andrew knelt down between them, saw the taffy still stuck to their innocent faces and hair. They needed to know. The war had come and they needed to know. He couldn’t fold the ugliness away like he did the newspaper. They were only children, but they needed to know now. The war wasn’t going away but was coming across the Atlantic straight to their doorstep. They needed to know that their father wasn’t a coward, that some hate has to be fled.
“Boys,” he started, spoke to them as men, looked into their sweet eyes with the seriousness shared by men. “You heard those men talking? About the war.”
They nodded in unison. “Yeah, in Germany,” chimed Edgar.
“That’s right.” Andrew sighed deeply. “War can make people angry. Makes people not treat each other very well. People get scared and it makes them angry. Then they hear stories, some real and some not, but it makes them get angry, you see?”
The boys stared blankly. And he said the words he hoped he would never have to say out loud, words he finally had to face himself. “When they get angry they start to blame the Germans. Start to think that everyone who came from Germany is bad.”
“But we’re not from Germany,” defended Will. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”
“No, but your father and grandparents were and that means about the same thing to some people. Your name, Kiser, is German. Sounds just like the name of a really bad man who started the war. There are going to be some people that don’t like Germans or that name. Do you understand?”
“But Pa should have stopped them!” shouted Edgar. “Should have told them we’re not the bad Germans.”
“When people are angry, they close their ears,” Andrew explained. “Your father did the right thing, Edgar. He did the brave thing. A coward would have reacted and fought with those men and lost. Your father showed how brave he was by not letting their anger turn him, you see? A coward would have started a fight because his feelings were hurt, but your father stayed strong and fought them in his own way. You should be very proud of him.”
Will’s chin crinkled. “How we gonna get money now?” he whispered over choked tears.
“We’ll be fine.” Andrew rubbed a tear away from the little boy. “People got to eat, Will. We’ll be fine.”
But things wouldn’t be fine. This was just the beginning. A gray, green dawn before a twister ripped through the land.
CHAPTER 37
The last remaining apple blossoms unsheathed from stems and snowed delicate petals over the yard, carpeted the land in white and pink, stuck in Eveline’s hair as she weeded the garden. Wilhelm, Andrew and the boys had left for market before dawn and the day was her own, a heavenly reprieve from catering to the men.
Eveline planted zinnias and cosmos and nasturtiums on the perimeter of the fence, a sturdy fortress of vertical sticks to keep the deer and rabbits out. In the raised beds, she planted marigolds to keep out the aphids. She started geraniums that she would grow and fill the window boxes that Andrew built for her. She would line every window of the old house. The bright flowers would be rouge to the clapboard face, its scented breath strong enough to keep mosquitos and flies from the open windows and ripped screens.