In the end he chose a small figurine of a bluebird, gaily painted. She liked birds, and there wasn’t much around her house in the way of decorations. The bluebird cost him twenty-nine cents, and he spent an additional dime on two chocolate bars for the boys. Pocketing his change, he felt a keen exhilaration to get home.

On his way out of town he passed the house with the tilting picket fence surrounding it like the decaying ribs of a dead animal. He stopped to stare, involuntarily fascinated by the derelict appearance of the place, the grass choking the front steps, the rangy morning glories tangling around the doorknob and up a rickety trellis on the front stoop. Tattered green shades covered the windows, their bottoms shredded into ribbons. Gazing at them, he shivered, yet was tempted to investigate closer, to peek inside. But the shades seemed to warn him away.

They’d locked her in? And pulled down the shades? A woman like Eleanor, who loved birds and katydids and the sky and the orchard? Again Will shivered and hurried on with his cargo of two chocolate bars and a glass bluebird, wishing he could have bought her more. It was a curious feeling for a man to whom gift-giving was foreign. The exchange of gifts implied that a person had both friends and money, but Will had seldom known both at once. Though he’d often imagined how exciting it would be to get gifts, he’d never expected this exhilaration at giving them. But now that he knew about Eleanor Dinsmore’s past, he felt provoked by a great impatience to make reparation for the kindness she’d been robbed of as a child.

Would she still be peeved at him? An unexpected ripple of disquiet swept through him at the thought. He stalked along, studying the ground. The wagon rattled behind him. How do a man and woman learn to make up their differences? At thirty years old, Will didn’t know, but it suddenly became vital that he learn. Always before, if a woman harassed him, he moved on. This was different, Eleanor Dinsmore was different. She was a good mother, a fine woman who’d been locked in a house and called crazy, and if he didn’t tell her she wasn’t, who would?


Eleanor had been miserable ever since Will left. She’d been churlish and snappy with him and he’d been gone nearly three hours on a trip that should have taken only half that time and she was sure he wasn’t coming back. It’s your own fault, Elly. You can’t treat a free man that way and expect him to come back for more.

She put supper on to cook and looked out the back door every three minutes. No Will. She put on a clean dress and combed her hair, twisting it tight and neat on her head. She studied her wide, disturbed eyes in the small mirror on the kitchen shelf, thinking of his face trimmed with shaving lather. He ain’t comin’ back, fool. He’s ten miles in the other direction by now and how you gonna like choppin’ that wood in the morning? And how you gonna like mealtimes lookin’ at his empty chair? And talkin’ to nobody but the boys? Closing her eyes, she wrapped her fists around one another and pressed them to her mouth. I need you, Parker. Please come back.


As Will hurried up the rutted driveway he heard his own heart drumming in his ears. Reaching the edge of the clearing, his footsteps faltered: she was waiting on the porch. Waiting for him, Will Parker. Dressed in her yellow outfit with her hair freshly combed, the boys romping at her ankles and the smell of supper drifting clear across the yard. She raised a hand and waved. "What took you so long? I was worried."

Not only waiting, but worried. A burst of elation ricocheted through his body as he smiled and stretched his stride.

"Studying takes time."

"Will!" Donald Wade came running. "Hey, Will!" He collided with Will’s knees and clung, head back and hair hanging, making the welcome complete. Will roughed the boy’s silky hair.

"Hi, short stuff. How’s things around here?"

"Everything’s peachy." He fell into step beside Will, helping to pull the wagon.

"What’d you do while I was gone?"

"Mama made me take a nap." Donald Wade made a distasteful face.

"A nap, huh?" Reaching the bottom of the porch steps, Will dropped the wagon handle and lifted his eyes to the woman above him. "Did she take one with you?"

"No. She took a bath in the washtub."

"Donald Wade, you hush now, you hear?" Eleanor chided, her cheeks turning suspiciously bright. Then, to Will, "How’d you do?"

"Did good." He handed her the money. "Miss Beasley at the library took one dozen eggs for twenty-five cents, and I sold the rest to Calvin Purdy for twenty-four cents a dozen. It’s all there, a dollar twenty-one. Miss Beasley said to tell you hello."

"She did?" Eleanor’s palm hung in midair, the money forgotten.

"Said she remembers you comin’ in with Miss Buttry’s fifth grade class or Miss Natwick’s sixth."

"Well, imagine that." Her smile was all amazement and wide eyes. "Who’d have thought she’d remember me?"

"She did, though."

"I never even thought she knew my name."

Will grinned. "Don’t think there’s much that woman doesn’t know."

Eleanor laughed, remembering the librarian.

"I’ll bet it was pretty in the library, wasn’t it?"

"Sure was. Bright." Will gestured in the air. "With big windows, rounded at the top. Smelled good, too."

"Did you get your card?"

"Couldn’t. Not without you. Miss Beasley says you’ll have to verify that I work for you."

"You mean go in there?" The animation left Elly’s face and her voice quieted. "Oh, I don’t think I could do that."

Yesterday he’d have asked why. Today he only replied, "You can write a note. She said that’d be okay and I can bring it next time I go in. Have to go in next week again. Miss Beasley said she’ll want another dozen eggs."

"She did?" Eleanor’s elation returned as quickly as it had fled.

"That’s right. And, you know, I was thinking." Will tipped his hat brim back, hooked one boot on the bottom step and braced a hand on the knee. "If you were to pack the extra cream in pint jars I think I could sell it, too. Make a little extra."

She couldn’t resist teasing, "You gonna turn into one of those men who loves money, Mr. Parker?"

He knew full well there was more than teasing behind the remark-there was her very real aversion to town. A recluse, Miss Beasley had called her. Was she really? To the point of avoiding contact with people even if it meant making money? She hadn’t even bothered to count what he’d handed her. He supposed this was something they’d have to work out eventually. "No, ma’am." He withdrew his boot from the step. "It’s just that I don’t see any sense in losing the opportunity to make it."

Donald Wade spotted the brown paper bag and tugged Will’s sleeve. "Hey, Will, what you got in there?"

Will reluctantly pulled his attention from Eleanor and went down on one knee beside the wagon, an arm around the boy’s waist. "Well, what do you think?" Donald Wade shrugged, his eyes fixed on the sack. "Maybe you better look inside and see." Donald Wade’s hazel eyes gleamed with excitement as he peeked into the bag, reached and withdrew the two candy bars.

"Candy," he breathed, awed.

"Chocolate." Will crossed his elbows on his knee, smiling. "One for you, one for your little brother."

"Chocolate." Donald Wade repeated, then to his mother, "Lookit, Mama, Will brung us chocolate!"

Her appreciative eyes sought Will’s and he felt as if someone had just tied a half-hitch around his heart. "Now wasn’t that thoughtful. Say thank you to Mr. Parker, Donald Wade."

"Thanks, Will!"

With an effort, Will dropped his attention to the boy. "You peel one for Thomas now, all right?"

Grinning, he watched the boys settle side by side on the step and begin to made brown rings around their mouths.

"I appreciate your thinkin’ of them, Mr. Parker."

He slowly stretched to his feet and looked up into her face. Her lips were tipped up softly. Her hair was drawn back in a thick tied-down braid the color of autumn grain. Her eyes were green as jade. How could anybody lock her in a house?

"Boys got to have a little candy now and then. Brought something for you, too."

"For me?" She spread a hand on her chest.

He extended an arm with the sack caught between two fingers. "It isn’t much."

"Why, whatever-" Elly excitedly plunged her hand inside, wasting not a second on foolish dissembling. Withdrawing the figurine, she held it at shoulder level. "Oh myyy… oh, Mr. Parker." She covered her mouth and blinked hard. "Oh, myyyy." She held the bluebird at arm’s length and caught her breath. "Why, it’s beautiful."

"I had a little money of my own," he clarified, since she hadn’t bothered to count the egg money and he didn’t want her thinking he’d spent any of hers. He could tell by her expression the thought hadn’t entered her mind. She smiled into the bluebird’s painted eye, her own shining with delight. "A bluebird… imagine that." She pressed it to her heart and beamed at Will. "How did you know I like birds?"

He knew. He knew.

He stood watching her, feeling ready to burst with gratification as she examined the bird from every angle. "I just love it." She flashed him another warm smile. "It’s the nicest present I ever got. Thank you."

He nodded.

"See, boys?" She squatted to show them. "Mr. Parker brought me a bluebird. Isn’t it about the prettiest thing you ever saw? Now where should we put it? I was thinkin’ on the kitchen table. No, maybe on my nightstand-why, it would look good just about anyplace, wouldn’t it? Come in and help me decide. You too, Mr. Parker."

She bustled inside, so excited she forgot to hold the screen door open for Thomas to scramble inside. Will plucked him off the step and got chocolate on his shirt, but what was a little chocolate to a man so happy? He stood just inside the kitchen doorway with the baby on his arm, watching Eleanor try the bird everywhere-on the table, on the cupboard, beside the cookie jar. "Where should we put it, Donald Wade?" Always, she made the boy feel important. And now Will, too.

"On the windowsill, so all the other birds will see it and come close."

"Mmm… on the windowsill." She pinched her lower lip and considered the sills-east, south and west. The kitchen jutted off the main body of the building, a room with ample brightness. "Why of course. Now why didn’t I think of that?" She placed the bluebird on a west sill, overlooking the backyard, where the clothespoles had been repaired and now stood straight and sturdy. She leaned back, clapped once and pressed her folded hands against her chin. "Oh, yes, it’s exactly what this place needed!"

It needed a lot more than a cheap glass figurine, but as Eleanor danced across the room and squeezed Will’s arm, he felt as if he’d just bought her a collector’s piece.


If Will had been eager to make improvements around the place before his trip to town, afterward he worked even harder, fired by the zeal to atone for a past which was none of his making. He spent hours wondering about the people who’d locked her in that house behind the green shades. And how long she’d been there, and why. And about the man who’d taken her away from it, the one she said she still loved. And how long it might take for that love to begin fading.

It was during those days that Will became aware of things he’d never noticed before: how she hadn’t hung a curtain on a window; how she paused to worship the sun whenever she stepped outside; how she never failed to find praise for the day-be it rain or shine-something to marvel over; and at night, when Will stepped out of the barn to relieve himself, no matter what the hour… her bedroom light was always burning. It wasn’t until he’d seen it several times that he realized she wasn’t up checking on the boys, but sleeping with it on.

Why had her family done it to her?

But if anyone respected a person’s right to privacy it was Will. He needn’t know the answers to accept the fact that he was no longer laboring only to have a roof over his head, but to please her.

He mended the road-oiled the harness and hitched Madam to a heavy steel road scraper shaped like a giant grain shovel, with handles like a wheelbarrow, an ungainly thing to work with. But with Madam pulling and Will pushing, directing the straight steel cutting edge into the earth, they tackled the arduous task. They shaved off the high spots, filled in the washouts, rolled boulders off to the sides and grubbed out erupted roots.

Donald Wade became Will’s constant companion. He’d take a seat on a bank or a branch, watching, listening, learning. Sometimes Will gave him a shovel and let him root around throwing small rocks off to the side, then praised him for his fledgling efforts as he’d heard Eleanor do.