Making Hay Read Free

days.”
    Lessy raised her chin, still slightly defensive. Their courting had been unique. In fact, it had been like no courting at all. Vass never wooed her or sent her flowers or carried her to a barn dance or church supper. He was a shy man and didn’t like social occasions. Although Lessy had once reveled in carefree fun and meeting with friends, she now only wanted to do what Vassar wanted to do. And what Vassar wanted to do was farm.
    “It’s normal for you to be a little scared of your marriage bed,” Lessy’s mother was telling her. “And it’s right for Vass to try to reassure you. But, I’ll swanny, he has a strange way of going about it.”
    Lessy didn’t want to talk about Vass. “Did Daddy have to reassure you?”
    Nora Green nodded. “He surely did. I was three years younger than you are and had been so sheltered I thought the difference in men and women was the clothes that they wore.”
    Lessy laughed and shook her head, refusing to believe her mother’s claim.
    “I was scared near to death,” her mother told her. “But when your daddy realized why, he snuck me down behind that big old barn at Granny’s place and kissed me till I was breathless. I was so het up, I told him I didn’t want to wait even one more day. It was only your daddy’s good sense that kept us from making our marriage bed in that damp grass.”
    “Oh, Mammy!” Lessy giggled. “I can’t imagine you and Daddy sparking behind the barn.”
    “Well, it’s the truth.” Her eyes were soft with the memory. “But if you tell it at church, I’ll deny every word.” Nora Green pointed her finger at her daughter threateningly, and both dissolved in laughter. “If my memory serves me right,” her mother continued when they’d regained composure, “these warm summer days can fire up a young man’s blood and a young woman’s, too. Many a young couple have met the preacher coming back from the well. More than one have lived to regret it. I never heard tell of a pair that were sorry they’d waited till the wedding day.”
    Lessy leaned forward and hugged her mother tightly. “Don’t worry, Mammy,” she said. “There is not even a question. Vass and I are going to wait.”
    Nora looked at her daughter for a long moment and then nodded in agreement. “I guess I should know that. Vassar is a mother’s dream. He’s polite, respectful, honorable, and upright. But when a man’s in love, it’d be hard to fault him for stealing a kiss or two.”
    Lessy’s smile held, but the pleasure behind it faded, and she lowered her eyes to the cotton petticoat that she held in her hands.

2
    T he singing woke him . Every morning, as regularly as the sunrise or the cock’s crow, Lessy Green sang as she stoked the fire in the stove and set coffee to boil. Today it was a cheery but subdued “On the Banks of the Ohio.” Vassar was just grateful it wasn’t ‘Ta-Ra-Ra- Boom-De-Ay”!
    Without opening his eyes, he sluggishly rolled to a sitting position on the side of the bed. His feet touched the cold boards on the floor.
    I am awake, he told himself.
    He allowed his left eye to open to a squint. With a moan he closed it again, and only pure strength of will kept him from falling backward onto the bed.
    Vassar hated mornings.
    “It’s the devil’s own laziness in that boy!” one of his aunts had told his mother. “Never heard of a farmer who didn’t love the first light of day.”
    Vass didn’t know if he loved it. He tried very hard not to see it.
    The gentle tapping on the door diverted his attention from his own weariness, and he blindly rose to his feet and felt his way across the room.
    He pulled open the door wide enough only to reveal his face.
    “Good morning, Vassar. It’s a beautiful day outside. Breakfast should be ready in about twenty minutes.”
    The sweet shy voice held a revitalizing power, and Vassar obligingly opened his eyes fully for the first time. Lessy stood, fresh-scrubbed and pink, in his doorway. The