A Summer in Salem Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Morning comes too quickly. I wake after Samuel has gone to the fields for the day. Groggily, I force myself out of bed and begin getting dressed.

Yawning, I make my way downstairs to the kitchen where I know I must begin cooking the noon meal and readying our supply for the winter. It is only September, but the cold comes quickly and there seems to not be enough hours in the day anymore. I feel the days are beginning to shorten and the cold is beginning to settle in during the night. 

I decide to make a chicken stew for the evening meal today and know that I will need to catch one of the chickens from the coop and slaughter it. The very idea of taking an axe to the poor animal’s neck makes me sick to my stomach. Never in my lifetime have I ever been the one to kill an animal. I have skinned and readied animals for cooking, but the job of taking their life had always belonged to my mother or father. I am not even sure how to properly kill a chicken. My father used to chop their heads off with an axe and leave the body for my mother to handle.

Around noon, I begin to dish out some of the food from our wedding last night. Without the cold of winter, our food cannot be preserved for long and I know it must be eaten today if we do not wish to be sick. 

Samuel enters the house just as I am setting our plates on the table. 

“Well, look who is finally awake.” Samuel smiles at me and comes over to kiss me on the forehead. “I am glad you were able to rest this morning. I know yesterday was very tiring for you.”

“Yes, it was nice to sleep past the rooster’s crow this morning. Your meal is ready.”

“I am starving. I began picking apples today since they are ripe and ready. When I come in for the evening meal, I will haul them into the house for you. I know you will need them for making jam and preserving for the winter.”

We sit at the table together and Samuel says a short prayer before we begin to eat. 

“I would be grateful for that. I have not had much to do today and I feel utterly useless as a wife.”

Samuel laughs lightly. “Susanna, it is only your first day as a wife. I would not expect you to do everything all at once. It is partially my fault as well for not having the food ready for you this morning.”

“This afternoon, I plan to slaughter one of the chickens for the evening meal. I am preparing chicken stew, so hopefully you like that dish.”

“I really enjoy it and I’m glad you will have more to keep you busy later.”

We eat the rest of our meal in silence. When we are finished, Samuel returns to the fields to pick more of the apples from our trees. I set the dishes aside for now and go outside to the chicken coop. 

Inside, there are about twenty chickens running around or sitting on their makeshift nests. I pick up the axe from the ground and open the door to the coop. The chickens are frightened as I walk in and begin to run away from me. I walk towards them and keep my eyes on the one I intend to capture. She begins to run around the chicken house and I cannot seem to catch her. 

Finally, I think I have her cornered and raise my arms to swing the axe down upon her. She darts away at the last minute and the axe lodges deep into the dirt. I curse to myself and pry my weapon from the ground.

I continue to chase her around the coop and still cannot catch her. Exhausted from my effort, I left the coop and sit outside on the soft grass. I try to think logically and to remember how my father used to do this. How did he manage to capture and kill so many of these stupid birds throughout the years? 

I finally understand why my mother always made him do this instead of attempting to do it herself. She was probably once in the same position I am in now: wasting precious day time sitting in the dirt thinking about stupid chickens. 

I tell myself that I will only attempt this one more time before I go to the fields to ask Samuel for help. With the resignation to do my best, I stand and enter the chicken coop again. I set my sights on a different bird this time and attempt to capture her. I move slowly, stepping as softly as I can so I don’t alarm her. I sneak up behind her so she cannot see me and raise the axe again. Just as I’m about to swing down, another chicken comes running out of the chicken house, scaring all the other birds and sending them running in different directions. 

The axe drives in the dirt again and this time, I don’t even bother to pry it back up. I begin to chase the chicken around the coop, attempting to catch her with my hands and to kill her later instead of going crazy with the sharpened axe. I run as fast as I can and still cannot seem to scoop her up off the ground. 

Just as I am close to giving up, one of my attempts to grab a chicken works. I wrap my arm around her ruffled feathers and pull her against my side. As I begin walking to the door, the chicken bites my hand and begins flapping my wings so hard that I lose my hold on her. Momentarily, she is free from my grasp and begins falling to the ground, but I drop down to my knees and reach out for her again. This time, my hand wraps around her foot and I pull her back to me again. 

The chicken flaps her wings, spraying up tons of dirt from the ground. She hops on one foot and attempts to pull her other away from me. She begins sliding out of my hand but I reach further and grab her again. I get pulled down into the dirt as the chicken struggles against me and eventually I lose my grip on her. She runs off into the chicken house, leaving me lying there in the dirt. 

I sit up and curse out loud. I am frustrated with myself for not even being able to slaughter the smallest of our farm animals for dinner. At this point, I think that killing one of our goats or even a horse would be easier than catching one of these b*****d birds.

I stand slowly and try to shake the dirt off of my dress. My bonnet has been pulled off of my head and my hair is slowing being pulled out of its pins. I turn and leave the chicken coop, heading straight for the grove of apple trees at the end of our property. If I cannot capture and kill one of those devil birds, surely, my aged husband will be able to. 

I find Samuel standing on a ladder that leans against one of the apple trees.

“Samuel!” I call up to him. 

“Susanna? What are you doing out in the fields, darling? You shouldn’t have had to walk all the way out here.”

“I am perfectly capable of walking, Samuel. I am not a child and I am not some fragile, breakable thing.”

He begins climbing down the ladder. As he steps onto the ground, I notice how good looking he really is with the late afternoon sunlight streaming through the trees and reflecting off his sweet brown eyes. He sets down the burlap sack he had been using to collect the apples and wipes his hands off on a small rag. 

“Why are you out here, Susanna?”

I stare at him, noticing for the first time that the gray I thought was abundant in his hair is really only beginning to show around his ears and in small streaks. The rest of the strands are a deep, chocolatey brown, almost matching his eyes. He has lots of little wrinkles covering his face, mostly around the outside of his eyes and around his mouth from years and years of laughing. Suddenly, I wonder if he will ever look at me this way when I am someday old and full of gray hairs and wrinkles. I wonder what he sees when he stares into my eyes or if he notices my locks of hair at all beneath my bonnet.

“Susanna?”

I realize he has spoken to me again. “I have come to ask for help.”

“Help with what, darling?”

“I have been trying for nearly an hour to catch one of the chickens and kill it.”

He really looks at me for the first time since I’ve been standing here and his eyes take in my dirt covered dress, my disheveled hair, and the look of annoyance I am quite sure is apparent upon my face. 

“It certainly looks like you’ve been fighting a losing battle.”

I stare at the ground, refusing to make eye contact with him. “I may or may not have been bested by those foul little beasts.”

“Beasts? Meaning more than one?”

“Perhaps.” I dig the top of my boot into the dirt.

I hear Samuel laughing as he walks up to me. He pulls my bonnet off and helps me fix my hair before placing it back on my head and tying it nicely under my chin. 

“Well then, I cannot have any foul little beasts making a mockery of my beautiful wife, now can I?”

I look up at him again and smile. He smiles back and leans down to kiss me. 

“You certainly would not put up with such behavior from another man. I see no reason why an animal would be allotted such privileges.”

“Let us go kill a foul little beast then.” Samuel turns me around, wraps an arm around my shoulders, and begins to walk back toward the house. 

Half way back, I push Samuel away from me. 

“What is it?”

“I’ll bargain that I am faster than you are.”

“There is not a time nor a place where you could outrun me Susanna.”

I lean against him and pull his face down for a slow, sweet kiss. I put my hands on his shoulders and kiss him even more deeply. 

I pull slightly away from him, smiling too much to continue kissing him. I laugh lightly and shove down very hard on his shoulders, pushing him to the ground. 

“Susanna!”

“I’ll race you to the chicken coop!” I yell as I turn from him and begin running. “And I’ll win!”

I ran as fast as I possibly can and I suddenly feel like a small child again, racing against my siblings and claiming myself to be the fastest in the family. Poor Cara could never keep up with me and my little brothers had much to small of legs to even compete. 

I hear Samuel behind me, laughing as he pulls himself up from the ground and begins to run after me. 

I am within a few feet of the chicken coop when suddenly Samuel is right behind me and I feel his arms wrap themselves around my waist. I lose my momentum and am laughing too hard to keep running so I collapse in his arms. We both fall to the ground, laughing together as we lie in the grass. 

“That was certainly not very fair, Susanna.”

“Tis’ not fair that you must be bigger and stronger and faster than I.”

“I am not stronger than you are. You are a perfectly capable, strong woman. I have seen the way you act at home and the way you helped your mother. You should not doubt yourself so.”

I blush and try to hide my smile. “I certainly would have won this race if you hadn’t made both of us fall to the ground.”

“Believe what you will.” Samuel stands up and offers a hand to help. I let him wrap his hand around my much smaller one and pull me to my feet. 

We walk the rest of the way to the chicken coop together and neither of us can stop smiling. 

“Now, which of these birds is the one you want.”

I think for a moment, surveying my options before pointing to a white and black speckled chicken who seems slightly larger than the rest. “That one.”

“As you wish, ma’am.” Samuel enters the chicken coop and walks toward my chicken. He crouches slowly and quickly scoops her off the ground. My jaw drops in amazement and annoyance. How did he manage to do that so easily when I had literally been dragged across the ground by one of them?

He walks over to where the axe is still stuck in the dirt. “Really Susanna?”

“I told you I had been bested by them! They are evil little birds!”

He laughs as he leaves the chicken coop with the bird and the axe. He lays her down on his wood chopping block and quickly takes the axe to her small neck severing it with one swing. Her body twitches for a moment and then ceases to move. 

He wipes the axe off and hands the dead body of the bird to me.

“Here you are. One bird, almost ready for dinner.”

Samuel smiles at me and kisses my forehead before walking back to the fields. I stand there, dead chicken in hand, watching my partner for life as he walks away. I cannot help but grin. 

Reviews

[Ballpark Frank]

I like this chapter very much! Excellent read. Will there be more?

I'm enjoying this advancement of the story. I'm glad I've started reading it and I hope there is more to this story.

[wordman]

your stories are great raylynn

[genocide]

Very good story but you should proofread because one line said that the woman is flapping her wings