She met his eyes without straightening her back, then resumed her work. Sweat trickled down her temple. “We haven’t much time,” she said. “If we don’t get everything planted right away, it won’t be ready before the first frost.”

John had trouble finding words. “Why—?”

“Haven’t you heard?” she said. “What the War Garden Commission says? Everything we produce will lessen the demand on commercial supplies—so more can go to the boys! Not to mention, every dime we save by not buying food, we can invest in war bonds!”

John had seen the posters around town—Lady Liberty holding aloft a home-canned jar of vegetables underneath the slogan THE FRUITS OF VICTORY— but he had never dreamed Wilma would take the propaganda so literally. “What—what are you going to plant? You’re going to fill this whole space? Why don’t you have Cook do it?”

“Oh, everything!” she said. “I sent Harry to the co-op and Mr. Bertilson told him everything we needed. The commission has put out guidelines. I want to make sure they’re followed to the letter, so I’m doing it myself.”

“Cripes,” Harry muttered, pausing his hoeing to stretch his back. His hair shone in the evening light slanting through the trees. “Isn’t this against some type of child labor law? Didn’t they pass those things for a reason?”

“Harry, watch your language,” John snapped, automatically.

“The soil is almost ready,” Wilma said.

“Well, did you fertilize?”

“Fertilize? No. I didn’t see that in the guidelines. Did Mr. Bertilson mention that, Harry?”

Harry didn’t look up from his hoeing.

So, without even going into the house, John cranked up the Model T and drove out to a potato farm he owned (former timber land, which tenants had painstakingly cleared of the massive stumps). He pulled up in front of the small clapboard house and got out of the car to bang on the door, interrupting the current tenant, Carl Svoboda, at his supper. John explained the situation, then took out his wallet and gave Svoboda several bills. Thus did Svoboda haul several bushels of composted horse manure into town and dump them in the plot in the Mickelsons’ backyard. It was twilight when the job of spreading and blending it was complete.

“There now, tomorrow you can plant,” John said to Wilma, wiping his brow with his handkerchief. The evening was growing cool, but he had been working harder than he was accustomed to.

“Life!” Wilma said, brushing a dirty rivulet of sweat from her temple with the back of her hand. “Perpetuated!”

Chapter 17

PINE RAPIDS MESSENGER
Friday, July 6, 1917

LOCAL BOYS ARRIVE OVERSEAS