Some mornings John would watch her from the back porch. Wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat, with a basket hooked over her arm, she would tiptoe between the rows of cucumber plants, lifting the wide, prickly leaves to peek for pickle-size product. When she saw something, she crouched to wrestle it from the plant, and John could observe her conversion in the way she examined each cucumber before setting it in her basket, like they were holy relics, evidence of God.

Day by day, she lined the cucumbers on the counter in the pantry, first one dozen, then two, then three. Soon there were too many to fit on the counter, and Wilma sent Harry to the co-op for bushel baskets. The peas and beans were coming now, too, and even a few tomatoes, and they’d already enjoyed a couple weeks of fresh radishes, beets, and spinach.

Finally, the time was upon them for the first batch of pickles: sweet gherkins. From what John could surmise, the process of making them took her the better part of a week, during which time he, Harry, and Jinny were told in no uncertain terms to stay out of the pantry. “And if you must go in there,” she told them, “don’t touch a thing!” He couldn’t resist, at midnight one night when he tiptoed down for a glass of milk (Wilma fast asleep on their bed, snoring in sheer exhaustion), sneaking in to peer under the lid of the crock. In the darkness the contents looked like a witch’s brew, whole cucumber flesh bobbing in dark, sweetly vile liquid, among mysterious flecks of other matter. Though the spiced vinegar smell made him shudder, the concoction was strangely captivating. Harry, down for his usual midnight snack, discovered his father hovering over the crock, and let out an accusing “Aha!” John had to promise to take him out in the car for a driving lesson in exchange for his silence.