On previous days she had seen him use a pinch bar to remove the few remaining cut nails from charred boards and timbers, and carefully straighten each nail with a hammer and put it into an old bucket. Then he had gathered the wood debris against a leather apron that extended from his upper chest down to his thighs, and laboriously arranged the pieces in neat piles on the ground, each parallel to the others. Only after the ground within the foundation was cleared and swept smooth had the boy prepared his garden plot in what had been the backyard. He had cut down the weeds with a scythe, broken the ground with a pick and mattock, raked it level, and laid off rows with a hoe. He used two stakes and a taut string to make each furrow perfectly straight before moving to the next one. Now he was planting small pieces of white potato from a bucket in regularly spaced hills almost exactly a foot apart. The girl was fascinated by the care, persistence, and precision with which he labored, totally absorbed in his work. She noticed that there were no wasted movements of his agile hands.

Now she made a deliberate decision to move a few inches out into the open, and the boy looked up and saw her, she presumed for the first time. For a few seconds, they both seemed uncomfortable, not knowing what to say. She finally made a remark that she had carefully rehearsed: “It’s interesting that those potatoes are akin to tomatoes.”

Ethan, somewhat aggravated to be observed without knowing it, replied, “That’s foolish. A potato grows under the ground, and tomatoes on a bush.”

The girl thought for a while and said, “Then maybe my father’s book is wrong.”

“What kind of book?”

“It describes the different food plants produced in Europe.”

Ethan was intrigued, but reluctant to continue talking with a stranger. He said, with something of a smile, “Well, you’d better take another look.”

He turned to continue his work, and when he glanced up again, the girl was gone. This was one of the few times in his life that he had spoken directly with any girl other than his two sisters. He figured that she was probably about his age, since she was larger than his sisters. She was not unattractive, but dark eyebrows gave her face a somewhat brooding appearance. He was pleased that he had been able to correct her mistake, hoped that he had not hurt her feelings, and then forgot about her completely. He had no premonition that they would spend a good portion of their lives together.