A NEW HOPE

A light, grey snow was falling as Emily looked out the window. It had been warm that day. She'd sat out on the back steps and tilted her face to the sun, just to let the burdens slip from her shoulders for a few moments...

Now it was cold, the snow thick on the ground. With a sigh she turned from the window. The kitchen was dark and unwelcoming, and her brother's face looked anxious as he peered around the corner.

"Emmy, it's cold."

"I've let the fire go out," Emily replied, her voice sharp with anger with herself rather than eleven-year-old Danny. She flashed him a quick, regretful smile. "Sorry, Danny."

He shrugged as if it didn't matter, but Emily knew how afraid he really was inside. Afraid that she'd leave the way Pa had, afraid she'd die like their mother.

She jerked on her boots and wrapped her scarf tightly around her neck. It wasn't fair, she thought not for the first time as she headed outside to their dwindling woodpile. It wasn't fair for life to have played this trick on them. Within the space of a few weeks, their mother had died and their father had left to find work out West.

Emily still remembered his guilty smile as he said goodbye. "I'll write, and send money. When you've enough for train tickets, you can join me. Promise, Em."

"But how will I manage?" Emily asked in disbelief. What she really wanted to ask was, 'what about my dreams?' She was eighteen and had been planning on attending Queens University on scholarship that autumn, something she could hardly do with Danny and the farm to take care of.

"You'll be fine," her father said bracingly. "And I can make good money out West. We'll be together again soon. Before you know it, even."

And then he was gone. That had been three months ago, and there hadn't been a single letter--much less any money--since then. Emily reassured Danny that he'd write, but in her heart she felt differently. Her father was gone.

She reconciled herself to that hard fact, but inside she still mourned. How could their father leave them like this?

"He's not a strong man," Ma had whispered on her sickbed. She'd known she was dying, and she'd wanted to ready Emily for what was ahead. Even in the midst of her numb fear, Emily recognised that. "He might seem strong, but inside... he's afraid, Emily. You mustn't blame him, whatever happens. He does the best he can. And you and Danny will be all right... you're strong."

But I don't want to be strong, Emily thought as she piled logs into the wood basket. I want someone to lean on. Someone to be strong for me.

Of course, the other farmers in the area had offered help. Life was hard in this part of Ontario, as hard as the rocky ground the government had promised was rich and fertile. Hard as the Depression which had knocked most farmers even farther back, already into debt for tools and tractors, just to eke out a miserable living.

Emily accepted some help--a meal here and there, her neighbour, Mr. Young's offer to haul wood. But she knew she couldn't live on charity forever, and something had to give. But what?

"There, Danny." Emily knelt in front of the woodstove, prodding the logs and paper to a comforting blaze. "There's stew left over from last night. Shall we have that?"

Danny nodded, even though Emily knew he didn't like mutton. Neither did she, but they had little choice. Even though it was late March, it still felt like winter, and fresh vegetables and meat were a long way off.

"It's a sugaring snow out there," Danny said with a hopeful smile. "We're going to make maple syrup, aren't we?"

Emily's heart sank even as she nodded firmly. "Of course. We always do, don't we?" The thought of tapping dozens of trees, collecting sap all day and then boiling it down... it was heavy work for three people, how could she and Danny do it alone?

Somehow. They would manage somehow.

That evening, after Danny was in bed, Emily took the lantern out to the sugarhouse. It was little more than a shed, with one small wax paper-covered window and a tin roof. She stood inside, gazing at the piles of tin buckets her mother had scoured out last spring and readied for the next syruping season. A bucket of spiles and a hand drill hung by the door. The old stove was raked clean, the boiling pan ready to be filled.

And yet all those buckets... Emily sighed. The money the syrup brought in, sold at market, would be a great help, but her arms ached at the thought of drilling hundreds of holes into the hard bark of the maple trees.

Outside a wolf howled, a lonely, haunting sound. Some frozen twigs clattered onto the tin roof of the sugarhouse.

"Please God," Emily whispered. "Please help us."

The next morning was warm again, and so Emily decided it was time to drill. The syrup season was short, and she didn't dare miss even one day of good sap running.

Danny wanted to stay home from school, but Emily insisted that he go. "Your education is far too important to waste," she said sternly. "I mean it, Danny."

With a grimace, Danny grabbed his satchel and flung it across his back. Emily watched him walk disconsolately down the road. It was a two mile walk to the Youngs, who drove him and their boy Joseph in their pickup truck to the schoolhouse in Denbigh.

The first tree took her twenty minutes to drill. She was out of breath, hot and sweaty, and her arm ached.

"One tree done," she said resolutely, and pushed the spile in, hanging the bucket from it.

Five trees later, Emily wanted to weep. She'd always helped with syrup making, had gladly collected the sap, joyfully poured syrup into bottles and a little onto snow to make hard candy. But her father had always drilled the trees.

"Man's work, Em," he'd said cheerfully when she'd insisted once on being allowed to drill. Now she knew why he'd called it such.

The memory of his cheerful smile made Emily's eyes sting. Why had he left? How could he not come back?

She sat down in the snow, heedless of the cold wetness on her backside, and dropped her head into her hands.

"I can't do this," she said aloud.

"I bet you can."

Emily's head jerked up and her face turned scarlet as she saw the man standing by the sugarhouse. He looked vaguely familiar, dressed in wool trousers and a heavy coat.

"Who are you?" she demanded in an unsteady voice.

"Emily, don't you remember me?" The man grinned, a cheeky smile that had Emily's lips suddenly twitching in return.

"Sam?"

He nodded. "I knew you remembered. How could you forget how I used to pull your pigtails in school?"

"I tied your shoelaces together," she retorted, scrambling to her feet and brushing off snow.

"I remember."

"You're at university now, aren't you?" Sam Young, their neighbour's son, had left six years ago, first for high school in Ottawa and then university. He came home for holidays, but Emily hadn't seen him.

Mr. Young was proud of his boy, always showing people his letters and school marks, even his graduation photograph. Yet Emily wouldn't have recognised this smiling young man from the blurry picture.

"I am," Sam confirmed. "At Queen's. I've two more years after this. I came home for spring vacation, to help Dad."

"That was nice of you," Emily said, trying to sound sincere but hearing the bitterness edging her words.

"Dad told me what happened to your folks, Em," Sam said quietly. "I'm sorry."

"So am I. But thank you." She looked down, willing the tears to go away. They would if she didn't blink.

After a moment Sam cleared his throat. "You drilling today?"

Emily glanced at the hand drill she'd flung into the snow. "Yes..."

"Why don't I help?" He held up one hand to stem her objection. "Dad's got three men drilling with him today. Guess how many drills we have?"

"Four?" Emily guessed, a smile in her eyes.

"Three. Dad just watches." Sam grinned. "As for me... I'd rather be here, where I can actually be useful."

"All right," Emily agreed, "I can't deny I need the help. And I'll give you lunch in return."

"There isn't a fairer deal than that."

They drilled all morning--or Sam did, and Emily handed him the spiles. All the while he chatted easily about university and life in Kingston.

"I miss it here though," Sam said with a rueful smile. "Even though most people here seem to want to get away as quick as they can. There's a peace here--a quietness--I can hardly hear myself think in Kingston, for all the noise."

"What will you do when you graduate?" Emily asked.

"Dad wants me to return to the farm, and I'm of a mind to do it. I'm studying economics at Queen's, and there are ways I could help in making the farm more productive." His face grew somber. "It's not an easy load, living here, is it? The land is more rock than dirt, the cold gets right into your bones, but it's home. I think it's where I belong."

Emily nodded, a lump in her throat. If only she could have the same kind of peace about her future.

"What about you?" Sam asked once they were back inside, Emily dishing up more leftover stew. At least there was fresh bread to go with it. "Are you going to stay on the farm?"

Emily tried to smile. "I don't have much choice, do I? Not with Danny to look after."

"Dad mentioned you have a scholarship to Queen's. That's impressive, you know. Where did you do your high school?"

"Correspondence course." Emily thought of the many nights she'd spent, writing essays by the light of the oil lamp, well after everyone else had gone to bed. The acceptance letter from Queen's had come just after Christmas, just after Pa had left. The joy in receiving it had been laced with sorrow, for she knew even as she scanned the words on the page she could never accept the offer.

"You must be proud," Sam said quietly.

"Yes..." Emily still had the letter in the top of her bureau. "But I can't really go to university with Danny to think of."

Sam was thoughtful. "He could board with my parents, if you really wanted. He's almost the same age as my brother Joseph. Might be good for them both, for a little while."  

A fierce hope lit Emily's insides for a moment, then died. She shook her head. "I couldn't leave him, not after..." she bit her lip. "Besides, what about money for books and things? The scholarship doesn't cover that, and we can't just let the farm fall to ruin..."

"If you really want something, you'll go after it."

"That's a fine thing for you to say!" Emily cried, dropping the ladle back into the stew pot with a clang. "You've had it easy, haven't you? A big, working farm, hired men to help, two parents who want to see you at university! It's not quite that easy on this side of the mountain."

Sam was unruffled. "I didn't say it was. But do you want to sit and feel sorry for yourself, or do you want to do something about it?"

"I can't," Emily muttered, looking down. "It's too hard."

Sam's hand covered her own, and Emily was mortified to see a tear splash down on his wrist. She blinked--another one fell, and then another. She tried to pull her hand away, but suddenly Sam was enveloping in her hug, and she pressed her face against the rough wool of his coat, the tears falling fast now.

Sam didn't say anything, he just held her, and Emily was thankful. She couldn't bear hearing how it would be all right when nothing felt like it would be all right ever again. After a moment, she stepped back, sniffing.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to fall all to pieces."

"I don't blame you, with what you've had coming your way. I'm sorry if I sounded like a... well, an arrogant fathead." Sam smiled crookedly. "I just couldn't bear for you to be back here, buried alive in this farm."

"I thought you wanted to come back here!" Emily said with what she hoped passed for a smile. "I thought it was home."

"I do, but because I choose to, not because I've had my choices taken from me. Let us help, Emily. Let me help."

"You barely know me," Emily protested. "I have hardly seen you for six years..."

"So? I knew you as a child and I'm getting to know you now. And I see in you the same burning drive I had. I went to Queen's because there's a whole world out there, and I wanted to see it--taste just a little bit of it--before I came home. You want that too, don't you?"

"Yes," Emily whispered. "Yes."

"Then it will happen," Sam said simply. "We'll make it happen."

The next few days passed in a blur as Emily set about making maple syrup. There was little time to talk to Sam or Danny about any possible plans, for all their time was spent collecting sap and managing the farm.

Sam showed up everyday, joking that no one wanted him at home as he just got in the way, and anyway he couldn't resist Emily's cooking.

"That's nonsense," Emily replied, but she blushed and gave him fresh gingerbread after lunch.

"You'll have enough for a boildown," Sam announced in the late afternoon. The snow was soft and slushy, the sky a deep pewter. "If you do it tonight, you can collect again in the morning."

Emily shivered. "I never liked being in the sugarhouse at night. Pa always did it on his own. Except one time--" she stopped abruptly, her expression shuttered.

"What one time?" Sam asked gently, and she let out a breath.

"One time he let me stay with him. We roasted peanuts on the fire and he told ghost stories. I was wonderfully scared, of course, but he made it safe." Emily wrapped her arms around herself. "I liked it then, that one time."

"Do you think he'll write?" Sam asked after a moment.

"Now? After all these months? No." She gazed at him bleakly. "I can't let myself hope, it hurts too much."

Sam nodded, a grim look in his eyes. "I'll stay in the sugarhouse, if you like. I can run back home and tell them where I am, and be back before it's even come to a boil."

"I couldn't..."

"You could," Sam said firmly. "Let me help, Emily."

"Why do you want to help me so much?" she asked suddenly, and Sam actually flushed.

"I told you why. And, well, I care about you." He looked almost surly as he squared his shoulders defensively. "More than you might want me to."

Emily found herself looking anywhere but at Sam. "I don't know if that's true," she whispered. "about me not wanting to, I mean."

Fortunately, Danny came trudging up the road then, for Emily wasn't sure what either of them would say or do next. She started forward gratefully. "All right, then," she called back over her shoulder. "You can stay the night... in the sugarhouse!"

Sam grinned. "That's exactly where I want to be."

Emily hardly slept that night, thinking of Sam so close, and what he said. What did he mean exactly, saying he cared? She wished she'd had the gumption to ask him to clarify that particular statement. As it was, she was left tossing restlessly in her bed, wondering what the future could possibly hold.

Emily was awake and standing by the backdoor as dawn streaked across the sky. A deer's footprints led across the pristine snow, towards the creek, and smoke billowed cheerfully from the chimney of the sugarhouse.

Slipping on her coat and boots, Emily hurried outside. She hesitated by the door to the sugarhouse, then after knocking once, pushed it open.

Sam sat on the cot, his hair unruly, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He looked up as she entered and smiled.

"Good morning. Sleep well?"

"Yes, thank you," Emily lied, suddenly feeling shy. "And you?"

"Oh, as well as can be expected." He nodded towards the boiling pan. "You can take it inside and finish it off there. I'll just pour it into buckets."

His eyes on the stream of thick, toffee-coloured syrup, Sam asked, "have you thought anymore about what I said?"

"Which bit?" Emily asked as her breath caught in her throat.

"Going to Queen's." Sam's laughing eyes met her own, and Emily blushed to realise he knew what she'd been thinking of. "I talked to Dad and he's willing to have Danny stay. Ma is thrilled, she was getting lonely with just Joseph at home."

"And what about money, and the farm?" Emily asked.

Sam put down the buckets, his fists on his hips. "Emily, are you determined to think everything is impossible?"

"Of course not!" Emily protested. "It's just..."

"Just what?"

"I'm afraid," she said simply. "Afraid to hope."

Sam was silent for a moment, compassion softening his features. "I can't do all the work for you," he said at last. "It wouldn't be right. But you could talk to my father about him taking over the farm while you're gone. He'd be of a mind to do it, and you could have the land back when you graduated... or sell it to him outright."

Emily shook her head. "I don't know..." Even though the farm was a millstone around her neck, she couldn't quite face giving it up.

Sam shrugged. "As you like. But just because some things aren't easy, doesn't mean they're impossible."

"Thank you for that bit of advice," Emily said wryly. "I'll think about it," she added. "I'll talk to your father."

It wasn't until the syrup season was over that Emily made good on her promise. She eyed the rows of syrup bottles, glinting amber in the spring sunshine, and smiled.

Sam had helped nearly every day, although he'd seemed a bit remote, keeping up a friendly banter and no more. Emily felt a little pang of loss at the thought of him returning to Queen's the next day, especially as he'd spoken no more about how he cared. Emily sighed. She couldn't blame him for holding himself aloof when she seemed unable to come to any decision about her own future.

"Are we selling it all at market?" Danny asked from behind her. "Or can we save some for ourselves?"

Emily knew the price the syrup fetched, and how much the money was needed. The money from the syrup would barely cover their debts as it was. Still, she fetched one bottle down from the shelf and handed it to Danny with a smile.

"Pancakes for breakfast, I think."

Over fluffy pancakes dripping with golden syrup, Emily asked Danny if he would like living with the Youngs.

"I don't know if it could work," she finished dubiously, "and I'd come home for holidays, of course. It wouldn't be like..."

"Like when Pa left?" Danny finished quietly, and Emily nodded. "He'll write to us," Danny said with conviction. "I know you think he won't, Emmy, but he will. And anyway, I know you wouldn't leave and not come back. Just like Pa won't."

Tear stung Emily's eyes. "I hope you're right, Danny," she said. "I truly do."

"I'd like to live with the Youngs," Danny offered shyly. "It would almost like being part of a real family again, wouldn't it?"

Emily thought of Sam, and nodded. "Yes. Yes, it would."

That afternoon, Emily walked to the Youngs. The sight of their peaceful, prosperous farm no longer filled her with bitterness over their own small, struggling lot.

Mr. Young saw her coming over the hill, and met her at the front gate. "I thought you might come for a visit one of these days," he said, a twinkle in his eyes. "Sam's out in the barn."

"Actually, it's you I've come to see," Emily said, and Mr. Young nodded.

"Come inside. Mrs. Young has boiled up some coffee, and I fetched your post from Denbigh this morning. I was going to have Sam bring it over to you anyway."

Half an hour and two cups of coffee later, the deal was done. Mrs. Young handed Emily her letter.

"All the way from British Columbia," she said, peering at the postmark. "Who do you know out there?"

"British Columbia?" Emily repeated in incredulous hope. "Excuse me...."

Outside a warm wind was blowing. Emily skipped to avoid the growing mud puddles. When she reached the shelter of a large maple tree, she opened the letter.

Dear Emily, her father wrote, I'm sorry it has taken me so long to write...

A bank draft fell from the envelope, and Emily held it in disbelief, blinking back tears.

"Emily?" Sam stood a few feet away, looking uncertain. "Are you all right?"

"Yes. Yes." Emily smiled. "He wrote," she explained, swiping at the tears on her cheeks. "Pa wrote. He's at a logging camp out West, and he hasn't forgotten us. He wants to come back, as soon as he'd made enough money. He realises..." her voice choked. "He realises he misses us," she finished. "After Ma died, he couldn't face it... life on the farm. But he knows it's where he belongs."

Sam smiled. "That's good news, then," he said gently. "And where do you belong?"

"Here," Emily said, and Sam's smile faltered. "Eventually, that is. Your father has agreed to take on our farm for four years, until I come back from Queen's. He can have the profit till I return, and I'm sure he'll do a better job keeping it than I ever could."

"And Danny?"

"He'll live here. He's thrilled to bits."

Sam's smile was teasing. "And what about money for books, and dresses, and oh, I don't know, hairbows?"

Emily grinned and held up the bank draft. "Pa," she said simply, and then walked into Sam's arms.

After he'd kissed her thoroughly, Sam looked down at her. "I wanted to give you time to think, on your own," he said. "I didn't want to pressure you into a decision. Are you sure you want to go to Queen's?"

"Absolutely."

"Even if I'm there, never leaving you alone?" Sam grinned.

"All the better," Emily said. She smiled as she admitted softly, "I'm not afraid to hope anymore."

"Me neither," Sam said, and he drew Emily towards him so her head rested against his shoulder.

Above them the maple tree's branches shifted in the breeze, and the first buds of springs began to blossom.

THE END

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Copyright © 2008 by Katharine Swartz