The fact that Pearl, the mayor, was favoring her left for leg more than usual on cold mornings, which turned out to matter later. Clara's bread had developed a local reputation by the time November arrived, partly because Benny had taken it upon himself to tell everyone at the feed store about it, and partly because it actually deserved a reputation. Margaret on one of her increasingly regular visits had suggested in the tone saw someone making an observation rather than a suggestion that Clara's bread would sell if someone were selling it. Clara had looked at her for a long moment and said, "Would you buy it? " "I would," Margaret said. "Then I need to know who else would. " Margaret had provided a list of names by the following Tuesday.
ClariS had studied it, identified the three most reliable buyers on it, and asked Calder about using a portion of the flower supply for a trial run. Calder said yes. The trial run produced four loaves that sold at the dry good store in 2 hours. Clara came home that evening and put the money on the kitchen table and looked at it with an expression that was carefully composed, but underneath which there was something that had not been there before, something like the first real evidence that she was going to be okay, not because someone was taking care of her, but because she could take care of herself. She picked the money back up and gave half of it to Calder for the flower and kept the other half.
What will you do with it? Nelly asked. Save it, Clara said. For what? Clara thought about it.
I don't know yet, she said. But I'll know when I see it. Nelly accepted this with the faith of an 11-year-old who had decided that Clara's judgment was worth trusting, which it usually was. The twins had by November essentially taken over the household accounting. This had happened gradually and without anyone quite deciding it should happen.
Rose had simply begun writing down the provisions expenditures in a margin of the household log, and Ruth had organized the record. And within two weeks they had a system that tracked everything coming in and going out of the ranch with a precision that occasionally made made Calder slightly uncomfortable about his own prior recordkeeping which had been loose at best. Jonah had with no formal agreement and without anyone quite realizing it had been decided become the one who fed and checked Pearl every morning. He also by November had December eating from his hand, which Eddie regarded with the complicated pride of someone whose idea has been successfully built upon by someone else. Benny remained a force of nature.
He had been assigned officially to messenger duties, carrying word between the house and whoever was in the barn or the fields, and he performed this function with tremendous enthusiasm and a complete inability to deliver any message in under 3 minutes, regardless of its simplicity. Because Benny's messages always came with context, background, and at least two follow-up questions. He had also, without apparent effort, become the person in Red Hollow that everyone knew. This had happened because Calder had begun taking him on supply runs to town, partly because Benny was useful for carrying things, and partly because leaving Benny at the ranch on Sufi Zmpar for an entire afternoon was an undertaking that required coordination. In town, Benny talked to everyone.
The blacksmith, the woman at the postal counter, the three old men who sat outside the barber shop, regardless of weather. He talked to them all, and they talked back because Benny had the rare quality of being genuinely interested in what people said to him. And people can always tell the difference. By mid November, Calder was receiving more nods on the main street of Red Hollow than he had in 9 years of living 5 mi outside it. Some of those nods were from people who still thought the whole enterprise was reckless.
But the nods were there. Then the storm came. It started on a Tuesday evening in late November, which was earlier than anyone had expected for a storm of that type. The sky had been wrong all day. The wrong color, the wrong weight, and Calder had spent the afternoon moving things inside and securing what could be secured.