Three barrels of sour milk tumbled into the great wooden vat while the prosperous men of Alderton stood beneath the August sun and laughed.
The first barrel had already emptied.
The second had left white clumps floating in a shallow sea of yellowish whey.
Now the wagon driver stood with both arms wrapped around the final oak barrel, hesitating before he tipped it.
The smell alone seemed strong enough to peel paint.
Behind him, the supply merchant pressed a white handkerchief against his nose.
His grown son grinned openly.
The boarding-house owner turned her face away from the vat and muttered something about poisoning the creek.
Only the homesteader did not move.
She stood beside the enormous tub with one hand around a long wooden spoon.
Thirty-one years old.
Dust on her skirt.
Sweat darkening the collar of her work blouse.
Loose brown hair clinging to her forehead.
Eleven days left before a debt she could not presently pay became due.
Nine dollars and eighteen cents hidden inside a small wooden box beneath her bed.
And three barrels of something every person standing in her yard believed was worthless.
The wagon driver looked at her.
“Ma’am?”
She glanced toward the third barrel.
“You can still take this one back,” he said.
The merchant’s son laughed.
“To where? The cemetery?”
His father lowered the handkerchief just enough to smile.
“At least spare yourself the trouble of burying all three.”
The homesteader looked at the sour milk already inside the vat.
Thick white curds.
Thin golden liquid.
Separation.
Something about the sight tugged at a memory so old she could almost smell woodsmoke instead of spoiled milk.
A small Tennessee milk house.
Her grandmother’s hands.
Sleeves rolled past strong forearms.
A copper pot warming beside a stove.
The old woman telling a hungry girl that poor people could not afford the luxury of deciding too quickly that something was useless.
The homesteader pushed the wooden spoon into the vat.
The curds gathered against it.
Not rotten slime.
Not blackened spoilage.
Curd.
Soft.
Acid.
Separated.
Her eyes narrowed.
The wagon driver was still waiting.
“Empty it,” she said.
His eyebrows lifted.
“All of it?”
“All of it.”
The merchant’s son threw back his head.
The boarding-house owner actually stepped farther away.