You never know entirely what to expect, working a new team, but when I brought them home, Varia talked to them awhile, and they worked out real well. She was always good with horses, riding or handling them. I started plowing that same day.
I even got a job milking eight Brown Swiss cows for a neighbor, morning and evening. Given the hard times, it paid pretty decent—fifty cents a day—and each morning I took home a big jar of milk and some fresh butter, worth another twenty cents or so.
It also meant I got up at four every morning, to eat before going to Morath’s to milk, and finished up there at seven or so in the evening. Between milkings I walked a furrow behind the team all day, keeping the plow where it belonged. So I made a point of being in bed before nine, and I’m talking about in bed for the purpose of sleeping.
Nonetheless, we had time to sit around a little before bedtime, and the very first night, Varia told me she wanted to lay a spell on me. Naturally I kind of backed off from that. “What for?” I asked her.
“So you’ll understand me better.”
“Hon,” I said, “I understand you pretty well already.”
She didn’t say anything for a minute, just sort of chewed on her lower lip as if she was thinking. Finally she said, “Why do you suppose the Macurdy family was chosen to father my children?”
I stared at her without knowing a thing to say.
“Where do you think the Macurdies came from?” she asked.
“What d’you mean? From Kentucky, way back when James Madison was president.”
“And before Kentucky?”
It seemed to me right then that I was going to learn something I didn’t want to know. I shook my head. “Grampa said we’re Scotch-Irish. In school they told us that means from Scotland by way of Ireland.”
“Let me put a spell on you, and afterward I’ll tell you. It will make it easier for both of us.”
I squirmed in my chair. “Will it take long? I thought maybe the two of us could go to bed early.”
She laughed, the same young-girl laugh I’d heard since I was a little boy. “It won’t take long. And it’s as good as an hour’s sleep anyway.”
It took me half a minute to say yes, but I knew right away I’d do it. I mean, I’d trusted her so far, and she’d trusted me, and we’d bound ourselves together till death us do part. And what was I scared of? She’d never do me any harm. Besides, it seemed to me she’d spelled me that night she’d taken me to her house, and that had worked out just fine. “Okay,” I told her, “I’ll do it.”
“Thank you, darling,” she said, and pulled her chair up closer. “Now look in my eyes.”
That was always easy to do, but this time was different. It was like they drew me right in, and I went limp, but after what seemed like ten, fifteen seconds I came back to normal again. “Sorry it didn’t work,” I said, thinking she’d be disappointed. But she laughed.
“Look at the clock.”
I looked, and my mouth must have dropped open. We’d sat down at ten to eight, and now it was a quarter after. “What happened?” I asked.
“You and I did what was necessary. Told your body not to get old; that it’s got the ylvin genes. And got you ready to start learning.” She came over and knelt down beside me, and kissed me sweeter’n honey. Old Junior started to swell up right away, and Varia began to purr. “Do you still want to go to bed early?” she asked me.
We both of us stood up then, her laughing, and off we went. I didn’t get to sleep by nine that night, but I felt fine when she woke me up at four. I’d been dreaming up a storm, and none the worse for it. Part of the dream was being a hundred years old and still young. Strange dream, but not near as strange as it would have been if I wasn’t married to Varia.