Summer came in with dry heat on the yard stones.
Behind the shop, the beds had lost their spring thinness. The feverleaf had grown thick and dark. It gave off a sharp smell when brushed.
This was the second year of these beds. Ren had planted them and cut them once before. A second year asks a plain question. Does the ground give again, as well as it gave?
The book held the spring count of the beds. Ren had read the rows one by one then. Fourteen rows, counted where the shoots were thin. He opened the book at that page before he cut. The page held fourteen lines. Each line held one row.
He took the knife and the baskets into the yard. He would cut against the page, row by row. Growth that is not counted is only hope. This shop did not sell hope.
He began at the row nearest the back door.
The knife went low, under the leaf, the way his grandmother had taught. Cut too high, and the plant gives less next time. Cut too low, and it may not come back. His hand knew the place by now.
Each row filled its own shallow basket. He did not mix the baskets as he worked. When a row was cut, he carried its basket inside. The basket went onto the beam scale in the back room. The beam settled, and he read the weight. Then he wrote the weight beside that row's line.
The first rows weighed heavy. The middle rows weighed less, where the spring shoots had been thin. The book took both kinds without surprise. A count that only keeps the good rows is a lie. The page kept all fourteen.
Halfway through the morning, sweat ran into his eyes. He wiped it on his sleeve and cut on. Leaf cut in hard heat wilts fast. Wilted leaf dries uneven on the racks.
By the time the yard bell rang the hour, seven baskets had been weighed. Seven lines held their weights in the book. Seven rows still waited in the yard, uncut. The count and the page agreed so far.
The counter bell called him before the eighth row.
A woman from the lane by the dyers had come in. Her husband had burned two nights with a plain fever. It had not climbed. He kept water down, and his mind stayed clear.
Ren asked his short questions and heard plain answers. Then he went to the front of the shelf. The front held the oldest month, by the rule he had written. Four jars of the second summer month remained there. Their life ended in these first days of summer. The rule said serve them first.
He set one jar in the woman's hands. He said the taking in a new order, facts first. Three days make the course. The cup goes down hot, morning and evening. If the heat climbs, the hill, and no waiting.
She repeated the course back at the doorway. Then she carried the jar home against her hip. The book took the jar in its line. The second summer month held three jars now.
Before the light changed, a carter came for his mother. Her fever had come back after work in the sun. Ren asked the same questions in a shorter form. The answers were plain again, and low.
The second jar of the old month went out with him. He set it deep in his cart, in straw, away from the wheel. The book took that line too. Two jars of the month remained on the shelf.
No fire had touched this month yet. Ren thought of another month as he read the lines. Three jars of an older summer had burned in the spring. They had waited too long at a shelf's back. These jars would not wait.
He cut the eighth row after the counter quieted.
The work went slower in the afternoon heat. Each basket met the scale. Each weight went beside its row's line.
A boy came in with his sleeve over his mouth. He had been sent by his older sister. She lay hot at home and could not come herself. Ren asked the boy the questions slowly. The boy answered what he knew and said what he did not.
The third jar of the second summer month went into his basket. He held it with both hands, under the cloth. He gave the course back in pieces, and Ren mended the pieces. Three days. Morning and evening. The cup hot. Then the boy went out, walking as if the jar were full of water.
One jar of the month remained. It sat at the front of the shelf, alone. Its label faced the room, the way labels should. Ren left it there and went back to the rows.
The last rows came off as the light went long. The final basket went onto the scale. The beam settled, and he read the weight aloud. Then he wrote it beside the fourteenth line.
Fourteen rows, cut. Fourteen baskets, weighed. Fourteen lines, filled in the book. The count from the spring had been a count of growth. Now the same count held weights instead. The beds had given leaf in every row. Some rows had given more than others. None had given nothing.
The cut leaf could not lie in its baskets overnight.
Ren carried the baskets to the drying racks. The racks are the flat frames of slats in the back room. Leaf dries there in thin layers, with air under it. Thick layers turn in the middle. His grandmother's rule was plain on that too.
He spread the first baskets with both hands. The leaves went down one layer deep, edge to edge. He left the thin rows apart from the heavy rows. Each rack took the leaf of known rows.
The work filled the racks from the wall outward. Green covered the slats, rack after rack. The back room smelled of cut leaf and warm wood. Air moved through the room from the yard door. It would move all night, if the door stayed barred open a hand's width.
This leaf was a making in progress, nothing more. It was not jars. It was not a count on the shelf. Ren wrote it in the book as leaf on racks. A shop that counts green leaf as jars lies early. The jars would be counted when they were sealed. That day belonged to a later page.
The last jar of the second summer month went out next morning.
An old man came in leaning on his daughter's arm. His fever was plain and his breathing was easy. He answered one question himself, quite clearly. Then he let his daughter answer the rest.
Ren set the jar in the daughter's hands. He said the course while she listened with her head tipped. She was the one who would pour the cups. The words belonged to the hands that pour.
She repeated them once, without a fault. Then they went out together, slow on the step. The book took the jar, and the month closed in the writing.
The second summer month of the old shelf was done. Every jar of it had gone to a house that asked. Not one jar had burned. Not one jar had passed its life in a house. The month had left by the front of the shelf, in order.
He moved the next month forward on the shelf. The first autumn month came to the front, thirteen jars. Its life ran to the first weeks of autumn. It had time, but it would not be left to wait. The rule did not change with the month.
Summer's asking did not stop at the old month's end.
In the days after the cutting, the street came as it comes in heat. Fevers rose after long work under the sun. Houses sent their quick walkers to the counter. Each asking got the questions first. Each plain fever got a jar from the front.
Four jars of the first autumn month went out in those days.
One went to a house above the well lane. Its walker gave the course back at the counter, word for word. One went with a mother who had nursed two children through it. She listened once and nodded at each part. One went down the street in a covered pail, for a grandfather. The fourth went to a young worker who came himself, grey with heat. He drank water at the counter before he left.
The book took each jar in its line. No line carried a price in these pages. The street's coin followed the counter's own way, as always. The strongbox and its hill lines were not touched here. This was the shelf's count, and the shelf's count was enough.
By the end of those days, the racks had changed. The green had darkened and curled at the edges. Ren turned the layers with flat hands each morning. He turned them gently, so the dry edges did not break. Broken leaf still works, but whole leaf keeps better.
That evening he read the shelf the way the book read it.
The second summer month held nothing. It had gone out whole, and the book said so. The first autumn month held nine jars. The second autumn month held sixteen jars. They sat behind the front month, in their order. The whole shelf held twenty-five jars.
Behind him, the racks held the year's first leaf. It was drying, and it was not counted in jars. The beds outside lay cut and bare in their rows. Fourteen rows, weighed and written, waited to grow again. They would answer again before the autumn. A second cut belongs to a later page too.
Ren shut the book on a count that agreed with itself.
The first cut of the second year is in. Fourteen rows cut, fourteen baskets weighed, the weights written by their rows. The leaf is on the racks, in thin layers, by its rows. It is not counted in jars.
The second summer month is out whole. Its last four jars went to the street in the first days of summer, before the end of their life. None burned. None was served after its life.
Four jars of the first autumn month went to the street after them. The shelf stands at twenty-five: nine of the first autumn month, sixteen of the second. No hill money moved.
Outside, the heat stayed in the yard stones after dark. The cut beds gave off the smell of sap and dust. Inside, green darkened slowly on the racks. Summer had begun with a knife, a scale, and a shelf that emptied in order.