The fourteenth month went up the hill in a week of thin rain.
Ren made the sachets at the counter, in the day's gaps. Twelve sachets. Each one tied. Each one labelled, before it was tied. The leaf on the racks, behind him, dried through the rain. The stove in the back room kept its small fire. Ren fed the fire between customers. The shelf gave nothing that week that the book needed to name. Its eighteen jars waited, all of the year's first month. Waiting was also a kind of work, for a shelf.
On the dry morning, he took the box up. The path up the hill shone wet. At the office, the box went onto the table's dry end. The clerk turned the sachets out onto a cloth. He read the labels as he turned them. Each label was read whole, before the next sachet moved. The six sachets he chose for the scales were chosen from the cloth's far edge. They went up in a row, and came down agreed. The count was ruled on the file's page, in the clerk's hand. Twelve of twelve. The month stood delivered and accepted.
The money was laid out along the table's edge. One thousand, four hundred and forty. Ren gathered it in tens, off the edge, into the box. The box came down the hill heavier than it went up. The order had run fourteen months now, counting this one. It had never once run on a promise. It ran on sachets, and labels, and scales.
The counting of the winter plan was done at the counter, that night.
It was not done from memory. Ren took the two winter books down. He laid them open, side by side, under the lamp. The first book was the older one. Its pages had the fire winter in them. The second book was last year's. Its pages had the solstice in them. The counts he needed were already written, in both.
He read the first winter first.
In its wave's weeks, one hundred and twenty jars had gone out in all. The counter had given forty-nine of them to the street. Eleven more had gone to the list's guarded names. Sixty had gone out to the hospital cart. The book held each part in its own lines. Door by door, the winter had asked. Jar by jar, the shop had answered. There had been no register line yet, that winter. But the cart's jars were part of the winter's count. The list's jars were part of that count too. Street and list stood together, not apart. One hundred and twenty was the whole count, in a hard winter.
Then he read the second winter.
In its wave's weeks, one hundred and twelve jars had gone out. The street had taken eighty-eight of them, at the counter. The list's first six names stood among those eighty-eight. The register had taken twenty-four, against the line. The register's jars stood inside the winter's count, not beside it. Ren was careful with that, on the page. A jar counted twice was a lie, however small. One hundred and twelve, whole. No more, and no less. Of the two winters, the first was the larger. The difference between them was eight jars. The larger winter was the one to plan by. A plan made from the smaller winter would fail in the larger. Ren had seen plans fail for less.
Then Ren set down what no book could give him.
The two books gave him two whole winters. They did not give him the next one. For the next one, he had to judge. The street and the list together had grown between the winters. They had grown from sixty jars to eighty-eight jars. Sixty was forty-nine at the street, and eleven at the list. Eighty-eight held the street, with its first names inside it. A count that had grown once could grow again. And a winter did not end with its wave. After the wave, the cold weeks still asked, in their quiet way. The shelf would have to carry that spring tail too. No book held that tail as one plain count. Ren would not write it as if one did.
So he added a margin, and named it as one.
Over the larger winter, he set twelve jars more. Twelve was his judgement, not a count from a book. It stood for the street's growth, if growth came again. It stood for the spring tail, carried by the shelf. He wrote the word margin beside it, on the page. Anyone reading later would know what it was. No one would take it for a count.
Then he turned to the year's own source.
A plan was a demand, until the leaf answered it. The leaf of this year was counted already. The beds had given their cuts, and been tallied. The flats had given their part, and been weighed. The bought leaf had come in its parts, at the fair price. Nothing in the year's leaf was a hope. It was racks, and tallies, and leaf still drying. The plan he wrote would be measured against that source. It would not be measured against leaf he wished he had.
He added the count up, on a clean page, in his square hand.
The larger winter, one hundred and twenty. His margin, twelve. The sum was one hundred and thirty-two.
He wrote it as a plan, with its working under it. The working stayed on the page, above the number. Anyone reading the book later would see how it was made. The number was not a charm. It was not a wish, dressed in a count's clothes. It was two winters, read plain, and a margin named as a margin. One hundred and thirty-two jars, sealed and standing, for the winter's edge. That was what the winter would ask, if it asked like its brothers. More than that, the year's leaf would have to answer for. Less than that, and the shelf would meet the cold short.
He let the ink dry before he shut the book. Then he wrote the plan's own line in the day book, in a hand without flourish.
The winter plan, struck from the winters written, and from a judgement. The first winter: one hundred and twenty jars in all. Forty-nine went to the street, at the counter. Eleven went to the list's guarded names. Sixty went to the hospital cart. Street and list are counted together there. The second winter: one hundred and twelve jars in all. Eighty-eight went to the street. The list's first six names stand among those eighty-eight. Twenty-four went against the line. The first winter is the larger, by eight jars. The larger winter stands at one hundred and twenty. Over it, a margin of twelve, named as a margin. Twelve was Ren's judgement, not a count. The street and the list together grew between the winters. The spring tail will be carried by the shelf. The plan for the shelf, at the winter's edge: one hundred and thirty-two jars.
The second bought part of the year came two days later.
It came by cart, from the wholesaler's house, up the road. The carter brought its paper with it. The paper named the leaf, and its season, and its price. The price was the fair price, for leaf of that kind, in that season. One thousand, three hundred. Ren read the paper twice before the bales were touched.
The bales came down in the yard, one by one. Ren opened the first bale at its seam. The leaf inside was whole, and dry, and clean. He opened the second bale at its middle. It was the same leaf, all through. The third bale he opened at its bottom corner. The leaf was the same at the bottom. Then the weighing was done, bale by bale, off the yard's beam. Each bale went up, and was read. Each bale came down, and went up again. The readings agreed. The bundles were counted after, on the bench, by both men. The count agreed with the paper. The count agreed with the beam.
Ren paid from the strongbox, at the back bench. The box had taken the month's money up the hill. It stood, before the paying, at nineteen thousand, one hundred and forty. He counted the price out in hundreds. The carter counted it back, into his tally cloth. One thousand, three hundred, at the fair price. No note was signed. No price was moved, for the size of the buying. The carter took his paper back, marked paid in Ren's hand.
The leaf went into the dry store, in its bales. It would feed the makings still to come. Its tally was chalked on the store's post, under its own mark. Apart from the beds' tally. Apart from the flats' tally too. Three sources, three tallies, one book over them all.
The second making came off the racks in the week's last days.
The leaf had dried to its right weight. It broke clean, when it was bent. It did not bend soft, and it did not dust. Ren took it down rack by rack. The beds' leaf came down first, from its racks. The flats' leaf came down next. The bought leaf came down last, from the third racks. The three leaves went into the making in their tallied parts. The work filled the back room for two days. The jars were filled to the standard. No jar was filled past it, to swell a count. No jar was filled under it, to save leaf.
Then the sealing was done, jar by jar.
The wax was the shop's good wax. Each seal was set, and pressed, and left to harden. Each jar was labelled as it was sealed. The name, on each label. The drying week, on each label. The mark, on each label. The month of the making was the second month of the summer. That was the month the labels named. The jars went onto the back bench in rows, to be counted.
Ren counted them by tens, with a tally stick. Ten, and a notch. Ten, and a notch. At the bench's end, the last row was a short row. Four jars, past the last full ten. He counted the whole bench again, from the other end. The count came back the same. Forty-four jars, sealed and labelled. The flats' measure had held, in the making. The making had given what its tallies had said. Not a jar more, and not a jar less, than the leaf had counted for.
That night the book took the making, and the money, in the shop's ordinary writing.
The fourteenth month stands delivered and accepted: twelve of twelve. In: one thousand, four hundred and forty. The second bought part of the year is in, at the fair price. Paid: one thousand, three hundred. The box stands at seventeen thousand, eight hundred and forty.
The second making is sealed: forty-four jars, of the second month of summer. The shelf stands at sixty-two: eighteen of the year's first month, forty-four of the new making.
Sixty-two jars, behind the counter, in two months' rows. Ahead of them, on the page, a plan stood written at one hundred and thirty-two. Between the shelf and the plan lay the rest of the autumn. More leaf, more makings, more counting. Ren shut the book on the count he had, not the count he planned. The plan would keep. It was written, with its working, where the winter would find it.