The morning began before the shutter, with a knock.
The cold had weight now, in the year's late autumn. It sat on the door's iron. It came in with every caller. The shelf's front was the second month of summer. Four jars of that month would go out before the morning ended. The street's asking had quickened, the way it always quickened before snow.
The first caller was a woman with her shawl pinned tight. Her brother's house had the fever, two doors past the well. Ren set the jar on the counter between them. He told the course while her hands were still cold. The whole course, three days, morning and evening, the cup hot. She warmed as she listened. She said it back with her breath still short from the climb. She paid what the board asked, no more and no less.
The second caller came with the sun, such as it was. A carter's lad, tall for his years, sent by his mother. The jar went to him across the counter's corner, where the wood was worn smooth. He repeated the course to the jar, not to Ren. Morning and evening. Three days. The cup hot. He had it whole. He ran out with the jar held to his chest. Both his arms were round it. It looked as if the street might ask it back.
The third jar went at mid-morning, quietly. Tami took it, the well keeper's sister, for a house on her own lane. She did not sit. She did not stay for talk. The course was told, and she nodded at each part of it, once. Her nodding was her repeating. Ren had known her long enough to read it. The jar left under her arm, and the door's bell settled behind her.
The fourth jar went to a man who apologised for coming. His house had kept the fever off all autumn, he said. It had come in the night, all the same. Ren told him the autumn did not keep houses' promises. Fever came where it came. The course was what the shop could give it. He said the taking back slow and right, and his apology left his face as he said it. He went out straighter than he came in.
Four jars of the second month of summer, gone by mid-morning. The front row had thinned by four. The book would count them at the day's end, with everything else the day held. Ren tied the month's sachets while the counter was quiet. The seventeenth month of the standing order waited in its box, labelled and tied. The hill would have it before noon.
With the box held close, he climbed through a white-edged morning.
Frost held the path's shaded side. It crackled under his boots where the sun had not reached. At the office, the long table had a clear space at its window end. Osamu set the box there, where the cold light fell. He turned the sachets out in the order they had been packed. Top row first, onto the table's bare boards.
He read the labels against the window's light. Each sachet went up in his hand, into the light, before it was read. The name showed through the paper's grain. Then the drying week. Then the mark. He read them aloud, one sachet at a time. No sachet was read in a pile. No label was taken on trust. The light did the holding, and Osamu did the reading.
For the scales, he chose six sachets by a set pattern. The first three of the upper row. The last three of the lower row. They went up one at a time. Osamu watched the beam settle for each one. The beam stopped at the true mark each time. No sachet had to come down and go up again. Osamu wrote the month's line in his file, in his clerk's hand. The twelve labels had been read whole, and had held. The six of his choosing had held at the beam as well. The month was ruled in at the window end of the table, in the cold light.
The money was counted out of the pay box onto the file's cover. One thousand, four hundred and forty. Osamu counted it across, coin by coin. Ren counted it back, into the strongbox, in hundreds. The counts met at the same figure. The box had stood at sixteen thousand, nine hundred and twenty before the climb. It stood at eighteen thousand, three hundred and sixty now. The month's money had its source, as every month's had. Twelve sachets, read at the window, had brought it in. Nothing else had put it there.
Ren came down the hill with the box under his coat. The frost had left the path by then. The street below him smoked from its chimneys, thin and straight, in the still air.
The last making came off the racks in the afternoon.
Ren lifted a handful of leaf from the top rack. He weighed it in his palm, the way he always began. The leaf felt right: dry, light, crisp at the edges. A bent leaf snapped instead of folding. It left no dust on his skin. He carried the racks' leaf down in baskets, two at a time. The back room filled with the work for the rest of the day.
He measured the leaf into each jar with the shop's scoop. Two level scoops. Then the jar went onto the small scale. Then he settled the top by hand. A jar that weighed heavy went back to the bowl. A jar that weighed light took a pinch more. No jar passed the scale unweighed. The standard was met jar by jar, not hoped for.
Before any wax was warmed, Ren wrote the labels out. They lay in a row on the bench, drying in their ink. Each one carried the cure's name in full. Each one carried its drying week. Each one carried the shop's mark. Each one named the month in words. The second month of autumn, of this year. He pasted each label onto its jar while the glass was still cool.
Only then did the old wax go onto the stove. It came from the kept stock, in its dark cakes. Ren melted it low, in the small pot. He carried the pot to the bench, wrapped in a cloth. He tipped a spoon of wax over each jar's mouth. He turned the jar slowly under the spoon. The wax ran round the rim, and stopped there. Each sealed jar went by the open door, to cool. The cool air took the seals as he worked. By the last jar, the first seals stood firm to his touch.
He counted the jars as they were set onto the back bench. Each jar earned one chalk mark on the bench's edge. The marks ran in a single line, mark after mark, with no grouping. Ren counted the marks when the last jar was sealed. He counted them with a fingertip, mark by mark, the way the jars had come. Thirty-seven marks. Thirty-seven jars, sealed and labelled. The last making of the year had given what its leaf had counted for. Not a jar more. The bench's edge kept the chalk line where any eye could check it.
The jars went up to the shelf's back, behind the autumn's first month. The shelf's order held. Oldest at the front. Youngest at the rear. The new row faced the room under its fresh labels. The wax smell hung in the shop till the shutter came down.
In the evening, Ren counted the shelf before the first snow.
The street had shut. The lamps of the shop were lit, both of them. Their light fell warm on the shelf's rows. This count was made where the jars stood, on the shelf itself. No jar was lifted down. No jar was set in a tray. The count travelled, and the jars stayed home.
Ren set a stool at the shelf's front end. The first lamp sat on the stool. Its light covered the front row. He read each label where the jar stood, in a low voice, for his own ear. One finger kept the place along the rims. On the tally sheet, pinned at the shelf's end, he marked the front row's month apart. The second month of summer: thirty-nine jars. The four of the morning were gone from it. The count said so, jar by jar, and the row agreed.
Then he moved the stool to the shelf's middle. The lamp went with it, carried in both hands. Its light covered the middle rows. Label by label, the first month of autumn was read where it stood. Forty-seven jars. None had gone out since its sealing count. The row stood whole, behind the summer month, in its turn.
Then the stool went to the shelf's back. The second lamp was already lit there, on the workbench. Its light covered the new row. The second month of autumn: thirty-seven jars. Label by label, the count of the afternoon was met again on the shelf. The chalk line and the shelf agreed. That was two counts of the new month, by two lights, and they were the same count.
Ren added the tally sheet's three numbers at the counter. Thirty-nine and forty-seven made eighty-six. Eighty-six and thirty-seven made one hundred and twenty-three. He added them again in the other grouping. Forty-seven and thirty-seven made eighty-four. Eighty-four and thirty-nine made one hundred and twenty-three. The jars had been counted once, where they stood. The adding was only arithmetic, and arithmetic could be checked twice without touching a jar.
One hundred and twenty-three jars stood on the shelf. The winter plan stood in the book at one hundred and thirty-two. Nine jars lay between the shelf and the plan. Ren did not write the nine as weather. He did not write it as luck. A gap had an account, or it was not worth writing. The year's tallies held the jar counts, and the flats' measure. The year had sealed more jars than the plan asked. But jars had gone out, all year, before the snow. The plan had been struck from other winters. The shelf was counted from this one. He wrote the account out plain, from the tallies and the day book.
That night, Ren wrote the day up in the book, plain and whole.
The seventeenth month stands delivered and accepted: twelve of twelve. In: one thousand, four hundred and forty. The box stands at eighteen thousand, three hundred and sixty.
Four jars of the second month of summer went to the street this morning. The last making is sealed: thirty-seven jars, of the second month of autumn.
The shelf, counted jar by jar at the shop's lamps, before the first snow. The second month of summer: thirty-nine. The first month of autumn: forty-seven. The second month of autumn: thirty-seven. In all, one hundred and twenty-three jars.
The winter plan stands at one hundred and thirty-two. The shelf stands nine short of it. The account of the nine is written with the count. By their leaf, the year's sealed jars stand thus. The flats' counted leaf gave twenty-eight, as it was measured. The beds and the bought leaf gave the rest between them. In all, one hundred and sixty-three jars were sealed in the year. Of those, forty had gone before the snow. Thirty-five had been served in their turns. Five had been burned at their seals, for cracked seals. One hundred and sixty-three, less forty, leaves one hundred and twenty-three. The plan was struck from other winters, in their counts. The shelf is this year's count, read jar by jar. The nine is the difference between them.
No jar is written here that the leaf did not make.
Outside, the air had the smell snow has before it falls. The street was dark and very quiet. On the shelf, one hundred and twenty-three jars waited in their months' order. The plan would keep, written at its number. The shelf would meet the winter at its own. Between them lay nine jars that did not exist. The book had written the difference plain. That was the whole of it.