A Thousand Never Evers by Shana Burg Page A

my uncle just to look at those keys, which is how come he’s staring at his work boots.
    “Y’all meet me at the garden cabin,” Mr. Mudge tells us. Then he hoists himself back on the tractor and chug-a-lugs off.
    While us field hands march across the farm, we can see Mr. Mudge already smoothed over the land with his chopper, heaped up the dirt so it’s ready for planting, and numbered all the rows with orange flags.
    When we all get to the garden cabin, Mr. Mudge says, “As you know, I’m donating the cost of your labor. There’s a pitcher of water round the other side of the porch. Feel free. And Bump, I’ll need you to set the attachments on my tractor.”
    Uncle Bump nods.
    Mr. Mudge points to the trays of baby cabbage, kale, and collards napping in the shade on the cabin porch, and he assigns the rows. Then we get started.
    It’s hot as blue blazes out here! When I crouch down to hole the land, I squeeze the warm earth in my fists—the warm earth that’s supposed to belong to me. By the time I’ve got only two rows left to hole, the sun’s been up a few hours and my shirt’s soaked through. I head over to the cabin porch, where rickety Mr. Washington huddles by the pitcher, drinking water.
    Mr. Washington runs Mr. Mudge’s stable of cows and pigs. He wipes his sweat with a handkerchief. “It’s hot enough to melt cheese,” he tells me.
    “Sure is!” I say.
    “You’re lucky you’re young,” he says.
    “Reckon so,” I say, and help myself to two cups of water.
    As soon as I finish drinking, I fill up two more cups for Mama. But on my way across the rows, I pass Lydia Cook. Lydia’s in the first grade, and just from the look of her, one thing’s clear: when it comes to sweat, young or old don’t matter. Little Lydia’s covered with even more sweat than Mr. Washington. Looking at her, I remember how hard it was to work in this garden as a little girl, before I moved into the big house. I can still remember how my stomach growled with hunger, how the minutes went on for hours and the hours for days.
    “You’re real good at this, Lydia!” I tell her.
    She looks up from under her straw hat and gives me a weary grin, so I give her one of the cups of water in my hand.
    When I get to Mama, she sucks down the other cup of water. She hasn’t worked the land since she was a little girl. Lucky for her, Old Man Adams liked his privacy, so he built a tall fence around his farm so no one could see inside it. Now Mama rests in the thick stripe of shade at the edge of the garden.
    While I walk back to my rows, I glance across the field and see Mr. Mudge unlocking the garden gate for Mrs. Tate and her friends. Truth be told, I’ve had quite enough of Mrs. Tate. All week at work, Mama and me listened to her talk about the details of the planting. She was so excited you would’ve thought she was seventeen years old planning her wedding again.
    Just the other day I was washing out the pots in the sink. Mrs. Tate was sitting at the kitchen table with her husband, who was wearing a cowboy hat and spitting watermelon seeds into a bowl. “Oh, it’s going to be fabulous!” she said.
    I made like I didn’t hear a thing while Mr. Tate hid under that big old cowboy hat of his and slurped up the juice left in his watermelon rind.
    “Ralph, didn’t you hear me?” Mrs. Tate asked. “We won’t have to pay through the roof for food. No one will. This is gonna help a lot of folks, Ralph.”
    “The only reason I said I’d work the garden is because I need to get in shape if I’m gonna coach the Kickers football team next year,” he said. “To tell you the truth, I’m sick of hearing ’bout the stupid garden!”
    Mrs. Tate set down her fork. “Oh,” she said.
    I could hear by the way she said that one little “Oh,” something inside her broke. I could also hear Mr. Tate didn’t understand his wife at all. And I was afraid he was going to get even meaner, so I grabbed a rag and ran upstairs to dust the