That Wild Berries Should Grow by Gloria Whelan

ground. Apples, pears, and plums rocketed over the orchard. Along the edge of the bank the ground crumbled away into the gully.
    What I couldn’t stop looking at was the lake. It was turning itself inside out. It was like someone you love suddenly growing angry. The whitecaps came crashing onto the shore. The water reached farther and farther up onto the beach until even the pump house was threatened. A couple of seagulls were tossed around over the churning water. There wasn’t a boat to be seen. I hoped the Billy Boy was safe on shore.
    Just as we finished our supper, the lights went out. Grandpapa brought out kerosene lamps. “Just like old times,” he said. The lamps were bright enough so that you could see, but not bright enough that you could see much. I couldn’t read, and Grandmama couldn’t sew, but Grandpapa could play his violin. He played for nearly an hour while the wind and rain and thunder carried on outside like the loudest orchestra you ever heard.
    This morning when I awoke the sun was dancing on my ceiling. I hurried into my clothes and ran to see what was left of my garden. The snapdragons had laid down and died. The cages had saved my tomato plants, but a lot of the tomatoes had shaken loose. Some of them were still green. “We’ll have to throw them away,” I said.
    â€œNo, no,” Grandmama told me. “They won’t go to waste. We can make green tomato pickles.”
    Grandpapa was walking around in the orchard. Branches were scattered everywhere. Fruit that had blown off the trees lay on the ground. I couldn’t see Grandpapa’s face, but I could see how his shoulders were hunched over. He began putting the fallen fruit into a bushel basket. Grandmama and I helped. This time it was Grandmama who was trying to cheer up Grandpapa. “I was going to make jelly today, anyhow,” she said. “Now the fruit has been picked for us.”
    â€œBy rough hands,” Grandpapa said with a sad shake of his head.
    When we were finished filling the bushel baskets with the bruised fruit I walked down the stairs past the pump house to the beach. The lake was perfectly calm, but all along the beach were souvenirs from the storm. The huge waves had washed in floats from fishing nets and bits of pink and green and lavender glass worn smooth by the water. It was as though the lake had scattered those pretty things along the beach, like presents. It wanted to show that, in spite of the storm, we were still friends.

Last Look
    They have shuttered
    the eyes of the cottage ,
    the dresser drawer
    pockets are picked ,
    in the pump house
    the heartbeat has stopped .
    All that is left
    of the summer
    is a bushel of pears
    in the trunk of the car .
    Beyond the birch tree
    is bright water
    and the smoke
    that I see
    at the top
    of the lake’s
    wide blue page
    is the freighter’s
    sooty scrawl ,
    â€œ Go away and return ,
    go away and return. ”
    Summer’s over, and I’m going home. Grandmama and Grandpapa and I stood at the end of the driveway watching my parents’ car come toward us. When I first came to Greenbush, all I wanted was to go home. Now my parents were coming to take me back to the city, and I almost didn’t want to go.
    â€œHow healthy you look!” Mom threw her arms around me.
    â€œHow tall you’ve grown!” Dad had a wide grin on his face.
    I laughed. “Grandmama and Grandpapa make everything grow!”
    I held onto my parents’ hands and led them to the orchard. I named all the fruit trees for them: Jonathan, Rome Beauty, Spitzenburg, Mayflower, Elberta, Red Haven, Russetts, Bosc, Bartlett, Damson, and Mirabelle. The trees were like good friends.
    I got the salt cellar and took Mom and Dad to my own garden. I showed them how we pick tomatoes right off the vine and eat them still warm from the sun. I gave them the bag of my own beans all ready to take home. “Next year,” I said,