Sickle

The last of the barley stood in the small field behind the garden, and it had gone past the green and into a dry gold that rustled in the wind. Nyra took the sickle down from its peg and ran a thumb along the curve of the blade while the girl watched. The morning was cool and the light was thin, and the whole field leaned a little away from the breeze. A book gathers what can be set down in a line and counted, and leaves the rest to the one who was there.

“How much will we cut today?” the girl asked, holding the empty basket against her hip. “As much as the morning gives us, and no more than that,” Nyra said. “You can measure a field in rows, but the rows will not tell you the sound the barley makes when it falls.”

So they went down the rows together, and Nyra showed the girl how to gather a handful and draw the blade through it low and clean. The cut stalks lay in soft bundles behind them, and the field grew shorter and brighter as the sun climbed. The work was slow, and it asked for the whole of their attention, and neither of them spoke for a long while.

“Will you write the barley in the book?” the girl asked, when the baskets were full and the far end of the field was still standing. “I will write how many baskets we carried in,” Nyra answered. “The book has a line for the count and no line at all for the hiss of the blade, or for the way the gold caught in your hair.”

They carried the last basket up to the barn as the wind turned over the fallen rows. The girl set the sickle back on its peg and looked out at the pale stubble and the bundles waiting to be bound. The book keeps the count of the baskets, and you keep the gold of it.