Windfall

The first storm of the season came in the night, and by morning the grass under the old tree was littered with apples. Nyra found them there at first light, the windfalls lying bruised and fragrant in the wet grass, far more than any single basket could hold.

The girl came out with an apron held wide, and together they began to gather what the wind had shaken down. Some of the apples were whole and firm, and some had split against the stones, and the sweetness of the broken ones drew the late wasps into slow circles.

Nyra counted the sound fruit into the crate and set the number down in the book, a figure for the cellar and a figure for the press. A book gathers what can be set down in a line and counted, and leaves the rest to the one who was there.

What the page could not hold was the cold of the grass against the knees, or the scent of cider already starting in the bruised fruit, or the way the girl laughed when an apple rolled loose from the heap and had to be chased. These things belonged to the morning and to no line of figures.

So the crate went down into the cellar and the number stayed in the book, and the morning stayed in the two of them. The book keeps the count of the windfalls, and you keep the stooping for them.