"I'm sorry to trouble you," said Jonathan in his faraway voice, the one that made him sound like a child.
"You bet," said the woman. She meant it was no trouble.
"I'm trying to find Sunflower School," he said.
"Well," she said, wiping her hands. She was rather old, rather plump for hand plows. Her blue-white hair was tied up in a scarf. She wore running shoes.
"Why sure. You can see it from here." She pointed toward the gunmetal-blue house, across the valley.
"Was there another Sunflower School before that?" Jonathan asked.
"I wouldn't know. But my husband might, and he'll be in for lunch soon."
"I'm very, very thirsty," said Jonathan.
"You're dead on your feet as well. My name's Marge Baker. Who are you?"
"I'm Jonathan. This is my counselor, Bill."
Bill stepped forward. "I would be very grateful if you could give Jonathan a drink," he said. "He's not well."
"I can see that, too," said Mrs. Baker. "Come on in and I'll give you some lemonade." She began to walk toward the house. The front porch had white metal railings around it and wind chimes that tinkled. A Dalmatian stood up in his cardboard box and barked and barked.
"Oh now, Rex! He's not used to visitors."
"Tell me," said Bill. "Did this farm used to belong to people called the Gulches, or the Branscombs?"
"I'm not from around here myself. I just came here to teach school and ended up marrying a farmer. Come on in."
They went through a side door into an extension, a kitchen, with wooden wainscoting and wooden floors, a rainbow rug, made of thick, braided, concentric circles of color, reds and greens and yellows. By the door, there was an old cabinet. It was thick and lumpy with generations of white paint. Inside it was a host of tiny oil lamps.
"Oh I collect those," said Mrs. Baker. She opened up the cabinet for them. She took out one with a blue glass base. NUTMEG, it said in embossed letters.
"Back then people used to buy spice in them. Now mind, these wouldn't be parlor lights. They would be little nightlights for children."
Very carefully, she put it back. "I said I would get you some lemonade, didn't I?"
"I'm sure it's delicious," said Jonathan. "But I think it might burn my stomach. Could I just have a glass of water?"
"Nothing simpler," she said. She poured a tumblerful from a new mixer tap.
"I'd like to look at your shed," said Jonathan.
He wants to get outside, thought Bill, in case he's sick.
"It is quite a feature," said Mrs. Baker.
Bill had not noticed the shed. It had been half hidden beside a newer outbuilding made of corrugated iron.
It was a log cabin.
As they approached, a cloud of crickets jumped up from the grass. The cloud swirled, thickened, thinned again, with cries like windup birds. Bill was pelted by them. They flew into him, their wings throbbing against his chest.
"Hello, Mary Ann," Jonathan whispered to them. "Hello, Ellery."
Mrs. Baker affected not to notice. "This is our storm cellar," she said. There was a doorway into the ground. It was made of wood, framed with limestone, and along the frame was a line of old stoneware jugs. Jonathan was running his fingers through the leaves of a tree. "What kind of tree is this?" he asked.
"That's a hackberry bush," said Mrs. Baker. "You can't do anything with the fruit, but the birds love them."
"What kind of birds?"
"Chickadees," said Mrs. Baker, and she and Jonathan shared a smile.
They walked on, toward the shed. It was tiny, square. A thick limestone chimney rose up one side of it, supporting a vine. The frame of the front doorway was jammed up hard against the frame of a window. There were thick beams holding the whole structure off the ground.
"We have a lot of people asking to see this," said Mrs. Baker. "This is an original pioneer dwelling."
She and Jonathan walked around to the side.
"They were embarrassed," said Jonathan. Bill came around to join them. From under the apex of the roof, flat planks of wood covered part of the log walls.
"See? They didn't want anyone to know they still lived in a log cabin, so they covered it with clapboards," said Jonathan.
There was another door on this side of the cabin. "Why two doors?" Bill asked.
Jonathan touched an outline in the ground with his foot. "There was an extension on this side," he said. "I bet it was a summer kitchen."
"I bet it was too," chuckled Mrs. Baker. "It would get awfully hot without one."
Farther up the hill, there was a 1940s car. Jonathan walked on toward it, more crickets jumping out at him. The car had a long sleek hood, a short rounded trunk. Its paint had faded and rusted.
"That's my grandson, Paige," explained Mrs, Baker. "He collects old machines. Tractors mostly. Some of them you have to crank up to start. He even has one that runs on butane. They're in the other building, if you would like to see them."
Jonathan looked at the car in silence.
"Paige wants to be a farmer. We know there's no future in it. But we just have to hope he sees that for himself. Do you know, they are bulldozing some of the old farmhouses?"
Jonathan's smile was fixed, his eyes unfocused.
There was a rumbling of a tractor up the road. "Well," said Mrs. Baker. "Here comes my husband. I'll just go down and check the oven, if you want to come along presently."
"Thank you very much, Mrs. Baker," said Bill. Jonathan did not move. Mrs. Baker walked back down the hill toward the wind chimes.
Jonathan was holding his breath.
"Breathe, Jonathan, slowly and deeply."
"It's green and red, isn't it, Bill?" he said, without breath.
"What is?"
"The car!" Jonathan was smiling in wonder. "It's green and red, very pastel in patches, like someone had airbrushed it. Very light, very metallic?"
"I'd say that's a pretty good description."
Jonathan turned toward him, still smiling. "I'm seeing green and red," he said, and clenched Bill's arm. "I'm not supposed to be able to. I'm supposed to be color-blind.
"And the trees," he added. "And the crickets, in a flash."