Elias watched her with sunlight streaming onto her through the foliage above. His heart ached to know her more, to tell her more about him. “I thought at first there wouldna be enough, but these trees hold a vast amount. I think if I pluck one from its branch, they will all fall.”
“Aye!” she agreed and then ran to a much smaller shed than the one near the shop. She hurried inside and came back out with two wooden buckets inside a wheelbarrow. She handed him a bucket and held hers over her head, and then plucked a lemon loose. They were right. At least a dozen lemons dropped around them. A few hit their buckets.
They laughed and hurried about picking up the lemons that fell. Soon though, Elias realized that picking lemons up off the ground was more backbreaking than reaching up for them.
“Are there any children in the village?” he asked, seeing her place her hand to her side as she bent over and over.
“Aye, there are children.” She smiled. “Little Eddie and Terrick the Terrible. Cecily and Liz—”
He stood up straight. “Let us go fetch them.”
“To do our work?” she asked, wide-eyed.
He nodded. “And to play.”
Her eyes opened wider and she straightened. “To play? To play what?”
She sounded utterly shocked that one would consider making work play, so he would show her.
“Come,” he beckoned and raced her to the center of the village. There they found Lily’s delight, little Eddie, who was but two summers old, being pulled around by Norman the baker’s daughters, Ava and Emma. Charlie was the oldest among them all at twelve. His sister Cecily and her friend Lizbeth, daughter of Alan the carpenter and his wife, Helen, volunteered immediately to help. In fact, they all did. Including Terrick the Terrible, a stout eight-year-old boy who, as young Annabelle told it, liked to cause trouble.
“I do not like to cause trouble!” Terrick shouted in his defense.
“Well, there will be no trouble today,” Elias called out, quieting them. “Today, Lily and I need yer help in gatherin’ lemons to make medicine.”
“There are many of them,” Lily added as enthusiastically as the children listened, “but for your work you will get sliced apples and honey.”
The children, eight in total, cheered.
“But sadly,” Elias interjected, holding up a finger and tossing Lily a sad look, “there are only enough apples and honey fer six of ye. “ He turned to the small faces looking up at him, some stained with dirt, their smiles fading. “So, we shall have a race! The first six of ye who put the most lemons into the wheelbarrow will win. Who wants to play?”
He said the magic word and the children cheered again and squealed with excitement then took off toward the orchard.
Elias and Lily ran with them, laughing under the sun, forgetting everything but this. When they reached the lemon trees, Elias stopped them and found two more buckets in the shed. He picked four children to hold the buckets over their heads and shook the tree. Everyone screamed and laughed as lemons rained down on their friends. The sound of their merriment drew Richard and Simon out of the house to see what was going on.
Simon covered his eyes and Richard laughed when the second batch of children were hit on their shielded heads with lemons.
There were still too many lemons in the trees for the children to pick them from the ground without more falling on their tender heads, so Elias had everyone stand around the trees. He and the other adults pulled branches down so that each child and each adult had a branch in each hand to shake.
The children shook vigorously and squealed with joy over the falling lemons. They laughed even harder when Terrick ran beneath the trees with his bare head, was hit with a lemon, tripped over one on the ground and fell flat on his face, only to be pelted with more lemons as everyone kept shaking the branches.
“They do not even know they are working,” Lily laughed, tilting her lips toward his ear so he could hear her over the laugher.
“I had plenty of children to play with when I was a lad. We made games oot of all our work,” he told her. “All right then lads and lassies, time to gather the lemons. Everyone get ready. Go!”
They watched Charlie and Lizbeth bringing in the most lemons in the fastest amount of time. Cecily and Terrick were next, with Elias having to warn Terrick twice about pushing. Little Eddie even dropped a few lemons into the wheelbarrow and gave Elias an extra smile for letting him play. Elias praised him for his hard work and mussed the boys golden curls.
“He likes you,” Richard pointed out with a smile.
“I like him, as well,” Elias replied with a kind smile of his own and patted his older friend on the back.
The children filled two wheelbarrows and were all invited into the apothecary’s shop where each and every child was given apples and honey.
A bit later, when Elias headed for the shop with one of the wheelbarrows, all the children followed after him. He didn’t mind. In fact, he enjoyed their small, soft voices when they spoke, and their enthusiasm to have fun and make the most of the day. They taught him a song he was sure his uncle, Torin, would approve of and he listened to each of them when they sought his attention.
They made him miss home and his nieces and nephews, and he had many. He stopped questioningifhe would see them again and believed that he would. Being here was going to take courage, more than it would take to leave. Richard knew it and so did his wife. But they might not have a choice. They might have to leave. There was still time to take them to Invergarry, but would Lily and Richard leave their friends behind? Could he take them all, even these little ones, on such a journey? Were they all free of the illness? When would he know?
He looked around at their happy faces and felt his heart lurch.