Chapter 8: The Pruning of the Deadwood
For the next eight weeks, the lower orchard in Galena became a school of rigorous, unsparing labor.
Jenna moved into the small stone cottage by the gate. She chopped her own firewood, hauled water from the outdoor pump, and lived on simple rations of oats, beans, and winter squash.
Every morning at sunrise, the three women walked into the orchard carrying heavy steel loppers, folding pruning saws, and wooden orchard ladders.
Under Aunt Martha’s strict, silent guidance, they moved from tree to tree.
""You have to cut away the water sprouts, Jenna,"" Martha taught, pointing with her wooden cane toward the tangled, non-bearing suckers choking the center of an old Winesap tree. ""They take all the energy from the roots, but they never bear fruit. They just steal light from the productive branches.""
Jenna worked until her palms were raw and blistered, until her back burned with exhaustion, until sweat washed the tears from her dust-covered face.
She did not complain. When a heavy bough fell, she dragged it to the brush pile; when the cold March rain stung her face, she pulled her knit cap lower and kept sawing.
Lauren worked on the adjacent rows.
For weeks, the sisters did not speak of the past. They communicated only in the language of the orchard: *“Hold the ladder,” “Pass the oil stone,” “Watch the lower graft.”*
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Yet, in that shared, rhythmic labor beneath the vast Midwestern sky, the poison of vanity and deceit was slowly planed away, leaving behind the raw, clean wood of genuine repentance.
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