“What did we miss?” he asked.
“The wall isn’t square,” Peter answered after examining it.
“Then we change the cut.”
“You aren’t angry?”
“A crooked wall isn’t a moral offense.”
Peter laughed, and Caleb felt the unfamiliar pleasure of being able to correct a mistake without using fear.
They returned to the drawing and adjusted the shelf to the actual room rather than the dimensions they had hoped to find.
When the shelves were finished, Rebecca Fitch helped deliver them to the schoolhouse.
The teacher admired their smooth edges and asked who had built them.
Caleb pointed toward Peter.
“He did most of the cutting.”
Peter flushed with pride.
He had never heard an employer name his work before strangers without first claiming credit for it.
At supper, Daniel praised the shelves and added a small bonus to Peter’s weekly pay.
The apprentice asked him to write the amount in the ledger so both could keep track.
Daniel laughed and fetched the pen.
Amos watched from his chair with a look Caleb recognized as approval.
After dinner, Caleb walked with Peter beside the creek.
The younger man spoke about saving enough to rent a small room of his own and buying a set of chisels that nobody else could lock away.
Caleb listened without pretending the future would be easy.
He had learned to distrust promises that were made without regard for the people expected to keep them.
Yet there were promises he could help make practical, such as wages entered honestly, tools kept in working order, and doors that opened at the hand of the person inside.
When they returned to the shop, Peter placed his signed wage agreement in the small cabinet Caleb had built.
Caleb watched him turn the key and slip it into his own pocket.
The gesture was ordinary enough that nobody else mentioned it.
To Caleb, it was a small and unmistakable answer to the years when Eleanor believed every key in a house belonged to her.
Chapter Forty: The Winter Nobody Owned
The following winter brought deep snow to the road beyond the cooperage and a cough that kept Amos indoors for several weeks.
Caleb built a low chair beside the stove so the older man could rest without climbing the workshop stairs.
Ruth made broth and insisted that Amos stop giving orders from his sickbed.
“If I don’t give orders, somebody will nail the boards crooked,” Amos protested.
