A few people laughed at that, though not in the way Mercer liked. He left with his dignity in tatters and his opinions louder than before.
Reverend Amos Reed arrived next, troubled by reports that Evelyn was using “heathen foreign methods” below the ravine. He descended carefully, boots slipping in the clay, and found her mortaring gaps with wet earth while Lucy sang softly to the dog.
“I speak only out of pastoral concern,” he began. “Some families have wondered whether these practices come from older superstitions.”
Evelyn slowly stood. Her eyes had grown sharper in widowhood, stripped of all softness that was not essential. “My grandfather prayed the rosary every day of his life, Reverend. He also knew how to build an earth dairy. If your congregation confuses skill with paganism, that is their ignorance, not my sin.”
The minister blinked. “I didn’t mean to insult you.”
“Then don’t.” She looked past him toward the whitening sky. “Spend your concern on the winter coming.”
Not everyone dismissed her. One afternoon an old immigrant named Seamus Keane, who had once worked railroad grades and now lived alone in a shack near the creek, came down and stood for a long while inside the half-finished chamber without speaking. At last he touched the stone wall and smiled with sudden recognition.
“My mother had one near Scranton,” he said softly. “Built into a bank behind the house. Summer-cool, winter-safe. Lord above, I haven’t thought of it in forty years.”
Evelyn’s throat tightened. “So it will work?”
“If you finish it right, girl, it’ll work better than the fools up there deserve.” He did not have the strength to labor much, but he sat with Lucy on the flat rock near the entrance and offered advice in a rough, cracked voice. “Make the vent lean east. Morning sun helps the draw. Bigger stones low down. They hold warmth longer.”
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