Clara laid the paper marked Second pot on the table and turned to the remaining bundles.
There were four cloth bags against the wall, a shallow wooden box, and two bundles tied with rope.
Last night, they had been too busy finding somewhere to sleep to look through them.
Now all five gathered around, curious to see what was inside.
“Before we start,” Arthur said, lifting the bag nearest the door, “no one’s allowed to guess potatoes this time.”
Clara folded her arms.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your face did.”
Arthur untied the bag and tipped its contents onto the floor.
A few old adult clothes slid out first, followed by three pairs of children’s socks and a crumpled apron.
“Clothes,” Lucas said.
“I didn’t guess potatoes,” Clara reminded her father.
“I know.”
Helena crouched and spread out the clothes one by one.
The cuffs of Arthur’s coat were worn pale, and the hem of her dress had been mended.
The children’s clothes were smaller, but none fitted particularly well.
Some sleeves were too long, while other necklines hung loose, as though the clothes had been found elsewhere and altered in a hurry.
She held one pair of socks beside Lucas’s feet.
“These should be yours.”
“How can you tell?”
“They’re a little bigger than the other two pairs.”
Theo immediately looked down at the socks he was wearing.
“Then whose are these?”
Helena glanced at them.
“Possibly Clara’s.”
“I knew something felt wrong inside one of my shoes.”
Clara held out her hand for the socks.
“I didn’t take yours.”
“I didn’t say you did.”
“Your face did.”
Arthur had heard enough about socks.
He carried the next two bags over to the table.
“We’ll sort those out later.
Everyone can have their own pair.”
The second bag held half a bag of coarse flour, a small packet of salt, and a few onions wrapped in cloth.
There wasn’t much flour.
The top of the bag had been folded over several times, and it felt light in Arthur’s hand.
Clara finally smiled.
“Food.”
Arthur set the flour on the table.
“It should last us a few meals.”
“Provided someone knows what to do with it,” Lucas said.
Four pairs of eyes turned to Helena.
She looked back at them.
“Why are you all looking at me?”
Arthur asked cautiously, “Do you know how to bake bread?”
“I’ve bought bread before.”
“I meant bake it.”
“I heard you.”
Clara looked at the flour, then at her mother.
Her smile slowly disappeared.
“It’s all right,” Lucas said.
“Exactly,” Helena said.
“We have two pots.
Surely we can use one of them.”
That sounded reasonable enough, though Clara suspected her mother just wanted to give the second pot a purpose.
The third bag contained a small jar of cooking fat, a few handfuls of dried beans, and a pouch of grain.
Theo picked up a little of the grain, then quickly opened his hand again.
“What is it?”
Arthur leaned closer.
“Looks like oats.”
Lucas studied it for a moment.
“At least we can boil those.”
Helena brought over a few empty bowls and separated the beans, grain, and flour.
Then she turned the bag inside out to make sure nothing had been left in the corners.
Clara wrote everything down, but when she got to the beans, her pen stopped.
“How much should I put?”
“A bit more than a handful?” Arthur suggested.
“There are five of us.
Our handfuls aren’t the same size.”
Helena poured the beans into a bowl and measured them with a cup.
“Less than half a cup.”
Clara promptly wrote: Dried beans: less than half a cup.
Arthur glanced at the paper.
“That’s very precise.”
“We don’t have much.
Of course I need to be precise,” Clara said.
“Otherwise, when some goes missing, we won’t know whether we ate it or it fell through a crack in the table.”
Arthur looked down at the uneven gaps between the boards.
She might have a point.
The fourth bag was full of firewood.
About half was dry; the rest felt damp, so Arthur stacked the two piles separately against the wall.
They untied the rope bundles as well.
One contained short pieces of wood for repairs, and the other held a few old farming tools.
There was a hoe, a shovel, and a rake missing two teeth.
Arthur picked up the hoe and tested its weight.
“Could be worse.”
Lucas looked at the rust on it.
“Do you know how to use it?”
“Of course.”
“Have you used one before?”
Arthur paused, holding the handle.
“I’ve seen people use them.”
“That’s different, isn’t it?”
“The motion shouldn’t be hard.” Arthur raised the hoe as if to bring it down.
“Don’t swing that indoors,” Helena said at once.
Arthur lowered it.
“I wasn’t really going to.”
Theo took a step away.
“It came pretty close to me.”
“I was watching where you were.”
“You were watching Lucas and me last night too,” Theo said.
“You still picked up the wrong one.”
Clara laughed again.
Arthur leaned the hoe against the wall and decided to leave it there.
Last came the shallow wooden box.
A piece of cloth lined the bottom.
Arthur lifted it, hoping something might be hidden underneath, but found only a few loose wood shavings.
“That’s everything,” he said.
Clara came over to check for herself before closing the lid.
“And those few copper coins are all the money we have?”
“That’s all.”
She picked up her list and went through it again.
They had enough clothes and socks to change into, and enough firewood for a few days.
The flour, oats, onions, and beans wouldn’t last long.
They had some tools, though whether Arthur could put them to use was another matter.
“We’ll have to make the food last,” Clara said.
“Yes.” Helena looked at the food arranged on the table.
“We’ll cook some oats today and figure out supper later.”
Arthur went to the window and looked toward the back of the house.
“If that patch of ground is any good, we could grow something there.”
“What would you grow?” Lucas asked.
“Let’s look at the ground first.”
“I asked what you’d grow.”
“And I said we’ll look at the ground first.”
Lucas nodded and let it go.
Arthur couldn’t help thinking he was getting the same look Theo had given that empty cup earlier.
Helena put the food away, wrapped the copper coins in a piece of cloth, and placed them in the wooden box.
Clara folded the list and handed it to her.
“Now we won’t forget anything.”
“Thank you for keeping track.”
“I haven’t counted what’s outside yet.” Clara headed for the door.
“There might even be chickens.”
“If there were chickens,” Theo said, following her, “we probably would’ve heard them last night.”
“Maybe they were quiet chickens.”
Arthur opened the door, and cool air swept in.
The grass in front of the house grew every which way, with the path they had taken last night running through it.
Around the back was the patch of ground they had seen from the window.
He glanced behind him.
Helena had the key, and all three children were standing by the door with their shoes on.
Everyone was ready.
“Let’s go together,” Arthur said.
Clara was first over the threshold.
After a couple of steps, she turned back.
“If there really are chickens, don’t agree to keep them yet.
I need to work out what they’d eat.”
“You haven’t even seen a chicken, and you’re already doing the sums?”
“Of course,” Clara said.
“We can’t wait until it’s eaten all our oats.”
Theo looked at her.
“A chicken can’t come into the house and open a bag by itself.”
“I mean if we keep it!”
Still arguing, the two of them followed Arthur and Helena around the house.
Lucas brought up the rear.
He glanced back at the old farmhouse, then at the list in Clara’s hand.
They didn’t have much, but at least they knew what they had.
Now they needed to see what else was outside.