The girls, who had plainly seen their mother bargain merchants out of their stockings before, were shifting from foot to foot and looking round for more interesting fare.
Félicité suddenly perked up.
“Mam! There’s a new wagon comin’ in! And he’s got melons!”
Marsali at once dropped the questionable okra and hurried after her daughters, who had sped ahead to get a good place by the wagon the moment it stopped.
“Sorry,” Bree said apologetically to the young farmer. “Maybe later.”
“Hmph,” said the young man, but he had already turned away, lifting a bunch of limp green onions aloft in one hand, okra in the other, shouting, “Gumbo tonight!” at an oncoming pair of shoppers with half-empty baskets.
People—mostly women, though there were a few men, apprentices or cooks by their grease-stained smocks—were gathering quickly, pushing to get their hands on the melons first. Joanie and Félicité had bagged a good spot by the tailboard, though, where the melon farmer’s son was minding the wares. Marsali and Bree reached the girls just in time to prevent a large woman in a bonnet from shoving them out of the way.
Brianna poised herself with her bottom pressed firmly against the wagon and prepared to repel the competition, while the girls stood on tiptoe next to her, sniffing ecstatically. Bree drew a deep breath herself and gave an involuntary small moan of delight. The smell of a hundred ripe, fresh-picked melons was enough to make her light-headed.
“Mmm.” Marsali inhaled strongly and shook her head, grinning at Brianna. “Enough to knock ye over, no?” She wasted no more time in sensual wallowing, though, but put a hand on Joanie’s bony little shoulder.
“D’ye remember how I told ye to pick a ripe melon, a nighean?”
“Ye knock on it,” Joanie said, but doubtfully. Nonetheless, she reached out and tapped gingerly on a rounded shape. “Is that one good?”
Marsali rapped the same melon, sharply, and shook her head. “It’s one ye’d buy if ye meant to keep it for a few days, but if ye want one fit to eat for supper—”
“We do!” chorused the girls. Marsali smiled at them and rapped her knuckles lightly against Félicité’s forehead.
“It should sound like that,” she said. “Not hollow—but like what’s inside is softer than the outside.”
Joanie giggled and said something in Gaelic that Brianna interpreted as a speculation as to whether her sister’s head was filled with parritch. Her own maternal reflexes inserted a hip between the sisters before mayhem could ensue, and she reached into the wagon at random and scooped up a melon, inviting Joanie to try it.
Ten minutes of haggling and controlled chaos later, they made their way out of the scrum, carrying eight prime melons among them. The rest of the vegetables and fruit were acquired with relatively little incident, and after casting her eye over her hot and visibly wilting party, Marsali declared that they would sit down by the river and eat one of the melons, as a reward for their labors.
Brianna, who had a knife on her belt, did the honors and a blessed silence descended, broken only by slurping noises and the spitting of seeds. The atmosphere was liquid; her clothes clung to her and perspiration ran in trickles from her bundled hair down the back of her neck and dripped from her chin.
“How does anybody live here in the summertime?” she asked, wiping her face on a sleeve and reaching for another slice of melon.
Marsali shrugged philosophically.
“How does anybody live through the winter in the mountains?” she countered. “Sweat’s better than frostbite. And here, there’s plenty of food year-round; ye’re no livin’ off venison shot six months ago and pickin’ mouse droppings out of what corn ye’ve saved from the squirrels.”
“That’s a point,” Brianna admitted. “Though I’d think the army eats a good deal of what’s available, don’t they?” She nodded toward a column of marching Continental soldiers, coming down the street toward the drilling ground at the edge of town, muskets over their shoulders.
“Mmphm.” Marsali waved to the officer at the head of the column, who took off his hat and bowed to her as they passed. “I feel a deal safer wi’ them here, and they’re welcome to whatever they need.”
Something in her tone made Brianna’s scalp itch, and she thought suddenly of the fire in Philadelphia. Her mother said that no one knew whether it had been an accident or …