Chapter 5: Handing Out Forms Isn’t Enough

Only six of the twenty-four forms Mika had prepared came back. Sara had thought she was asking for nothing more than names, addresses, the number of bundles wanted, and a preferred collection date. Yet the people who had come to discuss their purchases sat with blank sheets on their knees.

“Was any part of it difficult to fill in? You aren’t committing to an order yet, so it’s quite all right to leave anything you’re unsure of blank.”

At Sara’s question, a woman with soot on her sleeve folded the corner of her paper between her fingers.

“I understood that. I thought I’d ask a neighbour to read it when I got home. But having them know how much firewood we buy every time is a bit...”

When the woman fell silent, Sara didn’t press her. Accepting a neighbour’s kindness wasn’t the same as wanting to show them inside the family purse. Across from her, Ines took her hands from the washing and peered at the paper.

“I can’t read this small writing here either. I could answer if you asked me. Even if you know where to put your name, you don’t like handing it back with everything else empty, do you?”

Sara looked down at her own sheet. When Mika had read it aloud at the estate, she had been reassured to hear everything she wanted to ask laid out in order. But not everyone could read through that sequence alone.

“Let’s stop asking you to fill in the paper. Tell me here, and I’ll make a note. If there’s anything you don’t want others to hear, we can talk a little farther away.”

When Sara moved her chair aside, the woman finally handed over the sheet. Apparently she had been at a loss over what to do with it, unable even to return it; now she tucked both hands under her apron to warm them again. Watching her, Sara realized that she had given people an extra chore while believing she had made the form simpler.

She decided to hear their requirements aloud and write down their names and the way to their homes in her own script. But that would leave the notes unreadable to anyone else, so she would have to check them with Mika later and record them in the local script as well.

Ines slowly read the surname on one of the returned sheets and tilted her head.

“There are two households with that name. The house near the bridge? Or the people who recently moved into that rented place over there?”

“So that’s why you told me not to distinguish people by names alone.”

“Some houses are still known by the previous occupant’s name. And the landlord and the person using the firewood don’t necessarily have the same name, either.”

Sara turned the paper over and added a sketch of the bridge, roads, and landmarks near each home. Instead of stopping at a surname, she asked which entrance the household used. Ines kept working as she told Sara where the homes she knew were.

“Why not number your records? Give them a slip with the same number, and next time they come, they won’t have to explain their house all over again. Put a picture on it, too, and they’ll be able to tell it apart from their other papers.”

Rather than buy new slips, they decided to cut up the unused paper. When Sara drew a house beside a picture of firewood, Ines, with linen draped over her arm ready to hang, twisted her mouth in a doubtful expression.

“Isn’t that a barn? A house for people ought to have windows. ...Oh, you meant that to be one? Looks like a knothole.”

“I was too busy making the roof impressive. It wouldn’t be very comfortable to live in.”

Laughing, Ines used her free hand to add two windows. Sara laughed too as she redrew the sample and put matching numbers on the records and slips. She explained aloud what the slips were for and checked with each person that they understood they were not yet paying or promising to buy.

When Ines went to tend the fire beneath the pot, Sara continued listening. She repeated names back to make sure she had heard them correctly and noted when someone else would collect the goods. As the people who had sat silently holding their papers began telling her what they needed, they also voiced worries about getting home on time, or said they wanted to count their remaining firewood again.

By evening she had provisional requests from all twenty-four households, totalling seventy-two bundles. Sara checked the numbers on the slips against her records and gathered the papers. It had taken more work than asking people to fill them in, but the notes now held circumstances she could never have learned by counting six sheets that morning.

“We’ll stop here for today. I’ll clear away the rest, Ines, so I don’t keep you when you’re ready to go home.”

“Then I’m grateful. It hasn’t made the walk home any shorter. ...And don’t go drawing over those windows.”

Sara put a finger on the sample slip and promised she wouldn’t. Ines smiled and adjusted the basket in her arms, and Sara found she could thank her a little more easily than yesterday.

Back at the estate, Mika was waiting with a document setting out wholesale terms. When she had asked him about the forms, Sara had also asked him to find out what terms were available for a group order by townspeople.

“This wholesaler requires at least a hundred bundles at a time. They say they can’t offer these terms for smaller quantities.”

Sara opened her record of seventy-two and laid it on the desk. She couldn’t ask people to buy firewood they didn’t need simply to qualify for the hundred-bundle terms. Resolving to ask again tomorrow when they needed it and where they could store it, she laid the slip showing a house with two windows on top of her notes.