Rose and Sam
Chapter 5: Day Laborer
Admiral Biscuit
In hindsight, I couldn’t have had a more perfect opportunity to learn more about Sam, although I wasn’t thinking of that as I tacked another flier to the board. We had a lot of work to do, and both Lily and Daisy were going to be out of town, which left all the work on my back if I couldn’t hire help. They were apologetic and I was annoyed, but we couldn’t do anything about it. It wasn’t the first time things had come up, and it wouldn’t be the last. We’d gotten through then and we would now. Our flowers weren’t too demanding; maybe after a couple of days unattended and unweeded they wouldn’t be as good as they could be, but most ponies wouldn’t know the difference.
When I heard the muffled knock at the door, my first hope was that a former apprentice had seen the post and wanted to help out, but it wasn’t. It was the creature, Sam, and once I’d opened the door I backpedaled as I tried to figure out what to do, what to say. All my thoughts about getting to know her better had been vague and hypothetical, and now here she was in front of me holding my torn-off advertisement in her hand and I didn’t know how to deal with it.
Both anger and fear flashed through me—she towered over me, she was close enough to grab me, and she’d taken my flier down. That wasn’t how it was done; if I didn’t hire her nopony else would know I was looking for help.
Was that how she’d gotten some of her jobs? Other ponies who had hired her had seen her carrying their flier and knew it was either hire her or nothing? But surely if that was so, none of them would have hired her again. Word would have gotten around if she was a poor worker; regarding her work ethic, at least, everypony was positive.
My mind flashed back to when she’d loaded the firewood on my back, the last time she was this close. She had some new scrapes and bruises, and she was still too skinny— her belly was flat and I could clearly see the outline of her ribs and the jut of her hip bones above her shorts. Didn’t she eat enough? Was she spending all her bits on clothes instead of food?
I must have stood there too long, mouth agape and eyes wide, because she finally spoke.
“You needed help with your gardens?” She hesitated, and then a spark of recognition. “Roseluck, right?”
I nodded. She’s not a monster. “Weeding, preparing the beds, and some spring-cleanup we didn’t get to. Lily and Daisy are out of town, and—” Too late, I realized I shouldn’t have said that; if she thought that they might be around any bad ideas she might have had could have been prevented. “The beds and greenhouse are around back.”
She turned her head to check for a path, and there was, but it was more convenient to come in the house. After a brief mental deliberation, I stepped away from the door and motioned for her to enter.
The moment her paws crossed the threshold, I imagined how Lily would react.
Poorly. Daisy, at least, would understand.
“The bathroom’s over there if you need it,” I told her. Was she housebroken? Surely she must be, everypony said she lived in Berry’s house, not outside. “And we’ve got pipe water in the house, too. Hot and cold.”
“I’ve got an outhouse,” she said. “You’re going to have to give me instructions for the flowers, I hope you don’t mind. I’m a quick learner.”
From the state of the garden around her rented house, it was obvious enough she didn’t know much about keeping a flower bed. “Follow me.” I kept one ear back, just in case she tried something, but she didn’t. It was easy to have confidence in her when I saw her in passing, but when she was so close, when she was in my house, that was a different matter.
•••
She did know the difference between a blooming flower and a weed, at least. That was a start, and once I was sure she wouldn’t hurt our plants, I tasked her with weeding the pots with flowers. I gave her a small bucket, one that Lily never used just in case she could smell Sam on the bail, and when it was full I showed her where the compost pile was.
I’d never been great at being social with other ponies. It took me time to warm up to somepony new, especially around town. At home, among our flowers, I was in my element, and it felt easier and more natural to give her instructions, to look beyond her strange appearance and to the pony I felt she was within.
I kept a wary eye on her at first just the same, to make sure that she wasn’t hurting the flowers, wasn’t picking the wrong things or eating leaves and blooms. It took longer to get used to her, how she’d crouch down on her haunches and use her paw to get into the pot and dig at the weeds, how she never even sniffed anything, as if she was nose-blind.
I had my own flowers and weeds in front of my muzzle, so once I was confident she knew what she was doing I became totally focused on them, only noticing Sam as I moved on from one bed to the next.
She was a diligent worker. I’d thought so when I first saw her chopping wood, and I’d heard a few ponies say so, as well. The miller was particularly pleased with her, and constantly hired her to move barrels and sacks. Teff and Einkorn must have liked her and trusted her if they were taking time out of their day to go to market with her.
Daisy, Lily and I usually chatted and gossiped while we worked, and Sam could talk, but I didn’t want to distract her too much. Although, it got lonely to work in silence, and she was only a row away from me.
I wasn’t sure what would be a good way to start a conversation with her, and as we worked that bothered me. Foremost on my mind was what was she, and why was her coat so sparse and why did she always wear shorts and sometimes a shirt no matter what she was doing? Did she really bathe in the river? Why had she worked with Berry Black when there were plenty of ponies in town who would hire her? Where had she come from, and why had nopony ever seen another one of her species? Did she have a cutie mark?
None of those felt like polite questions, especially to start a conversation.
Why did she want to work with me? I didn’t have the only job offer on the board—had she just picked the first one she saw? Or did she see it as an opportunity to learn more about flowers? Maybe she’d noticed that I’d cleaned up her flowerbeds some and wanted to finish the job first but didn’t know how.
I just assumed if she wasn’t a monster she was like a pony, and since she didn’t have wings or a horn, that meant she was most like an earth pony, which sort of biased me to think that she’d be naturally good with plants. And most of the jobs I’d seen her doing were physical jobs, the kinds unicorns and pegasi didn’t like to do. But there were earth ponies who were no good with plants at all, now that I thought about it.
She didn’t really socialize with other ponies, as far as I knew. After she got done working or shopping, she’d stay at her house. I hadn’t asked around, but I couldn’t recall ever seeing her out and about after dinnertime.
I couldn’t stand not knowing anything about her, and even if it was rude, the worst that could happen was she’d stop working and I’d pay her a half-day’s wages. “Sam?”
She turned her head.
“How do you like Ponyville?” That was a safe question.
She shrugged. “It’s a nice town, and most, uh, most ponies are friendly. Nurse Tenderheart said that since I’m different, they might be wary until they get to know me. So far, she hasn’t been wrong.”
As soon as she mentioned Tenderheart, my ears dropped; everypony knew that Nurse Tenderheart took charge of ponies who weren’t right in the head, who couldn’t live like a normal pony—and then I mentally kicked myself. It wasn’t polite to think like that. Daisy had issues, too, and Daisy talked to Tenderheart, and I’d seen with my own eyes how much it had helped her.
It would stand to reason that Sam would need help to fit in, and maybe there were things that everypony knew that she didn’t know. Like not to take advertisements off the work board, she might not have known that was rude. Maybe she couldn’t read and hadn’t thought to ask anypony in the square to help her, maybe she thought she had to go through town and show the advertisement to sompony who could give her directions. I’d heard that she wore her pants when she visited the spa and I hadn’t believed it, but maybe she didn’t know she was supposed to take them off to bathe, either.
Spike hadn’t really fit in well at first, although everypony thought that was because of Twilight’s influence. Nopony said that out loud, of course, but we all thought it. And in some ways, when they first came to town, he was the more social of the pair. Those were confusing times, and there had been a lot of scary changes all at once and I think if a few of the old farmers hadn’t sided with Twilight or if the Princess Herself hadn’t blessed her, we would have run her out of town.
I realized that it was my turn to talk again. I’d gotten distracted with my own thoughts. What had she just said? “Um, you’re a hard worker, lots of ponies like that. And you’re helpful, you helped push our wagon out of the mud. How do you like your house?”
“It’s a little more . . . rustic than I’d like, but nice enough. Nicer than Berry’s house.”
My ears perked at that. Nopony had ever seen where he lived, some ponies said it was just a tangle of deadwood and others said it was a proper cabin, and Daruma claimed that his father had sold Berry a proper wood stove some years back. I could get all the gossip about Berry’s cabin and how he lived.
“I heard he lived in a shack in the woods.”
“It’s more of a proper hunting cabin,” Sam said. “Two rooms with a lean-to and a workshop next to it, and an outhouse. Moss roof which I thought was strange, but Fluttershy’s got a grass roof. He built it himself out of wood he gathered, so it’s a little rough but plenty cozy. Sometimes I miss it, it’s lonely to be in an empty house.”
“Why’d you leave, then?” As soon as the words left my mouth, I realized how rude they were.
“It’s complicated.” Sam grabbed a weed and yanked it out of the soil, twisting it between her fingers. “Where are your friends? Lily and Daisy?”
“They’re in Canterlot.” I could tell when I’d touched a nerve, and while I was still curious, maybe that was ground to avoid. “You’ve met them before, Daisy was with me when I bought firewood, and Lily was also pulling the wagon.”
“Flower in her hair? Skittish?”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be, she is.”
•••
Opinions were mixed on offering lunch. I knew some ponies who hired day-laborers who didn’t offer and either gave them a break to go get food, or expected them to bring their own. That didn’t feel right to me, though, and we’d always offered lunch. The fact I was even thinking about telling Sam to take an hour’s break to go find something to eat was a sign I was still nervous around her, and I didn’t know why. The day had gotten off to a rough start, but now we were getting along just fine. Was it the idea of spending time in the house with her that was worrying me, or how she might eat her food? Her paws were clever, just like Spike’s, and maybe she would want silverware to eat with. We didn’t have any.
Surely Berry didn’t have any, either.
I was still thinking about it as the town clock started chiming, and had to make a decision. She’s too skinny, I can’t not feed her. “Uh, Sam, would you like something for lunch?”
“You don’t have to bother, I can work through.”
I hadn’t expected that. Sometimes ponies fronted their workers bits for lunch and then deducted it out of the day’s pay. Maybe she didn’t have any money and was too embarrassed to say so. “I was going to make lunch for myself,“ I said. “Nothing fancy, just a salad or a plate of pasture grass, and it’s no harder to make food for two. What do you like to eat?”
She brushed her paws against each other to knock the loose dirt off before answering. “Do you have bread?”
I nodded.
“Jam? Preserves?”
“Is that what you’d like?”
“If it’s not too much trouble.” She glanced around the back yard. “Do you have a faucet where I can rinse off?”
I pointed a hoof in the right direction, and just watched as she put her paws under the water and washed them, almost like one of Fluttershy’s raccoons. It wasn’t until she turned that water off that I remembered I should be making lunch, not watching her clean up.
I scraped my hooves on the mat, making sure to work all the clods of dirt from around my hind shoes, and then glanced back as Sam took her turn. Her paw-boots were still dirty when she was done, but I didn’t see any clumps of dirt on them. It wasn’t that big a deal; if she tracked in the house I could just sweep it up.
For a moment, as I was opening the cupboards, I thought about what Lily would do if she saw one of Sam’s muddy pawprints in the house. She’d know right away it hadn’t come from a pony, her paws were long and bean-shaped and her boots had a weird zig-zaggy tread. I suppose it was for better traction, soft caulks for a flexible shoe.
“Can you read?” I asked. Rude, but it would save time if she could.
Sam replied by making a weird wave with her paw, then said, “Some. I’ve been learning.”
“All our preserves are over there,” I told her. “You can pick whichever you like, or if you’re not sure you can sniff it or ask me what it is.” Only after I’d spoken did I remember that I suspected she was nose-blind. “Most of them have pictures on the label anyway.”
We only had one loaf—half a loaf in the breadbox and I slid it out and then hesitated as I set it on the cutting board. I’d need a bread knife to slice it, and did I want her to know where the knives were?
But then if Ginger had trusted her with an axe . . . I was being too paranoid, maybe it was from reading too many of Lily’s newspapers or maybe it was just being alone with her. Sam hadn’t given me any reason to not trust her, but just the same, I’d have been less jumpy if Daisy had been home.
I’d also gotten too dependent on Daisy helping out in the kitchen; her magic wasn’t all that great but it was good enough, and I was so out of practice that holding the knife to cut the bread felt awkward.
“Let me,” Sam said and I set the knife down and took a step back and the moment she picked it up I could almost see myself dead on the kitchen floor, the hilt of the knife still jutting out between my ribs and I closed my eyes and wondered if it would hurt.
Of course she didn’t stab me, instead slicing off four pieces and then setting the knife next to the sink. “Butter?”
“It’s on the table.”
“I should have asked before I cut four slices, do you want some too?”
I’d been thinking of the fresh orchardgrass we had, maybe with a mouthful of oat hay mixed in, but nodded just the same. Bread and jam would be a good lunch.
She’d picked a raspberry jam which I never liked when working with the flowers, it was too sweet with the smell of flowers still in my nose.
Even though it was rude, I watched her as she ate. How she picked up the bread was almost artful. I’d started to get used to how clever her paws were as she weeded, but this was different. She’d concentrated on the weeds but was casual when it came to eating.
And her teeth—I hadn’t noticed before, but those were pony-like, too. Monsters had fangs, while she had normal-looking incisors and tusks and molars. And she didn’t complain about our lack of silverware, even though Daisy had told me that some unicorns would eat jam bread with a knife and fork. I didn’t know any unicorns that stuck-up; maybe she was trying to show off with her clothes but at least she wasn’t getting uptight about our lunch.
We had a jar of squash jam, and Sam decided to try a little on the corner of her second slice of bread. “Huh, I never would have thought of making squash into jam. Did you make this?”
I shook my head. “Kabocha did, she’s got a stall at the market every other market day.”
“Why not every market day?”
“Not all ponies like the taste of squash,” I said. “So it’s not worth it to set up all the time. We don’t always sell flowers at market; either. Sometimes you’ve got to keep your ears perked and see what’s selling, what ponies want to buy. There’s always an ebb and flow to the market, and if somepony really wants to get flowers they can just stop by the house. Don’t you know about markets?”
“Not exactly, no.”
“How do you get food then? Is it all what you can grow or make?”
“We have stores that always sell it--fresh food and canned foods and boxed foods--lots of stuff that can keep for a while.”
“So it’s like a market all the time?”
“Without the people, the farmers who grew the food or raised the animal. I—sometimes the market confuses me, and not everyone is polite.”
I frowned. I’d never noticed that. I suppose it could be intimidating to someone who didn’t know how markets worked, and since nopony had ever seen her in town when she was working for Berry Black, she must have let him get the food. Was she normally solitary? Maybe so many ponies around made her uncomfortable. But she had said that she was lonely in her house, so maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she was looking for a friend.