Daisy brought the sandwiches out to the farmhands first. Callum, Braedon, and Thomas Krinzel. They were brothers whose parents were tailors and had too many children to possibly have them help with the family business so they loaned them out to keep them out of trouble.
They were rambunctious but polite and had been good friends with Veronica's deceased older brothers since they were all in their late teens or early twenties. They had all been working for the Mays for years and Callum had somewhat recently gotten married. He was the only one with any sort of sweetheart, likely because he was the most sensible of the three.
"Thank you, Miss Veronica," they chorused as they dug into the sandwiches she provided.
They weren't aware of the guest she was keeping in the house since none of them had seen her drag Leo in. She hadn't wanted to start any drama. They could be rather overprotective of her since she was the last of the Mays.
"You're welcome," Daisy said. "How is everything coming so far?"
Braedon answered with his mouth full. "As well as it can be. Where are you planning on putting all these vegetables, Miss Veronica? There are far too many for you to eat yourself."
"I'm going to can them."
How she was going to do that…she had no idea. That would likely be innate knowledge for the real Veronica but she hadn't retained any of her memories. Were there books anywhere on how to do it or was she going to have to wing it? That seemed a dangerous waste of vegetables since these would have to last her until next year.
"That's an awfully big undertaking on your own. If you don't mind, I can send my missus over to help you," Callum offered.
Daisy nearly wilted in relief. That solved her problem perfectly! Callum's wife Ginny had been a farmgirl too so she would know how to can. She beamed her thanks at him.
"Wonderful! Thanks, Callum!"
"Anything to help you out, Miss Veronica."
Affection swelled up in her heart. She truly wouldn't have survived being in this time period without these three. The farm would have folded already if they hadn't loyally insisted on staying to help even though they could have abandoned ship when the workload became heavier.
She skipped back into the house in a good mood and went to go eat her sandwich with Leo. He noticed she was especially smiley but didn't say anything about it. Simply eyed her strangely and accepted the food with a quiet "thank you."
"Do you know anything about farming?" Daisy asked between bites.
He shook his head and swallowed. "No, but I've always been a quick study. Show me what I need to do and I'll get it done."
"Alright. You should heal up more though first. Can you move?"
"Yes, but it hurts."
"You should probably try to move around at least a little so your muscles don't atrophy," she advised. "You can lean on me to walk if you need to."
Leo's ears turned red but Daisy didn't notice since she had gone back to eating her sandwich. He rather reluctantly took her up on her offer when he was done eating because he needed to use the bathroom. She helped him get to the outhouse and he eyed it with disgust and resignation but didn't say anything.
She had a bucket of water and soap waiting for him to wash his hands with when he came out and was reminded yet again of how much she missed running water. It made life so much easier!
When he was done, she helped him back to bed where he immediately went back to sleep. It seemed that moving around had exhausted him. Poor thing.
Over the next several days, Leo slowly built his strength up to the point that he could walk around on his own. By the time his bandages could be removed, he was already helping with minor household chores that weren't too strenuous.
He had been relatively silent—speaking only when spoken to or if he needed something. Daisy wondered what he had been through to make him like that since she was the same way but it wasn't her place to ask. She accepted his help at face value and didn't question him.
This kid definitely didn't have any experience with farm work whatsoever but he hadn't been boasting about being a fast learner. He picked everything up almost alarmingly quickly, including canning.
When Ginny came over to help now that the tomatoes were mostly ripe, he had still been unable to do most of the strenuous work and ended up watching them curiously from a distance before coming over to help without having to ask a single question about how it was done.
All that from observation alone! Daisy couldn't help but be impressed.
Ginny had been curious about who he was and she had to invent something about him being a relative and coming to help on the farm. She would have had to come up with a story eventually anyway since the Krinzel brothers would be meeting him soon enough as he helped them with their work.
Leo worked silently and efficiently by their sides with a sullen air about him. It seemed he still had a lot on his mind about whatever he had run away from.
She felt sorry for him but could tell he didn't want anyone's pity so she kept it to herself. They weren't friends. They could barely be considered acquaintances. Allies would be a better word for what they were.
Daisy had helped him dye his hair brown with a special tea after covertly talking to an herbalist in town that she swore to secrecy. He kept his bangs over his blue eye too so no one could tell he had heterochromia at a glance. As a result, he looked like a completely different person than the boy she found by the stream.
Thankfully, they took care of the hair dye before Ginny came to call. Otherwise it would have been difficult to explain why a kid with bright red hair had suddenly become a brunette.
Buying so much sage tea was going to take a toll on her finances. It would be easier to go out and collect the herb personally. There was plenty growing in the forest. As long as they made absolutely sure it was the right plant and not something poisonous, it would be fine.
Daisy put Leo in charge of that once he was feeling well enough. He did it without complaint since he knew it was necessary for his cover. Especially since she was the one going out of her way to create the tea and scrub it through his hair to make sure everything was covered. He couldn't do that so easily on his own.
The herbalist said they would need to do a touch up every two weeks since the tea's effects weren't terribly strong. They weren't meant to be long lasting and required a lot of the herb for a single batch of dye.
Ginny was a quiet woman by nature and didn't ask too many questions about where Leo came from, which Daisy was grateful for. Her husband and brothers-in-law were another story.
"Who's this?" Thomas, the youngest of the lot asked with an air of great surprise when she first showed the runaway where he would primarily be working. Of course it happened to be where the rest of the farmhands were.
"My cousin Leo," Daisy said casually. "He knows about my predicament so he came to help me out."
"Where did he come from? I never heard of any cousin called Leo before now," Braedon noted, squinting at him.
At least Leo looked somewhat like her now that his hair had been darkened. It was a bronze brown because of the red undertones compared to Veronica's chocolate brown but it was more believable than his true hair color would have been.
"His family lives a few hours east of here by cart," she improvised.
Daisy assumed he had come from the east based on some of the tracks near him when she found him in the forest but had no way of knowing that for sure. It was the first direction she thought of based on that.
"Would that be around Derby then?" Callum asked curiously.
"Yeah," she replied lamely. "Very close to Derby. A little village most people haven't heard of."
"Oh, I see. Welcome aboard then, Leo!"
"We can take over showing him the ropes, Miss Veronica," Braedon told her as he clapped a hand on Leo's shoulder (to his great chagrin) and led the boy away.
They had accepted Leo because of her on-the-spot lies but her heart was still racing. That was so much more stressful than explaining things to Ginny had been! She hoped she didn't have to do that again. She didn't interact with too many people in town on a regular basis so she probably wouldn't have to introduce him if he stayed here…she hoped.