The Sock Harvest

The Sock Harvest


The sock unraveled in her hands.

"It's over ripe," she said. She pulled at the bottom of another stocking, trying to quickly snap the toe from where it attached to the cane. This one a bright blue argyle. It, too, unraveled from the top cuff.

Her brother sighed. "I knew we left them too long."

She shook her head, "These are on the edge of the row. Perhaps the ones further in have seen less sun."

The two of them, brother and sister, edged to the next row and pulled at the socks that hung from the green vines, and these stayed true. She yanked from the cuff at the bottom, he gently twisted the toe, releasing it from the vine.

"See?" she said with a smile. "Only the ones on the very southern edge are over ripe."

"We need to hurry, then," the brother said.

In the next three hours, with almost no words between them, they harvested twenty dozen pairs of socks, only losing five more pairs to unraveling.

The brother, Jeremy, held up one teal argyle sock that had unraveled somewhat at the top and was a bit over colored on the edges of the toes. "This pair would have been my favorite," he said. "The pair I would have kept."

Jessica, his sister, gave him a gentle hug. "We lost too many to keep any, brother."

He sighed again. "You know I always like to keep a pair of this varietal for myself."

She hugged him again, "I do. Hand me those and I will see if I can ... darn them."

He laughed. "You know that's my favorite term. Those darned socks."

She laughed along as they folded the pairs in the hamper and began their trek back home.

Once home, she set about to the task and, in a few minutes, presented Jeremy with the two teal socks. He admired her handiwork, fingering the unique, folded cuff on this pair. "Ingenious," he said. "And stylish. No one else will have a pair quite like this."

"It helps," she explained, "that you have smaller feet. And if you do not wear them outside of your shoes in public, then no one will notice the discoloration on the toes."

"They're quite lovely, sis!" he exclaimed. "My current second favorite pair."

His favorite pair was from a failed genetic experiment combining traditional designs with bold, horizontal stripes.

All but one of those pairs grew to be either misshapen physically or scatter patterned, with unrecognizable shapes placed randomly on the socks and, worst of all, mismatched across the pairs.

One pair however, also Jeremy's favorite bright teal color, looked like a spiral row of gargoyles, increasing in size as they moved towards the top. The two socks were identical.

They tried to duplicate that for three seasons, but each season produced even uglier variations of the misshapen, random, mis-matched patterns.

He never showed his teal, spiral gargoyle socks outside of their home, since he knew they would be claimed by a royal and he would have no recourse except to overcharge for them. And, to the sister and brother sock farmers, there was enough money that they could keep one thing special and secret for themselves.

So long as the harvests were good.

So long as the sock harvests were good.