Pike removed his cap entirely. "You're right," he said.
Clara nodded. She did not ask him to explain further, and she did not tell him the injury had disappeared. Instead she opened the gate. She led them down the slope in smaller groups, keeping children away from the creek's unstable edge and asking the adults to stay on the paths between the rows. In the morning light the strongest willows stood well above her shoulders, some near ten feet at the tips of their longest shoots, with more modest survivors filling the gaps between them. Their roots had begun securing portions of the bank, though Clara pointed out where the next flood could still damage the planting.
She showed the visitors the places where cuttings had died in stagnant water. She showed them the rows that had washed out during April's flood, the dry upper slope where several survivors were still struggling, and the greener creek margin where their growth had been strongest. She took them to the untreated comparison plots and let them handle two lumps of soil, warning them not to confuse a handful of differences with a changed county. As she spoke, she discovered that explaining her failures made the successful plants more convincing rather than less.
The questions came faster. How deep had she placed the branches? How long had she soaked them? How had she protected the new shoots from cattle? Would young plants survive the winter, and could cuttings be carried to another county? Clara answered what she knew, referred what she did not to Vance and Margaret, and insisted that anyone requesting nursery wood return when the plants were dormant rather than cutting weak shoots during the last of the drought.
"I'm going to mark which trees can spare branches," she said. "We shouldn't cut everything just because people are asking. We need the original roots to get through winter. Once the leaves fall, I can take a limited number of sound cuttings and keep them stored properly for planting weather. That's what Grandmother wrote down, and the county office can help us find out which sites are suitable."
Vance stood beside her and listened without interrupting. When a farmer asked whether Clara could guarantee the same results, he answered before she had to. "No one can guarantee establishment in every location," he said. "But we have evidence from this site that willow cuttings, correctly placed and maintained, can be useful on certain wet banks. Miss Jennings has kept better field records than many people with far more resources. We intend to learn from them."
Clara looked at him in surprise. The compliment did not sound like charity, and perhaps that was why it settled so deeply. For months he had been the man whose opinion could make her foolish in the eyes of the county. Now he was placing the public weight of that opinion behind her careful observations, without asking her to pretend the work had been his. It was the first time she understood that an expert's respect could be more valuable than an expert's praise.