Hayley's Journal
Page 4
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I left Papa’s belongings on the porch after Miss Simpson, rather, Mrs. Carter and Mr. MacPhee left our scarce excuse of a farm. I’m not sure if secretly inside, I was hoping for Papa to come home or if I was just so tired inside that I had no energy to tidy up. I sat in Papa’s rocking chair and held his coffee cup tightly in my hands. Suddenly, without warning, I began to sob for the first time since Mama went to be with God.
I looked around me and saw the dilapidated barn. The weathered boards were cracked and worn and the roof had big holes that always got he hay wet when it rained. Our house kept us warm, but the windows always shook when the wind blew and Mama said she was afraid when we had storms.
How would I manage alone? Oh, I missed Mama, and yes, I missed Papa too, a little bit.
I prayed to God to help me overcome all the mountains he lay before me, just as his disciples had done in the Bible. I prayed to him to give me strength to keep our family together, what was left of it. And I prayed to him to forgive me for lying to Mr. MacPhee and Miss Simpson. And I prayed to God…
“Haley, Haley, wake up!” I could feel Lucille tugging on my arm, but I couldn’t open my eyes. “Haley, we’re hungry. You’ve been sleeping in Papa’s chair all morning. If he comes home and catches you in it, he’s gonna whoop your bum!” I jumped up from Papa’s rocker, realizing I had nodded off to sleep. Then the week’s events came back and flashed before my eyes and I eased myself back in the chair, my hands quivering.
“Haley!” Lucille cried, “What’s wrong? Don’t you die too! Don’t leave us, Haley.”
I steadied myself and asked Mary Lou to get me a cold cloth for my forehead. “Oh, Lucille, I’m OK , just a bit tired, that’s all. I’ll never leave you. I’m your Mama now.” Lucille handed baby Moses and laid him gently in my arms.
“Then if you’re the Mama you take Moses. He needs his diaper changed.” All three of the girls broke out in laughter for the first time in weeks, and it felt good. I felt a sense of relief come over me as we stat there on the porch, like the old days when Mama cooked our meals and washed our clothes and Papa went to work to earn money. It felt good, and I thanked God.
The next few days rolled into weeks and they didn’t feel so good. I know I worked the girls hard but we had to tend to the garden sand the fields so we could have food for the winter. I tried to explain to them that we had to work hard so we could stay together.
Everyday was the same. I would wake up when the rooster crowed at day break, gather the eggs and cook them for breakfast over a cast iron fry pan over a fire I would make in the yard. Then I would wake Lucille and Mary Lou, who would always wine and want to go back to sleep. Eventually, they would roll out of bed, rubbing their eyes and make their way to the outhouse and then to the pasture to get our days worth of milk from Bessie the cow. Moses was a good baby, thank God, and he was always smiling up at me when I would lift him from his box which would soon be too small for him. Together, the four of us, would eat breakfast before the sun was much over the horizon. Mary Lou, Lucille, and I filled up on eggs, usually two each, while Moses suckled away on Bessie’s milk.
Then it was time for the girls to carry water from the well to wash the dishes and the clothes. That was the job they hated the most. Mary Lou and Lucille said the lye burned their eyes, but I said it was just and excuse to get out of chores and if they wanted to wear clean clothes and Moses to have clean diapers to get scrubbing those clothes on the washboard.
By the time the hot August sun was high overhead in the sky, we were in the fields picking potato bugs off the leaves of the potato plants. Lucille and Mary Lou always had a contest to see who would gather the most bugs in their pails. That was my idea and I think it was a good one. Moses would be asleep under the cherry tree and when we would start crying we knew it was time for lunch and get out of the sun and heat.
Usually we would have break and beans from the can, if I had made bread that was any good to eat, even if it wasn’t we couldn’t waste the flour and yeast that Miss Simpson had brought us. Then we would get back to the fields and pull weeds or rake the rows or pick potato bugs or bile the hay. I think Lucille and Mary Lou hated me.
Then one day, near the end of August a terrible thing happened.
It was unusually hot and humid. The girls and I were picking peas that had ripened on the vines and putting them in our pails. Lucille pointed to a big black thunder cloud and before she could say “Run” it started to thunder and lightening and we rand as fast as we could for the house.
We were soaked by the time we go to the porch. The thunder was loud and ugly and the lightening was right behind it. The rain turned into tiny hail stones that pelted our skin so that it hurt. It would be a nasty storm, that’s for sure. The three of us watched nature in all her glory as we sat on the porch and cheered with every clap of thunder and bolt of lightening.
“Moses! Where’s Moses!” I screamed. A shiver of fear ran down my spine as I imagined the worst. “Lucille, Mary Lou, where’s Moses?” The girls began to cry. “He’s…he’s…he’s in his box…under the cherry tree.” The three of us took off running for the cherry tree, without saying a word to each other.
Poor baby Moses. He was screeching so loudly, I was sure he would be dead by the time we finally reached his side. It seemed like it took forever to get the last few years to his little box. He was wet, and his little pink skin was bruised and beaten from the hail stones that had made their way through the cherry tree branches to this infant skin. His box was ruined from the wet and if God was watching I am sure he would have taken Moses from us then and there.
I held Moses in my arms tightly. “Oh baby Moses,” I sobbed “I am so sorry that we left you here all by yourself. I will never leave you alone again. Ever.”
I would not be returning to school this year.
I think Lucille and Mary Lou felt as responsible as I did for forgetting about Moses during the storm. How could we have been so terribly selfish and absent minded that we would have left our six week old baby brother in a storm that could have taken his little soul without prejudice.
The rest of the afternoon we spent taking turns cuddling Moses and soothing his sore skin. He would surely be bruised. Hopefully he would not remember this day in years to come.
Moses cried most of the night, while Lucille and Mary Lou slept soundly in their bed, I rocked the baby and kept cold cloths on his skin. The air smelled cool and fresh now, and I could see the moon struggling to make it’s away from behind a big cloud. Finally, just before day break, Moses settled down and went off to sleep. It would soon be time for me to start work, but I dare not disturb Moses as he lay quietly in my arms, not today. I didn’t even make breakfast.
Lucille and Mary Lou were happy to sleep in for the first time since Mama’s funeral. That was almost six weeks ago. They were also happy to have the first opportunity in as many weeks to play with their baby dolls. They played that they had left their dolls outside alone in a storm.