by Jessie Haas
“Oh, Mother,” I whispered. “Why did you send me here?” I felt proud of how I’d done at home. I’d grieved, without entirely forgetting the feelings of other people. I’d been wholehearted, brave, responsible.
Here I felt myself shrinking down. The orphan with her two braids, hunched on a stump. She really should be wearing brown.
Ohhh, look, the rooster remarked. As I watched him peck the feather, I saw in my mind the severed head on the manure pile, with its fringe of bruised and blackened feathers.…
The chicken roasting in the kitchen.
The chopping block!
I rose, to a chuck-chuck-chuck from the gray rooster, and felt the back of my dress. It was damp, and my hand came away stained with blood.
“Oh, no!” I almost sat down again and let everything close over me like dark wool. But as I bent, I saw the red berries on my skirt. “Don’t they just make you happy, Harry?” Mother said when we chose the calico. “Let’s have dresses just alike, so we can look at each other and be cheerful!”
Mother chose to be happy. I never understood that before.
“Ow!” The rooster was pecking my leg. I drew back to kick him, then realized what he was doing. He was pecking the berries.
“They’re cloth,” I said, drawing back. “They’re not real.”
He tilted his head to look at me through the other eye, as if much struck. Then he turned back to the ground and the tiny golden feather.
“Watch out for that, too,” I said. “That’s probably a bad omen.”
In the kitchen the roast chicken smell was heavy. Aunt Sarah stood in her pantry, stirring. In the sitting room Uncle Clayton sat collapsed to one side, snoring gently.
At home I would know what to do. Here I wasn’t sure what was allowed. “Aunt Sarah?”
She turned her head.
“I’ve got … blood.” I held out the wet part of my skirt. “Should I—”
“Good heavens!” She dusted her hands on her apron and came out. “Is it your first time? Are you prepared?”
“Am I prepared?” I stared at her large red face. “Prepared for—oh!” She thought I’d been taken unawares by my monthly period. “I sat on the chopping block,” I said.
Her face flushed even redder. “Well, goodness gracious, go to the sink and pump cold water on it! Surely you know how to do that!”
“That’s exactly what I was going to do!” I said. “I wanted to make sure you didn’t mind!”
Her eyes brightened with anger. I felt how large she was, and my back stiffened. After a moment she folded her lips, swelling with a long, slow breath. “This is your home. You do what you need to.”
An especially loud snore sounded in the other room, and a startled “What?”
“Nothing,” Aunt Sarah said, turning back to the pantry. “Go on with your reading.”
I rinsed the blood out of my skirt and stood with my back to the cookstove to dry it, looking around the clean, ugly kitchen. I felt shaken by the brush with Aunt Sarah. Was this going to be my life, quarreling with her over every little thing?
No, my life would be different. I would have a career, like Luke’s sister, Vicky, who worked for a publisher. That was why schooling was so important.
Instantly Barrett Academy formed in my mind, complete with chalk dust; Miss Spencer’s voice fading to a background drone when the algebra got too hard; the smell of horehound cough drops; Luke; and the little society the Academy made, with its teachers, the students from hill farms who boarded at Webb House, town kids who walked or drove in each morning.…
I felt the blood drain out of my head. I stared out the window at the transparent waves of ridges.
“Aunt Sarah!”
“Now what?”
“Aunt Sarah, how—how will I get to school?”
There was a pause. She came to the pantry doorway. “School? You’ve finished school, haven’t you? I understood you were through eighth grade.”
“I’m at the Academy now, but how am I going to get there? Mother used to drive me—”
Two red spots burned on Aunt Sarah’s cheeks. “You don’t imagine we’re going to drive you, do you? It’s seven miles each way!”
“But what am I going to do?”
“Do? There’s nothing to do! You’ll stay right here and take up the life the Lord’s given you!”
“I’ll drive myself! I can drive—”
“Your uncle needs all three horses right here!”
I became aware of Uncle Clayton in the sitting-room doorway. He was shaking his head at me in some kind of warning. I looked back at Aunt Sarah. “Then I’ll board there, I can stay at Webb—”
“And how would you pay for that? If you’ve got any money coming to you, girl, I’ve yet to hear of it! All I’ve heard about is debts!”
“But—” I didn’t have words to go on with. Our lives had revolved around my schooling. Mother always made it the most important thing, and to Aunt Sarah it was nothing.
“I’m sorry,” she said after a minute. Her voice had that forced-out sound again, or maybe it was forced in, holding things back. “It seems hard, but you have to face facts.”
On the flypaper over the table a fly whined and whirred its wings in vain. I stared into Aunt Sarah’s marble eyes. “Well, this is a fact,” I said. My voice shook. “Mother wanted me to go to school.”
Smack! Aunt Sarah hit the table with her open palm. “If your mother is an example of what education does for a woman, I’d like to see the schools close right down!”
My mouth hung open. The chicken sizzled in the oven. After a moment I asked, “What?” My voice came in a whisper. “What?”
Aunt Sarah pressed her lips together, as if trying to prevent more angry words from escaping. “Never mind.”
“No! You tell me what you meant by that!”
Aunt Sarah’s eyes widened, “I’ll tell you what I mean! Your mother was an immoral woman! She got herself in trouble like any common trash, and she ruined my brother’s life!”
“Sairy—” Uncle Clayton said, but my voice trampled his.
“What are you talking about?” My voice came full throated now, from the deepest part of my lungs. In one detached corner of my mind I was amazed. I’d never spoken this way to a grown-up, hardly ever to anyone. Aunt Sarah’s arm twitched back as if she wanted to slap me. I stepped closer. “What?”
“If you’re so smart,” she said between her teeth, “then when is your birthday? When were your parents married? It doesn’t take algebra to figure out that sum!”
I could only stare. After a minute I said, “I don’t know when they were married.”
“It was too darned late, I can tell you that!”
I understood what she was saying. She was saying that Mother was pregnant when she and Father married. I looked her square in the eye. “My mother was a wonderful person,” I said. “The only mistake she ever made was sending me to you!”
At that she did slap me, right across the face. I hardly felt it. It was only a sound.
“Go to your room!”
I turned without speaking and rapidly climbed the stairs. I went straight to the mirror and looked at myself.
The orphan was gone. This girl had brilliant, glittering eyes and one cheek redder than the other. She looked so full of power that she might burst into flames at any moment.
I looked at her. I touched the reddened cheek.
“I will not stay here.”
seven
I found a pencil and a tablet of the ugly paper we used for algebra.
Dr. Vesper [I wrote],
I will not stay here and listen to my mother being
insulted. May I come and live with you? I will
work hard and do everything I can not to be a
burden.
Please come see me as soon as you can.
Your grateful friend,
Harriet Gibson
I folded it and addressed the outside. Now I began to hear the sounds downstairs: the ongoing angry
rumble of Aunt Sarah’s voice, an occasional protest from Uncle Clayton.
I went down. Aunt Sarah rounded at the sound of my step. “I thought I told you to go upstairs!”
I looked past her. “Uncle Clayton, I need this letter to go to Dr. Vesper. When do you go down for your mail?”
He looked away from me, only to recoil from Aunt Sarah’s expression. “Wednesdays!”
Three more days. I looked out the window. Clouds lay in combed rows across the eastern sky, mirroring the rows of ridgetops. Below the pasture I saw the slender brown line of the road.
“Never mind.” I walked out the front door.
The air felt cool. A rim of blue sky showed in the east, but from the west bigger, darker clouds were pushing in. I headed straight across the yard. Hens scattered. Only the gray rooster hesitated, eyeing the red berries on my dress. Ohh, look.
I plunged past him, along the rutted lane. Wind clapped the maple leaves. Down in the pasture the colt flung his head high and watched me. He hadn’t given up hope that any moving creature might be his mother.
“I’ll be back for you,” I said to him. Everything was clear in my mind. I would walk down to West Barrett and stay the night with Althea Brand. In the morning I’d see Dr. Vesper and the lawyer, and I would figure out what to do next. I’d work as a hired girl rather than come back here. I’d live in a barn—
Something rumbled. I turned. Behind the row of maples loomed an enormous crinkled cloud. The rumble came again.
One thing I’d been well taught was to seek shelter at the first sign of a thunderstorm. I hesitated. I wasn’t out of sight of the house yet.
But it was no part of my plan to be hit by lightning. I turned and walked toward the barn, ignoring the face at the kitchen window. The first fat raindrops were spearing into the dirt as I reached the haymow door.
Hens ran into the barn after me as the rain began to sheet down. I sat among them. The gray rooster strolled close. I picked up a handful of the chaff that lay all around me, dusty and golden, and held it out to him.
He drew back and pecked shrewdly at the chaff on the floor. What’s so special about yours? he seemed to be asking. He scratched a long trough with one foot and inspected the results.
I looked past him, out the big door. The rain beat down. The stinging nettles bent and dripped. Crack! of lightning, thunder like a freight train on an iron bridge.
Against this background I saw myself arriving hot and sweaty at Althea Brand’s. I saw myself on Dr. Vesper’s doorstep, demanding shelter. I saw the looks on their faces.
No, not that way. Send the letter and wait.
A shower of chaff buried my foot. The rooster had drawn his line there, and now he pecked importantly, pretending to pay no attention to me. I tipped my hand to show him my chaff, and he drew back in alarm. I thought of Aunt Sarah’s hand twitching back to hit me and how I had stepped forward to meet the blow. That side of my face hurt. I had never been slapped before.
I’d never been that angry.
“I don’t believe it,” I said. “It isn’t true!” Everything Mother did was open, joyful, courageous. I couldn’t imagine her getting married because she had to.
So why was Aunt Sarah lying? Why exactly did she hate Mother?
Mother was young, I thought, and full of charm, and educated. She was different, and people are like chickens.
Tears prickled my eyes. I could hear her saying, “People are like chickens, Harry. They’ll always peck the one that’s different.”
My throat felt full and tight. Through my tears I watched the hens, so pretty with their wide, plump bodies and their tiny, tiny heads. We were both different, especially here where Aunt Sarah ruled. While Mother was alive, she protected me, but now I was getting pecked, too.
So why did she send me here?
Across the yard rain streamed out the eaves’ spout and splashed into a barrel at the corner of the house. Smoke flattened black under the rain, puffed down, and tried to rise again. My father lived right here, as a boy. But I didn’t remember my father. Being where he grew up couldn’t make me happy.
Was it just that Mother thought Aunt Sarah should take care of me? That didn’t sound like Mother. If there was one thing I knew, it was that Mother loved me more than anything in the world. She must have thought this was best for me.
“But why?” I tipped my head back and spoke up toward the blackness. “Mother, why?”
Suddenly I felt something touch my hand. I looked down. The rooster was just drawing back as if he thought himself very clever, with a large piece of chaff in his beak. He crooned, Ohh, mymymymy. Ohh, my—
“You’re funny,” I told him. My voice was achy and rasping, but I could feel myself almost smile. I looked down at the letter in my hand, and I heard Dr. Vesper saying, “It’s what Ellen wanted. They owe it to her to try.”
I hadn’t really tried at all yet. I’d just barely woken up, had just started to see where I was and who was here with me. In a way it felt worse than the gray zone where the orphan lived. It hurt. My throat ached with sorrow. But I was awake now, and I would try. One thing I knew, though: Mother wouldn’t want me to stay here if it meant giving up my education.
Exams must be soon, I thought. Next week? Could I go down and take them? Could I afford the Academy? And how could I get there? Could I possibly train the colt by next fall and ride him down?
Dr. Vesper could answer some of those questions. Only I could answer the last one. I always meant to train him, I thought. I’ll just have to get started.
eight
The rain stopped. The sun came out through the last long, fat drops and shone on the puddles as I crossed the yard.
They were eating. A place was set for me. I sat down, and Aunt Sarah served me without speaking. To my surprise I was hungry, and I didn’t mind eating that rooster, though I’d seen his head on the manure pile and though he was cooked dry. Mother was a better cook than Aunt Sarah—not that we often aspired to a chicken. Popcorn and milk was our Sunday dinner.
I looked up and caught Uncle Clayton glancing from Aunt Sarah to me. He started when he met my eyes, and reached for another biscuit.
When the meal was finished, I helped Aunt Sarah clear away and wash dishes. It was while I was drying the platter that she finally spoke. “We’ll have to learn to get along better.” She was scrubbing the bottom of the roasting pan, with her big chin pillowed and her mouth tight.
We? I thought. Who started it? But it was the nearest she could come to an apology. I could understand that. I hate apologies, too. “Yes,” I said finally, “we will.”
That began a week of dancing: two steps forward, two back. No, I don’t want your help with washing; then a brooding, emotion-filled silence the next day, until I understood that I was supposed to help iron.
Spend more time outdoors.
Where were you?
Where I was all Tuesday afternoon was trying to catch the colt. He’d always been friendly before, sometimes too friendly, dogging our heels when we caught Belle or repaired the fence. But the freedom of the big pasture had gone to his head, or else a week or so of neglect had caused him to forget me. He let me get close, but not close enough, until I lost my temper and threw the rope at him. Then he kicked up his heels and galloped away.
Wednesday Uncle Clayton went for the mail. He took two letters from me, one to the Academy, asking about examinations, and one to Dr. Vesper, asking him to explain the exact state of my finances. Aunt Sarah looked sharply when I handed the letters over but asked no questions.
I helped her bake. Heat rolled off the big stove, but she kept me well away from it. Not with any expression of tenderness; she just set me to work at the far table and watched sharply as I rolled out piecrust.
“You have a nice light hand,” she commented. I heard the note of surprise and understood it for yet another insult to Mother. I pressed my lips together and didn’t answer.
After a minute she said, “It’s a nice day out. Go get s
ome fresh air.”
The kitchen was hot and dark, and sun shone outside the windows, but Aunt Sarah’s voice made me want to stay right there at the table just to spite her.
Instead I went down into the pasture with a rope and a measure of oats. The colt flung up his head and watched me, but the work team only tipped their ears and kept on grazing. I went halfway down the hill and rattled the oats.
All across the field heads lifted. Ears pointed at me: cow ears and horse ears. I hadn’t expected them all to notice, but the colt was looking, too. I shook the oats again, softly.
A cow stepped toward me. Like the slow start of an avalanche, others stepped, glanced at one another, sped up, until they all were trotting, shaking their big fringed ears, bucking, cantering. Now the horses came at a gallop.
I fled toward the gate, but two speckled heifers blocked the way. Hooves thundered behind me. I froze and ducked my head. When nothing hit me, I turned, and the team reached their big noses to the oats. The colt veered past them and started a swirl of cows milling around me.
“Bess! Chick! Go on!” I heard a popping sound. Cows galumphed away to either side, and the horses backed up, flattening their ears. Then Aunt Sarah was beside me, large and hot, with a buggy whip in her hand.
“Thank you!” I said.
But Aunt Sarah looked into the measure. “Why on earth are you feeding good oats to these animals? There’s plenty of grass!”
“I was trying to catch the colt—” I stopped myself. I hated the weak, excusing sound of my voice, as if I didn’t have a perfect right to do what I was doing.
“Oh, so now he can’t be caught?”
“I’ll catch him,” I said as we made for the gate.
“Well, don’t waste good oats. They’re too hard come by.” Aunt Sarah drew the bars back. How had she gotten in? I wondered. Did she slip between the rails or climb?
“Try apples next time,” she suggested after a moment. “Might be a little more private!”
I looked at her quickly. That was almost a joke. “Thank you. Where are the apples?”
“In a bin down cellar. I’ll show you.” She paused. “What do you call that animal?”