A Home in the Country

by Sheelagh Mawe

  There was a time when the sound of the recess bell and the lunch bell were the highlight of our days, freeing us as they did to hunt outside for food. But once winter set in, those bells were about as welcome as the sound of Agnes’ voice.

  The best we could do, Cathy, Sally and I, was squat down as close together as we could get in a corner of the schoolyard next to some high cement steps on one side and the side of the building on the other. There we’d shiver and moan and complain until the bell let us back inside.

  We were there one day, Cathy saying she hated winter worse than anything, even Agnes; me saying that even if the other kids were throwing cupcakes and candy bars all over the playground we’d be too cold to go pick ’em up; Sally not saying anything, just whimpering, when we heard a tapping sound on the window above us and, looking up, saw Miss Stacey. She looked worried and waved us to a side door.

  ‘Mercy!’ she gasped, letting us in. ‘You girls are frozen stiff! Don’t you have hats or long trousers or gloves?’

  Our chattering teeth wouldn’t let us speak but our shaking heads gave her the answer she needed.

  After a thoughtful pause, she said, ‘I don’t see the harm if you all just sneak in the library on real cold days. Only thing is, you’ll have to be very quiet and not tell anyone. Can you do that?’

  We nodded our heads vigorously. You bet we could!

  That library became much more than just a refuge from the bitter cold for us. It became a home. A safe and silent cocoon, where neither adult nor child came to interrupt our blissful perusal of the shelves of books at our disposal; books that opened their covers to our hungry hearts the way food would have filled our shrunken stomachs.

  Reading made us forget everything, even Agnes, until the ringing bell brought us back to who and where we really were: cold, hungry, helpless travellers on a journey that seemed to grow more cruel and frightening with every passing day.

  Reading books, even looking at picture books, wasn’t the least bit interesting to Sally. Entering the library at a brisk pace, quite unlike her usual lumbering shuffle, she’d head straight for the little low table by the radiator, plop herself down, put her head down on her arms, puff out a happy little sigh and go straight to sleep.

  Watching her, Cathy said, ‘Agnes is right about her being dumber’n dumb. All these books and all she can think to do is sleep!’

  I didn’t agree with her. I thought Sally slept because she felt safe in the library and, in sleep, didn’t have to think about Agnes or the other kids tormenting her. Or about being cold and hungry.

  To tell the truth, I often felt ashamed of the way Cathy and I treated her ourselves when we knew the only thing wrong with her was she was still a baby, too little to do the tasks set her. And that by throwing her in the chicken house back in the summer, Agnes had got her stuck in that mindset in a permanent kind of way. We also knew that things had gone from bad to worse for Sally since the day she handed Agnes a note from her teacher.

  Whatever was in that note had made Agnes really mad. She read it through once, went and sat in her rocker and read it through a second time, then strode to the range, opened the top, threw in the note and stayed there watching it burn to a black cinder before slamming the lid back down.

  ‘Had to have been about Sally being dirty and all over sores and bruises for Agnes to take on so,’ Cathy said.

  ‘More like it was about her not doin’ good in school,’ I said, ‘on account of I heard Agnes talkin’ to herself right after she burned that note and she said, “They want a meetin’, let ’em come out here’n have one. I’ll tell ’em it’s not just the one kid needs help with her lessons. Take a good look at the boy, too,” I’ll say. Kid don’t hardly know how to talk, never mind read….’

  A day or so later at breakfast, Sally’s spoon scraped the bottom of her cereal bowl – just making sure she hadn’t missed the last cornflake – and old Agnes was out of her chair and around the table in an instant to push Sally’s face down into the bowl.

  ‘Hog!’ she yelled. ‘That’s the last time you’re bein’ bad for me, girl! Same with this fool brother of yours! I’m keeping the both of you home from school today!’

  Cathy let out a little gasp that scared me more than Agnes’ yelling and I wondered if she was thinking this might be the day Agnes was going to beat them up so bad neither one would get to grow up.

  Agnes turned on us. ‘You plannin’ on settin’ there all day mindin’ other folks’ business? Git! Go wait on your bus. Cold might put some sense in your heads.’

  Later, in the library, watching the wind lick across the top of the snow and fling it against the side of the building, I couldn’t even read.

  ‘You s’pose she’s got ’em tied up on the back porch with the pepper rags?’ I whispered to Cathy. ‘In this kind of cold?’

  Cathy rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms and shivered. ‘What’s scarin’ the daylights out of me is, what if she’s thrown Sally in with them damn chickens again?’

  There were tyre tracks in the snow in front of the fence when we got home that day. We looked at them and we looked at one another wondering, Did she get them hog-killing guys back out again? To kill what? Or was it the cops she called? For Sally and Andy?

  Up at the house there were no lights showing, not even in the kitchen, and we took our time getting there, Danny not even going in but straight over to the cabin to change.

  In the near dark of the kitchen, Agnes sat rocking tight up against the range, and on the table were the leftovers of one of her company lunches.

  She stopped rocking and her face lit up with a big smile when we walked in. Leaning forward, she said, ‘I told Bennings a while back there wasn’t nothin’ for it but to come get that poor little Sally kid on account of the way you two been tormentin’ the life out of her to where she didn’t know nothin’ no more,’ she began.

  ‘She didn’t like hearin’ that, Mrs Bennings. Pa’ticu’ly when I got to tellin’ how you took and locked her in the hen house back in the summer and left her I don’t know how long with the temperature way up over one hundred degrees.’

  Full well Agnes knew we weren’t dumb enough to argue but she was looking at us, head to one side, as though she expected us to say something. That was one of the few times we couldn’t help her out. Our job right then was to keep our eyes on the floor so she couldn’t see how happy we were that Sally wasn’t in the hen house or tied up freezing on the side porch. Sally was out of there!

  Agnes sighed, ‘’Course, Bennings had to go take the boy, too. Wouldn’t think about splittin’ up a brother and a sister so I got you two to thank for leavin’ me short-handed…. But the three of you to do everythin’ and two of you girls. Jesus! How come nothin’ ever works out like I want?’

  She stood up, pointed to the table, ‘Get this food put away and the dishes washed, then go help Danny.’

  Out in the barn Danny came out of the shadows, grinning. ‘Andy’s clothes is gone!’ he whooped.

  We told him Sally’s were, too. ‘Bennings took ’em,’ we explained. ‘And Agnes is sayin’ it’s on account of us tormentin’ her!’

  ‘Man, they’re lucky!’ Danny sighed. ‘Wonder where they’re at right now?’

  ‘I sure hope they’re not in another home in the country,’ I shuddered. Then I brightened. ‘Maybe they’ll tell Bennings how crazy-mean Agnes is and she’ll come get us!’ I ventured.

  ‘Yeah,’ Cathy sneered. ‘Like the way she hurried right over after James left.’

  I sagged. That’s how come I never thought about James anymore! The dumb creep never did tell anyone to come get me!

  Danny scratched his head, ‘Man,’ he sighed, ‘Andy’s leavin’ means a awful lot of work for just me, my own self. Both cows. Cleanin’ out the barn. All them chickens. The eggs. Choppin’ the logs and haulin’ ’em up to the house. Makes it just me and the Old Man, nights, too….’

  He stopped abruptly, as if surprised at what he’d just said. He turn
ed away and we could see the back of his neck and ears turning red.

  Cathy dropped the bushel basket she’d just picked up for gathering kindling and planted herself in front of him, hands on her hips, ‘What you talkin’ about?’ she wanted to know. ‘What’s he do to you, nights?’

  Danny was red all over by then and he grabbed up the pitchfork and aimed it at her. ‘I never said he did nothin’, did I?’ he snarled. ‘Git! Go get your kindlin’. I got me two cows to bring in and get milked.’

  We picked up our baskets, Cathy and I, and ran till we were deep in the woods. When I got my breath back, I asked, ‘What did Danny mean back there? About him and the Old Man? Nights?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ Cathy mumbled, ‘but I can guess. Same as what he does to me’n Sally. Only … don’t see how—’

  She broke off abruptly and turned towards me, looking as mad at me as Danny had at her.

  ‘Git!’ she yelled. ‘Go get your damn kindlin’. Don’t want to talk about it no more.’

  ‘I was only askin’—’

  ‘Then quit! Figure it out your own self!’

  ‘If I could, I wouldn’t need to ask, would I?’

  FOURTEEN

  With Christmas inching its way towards us with its usual maddening slowness, the school nevertheless began to exude an extra special kind of joy, cheer, and comfort we Slater kids could not get enough of. For, unlike the frigid interior of Agnes’ house at a short distance in any direction from the range, and the absence of any kind of frivolous food, ever, the furnaces at school blasted deliciously warm air, while teachers and kids alike brought in a never-ending stream of special holiday cookies and candies for all to share.

  Throughout each day, excited chatter centred on what Santa was expected to bring, while snatches of exuberant carols could be heard bursting forth from every classroom. Add to all this that each classroom boasted its own heavily decorated Christmas tree and it’s easy to understand why the daily dismissal bell sounded, to our ears, like the tolling of bereavement.

  It’s easy to understand, too, that while our classmates cheered every page turned on the calendar, thus bringing them closer to their longed-for Christmas vacation, our hearts sank ever lower, knowing that each day brought us closer to our sanctuary closing its doors on us, leaving us face to face with only Agnes, scared to death every time she stopped rocking, or else freezing by inches outside.

  To stop ourselves thinking about it, we began work on a new fantasy. In this one we had somehow found a way to live in the school until classes started up again in January. We had the whole place to ourselves and were just as warm as a person could get. We had Christmas trees to look at, library books to read and big, comfy chairs in the teachers’ lounge to sleep in.

  The only thing we hadn’t figured out was what we’d eat after we emptied the candy wagon. We were in the hayloft one Sunday afternoon working on this most important issue when the urgent clangour of the bell interrupted us.

  ‘Je-sus!’ Danny yelped, jumping to his feet. ‘Will you listen to that. She’s ringing that bell fit to bust. What’s she want now? It’s way too early to start in milkin’.’

  Cathy pushed past him. ‘One of us has gone and done somethin’ wrong. Wasn’t me. Best move it ’fore she comes beats the shit out of all of us out here.’

  We tumbled out of the barn and ran towards the back door where Agnes, coatless, was still clanging the bell as though permanently attached to it.

  ‘Get in here,’ she roared over the noise she was making. ‘Danny, go over the cabin, get the Old Man. Tell him … no, I’ll tell him. Go on, now, git! Move it!’

  While Danny veered off to the cabin, Agnes, Cathy and I entered the kitchen where Agnes, alternating between us, shook us nearly senseless while screaming, ‘The Japs has gone and bombed Pearl Harbor! Jesus Christ! All three of my boys is stationed right there. You hear me? My boys is there. They might could be dead! And how about my girl, Betty? Last I heard she was fixin’ on being sent out there the end of the month. Godammit, don’t stand there with your mouths hangin’ open! Say something! We got us a war goin’ on.’

  She rounded on me again, fists flailing. ‘It’s all on account of you Goddamn British! Japs seen how easy them Germans has it beatin’ you up’n figured they might just as soon come get us.’

  The Old Man and Danny came in and Agnes started all over again yelling at her husband to do something. ‘Right now! Call the president! Tell him if my boys ain’t dead already I want ’em home. Now! And tell him young girls like Betty ain’t got no business bein’ in the armed services anyways. Leastways not with a war goin’ on, they ain’t. An’ tell him—’

  For the first time since any of us had lived there, we had the unexpected pleasure of seeing the Old Man raise his voice and his fists to Agnes. ‘Shut up!’ he roared. ‘Shut up and let me listen to the radio.’

  After we had been sent back out to the barn with instructions not to come near, what puzzled us most was, where in the heck was Japan? And what, for Pete’s sake, was a pearl harbor?

  ‘Don’t much matter where it’s at,’ Danny said, sowing the seeds of a new and exciting fantasy, ‘What we got to look for is them Japs comin’ here’n bombin’ us real bad so us kids’ll get evacuated to another country. One that’s far, far away.’

  School the following morning was an entirely different place to the one we had vacated the previous Friday. American flags seemed to have multiplied overnight and taken over the Christmas artwork. Patriotic songs rang out in place of the carols we’d been practising, and saving for war bonds was strongly encouraged.

  Talk from teachers soon resonated with phrases like, ‘Before the war … When the war is over … When we’ve defeated the Japs … It’s your duty….’ And for those careless or stupid enough to break rules, the all-too familiar question from my past: ‘Don’t you know there’s a war on?’

  Patriotic fervour ruled with Christmas an almost forgotten event until the last day of the semester, when Miss Stacey announced to the class that when we came back from the holidays, she was going to have each of us write an essay entitled, Christmas Day at my House. ‘That way,’ she explained, ‘we can stop thinking about this awful war and get to learn about other people’s habits and customs.’

  I prayed she’d forget about that essay because Cathy had already told me we wouldn’t get presents or a turkey to eat and no tree so what was I supposed to write about?

  Then I had an idea. ‘I know! I’ll write about my Christmases in England before the war, like as if they were this one. Wait till the kids hear about that!’

  ‘They’re none of them that dumb!’ Cathy growled. ‘Jesus! You stand up in front of the whole class in those raggedy old clothes and Danny’s shoes tellin’ about hangin’ up your stockin’ and velvet party dresses and toys and games and Christmas puddings and Father Christmas, they’ll say you’re lyin’!’

  ‘It’s what you always say we got to do, ain’t it? Lie?’

  ‘Yeah … to adults. They’ll believe anything. Not to kids, though. Kids’re way too smart.’

  When school was ‘in session’, as Miss Stacey put it, we kids had become wizards at doing our chores fast so we could get them done before school and, likewise, before dark after school.

  What we’d never had a chance to learn was how to stretch them the length of a day. After Cathy and I cleared the breakfast table and washed the dishes the first morning of Christmas vacation and were waiting for the day’s instructions, Agnes confounded us by saying, ‘Don’t look at me! Don’t ’spect me to read you stories, do you? Go help Danny. Go play. And don’t come near this house till I ring the bell. I need to be on the phone findin’ out where my kids is at.’

  Play? Did she mean fool around with sticks and bats and balls the way the kids at school did at recess? Jesus! We climbed into the hayloft to think it over and almost instantly came up with one of our better ideas.

  We’d stay right where we were and make nests out of the bags of leaves
! Yeah! That way we’d stay warm and cosy no matter how cold it got outside. We’d sleep as much as we felt like and if we got tired of sleeping we’d tell each other stories. Cathy and I could tell Danny the ones we read in the library and if we ran out of those we’d make up new ones about how we were going to be and what we were going to do to Agnes when we grew up and boy, we’d just have us the best time! And maybe I wouldn’t need to write about my English Christmases. Maybe I’d write about this one after all!

  ‘Won’t nobody believe this one neither so maybe you’d best just go on and write about them others,’ Cathy said. ‘Let ’em think what they want.’

  Even though Cathy spent a good part of every day in the hayloft assuring Danny and me we wouldn’t get any presents, I knew, with a sinking heart, that I would. And I did. It arrived from England on my day to go to the store and even though I played along with Bill’s usual dumb routine to get my hands on it, what I felt like saying was, ‘Just keep it! It ain’t worth getting beat up over! ’Specially not if it’s some dumb doll.’

  I thought about throwing it away and I thought about hiding it, but I knew my mother would write asking if it arrived safely so there was nothing left to do but think, Jesus Christ! More trouble!

  Agnes snatched the package out of my hands and started tearing away the wrapping and string the minute I walked in the kitchen with it. I knew only too well I’d make her mad if I said anything but every once in a while she made me really mad, too, and thinking I was going to get beat up anyway, I went ahead and said what was on my mind.

  ‘Excuse me, ma’am, but that package is s’posed to be for me. Lookit, that’s my name on it. And you know somethin’ else? Today ain’t Christmas day.’

  ‘I can read,’ Agnes growled. ‘And I already told you Christmas Day’s the same as any other around here. ’Sides, I need to see what-all’s inside. Might could be somethin’ that’ll spoil.’