The Back Building

by Julie Dewey

  I grabbed my copy of Pollyanna by Eleanor H. Porter and sat in the drafty hallway to read as Hetty continued with her arduous chores. I couldn’t focus on the cheerful main character in the book while Hetty did all the back-breaking work. I watched as she wiped the sweat from her brow and upper lip. She finished cleaning the tub and used the towels that hung behind our door to wipe down the dirty sink before she started on the baseboards and floor. I put the book down and moved to help her with the floor. She handed me a rag and showed me how to dip, ring, and scrub starting with the dust-laden baseboards and moldings. Next we tackled the corners and then worked our way out so nothing got marred.

  When we finished in the bathroom I was exhausted and my arms ached. This work was not easy. Sitting and sewing was boring but not physically taxing. I understood why my mother handed the work over to Hetty so willingly. It was worth the small amount of money she doled out weekly to have the chores done for her.

  When I asked my mother about this she replied by telling me how rich people had maids who helped with the household work. The woman’s primary job, then, was to oversee the daily matters of the home. The woman decided what to put on the menu for dinner, what social engagements they should attend or host and whom they should invite. Their lives were lavish and fun and I could have that if I played my cards right. My mother told me I was an unmatched beauty, and that next year I would begin my social calendar. Until then, I needed to hone and refine my skills as a gracious young lady. She piled books on my head and commanded me to throw my shoulders back and down as I walked across the parlor ten times without dropping the novels.

  “To help erect your posture.” She said leaving me to perfect the preposterous balancing act alone (Twelve paces to the edge of the rug and twelve back).

  I felt badly for Hetty. When she went home it was to a clapboard house with seven siblings, three of whom she shared a room with. She didn’t have a mother anymore and took on the burden of caring for the smaller children as well as working both outside and inside the home. Often times my mother sent laundry home with Hetty so that she could earn a little something extra. Hetty always accepted the extra work and said she was saving her money for some day down the road.

  Hetty was the exception to the rule. She wanted out of our small town of Ithaca, New York. She confided in me that she had a dream to be a teacher one day. A black teacher, now that would be something.

  I never thought much about my grades. I assumed they were useless if I were just to be married off when I was ripe anyway. Hetty was different. She was driven by the words her mama instilled in her as a child. Her mama told her, “Hetty, you focus on a dream and you work hard to achieve it. You are one determined girl and you are gonna do fine in life.” Her mama was teaching her to be independent and not rely on a man to make her whole.

  Schoolwork came easy to me. I understood numbers and was good at adding and subtracting sums. I did most of my work in my head, but when I had to showcase it for credit I followed the teacher’s diagram on how to arrive at my answer. I enjoyed reading so long as the book wasn’t about romance or ideal women.

  I received glowing grades, but my teachers remarked that I had few, if any, friends in the class. They went on to suggest that perhaps my mother should arrange social engagements with my peers to help me get along better in the classroom. My mother did just that. She abhorred the notion her daughter could be socially awkward, especially when said daughter was so beautiful.

  In fact, my mother told herself that it was my physical beauty that kept the other girls, my peers, from being friendly towards me. She thought they were jealous. In reality, I was happier playing marbles with the boys at recess, and I was especially good at stick-ball. I didn’t care if I skinned my knees or got my dress dirty, so the boys let me play. I was even captain once or twice and selected our players systematically ensuring a winning team.

  The girls shunned me. They laughed when my hair was falling from its pony-tail, or strewn from a perfect braid after an enthusiastic game. My grass-stained knees created a stir and caused the girls to point and stare at me, then snicker as they stood huddled together in a circle, casting me out.

  I didn’t care one way or another. I had Hetty for a friend now and that’s all that mattered. She called for me after school on Tuesdays and Fridays and together we walked towards my home, the Mueller farm.

  On one such occasion I reached out and held fast to Hetty’s hand. It was plump and rough with calluses and caused a stir within me when I grasped it. She smiled deeply at me and we swung our hands in unison as we walked alongside the gravel road that led up to our fence. I hopped the fence and ran ahead of Hetty, not telling her my plan. I quickly set three traps in the woods that lined our property and would check them tomorrow. I had stashed a knife yesterday in the exact spot so if I caught anything I could skin it for Hetty. Then she could grab it for her journey home after work. With such a big family to feed, any meat was welcome.

  ***

  My traps lured two squirrels and another rabbit that I knew Hetty was particularly fond of in her stews. I would ask mother if we could spend time in the garden this afternoon, pulling up some root vegetables and be sure to give my friend enough for her supper.

  First, I had to kill and gut the squirrels, then the rabbit. Hetty came upon me then and she looked none too pleased.

  “Child, what in the hell are you thinking? You know you gonna be in trouble for this.” She shook her head at me as she spoke.

  “Hetty, these are for you, I just need to clean them real quick and you can get them on your way home for supper. I thought you’d be happy.”

  “Iona, I could always use extra meat at the table, but you gonna get yourself, and me, in trouble and I don’t want none of that. No sir.”

  Hetty walked away and ahead of me. I finished my job and marked the fence post nearest the catch with an ‘X’ using the chalk I stole from the classroom.

  Hetty acted peculiar all afternoon, shooing me away when I tried to help her work. I noticed the next morning however that the meat I offered was gone. I knew it was Hetty that took it too, because the ‘X’ was smeared and the dirt on the ground was smoothed over to mask the blood and guts.

  When I saw my friend on Friday I just smiled and ran ahead as usual. (Six hundred paces from the school doorway to my traps at the far end of our property.) Again, I had a good catch and set about gutting the animal’s entrails. I knew Hetty hated this gruesome work because she told me so when she was teaching me to cook.

  “Rinse and pat your meat, like this, Iona. Iona, pay attention to what I tell you. If it’s wet when you add it to the pan it is gonna splatter all over your clothes and you can’t get no grease stains out, girl. Blood hard to get out too.” She was teaching me to cook but I was only vaguely paying attention.

  She flinched when she said ‘blood’, and then she told me about the time her daddy cut his hand real bad and couldn’t prepare the chicken for dinner. Her brothers were out working so she had to wrangle the bird, snap its neck, and then pluck it dry. The next part was the worst, skinning the bird nearly made her pass out.

  “It was like holding a baby child in my arms, when it was all naked like that. I ain’t never doing that again, nuh-uh. No, sir, I’d rather be hungry.”

  I laughed out loud envisioning Hetty with her head turned sideways away from the chicken, her nose turned up while she plucked the bird one feather at a time.

  The next day was my first scheduled ‘social engagement’. My mother entrapped her dear friend, Judith Taylor, to invite us to enjoy tea and scones with her daughter. Her daughter, Anne, was a year my senior and one of the girls that shunned me at school. (I lost count at two thousand paces from our door to theirs.)

  When we arrived at Judith’s spacious village home Saturday afternoon for our visit, we rang an ornate doorbell. True to my mother’s expectation, a maid answered the door and saw us to a room that was adorned with two settees facing one another with a coffee
table in between. (Ten paces from the entrance to the davenport.) When our hosts appeared they were both dressed lavishly in floor length skirts and freshly pressed lace blouses with silver embellished buttons. Judith wore a brooch at her neck that my mother fawned over and her daughter, Anne, played the role of gracious hostess with ease.

  “Iona, do tell us how your school work is coming along. You are in the ninth grade, correct?” Mrs. Taylor inquired.

  “You know I am in ninth grade…..” I started to say with too much attitude.

  My mother cleared her throat and nodded at me in such a way that told me I had better rethink my answer.

  “Why yes, Mrs. Taylor, I am doing well in school. I can only hope to be as bright and well liked as your Anne is someday.” I blinked excessively as I spoke.

  “Iona, you are quite lovely yourself. I have no doubt everyone agrees.” Mrs. Taylor sipped Earl Grey from her dainty tea-cup, her pinkie extended outward. Then the cup was placed back on its saucer and she edged it away from her as if one sip were appeasing enough.

  Our conversation continued on with me being sickeningly sweet and praising Anne at every turn. My goal was to make Anne be nice to me at school and get my mother off my back.

  Anne did invite me to join the girls in their circle the next day at recess. She made a point to invite me right in front of our teacher, who seemed very impressed with Anne’s thoughtful gesture. As I approached the circle (eighteen paces from my desk to the girls) clutching my lunch pail by my side, she quickly turned her back to me, closing the circle’s gap. Anne snickered to the group and once again I was cast out. This time I felt humiliation worm its way into my cheeks coloring them with a blood rouge.

  Every day henceforth this game ensued. Anne pretended to be my friend when the teacher was in view, but as soon as she was otherwise engaged I was mocked and treated poorly.

  “You’ll never have any friends, you little brat, and neither will your mother if she keeps begging you off on her acquaintances.” Anne spat the horrific words at me one day in front of the other girls and I could feel the blush rise in my cheeks.

  “Who would want to be friends with you anyway? You’re nothing but a spoiled, rich girl. Have fun at your sewing circles,” I replied.

  I would get her back and I knew just how. She could taunt me all she wanted but when she made fun of my mother I had a prickly sensation creep up my back that I couldn’t let go. After school that day I checked my trap; I snared a squirrel that I carefully gutted. I took its limp heart out and put it gently aside. I then wrapped it in leaves and carried it home, leaving it in the toe of my boots by the front stoop. I carried my boots to school the next morning, aware of the forecast of rain and the dense puddles that could ruin my patent leather shoes.

  I arrived early in the classroom and positioned my boots and umbrella in the hallway by our coat-hooks as did the other students who prepared for the inclement weather. (Twenty-seven paces from hallway to desk.) Mid-morning I asked to use the restroom (thirty-six paces from desk to bathroom) and was excused. I quickly but quietly retrieved the organ and found Anne’s lunch pail. I unwrapped the slimy, un-beating heart and deposited it in between her slices of bread along with her cheese and crisp maple bacon.

  I bet it wouldn’t taste half bad if it were pan-seared and doused with salt and pepper. I went back to the classroom and focused on my schoolwork. When Anne’s class was excused for lunch I waited for the shrill, and when it came I played dumb.

  The prank was blamed on one of the boys, but interestingly, Anne never encouraged me again in front of our teacher. Nor did she extend further social invitations and I was more than fine with that. My mother, however, was befuddled. She had inquired about lunching with ladies and starting mother-daughter sewing circles but no one was able to partake.

  About this time I noticed mother’s belly was swollen and protruding. There was to be a new baby within four month’s time. They didn’t know if it was a boy or girl but the doctor said mother was healthy and would have no trouble birthing this baby, although she was thirty-six.

  Hetty was hired for three days a week now as mother grew larger and less able to move about freely. She waddled when she walked and tired very easily. Jeffrey and Will, my brothers, were given more duties on the farm and spent more time hunting in order to prepare our stores for the brutal winter months ahead. Ithaca was known for its damning, dreary winters.

  It was during one of their hunting forays that they found my traps. They immediately relayed the information to my father who wondered who would have the audacity to hunt on his land. Each one of his seventy-five acres was his and no one had the right to hunt on it without his direct permission.

  It didn’t take long for my father to realize that the simple snares were set by me, and what ensued scarred me for life. Father called me to the kitchen (eighteen paces from the parlor to the kitchen table). Holding my latest catch in his hands, he unloosened the snares and set the dead squirrels down. Mother sat by the window, her loom in her hand as she embroidered a pillowcase for the new baby. Stress showed itself in the wrinkled brow that presented across her forehead as well as her shallow breathing.

  “This is madness. You deliberately disobeyed me, Iona. You are causing your mother stress due to the reports from school saying you are causing mischief and now this. We have a new baby coming soon, we can’t have this type of thing agitating your mother now.”

  “I can explain.”

  “I don’t want to hear your explanation, I assume Hetty is to blame, that you are giving the meat to her family, am I correct?” White spittle formed at the corners of his mouth when he spoke and I couldn’t take my eyes from it’s foam.

  “Yes, I am giving it to Hetty. But she didn’t ask for it, Father. I just know it’s hard for her, isn’t that being charitable?” I would use any angle I could to get out of this.

  “You have a good heart, Iona. But you can’t put meat on everyone’s table. Your only requirement is to worry about you. You are meant to become a young lady, but by all reports you are a tomboy and a social outcast. Your behavior is intolerable.” Father loomed above me and tried to regain his composure.

  This hit me like a brick. I felt the sting and weight of my father’s words and saw the way it weighed on my mother’s slumping shoulders. I had never thought of myself so harshly and frankly didn’t strive to be like everyone else. I wasn’t sure what I could do but the thought of running away occurred to me. I could run to Hetty’s. They would take me in, I could put food on the table every night there.

  “You must conduct yourself in a way that befits this family. The boys have made very good names for themselves, but you’re embarrassing them and us with your ill temper. Your blatant refusal to take up tasks that are fitting for girls your age is unacceptable. If it keeps up, Iona, we will send you to my brother’s farm in Elbridge and I can assure you, he won’t be so tolerant. Now shape up.” Finally, he wiped the creamy foam that collected at the corners of his mouth.

  Later that night I was tucked properly in bed. My hair was brushed and braided, my clothes were laid out for the morning, and I listened as my mother and father conversed in their bedroom below my loft.

  “It’s madness, she counts every pace everywhere she goes, and if she loses her place she has to start over. She counts other things too like the number of slats of wood on the floors, how many grains each slat has, the frames in the windows, the windows in the house, and so on. Yesterday, when there was a snarl in her hair and she lost track of counting her strokes she threw the brush across the room putting a hole in the wall. She cleans the bathrooms twice a week, is fastidious about working her way from the inside out. She has no friends and refuses to act like a lady. She has no patience, Don. I am worried about the baby. You saw how she strangled the chicken last week. What if she hurt the baby? What if she is truly mad and needs help?” My mother sounded borderline hysterical. She cried in bursts that altered between strangled sounding sobs and silence.

>   I held my tongue as they discussed exaggerated incidents. No harm came from my counting, it’s just something I did for amusement. I admit I tried stopping but found it difficult. Counting occupied my mind and I liked it. I did strangle a chicken, but that was because Hetty said it was needed for dinner. She hated the killing of animals so I offered to do it. I snapped its neck and laughed as it ran around for a count of thirty seconds before succumbing to its demise. I supposed it was true, I was an outcast, but I had no recollection of throwing a brush through the wall. That was just a lie brought forth by my mother’s condition. Of course I cleaned, I cleaned with Hetty enthusiastically, to help her and learn from her as they suggested. Did they forget it was their command that I shadow Hetty whenever she was working? I needed to hone my skills and who better to learn from than our housekeeper?

  As I lay listening to my folks, I seethed and grew angry enough to spit nails. I ripped my braids apart and grabbed lumps of my hair, pulling it out in thick segments. I bit my lip in order not to scream from the pain each pluck induced, the biting produced a vast amount of blood which spilled down my chin and onto the collar of my nightgown soaking through the fabric and leaving a stain for Hetty to deal with.

  In the morning I had fifteen noticeable bald patches on my now lopsided head, my mother swooned when I appeared in the kitchen, but my father sat me down.

  “Are you ill?” he asked leaning over me studying the missing contents of my swollen head.

  “No, Father, I am not ill, and I am not ‘mad’ either as you and mother suggested last night.”

  “Well, I don’t know whether you have seen yourself this morning or not but you are missing half your hair.” Father ignored the fact I overheard his conversation and carried on fussing over my hair.

  My mother wept softly into her kerchief at the loss of my hair. She always said I had the most beautiful, lush, thick locks and that I was lucky. Now the hair was stuffed into my pillow with the down from our deceased chickens.