Hester Takes Charge

by Byler, Linda;

  By all accounts, with a meal on the table and clean laundry on the line, this was an ordinary family, raised with Amish values, but Hester knew that the minute she would leave, chaos would resume in a few hours’ time. This she acknowledged—that there would be no change, no permanent turn for the better. She could scrub and clean till her hands were raw, cook and bake and sew, but what she did was only temporary, a quick fix that would disappear the minute she walked out the door.

  As in all things, there was some good with the bad, and this Hester easily recognized. There was companionship, caring, and a family structure, and if a few of the children were haphazardly neglected along the way, that was not overly alarming to anyone. If Fannie was a bit poorly and went unnoticed much of the time, it was simply the way of it.

  Hester watched, narrowing her eyes and biding her time. She joined Fannie in the garden after putting Rachel and Sallie to the dishes, so she could include her fully in her plans. She talked about many things with Fannie—her back, school, her parents, anything she could think of, trying to draw this little closed person closer.

  Fannie sat on the weed-choked earth, her dress carefully pulled to well below her knees, her thin, blue veined legs straight out, the soles of her feet brown with dirt, bits of earth clinging to her toes. Her hair was brown, her eyes set wide apart in a small, pointed face, as brown as old honey, almost golden, but darker. She was so thin and narrow, Hester could hardly find the shape of her body in the loose, ill-fitting dress she wore, also brown, mended many times with dark colored patches of various nondescript colors.

  She reached out her thin arms and pulled the beanstalks as close as possible to grasp handfuls of thick succulent beans, way past their prime but edible. These would be nourishment for the family in winter after they were put in jars and sealed by boiling them in a hot water bath, usually the same pot that was used to heat water for the washing.

  Hester watched as Fannie became sleepy, her eyelids drooping, her hands slowing in their constant scrabble for beans.

  “Fannie, what would you say if I asked you to go away with me for a while?” Hester asked, very softly.

  Fannie watched Hester’s face curiously without a trace of fear, ready to accept anything Hester might say.

  She shrugged her thin shoulders, causing the neckline of the too-large dress to slide to the right, exposing a painfully thin, blue-veined shoulder. “I don’t care.”

  She caught Hester’s eyes and smiled, a small lifting of the corners of her mouth.

  “Would you miss your family very much, if we went away for awhile?”

  “Where would we go?”

  “To a place called Berks County, where lots of Amish people live.”

  Again, a small shrug, an even smaller smile. With one hand she pulled her dress back into place. “I guess I could go. If my mam and dat said I could.”

  “Do you want me to ask?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Only if you want to, Fannie.”

  “I don’t have good dresses and only one Sunday apron and no shoes.”

  “That’s all right. We’ll sew for you before we go.”

  “Will you bring me back?”

  “Do you want to come back?”

  Like a quizzical little bird, she tilted her head sideways, put one finger to her chin, and pondered this question, all the wisdom of her eleven years weighing the question.

  Finally, she said, very soft and low, “I guess they don’t need me much now that Mam has a baby to play with. Once, I was a baby; then Mam liked me, too.”

  Hester quickly assured her that her mother loved her now, too. Fannie nodded, her eyes alight.

  “When she has time.”

  That evening, without the usual amount of dishes to wash, having served only cold fruit soup, Hester approached Amos and Salina, telling them she would only finish the week. They needed to find another maud. The reason was her trip to Berks County, and would they consider allowing Fannie to accompany her?

  Salina agreed immediately, stating as fact that with fifteen mouths to feed—thirteen children and two parents—with Fannie so puny and all, she certainly wasn’t worth much as far as the work went.

  Amos cleared his throat a few times and swallowed, a pained expression crossing his face more than once. He glanced at his wife, as if her decision would help him decide as well.

  “But, Salina, she’s ours,” he finally said.

  “I know, Amos, but we have thirteen now. My Uncle Ezras gave their Samuel and Jonas to his brother Joe. Not that the boys had an easy life after that, Joe was so hard on Jonas, but I guess it didn’t hurt.”

  “Oh, I would never mistreat Fannie,” Hester said hurriedly. “I’m only asking her to accompany Noah Zug and me to Berks County to visit family. I think it would be a good thing to heal her back, maybe have her get some rest.”

  “Who is Noah Zug?”

  As quick as the darting of a butterfly, and as subtle, Hester’s answer was true but void of much content.

  “He is my brother.”

  “You were a Zug?”

  “Yes, before my marriage to William King.”

  “Oh, yes, that’s right.” Nodding easily, Amos remembered her as Isaac King’s William’s wife. Salina looked pleasantly blank, her face as smooth and untroubled as the moon when it was full.

  “Ya, vell don. I guess you may take her along and see how everything goes,” Amos said finally.

  “I think she’ll be just fine. She’s so easy to have. Doesn’t say much, won’t cost hardly anything to keep.”

  And so it was decided.

  The week was filled with work, hard work that made Hester’s muscles ache at night and put dirt under her fingernails and toenails. Her hair was filled with the dust that never quite settled on the beaten paths surrounding the house, where children’s feet stomped down any weed or plant that tried to raise its head and flourish.

  She butchered those red-eyed chickens. With Amos’s permission, she caught them early in the morning on their roosts, using a long wire hook. Then she grabbed them by their feet and hauled them squawking and screeching with that doomed sound captive chickens will make. That was fine with Hester, who hated those ill-tempered chickens only slightly less than the family’s slovenly lifestyle.

  She laid each chicken so its neck was positioned between two nails. Hanging onto both feet with one hand, she brought the hatchet down with a solid whop with the other, severing the head cleanly. The chicken felt no pain, it was so quick.

  While their bodies flopped around headless in the dirt, she carried buckets of scalding water and set them close by. When the blood-soaked carcasses stopped their carrying on, she grasped the feet again and dipped the bodies in the scalding water to loosen the feathers. Then she set about plucking them, grasping handfuls of soaking wet feathers and yanking them out until each chicken wore only its skin, sprawling on a board in all its unadorned baldness.

  Hester summoned Rachel and Sallie to help clean the pin feathers, those annoying little growths that needed to be pulled out with a knife blade. They groaned and grimaced simultaneously, then made a great show of pretending to throw up, while Hester glared at them between lowered brows, perspiration dripping off the end of her nose.

  Finally, every last one of those hateful chickens was cleaned, cut up, put to cool in cold water, stuffed in a glass jar, cold-packed in the iron kettle, and put down cellar with the beans.

  Salina mourned the loss of the eggs, saying she wanted eggs more than she wanted all that chicken meat, so Amos brought home twenty poults, half-grown peeps that ran around the yard on legs that seemed much too long for their bodies, with feet splayed like turkey feet, pecking wildly at anything within reach. Cats, worms, frogs, children, any moving object was easy prey. Hawks circled overhead, waiting to zoom down and grab a tasty lunch, but the poults remained safe, probably saved by the many children and toddlers that ran around among them.

  Hester cleaned the cellar, carrying up dec
omposing potatoes and half-rotten bacon. She coughed when she wiped green mold from the vinegar barrel and rolled the crock of salt pork to the cellar’s doorway to check for spoilage, then rolled it back. She carried out rotting boards and sour carrots, turnips bloated with decay like wet sponges. She swept and scrubbed while Rachel carried buckets of hot water, grumbling and making nasty remarks, which Hester chose to ignore.

  Finally, when Rachel could get no response from Hester, she asked her outright why she was named that different name, “Hester.” It wasn’t in the Bible, she said, lifting her brows piously.

  Hester chose not to answer, feeling guilty for the anger that rose up in her over a question as harmlessly spoken as that.

  “See, you don’t know,” Rachel goaded.

  Hester was carrying a heavy crock filled with spoiled turnips and in no mood to put up with Rachel’s craziness, so she said she was found by a spring as an unwanted baby, and the lady that found her named her Hester.

  “Was she Amish?”

  “Yes.”

  “I bet.”

  Hester shrugged her shoulders. Believe whatever you want, she thought.

  “She wasn’t, was she?”

  “Yes, she was. Her name was Kate.”

  “That’s not an Amish name.”

  “Catherine.”

  “Oh.”

  Then, still determined to get the better of her, Rachel kept going. “Where is she now?”

  “Buried in the graveyard in Berks County.”

  “Why? What happened to her?”

  “A bear mauled her. She died later of infection.”

  “You’re making that up.”

  That was the communication she had with Rachel, with Sallie nearby like a shadowed twin, placing an emphasis on every word. The girls were not endowed with their father’s good humor. Their mother’s lack of caring or discipline or love, or perhaps a combination of all three, left these girls without social skills.

  They whitewashed the cellar, then pulled the carrots and dug the potatoes in the garden. They carried the root vegetables down cellar and placed them carefully in clean bins. Amos was grateful, chortling over his good fortune. Finding a maud like Hester had sure set him free of the responsibility of managing the cellar. Salina said it was all right, either way, but would Hester make a few cakes yet before she left? She was hungry for black walnut cake, and Amos had brought eggs from Abner Hershbergers.

  So much for her appreciating a clean cellar. That lack of recognition solidified Hester’s decision not to return the following week. She had baked the cakes, done the washing, cleaned the house, scythed and raked the yard, and had harvested and canned all that was possible. Now it was time to go.

  Fannie was ready—bathed, with her hair rolled, braided, and twisted into a coil on the back of her head. She had no valise or haversack; only one change of dress, a blue one faded to a splotchy gray, and one black apron. No comb or brush, no shoes or stockings, and no underwear.

  When Amos handed Hester two five-dollar bills, her wages for two weeks, she thanked him, feeling well and fairly paid. She pocketed the money, smoothed her hair, and said as soon as he was ready, they could go.

  Salina was on the rocking chair, the baby flung across her lap face down, like a bundle of blankets if you didn’t know any better. She watched Fannie with an expression Hester could not discern. A blank look, but not exactly a scowl, more of an acceptance, a lack of caring.

  Did Salina know she was overwhelmed and, like a mother pig, a sow with a large litter, realize that the smallest, hungriest in the litter, the runt, might not survive? Pushed back, without proper nutrition, would Fannie fall easy prey to childhood diseases that crept up on her in the cold of winter when the house was full of sniffling siblings? Salina may have known this—a primal wisdom, the way of nature—when the babies kept coming and there was never enough energy to feed and clothe and nurture them all.

  Hester placed Fannie’s small bundle of clothing in her own valise, then straightened and caught Salina’s eye. She stepped across the room, extended her hand in a formal handshake, and said, “Thank you for everything, Salina. I’m glad I had the opportunity to be your maud.” More a formality than truth, but there it was.

  Salina smiled widely and said she’d miss her, but she guessed Rachel and Sallie could fasark things. Amos’s mother would come on Wednesday, but she couldn’t wash, the way her hip was hurting.

  Finally she asked Fannie to come over. She complied, standing close to her mother, her wide eyes searching her face, an eagerness about her as if she was aware this moment was special. Now she would know how much her mother wanted her to stay, how much she was loved.

  But Salina pushed her back with a palm flat on her shoulder, said, “Ge bacht. Don’t touch the baby.”

  Quickly, Fannie stepped back, her hands knotted behind her back, an expression of shame and bewilderment erasing the eagerness.

  “Now don’t you be a bother to Hester. Bye.” Salina lifted a large white hand in dismissal, her face as bland and expressionless as a large wheel of cheese.

  “Bye,” Fannie said, the word coming out hoarsely. Embarrassed, she cleared her throat and tried again. “Bye.”

  Salina nodded, bending her head to the baby.

  Hester looked at Fannie, a fragile, almost lifeless sparrow, then reached for her hand, encircling her thin fingers.

  They walked out the door without looking back.

  Amos smoked his pipe with a vengeance without speaking. The day was hot, the heat suffocating and shimmering above the dry pastures. The trees stood stiff and unbending, their leaves lifeless as the heat withheld even the comfort of one stirring breeze.

  The afternoon was waning, bringing the promise of evening and its cooler air, a luxury that made the heat bearable. The mule walked tired and discouraged, so Amos reached under the seat for the usual whip to slash across the thin rump. A good thwack, a lurch, and they lumbered uphill and down, the cart rattling and heaving in its craziness.

  Fannie was stuck between them like a wedge, and yet there was barely room for her. She showed no emotion, simply sitting quietly, her hands in her lap, even when they approached the town with all the buildings, the horses and carriages, the many pedestrians. It must have caused her at least a bit of surprise or bewilderment, but her face remained impassive, inscrutable.

  When the mule heaved to an ungainly stop, Amos crawled out over the wheel, tapped his pipe on the steel rim of the buggy, and said, “Well.”

  “Thank you for the ride home,” Hester said, going around to shake hands with Amos, a formal parting.

  “Gyan schöena.”

  Amos became quite agitated, shifting from one foot to the other, his eyes going to his daughter, only eleven years old, but leaving home.

  “Fannie.” Awkwardly, he extended a hand.

  Fannie took it, and he shook the limp white hand once. She tucked it behind her back, keeping it there.

  Amos blinked. His face worked. He swallowed, once, twice. When he cleared his throat, his mouth twitched downward, as if emotion was dangerously close to having the upper hand.

  He looked at Hester. “It shouldn’t be like this. She was always schpindlich. Salina had a hard time.”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Bye, Fannie,” he said quietly.

  “Bye,” Fannie said, obediently.

  “You’ll be back,” he said.

  Fannie looked at Hester, a question in her eyes.

  “We’ll see how things go.”

  “Ya, vell.” Amos turned to go, climbed into the cart, lifted the reins, and chirruped. When there was no response, he brought the reins down across the mule’s loose-skinned haunches. That brought up the ears, then the ungainly head, and a half-hearted pull on the traces. Amos waddled off on the rickety old cart.

  Fannie watched her father go without a word. The only sign that Hester noticed was her hands clasping and unclasping behind her back. Her thin shoulders were almost square, her eyes expressionless.


  Hester looked down at her and smiled. Only the beginning of a smile teased the corners of Fannie’s mouth, but her eyes were alive with wonder.

  “So, here we are, Fannie.”

  Hester grasped the valise in one hand and Fannie’s hand in the other. Together they made their way through the back door to find an eager Bappie, her eyes quick and bright, her curiosity sizzling, waiting to meet this child Hester had brought home.

  “Well, hello, Fannie!”

  Fannie looked steadily at Bappie with no response.

  “Fannie, this is Bappie. Her name is Barbara King. She lives here with me.”

  Fannie nodded, but said nothing.

  “Did you have supper?”

  “No, we are both starving, aren’t we?”

  Fannie nodded.

  “I fried chicken and made mashed potatoes.”

  Fannie looked at Hester, checking her response. When she saw Hester’s smile of approval, she smiled widely.

  Bappie watched Fannie’s face, then wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, her only response to the child’s lack of certainty.

  They sat down to their meal, bowing their heads in silence, as was their custom. Fannie, taught to fold her hands beneath the table, waited reverently till Bappie lifted her head, the signal to begin serving the food.

  When a crispy portion of chicken was placed on her plate, Fannie had no idea what to do with it, so she ate her mashed potatoes and gravy, then placed her spoon quietly beside her plate and waited.

  Hester leaned over and asked if she didn’t like the chicken.

  Fannie’s mouth trembled as her eyes filled with tears. She whispered, “I don’t know what it is.”

  Bappie and Hester exchanged further looks.

  “It is chicken, fried. You can use your hands. Here.” Hester showed the child the procedure, biting into her own.

  Fannie shook her head.

  When Noah arrived, he greeted Fannie warmly, bending over the hesitant child and telling her he was glad to be able to take her with them to Berks County. He let her know in his kind voice that he was Hester’s brother.

  Fannie watched him warily, her eyes turning dark with some unnamed emotion that puzzled Hester. When Levi arrived a few minutes later, she disappeared into the front room where the fading light of evening obscured her, giving her a measure of safety.