Under the Haystack

by P. A. Engebrecht

  Marie sat down on the side of the road. “I’m tired, my leg hurts. I’m not going another step.”

  Sandy turned and just looked at her. Instead of her usual impatient retort, she soothed Marie. “Come on, I’ll give you a ride.” Sandy bent over and after several attempts managed to hoist Marie up on her back. Marie was big for her age. Her legs dangled almost to Sandy’s knees. They moved ahead a few steps, Sandy staggering under her sister’s weight and chewing on her lip in determination.

  At last Marie protested. “Let me down, Sandy. I’ll be all right.”

  It seemed like forever, but at last the girls got to town. They sat, dusty and tired, in the straight-back chairs in the doctor’s office. They waited in silence, numb from the heat and the walk.

  Finally, the nurse signaled to Sandy, who nudged Marie. “You wait here, June; we’ll be right back.” The two girls went through the door that led to the inner office. They were shown into a small room in the center of which stood a shiny black examining table covered with a harsh white cloth. They sat gingerly on the edge of their chairs, waiting nervously without talking.

  A middle-aged, round-faced man entered the room and smiled. “Good morning, girls, What can I do for you?”

  “I hurt my—”

  “She had an a——” Both girls started at once.

  “Whoa there, one at a time. Let me see.” He extended his hand to Marie and helped her onto the examining table. His fingers gently probed around the purplish lump. “That’s a nasty puncture. How’d it happen and with what?”

  Sandy glanced at Marie and then started, “She was playing in the hay. Didn’t see the pitchfork and fell on it.”

  The doctor went on tending the wound. “Where’s your mother? I’d like to talk to her about this.”

  Sandy hesitated. Her silence made the doctor look up. “She’s not here right now. She had to run a few errands, so she just dropped us off at your office and told me to look after it.”

  “Well, when she comes back to pick you up, you have her stop and see me. This could be very serious.”

  “She said for you to give Marie a tetanus shot,” Sandy said, rubbing her hands along the leg of her shorts. Marie winced as the doctor continued to probe at her leg. She was not usually a stoic child, but Sandy could see her making an effort.

  “Is there any danger? She won’t have to go to the hospital, will she?”

  “There’s always danger in a wound like this. I’ll clean it good and have the nurse give her a shot, but I still want to see your mother.” He worked gently, cleaning the ugly welt on Marie’s thigh. Then he covered the wound with an oversized Band-Aid. He washed his hands in the small sink. As he dried them, he looked at Sandy and Marie thoughtfully. Sandy felt a stab of fear under his curious scrutiny. She looked down at her hands as they twisted nervously in her lap.

  The nurse came in shortly after the doctor had left and swabbed Marie’s arm with a wet piece of cotton. Marie eyes grew large when she saw the needle, and she started to whimper, then bit her lip.

  “This won’t hurt much,” the nurse assured her, and Marie winced as the needle bit into her arm. “There, now that wasn’t bad, was it?” the nurse soothed. “You hold this cotton down for a minute or two. You girls can stay out in the waiting room until your mother comes to see the doctor.”

  They followed the nurse back into the waiting room and sat down next to June. “What are we going to do now?” whispered Marie.

  “Sh, she’ll hear you,” cautioned Sandy. “Let me think a minute.”

  “Why don’t we go?” said June in a loud voice. The nurse looked up as both girls shushed her.

  “Idiot!” whispered Marie.

  They sat silent, looking down at their hands. Sandy rose and went to the window, beside which the nurse sat busily answering the phone and doing bookwork.

  “My mother gave me the money and told me to pay the bill. How much do we owe you?”

  “She can take care of that when she comes in to talk to the doctor.”

  “I really think I should,” Sandy insisted.

  “Just a minute.” The nurse rose and went into the doctor’s inner office. June and Marie fidgeted in their seats, and Sandy waited, unsure of what to do.

  “Why don’t we just go?” asked June in a loud whisper. The nurse returned, sat down at her desk, and took out a receipt book and pen.

  “That will be five dollars.”

  Sandy dug down into her pocket and pulled out her snap purse. Fingering through the bills, she found a five. She removed it and spread it out on the windowsill.

  “To whom shall I make out the receipt?” asked the nurse, pencil poised.

  Panic swept over Sandy. “Ah . . . Mrs. Smith, I guess,” she said, her face as red as her hair.

  “Is that your mother’s name?” asked the nurse, staring at Sandy.

  “Yes,” the girl said, “that’s right.”

  The nurse continued to stare at her. Sandy fidgeted, curling the corner of the five-dollar bill between her thumb and forefinger. Finally, the nurse wrote out the receipt and took the money, and Sandy put it in her purse. She returned to June and Marie. The nurse watched the girls thoughtfully; then her buzzer rang. She turned away from them to answer and then left her desk.

  “Come on, let’s get out of here,” whispered Sandy. The three of them moved silently toward the door. Just as they opened it, the nurse came back into the room.

  “Wait a minute, girls . . . .”

  Sandy pushed Marie and June ahead of her. “Keep going,” she ordered, and they ran from the office and down the steps.

  The girls ran along the street until they turned the corner and were out of sight. Panting, they leaned against the fence and waited, but no one came. Sandy sighed. “Let’s go home,” she said.

  The narrowness of their escape overshadowed the ordeal of the long walk in the hot sun that still lay ahead. “I’m hungry,” complained June, as they turned toward home. “Can’t we get something to eat?”

  There were only two dollars left in Sandy’s purse. She didn’t say anything, and they walked on. Their route took them right past an ice cream store. “Come on,” Sandy said, feeling reckless, “let’s go in.” They stood, three shabby, dirty girls, eyeing the long list of flavors hungrily. Each ordered a twenty-five cent cone, the biggest there was. June ordered a licorice, Marie a chocolate, and Sandy an orange sherbet. There were some cookies in a cellophane sack on the counter. Sandy fingered them, then shrugged, and took out two more coins.

  They turned homeward, each contentedly licking a cone. The pleasure of the ice cream lasted only a short while for Marie. Now not only did her leg ache, but her arm also began to hurt where the nurse had given her the shot. “This won’t hurt much!” Marie mimicked the nurse. “It didn’t hurt her at all.” She rubbed her arm gently and, not being one to suffer in silence, now complained with every step. When she could think of no more aches or pains to complain about, she turned on Sandy. “I don’t think Mother is ever coming back! I’ll bet she’s left for good!”

  June looked up, her eyes widening. She turned to Sandy waiting for a reply.

  “Of course she’s coming home. You read her letter.”

  “Yeah, but did she write it? And how come we haven’t gotten any more?”

  Sandy’s mind raced. How could she shut Marie up?

  Just then a car pulled up. “Hello, girls. What are you doing in town all alone? Want a ride?” It was Joe’s mother, Mrs. Baxter.

  Marie didn’t pause, but clambered into the car. June hesitated, looking at Sandy. The older girl nodded, and they both climbed in.

  “This is very nice of you, Mrs. Baxter,” Sandy exclaimed, ignoring the woman’s questions. The girls settled back with audible sighs. They rode in silence, watching the telephone poles flash by with a sense of luxury.

  “Have you had any more trouble with the cows? Joe said Mr. Parson wasn’t going to let you take them home.”

  “It was all Bessie’s f
ault. She was in heat again, and no fence can hold her when she’s like that,” said Sandy.

  “What did your folks say about Mr. Parson refusing to let them go?” Sandy caught Mrs. Baxter’s curious glance in the reflection of the rearview mirror.

  “Oh, they said he was bluffing,” she lied easily, hardly reddening at all.

  “I haven’t seen them around in a long while. Where did you say they were?”

  The red of Sandy’s face deepened when she realized she had been caught in her lie. “They’ve been taking care of our aunt, but they write.” She bit her tongue. There hadn’t been time for a letter. Sandy fell silent, wishing with all her heart that they hadn’t accepted the ride.

  Mrs. Baxter didn’t press, but changed the subject. “Are you girls picking berries at the Fergusons’?”

  “Yes,” was all Sandy said.

  Silence hung thickly. “You don’t have to take us all the way home. We can walk from your place,” piped June, leaning forward.

  The girls scrambled from the car. “Thank you, Mrs. Baxter,” Sandy said.

  “Yes, thank you. Thank you,” echoed June and Marie.

  “Do you think she knows?” asked June, wide-eyed.

  “Sure she does,” said Marie. “That big blabbermouth, Joe . . . .”

  “Sure, she knows that our folks are away taking care of our aunt, but she knows they’ll be back any day now, too,” said Sandy, reassuring herself as much as Marie and June.

  “Sure they will!” snorted Marie, turning up the gravel drive.

  Whining and wriggling, Shep barked a joyous welcome. June bent down and took his head in her hands and buried her face in his ruff. He licked her face, ears, and hair, and she warmed to his show of love. Straightening, she threw her thin leg astraddle the wriggling dog, rode him a few steps, and then fell off.

  Sandy smiled with a sense of relief at being home. “Let’s go swimming. Last one in’s a rotten egg!” she called over her shoulder, and she ran across the road toward the creek.

  “What about our suits?” June hesitated.

  “Who needs them?” Sandy cried.

  Soon the girls were dancing at the foot of the log and hurriedly discarding their clothes. Marie and June splashed into the cold water, wearing only their underpants. Sandy started unbuttoning her blouse. Then she hesitated. Her reckless mood dimmed, and she changed her mind. Sandy went into the water, blouse and all. You never knew . . . . What if Joe came over?

  chapter 7

  Marie’s leg healed slowly. The red swelling receded, leaving a thick, lumpy scar. Things settled into a routine. The first soreness of berry picking had gone, and life went smoothly for Sandy. The grass grew lush, making it unnecessary to feed the cows anything except a minimum amount of bran. Sandy was pleased by the extra-full buckets of milk. This was always the best time of the year. The milk check would be high.

  Everything seemed too good to be true. The chickens laid heavily; the strawberry crop was good; and Marie had stopped complaining so much. The money in the coffee can multiplied, and Sandy began to feel quite sure of herself. The girls had been alone three weeks now, and they had met each crisis successfully. Why, there was no sweat. They got along fine without their mother. She swelled with self-importance. Life hadn’t changed much at all, except for the good. They didn’t have to put up with him anymore, for one thing.

  No, the days were no bother at all, but fear and uncertainty crept in with the night. Sandy put on a good facade for June and Marie, but she was just plain scared when it got dark. June didn’t help matters any. Sandy had decided she might as well sleep in her mother’s bed. It was cooler, and she had begun to enjoy the first bit of privacy she had ever known. But she would be awakened at night by June’s whimpering cry. Sandy would then take June into bed with her, where her little sister would curl up against her like a kitten against its mother.

  Sandy kept their daily routine the same as it had always been, even down to the Saturday-night bath. The first Saturday they had skipped it, reveling in the thought of not having to fill the kettles and heat the water. But that was like hiding the mush kettle when you didn’t want to wash it—it still had to be done.

  “I get to take mine first,” called Marie, when she saw Sandy drag out the big canning boiler.

  “You were first last time. It’s my turn,” protested June.

  “I called it first.”

  “It’s not fair. It’s my turn, isn’t it, Sandy?” cried June.

  “Yes, it’s June’s turn first,” agreed Sandy.

  “You always take her side.” Marie pouted.

  “Oh, be quiet. You can take my turn.” Sandy was tired of having to settle so many arguments.

  But later she looked with distaste at the dirty water with the soapy film. She just couldn’t bring herself to get into the boiler after June and Marie had bathed. “Help me empty the water, Marie.”

  “You haven’t taken your bath yet.”

  “I’m going to get clean water.”

  “What’s the matter? You too good to take a bath in that?”

  “Shut up and help me empty the boiler.”

  “I don’t see why I should.” But Marie did not have quite enough daring to walk away. She took hold of the handle and helped Sandy empty the water.

  Sandy longed to take a bath by herself—to discover and explore the changes taking place in her body. But she didn’t want to fight with Marie, so she bathed hurriedly, toweled herself off, and slipped into her one clean pair of pajamas.

  Clothes were beginning to be a problem. They didn’t have many. Most of them had been hand-me-downs to begin with, and they had now become gray and dingy.

  Sandy put the scrubboard in the boiler and gathered their clothes together. “We’re going to have to wash these things. June, you go and get everything you can find that’s dirty—all that stuff under the bed that you two keep pushing there.”

  “As if you never . . .” Marie started to say. Then she snapped her mouth shut in response to Sandy’s glare.

  The small things Sandy washed easily, but she was dubious about the sheets. After three weeks of strawberry picking and hot weather, they were filthy. Necessity pushed at her, however, so she pulled them off the bed. She and Marie lifted the boiler onto the stove and put the sheets in to boil with soap and bleach. As the water began to boil, the smell of the bleach filled the house.

  Sandy pushed the sheets around with a big wooden spoon. When she decided that they had boiled enough, she added cold water. Somehow she and Marie managed to get the boiler off the stove and out of the house into the yard. Then, when the sheets had cooled sufficiently they each took one end and began to twist. After they had wrung out all the water they could, they edged toward the line.

  “You hang on to that end,” instructed Sandy, as she searched to find the corners of the sheet. She stretched up to the line and tried to clip a clothespin to her end. As she reached up, she pulled the sheet from Marie’s hand, and it fell into the dust. “Now look what you’ve done! Idiot! I told you to hang on to it.”

  “You pulled it right out of my hand, stupid. How am I going to hang on to it when you’re pulling on it?”

  “Now we’ll have to wash it all over,” Sandy wailed.

  June stood on the steps watching the two of them. She stepped forward. “Why don’t you hang it up and rinse it off with the hose?” she said.

  June was also the one who discovered a day or two later that Sandy’s garden was up, and called her out to see.

  Sandy couldn’t believe it. She had given up all hope of the seeds ever growing. Even the soft rain a day or two after they had planted the seeds had failed to raise her optimism. Yet tiny green blades were already coming up where she had planted the corn, and there was even a fine wispy line where the carrots were and also one for the lettuce. She touched the green blades of corn in disbelief and then laughed—a bubbly, happy laugh. Oh, they were going to be laden down with all kinds of vegetables!

  The last d
ays of strawberry picking turned cold and rainy. The mud clung to their knees, and Sandy’s hands developed a rash from the wet leaves. For several days it rained so hard that they couldn’t go into the fields at all, which made Marie and June happy. Now they could play. Sandy would have been relieved too, except for the knowledge that there was no money being added to the coffee can.

  As the growing season continued, Fred, too, grew noticeably every day. His wobbly legs became firm and sturdy from all his frolicking. He never seemed to stand still and became quite a nuisance every time the girls went into the pasture. June was bowled over by him several times while carrying the bran out to the barn. She wasn’t hurt; but the bran was spilled, and she had to return for more while Fred, who didn’t give a drop of milk, licked the ground bare.

  During the rainy spell Marie and June spent most of their time in the barn playing in the tunnels under the hay or swinging from the rope hanging from the rafters. They made an attempt to ride Fred, but he did not cooperate at all. Sandy watched them from the window when they were trying to get him over to the stump so they could climb on, and she started to yell at them to leave him alone. Then she bit her tongue. She was getting worse than her mother. What she really wanted was to be out there with them, but she couldn’t. The last few weeks had separated her from her sisters. They were no longer three against the world because Sandy had taken on the role of authority and that drove a wedge between them.

  Sandy turned away from the window. Settling heavily in a chair at the table, she started figuring out how they would get along during the lull between strawberries and beans.