Under the Haystack

by P. A. Engebrecht

  She turned on her side. Then she heard a shuffling in the room and sat up. “It’s me, Sandy. Can I sleep with you?”

  “Come on in.” Sandy held the quilt up for June to crawl under. Her cold, bony feet sought out the warmth of Sandy’s, and she moved close into the curve of the older girl’s body, absorbing the warmth. Sandy felt a chill as she encircled her young sister’s body and pulled her close, but June sighed, hiccuped a sob trapped deep within her, and went to sleep. Sandy lay still. She winced only slightly when the next cramp gripped her.

  chapter 11

  June didn’t speak of their mother again. The next morning Sandy watched her take her letters out back to the incinerator where they burned their trash. She dropped them in all together, lighted a match, and stood and watched them burn until there was nothing left. It was as if she were exorcising her mother from within her.

  Sandy couldn’t bear to watch her forlorn figure any longer and turned toward the barn and her haystack. She took a few steps and then stopped as the reflection of herself in the dirty windowpane held her. Her shirt was too small, the sleeves only reaching to the middle of her arm. The thin worn cloth stretched across her body, revealing the swellings of her tender young breasts—she had not connected their tenderness with growth. Her pants were more than tight; they bulged wide at the pockets.

  Sandy stared at her reflection in the window, then looked down at herself to see if she was being distorted by the glass. She ran her hands over the softness of her body. Pleasure of discovery twitched at her lips, and then she began to notice something different—how ragged she looked. No wonder Mrs. Baxter had stared and Mr. Sam had been moved to give them a treat. They must do something.

  “Marie, June!” she called. “Come here.” She turned and went into the house, and the two girls followed. “Look at you, at us!”

  Puzzled, June and Marie looked at her and then down at themselves. “What’s the matter with us?” Marie asked.

  “We don’t have any shoes; our clothes are shot. No wonder everyone looks at us so funny. We’ve got to do something.”

  “What?” they asked together.

  Sandy thought for a moment and then turned to Marie. “Didn’t we get a catalog from Sears the other day? What did you do with it?”

  “It’s behind the stove with all the other paper.”

  “June, go get it. Marie, get me some paper and a pencil. We’re going to buy some new clothes.”

  Soon the three of them were poring over the catalog. “I like that green dress,” said Marie, “and those patent-leather shoes,”

  “I can just see you milking the cows in patent-leather shoes,” Sandy snorted, but she put a small check by the dress. “How about you, June? Which one do you like?”

  “They’re all so pretty,” she said, “it’s hard to choose. That pink check one is nice.”

  They scrutinized each page of dresses with great deliberation, and then they turned back to the shoes. “What size do we wear? How will we order the right ones?” asked Marie.

  Sandy turned to the instructions in the middle of the book. “It says here to take a clean piece of paper and draw an outline of your left foot, like this.” She pointed to a picture. “All right, you first, June.” Sandy laid the paper on the floor, and June put her left foot onto the center of it. Sandy then carefully drew an outline around her foot. “Okay.” June removed her foot and a dirty print showed, edged by Sandy’s pencil line. “Go wash your feet!” We can’t send them this.” Sandy crumpled the paper and threw it behind the stove. “You too, Marie.”

  “Well, how about you?”

  “I will! I will! After I get yours done.”

  Sandy continued to study the catalog and to read the directions for measuring until the girls came back. “Did you wash your feet?”

  “Not both of them—why should we? They just want an outline of the left one,” Marie pointed out.

  “Oh, all right.” Sandy drew June’s foot and then Marie’s. The three of them pored over the catalog again, trying to decide. “Here, we’ll order these. They’re having a special on them. We can save a dollar.”

  “I don’t like them. They’re not as pretty as these.”

  “I don’t care; those others aren’t practical. We’ve got to have something that will hold up. We’ll all get the same kind. And now we’ve got to measure ourselves for height. Stand up against the wall, June.” June stood, shoulders back, head tipped back. “No, don’t tip your head like that, hold it flat.” Sandy placed the palm of her hand across June’s head, fingers touching the wall. She marked it with her pencil. June moved away. Then Sandy measured up to the pencil mark with the yardstick and wrote “46 inches” on a piece of paper. “Okay, you next, Marie.”

  “I’m a lot taller than that.” Marie stood up against the wall, inching up on her toes.

  “She’s standing on her tiptoes!” exclaimed June.

  “Now stand flat, Marie.” Sandy tapped her heel with the yardstick.

  “Ouch! That hurt.”

  “Stop your complaining and stand right.”

  “You didn’t have to hit me.” Marie pouted, as she stood flat waiting for Sandy to mark the wall.

  Ignoring Marie’s complaint, Sandy wrote, “5312 inches.”

  “How about you? How tall are you?” asked June.

  “I don’t know. I guess you’ll have to stand on that chair to measure me.”

  June dragged the chair over next to Sandy and took the pencil. She placed her hand on Sandy’s head, stubbing her fingers up against the wall as she had seen Sandy do. Carefully, she marked it with the pencil. Sandy ducked out from underneath, took the yardstick, and measured. “Sixty-one inches,” she said. She measured it again. “I’m over five feet tall!” she exclaimed, putting her hand on top of her head as she backed up against the wall. Her finger hit the same place that June’s pencil had marked.

  “What’s so great about being five feet?” snorted Marie.

  “I don’t know. I was only four feet ten and a half last Christmas.”

  “Big deal! So you’ve grown. We all have.”

  Sandy turned back to the catalog. “It says to measure around the hips, the waist, and the bust. All except you, June. They just want to know how much you weigh.” She looked at June expectantly.

  “I don’t know. I guess you’ll have to weigh me.”

  “On what, stupid?” said Marie.

  “What did you weigh the last time they weighed you at school?” asked Sandy.

  “Forty pounds, I think.”

  “Let’s see, you’ve probably gained some . . . .” Sandy looked at June carefully. Well, maybe she hadn’t gained much at that. She studied the book, comparing June’s height and approximate weight. “I guess we’ll get you size six.” She wrote it down on the paper. “Now you, Marie. We’ll have to measure your chest and hips.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “With the yardstick, I guess. Stand still.”

  “That won’t work. I’m not square!”

  “First I’ll measure you across the front and then across the side. Then I’ll measure your rear end and the other side and add them all together.”

  The first time Sandy measured Marie she came up with forty inches. She checked the chart. There wasn’t a size big enough for a girl with a forty-inch hip. Must be something wrong, she decided.

  “Why don’t you take a string, wrap it around her, and then measure that on the yardstick?” June asked.

  Why hadn’t she thought of that? Of course! “Go find some string, will you, June?”

  Sandy measured Marie carefully and then measured the string. Thirty inches around the hips and twenty-seven inches around the chest. Marie looked over Sandy’s shoulder. “Size eight. I wear size eight.”

  “I don’t know. Look, you’re right on the borderline. Your hips are size ten, and you’re almost tall enough for a ten. I think we’d better get you a size ten. We wouldn’t want to order something too small.” S
andy wrote a ten in the size column.

  After she had finished with June and Marie, Sandy took the string and measured herself the way the book instructed. She measured twice to be sure. Bust: 31 ½; waist: 21; hips: 33. She noted the figures carefully and then checked the chart. She didn’t fit anywhere on the chart listing girls’ sizes. Sandy grew puzzled. She turned the page, and there were her measurements on the women’s chart. She found the figures and wrote down the size—seven.

  Marie and June had grown tired of looking through the catalog.

  “Come on, June, let’s go play.”

  “What’ll we do?”

  “We could ride Jerry if he’s around. Come on.” The two girls skipped out of the kitchen, leaving Sandy to her figuring.

  Sandy wrote the numbers from the catalog very carefully. She ordered some underpants for each of them, some socks, a dress each for Marie and June, shoes for all of them, and a skirt and sweater for herself. They really needed some jeans, but they would have to get along without them.

  Sandy was about to add up the total when she paused. Thumbing through the pages, she came to the bras. From what she’d seen of her reflection, she guessed she’d better get herself one. She read the sizes, then went back to the instruction pages. She measured herself with the string and carefully penciled in size 32A. She added up the numbers and totaled the weight. Then her finger stubbed along the page across the chart for shipping charges. She added in the shipping charge and looked at the figure in dismay. She added again—$28.47 was correct, but it was so much!

  She took down the coffee can and counted—$35.17. That wouldn’t leave very much, but they would start picking beans on Monday. They could get by.

  Sandy smoothed out the bills, then folded the order and the money together and put them into the envelope. She licked the flap and went to the drawer where she had put the stamps. Then she walked out to the mailbox, placed the letter in the box, and raised the flag.

  Her sisters’ laughter floated to her from the barnyard. “Look out!” Marie cried. “He’s heading for the barn!” The girls giggled and held onto Jerry for dear life, but it did them no good. The horse headed for his stall, which was only about three inches higher than he was. Sandy grinned as she watched her two younger sisters being scraped off the horse’s back. They in turn squealed and clutched at each other and then at Jerry’s tail as they went over the back end. They lay on the ground holding each other as they laughed uncontrollably.

  chapter 12

  Sandy sat on the front stoop of the house, hiding in a small reservoir of shade. The heat of the afternoon drugged her. What was she going to fix for supper? She was so sick of eggs and ham that she felt a little nauseated just thinking about them. They had also had so many eggs that she thought she might start cackling any day now. She had boiled them, fried them, deviled them, mixed them with potatoes and meat. The only thing she hadn’t done to an egg, she guessed, was to hatch it.

  The meat at the locker had run out several weeks ago, and the variety in their diet had dimmed considerably. What would she fix for dinner? The corn in her garden had dried up beneath the sun’s onslaught, the small ears malformed and shrunken.

  Sandy sighed as she thought about the garden. Mouths watering in anticipation, they had watched the one surviving tomato plant sprout from a spindly seedling to a healthy bush. June had discovered the first tiny, pealike fruit, and they had all watched it swell into a nice-sized tomato. It had just begun to turn orange when the chickens noticed it. Long before this last disappointment Sandy had already found that the lettuce was bitter and the radishes were pithy. As for the carrots—they refused to grow altogether. She had to admit to herself that there was more to growing a garden than planting a few seeds.

  Sandy leaned over, her chin resting on her knees, and drew circles in the dirt with a stick. A movement caught her eye, and she glanced sideways without turning her head. The rooster stood at the corner of the house, wings held out from his body, beak open. His chest heaved as he breathed.

  Sandy raised her head and turned it slowly toward the rooster. She loved fried chicken all toasty and crunchy. She gazed at him and saw him steaming on a platter, fried a crisp golden brown. Her mouth began to water and she rose slowly. The rooster cocked his head to one side and watched her.

  Animosity made the rooster wary. They had been enemies ever since he was big enough to crow. Sandy had surprised him early one morning near the woodpile. Defensively, the rooster had jumped on her with his sharp claws and spurred her leg just above the ankle. She had kicked him a good one for that, and he had picked himself up and made for the chicken yard; but from that time on a state of war had existed between them. He was no coward, that rooster. Many a time he caught her by surprise with her hands full of wood or full of feed from the shed. He developed a hit-and-run tactic that infuriated her.

  Sandy didn’t know whether she could kill a chicken or not, but she thought he might be a good one to start with. She advanced slowly, stretching her fingers toward the rooster. His beak closed, and he blinked his bright black eyes and watched. Just as she made a lunge for him, he let out a loud squawk, flew about five feet into the air, and lit out for the field. Sandy, shrugging off the heat’s drug like a cloak, raced after him.

  “What are you doing?” called Marie, coming around the edge of the house.

  “I’m going to catch him,” Sandy yelled, “and fry him for dinner.”

  Marie watched Sandy stalk the rooster. Once more she made a lunge for him. This time she managed to grab his tail feathers, but he escaped, his rear end a little more molty looking than before. Sandy threw the feathers away in disgust and again started after the rooster. By now he was letting out punctuated squawks that brought answering squawks from the hens, who had been peacefully dusting their almost featherless bodies in the chicken yard.

  June joined Marie, and together they watched as Sandy continued to lunge for the rooster and miss. The thought of fried chicken encouraged Marie, and she moved forward. “I’ll help!” she called, and started to head off the rooster.

  June stood quietly, watching her sisters and the rooster. He was getting tired; his squawks were weaker now. Then, suddenly, there was a great commotion, and Marie and Sandy were rolling around on the ground amid a flurry of flying feathers. Sandy came up triumphant, holding the rooster upside down by his legs and sucking on a hand marked by several wounds from his sharp beak.

  The rooster hung limp for several minutes and then started flapping his wings and squawking. “Ouch!” yelled Sandy, and held him out away from her leg. “He bit me!” She shook him hard.

  “I’ll get the hatchet,” said Marie, and ran off toward the shed.

  Sandy carried the rooster over to the chopping block and stood there waiting for Marie. June came up slowly, looking at the rooster as he dangled from Sandy’s hand. “Are you really going to kill him?”

  “You’re darn right I am!” Sandy exploded. “I’ve been spurred by him for the last time.”

  Marie ran up with the hatchet and handed it to Sandy. Sandy swung the rooster forward, so that the front part of his body rested on the block. He lay very still, not blinking. She took the hatchet from Marie, who backed off, her eyes large with excitement. Sandy hesitated. Her hands were sweaty around the handle and her heart beat rapidly. She had watched him kill chickens many times before and had helped her mother clean them. She knew the rooster would lie there hypnotized, and that not until his head was chopped off would he flop about—nerves, her mother had told her.

  “Hurry up, Sandy, do it!” encouraged Marie.

  “You know what Mommy said,” came June’s quiet voice.

  Both girls turned to June and echoed, “What?”

  “Roosters aren’t good to eat. They’re old and tough, and you can’t fry them, especially when they are as old as he is.”

  “He’ll be better than eggs or ham,” protested Marie.

  June ignored Marie’s remark. “You just want to kill him bec
ause you don’t like him,” she accused Sandy.

  “That’s not true.”

  “Well if he isn’t good to eat, why kill him?”

  “I . . .” Sandy started and then dwindled off.

  “Oh, don’t pay any attention to her. She’s just an old softie who’s afraid of a little blood. Go ahead, cut his head off, Sandy.” Marie edged a little closer.

  The rooster lay quietly, awaiting his fate without blinking. Sandy raised the hatchet, but when June’s accusing eyes met hers, she lowered it slowly. She jerked the rooster off the block and flung him into the air. He croaked a hollow squawk, landed on his feet, and half flew, half ran from the yard. “All right, we’ll kill a hen and boil her. That will be better than nothing.”

  Sandy stalked into the chicken yard and eyed the molting hens. They had lost so many feathers that they looked as if someone had plucked them almost clean and then let them go. Moving carelessly among them, Sandy grabbed a heavy one that could not move fast. She carried her out to the block and laid her on it much as she had the rooster. She took hold of the hatchet with determination, looked at Marie, who nodded encouragingly, and then at June. June stood, her head hung low, her eyes downcast, watching the chicken, and Sandy saw a large tear slip from her eye, cling momentarily to her long, dark lashes, and then plop softly in the dust at her feet.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Sandy let go of the chicken and watched it scurry away. “I don’t like stewed chicken very well anyway,” she said, and she turned and headed back to the shed to return the hatchet.

  Later Sandy took out the remains of the ham. The meat was slippery and a little green around the rind. Sandy turned a little green herself at the smell of it and thrust it back into the refrigerator. Angrily she stomped from the kitchen, through the front room, and back to the front stoop, where she flopped down and lowered her head between her knees. She took up the stick and commenced retracing the circles she had drawn earlier.