Breeding Like Rabbits

by Ardyce C. Whalen

  “No, my child, condoms are not allowed for any reason because they prevent the possibility of sperm and egg being able to unite.”

  “But, Father, that’s exactly what I want for a while.”

  “No, you don’t. It would be a mortal sin, putting you in danger of eternal damnation. Other than abstinence, only the rhythm method of birth control is allowed by the Catholic church.”

  “The rhythm method! I’ve tried it and tried it. It doesn’t work for us.”

  “Try again, and pray that it works this time. If it doesn’t, have you considered that your thirteenth child might be the one to support you, to care for you, in your old age? Now, for your penance, say one Act of Contrition, one Our Father, and three Hail Mary’s. Go in peace.”

  Britt stumbled out of the confessional. Despair filled her mind, and her stomach clenched. Thirteen children! I’ve had two single births in a year, and we’ll soon have another baby. He’s minimizing childbirth and childcare. In fact he’s saying that it might be to my advantage that after I have this baby, I should have ten more. Does he really feel that way?

  She sank down onto a pew’s kneeler, her elbows on the back of the pew in front, hands cradling her head as tears seeped out of the corners of her eyes. Did he give me any penance? I don’t know; I couldn’t hear anything after the “thirteenth child” bit. Doomed, that’s what I am. I’ll go crazy long before I reach that number of children. It’s not fair! My grandmother delivered thirteen children, yes, thirteen! She wanted children—she just didn’t want so many. A farm wife was expected to produce farm hands. She died of pneumonia in her sixties. She and her eight daughters did not get along, and her sons were busy with farming and their families. They had little time for her. I do not want to end up like her, angry, bitter, and alone.

  The rhythm method? Give me a break. I’ve had far more intimate moments with my thermometer than with my husband, and in spite of strictly observing the so-called safe days, I keep getting pregnant. The rhythm method is a method that—at least in my case—produces, not prevents. Now I know why it’s referred to in the secular world as “Vatican roulette.”

  Andy quit his job at Montgomery Ward when he started Barber College. Since it was after the Christmas rush, the store was okay with his leaving, but they said that he was a good employee, and if he wanted to come back, he’d be able to work for them again. Somehow the Hughes family managed to live on the $385 a month the GI Bill allowed.

  Andy would come home from his barbering classes with a smile on his face, and Sara would run to him, hug him around the legs, and he’d lift her high in the air. When it was Daniel’s turn to be lifted, he demanded to be swung around a bit too.

  Britt was happy to see him happy. They were sitting around the supper table one night after a good meal, just relaxing, enjoying the last of their apple pie, when she asked him what it was about the school that he liked so much.

  “The school reminds me of one of my favorite places to be when I was growing up—Mr. Monaghan’s barbershop. Mr. Monaghan always let us kids come in there and read the comic books. If the talk got interesting, I’d just keep my face buried in a comic book, but I listened to the men talk—it was actually gossip. I learned a lot about life in that barbershop.”

  “I remember Mr. Monaghan’s shop too. Haircuts were a buck—children for half that. Men coming in from the fields, dirty and tired, were able to get a shave for a quarter, and then for fifteen cents more, a hot shower. Mr. Monaghan only charged for the use of a bath towel. I know this because my dad would get his haircuts on Saturday nights, and he saw men making use of the barbershop to clean up for a Saturday night on the town. He thought that was a smart move on Mr. Monaghan’s part, providing a service like that.”

  “Yeah, he’s a good guy and a good businessman.”

  “You never cut a class, because going there reminds you of your favorite place—I can understand that. But haven’t you ever had a bad school day?”

  “No, I’d never cut classes—I like ’em, and I’m paying for them. But one day I cut a little slice off the top of a customer’s ear. That was bad. It took about a quart of septic powder to get it to stop bleeding. That only happened once, though—that was enough.” He carried his dishes over to the sink and turned around. “Remember the first time I tried to give Daniel a haircut? He squirmed and yelled so much I had to put him on the floor and sit on him before I was able to finish.”

  “It was about this time of the day too, after supper. Daniel really slept well that night.”

  With Andy so busy, Britt wished she could help by getting a job and making some money, but she was needed at home—two children and one on the way. Britt hauled out her little Singer sewing machine and helped in the only way she could—she sewed. Easter was coming, and they all wanted to look good in church on Easter Sunday. First she sewed a dress for Sara in turquoise, with a big bow in the back and in front, a wide, white Peter Pan collar to set off Sara’s olive skin, curly brown hair, and deep brown eyes. She’d look like a living doll. For Daniel she sewed a medium gray vest and lined it with turquoise material left over from Sara’s dress. With a white shirt and a little black bow tie and black trousers, he’d be one handsome guy. Her children were lucky—they looked like their father. And for their father, she made a regular tie, using one of his old ties that he never wore and ripping it up to get the pattern. The new tie was royal blue with a diagonal red stripe, his favorite colors. For her? Well, she was still living in a maternity tent for now, but she’d wear her best tent.

  The night before Easter, she and Andy filled a small, straw Easter basket for each child, with a little chocolate bunny, some jelly beans, and a yellow marshmallow chick. A filled basket was put at the foot of each child’s bed—a morning surprise.

  The morning surprise destroyed Sara and Daniel’s breakfast appetite, so they didn’t mind that breakfast was skipped. Britt and Andy couldn’t have breakfast because they were fasting in order to be able to go to Holy Communion—besides that, they had to leave home early in order to find seats. The church filled up fast for Easter Sunday Mass.

  They entered the church and found seats near the front. Britt looked around and saw beautiful white lilies, symbols of purity, flanking both sides of the altar. The organ music touched her spiritual core, as it always did. Sara and Daniel may have been affected by the music too, as they behaved like little angels.

  When it came time for Communion, Britt struggled inwardly. I didn’t do my penance. What the priest said about having thirteen children upset me so much I didn’t remember what he said I should do for penance. If I don’t go, what will Andy think? What will my children think? I have to go. I don’t want to add any confusion to their lives. My being confused is enough. When Andy came back from Communion, Britt hoisted herself to her feet and got into the Communion line. I do believe in God, even if I don’t believe the Catholic church is right about everything. She knelt at the altar and accepted the wafer the priest held out to her.

  By the middle of May, they were able to move into low-income housing. McDonough Homes was practically brand-new, and it was wonderful. They had so much room—three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs and a large living room and kitchen, with a real pantry, downstairs. They even had a basement for the washer, the dryer, and for storage. If they wanted to paint a room, they could. Britt had only one complaint—no bathroom downstairs. It was hard enough to teach little ones to use the bathroom, but when it was upstairs, it was doubly difficult. Sara adapted. She knew when she had to go and made it upstairs in time, but Daniel was still learning. Britt solved half the problem by keeping an empty can in the pantry for him. He had fun standing up, “just like Daddy,” and peeing into a twelve-ounce juice can. Britt didn’t mind taking the can upstairs and emptying it. It was a win-win for her—fewer clothes to wash and good exercise. With Sara, she did a lot of walking before she delivered. With Daniel, fewer walks, and with this o
ne-to-be, hardly any exercise until now. Climbing stairs was good for her.

  Eight months before the birth of their third child, the Soviet Union had launched Sputnik, a shiny beach-ball-sized satellite with four trailing antennas. Its “beep-beep” could be picked up by amateur radio operators around the world. With that launch, the world entered the Space Age, changing the thinking of people and governments. The United States was astonished and fearful; no one knew what Sputnik was capable of doing as it streaked across the sky. It jolted the United States out of recession. Money for math and science courses was forked over without complaint. The newest and best equipment filled school laboratories and classrooms. The United States was in a contest with Russia. The first attempts exploded—newspapers called them “Flopniks,” but these failures made the nation even more determined to succeed. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was created in 1958 to bring the military into the effort.

  Anthony, or “Tony” as Britt and Andy always called him, came into the world, into the Space Age, the same year that NASA was created. Tony arrived in St. Paul’s Bethesda Hospital on June 15. Labor pains had started around noon on a Sunday, and Tony arrived just in time for Britt to have dinner. He was a big baby, twenty-two inches long and weighing in at nine pounds eleven ounces. It was an easy birth with very little anesthetic. Britt figured it was probably because two others had paved the way.

  Later that night, she ran a fever. The hospital refused to release Britt or Tony until her temperature remained normal for twenty-four hours. It took a week. The hospital was installing oxygen pipes at the time. No quiet zone in this hospital. It would have failed the white-glove test too; dust swirled in the air. At least Britt had no worries about Sara and Daniel, aged three and two, because her sister, Hannah, still jobless, again came to the rescue and stayed until the hospital released Britt and Tony. God bless Hannah.

  Tony must have absorbed the energy vibrating around our globe, for he would prove to be a very active child. Even in the womb, he had pushed against Britt’s pelvic bones while at the same time punching or kicking her in the ribs. The last month of her pregnancy with him, Britt could use her bulge as a resting place for her dinner plate.

  Thirty-five days after Tony would celebrate his eleventh birthday, the United States would put two humans on the moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin; they walked on the moon, the first ever to do so. Our nation’s pride was redeemed.

  That fall, Andy took the board apprentice examination, passed, and got his apprentice license. He could now work under the supervision of a master barber and be paid for it. As an apprentice, he needed to accumulate fifteen hundred hours of experience in one year, after which he could again go before the board and take the master (registered) barber examination. Passing that examination would enable him to supervise apprentice barbers and to own his own shop if he so desired. He did.

  Andy chose to go back to the Hughes’ hometown and work under the supervision of Mr. Monaghan, the barber who owned his favorite place of refuge and reading material as a child.

  CHAPTER

  18

  Immediate necessities all packed and loaded into the old gray Ford with the covered-up hole in the floor, the Hughes family traveled north back to Great Prairie, their old hometown where Andy would be Mr. Monaghan’s apprentice. He was happy, proud of what he’d accomplished, and looking forward to what he hoped to accomplish in a year—master barber. Someday he would own his own shop.

  Britt had mixed feelings. She was proud of her husband, happy that he’d completed school and would be earning money. Her parents would let them stay with them until Andy and Britt found a place of their own in town. Then Andy and his brother, Luke, the one who spilled the ham on the floor so many years ago, would drive back to St. Paul in Britt’s father’s grain truck, with a three-sided box, to pick up the rest of their belongings. Britt looked down at Tony, asleep in her arms. Another fresh start—I hope it’s a good one. I’ve had a baby in each place we’ve lived—Sara in Newport, Daniel in Chelsea, Tony in St. Paul. Now we’re going to settle, for a while at least, in our hometown. Will I have another baby here? I’ve missed a period. Am I already pregnant?

  While packing up to move, she realized that she was late. It could be the anxiety of another move, but then when she didn’t want her morning coffee, she began to panic. She’d rush to the bathroom, closing and locking the door, flipping the lid down on the toilet and just sit, her heart pounding. Thank God, some peace and quiet! I thought I’d lose it for a while there with all the chaos of packing. I need to calm down and quit all this worrying. She got up, unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans, and pulled them and her panties down. For the eighth time that day, she checked for blood—nothing. She even felt inside herself just in case some blood was just starting to come down. Oh, no, I can’t be pregnant … how late am I? God, you know I can’t take another pregnancy. Please, please, let my period start. What will I tell Andy? He’s a hard worker, but an apprentice barber doesn’t make very much. He can only do what Mr. Monaghan lets him do. How can I lay this on him? I want him to enjoy being home. He never wants to be like his father who did a poor job of supporting his family. He worries that having too big a family will be just too much.

  They found an apartment right away—the only apartment to be had in that small town. But what an apartment! Britt immediately thought of the movie Beyond the Forest, in which Bette Davis said, “What a dump!” It was a dump, and it sat in the middle of a collection of farm machinery, farm machinery dealers, and a grain elevator or two. The dump was an old, white, two-story house converted into small apartments.

  The makeshift closet off the kitchen held all their clothes. At the other end of this shotgun arrangement was the children’s bedroom. It was so small that only one foot separated Tony’s crib from the bunk beds, stacked, where his sister and brother slept. Between the kitchen and the children’s bedroom was the living room by day and master bedroom by night. When the hide-a-bed was opened, transforming the living room into a bedroom, it almost touched their Zenith television set—the set that Britt had tried to lift, which resulted in her water breaking and Daniel coming three weeks before his due date.

  Sardines in a can, that’s what we are. But sardines are lucky—they’re dead. That was not the worst of it. Down the hall was the bathroom, serving fourteen people—six adults and eight children. Sometimes when Britt entered it, provided she could even gain entry, she was confronted by a sink with little specks and some balls the size of popcorn—feces. Britt’s mother never came to see her in that apartment. Britt didn’t think that she was still upset about Britt turning Catholic. Perhaps she was just too busy, or maybe she thought, She’s made her bed; now she has to lie in it. Her father came to see her once but didn’t come a second time. Perhaps he couldn’t stand to see his daughter living in such a hole. And then he got the mumps! Almost sixty years old, and he had the mumps. Of course he couldn’t expose Britt and the children to that.

  Britt made an appointment with the doctor; she must be three months along now. It was quite a hassle to go to a doctor because now the nearest one was twenty-five miles away. Dr. Karsten, who had fitted her for a diaphragm after she’d had Daniel, was now living in Minneapolis. Andy would have to take half a day off and babysit while she drove to the doctor’s office. Britt rather liked that. It was peaceful driving.

  Dr. Arnold, a graying, pudgy, comfortable doctor, put Britt at ease. She could talk to him. He helped her get up onto the examining table, putting her feet in the customary stirrups.

  “Yes, you are pregnant—about three months along I’d say … should be born in August.” He helped her down from the examining table. “Are you eating all that you should? You should gain some weight.” He turned, his back to Britt, as she put on her panties and straightened her skirt.

  “Sometimes I just don’t have any appetite for anything. We live in such a small place it seems that I’m constant
ly breaking up fights.”

  “I know you have three little ones, but can’t somebody help you out once in a while?”

  “Would you believe it, my fifty-nine-year-old father has the mumps, and besides my mother has eight-year-old twin boys to take care of. They keep her running. My mother-in law works, and I wouldn’t want Andy’s father to sit—I don’t think he cares much for children. Besides, he’s away from home a lot. My husband works every day. No, it’s my responsibility.”

  “Try to rest and to eat more. You’re eating for two now.” He reached into a cabinet and took out two brown bottles. “The little bottle is iron. Take one a day—you look too pale. The other bottle contains prenatal vitamins. Take one a day of those too. That’s it. Make an appointment for next month on your way out.”

  “Dr. Arnold, I don’t want to get pregnant for a long time after I have this one. Andy and I are like rabbits the way we keep having babies. Do you have a pill to halt this baby production?”

  “I sure do.” He held out his hand, palm up. On it sat a little white pill. “Aspirin. Just hold it between your knees and keep it there every time your husband gets frisky.”

  Britt felt her face flush with rage. She’d be crying if she weren’t so angry. Without a word, she turned on her heel and left.

  When she reached their apartment house, she parked on the street in front, sat for a while, and then got out of the car. Andy, carrying Tony and with Sara and Daniel trailing behind him, came toward her. I’m glad he put their coats on—it’s cold. Britt held out her arms, and Andy walked into them, hugging her with his left arm. Tony put a sticky arm around her neck. “Mama.” Sara and Daniel wanted in on this, so each grabbed one of Andy’s legs and hugged it.