The Hired Girl (3 page)

I looked at myself in the mirror, and oh, I wanted to cry. My face is all swollen and out of shape, and bright purple, and then there are those four black stitches, each one crusted with dark-red scabs. I thought about praying, but I wasn’t sure what to pray
for
because what’s done is done. I said, “Dear Mother of God,” and for a moment I imagined the Blessed Mother shifting the baby Jesus into the crook of her arm, so that she could reach out and lay her soft hand on my cheek. I imagined her saying, “There, now,” the way Ma used to do, and all at once I missed Ma so much I couldn’t stand it.

Then I was very pathetic. I went to my chest and took out Belinda, the rag doll Ma made for my sixth birthday. I crawled into bed with Belinda in my lap and rocked her. When I was six, I thought Belinda was the most beautiful doll in the world, better than any wax or china-faced doll. Now that I’m fourteen, I wonder how Ma managed her. Belinda’s pigtails are merino wool, and Ma made her wig so beautifully you can’t see her scalp through the yarn. And Belinda’s dress is silk, which Ma embroidered with flowers. The silk must have been a remnant, but even so, Ma must have spent a lot of her egg money to buy it. All the time that went into making me that doll — her petticoat is trimmed with three rows of ruffles, and there are more ruffles on her apron. Oh, Ma loved me; that much is sure and certain.

One thing about Belinda is a secret. Under the ruffles, her apron is stiff. It’s stiff because Ma sewed money inside the hem — dollar bills. I don’t know how many; from the stiffness, it might be ten or even fifteen. The summer before she died, Ma told me she was going to stitch the money inside Belinda’s apron, and that money was just for me, for a time when I really needed it. “Not for toys,” she whispered, and I remember how hot and sharp her whisper felt against my ear. “Not for toys or clothes or candy or pretty things. That money’s for something important. If I’m ever not here to help you, remember that money’s there for you, right in Belinda’s apron.”

I was nine years old, and scared. I didn’t like her talking about a time when she wouldn’t be around to help me. I suppose I knew even then that Ma wasn’t strong. She was too delicate to be a farmer’s wife. She had terrible headaches, and sometimes she’d stop working because she couldn’t get her breath. Even at nine, I was stronger than she was. Sometimes at the end of a day, she’d say, “I’ve worked you too hard,” but then she would smile and touch my cheek and say, “but never mind, you’re a strong girl and a good girl and a great help to me. That’s the thing you’ve got to remember.” And I did remember it, after she died.

I wish I looked like Ma. She always said she wasn’t pretty, but she was small and thin and quick in her movements — like Jane Eyre, maybe. I’d like to look in the mirror and see Ma’s face instead of my own. But the only thing I inherited from Ma was her blue eyes. For the rest of it, I look like Father, with a face as wide as a shovel, and broad shoulders and a big mouth. It’s not such a bad look for the men — Luke is even handsome — but it’s wrong for a girl. I’d rather look like Ma, more delicate and refined. But oh! just now I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror — all swollen and purple and goblin-ish! — and I’d give just about anything to look like myself again.

Monday, June the nineteenth, 1911

Today was washday. It was dreadfully hot, and I thanked God when I finished with the boiling water and moved on to the rinsing stage. I was wringing out Father’s trousers when I saw someone coming up the hill. It was a lady in a dove-gray suit and a leghorn hat. I raised my hand to shade my eyes, to make sure it wasn’t a mirage of some kind. But it was dear Miss Chandler, and there could be no doubt that she was coming to see me.

I dropped Father’s trousers and raced down the hill to meet her. Joy gave my feet wings; I felt like the Roman god Mercury. The only thing was, I forgot about my face. My bruised toes were all right, but my face hurt something awful when I lit off like that. Never mind: I clamped one hand over my stitches and bounded like a deer. In an instant I was at her side. “Miss Chandler!” I panted, and I would have clasped her hands, except they were full. “Miss Chandler!”

She gazed at me searchingly. She was out of breath from climbing the hill, and her cheeks were pink. She was carrying a big armful of snowball blossoms, wrapped in wet newspaper, and the satchel she brings to school. The idea flashed through my head — it was bright and quick, like a shooting star — that she might have books for me in her satchel. Then I felt a pang of shame because it was miracle enough that Miss Chandler had come to visit me. I shouldn’t have thought beyond that.

“Dear Joan,” said Miss Chandler, “are you quite well?”

I’d forgotten how awful I look. The bruises have changed color since Wednesday. They aren’t bright purple and shiny anymore; they’re a sort of thunder color. The swelling on my forehead makes a puffed-up ridge that looks like a third eyebrow. When Miss Chandler gazed into my face, she winced, and I remembered how frightful I look. Of course, I
would
be wearing my oldest dress — a loose Mother Hubbard that used to be blue; it’s a nasty shade of yellow-gray now — and my feet were bare. I looked awful and I knew it, but it’s been so hot all week. And who puts on a good dress to do the laundry?

“I had an accident,” I began, and together we turned to climb the hill. I made my steps short to match hers. I walked backward in front of her, so I could feast my eyes on her face.

It’s a curious thing, but I always remember Miss Chandler as being taller than she is. She’s really a little woman, but I think of her as being bigger than me, so when I see her, it’s a surprise. She’s beautiful, though, for an older lady. Even though she was warm and out of breath, she looked perfectly lovely. Her snow-white hair was done up just right, and her suit fit so elegant. Ma used to say that if I became a schoolteacher one day, I’d have pretty clothes. They have suits for girls my age — Peter Thompson suits, they’re called — but I’ve never had one. Hazel Fry has two: a dark-blue one for everyday and a pale-blue linen for good.

It turns out Miss Chandler knew about my accident. Dr. Fosse told his wife about it, and their hired girl, Betty, is sister to Emily, the girl who works at Miss Chandler’s boardinghouse. “Then it’s true, Joan?” Miss Chandler stopped to rest under the shade of a maple tree. “You were kicked in the face by a cow?”

“Kneed is more like,” I said, and I acted it out for her. She looked so worried that I made fun of myself as I told the tale. I clowned for her, heaving away at the leg of an imaginary cow. Miss Chandler was still flushed from climbing the hill, but she smiled, and something smoothed out in her face.

But even as I was telling my story, making it funny to set her mind at ease, I was worrying. If a lady pays a call on you, you ask her in, of course, but I didn’t want Miss Chandler to see inside our house. Everything’s so coarse-looking and old-fashioned and falling apart. And I didn’t know what to give her to drink. It’s too hot for a cup of coffee. The prettiest thing to give her would be a glass of lemonade, but we never buy lemons. There’s a tin of tea in the pantry, but it’s awfully old. Ma was the one that drank tea; Father likes only coffee and beer.

Then an idea came to me, and I was so excited I interrupted dear Miss Chandler, who was saying how providential it was that my eyesight hadn’t been damaged. “We can have a picnic!” I said. “Wait here, and I’ll fetch you a chair to sit on. It’s cooler in the shade than in the house.”

“I mustn’t stay,” Miss Chandler said, and I saw her eyes pass over the fields. I wondered if she was looking for Father.

“Please,” I begged, “just for a little while! I have a surprise for you. And I still have your handkerchief, with the violets on it. Please stay.”

I could see in her face that she wasn’t sure if she wanted to stay. But she laughed a little and handed me the flowers. “I brought you these,” she said. “Mrs. Lansing at the boardinghouse said I might pick them. She sends her best wishes and hopes you’ll soon be feeling better.”

I said, “How very kind” in my best manner, but I wanted to laugh. I could see that Miss Chandler had imagined me like an invalid in a book, lying in bed and having flowers brought to me. Instead I was up and doing the wash. Why, I cleaned the chicken house the day after the accident — I figured if I was going to be miserable, I might as well get the chicken house cleaned at the same time. I hate that job.

I took the snowballs into the house and set them in the sink. I smoothed out the pieces of wet newspaper, to read later on, and dashed out with one of the kitchen chairs. I set it in the shade for Miss Chandler, and I went back in to prepare our picnic. Thank heavens I had the strawberries! Ripe strawberries and real cream are good enough for anybody. If the Queen of England came to Steeple Farm, I shouldn’t be ashamed to give her our strawberries and cream.

I charged upstairs to Ma’s hope chest. There were linen napkins inside — hemstitched — and little china bowls with roses on them, too fragile for everyday. I found silver spoons and rubbed the tarnish off them as quick as ever I could. The kitchen tray’s all scratched and stained looking, but I covered it with a napkin, and I sugared the berries well — brown sugar is tastier, but white is daintier, so I used white. Then I poured on the cream. For a moment it puzzled me what the tray would sit on, because the kitchen table’s too heavy to drag outdoors. But I picked up a stool, and set the tray on that, and carried the whole kit and caboodle out to the elm tree.

“Here’s the surprise,” I said, and set down the stool and the tray. “I picked the strawberries just this morning, and the cream came from the cow that kicked me in the face.”

Miss Chandler laughed. She has such a sweet laugh, not loud like mine, and she looked quite happily at the strawberries and cream. They did look lovely.

“I’m afraid I interrupted your work,” she said, “and you have no chair.”

“I don’t need one,” I said, and sat down at her feet. I almost forgot and sat cross-legged, which I do when I’m on my bed, but in the nick of time I sank down gracefully and tucked my feet under my skirt. At that moment — with my own bowl of strawberries and cream, knowing that Miss Chandler had come to see me because I was hurt, and knowing but trying not to think about the books she might have brought me — I was perfectly happy.

But I didn’t stay happy. Not perfectly happy, anyway. The first trouble was that I couldn’t think of what to say to Miss Chandler. Usually I saw her in school, where she was always teaching me something, and I could think of tons of things to say — my opinions about poetry and famous writers and so forth. But she’d never come to call before, and I felt shy. I think she did, too, because there were pauses between everything we said. Then she began to tell me about a new pupil she’d met at an ice-cream social: “One who reminds me of yourself, dear Joan.” This new girl is named Ivy Gillespie, and Miss Chandler says she is like me: “A regular bookworm and, I think, quite
clever.
” My joy was poisoned by jealousy as I imagined Ivy Gillespie going to school when I can’t, and Miss Chandler liking her better than me.

It seems to me that teachers are a little bit heartless. They greet each new wave of pupils and choose which ones they’ll like best, and then, when the students grow up and leave school, they forget all about them and turn to the next wave. I thought those thoughts and I was in a kind of panic, because I was sore with envy. I didn’t want to be. Miss Chandler was sitting there right in front of me, and she might never come again, and if I couldn’t enjoy myself having strawberries and cream with her — well, I didn’t know what was the
matter
with me.

Then I noticed Miss Chandler looking over my shoulder, nervous-like. I turned to see what she was looking at, and there was Father, coming up the hill. I forgot all about Ivy Gillespie and worried about Father. I could tell from the set of his shoulders he wasn’t in a good humor, and all at once I recollected that I hadn’t finished the laundry, and his trousers were lying on the grass. I knew Father wouldn’t like seeing Ma’s silver spoons or the little china bowls. Or the strawberries, either, because most of those we sell.

But there wasn’t anything I could do. I couldn’t hide the picnic things or make Miss Chandler vanish into thin air. I stopped listening to Miss Chandler and started to pray.
Holy Mother of God,
I thought,
don’t let Father be ugly to Miss Chandler.

His footfalls came closer. At last I couldn’t stand waiting any longer. I got to my feet and turned to face him. I saw him with Miss Chandler’s eyes. Father’s a powerful man, and big. He was wearing his barn clothes, and you could smell them. His shirt was soaked with sweat and he had his sleeves rolled up, and he didn’t smile. “Father,” I said, “this is Miss Chandler. She came to call on me.” He didn’t say anything, the way he does, so I added, “My teacher.”

“You don’t go to school,” Father said curtly. He turned his head and spoke direct to Miss Chandler. “My daughter won’t be coming back to school. She’s needed at home.”

“I understand. Of course,” said Miss Chandler. She sounded fluttery. “Joan told me about her duties here. I hope you don’t think that I would try to come between a girl and her duty.”

It flashed through my mind that I wished someone would try to come between me and my duty. But there wasn’t time to mull over that. I was watching Father’s face. He looked from the tray and the empty bowls over to where the washtub stood, as if to say Miss Chandler was keeping me from my duty this very minute.

He did it so pointedly that Miss Chandler caught on. Her cheeks turned pink, and she looked flustered. I stiffened my spine and said, “It was very good of Miss Chandler to call on me. She heard I was hurt, and she brought me flowers.”

Miss Chandler picked up her satchel. She started to fumble at the latch. “I thought perhaps Joan might be laid up in bed. I brought her some books to help pass the time.”

She drew out the books. There were three of them — two small reddish-brown books, one of them right thick, and a bigger book that was green, with gold letters on the spine. I reached for them. I couldn’t help myself. I knew that Miss Chandler was in a hurry to leave, and that Father might go into one of his tempers any moment. I wanted those books in my arms, safe.