The Hired Girl (6 page)

But I wasn’t going to be meeching, either. And I was going to ask
today;
I wasn’t going to put it off. I waited until almost all the food was gone. Then I sat up straight and used my most ladylike voice. I began, “Father —”

At first he didn’t look up. He was buttering the last slice of bread. Father always folds his bread in thirds and crushes it in his fist. Then he eats it like a stalk of celery, in great bites. I think I’d die if Miss Chandler ever saw the way he eats. When he took the second bite, he fixed his eyes on mine, and I felt a thrill pass through me, because it was now or never.

And all at once I wasn’t scared anymore. No, that’s not true; I
was
scared, but I wasn’t scared in the same way. Instead of being scared stiff, I was scared the way I used to feel when I was going downhill on a toboggan, too fast. It was a jittery, active, mettlesome kind of scared.

“Father,” I said calmly, “the other day, you said I wasn’t a schoolgirl anymore. I’ve been thinking on that, and I think you’re right. And you said I was needed to do the women’s work, and I’m thinking that’s pretty near to calling me a woman.” It didn’t sound as forceful as I’d hoped, but I was on that toboggan and I kept going. “So, since my work is needed, and I take care of the chickens, I think I ought to have the egg money. That’s what Ma had.”

There was silence after I spoke. Father took another mouthful of bread. He looked as if his whole mind was taken up with chewing, but I knew that wasn’t so. It came to me — I’d never thought of this before — that Father isn’t quick. He knew he wanted to deny me, but he lacked the words. So he chewed slowly, with his eyes gazing straight ahead as if I wasn’t there.

I became aware that the boys were staring. Well, not Matthew, because he was dragging his fourth biscuit in circles around the pie dish, dredging up the gravy. But Mark had stopped chewing and stared at me, bemused. Luke leaned forward with his forearms on the table. I don’t rightly know how to describe the look on Luke’s face. His eyes were alert, as if he was working a sum in mental arithmetic. At the same time, I almost felt as if he admired me.

That’s when I recalled that Luke and Mark never have any money, either. They’re as penniless as I am. Father keeps the money in a big stone jar on top of the kitchen dresser. He and Matthew can dip into it whenever they like. But Mark and Luke have to ask permission to take money from the jar, and if Father says yes, they have to write on a piece of paper what they want, and how much it costs, and then they have to put the paper in the jar. If they ask too often, Father takes the slips out and shames them by reading aloud all the things they’ve wanted in the past.

It’s different with Matthew. Matthew has to write down what he takes, but he doesn’t have to ask Father’s permission to open the jar. Matthew’s as tightfisted as Father is. He hates spending money. He’s always after me to mend his things, and I can’t seem to make him understand that there comes a point where the cloth is so worn out it won’t hold another patch or darn. Of course, Matthew’s twenty-one, so Father has to consider him a man. But Mark is only nineteen and Luke is sixteen and neither of them ever have a cent.

“The egg money,” Father said, after a long time of chewing. “What for?”

I didn’t know whether he meant
What do you want the money for?
Or:
For what reason should I give you that money?
I didn’t want to tell Father what I might do with the money. So I answered the second question. “For doing my share of the work,” I said.

“Work!” said Father. “What do you know about work? The rest of us”— he jerked his head at my brothers —“spend our days in the hot sun, or out in the cold, while you sit in the house and keep your hands nice. What do you know about work?”

It was so unjust I couldn’t stand it. I threw my hands down on the table with such force that the plates rattled. I wanted him to see them, so raw and rough from scrubbing. I had it in my mind to recite to him all the work I do, which is unceasing — the carrying of water and ashes and coal, the scrubbing, the laundry, the cooking and mending and putting food by — but instead I said the wrong thing, and what was worse, I said it the wrong way. “My hands ain’t nice!” I protested.

The minute the words were out of my mouth, I felt my face burn. I’d said
ain’t
like any ignorant farm girl. I haven’t said
ain’t
for years. Miss Lang broke me of saying
ain’t
when I was seven years old. When I heard myself say it, the shame took all the starch out of me. I could have cried.

That’s when Mark spoke up. “I guess Joan does her share of the work,” he said. He said it mildly, without looking at Father — he said it as if he were talking to himself. But he said it.

Luke nodded. “Joan’s right,” he said, and I almost fainted, because I was fool enough to think he was taking up for me. “We’re none of us children anymore. All three of us — Matt and Mark and me — do a man’s work; you said so yourself. We ought to get something like a man’s wages.”

Well, that’s Luke for you. He wasn’t taking up for me; he was feathering his own nest. I wasn’t surprised, not really.

“A man’s wages,” said Father. Once again, he was repeating what had just been said, and again I thought,
He’s not quick.
But now he was angry. I could see it in the set of his shoulders. He didn’t like me asking for the egg money, but Luke asking for wages was worse.

I kept my eye on him. All of us watched Father, waiting to see which way he’d jump. As it happened, he lashed out at Luke — and I was glad it wasn’t me.

“A man’s wages,” he said, and pitched forward so that he was face-to-face with Luke — face-to-face, and too close. I didn’t blame Luke for shrinking back. “You think
you
do a man’s work? You think I’d hire you, if I had my druthers? Lazy and feckless as you are? If you weren’t my son, I wouldn’t let you set foot on my land. I wouldn’t give you a boy’s wages, much less a man’s. You can count yourself lucky I don’t give you something else — something fit for the
boy
you are.”

Father got up fast, and his chair scraped the floor. I thought he might strike Luke — I thought he might overturn the table; he did once, when Ma was alive. I don’t recollect why, but I remember cleaning up the spilled food and broken crockery. But he only stood there with his fists clenched, glaring at Luke.

I stole a glance at my unfavorite brother, and felt his humiliation. Luke’s skin is like mine, prone to burn and freckle and blush, and he was as red as a piece of calf ’s liver. Just at that moment, my heart ached for him.

But I didn’t stir. We all sat still, waiting to see what Father would do next. He turned his eyes on Matthew and Mark. “You’re not as useless as he is,” he said, ”but I’ve no notion of paying you. Haven’t I fed and clothed you for twenty years? Ain’t I entitled to a little work in exchange — and a little
respect
?” He bellowed the last word so that I started. He swung round on me.

“You’d better jump,” he snarled. “You’d better jump, and you’d better cower, if you’re going to come pestering me for that egg money. Your ma had the egg money, that’s right. I let her have the egg money. But I didn’t feed and clothe your ma for fourteen years. I didn’t have to eat her burned food, before she learned how to cook a decent meal, and I didn’t have to put up with airs and graces and sass. Your ma was twenty-six years old when she married me, and she knew better than to sass me.” He gave a short laugh; suddenly he was enjoying himself. “When you’re twenty-six, you can ask me for the egg money. I don’t promise to give it to you, because you ain’t worth it now, and likely you won’t be worth it then. But you can ask.”

He picked up his hat from the table and set it on his head. He’d won, and he knew it. He swung the door wide when he went outdoors, so that it flew back and slammed.

The boys got up and followed him. Not right away, and not all together, but they slid back their chairs and went after him. They knew they had to work with him all afternoon, and they didn’t want to make things worse by lagging behind.

I thought they were like a flock of sheep. They didn’t like him any more than I did — I know Luke hated him, at that moment — but where Father led, they followed. Not one of them glanced at me as they passed by. Not even Mark.

I sat at the table with the empty plates. Then I got up and put the kettle to boil, so I could wash the dishes.

I read these words, and I think of how hopeful I was when the day began — and how lacking in hope I am now. It seems to me I have two choices: to accept the way things are, or to strike.

I don’t know where on earth I’ll find the courage.

But I have to do something. It’s like that passage in
Jane Eyre: Speak I must; I had been trodden on severely and must turn: but how?
Somehow I must find the courage to do more than speak — I must defy Father: I must act.

Tuesday, June the twenty-seventh, 1911

I have begun my strike! I write this in the apple orchard — Father can’t see me from the window. It’s evening, and the air is beginning to cool. The western sky is resplendent, painted with brushstrokes of harmonious color. And I am triumphant: I have begun, I have begun! I am a little frightened, but so far, it’s gone well. Oh, I scarcely dare hope —!

All day yesterday I thought long and hard about my strike, and I think Miss Chandler would say that I’ve shown
great maturity
and
good judgment.
When I thought about my work, I realized something: even if I weren’t a coward about Father (and I’m not as cowardly as I thought I was!), I wouldn’t choose to go on the sort of strike where I do nothing at all. For example, the raspberries: they’re ripe now, and if I were on a full strike, I’d let them go to waste. But I know that next winter I’ll be craving raspberry jam, the tartness and sweetness and that ruby-red color. And so will the boys — Mark loves raspberry jam. It’s his favorite.

So I thought it would be a mistake not to make the jam. And it would be an even bigger mistake to let the house go to rack and ruin. It would be cutting off my nose to spite my face, because after the strike, I’m the one who’ll have to put things to rights.

As for the garden — well, you have to keep after a garden this time of year. If you turn your back, the weeds will take it. And the chickens need me to feed them, and so do the men. When all is said and done, I don’t want to be responsible for anyone starving to death.

So there I was, wondering
how
I might strike, and at the back of my mind was the idea that I’d better make that jam soon, before the raspberries go. I found myself feeling aggravated, because Tuesday is ironing day, and it’s hard enough making jam without having to heat the irons on top of the stove. Then it came to me that ironing isn’t
necessary.
No one will suffer if I stop ironing. That’s when I realized that ironing could be the first thing on my strike.
I’m not going to iron
— except my own things.

If the men’s clothes are stiff and wrinkled, I don’t care.

The idea of not ironing seemed to open up a whole new world to me. I made up my mind that the men can make their own beds. They’re the untidiest sleepers on earth, I think. Luke drags the sheets off the bed and throws them on the floor, and Matthew and Mark — why, they just aren’t clean in their habits. I hate messing with the boys’ beds, because there’s a smell; I don’t know what it is, but I know my sheets never smell like that. Ma always said that men are dirty creatures, and though it’s not a nice thing to say (and not refined), anyone who launders those sheets would say the same. Well, then: that was another thing I could
not do
on my strike. If Father wants to lie in a smooth, tidy bed, he can just hand over the egg money.

And third of all — but this is the most dangerous one, because it’s striking a blow against Father — I’m not going to serve a hot dinner every blessed day. The boys won’t mind — they’d just as soon eat sandwiches in this hot weather. But Father will mind. Father insists on a hot meal. That part of the strike feels risky — but I told myself it’s got to be risky, because, after all, it’s a strike.

I got up and made breakfast, same as always. After the men went out to work, I didn’t have four beds to make — I had only one. I didn’t tidy the men’s rooms, and I left their dirty clothes on the floor. The only thing I did was pull the shades down, to keep the rooms cool. Then I went out to pick raspberries.

It was a fair, cool morning, and I filled two pails with raspberries. I felt so free and naughty, knowing I didn’t have to iron, even though it was Tuesday. In the middle of picking the fruit off the canes, I got down on my knees and prayed to the Blessed Mother that Father wouldn’t be too terrible.

Then I went inside to pick over the berries. Midmorning I prepared dinner for the men. I made a big platter of sandwiches, took out four bottles of beer, and added a plate of molasses cookies. Just as I had for Miss Chandler, I piled everything on a tray, put the tray on the kitchen stool, and set it out under the elm tree. I tucked a towel over the tray to keep the flies off.

Back in the kitchen, I put on my thickest apron. I think praying to the Blessed Mother did me good, because I’d begun to feel steady inside. When you make jam, you have to keep your mind clear, doing everything in just the right order and just the right way. If you’re flighty or muddleheaded, you’ll burn yourself and spoil the jam.

I set to work. It’s hot work, scalding the jars and melting the wax and standing over the stove. It’s sticky, too, and I perspired until my hair was damp. But the smell of the raspberries — I don’t know how to describe it. It seems like a hundred smells at once — hot sugar and fresh peaches and grapes ripening in the sun — but it’s also just one smell: raspberry, raspberry, raspberry. Smelling that smell and watching the red bubbles churn and froth brought me something like happiness.

By dinnertime, I was in the very crisis of jam making. Matthew was the first to come in. I told him his dinner was outside on a tray, under the elm tree.

He looked confused. I waited for him to ask me why I didn’t have a hot dinner on the table, but Matthew never does ask questions. He looked at the kettle, which was boiling and foaming, and went out without speaking. A few minutes later, Father came to the door. He stopped in the doorway and stared at the table, which was covered with clean towels and jam jars set upside down. He said, “What’s all this?” My heart beat double time.