Mrs. Oblinger called it
lonely wailing;
it made her fret and talk of home.
I feel my way across the room.
Just cracking the door open
drives fresh snow over my feet.
For all Mrs. Oblinger’s fussing,
she’d never seen what the worst prairie winds bring,
what is coming—
I wipe at tears I haven’t noticed until now.
Blizzard.
100
Stumbling toward the stove,
I reach for my jar of starter.
It can’t freeze;
I’ll need biscuits.
In bed I huddle in a ball,
two quilts about me,
the starter jar against my chest.
101
The first time I heard the chant
was the recess after Teacher moved me
to the front
with the babies
missing their ma,
still losing their milk teeth,
swinging their legs when Teacher looked away.
When Teacher dismissed us from lessons,
I met Hiram at the farthest edge of the schoolyard.
“I don’t think you need to worry none.
She’ll figure out you’re smart real soon.
May Betts, don’t let her get to you.”
He had that look that reminds me
someday he’ll be a man.
Behind us I thought
I heard my name.
May B.
May B.
I turned around,
but no one was calling.
“Let’s go play.”
Hiram gave me a shove.
We picked sides pretty quick
until it got to me.
Rita whined to Avery,
“Maybe May will freeze in the middle of the game,
just like she did this morning.”
“May B. can play just fine,”
Nathaniel said, tossing the ball in the air.
“Keep the picks going.”
“Maybe she can, maybe she can’t.”
Rita stared straight at me.
Some of the little ones started up:
“Maybe she can, maybe she can’t.…”
Avery said,
“May’s good and you know it.”
He beckoned to me.
“Come join us.”
Rita scowled.
“Maybe she can, maybe she can’t,
Maybe she can, maybe she can’t.…”
I turned away,
the taunt following me to the schoolhouse.
102
The air is still
when I awake.
I remember immediately:
blizzard.
The door won’t budge
with the first tug
or the second.
I press my foot against the wall,
yank one last time.
A barrier of blue-white snow
stands solid.
Slamming the door,
I spin around,
press my back against it.
There is so little space
to live in,
to draw in air,
to move.
The walls hold everything so close.
I need to get out!
Swinging the door open again,
I dig like a prairie dog.
When Hiram and I had snowball fights,
I hated the feel
of snow trapped at my wrists
between mittens and coat.
Now it slips down my sleeves,
gathers in the elbows of my dress,
and I don’t pay it any mind.
I have to get out of here.
I dig until my fingers throb.
I dip them in the pail,
and the icy water
burns like liquid fire.
But slowly I am able to move my hands.
Looking over my shoulder,
I see the mound
heaped on the floor
and the useless hole
I’ve dug.
I clench the pail in my reddened hands
bent like claws
and throw it at the hole.
Water splatters everything—
the table,
yesterday’s beans,
even the twisted hay in the basket
and the precious few buffalo chips.
How could I have done something so thoughtless?
“Stupid girl.”
If Mrs. Oblinger could see me now.
“The girl’s not right,”
Teacher would say.
“Something don’t work proper in her head.”
I grip my reader,
open it to the middle,
rip a handful of paper from the spine.
My numb hands fumble at the stove door latch.
I tug it open
and watch the pages burn.
“This is what a Maybe gets!”
I shout.
Sobbing,
I sink to the floor;
the rough wood scrapes my knees
as I crawl back to bed
and bury myself under the quilts.
103
“I won’t,” I told Teacher.
She lifted my chin with a finger.
“You won’t or you can’t?”
I felt my cheeks flame
there in front of everyone,
all those eyes
examining me like an oddity,
some abnormal thing.
“I won’t,” I said again.
She thrust the book before me,
the copy Miss Sanders had left behind.
“Read it,” she said.
Hiram’s lips moved,
saying something I couldn’t follow.
Everyone waited,
staring at me.
My insides clenched.
It was the chapter where Tom returns,
witnesses his own funeral.
So many complicated words
too easy to trip on.
I kept my mouth closed,
tried to keep my breathing calm.
Teacher’s voice got higher. “Well?”
She stood there,
waiting to pounce at my first mistake.
Wanting to make a fool of me,
ready to show how stupid I was.
“I won’t!” I shouted at her.
She gripped my wrist
and I was thankful
for the pain,
thankful
for an excuse
to cry.
“Then kindly find your way home.
Only come back when you’re ready to learn.”
What if I’d read that first paragraph perfectly?
She’d have argued I’d had Hiram whisper answers.
She never believed I could,
anyhow.
104
I am going to stay here,
wrapped in these quilts,
let the fire die,
and freeze to death
or maybe starve,
whichever comes first.
Then Pa will be sorry
for sending me here.
Was it worth
those few dollars
to find
your daughter dead?
105
I peek out of the quilts
at the snow mound on the floor.
The cold pinches at my nose.
The stove spits out so little warmth,
I choose to stay abed,
freezing,
rather than risk the chill in moving
from bed to fire.
It was a good reading day,
that afternoon I asked Miss Sanders.
We’d worked all recess together,
my voice sure and strong.
She’d always told me she believed in me,
<
br /> that I could make the reading happen,
to give it time
and practice.
Now she sat at her desk,
preparing for our after-recess lesson.
“Do you think I could earn a teaching certificate
once I’m old enough?”
Miss Sanders,
always brimming with kindness,
fiddled at her desk far too long.
“I’m sorry, May, what was that?”
But
her face said,
Please don’t ask me again,
don’t make me tell you something
that will only bring you hurt.
“It’s nothing,” I said,
and forced a smile.
“It’s time for lessons.
I’ll go ring the bell.”
106
So many things
I know about myself
I’ve learned from others.
Without someone else to listen,
to judge,
to tell me what to do,
and to choose
who I am,
do I get to decide for myself?
107
Have I slept
or have I been awake all this time?
If Ma were here she’d say,
“May, get moving.
The day’s not for resting.”
With the quilts around me,
I shuffle across the floor
to the pot of leftover beans.
A layer of ice has formed
over them.
I don’t care.
I crack it with a spoon
and hunch,
shivering,
swallowing without tasting at all.
I squeeze a hay log,
to feel if the cold
is ice
or just the air.
Only two logs don’t crackle
the way the popcorn
in the skillet does.
The fire has burned so low,
I have to push it along,
stirring and blowing
before I place the hay logs
gently on the embers.
A lick of flame
grows brighter,
and I draw up close enough
to burn my eyebrows.
108
I am
Mavis Elizabeth Betterly.
I am
used to hard work.
I can
run a household better
than Mrs. Oblinger ever could.
What does it matter,
those things
that
hold me back?
What does it matter
when I make mistakes?
They don’t
make me
who
I
am.
109
I search through Mrs. Oblinger’s sewing box.
In front of her tiny looking glass,
I run my fingers through my hair,
then grip a handful
and cut.
The scissors snap
as sheaves fall loose upon the floor.
Samson didn’t get to choose
what Delilah did,
tricking him into the haircut that sapped his strength.
I didn’t ask
to read like a child,
quit school,
come here,
starve.
One last snip,
and the last strands
drop.
My hair is short.
Jagged.
I
made it this way,
not someone else.
I
chose
to hack it off.
This is of my own doing.
I grasp handfuls of hair,
Shove it
into the stove,
watch it
curl,
shrivel,
and burn.
110
It is time to figure out
how to care for myself,
not by waiting
or trying to forget I’ve been left here.
Living now,
not later on when Pa comes.
Not last year in my memory.
I bang ice from the hay logs.
The few buffalo chips must stay as they are,
too fragile to pound on the floor.
My hands move like wet leather
dried out in the sun.
I’ve taken to using my coat as another blanket;
my mittens I wear all the time;
I haven’t removed Ma’s boots for days.
Mr. Oblinger has clothing
stored beneath their bed,
and there’s Mrs. Oblinger’s trunk.
I’m not ready to root through
their underdrawers.
I will make do with what I have.
I study the soddy.
I’ve neglected to wash Mrs. Oblinger’s pots.
Footprints cover the floor.
The bed’s disheveled.
I straighten the cupboards
and find that can of peaches.
111
I place the tinned peaches on the table,
shake out the quilts,
folding them over the back of the rocker,
and sweep up the mess of dirt
on the floor.
With the broom I push snow into Mrs. Oblinger’s pots,
to use later for washing.
The pail I fill also
and place near the stove.
I continue sweeping,
but can’t push from my mind
stories I’ve heard:
people caught off guard in a blizzard
who wander,
looking for shelter,
lost for days
just yards from home.
The freezing starts in hands and feet,
then comes a sleep
with no waking.
112
I don’t know what it is that reminds me
of the sourdough starter
still in the jar on the bed.
Surely it’s frozen.
If I’d left it at the back of the stove,
the dough would still be
warm enough to work with.
I scoop up the jar.
The cold bites through my mittens,
but I must warm it myself.
The stove top would be too sudden.
I drag the rocker to the fire and sit,
climb into the quilts again,
and place the starter jar in my pillowcase,
doubling up the fabric.
Ma must be singing
“Old Dan Tucker” or “Home, Sweet Home”
right about now
as she boils potatoes.
Hiram’s tooling leather,
maybe joining in the song:
No more from that cottage again will I roam,
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.
Pa’s found a way out to the barn,
or if not,
he’s working toward a way.
I imagine Ma and her broom
behind me
keeping time with the rocker.
113
I roll the starter jar
in my lap
the same way I scrub at laundry
on the washboard.
Back and forth,
my back hunched,
a tight pinch in my shoulders.
Sometimes Miss Sanders asked me to read
just to her.
The words would come more easily
without a full room watching.
Other times it would be just as difficult
as any other day.
She never lost patience
or said,
“We’ve been over this story again and again;
why can’t you read it now?”
/>
She’d say,
“Maybe tomorrow
the words will come right.”
Or,
“Slower, May,
no need to rush. Take your time.
Let the words form
before you speak them.”
Sometimes we would read together,
and those times my words were almost right,
her voice leading,
though still in step with mine.
I felt the rhythm of the words.
I heard the sounds needed to make them.
They didn’t stick together or jumble on the page.
The starter is softer now.
I add it to the flour and roll out biscuits.
114
The calendar is tattered,
its corners curled and browned
from dirty hands
and moist prairie air.
I check to see where time might be,
though I stopped marking days
long ago.
For every month I’m sure I’ve spent at the Oblingers’,
May B. Page 6
