A Home in the Country

by Sheelagh Mawe

  Danny turned white. ‘I … I never tried to trip you, ma’am,’ he stammered. ‘Soon’s I saw you stumble, I—’

  Agnes grabbed his arm, twisted it behind his back, told him to quit lying. She turned to the rest of us. ‘You seen him stick his foot out same as me, ain’t that right?’

  We looked everywhere but at Danny as we mumbled, ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  Agnes said, ‘Come to think of it, there ain’t gonna be no party for Danny today. I tried and he done made a fool out of me. What we’re gonna do is eat his share while he’s doin’ all the chores on his lonesome, bein’ … ’ her eyebrows went up and she tossed her head, ‘we’re gonna be otherwise engaged.’

  Danny looked so awfully little limping away in his too-big overalls, his protruding arms and ankles thin as sticks, the back of his neck and his ears a dark red, it was hard for us girls to keep from crying, but Agnes thought he looked funny. ‘Ha, ha!’ she laughed before calling after him, ‘We’re gonna sing a birthday song for you, Danny boy! Oh, yeah! We’re gonna have us a real fine party and just so’s you won’t feel lonesome we’re gonna sing, “Danny has to work while we have us a party!”’

  She turned to us, ‘Sing!’ she ordered. ‘You heard me. You know the words. Sing!’ Grabbing up a stick, she thumped a cadence with it on the chicken table and started singing herself, ‘Danny has to work while we have us a party….’

  While we sang, I prayed. ‘Dear God, never mind the hot dogs and the marshmallows, just please don’t let her ever think about giving me a party. Thank you. Amen.’

  Agnes had a fine time at the party. When it was over, she said, ‘I just wisht I’d had me a camera so’s I could’ve took a picture, mailed it on to Bennings. Like that she coulda seen for herself the fine kind of life I’m givin’ you no-count kids.’

  Sitting slumped at the breakfast table next morning, as though throwing a birthday party had sapped her of all her strength, Agnes, with a deep sigh, announced we were going to can tomatoes that day. Her lower lip trembled. Reaching for the hem of her dress, she patted away tears from beneath her glasses.

  ‘Wasn’t for you-all I wouldn’t need to,’ she sniffed. ‘Wasn’t for you-all I’d be settin’ in a nice little house in town with every modern convenience buyin’ me one tomato at a time whenever I felt like eatin’ one. Wouldn’t have acres of the damn things waitin’ on me.’

  Again she pulled up the hem of her dress and dabbed away tears. ‘All this I do for you,’ she sighed, ‘and what do I get back, huh? Trouble and cuts and sores and doctor bills and that fool Larry beatin’ up on me is what I get back.’

  She got up from her chair and told the boys to get on out, start picking. ‘These girls’ll be out just as soon as the Old Man here gets done messin’ up my kitchen and wastin’ my time with his godamm shavin’ over the sink like he does every damn day.’

  No sooner had the Old Man shuffled out of our way, than we raced to get through the dishes and out of the house. Agnes crying and complaining at the breakfast table was bad enough. But Agnes sitting quiet in her office, not even rocking, was worse.

  Out in the field we found three bushel baskets half full of tomatoes but no sign of the boys. Cathy aimed a vicious kick at one of the baskets. ‘Them boys is so dumb!’ she scowled. ‘They’ll get us all killed talkin’ and foolin’ around and her actin’ the way she is. You two start in pickin’ while I go find the dumb jerks.’

  As always, we followed Agnes’ rule of starting at opposite ends of a row, Sally and I, the idea being we wouldn’t waste time gabbin’. We were nearly met in the middle before Cathy came back, panting for breath. ‘They ain’t here!’ she gasped. ‘I been everywhere lookin’. Even went to the store. They’s gone. Runned away!’

  Sally jumped up howling, ‘You’re lyin’!’

  That’s what I thought, too, because they said they’d wait till my finger got better. ‘How do you know?’ I asked.

  ‘I just told you!’ Cathy spluttered. ‘I been everywhere. And when I looked in the cabin I seen all their stuff’s gone. Shoes. Clothes. Everythin’.’ Her eyes went small and mean. ‘Dumb jerks ain’t gonna get far. Too little! Too dumb! First grown-up sees ’em, they’re back.’

  Sally turned and started running towards the house howling that she wanted her brother. Cathy grabbed her and turned her around. ‘Shut up and start pickin’,’ she ordered. ‘Let Agnes find out her own self like we done. We need to give the dumb jerks time to get good and far.’

  We picked for a long time always expecting Agnes to come out checking on us but she never did.

  Finally the bell rang for lunch. ‘Mind now …’ Cathy warned as we headed for the house. ‘We don’t know nothin’. Just we ain’t seen ’em.’

  Agnes wasn’t in the kitchen or her office when we crept in so we ate our sandwiches standing up and wiped our plates on our backsides so we wouldn’t have to wash them. We gulped water right from the tap so we wouldn’t have to wash our glasses and just then Agnes walked in, saw the boys weren’t there, hadn’t eaten, and demanded to know where they was at.

  ‘… Uh … we … um … don’t know, ma’am,’ we mumbled, all together.

  ‘Cathy, go find ’em, tell ’em to get their backsides in here on the double.’

  Cathy was out the door before Agnes finished speaking. Sally and I, thinking we had to pick more, headed for the door only to have Agnes stop us, saying, ‘You two get on over to the sink start in washin’ them tomatoes you already brung in.’

  While we worked we could hear Cathy’s calling voice, sometimes near the house and at other times so far away we could barely make it out. Meantime, Agnes paced the kitchen, back and forth, side to side, slamming the table with the strap she was carrying every time she passed it by.

  She pulled up in front of me, ‘When was the last time you seen ’em?’

  ‘At breakfast, ma’am.’

  ‘How about you?’ she asked Sally.

  ‘Same’s her,’ Sally whispered.

  ‘You telling me them bastids ain’t done a lick of work this whole entire day?’ she shrieked. Spinning away from us she nearly collided with Cathy coming in the door. ‘Well?’ she demanded. ‘Well?’

  Panting, Cathy said, ‘Couldn’t find ’em nowheres, ma’am.’

  Agnes slashed all three of us out the door with the strap. ‘Git!’ she roared. ‘Go pick!’

  Back among the tomatoes we kept our heads low but we knew exactly where Agnes was every second. She went to the cabin last and, after only a brief interval, came out at a lumbering trot.

  ‘She’s got it figured now, boy,’ Cathy sighed.

  We kept on picking while we wondered, sometimes out loud and sometimes in whispers, what the boys were doing and what Agnes was doing. Then, unexpectedly, we heard a car coming up the dirt road. The last car to come our way had been old Bennings delivering James and me.

  Forgetting what Agnes would do to us if we stopped work, we ran to the back of the cabin to see who it could be.

  The dust was so thick that for a time we couldn’t make out anything but then Cathy gasped, ‘Jesus! She done called the cops!’

  She had! Two cops were climbing over the fence and walking up to the front door.

  ‘They did like I said,’ I rejoiced. ‘Found a cop! They’re here to take us away!’ and started running towards the house.

  Cathy pulled me back by my overall straps. ‘You don’t know that for sure,’ she said. ‘Could be she called ’em.’

  ‘Lemme go,’ I panted. ‘You’re wrong. I told ’em to find a cop. That’s how come they’re here!’

  ‘Danny’s way too smart to go looking for a cop,’ Cathy said. ‘And if a cop found him he’d lie and you better, too, they start in askin’ questions. Lie, else shut up! Right now we need to get back pickin’. Act like we don’t know what’s goin’ on.’

  Cathy and I had picked a full bushel basket apiece and topped off Sally’s before the bell summoned us to the house. Sally started to sniffle and Cathy told h
er to quit it. She said, ‘We ain’t even s’posed to know how come them cops is here so what you got to cry over, huh? And remember, you don’t know nothin’.’

  To my puzzled eyes the kitchen, when we entered it, seemed to be much smaller than usual. I wondered how that could be until I realized – figured out – that big cops in uniforms sprawled either side of the table, legs stretched out full length, sideways, take up a lot of room.

  From her place, standing at the head of the table, Agnes said, ‘Officers, these here’s the sisters I been tellin’ you about.’

  The officers set aside the framed photographs they had in their hands and we recognized them as the ones from the top of the piano in the parlour, the ones showing Agnes’ four kids wearing their dress uniforms. It was obvious from the way the cops were looking from the pictures to Agnes they thought she was one fine, upstanding woman. They thought her kids were pretty fine, too.

  Head slightly bowed, Agnes smiled her Virgin Mary smile and said, ‘Girls, these officers is here on account of it looks like as if your brothers has done run off. These men are going to help find ’em before…. Oh, Officers …’ she stifled a sob, ‘I’ll never get over it somethin’ bad happens to them boys.’

  Her hands went around our shoulders and she pushed us forward. The officers didn’t notice that her nails were digging into our sunburned skin. ‘These officers just want to ask you a couple questions,’ she told us, ‘and then you can run back out and make more mud pies.’

  Head to one side, she eyed our dusty overalls, our dirt-caked hands and feet, smiled the long-suffering Virgin Mary smile again and said, ‘I just can’t keep them out the dirt no matter how hard I try.’

  One of the cops, the older, fatter one, sat up straighter and asked, ‘Any of you girls ever hear your brothers talk about running off?’

  Like a trained choir, we chorused, ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Know if they had any money?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Know any reason why they’d run off?’

  ‘No-o-o-o, sir.’

  ‘When was the last time you seen ’em?’

  ‘At breakfast, sir.’

  ‘Anything out the ordinary happen yesterday could have made ’em want to skip?’

  ‘Um … No-o-o-o, sir.’

  ‘Nothing at all?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Agnes interrupted. ‘Like I said before, Officers, it’s got to be the British boy’s doin’. Has to have been. He’s bigger’n the others and what you might could call a ring leader. Ain’t had nothin’ but trouble since he come, though mind, the girl’s a perfect little lady. Knits and all.’

  The old cop nodded as if he understood. ‘Sounds like you got yourself a bad apple, ma’am. Young pup didn’t know when he was well off. Well … like they say, boys will be boys and lordy don’t I know it! Got three my own self and they give me fits.’

  He stood up. ‘You don’t have a thing in the world to worry about, ma’am. Me’n my partner’ll find ’em, have ’em back in no time at all.’

  The younger cop patted Agnes on the shoulder. ‘Could be you’re too easy on ’em, ma’am. It was me, I’d give ’em a good strapping just as soon’s they come through the door. Meantime, just rest easy and leave it to us, ma’am. We don’t find nothing right away, we’ll be back out first thing in the morning with the dogs.’

  Both men smiled down on us girls and the old, fat one said, ‘Be extra good to your momma, hear? She’s got a lot on her mind right now with her own fine kids far from home and them young hoodlums running off like they done. Enough to try the patience of a saint.’

  Agnes showed the cops out the front door and on her return we could tell she was pleased with herself by the way she crossed directly to stand in front of the Old Man’s shaving mirror, patting her hair and giving herself big smiles.

  ‘I guess them fine brothers of yours never give a thought to you-all havin’ to do their chores when they skipped, huh?’ she began, turning away from the mirror. ‘Start in with the milkin’ and don’t come cryin’ to me about Suzy actin’ up. Don’t want to hear it. Just get her milked.’

  In the barn Cathy said, ‘Sally, go collect eggs. You can leave the ones where the hens are settin’ on their nests. Me’n Sarah’ll come get ’em later. Sarah, on account of your bad finger you milk Clara and I’ll milk mean old Suzy and just let the dumb thing try something on me!’ She started milking.

  I began to suspect then that Suzy understood people talk because right after Cathy said that, she rolled her eyes so the whites showed, backed up and knocked Cathy and the bucket over. Milk went everywhere.

  Enraged, Cathy jumped up and kicked Suzy in the belly as hard as she could. ‘That’s what you get kickin’ over your bucket,’ she hollered. She turned to me. ‘See! That’s how you got to treat her. Mean. It’s easy! Just act like it’s Agnes and it’s downright fun!’

  I jumped up from my milking stool and aimed a kick at Suzy, saying, ‘You bet I will! I’ll show her!’

  Right away Suzy bunched up again and kicked out at both of us, sending us crashing into the opposite wall and that’s when I knew for certain Suzy understood people talk.

  Cathy got to her feet first, and while she was rubbing her head and her arms and her back and trying not to cry, said, ‘I swear! Bein’ little and bein’ a kid’s got to be the two worst things can happen to a body.’

  I was surprised it had taken her so long to figure that one out. After all, she was nearly nine and I already knew it when I was just a little kid still living in England.

  ELEVEN

  We were just finishing our cornflakes the next morning when the cops showed up, hardly able to restrain two big, panting, slobbering dogs. Agnes, who had been on her feet pacing and cussing, awaiting their arrival, saw them coming up the path and hollered, ‘I ain’t having them animals trackin’ dirt through my parlour! Bring ’em round back.’

  The Old Man was still at the table when Agnes let them in. He sat for a long moment scratching his head and clearing his throat and shuffling his feet under the table before saying, ‘I got a couple things I got to say to you guys. Private.’

  On an indrawn breath, Agnes drew herself up tall. ‘Anything you got to say to them I need to know. I’m the one responsible. I’m the one has to talk to Bennings and them others in town.’

  The Old Man sighed, bowing to the inevitable. ‘Well then, I counted up my cash yesterday and I’m ten bucks short.’

  Agnes, fists clenched, eyes narrowed, glared at him as though she’d like to rip his head off his shoulders and shred it.

  The Old Man pushed back from the table and picked up his lunch box. ‘That’s all I got to say,’ he muttered and headed out the door so fast he forgot to shave.

  Huddled together by the window, the cops reasoned out the new situation between them: ‘Them boys having money puts a whole new light on things. With money, they could’ve paid to take the bus to town. Maybe even gone so far as the railway station and bought themselves tickets to God only knows where. We need to check that out….’

  Drawing apart, one of them turned to Agnes, ‘Ma’am … long as we’re here might just as well let the dogs have theirselves a sniff around, see where their noses take ’em.’

  Agnes nodded her assent and went to sit in her rocker but she didn’t rock and she didn’t go through her picture box, just sat staring out the window in the direction the cops had taken, her fingers busy with her lower lip.

  Finished with the dishes, we didn’t know if we were supposed to wash the tomatoes we’d brought in the day before or go pick more so we stood in the shadows, still and quiet as statues, ready to go either way. The phone rang and Agnes got up to answer it. She said ‘No’ a lot of times and ‘Yes’ a few, then hung up with a bang and came into the kitchen.

  ‘Them cops must’ve talked around ’cause one of them busy-bodies from Knittin’ has got word of this and is wantin’ to know if I need comp’ny,’ she said. ‘Someone to share my grief …
my heartache.’

  ‘Grief?’ she spat. ‘Heartache? Only thing grievin’ me right now is my achin’ back and work. Work them boys ain’t doin’. Work you ain’t doin’. Get busy now, wash up them tomatoes. It’s you-all’s gonna put ’em up. I need to set.’

  She pulled the rocker to where she could watch us – supervise, she called it – and told us to get going.

  I didn’t need to look at Cathy to know what she was thinking. She was thinking the same thing I was: we were too small to put anything up by ourselves. Even standing on the stool, we couldn’t reach to stir to the bottom of the big, tall pot Agnes used for canning. And when the tomatoes finished simmering and were ready to go into jars – we carried spoonfuls to Agnes so she could see for herself – there was no way we could pick up that pot and pour. Agnes told us to figure it out ourselves and we tried but, even together, the pot was too heavy and too hot and we spilled more on the table than we got in the jars.

  The cops were still there and we could hear the dogs woofing and whining, so we knew Agnes was just waiting. Waiting and watching, toes tapping, to make us pay for the waste. In particular, she had her eye on Sally and when the cops left she was the one who was going to get it first. Oh, boy, was she ever.

  Sally hadn’t stopped crying for Andy since he left and because of the usual hair hanging in her face – hair Agnes always refused to pin up or tie back saying, ‘Why would I bein’ I can’t stand the sight of her ugly face?’ – couldn’t see what she was doing so all she’d done all morning was drop things and knock things over.

  She’d already broken two jars and cut herself picking up the pieces. More ominous for her, though, was the fact that she was fidgeting and pressing her knees together, which meant, as Agnes well knew, that she was desperate to go pee.

  The cops knocked on the door. Agnes couldn’t very well let them in, could she? Not with us girls doing the work of grown women when she wanted them to think we were outside making mud pies. She went outside instead. There was some talk, loud ‘Goodbyes’ and ‘Take cares’, and then Agnes was back inside holding the boys’ overalls.