A Home in the Country

by Sheelagh Mawe

  I took a deep breath and silently prayed, ‘Please God, don’t let ’em fit.’ I tried them on and they didn’t! Thank you, God! The skirts of both came down to my ankles and the short sleeves to my wrists. Nobody, not even Agnes, could say they fit.

  ‘Look at that, will you,’ Agnes marvelled. ‘They fit like they was made for you! Take ’em downstairs, now, iron ’em up. Take your shoes down, too.’

  The boys were already sitting on the bench in the kitchen, their shoes lined up in front of them.

  ‘Put ’em on, Godammit!’ Agnes growled. ‘You didn’t bring ’em over to look at, did you?’

  It’s never easy getting hot, sweaty feet into shoes that have dried out and curled up over the summer, especially without socks, so it took us a while with Agnes pacing and fuming and swinging the strap in our direction the whole time.

  When at last we stood before her, she said, ‘Godammit! You done outgrowed ’em! Jesus! Cathy give yours to Sally and wipe her slobbering mouth. Sarah give yours to Cathy. Danny give yours to Sarah. Andy you keep yours and don’t nobody go telling me they hurt. There ain’t no money for new ones. Not with me a kid short, there ain’t.’

  ‘Please, ma’am …’ I faltered, made desperate by revulsion at the sight of Danny’s scuffed and misshapen shoes, ‘Really and truly and honest to God, my own fit better’n Danny’s, look.’

  ‘Do you think you’re the Queen of England?’ Agnes exploded. ‘Or one of them princesses? You’ll wear what I tell you else what’s Cathy supposed to wear? Danny you wear that old pair of James’. Too bad he run off in his good ’uns.’

  Moonlight still flooded the bedroom when Agnes shook us awake for the first day of school. ‘Strip them beds and get the wash goin’,’ she ordered. ‘And while you’re at it strip Betty’s bed, too, on account of from now I’m gonna be sleepin’ in there on my ownsome. Ain’t fittin’, a woman my age sharin’ her bed with a brat of a kid, let alone a dirty, Limey kid.’

  The moon still lingered to light our way when we carried the wash out to the lines in the orchard. Sally started to sniffle and spoke for the first time in weeks. ‘Betcha she ain’t gonna let us go … ’ she sobbed.

  ‘She don’t she goes to jail,’ Cathy glowered.

  ‘Ohhhh, makes me feel good just thinkin’ about that,’ I said with a happy sigh. ‘Agnes in handcuffs…. But a crust of bread a day … half a cup of water—’

  ‘Quit dreamin’!’ Cathy said. ‘And get a move on. The sun’s startin’ to come up and we still got to wash and wax the kitchen floor.’

  We got the floor washed and waxed and, eyes on the clock, sat down to our cornflakes. Agnes turned the clock face down on the shelf.

  Head to one side, eyes twinkling merrily, she watched the boys put their dishes in the sink and head for the door before her voice turned them around and sent them to the barn to sort eggs. She let us girls finish the dishes, wipe off the table and get halfway up the stairs, our fingers busy unhooking our overall bibs as we went, before calling us back down to sweep out her office and straighten the dishes in the cupboard.

  ‘You only got yourselves to blame,’ she jeered. ‘You’d’ve done it right the first time ’round you wouldn’t be doin’ it over. Go get in the tub now, get cleaned up.’

  Get in the tub? Get cleaned up? Every cuss word we’d ever heard hovered on our lips.

  After one of her most ferocious scrubbings, Agnes braided Cathy’s and my wet hair back so severely our eyes were pulled nearly shut in our soap-tight faces. But Sally’s hair, damp and tangled as always, still hung over her face.

  Finally, we were all lined up outside the screen door, striving to keep our faces blank. Each of us held a lunch bag containing the one tomato sandwich we had made and packed the night before.

  Agnes stood inside the screen door. ‘No lollygaggin’ gettin’ home, hear?’ she warned. ‘I ain’t doin’ none of your chores while you set all day.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ we chorused and turned to run, but before we could take the first step the screen door creaked open. Agnes wasn’t through with us yet. She advanced towards us slowly so we walked backwards slowly, our faces thoughtful and serious so she’d know she had our attention.

  ‘I’ll want kindlin’,’ she droned. ‘Ironin’ll be waitin’. Cows’ll need milkin’. Bring them lunch bags home, else no lunch tomorrow….’ She stopped walking. Turned back towards the house. The screen door squealed again.

  Following Cathy’s lead, we continued walking backwards a few more paces and then, at her hissed command, ‘Run! Run like hell!’ we ran.

  We didn’t stop till we got to the highway and a good thing we didn’t, because we could hear the school bus grinding up our hill as we catapulted out of the woods.

  The bus pulled up beside us. Pushing and shoving, falling over each other, yet at the same time anxiously peering back over our shoulders half expecting to see Agnes calling us back, we got on, the driver shut the door and … we were safe!

  Agnes couldn’t get at us now with her ironing and her milking and her kindling on account of school buses are for kids. No grown-ups allowed. Tough shit, Agnes!

  We stilled our breathing, looked at one another and got the giggles, even Sally. We laughed so hard the driver told us to pipe down and sit down before we fell down.

  We each chose a window seat since our stop was the first on the route and that gave us the right to sit any place we felt like.

  Andy took his lunch out of its bag, folded the bag with meticulous care, put it in his pocket, and then, with a smirk, devoured his sandwich in a few bites. Thinking, heck, why not, the rest of us did the same.

  Then, like animals let out of their cages after years of captivity, and ignoring the shouts of the driver to sit down, we scurried from seat to seat around that bus as if we owned it, marvelling at our ability to sit, to move, to talk, without the usual, ever-present need of sidelong glances from beneath lowered lashes to check the whereabouts of Agnes and her thumping knuckles.

  We kept up our outrageous behaviour until the bus stopped to pick up other kids, when we quieted down and watched them board. What we saw would have silenced us girls anyway, for we were not prepared for the unexpected, new-school-year display of finery worn by all the other girls. Finery that had us sucking in our breath with envy.

  We saw crisp new dresses with flounced petticoats peeking out below and shiny new shoes and embroidered socks. We saw rings on fingers and lockets around throats and shiny curls tied back with satin ribbons every colour of the rainbow.

  We saw something else, too. We saw the wearers of all that finery looking us over with barely concealed contempt before turning away to whisper and nudge and giggle among themselves.

  And there was more. We quickly saw that even though the bus was filling up, all the kids – boys and girls alike – would rather cram three to a seat than sit beside any of us.

  We sank ever lower in our seats staring at the floor, frowning, because we knew only too well how poor and shabby we looked and frowns helped cover the shame we felt and the tears behind our eyes.

  We didn’t know it that first day, but on that bus and in that school, we were to remain forever individually anonymous, known only as the Slater kids.

  ‘You’ve seen one, you’ve seen ’em all,’ the kids shrugged among themselves. ‘What they need names for?’

  ‘Those Slater kids stink like a barnyard,’ was a never-ending complaint heard by our teachers. ‘I don’t want to sit next to him/her.’

  ‘Too bad,’ the teachers always replied. ‘You will sit where I tell you.’

  Cathy didn’t care what they said. ‘Don’t make me no never mind,’ she’d say. ‘I ain’t got nothin’ to say to none of ’em anyways. Talkin’ to them’s like talkin’ to Sally, a waste of my good time. Time I’d sooner use lookin’ for food.’

  She didn’t even care that the kids called us pigs and made oinking noises when we were near. ‘Let ’em call us what they want,’ she said. ‘We don’t eat
, we don’t get to grow up.’

  We earned the ‘pig’ title because at recess we were the first kids out the door to the playground, not to join in games or giggle and play with friends, but to pick through trash cans overflowing with all kinds of food from the day before. Food the other kids threw away. When we were through scavenging them, we prowled the gritty playground looking for food that had been tasted and spat out because whoever had it first hadn’t liked the taste. We never could get over the number of finicky eaters in that school or the amount of food they threw away every day. Good food.

  Lunchtime was different. At lunchtime we could choose between going out to the playground and looking through the lunch refuse, or staying inside to see if anything fell off the candy wagon. The candy wagon was a big wooden trolley with many shelves, each one laden with candy. ‘More candy even than Bill’s got in his store,’ Danny marvelled.

  At lunchtime the principal, with great ceremony and jangling of keys, unlocked the door to the hall closet where the wagon was kept. Self-important monitors then pushed it out to the centre of the hall and sold candy to the kids who had money. We Slater kids always raised our hands when our teachers picked new candy-wagon monitors for the week but we were never chosen and, somehow, we knew we never would be.

  The reason for hanging around the candy wagon was because there were always kids buying more than they could carry, dropping some, and being in too big a hurry to get outside to stop and pick up what hit the floor.

  Then there were others, adventurous types, who’d buy something they’d never tasted before. We only had to watch their faces at the first bite to know if they liked it. If they didn’t and we were fast enough, we could catch it before it hit the trash can.

  One unforgettable day I found a quarter in the gritty, grey dust of the playground. It had chewing gum stuck to one side of it and was so black with dust and dirt it almost didn’t look like a quarter but after I picked off the gum and spat on it and rubbed it hard on the hem of Betty’s dress, I saw it really was. I knew if I ran fast enough I could get to the candy wagon before the bell rang and the monitors shut it down.

  I felt like a different person – an important one – standing in line with a whole quarter in my hand even though I knew the kids in front and back of me were laughing and whispering about me. Let ’em laugh all they want, I thought. Don’t make me no never mind. I’ll be the one doin’ the laughin’ when they see me buy a whole quarter’s worth of candy!

  Then I changed my mind and decided I’d just buy a couple pieces so I’d get change and could get in line other days.

  The trouble with that idea was, where could I hide the change? Couldn’t leave it in my desk. Couldn’t take it home, either. I was just thinking I’d keep it in my shoes, then bury it someplace the first time Agnes sent me outside alone, when the principal came walking by.

  She stopped as though she couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw me. What? A Slater kid in the candy line? She couldn’t mind her own business either. ‘You’ve got money, uh … Miss Slater?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, ma’am!’

  ‘Really? Where did you get it?’

  ‘I … I found it, ma’am. On the playground.’

  ‘On the playground? Let me see.’

  I opened my fist.

  The principal gasped, ‘A quarter! A quarter’s not candy money, child. It’s lunch money! That means some poor child here is going hungry! And you were going to spend it all on candy? Shame on you! You know the rules about finding things on the playground. You should have turned it in at the office.’

  She helped herself to my quarter, that heartless bitch. ‘Come see me at the end of the week, find out if anybody’s come by asking for it,’ she said. ‘If not, you can have it back.’

  I bit my lip not to cry, seeing my quarter walk away like that. And it wasn’t just because I had to get out of the line and all the kids were laughing at me. It was because the bell was ringing and I wouldn’t have time to hunt the playground and I hadn’t found anything at recess and I hadn’t eaten anything since I ate my lunch sandwich on the bus that morning and I was HUNGRY!

  On the way home that day, I told Cathy I was going to go see the principal at the end of the week and get my quarter back.

  ‘You want her writin’ notes home to Agnes, maybe callin’ her up on the phone, the both of them tellin’ the other lies, go on ahead,’ Cathy said. ‘It was me, I’d let her keep the damn quarter.’

  I did. I let it go. But every time I felt hungry, and that was every minute of every day, I’d think about that quarter and wish I hadn’t listened to Cathy but gone and got it. I promised myself I would one day. Maybe when I turned nine.

  There was a sleepy-eyed kid in my class named Billy and one day I saw him getting ready to get on the bus to go home still carrying his lunch bag. His full lunch bag.

  ‘Billy,’ I said. ‘Why – how come – you never ate your lunch?’

  ‘I used my milk money to buy candy and ate that instead.’

  ‘Yeah? So … what you gonna do with all that food, Billy?’

  Billy took aim and tossed his lunch bag in a nearby trash can. ‘That’s what,’ he said.

  I just had time to snatch it out before the bus left. He had three whole sandwiches all to himself! Bologna sandwiches. All we ever got was sliced tomatoes that made the bread go soggy five minutes after they were put together. Billy’s sandwiches tasted better than any I could remember. Even better than my previous favourite, the long-ago, egg-and-watercress sandwiches my mother used to make.

  After that magical day, I got Billy’s bologna sandwiches every day. One day I asked him, ‘How about you give me your sandwiches at lunchtime, huh, Billy? That way I won’t have to go huntin’ around in trash cans.’

  Billy thought about that, yawned, and decided against it. ‘What happens if I get hungry and want it myself?’ he asked. ‘Then what?’

  Before I started getting Billy’s sandwiches the worst days at school were the days it rained and we couldn’t hunt for food outside. But after Billy, we didn’t care. If it rained I shared his lunch with the others on the bus going home. I gave them each a half and kept a whole one for myself.

  After supper the second day of school Agnes got out the butter churn and handed it to Cathy. ‘Get busy,’ she said. ‘The Old Man took a couple extra orders today. Needs to take ’em in in the morning. Sarah, want you and Sally sortin’ eggs. Need a couple dozen.’

  ‘But … ’ I stammered, ‘I got … we got … homework. Lots and lots of homework.’

  ‘That right? They pay you to do homework?’

  ‘Uh … no, ma’am. Well, maybe. Kind of. I could get an A-plus.’

  ‘A-plus’s ain’t gonna get me out of here, eggs and butter will.’ Agnes reached for the strap, slapped it across the table. ‘Get busy!’

  ‘That’s what you get laughin’ at me ’cause I was doin’ my homework on the bus goin’ home,’ Cathy said when we were muttering to each other under the drone of the rosary that night and I was worrying about not having done my homework.

  ‘Wasn’t just me laughin’,’ I said. ‘Whole bus was laughin’. You looked a sight kneelin’ on the floor with your books spread out on the seat in front of you.’

  ‘Got it all done, though,’ Cathy said. And I knew she had a smirk on her face.

  ‘Guess I’ll just do mine on the bus goin’ in, then.’

  ‘Goin’ home’s better,’ Cathy said. ‘That way you got the mornin’ to finish up if you don’t get it all done.’

  Cathy was right. Worked better that way.

  Just as nobody was willing to pay Agnes for homework time, nobody was willing to pay her to sign the many papers we brought home from school; papers that required her signature as proof they had been seen by her.

  ‘You’d think them fool women’d know by now I got five homeless brats to look out for as well as a farm to run,’ she would fume. ‘Jesus, I start in signin’ for one, I’ll be signin’ for five, was
tin’ my good time and yours while them thievin’ squirrels run off with every acorn on the place. Acorns I need to fatten up my hogs.

  ‘More pounds I put on them porkers,’ she elaborated, ‘more money I get to put in my pockets and the sooner I get out of this dump. Go tell that to your teachers.’

  Cathy and I figured that if we hurried through our homework on the bus we’d have time to practise Agnes’ signature and when we got good at it, we’d sign not just our own but Sally’s papers as well.

  Worked like a charm. Or so we thought….

  Agnes actually went with us the first time she sent us out to pick up acorns. ‘If it means leavin’ my rocker and Helen Trent on the radio and goin’ out in the freezing cold to make sure you go deep in the woods where the acorns are thickest, then better believe that’s what I’m gonna do,’ she said. And she warned us, ‘Don’t try comin’ back till them buckets is full, neither. Anybody does, the hogs get their supper.’

  After she left to go back to Helen Trent and we’d been at it for what felt like a week with still only about a quarter of a bucket apiece, I asked Cathy, ‘How many acorns you figure it takes to fill a bucket?’

  ‘S’gotta be higher than even God can count,’ Cathy sighed. ‘And it ain’t just ours we got to fill, it’s Sally’s, too. Look a-there – all this time and she ain’t got but a couple handfuls.’

  It didn’t matter how much we threatened Sally to hurry up and fill her bucket. Every day we had to dump some of our acorns in her bucket to get it halfway full even though it meant we came up short in our own.

  But we had quickly learned that if we filled the buckets to the brim as Agnes wanted – the buckets being empty five-gallon paint cans – they were too heavy to even lift, so why not share?

  Our method of getting those stupendously heavy buckets from the woods to the hog pens was harder to figure but we learned that tilting them just a little and then rolling them at a sideways angle worked best, even though it meant we lost acorns at every step.