Upside Down in a Laura Ingalls Town

by Leslie Tall Manning

  Rebecca Lynn was doing a potty dance.

  “Dad,” I said, “I think she has to go.”

  “Not just number one,” she whispered.

  “I’ll show you where the outhouse is,” Pete said, leading us out a narrow back door next to the fireplace. He pointed to a wooden bucket beside the small back stoop. “Grab that bucket, Brooke. You’ll be using it for all your laundry.”

  I picked up the bucket. It yanked on my back muscles, and it wasn’t even filled with water yet.

  The outhouse, which was about as elegant as our totally awesome house, stood twenty yards from the back door, hidden among some bushes and saplings. We would have to hike out here, rain or shine, day or night, just to use the toilet. Something ran through the brush a few feet away, and I jumped.

  Pete opened the outhouse door, which had a cutout of a quarter-moon. “Brand new.”

  “They should have built a new house to go with it,” I said.

  Pete ignored my comment. “You can keep the smell under control by pouring in some lye. You’re lucky to have some in your provisions. Lots of folks ended up making their own.”

  “Daddy,” Rebecca Lynn said, staring into the hole. Rusty’s camera followed her gaze. “What if something’s down there?”

  “Nothing’s down there, sweetie. Just dirt.”

  “But I don’t have any toilet paper.” Tears welled up in her eyes.

  Here we were, next to a creepy forest, discussing toilet paper and outhouses, with Rebecca Lynn too afraid to go. This was when it all became real to me. We were living in another time. We had a log cabin with a crooked chimney, we shared a bedroom, and we used a freaking outhouse. For four months this is how things would be, and the cameras would be filming it all. I wondered how many embarrassing scenes would end up on Youtube.

  “Stay with your sister while she goes,” Dad said.

  “But Dad, she’s got to do more than tinkle.”

  “Please, Brooke. Just until she gets used to it.”

  Pete said, “I’ll go find you a rag.”

  “What’ll I do with it when I’m done?” Rebecca Lynn asked, still staring into the hole.

  “That’s what the bucket’s for,” Pete said, walking back to the house.

  Rebecca Lynn hopped from one foot to the other until Pete returned with a large square of white linen the size of a tablecloth.

  “We’ll tear this into three strips,” Pete said, like it was an everyday thing, ripping up pretty fabric to use for wiping. He took out a knife and cut three equal strips out of the fabric. He pointed through the oaks and pines beyond the outhouse. “Follow the path to the stream when you’re all done.”

  Pete and Dad went back to the wagon while I, along with Rusty’s camera, helped Rebecca Lynn get over her fear of outhouses. I handed her a strip of fabric.

  “Stand outside the door,” she told me, drying her eyes.

  I swatted flies and no-see-ums with the extra pieces of linen while I waited.

  “You still there?” she asked after a moment, her voice panicked.

  “Duh. Where else would I go?”

  After a few minutes, she came out of the outhouse. The dirty rag sat on the floor. Rusty had the nerve to pan his camera over it.

  “Hey!” I told my sister. “Don’t be a pig.”

  She started sniveling again as she picked up the soiled rag.

  I held out the bucket. “Drop it in.” I scrunched up my nose. “You can wash it in the stream.”

  “But it’s gross.”

  “Your poop-o is not my problemo.”

  I carried the bucket by the handle and the three of us entered the forest of pines and cypress and oaks. We made our way down the path to the creek. The clear water moved quickly over the smooth rocks. I stooped down and filled the bucket. Within seconds my hands were red from the cold water.

  “We don’t have any soap,” I said as I dried my hands on my apron.

  Dad appeared on the path carrying a rectangular piece of wood with ridges of metal taking up two-thirds. “Found a washboard. You take your dirty things, dip them in water, and scrub them hard against the metal.”

  Even if Dad hadn’t explained how to use a washboard, it was sort of a no-brainer.

  “And here’s some lye soap.”

  He handed me a chunk of what looked like brown cheese. It felt soft in my hand. I put it to my nose. It smelled like a wet dog. “Yuck.”

  “It’s also harsh on your skin,” he said. “Be sure to rinse your hands well afterward.”

  I didn’t want my dad standing there while we washed, especially something this gross. It was embarrassing to have him watch us do such lowly work. Bad enough to have a camera taking it all in, but my dad…

  “I think we can handle it, Dad.”

  After he headed back toward the house, I told my sister, “Let’s keep a bucket of water and some soap next to the outhouse. We are each responsible for washing out our own rags, and we’ll take turns dumping the dirty water down the hole. Dad included. I think that’s fair, don’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay then. You ready to play Little House?”

  She nodded slightly, took her dirty rag, and began to scrub.

  “Good.”

  I was relieved my little sister didn’t give me any grief about following orders. At least for the moment. But then, this was only the first hour of our effed-up life in the backcountry.

  If my math skills were intact, and I was pretty sure they were, we had nearly 3,000 cotton-picking hours to go.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Let’s show Willow her new home,” Pete said as he showed Dad how to release the horse from the unloaded wagon. Carl hung out near the edge of the property and panned the woods with his camera. Rusty stayed with us. He was starting to feel like a pet bear.

  We walked Willow down a narrow path between blades of high grass to the large barn. Dad and Pete opened the double doors. The barn was filled with bales of hay, and a horse blanket hung over one of two stalls. The first thought that hit me: This is twice the size of our cabin!

  “Keep your animals in here if the weather turns sour,” Pete said, removing the bit from Willow’s mouth and the saddle from her back. She nodded her head and moved freely around the small corral beside the barn. “Plenty of room inside and out for them to be comfortable.”

  We left the barn and walked around back where the smell from earlier got a whole lot worse. A horde of white and rust-colored hens came running out of a little house on stilts, down the ramp, and up to the chicken wire fence. Rebecca Lynn bent down and stuck her fingers through the hole. One of the chickens went for her bonnet, just missing her nose, while another pecked at her fingers.

  “Ow!” She pulled her hand back. “He bit me!”

  “She,” I reminded her.

  “Y’all have some chicken feed in your provisions,” Pete said. “At nighttime, you’ll want to get them hens into the coop, close the door, and take down the ramp. Keep ‘em safe from predators.”

  He led Dad up the next hill while I negotiated with my sister.

  “How about I do the laundry, and you feed the chickens? They can be your pets.”

  Rebecca Lynn patted one of the chickens on the head, and this time it cooed under her hand. “Okay.”

  We made our way up the small hill where Pete and Dad stood next to a tiny building.

  “This here is your smokehouse,” Pete said.

  “We aren’t allowed to smoke,” Rebecca Lynn said.

  Dope.

  “This is where you’ll keep your meat.”

  Dad stuck his head inside the doorway. “What meat?”

  “Plenty of wildlife out here.”

  I laughed. “You’re going to hunt?”

  Back home he’d grab a napkin and give old daddy long-legs a flying carpet ride outside. I’d never seen my dad kill anything, except mosquitoes.

  “I don’t want you to shoot animals, Daddy,” Rebecca Lynn said.

&n
bsp; “Is there a place where I can buy meat?” Dad asked Pete.

  “From the mercantile in town. But whether you buy it or get it on your own, you’ll have to preserve it.”

  Next, we followed Pete back down the hill to a stone building growing out of the earth. The wooden door was made for trolls.

  “Got a natural spring here in your springhouse,” Pete said. “Water flows into a channel so you won’t have to go all the way to the creek. This room will also keep your perishables fresh.”

  “Like a refrigerator,” Dad said, peeking inside.

  Except this refrigerator was made of mud and stone, sat fifty yards away from the kitchen, and was missing an automatic water dispenser.

  “I feel like I’m visiting in the Last Homely House,” I said.

  But as soon as I stepped inside, the sweet hobbits disappeared. I was suddenly reminded of The Ring, the scariest movie in the universe, with the dead girl who climbed out of the well her mother had thrown her into. I took in a deep breath. The cave smelled like wet earth, the way I would imagine a tomb would smell. Maybe I’d take a hike down to the creek for my water instead.

  “Where will our crops be planted?” Dad asked.

  “Over here.”

  We followed Pete to the widest open space on the property. Rusty panned the empty field with his camera.

  “Hasn’t been used in the last fifty years or so,” Pete said. “A lot of clay, but if you till enough you’ll find some nice soil. It’s gonna take some effort to plant and water.” He turned to me. “Once they come up, you and your sister will help harvest.”

  “Hoo-ray.”

  Pete walked us back to the cabin. “The sun will be setting in a few hours. Need to get your house squared away before there’s no outside light left. First thing to do is get the fire going in the kitchen. There’s a tin of safety matches in with your goods. It’ll be warm in the house, but keeping that fire lit is important.” He looked me square in the eye. “You’ll also need to decide what to make everyone for dinner.”

  As we followed Pete back into the house, I grew nervous again. I hadn’t thought about dinner. We had cleaned Rebecca Lynn’s rag (totally disgusting), hung our personal rags on twigs I shoved between the cracks in the outhouse (I should have snuck in toilet paper, smack-in-the-forehead duh), then stood with my sister as she fed the chickens and collected eggs (two small brown ones, whoopee). With all the time spent doing other things, dinner had never crossed my mind—especially the fact that I would be the one chosen as Top Chef.

  In the kitchen, Pete helped to start a fire in the fireplace and then spent the next two hours helping us get organized.

  I stared at the open shelves. “Why don’t we have cabinet doors?”

  “Less chance of mice getting into your food if you don’t keep your goods in the dark.”

  The earlier thought of vermin crawling over my body while I slept was replaced by the more disgusting thought of tiny mouse brownies decorating our meals.

  We went through our packages, organizing them on the shelves. The heaviest of the supplies were four large sacks we placed on the floor under the shelves: buckwheat flour, Irish potatoes, onions, and rice. A smaller bag was filled with walnuts. There were tins filled with spices, like cinnamon and salt and pepper. A burlap sack held large chunks of dried ham. Jars were labeled “lard” or “molasses.” A funny cone-shaped package had the word “sugar” on the side. I did a happy dance when I found a container labeled “Soda” until I realized it was the kind used for baking.

  “Keep all your cooking things near the fireplace for easy access,” Pete told me.

  I wished he’d stop singling me out. Was I the only one in the room capable of boiling water?

  Whenever we came across a foreign kitchen item, Pete either demonstrated how it worked, or told me to find a picture in a large book entitled The Encyclopedia of the Home. I looked up at least a dozen objects: a funny drilling machine called a cherry picker; a butter mold with a stamp; a laundry paddle; baskets for collecting eggs, berries, and vegetables. We now owned a collection of earthenware (called crocks) for preserving some of our food, with wax for sealing the crocks; a butter churn; a tea kettle; and a coffee pot (NOT the Mr. Coffee kind from Target!) It took Pete twenty minutes to show me how to brew coffee over the fire, and when it was done it tasted like clay.

  There were a few cookbooks. All four of us went through them, trying to find the easiest meals to make with what we had in our possessions. Pete informed me I would be cooking for him and Carl and Rusty.

  When I stared longingly in the direction of the kitchen knife for reasons other than cutting food, he added, “For a night or two. Then it’ll just be for your family.”

  We continued scanning the cookbooks. All of the pictures were hand drawn, and the type was barely readable in the dim firelight. I held a book close to the fire, which made me sweat. Most of the recipes sounded strange and gross, and almost all of them used lard. I pictured my thighs turning into sacks of grease by the end of the venture. For our first dinner, we all agreed on slices of ham, fried potatoes, and fried okra. I could handle the potatoes, but I’d never fried ham in a heavy skillet before, and I couldn’t stand okra, even though it’s pretty much a Southern law to love it.

  God knows I was way too tired and way too hungry to argue.

  “The most important job out here is chopping wood,” Pete told my dad. “Without wood, you have no fire. No fire, no meals. Back before central heating, firewood had to get you through some long winters. You wouldn’t want to be chopping down trees in the middle of a snowstorm.”

  My dad’s arms were skinny and fleshy white and he’d never had calluses in his life. I couldn’t imagine him chopping wood. I could barely see him swinging an ax.

  Pete sent Rebecca Lynn and me to gather some logs, which we dragged to the back door and into the cabin. He grabbed a heavy black skillet from a wrought iron hook on the side of the fireplace and placed the hook on one of two iron rings built into the fireplace floor, a few inches above the ground. He got the fire going and pushed some burning embers under the ring until it looked like a campfire.

  I stared at the flames. “I’m going to cook our meals in there? How will I know how to adjust the fire?”

  “You’ll understand it soon enough,” Pete said, as he jabbed the flames with the poker. “Go fetch some water before it’s too dark to see.”

  Go fetch? What was I? A dog?

  I told Rebecca Lynn to come with me, but Pete shook his head. “It should never take two people to do a simple task like fetching water.”

  I grabbed the large bucket beside the back door, and just before I left I pictured myself hitting Cowboy Pete in the head with it.

  The sun seemed to set earlier in the backcountry because of all the trees. Staring across the property from the back stoop, the springhouse rose up like a dragon with a square mouth. On one hand, that mildewed cave was a lot closer than the creek. On the other hand, that dead girl from The Ring might decide to pay me a visit.

  I chose the creek, wishing for the first time that one of the cameramen had come along. But they were busy filming the Incredible Fireplace Episode in the cabin. I ran past the outhouse. By the time I found the creek, dusk was falling. I dipped the bucket into the cool water. As I heaved it back up the overgrown path, I wondered if another girl, one from long ago, had been expected to do this kind of work. Had she been happy living out here, hiking for water and living in a shack in the middle of nowhere with that pretty blue house snubbing her from up on the hill? Had she wished she’d lived in another time? Maybe in the future?

  By the time I got the water to the cabin, slices of potato were sizzling in the pan. My mouth watered.

  “I helped cut the potatoes,” Rebecca Lynn said.

  I put the bucket beside Pete.

  “Never let your skirts near the fire,” he warned Rebecca Lynn and me.

  He poured a little water into a deep black pot hanging in the fireplace from a
n upside down L-shaped post.

  “Keep this pot filled with water, Brooke, no matter how many times a day you have to get it.” He nodded toward a smaller black pot on the floor. “That’s your stew pot. You’ll be eating a lot of stew. And soup. And cornbread.”

  “How will I bake cornbread without a real oven?”

  “Before modern ovens, they had Dutch ovens.” He pointed to another black iron pot sitting on the floor near the fireplace. This one was shallow, with three small feet and a silver handle. He removed the lid and put it back. It sounded heavy. “If you slow cook in this, you can make almost anything you like: bread, biscuits, cake…”

  “Cake!” Rebecca Lynn said, staring at me like my cooking skills would be the thing to keep her happy.

  But Mom had been the baker in our house. I couldn’t compete with her in our kitchen back home, so I didn’t get my hopes up using a Dutch oven.

  “Tim,” Pete said, “cut up some pieces of cured ham. Use that knife over there, and slice it thin. Gotta get ‘em into the pan before the potatoes burn.”

  Dad scraped the pieces of ham from the cutting board into the hanging skillet. “I like all of us cooking together.”

  “Well, don’t get used to it,” Pete said. “Tonight’s an exception. Your daughters—namely Brooke—will be the cooks in this household. You’ll be dog tired by dinnertime. Preparing meals will be the last thing on your mind.”

  In the flickering light of the fireplace, I saw Dad frown.

  Pete ordered, “Girls, set the table.”

  I was just about sick of Pete bossing us around. If those stupid cameras hadn’t been in my face, I would have told him to set the table himself.

  While Rebecca Lynn and I grabbed misshapen tin cups and plates, and super skinny forks with super pointy tips, Carl went outside, and Rusty put his camera on the table and took a seat.

  When my sister and I were through, I stood back and gazed at the table, with two thin candles sitting in tin holders in the middle, platters of food covered with towels, plates, cups, and forks. It could have been a photo straight out of Garden & Gun Magazine.