While the Locust Slept

by Peter Razor

  After a long silence, Mr. Doleman spoke, sounding like a preacher, “Everyone has to work for a living.”

  “A guy died on a farm last year, they said,” I persisted. “The farmer beat him up or something.” When stubborn, I pursed my mouth while staring at the floor near my shoes.

  Mr. Doleman straightened in his chair. “You don’t know that for sure,” he said. He leaned back, slowly tapping his fingertips together in front of his face. “Unfortunate things might have happened in the past, but we watch things today.” He seemed mildly irked.

  Who watched Kruger and Beaty or Monson? I wanted to ask, but instead I mumbled, “Do I have to go to a farm?”

  “Please understand … if you’re not placed soon … well, you have to go somewhere.” Mr. Doleman spoke softly, but I heard his threat.

  “Why couldn’t I go to relatives up north?” I asked. I squinted at the floor near my shoes. “If I can work for a farmer, I can work for relatives, can’t I … or myself?”

  “You’re not old enough to be on your own,” Mr. Doleman insisted. “Can’t you see? If I remember correctly, you were quite run down and filthy when I picked you up in St. Paul. Miss Klein”—the C-16 assistant—“also mentioned how terrible you and Dale looked.”

  Shrugging, I whispered almost to myself, “You made me come back.” Then louder, “The State School, I mean.”

  Mr. Doleman pushed away from his desk. “We’ll talk again,” he said with a sigh of disappointment. “You may return to Cottage Sixteen.”

  Called to the office in early July, I was ushered before Miss Borsch for the first time. She was young and vivacious, smiled nonstop, and her eyes were warm friendly things. Mr. Doleman had called up the big guns. Having no experience with girls or doting women, I’d be a pushover.

  “Good morning, Peter. My, isn’t the weather simply grand?” Miss Borsch breathed. Her right arm was elevated toward the window, her upturned palm sagged off the wrist with two fingers languidly extended. I watched her hand and reeled from her brilliant smile.

  “How have you been?” Her charm was in full gallop.

  “All right, I guess,” I replied, trying to guess her next move.

  “Did you enjoy the outing with Mr. and Mrs. Cory?” Miss Borsch asked.

  “Corys? … Uh, yeah,” I replied. More pieces to the puzzle suddenly fell into place.

  “Have you thought about what comes after the State School?” she murmured softly.

  “Some. I’d rather go on my own or to relatives.”

  “You became quite ill after your first, ah … trip last summer,” Miss Borsch said, appearing concerned. “It’s not in your file, but Mrs. Steele says your second trip was quite dangerous.” She was referring to the two times I had run away from the school.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “Anyway,” she murmured, appearing sympathetic, “you can see why you can’t be on your own. Just yet.”

  “Dunno,” I mumbled, but I knew where it all headed. “Couldn’t I go to high school in Owatonna?”

  “I’d like to see you in a regular home, if possible,” Miss Borsch persisted.

  “Older boys go to high school from here,” I insisted.

  “Perhaps they want to do something else,” she replied. “Go into the army, for instance.”

  “Can I do something else?” I groped. “Besides this farm thing, I mean. Somebody said indenture is slavery.”

  “It’s no longer indenture,” Miss Borsch corrected. “It’s farm placement.” Her smile faded, but she retained composure. “And it’s certainly not slavery! I really think you’d like a farm. We’d see that you got a good family, and somebody would visit you to see how things were going.” Her smile could again melt steel.

  “I don’t know.” Trapped, hating myself for letting her lead me on, I looked around at the floor. “If I went on a farm, would I go to high school?”

  “Absolutely!” she said leaning across her desk toward me. “A farmer has to sign an agreement allowing you to attend school. It’s your choice after age sixteen, but the family can’t make you quit. And you are to be paid for summer work.”

  “Oh? Besides food and clothes?”

  “That’s right. We would leave the amount up to you and the family to decide.”

  “What do guys get working for farmers?” I asked.

  “It depends on age and experience,” Miss Borsch replied. “You might start at twenty-five dollars per month for summer work, but you’d work only for room and board while in school.”

  “That’s a lot of money,” I said. It was hard imagining money in amounts over one dollar. My grandmother on my father’s side had sent me a one-dollar bill when I was twelve, and I had seldom possessed more than a quarter or fifteen cents at a time, since. Money bought tickets to movies in town or candy and circulated as part of a barter economy. Relatives sent money to children, and older boys, who seemed to always have money for cigarettes, worked in town or ran errands.

  “You would get more as you grow older,” Miss Borsch pressed. Beaming, she leaned more toward me, but still stared like most office workers.

  I shrank back, my head tilted to one side. I wondered what would happen if I held out. I’d probably be sent to Red Wing, the state reformatory for boys.

  “Yeah, all right,” I said. My decision was not sincere and I sagged into the chair looking nervously around. Sighing my defeat, I mumbled, “When would I go?”

  “A worker will check with the family.”

  “Somebody,” I cleared my throat, “needs a worker?”

  “It’s not that you would go just for work,” Miss Borsch replied, trying not to sound defensive. “But you’ll be expected to help out. Anyway, the family lives near Rushford. We specifically discussed your Indian heritage and they say that’s no problem.”

  Miss Borsch closed her notes. “It’s settled then,” she said with apparent satisfaction. “We’ll call you when the time comes.”

  For a time it seemed Miss Borsch would make good on her promise to let me attend school. As August faded into September, I started ninth grade, riding with the other boys and girls to Owatonna High School, but the scorching wind of prejudice followed me there. One day the science teacher posed a question to the class. No one raised their hand, so for the first time I mustered the courage to raise mine. The teacher scanned past me a number of times. Finally he stopped and stared at me until I lowered my hand. I never tried to speak in that class again.

  Despite the hatred of one teacher, those days were a heady time. I attended football games and pep rallies and, as the weeks passed, began to make friends. I felt better about my life and my future than ever before. Then, in late September, Miss Borsch called me into her office to meet a man and woman who had come to take me away.

  Interview with John Schauls from the records of the State School:

  John: Is anybody interested in Peter? Will they stop to visit him or take him on trips or anything?

  Social worker: Peter has no visitors at the school. The only one seeing him will be a social worker twice a year.

  John: Peter is just the boy I want.…

  John thanked Miss Borsch and pointed at the outside door. “We’s chores to do. Best be going.” He started down the hall. Emma followed him and I followed her. We went through the large double doors and down the front steps of the Main Building to their two-tone green 1934 Ford sedan where I sat in the rear seat.

  I said goodbye to no one except Miss Borsch, and there was less note of my departure from the school than from the cottage. We drove down the hill and past C-15. A pang of loss and helplessness struck me as I glanced back through the rear window. Then I sagged into the seat and stared out the side.

  I was told nothing about a letter that came during the placement process, from relatives in northern Minnesota, nor of this reply: Peter is well. Social Services is seeing to his welfare. It is important that he has no visitors, as that might disrupt his life with a new family.

  No
one would know where I went.

  2

  Mr. Kruger, husband of Matron Kruger, was the first man to attack me. I was seven years old and in a deep sleep when a nightmare flashed—my arms were bound tightly and I was being torn from bed. I moaned, then froze when I recognized Mr. Kruger and went mute. Holding me by the left armpit, Mr. Kruger lugged me out of the dorm. My feet slopped the treads going downstairs and banged the doorframe as he carried me into his apartment. A newspaper hiding Mrs. Kruger’s face lowered and I glimpsed her frozen smile. Mr. Kruger flipped me in the air and, when he caught me again, he gripped my left ankle in one hand, my left wrist with the other. Suddenly, I was flying in wide flying arcs, and the room became an insane kaleidoscope. I could only grunt as everything started to gray and I urinated. I must have sprayed Mrs. Kruger as I flew past, but I was unconscious by then.

  I awoke, dizzy and cross-eyed, in the infirmary and was told I had been there two days. Hospital records describe treatment only, not cause, and I have no further memories of that day or the following weeks. Sleep and dark, after that, were frightening. My memory of the next three years is nothing more than flashes—like a lantern blinking in the night.

  …

  John sat erect in the front seat looking straight ahead. His shoulders were broad, his head unmoving except to speak—which was seldom. Even when he did speak, he seemed stiff, his comments awkward. He glanced around once, laughing, it seemed. “Sa weather look rainy, like cat’n dogs,” he said, followed by a long silence. It was soon clear that he couldn’t smile. He was stiff-jawed, and when he tried to smile he instead bared his teeth like a cornered animal.

  I was glad when we stopped in a café where we each ate a hot beef sandwich. I sat on one side of the booth, John and Emma on the other. Emma talked little, mostly nodding and murmuring assent to what John said. Though I felt uneasy listening to them, how they talked and acted seemed normal. Neither of the Schaulses asked questions of me. I understood that, too. Hospital staff were the only employees at the State School who asked me how I felt.

  John seemed incapable of small talk. After minutes of silence, he said, as though suddenly inspired, “You to learn farming.” When I glanced at his face, he stiffened with his head tilted back, aiming his eyes along his nose at me.

  We first traveled the flatland of south-central Minnesota, then through forested hills with scattered farms. Valleys deepened and, as we traveled farther into the Mississippi River drainage, hills became bluffs. By late afternoon we descended a long, curvy hill into the Root River valley, then went through the village of Rushford. The road between Rushford and Houston twisted past farms and cropland along a wide river corridor. Short of halfway to Houston, John turned south onto a narrow gravel road, which meandered alongside a creek around high crowding bluffs. A mile from the highway, we crossed two small bridges within sight of each other, turning left into a driveway just across the second bridge.

  “’S chore time,” John said, stepping out of the car.

  My new home was closest to the road and the other buildings stretched farther into the valley. The creek entered the farm under the second bridge, flowed along the driveway, and turned north to exit the farm under the bridge we first crossed, all within a few acres.

  The tiny house sat on wood posts. It had a small kitchen, living room, and bedroom. The outside was white wood siding, the inside walls were covered with drab sheeting. Electricity had not reached the farms between Rushford and Houston. Many had windmills and 32-volt wind-charged battery systems for electric lights. At the Schaulses, candles on the kitchen table flickered on windy days as if from someone breathing nearby. A water pail sat alongside a washbasin on a small stand near the door.

  John pointed to a door in the living room. Motioning me to follow, he started up a narrow stairway that had two bends without landings—like sneaking between walls. Both of his elbows touched the walls as he climbed.

  John motioned to an old bed pushed against a collection of household goods. After sleeping fifteen years in spotless bedrooms, I would now sleep in an unheated shamble. The gable ends were open vertical studs. John couldn’t quite stand erect in the center of the attic below the apex of rafters, which disappeared behind the bed to the floor. There was space only for the bed and a fruit crate on which a candle sat.

  “I go to barn, you to change, come quick,” John said.

  Anxiety burned as I watched him disappear down the stairs. I sighed and sank onto the bed. I wasn’t worried about the farm, the house, or thoughts of work, but something gnawed at me. I tried to push that feeling aside as I thought of three weeks at Owatonna high.

  John lost no time as I entered the barn, “You to pump water for the pigs,” he said. He led me into the milk-house and pointed to a hand pump.

  “I know about those,” I began. “We were on this trip—”

  “This is how it done,” John interrupted, his face rigid. I watched while he carefully described how to pump water, but I could feel that gnawing again in the pit of my stomach.

  My task was to carry twenty gallons of water around buildings and over a wood fence to the pigs. Chickens took one pail and two pails went to the house. My arm was numb before the pumping and carrying was done. At least the horses and cows watered themselves at the creek.

  Supper was simple, but filling, after which we milked sixteen cows by hand.

  It had been a long day since I awoke at C-8 that morning. Taking it all in drained me to near exhaustion. Instead of slowing the pace, John glared, turning brusque. What seemed like an eternity ended, finally, when we finished chores by nine o’clock.

  John pointed to the washbasin, then the attic door.

  “S’early in the mornin’. Best to wash your hands, then sleep,” he said and nothing more.

  I sat on the edge of the bed, my feet inches from the stairway. I blew the candle out, lay back, and was instantly asleep.

  “S’time to gets in barn,” the voice said. It was before daybreak, Sunday morning. For a moment, I didn’t know where I was. I sat up.

  “Bring lantern when you come.” John set a lantern on a tread low in the stairwell.

  Sitting, hunched sleepily on the edge of the bed, I stared down at the glow diffusing around the bend in the stairway. Slowly, I dressed, then creaked tiptoe downstairs, walked through the quiet house with the lantern, and pulled the outside door shut behind me. Emma remained in bed.

  Swinging from my right hand, the lantern cast a swaying glow, flickering eerily through my legs onto the granary and the chicken coop.

  John was milking beneath a lantern when I entered the barn. After hanging my lantern from a beam farther along the milking aisle, I faced John waiting for his instructions.

  John pointed to the same cows I’d milked the night before. “Those be your cows,” he snapped. His boy had taken too long dressing.

  I sat and started milking on a three-leg stool. I took a deep yawn and looked up to see John staring wide-eyed at me. The long shadows hanging over his face made him look sinister. With my head against the cow’s flank, I tried not to meet his eyes.

  Most employees at the State School glanced at children, staring only at favorites or troublemakers. The first four terrors of my childhood—Miss Monson, the two Krugers, and Mr. Beaty—honed their loathing with hateful stares at certain children. Adults in Owatonna stared at State School youth at church or in movie lines. Their cold looks had always chilled me, but John’s stare seemed different, even more troubling.

  Emma didn’t stare, she always looked from side glances toward whomever she spoke. It was a look of submission for John, but seething defensiveness to me. John had bought the horse, but she had to feed it and wash its clothes. It was clear already that she wanted no part of me, that I was John’s to take care of.

  After the morning milking, I was taken along with them to attend Mass in Rushford. The placement agreement stipulated my inclusion in family affairs. After Mass, I wandered outside until dinner, which included far
m-pasteurized milk and homemade bread. After dinner, John pulled out his watch, “You to have Sunday afternoon off,” he said. “Chores in four hours.” Weekly leisure for me, however brief, was another requirement of the contract.

  Climbing the high bluff north of the buildings, I perched on the steepest part overlooking the valley. The farm was over 300 acres, ten tillable in the valley, 100 acres of work land on the ridge, the balance in bluff-side woods. The valley was beautiful and serene through a thin afternoon haze.

  With electricity and modern equipment, one man could work a 110-acre farm. At the Rushford farm, John needed a hired man to chase after cows hunkered in the ridges, search for lost calves in the woods, milk half the cows by hand, pump water, and perform other chores. When he couldn’t afford a hired man or labor-saving equipment, a smiling benefactor—the State of Minnesota—answered his prayers.

  I had completed eight grades plus kindergarten at the State School and three weeks at Owatonna High. Tomorrow, I would go to Houston High—maybe. Already, I was beginning to expect nothing until it happened.

  It hadn’t been quite three days, but it seemed an eternity. We finished milking and were in the house by seven Monday morning. I washed at the basin, went upstairs, and changed into school clothes. I would attend school without a bath since C-8.

  “Youse to wash once a month in a tub in center of the kitchen floor,” Emma had said.

  “S’hard heating water on a wood fire,” John had said.

  Emma set a bowl of oatmeal and glass of milk on the table for me. “Be quiet so’s you don’t wake baby Mary after school,” Emma warned. “She’s at the Bensons’. She be home tonight.”

  “Okay,” I said, trying not to seem confused. A baby girl? “Is there someone I have to see at Houston High?” I asked, standing, ready to leave for school. I raised a cautious glance into John’s face.

  “Be home fifteen minutes after you leaves bus,” John said, his voice matter-of-fact, and that ended talk of school.