Little Blog on the Prairie

by Cathleen Davitt Bell

  That’s when I came to terms with the fact that I had absolutely no idea what to do with my clothes. Feeling around the layers for all the buttons and bows and clasps Betsy had so expertly fastened earlier, it occurred to me that I was trapped. I might as well be in a straitjacket. I started to panic. My body was sending clear signals that clothing or no, I had to go now, so I hiked up my skirts, and while keeping them pinned to my sides, I managed to pull apart the bloomers at the—okay, I admit it, pretty darn convenient—slit down the middle and let go.

  You know how good the first bite of a peanut butter and chocolate sundae tastes on the way home from a hot and sticky early September soccer game? Or the sight of presents under the tree on Christmas morning? That was nothing compared to the joy I felt just then. Even with pee splashing on my stockings, and also, I suspected, my shoe.

  I felt so good that for a one crazy second I even thought, “Hey, I can get used to it here.”

  The yard certainly did smell good after I left the outhouse. The stars were coming out bright and clear in the sky. I stumbled past the chickens on my way back into the house and in a spirit of magnanimity muttered, “Shouldn’t you be fed?” before realizing we had eaten every single crumb of food except flour and lard.

  My period of positive thinking came to an abrupt end when, back inside, Gavin called down from the sleeping loft, “How come there’s only two beds?” and my mom said, “Kids, family life was a lot less private back then. You two will need to share.”

  In those Little House books, Laura slept with her big sister—you got the feeling all the kids in a family would get just one bed to share. But here? No way. No one could possibly expect me to sleep with Gavin. He’s a boy. He’s ten. At home, he isn’t allowed in my room. He isn’t even allowed in the space outside my bedroom door.

  There was simply no way I was going to accept this.

  My mom said, “Betsy explained the sleeping arrangements. On the frontier, there wouldn’t have been the resources to build you each your own bed. You’d have slept in the same one until Gavin was older.”

  I crossed my arms. “I’m not sleeping in a bed with Gavin.”

  “But that’s what’s going to make this whole thing so great,” Mom went on. “Don’t you see? That you’re going to learn so much here? You’re going to learn about how little you really need to be happy?”

  “But I’m not going to be happy,” I said. “I’m going to hate this. I refuse. I refuse to sleep with Gavin.”

  7

  Week 1 – Monday

  3:12 am

  This is what it’s like to sleep with Gavin: I am up texting you guys at 3 am because his pillow is soaked in drool and he mouth breathes and I can smell his nasty breath.

  Week 1 – Monday

  3:13 am

  Not to mention he tosses around all the time and has pulled the quilt we are sharing onto the floor.

  Week 1 – Monday

  3:14 am

  And that the mattress is hard and thin and laid on top of a hammock woven from rope as thick as a pencil that digs into me every time I move.

  The worst part of all of this had been the moment we first climbed into bed—Mom, Dad, Gavin, and me in two beds in the same room two feet away from each other on our thin mattresses, with our thin pillows. It was like this old TV show I sometimes see in reruns where a big family that lives in the country all go to bed at the same time and you see the outside of the house and hear them all calling good night to each other—“Night, Mom,” “Night, Dad,” “Night, John Boy.” It was just like that—except the only thing you would have heard coming from our cabin was the bickering:

  “You’re pulling the covers off me.”

  “You’re pulling them off me.”

  “Gen, don’t push.”

  “There’s not enough room.”

  “Stop fighting.”

  “I want my own bed.”

  “Your feet are like icicles.”

  “I thought this was going to be a vacation.”

  “You didn’t even read the brochure, did you?”

  “Gavin, I have, like, no covers now.”

  “Go to sleep.”

  Eventually, I guess, we did.

  I woke up to a banging noise. Or rather, I’d been awake trying to pretend I was still sleeping for what felt like hours, and the banging finally made me open my eyes. I was shivering, as Gavin had stolen the quilt away from me. Again.

  “You are disgusting,” I said. “You drool.”

  “Why do you smell like pee?” he said, and rolled over, wrapping himself up like a burrito, leaving my bare toes exposed.

  “Hey,” I said, pulling at the quilt. “That’s not fair.”

  He grumbled something but didn’t give the quilt back until I pushed him over.

  “Genevieve,” my mom called from downstairs. I realized now that the banging sound was her opening and closing the doors on the woodstove. “Since you’re awake, can you run out to the woodpile and get more logs? I just can’t get this one to fit in the door.”

  I pulled myself out of bed, but the second I put my feet on the floor, I yanked them right back in. “It’s too cold!” I shouted down from the loft.

  “How do you expect to get warm without a fire?” my mother shouted up again. When I looked over the edge of the sleeping loft, I could see her trying to slam in a log that was too big. “The longer it takes to get this stove lit, the longer it will be before I can make something hot to drink or eat. You too, Gavin.”

  “Where’s Dad?” I asked as I started shimmying into my pantaloons—I couldn’t believe I was wearing something called pantaloons. “Turn around,” I said to Gavin as I lifted my other dress off the hook on the wall and laid it out on the bed. Next I ripped my flannel nightgown over my head and threw the dress on as fast as I could. The dress I wore today was blue with yellow flowers—not exactly my style. But it was way too cold to be naked.

  “Dad’s getting water from the stream,” my mom explained. “If there is a stream. We don’t have any idea where you’re supposed to get water. There’s a pump here in the kitchen, but it doesn’t work.”

  “I’m going to look for Dad!” Gavin shouted as he clambered down the ladder. His clothes were so much less complicated, he was ready to go while I was still trying to figure out which ribbons on my petticoat held the thing up, which were for the stockings, and which ones were just for show.

  Gavin opened the front door, and the room was suddenly flooded with light. I could see colors outside: a bright blue sky, the intense green of the woods, the packed-down dirt in front of the house, and some yellow weeds poking up through it. It looked cold—you can always tell—like at early Saturday soccer games in the fall, when the field is almost silver-colored with dew, and you get clumps of grass clippings stuck in your cleats when you run.

  “Don’t go out to explore yet,” Mom called before Gavin crossed the threshold. “First wood! You too, Genevieve,” she said. “We need a lot to keep this fire going.”

  I called back, “How am I supposed to button this dress?” I couldn’t reach behind my back to get it fastened.

  My mom took a break from the stove to come help, gathering her skirts in one hand and using the other to hold herself steady as she climbed the ladder.

  “You mean in 1890 you couldn’t even get dressed without someone to help you with your buttons?” I said.

  “I guess not,” my mom answered. “Your dad got a little impatient this morning helping me with mine.” And when she turned I noticed he’d missed every other one.

  “Here,” I said, but just as I was slipping the last button through its hand-sewn hole, we heard shrieking coming from outside. Before we could even start to wonder what it was, Gavin burst in.

  “You won’t believe the chickens,” he said, breathless, wild eyed, his fingers splayed—he was shaking them out like they were wet. “Oh, my God.”

  “Gavin?” my mom said. “What happened?”

  “They tried to k
ill me,” he said.

  “Who?” answered my mom, making her way down the ladder as fast as she could.

  “Gavin!” she exclaimed once she was standing on the floor again and could focus on what he was saying. “Where’s the wood you went to get?”

  “I got too scared,” he said.

  “Scared?”

  “Of the chickens.” He was mumbling now, like he was a little embarrassed. And he should have been. Who’s afraid of a couple of chickens? Well, besides Dad.

  “Look,” my mom said. “You can’t all be phobic. Farm kids need to be tough, and you two are farm kids now. Those chickens are more afraid of you than you are of them.” She pointed to a box next to the woodstove. “This is the wood box. In 1890, kids would have kept this box filled to the top all day long, without ever having to be reminded. I know you are hungry and cold right now, but let’s get off on a good footing. If you can take this on as a project, we’ll all be warm and fed very soon.”

  “But—,” Gavin started.

  “Oh, fine,” I said. “I’ll get the wood.” I was thinking that if I could get out of the house, I’d warm up in the sunshine.

  But from the moment I took a step off the porch, I was pretty much attacked. Wings flapping, feathers flying, clawed feet leaping so high I was afraid for my face. There were screeches and squeals. I covered my eyes, tripping backward onto the porch, scrambling to stand up again, reaching blindly behind me for the door.

  It was the chickens.

  Gavin was right. They were going to poke out my eyes or peck off my toes. They would stop at nothing.

  “I think they’re hungry,” said Gavin when I was safely inside, panting, untangling my skirt from my legs. I swore my dress had been in on the attack, whipping this way and that, trapping me. “It took them a minute to find me,” he continued. “They came from over by the barn. But now they know where we are, they’re just waiting for us to come out again. They’re guarding the door.”

  “I don’t think it’s hunger,” I said. “I think they hate us.”

  “Here,” said my mom. “Give them this.” She was holding some cornmeal in a tin cup.

  “You give it to them,” I said. “I’m not going back out there.”

  “Do chickens eat that?” asked Gavin. “What if that isn’t something they even like? What if it makes them angrier?”

  “It does look a little thin,” Mom said. “I’m not sure how they’d be able to peck it up off the ground.”

  “Can I try a pinch?” asked Gavin.

  “You want it raw?” said my mom.

  Gavin just shrugged. “I’m hungry.”

  “I’ll try to light the fire with what we have inside,” my mom said.

  “What time is it anyway?” I said. I was starting to get the feeling that it was really early in the morning. Like, bus-stop early.

  “I don’t know,” my mom confessed, kind of laughing. “I don’t know how you tell time out here. Ron gave your dad a watch yesterday, but he forgot to wind it, and now it’s off. It’s funny, all these little things, isn’t it?”

  “Ha,” I said in a way that I hoped communicated that “funny” was dead last in the list of words describing all these little things—with “annoying,” “unnecessary,” and “unfair” coming closer to the top.

  Just then my dad approached the cabin. I could tell because I heard the chickens start screaming and squealing followed by Dad letting out a surprised “Oh!” Then he must have started to run, because the screaming and screeching got louder and I could hear wings flapping. My dad burst through the door, out of breath, feathers floating in a cloud around his legs. He slammed the door behind him.

  “They’re just chickens,” my mom said. “I don’t know why you all are so afraid.”

  My dad didn’t answer her. His face was white. “I think one of them was foaming at the mouth,” he said.

  “Beak,” my mom corrected.

  “Birds carry disease,” he said. He placed the bucket of water on the table and held out his hand to examine it. “I guess it didn’t break the skin.” My mom rolled her eyes, reaching behind herself to straighten her bun, then peering into the bucket of water.

  “It’s only half filled,” she said.

  “Some of it spilled while I was running the gauntlet just now,” he said. “I hope there’s enough for coffee.”

  “I was going to make grits,” my mom said. “It’s fast, and we have cornmeal.”

  “Do I like grits?” Gavin asked.

  “What are grits?” I said.

  “You’re going to make coffee first,” my dad said. “Because I need coffee before I can take on one more thing today.” His teeth were chattering. He pointed to the cookbook from 1882. “Does that show you how to make coffee? Do we even have coffee?”

  My mom lifted the lid on a trunk. There were some bags and a few tins in it. She pulled out a wooden box with a crank on the top and a tin box with a lid. “Coffee!” she said brightly. It was pathetic how she was trying to act like she was in a good mood and trick the rest of us into agreeing with her.

  “Is there orange juice?” Gavin asked.

  “How can there be orange juice if there isn’t even a refrigerator?” I said.

  “How can there be no refrigerator?” Gavin asked.

  “We’ve got to light this fire,” my mom said.

  “We’ve got to get me some coffee,” said my dad.

  My mom had put a match to the fire in the stove and after a few smoke-filled attempts finally got it going when we had our first visitor. Those hungry chickens were like a doorbell, squealing and squawking. I knew somebody was in the yard.

  My mom was too busy flapping air into the stove with the bellows to notice, but I opened the door a crack to peek out.

  It was Nora.

  I watched her, wanting to see how an experienced farm person managed around killer fowl. A muzzle? A shotgun? But the thing is, when the chickens saw it was Nora, they didn’t even attack.

  “Hey, Pumpkin,” I watched her say to one of the chickens. Just the sound of her voice seemed to calm them down. “Hey, Daisy.” She pulled a handful of something out of her pocket and tossed it on the ground. Daisy and Pumpkin scrambled to peck at it. It didn’t look like cornmeal.

  I would have stepped into the yard and asked her what she was giving them, but when she looked up, there was a glimmer of something in her eyes that made me afraid to talk to her.

  Instead of saying hi to me or anything like that, Nora shook her head like I wasn’t there and said, “The new folks never feed those poor chickens. And if you’d fed them and shut them in the coop like my dad told you to last night,” she added, meeting my gaze, “you’d be eating eggs for breakfast this morning, instead of what all it is you’re planning to make without milk or eggs.”

  With that, she stepped inside and walked around the cabin like she owned it, which I guess, technically, she did, but still. She pulled the drawer out of the coffee grinder and looked inside, nodding briefly to show my dad that she approved. My mom had finally closed the door to the stove, and Nora opened it again, inspected the fire, added two pieces of kindling, then closed the door and changed the vents in the door and the side of the stove until they met her approval.

  “Breakfast plans?” she asked my mom, not even bothering to expand that thought into a full sentence.

  “Grits,” my mom said, and Nora nodded, neither approving nor disapproving.

  “Better with a little salt pork if you can spare it,” she said. Then she jutted her chin toward a shelf where all the dishes were stacked—tin plates, a stack of tin cups. Nora said, “Coffeepot’s up there.”

  I looked over at my dad, hoping to get some kind of a reading from him on Nora. He didn’t disappoint. He had a kind of sarcastic expression on his face. Nora turned to me like a teacher who hears a kid talking in the middle of class.

  “You’re Genevieve, right?” she said. “How old are you?”

  “I’m thirteen,” I said. �
�But I turn fourteen in September. I’ll be in high school.” I don’t know why I needed to tell her that, other than the fact that the term “high school” felt comforting. It was nice to remind myself that Nora or no Nora, at some point all of this would be over and I’d be back with Kristin and Ashley in the world where I belonged.

  “I’m fourteen,” Nora said. “But I’ll be fifteen in October. So I guess that makes me a full year older than you.”

  “Almost,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Almost a full year,” I said. I knew I was being picky about it, but she was wrong and that should count for something when you’re acting like you are the biggest expert on everything in someone else’s house. “My birthday’s in September. So we’re actually eleven months apart.”

  As if I hadn’t said a word at all, Nora reached up to the dish shelf, pulled down a tin cup, and used it to scoop water from the bucket and pour it into the pump mounted on the counter. She pumped vigorously and poured more water into the pump, until water started flowing out of the pump on its own. “You’ve got to prime the pump in the mornings,” she said. “Especially when the place stands empty a few days.”

  Meanwhile, my mom had put the coffee grounds in the pot, and was starting to heat up the water for the grits. “Will you stay for breakfast?” she asked Nora.

  “Nah.” Nora shook her head. “I’ve got chores and lessons, and shoot, we get up at 4:30 in the summer. For me, it’s closer to dinnertime than it is to breakfast.”

  “It’s almost nighttime?” Gavin asked.

  “Did you really just say shoot?” I asked.

  Nora ignored my question. “No, dinner’s what you eat at the noon meal,” she said. “And we’re having chicken and dumplings.”

  I wish I had been stronger. I wish we all had. But at the mention of chicken and dumplings—and I didn’t even know what that was, except something they had for dinner in the song “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain”—I felt my spine go limp. It was as if all the bones in my body had been replaced by longing for whatever chicken and dumplings were. One look at Gavin, Mom, and Dad told me they were feeling exactly the same way. We were all leaning toward Nora as if we might smell the hot food coming off her.