A Home in the Country Read online

  ‘I ain’t no baby!’ Sally glowered.

  ‘Me, either,’ I said. ‘Ain’t a person alive can’t see I’m a heck of a lot bigger than you.’

  ‘Bigger don’t make you smarter,’ Cathy sneered. ‘Only birthdays do that and I’m goin’ on nine. That’s how come she makes me boss over all you dumb little kids.’

  In England kids weren’t allowed to hit one another, but in the Slater household we could hit each other whenever we felt like it and I was just going to smack Cathy as hard as I could for being such a bossy twerp when a big gust of wind blew across the yard and the feathers we’d plucked started flying everywhere. Next, the prop holding the chicken house door open fell down with a clatter and the door started slamming itself against the side of the building.

  ‘Go fix that door right now ’fore Agnes comes out fixes you,’ Cathy yelled to the boys.

  ‘Go fix it yourself, Agnes!’ Danny yelled back.

  Cathy didn’t hear him. She was looking up at the sky that had turned black and at the feathers flying and the trees bending and she was worried. ‘We got to get a move on!’ she said. ‘Looks like we got us a big storm comin’.’

  She turned her attention to the drawn-shades, closed-door house. ‘It ain’t like her goin’ on up there like she done it being Saturday and him home and all these chickens to get ready,’ she muttered. Louder, she said, ‘Bet she’s layin’ down in Betty’s room again. Last couple of times she sent me in there to clean the bed was all mussed up.’

  ‘I wish she’d sleep in there all the time ’stead of next to me,’ I glowered. ‘She sure stinks!’

  Sally looked hopeful. ‘You figure she might could be dyin’?’ she asked. ‘That old dog was here when me’n Andy first come didn’t do nothin’ but lay around all the time till we figured out it was dead.’

  ‘That old dog died ’cause she never give it nothin’ to eat,’ Cathy said. ‘Kept all the leftovers for them hogs of hers. Nah, Agnes ain’t dyin’. She might could be sick, though, on account of them dizzy spells she keeps gettin’ and her back all the time hurtin’ her. That, or she’s got lost in her picture box again.’

  Agnes had a cigar box that she carried with her everywhere, most particularly to the shit house. Cathy peeked inside it once and told us it was full of pictures Agnes cut out of newspapers and old magazines. Pictures of brand new bathrooms and kitchens with electric stoves and all kinds of other modern things Agnes wanted. ‘Stuff,’ Cathy elaborated, ‘she’s plannin’ to buy just as soon as she gets done fixin’ this place over and sellin’ for a profit. Agnes hates this dump worse even than us,’ she concluded.

  ‘How do you know?’ I asked.

  ‘I know ’cause that’s what I heard her tell Aunt Martha back when she used to come visit.’

  Cathy got bossy again, calling the boys over to help with the plucking. ‘We don’t get these chickens done ’fore that rain gets here,’ she warned, ‘we might could all get tied up kneeling on the porch all night with a storm goin’ on…. Nothin’ to eat….’

  I reminded her Agnes said she wanted rain. ‘Ever since James and I got here she’s been saying it was our fault it wasn’t raining so maybe now she’ll be happy,’ I said.

  That shut Cathy up. It even made her smile. For about half a minute. ‘Yeah!’ she said. ‘Rain might could put her in a good mood.’

  Agnes’ moods were everyone’s day-long obsession. From the first sidelong glances, stolen at dawn as we sidled past her with the night-pot, or set the table for breakfast, to the last scurry upstairs at night, we attempted to gauge her state of mind. And when any one of us girls set foot outside, no matter the time of day or the direction in which we headed, there was always a boy lurking to ask from the side of his mouth, ‘She in a good mood?’

  I used to wonder why they kept asking since none of us had ever once said, ‘Yep! She’s in a good one.’ I even wondered how we would know because I was certain I’d never seen her have one.

  In a short while it did start to rain and soon after that we all went in the barn and shut the door because it was coming down so hard it was blowing inside and making puddles on the dirt floor.

  ‘We let them sacks of chicken feed get wet forget about lunch and supper,’ Cathy began on a new litany. ‘Forget about settin’ down for a week. Forget about—’

  Danny told her to shut up and after that we all sat silent, too hungry and too worried to do anything else.

  The Old Man stopped by after a while and without saying a word to any of us took the chickens away to wherever it was he took them and still there was no sign of Agnes. Cathy was worried sick about that but the rest of us weren’t. Before we got too hungry to even talk, Danny said, ‘The way it’s comin’ down right now I don’t see us needin’ to haul for a week. Don’t worry, though, she’ll find us worse stuff, more’n likely. Like emptying out the shit house….’

  ‘Je-sus!’ James exclaimed, pausing a moment to admire the way he sounded cussing, before asking, ‘She makes us do that?’

  ‘Damn right,’ came the answer.

  I could see James thinking about asking how but deciding he’d rather not know. Danny enlightened him anyway. ‘What you do,’ he began, ‘is lift up that back trap door and lower a bucket like as if you were down at the well. You tilt it so it fills up with shit and then you take and empty it in a hole she already had you dig way back deep in the woods. What you gotta watch out for is—’

  There was a noise outside! Someone was trying to get the door open! We scrambled to our feet just as the door swung open showing us Agnes, drenched, trying to catch her breath and see us in the dark, both at the same time.

  ‘Them chickens,’ she gasped, ‘They done?’

  We all nodded our heads knowing the first one to speak would be the one most likely to get punched.

  ‘Well, don’t stand there gawkin’,’ Agnes snapped. ‘Show me!’

  ‘Um … Mr Slater, ma’am …’ Cathy mumbled. ‘He done took ’em away. ’Bout an hour ago.’

  Because of the gloom, we couldn’t see Agnes’ face clearly but we could tell, from the way her head went up, the way she gasped, that she was mad. ‘You tellin’ me you let him go off to town without me lookin’ ’em over?’

  Head bowed, Cathy nodded.

  ‘You wash ’em off good? Get out the pin feathers? Pack in the giblets?’

  Heads coming up, we all nodded, proud to have done everything exactly right.

  Agnes stood quiet a minute trying to think of something else to get mad about. It didn’t take long.

  ‘Them feathers,’ she shrieked, ‘You never burned the feathers. Whole damn place is covered in ’em.’

  Danny spoke up. ‘We was gonna, ma’am, only he – Mr Slater, ma’am – said to wait on it. Said we’d have the whole place on fire in this wind.’

  ‘Not-a-one of you smart enough to tell him rain is water and water puts out fires?’ Agnes sneered.

  We’d have sneered right back if we’d dared and told her that was why we didn’t build up the fire – rain puts them out. But we knew better and stood in front of her the safest way we knew how – heads hanging low and not a word out of any of us.

  A sudden clatter on the tin roof told us the rain was gaining strength and it gave Agnes something new to yell about. ‘Now look what you done,’ she fumed. ‘Got me stuck out here in the barn with trash like you-all. Jesus! Did you check them rain barrels was under the spouts?’

  Together, the boys chorused, ‘Yes, ma’am!’

  ‘Soon’s we saw the storm comin’,’ Danny bragged, and knew right away he should have kept his mouth shut because he was the one to get the first punch.

  ‘You ain’t none of you lollygaggin’ around down here all day doin’ nothin’,’ Agnes said when she’d had enough of punching Danny. ‘Plenty for you to do up at the house.’

  Grabbing a feed sack from a pile near the door, she threw it over her head and led the dash to the kitchen.

  Once inside, all of us drenched, co
vered in dirt and chicken blood and worrying what might come next, we lined up in a row before Agnes and studied her carefully.

  From the way she was pacing and pulling on her bottom lip, we could tell she didn’t know what to do with us. She stopped, sniffed, made a face, ‘You all stink!’ she glowered, eyeing us with distaste. That gave her an idea and she brightened. ‘Baths!’ she yelped. ‘You need ’em and now I got rain pourin’ down I can spare the water for once. You boys go get more wood, so I can build up the fire. Cathy, run upstairs get clean overalls and underwear for you girls. Sally, run on over to the cabin get clean stuff for the boys.’

  As had happened before, I was the one left sitting on the bench with no instructions. I sat very still and tried to look at the floor – it was always the safest place to look – but my eyes kept straying to the table where a fly was busy crawling over the leftovers from the Old Man’s lunch sandwich.

  While I watched, it came out from between two crusts of bread, sat itself down on a sliver of tomato and began the busy business of washing its face. Agnes’ back was turned and, scaring myself nearly breathless even while I moved, I grabbed those crusts, stuffed them in my pocket and was back sitting on the bench, all in the time it had taken Agnes to throw a handful of sticks on the fire.

  Soft as a whisper, Agnes said, ‘Bring them crusts here to me, girl.’

  The room seemed to blur and sway as I crept across the floor towards her. When I drew alongside, she lifted the lid off the stove, threw in the crusts, and screeched with laughter as I leapt back from the uncovered flames roaring out of the opening.

  With an effort, Agnes controlled herself and even quieter than before, said, ‘Nobody ever tell you stealin’s a sin?’

  I was so frightened – scared – my legs were shaking and I couldn’t say a word, not even ‘Yes, ma’am’.

  Agnes smiled her soft, tender smile, ‘Give me your hand,’ she crooned.

  As if mesmerized, my eyes held fast by hers, I held out my hand. Agnes grabbed it, started lowering it to the flames….

  There came a sudden loud crash from the office next door. A scream. The smile dropped from Agnes’ face. Cursing, she flung me aside and strode into the office. I heard another crash, a yelp, and Cathy, clearly propelled by a blow from Agnes, came flying through the door, to be brought up short by the kitchen table.

  ‘I couldn’t help it, ma’am,’ she whimpered. ‘I couldn’t see nothin’. It’s awful dark on them stairs and in the office what with the storm and all—’

  Agnes’ hand was raised to strike again when her face changed. She looked from Cathy to me frowning and we knew she was trying to remember what she’d set out to do. We felt hopeful. Maybe she’d forget the time? She did once. Maybe she’d give us lunch?

  Our hopes were short lived. ‘Baths …’ Agnes muttered. ‘… was gonna make ’em take baths.’ She strode into the bathroom – a room that wasn’t a bathroom at all, just an alcove off the kitchen with a bath tub in it – a tub with no water supply and no drain, which meant both clean and dirty water had to be carried in and out in buckets as we knew from emptying Agnes’ once monthly bath – and called to us to bring in the water.

  We filled three buckets with the steaming, rust-coloured water from the tank on the back of the range and carried them into the bathroom. Agnes smiled her most loving smile, ‘Go ahead and put the plug in the drain now, Sarah,’ she crooned.

  I froze. The plug? What plug? How could she expect me to know where she kept the plug? I never saw it before. Never had a bath here before. I looked at Cathy and Sally but they were staring at the floor just as I would have if I’d been them.

  Agnes purred, ‘Looks like I’m going to have to use the strap ’less Miss England here finds that plug pretty damn quick.’ She headed for the door. ‘Find it or else,’ she warned, and the door slammed shut behind her.

  Cathy ran to the window set high in the wall, stood on tiptoe, felt along the ledge with her fingers, held out a plug.

  I gasped. ‘Is that it?’

  Cathy nodded.

  ‘Go give it to her quick ’fore she comes back with the strap!’

  Cathy sighed, ‘Ain’t you never gonna learn? She knows where it’s at. She was lookin’ right at it the whole time she was talkin’. She don’t want us to find it. She wants to. You tell her you did, then it’s her looks crazy. I think we oughta …’ she stopped, shook her head. She didn’t know.

  ‘I’m gonna tell her you found it,’ Sally said.

  Cathy slapped her hand away from the door knob. ‘No, you ain’t!’ she hissed. ‘You go out there now her actin’ like she is, ain’t no tellin’ what-all she might could do to you. Us….’

  We stared at one another a long, long time, each striving to fathom Agnes’ unfathomable mind.

  Cathy decided to put the plug back on the ledge. ‘Make like we’re lookin’ for it,’ she instructed. ‘Get down on your knees and feel around the floor.’

  No sooner were we on our knees than the door rattled open and Agnes stood over us. She called back to the boys, ‘Come in here take a look at these fool sisters of yours! All three of ’em crawlin’ around the floor lookin’ for the plug when the damn thing’s right here on the ledge in front of their eyes!’

  The boys knew exactly how to act. Crowding in the doorway they shook their heads in a sad, pitying kind of way at the sight of their crazy sisters crawling around the floor like the fools Agnes said they were. They did a good job. Agnes was so pleased she even smiled a real smile. Could she be getting in a good mood?

  Nope, not a chance.

  Reaching for the plug, Agnes put it in the drain and ordered us girls to strip down and get in the tub. Scalding hot water from the buckets cascaded down on us and then Agnes’ hands were everywhere scrubbing an arm here, a leg there, a head of hair, a foot, a hand, all of it done with the brush we used to scrub the floors and the greasy, homemade lye soap Cathy said Agnes boiled up back of the barn once a year.

  We were banished upstairs after our scrubbing where Sally cried herself to sleep even though we could hear the boys howling downstairs as if they were next door.

  ‘You think she’ll come after us anymore today?’ I gulped to Cathy, fingering the blisters across my shoulders.

  Cathy gave up squinting at her own blisters long enough to say, ‘Nah. She’ll be all wore out time she gets done with them boys. She’ll be headin’ for her rocker.’

  For once Cathy was wrong.

  From the bottom of the stairs, sounding so close we went rigid with fear, Agnes growled, ‘Want you girls down here right now.’

  We pulled Sally’s sleep-drugged body off the bed and half carried, half dragged her down the stairs.

  Agnes was waiting for us in the kitchen, the boys, still wet and red from their scrubbing, lined up beside her. ‘Seems like you-all forgot somethin’,’ she purred.

  ‘To eat lunch, ma’am?’ Danny suggested.

  ‘Eat? You ain’t got time to eat! Jesus! Do I have to think for you, too? The feathers! You forgot them feathers layin’ out there like trash all over my land. Go get ’em. I find one feather time I come checkin’ I’ll … I’ll put you all in the incinerator alongside of ’em and have me a real fire!’

  EIGHT

  Every once in a while, Agnes – without ever meaning to, of course – did us kids a favour. She did the evening of the day I just recounted. In that instance, she yelled at the Old Man all the way through supper, thereby distracting herself enough to forget us completely. For the first time in weeks we were able to eat our small portions of food before she could snatch them away and fling them in the hog slops.

  She began her tirade by berating him for taking off to deliver the chickens without telling her. ‘Leaving a pack of no-count brats runnin’ wild fixin’ to burn the whole entire place down lightin’ fires.’

  She moved on to his forgetting the butter she’d had Cathy churn the night before and the eggs she’d had Sally and me sort.

  ‘How’m I
supposed to keep customers, you don’t deliver what-all I promise?’ she wanted to know.

  We were clearing the table and doing the dishes when she got around to the aggravation she had suffered giving us all baths, adding she wasn’t planning on doing that no more.

  ‘No, sir,’ she said. ‘Not even if Bennings calls and says she’s comin’ out. What I’ll tell her and anyone else wants to know is, “How’m I s’posed to keep myself and six kids clean, never mind the cookin’ and the cleanin’ and the wash with no runnin’ water on the place? You can’t figure for yourself that’s how come your own kids don’t come near?”’ she raged. ‘Why would they bein’ they ain’t got no place to wash their hands, even, and only that stinkin’ shit-hole out back when they got to go?’

  Whenever Agnes took on the Old Man, it always comforted James and me to know that no matter how wild her accusations, he would sit through them all in silence. At the same time it was something I, personally, could not understand. How was it, I wondered, that in this house Agnes was the bully while in my family, and in the families of many of my friends, it had always been the man – the Daddy – who was the bully?

  ‘He don’t talk back at her no more on account of he’s scared of her,’ was Cathy’s opinion.

  ‘How could he be scared of her?’ I gasped. ‘He’s way bigger’n her?’

  ‘He used to talk back at her once in a while,’ Cathy said, ‘but not since Annie and Billy got took away. I figure it’s on account of he’s scared Agnes will tell his own kids what he done to Annie – she’s always saying she will – even though for the life of me I still ain’t figured out what it was he done.’

  Getting into bed that night, Cathy warned, ‘We got to say the rosary like always in case Agnes shuts up her yelling long enough to listen.’

  Sally and I pulled faces at her and remained silent.