Tallgrass (14 page)

“Uh, yeah,” Mr. Smith said, shaking his head, bewildered.

“You give her my regards,” Mom said. “And Mr. Reddick, oughten you to be home with Opal? I know she doesn’t like to be by herself in the house at night.”

Mr. Reddick put his hands on his head and didn’t reply.

Mom called to half a dozen men, naming each one, as if it were the most normal thing in the world for her to be standing in a field in the middle of the night, her hair in pin curls, a coat over her nightgown.

“You better get back home, Miz Stroud,” a man told her.

“This is my home,” Mom said firmly. “These are my fields. I came out to see what the ruckus was all about. I wouldn’t like anything bad happening here.”

The men looked at one another. Some kicked at the dirt with their shoes. “Why doesn’t she git?” a man muttered.

“You get her out of here,” another man told him.

Then someone ejected the shells from his shotgun.

“Ah hell, let’s go,” one
of
the men growled at last. He left the group and went to a car, then started the engine.

“Wait up,” someone called, hurrying off and climbing into the passenger seat. Slowly, the men went to their cars, grumbling and slamming doors. They turned on the engines and the lights. One of the cars went on past the camp and pulled off at the Reddick farm, but the others turned around and headed back toward town.

Both Mom and Dad stayed where they were—and so did I— until the troublemakers were gone and a man emerged from the darkness. “That was mighty fine, Mrs. Stroud,” Sheriff Watrous said. “I wasn’t sure myself just how we was going to diffuse the situation. I guess you took it in your own hands.”

Now that the men were gone, Mom looked unsteady, and Dad hurried over and put his arm around her. “Whatever made you do that, Mary?” he asked.

Mom gave a queer little laugh. “I don’t know myself. I heard you on the phone, so I just came out to see what was going on. It hit me that if I named them, they might be ashamed enough to leave. Men in packs are one thing. But they aren’t so brave when they have to stand by themselves.”

“You’re right about that,” the sheriff told her. “I guess there are some young boys up there in those guard towers that are awful glad you came along. I’ll give you folks a ride back to the house. I’m parked just down the road a little,” the sheriff said. I shivered, thinking I’d have to walk back across the fields by myself and sneak into the house.

“We’d appreciate that,” Dad told him. He put his arm around Mom and started toward the fence. But Mom stopped and looked around, and then she held out her hand to me. Dad looked startled when he saw me, and Mom said, “If I hadn’t heard Rennie leave the house behind you, Loyal, I might not have come.”

DAD WAS PLEASED WITH
the way the boys took over the planting. He said that all he’d had to do was explain how to prepare the fields, and the boys had gone to work and done it—and done it better than any hired hands he’d ever had. They didn’t loaf when he wasn’t around. If he went to town and came back two hours later, they’d put in two hours’ work.

Each morning, Dad and the boys planned the day as they drank coffee at the kitchen table. They always bowed to Granny when they came in and asked about her health. Carl explained to us that the Japanese honored their old people. Granny didn’t always know who the boys were, but she beamed whenever they said “Good morning, Miss Evelina.” Sometimes they talked about the war news or asked if we’d heard from Bud, who’d gotten shipped off to Europe not long after Christmas. We hadn’t been happy when he wrote to us about it, because we’d hoped he’d manage to stay in the States. But at least Bud hadn’t gone to the South Pacific. Dad didn’t have to say how much that would have complicated things at home. I wondered if he would have hired the boys if Bud had gone to fight the Japanese.

Although the boys sometimes talked about the hostility at Tallgrass, they spoke mostly of everyday things, such as how people were adjusting to their close quarters or what craft classes were offered at the school. They never talked about Susan’s death, which Dad said must have had a big impact on the camp, or the Ellis men who’d gathered at Tallgrass that night. If they knew Mom had scared away the men, the boys didn’t mention it. And although we knew that some of the Japanese men at Tallgrass who were considered troublemakers had been sent off to one of the tougher internment camps in California, the boys never said anything about that, either. We didn’t find out until long afterward that Emory’s father was one of them.

They did talk about the evacuees who had joined the army, however. Harry said once that he sure would like to join, maybe after the beet harvest, but Emory asked why he’d want to fight for a country that took away his rights. “We’re second-class citizens, and no mistake,” Emory said. Carl told him to shut up.

One morning, Dad was explaining how he wanted the boys to operate the beet drill. “We’ll plant four pounds of seed per acre. That means you have to keep your speed right at two and a hall miles per hour,” he said.

“Mr. Gardner says he plants six pounds at three miles,” Carl said. Then he explained, “My cousin works for him.”

“Some like to make time, but I find this works best for me,” Dad said.

Harry asked how they could tell the speed of Dad’s old beet drill.

“You walk alongside the drill for twenty seconds. Make your strides long, thirty-five inches. You count how many you take in that twenty seconds, then divide by ten. That gives you your speed.”

“We better let Carl do the walking. He’s got the biggest feet,” Emory said, and he pounded Carl on the back.

“And you do the talking, because you got the biggest mouth,” Carl replied.

Mom laughed along with the boys, then got up to get the coffeepot. She sat back down suddenly, her hand on her chest. “Loyal.” She took a deep breath. “Help me to my bed, Loyal. It’s my heart,” she gasped.

Dad grabbed her before she could slide to the floor, then half led, half carried her into the bedroom.

Mom had been tired a lot, since before the camp opened, but she’d never had a spell like that. Suddenly, I wondered if she was sick, really sick, and she and Dad had been hiding it from me. I loved Mom more than anything in the world. She had always been our family’s strength. We wouldn’t have made it through the Depression without her. She’d scrimped so that we could pay the bills that kept the farm going, and she’d built up Dad’s spirits when he was ready to quit. What if something happens to her? I thought. How could Dad and I could go on without her?

I looked at Granny, but she was licking her spoon, not paying attention. So I stared at the bedroom doorway, stared so hard that my eyes hurt. I clenched my hands and let my fingernails dig into my palms. Finally, Dad came back to the kitchen and sat down at the table, his head in his hands. He ran his fingers back through his hair, which had streaks of gray in it. I hadn’t noticed them before. Without looking up, he said, “Your mother didn’t want to tell you, Rennie, but you’re old enough to know what’s going on. She’s got heart trouble, had it for a while. She visited with a doctor last fall when she went to Denver to see Marthalice, and he wanted her to take to her bed right away. But you know your mother. She wouldn’t hear of it. She was afraid you and Granny would have to do all her work.” Dad looked up at me with sad eyes, eyes too old for him. His face was strained and wrinkled.

Emory got up and poured coffee into Dad’s cup, and I thought it was a measure of how much the boys had become part of our family that Dad would talk about Mom’s health in front of them.

“She doesn’t have to cook for us. We can start bringing our lunch,” Harry offered, and the other two nodded.

“Mrs. Stroud wouldn’t like for you fellows to have to eat a cold dinner,” Dad said. He picked up his coffee cup, looked into it, and set it down without drinking. He told us he’d been thinking of hiring a neighbor lady to come in, maybe one of the Jolly Stitchers. “Rut who’s got time to spare during beet season?”

We sat there thinking, when suddenly Granny jumped up and said, “Oh, I forgot all about my cake.” She rushed to the stove and opened the door, but the oven was cold, and there was no sign of a cake. “Somebody ate it.” She began crying.

“It’s all right, Granny. Mary put it in the cupboard,” Dad said. But Mom hadn’t put it into the cupboard, because there hadn’t been any cake.

“There’s Granny to think about, too.” Dad sighed. “It seems like her mind wanders out of her head more and more now. I don’t know what we’ll do.”

I did, and I knew what I had to say. But I was silent for a long time, trying to get up the courage. There was no other solution. So in a rush, before I could change my mind, I blurted out, “I’ll stay out of school to help. I’ll go back when Mom’s better.” That was the hardest thing I’d ever had to say in my life. I knew if I quit school, I wouldn’t go back. Girls never did. I’d seen so many of them leave high school and sometimes even grade school to raise younger brothers and sisters or take the places of mothers who were sick or who’d died. Sometimes girls married when they weren’t much older than I was, just to get away from that drudgery. Still, nobody had to tell me that we were more important as a family than we were as individuals. Farm kids knew the farm mattered more than they did. If Mom and Dad needed me, school came second. I felt tears forming and squeezed the backs of my eyes so that I wouldn’t cry. I didn’t want Dad to know how awful I felt.

He sighed and looked at me a long time before he spoke. “Not on your life,” he said at last. “Your mother would shoot me. She’s got plans for you.” Looking toward the bedroom, he reached over and squeezed my hand. “But you’re a good girl to offer, Rennie, an awful good girl.”

I tried not to let him show how relieved I was. “Maybe Marthalice could move home for a little while,” I suggested.

“No,” Dad said quickly. “No, that wouldn’t do.”

The boys had finished their coffee, and Carl took their cups to the sink, washed them, and put them into the dish drainer.

“I’ll think on this. It’s time to get to work,” Dad said, standing up and reaching for his plaid wool jacket on a hook beside the door.

Before Dad could put on his coat, however, Carl said, “Mr. Stroud.”

Dad looked over at him.

“My sister could help out.”

“Your sister?” Dad frowned. Carl had never mentioned his sister. I hadn’t thought much about the boys having families. I guess I felt their lives centered around us.

“She’s got a job in the laundry at the camp, but I know she’d rather work for Mrs. Stroud. Daisy works hard. She used to clean houses on Saturdays. She can cook, too.”

“Well, I don’t know,” Dad said.

Carl added quickly, “Not just Japanese food. Ham and eggs, meat loaf, sardines and crackers, stuff you people eat.” Carl walked close to the living room door and said in a loud voice, in case Mom was listening, “She sews real good.”

“Maybe she can join the Jolly Stitchers,” Dad said, and looked at me out of the corner of his eye.

Carl looked confused, because he’d seen the Jolly Stitchers the day they met at our house. “I don’t think so, Mr. Stroud. Daisy’s eighteen. She’s not an old lady.”

“Don’t say that too loud, son,” Dad told him.

SO DAISY CAME TO
work for us. Mom and Dad fussed about it for a week before Mom agreed to give Daisy a try. She wasn’t keen on the idea. It was one thing having the boys working in the fields, even coming into the kitchen of a morning. But what would her friends think if she had a girl from the camp right in the house? “Henrietta Kruger will say we’ve been invaded by the Japanese,” Mom said.

“Why don’t you tell her the Japanese are all right but that you have doubts about the Germans?” I suggested, and Dad snorted. He was sprawled in an easy chair he’d dragged into the bedroom so that he could sit beside the bed where Mom was resting. If we sat with her every few minutes, she was less liable to get up.

Then Mom said she didn’t like the idea of another woman in her kitchen, but Dad scoffed. “You’ll get used to her just like you did the boys. I never heard you say you were crazy about washing dishes anyway.”

“The money—” Mom said, but Dad interrupted.

“I pay the boys nineteen dollars a month. Daisy’ll get fifteen. But if that’s too much, I reckon we could always keep Rennie out of school.”

“Over my dead body,” Mom said. I looked at her, startled, and Mom laughed and said, “That’s a joke, Rennie.” Mom had assured us that she wasn’t going to die, that she only needed rest, but we still worried about her.

“Daisy’ll be here only until you’re feeling better, which, bless God, won’t be too long,” Dad said.

“I didn’t know you were acquainted with the Lord.”

“How can you be a farmer and not believe in something? Besides, I’ve got to have somebody to blame for not sending rain.”

Doc Enyeart said hiring Daisy was a good idea. “I guess you don’t have to rest if you don’t want to get well, Mary,” he told her one afternoon. “But if you’re planning on living awhile longer, you’d best find a hired girl.” He’d come to see Mom after going to Betty Joyce’s place, and Mom asked how Mr. Snow was doing. Betty Joyce was still missing school to help in the store.

“Sometimes the cure is worse than the affliction.”

“What are you saying, Doc?”

“I’m not saying a thing. Illness is hard on the best of men.”

“I know that, and Gus Snow isn’t the best of men,” Mom said. “Illness is hard on women, too.”

“Women bear up better, in my experience.”

“They haven’t got a choice. If you ask me, Tessie Snow has the worst of it, running that hardware store with next to no help. She’s all in.”

“Gus helps when he can. They live behind the store, you know. He sits in the back room and tells her what to do.”

“I’d consider that less than no help.”

When the Jolly Stitchers found out Mom was ailing, they brought their casseroles and cakes, their cabbage rolls and carrot puddings. Mom drew strength from the women, even those she didn’t like so much, because their calling on her showed they cared. I learned a great deal about women during that time, about how in tough times, they pulled together, looked out for one another. They brought their first daffodils to Mom and sewed on their quilt squares while they gossiped and assured her she’d be all right. As the women took turns sitting in the easy chair next to the bed, Mom told them she was going to hire a girl from the camp. If they heard about Daisy from her, she thought, they might not be as critical. Mom was wrong about that.