The Hired Girl(15)

“Father,” I said calmly, “the other day, you said I wasn’t a schoolgirl anymore. I’ve been thinking on that, and I think you’re right. And you said I was needed to do the women’s work, and I’m thinking that’s pretty near to calling me a woman.” It didn’t sound as forceful as I’d hoped, but I was on that toboggan and I kept going. “So, since my work is needed, and I take care of the chickens, I think I ought to have the egg money. That’s what Ma had.”

There was silence after I spoke. Father took another mouthful of bread. He looked as if his whole mind was taken up with chewing, but I knew that wasn’t so. It came to me — I’d never thought of this before — that Father isn’t quick. He knew he wanted to deny me, but he lacked the words. So he chewed slowly, with his eyes gazing straight ahead as if I wasn’t there.

I became aware that the boys were staring. Well, not Matthew, because he was dragging his fourth biscuit in circles around the pie dish, dredging up the gravy. But Mark had stopped chewing and stared at me, bemused. Luke leaned forward with his forearms on the table. I don’t rightly know how to describe the look on Luke’s face. His eyes were alert, as if he was working a sum in mental arithmetic. At the same time, I almost felt as if he admired me.

That’s when I recalled that Luke and Mark never have any money, either. They’re as penniless as I am. Father keeps the money in a big stone jar on top of the kitchen dresser. He and Matthew can dip into it whenever they like. But Mark and Luke have to ask permission to take money from the jar, and if Father says yes, they have to write on a piece of paper what they want, and how much it costs, and then they have to put the paper in the jar. If they ask too often, Father takes the slips out and shames them by reading aloud all the things they’ve wanted in the past.

It’s different with Matthew. Matthew has to write down what he takes, but he doesn’t have to ask Father’s permission to open the jar. Matthew’s as tightfisted as Father is. He hates spending money. He’s always after me to mend his things, and I can’t seem to make him understand that there comes a point where the cloth is so worn out it won’t hold another patch or darn. Of course, Matthew’s twenty-one, so Father has to consider him a man. But Mark is only nineteen and Luke is sixteen and neither of them ever have a cent.

“The egg money,” Father said, after a long time of chewing. “What for?”

I didn’t know whether he meant What do you want the money for? Or: For what reason should I give you that money? I didn’t want to tell Father what I might do with the money. So I answered the second question. “For doing my share of the work,” I said.

“Work!” said Father. “What do you know about work? The rest of us”— he jerked his head at my brothers —“spend our days in the hot sun, or out in the cold, while you sit in the house and keep your hands nice. What do you know about work?”

It was so unjust I couldn’t stand it. I threw my hands down on the table with such force that the plates rattled. I wanted him to see them, so raw and rough from scrubbing. I had it in my mind to recite to him all the work I do, which is unceasing — the carrying of water and ashes and coal, the scrubbing, the laundry, the cooking and mending and putting food by — but instead I said the wrong thing, and what was worse, I said it the wrong way. “My hands ain’t nice!” I protested.

The minute the words were out of my mouth, I felt my face burn. I’d said ain’t like any ignorant farm girl. I haven’t said ain’t for years. Miss Lang broke me of saying ain’t when I was seven years old. When I heard myself say it, the shame took all the starch out of me. I could have cried.

That’s when Mark spoke up. “I guess Joan does her share of the work,” he said. He said it mildly, without looking at Father — he said it as if he were talking to himself. But he said it.

Luke nodded. “Joan’s right,” he said, and I almost fainted, because I was fool enough to think he was taking up for me. “We’re none of us children anymore. All three of us — Matt and Mark and me — do a man’s work; you said so yourself. We ought to get something like a man’s wages.”

Well, that’s Luke for you. He wasn’t taking up for me; he was feathering his own nest. I wasn’t surprised, not really.

“A man’s wages,” said Father. Once again, he was repeating what had just been said, and again I thought, He’s not quick. But now he was angry. I could see it in the set of his shoulders. He didn’t like me asking for the egg money, but Luke asking for wages was worse.