The Hired Girl(17)

So I thought it would be a mistake not to make the jam. And it would be an even bigger mistake to let the house go to rack and ruin. It would be cutting off my nose to spite my face, because after the strike, I’m the one who’ll have to put things to rights.

As for the garden — well, you have to keep after a garden this time of year. If you turn your back, the weeds will take it. And the chickens need me to feed them, and so do the men. When all is said and done, I don’t want to be responsible for anyone starving to death.

So there I was, wondering how I might strike, and at the back of my mind was the idea that I’d better make that jam soon, before the raspberries go. I found myself feeling aggravated, because Tuesday is ironing day, and it’s hard enough making jam without having to heat the irons on top of the stove. Then it came to me that ironing isn’t necessary. No one will suffer if I stop ironing. That’s when I realized that ironing could be the first thing on my strike. I’m not going to iron — except my own things.

If the men’s clothes are stiff and wrinkled, I don’t care.

The idea of not ironing seemed to open up a whole new world to me. I made up my mind that the men can make their own beds. They’re the untidiest sleepers on earth, I think. Luke drags the sheets off the bed and throws them on the floor, and Matthew and Mark — why, they just aren’t clean in their habits. I hate messing with the boys’ beds, because there’s a smell; I don’t know what it is, but I know my sheets never smell like that. Ma always said that men are dirty creatures, and though it’s not a nice thing to say (and not refined), anyone who launders those sheets would say the same. Well, then: that was another thing I could not do on my strike. If Father wants to lie in a smooth, tidy bed, he can just hand over the egg money.

And third of all — but this is the most dangerous one, because it’s striking a blow against Father — I’m not going to serve a hot dinner every blessed day. The boys won’t mind — they’d just as soon eat sandwiches in this hot weather. But Father will mind. Father insists on a hot meal. That part of the strike feels risky — but I told myself it’s got to be risky, because, after all, it’s a strike.

I got up and made breakfast, same as always. After the men went out to work, I didn’t have four beds to make — I had only one. I didn’t tidy the men’s rooms, and I left their dirty clothes on the floor. The only thing I did was pull the shades down, to keep the rooms cool. Then I went out to pick raspberries.

It was a fair, cool morning, and I filled two pails with raspberries. I felt so free and naughty, knowing I didn’t have to iron, even though it was Tuesday. In the middle of picking the fruit off the canes, I got down on my knees and prayed to the Blessed Mother that Father wouldn’t be too terrible.

Then I went inside to pick over the berries. Midmorning I prepared dinner for the men. I made a big platter of sandwiches, took out four bottles of beer, and added a plate of molasses cookies. Just as I had for Miss Chandler, I piled everything on a tray, put the tray on the kitchen stool, and set it out under the elm tree. I tucked a towel over the tray to keep the flies off.

Back in the kitchen, I put on my thickest apron. I think praying to the Blessed Mother did me good, because I’d begun to feel steady inside. When you make jam, you have to keep your mind clear, doing everything in just the right order and just the right way. If you’re flighty or muddleheaded, you’ll burn yourself and spoil the jam.

I set to work. It’s hot work, scalding the jars and melting the wax and standing over the stove. It’s sticky, too, and I perspired until my hair was damp. But the smell of the raspberries — I don’t know how to describe it. It seems like a hundred smells at once — hot sugar and fresh peaches and grapes ripening in the sun — but it’s also just one smell: raspberry, raspberry, raspberry. Smelling that smell and watching the red bubbles churn and froth brought me something like happiness.

By dinnertime, I was in the very crisis of jam making. Matthew was the first to come in. I told him his dinner was outside on a tray, under the elm tree.

He looked confused. I waited for him to ask me why I didn’t have a hot dinner on the table, but Matthew never does ask questions. He looked at the kettle, which was boiling and foaming, and went out without speaking. A few minutes later, Father came to the door. He stopped in the doorway and stared at the table, which was covered with clean towels and jam jars set upside down. He said, “What’s all this?” My heart beat double time.