“I know about those,” I began. “We were on this trip—”
“This is how it done,” John interrupted, his face rigid. I watched while he carefully described how to pump water, but I could feel that gnawing again in the pit of my stomach.
My task was to carry twenty gallons of water around buildings and over a wood fence to the pigs. Chickens took one pail and two pails went to the house. My arm was numb before the pumping and carrying was done. At least the horses and cows watered themselves at the creek.
Supper was simple, but filling, after which we milked sixteen cows by hand.
It had been a long day since I awoke at C-8 that morning. Taking it all in drained me to near exhaustion. Instead of slowing the pace, John glared, turning brusque. What seemed like an eternity ended, finally, when we finished chores by nine o’clock.
John pointed to the washbasin, then the attic door.
“S’early in the mornin’. Best to wash your hands, then sleep,” he said and nothing more.
I sat on the edge of the bed, my feet inches from the stairway. I blew the candle out, lay back, and was instantly asleep.
“S’time to gets in barn,” the voice said. It was before daybreak, Sunday morning. For a moment, I didn’t know where I was. I sat up.
“Bring lantern when you come.” John set a lantern on a tread low in the stairwell.
Sitting, hunched sleepily on the edge of the bed, I stared down at the glow diffusing around the bend in the stairway. Slowly, I dressed, then creaked tiptoe downstairs, walked through the quiet house with the lantern, and pulled the outside door shut behind me. Emma remained in bed.
Swinging from my right hand, the lantern cast a swaying glow, flickering eerily through my legs onto the granary and the chicken coop.
John was milking beneath a lantern when I entered the barn. After hanging my lantern from a beam farther along the milking aisle, I faced John waiting for his instructions.
John pointed to the same cows I’d milked the night before. “Those be your cows,” he snapped. His boy had taken too long dressing.
I sat and started milking on a three-leg stool. I took a deep yawn and looked up to see John staring wide-eyed at me. The long shadows hanging over his face made him look sinister. With my head against the cow’s flank, I tried not to meet his eyes.
Most employees at the State School glanced at children, staring only at favorites or troublemakers. The first four terrors of my childhood—Miss Monson, the two Krugers, and Mr. Beaty—honed their loathing with hateful stares at certain children. Adults in Owatonna stared at State School youth at church or in movie lines. Their cold looks had always chilled me, but John’s stare seemed different, even more troubling.
Emma didn’t stare, she always looked from side glances toward whomever she spoke. It was a look of submission for John, but seething defensiveness to me. John had bought the horse, but she had to feed it and wash its clothes. It was clear already that she wanted no part of me, that I was John’s to take care of.
After the morning milking, I was taken along with them to attend Mass in Rushford. The placement agreement stipulated my inclusion in family affairs. After Mass, I wandered outside until dinner, which included farm-pasteurized milk and homemade bread. After dinner, John pulled out his watch, “You to have Sunday afternoon off,” he said. “Chores in four hours.” Weekly leisure for me, however brief, was another requirement of the contract.
Climbing the high bluff north of the buildings, I perched on the steepest part overlooking the valley. The farm was over 300 acres, ten tillable in the valley, 100 acres of work land on the ridge, the balance in bluff-side woods. The valley was beautiful and serene through a thin afternoon haze.
With electricity and modern equipment, one man could work a 110-acre farm. At the Rushford farm, John needed a hired man to chase after cows hunkered in the ridges, search for lost calves in the woods, milk half the cows by hand, pump water, and perform other chores. When he couldn’t afford a hired man or labor-saving equipment, a smiling benefactor—the State of Minnesota—answered his prayers.
I had completed eight grades plus kindergarten at the State School and three weeks at Owatonna High. Tomorrow, I would go to Houston High—maybe. Already, I was beginning to expect nothing until it happened.
It hadn’t been quite three days, but it seemed an eternity. We finished milking and were in the house by seven Monday morning. I washed at the basin, went upstairs, and changed into school clothes. I would attend school without a bath since C-8.
“Youse to wash once a month in a tub in center of the kitchen floor,” Emma had said.
“S’hard heating water on a wood fire,” John had said.
Emma set a bowl of oatmeal and glass of milk on the table for me. “Be quiet so’s you don’t wake baby Mary after school,” Emma warned. “She’s at the Bensons’. She be home tonight.”
“Okay,” I said, trying not to seem confused. A baby girl? “Is there someone I have to see at Houston High?” I asked, standing, ready to leave for school. I raised a cautious glance into John’s face.
“Be home fifteen minutes after you leaves bus,” John said, his voice matter-of-fact, and that ended talk of school.
I stood and said, “See you tonight.” There was no reply. I shut the door behind me, walked swiftly to the gravel road and, breathing easier, began the mile walk to the highway.
The bluffs broke as I rounded the last bend and the road thrust into the Root River valley on its last two hundred yards to the highway junction.
A call came from behind. I twisted without stopping to see a tall, yellow-topped boy hurrying to catch me.
“Hi, there,” he repeated.
“Hi,” I replied, looking up at him, and a smile warmed my face. Walking backward until the boy came abreast, we walked together toward the highway.
“I’m Ed … Hanson,” the boy said, offering his hand.
“Pete … Razor,” I said, eagerly shaking his hand. “I’m staying at—”
“Schaulses’,” Ed interrupted, “I know. You just got there. How’s it going, anyhow?”
“Can’t say. They don’t talk much except farm stuff. Got to get used to it all, I guess.”
“We live on the table across the creek,” Ed said.
“Farm?” I murmured.
“Yeah,” Ed said, looking me over. “Just enough to get by. How old are you? I’m sixteen.”
“Fifteen,” I said.
Ed pointed at two boys arriving from a farm, which could be seen on the highway not far from the junction. “Hey, the Busch boys,” he said, pointing. “I’ll introduce you in the Cracker Box.”
“Cracker box?”
“Made out of plywood and junk,” Ed said.
The bus appeared. It really was plywood and looked like a large cracker box, with windows and a small cracker box attached to the front.
“Sure rattles,” I said. “Is it safe?”
“Guess so,” Ed said. He pointed as the bus approached. “Lots of horses under the hood. Gets us to school every day.”
Horsepower, I thought. “How many, four, maybe six or so?” I imagined teams of State School draft horses pulling the bus.
“Maybe 150. Dunno for sure,” he said. “It’s a Ford V-8 and Sam really gives it the gas.”
The bus slowed, turned onto