Farmerettes (7 page)

Shuddering in disgust, the girls walked away.

Jean grinned at them. “Welcome to life on a farm.”

Peggy stared at the two animals licking up the goo and said, “I'm never going to be a farmer.”

Rita added, “I'm never going to have a baby!”

Binxie stayed silent with the wonder of what she had just helped happen.

Isabel

“You gettin' on or not?” a gruff voice scolded Isabel. The man with a battered brown fedora hat, gray beard stained yellow from tobacco, and muddied overalls tapped the steering wheel. “I ain't got till Christmas.”

The other trucks were already gone and four girls had disappeared down a path, following Jean. Isabel sighed and climbed onto the wagon strewn with dirty brown straw and who knew what else. The two rows of wooden benches lining the sides were full, so she headed for a seat in the center row. As she crouched to sit, the wagon lurched forward. Isabel crashed into another girl and smacked her funny bone on the hard edge of the bench.

Apologizing, she sat down. Her arm hurt like crazy, but she had to clutch the bench while they bumped along country roads then up a rutted laneway.

As they climbed from the wagon, the farmer, Mr. Scranton, handed each girl a hoe and ordered them to follow him to a field with rows of bushy young plants. He leaned over and gently touched one. “These are potatoes.” He spit on two shoots growing next to it, and yanked them from the earth. “And these are bloody weeds. I want you to hack up the damn
weeds
, not the potatoes.”

Isabel almost dropped her hoe in shock. No one she knew spoke so coarsely.

“Then hoe up the earth and straw into little hills around the plants. If light hits the potatoes, they turn green and I can't sell 'em.” He glared at the girls. “Got that? Now, time's a-wasting. Each of you start on every second row. Begin here, work to the end, then turn and come back up the next row.”

Isabel positioned her hoe. The long wooden handle was heavy and awkward, and the blade looked dangerously sharp.
Just like Billy holding a rifle,
she told herself. She watched a sturdy redhead in a green shirt and matching bandana tied stylishly in front—like on the Rosie the Riveter posters—chop at the earth and the weeds. Then cautiously, she began hoeing too. Oops. A tender potato plant toppled over.

“Damn it!” Mr. Scranton bellowed. He grabbed her hoe and demonstrated where to place her hands.

Isabel regarded him coolly. Her dad could have fixed those teeth. She waited until he handed back her hoe, held it almost the way he had demonstrated, said thank you, and daintily resumed her work.

Mr. Scranton watched her like a warden expecting a jailbreak. “Never been out of the city, eh, princess?” Then he moved on to the next girl. “Work faster! It'll be August before you finish this row.”

Isabel and the girl in green glanced at each other, rolled their eyes, and kept hoeing as the farmer criticized the next girl's efforts.

A minute later, Isabel's hoe slipped again, decapitating another plant.

“I'll deduct ten cents from your pay for every dead plant,” Scranton growled.

Isabel was almost too nervous to continue, until he finally stomped to the tractor and drove to another field.

“I hope the old grouch stays there.” The green-shirted girl grinned at Isabel. “I'm Kate. I like the way you stood up to him.”

“He's vulgar and mean.” Isabel smiled at Kate. “Pleased to meet you. I'm Isabel.”

The morning stretched on and the sun blazed relentlessly. Flies and other horrid insects buzzed close. Perspiration soaked Isabel's shirt. Mosquito bites itched everywhere.

At last, Mr. Scranton called them for lunch, and pointed to a wooden picnic table in a grove of maple trees. When the girls noticed the large jug of water and tin cups on the table, they ran. Feeling unbearably hot, Isabel slowly followed them. She felt woozy navigating the uneven ground, and was relieved to sit down.

“I'm starving.” Kate sat next to her and tore open her lunch bag.

“I could eat a barn door,” said a freckled girl sitting nearby.

“Anything but a potato,” added a pretty brunette named Ruth.

Kate snickered, then turned to Isabel. “Are you okay? You look pale.”

“I'm fine,” whispered Isabel.

“Have some water.” Kate handed a cup to Isabel, who drank gratefully. The girls around her chewed and chatted, but the thought of eating made Isabel nauseous. She quietly finished her water and lay down in the cool grass. If only she had slept more last night. She closed her eyes and drifted into a light sleep.

Too soon Mr. Scranton slammed a pitcher of milk onto the table. “Drink up. Five more minutes, then back to the field. You'll have to work a lot harder this afternoon if you want to get paid.” He pulled a toolbox from his tractor and headed for a nearby fence.

All through the long hot afternoon Isabel worked, sometimes so dizzy only the hoe kept her from falling. Her arms and lower back were in agony. Blisters formed on her hands. She felt hot, but her skin was clammy. She was hungry, but the idea of food made her feel sick. How would she last the rest of the day, never mind the whole summer? Isabel was disappointed with herself. The others grumbled about the heat and the work, but they were getting it done. By four o'clock, she could barely lift the hoe and had chopped several dollars' worth of seedlings. Would she ever be good at anything?

At long last, Mr. Scranton drove up with his wagon, clouds of brown dust billowing behind like a demon emerging from the mist. He collected the hoes, threw them to the floor of the wagon, and then waited impatiently as the girls climbed in.

“Are you okay?” asked Kate as she helped Isabel up.

Isabel whispered, “I'm fine, thank you,” and collapsed onto the wooden bench. With a lurch, the wagon clattered back to Highberry Farm.

As they climbed from the wagon, the girls politely called good-bye to the grizzled farmer. He grunted in reply. But as he watched Kate help Isabel step down, he said, “You're the worst bunch of girls who ever pretended to work for me. Don't come back tomorrow.”

For the first time in her life, Isabel wanted to shout something rude. The other girls were angry too. As they stormed across the barnyard, Kate muttered, “How dare he fire us! I wanted to quit first!”

They walked to the lawn in front of the dorm, where some farmerettes sat cheerfully licking ice-cream cones. Isabel sank into a chair beside them.

“Where's ours?” shouted Kate.

“Three miles down the road,” a sunburned girl replied. “Mr. Belding stopped at the dairy and bought these on our way home. Said we did a great job thinning his cherries.”

“But we're so hot,” moaned Ruth. “We hoed a million miles of potatoes today.”

The girls looked sympathetic, but no one offered a lick. Peggy pointed to the pump at the side of the barn. “Go get a drink. You look like you could use one.”

“And how was your day?” a chubby girl asked Kate, taking a long, slow lick of frosty white ice cream.

Isabel, Kate, and Ruth looked at each other, ready to spew complaints. Isabel surprised herself by answering first. “We had quite a time. Mr. Scranton is unbelievable. Hoeing potatoes is much easier than crouching in the dirt for strawberries or climbing up cherry trees. We want to go there again.”

Her coworkers looked at her and quickly nodded in agreement. Tomorrow, let
these
girls hop onto Scranton's wagon first, so they could race to the ice-cream farmer's truck.

Isabel smiled weakly, got up, and went inside. If she could just get to bed and sleep, she'd be fine.

Binxie

When the dinner chime rang, Binxie followed the stampede into the dining room. Girls ladled serving spoons of mashed potatoes, turnips, something green, and slabs of meatloaf onto their plates, then into their mouths faster than they ever did at home.

“I've never been so ravenous,” said a slim, pretty girl named Shirley. She mumbled through a mouthful of turnip, “This is yummy.”

Binxie noticed the gravy was almost as lumpy as the potatoes, and the vegetables were so mushy it was hard to tell if they were peas or beans.

“I could eat a horse,” declared a plump girl, reaching for another slice of meatloaf.

“Good, because I think that's what this is,” said Peggy, who always seemed to end up near Binxie. Peggy poked her meatloaf suspiciously, then shrugged and ate a forkful. She smiled at Isabel, across the table from her. “I've been starving since two o'clock. Tomorrow I'll pack a bigger lunch.”

Isabel smiled back, but looked pale as she toyed with her potatoes.

Binxie was ravenous too. Not wanting to be seen as “the private school snob,” she nibbled at the strangely red meat, then concentrated on the beans or peas.

After dinner, most of the girls headed for the recreation room. Helene found the record player and put on a record. Frank Sinatra crooned to the exhausted girls as they flopped into soft sofas and compared aches and itches.

Peggy told them about the amazing birth she had witnessed, describing the event in detail for her rapt audience. Binxie was glad, for once, to let her chat on. The way she told the story made the other girls share their awe. There was more to Peggy than she had first given her credit for.

A blonde girl with very red skin changed the subject. “Does anyone know how to soothe a sunburn?”

“Butter,” replied Isabel.

“Flour,” advised Rita.

None of it helped, and soon they were comparing sunburns and who had the most bug bites.

“At least we'll have beautiful tans by September,” said Peggy.

“If you think crisp toast is beautiful,” Helene muttered.

“The sun is mean to redheads,” added Kate. “I'll burn, freckle even more, but stay just as pale as before.”

“Will the red be gone in time for the baseball game Saturday?” asked Ruth.

This launched a discussion about the game, the growers' party, and what other events were planned. Binxie lost interest and headed outside. The air was still warm, and the sky was studded with a thousand silver stars.

She gazed at the vast space above her. That was where her sister loved to be, why she'd gone to England. Binxie had flown with Kathryn who once offered her a turn at the controls, but she had chosen to remain an awestruck passenger.

She crossed the yard. A chorus of crickets serenaded her, and the scent of lilacs surrounded her. She turned to see Jean coming from the chicken coop. “You live in paradise.”

Jean smiled. “The work is backbreaking, the weather can destroy an entire season's crops, our animals could die from any number of diseases, and the market prices aren't always worth it. But I love every bit of this land and this life.”

The two girls fell into step together and walked in companionable silence toward the orchard. “How are Tessie and her calf?”

“Fine. Johnny checked them over while you were at dinner. He's impressed with our work.”

Binxie remembered the good-looking fellow who stopped by the farm last night. “He's young to be a vet.”

“He's not a vet. His dad is. Johnny's been Dr. Clifford's shadow since he was knee-high to a grasshopper. Has everything but the degree.”

“That skill would come in handy overseas,” said Binxie.

Jean glared at her, and Binxie realized she had behaved like an outsider judging her host. “I'm sorry,” she said. “That was out of line.”

As they continued walking between the trees, fragrant with pink blossoms, Jean said, “The day he turned eighteen, he went with my brother to sign up. The army took Rob, but turned Johnny down. My brother got a uniform and headed for Halifax, then overseas. Johnny came home ashamed.”

Binxie flushed, and nodded sympathetically. “Your brother's fighting in Europe? My sister, Kathryn, is in England. Flying for the Air Transport Auxiliary. Her dream, my nightmare.”

Jean sighed. “Half my nightmare came true. Rob was injured and captured. It took us months to find out he's a prisoner of war in Poland.”

Binxie sensed there was more that bothered Jean, but kept quiet. “Poland. It's a beautiful country. Lots of farms. At least he'll get enough food.”

“No one in Europe has enough food. I've seen photos of the bombed-out fields.” Jean kicked a clump of earth. Then, wistfully, she said, “You've been to Europe?”

“No. When I was twelve, my parents toured the continent. They brought home photos of too many museums and churches. It was their pictures of forests, vineyards, and mountains that took my breath away.”

“They saw the canals of Venice? The Alps? Walked the streets of Paris, where Hemingway and Fitzgerald sat and compared ideas?” Jean sighed.

Binxie assessed Jean's muddy work boots, muscled arms, and intelligent blue eyes. She had underestimated this country girl.

As if she had read her mind, Jean stared straight back at her. “I follow the news on the radio. I've read every novel and magazine the library holds. My favorite Christmas gift is a book.”

“Then you know more than I do,” answered Binxie. “I don't read much outside of school. I mean to, but there's so much else to do.”

The setting sun profiled Jean. “Is it wrong to long for more? For a lot of my neighbors, Winona was the whole world. Then the war came and suddenly Winona shrank. Our fathers, brothers, and sisters went to train in Calgary, Ottawa, Halifax, even Washington. Now they're in England, Italy, Africa, and Asia. I know they face terrible danger, but they're out there, seeing the places I dream of.”

“That's why your horses are named Rio, London, Oslo, Cairo, Bombay, and…why Merlin?”

“Berlin until the war started.”

Binxie smiled. “Kathryn predicts one day people will fly across the ocean to distant countries quite regularly. Can you imagine?”

Jean shook her head.