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Short Stories & Tall Tales
Mary’s Twenty
By Steele Campbell
Even though I awoke when he stirred the topmost step, I feigned sleep until my father stood next to my bed and spoke.
“It’s morning and those horses won’t harness themselves.” He went back up the creaky stairs, leaving me to have heard and obey.
I sat up, hanging my legs off the bed. Pulling my sleep heavy head from my hands, I looked at my brother. He hadn’t budged. He continued sleeping with no intention of venturing into the dewy morning, which would be cold until the sun’s rays peaked over the mountains and rehearsed movements warmed tired muscles. He probably didn’t even hear father. He would soon. As soon as I could escape I would, stow away into the service or get myself a gig up north on a lumber crew; then the summons would be his alone.
It was father’s intention that I take the farm and mill, scratching my living from this dry, porous soil like he and his father before him have done, but I didn’t want the worries of not enough, too much rain, bad seasons or years. Just let me work for someone else’s outfit. I had heard the Navy took boys at sixteen before, though that was during war, but I was sure that any day I would start growing a beard and have no problem passing for older than I was. Then I wouldn’t be beholden by father’s word. I reached the stables, still dreaming of freedom, when Peter and Paul whinnied, perking up their ears when they heard my footfalls and the shaking bucket of dry oats. We’d had Peter and Paul for three years and I had trained them to come at my call, though I wanted to name them C’mere and Dammit. That idea was promptly squelched, though not until it had earned me a sore bottom and some time shoveling manure to help me reflect on what I had said. I still thought it would have been funny, though I didn’t dare admit so.
I had haltered the horses, led them to the trough and was tightening the shivs when father found me. Without speaking he took the reins and I jumped in the wagon’s bed pulling a biscuit from my pocket which I had grabbed on the way out of the house. It was a couple days old, but still soft and flaky. Mama always wanted her flour milled twice, which was messy and time demanding, but the difference was undeniable. The first milling wasn’t so bad, unless left to do it alone, pouring in the grain, lowering the heavy time-smoothed stone, then out to the creek to remove the stopper from the wheel and back in, watching until the stone was millimeters from grinding itself into the flour, and back to the stream to stop the creek and that ancient wheel. The white dust and chaff sticking to your sodden skin and clothes. But the second milling was a true act of love. Slowly dumping the flour back between the stones for a second refining, the dust would thicken the air, filling lungs and covering tongue and body alike. I always emerged looking like a perfect ghost, or angel, as Mama would say.
Father sat shoulders square, eyes straight forward and clicked the horses slightly faster. He slid his gloved hands against his leg then patted the bench next to him. I stepped over the cracked backing and sat where he indicated, dusting the last bit of flour from my lips. Father was quiet for a while and I watched the pendulum swish of Paul’s tail. The pests had not yet disseminated making Paul’s swish inconsequential. Only the constant plod forward found purchase.
Father snapped the reins across the horses’ backs. They lunged into a trot and he cleared his throat.
“The right hand need not know what the left hand has done.”
“Sir?”
“We’re going planting today.”
“I finished Weiss’s corner the day ‘fore yesterday. I didn’t miss an inch. I thought that was all of it.”
“Not ours. Mary’s and that no-go. . .” He paused abruptly and drew in a breath. “Mary’s and Charles’. If their field isn’t sown by Sunday it’ll be too late.”
“That twenty by their place ain’t even turned under.”
“Then we got our work cut out for us. I reckon the plow is left moored right where it was last fall, and the harrow.” He smoothed his hands down his lap slackening the reins then popping them again. “But don’t you go running your mouth about this. That ain’t the Lord’s way. No one needs to know about our work today. That’s what charity is, ya hear? The right hand don’t know what the left has done.”
“What if Mama asks? I make up something so her right hand don’t know?”
“Lie? Son, never lie. You tell her we was planting. You done tell her you finished Weiss’s corner?”
“No, sir.”
“Good. Then you just tell her we was planting. Just don’t tell her where.” His lips formed a whistle but the air came out without a sound.
“The Lord done give us all this world and this life and each day the sun come up and the birds chirp and He don’t tell us that it was He that done it. He just lets us enjoy and keep on doing His work. That’s charity. That’s what we doing: the Lord’s work.”
I had heard slightly different variances of the same speech so often I could have told it to him. I wouldn’t even have forgotten the bird’s chirping, which was father’s favorite detail. In every lesson he gave of God’s goodness the songs of the birds would come up. But I didn’t mind it. I knew he loved those. Often he would pause and watch a mourning dove light upon a post and sing. Then he would whistle in response, the bird would repeat and they would continue in concert. But the birds weren’t singing quite yet. We rode together in silence listening to the hushed swish of Paul’s tail and the occasional soft pop of leather against hide.
“And never let me hear you even consider lying to your mother. That ain’t right.” He added as in afterthought not breaking his attention on the fields moving slowly past.
The twenty acres by Mary and Charles’ hadn’t been touched since harvest. Last year’s stubble grayed in the sun and snow of winter and still stood like the ruins of an ancient civilization. New wheat sprouts, some self-seeded from last year, others wind blown varieties and the standard intruders flourished green among the severed stalks.
“Sir?”
“mmm-hmm-hmm,” He arrested his hum mid-measure.
“What if Charles don’t want wheat again this year? What if he’s gonna plant corn or sorghum?”
“That field should be in wheat another year. I know it and the Lord knows it. Charles knows it or he don’t. But that don’t change a thing. It been in wheat two years is all. This year’ll be great for wheat, what with the light snow and the soil just right. Maybe next year alfalfa or corn. But this year it is too late for corn anyhow. Wheat is what we got time for, and wheat is what it needs.” We pulled into the field, the soft dirt quiet as rain beneath the horse’s hooves and slow wheels.
“Besides, the field can’t just lay fallow while Charles Short and his like do what they want. You know that as well as I do. He’s just gonna sit there in that dirty house and puff on that pipe. He ain’t gonna lift a finger he don’t have to. He don’t even get up to smoke outside, just sit in there puffing, filling the house with his smoke. As though smoke will fill those babies’ bellies. If this field ain’t yielding, then Mary and the kids won’t have naught to eat and this beautiful land will just go to waste. It don’t need to be fallowed for at least three more years.”
He hopped off the wagon and leaned against the worn frame. “Do you want to plow or plant?”
“I’ll plow, I guess.”
“Ok. Take Paul then and cut the blade in ankle deep. You need a good turn on the soil to stifle these freeloaders. I’ll harrow and scatter the seed.” He kicked at the volunteer growth. Paul turned his head toward me sizing me up as if it were a choice who was about to be yoked and driven and who would drive. I unclipped Paul from the wagon and trudged toward the plow.
“Hey. They ain’t used to this field, so you best blind him,” father called back without turning around.
I left Paul standing in the field, dipping his long brown neck down to munch at the grass while I picked up the shiny leather blinders. “I know, boy. It’s not fair, but I need you to be on my side today. This is harder than our fields, but it’s gotta get done. So be nice.” Holding firmly to his halter I put the blinders across Paul’s forehead. He swung his head back and forth as I attempted to buckle the tiny clasp as if he felt he either didn’t deserve this, or there was some grand pleasure being kept from him. I had tried the blinders on before, so I didn’t blame him. The world cut off at the knees. The sky barely visible, the distant trees lining even more distant mountains. Only the ground is truly seen; only the work. I didn’t usually blind Paul and never Peter, but I didn’t want him swinging his head against the reins. We would struggle hard enough in this stubborn soil.
The plow hadn’t been moved, let alone sharpened, in a year. It had settled into the soil and looked as though it preferred to remain there, glinting the sunlight broadly off the grey among redding patches of rust. I felt the dull blade and gripped the old leather straps which left brown chalky dust in my hands. This isn’t right, I thought; now Paul will have to pull harder, and I’ll have to make him pull harder and he is going to think it is my fault. I shook my head, stepped him back to the plow and buckled the straps to the already sweaty harness.
I stood behind the plow and slapped the thin strips against Paul’s rump. The straps cracked taut and Paul pulled and I lifted but the plow barely shook. I pulled Paul to the left and snapped the reins hard. He lurched and the plow tipped out of the packed earth with a creak. Then I turned Paul to the right and we lifted the plow free, only to plunge the flat blade back into the dirt and begin the monotonous plod. The first pass was uneven and not deep enough so Paul and I had to retrace our furrow until we could plow straight and steady. Then turn around and back again. I tried to crush the big clods the plow overlooks like a good plowman should, and so father wouldn’t get after me, but the dirt was too hard. It should’ve been plowed under last fall and it took all my strength to keep the plow deep, level and Paul pulling.
After the first dozen passes we stepped into a rhythm and the work came easier, though the morning was gone and the sun was hot on my shoulders and uncovered head. Looping the reins around the back of my neck and using both hands to alternately lift and press the plow handles I looked at the small house shaded by the clump of pine trees. Beyond the broken shutters and peeling walls I saw Mary watching out the window. She met my eyes for a second and turned away. Jesse in torn overalls, named after Charles’ favorite radio show hero and Robert, named after father, wearing just a diaper, played in the clearing between the house and the woods. There was no sign of Charles. Not on the porch smoking or nowhere. I always romanticized he kept busy running a still hidden off in the thicker growth somewhere or somehow built in one of those old broken farm heaps, abandoned behind the house like rusting hulks. I thought that’s why he never got around to plowing or planting or cutting. But I always think people are up to much more than they actually are, and when I find out they aren’t, I’m so disappointed I’d wish I hadn’t. So, I don’t ask; I just let them galavant the countryside engaged in exciting and forbidden jollies. Plus, I had always hoped Mary would marry an adventurer, a risk-taker or at least a real farmer, not Charles. Charles was a Short and none of them ever came to no good. One or the other was always doing time for something, Dax was sent to Bunyan South for mental rehabilitation, they called it, and Ali, my age, skipped town to be a card shark and train jumper. But Charles just sits around smoking, swearing and eating.
We didn’t want Mary to marry him and Mama told her she couldn’t and wouldn’t but Mary kept begging. I remember when Mary first asked, Mama didn’t even look up from the dishes. Mary came in, her cheeks rosy from the wind and walked past where I was playing on the carpet with Sal.
“I won’t hear of it, Mary. You’re only sixteen years old,” she paused. “You’re not in trouble are you?”
“No, Mama. It’s because I love him.”
Mama wiped her hands on her apron and pulled the string over her head.
“You love him?” Mama asked.
“Yes. I love him and want to marry him.”
“You ain’t sleeping with him are you?”
“No, I ain’t,” Mary said proudly.
“You wouldn’t lie to me would you?”
“No, Mama. I wouldn’t and I ain’t.” Mary’s face warmed. “Actually, I told him I wouldn’t do that until I was married.”
“So, that’s what this is about.” She stood up and turned to face Mary. “Don’t be fooled. There is a lot more to marriage than . . . than sleeping together, or wanting to. Stay here with me, grow up a little more before you run off to be somebody’s wife.”
“Aw, Mama,”
“Don’t aw mama me. I know this is hard to hear, but you are simply too young to even think of marriage. Live your own life for a while yet.”
“But I love him.” Her voice rose, so that even though we had been listening and pretending we weren’t, Sal, Ruth and I turned to watch.
Mama closed her eyes and took in a long breath. “The answer is no.”
“I should have asked Daddy, not you.”
“You go ahead and ask your father. He’ll set you straight and there won’t be any Aw Daddies. You are welcome to try with him. Foolish girl.” Mama muttered the last two words as she went back to the nail her apron hung from. Instead of taking it down and tying the frayed strings around her, she just stared out the back door as if she had never seen the trees or chicken coop this clearly before. The sky radiated a clear blue through patches of shape-shifting clouds, but Mama wasn’t looking at the sky. She stepped outside onto the cement stoop and, looking at nothing, let the sky look at her.
Father wasn’t home. He had gone to market alone. On the way into town two fifty-pound bags slipped from the wagon and split with a heavy pluff on the ground and the softest flour we had milled, besides Mama’s, spilt on the road. I imagine he cussed, though I have never heard him myself. Even in red-faced anger, he only ever let the first letter or some of my favorite secret words slip. Papa pushed much of the flour back into the gaping sacks and threw them, open end up in the front of the wagon.
The effort to salvage what flour he could, cost him most of an hour of the most lucrative market time. So, covered in flour, which he would have said was unbecoming of a merchant, he stayed all day and still came back with four full and two spilled sacks. He was seething when he arrived. We all could recognize the sneer on his face and knew to leave him be, but Mary was too anxious for precaution. She ran out to meet him at the end of the dirt walk.
“Daddy, Daddy. Can I get married? I really want to and Mama says ask you so can I? I won’t ask for anything again, Daddy. Can I get . . .” She spoke rapidly, clipping off the ends of her words.
Father didn’t look at her as he walked past, his gloves still on.
“Yeah. Go on. Get married. What do I care, it will be one less mouth to feed around here.”
“Oh, thank you. Thank you, Daddy.” She ran and wrapped her arms around him. He walked through her embrace and left her standing in the front yard.
“Mary.” He stopped.
“Yes, Daddy?”
“Tell your brother to put the team away and to sift those open bags for stones. They can’t be baked into bread like they stand.”
“Ok.” She breathed hard and stood arrested on the walk as if she could see the path she ahead of her but didn’t know how to begin.
Father didn’t fully realize what he had agreed to, but knew the Shorts had no land and Charles no future to speak of, which is why he, as a wedding gift, gave them twenty beautiful fertile acres with the old Nield house still sitting among the trees. He could have sold the land with or without the house and have enough to quit milling for hire, which brought a lower price than raising and milling our own. But as I did most of the hired milling and giving Mary land and a house was the only way she would have any, Papa signed over the deed stoically, his eyes clear and ice blue.
There is no way I am going to get caught in that racket, I told myself and stepped hard on the turning earth. To sacrifice valuable hard earned land to make up for a kid’s bad decision. No kids for me, I reassured myself and turned Paul around, pulling the tines parallel to the previous rows. I’ll be my own man and my land will be mine. But who needs land when I can get by with my muscles and my wallet? No, I won’t be tied to one place, I imagined. I guided the plow forward, but a hard pack I hadn’t seen jerked the blade sideways, and lifted me, leaning against the handles, momentarily from the dirt. I tapped my tongue to my teeth getting Paul back into stride when I saw the leather strap running past his left flank shudder and begin to tear. Paul leaned hard and the strap began to give.
“Whoa! Whoa, Paul!” I called out reaching forward. The strap snapped and snaked around my outstretched arm. Now off center, the plow turned on its side trapping my foot under the heavy blade. Blinded, Paul couldn’t see as I was stretched across the rusty plow. The pain began in my arm and my foot, coursing to meet in my center, bent unnaturally across the iron. I began to see a golden glow, though my eyes remained open, blurred and scanning the bright horizon. The gold quickly shifted to a dripping red and then black. Then, father was by my side grabbing the strap at my wrist. Pulling against Paul he took out his knife and cut both straps his feet deep in the freshly turned earth. Paul, now freed, leapt forward kicking strongly back. He caught Papa’s hand with a soiled hoof and smashed it against the plow’s dull blade.
Papa held one hand to his chest and wrapped the other around me.
“You okay, boy? You alright? Let’s take a look at you.” He held me closer as I rubbed by shoulder and wrist. I pulled my foot, lined with red where I knew there would be a bruise, from under the heavy plow. Determined not to cry I leaned against Father, the black center of pain fading purple, then blue, pulsing with my heart.
“Yeah, I’m okay. But this ol’ plow is nothing but a hunk of shit.” I said, indignant.
“Good. I was scared. However, “squeezing me tighter, “that still doesn’t give you cause to cuss.” He looked at me as I fought back tears. “I’d tan your hide for it, but I think that’s already been taken care of.” I smiled, knowing this humor was supposed to relieve and restore me.
I then realized Mary was screaming. She had been watching and began screaming as soon as the strap broke. And though I’m sure I heard her, I couldn’t register it until now. It was Mary that had alerted Papa. I raised my hand to motion that all was over. She watched us sit in the dirt and collect ourselves, one hand shading the sun from her eyes so she could be sure the worst had past. Paul just stood in the unplowed ground, biting off what little food he could find.
“Well, let’s finish this side of the house and call it a day,” father said and stood.
With a slight limp I wanted to both hide and exaggerate, I took the runner straps off the wagon and rehitched Paul to the plow. Stepping on the hard clods and negotiating the plow stung my swollen leg and I saw papa favor his hand as he harrowed and planted behind me. He had wrapped his hand and wrist in his handkerchief and was spreading the seed awkwardly. It was late when I finished the last turn, tipped the plow out of the ground so it could be sharpened and harnessed Paul to the wagon. When papa finished I went to get Peter back to be yoked alongside, the buckles giving papa’s hand obvious trouble. I had freed Peter from the harrow when Mary came out of her house holding a plate of cornbread. The screen door slammed behind her and echoed in the quieting field. Her dress was no longer bright though it was clean, and she stepped lightly on the planted wheat. I smiled at her and her eyes, deep like empty wells, reflected back.
“I thought you might be hungry.” She held the cornbread at arm’s length first in my direction then in father’s. Papa didn’t say anything. I opened my mouth but was cut short.
“This is awful nice, Daddy. Thank you. It means a lot to me and Charles.” The name struck the air like a whip.
“I didn’t do it for him.” Papa didn’t look at her.
Mary pulled her lips back into a forced but beautiful smile.
“All the same. Thank you.” She switched her glance between him and me. “I made you some food. I thought you would be hungry out here in the sun all day.”
“I ain’t takin’ no food from his table.”
“His name is Charles, Daddy. And he didn’t make it. I did. I made it for you, for both of you.” Her eyes tightened to nails. She kept her arms outstretched, pushing the steaming cornbread away from her and closer to father.
“I said,” father twisted and stared at Mary who inadvertently turned her eyes and then her head to the ground where a few seeds lay on top of the dirt, “I ain’t takin’ no food from him.”
Papa turned back to the wagon swinging his bandaged hand a little wide. He hit the plate Mary held tight in her tired fingers. The cornbread flew behind Mary’s back and the plate, broken into three pieces, fell to the soft dirt at her feet. Papa snatched Peter’s reigns from me and marched back to the wagon. Mary did not look up.
Before I caught up to father, I noticed Mary, still and silent, standing in the field alone, the sunlight through the trees salting Mary and the overturned earth with soft rays.
The End
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