The Hired Girl by Laura Amy Schlitz Read Free Book Online Page B

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.
    I kept my eye on him. All of us watched Father, waiting to see which way he’d jump. As it happened, he lashed out at Luke — and I was glad it wasn’t me.
    “A man’s wages,” he said, and pitched forward so that he was face-to-face with Luke — face-to-face, and too close. I didn’t blame Luke for shrinking back. “You think
you
do a man’s work? You think I’d hire you, if I had my druthers? Lazy and feckless as you are? If you weren’t my son, I wouldn’t let you set foot on my land. I wouldn’t give you a boy’s wages, much less a man’s. You can count yourself lucky I don’t give you something else — something fit for the
boy
you are.”
    Father got up fast, and his chair scraped the floor. I thought he might strike Luke — I thought he might overturn the table; he did once, when Ma was alive. I don’t recollect why, but I remember cleaning up the spilled food and broken crockery. But he only stood