Ellen Chesser

Rushfield, Ky.

Mr Hep Bodine’s mail box

Ellen stood staring after the woman when she walked away from the alley, seeing her shoulders rise and fall unevenly, stiff, green-drab shoulders that sank into the crowd of the men. The paper was in the pocket of the waist; Ellen had seen fingers push it in beside a little dull pocketbook and a piece of orange peel and a bit of a bright rag. It was gone now, down the long alley past the men and the horses. One sob shook her throat and then peace came after the hours of strain. She had sent a message to Tessie. She had sent word. Turning partly about she saw her father waiting for her, beckoning with a stiff, quick finger, ‘You come here!’

They rode home on the rear seat of Mr Bodine’s buggy.

CHAPTER TWO

It was another year. Late May sounds and smells spread over the ploughed field, the tobacco field of the season before, ready again for plants. A cool rain had fallen and dense clouds obscured the blue of the sky. Ellen stopped in the row and wound her braid more securely around her head, the blunt end of it just reaching to the nape of her neck. When she had pinned the encircling crown flat with a wire hairpin she drew on the wide straw hat, which fitted snugly over the braid and kept its place. She must wear the hat and keep her skin bleached; her mother said so and Artie Pinkston confirmed the suggestion. ‘A gal is a long sight prettier if she bleaches.’ Now an uneasiness troubled her, dragging at her elbows as she adjusted the hair and the hat. Henry was in a quarrel with Mr Bodine. Her father’s voice of yesterday called out sharply in her mind. Usually meek and afraid he had been driven by his anger. ‘If you don’t like the way and how of my farmen you can get somebody else.’ She walked slowly over the field, dropping the little plants along the rows, with Henry and a man named Goodin following. She felt impatient at the slow progress and kept ahead of the men, her tall slim body moving evenly down row and row, flashing ahead and waiting. Her bare feet were gleaming white in the mud and her skirt hung near her ankles. Her mother’s voice came back to her from the fireside talk of the night before, a wailing voice, troubled and angry. ‘Twenty-four dollars is no sight of money when it’s all you got and when there’s three in family…’ They no longer had the wagon and they could not ride away. Her uneasiness beset her while she waited at the row-ends. Mr Bodine was bringing the plants to the field in baskets, riding his large fine horse to the distant plant bed. He spoke little to Henry and not at all to her, but set each basket down with a brisk attention to the matter. She knew the thought that lay back in his mind. If Henry Chesser left him he could hire Goodin.