Curtis, part twenty-one

Leta spent much of her Tuesday morning managing wet clothes and emptying pots and pails filled with leaking rainwater, for the heavy rain that started in the middle of the night continued. Fortunately, the girl fetched enough wood from the pile out back to keep the kitchen warm and cozy and stave off the damp. But Leta felt far from productive. And she had so many plans to transform the dirty, rickety house into a clean and pleasant home for her new husband and by extension his twelve children.

That he had twelve children became apparent later in the afternoon when the school bus stopped out front, and the number crammed into the house increased from four to eleven. Further, the new arrivals were all wet, mud-coated and hungry.

While Leta was arranging their coats and hats on the clotheslines she had strung throughout the kitchen, one of the girls grabbed the basket of biscuits sitting on the counter and passed them out to the others.

“Biscuits again?” one of the twins griped. “Biscuits, biscuits, all we got around here is biscuits!”

“Hush up,” one of the older girls ordered, “you know Papa don’t like backtalk.”

Still, they devoured them all, the older ones having two each. The portioning of the bread raised tempers, and they were already irritable. They began to pinch, poke and slap each other, and Leta understood that such bickering would soon escalate unless she put a stop to it.

“Here, here,” Leta said, “that’s enough of that.”

They didn’t listen at all. The four-year-old pressed against her, either out of sympathy for her plight or simply to use her as a shield for the upcoming sibling battle.

Leta gritted her teeth and raised her voice a little, “I said, that’s enough of that.”

Still, the children continued, their volume and agitation increasing.

Finally, Leta could refrain no longer. She lifted a large skillet and slammed it hard onto the stove.

“Stop it!” she ordered.

The children froze where they were and stared with gaping mouths.

“Now that I have your attention,” Leta said, “we can get some things accomplished around here.”

She couldn’t remember any of their names, so she just pointed.

“You two are now in charge of all of the leaks. I want you to empty whatever pots and pails we’re using to collect the drips into the large tub over there in the corner.”

“What do we do when we’re finished?” one questioned.

“You won’t be,” she answered.

She pointed to the second oldest girl. “You are in charge of clothes and coats.”

The girl looked at her with confusion.

“That means rinsing out the muddy clothes and hanging them on the line, taking down the dry clothes and coats and putting them away. You’re also in charge of keeping the floor clean. There’s water on the stove, but I’d put another pot on there if I were you.

“You two are in charge of fetching apples from the cellar,” she continued. Use these pots. And I don’t want you tracking mud into the kitchen, so you will stand at the back door and hand off your full pots to her, and she will dump them in the sink. I think about eight trips should do it. I’m going to be making some applesauce.

“Now, who’s left?

One boy, the oldest girl and her little guy raised their hands.

“You,” Leta said, pointing to the boy, “are in charge of gathering all the dirty dishes you can find. I’ll put some water on and then you will be washing and drying them and putting them away.”

“But that’s women’s work!” he protested.

“Ma’am,” the oldest girl added, “I can do that.”

“No,” Leta said, “I need you to help me peel the apples. I think he can manage.”

“But papa says—“ the boy began.

“—I am the boss of this kitchen,” Leta interrupted firmly, “and you will do what I say.”

Then she addressed the two youngest.

“And I have special jobs for you,” she said. “We are going to have lots of apple peelings that need to be taken from the sink and put into that pail over there. Do you think you can manage?”

They nodded.

“Can’t I have a man’s job?” the disgruntled boy mumbled.

Leta ignored him. “We all have our jobs. Now let’s get to work.”

To be continued.

Curtis, part twenty

Leta lay in bed. Beside her, Curtis was snoring, but his man sounds didn’t disturb her. Her former husband Ora talked in his sleep. What was keeping her mind active, even though her body ached for rest, was his notion that she knew how to smoke and can a hog. Up until now, her husband had not requested of her anything that she could not do, but her farm-wife skills were limited. As a girl, she assisted her mother and aunts when they made preserves or canned vegetables and fruits, but she had never canned these items on her own, let alone meat.

And how was she going to prepare enough food on a daily basis for a family of twelve children, and when would she be able to clean the living room, even though none of them had the time to use it. She had married into a large, disorderly situation, and the needs of the large brood were overwhelming her mind. How was she going to ensure that they all bathed?

At least, she sighed to herself, she had clean sheets to sleep in. And, after all, tomorrow was another day.

Except they woke to rain. A windblown rain that forced a dampness into the decrepit farmhouse. And Leta heard the drip. It was dark, she was confused about her location, and then she had to listen closely for the location of the drip. It was a muffled sound, unlike one that she would have heard on the floor or dresser. The room was so dark that she couldn’t see at all, so she rose and lit the lamp her husband had hung on a hook near their bed. The drip was steady; she could hear it even with the volume of the wind and outside patter. A draft caught her by surprise, and she shivered outside of the warmth of the bed.

“Dammit,” she snapped. The drip was landing on the pile of clothes in her opened suitcase on the floor in the corner. She set the lamp onto the floor and quickly moved her suitcase out of the way of the drip. Everything was wet, and she regretted not fully unpacking it previously. But she had wanted to clean out the dresser before putting her clean clothes in it. Now she would have to wash them all.

With the cushion that her clothes provided moved out of the way, the leaks splattered loudly onto the floor. Leta grabbed the empty wash basin on the nightstand and and used it to capture the unwelcome water. The drip turned into a ping, as the water hit the china.

Guided by the lamp, she left her room and instinctively checked on the girls. When she stepped on a cold, wet spot, she stifled a shriek. Taking a closer look, she could see that a puddle extended from the doorway into their room. She reached for the door handle and opened it. As far as she could tell, the puddle extended from a corner of the room, where the water was trickling down the wall, forming a kind of river to the lowest geographic point.

She lifted the light to see if there was something she could use to sop up the water, at least a little. Then she saw how small the room was. There were hooks on the wall for dresses, a trunk, a small table and chair and two small beds which each contained a bundle of children. The room was cool, damp and smelled faintly of urine

A little pang struck her heart. She and the oldest girl would definitely clean this room before the end of day, she decided. No children should live like this, and definitely not those under her care.

To be continued.

Curtis, part nineteen

Leta was taking stock of her situation. She had a new husband of three days. She moved into his dilapidated farmhouse on a small farm where he raised 200 laying hens, two milk cows, and a dozen barn cats. He grew his own corn (to feed the chickens and cows), had a few fruit trees and an unkempt garden. He also had twelve children, ranging in age from three to seventeen. Seven were in school, three worked on the farm and two were too young to attend.

Since rising before dawn on this blustery spring day, she had milked the cows twice, made breakfast for her husband and the two older boys, gathered the eggs and fed the chickens, washed another shelf of dirty dishes (that had been sitting for longer than she wanted to guess), churned butter, washed her bed sheets and all of her husband’s clothes that she could find, made a lunch of corn soup for two adults, three teenagers and two small children, cleaned up after that and baked seven batches of biscuits. Four of the biscuits were for supper, a meal she prepared for fourteen that also included three roasted chickens, mashed potatoes and gravy, carrots, peas, and berries and cream.

The previous day, when she encouraged Curtis to inform the local milk collector that she would have a canister every other day for pick up, he told her not to be premature. Now she knew why. In one meal, the twelve children had devoured two days worth of milk. With only two cows supplying the beverage, she would have to ration it.

Twenty minutes after inhaling the meal that took her nearly two hours to make, the children and her husband scattered, leaving a plethora of dirty dishes, spills and crumbs in their wake. She had been so busy since her arrival to the house that she hadn’t really explored the house or she would have noticed that there were two other rooms. The first was off a door in near the stove, one that blended into the wall. She watched one of the boys press a small lever and it popped open, welcoming all of the boys. The girls ran up the narrow stairs, and she heard another door open and close. Her husband walked out the back door.

She was alone in the kitchen. She could hear the murmuring, barking and squealing of young voices through the thin walls. She wanted a stiff drink, but all she had was a cup of cold coffee with a little sugar. She tossed it back like a shot, and the bitterness of it shocked her system for a few moments. Preparing so much food was so overwhelming that she neglected to put the dishwater on the stove to boil. So she restocked the stove with wood and put two pots of water on.

While she was waiting, she made a list of items she would need from the market. Curtis would have to take her the following morning. He could not expect her to feed that many with what few supplies they had on hand. They definitely needed bread; she could not continue to make that many batches of biscuits on a daily basis. She also needed him to visit a butcher for pork and beef; the family could not live on chicken and eggs alone. For breakfast, she could use a large bag of oats to make oatmeal for breakfast.

When Curtis returned, she was drying the first set of dishes. Another stack was beside the sink, waiting to be washed. The dark had just descended, and she lit a lamp.

“Mrs. Curtis,” he said, “I’m glad you’re still up.” He was holding and stroking one of the barn cats. It was purring loudly, but when she turned to her husband, it hissed at her.

“Of course,” she answered. It was only eight, and even though she was tired, she still had several things she wanted to do before going to bed.

“I found a healthy batch of mushrooms in the woods this evening,” he continued. “I thought I’d have the boys fetch them tomorrow, if the rain holds off.”

“That would be good,” she agreed. “If you pick up a piece of beef, then I can make beef stew for supper.”

“I’ve been thinking along the same lines,” he said. “Only I’ll order a hog. The farmer will slaughter it for us, and then you can smoke and can the meat. He won’t have it tomorrow, but plan on it for Wednesday.”

To be continued.

Curtis, part eighteen

Leta had been married to Curtis for three days before she learned why he had such a large kitchen table. After supper, she sat at the end nearest the wood stove, her unfinished coffee before her, now cold.

How could she not have known? How could he have failed to tell her? He courted her for three months, talking continuously about his chicken farm and his recently deceased wife. When she accepted his marriage proposal, he began to talk of future plans for them, of expanding the farm, increasing the number of fowl, buying an adjacent property to grow more corn.

What he failed to mention was that he had children. She told him about hers—Vivian and Dale, both adults with their own families—how she liked being a grandmother to Don and Connie, how she looked forward to more grandchildren. It wasn’t as though the subject never came up.

But he never said. Even earlier that day, the two boys he introduced her to, both teenagers, were treated more as if they were hired hands to assist them. Then the girl arrived late in the morning while she was doing the washing, with two little ones clinging to her. Again, her husband told her that the girl, about 15, was there to assist her with the washing, cleaning and cooking. She was awfully young to be a mother, Leta thought, but felt it was too soon to ask. And unfortunately, the girl wasn’t much help. The four-year-old and three-year-old hung on her like weights, and despite Leta’s friendliness, refused to warm to her. Neither would nap, even though Leta offered her freshly laundered bed.

Then, at three o’clock in the afternoon, the boys brought her three slaughtered chickens. Three chickens, she thought, was a bit much, but the boys, the girl and the little ones were all pretty scrawny. She had sent the girl and increasingly irritable young ones to pick berries, carrots and peas, and they returned shortly after the boys, their hands stained and baskets filled.

“I suppose you’d like some potatoes, too,” Leta said with a smile.

Leaving the tykes with the younger boy, the girl went to the vegetable cellar and returned with it overflowing. While she was gone, Leta noted that the little ones were very comfortable with both older boys, although the older one continued to whimper.

At three-fifteen, after she took all of the food into the kitchen to start supper, Leta heard a bus stop in front of the house. Three minutes later, Curtis called her from the front door.

“Mrs. Curtis, come out here.”

She rinsed off her hands, wiped them on her clean apron and followed his voice to the side of the house. He was standing with the boys, the girl, the little ones, and several other children, all in a row, just as scrawny and dirty as the other four.

“I want you to meet your children,” Curtis said matter-of-factly.

Leta was too stunned to speak.

“You already met the John. He’s seventeen. Next is our oldest girl Betsy, sixteen. Then Roscoe, fourteen. They’re all out of school, a course and work here on the farm. John also works for Granger, the next farm over. These others are all still in school. Jane Ann is thirteen, so she’ll be finishing up in a couple weeks. Marty is eleven. Ben, ten. Next are the twins, Pammy and Penny, eight. Ned is seven. Joey, six. Then you’ve already meet our youngest two, not yet in school, Mark, four, and Willa, three.

She counted them. There were twelve. Curtis had twelve children that she not only met, but also learned about for the first time when they arrived at the house. While Twelve children? Twelve children! kept ringing in her ears, Curtis continued.

“This is your new mama.”

She smiled as pleasantly as she could. “You can call me Leta,” she said.

“You’ll call her mama,” Curtis said strictly, making sure every child heard and understood.

Then he dismissed them all, and they scattered, except for Betsy, Mark and Willa, who huddled together and stared at her.

“You best get supper,” Curtis said, as he turned and walked away.

To be continued.