Under the Haystack Read online

  Copyright © 2012 by: P. A. Engebrecht

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1-4751-9910-4

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4751-9910-9

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-62346-148-5

  SUMMARY: Three sisters, abandoned by their mother, try to keep the truth from the neighbors and continue to operate their farm.

  To Ron,

  who makes remembering

  a pleasant thing

  Also by P.A. Engebrecht

  Promise of Moonshine

  When Love Is Not Enough Chronicles of LauraJo

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  chapter 1

  “Marie? Marie?” came Sandy’s impatient voice. “You answer me, Marie. I know you’re under there!” Sandy leaned over, peering between two bales of hay.

  The haystack loomed high in the barn, looking massive and solid, but Sandy knew its secret. She knew that tunnels laced through it, leading to a large, square opening near the center—their secret retreat. In fact, Sandy and her two sisters had built the retreat themselves, forming the tunnels by setting bales on top of each other with narrow crawl spaces between the stacks. The center was a hollow two bales high, the roof a row of long boards placed close enough together across the stacked bales to support additional bales on top. To the casual observer, the stack looked solid.

  He was a casual observer. Sandy remembered how she had held her breath the day she had come into the barn and found him standing on top of the pile looking for Marie. But the boards had held. He did not discover their secret.

  He was their mother’s husband, and it seemed to Sandy that his favorite pastime was making life miserable for her and her two sisters. He never spoke to them unless it was to bawl them out for something, and he took special delight in picking on June, the younger of her two sisters. The girls had learned to give him a wide berth.

  Lately, Sandy had become puzzled by his overtures of friendship. What did he want? She thought again of the day her mother had gone to the store, taking Marie and June with her. Sandy had been making the bed, trying to straighten the far side without walking all the way around, when she saw him standing in the doorway watching her. He had started to move toward her when the door banged and her mother’s voice floated through the house. Sandy shuddered as she remembered his look and recalled other occasions when he had bumped up against her. His hands . . .

  She shook off the thought. “If you don’t come out of there this instant, Marie, I’ll come in and pull you out by the hair!”

  The tone of her voice made Shep their dog, who was part collie, part shepherd, whine and paw at the opening. He even started to go in between the bales but then backed out.

  Shep’s whine and Sandy’s ominous tone filtered through the tunnel, and it wasn’t long before Marie, with straw stuck in her dark hair, poked her head out between the bales.

  “Is Momma home yet?”

  “No, and it’s late. We’ve got lots to do.”

  “I’m not coming out until she comes!” Marie turned and started back through the tunnel.

  “Oh, no, you don’t!” Sandy grabbed her by the back pockets of her jeans and hauled her out while she kicked and clawed at the hay. “We’ve got to milk, feed Jerry and the chickens, and get dinner. You’ve got to do your share, so march!” Sandy gave her younger sister a push, and Marie moved sullenly ahead of her and the dog.

  “Why isn’t Momma home?” Marie pouted.

  “They’ve been late before,” Sandy said, matter-of-factly. “Maybe they had a flat tire.”

  Their mother and her husband worked at a manufacturing plant located some thirty-five miles from their rundown farm. The three girls did all the work that got done on the farm, feeding the animals, milking, and taking care of the house and the cooking. Sandy was responsible for making sure that everything was done. If it wasn’t, she got the devil.

  Originally, the house had been a two-room shack, but he had added two bedrooms and what was supposed to be a bathroom. The addition was over three years old, but he had never gotten around to finishing the interior of the rooms or installing the plumbing. The shiny insulation still showed between the studs in the bedrooms and the outhouse stood in back with well-oiled hinges. The outside of the addition was never shingled to match the original structure, either, and its black tar paper had been bleached gray by the sun. This makeshift structure was surrounded by a hardpan clay so devoid of nutrients that even a dandelion was hard pressed to survive.

  When they had first moved to the farm four years ago, there had been no running water. Sandy and Marie had had to carry it from an old well fifty feet from the back door. He was an electrician by trade and had installed an electric pump and some crude pipes, so that now there was at least cold running water in the kitchen; but water for baths and dishes had to be heated on the stove.

  For the first three years they had cooked on an old wood stove, and their only refrigeration had been a basket lowered into the well. Then, just this past year, they had acquired a second-hand electric stove and a refrigerator. These appliances had made life a lot easier for the girls. Now they had to chop and carry wood for only one stove—the big black one in the front room. And what a special treat it was to have cold milk in the summer!

  “We’ll wait supper until after our chores tonight. Marie, you and June will have to milk while I feed the rest of the animals.”

  “Why should we do your milking?” Marie pouted.

  “Because I’m cooking your dinner and feeding your chickens, that’s why!”

  Marie, making a few grumbling sounds, called to June. “Come on, June, we’ve got to milk all by ourselves tonight.” The two of them took the buckets and headed for the barn.

  Eight-year-old Marie was tall for her age, but June, two years younger, was small and scrawny—hardly big enough to carry the milk bucket without dragging it. Their three cows, Julie, Daisy, and Bess, bawled outside the barn door. Fred, the young bull calf, ran to meet them, nuzzling the bucket, eager for his share.

  “Go on, Fred, leave me alone.” June moved away from him, but he followed, pushing at the bucket. It had been only three weeks since he was born, but how he had changed! When they first found him, he had been all wobbly legs and wet hair, with curled designs in it where Julie’s tongue had cleaned him up. For the first week he had nursed, his short tail switching as he bent his front knees to get to his mother’s low-slung bag. When the milk didn’t come fast enough to suit him, he would bunt his bony head against her bag. Julie tolerated only so much, and then she kicked Fred a good one. Another time Julie turned him away, and he made the mistake of trying to nurse Bess, who kicked him so hard that he retreated behind the barn, bellowing his discomfort.

  When it was time to wean Fred, June had begged to be the one to teach him to drink from the bucket, and Sandy had agreed. First June let Fred suck on her fingers. While he sucked she lowered her hand slowly into the bucket until his nose was just below the surface of the warm, frothy milk. It took only about two times for Fred to know about buckets and how to drink, but he still loved to suck. He sucked on anything he came across. As the girls made their way to the barn, Fred followed them, sucking on the edge of June’s sweater, stretching it and getting it all slimy.

  Marie opened the door, and the cows went to their stanchions. June crawled up the boards that closed in t
heir feeding area and poured two scoops of bran in front of each cow. As the cows ate, the girls settled down to the chore of milking. They took their small stools from the wall and placed them on Daisy’s and Bess’s right side. Marie leaned one shoulder up against the cow, balancing herself, but just as she started to milk, Bess swung her tail around at some flies high on her back. She missed, and her tail hit Marie right in the head.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake!” Marie brushed her hand across her head in disgust. “June, would you tie up her tail for me?”

  June pulled her bucket back from beneath Daisy and moved in behind Bess. She took hold of the cow’s tail and clipped it to a clothespin fastened to a heavy piece of twine that was attached to the side of the barn. She fastened Daisy’s tail in the same way and then returned to her stool. She settled herself on her stool practically underneath the cow, so she could reach Daisy’s two back teats with her short arms. The first loud metallic sound of milk hitting the bottom of a pail echoed through the barn.

  “I bet I can get more foam than you,” boasted June.

  “Betcha can’t!” said Marie, and the race was on.

  In order to get a lot of foam, the first streams of milk had to be long and full. June’s hands were so small that she often resorted to using two on one teat. But she had been milking for over a year now, and her wrists had become very strong. However, she still had a hard time keeping up with Marie. The two girls concentrated on aiming the milk streams into the first puddle of milk that accumulated in the edge of the bucket, which was tipped toward the cow. When they finished, they compared buckets.

  “I beat you! See, I have more,” boasted June enthusiastically.

  “Not really! My bucket’s bigger around, so I really won.”

  “You did not!”

  “Did so!”

  “Did not!”

  Their chant echoed through the barn until they grew tired. Marie picked up her stool and went to the far side of Julie. June settled down on the other side, and the two of them started to milk. Julie was the only cow that allowed them to milk her from both sides at once.

  After they were through, they turned the cows back out to pasture and poured some of the milk into Fred’s bucket. They put two armfuls of hay out for Jerry, their oversized work horse, and then carried the heaviest bucket of milk between them to the house.

  Sandy strained the milk and set the buckets and strainer in the sink.

  “Why don’t they hurry up and come home? I’m hungry!” Marie hovered over the table, which stood set and waiting.

  “Why are they so late? You don’t suppose they had a crash?” said June. She watched Sandy intently, waiting for her answer.

  “No, they probably stopped off for a beer or something. Or maybe they got a flat tire. They’ll show up.” They always did, sooner or later, Sandy thought.

  They waited supper until nine; then Sandy gave in to Marie’s complaints, and they ate. The sky darkened slowly, as it does the first week of June. For some reason this night held no soft promise of summer, but came with an ominous feeling. Foreboding invaded the house like a damp fog. Had there been an accident? Would someone come and knock on their door telling them that their mother was hurt or even dead? The night settled heavily.

  The girls did the dishes and tried not to think about the time, but their eyes kept returning to the clock, which ticked hollowly through the room. They had given up any pretense at talking. The ominous ticking echoed, tightening the girls’ nerves. They strained toward the distant sound of a car and felt shaken when it did not slow down. June’s eyes grew cloudy with worry, then misty with tears.

  Sandy tried to get the younger girls to go to bed, but June started to cry. “Why doesn’t Mommy come?” she sobbed, wiping the back of her hand beneath her drippy nose and across her teary eyes. Her stringy, mousy hair separated over her ears, but she had lovely gray eyes when they weren’t full of tears. Her eyes were the windows to her agile mind. June absorbed things more quickly than Marie, although she was two years younger. At six she could read almost as well as Marie and could spell better. There was an awareness in Sandy’s younger sister, a gentleness that made her vulnerable. She cried over hurt animals and felt a special tenderness toward people . . . so different from Marie.

  Marie had beautiful large, dark eyes. Of the three girls she was the pretty one, and she knew it. She worked at beguiling people into doing what she wanted. Her dark hair grew nicely with a slight curl at the end, and her skin had a dark, ruddy glow of health.

  “Hush now, June,” soothed Sandy. “We’ll all go to bed. I’ve locked the doors, and we’ve got Shep, so we’ll be safe. When Momma comes, she’ll just have to knock.”

  Sandy herded the two girls into bed and then crawled in on her side and drew up the covers. Her presence quieted June. The three of them snuggled together, and in the security of their bed it wasn’t long before Sandy heard the regular breathing of the others.

  Sandy herself could not sleep. An unfamiliar feeling gnawed at her. Their mother’s absence was not natural.

  Gently, she eased herself out of bed and felt her way across the rough floor and through the door, closing it softly behind her. She went into her mother’s room and switched on the light. Everything seemed normal.

  She went to a drawer and pulled it open. Its emptiness made it slide so fast that it almost fell from her hands. With care she worked it back onto its runners and pushed it shut. Carefully, she opened the next drawer and the next. Each one stared back at her with a naked white lining.

  Sandy’s heart pounded. She turned to the closet, and relief welled up in her throat when she saw her mother’s dresses hanging there. Then she looked closer, and the relief she had felt died. Those dresses were the ones her mother intended to give away.

  Sick with fear at what she might discover, Sandy made herself check the back of the closet. At once the knowledge that she had been frantically pushing away glared so brilliantly that she could no longer ignore it. The suitcases were gone. Their mother had really gone this time . . . had run off with him.

  Sandy had once heard them quarreling when she came in from the barn with the milk. Their voices had been so loud that they didn’t hear her. He had been angrily demanding that his wife choose between him and her three brats. Sandy’s heart thumped with remembering. She couldn’t believe their mother would choose him. He wasn’t nice or even good-looking.

  She sank heavily to the bed and buried her head in her hands. The loud ticking of the cheap clock sitting near the bed taunted her. She got up. At the doorway she hesitated, then she switched off the light and closed the door.

  Numb and empty, Sandy sat in the darkened front room. Her heart beat in time with the hollow ticking that filled the house. Time passed. The numbness began to dissolve into unanswered questions that flashed across her mind the way the occasional auto lights flashed across the ceiling.

  What would she tell Marie and June, especially June, who clung to her mother anxiously whenever she came home? The youngest daughter needed their mother far more than either Marie or Sandy. After all, Sandy was almost full grown now—thirteen, going on fourteen, come late September—that was practically grown.

  Sondra was her real name, but everyone called her Sandy because of her hair, a mixture that sometimes looked red, sometimes blond. It cast back the sun’s rays in kaleidoscopic hues, ever changing. Its color was the one nice thing about Sandy’s hair, but it was so baby fine that it mussed with the slightest breeze and so straight that it seemed to Sandy to stand out from her head. Controlling it was about as impossible as hatching an egg under a rooster.

  Sandy’s hair was not the only thing that dismayed her. Her body just wasn’t right. Where other girls her age had begun to round out and soften, Sandy was still bony and angular, like Fred the bull calf. Her small face was lighted by nice green eyes, but they were overshadowed by her mouth. It slashed across her face like a great chasm, and when she smiled, her skin drew taut across her bony cheeks wi
th deep furrows on each side of it.

  The thing that Sandy couldn’t see was the animation that lighted her face when she talked. It gave her a radiance that brought her features into focus. What Sandy saw as homeliness was in reality an intriguing and delightful charm.

  But now she sat in the darkened room frightened and alone. Tears welled up and flowed silently down her cheeks. What would become of the three of them? They had always stuck together against him and against the world when it threatened. It was threatening now. They would be separated, farmed out to people who didn’t care, or maybe put in an orphanage.

  As Sandy thought of what would happen to them, something within her began to grow. Its birth was small and painful, and she didn’t understand it at first; but then she recognized it—she hated her mother.

  The fear in her turned to anger. They could get along without her. What did she do anyway? Nothing! Sandy was old enough. She’d take care of June and Marie. After all, she’d been doing just that for the past three years, hadn’t she?

  Maybe their mother would change her mind and come back—Sandy quickly pushed away the hope of that last thought. Better to have no hope, to rely on yourself.

  Determination began to grow within her. She wouldn’t let them be separated. They would stay together in spite of their mother. Then again the hope that refused to be pushed away returned. Of course she would change her mind and come back. She just had to! Until that moment they would wait, the three of them, right here running the farm like always.

  Sandy settled on a plan. Then she crept back into bed and snuggled up to the warmth of her sleeping sisters.

  As the sky lightened, Sandy awakened. She heard the crow of the rooster and edged herself out of bed. Closing the door quietly, she went into the kitchen. Shep stretched and yawned, curling his tongue along the roof of his mouth, and then settled back to sleep. Sandy took the pencil and tablet her mother usually used to write to their grandmother and started to write a note, mimicking her mother’s large, scrawling hand.