March 1944
Daddy would’ve planted the peas in February, and I had every intention of doing the same. But it was practically the middle of March before I got around to it.
I was aggravated with Junior Bledsoe for showing up right when me and Peggy Sue was fixing to run Daddy’s tiller. There he was, dragging it out of the shed just like it belonged to him.
“Junior, who said you could take over my garden? I should never’ve told you I was planting peas today,” I said.
Junior had a smudge of black grease across his forehead, and his hair was all messed up. He flapped an oily rag in my direction. “Oh, stop it, Ann Fay. This is a man’s job and you know it.”
“And Daddy told me I’m the man of the house while he’s gone.”
“Uh-huh. But he asked me to do the heavy work.” Junior took the oil plug out and looked inside.
“Yeah, well, lots of women are doing men’s work now that the men are gone. If they got women building battleships, I’m sure I can run a garden tiller. We been planning this all week. Right, Peggy Sue?”
I looked to my best friend, thinking she’d help me out. But she was sitting on the back porch steps twirling her blond hair around a finger, dreaming about something besides working in the garden.
Junior pulled on the starter rope. Nothing happened. “See there?” he said. “It ain’t that easy.”
“Come on,” said Peggy Sue. “Let the man have the job.” She tugged on my arm, and I knew she wanted to go off somewhere and play.
One thing about Peggy Sue is, she’s not used to working like I am. Her momma has a colored maid doing the housework. Her daddy owns a hosiery mill, so he makes lots of money. And he don’t have to go to war. He gets to stay home and run his business because he sells socks to the government for the soldiers overseas.
Peggy Sue was happy to let Junior take my garden job. She grabbed my hand and started running. So I went along with her. We crossed the garden spot and jumped over Daddy’s ditch, the one he made to keep the wisteria out.
But in our minds it wasn’t a ditch anymore—it was a deep ravine with serpents and giant spiders spilling over the top. And we didn’t jump over it—we closed our eyes, held hands, and flew over it. All of a sudden we was in a beautiful forest, the home of Wisteria Mansion. It was a sparkly, magical place where bad things could never happen.
Of course, here in the middle of March, the wisteria vines was bare as barbed wire. But in just a few weeks we’d be surrounded by purple blossoms. Then the leaves would be popping out right behind them, making the walls around the mansion thicker and even more secret.
Me and Peggy Sue sat on our favorite rock and dreamed about summer days—wading in the creek that ran nearby and eating tomato sandwiches in the dining room of our mansion.
After a while I got up and peeked through a break in the pine trees. Back at the house, Momma was taking clothes off the wash line and Junior was running that tiller through the garden. And I seen Pete, our one-eyed black mutt, following along behind, sniffing in the dirt.
“Come on,” I said. And this time I jerked Peggy Sue up and started running. Now that Junior had a row of soil broke up, I had to plant them peas. They was calling for rain and my daddy would be proud of me for getting the peas planted just in time.
Junior asked did I want to try running the tiller. “No,” I said. “You wanted to do it. Now do it.” The sun was about to slip over the back side of Bakers Mountain, so I needed Junior’s help. Even if I did hate to admit it.
I got two hoes out of the shed and handed one to Peggy Sue. “Here,” I said. “We got to get them peas in before dark. After that, we’ll go to Junior’s house and listen to the radio.”
We dragged the edges of the hoes in the dirt to make a furrow. The smell of that fresh-turned dirt put me in mind of Daddy. It made me want to plant the best garden in America—and not just because everyone else was planting Victory gardens to help the war effort. I wanted to do it on account of them overalls.
I showed Ida and Ellie how to drop a seed every couple of inches, and I told Bobby to push a little dirt overtop of them.
“But Daddy said I should play ever’ day,” argued Bobby.
That boy was smack good at getting out of work. When his brown eyes filled up with tears I usually give in to him. But today I seen how he was covered with dirt on all sides from rolling in the garden with Pete. So I said, “You played your share for this day. Now, get to work.”
He covered a few seeds, but next thing I knew, he was spinning himself dizzy on the tire swing and trying to walk. “Look,” he said. “I’m drunk.”
Then Ellie and Ida wanted their turns on the swing. They wouldn’t none of them listen to me when I hollered for them to get back to work.
I finally give up and took a break in the johnny house. While I was in there I thought about the letter we had got from Daddy that week. I had read it so many times I knew it by heart.
Dear family,
How’s everything on the home front? I hope you children are helping Momma. Whatever she tells you to do, I want you to listen. No complaining! We all have to do our part to win this war. You do your part there and I do my part here.
Of course I can’t tell you anything about where I am or what mission we’re working on. But it ain’t nothing like home—I can tell you that much. If I was home, I’d be checking the garden every morning to see if the peas had sprouted. Here, there ain’t a green leaf in sight. Nothing but bare trees and snow. It’s miserable cold.
If you get a chance, please send cigarettes. Right now I can get them from the army. But I don’t know how long it will last.
Myrtle, I pray for you and the children every day. I’ll be home before you know it.
All my love,
Daddy
I prayed for Daddy every night when I went to bed. I prayed he would come home alive and I would do him proud while he was gone. But to tell the truth—helping Momma with all the work Daddy always done … well, it was a lot more than I knew how to do sometimes.
While I sat in the outhouse, I heard Daddy talking in my head. He was saying, “If Roosevelt could get himself elected president, then you can handle anything life throws your way.”
Well, I didn’t think it was right for me to have to play Daddy to them kids, but I knew I didn’t have a choice. So I thought about what Daddy would do and I knew he would make a game out of working.
I went outside and hollered at them young’uns, “First one in the garden gets to pick the bedtime story.”
You should’ve seen them racing to the garden when I said that.
By the time Junior was done tilling, the garden was the same size as Daddy always made it—big enough to set our house inside. The peas took up only a small part. I still had to plant a whole bunch of stuff. The hardest part would be keeping them young’uns working.
But Daddy was counting on me. I decided that if I had to, I’d work them kids till we all dropped.