“Try putting in a pond, Bayard.
We can fill it off the windmill.
We’ve got a good well.”
Daddy grumbles, “The water’ll seep
back into the ground
as fast as I can pump it, Pol.
We’ll dry up our well
and then we’ll have nothing.”
“Plant some other things, then,” Ma says.
“Try cotton,
sorghum. If we plant the fields in different crops,
maybe some will do better,
better than wheat.”
Daddy says,
“No.
It has to be wheat.
I’ve grown it before.
I’ll grow it again.”
But Ma says, “Can’t you see
what’s happening, Bayard?
The wheat’s not meant to be here.”
“What about those apple trees of yours, Pol?
You think they are?
Nothing needs more to drink than those two.
But you wouldn’t hear of leveling your apples,
would you?”
Ma is bittering. I can see it in her mouth.
“A pond would work,” she says,
sounding crusty and stubborn.
And Daddy says, “Look it, Pol, who’s the farmer?
You or me?”
Ma says,
“Who pays the bills?”
“No one right now,” Daddy says.
Ma starts to quaking but she won’t let Daddy see.
Instead, she goes out to the chickens
and
her anger,
simmering over like a pot in an empty kitchen,
boils itself down doing chores.
April 1934