It was the second day that Kate and her father walked beans. They had been out since seven a.m. to get as much done as possible before the worst of the heat. Her father, Edgar, worked at a steady but unhurried pace. His shirt was soaked. She didn’t know how he kept going in his overalls, long-sleeved work shirt, and straw hat. She also wore long pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and a bandana tied over her hair. Her father had told her to take a break, even to go back to the house for a while if she wanted, but she didn’t want to leave him alone in the heat.
They had brought a thermos jug filled with ice water. She sited it well down the row behind her, which told her she had worked farther than she thought. That was good. She would finish the row she was in and work her way back to the water down the next row.
“How’re you doing?” Edgar called from a few rows away.
“Okay.”
“You want to stop for a while?”
“Nah,” she said, even though she did. “I can go for a while longer. Do you want to stop?”
He shook his head. “It’ll be worse out here later.”
A breeze swept across the field and ruffled the rows of bean plants, and Kate sighed as it reached them. “Oh, that feels good.”
“Nice and quiet, too. None of that damn racket.”
Two days before, a couple of high school boys from town that her father hired played a transistor radio on a top-forty station at full blast. Even from the kitchen, Kate could hear “Go Ask Alice.” They talked a lot, laughed and goofed off, and missed a good share of the weeds and volunteer corn. They had asked for $1.25 an hour, and Edgar had reluctantly agreed. The going rate for the neighbor boys had always been $1, but there were few young people left to do that kind of work. At the end of the day, Edgar paid the boys and said they didn’t need to come back.
Kate and her father stood for a moment letting the breeze wash over them before the air stilled again.
“Well…” her father sighed.
“Yeah,” said Kate.
She stepped into the next row and took down the volunteers with her corn knife as she went, working her way back to the water. A long drink of it and a swipe across her face and neck with a dampened handkerchief would feel good. Occasionally, there were weeds to be worked out with a hoe. There was a big butter print weed ahead in full bloom. Another one the boys had missed. Better get that before it goes to seed, she thought. She worked at the base of it with her hoe and knelt to pull it out, feeling the heat housed down among the burgeoning soybean rows.
She fell into the monotony of the work, telling herself she would rest when she reached the next corn plant or when she was even with a certain fence post in the distance, but when she reached her markers, she pushed a little farther. It was possible to lose all track of time out here. It crossed her mind to ask her father how long they’d been out. He kept a pocket watch in the front pocket of his bib overalls, but she decided against it even though she felt a headache coming on. She wore her mother’s sunglasses, having given up on the granny glasses she had bought at the dime store with her girlfriends, which were mostly for looks anyway.
“Do you care if I wear these?” she had asked Edgar as she tried them on. The lenses were dark, and the frames looked like a style from the 1950s.
“No. Might as well,” he said.
She looked in the mirror. “I look old.”
Her father looked up from his newspaper and gave her a sad smile. “You have a long time before that happens.”
When Kate reached the thermos jug, the water was a blessing. She drank down a full cup, then poured some onto a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her face and neck. She knelt there for a minute, gathering her resolve to get back to work. Surely it was getting close to noon. An iced tea and bologna sandwich in front of the fan sounded awfully good. She pulled herself up and finished the row that led back toward the house, leaving the thermos for her father. At the lane where they entered the field, she perched on the tongue of a grain wagon that was parked in the shade.
“Well, sister, let’s quit.” The thermos jug dangled in Edgar’s hand as he strode toward her using his term of endearment for her. He always called her sister or sis.
As her father washed up in the bathroom, Kate sat in the kitchen in front of the fan. She held a washcloth soaked in cold water over her face, hoping to quell the headache. Her mouth filled with saliva and she swallowed, but more surged after it. Quietly, she went out the back door and stepped behind a tree where she spat onto the ground. Again, her mouth filled, and again, she spat. There was a vague churn in her stomach. She held the cold cloth to her mouth, waiting for the feeling to pass. She spat again for good measure and went back inside. Her father stood in the kitchen glancing at the newspaper, and she slipped past him into the bathroom as her mouth filled once more. Now her stomach rebelled, and she knelt before the toilet. As she felt the push come up, she flushed to mask the sound of her nausea. After, she rested her elbows on the toilet seat holding her head in her hands. The headache hadn’t abated. She stood, felt a little weak, but decided she could make it to the kitchen.
Her father put the paper down. “You okay?”
“Uh huh.”
He gave her a critical look.
“I’m fine,” she said.
He studied her for a moment. “You don’t look so good. You get too hot?”
“I’m okay. I just need to eat. So, a bologna sandwich?” She turned to the refrigerator.
They agreed that after lunch and a rest they would decide whether or not to go back out to the field. Within moments, the two sandwiches on Edgar’s plate were gone. Even in the heat, he had a good appetite. Kate took small bites of hers, faking hunger until Edgar rinsed off his plate and went to the living room to rest, then she put the sandwich in the back of the refrigerator where he wouldn’t notice it. Edgar found a Cardinals baseball game on TV and dozed off, and Kate settled into a lawn chair on the front porch with a book of poetry from the library. “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,” she read. They had discussed the poem in English, Kate’s favorite class, but she had missed a lot of school during sophomore year, and she had wanted to read the poem again. The words lifted from the page, blurred, shifted, and that was the last thing she remembered. Sometime later, the screen door opened and Edgar came out.
“Guess I’ll go over and see what your Uncle Jim’s up to.”
“Want me to come with you?”
“Nah. I won’t be a minute.”
She watched the rusted old pickup disappear down the lane, then trace the horizon on the main road toward Jim’s place. Edgar’s land adjoined that of his sister Ione and her husband Jim. Their big, square farmhouse, much like Edgar and Kate’s, could be seen like a monopoly piece in the distance. When she saw the pickup pull into Jim’s driveway, she went into the kitchen. She looked for her sandwich, but it had been pushed aside when her father had reached for the pitcher of water they kept in the fridge.
At breakfast the next morning, Kate said, “I’m ready to go out any time.”
They hadn’t returned to the field the day before.
Edgar took a drink of coffee. “Jim mentioned somebody who could use the work and doesn’t charge too much. Thought I’d see about it.”
Kate frowned. “Are you sure we can’t finish it ourselves? I hate to spend any more money, especially after those boys did such a bad job. I can go out again today.”
“I think you got too hot yesterday,” Edgar said.
Kate shook her head. “I was okay.”
“I don’t think you were.”
“You sound like Mom.”
“Well, that’s my job now, too.”
They exchanged a sad smile.
Kate’s mother had died two years before. The first summer without her, if it hadn’t been for Jim and Ione’s help with chores, meals, and such, Kate didn’t know what they would have done. Then, over the winter, Kate came down with colds and flu that turned into strep throat, which required antibiotics from the doctor. Even Edgar, who was rarely ill, battled flu.
Kate still moved within the cavernous absence of her mother. There were ever-present reminders of Clary—the tools of her everyday life, the orderly pots and pans in the cupboards, the hoes and rakes she used in the garden, but also the personal things—her clothes, her purse, her makeup and the lingering scent of her perfume at the dresser in the bedroom, and in the dresser drawers, the undergarments, the costume jewelry she wore to church, weddings, funerals, anniversary parties and such. In the closet hung her house dresses, all homemade, and her few good dresses. Her shoes were still neatly lined up on the floor. Something needed to be done with it all, but neither Kate nor her father could bring themselves to begin. Ione would help whenever they asked, yet Kate knew the decisions would fall mostly upon her. The prospect of handling her mother’s private things, packing them, and removing them seemed a betrayal, an erasure of her and an act that would finalize the breach between them.
There had been frequent clashes over Kate’s lack of ability and interest in learning any domestic skills. Clary had always been short on patience, but when Kate burned something on the stove, which was often, Clary said, “Never mind. I’ll finish it myself. Just read a book.” Sometimes she shook her head and said, only half in jest, “A farm girl who can’t even heat up a pan of green beans.”
In taking on the daily work herself, Kate sometimes sank into thoughts about her mother and her unhappiness. Kate believed she had fallen short of being a daughter to be proud of, but she wondered how she could be the source of all her mother’s discontent. Sometimes Clary cried in anger over the smallest matters. There were times when she went to bed in the middle of the day, seemingly depleted of energy, and she might remain there for a couple of hours. When her mother went to bed, Kate often rode her bicycle to escape the tense silence of the house. Standing to pump the bike hard up the hill toward the county road, Kate felt energy surge through her veins as the fenders rattled with abandon. Other times, she rode to where her father worked and sat watching him. They said little, but Edgar might ask Kate to hold a board while he nailed it in place or to give some other bit of assistance.
Now, Kate was glad to be alone with Edgar working outside within sight of the house. She wondered if she should feel guilty.
She had stopped ironing her father’s work shirts. Pinned out on the clothesline, the breeze blew them out smooth, making them ready to hang in the closet. She had stopped pairing his clean socks, instead putting them in one neat pile in the dresser drawer. He was perfectly capable of pulling out two at a time. She didn’t sweep the kitchen every day. She didn’t go to church anymore. Clary’s store of canned goods had been more than enough to see Kate and Edgar through that first year, but this year, Kate knew she needed to plant a garden. She had planted lettuce, radishes, tomatoes, and carrots and later some green beans. She smiled when she saw they had come up. She also saw how crooked the rows were. Crooked as a dog’s hind leg, her mother would have said. Many nights, she stayed up until midnight reading in bed, something Clary had chided her for, saying she needed to be rested for school. Now, she did it at will as her father snored loudly down the hall.
One evening at supper, earlier in the summer, Edgar had said, “You know, if you wanted to get a job in town this summer, at the Dairy Stop or someplace, that would be okay.”
Kate shook her head. “There’s too much to do around here.”
“I just thought you might like to make some money of your own, and…I don’t want you to be stuck here all the time.”
Kate stared at her plate for a moment. “It would be good to bring in some money, but…I don’t want to leave you with all the work. I don’t want to leave you here alone. Anyway, the town kids have all the jobs by now.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m not helpless. I just thought you could be around other kids and…and maybe have some fun.”
Kate gave her father a sideways glance and rolled her eyes.
“You’re entitled to have some fun,” he said.
Kate drew a breath. “I don’t really want to be around other kids. They don’t get it. Anyway, I think I forgot how to have fun.”
“That’s what I’m sayin’. It’s been two years. If you were around your friends, maybe you’d feel better.” He buttered some bread. “Maybe you could help with Bible school. That’s coming up isn’t it? You could help Ione with it.”
Kate stared at her food. “I’ll think about it.”
Jim had told Edgar about a woman he had hired recently to help walk his own beans. Her name was Mary Haskell. He said she and her husband were hard up, and she was usually interested in taking any work offered. She was reliable and did a good job. They lived along the county road about five miles south of town.
“Thought I’d see if she wants the work,” Edgar said. He sipped his coffee. “I’ll have to drive over there though. Jim says they don’t have a telephone.” He sat back, having cleaned his plate. “Good bacon this morning by the way. It wasn’t black.” He grinned at her.
Kate smiled. “Thanks.” His gentle teasing was returning every now and then. “Want me to go with you today?”
“Yeah, why don’t you.”
Edgar pulled into a rutted driveway barely visible from the road. A dense stand of timber rose behind a small white house centered on a patch of yard. A white station wagon was parked next to a garage whose overhead door was open, possibly missing, revealing a couple of lawn mowers and a clutter of what appeared to be small engines.
From the pickup, Kate watched her father knock on the door and speak with the woman who answered. When he got behind the wheel he told Kate she wanted the work and would be over at seven o’clock the next morning. “She wants to be paid in cash,” he said as he turned the truck around. “I imagine they don’t have a bank account, so we’d better go on in to the bank and draw some money out.”
At seven o’clock the next morning, the white station wagon came up the lane, paused near a couple of maple trees that stood next to the yard gate, then backed into the grassy area between them. Mary Haskell got out, and as she did so, a little girl of about five emerged from the passenger side and watched as Mary opened the back of the car. Edgar went to the kitchen window with his coffee.
“She brought her little girl,” he said.
Kate joined him. “Probably no one to leave her with.”
“Probably not.” He drained his cup and watched as Mary Haskell brought out a thermos jug and a blanket that she spread on the grass. “Well, I’d better go out and—Chrissakes! She’s got a little baby!”
Mary had spread another blanket on the tailgate. Kate could see now see that she was working with a little bundle and that the little bundle was an infant.
“Come out with me,” he said.
Kate followed him to the car.
“Morning,” said Edgar as they approached.
Mary Haskell wore shorts and a sleeveless shirt. She was solidly built and deeply tanned. She asked if it was okay to leave the car there with the baby, which Kate could tell was only weeks old, and added that she and her daughter would come back to check on him periodically.
“Kate can watch the kids at the house. You don’t have to leave them out here,” he said.
“They’ll be fine.” Mary nodded at the little girl. “She can check on the baby and let me know if he needs anything.”
“Well…if that’s what you’d rather do,” he said.
“They’ll be fine.”
Edgar told her he would show her where to start, and Mary followed him carrying her corn knife. The little girl brought up the rear, her arms wrapped around the thermos jug and walking bandy-legged under its weight.
Edgar glanced back. “That’s awful big for you, honey. Want me to carry that?”
“I can do it,” said the girl, her words barely audible.
Kate finished cleaning up the kitchen and got ready to wash the morning’s eggs as there were almost enough to take to the creamery. She brought out a rag and spread a towel on the drainboard where they could dry and ran a pan of water. She pulled the kitchen stool to the sink and set to work. Her mother had always hated this job, but it was a task Kate didn’t mind. She could change the radio station from the one Edgar listened to each morning for the weather forecast and the markets to a top-forty station that played Jefferson Airplane, Three Dog Night, Sly and the Family Stone, and others that Edgar referred to as that damn racket.
The job also allowed for thinking. Wiping down the eggs brought to mind the quiet tasks she and her mother worked on together, like shelling peas or snapping green beans. They had good talks then. They were lazy, gentle, meandering mother-daughter conversations. They sat in the shade of the side yard with the bucket of peas between their chairs, shelling them into pans settled in their laps. They talked about kids Kate knew, her teachers, people around the neighborhood, things Clary and her brothers did when they were young, the events of the day, and life in general. Kate wished there had been more times like those. She remembered saying once, “I love peas. Not just to eat. They’re so perfect. They’re so uniform.” She held a split pod in her hand and studied it as she spoke.
“They are pretty,” her mother had said.
“How many people appreciate the beauty of peas in a pod?”
Clary laughed. “Not many, I’d guess.”
Kate smiled, remembering she had been able to make her mother laugh sometimes. There was connection and peace in those conversations. Why couldn’t there have been more of them? In those moments she knew she loved her mother and that her mother loved her. Most of the time, things were calm, routine, even mundane. But there were also those strained, puzzling times, the causes of which Kate couldn’t figure out. Had she been a comfort to her in her illness? Had she had been able to provide anything her mother needed? Was she ever proud of me? Kate wondered. Would she be proud of me now?
Kate stood to take a break and moved to the window, where she saw her father at Mary’s car, bent over the baby. The little girl had joined her mother among the beans. She went out and heard his voice as she approached.
“Iz oo doin’ okay out here all by yourself? Huh? Iz oo doin’ okay?” He wiggled his finger over the baby’s tummy.
She grinned. He loved kids, even little babies. He would be a silly grandpa, and a good one. The baby made little cooing sounds, waved his arms and legs, and wrapped his tiny fingers around Edgar’s hard, cracked one.
Edgar straightened, looked at Kate with a slight smile, and shook his head.
At noon, Edgar invited Mary to come in with the children and have their lunch in front of the fan, but she quietly refused, saying they’d be fine in the shade. He said to at least help themselves to water at the pump. As Kate made lunch for Edgar and herself, she saw Mary take a cooler from the car and set out lunch for the little girl. She changed the baby and gave him a bottle as her daughter sat on the blanket and ate.
“Is she doing a good job?” Kate asked her father.
“She is.”
“She doesn’t seem very friendly.”
“She doesn’t have much to say, but she’s a good worker.”
By the time Edgar got up from the table, Mary had returned to the field. At two o’clock, he walked out to where she worked and told her to quit for the day if she wanted and to start again in the morning. He would pay her for what she had done so far. She agreed and said she would finish out the row she was on.
The next morning at seven, the white station wagon was parked under the maple trees, and Mary again arranged things with the baby. The little girl followed her to the field with the water jug. Kate went to the living room window, where she could survey the expanse of the beanfield. Several rows away, Edgar worked as well.
Kate moved the chairs out of the kitchen, rolled up the rugs, and swept. She felt timid around Mary’s stern demeanor, but she thought of the little girl with only one toy to play with, checking on a tiny baby, following her mother around in a hot beanfield, filling what must seem like endless hours. She shook out the rugs and replaced them on the kitchen floor. Her father had left a little coffee in the pot. She poured it for herself; she was developing a taste for it. There were more eggs to deal with, and more weeds to pull in the garden of course, and tomatoes ripening by the dozen.
It was going to be another hot day, but Kate decided since it was early and the air was still a little cool, she could make chocolate chip cookies. That was one thing she did well. She had yearned for something chocolate. Even in the heat, the desire for it didn’t go away. Everything she needed was in the cupboard.
It didn’t take long to mix up the dough. Kate looked out the window and saw the little girl had returned. She watched her play with a toy as she sat on the blanket. In a minute, she got up, looked at the baby, took his little hand for a moment and returned to the blanket. She entertained herself for several minutes, went to the edge of the field, and looked for her mother, who was now at the far end. The girl returned to the car where she stepped to the edge of the grassy patch and surveyed her surroundings. Kate was afraid she would wander away from the car to explore, but she did not.
She’s bored, thought Kate. She put the cookie dough in the fridge and went upstairs to the spare bedroom where she had been sorting things. In the process of sorting her mother’s belongings and moving boxes into the spare bedroom, she had unearthed boxes with many of her own childhood books and toys. She rummaged through them, pulled something out, and stood for several minutes in the airless room, looking at it.
The little girl turned as Kate opened the yard gate.
“Hi,” Kate said.
The girl said hi, almost whispering it.
“How are you?” said Kate.
“Fine.”
Her hair was black and cut in a bob with straight bangs. She wore the same little blue and white dress she had worn the day before, now dirty from playing, and had kicked off her sandals. She held a long stick she had found in the grass.
“Are you getting bored out here?”
“I don’t know,” she said with a little shrug.
“Who’s your friend?” Kate nodded at the toy she’d been playing with, noticing it was a little plush rabbit.
“Coconut.”
Kate smiled. “Coconut the Bunny Rabbit?”
The girl nodded solemnly as she slowly swished the stick back and forth across the grass.
Kate knelt at the edge of the blanket. “What’s your name?”
“Sky,” she answered.
“Sky, like the blue sky?” said Kate and pointed upward.
She nodded.
“That’s a pretty name.”
Sky stared at the grass as she waved the stick across it.
“How old are you?”
“Five,” she said quietly, then, “Four.”
“This many?” Kate held up four fingers. Sky shook her head.
“This many?” Kate asked, holding up all five.
Sky nodded. She turned her whole body now as she swished the stick in wider arcs.
Kate asked the baby’s name, and Sky said it was Jimmy. Kate bent over the baby, propped up on a rolled-up blanket. “Hello, Jimmy,” she said gently and took his tiny hand. His fingers closed around hers.
“Do you like being a big sister?”
Sky nodded.
“You’re doing a good job looking after him.”
Sky stared at the grass, apparently becoming bored with sweeping it with the stick.
“Do you like stories?” Kate asked.
The girl nodded.
“Do you know the story about the three little kittens?”
Sky shook her head.
“Would you like to hear it?”
She shrugged.
“I’ll read a little. You can see if you like it, okay?”
Sky nodded, and Kate began to read:
The three little kittens, they lost their mittens
And they began to cry
“See the kittens? You can pet them.” Kate tilted the book toward the little girl and moved her fingers across the raised, fuzzy pictures of the kittens, then Sky did the same and nodded as she did so.
Kate continued reading the story, making the meows like a cat, which made Sky giggle. The little girl looked at the pictures as Kate continued. When she got to, “Purr, purr, purr, Oh, let us have some pie,” Kate tried to purr.
“That wasn’t a very good purr was it?”
Sky giggled again.
“Did you like the story?”
Sky nodded.
“Do you like chocolate chip cookies?”
“Uh huh,” Sky said.
“Well, I’m making some. It’ll be lunch time pretty soon. How about if I bring some out for you and your mom?”
“Yeah,” said Sky, with a slight smile.
“Okay. I’ll be back with some cookies a little later then.” Kate laid the book on the blanket and got up. She looked at Jimmy and wondered if she should pick him up. Somehow it seemed she shouldn’t, and she resisted the urge. “See you in a bit,” she said. Sky gave her a small wave as Kate left her.
By the time Mary and Edgar returned from the field at noon, the cookies had cooled. Mary sat on the blanket holding Jimmy when Kate walked out.
“I promised Sky I’d bring out some cookies for you.”
Kate had arranged the cookies on a paper plate and slid them into a plastic bag. She handed them toward Mary.
“Oh…” the woman said, unsmiling. She hesitated, and Kate thought she would refuse them, but Mary murmured, “Thank you,” and took the plate.
“I saved some out before Dad eats them all,” said Kate.
Mary smiled a little.
“Well, let us know if you need anything,” Kate added and stepped back.
Mary nodded.
“That was real nice of you,” Edgar said as he and Kate sat down to lunch.
“The little girl’s name is Sky.”
“That’s an odd name,” said Edgar.
“I think it’s kind of pretty.”
Edgar chuckled. “Anything goes these days.”
“Mary’s kind of like, stoic or something. I was afraid she was mad about the cookies.”
“I wouldn’t know why,” Edgar said.
“I read to Sky for a few minutes this morning. I wondered if I should pick the baby up. He seemed okay though.”
“She didn’t want any help.” Edgar spooned more green beans onto his plate. “It’s just her way, I guess.” He finished eating, then took two cookies from the wire rack where they had cooled. “These are darned good,” he said and took two more, picked up that day’s paper and went to the living room. Kate cleared the dishes and started out the back door to weed the garden. The Three Little Kittens book leaned against the step.
After a while, Edgar walked back out to the field to do a few rows. Mary was already working. By mid-afternoon, the field was done, and Mary carried her knife and the water jug to the car. Edgar came to the house to get the money and said to Kate, “I wonder if she’d take some tomatoes?”
Kate said she would put some nice ones in a bag.
Edgar counted out the cash and went to pay Mary. “Here you go,” he said, handing her the folded bills.
“Thanks. Appreciate it,” Mary said. She rolled up the bills and put them in the pocket of her shorts. She went to the back of the car. “Well, come on, buddy,” she said as she lifted Jimmy to her. Sky climbed into the passenger seat, and Mary put Jimmy in her lap.
“I’ll put your water and your knife back here,” said Edgar.
Kate approached with the bag of tomatoes, the top of it neatly folded over. Edgar put it next to the water and the knife. Kate shook out the blanket and folded it, and Edgar laid it over the bag and other belongings.
Mary glanced around to be sure she had everything. “Well—okay then—” she said.
“We put your blanket in there, too,” said Edgar.
Mary nodded her thanks to the two of them, self-conscious with their attention, then got behind the wheel.
“Many thanks,” Edgar said as she pulled away.
They watched the car disappear down the lane, then Kate looked at her bicycle leaning against the garage. “Think I’ll go for a ride.”
“Okay. There may not be any cookies left when you get back though.” Her father put his hand on her shoulder and gave her a playful shove.
Kate laughed as he pushed her off balance a little.
Pedaling down the rutted driveway she glanced at the garden where her crooked rows of beans, carrots, and peas flourished, and the tomato vines hung heavy with fruit. She would attend to them when she returned. For now, she wanted to ponder things. She wanted to figure out what she felt. She wanted to think of Sky discovering the little book she had tucked into the bag of tomatoes. She wanted to think of Mary slicing some of the meaty tomatoes for supper. She wanted to think about something that wasn’t exactly happiness but that satisfied the soul.
*
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(Photo: Judd McCullum/flickr.com/ CC BY 2.0)
- Walking Beans by Diane DeBok - February 6, 2025