WHEN MOTHER WAS SICK

Mother had just finished the breakfast dishes that summer morning. She threw the dishwater out the east door and hung up the dishpan. Then she made her way into the bedroom off the kitchen and lay down on the bed.

“Mother! Are you sick? What’s the matter?” Mother never laid down at this time of the morning and seldom in the afternoon unless it was on a Sunday.

“I can’t go on any longer,” answered Mother. “I’ll just have to lay down for a little while. I must have caught this summer complaint that’s been going around.”

Jenny went into the bedroom and looked at Mother. She started to climb on the bed beside her.

“You run along and play, honey. I don’t feel very good.”

“Are you goin’ to git up pretty soon?”

“Maybe. Now be a good girl.”

Jenny went back out to the kitchen. Margaret was bouncing a rubber ball outside. The kitchen seemed empty and quiet. There was no clatter of cooking, no smell of bread, cake or pie baking. The floor needed sweeping. Jenny could hear the flies buzzing and the clock ticking. A hen was singing a contented hen song from somewhere in the yard. The yellow morning sun shone through the cracked places in the dark green window shade on the east window, making a pattern of branches on the floor and part of the wall.

“Jenny went to the bedroom and said, “I’m goin’ outside.”

“All right. Why don’t you see what Margaret is doing?”

Jenny went out the screen door, which was black with flies, letting it bang behind her and disrupting the flies so that they flew up in a cloud. Margaret was still bouncing the ball up and down.

“Do you want to play with me? I’ll let you chase the ball when I miss it.”

“Okay.”

Margaret was being nice to Jenny today. They didn’t even quarrel. It was fun, for a while,
to chase the elusive ball, but the sun was hot, and they tired of the game, and went back inside the house. Mother was throwing up into the wash pan. The throw-up had a bad sour smell. She had gotten the chamber pot from the closet, because she had diarrhea too, and knew she wouldn’t be able to make it to the outdoor toilet in time. An awful smell came from the chamber pot. too.

“Poor Mother,” sympathized Margaret.

“Poor Mother,” murmured Jenny.

Mother went back to bed. Near the east door sat a bushel basket of blue plums, ripening in the sun, waiting to be canned or made into preserves.

“Can I have a plum?” Jenny asked.

“Go ahead.”

Jenny put a whole plum into her mouth, making her cheek bulge. She punctured it with her teeth and the sweet juice oozed out. Next she chewed on the plum; the skin was more sour than the rest, but it was good too. She threw the seed out the door, disturbing more flies from the black curtain of flies on the screen. Some came into the house. She ate several more plums, throwing the seeds into the cob basket.

A car came down the road, leaving a cloud of dust behind. It was Ernie, the rural mail carrier.

“I’m going to meet the mail carrier,” Margaret announced importantly.

Jenny ate another plum. Margaret returned shortly.

“What was the mail?” Mother called from the bedroom.

“Just the Daily. I talked to Ernie.”

“What did he have to say?”

“I told him you were sick with flu and he said that was too bad and that lots of people in town were having the flu too.”

Margaret spread the newspaper on the dining room rug and began reading the funnies to herself. Jenny ate another plum. The morning dragged on. Finally Daddy came in from the field. Jenny and Margaret were both glad to see him.

“Read me the funnies, Daddy,” Jenny begged, tugging at his hand.

Daddy immediately inquired, “Where’s Mother?”

“She’s sick,” Margaret explained. Got the flu.”

Daddy went into the bedroom.

“Feeling pretty tough, are you Mother?” he asked softly.

“I felt faint and had to go to bed. I’ve been vomiting and running off the bowels all morning. I must have caught the summer complaint at the picnic last week.”

“You stay right there. I’ll take care of everything. What do you want me to fix for dinner?”

“Oh, just fry some eggs and open up a can of corn.”

Jenny followed Daddy around the room as he started a fire in the kitchen range and began preparing the noon meal. Margaret brought in a basket of cobs and set the table. Daddy cursed under his breath as he dropped some eggshell into the eggs in the skillet. He opened a can of corn and put it into a pan on the stove, but burned it a little. He made coffee for himself. Margaret set the table and got out the loaf of home made bread and some butter.

“Isn’t Mother goin’ to eat ?” Jenny asked, as just the three of them sat at the table, but nobody answered. Daddy cut up Jenny’s egg, but it was all crisp around the outside and scratchy to her throat when she tried to swallow it. She put her fork down. He put some corn onto her plate, but part of it was brown and burned and she couldn’t eat it either.

“Eat your bread and butter, Sis,” Daddy coaxed.

Jenny glanced at the thick uneven slab of bread.

“Mother doesn’t cut it that way,” she whined, and refused to touch it.

Daddy leaned back in his chair and read the newspaper and then said he had to go back to the field. He told Margaret that she should go ahead and wash the dishes. He went out to the tractor shed to get gasoline for his tractor and then climbed onto the tractor seat. The tractor made its pop pop sound as he drove it out of the driveway and on up the road.

Jenny picked up a plum and went outside to the brick walk where the yellow cat was sitting in the sun. She squatted down beside the cat.

“Are you hungry?” she asked it.

The cat said,”Yow.,” as if in reply. When it “yowed,” Jenny looked closely at the inside of its mouth. Mother had said that all cats have worms under their tongues, but Jenny could never see any. When she finished her plum, she placed the seed beside the cat’s soft paw. It sniffed at the seed and looked up inquiringly at Jenny for something more palatable. It missed the usual offering of table scraps. Sometimes Mother made milk gravy for the cats and dogs when there weren’t enough table scraps.

Margaret washed the dishes and told Jenny to dry them and whispered to her that if she didn’t, she’d wash her face with the dish rag. Jenny dried them as best she knew how. They felt greasy and smelled funny. She put the knives and forks away, but couldn’t reach the cupboard to put the dishes away, so Margaret did this.

“That’s a good helper,” Mother told Margaret.

“I helped too,” Jenny said. She ran her hand along the top of the oilcloth on the kitchen table. It felt greasy. Her face and hands felt greasy and sticky . The beds weren’t made and the house had a topsy turvy look. She ate two more plums. They didn’t taste as good as they had in the morning. The plums didn’t quite reach the top of the basket now.

Jenny went into the dining room and lay down on the rug, soon falling asleep. When she awoke, her tummy ached. She went to the bed where Mother was and started crying a little.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

“My tummy hurts.”

Mother took one look at her and hurried to get the wash pan. She lifted Jenny to the bed and put the wash pan on a chair beside the bed. Then she put her hand on Jenny’s forehead. Jenny’s stomach gave a few painful jerks and out of her mouth and nose and into the wash pan came plum skins, plum pulp and plum juice. Her eyes watered and she cried some more. The wash pan kept filling up with plums, plums and more plums. They tasted terrible and her stomach kept jerking.

“My, but you ate a lot of plums!” said Mother in surprise. “Poor little dumpling. Looks like you caught the summer complaint too.”