J
John Douglas Porter
Guest
A young teacher does chores for the father of her brilliant student
Image by Michael Heck from Pixabay
Miss Murphy sat at her desk in the one-room schoolhouse on a Friday afternoon, smiling at Mr. Hardy, who sat in front of her, holding a straw hat in his hands.
“Elizabeth reads the Bible to the class every day,” Miss Murphy said. “She writes inspirational poems. She calculates the square root of some very big numbers. I want you to allow her to continue her education.”
“And do what with it?” Mr. Hardy asked.
“Make the world a better place. And she can, Mr. Hardy. She can! She is a brilliant child.”
“Maybe she is,” he said. “But there’s only us two on the farm now. And we got cows to milk and kindling to chop. And Betts, she’s got babies to make.”
Miss Murphy sighed. How could she show Mr. Hardy that his daughter could do more than milk cows, chop kindling, and bear children?
“I know that one needs to do chores,” she said. “But one also needs to live the life of the mind.”
“What the hell you talkin’ about?” He grimaced. “Sorry.”
“I’ve heard the word before,” she said, “on my father’s farm, where I did chores and used the word myself a time or two.”
“Huh.”
“What I mean by the life of the mind is a life of ideas.”
Mr. Hardy reached into a pocket and took out a plug of tobacco. “Bother you?”
“Not at all.”
He bit into the plug, then smiled slightly and offered it to her.
She took it and bit into it.
He stared at her.
“We grew tobacco on our farm,” she said, offering him the plug.
He took it and put it back into his pocket.
For a moment, they chewed and looked at each other.
“I got nothing against ideas, Miss Murphy,” he said. “But I got a lot against people that just think and don’t do.”
“I have a proposal for you,” she said. “I’ll go to your farm tomorrow and do whatever chores need to be done if you’ll at least think about allowing Elizabeth to continue her education.”
“You really mean that?”
“No, Mr. Hardy, and I apologize. I should have said I’d do whatever chores needed to be done except make babies.”
She chewed, picked up a wastebasket, and spat tobacco juice into it.
“Do you accept?” she asked.
He squinted at her.
She offered him the wastebasket.
He smiled slightly, leaned forward, and spat into it.
*
The Hardy farm reminded Miss Murphy of her father’s. Oats, corn, and tobacco grew in the fields. Holsteins grazed in the pasture. A breeze rustled the leaves of the trees that surrounded the house. The front porch was large, and the rocking chairs on it looked comfortable. The front door needed paint, but all in all things looked good.
Miss Murphy, wearing bib overalls, got out of her buggy and walked toward the front door, which opened. In the doorway, Mr. Hardy stood. He put his hands on his hips and shook his head.
“Well, I’ll be,” he said.
“You didn’t think I’d come?” she asked.
“No, I didn’t.”
“Well, I did. And I’m ready to do whatever you tell me to.”
He stepped onto the porch and reached for the door.
“Will Elizabeth be joining us?” she asked.
“Betts is reading something or other. Said you told her it would improve her mind.”
“Poems of Emily Dickenson. Yes, it will improve her mind.”
Mr. Hardy closed the door. “Let’s improve the farm.”
*
“Hey, Boss. Hey, Boss,” Mr. Hardy chanted as he and Miss Murphy drove the cows toward the barn. Miss Murphy looked down, stepped around a gopher hole, and smiled. Years ago on her father’s farm, she’d stepped into a hole, sprained her ankle, and learned to look down now and again.
A cow turned and tried to move back to the bull that drank from a trough in the pasture.
Miss Murphy stepped forward, raised her hands, and shouted, “Bossy!”
The cow bellowed, turned again, and followed the herd.
“Esther never does wanna leave Oscar,” Mr. Hardy said.
Miss Murphy nodded, and they drove the cows into the barn.
*
In the barn, Miss Murphy sat on a stool beside Esther. With warm, soapy water, she washed the cow’s udder and teats. She placed a bucket under the udder, then gently pulled and squeezed the teats, and milk splashed into the bucket. She glanced at the cow’s hooves, remembering the times her father’s cows had stepped into buckets and she’d had to strain the milk.
“When we’re done here,” Mr. Hardy said, “we’ll chop the kindling.”
“May I suggest something?” Miss Murphy asked.
“What?”
“That we muck out the barn first.”
He shrugged, then nodded.
*
At the woodpile, Miss Murphy swung a hatchet and split a log. Her hand cramped, and she flexed it. She rubbed it on the leg of her overalls and felt the sting of blisters.
“I’m looking forward,” she said softly.
“To what?” Mr. Hardy said.
“Oh, I was talking to myself.”
“About?”
She laughed. “The time when I get my calluses back.”
She pulled a long, twisted branch onto the chopping block. The branch rolled off.
Mr. Hardy picked it up and held it on the block. She noticed the prominent veins in his forearms. She blinked, then looked back at the branch and chopped it.
*
In the pasture, Mr. Hardy and Miss Murphy pulled moss from the trough. She noticed his hands, gnarled yet gentle.
“We’ve had some warm days lately,” he said. “Moss grows fast in the troughs.”
“You take good care of your farm,” she said.
“Take good care of it, and it’ll take good care of you.”
He turned away, and she noticed his broad shoulders and the perspiration that had dampened the back of his shirt.
*
Mr. Hardy and Miss Murphy stood beside the fence between the field of oats and the field of corn.
“We gotta string a new top wire,” he said. “Wanna rest up before?”
“Let’s fix the fence,” she said. “Do you have that plug handy?”
He took the plug of tobacco out of his pocket and offered it to her.
“You first,” she said.
He bit into the plug.
She plucked some oats from a stalk and mashed one of the kernels with her thumbnail.
“It’s about time to mow,” she said, “isn’t it?”
“Gettin’,” he said, then chewed and gazed at the field.
The harvest would take time and effort, she knew. Maybe she could help. She’d need to prepare for school, too. But maybe . . .
Some tobacco juice ran from the corner of Mr. Hardy’s mouth to his chin. She took a bandana from her pocket and reached for his mouth, then quickly lowered her hand.
*
In the late afternoon, Miss Murphy and Mr. Hardy sat on rocking chairs on the front porch. She glanced at the peeling paint on the front door, then looked at him.
“Thank you, Mr. Hardy,” she said.
He squinted at her. “I’m the one should be thanking you. You done everything good as any and better’n most.”
“And I thoroughly enjoyed myself.”
“You talked about how Betts reads the Bible in school,” he said. “Well, we read it here, too. And you reminded me of one of the stories in it.”
“Oh? Which one?”
“The one about the big feed Martha wanted Mary to help her with. Most people think Martha got the short end of the stick. Here she is, doing all the work for at least sixteen. Our Lord, the Twelve, Lazarus, Mary, herself, and maybe more. And there’s Mary, sitting at Our Lord’s feet, listening to his words. But I always had a sympathy for Mary. Our Lord hisself said we don’t live on bread alone. And I’ll betcha that when the soup was on, Mary helped serve, then helped clean up afterward.”
He paused.
“Miss Murphy,” he continued, “you done what you said you’d do, and I’m gonna do what I said I’d do. I’m gonna think about letting Betts go on for more schooling.”
Miss Murphy smiled.
“Where could she go?” Mr. Hardy asked. “And what could she do after?”
“She could go to a teacher’s college, a medical training center, a school for journalism,” Miss Murphy said. “Then she could teach, heal, or write. And at any time, she could also marry and have children.”
“Huh.”
For a long time, Miss Murphy looked at Mr. Hardy. He was honest, hardworking, and — she studied his curly black hair, his hazel eyes, and his strong jaw — ruggedly handsome. He was thoughtful, too. His comments about Mary had never occurred to her. Perhaps he was also reasonable, capable of understanding that she loved teaching as well as working on the farm.
“Mr. Hardy,” she said, “what would you say if I told you I’d been thinking about doing that other chore for you?”
“What are you . . . ?” he began, then widened his eyes. “You mean . . . ?”
She nodded.
He shook his head. “I’d say you was foolish. You got a whole lot better prospects than me.”
“Perhaps you’re not the best judge of yourself, Mr. Hardy. And, anyway, you don’t know much about me.”
“And you don’t know much about me, neither.”
“But I know a lot about both of you,” someone said.
Miss Murphy and Mr. Hardy turned toward the front door. In the doorway, Elizabeth stood, holding a tray with a pitcher of lemonade and three glasses on it.
“And,” Elizabeth continued, “I’d say the three of us should talk about the future.”
She moved toward them, placed the tray on a table nearby, and sat on a rocking chair.
Mr. Hardy threw up his hands. “Betts — ”
“Yes,” Miss Murphy said, “let’s talk. You’ve said you’d at least think of allowing Elizabeth to continue her education if I did the chores.”
“Yeah,” Mr. Hardy said, “but — ”
“And you said there were only two of you to do them now.”
“Yeah, but — ”
“If Elizabeth does go away to school, you’ll need someone else to help do them.”
“Yeah, but — ”
“So,” Miss Murphy said, “let’s talk.”
Mr. Hardy rubbed his face with a hand. “All righty. But let’s us all agree that we ain’t rushing into nothing.”
“Agreed,” Elizabeth and Miss Murphy said together.
Mr. Hardy rubbed his face again.
“So, we’ll talk,” Miss Murphy said. “Then Elizabeth and I will do the evening milking.”
“Then,” Elizabeth said, “Miss Murphy and I will fix a good supper.”
“And when we’ve finished eating,” Miss Murphy said, “Elizabeth and I will clean up. You may help if you like, Mr. Hardy. Then we’ll all paint the front door.”
Mr. Hardy breathed deeply, then nodded and reached for the plug of tobacco.
Yes, Miss Murphy thought, he was reasonable.
She took the bandana from her pocket.
* * *
John Porter manages his family’s cattle ranch in California, where he also writes essays, stories, and screenplays — and occasionally chews tobacco.
Miss Murphy, Schoolmarm and Farm Girl was originally published in Long. Sweet. Valuable. on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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