Read Online Winter Wheat by Mildred Walker - Free Book Online Page B

drill to do some seeding. I was feeding the chickens and Mom was somewhere below the barn when all of a sudden Dad came back.
    “Anna!” he called at the top of his voice.
    I heard Mom answer and then I saw her running.
    “Anna, tomorrow’s Easter!”
    “I know.”
    “Let’s go to town today.”
    And instead of saying no when there was so much to do and everything, Mom laughed. “You want a Easter hat?”
    “Well, you can’t work all the time.” Dad often said that to Mom. He tired before Mom did.
    We drove into town that morning and had lunch at a restaurant. When we came out we stood together on the sidewalk the way ranchers do in town. Dad took out a five-dollar bill and gave it to me.
    “Here, Ellen, go buy yourself a new Easter dress.”
    When Dad had gone on down the street I handed the money to Mom to put in her big pocketbook for me. She pushed it off. “Keep it yourself, your father want you to buy with it.”
    Without a sound my day broke into pieces, pieces with sharp cutting edges. I didn’t want any new dress. I only wanted to be in my jeans and old shirt at home. Mom was hurt because Dad hadn’t given her the money.
    “I’ve got to go in hardware store and buy new ax handle,” Mom said. “Your Dad’ll never think. Go on, get your dress.”
    Wretchedly I walked into the store where dresses were sold. Nothing drew me as it usually did, not even the long sheer silk stocking on a shapely glass leg. I watched some women coming in and hated them for the way they wore their clothes, and their trim ankles and shoes and the faint sweet smell as they passed me. I had been standing aimlessly against a counter by the front door. Suddenly I knew what I wanted. I went over to the stocking counter and said in a firm voice:
    “I want a pair of silk stockings like those on that glass leg.” When the clerk asked what size I said, “A big size, about as large as you sell,” thinking of Mom’s legs as I often saw them in the row ahead of me when we worked in the garden.
    “Those are three dollars,” the clerk told me, and I could see she doubted whether I could pay for them.
    “I’ll take them,” I told her. Then I gave her the five-dollar bill and had two silver dollars back.
    “Are they for a gift? I could wrap them with tissue paper for you.”
    I didn’t want them to seem anything special. I said, “No, just everyday.”
    I walked straight from the stocking counter to the perfume counter, where I had never had time to linger before. It was hard to know what to ask for. The salesgirl was unlike anyone I had ever seen outside a magazine.
    “What scent do you have that smells Russian?” I asked.
    “Russian? Let’s see—we have Cuir de Russe. That’s Russian leather.”
    “I’d like to smell it.” The whiff seemed to penetrate back of my eyeballs. My eyes watered. “I’ll take two dollars’ worth,” I said.
    The lady at the counter gave me a bottle so tiny it didn’t look as though it could cost more than a quarter, but I paid her. Mom still has the bottle on her dresser, along with a picture of Dad in his uniform and a hand-painted pin tray with “New York City” written on it. The perfume bottle is still half-full.
    “You get your dress?” Mom asked when I found her. She had the ax handle in her hand.
    “No, I bought these for you.” I thrust the paper sack and the little package at her and took the ax handle. I busied myself with an assortment of screws. Mom was so quiet I had to look at her. Her face was different. It wasn’t as firm as usual.
    “Yeléna, your Dad won’t like it.”
    “He gave it to me. It’s mine.” But I wasn’t anxious to see him and have him ask me about the dress. He did ask me, and I said I couldn’t find one I liked so I bought something else I wanted. He whistled and smiled. Dad never was stern or angry with me—only at life and the weather and his own illness.
    “What did you buy?”
    “Some perfume and stockings,” I mumbled. Mom was in