Ellie's New Home by Becky Citra

Author:Becky Citra
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV000000
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Published: 1999-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8 Chores

Swish, swish, swish.

Mary pounded the dasher up and down in the butter churn.

“Do you know,” she said in a loud, important voice, “that I milked Celery, gathered the eggs and emptied the pail of ashes all before breakfast?”

Up and down, up and down, went the dasher in Mary’s strong arms.

Swish, swish, swish.

Lazy, lazy, lazy. That’s what it seemed to say to me. My cheeks burned.

“Trevor and Max have been picking rocks in the field for days,” Mary went on. “It’s not fair, Ma. Ellie doesn’t do her share.”

“Hush, Mary,” said Ma. She was kneading bread dough at the wooden table. Her big hands slapped the soft mound.

I bit my lip. Making butter didn’t look hard. “I’ll take my turn now,” I said nervously.

But when I took the handle, I felt clumsy. After a few minutes my arms ached.

“In England,” I stammered, “we bought our butter from Edward the milkman.”

Mary clicked her tongue. “Ma, that’s all she talks about. England!”

I bent over the butter churn. I squeezed my eyes to keep the tears in. The cabin was quiet except for the thump of Ma’s hands on the dough.

“Let me finish then,” said Mary in an impatient voice. She worked the paddle up and down with firm strokes. She began to sing.

Come, butter, come.

Come, butter, come.

Peter standing at the gate

Waiting for a butter cake

Come, butter, come.

Mary stopped churning. “There,” she said. “Done.”

She glanced at Ma. Ma was bent over the bake kettle, lifting out a loaf of warm, yeasty bread.

Mary gave me a long, cold look. The look said, “And with no help from you!”

That afternoon Mary brought the kittens outside. She carried them in her apron skirt. She sat down in the shade of the wild cherry tree and spilled them gently onto the ground.

For a minute, five furry balls huddled in the grass. Five stick tails twitched back and forth. Then the kittens began to explore. The little black kitten batted his paw at a stalk of grass. A gray and white kitten crouched and pounced at a stick. He made tiny growling noises in his throat and rolled over and over.

The kittens bounded and crawled and skittered over the ground. When they got too far away, Mary lifted them up and brought them back.

I sat on my stump and swung my feet. Ma had given me some gray wool for knitting and had got me started. I was knitting a scarf for Papa. I bent over the needles. I pretended not to see Mary.

Mary lay down on her back. A kitten clambered up onto her tummy. She giggled and gave me a sideways look.

I frowned and counted stitches. Max and Trevor were playing with pebbles in the dirt at the side of the road. They had lined them up into two armies and were planning their war happily.

Click, click, click went my needles. Ma had said that by the time I finished the scarf, Papa would surely be back. Click, click, click. I wished I could knit as fast as Ma.

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