Still House Pond by Jan Watson

Author:Jan Watson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781414348230
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

18

The slop oozed over the edge of the bucket and plopped with thick drops into the wooden trough. Grunting, the nasty pig snuffed up the leftovers like it was his last supper. Manda hated this part of her job. She’d just as soon let the hog starve as stand here with the stink of the pen rising up around her like a vile perfume. Her earlier sunny mood took a dark turn.

She couldn’t figure why things happened as they did. Why wasn’t it her wearing a new outfit, waiting to catch a coach to the city? It was not that she minded helping Lilly. She actually liked the kid. But when would it ever be her turn?

If Manda stopped to think about it, and she often did, she was the one who’d paid the piper. Only stood to reason she should be the one to dance. Here Lilly had a life of ease with a mother who adored her and a father, even though he was a step, who saw to her every need. While Manda’s own father hardly knew she existed and her stepmother ignored her needs, as indifferent as a lazy sow flopping on its piglet.

Manda slapped at a horsefly. The day was turning hot. At least it wasn’t Tuesday. She wouldn’t sweat buckets while she ironed the Pelfreys’ clothes, and thankfully nobody occupied the sickroom, so there wouldn’t be extra chores. Often whole families turned up for meals whenever a relative was laid up there. Manda thought they were taking advantage, but Miz Copper was too kind to notice. Like that Abe Sizemore, Tillie’s no-account. That man could eat the leg off a mule and have the saddle for dessert. Manda had been glad to be shut of them.

Her emotions churned like the mud the pig rolled in. Stupid thing—happy to be living off the leavings of others. She couldn’t quite get a grip on what was making her so tired of her station in life. She’d never really minded until recently.

She thought of Sunday last and what she remembered of Brother Jasper’s sermon. “Every man received his reward according to his labor.” Well, she did the work. Now where was her reward? She’d had a bellyful of waiting.

It seemed to her that she always got the short end of the stick. As a girl, growing up in a house where nobody looked ahead and where manna was hard to come by—no matter what her father preached—Manda learned to make do or do without. Too often it was do without. By rights she should be living in hog heaven by now.

Manda was determined not to wind up settling like Dance or Cara, who was so befuddled by love she didn’t know what she was missing. Lost in thought, Manda crossed her arms on the top pole of the pigpen and rested her head. She jumped back and brushed at her sleeves when the hog rustled over and started rooting on the other side of the fence. Looking up, he leered at her while mud mixed with cornmeal slid down his snout.

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