Free The Sisters from Hardscrabble Bay by Beverly Jensen

He’d never paid heed. Christ, he had all a man could do—plowing and planting, hunting when he could, and fishing in season for herring and lobster. It was hardscrabble land and a hardscrabble bay—not easy to get a living out of. He’d heard that out west at harvesttime there was good money to be made harvesting wheat. He’d like to get on out there if he could and make some cash. He’d been talking about it with Sam. But what to do with the kids sprouting under his lone roof?
    He topped up his whiskey and held the glass against the lamplight. The whiskey glowed shimmery and gold. Emma’s hair was like that when she’d been in the sun, the gold color of whiskey. He’d smother his face in her loosened hair and tell her he was drinking his fill and it still wasn’t enough.
    When she died, Emma’s smell was still with him. He went to bed and felt the touch of her hair on his face so strong that he sometimes reached up to brush it away in his tormented sleep. He’d been near out of his mind with grief.
    His mother had come to stay with them and try to help. But she was seventy-three years old. Her kids had gone through her and out and into the world, and she was spent, worn to the shape of a gnarled tree. “Them kids is too much for me, Bill,” she said. She lasted three weeks, the final week only because Bill had begged her to give him time to get a girl in.
    So he’d set out to get the only help he knew he could afford—he hired a French girl from way down country to come and live with them and take care of things in exchange for room and board and not much else but a little dab of money he scraped into a pile at the end of each month.
    “You get what you pay for,” he said out loud, and took a swig. He laughed to himself. That sure as hell seemed the truth.
    He got more than he paid for in some cases, though, less in others. There was the one who shit on the rug. That was the funniest damn thing. She blamed Idella flat out. Said Idella did it in the night and rolled up the rug to hide it. He’d never seen Idella so mad. It beat anything Avis ever done to her.
    He teased Idella about it. He knew he shouldn’t, but sometimes she needed a little teasing. She was forlorn and sad so much of the time. He didn’t know how to help her. Avis was different. She’d have laughed out loud if the girl’d accused her. Or went along for the fun of it. But Idella was wounded by it.
    It was just as well that one girl was gone after that rug business. She was the pretty one. Too pretty to have on hand. He knew it. He’d noticed more about her than he should or wanted to. It wasn’t just her curly black hair or her black eyes that snapped up at him in a knowing way. It was her breasts. He had more than once stopped his hand from reaching over to squeeze them. And one time he’d done it. She was bending over him to take his plate from off the table. He was sitting alone there with his pipe and his whiskey. The kids had all run off into the fields. And he’d touched her.
    She’d stopped and looked at him. She looked right into his eyes while she held that plate half covered with beans and his hand pressed against that breast, and he didn’t take it off. Till her eyes narrowed and she spat at him, hit him full in the face—hot, wet spittle. Then he’d taken up his whiskey and no words were spoken. That was the night she shit on the rug. He didn’t know if it was from fear of him that she didn’t use the outhouse or purposeful spite. He did know he had something to do with it. The next day she was gone. But not till she’d accused Idella. And not till he’d paid her.
    Bill reached into his pocket and pulled out his pipe and tobacco pouch.
    So this one, this Maddie, who looked like a horse and cooked about like one, too . . . well, she was the last hope. If she didn’t work out, he’d about decided to ship Avis and Idella on down to Maine to stay with John and Martha and get more schooling. John and Martha had