Rennie's Way

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ten of Mary's laying hens. Mary knew they needed the extra eggs to buy salt, sugar, and coffee at the grocery store. This time she didn't question him; she had resigned herself to his ways. That winter Mary didn't eat eggs. Neither did Rennie find her usual boiled egg in her dinner pail. John didn't notice . He still ate two every morning. 5 The summer before Sarah Ellen was born, Mary wasn't able to do all the work. Rennie stayed home from school to help her. "I wish ye didn't have to miss so much school," her mother said. "I don't give that no never mind," Rennie assured her. By early September Mary's feet were swollen so badly she could no longer wear her shoes. Instead she wore a pair of John's old socks. She lay in bed most of the time or sat with her feet propped up on a chair. She had put away all the garden stuff, filling all the glass jars, wooden barrels, crocks, and churns with fruits and vegetables. The potatoes, both white and sweet, still had to be dug. Mary was worried because John had to pull the fodder and cut the tops by himself. She just knew he would "never in this world get enough." Rennie offered to work with her father, but he told her, "Stay with yer Ma. She needs ye. If ye need me if'n yer Ma takes sick to have the baby, ye ring the dinner bell." "I know Pa, I will." One day Mary asked Rennie to go up in the loft and bring down the box in which she had put away Owen's clothes— long white dresses trimmed with handmade lace and edged with featherstitching, belly bands made of unbleached mus25 lin, tiny undershirts. Some of the clothes had been in the family for generations. Some had been Rennie's. "We'll wash these today," Mary told Rennie, "and have 'em all nice and clean fer the new baby. Ye carry a lot of water because baby clothes have to be renched a lot of times. All the soap must be got out so it can't hurt the baby's tender skin." Almost every day one or another of the neighbor women would stop in to see Mary, talk a while, and help Rennie with the work, whatever she was doing. One day Aunt Nance, John's sister, came. She brought two old worn-out sheets and gave them to Mary. "I jest thought ye might could use these. They jest about done their do in this world but will make good diddies fer the young'n." "I'm much obliged to ye. I'll tear them into squares and hem 'em. Give me somethin' to do this evenin'. I do so hate to jest set here like a bump on a log, seein' Rennie do all the work. She works so hard." One day Uncle Tom and Big Jed came along to get John to go to church with them. Uncle Tom wasn't really Rennie's uncle. Everyone on Lonesome Holler called him that. The church was so far away they would have to go on Friday and not get back until Sunday. "I can't leave my home now, Mary expectin' any day and my fodder needs pullin'. I get along so slow by myself." "I think I'll jest stay and help ye save yer fodder and not go to the meetin' after all," Uncle Tom told him. "I 'spect I will, too," Big Jed added. "They's more ways to serve the Lord 'sides goin' to church and preachin'." Rennie was awakened from her sleep one night by the bell being rung by John. She knew it meant her mother was sick. She put on her clothes and went downstairs. Her father was already dressed and holding a lighted lantern. "Some of the women will soon be here," he said. "Jest as soon as they hear the bell they'll come. You stay with yer Ma while I go catch the mule." Rennie went to the bed where her mother lay. "Anythin' I can do to help ye, Ma?" she asked. 26 "Yeah. Jest set here and hold my hand like I do yers when ye're sick," her mother told her with a smile. Aunt Nance was...