“Mama?” whispered Chastity, tugging at Susannah’s sleeve. “Oughtn’t we be getting back? Papa’ll be angry with us if we’re not diligent.”
“I thought we might see Charity or Hope,” Susannah said, honestly enough. “Charity wasn’t feeling well last time I saw her, and I wanted to inquire after her health.” Which was a perfectly sound reason for lingering, having no lack of diligence connected with it. Womenfolk were expected to take care of one another since no man would lower himself to do it, and it was well recognized that some women, Susannah among them, had more nursing skills than others.
“Besides,” Susannah went on, “you know Papa pays very little attention to us when we’re unclean.”
“He still watches,” the girl said, her voice shaking a little. “He might not say anything today, but he will later.”
Poor chick, Susannah thought, reaching out to pat her daughter’s face after a quick look to see no one was watching this unseemly expression of affection. Chastity took everything so hard, so much to heart, as though any amount of diligence or duty could prevent Father bellowing at her if he felt like it.
“We’ll get ourselves back, then,” she said, raising the yoke and settling it onto her shoulder pads. Chastity raised her own yoke and buckets, only slightly smaller. At thirteen, she was just come to her uncleanliness and not yet to her full growth. No use praying to All Father to let her have a year or two yet before setting her to breed. Someone would be after Chastity before fall, even though it was hard on the very young ones, and there was just no excuse for it but black lechery, no matter what the elders said about it. She remembered her own initiation at fourteen, and no one could convince her that all that puffing and grunting had been divine duty. She’d never seen a man doing his duty so outlandish pleased with himself and so eager to do it all over again.
Susannah led the way back up the hill, taking each turn of the path in one surge of effort, then resting before going on to the next. While it was meritorious of her to have had three sons before spawning a girl, she sometimes wished for the help another older daughter or two might have given. Preferably plain ones, with crooked teeth and crossed eyes, like Charity’s daughter Perseverance. Maybe they’d let Perseverance stay home and be a help to her mother until they both died of old age. At least none of the elders had made an offer for her yet.
Chastity, though—well, Chastity Brome wouldn’t last long. That pale yellow hair and that sweet skin, like a baby’s bottom, drew men’s eyes like honey drew ants. If Elder Jepson didn’t make her his sixth, then Elder Demoin, over in the next valley, would make her his fourth. And meantime all the boys down in the bachelor’s house would keep on hiding behind the bushes to have a look at her, every time she went down for water.
The worst thing about it, if Chastity went to Elder Jepson, likely she’d be a widow before she got much older. He was only seventy, but he was a tottery seventy. If Chastity had a baby by the time he died or soon after, they’d send her back to Susannah to live out her life, and there were worse things than that. If she hadn’t been pregnant or had miscarried, though, they’d say there hadn’t been any true marriage and give her to some boy just starting out who’d work her to death before she was thirty. None of the old men would take her after another had had her. It was like the older a man was, the surer he had to be that a woman couldn’t compare him to anybody else.
“There’s Elder Jepson,” Chastity whispered from behind Susannah on the trail. “Just coming out of Papa’s house.”
“Take no notice,” Susannah murmured. “Remember we’re unclean and just keep on right into our own place.” She trudged up the last few feet of the trail to the path which led to her own wife-house, its tiny, sun-grayed porch facing away from Papa Brome’s house with Chastity’s faded red kerchief hanging on the latch to show there was a menstruating woman in the place. They set the buckets on the splintery floor of the porch, wiped their feet on the braided rag mat, then took the buckets into the kitchen to fill the reservoir. Early that morning, Susannah had made the daily extra trip needed to bring water to Papa’s house. First trip in the morning was always to Papa’s house for Papa and the little boys who studied there.
A thready wail greeted them as they poured the last bucket into the wooden tank, turning into a full-fledged howl as Baby heard their voices.
“Faith?” Susannah called, then again. At her third call, an answering voice came from outside.
“Mama. Sorry. I had to go to the privy, and I thought Baby was asleep.” The eight-year-old who came in had obviously been crying and her bodice was soaked and smelly.
“Honey, love. What is it?”
“Elder Jepson told me I was a slovenly slut.”
“You’re not. Of course you’re not. Why would he say such a thing?”
“Baby threw up all over me. I wouldn’t have gone out where he could see me if I’d known he was there, but
