Jack Ferman sat beside his daughter on the bale. He said nothing - it seemed like forever. He always did that. Her mom would yell but her dad just let her stew. Millie hated that. She loved her dad but it would be a lot easier if he just yelled and got it over with. Finally Millie couldn't take the silence.
"It's your fault, you know."
"Well, now, help me out here. Your fist is on your arm and your arm was with you in school. I was here on my Oliver 66 Row Crop lifting beets. Now, if your fist punched Otis Bailey in the nose how is it my fault?"
"You let her name me Mildred."
"How old did you say you are?"
"You know how old I am. I'm eleven."
"You been living with your mother for eleven years and you still think I could stop her from doing anything? Anyway, seems to me you'd be proud to be named for your Grandma."
"I love Grandma but Mildred is an old lady name. I kinda like Millie but that dumb old Mrs. Whitby says, 'We don't use nicknames in school. It's in bad taste.'
"If she's going to call me Mildred every day and Otis makes fun of me every day, I'll punch him in the nose every day."
"What does Mae Whitby call Freddy?"
"What do you think? She calls him Milfred. What a dumb name. It's dumber for a kid in 1944 than Mildred. Where did Mom get such a dumb name? I never heard of it before."
"Neither did your mom. You know your mom's a little different. She had her head set on calling you Mildred and when it turned out that there were two of you, she just made up a name that sounded like Mildred.
"Does Otis make fun of Freddy?"
"He did once in second grade. He knows better now. That's why I punched him in the nose to teach him to know better than to make fun of me again."
"Did Freddy punch Otis in the nose? I don't remember that."
"When you're a boy, you don't really have to punch people like Otis. Otis is such a sissy. He makes fun of girls and littler kids but all Freddy had to do is give him that look, you know, the look he gets on his face when he's mad, and Otis never made fun of him again.
"I tried to do the look but Otis thinks girls are wimpy. But, then, so do you."
"I don't think my little lady is wimpy."
"Yes you do. You won't let me drive the horses. I can do it as good as Freddy."
"I'm sure you can but it's not the ladylike thing to do."
"Why not?"
"It just isn't. I didn't make the rules."
"Where are the rules? Are they in the Bible?"
"Well, no. They aren't written down anywhere but it's just the way things are done. Men and boys do field work and women and girls do house work."
"Well, then, I guess I'll have to bring the chickens in the house. I have to feed them and gather the eggs."
"My little lady's getting more like her mama every day."
Millie thought for a minute. She saw her dad's last statement as both a compliment and an insult. Her mom did things the way she wanted to do them - not the way everyone else did them. Millie admired that in her mom. She wanted to be like her mom in that way. But, you'd never catch Millie crocheting lace out of binder twine.
"If I live to be a thousand, I'll never crochet binder twine into lace."
"No, but you sure don't ride a horse side saddle either."
Millie's parents were neat and she loved them but they were weird. Her mom made lace out of binder twine and her dad talked in parables. Why didn't he just say, "You don't do things like girls are expected to do?" But, then, she kind of liked it when he said things that way. In the olden days when everybody rode horses, ladies were not supposed to straddle a horse. They sat on a funny looking kind of saddle so that both their legs were on the same side of the horse. What her dad meant was that she wasn't like every other girl. Millie was glad he thought that because she didn't want to be like everyone else. She wanted to grow up to be like her mom without the binder twine. She also liked it when her dad talked that way. It was poetic.
"I might be getting like her but I won't yell at my kids when I get to be a mother."
"You mother doesn't yell at you."
Millie jumped. To her shock, Jack had let out a loud yell. "Now, that's a yell. What your mother does is talk sternly."
"Well, sternly is an old fashion word like Mildred. Now kids call what Mom does yelling.
"What did your mom and dad do in the olden days when you were bad?"
"Wasn't a lot of talking but there was a lot of whipping and a lot of slapping."
"Freddy and I still get whippings."
"Not as often as we did, believe me. Your Grandma Ferman had the fastest hands in the world. Your face was slapped before you even saw it coming and often left you wondering why."
"I like Grandma Ferman. I don't think she's mean."
"I love my mother and she wasn't mean, just a little quick tempered and easily frustrated. You don't always understand that when you're a kid but as you get older it just isn't that important. Mom was quick tempered but she was just an emotional woman. She loved us as hard as she slapped us."
"You gonna whip me?"
"You think I should?"
"Come on! You gonna whip me?"
"You think I should?"
"Come on! You're the dad. You're supposed to decide."
"Well, let me think about it."
"That's mean. How long you gonna keep me wondering?"
"Who knows? Maybe I'll forget about it."
"You won't. I've been living with you for eleven years too, you know."
"Just go on and do your chickens."
Freddy was waiting outside the barn grinning. "Don't you say a word. I'll punch you in the nose too."
"I didn't say a word. He's letting you hang isn't he?"
"I wish he'd just whip me. Be a whole lot easier."
Millie smacked the side of the nests with a board she kept there. Once she reached in a nest and there was a rat in it. OOOO! She hated rats.
She got the eggs gathered and the chickens fed and went in to supper. Freddy was still grinning. How are you supposed to feel about a brother? She knew she loved him but he was such a child. Millie considered herself a young lady. She considered most of her friends to be young ladies. Well, Marlene Hurst mostly acted like a little kid but then she was. She didn't have any little bumps on her chest yet. At least you couldn't tell. A few of the girls in the sixth grade did. Millie thought she was starting to get some. Janet Hartley had a training bra but Janet's bumps weren't any bigger than anyone else's if she had any at all but Janet always tried to act like she was about nineteen.
Bumps mean you're starting to mature so you're a young lady, aren't you?
But boys - they just show-off and act dumb. Freddy wasn't as bad as some but he was, after all, a boy.
Nothing was said at supper. Nothing was said the next morning. In fact, her dad wasn't there when Millie went down to breakfast. Freddy was still grinning but Millie wouldn't give him the satisfaction of yelling at him.