Looking Back
To escape annoying household chores, I searched for greener pastures.
Kitchen chores inspire one farm girl to make a run for it.
Slamming the kitchen door behind me, I sped down the path toward the barn. I’d threatened to run away before, but this time I really meant it! I reached the barn and kept on running, then plopped down in the tall grass to catch my breath and think.
It all started when Mom asked me to set the table for lunch. “Why do I have to do everything around here?” I complained. She was always asking me to do things. On Saturday mornings, I had to help dust the furniture and windowsills. Sometimes she made me iron the handkerchiefs and pillowcases. After supper I had to either wash or dry the glasses and silverware. I hated to wash because the water got cold before I finished.
“You’d get through sooner if you didn’t play in the water,” Mom told me. “You’ll like doing dishes when you grow up and have your own home.” I doubted that.
“It isn’t fair,” I told the flies buzzing around my head. “I’ll be glad when I grow up and don’t have to work.”
Mom never took my escape threats seriously, though, and often offered to help me pack.
Now, in the field behind the barn,
I had to decide where I would go. Grandma would take me in, but she lived on the other side of the city. That was too far to walk, and I didn’t know the way. Maybe our neighbors down the road would let me stay with them. I didn’t believe they’d make me work. Or I could go out to the woods, but it might get scary at night.
While trying to decide what to do, I thought about my school friend Christine.
“I didn’t like living at home anymore,” she had told me, “so I ran away.”
“Really? Where did you go?” “I only got as far as Liverpool when the local police picked me up and took me home.”
“Did they have the car lights flashing and siren blowing?” I asked. They didn’t.
I could catch a bus in Liverpool, the next town over, but I didn’t have any money. What if the police asked me where I was going all by myself? I would be horrified to be brought home in a police car.
A rumble from deep down inside my empty tummy was a reminder that I needed lunch, but I hadn’t brought any food. I stood up and brushed myself off. Slowly and humbly, I walked home.
Some mothers don’t teach their daughters to cook or keep house. Now that my mother is gone, I realize that she wasn’t a merciless taskmaster. I am so thankful for her patience in teaching me the skills I needed to help me grow. I still don’t like washing dishes—but I no longer play in the water.
Mom never took my escape threats seriously, though, and often offered to help me pack.