Issue 16
Road
J. Barbara Alvord
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Eggs and the Hired Girl, 1903
Anna watched her tormenter disappear down the road in the wagon. "Good
riddance!" she muttered. She'd planned through a sleepless night how to get
even with her fat mistress for slapping her last evening. The girl had
hungrily forked a potato to eat before the woman was fed. Her cheek still
burned.
The fifteen-year-old quickly marched to the chicken coop and the misses'
prize hens. There she collected the eggs she was never allowed to eat.
In her apron she carried four perfect ovals to the kitchen stove, broke
shells high over a skillet sizzling with lard. With flourish she sat down in
the misses' own chair, savoring with glee her secret treat of scrambled
eggs. But she was still hungry.
Again Anna strode to sweet-talk clucking Leghorns for four more precious
eggs, this time to boil. These she ate from the misses' fragile heirloom
China plate, leaving finally only yellow smears surrounded by a crown of
broken shells.
The hired girl then ran giggling into clear June sunshine. Overhead the
bluest sky floated pristine clouds. Anna noticed that they looked amazingly
like egg white fingers pointing out her own direction down the road. She
felt very full.
~J. Barbara Alvord
J. Barbara Alvord, poet and playwright, is published in Lyrical Iowa
and Cayuse Press. Xlibris distributes her historical creative biography, Through Different Eyes. Email.
© 2004 by J. Barbara Alvord. All Rights Reserved.
© Copyright 2004 by Cayuse Press. All Rights Reserved.