Etta and Otto and Russell and James Read Free Page A

Vogel children. He worked with them, ate with them, skipped school with them, and grew with them. Some of the younger children forgot or barely knew that he wasn’t their brother, although he usually left at five o’clock in the evening to go home to his aunt and uncle’s for dinner and prayers and bed. There was always a hot water bottle ready in his bed, even though water was scarce and his aunt had to rewarm it, out and then back into the bottle night after night. Apart from this, Russell was a Vogel. Which is why it was so shocking to the rest of them when theylearned that he had never been on a tractor.
    It’s okay to not have driven one. We can’t drive till we’re ten for the girls, or twelve for the boys.
    No, not just driving. He’s never even been on one.
    Never?
    Never.
    This was Otto and Walter. They were taking a break from their chores, going to get water from the house for themselves and for Russell and Harriet, whom they had left in the field looking for rocks and gopher holes, respectively. It was hot. Just past Dominion Day and dusty and dry and hot. Walter wore a hat too big for him. Otto always forgot his, so he wasn’t wearing one. The sun was burning, again, the strip of skin where his hair parted. Later he would have to pick the peeling bits of it from his hair, and he’d hate it and go and find his hat and put it on the post of his bed to never forget again, but he would forget again. Much later this bit of skin would just stay red May through September, even when his hair was white and thin. Neighbors would use it as a sort of long-range calendar, planting spinach when it would first appear, covering up their tomatoes when it started to fade.
    Poor Russell, said Walter.
    I know, said Otto. Though, actually, he was glad.
    Harriet!
    What about her?
    She’s old enough! She’s old enough to drive, right?
    Yeah . . . but I don’t suppose we should. There aren’t any tractor chores right now. And you haven’t found all the gophers.
    We’ll never find all the gophers. And you’ll never find all the rocks.
    We might. We’re trying.
    You won’t. Let’s get the water, take it to Harriet and Russell, then get Harriet to get the tractor, and then get Russell up on it. Let’s do it! We can do it quick. Fifteen minutes, only, once along the side of the field, then back to rocks, and gophers. Yeah?
    Maybe, said Otto.
    O kay, said Harriet. Driving’s easy. No problem.
    Okay? said Otto. Are you sure?
    Yeah, why not? It won’t take fifteen minutes.
    See? said Walter.
    What do you think, said Otto, turning to Russell, who, thus far, had said nothing.
    Okay, he said.
    There was only room for two of them up on the tractor. Well, only room for one, really, just one molded metal seat, painted green, molded for legs much bigger than Harriet’s, but there was a bit of space behind it where someone could stand and hold on to the driver’s shoulders. If you were very small, you could also sit on the driver’s lap, squeezed in before the steering wheel. Most of the Vogels had done it this way for their first time, on their mother’s lap, or father’s or Marie’s, but Russell was too big and Harriet too small, so Russell would be standing. Walter and Otto would be watching, on the ground.
    At first they cheered and shouted as Harriet steered away from them and down, along the side of the field. Then they stood and watched the back of the tractor for a minute or so. Then they could hardly see anything at all, so they turned back to gophers and rocks, walking slowly along the field in the sunken path of the tractor tracks.
    Two large stones and one drowned gopher later, they thoughtthey saw Amos—whose job it was, at this time of year, to pick wild Saskatoon berries into two big buckets, and whose fingers were always deep purple from it—running toward them, waving his berry-colored hands up over his head. They didn’t realize it was Harriet until Otto saw the braids trailing out from under her hat.