American Girl

Iowa

Jan Williams hated chickens. She hated how they cackled and peeked at her bare feet when she scattered their feed. She hated pigs even more and corn more than pigs. The barnyard was filthy with mud, hay stuck out of the loft, and the cows chewed at their cud.

Jan stood among the chickens. She threw their feed automatically, not even thinking about it. Her red gingham dress resembled a tablecloth. In fact, her mother made her dress from the remnants of the tablecloth material. The dress had a large flounce around the skirt and huge puffy sleeves. She wore a white apron with large pockets over her dress; her tiny feet were covered in brown mud. Jan couldn't wear her pretty new patent leather Mary Janes to do farm chores.

"Iowa," Jan muttered severely. "Nothing ever happens in Iowa."

"The State Fair happens in Iowa," her brother Brick stated as he strolled past.

"Like I said," Jan sighed. "Nothing ever happens in Iowa."

"Suit yourself, Miss Prissy." Brick continued toward the barn at a brisk pace.

Brick was tall and muscular with blonde hair the color of Iowa corn. He loved the farm and worked outside from sunrise to sunset. Everything about him shouted fresh air and sunshine. Jan cut him a scathing look and continued to fling feed at the chickens. She had to slop the pigs and muck out the stalls when she finished. Considering it made her want to gag.

Once her morning chores were completed, Jan had to help Ma in the hot kitchen. Ma was canning and making jellies and jams. She would enter some of her produce at the State Fair and the patchwork quilts and doilies she created throughout the year.

"I haven't seen you working on your afghan lately," Ma stated when Jan entered the kitchen. "You won't have it ready for the fair if you don't get busy."

"I quit on it, Ma." Jan shrugged. Opening the cellar door, she plodded down the rickety stairs. She returned to the kitchen with a crate of canning jars.

"I thought you were nearly finished," her mother remarked when she returned.

"I ran out of yellow," Jan flatly stated.

"If you'd said something, I could have gotten more at the Five and Dime." Ma swiped her straggly hair from her eyes with floured hands.

"I'm out of blue, red, and green, too."

"Well, you didn't say so." Her mother looked at her momentarily before returning to her boiling jam. "Really, Janet, you do procrastinate. Concentrate on your project, and you'll finish it in no time."

"Your project, Ma," Jan said, biting off her words. "Your project. You decided on the pattern; you decided on the colors; you should do the work. I'm sick of it, Ma. I'm not the Miss Goody-Goody 4H girl you think I am."

"Now, Jan," Ma chastised. She shook a wooden spoon in Jan's direction. Purple jam spattered her ugly dress.

Jan didn't care. The spatter only made the tablecloth dress uglier. When she was a little girl, she loved the farm. She had a little lamb that she bottle-fed, and she walked the rail fence with Brick. Jan recalled thinking her homemade dresses were pretty, and she wore her hair in pigtails. She felt special.

As she grew older, her surroundings became clearer. The barnyard was dirty, and the cows smelled. The sweet smell of hay and growing corn permeated everything. Jan felt trapped in a small world.

"What am I supposed to say, Ma?" Jan whined. "I can't continue to pretend I'm Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. I'm sixteen. I want to feel pretty. I don't want to spend my life covered in muck...or...or jam." She spread her arm, indicating her spattered dress.