The Poisonwood Bible

Resting up between crucial observations, Rachel was studying the tails of her hair very closely for split ends. She resembled a cross-eyed rabbit. At the mention of palm nuts she whined, “But, you all, on a diet of just fruit we could plumb die or even get diarrhea.”

“Well, what else is free?” Leah asked.

“The chickens, of course,” Rachel said. “We can kill those.”

We couldn’t kill them all, Leah explained, because then we’d have no eggs for omelets-one of the few things -we knew how to cook. But if we let some of the hens brood, to increase our flock, we might get away with frying a rooster once a month or so. My sisters put me in charge of all chicken decisions, thinking me the least likely to act on a rash impulse that would cause regrets later. The rash-impulse portion of my brain was destroyed at birth. We did not discuss who would be in charge of killing the unfortunate roosters. In earlier times our mother did that, with a flourish. Back when she was a happier woman, she used to claim Father married her for the way she wrung a rooster’s neck. Our mother used to have mystery under her skin, and we paid not the slightest attention.

Next, Leah raised the difficult issue of Nelson: nearly half our eggs went to him for his pay. We discussed whether we needed Nelson more, or the eggs. There was not much now for him to cook. But he did haul our water and cut wood, and he elucidated for us the many daily mysteries of Kilanga. As I was not good at hauling water or cutting wood, I could not personally argue for a life without Nelson. My sisters, I think, had separate fears of their own. In secret ballot we voted unanimously to keep him.

“And I will bake the bread. Mother will show me how,” Rachel a

Mother had wandered u

“It’s okay, Mama,” Leah said. “You can go on and lie back down if you want to.” Leah had not called her “Mama” since we cut our first molars. Mama nee Orlea

Leah turned to Rachel and hissed, “You priss, you couldn’t even sift the flour!”

“Oh, the girl genius speaks,” Rachel said. “And may I ask why not?” I chewed on my pencil and witnessed the proceedings.

“No special reason,” Leah said, scratching her shaggy pixie haircut behind the ear. “I’m sure you won’t mind sticking your hand down in the flour bag with all those weevils and maggots in there.”

“There’s not always maggots in the flour.”

“No, you’re right. Sometimes the tarantulas eat them.”

I laughed out loud. Rachel got up and left the table.

Having broken my silence in Leah’s favor, though, I felt I had to scold her for the sake of balance. “IF WE DO NOT ALL HANG TOGETHER…” I wrote on my pad.

“I know. We’ll all hang separately. But Rachel needs to get off her high horse, too. She’s never lifted a finger around here and now all of a sudden she’s the Little Red Hen?”

True enough. Having Rachel in charge was very much as if Mrs. Do

Poor tyra

Leah

AFTER THREE WEEKS of the doldrums I made Ruth May get out of bed. Just like that, I said, “Ruth May, honey, get up. Let’s go poke around outside awhile.” There wasn’t much to be done about Mother, but I’ve spent a lot of time in charge of Ruth May and I think I should know by now what’s good for her. She needed something to boss around. Our pets had mostly escaped by then, or been eaten up, as in the case of Methuselah, but the Congo still offered a wealth of God’s creatures to entertain us. I took Ruth May outside to get some sunshine on her. But she slumped wherever I put her, with no gumption in her at all. She acted like a monkey-sock doll that has been run through the machine.

“Where do you think Stuart Little’s gone to?” I asked her. I used that name just to please her, practically admitting it was her mongoose. She hadn’t captured it or taken any special care beyond naming it after an incorrect storybook animal, namely a mouse. But I couldn’t deny it followed her around.

“He ran off. I don’t care, either.”

“Look-a-here, Ruth May. Ant lions.”

In the long, strange drought we were having in place of last year’s rainy season, soft dust had spread across our yard in broad white patches. It was pocked all over with little fu

“I’m too hot to sing.They never come out anyway.” I was determined to rile her up someway. If I couldn’t find any spark left in Ruth May, I was afraid I might panic, or cry.

“Hey, watch this,” I said. I found a column of ants ru

We squatted over the hole and waited. The ant struggled in the soft, sandy trap until a pair of pincers suddenly reached up and grabbed it, thrashed up a little dust, and pulled it under. Gone, just

like that.

“Don’t do any more of them, Leah,” Ruth May said. “The ant wasn’t bad.”

I felt embarrassed, being told insect morals by my baby sister. Usually cruelty inspired Ruth May no end, and I was just desperate to help her get her spirits back.

“Well, even wicked bugs have to eat,” I pointed out. “Everything has to eat something.” Even lions, I suppose.

I picked up Ruth May and dusted off her cheek. “Sit in the swing and I’ll comb out your pigtails,” I said. I’d been carrying the comb around in my back pocket for days, meaning to get to Ruth May’s hair. “After I get your braids fixed up I’ll push you awhile in the swing. Okay?”

Ruth May didn’t seem to have strong feelings one way or another. I sat her in the swing, which Nelson had helped us hang with a huge, oily rope he found on the riverbank. The seat was an old rectangular palm-oil drum. All the kids in the village used our swing. I beat some dust off the comb and began to tease out the yellow mass of knots her hair had turned into. I could hardly do it without hurting her, yet she hardly whined, which I took as a bad sign.