“What?” said Barb.
“We knew which day would come?” asked Mim in the same smiling voice.
“Don’t be stupid,” snapped Barb. “The day we gave Mary up. She’s been nice for us, like a toy, but we’re not kids. We’re practically women.”
“If you say ‘put away childish things,’” I warned, “I will never speak to you again.”
“Why shouldn’t I say it?” Barb shouted.
“Quiet!” said Kat.
“Why shouldn’t I say it?” Barb repeated more softly, but just as angrily. Her eyes shone, blue and teary. “Go ahead and tell them. They’ll say, ‘It’s a creature from Profane Industries, with a devil inside.’ They’ll melt her in the forge.”
Esther was crying discreetly, standing by Mary and holding her hand. Mary’s hand moved in response, gently squeezing Esther’s fingers. Her face was still. I could see the coppery light of the lamp reflected in her cheek and the dark, shifting shapes that were me and the other girls.
Then Mim said, “Lyddie is right.”
We all looked down at her again—her awkward, too-big head balanced on her skinny neck, her black cap practically bursting with hair, and her little white fingers, which always seemed sneaky, as if they were living their own secret life, scratching her dog’s ears.
“Thanks, Mim,” I said warmly. I took the paper I’d been working on out of my coat. “This is what I’m going to present to the elders,” I explained. “You can add to it if you want.” I cleared my throat and started: “Number one: She is a thinking creature.”
I’d only gotten to number two when Mim snorted, and I stopped. “What?”
“It’s a good idea,” she said, “but you’re going about it all wrong. They’re not going to care what she uses or how she thinks. They’ll want to know what she can do. You have to talk about her like a thresher.”
“A what?” said Esther.
“A thresher,” Mim repeated. “A threshing machine. Good morning, Esther. Thank you for waking up to join us this fine day.” She looked up at me with her hard black eyes. “Don’t you see? Mary’s a beautiful piece of machinery. Look how she knits. She only stops when you take the needles. You could set her up with some shocks of corn and she’d husk them round the clock. We don’t know how strong she is. She could probably lift a cow.”
I lowered my hand with the paper. “But she’s a person. She’s our friend.”
“Now, those fellows are greedy,” Mim went on, as if I hadn’t spoken. “They’ll want to keep her, but they’ll be scared. You have to show them she’s not going to lead to idleness or make anybody vain. She’ll be owned by everybody, just like the thresher. They could send her around, like at hog-killing time. Mary could kill a hog in ten seconds flat. Making sausage? No problem. She’d stay at it for a week. The blood wouldn’t hurt her as long as you oiled her afterward.”
“But if she’s a machine,” said Esther, “she can’t join the church.”
How Mim would have answered this, we never knew. Hochmut lifted his head, and a second later we heard voices and heavy boots. “The lamp!” I gasped, but it was too late.
The door opened and Barb’s brother Joe came in, followed by Mel Fisher and Greasy Kurtz. Sam came last.
“Well, now,” said Joe. “Nobody told us it was a party.”
Mim scrambled up from the floor. Hochmut was growling.
“Hello, Dog Baby,” Joe said, nodding at Mim. “Keep that old dad of yours steady. You know I kick.”
It was true: we all remembered how, only a year before, Joe had given Hochmut a kick that nearly killed him.
“Sit,” Mim told the dog, and Hochmut sat, quivering.
“What in creation?” said Mel, staring at Hard Mary.
Joe turned his big blond head. “Why, it’s a dolly party,” he said. “We’ve been wondering what you girls were up to, and here you are playing with dolls.”
He started toward Mary.
“It’s nothing, Joe,” said Barb, trying to laugh, and not looking at Mel at all, because she was too shy, just as I was not looking at Sam, who stood by the door, against the wall. I could feel him not looking at me too.
“It is a doll,” Barb simpered, “an old doll we found one day in the woods and we—”
“Don’t touch her!” Esther said shrilly, getting between Hard Mary and Joe.
“That’s done it,” muttered Mim.
Joe paused for a moment, staring at Esther. Then he looked at Greasy, and both of them burst out laughing.
Joe shouldered Esther aside so she nearly stumbled into the lamp. Kat shrank against the wall, looking faint, holding her sore jaw. Joe and Greasy leaned over Mary, with Mel behind them peering between their shoulders. Mary said, “What is your desire?”
“Shit!” hollered Joe. “A talking dolly!”
Since they’d come in, I’d felt a whine like a mosquito at my ear. Now it grew louder, as if the bug was inside my head. The floor seemed to shift. I saw everybody in little broken pieces. Joe’s thumb against Mary’s face. The black of Greasy’s coat, shiny in the lamplight. And Sam, Sam by the wall but craning forward now, fascinated, a bit of his reddish hair sticking out beneath the back of his hat. Then Greasy’s hand on Mary’s skirt. “No!” cried Esther. Joe was laughing. “Let’s see if Dolly has all her parts,” he said.
He pulled up her skirt so it showed the bottom of her folded frame. Her little wheels at rest. Both he and Greasy were doubled up with laughter. He kept yanking up the skirt. Then Mim, beside me, shouted out suddenly in a strange, harsh voice, “Mary! Jephthah’s daughter!”
Her arms straight at her sides, her hands in fists. “Mary! Jephthah’s daughter, Mary!”
Mary’s arm shot up and struck Joe Miller on the side of the head. He flew clear across the room and hit the wall. Her second blow caught Greasy Kurtz above the elbow and he buckled, moaning. Kat said later she knew right away that Greasy’s arm was broken. Mary stood. Her face was exactly the same, closed eyes and curving mouth. Mel tried to run, but Mim said, “Hold him,” and Mary grasped his wrist with her steely hand. She moved so fast, like a copperhead striking.
Sam turned back toward the door, but Mim was too quick for him. She met him with Hochmut, who snarled. “Let’s have a talk, Sam Esh,” she said.
Now Sam looked at me, his eyes wide and dark.
My lips felt frozen. “Just hang on,” I whispered. “Everything’s okay.”
Barb was sobbing, “You’ve killed him. You’ve killed him.” She knelt beside Joe, who was all crumpled up. His hat had rolled under the rocking chair. The floor darkened beneath his head. When I saw that, my own head got heavy, and I sat down and rested my forehead on my knees. I could hear Mel shouting and Mim telling him to pipe down. “Tell this thing to let go of me,” he said, and Mim said she would if he’d behave himself. “Tie his arms behind his back,” she said to someone. When my vision cleared, I saw it was Esther, who was tying Sam up with a scarf. Though her face was blotchy with panic and she’d peed herself, Esther turned out to be Mim’s right hand.
Kat said in a shaky voice that Joe was in a bad way and she needed ice.
“In a minute,” said Mim, seating herself on the chest. She was so little, it suited her like a chair. Greasy lay at her feet, very still, as if he was scared to move. Mel too looked petrified, standing face-to-face with Mary, his wrist in her grip. Little tremors ran up and down his broad, strong back. Mim glanced up at him sideways from underneath her brows and smiled. “My word,” she observed, “he’s shaking like Lebanon.”
Looking at her, I recalled that she had a mother who suffered from Seasonal Weeps and a father who had shot himself in the face. I saw the others sizing her up too, and watched them realize at last that she was a person to be reckoned with. Mim, of course, was perfectly aware of the change in their faces. Her own face glowed. She told them that Mary was a wonderful new machine. This machine was very useful, but as the boys had discovered, it needed careful handling. You wouldn’t stick your hand in the path of a hammer, would you?