The Walls boys were heroes. With her sons in the service, if Arzella needed help watering the pigs, her daughter Jane would have to do. With her brothers off aiding the allies in saving the world, Jane could certainly carry a pail without grumbling. The weight of the water pulled her arms groundward, The metal banged her knees as she trudged after her mother. The liquid sloshed her skirt. Jane tried her damndest to do her part, though most days, doing her part felt an awful lot like keeping her trap shut.

It was not at all what she’d imagined as she walked across the stage, hair pinned neatly, gown rippling like Lady Liberty, to receive her diploma just weeks earlier. She had pictured her real life waiting for her on the other side of that stage, handsome husband and all. What she’d found was a quick embrace from her parents, a newly expanded chore list, and more time than anyone needed to think about the unpleasant state of world affairs.

Arzella grabbed the bucket with a gusto that made Jane wonder why she’d needed the help at all. She heaved the water and it flew sidewise through the air into the trough. The pigs snorted in appreciation and scrambled on their silly little hooves, clambering for a drink to wash the slop down their porcine gullets. The pigs sufficiently quenched, mother and daughter tramped back to the house. With each step, Jane’s boot squelched free, and she again reminded herself not to complain. Her brothers’ boots were squelching on the front lines in France.

Inside, Arzella wiped her hands on her feedsack apron. “Thank you, darling.”

“You’re welcome, Mama.”

Arzella began her usual buzz around the house, fussing, as she went, over her African violets. The small pot by the door got a new post on the windowsill. The soldier who’d been stationed at the window received his marching orders— it was off to the table with him, and there would be no backtalk. Arzella touched her fingertips to the soil, testing the pot’s moisture. She caressed the emerald leaves with knotty-knuckled fingers. Jane had learned long ago not to interfere. Invading hands near Arzella’s beloved plants were swiftly swatted into retreat.

Jane sat at the table beside her father Phillip, and watched him worry over the paper. Sweat speckled his creased forehead, furrows tilled deeper by the past year. “Think you could drive me into town later, Daddy?” Jane asked. Phillip put the paper down and looked at his daughter. He took a long swig from his glass and let it settle before he spoke.

“I was plannin’ ta go in anyway. I reckon you can tag along. What’ya fixin’ on doin’ in town?”

“Just meeting Ding.” Jane gave her Daddy her best, sweetest smile. “Can you bring her too?”

“Well that don’t sound like so much of a meetin as a goin,” he smiled back. “But as long as you girls ain’t gonna get inta trouble, I’ll take ye.”

“You could teach me to drive and then I wouldn’t have to ask you so much,” Jane said.

“I don’t give ye too much grief about the ridin, do I, Jane? I don’t need any more of your grief about the drivin.” Phillip took another long gulp. “And besides, your brothers will be back soon and they can take ye anywhere you wanna go.”

Arzella sat down beside them. The three looked at each other, all waiting for another to speak first. When no one did, they all looked away: Phillip at his paper, Arzella at her plant, and Jane at the dirt floor. Her brothers’ voices seemed to echo in these silences— who’d got what hunting, who needed new shoes already, or who was saying things that were simply un-Christian to whose granddaughter. At moments like this, Jane could hardly stand their absence. Desperate for a distraction, she snatched a book from the nearby shelf and turned it over in her hands.

“So wonderful,” Arzella clucked, eying the cover of The Good Earth. “That woman was born in West Virginia. And now she’s gone and won herself a Nobel Prize.”

“And the Pullitzer,” Phillip added, not bothering to lift his eyes from the advertisements.

“That’s right,” Arzella nodded.

Jane thumbed through the pages. For a moment, they swept her from the farm, to the far reaches of China.

“Let’s go get the eggs, Jane,” Arzella said, dragging her back to reality.

"Don’t complain, Jane," she told herself. "Your brothers are staring at swastikas right now." From the back of the paper, a rosy-faced farmer smiled back at her: “Dig On For Victory.” Jane puffed up her chest, set down the book, and followed her mother out to the coop.