【荆棘鸟】第二章 21

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Doubt in her eyes, she turned then to Frank.

  "Ought I to shave it?" she asked, tight-upped. Frank put out his hand, revolted. "Oh, Mum, no!

  Surely not! If she gets a good douse¹ of kerosene² it ought to be enough. Please don't shave it!"

  So Meggie was marched to the worktable and held over the tub while they poured cup after cup of kerosene over her head and scrubbed the corrosive³ soap through what was left of her hair. When they were finally satisfied, she was almost blind from screwing up her eyes against the bite of the caustic⁴, and little rows of blisters⁵ had risen all over her face and scalp. Frank swept the fallen curls into a sheet of paper and thrust it into the copper⁶ fire, then took the broom and stood it in a panful of kerosene. He and Fee both washed their hair, gasping⁷ as the lye seared their skins, then Frank got out a bucket and scrubbed the kitchen floor with sheep-dip. When the kitchen was as sterile⁸ as a hospital they went through to the bedrooms, stripped every sheet and blanket from every bed, and spent the rest of the day boiling, wringing⁹ and pegging¹⁰ out the family linen¹¹. The mattresses¹² and pillows were draped over the back fence and sprayed with kerosene, the parlor¹³ rugs were beaten within an inch of their lives. All the boys were put to helping¹⁴, only Meggie exempted¹⁵ because she was in absolute disgrace. She crawled away behind the barn and cried. Her head throbbed¹⁶ with pain from the scrubbing, the burns and the blisters; and she was so bitterly ashamed that she would not even look at Frank when he came to find her, nor could he persuade her to come inside.

  In the end he had to drag her into the house by brute¹⁷ force, kicking and fighting, and she had pushed herself into a corner when Paddy came back from Wahine in the late afternoon. He took one look at Meggie's shorn head and burst into tears, sitting rocking himself in the Windsor chair with his hands over his face, while the family stood shuffling¹⁸ their feet and wishing they were anywhere but where they were. Fee made a pot of tea and poured Paddy a cup as he began to recover. "What happened in Wahine?" she asked. "You were gone an awful long time." "I took the horsewhip to that blasted Dago and threw him into the horse trough, for one thing. Then I noticed MacLeod standing¹⁹ outside his shop watching, so I told him what had happened. MacLeod mustered²⁰ some of the chaps at the pub and we threw the whole lot of those Dagos into the horse trough, women too, and tipped a few gallons of sheep-dip into it. Then I went down to the school and saw Sister Agatha, and I tell you, she was fit to be tied that she hadn't noticed anything. She hauled the Dago girl out of her desk to look in her hair, and sure enough, lice all over the place.

 

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