A SEWING MACHINE FOR A KISS
        by Michelle Rogge
 
 
 
"--About eight months ago Miss Mary and Jeanette Hopwood, Sally
Hamilton, and Angeline Harrington, all of Vinton, IA., came to Dakota
and located on claims near Glendale.  Their residence was built on the
four corners of their farms and here they lived all summer and fall,
doing feats of agriculture that would be fatiguing to many an Eastern
society young man.  Yesterday, they proved up, all their witnesses
being ladies, and as their afidavits show, they have fulfilled the letter
of the law, and are justly entitled to their farms."
                                    --_The_Faulkton_Times_, Dec. 1882
 
 
 
 
There was no way of knowing for certain, but I suspicioned some
lonely Dakota man might snatch up my sister the day we went into
Glendale to prove up our farms all those years ago.  I had heard
plenty of stories about lonely Dakota men hungering for women.  I
was pretty sure they wouldn't mind that slim shadow of a mustache
on her upper lip, seeing as how she could cook, clean, and sew.  My
chore, as I saw it, was to keep her away from the men and the men
away from her.
 
I confided in my friend Sally, but she just scoffed.  "We've been here
for eight months and nobody's bothered us."
 
When Sally, Angeline, my little sister, and I moved here eight months
ago to settle claims and farm, none of us figured we'd ever get
married.  But now I was worried about Jeanette.  She just wasn't
interested in farming.  
 
I said to Sally, "Look at how Jeanette does all of the cooking and
cleaning and sewing for us.  She's our housewife."
 
Sally chuckled and adjusted her suspenders.  "We-e-e-ll," she said,  "I
think you're worrying for no good reason, Mary.  We don't have men
calling on us.  And we're all too busy anyway."
 
True, there wasn't time to be courting.  When Sally, Angeline, and I
were in the fields and taking care of the animals, Jeanette was busy
cleaning our four sod shanties as best she could, washing and
mending our work clothes, and fixing three meals a day we tore into
with unladylike fervor.  Sally and Angeline and I could never have
been called pretty or delicate.  I was six foot two with broad
shoulders, Sally was close to six foot, with a horsey face, and
Angeline--well, Angel as we liked to call her, was just plainer than
plain, with no figure to speak of at all, straight up and down liked a
neatly plowed corn row.  But none of that mattered on our farms,
where we could prove our worth by working hard, using the muscles
and brains God gave us same as any man.
 
Jeanette, unfortunately, had a curvy figure and, aside from the
mustache, passably pretty features.  And she liked to fix meals and
sew and keep house--just what a husband might desire.
 
I fretted all the way into town as I drove the horses.  I frowned at
Jeanette,  who was wearing a gingham dress, but she didn't appear to
notice her big sister's disapproval.
 
Angel said, "Jeanette, you look real purty."
 
"Shut up, Angel," I muttered under my breath.  I said loudly, "Just
think, girls, eight months ago, all we had was a little money saved up. 
And now we are well on our way to owning our own farms.  And we
did it without any help from fathers or brothers or uncles--"
 
"Or husbands," Angel supplied.  "Although they might have come in
handy if you know what I mean."
 
I sighed and ignored the giggling.  "The point I'm trying to make is
that we've done this on our own.  We would never would have tried to
farm if we had stayed in Iowa, Sally and me teaching and Jeanette
doing mending."
 
"I hated teaching," Sally said.  "Those darned kids--"
 
"Yes," I said.  "And Angel, weren't you--"
 
"Cleaning houses, mostly," she said.  Angel could barely read and
write.  One time I watched her print out a couple of sentences.  The
letters were all turned around, much worse than any first-grader's.
 
"It's true," Sally said.  "We're all doing better now.  We're not just
spinsters.  We're farmers."
 
Jeanette sighed, smoothing out the folds in her dress.  "All except for
me."
 
I shook my head.  "You're wrong, honey.  You got a section of land
same as the rest of us."
 
"And you take care of us so we can do our work," Sally said.
 
Angel grinned at my sister.  "Hell, if I were a man, I'd mar--"
 
"Shut up, Angel!"
 
This time I shouted it.  And it did shut Angel up, temporarily.  We rode
the rest of the way to Glendale in silence.
 
I wanted my sister to be happy.  I just didn't want her to end up like
our mother did--dead after twelve babies, worn out.  And then to lose
most of those babies to scarlet fever and pneumonia--sometimes I
think my mother must have died of a broken heart.  I wasn't going to
let that be my life or Jeanette's if I could help it.
 
Glendale was busy, with people pouring off the train in a steady
stream.  A lot of folks were coming here from the east--single men
and women as well as families.  I steered the girls toward the
courthouse, where we took care of business for our farms.  When we
came out, we headed over to Dilly's General Store to pick up a few
supplies.
 
Then all four of us saw something that stopped our talking, that even
made Angel break off in the middle of a sentence.
 
A young man with wild hermit's eyes and an old man's beard was
sitting on the porch in front of the general store, next to a brand new
Singer sewing machine.  He held a big sign.
 
"What's the words on his sign say?" Angel asked.
 
"A sewing machine for a kiss," Sally said slowly.
 
None of us could believe it.  I heard a little "ooh" slip out of my
sister's mouth.
 
Angel strode over to the man.  "What do you mean by that sign?"
 
He looked Angel up and down.  "Just what it says.  I'll give this new
sewing machine to any woman who'll let me kiss Ôem."
 
"That's it?" Sally said disbelievingly.
 
"That's it," he said.  His starved gaze settled on Jeanette and stayed
there.
 
Angel snorted.  "I sure as hell wouldn't kiss you."
 
"Angel!" I said sternly; but I secretly agreed.  I wouldn't kiss that
man for anything.  There was something repulsive about him, although
I couldn't say just what.  He was clean enough, and he was wearing a
suit.
 
"I'll kiss you," Jeanette said quite suddenly.
 
We all stared at my sister in surprise.  Before we could stop her, she
walked quite boldly over to the man and stood in front of him.  She
stared hard at the sewing machine, saying, "All I have to do is kiss
you and you'll give me that sewing machine?"
 
"That's right," he said.  He looked very excited, as well he might.  One
of the few fairly attractive, unattached women around these parts
was getting ready to kiss him.
 
"Jeanette," I started to say, but it was too late.  She leaned forward
for the kiss, hesitant yet determined, offering up her virgin lips.
 
And then the kiss--if you want to call it that.  He grabbed her and
seemed to swallow her face with his lecherous mouth.  We heard a
sucking noise, and Jeanette put up her left hand momentarily as if to
stop him; but then she grabbed his arm and held on tightly.  Horrified,
it occurred to me that she might be enjoying it.
 
Then he let her go, pushing her away, wiping his wet face with the
sleeve of his shirt, grinning widely.  "It's all yours, honey.  You earned
it."
 
We loaded up the sewing machine in the wagon, not saying much until
we were out of Glendale.
 
Jeanette was the first to break the silence.  "Now I can sew much
faster."
 
We all stared at her.  She was trembling slightly, as if she were still
recovering from the kiss.
 
"He must have been awfully lonely," Sally said, "to trade a brand new
sewing machine just for a kiss."
 
I didn't say anything.  But I wondered if tonight Jeanette would
dream about that man's kiss . . .  how long would we be able to keep
her at home?  It surely wasn't a kiss from a prince, but maybe it had
awakened her just the same to things not growing or breeding on our
land.
 
Angel, who had been quiet for some time, spoke finally.  "Well, aren't
you all worried?"
 
"About what?" I asked.
 
Angel turned to Jeanette.  "Did he get his tongue inside you?"
 
"Angel!"  Sally and I exclaimed.
 
"I heard tell," Angel said, unfazed by our shocked expressions, "that
you can get pregnant from that kind of kiss.  I figure it must be the
tongue that plants the seed--"
 
"Stop the wagon," Jeanette said in a choked voice.
 
She jumped off almost before I brought the wagon to a halt.  She
retched and retched until I thought she must be throwing up parts of
herself she should keep.
 
I helped her back into the wagon, greatly relieved but sad, too--why I
don't know.  Maybe it was the way my sister stared into the coming
darkness as if she wanted desperately to be somewhere she could
never get to.
 
"Don't worry none," Angel said, trying to sound comforting.  "You ain't
pregnant no more, Jeanette.  You throwed up his kiss."
 
I began, "Angel--"
 
"I know," she said, "you want me to shut up."
 
 
In the years that followed, we all surprised ourselves, not just by
earning the titles to our homesteads, but by allowing men to court us. 
I had a couple of boyfriends and Sally and Angel got married.  Sally
even had a couple of kids she could tolerate.  But my sister, sweet
Jeanette, stayed on her homestead and cleaned and cooked and
learned to do some of the farmwork.  She never touched the sewing
machine; she covered it with a cloth and continued to sew by hand. 
She never did marry or allow herself to be courted by any hungry
Dakota man.
 
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