The zen of ironing

A sudden noonday shower sent a chocolate-colored woman dashing across a narrow porch and into the yard. Gathering the clothes pinned on the clothesline with outstretched arms, she called over her shoulder to a small, thin girl standing on the top step.
“Hurry up, Sis! Bring that there basket ‘fore all these clothes git soaked!” She continued to gather the sheets and pillow cases, throwing them over her shoulder. In s hurryThe woman let some of the clothes pins fall to the ground. When the girl stooped to pick them up, the woman scolded, “Forget those, girl. We’ll git them later. Don’t drag those shirts in the dirt, neither. I ain’t goin’ to wash them agin!”
Together, they managed to collect the day’s laundry and pile it into the basket. Only two small towels tumbled to the mud-splattered yard.
The woman hurried to the porch, pushing the basket under the eaves and out of the rain. She climbed the steps much slower than she had descended them. Once out of the downpour, she turned to see the girl turning slowly in the rain, head thrown back, arms outstretched and mouth open.
“C’mon, Sis. Git up here outta that rain. Yo’ momma don’t pay me to let you get sick!”
“Aww, Manda.” the girl whined, “Let me git cooled off some. Ever since Daddy kilt that cottonmouth, he won’t let me go down to the creek anymore. Look, I can git a whole mouthful of water!” Sis continued to turn slowly as the raindrops wet her purple checked shirt and clay stained shorts. Her skin glistened with raindrops.
Manda thought the girl’s skin was beautiful. Pecan colored, with heavy as silk straight black hair. At first glance, anyone might think the girl was related. On further study, they would notice the almond shaped green eyes, the lighter colored skin between her toes and fingers, the tan line at her shoulder. Some of those uppity white ladies at the Baptist Church whispered that the girl’s daddy was Negro, but Manda knew the truth. She had worked for Sis’s grandma down at the Diner across from the train station when the trains used to stop in town. Yes, she had been with the family for a long time. The girl had no Negro in her bloodline. Worse than colored, Manda thought, shaking her head. Her daddy and his pappy was Injun. Redskins. Crow, Chippewa, Cherokee, Sioux. The name of the tribe didn’t matter. She sighed. In the year of our Lord, nineteen hundred and fifty-nine, here in backwoods Georgia, ain’t none who would welcome Injuns to live in their town, let alone own a mule. And never any land. Sis’s daddy had threatened any who uttered the word by drawing his finger across his throat if they told. Manda needed no other warning.
She waved the girl onto the porch. “C’mon, Sis. I said git up here. Don’t make me git my switch!”
Sis grinned. Manda had used her switch only twice in her seven short years that she could remember. She skipped in circles, splashing mud, drawing closer to the porch each time, until she was at the foot of the steps. Hands on her hips, she took two steps at a time until she stood on the porch next to the woman.
Manda had moved to the clotheslines that zigzagged across one end of the porch, and was pinning up the items that were still wet.
“Got to git these here wet ones up ‘fore they sour, girl. Help me pick ‘em out.”
Sis bent and pushed her hands deep into the basket of clothes. She inhaled deeply, smelling the sun drenched linens, and buried her face for a moment.
“Ummm, I love that there smell!”
Manda cleared her throat. “Yo' momma would say ‘I love that smell!’ not ‘that there‘, girl. You got to watch how you speak. Don’t want folks thinking you ignorant, like me. Yo’ momma makin’ sure you talk right, sendin’ you to school and all. And I guess I should be calling you by yo’ Christian name. Emma. That was yo’ great grannie’s name, ya know.”
Sis frowned. She didn’t like that name. Emma. Emma Lee. Sounded like an old woman.
“But I like to be called Sis, Manda.”
The woman thought about how the girl got her nickname. Three years back, Emma’s mother had lost a baby after a long difficult labor, and the doc said she most likely wouldn‘t have more. Just a little more than a year ago, her momma surprised everyone and gave birth to a pale, frail little girl. No one thought she’d live, but the baby thrived with Manda’s help. When her momma was dressed in a fresh gown and propped up on pillows, they let Emma into the room. She had crossed on tiptoe to the bed, hugged her momma’s neck, then bent over the tiny infant. Slipping her finger into the balled up fist, Emma whispered “Hey, there, baby. Don’t you worry ’bout nothin’. I’m your big Sis. I‘ll be watchin‘ over you.” The nickname stuck.
They worked together, the girl picking through the basket, handing pieces to the woman who pinned them in place.
Once the wettest pieces were hung, Sis spoke. “Manda, can you teach me more? Please?”
“Child,” Manda started. “I don’t think yo’ momma would ‘preciate it. You still a bit too little for house chores.”
Sis folded her hands together as if in prayer. “Please, oh please, Manda?”
“Alright. But you best not wake up that baby.”
Sis, already through the screen door, stopped, kicked her left leg back to stop the door from slamming. She eased it closed with her foot, and when she reappeared, she was dragging a wooden ironing board that was longer than she was tall. The girl open the ironing board and put it in place under the lone bare light bulb of the porch.
Manda reached in her apron pocket, opened a palm-sized tin, and placed two fingers worth of chewing tobacco in her cheek. The first sweet bite of tobacco made her clench her teeth. Her jaw worked against the urge to spit.
She stood near the edge of the porch and watched Sis bring out the iron and a Coke bottle filled with cloudy liquid. Again Sis stopped the door slam with her foot.
She set the items in place, brought a rusty milk crate and turned it upside down to use as a step. The basket of clothes scraped the floor as she pulled it near. The girl climbed into place, the ironing board between them.
Manda reached up to plug in the iron at the base of the light. She pulled the string, and the light came on. It would take only a minute or two for the iron to get hot, not like the irons she learned to iron with. They had to be set onto the wood stove to be heated. She looked at the two parallel scars on her left wrist. Both were caused by brushing too close to the stove when picking up those irons.
Sis grinned like it was Christmas morning. Her eyes sparkled. Why this child liked to iron so much, Manda didn‘t understand. But she would oblige the girl.
She reached down and picked up a pillow case. Sis took it, and smoothed it flat on the board with her small hands. She took the iron, turned it towards her, and spit on it. The beads of spit sizzled and danced on the hot surface.
“First, start at the back end, not the open end. Manda said. “One corner, to the other. Same, all the way to the hem. Let the weight of the iron do the work, else yo’ shoulders be aching ‘fore you know it. Don’t let the iron stay too long, you scorch it, be my fannie get in trouble.”
The woman watched the girl guide the heavy iron as instructed. She nodded her approval and
continued to talk in an even tone. “That’s it. Now put the iron on the restin’ plate. Be careful you don’t touch it with yo’ arm. Fold the case down the middle, then three times over itself. Smooth with both hands.”
Sis did as she was told. Holding the folded linen like an offering, she stepped down from the milk crate and placed it in an empty basket. Back on the crate, she repeated the lesson, half whispering Manda’s instructions, and ironed three more pillow cases.
“I’ll do the sheets.” Manda said. “They too big for you. How bout we try your daddy’s work shirt?” She pulled a ladder back chair against the porch post.
Sis squealed, “Really, Manda, for real? Oh, I promise I’ll be real careful. I won’t scorch it.”
“Shush!” she scolded. “You wake up that baby, there be no more ironing for you this day.”
“Just watch and listen.” Manda picked up a blue work shirt and laid the collar flat on the ironing board.
“Now, once you got the collar laid flat, you sprinkle it with the starch water.” Manda picked up the Coke bottle and sprinkled a little of the liquid along the length of the collar. The rain let up a little, and the day’s heat crept under the tin roof of the porch. Sweat beaded along Manda’s top lip and her hairline. The damp cloth made a hissing sound when she placed the iron on it.
“You got to be real careful about the corners of the collar, or you get a wrinkle right at the tip. See here?” She pointed at the collar.
“Then, pull the shoulders onto the end, like this. Iron from neck to shoulder. See?”
Sis stared intently and nodded as Manda slid the iron across fabric.
“Next thing, you iron the front placket from bottom to top, like so.” As she spoke, the iron answered, hissing against the dampened cloth.
She pressed the body of the shirt in silence, and began to hum ‘Wayfarin’ Stranger’. Sis picked up the tune, and sang a thin soprano to Manda’s alto.
The woman paused. “Now, when you get to the buttons, check each one to make sure they not loose. If so, then we need to tighten ‘em back up, or re-stitch them on.”
“And see here, these sleeves be tricky, cause they ain’t the same on either side. You got to lay them flat and iron the back of ‘em first, then the front. Understand?”
Sis nodded her head up and down quickly. She watched the woman finish the cuffs, then hang the shirt on a wire hanger. Sis picked up a shirt from the basket. Manda nodded.
“Now, mind what I said.” She stepped back, and watched the girl.
Sis repeated the instructions somberly. Manda smiled and sat down. The chair’s wicker seat creaked against the woman’s weight.
“That’s it. You got it.” She began to hum the sad song again. The girl’s whispers faded, and she joined in with the words to the song. The rain, which had almost stopped, came harder now, sounding like pebbles against the tin roof. Underneath the peppered sound, the woman and child sang the hymn softly through three more shirts until the baby’s cries brought them back to the porch