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Several sets of hands grabbed at her. Margaret batted helplessly at the men, but to no effect.
“Hold her!” One man grunted.
A man behind her caught hold of her wrists and wretched them painfully behind her back. Margaret cried out as the sharp pain shot through her shoulders. Her mind raced as the man in front of her reached for the collar of her dress. This wasn't happening, certainly not. Nothing like this could ever happen in real life. Yet here is was going on right in front of her—to her. A moment later her dress was torn down the front, sending white buttons in all directions. In the midst of her continued wailing and cries for help, for some reason she pictured her mother sitting in front of the stove one evening sewing one of those buttons back on. She would never see her mother again. The thought only increased her misery.
For a split second her hands were free, but it was a very short moment. No sooner were her hands by her sides than the man behind her roughly pulled her dress off her shoulders. It puddled around her skinny ankles and before she could do anything her hands were back behind her. The man in front grabbed the front of her worn white camisole, the fabric bunched in his calloused hand, and in one swift motion he tore it off her, balled it up, and tossed it into the pile of discarded clothes.
“No!” Margaret cried as she felt the warm sun and the cool morning breeze brush across her tiny breasts.
The men only laughed and set to finishing their job. The man in front hooked his fingers into the waistband of her white cotton panties. Margaret struggled more than ever, but that didn't stop him. He yanked them down to her ankles as the other man changed holds, grabbing her around her narrow waist while penning her arms to her sides.
Desperate to keep her legs together, Margaret stopped struggling. Her heart was beating like a drum, her lungs burned with exertion, and she was covered in a light sheen of sweat. The man in front shook his head and went down on one knee in front of her.
“Going to be a good girl now, huh?” He grabbed one ankle, pulled her shoe off and then her sock and then repeated the process with the other foot. The man stood up and turned toward the two others at the chute, “She's ready.”
Her arms still penned to her sides, the man holding her simply carried her to the chute as the other two opened the gate. A moment later she was on her hands and knees in the dirt of the chute. She scrambled to her feet, but the gate slammed shut behind her. Though she could still clearly see out of the narrow bars that flanked her, Margaret suddenly felt very claustrophobic, like the walls were closing in on her.
“Get a move on!” She heard from outside of the chute. She turned and saw a cattle prod sticking through the bars at her. Before she could move she received a painful shock to her bottom. Margaret shrieked as she grabbed her backside with both hands and did an embarrassing little dance before scurrying down the path.
With her hands crossed over her chest she trotted to the end of the chute. A moment after she'd reached the end a gate snapped shut behind her and she found herself so tightly penned in that she couldn't even turn around or move her hands. A man reached through the outside openings on either side of her.
“What are you...?” She started to ask when the one to her right produced a large pill and popped it into her open mouth. While the one with the pill clapped one of his rough hand over her mouth and the other behind her head, tilting her face skyward, the other rubbed her throat and spoke her in soothing tones.
“Come on, honey...” he cooed. “Swallow.”
Tears sprang to Margaret's eyes, she couldn't swallow it! She choked and choked, thrashing frantically against their firm grips. She tasted her own bitter stomach acids and whimpered pathetically.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the pill went down. They held her firmly for a few minutes and then turned her loose. Margaret started bawling. She hadn't cried like that for perhaps ten years, but it came back with remarkable ease.
The gate in front of her creaked open and she was roughly pushed out into the pen. There were perhaps twenty other girls standing around all looking the way she felt, embarrassed and abused. No one said anything, each girl seemed wrapped up in her own despair. Margaret found her own section of fence to lean against and finish out her crying. Her tears struck the parched soil below. If she kept it up there would be a puddle. The air was filled with sobbing, whimpering and full on wailing.
But it didn't last long.
Margaret felt her eyes start to drupe. In only a few minutes she could no longer stand. She sat down in the dust and continued to struggle with her eyes. Another few moments and lying down sounded like a really good idea to her.
#
Margaret's eyes fluttered open. She swallowed and felt an immediate pain in her throat. It was the worst sore throat she'd ever had. So, much that swallowing again brought tears to her eyes. She sat up, feeling really woozy. She blinked, once, then twice, but her vision wouldn't clear. Then she realized that her glasses were gone. She pawed around looking for them, but found nothing. She squinted her eyes until she could make out the vague shapes of other girls who looked like they were just waking up too.
She tried to call out and ask if anyone could see her glasses, but was shocked by what came out of her mouth. Not a single syllable of a word escaped, just a kind of mournful moan that reminded her of a cow. She tried again, but had the same result. Panic gripped her, she reached up to touch her throat, but found a thick rope around it. Following it down her front she found that it came to a brass cowbell. She picked it up off her upper chest and let it fall back . It made a dull clunking sound.
Her fear rising, Margaret stood up and walked to one of the other girls. Once she was close enough she could see that the other girl was examining her own bell. Whatever these cruel men had done, they'd done it to all of them! In her squinting, something caught her eye. A brightly colored circle on the other girl's right ear. Margaret reached up to her own ear and found an identical circle in her own ear. They'd tagged her! They'd tagged her like a piece of livestock!
Again the air was filled with lamenting, but this time it sounded very different. This time they sounded more like a herd of cows than a group of distraught girls. Margaret tore at the rope around her neck, trying desperately to get it off, but with no success. Finally giving up she buried her face in hands and started crying again.
About this time Margaret heard one of the gates creak open. She looked up from her hands to see a blurry group of figures entered through the opening. Margaret could only presume that they were the same men from before. She turned and clamored against the wall. She knew she couldn't escape, but something primitive in her made her want to try to run, to meld into the wall, anything! The anguished cries of the other girls who were closer to the approaching men only amplified her fear. She shut her eyes and shook her head, surely this wasn't happening. She would wake up in her bed, a book draped over her chest from having dozed off the night before. That's exactly what would happen any second...
A hand roughly grabbed her by the hair, while another twisted her arm back painfully behind her.
“Come on Lil' Bit! Time for breakfast!” The man announced as he pushed her along on her tip toes. As she was pushed she could hear the other men as they grabbed girls, “Come on Buttercup! Come on Bessie!” What was going on?
The man brought her to the opposite side of the pen where Margaret could make out openings about the size of her head. The man pushed her down to her knees and shoved her head through the hole. Then he pulled a cold and metal bar down and braced it across the back of her neck before locking it in place. When she tried to pull her head back out she found that she couldn't. He'd locked her in there!
Looking to her left and to her right Margaret could see other girls in her same predicament. Directly in front of them there was a wide, long wood trough that ran, as far as she could tell, down the entire side of the pen. Several more men came up with plastic buckets, one in each hand. They dumped the contents of one into the trough. When it was right in front of her, Margaret recognized it was some kind of feed. Like the stuff her father would feed the cows at home. The dust from it came up and tickled her face, making her wrinkle up her nose and sneeze.
She heard the man in front of her chuckle at her as he dumped the second bucket in, this one filled with water. Then he reached in with his hand and stirred the contents around. When he was finished Margaret looked down and saw an ugly, tan gruel in front of her, like cream of wheat, but not appetizing in the least.
“Eat up...ladies!” She heard one man mockingly order. Surely he wasn't serious!
None of the girls did. Margaret pushed against the bar that was holding her head in place. She had to get out!
“Come on, get to it!” When still the girls refused he called out, “Okay Ralph, Joe, let 'em have it!”
Margaret strained to look behind her, but she couldn't. Suddenly the third girl to her right jumped forward with a cry. She immediately buried her face into the trough and started eating. Then she heard a girl farther down to her left cry out. Then another and another. On either side of her girls were crying out and then promptly submitting to this humiliating task. No doubt it was the cattle prods doing it. But there was no way, now how that Margaret was going to eat feed out of trough! There was no was on this earth...
No sooner did she feel the shock on her exposed bottom then her face was in the trough gobbling the disgusting mixture just like everyone else. It was so gritty and thankfully only had a slightly bitter taste. It was kind of like she'd imagine eating sand would be. Fear of the shock kept her eating and besides, she was hungry!
In the midst of her eating she felt her nose involuntarily twitch, almost causing her to inhale some of her breakfast. Someone was eating bacon and eggs somewhere nearby. She could smell it distinctly. Right now her family was probably sitting down to breakfast. She felt tears welling up again. They fell freely as she continued to try to eat.
When there was no more within reach for her to eat she raised her face out of the trough. Her cheeks and chin and even her forehead was covered in the slop. She shook her head, desperately trying to get some of the particles off.
The same man who had filled her part of the trough came up, still chuckling at her, “You're a cute one, ain't you, Lil' Bit?”
Margaret just stared up at him.
“Okay, open up, sweetie!” He raised a large, clear plastic bottle filled with what looked like milk, with a long brown nipple on the end. Margaret recognized this too, it was just like the bottles her father would use to feed baby calves.
Margaret clenched her teeth and turned away.
“Ralf!” She heard the man in front of her call.
Margaret immediately turned back and opened her mouth.
The man laughed and called over the fence, “Never mind, she's learning!” Then he popped the nipple into her mouth. “Suck it down, honey!” he ordered pleasantly.
Margaret glared at him and started sucking. As soon as the liquid hit her tongue she knew if wasn't milk. It tasted terribly bitter and it was thinner than milk. Undoubtedly some kind of formula, but God was it awful! She drank and drank and drank until she could no more. Finally, he pulled the nipple out. He held the bottle up to her face and shook the remaining contents around.
“Good, girl!” he said ruffling her hair with his free hand. Then he nodded to someone behind her.
The bar behind her head lifted and Margaret could finally pull her head out. The first thing that she did was wipe her breakfast off her face. But she didn't have time to do anymore than that, before she heard a call from the middle of the pen.
“All right, ladies, line up!”
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