Borrowed Children
Authors: George Ella Lyon
B
ORROWED
C
HILDREN
B
ORROWED
C
HILDREN
G
EORGE
E
LLA
L
YON
THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY
Copyright © 1999 by The University Press of Kentucky
The University Press of Kentucky
Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth,
serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky,
Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown
College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State
University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania
University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western
Kentucky University.
All rights reserved.
Editorial and Sales Offices:
The University Press of Kentucky
663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008
www.kentuckypress.com
12 11 10 09 08Â Â 8 7 6 5 4
Originally published by Bantam Starfire 1988.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lyon, George Ella, 1949â
    Borrowed children / George Ella Lyon.
       p.  cm.
       Summary : having been forced to act as mother and housekeeper
    during Mama's illness, twelve-year-old Amanda has a holiday in
    Memphis, far removed from the Depression drudgery of her Kentucky
    mountain family, and finds her world expanding even as she grows to
    understand and appreciate her background.
       ISBN-10: 0-8131 -0972-8 (alk. paper)
       1. Depressionsâ1929âKentucky Juvenile fiction. 2. Depressionsâ
    1929âTennesseeâMemphis Juvenile fiction. 3. Kentucky Fiction.
    [1. Depressionsâ1929 Fiction. 2. Mountain lifeâKentucky Fiction.
    3. Family lifeâKentuckyâFiction. 4. Memphis (Tenn.) Fiction.] I. Title.
    PZ7.L9954Bo   1999
    [Fic]âdc21                99-32579
    ISBN-13: 978-0-8131-0972-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
This book is printed on acid-free recycled paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.
Manufactured in the United States of America
For My Mother
Don't you think you were a fine woman
for me to study to learn by heart?
â“Riding Hood”
B
ETSY
S
HOLL
Contents
1
It's Friday. Fridays are the best days because we know Daddy is coming home. He works all week cutting timber on Big Lick Mountainâtoo far to come back to Goose Rock every night. I wish he could. The house lights up when Daddy's here.
Even now, just knowing he's on his way, chores seem easier and we don't quarrel. I've been taking care of my little sisters, Anna and Helen, but they've been happyâHelen stringing spools on yarn, Anna looking at the new Sears-Roebuck catalogue. “Wish Book,” Daddy calls it. “Wishes are free,” he says. “Look your fill.” And we do. They've got things on those slick pages that Goose Rock's never seen: clothes washers, typewriters, electric lights. But Anna looks at dolls.
“I'd give a bushel of money for that bride doll,” she says, pointing to a tall one got up in wads of lace.
“And what would you do with her? She'd be thick with coal dust in no time.” In Goose Rock coal dust is as common as dirt.
“I'd keep her under my pillow,” Anna insists.
“And squash her flat as a board.”
“Oh, Mandy ⦔
“Remember what Daddy said about Miss Snavely and the Wish Book. You don't always get what you order.”
“What did he say?”
“Said she ordered a suit, and when it came, her heart broke because it didn't have that pretty man in it.”
“That's just a story,” Anna argues. “Nobody's that dumb.”
“No? Then what are they doing here, stuck between two mountains with nothing but a Wish Book to look at?”
“We're not dumb and we're here.”
“That's because we follow the timber.”
“Maybe it's the trees that are dumb,” Helen suggests.
“âThat's it exactly,” I tell her. “Dumb maple! Dumb walnut! Knot-head pine.”
We're all laughing when Ben bursts in.
“Mandy, I've got to talk to you,” he says, his breath coming in heaves. “Right now. Private.” He motions me out on the porch.
Ben is fourteen, tall and skinny like me, but that's okay for a boy. He's been running, and his hair looks like a blackbird about to take off.
“I'm listening,” I say, glancing through the window to make sure the girls don't knock over a lamp or something.
“You know those lunches Mama packs us in schooltimeâham biscuit, a jar of milk? Well, that's all right here in Goose Rock, but when you go to Manchester to school⦠why, there's boys eating steak between white bread, Mandy, and not out of paper sacks either. They say you can buy that bread sliced and it tastes just like cake. And there we sit with dry biscuits and hard ham. So me and DavidâI don't know which of us firstâwe just thought we'd go to the hotel one day and try out lunch there.”
I can't believe it. David's two years older than Ben and so crazy about Polly Anderson I didn't know he'd even noticed the Asher Hotel. I've wanted to eat there ever since I first laid eyes on itâwhite and tall and fancy, like a hotel in New York. I've read about New York, you know. And that's the kind of place I belong. But I'd be too scaredânot of the hotel people but of Mama and Daddyâto ever just walk in.
“Well, what was it like?”
“You never saw a thing like it,” Ben says, his blue eyes warming, “unless it was in the dining car bound for Memphis. Tablecloths and silver dish covers, hot meat and potatoes with the butter standing. Why, we ate so much, David said he slept through the next hour of school. Not me. And Mr. Asher told us to come back to the hotel any time we wanted, he was proud to do business with Mr. Perritt s sons.”
“Proud to take Daddy's money, you mean.” Ben's face whitens. I didn't mean to make him feel worse. “That's pretty bad,” I say, “but anybody can slip up once. Daddy'U get over it.”
“But it wasn't just once,” Ben says, his voice rising. “We went there the whole last month of school, Mandy, and that's how come Mr. Asher sent Daddy a bill. It's come today. Mama said she couldn't think what we owed the hotel for.”
“And she's not opened it?”
“I reckon not. I can still sit down.”
“Well, try not to worry,” I tell him. “It may blow over.”
His eyes follow mine to a thunderhead along the ridge.
Without a word, he bolts off the porch, then lopes across the yard and through the narrow meadow to the shed. I expect that's where he ran in from. Had to go talk to Welkie about the bill before he talked to me. Welkie's a horse. Ben gets more comfort out of any kind of creature than most people do from best friends.
He's going to need comfort too. Money is already a problem around here. Sawmill business is down because of something called the Depression, and Mama is expecting another baby. Don't ask me why. A baby is the last thing we need.
So it's going to hit hard, this bill from the Asher Hotel. Ben and David never should have done it. As long as they did, though, I wish they'd taken me along. I'm the one who would appreciate it. Boys judge a meal by how well it covers the plate.
It's getting dark as a cellar out here and its only six o'clock. Daddy says these are dog daysâhot enough to make anybody pant. But now a wind's come up and the forsythia bush skitters against the porch. Mama calls to ask if I see Daddy, and I go in, watching the curtains blow at the window.
“Not a sign,” I tell her.
He should be here by now. The table s laid, the dumplings puffing up in the chicken broth. Mamas lit the lamp above the gold-rimmed tureen on the table.
“It's chipped but it's gold,” she says, patting the graceful lid, “and older than any of us. Came over with the Ezelles from France, packed in feathers.”
My grandmother Omie was an Ezelle, and Mama always says this whenever we have chicken and dumplings or stew or whatever requires the tureen. I like to think of the Ezelles themselves packed in feathers.
I follow her back to the kitchen. Its strangeâI'm taller than she is now. I check the part in her hair. Always straight. Everything about her is neat, plump, and pretty. Where did she get a daughter like a clothesline pole?
Sweat beads on her forehead as she mixes the cornbread batter.
“No point in baking this till your father gets here. Go see if you see him coming.”
As I pass through the parlor, Helen reaches for something in the catalogue, Anna jerks it back, and the thin page rips.
“She's tearing up my dolls!” Anna hollers.
“Mine, too!” Helen holds the crumpled paper close.
“Take them outside, Amanda,” Mama says. “Leave the catalogue and go watch for Daddy. It'll help him get home. Somebody watching always does.”
So we troop out to the porch. Thunder rumbles like empty coal cars. Just as we reach the rail, the rain comes down in buckets and lightning bleaches the dirt road in front of our house. All of a sudden there's a shriek, Helen grabs me around the waist, and Anna starts pointing and screaming. I look where she's looking and see a horse and rider blurred by the slant of rain.