Darby
Authors: Jonathon Scott Fuqua
Hearing Things I Normally Don’t
No Place on Earth More Beautiful
In the Woods Near McPherson’s Pond
When I look across the cotton fields of my family’s farm, the flat ground seems to rush away from my feet till it rubs the sky. From my back porch, I can see where my best friend lives. Evette’s tenant house sits on my daddy’s property. Together, we play out in the fields and woods, but on account of her being black and me being white, she hardly ever comes in my house, and I don’t go in hers. My daddy says that’s just the way it is.
Everyone around here knows my daddy because he owns a farm and the Carmichael Dry Goods store in Bennettsville, where he stocks all sorts of stuff except for the best dresses. Me and my other best friend, Beth, sometimes go visit his store after school. We sit on the counter and watch people when they come in. We like to take his elevator up and down, because you don’t have to do anything but look at my daddy’s helper, Russell, pulling on the ropes to make you rise. As a matter of fact, it’s the first elevator in all of Marlboro County, so I suppose a lot of people come to town just so they can ride it.
When I don’t go with Beth after school, my twelve-year-old brother, McCall, who, like a lot of farm kids, has been driving since he was ten, carries me home in our Chevrolet. Our farm is three miles away, so I ride with Daddy or McCall, or I got to walk. The thing is, on account of me being a girl, McCall says, “Darby, you need to sit in back till my friends are gone.”
I don’t like to, but I do it. One by one, his friends leap off the car without us even stopping. They sail from the hood and the running boards, and it’s like watching birds fly away. I told McCall that once, and he said I was as crazy as a polecat, so I told him that girls should sit in the front seat of cars because we’re better. He didn’t listen, though. Instead, he socked me in my arm.
If I come straight home from school, I usually get something to eat from Annie Jane, who cooks our meals. Then I go to find Evette. Behind my house, I weave through my daddy’s favorite flower bushes, his camellias, and past the pecan grove and the dairy and into the cotton fields, where the straight rows lead to Evette’s door. Instead of knocking, I stand in the field and yell for her like she does when she visits me.
If she’s not there, I usually feel lonely. More than anyone, she’s the best person to do stuff with on our farm. Sometimes, though, she has to go off with her mama to pick cotton or boll weevils, or sometimes she just stays and plays with her friends from the black school she goes to, which makes me wish I’d stayed in town with Beth, whose brother has a pet goat and a nice riding cart that he hitches to him. Most every day that goat, Mercury, pulls Beth’s brother up and down Main Street, and if I ask, he always gives me a ride.
If Evette isn’t home, I usually go back through the wide fields and into my yard, where I sometimes set up a penny peek, which is a hole in the ground where you arrange pretty flowers and rocks and branches, like a window display. Other times, I go and pole-vault with an old rake handle or maybe watch Annie Jane make something that she’ll let me taste. My mama says there’s all sorts of entertainment on our farm, and I know it’s true. I just wish Evette was around all the time instead of only a lot.
Even though the black school Evette goes to isn’t as good as the Murchison School I attend in town, she’s near about the smartest person I know. Mama says she gets worn-out books and poor supplies, like old maps and crumbly chalk and that sort of thing. But that doesn’t seem to affect her one bit. Evette’s got a brain like flypaper. Once things get stuck to it, they don’t come unstuck.
Because I like her so much, last fall I did what I sometimes do. I snuck down to the basement and swiped some of my dress-up clothes, then ran across the field as fast as I could so that Mama wouldn’t spot me with my hands full. When I got near Evette’s house, she rushed out, and we shot off into the woods, where we played the fanciest ladies you’ve ever seen. She got to wear the biggest, brightest dress on account of us taking turns with it, and it was so funny, because in a real ladylike voice she stepped from around a tree, and said, “I think I wanna get a diamond so big my arm won’t lift up.”
“Me, too,” I told her.
“I’m gonna get a wide floppy hat, too,” she declared, “with flowers on it.”
“I’m gonna do the same.” I walked around as dainty as I could.
“I’m gonna get the longest, fanciest car and a real polite driver who only calls me
ma’am.
”
I laughed at her. “Evette, blacks can’t own cars.”
Frowning, she said, “Girl, who told you that?”
I answered, “I just never saw it, is all.”
“My aunt in New York City owns a car. She sent us a letter with a picture of it.”
I stopped and gave her a look. “Are you telling the truth?” I asked.
“Yeah, I am. Also, she and my uncle Wilson own a house that’s in a real nice black neighborhood. It’s got four bedrooms and a library.”
That being just about the most amazing thing I’d ever heard, I thought about it all afternoon. When we’d been playing for a while, I asked, “Do your aunt and uncle have electricity in their house?”
“And plumbing and gas.”
Shaking my head, I said, “I just never heard of that.”
“It’s ’cause it’s mostly a secret that blacks can be that way. But when I get older, I’m gonna write about that stuff for a newspaper. That’s what my aunt does. And, when you write for a newspaper, you gotta tell the truth, and I’m gonna be famous for it. I’m gonna tell people things they wouldn’t ever know.”
“Like what?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I just have to think to remember things.”
“You know what McCall told me that I didn’t know? He said that holding a toad doesn’t really give you warts.”
“It’s true. My big sister carried one to school, and she didn’t ever get any.”
“Are you gonna write about that?”
“Darby, you oughta do it your ownself. It’s kinda fun, you know. You just start by saying real things, then you try and say real things most people don’t know. It’s like a puzzle.”
I explained, “I can’t do it, ’cause I don’t spell so good.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Evette answered. “That’s why newspapers have editors. They check to make sure stuff is spelled right.”
“Well,” I said, “I don’t like writing so much, either.” Finding some long white gloves in the dress-up pile, I pulled them on up my arms like a movie star. “Editors are people who check spelling?”
“They do other things, too. But the checking spelling stuff is the most important.”
“Mrs. Evette,” I played, “it’s so good to see you. Can you tell me how you know so much?”
“Well, Mrs. Darby,” Evette joked back, “it’s good to see you, too. And it’s ’cause I ask, is how.”
So that’s why I began thinking I might try writing something someday, because Evette made it sound good. Still, mostly I wanted to be a mama and own the prettiest dresses and jewels and show my children how to do that trick where it looks like a person is taking her finger off at the tip.
We eat dinner at six-thirty. Mama rings a bell, and if I’m a second late or wear my hat to the table, she looks at me stern. For some reason, McCall’s usually late, and she always gives him the kind of unhappy eyes I can’t stand. My father sits at the top of the table, next to the main dish, and me and Mama and Aunt Greer are scattered around the sides. If McCall saunters in after we’ve commenced to eating, my daddy shakes his head and tells him he can’t go out and play the next day.
“Yes, sir,” McCall always says.
The night of the day that Evette and I played dress-up in the woods, I went to my room after dinner and made a notebook for reporting, which was kind of fun, sewing it all together and making sure the pages were straight. When I had finished, I carried it down to the parlor and asked my mama, who was also sewing, if she knew about toads not causing warts.
“Darby, dear, that’s just an old wives’ tale.”
I wrote down her comment. “Well, everyone at school thinks it’s true,” I told her. “Maybe I should write an article about it?”
“Maybe you should.”
“Maybe I’ll write it for a newspaper?”
“Darby, dear, reporting is a man’s job.”
“It shouldn’t be,” I answered. But I could tell she didn’t like me talking that way, so I tried changing the subject. “Mama, you wanna know something I learned today? I learned Evette’s aunt and uncle in New York own a car and a house.”
Mama laughed. “Don’t believe everything that girl tells you, Darby.”
“But she said she’s got a picture to prove it.”
“Really? You should ask her to see it, then.”
“But I believe Evette, so I don’t have to.” Who knows what Mama thought about me saying that. I was scared to look at her.