Julia's Hope (23 page)

“She’s an odd teacher, Dad,” he confided. “Made us all sing in our chairs first thing. And she made me recite the alphabet like a little kid, just to see if I had decent teachin’ where I come from. We didn’t even say the pledge till right before we left.”

“Everybody has their way of doing things,” I told him. “It doesn’t sound all that bad.”

“There isn’t but seventeen of us in the whole school! Five of ’em are boys about my age. I like that, but Mrs. Post said it’s a terror having so many boys. Only four girls, Dad, in the whole school. They don’t like it neither, I can tell, getting picked on.”

“Maybe you’ll have to look out for them. Make sure the other boys don’t give them such a hard time.”

“Then they’d be giving
me
a hard time, Dad. Orville Mueller already said I was a shrimp. I sure don’t want him callin’ me no sissy.”

“You have to do what’s right, Robert.”

“Aw, Dad. It’s bad enough just being new.”

“Think about it. Think how you’d feel if one of those girls was your sister. And she’ll be there next fall. Maybe things can improve a bit before then.”

“Maybe Orville Mueller won’t be back. He’s big enough to get a job, Dad. Maybe this is his last year.”

“Still, think of what I’m saying. Most of the boys
will
be back. Sometimes it takes just one to teach the others a better way of doing things.”

Robert was quiet awhile, thinking. “Mrs. Gray said something like that in Sunday school. That we can change things just by doing what we should.”

“A pretty sound lesson.”

“But Dad, Teacher stops ’em whenever she sees it. The other times, I can’t do nothing. It’s before school or after, mostly. And the worst of ’em are the ones bigger than me.”

He was in a dilemma, and I knew it. I didn’t want to condone anyone getting tormented. But I didn’t want him coming home with black eyes either. “Do your best is all I can say right now. We’ll pray on it.”

“Does God want me to fight, Dad?” he asked. “On account of the girls?”

“That’s not the best way. Not usually.”

“Willy said the only way to stop Orville Mueller is to offer a fight. But there isn’t anybody willing to do that.”

“He’s big, then?”

“Yeah. And mean. He pulled Esther Cohen’s hair and knocked her books in the ditch.”

“There’s not much brave or tough about a bully.”

“Maybe not. But there’s plenty of fearsome.”

I gave his shoulder a pat, not sure what else to tell him. After a long pause, he looked into my face like he was trying to judge the sort of reaction he’d get from what he was about to say.

“I almost went up to the front in Sunday school, Dad,” he said. “When Mrs. Gray asked who wanted to give over their heart to God. She said we could come up and announce to the world that we was gonna be used for good works, not bad.”

“Why didn’t you go?”

“Nobody else went, except Mrs. Gray’s daughter. And some of the boys were snickering and carrying on. I couldn’t, Dad, not being so new, or I’d never get any friends.”

“You’ll have to consider what kind of friends you want.”

Robert just looked at me for a moment, then hopped down from the fence without another word and started for the house. I glanced over at the Posts, who were working about twenty yards away. I thought that maybe I should have said more, that maybe Robert needed to hear what a good boy I thought he was.

No, I decided. He needed to walk off, thinking. And then decide for himself where he stands.

I would have prayed on it right then and there, but Barrett Post had dug another hole, and I had to hustle to drag the post up from where it fell in the weeds.

George Hammond got himself busy in the field next to us that day with his horse-drawn plow, preparing the ground to plant before Emma could change her mind about it. His boys Willy and Kirk came to take Robert fishing after supper. And some folks I’d never met came up the road in a green-painted wagon, offering us a spice cake and asking to see Emma. Covey and Alberta Mueller, they said. And they stayed into the night with Emma, talking up a storm. They seemed nice enough, and Julia was pleased to have their company. But I couldn’t help thinking about a big boy named Orville Mueller. The bully. Was he their son? What might he be doing while his folks were away?

I got so restless that I finally took Sarah off to the pond, where the boys were still fishing. They’d caught seven and were trying to decide how to split them three ways.

“Just take the extra,” I told the Hammond boys. “You got a bigger family.”

When the Hammonds left, Sarah started dancing around me in the moonlight. “Tell a story, Daddy,” she begged. “Right out here in the wide open.”

I sighed. I was so full of thoughts about neighbors and bullies and the coming winter snow, but I sat on an old log and gathered my girl on my lap. Robert plunked his fish into an old bucket and sat beside me.

“There was a certain polliwog named Alice,” I began. “And Alice lived in the mud at the bottom of a little bitty pond.”

Sarah laid her head against my chest, and Robert stared out over the pond in front of us. “Are you making this one up, Dad?” he asked.

“Yeah, this one.”

“Hush, Robby,” Sarah scolded. “Daddy, go on.”

“Alice the polliwog lived way down deep in the mud. She only had two problems. Winter and a bullfrog named Ogelvie.” I took a deep breath, wondering how they tolerated my dumb little tales. After all, it wasn’t hard to tell them. I just said whatever came to mind.

“Alice had made a nice house with mud walls and a mud floor and had everything just how she wanted it. But when winter came she was much too cold. And when Ogelvie the bullfrog came, he always leaned on one of her walls and knocked it right over. Then she’d have to work as fast as she could to fix it back up again. And Ogelvie never helped.”

Robert picked up a stick. Sarah closed her eyes.

“One time, the winter was so cold that the pond froze all the way to the bottom. The mud was thick and hard to move in. Alice stayed home, huddled under seventeen blankets just to stay warm. But Ogelvie was tough and strong, and he hopped right out in that cold, hard mud all the way to Alice’s house and asked her for tea. And when he was drinking it, he leaned back on her wall and knocked it right over. Alice was mad. Really mad. But the bullfrog just laughed and went away.”

Robert glanced up at me, then pulled out his pocketknife and commenced to whittle. I kept expecting him to outgrow my storytelling and leave it for Sarah alone to hear. But this hadn’t happened yet.

“Poor Alice had to get out from under her blankets and into that deep, cold mud. She had to fix her wall before the cold froze up her whole house. She worked real hard, and all the while she thought how good it would be to have a nice friend. Not like Ogelvie, who always broke down her walls. Not like the fish either, who just swam away or else tried to eat her for dinner. She thought and thought about that and almost had her wall finished when she heard a little cry coming from the path outside. She didn’t want to stop, but she did anyway, even though her house was getting colder and colder. Somebody was crying, and she had to know who, to help them if she could.”

I shifted Sarah onto my shoulder and she snuggled against me.

“Alice found a little polliwog even smaller than herself,” I went on. “He was crying because a big bullfrog had leaned on his house and broke it all to pieces. There was no way he could fix it. ‘You can stay in my house,’ Alice told him. And the little polliwog was so happy that he helped Alice fix her wall. Then they went inside and snuggled under the blankets and found they were much warmer together than they were alone. They didn’t even mind Ogelvie as much anymore, because now when he broke a wall, there was someone to help fix it. It’s more fun that way, everyone knows.”

I stopped. Robert was looking at me strangely. “Is that the end?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Some story.”

“Thanks.” I stood up, lifting Sarah with me. She opened her eyes, but closed them again immediately. “Bedtime,” I told her. “Let’s get back to the house.”

Just then we heard the rustling of brush and the obvious crunch of footsteps on the twig-strewn path.

“Willy Hammond, are you listenin’ in?” Robert called. But there was no answer. Only the sound of feet, and not very big ones, running away.

TWENTY-FIVE

Julia

For Tuesday breakfast, Emma and I cut the sprouts off some potatoes we’d kept back from the planting box. Louise Post had sent us home with some of her leftover pork, and I used the fat we’d saved from it to fry up our hash browns. Oh, they were good, with just enough salt left in the box to make them right.

“Got to go to the store today,” Emma reminded me. She’d made sure yesterday to ask Barrett Post to take us. And he’d said Louise would be just delighted to visit with Emma so that we could all go together. Sam wasn’t a bit anxious to go, but I told him Post was expecting him and it wouldn’t be seemly to stay at home with Emma and Louise. He mumbled something about working in the barn, but changed his mind when Barrett came to pick us up and asked him to sit up front so they could talk about what they’d need to fix his roof.

Elvira Post had called off school so she could see a dentist, and Robert was excited to be able to go with us and spend his nickel. Sarah had hers too, held tight in her clenched fist until I suggested she stuff it in the pocket of her skirt for safekeeping.

I didn’t make a list, but Emma did, and she insisted we take it along with the money she pulled out of her box-shaped purse. Her generosity was awfully hard on Samuel, and he kept apologizing to her about having to use her money.

“Nonsense,” was all she’d say. “I’m a’wantin’ all this, so I oughta pay for it.”

“I’ll pay her back,” Sam told me. “When I first get paid cash. I’ll pay for everything after that.”

I kissed him and we were soon rambling down the road in Barrett’s old pickup again, the breeze flopping Sarah’s scarf in every direction. She was having trouble keeping it on and it almost blew away once. I must have tied it for her a dozen times, but she kept fiddling with the ends. Still, we laughed about it, and Robert exclaimed what a time she’d have keeping her things in order on the way to school next fall.

“I don’t want to go,” she declared. “I like it home with Emma. Can she be my grandma, Mama? Please?”

Sam heard that, even up front. So did Mr. Post, and he answered in a voice loud enough for all of us to hear. “Why not? Might as well be. Warren would have liked you all. I’m fairly sure of that.”

Driving down the road with his arm hanging out one window, he went on, telling us that Emma’s son, Warren, had been one of his best friends.

“We used to call him Wig, after his initials,” he said. “Warren Immanuel Graham. A real shame to lose him. He was a lot like his mama. Nothing to complain about. I think he’d be glad you’re with her. She wanted more kids around. She always did. Always welcomed anybody, just to have ’em around.”

He chuckled a moment as he turned a corner. “I remember one year her bein’ so good to an old tramp that my mother got plum riled at her. Said we’d be invaded by tramps ’fore long, once the others caught wind of it. Don’t seem like we get too many more, though, seein’s we ain’t next to the tracks. Them that is, they’re the ones that have gotta watch.”

We were in Dearing almost before we knew it. Mr. Post said he’d be next door looking for a lamp while we got our groceries. But he hadn’t even gotten out of the truck before I saw Miss Hazel hurrying in our direction from her house down the street.

She had a cherry-colored hat on her head that bobbed while she walked. She clutched her purse in both hands and rushed at Mr. Post just as he was slamming his door shut.

She didn’t even wait for him to turn around. “You oughta be ashamed of yourself, Barrett Post! Haulin’ these people into town to spend Emma’s money! Ain’t you got a lick a’ conscience about you no more?”

I could see Samuel looking like he’d been hit in the face. I sent the kids into the store ahead of us so they wouldn’t hear any more.

“What makes you think they’s here to spend money?” Barrett asked her.

“I got eyes, ain’t I? They’re goin’ in the store.”

“They’s here for groceries, true enough. But you don’t know what kinda arrangements they got, Hazel. You sure don’t got no way a’ knowin’ if it’s Emma’s money or not.”

“I’d bet the roof off my house it is.”

“Well, I could use one right now, Miss Hazel, but I still don’t see how it’s any a’ your business. Go on home and leave these folks alone.”

“I come for some lard, and you ain’t sendin’ me home till I get it!” she huffed at Mr. Post as she started for the door of the grocer. Sam was already beside it and pulled it open for her, but she didn’t even look at him.

I hurried inside after her, wanting to be sure she didn’t snip at my children, but Sam stayed outside. I caught a glimpse of him over by the pickup again with Mr. Post, leaning into the rusty side. Post was talking, and Samuel, looking beaten, just stood and nodded his head.

Mr. Hastings, the owner, greeted me immediately. I said hello but hurried to the cabinet where Miss Hazel was standing right next to my Sarah.

“Move enough that I can reach in for my lard,” Hazel commanded her. “There ain’t nothin’ in that case pertains to you anyhow, little girl.”

Sarah moved over but said, “Yes, there is. I want some cheese. And I got me a whole nickel.”

“Well!” Hazel huffed. “Let’s hope you got it honest!”

I couldn’t help myself. She had no business speaking like that to any child. “Miss Sharpe, I beg your pardon. But you hadn’t ought to be so hateful to a little girl—”

“Hateful?” She looked stunned, as though it were perfectly normal to question openly someone’s honesty. “She was the one rude enough to talk back to an elder,” she snapped at me. “The poor thing needs manners, just like her parents. Excuse me, now, so I can pay Hiram for the lard.”

She pushed past me and walked to the cash box. Then Sarah looked up with a big sigh and declared, “Boy, is she cranky.”

I knew we were in for it then, and I tried to apologize to Miss Hazel before she even got started, but there was no stopping her. She turned around, slow and steady like she was working her words around in her mind. “Mrs. Wortham,” she said coolly, “if you or your child ever decide to insult me again, I shall call for William Turrey, the deputy, to instruct you in the sort of conduct we approve of in this town.”