A Painted House (40 page)

Probably not. There was something in that story about the rainbow as God’s promise to never again flood the earth.

It was certainly flooding now. The sight of a rainbow was almost a holy event in our lives, but we hadn’t seen one in weeks. I didn’t understand how God could allow such things to happen.

Pappy had been to the creek at least three times during the day, watching and waiting and probably praying.

“When did it start?” I asked.

“I reckon an hour ago. Don’t know for sure.”

I wanted to ask when it would stop, but I already knew the answer.

“It’s backwater,” he said. “The St. Francis is too full, there’s no place for it to go.”

We watched it for a long time. It poured forth and came toward us, rising a few inches on the front tires. After a while I was anxious to head back. Pappy, however, was not. His worries and fears were being confirmed, and he was mesmerized by what he was seeing.

In late March, he and my father had begun plowing the fields, turning over the soil, burying the stalks and roots and leaves from the previous crop. They were happy then, pleased to be outdoors after a long hibernation. They watched the weather and studied the almanac, and they had begun hanging around the Co-op to hear what the other farmers were saying. They planted in early May if the weather was right. May 15 was an absolute deadline for putting the cotton seeds in the ground. My contribution to the operation began in early June, when school was out and weeds began sprouting. They gave me a hoe, pointed me in the right direction, and for many hours a day I chopped cotton, a task almost as hard and mind-numbing as picking the stuff. All summer as the cotton and the weeds around it grew, we chopped. If the cotton bloomed by July 4, then it was going to be a bumper crop. By late August we
were ready to pick. By early September we were searching for hill people and trying to line up some Mexicans.

And now, in mid-October, we were watching it get swept away. All the labor, the sweat and sore muscles, all the money invested in seed and fertilizer and fuel, all the hopes and plans, everything was now being lost to the backwaters of the St. Francis River.

We waited, but the flood did not stop. In fact the front tires of the tractor were half-covered with water when Pappy at last started the engine. There was barely enough light to see. The trail was covered with water, and at the rate the flood was spreading we’d lose the lower forty by sunrise.

I had never witnessed such silence over supper. Not even Gran could find anything pleasant to say. I played with my butter beans and tried to imagine what my parents were thinking. My father was probably worried about the crop loan, a debt that would now be impossible to repay. My mother was working on her escape from the cotton patch. She was not nearly as disappointed as the other three adults. A disastrous harvest, following such a promising spring and summer, gave her an arsenal of artillery to use against my father.

The flood kept my mind off heavier matters—Hank, Tally, Cowboy—and for this reason it was not an unpleasant subject to think about. But I said nothing.

School would reopen soon, and my mother decided I should begin a nightly routine of reading and writing. I was longing for the classroom, something I would never admit, and so I enjoyed the homework. She commented on how rusty my cursive writing had become and declared that I needed a lot of practice. My reading wasn’t too smooth either.

“See what pickin’ cotton’ll do to you?” I said.

We were alone in Ricky’s room, reading to each other before I went to bed. “I have a secret for you,” she whispered. “Can you keep a secret?”

If you only knew, I thought. “Sure.”

“Promise?”

“Sure.”

“You can’t tell anybody, not even Pappy and Gran.”

“Okay, what is it?”

She leaned even closer. “Your father and I are thinkin’ about goin’ up North.”

“What about me?”

“You’re goin’, too.”

That was a relief. “You mean to work like Jimmy Dale?”

“That’s right. Your father has talked to Jimmy Dale, and he can get him a job at the Buick plant in Flint, Michigan. There’s good money up there. We’re not stayin’ forever, but your father needs to find somethin’ steady.”

“What about Pappy and Gran?”

“Oh, they’ll never leave here.”

“Will they keep farmin’?”

“I suppose. Don’t know what else they’d do.”

“How can they farm without us?”

“They’ll manage. Listen, Luke, we can’t sit here year after year losin’ money while we borrow more. Your father and I are ready to try somethin’ else.”

I had mixed emotions about this. I wanted my parents to be happy, and my mother would never be content on a farm, especially when forced to live with her in-laws. I certainly didn’t want to be a farmer, but then my future was already secure with the Cardinals. But the thought of leaving the only place I’d ever lived was unsettling. And I couldn’t imagine life without Pappy and Gran.

“It’ll be excitin’, Luke,” she said, her voice still a whisper. “Trust me.”

“I guess so. Ain’t it cold up there?”

“Isn’t,” she corrected me. “There’s a lot of snow in the wintertime, but I think that’ll be fun. We’ll make a snowman and snow ice cream, and we’ll have us a white Christmas.”

I remembered Jimmy Dale’s stories about watching the Detroit Tigers play and how folks had good jobs and televisions and the schools were better. Then I remembered his wife, the rotten Stacy with her whiny nasal voice, and how I’d scared her in the outhouse.

“Don’t they talk funny up there?” I asked.

“Yes, but we’ll get used to it. It’ll be an adventure, Luke, and if we don’t like it, then we’ll come home.”

“We’ll come back here?”

“We’ll come back to Arkansas, or somewhere in the South.”

“I don’t want to see Stacy.”

“Neither do I. Look, you go to bed and think about it. Remember, it’s our secret.”

“Yes ma’am.”

She tucked me in and turned off the light. More news to file away.

Chapter 32

As soon as Pappy took his last bite of scrambled eggs, he wiped his mouth and looked through the window over the sink. There was enough light to see what we wanted. “Let’s take a look,” he said, and the rest of us followed him out of the kitchen, off the back porch, and across the rear yard in the direction of the barn. I was huddled under a sweater, trying to keep up with my father. The grass was wet, and after a few steps so were my boots. We stopped at the nearest field and stared at the dark tree line in the distance, at the edge of Siler’s Creek, almost a mile away. There were forty acres of cotton in front of us, half our land. There were also floodwaters; we just didn’t know how much.

Pappy began walking between two rows of cotton, and soon we could only see his shoulders and straw hat. He would stop when he found the creek’s advance. If he walked for a while, then the creek had not done the damage we feared. Perhaps it was retreating, and maybe the sun would come out. Maybe we could salvage something.

At about sixty feet, the distance from the mound to home plate, he stopped and looked down. We couldn’t see the ground or what was covering it, but we knew. The creek was still moving toward us.

“It’s already here,” he said over his shoulder. “Two inches of it.”

The field was flooding faster than the men had predicted. And given their talent for pessimism, this was no small feat.

“This has never happened in October,” Gran said, wringing her hands on her apron.

Pappy watched the action around his feet. We kept our eyes on him. The sun was rising, but it was cloudy, and the shadows came and went. I heard a voice and looked to the right. The Mexicans had assembled in a quiet group, watching us. A funeral couldn’t have been more somber.

We were all curious about the water. I’d personally witnessed it the day before, but I was anxious to see it creeping through our fields, inching its way toward our house, like some giant snake that couldn’t be stopped. My father stepped forward and walked between two rows of cotton. He stopped near Pappy and put his hands on his hips, just like his father. Gran and my mother were next. I followed, and not far away, the Mexicans joined in as we fanned out through the field in search of the floodwaters. We stopped in a neat line, all of us staring at the thick, brown overflow from Siler’s Creek.

I broke off a piece of stalk and stuck it in the ground at the edge of the advancing water. Within a minute, the stick was engulfed by the current.

We retreated slowly. My father and Pappy talked to Miguel and the Mexicans. They were ready to leave, either to go home or to another farm where the cotton could be picked. Who could blame them? I hung around, just close enough to listen. It was decided that
Pappy would go with them to the back forty, where the ground was slightly higher, and there they would try to pick for a while. The cotton was wet, but if the sun broke through, then maybe they could get a hundred pounds each.

My father would go to town, for the second day in a row, and check with the Co-op to see if there was another farm where our Mexicans might work. There was much better land in the northeastern part of the county, higher fields away from creeks and away from the St. Francis. And there had been rumors that the folks up near Monette had not received as much rain as those of us in the southern end of the county.

I was in the kitchen with the women when my father relayed the new plans for the day.

“That cotton’s soakin’ wet,” Gran said with disapproval. “They won’t pick fifty pounds. It’s a waste of time.”

Pappy was still outside and didn’t hear these comments. My father did, but he was in no mood to argue with his mother. “We’ll try and move them to another farm,” he said.

“Can I go to town?” I asked both parents. I was quite anxious to leave because the alternative might be a forced march with the Mexicans to the back forty, where I’d be expected to drag a picking sack through mud and water while trying to pluck off soaked cotton bolls.

My mother smiled and said, “Yes, we need some paint.”

Gran gave another look of disapproval. Why were we spending money we didn’t have on house paint
when we were losing another crop? However, the house was about half and half—a striking contrast between new white and old pale brown. The project had to be finished.

Even my father seemed uneasy about the idea of parting with more cash, but he said to me, “You can go.”

“I’ll stay here,” my mother said. “We need to put up some okra.”

Another trip to town. I was a happy boy. No pressure to pick cotton, nothing to do but ride down the highway and dream of somehow obtaining candy or ice cream once I arrived in Black Oak. I had to be careful, though, because I was the only happy Chandler.

The St. Francis seemed ready to burst when we stopped at the bridge. “Reckon it’s safe?” I asked my father.

“Sure hope so.” He shifted into first, and we crept over the river, both of us too afraid to look down. With the weight of our truck and the force of the river, the bridge shook when we reached the middle. We picked up speed and were soon on the other side. We both exhaled.

Losing the bridge would be a disaster. We’d be isolated. The waters would rise around our house, and we would have no place to go. Even the Latchers would be better off. They lived on the other side of the bridge, the same side as Black Oak and civilization.

We looked at the Latchers’ land as we drove past. “Their house is flooded,” my father said, though we couldn’t see that far. Their crops were certainly gone.

Closer to town, there were Mexicans in the fields, though not as many as before. We parked by the Co-op and went inside. Some grim-faced farmers were sitting in the back, sipping coffee and talking about their problems. My father gave me a nickel for a Coca-Cola, then he joined the farmers.

“Y’all pickin’ out there?” one asked him.

“Maybe a little.”

“How’s that creek?”

“She came over last night. Moved more than half a mile before sunrise. The lower forty’s gone.”

They observed a moment of silence for this terrible news, each of them staring at the floor and feeling pity for us Chandlers. I hated farming even more.

“I guess the river’s holdin’,” another man said.

“It is out our way,” my father said. “But it won’t be long.”

They all nodded and seemed to share this prediction. “Anybody else got water over the banks?” my father asked.

“I hear the Tripletts lost twenty acres to Deer Creek, but I ain’t seen it myself,” said one farmer.

“All the creeks are backin’ up,” another said. “Puttin’ a lot of pressure on the St. Francis.”

More silence as they contemplated the creeks and the pressure.

“Anybody need some Mexicans?” my father finally asked. “I got nine of ’em with nothin’ to do. They’re ready to head home.”

“Any word from number ten?”

“Nope. He’s long gone, and we ain’t had time to worry about him.”

“Riggs knows some farmers up north of Blytheville who’ll take the Mexicans.”

“Where’s Riggs?” my father asked.

“He’ll be back directly.”

Hill people were leaving in droves, and the conversation settled on them and the Mexicans. The exodus of labor was further evidence that the crops were finished. The dreary mood in the rear of the Co-op grew even darker, so I left to check on Pearl and perhaps cajole a Tootsie Roll out of her.

Pop and Pearl’s grocery store was closed, a first for me. A small sign gave its hours as nine to six, Monday through Friday, and nine to nine on Saturday. Closed on Sundays, but that went without saying. Mr. Sparky Dillon, the mechanic down at the Texaco place, came up behind me and said, “Ain’t open till nine, son.”

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Eight-twenty.”

I’d never been in Black Oak at such an early hour. I looked up and down Main Street, uncertain as to where I should shop next. I settled on the drugstore, with the soda fountain in the rear, and I was walking toward it when I heard traffic. Two trucks were approaching from the south, from our end of the county. They were obviously hill people, going home, with their belongings stacked high and strapped to the frames of the trucks. The family in the first truck could have passed for the Spruills, with teenagers squatting on an old mattress and gazing sadly at the stores as they passed. The second truck was much nicer and cleaner. It, too, was loaded with wooden boxes and burlap bags,
but they were packed neatly together. The husband drove, and the wife sat in the passenger’s seat. From the woman’s lap a small child waved at me as they passed. I waved back.