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“And so what if Hammer does mind?” said Momma. “This is my house.”

She headed toward the bedroom door. Granddaddy was right there waiting. And obviously he'd been listening.

“The more the merrier,” he said. As if war was some kind of party he was throwing. He reached for his can of Skoal and screwed off the lid. “Pull up a chair.” He dipped his thumb and finger into the tobacco and stuffed the wad behind his lower lip.

Leroy brought chairs to the bedroom door, and we crowded together in a half circle to listen. Of course, Granddaddy sat in his rocking chair inside the room, controlling the radio. You would think he was the president himself, the way he held his head so high and welcomed the neighbors in. Then, all of a sudden, he hushed everyone and turned up the volume.

President Roosevelt started speaking.
“Powerful and resourceful gangsters have banded together to make war upon the whole human race,”
he said. He listed all the places that Japan, Italy, and Germany had attacked, and every time he named a place he said
without warning
.

Now they were after us. The way he laid it all out, you could almost feel the enemy coming down the lane.

The house creaked. It was only the wind, but Ann Fay jumped. She was already clinging to Leroy's arm, but she slid off her chair and he pulled her close. She leaned into him, staring at the radio and biting her lip to keep from crying. He wrapped his arms around her and leaned his head against hers and they listened like that, hanging on to each other.

“We are now in this war,”
said the president.
“We are all in it—all the way. Every single man, woman, and
child is a partner in the most tremendous undertaking of our American history.”

Momma's hands kept busy the whole time. Her knitting needles clicked against each other as she worked out her nervousness, making another pair of socks to go overseas to some soldier.

“
So we are going to win the war,”
said President Roosevelt, “
and we are going to win the peace that follows.”

Granddaddy's rocking chair was still going, slow and steady for a change—like someone had wound it up and now it kept the pace that was set for it. For once, it was like the old man had run out of opinions; he wasn't disagreeing with anything the president said. He just stared across the room at his daddy's picture. Tobacco juice leaked out the corner of his mouth, but evidently he wasn't noticing he needed to spit.

A war will grow you right up
, Granddaddy had said when he showed me Gideon's portrait.

That picture of my great-granddaddy made me realize war could do a lot of things. It could win us our peace and make the world a safe place to live. We all wanted that. But it could make a hardness too.

And like the president said, we were now in it. All the way.

December 1941

Christmas never seemed as sentimental to Momma and me as it did to everybody else. But everybody else didn't have a pop who, like as not, was often sprawled across the bed on Christmas Day, sleeping off his whiskey.

This year was worse than most. This year we knew for sure we wouldn't see him at all, sober or drunk. This year America was at war. And Granddaddy was here.

Maybe I didn't understand Pop and moonshine, but I found out real quick that being around Granddaddy at Christmas was enough to drive anybody to drink. He sang at the top of his lungs whenever he took a notion, making fun of Christmas cheer. Sometimes he'd throw in an extra line or two of his own just to show how cantankerous he was feeling.

To make things even worse, Granddaddy heard on the radio one Saturday morning that Russell Crump from Brookford was killed at Pearl Harbor. “Give me that picture,” he said, pointing to one of his newspaper clippings on the wall.

When I handed it over—lo and behold, there were tears in Granddaddy's eyes.

His hand trembled, making Russell's picture shake. “Inez used to feed that freckled face,” he said in a voice that was kind of wobbly. “He'd come hanging on to our porch post, looking like a little lost orphan. ‘I smell liver mush,' he'd say. Or, ‘My momma don't got no food in the house.'” Granddaddy ran his stub over Russell's picture real gentle-like. “He had a pitiful little way about him. And my Inez—God rest her soul—she never could say no to him.”

Was I dreaming or was this Hammer Bledsoe? If Granddaddy could care that way about a neighbor boy, why wasn't he the least bit sad about his own son dying? If Pop had died in battle instead of by the side of the road, would Granddaddy be shedding tears for him?

And what about me? I was his grandson, for Pete's sake. Maybe he would give a hoot about me too, if I was old enough to join the army. Would that earn his respect? As it was, I was just someone to boss around and remind him of Pop. And he hated Pop.

He was so intent on that picture of Russell Crump that I doubt he even noticed when I slipped out. The stack of firewood on the back porch was shrinking fast, and I had to work on it or Momma would be fussing.

It was a relief to be outside, breathing cold, clean air. Off in the distance I heard a woodpecker working away on a tree too.

While I was chopping wood, cars started showing up—women from Momma's sewing circle. They used to quilt or mend clothes, but nowadays they put together first-aid kits for the Red Cross. Or knitted socks for soldiers.

They went in the front door and I stayed in the backyard, trying to keep out of their way.

I had everything I needed out there. Well water for drinking. The outhouse for other business. And peace and quiet from Granddaddy.

A couple of hours later, when the women started leaving, Mildred Rhinehart came out the back door. “Good morning, Junior.”

“Morning, Mildred.” I laid my ax by the woodpile and went to the porch to see what she wanted.

“I'm taking Peggy Sue and Ann Fay to see
Sergeant York
this afternoon. Would you like to go along?”

Sergeant York?
I could actually see that movie? “I sure would. Thank you very much. If Momma agrees, that is.”

“She's already agreed,” said Mildred. “The movie will be my treat.”

Mildred probably thought I didn't have fifteen cents to my name. Truth was, me and Momma needed every penny we had, but I didn't want a handout. “Oh, no,” I said. “That's mighty nice of you. But I have money.”

Mildred shook her head. “I insist on buying your ticket.”

“Well, I'll pay you pay back,” I said. “Have any work I can do?”

Mildred swatted her hand in the air to let me know the discussion was closed.

I carried water to the woodstove to heat for a bath. Then I set the privacy screen by the stove and soaked in soapy water. It wouldn't do to have Peggy Sue and Ann Fay holding their noses over the smell of my armpits.

Granddaddy watched me comb my hair down in front of the bedroom mirror. “Where you going in your glad rags on a Saturday afternoon?”

“To the picture show,” I said.

“And sit there watching lovers quarrel when there's a war on? What's this world coming to?”

“I don't know, sir—an end, maybe. That's what Reverend Price keeps preaching. He says with all the wickedness the Germans and the Italians and the Japs are doing, the world is bound to be coming to an end.”

Outside, Jesse and Butch started yapping and Mildred tooted her car horn. “Sorry, Granddaddy. I gotta go.”

The movie started off with a bang—actually, with a whole lot of bangs, because Alvin York was riding his horse around outside a church building and shooting his gun like crazy in the middle of the singing and preaching. York had a God-fearing momma inside that church who was mighty embarrassed by his shenanigans.

But then he got religion. His religion was against moonshine, card playing, and raising heck. So he gave all
that up. It was against killing too, but Uncle Sam drafted him into the Great War. Since he didn't have a choice, he used his sharpshooting skills to capture a passel of Germans and he came home a hero, with a huge parade in New York City.

That movie coming out right then—I knew it was somebody's way of trying to work up our patriotism. After all, lots of people were being drafted. Sergeant York's story was intended to make all of us want to fight the Germans.

When I got home, I set up a pasteboard target on the side of Pop's shed. Seeing Sergeant York shoot made me want to practice my aim. Only problem was, when I went for the BB gun I remembered I'd given all my BBs away during the army maneuvers.

I sat on the sweet potato crate and ran my hands over that gun. It was one of those surprises Pop showed up with for no reason at all—one day, back when I was seven and he had a good year working at the cotton gin over in Blackburn.

Those were the days when I tagged along after him like Ann Fay after Leroy. Back then he put up that porch swing so the three of us could sit there on Sunday evenings.

We'd listen to the sound of the colored choir singing in the church next door. Daddy would sing along.
“I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger, traveling through this
world of woe, yet there's no sickness, toil, nor danger in that bright land to which I go
…”

I hoped he was happy in that bright land. Because one thing for sure—this world he left behind was full of woe.

December 1941

The newspapers and radio were asking people to cut down on travel over Christmas. That way we'd be saving gasoline for the war effort. But Uncle Tag called and suggested we take the train to China Grove. Momma sent me to the Hinkle sisters' house to call him back.

“I'm sorry we can't come,” I told him. “Momma feels uneasy with the war on. She wants to stick close to home.”

Uncle Tag was quiet for a minute. “Maybe next year, then.” I could hear in his voice that he knew her real reason. “I'm sorry about what happened at Thanksgiving,” he said.

“I know. Maybe next year Momma will be over it.” I hoped she would. I remembered spending Christmas with Momma's people back before Pop started drinking. I wasn't ready to give up on them, even if I was offended by Vinnie acting drunk like Axel Bledsoe.

Because of the gasoline situation, the Honeycutts decided not to visit Ann Fay's Mamaw and Papaw in
Georgia. So Momma invited them to eat Christmas dinner with us.

Come Christmas morning, Granddaddy was singing before he lifted his head off the pillow.
“God rest ye merry gentlemen
…” I sure wished I could load him in a car and drive him over to Brookford. Why couldn't the aunts take their father off our hands for one day out of the year?

The Honeycutts showed up at twelve o'clock noon. Driving up the lane right behind them was Miss Pauline's Plymouth.

“Momma! You didn't invite the Hinkle sisters?”

“They're our neighbors too.”

“And Miss Hinkle is my teacher.”

“She won't be giving quizzes today.”

It was too late for me to argue. In no time the house was filled with neighbors. I carried everybody's coats to Momma's bed. I almost never went into her room. It had always seemed like a private place just for her and Pop. But now I wanted to stay there in that quiet space. It wasn't anything fancy, but the quilt on her bed and the curtains she'd made for the windows made it seem like something almost grand. Her sewing machine sat there waiting for Christmas to be over so she could go back to working on clothes she was making for the Red Cross to give to soldiers' families.

There was a bureau with a side of drawers for Momma and one for Pop. I slid open Pop's top drawer.
His handkerchiefs were there, folded into squares, large blue ones for weekdays and smaller white ones for Sundays. Momma kept his socks and his drawers in neat piles too. And there was a cigar there. Pop didn't smoke much, except when he was out playing poker. And then he most always came home drunk.

I picked up that cigar and breathed in sweet, cherrysmelling sorrow. It hit me so hard I hung on to the bureau to steady myself. When I looked at their bed, I could almost see him stretched across it with his mouth hanging open. And Momma sitting beside him, running her fingers through his hair. Praying. But praying hadn't done her any good, had it?

Why, God?
That's what I wanted to know.
Why didn't you answer her prayers? Wasn't Bessie Bledsoe good enough? Or was it me that was so bad?

“Junior.” Momma was calling me for dinner.

“Coming.” I put the cigar back, just the way I found it in the front of the drawer. Right that minute I didn't feel like eating turkey with my neighbors. Especially Miss Hinkle. But I couldn't exactly get out of it either.

By the time I got to the kitchen, Momma was sitting people to the table, and I heard Granddaddy starting up a song.
“Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the feast of Stephen.”

He stood at the bedroom door staring at the feast Momma had cooked up. He'd combed his hair for a
change and was even wearing a necktie. I didn't even know he owned such a thing. When he saw me heading for the table Granddaddy hurried over and plopped himself down in the only chair that was left. Mine. And not only that, it was right beside Miss Pauline. “Looks like it's going to be a mighty fine Christmas,” he said. “Pretty women and everthing.”

Miss Pauline gave him a look. “Everything,” she said. “Not
ever
thing.”

Granddaddy laughed. “You're that mean teacher I been hearing about.”

Everybody in the room went real quiet—except Ida and Ellie and baby Bobby, because they didn't know enough to be embarrassed for me. I felt my face turning red as a candy cane. “Miss Hinkle, I never said that. Granddaddy, I was fixing to bring a plate of food to your room.”

“Not unless the pretty lady comes too.”