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But when we started up, of course Ann Fay had to be right there asking questions. “What do you call that thing, Daddy?” she asked. “What are spark plugs for, anyway?” Leroy didn't answer her because what man needs a young'un bothering him while he works? I learned a long time ago to watch and not talk when Pop was fixing a car.

But the thing about Leroy was, he didn't yell or let her agitate him. He just kept his mind on adjusting spark plugs. Ann Fay watched me clean one of the plugs—leaning in so close she nearly scrubbed it with her eyelashes. “I could do that,” she said.

“Or you can learn the way I did. By watching.” I lowered my voice so only she could hear. “Then when your daddy dies you'll know how to do it.”

I shouldn't have said that on account of she was already worried about Leroy being called up for war—ever since Lottie Scronce's boy and some other local fellas were drafted. So I tried to take the words back. “Look,” I said. “He ain't gonna die. Why don't you help Momma? She makes cakes on Saturday morning, and she'll let you sift the flour.”

“I don't wanna sift flour. I wanna fix the truck.” That's what she said, but I saw how the word
cake
lit a spark in Ann Fay's eye. She turned and flounced all angry-like into the house.

Finally, I could have some man-to-man time with Leroy.

Tuning up a car with him was nothing like working with Pop. He let me do about half of it, even gapping some of the spark plugs. About the time we were finishing, Ann Fay came out of the house. “Bessie said it's time for coffee and cake.”

“Not yet,” I told her. “We gotta crank this thing up and see how she sounds. In case we need to make adjustments.”

I couldn't believe how fast Ann Fay opened that truck door and slid under the steering wheel. Evidently she thought she'd be the one to start it up.

I went to the window. “Hop out. This is my job.”

Ann Fay didn't hop out. “Tell me when, Daddy,” she hollered, “and I'll start it.”

“You can't even reach the pedals,” I told her.

“Wanna bet?” Ann Fay hung on to the steering wheel and pulled herself to the front of the seat. “Daddy showed me how to drive this truck.” Maybe she was lying. But probably not. Ann Fay had wrapped herself around Leroy's little finger like icing on a cake.

Knowing that her daddy let her drive his truck got me all fired up. After all the cars I'd helped Pop fix! And he never,
ever
let me actually drive one of them. Now here she was, the little upstart, telling me her daddy had taught her to drive. She just had to come here and rub my nose in it, now didn't she?

August 1941

The Friday evening before school started, we were on the porch and Momma was crocheting some doily thing. Seemed like when Pop died, she just made herself work harder. Crocheting every spare minute. And sewing for Mildred Rhinehart, who could afford to buy store-bought clothes for her daughter. If you asked me, Mildred just wanted an excuse to give Momma some money—without it looking like charity.

I decided the time for me to mention a job was now or never. “Pop said I should quit school.”

Momma's crochet hook stopped. “You will not.”

“But that's what he said. ‘Get yourself a job and take care of your momma.' Almost like he knew he wasn't coming back.”

Momma held up the lacy thing she was making. “See this antimacassar? I have orders for eight more. And I can sew and cook and clean houses, if I need to. How do you think we've been getting by all this time?” She
put her foot down and the porch swing stopped moving. When it was at a dead stop she said, “I'll take care of us while you look after your education. You hear me, Junior?”

“Yes, Momma.” But still, I wondered—why did Pop start talking that day about me dropping out of school? He brought it up twice, and I didn't remember him ever coming out and telling me that before. He must have known something was about to happen.

Maybe he just wanted to die. It seemed like the minute Granddaddy moved in, Pop started staying outside as much as possible. Taking his 12-gauge and going into the woods and ignoring me when I asked to go along. Later we'd hear gunshots and for some reason Momma would stop right in the middle of sifting flour and freeze until she heard another one. If she did, she'd start sifting again.

I don't think she even noticed she was doing that. But she must have been afraid of something. He hadn't shot himself. But could he have just decided to die?

“Momma?” I asked.

“Yes?”

“I've been wondering. Reckon he died to get away from Granddaddy?”

“Oh, my word and honor!” Momma threw both hands over her mouth, and that doily hit her in the face. I could see in her eyes as she stared at me that her mind
was going over something I hadn't intended to put there. “You think—you—you think it's my fault, don't you?” she whispered.

“No! I didn't mean
that
, Momma. How could it be your fault?”

She just sat there shaking her head and holding her mouth like she was trying to keep from crying.

“I'm sorry, Momma. Forget I said it.”

The words started spilling out of her. “After your granny died, Hammer would sit on the neighbors' porches, day in and day out, sniffing their cooking and inviting himself in for dinner. Pretty soon the people of Brookford had had enough. His own daughters refused to help! I felt it was our duty to take him in.”

Momma's hands slid to her lap and her shoulders sagged. “I thought it would give Axel some self-respect,” she said, “taking care of his daddy when his sisters wouldn't. But he was miserable from the minute Hammer got here. Oh, mercy. How will I
ever
forgive myself for this?” Momma put her head in her hands. “Axel, honey,” she moaned. “I'm sorry. I should have listened to you.”

Now I'd done it. I tried my best to take the words back, but I couldn't. Momma just kept saying how sorry she was. Finally she took her crocheting inside and disappeared into her room.

I wandered out to Pop's mechanic shop in the backyard. It wasn't a shop, really. Pop didn't have a garage
to pull cars into. He just had that great big oak which gave him shade and helped slow down the raindrops when he needed it. There were ramps for driving cars onto and a block and tackle for pulling engines every now and again. There was a big spot of oil on the ground and two sweet potato crates for sitting on—if he ever took a break, which he almost never did.

I sat on a crate and breathed in the smell of the oak leaves and dirt and oil, and I just wanted him back. So what if he did all the fixing himself? Heck, I'd be holding the wrench out before he even asked. I wouldn't beg to start the engine or take the vehicle for a ride. I'd watch and learn and be glad for every minute of it.

Life with Pop hadn't been
all
bad. I thought about the good times, him joking one minute and singing “Amazing Grace” the next. As Lottie Scronce had said at Pop's funeral, he sure could sing that song. And he sang others, too—such as, “I Found a Million Dollar Baby (in a Five and Ten Cent Store).” He'd sing it to Momma when she was baking him a pecan pie or after she put on her Sunday hat. He sure knew how to put a spark in her eyes when he was in the mood.

I picked up an acorn and threw it, hard as I could, at the trunk of that oak tree. There was a big old knot there from where a limb had been cut off. I picked up another acorn and aimed it for the middle of that knot. And I kept throwing, harder and harder, like I could hurt that
tree. But those puny little acorns just bounced off and landed on the ground, and the big old tree didn't know the difference.

They were like the questions he wasn't here to answer.
So what's the truth of it, Pop? Did you know you weren't coming back that night? What made you think you could just up and leave like that? I know you hated Granddaddy, and maybe you didn't even much care for me anymore, but couldn't you have stayed for Momma's sake? Hadn't you put her through enough already?

Now I'd just added another burden onto Momma. Thanks to me, she believed that him dying was all her fault.

The next morning she was up early—baking like she expected the United States Army to stop in for dinner. She always said that making a mess in her kitchen helped bring order out of the muddle in her mind.

Granddaddy came around and poked his finger into her apple cake. “You should have got Inez to show you how to bake,” he said.

Ever since Granddaddy moved in, Momma had been sweet as brown sugar to him, even when I wanted her to set him straight. Now her voice was bitter as baking soda. “If
only
your wife was here. Then you wouldn't have to eat my sorry cooking, would you, Hammer Bledsoe?”

It was like our conversation the night before had turned her against the old man.

Since I was the one who got Momma all riled up, I figured I could at least take him out from under her feet. “Come on, Granddaddy,” I said. “Let's go check on the chickens. See how many eggs they've laid.”

“I'm not going nowhere,” said Granddaddy. “My bunions hurt.” He plopped himself down at the kitchen table and started rubbing the knobby places that stuck out on the side of each foot. He also had hammer toes that arched up and under. If his feet felt as bad as they looked, I reckoned the pain in them was pretty ugly. But I didn't feel sorry for him.

I didn't think Momma pitied him either. She let him eat sweets all weekend, but whenever he tried to start up a conversation, she clamped her mouth shut. And when he asked for the time of day, she wouldn't give it.

August 1941

After upsetting Momma like that, I sure didn't argue about school on Monday morning. On the way to the bus stop, I had myself a little talk with Pop—whether he could hear me or not.

“You're outvoted, Pop. Momma is bound and determined I should keep going. Besides, people respect education, and if there's one thing I intend to have, that's it. Respect.”

On the school bus Ann Fay started jabbering first thing. “Too bad Miss Pauline quit—just when she was fixing to be your teacher.”

“No,” I said. “It's a good thing. Who wants their neighbor for their teacher?”

“But you could get by with stuff.”

“Nope. You know how she is, Ann Fay. Even at home Miss Pauline has to have everything just the way she likes it. At school she's even more strict.”

When Peggy Sue Rhinehart got on the bus, Ann Fay left me to sit with her. Those two sure did hit it off even
if they were as opposite as hello and goodbye. Ann Fay was a tomboy, and Peggy Sue put me in mind of Shirley Temple with her curly blond hair and fancy bows. Today she was wearing one of those dresses Mildred had paid Momma to make. It had a matching hair bow.

When she stepped off the bus at school, Rob Walker ran up and yanked the bow right out of her hair.

Well, that just flew all over me—him picking on her for no reason. I jumped in and grabbed him by the arms. “You give that back.”

Rob dropped the hair bow on the ground, and Ann Fay snatched it up and gave it to Peggy Sue.

That rascal was only a fourth grader trying to act like he was big and tough. But I was a high schooler. Same as his brother, Dudley, who happened to be right behind him now. Dudley took Rob by the arm and steered him away from me. “Pick on someone your own size,” he told me.

“Hey, Catfish,” I said. Catfish was his nickname. “I'm not picking on nobody. Your little brother was, though.”

“Says you,” Dudley snarled as he walked off with Rob. I headed to my class, feeling proud of myself for protecting Peggy Sue from a fourth-grade gangster.

I vowed I'd make a name for myself. One that didn't have anything to do with Axel Bledsoe. And if the other students had heard stories about Pop or bumped into him when he was sloppy drunk, well, I'd make them forget it.

But when I got to class, the good feelings left in a
hurry. It was like I was a tire and someone poked a great big hole in it so the air went rushing out. Because there, standing in front of the blackboard, was Miss Pauline.

“Good morning, Junior,” she said.

“Uh, Miss Pauline—uh, uh,” I stuttered, looking for something to say. Something that didn't let on how much I didn't want her to be my teacher. “Miss Pauline. I thought you retired.”

“As it turned out, they couldn't find a replacement. My name, Junior Bledsoe, is Miss Hinkle.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

But how would I remember to call her that? Honestly, there should have been a law against having your neighbor as your teacher.

The bell rang, and Miss Pauline told us to find the desks she'd marked out for us. And to practice the drills on page 85 of the books on our desks.

My seat was second to the front. Miss Pauline—er, Miss Hinkle—had placed a brand-new composition book there with my full name on it,
Axel Bledsoe, Junior
, written in her perfect longhand. The pencil groove on the desk held a new pencil, sharpened to a fine point. And there was the small brown book I'd seen every year since third grade,
The Palmer Method of Business Writing
.

Did high schoolers still have to practice handwriting?

That cotton-pickin' book didn't just tell you how to make the letters. It told you how to sit and where to place your arms and which hand to hold your pencil in. It sure
didn't have a page for what to do if your left hand worked better than your right one. Some teachers were nice enough to let me use my left hand, especially if they were left-handed themselves. But Miss Pauline wasn't, and I knew, without asking, that she was the kind of teacher who went by the book.

I turned to page 85, put the pencil in my right hand, and read the sentences on that page.

Always study drill before practicing.
Be sure to use a good rapid movement.
Do not fail to see and correct all errors
.