Blue (2 page)

March 1944

Daddy would've planted the peas in February, and I had every intention of doing the same. But it was practically the middle of March before I got around to it.

I was aggravated with Junior Bledsoe for showing up right when me and Peggy Sue was fixing to run Daddy's tiller. There he was, dragging it out of the shed just like it belonged to him.

“Junior, who said you could take over my garden? I should never've told you I was planting peas today,” I said.

Junior had a smudge of black grease across his forehead, and his hair was all messed up. He flapped an oily rag in my direction. “Oh, stop it, Ann Fay. This is a man's job and you know it.”

“And Daddy told me I'm the man of the house while he's gone.”

“Uh-huh. But he asked me to do the heavy work.” Junior took the oil plug out and looked inside.

“Yeah, well, lots of women are doing men's work now that the men are gone. If they got women building battleships, I'm sure I can run a garden tiller. We been planning this all week. Right, Peggy Sue?”

I looked to my best friend, thinking she'd help me out. But she was sitting on the back porch steps twirling her blond
hair around a finger, dreaming about something besides working in the garden.

Junior pulled on the starter rope. Nothing happened. “See there?” he said. “It ain't that easy.”

“Come on,” said Peggy Sue. “Let the man have the job.” She tugged on my arm, and I knew she wanted to go off somewhere and play.

One thing about Peggy Sue is, she's not used to working like I am. Her momma has a colored maid doing the housework. Her daddy owns a hosiery mill, so he makes lots of money. And he don't have to go to war. He gets to stay home and run his business because he sells socks to the government for the soldiers overseas.

Peggy Sue was happy to let Junior take my garden job. She grabbed my hand and started running. So I went along with her. We crossed the garden spot and jumped over Daddy's ditch, the one he made to keep the wisteria out.

But in our minds it wasn't a ditch anymore—it was a deep ravine with serpents and giant spiders spilling over the top. And we didn't jump over it—we closed our eyes, held hands, and
flew
over it. All of a sudden we was in a beautiful forest, the home of Wisteria Mansion. It was a sparkly, magical place where bad things could never happen.

Of course, here in the middle of March, the wisteria vines was bare as barbed wire. But in just a few weeks we'd be surrounded by purple blossoms. Then the leaves would be popping out right behind them, making the walls around the mansion thicker and even more secret.

Me and Peggy Sue sat on our favorite rock and dreamed about summer days—wading in the creek that ran nearby and eating tomato sandwiches in the dining room of our mansion.

After a while I got up and peeked through a break in the pine trees. Back at the house, Momma was taking clothes off the wash line and Junior was running that tiller through the garden. And I seen Pete, our one-eyed black mutt, following along behind, sniffing in the dirt.

“Come on,” I said. And this time I jerked Peggy Sue up and started running. Now that Junior had a row of soil broke up, I had to plant them peas. They was calling for rain and my daddy would be proud of me for getting the peas planted just in time.

Junior asked did I want to try running the tiller. “No,” I said. “You wanted to do it. Now do it.” The sun was about to slip over the back side of Bakers Mountain, so I needed Junior's help. Even if I did hate to admit it.

I got two hoes out of the shed and handed one to Peggy Sue. “Here,” I said. “We got to get them peas in before dark. After that, we'll go to Junior's house and listen to the radio.”

We dragged the edges of the hoes in the dirt to make a furrow. The smell of that fresh-turned dirt put me in mind of Daddy. It made me want to plant the best garden in America—and not just because everyone else was planting Victory gardens to help the war effort. I wanted to do it on account of them overalls.

I showed Ida and Ellie how to drop a seed every couple of inches, and I told Bobby to push a little dirt overtop of them.

“But Daddy said I should play ever' day,” argued Bobby.

That boy was smack good at getting out of work. When his brown eyes filled up with tears I usually give in to him. But today I seen how he was covered with dirt on all sides from rolling in the garden with Pete. So I said, “You played your share for this day. Now, get to work.”

He covered a few seeds, but next thing I knew, he was
spinning himself dizzy on the tire swing and trying to walk. “Look,” he said. “I'm drunk.”

Then Ellie and Ida wanted their turns on the swing. They wouldn't none of them listen to me when I hollered for them to get back to work.

I finally give up and took a break in the johnny house. While I was in there I thought about the letter we had got from Daddy that week. I had read it so many times I knew it by heart.

I prayed for Daddy every night when I went to bed. I prayed he would come home alive and I would do him proud
while he was gone. But to tell the truth—helping Momma with all the work Daddy always done … well, it was a lot more than I knew how to do sometimes.

While I sat in the outhouse, I heard Daddy talking in my head. He was saying, “If Roosevelt could get himself elected president, then you can handle anything life throws your way.”

Well, I didn't think it was right for me to have to play Daddy to them kids, but I knew I didn't have a choice. So I thought about what Daddy would do and I knew he would make a game out of working.

I went outside and hollered at them young'uns, “First one in the garden gets to pick the bedtime story.”

You should've seen them racing to the garden when I said that.

By the time Junior was done tilling, the garden was the same size as Daddy always made it—big enough to set our house inside. The peas took up only a small part. I still had to plant a whole bunch of stuff. The hardest part would be keeping them young'uns working.

But Daddy was counting on me. I decided that if I had to, I'd work them kids till we all dropped.

April 1944

Me and Peggy Sue laid on the soft pine-needle floor of Wisteria Mansion, ignoring my sisters. They'd been in the back yard calling my name for fifteen minutes. But I wasn't about to answer them. This was one place we could go to get away from the girls and Bobby. So Peggy and me agreed a long time ago not to show it to anyone unless we asked each other first.

Wisteria Mansion was where we always run to when we wanted to feel better. Right now was one of those times.

Peggy's eyes was red from crying. “I can't believe Lottie Scronce's other boy was killed,” she said.

Lottie is a woman who goes to our church. All the children love her because she keeps candy in her pocketbook and hands it out every Sunday.

I turned over on my back and sucked in the sweet smell of wisteria, trying to chase away the bad feeling in my tummy. “Two boys in one family lost to the war,” I said. “It don't seem fair. Nothing about this war is fair.”

“I know what you're thinking,” said Peggy Sue. “But your daddy is going to come home safe and sound. I just know he is.”

She didn't know any such thing. But as my best friend she had to make promises she couldn't keep. It was her job to make me feel better.

“I know,” I said. “I know he'll come home.”

But of course I didn't know. I stared up through the ceiling of our mansion to the blue sky, wishing I could see God. I'd ask Him a thing or two about this war.

Right now the mansion was as beautiful as it would ever get. A warm breeze made the sunlight and shadows do a dance that wouldn't stop. You could see it sparkling on every pine tree. The wisteria blossoms hung down through the branches of the pines so that the ceiling and the walls were covered over in purple glory.

Or blue, if you asked my daddy.

The smell of it was so sweet it made my throat ache. I ached for the old days when Daddy and I argued over whether that smell was purple or blue. I ached over the meanness of war. I knew if I could just stay here and the blossoms didn't die, I could forget about the war.

But the blossoms never lasted long enough. Last week, me and Peggy Sue took some wisteria flowers and pressed them between the pages of our history books so we could take the sweetness to school with us.

I even sent a pressed blossom in a letter to Daddy. As best I can remember, this is what I wrote:

I hoped that getting a purplish blue flower from home in the middle of the war would change the way Daddy felt about that pesky vine. But mostly I hoped Peggy Sue was right about Daddy coming home safe and sound.

Whenever the breeze picked up, little purple petals rained down on me and Peggy Sue. They shimmered all the way down, and I wondered how in the world God could have saved anything prettier just for heaven.

June 1944

By the middle of June the garden was full of vegetable plants. It had some weeds too, but still, I thought my daddy would be proud.

He wrote every couple of weeks. We got a letter the third week of June.

We wrote Daddy every week, and every so often we sent him a package with comforts like soap and chewing gum and cigarettes.

Whenever we sent one of them packages, Bobby dumped his box of crayons out on the kitchen table. He drew pictures of tigers and other wild animals on his drawing tablet. We always asked Bobby what message he wanted us to write on his pictures. Every time, he said the same thing. “Tell Daddy, ‘Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite.'”

I kept wondering if Daddy had took part in D-Day. That was the day—June 6—when our boys landed on the beaches of France and started taking that country back from the big bully, Hitler. I wondered if they would push into Germany next.

President Roosevelt come on the radio twice in June to tell us what was going on. The first time, he told how our boys and the other Allied soldiers took Rome away from the Germans. A week later, he come on to announce a new war-loan drive. That's where ordinary Americans like me can loan money to the government for building ships and airplanes and whatever else our soldiers need. And he reminded us of all the good our money done, helping our soldiers drive back the Germans and the Japanese from all those places they had took over.

Talk of the war was everywhere. Even at church on Sundays. The preacher always said a prayer for the soldiers. There was eleven men from our church fighting in the war, not counting Lottie Scronce's two boys that had already been killed.

Lottie cried all the way through every church service, but she kept coming. And every week she snapped open her big black pocketbook and pulled out mints for all the
little children. She'd been doing that for as long as I could remember.

After I'd sweated in the garden all week, going to church was almost as good as going to the movies with Peggy Sue. Somehow it helped me get through another week just to hear Reverend Price say my daddy's name in a prayer.

But one Sunday in the middle of June, the reverend stopped us at the church door. His red hair was damp around the edges. Little rivers of sweat was running past his ears, and his white shirt had wet circles under the arms.

“I'm sorry, Mrs. Honeycutt,” he said. “I guess you hadn't heard. We've canceled Sunday school.”

Momma stopped dead in her tracks. “No, I hadn't heard.”

“There are twelve cases of polio in Catawba County right now. I thought you would have read it in the paper or heard it on the radio.”

“Oh my dear,” said Momma. She grabbed Bobby's hand and pulled him up against her.

The reason Momma didn't know is, we was so busy in the garden and just trying to keep up. We hadn't been to Junior's house to listen to the radio, except two times to hear the president's speeches. And we don't get the paper either. Sometimes we read our neighbors' newspaper—the Hinkle sisters' copy—when they're done with it.

“All public meetings are closed to children twelve and under,” said Reverend Price.

I felt sweat running down the inside of my dress.

“And playgrounds too,” said the preacher. “And theaters and swimming pools.”

While he stood there and listed all the things we couldn't do, I had a feeling like every good thing in my life was being taken away.

“Hopefully this will all blow over,” said Reverend Price. “Be sure to listen to WHKY today. At twelve forty-five, Dr. Whims, the county health officer, will make an announcement about polio.”

Right away Bessie Bledsoe invited us to listen at their house. But I wasn't ready to turn around and leave. I was counting on seeing my friends. So I asked Momma could Peggy Sue come to my house to play.

Momma fluffed the back of my hair a little to let the breeze cool my neck. “Yes, honey,” she said. “Lord knows you deserve it.”

Me and Peggy Sue run to her mother, who was standing with some other women under a shade tree in the churchyard. She was fanning herself with one of them church fans put out by a funeral home. It had a picture of Jesus praying in the garden, sweating drops of blood.

“Please let her come, Mrs. Rhinehart,” I begged. “We want to wade in the creek.” I flapped my hands in front of my face, like I would just die if we couldn't get in the water.

Mrs. Rhinehart reached in her black pocketbook and pulled out a cotton handkerchief with blue flowers embroidered on the corner. She used it to dab beads of sweat off the space between her nose and her upper lip. She got bright red lipstick on the handkerchief when she done that.

“It's just the children under twelve that are banned,” she said. “The two of you can stay for church. Afterwards you could come to our house and get wet with the water hose. My husband can take you home this afternoon.”

But Peggy Sue wanted to come to my house, and that girl has got herself a knack for getting what she wants. So we climbed in the back of Daddy's pickup with Ida and Ellie.
Junior Bledsoe drove the truck, and his momma and mine sat up front with Bobby.

At Junior's house we sat on the grass under a shade tree, and Bessie served us all iced tea and milk with peanut butter crackers. Bessie and Momma sat on rocking chairs on the porch.

“Have mercy,” Bessie panted. “It sure is hot.” She pulled up her apron and flapped it in her face to create a little wind. Bessie is a big woman, so it don't take much to heat her up.

And we was all sweating today—even in the shade.

Ida and Ellie and Bobby played with Junior's hound dogs, and Junior entertained them at the same time, trying to catch the flies buzzing around his head.

Me and Peggy Sue got tired of Junior showing off. So we went and sat on the steps when Momma and Bessie started talking about polio.

“My cousin's child had it,” said Bessie. “One day she was frolicking like a baby goat and the next she was flat on her back. Poor baby hasn't walked since.”

Momma shivered and I seen the goose bumps come up on her arms, even in that heat.

“It's just awful how it paralyzes little children,” said Bessie.

Momma nodded. “And not just children. Take our president—a full-grown man when he got it. You have to wonder how a man like that gets polio.”

“My cousin has no idea how little Winnie got it,” said Bessie. “As far as any of them can remember, she never got close to anyone with polio.”

Of course, Junior being Junior, he had to get his two cents' worth in. He come over to the porch. “Even the doctors don't know how polio gets passed around,” he said.

I rolled my eyes and said, “Oh boy, here we go.” Thinking he'd take a hint and go back to catching flies.

But he kept right on. “Did you hear about that woman in Virginia that kept her children in the house all last summer just because someone across town came down with polio?”

Listening to them mothers worrying about polio was making me feel jittery enough without Junior piling on more bad news. “Junior Bledsoe,” I said, “how would you know what some woman in Virginia did once upon a time?”

“Well, I do listen to the radio once in a while, Ann Fay.”

“Well then, I reckon that makes you the polio expert, don't it?”

“Now, you two,” said Momma. “We're all a little nervous, but that's no reason to go starting up a fight. We need to stick together in times like this.”

At twelve forty-five we went inside to hear the radio announcement. We all sat at the edge of our seats because we didn't want to miss a word Dr. Whims said.

He declared that we had an epidemic, on account of so many cases of infantile paralysis in the state—and especially in our county. He said, “Of ten cases, four went swimming or wading and two were near water or fishing within a few days before the onset of the disease. It is advisable that adults as well as children refrain from going swimming while the epidemic is in progress.”

You should've heard us groan when he said that. Bessie's thermometer was pushing a hundred degrees and the man was telling us we couldn't go in the creek.

“Holy mackerel!” Ida wailed.

“We're gonna die,” moaned Ellie.

Dr. Whims talked about screen doors and how we should keep flies out of the house because they might spread the disease.

“I see one,” said Bobby. He run to the screen door and tried to catch it.

“I don't see why we can't go swimming,” whined Ida.

“Yeah,” said Ellie. “That man is not our daddy.”

Momma said, “No, but the health officer is responsible for the whole county. I'm sure he knows what he's doing.”

“Momma,” I said, “can't me and Peggy Sue go wading one last time?”

Momma shook her head. “I could never forgive myself if you came down with polio.”

We walked home. It was only about a half-mile, but we dripped sweat the whole way. Me and Peggy Sue lagged behind the rest. “We'll go down to the creek when your momma and the young'uns are taking their Sunday afternoon naps,” said Peggy Sue. “Let's dam up the water with rocks and make a deep place to sit in.”

But just then we heard a car coming behind us. When we turned around, Peggy Sue said, “What's my daddy doing here?” We stopped and waited for his shiny black car to stop beside us.

Mr. Rhinehart tipped his black hat to my momma. “Hello, Mrs. Honeycutt. Can I give you all a ride home?”

Momma laughed and pointed to our mailbox, which wasn't a stone's throw away. “Now, if you had come just fifteen minutes sooner,” she said.

Mr. Rhinehart laughed too. “Well, I wish I had. Brenda sent me to get Peggy Sue. I guess you heard the radio announcement about swimming. She said the girls were planning to play in the creek.”

“Yes. But I won't let them. Don't worry about that.”

“Please, Daddy, please let me stay,” begged Peggy Sue. “I'll stay out of the creek. I promise.”

But I reckon her daddy knew better than to believe that. He shook his head. “Your mother's expecting you to come home,” he said. “We'd better not disappoint her.”

“But Daddy …”

Momma nudged Peggy in the back. “Go on, child,” she said. “You can come another day. Just as soon as this passes.”

Peggy was so mad she climbed in the back seat and left her daddy up front all by himself. He turned the car around in our lane and tipped his hat again when he passed us. Peggy rolled her eyes and pouted when they went by.

The day was ruined for sure and it looked like the whole entire summer was too. I reckon me and Peggy Sue both knew it could be a long time before we saw each other again.