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Authors: Karen English

BOOK: Francie
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Mama didn't get back from Auntie's until just before dinnertime. Her face was as readable as a stone. She walked over to the pantry and got out a jar of pickled peaches and set it on the table.
“Wash up for dinner,” she said. I let out the breath I'd been holding when Mama went into the pantry.
We ate in silence—neither Prez nor me having the nerve to ask any questions. We only spoke to ask that things be passed. I snuck a look at the cake now on the pantry counter, wanting some but afraid to ask. Besides, just because Daddy hadn't showed yet didn't mean that he wasn't going to show at all.
 
 
I awakened the next morning in a warm glow of expectation that lasted for a few seconds, until I remembered. Daddy had not come in the night. I felt his absence even before I slid out of bed for my trip to the outhouse. I met Prez on the way back. “Daddy didn't come,” he said, his mouth sagging with disappointment. It always took Prez a while for things to sink in.
“No—he ain't coming, I guess.”
“I should've gone fishing.”
I had nothing to say to that.
 
I got dressed, put a couple of cold biscuits in my pocket, splashed some water on my face, and walked down to Auntie's. I climbed the steps to her door and heard Miss Mabel's voice coming from inside.
“Let me tell you, Lil and Lydia, I ain't never been so scared in my life.”
I stood on the porch and listened.
“I was in the woods goin' after my headache leaf and I heard this noise that weren't no animal noise. Liked to scare me to death. I looked where that noise come from and there was that colored boy all hunched down in the bushes.”
“What you do, Mabel?” Mama asked.
“I got outta there as fast as I could. That's what I did.”
I peeked through the door.
“It won't be long before they come this way looking for him and it be best if we didn't give them folks no cause to
get mad at us people on Three Notch,” Miss Mabel said. I turned and tiptoed down the steps. I was going to the woods. I was going to find Jesse.
 
It was quiet. I got the jars Prez had hidden by the outhouse and set them beside the creek, then sat on the boulder, listening. I aimed my face at the shaft of light cutting through the network of branches overhead and saw it alive with tiny white flies. Jesse was close. I could feel it.
I wanted to call out his name, but I didn't know who else might be nearby. I threw my head back and closed my eyes. This was fine for now. I'd brought food. That'd be a help to him. I'd bring money as well. And maybe I could ask Miss Lafayette for advice. I slipped off the boulder and sloshed back to the creek bank, squatting to conceal the jars in the brush, but not too hidden that Jesse wouldn't see them.
There was a rustle nearby, but all I saw was a rabbit making a break for it.
 
Tuesday, Miss Beach and Treasure watched me and Mama come up the hill. Not our usual day, but Miss Beach needed us. She picked up Treasure from her lap, set him aside, and went into the house. She met us in the kitchen with her list of special instructions. One boarder wanted special attention paid to his collars and cuffs; another wanted light starch in his shirts, another wanted
heavy. I watched Mama record these requests in her head and wondered how she could remember them all.
As soon as Miss Beach finished with my instructions—I was to polish the parlor furniture that day as well—I slipped upstairs. Just as I was about to knock on Miss Lafayette's door, she opened it. Her face registered surprise.
“Francie,” she said, putting her hand to her chest. “I didn't even know you were coming today. How's Lydia doing and that fine baby girl I heard she had?”
“She's better now.”
“Good, Francie.”
“My daddy was supposed to come Sunday, but he didn't show,” I blurted out.
Miss Lafayette frowned. “You must be disappointed.”
“He's done that before.”
“But still …”
“Miss Lafayette,” I said, jumping ahead. “They're after Jesse.”
“I know.” She'd just gotten back into town, yet she'd already heard.
“They said he hit ol' Bellamy out at the Early farm.”
She'd been standing. Now she sat down on the edge of the bed. “I don't believe it,” she said.
“I don't believe a word of it either, Miss Lafayette. But they're after him and I think he's hiding out in our woods.”
She sighed, thinking.
“I left him some food. By the creek.”
“Francie.” She pulled me down beside her and looked at me closely. “Listen to me. What you're doing is dangerous. Do you know what they'd do to your family if it was discovered you were aiding that boy in any way—what would happen to the colored community around here?”
“I gotta help him.”
“You might not be able to.”
“I have to.” Tears filled my eyes. I grabbed her laundry bag and hurried out.
Mama and I got the linen and things washed, wrung out, and hung up by noon. Then I went to work on the parlor. When I got around to the old piano, I raised the lid carefully and placed my fingers on the keys. I wondered if Daddy was really gonna get me piano lessons. I wondered if I could count on him.
I hadn't planned to go to the woods. My feet just guided me there. As soon as the idea took hold, I almost danced across Miss Beach's wide lawn to the road. I had to check my jars.
As I neared our house on Three Notch in the late afternoon, I saw Prez standing in the middle of the road, looking at me. I could sense his excitement.
“You got something to tell me?” I said right off.
He just looked at me with his eyes big and his mouth pressed together as if he had to clamp it shut on his news until he thought about how he'd say it. He jumped a little in place, then fell into step with me.
“You can't come with me,” I said. I didn't want him tagging along.
“I been to the creek and I seen the jars.” It seemed to spill out against his will. He looked surprised as soon as the words were said. “Me and Perry went to the woods after our time at the Earlys'.”
“What are they saying over there?”
“Nothing to us.” He kicked at a rock in the road.
“You seen Bellamy?”
“Yea, and I can't tell that anything happened to him. He's just fine and as mean as ever.”
“What'd you see in the woods, Prez?”
“They empty!” He stopped walking and gave me a big loony grin.
“Come on.”
First we had to stop by the house. I went straight for the pantry to get something new to take to the woods. Prez stood behind me, watching me make my decision.
“I'm gonna give him another jar of Mama's pickled peaches.”
“You better not. Mama'll miss 'em.”
“She got ten jars,” I said, not really convinced that that would keep her from missing two. I rearranged what was left behind the jars of last year's summer squash and tomatoes. “She might not remember how many jars she had in the first place.” I looked at Prez to see if he believed me. He looked as doubtful as I felt.
“Mama counts 'em,” he said.
“She'll think she counted wrong.”
Prez didn't say anything else. His lower lip quivered. He could be such a scaredy-cat.
“Prez, you wanna give him something to eat, don't you? Remember how pitiful he was? Big ol' boy and he couldn't even read …”
“Mama can't read.”
“Mama's grownup. Lots a grown folks can't read,” I said, trying to decide if I should take
Aesop's Fables
off the little shelf over my bed and leave it with the food. No, I decided. It would get messed up or carried off by animals or something.
“Come on. We need to get back before Mama gets home.”
 
The woods in late afternoon had a mysterious dreamlike light that made me hurry ahead.
“Wait up,” Prez whined.
I slowed and let him catch up. He took my hand. I let him do that, too. We reached the creek and I knelt down and searched the brush until my hand felt the first cool glass jar. I lifted it up and saw it really was empty! A second one, too! Hmmph! I thought. I replaced the jars with the one I'd brought, carefully placing the empty ones in my sack. I looked over at Prez and couldn't help the big smile sliding over my face. “I knew it.” I threw my head back. “Jesse's in our woods!”
 
Mama was sliding jars around in the pantry and muttering softly to herself. I could hear her counting behind
my back as I sat at the kitchen table reading
The Dream Keeper.
Prez was quietly drawing—off in his own world. I nudged him under the table with my foot and he looked up, frowning at me, until he realized I was lifting my chin to draw his attention behind me. His eyes widened. I could feel him thinking: Uh-oh.
Mama's muttering grew louder. “One, two, three, four … five … I know I had ten jars of pickled peaches, ten jars of turnip greens, and I'm missing some black-eyed peas, for sure.”
I felt Mama look over at me. I kept on reading.
“You two been in them peaches?”
I didn't say anything.
“Did you hear what I asked you?”
“We didn't eat any, Mama,” I said truthfully.
“What happened to 'em, then?”
“We borrowed them.”
Mama came around the table and gazed down at me, ignoring Prez. “And the turnips and greens?”
“It's for that boy they're after. I
know
that boy, Mama. He was in my class for a while last year.” I closed the book over my finger and watched her closely, trying to read her face for what she was going to do to me. She sat down heavily, looking more perplexed than angry. She shook her head slowly.
“Mama, I know he's there and I know he's hungry.”
“Francie, what am I going to do with you? What you're doing is dangerous, pure and simple. You can't be leaving
food off in the woods for those white men runnin' around huntin' for him to find. They gonna look right to us cause those are our woods. We all gonna get in trouble, if they find that food. You get them jars out of there as soon as mornin' comes. You hear me?”
I didn't argue.
“You understand me, Francie?”
“Yes, ma'am.” And I wasn't lying. I did understand Mama's point.
“We'll pray that boy's long on his way and it's just some hobo's been eatin' my food.”
“What about what Miss Mabel said. That she seen him.”
“Miss Mabel just wants attention. And she'll say anything to get it.”
Mama got up then, took her sweater off the hook by the door, and slipped it on. There was the smell of rain in the air. Past her through the open door I could see dark clouds had gathered and now hung low. I shivered, thinking of Jesse out there in the woods.
“I'm going down to sit with Auntie. Give her some company. You remember what I said, Francie.”
“Yes, ma'am.” I'd remember it, but I wasn't going to heed it—not yet.
The next morning, I woke up to a long list of chores. Mama was already washed and dressed and twisting her hair into a knot. She jabbed it with a hairpin and it stayed. “I'm working for a friend of Mrs. Montgomery's today. You need to stop by Mrs. Grandy's and pick some of that headache leaf she got growin' by her house, for Auntie. Perry came down to tell me that she's feeling poorly again.”
She walked over to me. “And needs her cow milked, too.” She pushed at my shoulder, thinking I'd gone back to sleep.
“I'm awake, Mama.”
“Auntie needs some things washed and ironed, and have Prez and Perry round up some kindling. She's runnin' low.”
It seemed that Mama was going to go on and on forever. I was happy to see her walk out the door. “But you get them jars before you do anything,” she said over her shoulder. I rolled my eyes, sitting there among the rumpled sheets. The sun was hardly up.
 
Mama had left some cold biscuits on the table and a saucer of maple syrup. I sat down, dropped a biscuit in my shift pocket, and ran the edge of another through the syrup. I nibbled on it as I padded barefoot down the hall to wake Prez. He was curled up, his bedclothes kicked onto the floor, his mouth gaping open, and his snore a light whistle. I gave him a hard shove. He muttered something and swatted at his face. I pushed him again.
“Stop that!”
“You gotta get up.” I was feeling mean.
“Why?”
“Cause you gotta get over to Auntie's and milk her cow.” I didn't say:
Mama said.
If he thought so—it wasn't my fault.
He pouted. “Why can't Perry do it?”
“You know he's been too scared to, since Millie kicked him.”
“It ain't fair.”
“Too bad.” I pushed at his shoulder. “Get up!”
Perry was playing Jack in the dirt by the porch as we walked up. “Come on, Jack, get on the stick,” he said, peering down in a hole.
“You got one?” Prez asked.
“Got more than one. And there's another one down there.”
“Here, let me try,” Prez said, reaching for the thin jonquil branch that Perry was carefully twirling in the hole.
“Naw—you gotta wait until I'm good and finished.” He turned the stick. “There,” he said, pulling it out slowly with a jack bug clinging to the end. Perry raked it into a mason jar to join two others. He twisted the top, then held it up so he could examine his bugs more closely.
Prez and I leaned in for a better look. “I'm next,” Prez said. He spit on a clump of dirt and mixed it with the twig until it was the right thickness to stick to the end. Carefully he lowered it into the hole and began to turn it gently. We held our breath. Then something far off disturbed the quiet air.
A car was approaching. I shielded my eyes and squinted at the distant cloud of red dust.
“It's the sheriff,” Perry said. We watched as the big, shiny black roadster turned down Three Notch and crept toward us. Two men in wide-brimmed hats sat in the front.
We stood up. I nudged Prez's elbow with my own as the sheriff got out of his car and made his way over to us. He looked back at his deputy, whose eyes seemed to be boring into the woods with suspicion.
“How y‘all doin' today?” His eyes slid over the boys, then settled on me.
“We're fine, Sheriff,” I said.
“Whatcha all doin'?”
“Playin' Jack,” Prez offered before I could answer.
I shot him a sideways glance. I didn't want him to start running his mouth. He could be careless.
“How you do that?”
“We catch 'em on this here twig,” Prez said, unaware of my signal.
Sheriff Barnes wasn't paying any attention, however. He was looking toward the house.
“Where's your mama?” he said to Perry.
Perry looked back. “In the house.”
“What about your daddy. He over at the Early farm?”
“No, sir. He work over in Benson.”
Now the deputy—Withers was his name—stepped out of the car and was wiping the back of his neck with a red handkerchief oily with dirt and sweat. He pulled a piece of paper out of his back pocket and unfolded it carefully. It was that same picture of Jesse that I saw posted behind the register at Green's.
“You seen this boy?” Jesse Pruitt's sorrowful face stared back at us. I stiffened and felt Prez and Perry stiffen, too. The deputy must have picked up on it. “Don't you lie, now.” He squinted down at us.
I didn't have to lie. “We ain't seen him,” I said.
The deputy looked over at Sheriff Barnes, then back to me. “You know who he is?” he asked.
“He was in my class in the spring for a few weeks.”
“You know him, then,” Sheriff Barnes said, perking up.
“Yes, sir. He was in my class.”
“But you ain't seen him.”
“No, sir.”
He let a few seconds go by. “You sure?”
“Yes, sir. I'm sure I ain't seen him,” I said firmly and shook my head.
Withers kept his eyes on me as he folded up the paper and tucked it into his back pocket. He turned and started for the house, leaving Sheriff Barnes rubbing his chin and looking around.
As he passed Prez and Perry, he chucked them on the back of the head, playfully but hard—both boys winced from the pain.
Withers had to pound on the door for what seemed like a long time. Finally, Auntie cracked the door, holding her robe up at her neck. She leaned on the doorjamb. They showed her Jesse's picture. She took the paper out of the deputy's hand and held it in her trembling hand. She shook her head slowly from side to side, then handed the paper back. Sheriff Barnes, now on the porch, said something to her while Withers folded his precious paper, turned his head toward the steps, hocked, and spit.
They didn't drive toward town when they left. They made their way slowly up Three Notch and for some reason passed Miss Mabel's and stopped in front of our house. They banged on the door a few times, then tried the knob. Finding it unlocked, they went in.
“They going in our house,” Prez said.
“I can see,” I said.
Before long, Sheriff Barnes came out with a hunk of Daddy's cake in his hand, his mouth so full it was pushing out both cheeks.
“He's eatin' Daddy's cake,” Prez said.
I went over to the deputy's glob of spit and kicked dirt over it.
They circled back to Miss Mabel's next. “She's gonna tell 'em something,” I said. I could feel it.
“Maybe not,” Prez said hopefully.
I snorted at this. “I should have listened to Mama and got those jars out first thing. But I wanted to give Jesse a chance to discover them.” I kicked at the dirt. “I'm going as soon as they leave. Prez, you go milk Millie. Perry, go on down to Mrs. Grandy's and get your mama some headache leaf. Stay out of the woods and let me take care of things.”
Miss Mabel was now on her porch. All three figures leaned over the railing, focusing on the woods. “I knew it,” I said.
“You think they gonna get the bloodhounds?” Perry asked.
I looked over at him, not liking him much right then. “just go do what I said.” The sheriff drove off toward the Grandys'. After a short while, the men were back in their car, driving in the direction of the woods. We stood openmouthed as they stopped their car, got out, and began walking. Soon the woods swallowed them up.
“Francie,” Prez whimpered. “We gon' get it.”
“Would you stop it? I gotta think.”
“We gon' get in trouble. We gon' get the whole road in trouble,” he insisted.
“Go do your work,” I said.
I thought about Mama's jars, jars with Mama's labels on them. The ones I'd carefully written, myself:
From Lil's Kitchen.
I'd seen similar labels on Mrs. Montgomery's canned goods. “They're not going to find them,” I said.
“How you know, Francie?”
“I got a feeling.”
I did have a feeling. But that didn't keep me from looking for Sheriff Barnes and Withers to come out of the woods as I went about doing my work. It didn't keep my heart from sinking a little every time I looked up and saw that big black car still parked there.
Finally, just as I was setting up the washboard and tub to wash diapers, I spotted them getting into their car and driving off, empty-handed and alone.
 
With my heart in my mouth, I left the washboard in the tub, dried my hands, then went down the splintered steps and across the hot, dusty yard. I hurried along, but it didn't feel nearly fast enough.

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