Halley (9 page)

Halley squirmed just to think about writing such a letter to a man. Bootsie’s problems made her own seem small. Even the torn up bedspread and the opened letter seemed nothing in comparison.

“What are you going to do?” Halley asked.

“Well, I ain’t going to kill my baby, which was Miz Duncan’s main idea. She knows somebody in Dalton who can ‘get rid of it,’ she says. I told her, ‘None of this is the baby’s fault.’ And then I told her, ‘This might be the only grandbaby you’ll have. You ever think about that?’ Might be the only baby
I
ever have, and I ain’t killing it.”

Bootsie fell silent for a while and then she said, “I reckon I’ll take whatever money Miz Duncan offers. I’m saving all I make at the mill, ever’ penny except what I give my sister for board. I don’t have to do nothing for now. If I’m lucky, it’ll be maybe three months before I’ll really be showing.”

“How can you be so calm about it?” Halley asked. “You’re not all torn up the way you were.”

Bootsie smiled. “That’s the best part, Halley. God saved me. And He told me He was going to take care of me. He told me that somehow everything is going to be all right. Ever since then I ain’t had nothing to be anxious about.”

Bootsie picked up her broom and began sweeping. The girl’s face was more serene and happy than Halley had ever seen it. With all her heart, Halley hoped that everything
was
going to be all right.

9. Garnetta Pays a Visit

Cold weather brought more trouble. Lottie, the main milk cow, fell into a ravine and got killed. Buying a replacement took all of the first CCC check and more. “I talked Hewitt down on his price,” Pa Franklin bragged when he led the new cow home. “Sukie’s dropped two sets of twin calves already. She’ll end up paying for herself.”

They soon found out why Hewitt was willing to be talked down. Sukie was particular not only about which side she was milked on, but also about who could handle her. She favored men. She would kick and swing her horns every time Kate or Halley got near. To Halley’s delight, Pa Franklin had to begin doing the milking night and morning, and it was about to kill him. “Milking is woman’s work,” he kept grumbling.

He grumbled louder when Sukie took to hiding at evening milking time. The other cow, Bessie, would come running just like Lottie always had, at the first rattle of the feed pail, but Sukie would lie down in tall grass or behind a clump of blackberry vines and be real still to keep her bell from ringing. The colder it got, the more often she hid.

Finally, Sukie started escaping from the pasture altogether and heading to Belton. One time the sheriff penned her up and charged Pa Franklin two dollars bail. Word got out, and neighbors began to talk and laugh about the Prodigal Cow. “Seen your cow yesterday, preacher,” someone would say. “She was heading to town. Reckon she’ll end up in jail again?”

Pa Franklin didn’t take such teasing too well. Worse, he had to leave off painting his Jesus messages to repair fencing. That was what he was doing on the last Saturday in October when Garnetta Miller came to visit at last, bringing Frank Earl and Dimple and lots of good food.

Robbie was overjoyed to see his friend. “Now you can go see my dog ride through on the two o’clock train,” he said when he met Garnetta at her car. “Buck’s a train dog now.”

Halley felt shy. Both Dimple and Frank Earl had grown and changed in the two months since she’d last seen them. Dimple was growing a real bosom at last, and Frank Earl was showing a few sprigs of beard. Most important, they seemed interested in each other.

“I’ll certainly have to go see that wonder dog,” Garnetta said, handing a food basket to Robbie and a bigger one to Frank Earl. “Let’s warm ourselves in the house before Frank Earl goes out to split wood.”

Pa Franklin arrived as they all headed through the dogtrot to the kitchen.

“What you doing out there in the pasture, Webb?” Garnetta asked after they’d exchanged greetings. She suppressed a smile. “Looking for your cow again?”

Pa Franklin heaved a big sigh. “I take it you stopped at Shropshire’s Store. I’m surprised they could take time off from deciding whether Roosevelt could win the election next month to catch you up on local gossip. Well, if’en the Old Woman can get well, I’ll have the last laugh yet. Ada will break that cow from hiding and running around, and she’ll milk it, too, or know the reason why. They ain’t never been no cow that could conquer the Old Woman.”

“Ma Franklin took to her bed a few weeks ago,” Halley explained.

“I heard that, too,” said Garnetta. She turned to Pa Franklin. “And they tell me you didn’t send for a doctor yet?”

Robbie spoke up. “Miz Horn told Miz Bunch Sunday that she couldn’t believe the preacher ain’t sent for a doctor. And then Miz Bunch said he was going to let Grandma die.”

Halley rejoiced in her grandfather’s obvious discomfort. She’d been begging him to get a doctor for weeks, and even Kate had meekly suggested the same thing a time or two.

“If’n them old busybodies had been a praying as hard as they’ve been a gossiping, Ada might have been healed already,” Pa Franklin said. “But for your information, I was aiming to get a doctor this coming week.”

Halley’s heart grew lighter at this commitment. Pa Franklin was big on keeping his word. Over the weeks of nursing her grandmother, of reading the Bible to the old lady, and listening to her stories, Halley had realized that Ma Franklin was a better woman than she’d given her credit for. Halley also had selfish reasons for wanting her grandmother well. The sooner Ma Franklin was up and about, the easier life would be for Halley. Though she felt it was too late to start school this year, she might at least have time for tufting more spreads and earning money.

“Is Miz Franklin going to die?” Dimple asked when they were back outside, finishing up the wash.

Halley hugged herself against a sudden cold breeze. “I don’t know. I hope not.”

Dimple sloshed a pair of overalls up and down in the tub of rinse water and then wrung them out. Finally, she spoke. “I tell you what I think: You better be looking out for yourself, Halley Owenby. I’d be picking me out somebody to marry if I was you. If that old woman dies, you ain’t gonna be nothing but a slave around here. By the time all the old folks die, you’ll be like my mother’s old maid sister—too old and wrinkled to get anybody, or go to school, or anything else.”

“I already
am
a slave,” Halley admitted. “They’re not letting me go to school. All that money I saved and the money from tufting, and I still can’t get an education.”

Dimple smiled. “That reminds me,” she said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a tobacco sack. She looked toward the woodpile where Frank Earl was chopping away, and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Your part of this year’s ginseng money. Twenty dollars and fifty-two cents—not as much as when you’re with us to find the best places. Me and Garnetta decided the three of us was a team and you still get your share, and we ain’t going to have it no other way.”

Halley shook her head. “I didn’t help, so I didn’t earn. Besides, I heard about your pa’s mule. You’ll need all you can get for a new one.”

“I can’t give Pa money without telling how I got it! Besides, the mule is nearly paid for. We had three calves to sell. Pa sold old man Henry them five acres with the spring that he’d been a wanting for twenty-five years, and then there’s the money Pa’s getting for working on the county road crew. They’re finally fixing our road.”

Halley put the tobacco sack in her pocket. “Thank you,” she whispered. This money would bring her close to a hundred dollars. It was a fortune.

Frank Earl took time off from his job to help them empty the tubs of water when the girls had hung the last of the wash on the line.

“Pa and Uncle Clyde sold out the last run,” Frank Earl confided to Halley, “and they still ain’t making any new shine.” He smiled proudly.

Halley nodded. She still didn’t feel good about her uncles. It was aiding them that caused her father to get killed. Their refusal to help after Jim’s death doomed Halley’s hope of staying in her own home. But, she reminded herself, none of this was Frank Earl’s fault.

Kate’s arrival put an end to the conversation. While Kate spoke to Frank Earl and Dimple, Halley went to get the hair brush so she could get the lint out of Kate’s hair. This was not an easy job. Kate’s hair was thick with a bit of curl in it, and it fell below her waist. Kate always looked young and helpless with her hair down.

By the time Kate pulled her hair back into its usual bun, Garnetta was calling them to dinner. It was a feast. To the baked sweet potatoes and beans Halley had put on to cook that morning, Garnetta added fried pork chops and gravy, peach pickles, two cakes and two pies. Ma Franklin would not get out of bed, but she did eat a bit when Halley took some food to her.

After dinner, Garnetta announced that it was time to go to Crider’s Switch to watch Buck ride by in the train. When they returned, Garnetta gathered up her dishes. “Time to head back to Alpha Springs,” she said. “Got to allow time to change at least one flat tire. Glad I got Frank Earl along for jobs like that.” She smiled at Pa Franklin, “Not that I couldn’t do it myself, mind you!”

It was a lonely feeling for Halley, watching the car leave the yard. With all her heart she wanted to be in it, headed to her real home. At the same time she realized that it wouldn’t be home anymore. Not without her father.

10. A Loss

November arrived. To nobody’s surprise, President Roosevelt was reelected. “Now let’s see if he can do something about the Depression this time round,” said Pa Franklin.

November brought colder weather, too. Hog-killing weather, Pa Franklin said several times, apparently hoping to rouse his wife to make more effort at recovery.

As he had promised, on the Monday following Garnetta’s visit, Pa Franklin had fetched a Doctor Graham, an ill-tempered man in a soiled suit and filthy shoes. He was known to be the cheapest of local doctors. The medicine he’d left—a powder to be measured on the tip of a pocket knife and taken three times daily—had done no noticeable good. The two elder Franklin daughters came, along with various neighbor women, and brought remedies with no better results.

Finally, one bitter, cold morning when Halley was straining the fresh milk into a scalded jug, Ma Franklin called her.

Halley sighed, expecting another chamber pot errand. But it wasn’t. Ma Franklin motioned her close. “I ain’t going to git well if something ain’t done.” She paused for breath and then continued, “Atter breakfast, when the Old Man heads out to see Mr. Calvin and Mr. Walker about swapping out work on hog killing . . .” She paused for breath again. “I want you to fetch that Gowder girl, if’n she ain’t already took off to go to that school up north.”

“Opal?” asked Halley.

Ma Franklin nodded. “Don’t tell Old Man. He fusses ever’ time I take her remedies.”

Halley returned to work. While Kate set out plates and forks, Halley took the strained milk into her grandparent’s room. The one good thing about cold weather was that she didn’t have to make the long trip to the spring twice a day. Until it was even colder, the unheated bedroom was good enough for keeping milk and butter. Later, when the temperature dropped well below freezing, they would have to use the cellar. She brushed the sand off the hearth and set the milk on the bricks.

On the way back to the kitchen Halley stopped to look at an old family photograph hanging on the wall next to the kitchen door. Obviously made when the Franklin children were still at home, it showed Kate younger than Halley. The baby Ma Franklin held on her lap had to be one of the babies that died. Maybe that baby was the lucky one, Halley thought.

Suddenly the door opened and Pa Franklin demanded, “And what you doing in here so long, girl?”

“I brought the milk in to stay cold, and now I’m looking at this picture,” Halley answered.

“Use another room for the milk from now on,” he said, “And you ain’t got no call to look at nothing in my room.”

Halley stalked by him back into the kitchen.

Soon they were gathered at the breakfast table. They were all bundled up in sweaters against the drafts of cold air. The flame of the kerosene lamp flickered with each breeze. The gravy and biscuits were already getting cold.

Kate quickly ate what little she had on her plate and gulped down her coffee, looking at the clock on the end of the table every minute or so. If she didn’t get to the mill before the final whistle, the gate would be closed and she would lose a day’s wage—maybe even her job. The biscuits and sweet potatoes she was taking for lunch were already in her lunch pail, waiting at the door along with the pail Robbie was taking to school.

Robbie was the only cheerful one at the table. “I bet the ice is froze solid on the pond,” he said.

“You stay away from that pond,” Halley said with a shiver.

“Ain’t no danger if it’s froze a foot thick,” Robbie argued. She knew that most of his interest in the pond was pretend, intended to tease her, but then Halley never knew what foolish thing Robbie might do.

There was no help from Kate. It was as if she was somewhere else. As cold as it was, she had been up again last night praying until after Halley was asleep. When she finally got into bed, the coughing began and kept Halley awake. Kate’s lungs had probably collected at least as much lint as her hair. She was coughing every night. This morning her eyes had dark circles under them. Then Kate was up from the table, pulling on her coat, mittens, and scarf. “See you tonight,” she said to nobody in particular, and left.

Halley fed her grandmother and then pulled back the covers and helped her onto the chamber pot. It seemed that more came out of the old lady than went in. She ate less and less as the days passed. “We won’t bathe today,” said Halley. “It’s too cold. I’ll read to you after while and if you feel like it, you can tell me another story about when you were young.”

Ma Franklin nodded. “First get Opal.”

Robbie left for school, and soon after Pa Franklin took off in the wagon. Halley knew he’d not be back until after dinner.

Halley watched out the front window until her grandfather’s wagon disappeared and then turned to her grandmother.

“I’ve let the fire burn low in the stove,” she said, “and I’ve left you a glass of water here on the bedside table where you can reach it easy.”

Her grandmother nodded.

“I won’t be gone long.”

Halley put on a second sweater and then her coat. She wrapped her wool scarf around her head and neck and then pulled on her mittens. Even so, once outside, she felt the wind to her bones. Puddles from the last sleety rain had a crust of thin ice over them. She could see where Robbie had stomped through several of these on his way to school.

As she left the yard behind, she looked toward the pond. The bare trees and bushes around it were like skeletons with raised arms. As Robbie had said, the pond was covered with ice.

A noise made her turn. Goliath had crept from beneath the house and was looking at her. The dog was keeping his distance from her since tearing up the spread. He was wise. Halley had not forgiven him. Every time she thought of the money she had to pay Mr. Bonner, she got angry all over again. Still, looking at Goliath now, on this cold day, and seeing him shiver, almost made her feel sorry for him. He was beginning to get that thin-hipped old-dog look about him. Probably he caught very few rabbits or other game now. If not for the handouts Robbie provided, he would probably starve. She pushed the thought away and ran toward the county road.

With its bare trees and windswept yard, the Gowder place looked as desolate as the Franklin place. Maybe more so, for the land was more sloping here, and washed-out gullies cut across the yard in several places. Columns of smoke rose from the chimneys of the two houses and one of the sheds. Beneath an oak was a large pile of broken pots.

Before Halley had time to wonder about this, the door of the shed with the smoking chimney opened and the girl named Opal came out and dashed two more pots against the pile. Shards flew everywhere. A dog barked in Halley’s direction and then two more joined in. The last two were wagging their tails harder than they were barking.

“Opal,” called a woman from inside the shed. “Two more pots.”

“Yes’m, Mama Carrie,” Opal said, her eyes on Halley.

“Why are you throwing your pots away?” Halley asked.

“Froze,” Opal replied. “Froze and cracked ’fore we could fire ’em. They’re no good.”

A tall woman with chocolate skin stepped out of the shed. “Hush!” she said to the dogs, and they obeyed. She turned to Halley. “What you wants, child?”

“I’m Halley Owenby. My grandmother’s sick. She wants to know if Opal can come.”

Opal folded her arms and shook her head.

The old woman ignored the girl. “Who you grandma is?” she asked Halley.

“Ada Franklin.”

The woman nodded and her face warmed. “Miz Franklin’s ailing?” She motioned Halley inside. “What be wrong?”

In the shed, Halley drew close to the stove where pans of good-smelling food were simmering and told how her grandmother took to her bed weeks before, when Gid left. She told all the aches and pains she’d heard Ma Franklin mention. “And now she won’t eat hardly anything. I’m afraid she’s going to die.”

“Mmmm-mmmm-mmmm,” the woman said. She shook down the ashes in the stove and added several sticks of wood. “She will die if she doan eat.”

“She need a
doctor
,” said Opal. “Not me.”

“She had one,” said Halley. “He didn’t help.”

“Get another then.”

Carrie silenced Opal with one look. “Miss Ada need more’n a doctor can do. You take her some of my tea, and here’s what you tell her . . .” She looked at Opal and Halley both. “You say it ain’t her time yet. You say she have to eat. Then you say laying down to die is the easy road. You say she’s got to take the hard road cause they’s people that need her—chilren, grandchilren, her man. Preacher Franklin struts big, but he be lost without her.”

Carrie handed a jar of herbs to Opal. “You go.”

Opal went. Halley had trouble keeping up with her. At the county road she stopped and turned. “Preacher Franklin home?”

“No,” Halley answered. “He’ll be gone ’til late.”

“Good,” said Opal, and she took off again.

Goliath began barking when they reached the Franklin yard, but when he saw Halley pick up a stick he slunk back under the porch.

Inside, the kitchen was the same as when Halley left, except colder. Halley began to feed the fire at once.

Opal nodded approvingly. “Miz Franklin gone need a warm house so’s she can set up in that rocker by the stove.”

“Ma Franklin hasn’t sat up in weeks,” Halley said.

“Today she gone set up,” said Opal. “She gone need something to eat. Something easy on her stomach. You gone need hot water for Mama Carrie’s tea.”

Opal headed back to the bed. While Halley emptied jars of homemade soup into a pot and set water on to boil, Opal talked in a low voice to Ma Franklin. To Halley’s amazement the girl soon had the old lady out of the bed and in the rocker, bundled into a quilt, and taking soup and tea.

Pay, thought Halley. They would need to pay Opal something, and she was sure her grandmother had no money. Reluctantly, Halley went to the far room and took two quarters from her hoard. She got her tufting too and took it back to the kitchen.

Opal was still talking, saying all the things Carrie had said and acting as if the words were hers. Ma Franklin promised to sit up at least twice a day. “And like you say, I have to take the hard road. I know you’re right. Thank you for coming.”

Halley held out the quarters. “This is for you.”

“I don’t charge,” said Opal.

Ma Franklin nodded. “Course you don’t, cause you’d lose your gift. But I have to give you something or I don’t get my cure.” Ma Franklin acted as if she were paying—as if it was her own money.

Opal accepted the payment and left.

In the quiet that followed, Halley got her tufting and pulled her chair up next to the old woman. “Tell me about when you were young,” said Halley.

“You don’t want to hear all that,” Ma Franklin answered.

“Yes, I do. And someday when I’ve got my education, I’m going to write books about how it was when my grandma was young a long time ago.”

Ma Franklin looked at her, studying her face. “And you think people would want to read sich as that?”

Halley nodded. “You tell good stories.”

Encouraged, Ma Franklin began a long tale about when she and Pa Franklin were young, “He was a softer man back then. Losing our first farm made him harder somehow. We used to go dancing.”

Her eyes soon began to droop and then she fell asleep. Halley kept tufting. Except for eating a bowl of soup, feeding the fire, and one quick trip to the outdoor toilet, she tufted until her grandfather arrived home. She heard the wagon creak into the yard and on around the house toward the barn but did not get up. When he came in a short while later, he was surprised to find his wife out of bed.

“Didn’t I tell you Doc Graham was a good doctor?” he bragged. “She’ll be up and about in no time. Too bad it won’t be in time to help with hog killing tomorrow.”

His eyes fell on the tufting Halley was doing. So far he had ignored her work, and she had put off bringing up the subject. “You get paid for doing that?” he asked suddenly.

“Some. Not enough,” Halley replied without looking at him. Her heart was pounding.

Pa Franklin kept looking at the spread, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, but, to her relief, when he spoke, it was on another subject. “Reckon I better set up the sawhorse tables for tomorrow’s work,” he said at last. Pa Franklin left and Halley began tufting with a new burst of energy. Maybe he was going to leave her alone this one time.

Robbie came home from school.

“Me and the Calvin boys went by Crider’s Switch to see Buck’s train,” he said.

“Pa Franklin’s going to hear you and fuss,” said Halley. She could have pointed out that Crider’s Switch was not on the way home, but well out of the way. She chose not to.

“Pa Franklin won’t hear me. He went around the house toward the far room. I seen him when I walked up.”

“Saw him,” Halley corrected.

“Saw him. Anyway, the train was stopped on the sidetracks when we got there, and we got to talk to Buck and Tom Belcher too. Guess what? Mr. Belcher said he seen our cow next to Royster’s Pond.”

“Good heavens,” said Ma Franklin. “She’s out again!”

“No,” said Robbie, grinning. “It was two days ago when he seen her.”

Pa Franklin came in smiling a few minutes later, laying out his plans for the coming day. “’Course you’ll have to have plenty of dinner cooked to feed them all,” he said to Halley.

Halley groaned inwardly. She did well to cook for the family, without adding a group of working men.

Kate arrived home and wiped the smile off her father’s face. “You’re way early,” he said. “Did you lose your job?”

“They had a lint fire,” Kate said, holding her hands out to the stove. “They put it out before it did much harm, but they shut down so they could clean up.” She looked at her mother. “You must be better.”

“Lots better,” Pa Franklin answered for her, “thanks to Doc Graham.”

Halley didn’t feel like hearing the praises of Doc Graham sung once more, so she picked up her tufting and headed for the far room.

As soon as she opened the door, something seemed wrong. The bed was rumpled, though she herself had made it this morning. Then there were the boxes with their underwear and night clothes. Instead of being neatly folded as usual, the clothing looked as if it had been stirred and jumbled. Perhaps Robbie had done it. But, no, he had come straight to the kitchen this afternoon, and she had been in the room earlier, to get the money for Opal. Everything had looked normal then.