Hidden Places (2 page)

Mr. Greer and Reverend Dill finally wandered away from the table, still arguing over what should be done with Wyatt Orchards. I breathed a sigh of relief and went back to serving folks.

‘‘Would you like some coffee, Aunt Betty?’’ I asked when she finished her tour around the table.

‘‘No thanks, Toots. It would just run out of my purse and onto your nice clean floor.’’ She laughed like a mischievous child, and I couldn’t help smiling. ‘‘By the way,’’ she added, ‘‘no one calls me Betty, don’t you know that? They haven’t for years. It’s
Batty
. My name was changed from Betty to
Batty
. People always get their names changed after they’ve seen God—Abram became Abra-ham, Sarai changed to Sarah, Jacob to Israel....’’ She paused to sniff a deviled egg before adding it to the collection in her purse. ‘‘I’ve seen God, too, you know. I knew it was Him by His eyes.’’ She clutched my arm again and leaned close to whisper, ‘‘God has very kind eyes.’’

Now, I had always pictured God’s eyes as sort of tired-looking ever since I heard a Baptist preacher in Kentucky say that the eyes of the Lord ran to and fro throughout the whole earth. But I suppose they could be tired and kind at the same time.

Aunt Batty stood on tiptoes to survey the roomful of people, then tilted her head toward my parlor where a group of church women stood in a huddle. ‘‘You know what those old hens over there are whispering about?’’ she asked. ‘‘They’re discussing how shocked they all are to see me at Frank’s funeral. He was my beau first, you know, before my sister, Lydia, married him. They think I’ve held a grudge all these years, but you know what? I had a guardian angel looking out for me. That’s how I escaped Frank Wyatt—a guardian angel.’’ She laughed again and dropped a baking powder biscuit into her bottomless purse. ‘‘You married my nephew Sam, didn’t you?’’

A lump the size of a peach pit suddenly stuck in my throat. I had to swallow it down before I could answer. ‘‘Yes...but he’s dead, Aunt Batty. Sam died a year ago, remember?’’

Her eyes filled with tears as she stared into space. ‘‘My sister, Lydia, had three boys—Matthew was the oldest, then Samuel, then young Willie. Poor little Willie died way back in 1910, wasn’t it? Or maybe it was 1911, my memory never was very good.’’ She parted the lacy dining room curtains with her gloved hand and pointed to my three children playing in the backyard. ‘‘Seems like only yesterday Lydia’s boys were running all around like those youngsters.’’

Jimmy, Luke, and Becky Jean had been fidgeting so badly in their Sunday clothes that I’d finally turned them loose to play. I didn’t care if the church women whispered behind their hands about how improper it was for children to be running wild an hour after their granddaddy was laid to rest.

‘‘Those are my three young ones,’’ I said. ‘‘Mine and Sam’s.’’

‘‘Well, you look like a mere child yourself,’’ Batty said, ‘‘barely old enough to be a wife, let alone a widow. Poor Sammy. And now his father is gone, too? My, my...Iguess that makes me your closest kin here in Deer Springs.’’ She shook her head, and the black-mesh mourning veil which she had stuck to her straw hat with a piece of sticky tape came loose and fluttered to the floor. ‘‘Some folks say this house is jinxed or under a curse, you know. One tragedy after another, over the years. First little Willie died, then young Matthew left us like he did, then my sister died...But none of those were accidents. I don’t care what folks tell you, young lady.’’

‘‘Not...accidents?’’ I didn’t want to think about what else they could be.

‘‘No, sir! There’s a huge load of grief up in the attic of this house. Have you been up there lately? Probably a big pile of it down in the cellar, too.’’

I watched my children playing tag beneath the clotheslines, and I wanted to tell Aunt Batty that the grief had long-since overflowed the attic and the basement. It was deep enough and wide enough to fill the entire barn.

Aunt Batty squeezed my shoulder. ‘‘If you ever need any help shoveling it all out, you give me a call, all right? I live in the cottage down by the pond. What did they say your name was again?’’

‘‘Eliza Rose, ma’am. Eliza Rose Wyatt.’’

Aunt Batty shook her head. ‘‘My! That’s too much grief for one house to bear.’’ Her purse bumped against my hip as she circled her arm around my waist. ‘‘What you need, Toots, is your own guardian angel to watch out for you. Help you out in your time of need. Tell you what—I’ll ask God to send you one the next time I see Him, all right?’’

I thought of the words my daddy used to say when he tucked me into bed at night—‘‘May the Lord keep His angels ’round about you’’—and I had to swallow another big lump.

‘‘I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to ask for one, Aunt Batty,’’ I said.

Wyatt Orchards

Winter 1931

‘‘Do not forget to entertain strangers: for thereby some have
entertained angels unawares.’’

HEBREWS 13:2

CHAPTER ONE

February 1931

I
had just stepped out the kitchen door into the frozen February night when the stranger startled me half to death. I hadn’t heard any automobiles rattling down the long, deserted lane to my farmhouse, so when a shadow in the darkness suddenly turned into the large form of a man, he scared me so bad I dropped a coal scuttle full of ashes down the porch steps. I had to clutch my heart with both hands to keep it from jumping out of my rib cage.

‘‘Forgive me, ma’am. I never meant to frighten you,’’ the stranger said. Even in the dark I could tell he was truly sorry. He had his arm stretched out, like he would gladly catch me if I dropped dead of fright.

‘‘That’s okay,’’ I said. ‘‘I didn’t hear you drive up, is all.’’

‘‘I didn’t drive. I came on foot.’’ He lowered the burlap sack he carried and bent to scoop the spilled ashes back into the scuttle with his hands.

‘‘Careful, those cinders might still be warm.’’

‘‘Yes, ma’am. Feels good, though.’’ His hands were bare, and he wore no hat—only layers of ragged clothing against the numbing cold. His overgrown hair and bushy beard hid most of his face from view. But it was his odor, the strong smell of unwashed flesh and wood smoke, that told me plain as day that the stranger was a hobo—one of the many thousands that roamed across America looking for work that winter. He must have tramped through the orchard from the railroad tracks, drawn by the light of my farmhouse windows.

‘‘Your house is marked,’’ old Abe Walker told me the last time I paid a visit to his general store in Deer Springs. ‘‘That’s what them tramps do, you know. Once they learn you’re a kindhearted Christian woman, they mark your house for the next fellow. You ought to chase them off, Eliza Rose. ’Tisn’t safe to have them hanging around, you being a widow and all.’’

Abe Walker didn’t know that I’d grown up with kinkers and lot-loafers and roustabouts, so I was a pretty good judge of people. I knew who to invite inside and who to send packing.

‘‘May I have a word with your husband, ma’am?’’ the stranger asked, startling me a second time.

‘‘My...my husband?’’

‘‘Yes, ma’am. I was wondering if he had some odd jobs I could do in exchange for a meal.’’ The tramp had a gentle voice, softspoken, polite. I thought of all the endless chores that needed to be done around here—milk buckets to wash, kindling to split, coal to fetch, animals to feed, fences to mend—and I felt tired clear to my bones.

‘‘Why don’t you come inside and have a bite to eat,’’ I said. ‘‘It’s too cold to stand around out here. Just leave those ashes on the porch.’’ I turned and opened the kitchen door for him, but he didn’t move.

‘‘I don’t mind eating outside. And I’m willing to do some chores first.’’

It was hard to tell how old the stranger was in the darkness. His voice was neither young nor old. I felt sorry for him, though. In spite of his many layers of clothing, he stood hunched against the cold, shivering.

‘‘We just finished our supper,’’ I said. ‘‘The food is still warm. Please come in.’’

He slowly followed me inside, then stood close to the kitchen door while I sliced some bread, fetched a clean soup bowl, ladled a helping of leftovers into it, and poured him a cup of coffee. When I turned to ask him to sit, he startled me once more—for a split second he reminded me of my husband. The stranger was nearly as tall and broad-shouldered as Sam had been, and he stood exactly like Sam used to stand with one shoulder hitched a little higher than the other, his head cocked to one side as if listening for a sound in the distance. Then the moment passed, and I saw how very different from Sam he really was—dark-haired while Sam had been fair, brown-eyed while Sam’s eyes had been as blue as a summer sky.

‘‘Won’t you sit down?’’ I asked. I set the bowl of stewed chicken, carrots, and dumplings on the table and passed him the bread.

‘‘Thank you, ma’am.’’

I could have sworn I saw the shine of tears in his eyes as he lowered himself into the chair like a very old man. Then he surprised me by folding his hands and bowing his head to pray, just like Sam and his daddy always used to do before they ate.

Across the table from him, my four-year-old daughter gaped at the stranger through wide gray eyes, her fork hanging in the air as she picked at the remains of her dinner. The bare light bulb above the table lit up her coppery hair like flames.

‘‘Quit staring and finish your dinner, Becky Jean,’’ I said. I didn’t mean to sound so cross all the time, but lately my words just seemed to jump out of my mouth that way. I turned back to my sink full of dishes, and when I glimpsed my reflection in the kitchen window, I saw a face that was too harsh, too care-worn for a woman just thirty years old. With all those worry lines and my sandy hair drooping in my eyes, I looked nothing at all like the young girl Sam had once called ‘‘pretty as a picture.’’

‘‘My mama won’t let you leave the table till you eat all your carrots,’’ Becky told the stranger. ‘‘I don’t like carrots, do you?’’

‘‘Well, yes, miss. As a matter of fact, I like carrots a lot.’’

‘‘Want mine?’’ she asked.

‘‘Oh no, you don’t,’’ I said. ‘‘You finish your dinner, Becky Jean, and let the man finish his.’’ I planted my hands on my hips, watching Becky like a hawk until she finally bit off a tiny piece of carrot. I could tell by the way the man was shoveling food into his mouth that he hadn’t eaten for quite some time. I dished him a second helping.

‘‘Don’t you want to take your coat off, mister?’’ Becky asked him a few minutes later.

‘‘No, thank you. It’s hardly worth the bother. I’ll be going back outside in just a bit.’’ He spoke softly, as if there were a baby sleeping nearby and he didn’t want to wake it. But the mood was broken a moment later by the sound of footsteps thundering down the stairs, jumping from the landing to the hallway floor, then racing into the kitchen. I didn’t need to turn around to know that it was my son Jimmy. He was nine years old, and he galloped like a spring colt wherever he went.

‘‘Mama, can you help me with my—’’ He froze in the doorway when he saw the stranger. Jimmy’s light brown hair was too long again, hanging in his eyes like a patch of overgrown weeds. I would have to cut it if I could get him to sit still that long.

‘‘It’s not polite to stare, Jimmy,’’ I said. ‘‘Can’t you say ‘good evening’ to our guest?’’

‘‘Good evening,’’ he said. The stranger was caught with a mouthful of dumplings and could only nod in reply. A moment later, a redheaded shadow appeared in the doorway behind Jimmy—seven-year-old Luke. But I knew it would be useless to ask him to greet the man. Luke was as shy and as easily spooked as a stray cat.

‘‘What did you need help with, Jimmy?’’ I asked, drying my hands on my apron.

‘‘Spelling words.’’ He skirted the table in a wide arc, as far away from the stranger as he could get, and handed me his notebook. Luke hovered close to his shirttail. The boys’ eyes—as blue as their father’s had been—never left the stranger. I was trying to decipher Jimmy’s smudged writing when the man suddenly let out a yelp. I looked up to see him rubbing the back of his hand.

‘‘Mama!’’ Jimmy said in amazement, ‘‘Becky just hauled off and poked that man with her fork!’’

‘‘Poked him?’’

‘‘Yeah, for no reason at all!’’

‘‘But I did have a reason!’’ Becky said. ‘‘I wanted to see if he was an angel!’’

The hobo’s dark brows lifted. ‘‘A what?’’

‘‘An angel,’’ she repeated. She was on the verge of tears. ‘‘Mama’s always feeding strangers ’cause she says they might be angels. But you wouldn’t take your coat off, so I couldn’t see if you had wings under there.’’

I gripped Becky’s shoulder, shaking her slightly. ‘‘Becky Jean! You say you’re sorry right now!’’ Instead, she covered her face and cried.

‘‘No, no, there’s no harm done,’’ the man said. He had a nice smile, his teeth even and white. ‘‘I think I know which verse your mother means. It’s from the book of Hebrews, isn’t it, ma’am? ‘Do not forget to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.’ ’’

‘‘Yes, that’s right.’’ I was so dumbfounded to hear a scruffy old hobo spouting off Scripture like a Sunday preacher that I didn’t know what else to say.