Jim the Boy (7 page)

When Jim reached the state highway, he turned and looked back. Mama and the uncles waved from the porch.

“Be good, Doc,” called Uncle Zeno.

“Study hard,” said Mama.

“Pay attention,” said Uncle Al.

“Don’t get a paddling,” said Uncle Coran.

“’Bye,” yelled Jim, waving back. “Bye, everybody.”

And when he turned and looked up the hill toward the school, he wished for a moment that he did not have to take another step, that he could stay right where he was and never have to leave again.

Jim had never seen so many kids in one place in his life. The students from the five smaller schools the new school replaced — first graders through high school seniors — surrounded him in the school yard. At first, Jim did not see anyone he knew. But then Buster Burnette, a fourth grader from the old school, found him in the crowd, and together they located Crawford Wilson, also from their school, and Larry Lawter, who was Buster’s cousin and whom Jim knew from church, and Larry’s friend Dennis Deane, with whom Larry had gone to school in Sunny View. Together the five boys formed a gang sizable enough to stand together in the school yard without having to be afraid of bigger boys.

Jim was happy to be surrounded by so many boys. Most days during the summer he never saw another kid. He was pleased when the other boys began to ask him what they should do and where they should go, as if they had met secretly before he got there and elected him leader.

Jim already knew that he was a better ballplayer than Buster and Crawford, and knew that he could outrun them as well. He sized up Larry Lawter, who was too fat to be very fast, and Dennis Deane, who was small, and figured he could outrun both of them, too. He also noticed that he was taller than the other boys. Not that he would have used his size to bully them. He was the boy the other boys looked up to, and took the responsibilities of his office seriously. He told them he thought they should try to have a ball game during recess. Each boy in turn admired Jim’s glove and tried it on. They pounded their fists into the pocket and snapped it, like a crawdad’s claw, at imaginary baseballs.

At exactly eight o’clock, the new principal, Mr. Dunlap, walked out of the front door and, simply by raising his arms like Moses, silenced the great crowd of students milling around the steps. Starting with the first-grade teacher, a pretty woman named Miss Lathan, he introduced the teachers one at a time and read a list of the kids who would be in their classes. Those kids then lined up and followed their teachers into the building.

The fourth-grade teacher was a short, plump older woman named Miss Nanney. She had a perfectly round belly and curly hair that wasn’t quite gray, but not quite any other color, either. Before Mr. Dunlap even finished reading the fourth-grade roll, she snapped her fingers and pointed at Jim and his friends for giggling in line, which made them want to giggle even more. Mr. Dunlap looked at them sternly when they marched past him into the building.

“Boy,” Buster whispered into Jim’s ear. “This is going to be the best year.”

Because Miss Nanney’s classroom, like the rest of the unfinished school, lacked a ceiling, it had an open, barnlike feel. The walls, however, were freshly plastered and newly painted white, decorated with large, colorful maps of the United States, the Confederacy, and the Holy Land during the time of Jesus. The floors gleamed beneath a fragrant coat of linseed oil. The blackboard had never been written on. Almost all of one wall was taken up by tall windows that reached from the ceiling to the floor; the room was bright despite the fact that, until the power lines reached Aliceville, the electric lights would not work. Jim found the room altogether satisfactory.

The first thing Miss Nanney did was seat Jim and his friends as far away from one another as possible, so that they would not get into mischief together during class. She sat Jim down in the front row, which suited him fine. Jim had always liked school, and liked to be at the front of the class. He already yearned for an assignment so he could prove to Miss Nanney how smart he was.

“I guess you’ve noticed there are a lot of empty desks in this classroom,” Miss Nanney said after she finished assigning seats.

Miss Nanney had not been in favor of school consolidation, and had left the small school in High Shoals only grudgingly.

“There are empty seats in this room because the bus from Lynn’s Mountain has yet to make it here. And if the bus from Lynn’s Mountain can’t make it on time during a dry September, I have no idea how it will fare during the winter. I will therefore wait to call the roll.”

Jim swiveled around and looked behind him at the empty desks. He hadn’t noticed before how there were no kids from Lynn’s Mountain in Miss Nanney’s class. Although the base of Lynn’s Mountain wasn’t that far from Aliceville, a trip to the top, because of the narrow, twisting roads, constituted a considerable journey. Jim wondered if the boys from the mountain would be more like his father, who by all accounts had been a kind and gentle man, or if they would be more like his grandfather, who was famously mean. And he wondered if these new boys would recognize the name Jim Glass, if he would have to fight them on the playground because he was related to a mean man he had never met.

When recess came at ten o’clock, Jim took the bat and ball Miss Nanney produced from a closet and adjourned with the boys to the new chicken-wire backstop at the far corner of the playground. They agreed unanimously that asking the girls to play ball was out of the question. The girls stayed near the building and jumped rope. Because the boys numbered only five, Jim suggested that they play roll-the-bat instead of a regular ball game.

Before they could even start, however, Crawford Wilson spotted Miss Nanney coming around the side of the building with five boys and four girls. She stopped at the edge of the playground and pointed first at the girls jumping rope, and then she pointed across the playground toward the backstop.

“Who’s that?” Buster Burnette asked as the new boys walked toward them.

“I bet they’re the kids from Lynn’s Mountain,” Jim said.

“Hillbillies,” said Dennis Deane, which made everybody snicker uneasily. Nobody mentioned that the new boys were dressed in overalls exactly like theirs.

The new boys seemed to be led by a tall, handsome boy with inky black hair and dark eyes. He stopped directly in front of Jim, while the other new boys gathered around him. He was about Jim’s height, or maybe a hair taller. Jim thought he looked smug and bossy.

“I’m Penn Carson,” the new boy said to Jim in a slightly odd accent.

“I’m Jim Glass,” said Jim. “These are my friends.”

He introduced them, while the new boys looked them over. Penn Carson nodded and pointed at his friends.

“This is Otis Shehan. And Mackey MacDowell and Willie McBee and Horace Gentine.”

Everybody mumbled “hey” all around.

“I think we might be some kind of cousins,” Horace Gentine said to Jim.

“I don’t think I have any cousins,” Jim said. He didn’t know if he did or not.

“I know who your granddaddy is,” said Otis Shehan.

Jim studied Otis. He was a lot smaller than Jim, but he looked mean.

“I don’t have anything to do much with my grand-daddy,” said Jim.

“Your name is Penn?” Buster Burnette said to the new boy.

“I’m named for William Penn. He was the founder of Pennsylvania. My mother was a Quaker missionary from Philadelphia. She was the teacher at our school until it closed.”

Penn spoke schoolteacher English, which made Jim a little self-conscious.

“What’s a Quaker?” Crawford Wilson asked.

“It’s pretty complicated,” Willie McBee said.

“It’s a form of Christianity,” said Penn.

“It ain’t Baptist,” Larry Lawter said.

“Or Methodist,” said Buster Burnette.

“It’s a Yankee religion,” said Dennis Deane, but nobody laughed.

“Penn ain’t a Yankee,” Otis Shehan said. “And
he
won’t fight because it’s against his religion.”

Penn held out his hand, as if to keep Otis from saying more.

“I was born in North Carolina, just like y’all,” he said.

“Miss Nanney says we’re supposed to play ball,” said Horace Gentine. “Are we going to play ball, or are we gonna talk?”

“How about us against y’all?” Jim said. “The town boys against the mountain boys.” The two teams regarded each other warily. Nobody knew what to say.

Penn finally nodded. “Okay,” he said.

The town boys batted first and scored twelve runs. Jim got on base all three times he came up to bat. Larry Lawter, who not only couldn’t run very fast, but couldn’t bat very well, either, made all three of the outs. When the mountain boys came up, Jim saw quickly that the town boys had their hands full. Otis Shehan, Mackey MacDowell, and Horace Gentine loaded the bases before Penn came to the plate and swatted a ball to center that rolled almost all the way across the playground before Buster Burnette could run it down. Penn homered again the next time he came to the plate, this time to right field, with two runners on. Between pitches, Jim began to watch Miss Nanney, hoping that she would call them in before the mountain boys tied the score. But she stood placidly in the shade of the building, apparently in no hurry to return to the classroom.

Penn came to the plate a third time with two outs, the bases loaded, and the mountain boys down by three. Jim looked at Miss Nanney, who still showed no signs of ending the rally. On the first pitch Jim threw, Penn socked a long line drive to left field. Crawford, who was playing deep, chased after it. Jim ran to shortstop to cut off the relay throw. Dennis ran home to cover the plate.

Jim fielded Crawford’s throw and turned just in time to see Penn rounding third. He saw that Penn would reach home before his throw would. He threw the ball as hard as he could and it hit Penn between the shoulder blades, knocking him to the ground just as he touched the plate. Jim didn’t know in his own heart if he had hit Penn on purpose or not.

Penn scrambled up and twirled toward Jim, his face flushed with anger, his fists balled at his sides. Jim threw down his glove and got ready to fight.

The town boys and the mountain boys looked at Jim in disbelief. They stood still and watched to see what would happen. Jim had never seen anybody angrier than Penn. Still, Penn did not move forward. Across the playground, Miss Nanney raised her arm in the air, signaling the end of recess.

“That was dirty,” Otis Shehan said.

“Did you do that on purpose?” Penn asked.

“It was an accident,” Jim said. “I promise.”

Penn unclenched his fists. He brushed the dirt off of his overalls.

“Mountain boys thirteen, town boys twelve,” Jim said, trying to smile. “We better go in.”

He picked up his glove and turned toward the school. On the way back across the playground, he walked by himself. Not even the town boys knew what to say to him.

Big Day

J
IM DID
not sleep much the night before Big Day. The idea of the new school’s open house itself had not kept him awake, but the small carnival waiting on the playground had driven him to distraction. He was up and dressed and through with breakfast by seven, even though it was a Saturday. He paced back and forth between the front porch and the kitchen, huffing with impatience. He was afraid that Penn might get to the school before he did; he was afraid that Penn would ride the rides first.

In the three weeks since the start of term, Jim and Penn had turned the school yard into their own private arena. They raced across the playground when recess started, and raced back when it was over. When Penn volunteered to wash the blackboard, Jim offered to beat the erasers. Penn memorized more Bible verses than Jim, but Jim won the spelling bee. When Miss Nanney set the class to work painting pictures of Bible scenes with which to decorate the walls for Big Day, Jim and Penn each painted a picture of David slaying Goliath; each then begged Miss Nanney to judge which one was best.

From the front porch Jim could see the merry-go-round and the Ferris wheel. In the kitchen Uncle Zeno said, “No, Doc, it’s not time to go yet.” From the front porch, he could see the tall, skinned poplar log that had been sunk into the ground for the greasy pole–climbing contest. In the kitchen Mama said, “Jim, you are worrying me to death.”

Big Day started at ten o’clock, when Mr. Dunlap would unlock the school doors. Mama did not seem to care that cars and trucks already lined the school driveway, that everybody and their brother was coming in from the countryside by the truckload, by the wagonload, and on foot, to see the new building and ride the rides; she did not seem to care that they would take up all the shady places to put their dinner on the ground. She especially did not care that Penn Carson might get in line for the Ferris wheel before Jim did.

By eight o’clock, Jim did not see how he could live two more hours.

By eight-thirty, Uncle Zeno had had enough. He slapped his leg with the
Progressive Farmer
he had been trying to read.

“Come on, Doc,” he said. “We’re going for a walk.”

“I don’t want to go for a walk,” Jim said.

“Ain’t no ‘want to’ about it,” said Uncle Zeno.

Uncle Zeno strode through the pastures and the fields as if he were on his way to something important, and not away from it. Jim followed at a distance great enough to show his displeasure, but not great enough to get himself in trouble. He tried not to enjoy how good the morning sun felt on his back; he tried to ignore the sweet air on his face.

They crossed the creek on the stepping-stones, passed through the walnut grove, and came into the big corn bottom. The corn that had been knee-high to the uncles and the field hands in June was now seven and eight feet tall. It was still green, but thin, brown stripes, like those found on garter snakes, were beginning to darken the edges of the long leaves. Each stalk was topped by an elaborate, tasseled headdress; each heavy ear sprouted a protruding mane of silk. When Jim and Uncle Zeno walked through the field, the leaves whispered that fall was coming.