Judy's Journey (10 page)

“Goodness gracious!” exclaimed Mrs. Harmon, coming out to watch. “You folks pullin' out without tellin' me?”

“No ma'm,” said Mama, then she paused.

“Well, you're not down to rock bottom yet,” said Mrs. Harmon. “Nobody else on the canal has got a sewin'-machine
and
a Brussels carpet.”

“My Grandma Wyatt lived in a
house
,” bragged Judy.

“With Brussels carpet on the floor,” added Papa. “Calla's folks had things nice. Why, that carpet cost a dollar thirty-nine a yard.”

“No Jim,” Mama corrected him. “It was a dollar sixty-nine, and Pa bought sixteen yards of it. That little piece is all I got left. I'll never part with it, nor with my sewin'-machine.”

“Don't blame you none,” said Mrs. Harmon. “I feel the same way about my rockin'-chair.”

Mama looked at the bed on the jalopy and sighed. “I never thought I'd part with our iron bed——”

“
What you going to do with our bed, Papa
?” cried Judy. Suddenly she realized what was happening.

“Oh, you'll be glad it's gone,” said Mrs. Harmon practically. “Nobody carries beds along. I bet there ain't another real bed along this whole canal. You folks is too high-toned! When you travel far like we do, you can't take beds and heavy stuff. You're lucky if you got a mattress. Plenty people depends on goin' to the town dump and huntin' up old seat cushions out of junked cars. They use 'em for beds and throw 'em back on the dump when they leave.”

“Miz Holloway went to Ike's dump and got them an auto seat to sleep on,” said Judy in a low voice. She put her arm around Mama's waist. “We still got a mattress.”

“Come, Judy. Goin' with me?” called Papa.

The engine began to roar. Judy put her book inside the tent and jumped in the jalopy. They drove straight to a secondhand store. The man came out and helped Papa unload the iron bed and take down the springs.

“Coulda give you a better price if you'd a brought the mattress, too,” said the man.

“Gotta have somethin' to make the ground a little softer,” laughed Papa. He came out of the store with his hand in his pocket and a twinkle in his eye. He pulled out a quarter and threw it in Judy's lap. “Down there's a feed store,” he said, pointing.

It was not One-Eyed Charlie's feed store, but it looked very much like it. It smelled just the same, and feed sacks made of printed cotton cloth were piled up inside. Judy bought her grain and started out with it.

“That sack's pretty enough for a dress,” she heard a man's voice say behind her, “and there's a little girl who'd like to have it.”

Judy turned. A big burly farmer was having the contents of several flowered sacks dumped into a larger one of burlap. He kicked a sack in the girl's direction. “Take it,” he called out.

Quickly Judy rolled the sack up and tucked it under her arm. “Thanks,” she called back, hurrying out.

“What you been stealin', sugarpie?” asked Papa. “Somebody after you?”

“Looky! Looky, Papa! Look what he gave me
!”

The sack was dirty and saturated with dusty grain, but the printed pattern of pink and blue morning-glories could be plainly seen.

“I'll sew it on Mama's sewin'-machine,” said Judy happily.

“My! Such a stylish lady you'll be,” laughed Papa. Then he added, “Let's go get us each a coke.”

They stopped in front of a drug store that had its whole front open on the street. They sat down at a table and drank their cokes in style. Across the street was a trailer camp. Hot-dog stands, lunch counters in tents and other concessions lined the sidewalk. Australian pine trees were planted along the “streets” between the rows of trailers, which sat closely together.

The trailer camp looked beautiful, a great improvement on the canal bank. Judy could see curtains at the windows and clothes hung on tiny clothes-lines to dry.

“A house-trailer would be a good way to travel, Papa,” she said, “if you have to be on the go all the time. You'd have a house of your own and you could take it right with you.”

“Yes, honey,” said Papa. He sighed heavily. “They cost a pile o' money, hundreds o' dollars.”

They got up to go and Judy was sorry she had said what she did. Papa was doing the best he could and there'd be a job soon.

They walked along the street and looked in the show windows. It was a busy time and the sidewalk was crowded with people. Suddenly, bearing down upon them, came a large fat woman, hatless, with braids drooping over one shoulder. A gathered skirt, with yards and yards of cloth in it, tumbled about her. It was bright red, and her blouse was blue, with stars and moons of silver on it.

Judy remembered like a flash. It was Madame Rosie, the fortune-teller she had seen at the carnival in Alabama. Judy took one look, then let go Papa's hand, turned and fled through the crowd.

“Hey! Where you goin', honey?” Papa called after her.

But she was gone. And Papa was left facing a strange woman he had never seen before. Madame Rosie took his arm and shook it vigorously.

“I been lookin' for you a long time, mister,” she exclaimed. “Why don't you give that kid o' yours some decent food to eat—juicy steak and green vegetables and plenty milk to drink? Bet she hasn't had a drop o' milk today, now has she?”

Jim Drummond was puzzled. “No, Lonnie gits the milk,” he said. “But what business is it of your'n? Who are YOU? She's
my
kid, not your'n.”

“Look here, mister.” Madame Rosie planted herself in front of the man and looked him straight in the eye. “You got a whole houseful o' kids, I bet, and you shouldn't have any at all, 'cause you're so ignorant you don't know how to feed 'em or bring 'em up properly.”

“Now that's a nice thing to say to a man,” began Papa weakly

But he didn't have a chance, for Madame Rosie continued: “You're that tall dark man I saw in that scared rabbit's life, and you'd better work harder and make things better for them kids, and give 'em a chance to go to school and read out of books with pictures in 'em.” She stopped abruptly. “Where do you live? What you doin' here, so far from Alabama? 'Twas in Alabama I saw that girl before, I'll swear to it. Where's your home?”

“Ain't got none … yet,” said Jim Drummond, dropping his eyes, “exceptin' the jalopy and tent.”

“Livin' in a tent and haulin' them kids all over the country, no money and not even a steady job, I bet!” said Madame Rosie. She shook her finger under his nose. “You just better settle down and get a home for that little scared rabbit …
with a picket fence round the garden like I saw
.… You better make that rabbit's fortune come true or I'll——”

Jim Drummond backed away, angry. “You're cuckoo! You're crazy! A fence? What you talkin' about a fence for? What I do is none of your business. You mind your own affairs or I'll have you arrested!”

Madame Rosie turned and went off across the street. Her shoulders heaved as if she were crying.

Jim Drummond shook his head.
She's crazy
, he thought to himself. But Madame Rosie's words stayed in his mind. He could not forget them. When he got back to the car, Judy was sitting hunched up in the seat, her lips set.

“Honey, did you ever see that woman before?” Papa asked.

“Yes, at that carnival we went to in Alabama,” said Judy.

“Did you tell her we was poor, honey?”

“I never said a word to her, Papa,” said Judy. “I was too scared to talk. I saw her sittin' in her tent. She tells fortunes for fifty cents.”

Still Papa could not understand it.

“There! That's her tent there.” Judy pointed across the street and read the sign: MADAME ROSIE—PALM READINGS—SPEAKS SEVEN LANGUAGES. She's part of that trailer camp, I reckon.”

Papa was thoughtful. “Likely she can read our minds,” he said.

Papa bought groceries on the way home, and when they got back, Judy displayed the feed sack. Mama put it in a bucket of water to soak the grain and dust out.

“Better not go near Missy with that feed-sack dress on,” warned Papa. “She can smell that grain a mile off—even after you wash it out.”

After supper the Holloways came over for a visit.

“We-uns come here winters and go up north summers,” said Mr. Holloway. He was a tall, thin-cheeked mountain man. “This-here's our fourth year.”

“Up north? You mean back to Tennessee where you come from?” asked Papa.

“No,” said Holloway. “I can't make me a living there. We go to South Jersey—big crop of peaches and vegetables there. We-uns can git work steady the whole endurin' summer, but I don't see no sense to workin' when I don't feel like it. When a nice day comes along, I'm one to stop and enjoy it. We-uns cleared over five hundred dollars last season at that—me and the ole lady both pickin'. Bought us our ear, a good un too.”

“How'd you find out about goin' up there?” asked Papa.

“One feller, old neighbor o' mine from Newport, Tennessee, went first just to see what that-ere part of the world was like. He made a heap o' money and come on back home and told his neighbors. The next year other families went and tried it. Now there's a passel o' Tennessee folks go up thar every summer. They all come back with their pockets full o' cash for the winter.”

“We-uns don't favor Tennessee in winter,” said Mrs. Holloway. “Florida's more to our taste.”

“That-ere farmer up in Jersey treats us fine for the most part,” Holloway went on. “Gives us a two-story house to live in .…”

“A real house?” gasped Mama.

“Yes
ma'm
,” said Mrs. Holloway.

“Better try Jersey come summer,” said Holloway.

The next day Joe Bob and Mister Mulligan finished Missy's shed. They all went out to look at it. It had a wooden framework and tin on the top and two sides. Joe Bob was very proud of it.

“What you limping for?” asked Mrs. Harmon. “Hurt yourself?”

“Oh, it's nothin',” said the boy. He sat down and looked at his leg. “Jest a little bump and a cut.”

The leg was badly swollen and the cut looked sore. When Joe Bob tried to get up, he could hardly walk.

“If I was you folks,” said Mrs. Harmon, “I'd do something.”

“What?” asked Mama, frightened. “What can we do?”

“They got a clinic over at the government camp in Belle Glade, and outsiders can go there for medical help,” said Mrs. Harmon, “but that's a long ways from here. All you need is First Aid.”

“What's that?” asked Mama.

“Good land! Don't you know?” asked Mrs. Harmon. “First Aid is gettin' that cut washed out good and clean, and bandaged so no germs can get in it.”

“What's ‘germs'?” asked Mama.

“I'll wash it,” said Judy. “I'm not afraid of blood.”

“I'd do it myself,” said Mrs. Harmon, “but I'm afraid to use this canal water. It might infect it. There's only one thing to do—take him to school, to the school nurse. She'll fix it up. Better hurry and get there before school lets out.”

“School?” gasped Judy. “They got a nurse at school? What'll she do to Joe Bob?”

“Good gracious, child, she won't hurt him none,” said Mrs. Harmon. “Don't look so scared. She'll fix your brother's leg so it will get well quick. It don't pay to let a thing like that go. That cut's a deep one—she might have to take some stitches in it.”

“You mean she'll sew it up?” demanded Judy, wide-eyed.

Joe Bob and Cora Jane began to cry. Then Lonnie started in.

“Calla, you stay here and get them kids quieted down,” said Papa. “I'll take the boy to school, like Miz Harmon says. Judy can come too, and find the nurse.”

“Just ask Bessie,” said Mrs. Harmon. “She'll tell you where the nurse is.”