Julia's Hope (6 page)

I looked into my bowl and sighed. They really didn’t care that we’d found only two more mushrooms. Seven in all. They trusted me that much. I glanced at Sam, but he was looking at the sky again.

“It’s pretty black in the west,” he said. “Storm coming. I guess you’ll get your way for tonight. We can go to town tomorrow.”

We headed straight for the barn and picked through a pile of boards for something to cover over the broken windows. All the boards had square nails sticking out of them, which we pried up and used to tack the boards in place. One of the broken windows was upstairs in a bedroom, so we got our first look at the second floor.

There were just two rooms up there, one with nothing but an old bed frame and the other full of boxes and crates. I shooed the kids out of that room and shut the door. “We mustn’t mess with anything unless it’s a matter of necessity,” I told them.

I rushed out into the rain and picked more dandelion, some lamb’s-quarter, and winter onion to add to the cress for salad. It would have been nice to fry the mushrooms with cornmeal like I’d been taught, but without either corn or grease, I hadn’t any choice but to try something new. I picked up a few sticks in the yard and had the kids roast the halved mushrooms in the fireplace. I then stewed the rosebuds and hips in water, sweetening the brew with sugar, hoping to come up with something palatable.

Nobody said much over a lunch like that, and the thunder started in earnest before we were through.

Sarah tagged behind me like a little shadow as I took a look in the basement, where Sam had found the wood. It pleased me to find a pile of rags and an old broom. And Sarah found a toad, which she thought the grandest thing she’d seen in her whole life.

“They eat bugs,” I told her. “That’s why they like basements and gardens. Lots of bugs.”

“Do bugs taste good?” she asked, her eyes wide with question.

“Some of them might be all right,” I told her, though at that moment I was wondering how a toad might taste. But Sarah would have none of that, I knew.

“Whatcha gonna do with those rags?” she asked as I bundled them up to take upstairs.

“We’re gonna clean this place up,” I announced. “It’ll be our thanks for staying here.”

“Can I help?” she asked. “I’m glad we’re not in the thun-nerstorm, Mama.”

Sam had started knocking down cobwebs, knowing I didn’t think much of having spiders dangling over my head. I swept the dust from the floors into a corner, scooped it up the best I could, and flung it all out the back door.

I had some paper with me in my bag, and I’d written out a page of sums for Robert, not wanting him to forget such things in the time it would take to get him settled into a school. He sat grumbling and ciphering as Sarah helped me wipe down the kitchen table and counters with water from the well and a couple of old rags.

“Why doesn’t she have to do any figuring?” Robert asked.

“Because she’s only five,” I told him. “And hasn’t had even a day of school yet.”

“Well this ain’t school,” he continued. “Why can’t I wait?”

“If you keep up, best as you can manage, you won’t have to be left back for all the time you missed.”

Robert looked out the window, and I let him daydream a minute. Finally, he turned his attention back to his paper but then looked up abruptly. “You think there’s a school ’round here? I wouldn’t mind figurin’ so much, Mom, if it meant having some other boys around to play with.”

I was glad Sam had gone to the basement for more wood. Both of my kids were as infected by hope here as I was. “When we have a place of our own to stay,” I told Robert, “you’ll make plenty of friends again. We’ll look about the school first thing.”

I hadn’t been able to take a good look at the cookstove last night, but I could see now that it was a beauty. Maybe the finest wood-burning one I’d ever seen, once I had the dust washed off. The stove had cream-colored enamel and a warming shelf built right in. Not very old either. Someone had paid good money for it, that was for sure.

I opened the double doors of the big oven, wishing I had some flour. That’d be what I’d buy if we got into town and found a grocer. Flour. Beans. Maybe potatoes. But sixty cents wouldn’t go far.

I scooped the ashes and what looked like an old mouse’s nest out of the firebox just as Sam came upstairs with the wood. He stopped for a minute, seeing me at the cook-stove.

“You’re not wanting a fire in here tonight?”

I shook my head, knowing it wouldn’t seem quite right yet. It would be like taking another step, thinking we belonged here, and even I wasn’t ready for that. “I’m just cleaning, Sam,” I told him. “As a kindness.”

I dashed out in the rain again to cut the fiddlehead fern fronds for supper that night. We ate them roasted with salt, and the rest of the popcorn.

“Do other people eat stuff like this?” Robert asked me.

“It’s been a bad year for a lot of folks,” I replied. “When people can’t get to a store, they eat whatever’s around.”

“They look like big curls,” Sarah said. “Only green.”

“Rolled up like a jelly roll,” Robert fantasized. “Too bad we got no jelly.”

“Or bread,” Sarah added solemnly.

Sam looked from one to the other, his face ashen. “That’s enough,” he said. “Both of you.” He got up and walked away from us, into the dark bedroom with the boarded window.

“Why’s he so cross all the time?” Robert asked me. “He was nicer when he had a job.”

I was stunned by my son’s words. Everything had been nicer then; that was surely true. But I couldn’t let him blame Sam for that.

“Honey, your father will always have a job. God made him your daddy, and the most important thing he’ll ever do is love you the way he does. If he seems cross, it’s because he’d like nothing better than to give us the best home we could ever imagine, plus all the jelly and bread we want. Lots of men have lost their jobs, through no fault of their own. He’s thinking of you, wanting you to be happy.”

I looked in the direction Sam had gone, hoping he’d come out and offer to tell the kids a story the way he used to when Robert was little. That would help. If he could just do that, it would be almost like old times between them again.

But something in Sam had changed. I knew it as well as Robert did. I wondered if there were any stories left in Sam to tell. The ache in him had swallowed all the stories, plus the spring in his step and the smile I loved so well.

I had filled my children with wild vegetables and a few cheerful songs, but I had done nothing to fill the void in my Samuel’s heart.

EIGHT

Samuel

I sat on the floor, just listening to the thunder outside. It was too dark to see anything in that musty room, but I didn’t care. I would have closed it off if I could have— sealed it like a tomb and stayed in there forever.

What would tomorrow hold? If it rained again, we were stuck here. And what else could Julia manage to scrounge up from that yard outside?

If it didn’t rain, we could set out again, but even if I bought my children bread with the rest of our money, the knowledge that it wouldn’t last crushed me into the ground. We could go on for awhile, eating whatever Juli found, sleeping wherever we could. But even if we managed the summer, come winter, we’d freeze or starve. It all came down to money. A job.

I heard Juli’s footsteps and almost told her to leave me alone. I was angry, not at her, but at myself for not being more like her, not finding a way on my own.

“Sammy?” Her voice was timid, like she wasn’t quite sure what I might say or what I might do.

“I don’t want to talk right now.”

She came closer, despite my unfriendly words. “That’s okay,” she whispered. “There’s not much I can say, anyway.”

She stood quiet for a moment, and then I felt her hand on my back, gentle and warm. “Robby’s reading to Sarah again,” she said. “Then they’re going to lie down.”

“Maybe you should be with them.”

“They’re fine.” She leaned down and kissed my neck. “I miss you,” she whispered. “I miss us.”

I almost pushed her away. “I’ve got nothing for you, Julia,” I told her. “You’d be better off without me.”

But she kissed at my neck again like she hadn’t heard a word I’d said.

“I’ll ask after work tomorrow,” I promised. “I’ll even ask after this farm, if that’s what you want, but you might as well know I don’t expect nothing out of it. If the owners were to give someone this place, you know they’d pick somebody local. Maybe we’d have a better chance back in Pennsylvania.”

She just leaned into me, ignoring what I’d said, easing me toward the floor.

“Juli—”

“Shhh.” She kissed my lips for the first time in months.

“The kids are awake,” I reminded her.

“They’re fine.”

“The floor’s dirty.”

“Not as bad as it was.”

I sat there for a moment, wondering why she didn’t hate me and how she could lay aside her feelings this way and act as though everything were fine.

“We can do this together,” she said. “And that’s the only way we can do it. I need you now more than I ever have.”

I almost protested. But she kissed me again, and I couldn’t hold myself back from her anymore. I put my arms around her and pulled her close. I hugged her tight and told her I would love her until the stars fell out of the sky. Juli, the light of my day, the gift that God gave me to share in my night. I would have fallen away if it weren’t for her. I would have been like Bill Harvey, blind, alone, more dead than alive.

Morning had us up bright and early, packing our things back in our bags. The sun was shining and Julia was folding the blankets carefully and putting them back where we found them. I could think of little more than her apology to me in the night for being so distant and angry.

She sang as she made us strawberry-leaf tea again, even though there was nothing to eat with it. “We’re on our way to town,” she told the children. “We’ll be eating when we get there.”

“I don’t want to go!” Sarah declared, folding her little arms across her chest. “Why can’t we stay here?”

Juli seemed hesitant. “We have to find the grocery store, for one thing.”

“Daddy and Robby can go! You and me can stay here and pick mushyrooms again!”

Juli knelt and put her arm around Sarah. “You have to make arrangements when it comes to things like a home,” she explained gently. “We can’t stay here any longer until we talk to someone, and it’s far too soon to know what the answer might be. We might decide to go and visit Cousin Dewy for awhile. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“No,” she said. “I wanna stay here.”

“Well, we’re all going into town and we’re not about to leave you behind.” Juli pulled a ribbon from her handbag and tied back Sarah’s hair.

I stuffed Juli’s Bible and a storybook into the top of the largest bag. Robert just stood beside me, listening to everything but not adding a word.

“Are we ever coming back?” Sarah asked quietly.

“I don’t know, honey,” Juli answered her. “God knows.”

“I wish we had a car. Then we could go wherever we want.”

“Well, maybe we’ll get us a good quick ride.” She stood up and took Sarah’s hand.

“Does Dearing have a soda shop?”

Juli smiled at the sudden change of subject. “I have no idea. But we won’t be visiting there, even if they do. Now if they have a library, that would be fine. We can take the time to read something new, if it’s not too long.”

Stopping at a library would never have occurred to me. But that was Julia. No matter what we had to accomplish or how little we had, she’d find a way to mix in something to make the kids feel special.

We started off while the morning was young. I looked back at the farmhouse and never expected to see it again, despite Julia’s longing. But I thanked God for the house, because in it we’d mended the rift between us. I was still worried. I was still wondering about how to feed my children. But the world was not as heavy as it had been. I picked up Sarah and put her on my shoulders. It seemed like the birds were singing all around, and soon I spotted a wagon heading our way.

NINE

Julia

It was a gift of fortune, gaining a ride so quickly, even though it was a slow one. A bearded man and his teenage son driving a team of horses and a farm wagon sauntered up beside us and stopped with a friendly greeting.

“Say, there,” said the man. “Out visitin’ today?” He was looking us up and down real good, but smiling just the same.

“On the way to Dearing,” Sam told him.

“We need to find out who owns the farm over the hill there,” I added, figuring this was a neighbor who would probably know something about the farm.

The man glanced at Sam and then back at me and shook his head. “Ain’t anxious to see it sell,” he said. “Where’re you all from?”

“Pennsylvania,” Robert told him.

“Got family ’round here?” the man questioned with a frown.

“In Mt. Vernon,” Sam offered. “We’d be much obliged for a ride in your wagon.”

“Well, you can pile in, I guess,” the man told us. “We’s headed into Dearing, all right. But you ain’t gonna find Mrs. Graham there. Last I knew, she was over to Belle Rive, but you can ask Hazel Sharpe. She’ll know for sure.”

My heart leaped up inside me. We had a name, a hope. Someone to talk to about the place!

“Don’t know how you come to know about that old farm,” the man was saying. “I’d buy it off Emma m’self if I had the money, but it ain’t even for sale yet. We live just down the road. Graham field comes right up again’ mine. Nice ground too.”

Sam looked at me, and I knew what he was thinking. Just like he’d said, preference would be given to someone local if it came to that. And we didn’t even have money.

“My name’s George Hammond,” the man told us. Then he gestured to his boy. “This here’s Sam.”

Sarah laughed. “That’s my daddy’s name!”

George chuckled. “It was my daddy’s name too. What’s yours?”

“Sarah.”

“Wortham,” Sam added and shook George Hammond’s hand.

The wagon smelled of hogs and hay. We climbed up beside three wooden boxes, and George started the horses moving again before we’d sat down.