Stella by Starlight (12 page)

Jojo clutched the doorknob, breathing hard. He looked terrified.

“What is it, boy?” his father asked. “Did you see the Klan again?”

“No. Worse,” Jojo answered breathlessly.

“Worse? What could be—?” Stella started to ask.

“Is somebody hurt?” Mama interrupted, dropping to her knees in front of him.

“No, Mama. It's nothing like that.”

“So why in heaven's name are you screaming in the middle of the night, waking everybody up?” Papa asked, his voice a blend of fury and fear.

Jojo looked at them, his face serious. “I got up to tee-tee again—”

“You're gonna have to stop going to the outhouse at night! Use the chamber pot!” Stella exclaimed, cutting him off.

“Stella, let the boy talk,” her father admonished.

“. . . and I saw a cow with no head!” Jojo buried his head into his mother's flannel nightgown.

“What are you talking about?” his father asked. “There's no such thing!”

“It's in the back, mooing like a cow, even wearin' a bell like a cow, but it ain't got no head! You gotta believe me!”

“Jojo, I think you're dreaming—how can a cow moo without a head?” Stella asked.

“I am
not
making this up,” Jojo insisted.

Mr. Mills brushed the boy out of the way and headed outside.

“See?” Jojo said, pointing.

Cloud cover made the night moonless, and the dark felt thick. “Mwooo,” a cow bellowed. Stella could hear the clanking of its bell and the sound of it bumping into things. It seemed confused.

“You see?” Jojo insisted, standing tucked behind Stella.

Stella peered into the darkness, and yes, she could clearly see the shape of a cow, and yes, it seemed to have no head!

Their father, though, solved the whole mystery in a second. He approached the frightened animal. “Sh-sh-sh, now. It's gonna be all right,” he murmured. He grabbed the rope around the cow's neck and led it closer to the house. “It's the Winstons' cow,” he explained to Jojo, sounding half-exasperated, half-amused.

Stella laughed out loud. “It's not headless—it's a white cow with a black head, you little featherbrain!”

“You've seen this cow next door a million times, Jojo,” Mama said, starting to laugh herself.

“But it
did
look like it had no head,” Jojo insisted.

“In the darkness, I suppose it did,” his mother
agreed, small bursts of laughter escaping from her lips.

“I'm sorry I woke everybody up again,” Jojo said, now sounding miserable. “But I was really scared.”

“With Klan folks burning crosses in the middle of the night, we don't need frights over cows, Jojo, you hear?” Papa scolded. “You holler when there's
real
danger. Otherwise, keep your mouth shut!” Although his voice was stern, Stella could see that even he was trying to keep his face from breaking into a smile.

As Jojo shifted from one foot to the other, Papa told him, “You'll be taking this cow back to its own barn before daylight. They will be missing her, and she'll be needin' a milkin'.”

“Yes, sir,” Jojo said.

“Can't get a lick of sleep around here,” their father groused as they all trooped back into the house. But he put his arm around his wife, and Stella could hear them murmuring with amusement as they climbed back to the loft.

Stella motioned for Jojo to come sit beside her at the table. “Chin up, Jojo. We needed something to make us laugh around here.”

“I feel kinda stupid,” Jojo admitted. “But I was
soo
scared!”

“Don't feel bad. Lotsa stuff scares me, too.”

“Like what? You never act like you're afraid of nothin'.”

“Snakes. Bears. Worms in apples. Toenail clippings. Floods. I could tell you dozens of things.”

“Really?”

“Trust me. The older you get, the scarier the world gets to be.”

“That's s'posed to make me feel better?”

“No, that's s'posed to make you understand the real deal.” She gave him a big hug. “And
that
,” she said, “is to let you know I will be there for you. No matter what.”

“You scared of getting beat at checkers?” he asked slyly.

“Not a chance, youngun! Even though it's the middle of the night, I'll still roast you. Get ready to suffer!”

So instead of going back to bed, Jojo ran to get the checkerboard.

21

The next morning, as Stella was washing up out at the pump, her father joined her, a strange look on his face.

“What's wrong, Papa?” she asked warily.

“Nothing. Just—you're not going to school today.”

Stella froze, water dripping from her face. “Why not?”

“I'm fixin' to register to vote, and I want you to be there,” her father said gruffly.

“Me?”

“You're my oldest child, you got smarts enough to be somethin' special like a teacher or a doctor one day.” Her father paused and cleared his throat. “I need you to be my standing stone, to be my strength this day.”

Papa's standing stone!
Stella felt mighty nervous, but excited at the same time. And missing a day of school? Who wouldn't jump at the chance? She dressed quickly, then brushed and braided her hair extra tight.

Her mother gave her a piece of warm biscuit and a hug before they left. “Stones don't cry, child. Remember that,” was all she said.

Stella rarely had the chance to go anywhere alone with her father, and now she was on her way to Spindale—just the two of them. It would probably be a forty-minute ride on the wagon. If they had a horse, it would be quicker—the mule was slow. But as Papa always said, riding with old Rudie was better than walking!

Her father was quiet for the first few miles, and Stella did not disturb his pensive mood. Finally he said, “You know, Stella, when I was eleven, I had to quit school. Grandaddy needed me to work in the fields.”

“I think about that, Papa, and it makes me feel”—she paused, glancing up at him—“kinda sad. You know, school is sometimes, well, not so easy for me, but I'd hate to be told I couldn't go.”

Her father shook the reins to hurry Rudie along. “I understand, Stella girl.”

“How'd you get so smart if you didn't go to school?” Stella asked.

“Well,” Papa said, “not goin' didn't stop me from learnin'. The teacher brought books by my house every week, and I read every last one of them when we quit workin' for the day. I read by firelight. I used to study by starlight, too, just like you do.”

“And I thought it was my big secret!” Stella said, covering her head with her arms and laughing.

“You think I ain't aware of every creak and squeak in that house? That I don't know every single second what every member of my family is doing?” He fixed her with a look. “I didn't just fall off the turnip truck, girl! But here's the thing, Stella,” her father continued, “I don't want you out there at night anymore. Too dangerous.”

“Yes, Papa. Mama already told me.”

He gave one of her stubby pigtails a pull. “Sometimes even children can be targeted. I pray that times get better for your young ones. And for theirs.”

At this, Stella couldn't suppress a snicker.

“I don't see nothin' funny about what I just said!”

“I was just thinking about me having children. Or being a grandma!” She giggled. “Think I'll be fat and have gray hair?”

“I sure hope so,” her father said, laughing himself. After a few miles he asked Stella, “So, what do you have to write about so badly that you be sneakin' around my house at all hours of the night?”

“I go out there to practice, Papa.”

“Practice? For what?”

Stella looked away from him and stared at the thick forest of pines that framed the road like whispering dark-green walls.

“I don't write so good,” she admitted. “I can never get the words to sound like I want them to. So I come outside when I can be all alone, and I write stuff that nobody sees.”

Her father picked an apple out of the lunch pail Mama had fixed for them. He took a big bite and chewed it before answering. The only sounds were the clomp of the mule's feet and the angry fussing of a pair of squirrels high in a limb above them.

Finally he said, “Bad writers don't practice, Stella. It's the good ones who care enough to try, who worry
about getting the words just right. You are probably better than you think.”

Stella shook her head, doubtful.

“You know how Tony Hawkins sneaks out every chance he gets to run on the track over at the white school?” Papa said.

Stella looked up, surprised. “You know about that, too?”

“The whole neighborhood does,” Papa replied, looking right at her. “We keep an eye out for our own. Young Anthony practices because running is in his heart. He runs at night to get better, to improve, to feel the wind on his face.”

Stella had never thought about it quite like that. She frowned and tried to find the right words. “But, Papa, you said it yourself, it's in his heart. I'm just trying not be the worst kid at writing in Mrs. Grayson's class.”

“Don't be so hard on yourself, child,” her father said gently.

She turned her head to find the woodpecker that was making that determined
rat-a-tat
. “You read newspapers all the time, Papa.”

“Yeah. So do you.”

“Well, somebody had to write all those articles. That's the kind of writing that maybe I might not be so bad at. Stories about people in Bumblebee. Things I find interesting, like birds or snow. Events like Spoon Man coming. Sometimes just what I think about stuff,” Stella told him. “Things that are
real
.”

“Like on Mama's newpaper walls,” her father said, “That's important.”

Stella thrilled at his words. He understood!

Again the silence rode with them for a spell.

“I used to like to write,” her father admitted after a bit.

“Really?” Stella asked, genuinely surprised. “Can you show me some of it?”

“It's gone. My father thought boys writing was a waste of time, especially what he called girly stuff like poetry, so he tossed it all in the fireplace one day. I saved a couple of pieces in my head, is all.”

“Oh.” Stella wasn't sure what else to say, but thinking about her father's words being burned, destroyed, made her stomach queasy. “So you remember
some
of it?” she asked hesitantly.

“Maybe.” But then he said nothing more.

“Please?” Stella whispered at last. She waited. The sun warmed her shoulders. Her father shifted in his seat and gave Rudie's rein a gentle slap to move him along, then finally said, “My grandmama Maudie died sudden-like. I was twelve. She had six children and five grandchildren, but I was the only one who called her Granny. Everyone else called her Big Ma. I wrote this the day after we buried her.” He cleared his throat. “Lord, I ain't said this out loud in many a year.

“I remember my granny's home cookin',

She'd hum, and she'd mix, and she'd stir.

She could make buttered bones taste delicious,

If that's all the fixin's there were.

I remember my granny's lap-naptimes,

Where memories wrapped in her arms.

She would sing of old pain and lost glory,

Of the long-ago days on the farms.

I remember my granny's old washtub;

It was battered and made out of tin.

Hot suds and toy boats into battle,

Then nighttime and dreams could begin.

I remember my granny's soft blankets,

On a large, squeaky, four-poster bed.

The faint smell of mothballs and cedar,