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Authors: Grace Lumpkin

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BOOK: To Make My Bread
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“I'd like t' go in and ask how much to make one like that,” Emma said. She turned away. “I reckon hit's more than I could give.”

At the corner she stopped very still. “Ora, I'm a-going back and ask the man. I'd like so much t' have Kirk on the wall in a picture.”

“You need a hat, Emma, and other things. Seeing the rich must have made you forget you're pore.”

Emma did not answer. She was excited now and resentful of interference. Ora followed her back reluctantly. She knew how much Emma needed a covering for her head, and a coat and many other things. Emma might quarrel at Granpap for spending money recklessly; at times she was just the same.

Emma came out of the shop. “Hit's a dollar and a half. I'll send John with the picture on Monday after school.”

“Did you give him the money?”

“He took hit. There'll be a frame and a glass, all for a dollar and a half down and fifty cents a week.”

“And how much altogether?”

“Hit's none of your mind, Ora . . . . Now, Ora, don't quarrel at me. Hit's so nice t' get something like that ye want, and don't just need.”

Ora didn't like it. Emma was getting foolish because the burden of providing food was taken off her. She was a boarder, and some weeks didn't pay, for she hadn't the money. Now she was already in debt to Ora and Frank.

“Hit seems ye don't mind being in debt,” Ora said.

“Well, ye don't mind me working nights t' save ye. Working nights makes me want something t' pay for hit.”

Emma walked on without speaking another word. People came between them and Emma was glad. She wanted, just then, to be separated from Ora. But Ora caught up and put a hand on Emma's arm.

“Now, Emma, I didn't mean anything. I'm a-getting nervous, I reckon, because my time is coming soon.”

She looked down at Emma and saw her face break up almost as if she was going to cry. They walked on close together.

“Hit's funny about that baby . . .” Ora began to talk, but couldn't finish. They were on the square and people were crowding the streets as they did on Saturday afternoons. Long, lean farmers in boots were in town and their women with them; and there were mill people, looking much like the farmers, except the men had no high boots, and the well dressed folks of the town, all were coming and going, passing each other. There were some black people mixed in. Some of these stood together off the sidewalk, talking. The court house was on the side of the square opposite them. It took up one whole side along with the jail, and was set on a lawn like the houses of the rich.

Emma asked Ora humbly, “Do ye think I can get a hat for fifty cents?”

“I should think so,” Ora said, “if we look far enough. But I'm plumb tired.” She wished to point out to Emma that there were more reasons than one for her quick anger of a few minutes before.

“There's a drug store, Ora. Mrs. Mulkey's sister says when she comes to town with a beau they sit in a drug store and rest and eat ice cream.”

“Hit ain't for us, Emma.”

“Yes, it is. Ye can rest there. They sit at a table. Hit's just a nickel apiece, and even if it's more, I've got the change.”

Ora held back. “Let's go in, Ora,” Emma said, and went right through the door. They reached an empty table far back behind the crowded ones. Ora dropped into a chair. Emma stood for a moment, wanting to see if anyone came to tell them not to stay; for the people had looked at them curiously as if they did not belong. No one came and Emma sat down to rest her feet. They waited a long time, and both were strained, waiting. They could not talk at ease.

A boy in a white jacket went to other tables, bringing ice cream and drinks in high glasses. Emma wanted to call him or go up to him but she did not dare before the other people. She wanted to talk so she might keep Ora from noticing, but there was nothing to say.

People got up from tables and others took their places.

“Emma, I'm rested, now. Let's go.”

“Well, I reckon we might as well,” Emma said. Her voice was high and cracked. They got up and walked through the people, passing sideways between the tables. Emma heard a woman say, “They're mill hands”; and she saw that others stared at Ora's big belly.

“I reckon he just didn't see us,” she said to Ora out on the street.

“Maybe. He seemed right busy.”

“Anyway,” Emma laughed with her words, “you got your rest.”

“Yes, I did. And it helped.”

“Now we've got to find a hat store.”

They peered in windows trying to find out whether the hats were expensive or cheap. Only Emma would turn away sometimes to peer at the people who passed by.

“I wonder if Basil works on Saturday afternoon,” she said.

“I wonder if he does.”

“I thought young folks like him would like coming to town on Saturdays if they didn't work.”

“Likely they do.”

Down a side street, a small store had many hats in the windows. The people inside were not finely dressed. They walked through the door.

There was a black hat with a feather.

“Ask her how much,” Emma said. Ora was willing but she had to wait until one of the two girls was finished waiting on someone else.

“How much is that one?” Ora pointed to the black hat. It was fifty cents marked down from one dollar.

Emma stood forward. “If I do without the feather,” she asked, “would it be less?”

“Forty cents then,” the girl told her.

“Take off the feather,” Emma said.

“You ought t' have the feather,” Ora whispered. Emma stood without saying anything. The feather was green and curled at the end and she wanted it, but her mind was made up. Outside she told Ora. “It leaves me ten cents for church; five for me and the pennies for the young ones. I'll feel better putting in some money for church when I'm wearing a new hat.”

The girl gave a black headed pin with the hat, and Emma wore the hat out, with the pin through her knot. Even with the pin it was hard to keep the heavy felt sitting in the right place on her head, where the girl had placed it.

“You'll learn to keep hit on,” Ora told her. “And it looks good on ye, Emma.”

“Hit'll last,” Emma said. “And hit's warmer now, since I'm able to keep the shawl clean down over my shoulders.”

She did not care any more for the hat. Even giving up the feather was not much, for now she could look forward to the end of next week when the picture of Kirk would hang on the wall.

“Hit's funny,” Ora said, “how some have such fine, pretty things and others not.”

“Yes.”

“I never thought much about it before.”

“I know, but . . .”

“But I did think to-day or felt hit. You remember when we were seeing that baby . . . you know . . .”

“Yes, hit was the prettiest baby.”

“I thought hit was pretty, too. And I felt like it was right for hit t' have everything hit had . . . .”

“Yes, it must be right.”

“Yet going up the street, right after we left hit, I started feeling s' mad. Mad at everything and at nothing, because my babies couldn't have a thing. I was s' mad. Hit was why I spit out at ye, that and being tired. I know now.”

“There's no use getting mad, Ora. Hit's the way the Lord made things to be.”

“I know it. I was just mad without any reason. I just wanted ye t' know, Emma, I didn't mean hit for you.”

“I know,” Emma said. “I get that way sometimes. Mad at something, I don't know what. Then I have to remember whatever happens is the Lord's will.”

“There's got to be pore as well as rich to make up the world.”

“And the preacher reads to us, ‘Thou shalt not covet.' . . . Hit seems funny, now though, how I thought of money growing on trees and a land of milk and honey.”

“Did you really think that?”

“Yes, I did, Ora. I half believed it anyways. And I think now our young ones will grow up to better things. And that's something.”

“Yes. That's worth any amount of trouble and sorrow.”

They walked past the mill, past the houses where lights were coming on, down to the end of the village. Ora looked up at their chimney. Smoke came out of it with a little flourish in the wind before it blew sideways and joined in with smoke from other chimneys.

“I'm glad Bonnie's got a good fire going,” Ora said. “Hit'll be nice to rest by the fire. I'm s' cold by this time.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

O
N
Monday afternoon Emma took Kirk's picture from its black cloth wrapping, did it up in a brown paper bag from the store, and gave it to John.

“Hit's the little street off the north corner of the square,” she told him, “And you take Bonnie along. She wants to go to town.”

“No,” John said. “I can't take her.”

“Why?” Bonnie asked for herself.

“Because of rails, snails, and puppy dog tails.”

“Did you learn that at school?” Emma asked with sarcasm.

“When I have beaus I'll go with them and you can't come along,” Bonnie said. “I'm older than you.”

“Make Young Frank take ye. He's your beau already.”

That remark quieted Bonnie so John got out of the house without any more talking.

Young Frank was following Bonnie around, and people in the house noticed this and teased her. But there was something they did not know about him. Sometimes he found her in a room by herself, and backing her into a corner, would try to touch her leg under her dress. And even in the dark when she was undressing for bed in the room she felt his eyes staring at her trying to make her out. She was sorry they must sleep in the same room. Neither John nor Young Frank would move the bed into the other room where Ora's five young ones slept; for these had a way of getting out of their own bed into the bed with any others who slept near by. Perhaps Young Frank's behavior toward her was what he meant when he said, “I'm going to the devil.” Whatever it was he made the whole place uncomfortable for her.

John's coat came down almost to his heels. The cold came in through the worn parts like a ghostly hand feeling its way across his shoulders. On his head was a white cap that was given away at the store.

People in the village said, “They don't want us on their fine streets in town.” But John walked right through the street of fine houses. He had a brother who lived in the town, and so had a right to be there. Also that street was the shortest way of getting to the square, and he had no time to lose.

He did not intend to stop even to look at the houses. But at one place a house with turrets at each end had, on the wide front lawn, two dogs, one on each side. They sat in dignified silence with heads erect. It was necessary to find out whether they were real. He stood quite still waiting to see if either of them would move. If he threw a pebble and they did not move then he could be sure they were carved out of rock or wood. He stooped down. A stone came whizzing past his ear, and another struck his cap. Luckily the cap was on tight and the stone just grazed his head. He looked back under his arm. Four boys were standing near the steps of the house. One of them called out “white trash” and another stone came. John walked on pretending that he had not seen them. Casually, as if that was the way he had planned to walk, he crossed the street. An automobile passed behind him and a slow wagon cut him off from the boys. From behind a tree on the other side of the street he looked back but could not see them. Further down three boys were standing on a lawn, working over a bicycle. He felt an impulse to stop and have a look at the bicycle, but he must hurry by these boys so they would not notice him. And probably they would not have known that he was passing, if the other four from across the street had not come. They ran by John two on each side and joined the three around the bicycle. There was some whispering and just as John went by they stood together and chanted a verse at him. He heard each word they said.

And this was not enough. When he didn't notice they began again. Without knowing he was going to do so, John turned. “I'll show ye,” he said. “I'll show ye to call me a stinking carcase.”

The boys stood together and jeered at him again. A man came out of a side entrance of the church. He wore a black suit and a round white collar.

“Boys,” he said, in a loud voice. They did not hear him. He went up and took one of the boys by the shoulder.

“Son,” he said. “Son, I am ashamed.”

The boys were very quiet now. The man looked at John with kind eyes. “Come here,” he said. John wanted to go on his way, but the man insisted. “Come here,” he repeated, and John walked up to him reluctantly.

“Boys,” the man said. “This boy has done you no harm, and you attacked him. You must tell him you are sorry for your behavior.”

The boys looked ashamed, perhaps not ashamed for what they had done, but sullen because of the interference. They slipped away one by one, and the man was left holding to the shoulder of his son.

BOOK: To Make My Bread
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