Philip Hall Likes Me, I Reckon Maybe

by Bette Greene

  and Lt. Gordon Jennings (also Brave)

  P.S. Why wait for the church picnic to relay race? Meet us at the schoolyard on Saturday and we’ll win!

  Everybody was really mad and we all began talking at once about those Tiger Hunters who run around scaring the wits out of a person. Bonnie thought we ought to teach them a lesson. “Specially that Phil Hall.”

  I’d have liked nothing better, but probably for a different reason. It wasn’t the scare so much as what he said about not being pretty that ruffled my feathers. Did he mean nobody was pretty? Or was nobody but me pretty? Or ... or was everybody pretty excepting me? Next thing I knew I was shouting, “We’re going to get those low-down polecats!” Then while I had everybody’s attention, I gave them their final instructions: “Next Saturday we’ll race. Finish embroidering on our club name, front and back. Then everybody wash your shirts so our club name will be clean easy reading. All the folks in Pocahontas is going to know just who it was that beat them Tiger Hunters.”

  The next morning Philip didn’t show up for work at The Elizabeth Lorraine Lambert & Friend Veg. Stand. Well, he’s probably just mad or practicing up his relay running. Or maybe Mr. Hall has him doing chores. But that’s the unlikeliest explanation of them all.

  Without him there ain’t no games or giggles, but today there’s not a speck of boredom either ‘cause I’m just too busy embroidering my T-shirt and running my business. And with every sale my college money grows. I’m going to become a veterinarian yet.

  It was just before bedtime on Friday night that I stitched the last beautiful stitch on my shirt. I held it out for better viewing. Even with the soil from two weeks of handling along with Baby Benjamin’s mashed-in, smashed-in sweet potato, it was beautiful. Just beautiful!

  As I began to draw the wash water, Ma told me to get to bed ‘cause I’d be needing my strength for the big race tomorrow. She took the shirt from my hand as she gave me a light shove toward the bedroom. “Reckon I can do the washing if you can do the resting.”

  When the morning sky came again to Pocahontas, I woke wide awake just as though I hadn’t been sleeping at all but only resting up before the big race.

  At the kitchen table Ma sat in front of a bowl of peas needing shelling, but her hands sat unmoving in her lap. I tried to remember the last time I had seen my mother just sitting without actually doing anything. All I said was “Morning, Ma,” but it was enough to make her look as though she was staring at a spook.

  “Reckon I’m going to have to tell you,” she said, holding tight to the bowl. “But I don’t know how to tell you ... It’s about your shirt. Done shrunk to midget size. Sure did.”

  As Pa drove down Pocahontas’s Main Street, I spotted the rest of the Pennies leaning up against a yellow fireplug. A block away Pa turned his car and angle-parked in front of the E-Z Cash & Carry Market. When the Pennies saw me walking toward them, they all shook their heads just like I was doing something wrong. What does that mean? That I’m not wearing my uniform? No, but I’m carrying it wrapped like a fish in an old newspaper to show them what they’d never believe without seeing. Anyway, they’re not wearing theirs either. Too lazy to finish their embroidery probably.

  Bonnie began by saying that it was an ordinary washing powder, one of those kinds that they’re always talking about over the radio. Then Esther, who would never interrupt anybody, interrupted to say that her water was barely warm.

  I was losing patience with everybody talking, everybody understanding but me. “What are you all babbling about mild soap and barely warm water for?”

  Suddenly Ginny whipped from a grocery bag a white T-shirt so shrunk that the embroidery’s lettering was no longer readable. “We is talking about this.”

  First we talked about our wasted efforts and then we talked about our wasted money and then we talked about what nobody could understand: what caused the shrinkage.

  “Listen here,” I said suddenly. “We bought something in good and honest faith that didn’t turn out to be a bit of good. Well, if we all go down to the Busy Bee and explain the situation to Mr. Putterham, then he’ll give us back our money. Probably even apologize that he can’t pay us for our trouble.”

  “What Mr. Putterham is you talking about?” asked Bonnie, cocking her head like a trained spaniel. “The only Mr. Putterham I know wouldn’t apologize to his ma if he ran her down in the broad daylight.”

  I told her right off. “Trouble with you, Miss Bonnie, is that you ain’t got no faith in human nature.”

  Still, the thought that old bushy eyes ever had a mother was surprising. Reckon I just couldn’t see Mr. Putterham having anything that couldn’t turn a profit.

  Even though I walked into the Busy Bee as slow as I could possibly walk, the others carefully managed to walk even slower. They stayed behind me, pushing me on toward the wrapping counter and the awesome presence of Cyrus J. Putterham. As I watched him tying a piece of string around a shoe box, I got to wishing that one of the other girls had replaced me as president of the Pennies; then they’d be standing here on the firing line instead of me.

  The merchant lifted his eyebrows at me, which was a kind of a cheapskate way of asking what I wanted without actually bothering to ask.

  “Well, uh ... Mr. Putterpam—ham! Mr. Putterham, it’s uh ... about what happened two Saturdays ago when we all bought T-shirts from your store. We washed them like we wash anything else,” I said, removing the newspaper from my shirt to hold it up. “And they all five shrunk up like this.”

  He stretched his lips into a hard straight line. “How much you pay for that shirt?”

  “Eighty-nine cents.”

  “See?”

  What did he want me to see? “Sir?”

  A short blast of air rushed through his nostrils and I came to understand that his patience zipped off on that blast of air. “Something you girls paid only eighty-nine cents for isn’t going to last forever. Why, eighty-nine cents for a T-shirt is mighty cheap.”

  “Oh, no, sir,” I corrected him. “Paying eighty-nine cents for something that ain’t never been worn is mighty expensive.”

  He waved his hand as though he was shooing a fly. “All right, I was nice enough to listen to you girls and now y‘all get on out of here. I got me a store to run.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said pleasantly. “We appreciate your attention, sure do. But what we really want is for you to refund us our money ‘cause a shirt that ain’t fit to be washed ain’t fit to be sold.”

  “Get on out of here!” Both his hands went flapping in the air. “Now get!

  We may have left the store like scared chicks, but once outside we became more like mad wet hens. Esther kept saying, “Imagine!” Or sometimes she’d vary it with “Would you imagine that!”

  Then, as if we didn’t have enough trouble, the Tiger Hunters led by the bravest of all the brave Tiger Hunters came up to say that we were going to be beaten so bad that it would be a long time before we showed our face in Pocahontas again.

  “Don’t fret about it,” I told him. “ ‘Cause I don’t think I want to show my face anymore, anyway.” A warm tear had begun to worm its way down my cheek.

  Philip looked uncomfortable. What’s the matter? Hadn’t he ever seen a tear before? “We don’t have to relay race today,” he was saying. “We can put it off until the Sunday of the Old Rugged Cross Church picnic.”

  We shook hands on it, but I was not able to say any more. Talking took too much effort. So Bonnie explained while Ginny showed Philip and his Tiger Hunters what happened to our shirts. Right away Philip said, “We don’t have to let Mr. Putterham get away with that. That’s robbery!”

  Philip’s comment about its being a robbery struck me like one of God’s own revelations!

  At the far end of Main Street, sitting on a square of grass, is the old red brick courthouse where Sheriff Nathan Miller has a narrow office and two barred cells. As the Pennies and Hunters strode up the courthouse walk, old men sitting out on sunny park benche
s looked up.

  The sheriff told us all to crowd on in. “I’ll never forget what good police work you and Phil did in capturing those fowl thieves. You know, no farmer has reported any livestock missing since they left town.”

  His words encouraged me to tell him about our “robbery” at the hands of the merchant Putterham. I watched the sheriff’s face grow more and more thoughtful. Finally he said, “I’m sorry, but there ain’t no way I can help you out.”

  “... But why?”

  With his booted feet, the sheriff pushed his chair from his desk. “Follow me,” he said, already walking with strong strides from his office.

  Outside, the men on the benches now seemed doubly surprised to see us kids half-running in order to keep up with Randolph County’s long-legged lawman. A block down Main Street and then two blocks down School Street to the last house at the end of the block. The sheriff walked up the driveway and into the backyard. At a backyard sand-pile a little boy dressed in diapers and pullover shirt toddled over, saying, “Dadadadada.”

  The sheriff picked him up and then asked me, “What do you think of my boy’s shirt?”

  Surely eleven folks didn’t walk all the way over here just to look at a tight-fitting baby shirt. It seemed silly, but he really did want my opinion. “I reckon it’s a nice enough baby shirt,” I told him.

  “Uh-hun!” answered the more than six feet of sheriff as though he had suddenly struck gold. “Uh-hun,” he repeated. “For a baby shirt it’s mighty fine, but it wasn’t bought to be no baby’s shirt. No Sir! It was bought for me. Last Saturday I paid eighty-nine cents for that T-shirt at the Busy Bee Bargain Store.”

  “You too!!—Then why don’t you—”

  “Because selling bad merchandise,” he said, “can get a merchant in trouble with his customers without getting him in trouble with the law.”

  We Pretty Pennies walked with the Tiger Hunters back toward Main Street like a bunch of beaten soldiers. No reason for hurrying. No good left in the day nohow. Then it struck me like a pie in the face. Why are we defeated? Ten of us and only one of them Putterhams. “Stop!” I said, whirling around like a general of the army. “We ain’t giving up this battle!”

  “We ain’t?” asked Philip.

  I was the fightingest president the Pretty Pennies would ever have. “No, we ain‘t, ’cause if we all stood out in front of the Busy Bee Bargain Store showing off our shrunken shirts, then old Mr. Putterham would be so embarrassed he’d have to refund our money.”

  I broke into a run, followed by Philip Hall, followed by the rest of them. In front of the Busy Bee, we all formed a loose line—a Penny, a Hunter, a Penny, and so forth. “Pretty Pennies and Tiger Hunters. When we’re working together we’ll call ourselves the great Penny Hunters,” I said.

  Since Philip Hall didn’t look exactly thrilled by my suggestion, I said, “Well, would you rather be called the Pretty Tigers?” His groan gave me his answer.

  When a heavy woman with three chilluns slowly made her way toward the Busy Bee door, Bonnie approached her. A moment later she was spreading out her doll-size shirt across her chest while the woman shook her head and said, “I’m going to do my trading at Logan’s.”

  The very next person who was persuaded not to spend money at the Busy Bee was my sister, Anne. She said she could buy fingernail polish at the dime store just as well.

  After Anne, there was our preacher, the Reverend Ross, who was going to buy some white handkerchiefs from Putterham, but the Reverend said he’d “be happy to respect your picket line.”

  “Respect our what?” I asked.

  “Folks who is standing like some of God’s own soldiers against the world’s injustices is,” said the Reverend Ross, “a picket line.”

  Never before in my whole life had I ever felt so important, but then never before had I been on special assignment for God.

  Just then a family of five reached for the Busy Bee’s door and I called out, “Don’t you folks go buying things in there unless”—I held up my shirt—“you don’t object to shrinking.”

  “Lordy,” said the wife, coming right over to get a closer look. “Now ain’t that a pity?”

  Mr. Putterham stepped outside the door. “What’s this? What’s going on here?”

  I turned to watch Philip Hall ‘cause I didn’t want to miss seeing him speak right up to that old man merchant. But the only thing I saw was the bravest Tiger Hunter of them all with his mouth flung open, looking for all the world like he would never again be able to speak.

  The proprietor’s eyes now swept past Philip and were looking down the long picket line. “Don’t tell me that all you kids have been struck speechless? Somebody better tell me what’s going on!”

  I took one step forward. “I reckon you oughta know that we is picketing your store, Mr. Putterdam—ham! Mr. Putterham.”

  His big, bushy eyebrows jumped up and down as though they were skipping rope. “You is doing WHAT? And to WHOM?”

  “We is”—my mouth felt too dry for stamp licking—“picketing you,” I said, grateful that the words actually sounded.

  “Now you listen here, you,” he said. “Nobody pickets Cyrus J. Putterham, Pocahontas’s leading merchant. Know that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good,” he said, smiling a pretend smile. “Then y‘all get on out of here.”

  “Uh ... no, sir,” I said, trying to remember the Reverend Ross’s words about being one of God’s own soldiers.

  “What do you mean No, sir?” he asked, allowing his voice to rise into a full shout. “You just got through saying Yes, sir.”

  “Uh, well, sir, that was my answer to your question.”

  Mr. Putterham blinked as though my words were being spoken in a strange new language. I tried again. “What I was saying, Mr. Putterjam ... ham! Mr. Putterham, was yes, sir, I know all about you being Pocahontas’s leading merchant. But no, sir, we ain’t moving from our picket line. Not until we get our money back.”

  His eyes told me how much he wanted me to understand. “But if I give you folks your money back, then everybody who ever bought bad merchandise from me will be wanting their money back too.”

  From the picket line a single voice called, “Give back the money!” Then more voices, more Pennies and Hunters together calling, “Give back the money!” And I joined my voice with the Penny Hunters and even some folks on the street who were now chanting, “Give back the money!” And taken together the voices sounded as though they were doing a lot more demanding than asking.

  The shopkeeper threw up his hands. “All right, all right.” He smiled, but it wasn’t what you’d call a sincere smile. “Making my customers happy is the only thing that’s ever been important to Cyrus J. Putterham. Take your shirts back to the wrapping counter for a full and courteous refund.”

  After all the shirt money was safely back in the hands of our treasurer, Bonnie Blake, I spoke again to the merchant. “There is one more thing, Mr. Putterpam—ham! Mr. Putterham.”

  “As long as you girls are satisfied—well, that’s thanks enough for me. Why, my very business is built on a foundation of square and fair.”

  “Yes, sir,” I agreed. “Would you mind giving us back our embroidery money?”

  “Your what?”

  I presented him with the cash register receipt. “Two dollars and fifty cents worth of embroidery thread, ruined when our shirts shrunk.”

  For a moment I thought his face was growing angry, but then he sighed and placed the additional two-fifty on the counter.

  “Thanks, Mr. Putterham.”

  He smiled and this time it didn’t look all that insincere. “You called me Putterham. Finally you did it right.”

  I smiled back at him. “And finally, Mr. Putterham, so did you.”

  The Old Rugged Cross Church picnic

  August

  With a soft turkey underfeather, I traced the initials E. L. L. across my sister’s motionless leg. When that didn’t wake Anne, I ran the very t
ip of the feather in and out between her toes. Her toes squeezed backward and, for at least a moment, her mouth wiggled from side to side. Was she about to wake? She wasn’t.

  Wouldn’t you think that a person would be up and raring to go on the Sunday of the Old Rugged Cross Church picnic? Wouldn’t you think they’d bounce out of bed, knowing full well that the church bus ain’t gonna wait?

  Not even if that someone happens to be the prettiest thing since Salome? No, not even then. ‘Cause the folks wouldn’t want to wait and the driver wouldn’t want to wait even though Jason Savage and Herbie Ferrell would.

  Suddenly I threw back my hand and was just about to give Fancy Annie a slap on the behind when I thought better of it. She’d be so mad she’d change her mind about letting me wear her huaraches. What I needed was a way to wake her without her ever guessing that it was me. And I think... I think I just thought of a way.

  In the top drawer of Pa’s bureau was the flashlight whose beam was bright enough to make anybody think that they is sleeping face up under the noontime sun. I brought the light beam to the closed eyelids of my sleeping sister. For longer than a moment, nothing happened and then something did. Anne said, “Hhhhppah,” before flopping over to face the wall.

  And again I brought the light to her eyes—only closer. Much closer. A sliver of time passed and then a sliver bit more before Anne bolted upright crying like a frightened animal.

  I hid the flashlight behind my back. “Well, ain’t it nice, having Miss Anne among the woke?”

  “I dreamt,” she said as though relieved to be awake, “that Jason Savage and me were taking a walk. I told him, it’s awfully hot... can’t breathe ... got to find shade. But there wasn’t no shade. No tree, no house, no shade of no kind.”

  Sometimes even I don’t like the things I do. “Oh, forget it,” I told her. “Dreams don’t mean a thing.”

  Her eyes narrowed as though they were still trying to keep out the sun. “But it was so real! No air for breathing and the sun all the time beating down on us!”