They looked over and sure enough, there was an open space that looked somewhat like a proper museum.
Austin started over to that section but tripped over a short stack of Wolfe County News. He tried to catch himself by grabbing the edge of a bookcase.
Big mistake—it was apparently only being held together by good wishes. It collapsed and took him down with it. He ended up with a pile of dusty books strewn everywhere. He started coughing up a storm interrupted by violent sneezes.
“Are you okay?” Miranda tried to pull him up by an exposed arm. She only managed to entangle him more by bumping into a bowl of cat’s-eye marbles. The marbles rolled in all direction and Miranda slipped on one and crashed down on Austin, landing two inches from his face.
Laughing like naughty children, Austin and Miranda untangled themselves and finally reached a relatively sober standing position.
“What are you kids doing?” yelled Doc. “I’m gonna need help a-cleaning this up. I can’t get down on the floor and expect to get up anytime soon.”
“Absolutely, Doc,” said Austin. “We’ll set things to rights before we leave.”
They carefully stepped around the clutter and reached the finished part of the museum. One of the exhibits featured the Campton High School. There were pictures of its construction and how it looked today after it had been turned into apartments. There were also yearbooks collected from every graduating class.
“Can we look at these?” Miranda asked.
“Sure, I’ve got a key to that case somewhere,” said Doc, and he took off to his desk. “It might take me a bit to find it.”
Miranda looked at one of the other finished exhibits on illegitimate children and an orphanage building at the edge of town. It explained that any out-of-wedlock child was considered to be chattel and could be traded as farm labor or sold as an indentured servant. If they were lucky, the child would be given over to an apprenticeship that included room and board. There were a few photographs from the 1950s of children working in the tobacco fields who were clearly malnourished and barefoot.
“I wonder what happened to these children?” asked Miranda.
Austin leaned over the display. “Nothing good. The disgrace of an unwed mother fell upon the whole family. Most of the children died of sickness or farm accidents or simply ran away when they got old enough. Many of the unwed mothers died in childbirth and were never spoken of again.”
Doc came back with the key and opened the display case. “Who are you looking for?”
Miranda began pulling out a few yearbooks that she thought might be relevant. “We’re looking for Naomi Childers and Viola Hobb.”
“You won’t find them under their married names, child. Naomi was one of the Spenser girls and Viola was a Tolbey. That’s what you’re gonna need, along with a little luck, of course.”
“Thanks, Doc,” said Austin. He leaned over and whispered to Miranda. “I would hope that we would’ve thought of that.”
Miranda whispered back with a chuckle, “Maybe not at first.” They started looking through the yearbooks. They found Mrs. Hobb, but Mrs. Childers wasn’t pictured.
Miranda flipped through the pictures again. “That’s not right. She said they had gone to school together and they were in the same grade.”
“Was she misremembering? Surely she wouldn’t lie about it.”
“Wait a minute.” Miranda grabbed the yearbook of the following year and flipped the pages to find a photograph of Naomi Childers. “She graduated a year later. Let’s go back a year.”
Austin grabbed that one and, sure enough, they found the friends had been in the same class in their junior year of high school.
They looked at each other. Miranda broke the silence. “What happened to Naomi?”
“Let’s ask Doc.”
They found Doc back at his desk, elbow deep in a box filled with hundreds of pocketknives, each one individually wrapped in newsprint. He had begun to unpack the knives and log them into a green-bound journal. He was listing the make and style of each knife, along with the date on the newspaper scrap. Doc looked up.
“Did you find anything interesting?”
Miranda cleared her throat. “We found a little mystery that I hope you can explain.”
“Sure, if I can.”
Miranda opened the three yearbooks to the pages she had bookmarked. “We found that Naomi and Viola were in the same grade during their junior year of high school.” She pointed them out. “But something must have happened the next year because only Viola was in their senior yearbook.”
Austin opened the final yearbook and showed Doc. “Naomi was pictured in the following yearbook. So, we’re wondering what happened that year?”
Doc frowned and pursed his lips. “I wasn’t here at that point. I had already joined the Army and didn’t get back home for quite a few years. By that time, both of them were married. Viola had children but Naomi never did.”
“Who would know?” Miranda kept her voice low and calm. “Please, Doc. It’s important.”
He switched his gaze from Miranda to Austin and back to Miranda. “You’ll have to ask Viola. She’s likely the only one alive who knows.”
Chapter 32
Thursday Noon, Mrs. Hobb’s House
Miranda and Austin walked down the few blocks to Mrs. Hobb’s house. She was waiting for them on the front porch swing. Standing next to the door was a low table with a tray that contained two glasses of iced tea, a selection of cold meat sandwiches, and a plate of lemon bars. The dust of the museum seemed to be clinging in Miranda’s throat, so she was glad to see the tea. Austin was eyeing his tea as well.
“I thought you might be stoppin’ by here when you left the museum.” Her eyes were red rimmed and she had an old-fashioned floral handkerchief crumpled in her hand. She waved for them to sit. “Help yourselves. We might be here awhile.”
“You know what we’re here for?” Miranda downed a good bit of her iced tea, then grabbed a turkey sandwich.
“Doc sent you over to see me, didn’t he?” Mrs. Hobb dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief. “He’s as innocent as a newborn kitten. He shouldn’t have let you see those yearbooks.”
Miranda grabbed a lemon bar and took a couple of quick bites. She was shocked to find that she was still starving even after the sandwich. She waited a moment, then put a hand over her mouth until she had swallowed. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be a glutton. I’m not clear about why he wouldn’t show us books that have clearly been put on display.”
“In fact, they were in full view for anyone to see.” Austin wrinkled his brow. “I don’t understand.”
Mrs. Hobb held the handkerchief up to her face and began to weep.
Miranda spoke as gently as she could. “Please take your time, but you might start by telling us what happened during your last year of high school.”
Mrs. Hobb looked down in a silence that lasted several minutes. The only sound was the squeak of the chain that held up the swing as it swayed with the movement of Mrs. Hobb’s weeping.
Miranda could feel Austin hold himself rigid in discomfort. It was awkward to sit there but they didn’t have a choice. She sneaked a look up to the porch ceiling to see how the swing was attached. She was relieved to see two huge eyebolts attaching the swing to one of the support beams.
Ugh. What a horrible thought—concentrate and be compassionate, girl.
She and Austin quietly finished the plate of lemon bars.
Mrs. Hobb finally sniffed loudly and blew her nose. “I don’t know why this is still so painful, but it is.” She stuffed the handkerchief in one apron pocket, checked that something was resting safely in the other one, then rested her folded hands on her ample lap. “I’ve never told this story to anyone. Naomi made me swear on my mother’s life.”
“Your mother’s life?” said Miranda. “I don’t understand that one.”
“That was Naomi’s curse. If I had told her secret, I truly believed that my mother would instant
ly die of a stroke.” She sighed deeply. “Ridiculous, I know, but we were so naive back in those days. We knew about the birds and the bees.” She paused and pulled out a fresh handkerchief from her apron pocket and dabbed at her eyes. “We all grew up with farm animals and knew how babies were made. I even went along with my granny to several births. She was a midwife, you know.”
“I didn’t know that. My mom didn’t mention it.” Miranda thought that maybe things had gotten off track, but at least Mrs. Hobb was talking. She prompted, “Please go on.”
“Back then, you only had a midwife and there were only the two in this whole county and they used to tend to all the mothers.”
Austin shifted in his seat.
Miranda glared a “be still” look at him.
Mrs. Hobb didn’t notice; she was seeing the past. “My granny had a small horse that she rode side saddle. It was an expensive saddle and she also insisted that her horse could never be used for farm labor.” She looked over at Miranda. “That was unusual, but she made enough in trade for her midwifery to keep that horse for her own use.”
“Who was the other midwife?” asked Miranda.
“That was the beginning of the problem. Her name was Old Black Fanny.”
Miranda sat up straight. “She was called that? Really?”
“Well, that was normal. Things were very different back then.”
Miranda thought differently. Since she had returned, she found the discrimination and racism better hidden, but not one bit better.
Mrs. Hobb continued, “Old Black—I mean Fanny—was so dark her skin looked blue, but she was the best at easing the pain of childbirth of anybody you ever saw. All the mothers wanted her with them during their time. The two midwives worked together as often as they could manage. They only split up if there were two mothers that needed them. It was so much safer for the mothers to have them both.”
“Fanny was allowed in the houses?” Austin sat up straight. “I can’t believe that was permitted. We have some folks in our county who won’t even look at a person of color, much less let them deliver a baby.”
Mrs. Hobb shook her head. “Some things were allowed. A woman in labor was female business and the menfolk were forbidden to be in the house. Fanny would be shuttled in the house from the back if there was family around. Once the baby was born, she would make herself a pallet on the floor next to the mother and new baby. Sometimes she would sleep in the barn. She would stay there until they were out of danger—sometimes weeks.”
“I never heard about this at all,” Miranda whispered to Austin.
He replied, “Black folks were experts at being invisible. Some still are.”
Mrs. Hobb continued as if this story had been playing in her mind over the years and now was being freed. “Women died in childbed all the time back then. The thing about Fanny was that she knew about herbs and tonics. She would give her mothers-to-be willow bark and used shepherd’s purse as a tincture to stop postpartum bleeding. That’s where most mothers died. They bled to death after the birth; even more tragic, as Granny would claim, were the babes who died aborning.”
Mrs. Hobb stared at the floorboards on the porch, lost in a memory that upset her.
“How does that explain why Mrs. Childers didn’t graduate with your year?” Miranda spoke gently. Mrs. Hobb lifted her head and wiped her eyes.
“That’s when the trouble started, all right. Fanny had a handsome hired worker along. He would work for food and board anywhere he found. He would help carry her supplies. By then, she was walking with a cane and needed help with her sack.” She looked up at Miranda and Austin. “She toted everything in a big ol’ potato sack. I don’t know what all she brought with her, but he carried it for her, smiled at Naomi, and then left.”
Miranda shook her head. “I don’t understand. How is that a problem? He didn’t stay.”
“Not that first time. But Naomi got a good long look at him and I could tell that she liked what she saw. The next time we went along with my granny to a birthing, Naomi was particularly excited. She waited alongside the path behind the house for Fanny and her hireling to arrive. Naomi was wearing her best dress. I remember that because Granny fussed at her for wearing it when she might be called in to help. She could ruin her dress. Birthing was messy.”
Mrs. Hobb stopped the movement of the swing with her foot. “It turned out to be a complicated and difficult birth. The large baby boy was the mother’s first child and it had started out wrong way around. They got him turned, but he delivered with the cord around his neck. He was strangled and wasn’t breathing.
“Fanny had me get a big wash pan filled with a few inches of very warm water while she gently pumped on his chest. She slipped the baby into the pan and began to massage him all over. In what seemed like hours, but was probably only a few minutes, he started breathing.”
Miranda realized that she had been holding her breath. She exhaled. “That’s wonderful.”
They all sat still with only the squeak of the swing and birdsong for company.
Austin broke the silence. “She was a formidable woman. There are still tales of Fanny and her miracle cures that are told in my family.”
“That’s the day the trouble started.” Mrs. Hobb started to weep again. “Naomi and Fanny’s farmhand disappeared for a few hours that afternoon. I think you can figure out what happened.”
Miranda palmed her forehead. “What on earth was she thinking?”
Mrs. Hobb cracked a small smile. “If you had seen that strapping boy and you were a pretty young girl with new urges raging, you wouldn’t have been thinking clearly either.”
“Where did she have the baby?”
“Well, it was told by her family that she had to go nursemaid her mother’s sister, who was slowly and painfully dying of a belly cancer. Naomi was gone for the rest of that school year and all that summer. When she came back, she was never the same. She never talked about it—”
“But you were best friends,” interrupted Miranda.
“I heard that the baby’s daddy found a better job in one of the coal mines. But he was killed in a cave-in early that summer. He never knew about the baby, or at least I don’t think he did.”
“Then what?”
“Naomi finished high school, then her family married her off and that was that. But something bad wrong happened to her because they were never able to have children. It was a great sorrow to Naomi, and I think that’s why she appeared to be a mean old thing to some.” Mrs. Hobb let her gaze fall on Miranda.
Austin looked over at Miranda as well and cocked an eyebrow. “What happened to the baby?”
“I don’t know. Like I said, she never talked about that time she spent away from home. It was pretty common during those days for babies to be adopted out or worse—indentured out as farmhands.”
“We just figured that out,” said Miranda. “It’s tragic.”
“That’s what would have been done with out-of-wedlock babies. Folks would have ignored their very existence. The poor things wouldn’t be educated. Naomi and her entire family would have been ruined if she chose to bring up that child. They would have been shunned. No community, no fellowship, no trading goods, no help with the harvest. Back then, it was a fate worse than death. It was the path to starvation.”
Austin looked down at his boots. “There were some farmhands in my family. I never asked why they came and why they left.” His eyes were wide and moist. He looked sad. “I should have asked.”
“I’m free to tell you this now because Naomi left me a letter. It was delivered to me this morning from her lawyer. She had instructed him to mail it after she died. In the letter, she said she wanted to make everything known. Naomi shouldn’t have kept this secret from me, but some painful things never get better with time.” Viola slipped her hand into her apron pocket and drew out a folded sheet of typed paper. She looked at it, then pressed it against her heart for a few seconds. She stretched it out towards Miranda. “You need to give
this to the sheriff.”
Miranda stood and took the paper. “Can I read it?”
Viola snuffled a yes while wiping tears away with her handkerchief.
Sitting, Miranda eyed Austin and he watched as she unfolded the single sheet.
Miranda turned to Austin. “It’s a full explanation of the birth and names Joe Creech as her son. You know who we need to talk to now, don’t you?”
Austin raised his eyebrows. “Yep, we got to get this paper to Sheriff Larson. He has no way of finding out about this.”
Mrs. Hobb straightened herself on the swing as if steeling herself for climbing the last emotional hurdle. “It wasn’t only her best dress that Naomi ruined that day. It was her innocence, too.”
Chapter 33
Thursday Afternoon, Miranda’s Farmhouse
They drove separately back to the farmhouse. Miranda unlocked the front door and let Sandy run around the front yard. He was full of pent-up energy and pounced on every single leaf he could find. It was fall. There were a lot of leaves.
Austin sat on the porch swing, without saying a word, although a deep crease formed across his forehead.
Miranda joined him and they sat in a comfortable silence. She acknowledged that her happy childhood had been a true blessing. A blessing she had taken for granted. Her heart felt sad. Not only sad—she was angry that prejudices had allowed the innocents to endure a futureless fate.
Miranda broke the silence. “What appalls me the most is the fact that there was no thought by their adult relations that it might be wrong to deny a child a home, an education, and most importantly, love. These are basic human rights.”
She huffed her anger, then fell silent.
Austin waited for her to process the shocking history about the unwanted children.
Miranda finally shook off the sadness and turned to Austin. “How are we going to prove that the killer is Joe Creech?”
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