Orchard of Hope

by Ann H. Gabhart

  “Was he upset?”

  “Oh yeah. Scary mad. You haven’t met my daddy. He’s big. He can grab hold of my belt and pick me up with one hand, but he hardly ever raises his voice. That day he raised his voice. Mama doesn’t take to being yelled at, so she was yelling back. The babies were screaming. My arm was hurting, and it was all I could do to keep from throwing up. But then Cassidy got up off the couch and went over and stood between Mama and Daddy. She didn’t say anything. She just stood there, and they quit yelling. That’s when Mama promised to get off the freedom train for a while. And now she’s trying to start one up here in Hollyhill.”

  Jocie looked over her shoulder at the door. “It won’t be like that here. They’ll serve her up at the Grill.”

  “You think? Then why was she so fired up when she was down here, and why hasn’t she already come back? It doesn’t take all that long to drink a soda.”

  “You want to go check on her?” Jocie asked.

  Noah touched Cassidy’s head. “I can’t leave Cassidy right now. I have to be here where she can see me when she wakes up.”

  “Then I’ll go,” Jocie said. “You really think your mother’s having a sit-in at the Grill?”

  “It’s a possibility. Your police chief may have already dragged her off to jail.” Noah looked worried.

  “No”—Jocie shook her head—“I can’t believe that would happen.”

  “But you’re an innocent, Jocie. You think everybody in Hollyhill reads the Bible and prays and does what the Lord wants them to do.”

  “That’s not true. I know there are mean people everywhere. Even in Hollyhill. I’ve run into a few of them personally,” Jocie said. “Look, I’ll go check it out. If she’s in jail, I’ll find Dad. He’ll know what to do.”

  On the way out to the street, Jocie picked up her camera. She wasn’t sure whether or not she’d take a picture of Myra Hearndon even if she was having a sit-in at the Grill, but she hung the camera around her neck just in case.

  When she passed by Zella’s desk, Zella was covering up her typewriter, getting ready to leave.

  “Is everything all right?” Zella asked. “I thought Noah’s mother looked upset when she left.”

  “She was a little. Something about getting a drink at the Grill, I think.”

  “Oh, my heavenly days!” Zella’s eyes popped open wide behind her glasses. “I knew there was going to be trouble.”

  “I didn’t say there was trouble.”

  “But there will be. I’ve known that since the very moment that boy came through the front door with you. Those people shouldn’t have expected to just move into the county and have everything change overnight.”

  “She just went to get a soft drink,” Jocie said.

  “Trouble. Mark my words.” Zella wagged a finger at her. “There’s going to be trouble, and you need to stay out of it, Jocelyn Brooke.”

  Jocie rolled her eyes at Zella and went on out the door. But all the way up to the Grill, she fingered the camera. Should she take a picture if Zella was right and trouble was there?

  31

  It hadn’t seemed like a day that was going to end in trouble. Rain maybe, but that was far from trouble. More an answer to prayer. Storm clouds had been building up in the west all day, as if all they’d needed to do to make it rain was haul half the merchandise in the Hollyhill stores out to the sidewalk and plan a square dance in the street. David didn’t think anybody would mind skipping the square dancing if some rain wanted to come their way.

  But it appeared that hadn’t been the only storm building up as the day slipped toward evening. Zella had hunted him down at the courthouse on her way home. Up until then, David would have said it was a good day. Hot and muggy, but the shoppers hadn’t let that stop them from hunting for bargains out on the sidewalks. The merchants’ cash registers had been ringing up sales all day, so maybe they’d be ready to buy more ads in the Banner.

  Wes was settled back into his apartment with a fan in his window and a refrigerator full of sandwiches Leigh had brought him. Not peanut butter. Leigh said somebody had told her Jupiterians didn’t eat much peanut butter. And so David had been leaning on the counter thanking Leigh for the sandwiches and working up the nerve to suggest another date, when Zella had blown the day apart by saying Myra Hearndon was staging a sit-in at the Grill.

  Then Zella poked her finger against his chest and said, “And Jocelyn headed up that way to get right in the middle of the trouble. As usual. I told her not to, but that girl . . .”

  He didn’t bother listening to the rest of Zella’s complaints. He covered the two blocks from the courthouse to the Grill in record time, but a little crowd was already gathered around the Grill’s door when he got there. He didn’t see any anger or hostility in their faces as he edged through them toward the open door. Just curiosity as they stood around waiting to see what might happen next.

  One of them, Helen Moore, put her hand on David’s arm as he passed by her. She kept her voice low as she said, “You might ought to get Jocie out of there in case things go bad. I’ve been hearing about some things might be going to happen today. Things that might cause trouble.”

  David paused to look down at Helen, whose head barely came up to his shoulder. Helen worked for the sheriff, and although she was friendly enough, David could hardly ever get any kind of information out of her for a story for the Banner. She considered it unprofessional to talk about what she heard at the office. Now she looked seriously worried as David asked, “You heard something about this happening? You mean it was planned?”

  Inside the Grill, David could see Myra Hearndon sitting straight and tall at the counter with Jocie sitting just as straight on the stool beside her.

  “Not this,” Helen said, her voice not much more than a whisper. “I’m guessing this was spur of the moment. That woman, she’s the mother of that boy who’s working for you, isn’t she?” She waited for David to nod. “They tell me she just came in here to get a soft drink and didn’t like being told to sit in the back booth. She’s from Chicago, you know, and has done some of those marches down south, rode the freedom buses, even been arrested a time or two. Sheriff Harpson did some checking on the Hearndons when they moved in.”

  “Why?”

  Helen looked as if she was sorry she’d said so much. She mashed her mouth together for a moment before she said, “Just to be ahead of any trouble, I guess. And if you tell anybody I told you that, I’ll say you must have heard me wrong.”

  David looked from Helen to Myra Hearndon. Her hand was resting on the counter with one of her long, graceful fingers touching the dollar bill that lay in front of her as she waited to be served.

  Mary Jo Yeager was as far away as she could get from her and still stay behind the counter. She was staring hard at the countertop she was polishing. David could almost read her thoughts: She didn’t own the place. She could just take her apron off and leave, but she’d been working there for years and her son had just gone off for his second year at the university in Lexington. She told everybody she waited on that college educations weren’t cheap. Some people thought she was trying to get bigger tips, but David thought she was simply so proud her son was studying to be an engineer that she had to talk about it or burst.

  She wasn’t talking now as she peeked up from her counter polishing toward the door as if hoping for somebody to come rescue her. She spotted David and mouthed the words, “Do something.”

  He wanted to tell her to do something. He wanted to tell her to take Myra Hearndon’s money and set whatever she ordered on the counter in front of her. But then David wasn’t her boss. And he wouldn’t want to be the cause of young Denny Yeager not getting to finish engineering school.

  David was still praying about what to do when Charles Boyer, the pastor of the West End Baptist Church, and his wife, Alice, stepped past him and went straight to the counter to sit down on the two stools next to Myra Hearndon. Mary Jo Yeager stared at them and looked close to tears.


  “We’d like to get some drinks over here, Mary Jo,” Rev. Boyer said. He had a deep voice that sometimes rattled the windows when he was preaching, but now he kept his voice gentle and kind.

  “Now, Brother Boyer, you know I can’t serve you over here. That’s just the way it is.”

  “Then I think today is the day that needs to change,” Rev. Boyer said. He turned to look at David. “Don’t you agree, Brother Brooke?”

  Jocie turned on her stool to look around at David. “Oh, hi, Dad,” she said. Her shoulders sagged a little as she looked worried she might be in trouble. She rushed to explain, “I’m just keeping Mrs. Hearndon company.”

  “She is,” Myra Hearndon agreed. She moved her hand off the dollar bill on the counter to touch Jocie’s arm softly. “We’re not here for any trouble. Just something to drink.”

  David stepped up behind Jocie and put his hands on her shoulders. “It is hot,” he said. “Why don’t you give everybody a glass of water, Mary Jo?”

  “You know I can’t do that, David,” Mary Jo said. “You need to talk to Grover about all this. I just work here. You know that.”

  “Where is Grover?” David asked. Grover Flinn was the owner of the Grill.

  “He’s gone to get the police chief,” Mary Jo said.

  David’s hands tightened on Jocie’s shoulders. “Why don’t you go on back down to the office, Jocie, and let me have your seat?”

  “But, Dad, he won’t arrest us, will he? We’re not doing anything wrong or anything.”

  “Nobody’s going to get arrested,” David said. “But don’t argue with me. Just do what I told you.”

  Jocie looked at her father, stood up, and picked up her camera. “Yes, sir,” she said. She didn’t want to leave, but she knew when her father meant business. She looked at the woman beside her. “What should I tell Noah, Mrs. Hearndon?”

  “That I’ll be along to get Cassidy in a little bit and that he can ride in with me too, since it’s sounding as if a storm might be coming up.”

  “Okay.” Jocie couldn’t think of any other reason to delay her leaving, and her father was giving her the look she wasn’t supposed to ignore. She moved slowly toward the door to the street. None of it made any sense. What difference did it make to Mary Jo where she set down a soft drink? And what was the police chief going to do when he got there?

  At the door the people scooted back to give her room to go out on the street. Behind her, her father had sat down beside Mrs. Hearndon. Jocie fingered her camera. She turned and snapped two pictures before her father pointed his finger at her and then the door. She slipped out to the street, then took a couple more pictures of the people standing around.

  Her father wouldn’t care if she took a few pictures. What was happening in the Grill was news. Even Wes would agree. Maybe bigger news than the tornado in July. The big daily papers might even carry this story if her father wanted to send something in to them.

  Grover Flinn and Police Chief Simmons pushed past her, not even noticing when she took a picture of them. She wanted to follow them back into the Grill, but her father had been pretty clear about wanting her out of there. He must have thought there might be trouble, and Grover Flinn’s face looked like it. His nose was beet red and his eyes were bugging out as though he might be about to have a stroke any second.

  Jocie glanced over her shoulder toward the Grill, but she kept moving down the street toward the office. Thunder rumbled as a sudden strong wind pushed the storm closer. The clouds piled up into a black mass overhead until it looked as if night was coming on early. On the sidewalk in front of the Fashion Shop, dresses on the racks were dancing wildly in the wind. Jocie took a picture of Miss Pauley trying to hold the dresses down while she pushed the rack toward the door. One of the dresses escaped and started flying out in the street. Jocie grabbed it and handed it to Miss Pauley before helping her maneuver the rack through the door and into the shop.

  On both sides of the street, store owners were hustling to get everything off the sidewalk tables and inside before it rained. Jocie snapped a picture of Beulah Thompson, the clerk at the ten cent store, running after a basket tumbling across the street.

  Beulah caught up with the basket and looked at Jocie as she went back to the front of the store. “You better quit worrying about pictures and get inside, Jocie,” she said as she began raking packages of napkins off the sidewalk table into the basket. “We’re in for a storm and a half from the looks of those clouds. I hope it doesn’t turn out to be all wind and no rain.”

  “I guess we shouldn’t mind getting wet if it does rain,” Jocie said.

  “Wet’s okay,” Beulah said with a worried glance up at the sky. “Struck by lightning not so good. I guess that would make some story for your paper. Clerk gets struck by lightning trying to save three dollars’ worth of napkins.”

  “Or editor’s daughter trying to get one more picture, huh?” Jocie helped her shove the stuff in the basket.

  Beulah laughed. She was about Tabitha’s age and had long brown hair that was whipping all around her face. She reached up to push it back out of her eyes and went stock still as she stared down the street.

  “Oh my gosh! Will you look at that?”

  Jocie turned to look. A group of maybe twenty men were marching up the street, the wind pushing the white robes they were wearing out around them like small sails. Some of them were holding white hoods up around their faces. Others let the wind blow the hoods off their heads. Behind them the black clouds seemed to be touching the ground, and it was almost as if the men had stepped straight out of the dark storm clouds onto Main Street.

  “Who said they could come? We’re not even having a parade or anything,” Jocie said as she raised her camera up to take a picture.

  “I don’t think the Ku Klux Klan asks permission. They just do whatever they want to do,” Beulah whispered as if she was afraid they might hear her.

  “But what are they doing here?” Jocie had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as the men got closer, walking in formation up the street, not looking right or left.

  “Nothing good.” Beulah dropped the basket on the sidewalk. “Heck with the napkins. Let’s get inside.”

  Jocie let Beulah drag her back toward the store while she tried to take a couple more pictures. She wasn’t sure the pictures would come out. It was so dark the street lights were coming on even though it was still a couple of hours before sundown.

  “Quit taking pictures,” Beulah said. “No need attracting their attention.”

  “Why?” Jocie asked. “It’s just black people they hate, isn’t it?”

  “Who knows with them? Just the sight of them scares me silly.” Beulah stepped back inside the store. When Jocie didn’t follow her in, she stuck her head back out and said, “You’d better get on in here too. They might know about that boy working for your daddy.”

  “You mean Noah?”

  “Whatever boy your daddy gave a job to. I don’t know his name.”

  “Noah. Why would they care about that?” Jocie asked.

  “He’s a colored boy, isn’t he?”

  “Well, yeah, but—”

  “You don’t have to know the reasons for everything, Jocie. You just better come on inside out of the storm and away from them.”

  “No, I’ll be okay. I’ll just wait till they go by and then go on across the street before the storm hits.”

  “Suit yourself, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Beulah took one last look at the clouds and the men in the street before she ducked back inside and disappeared.

  Jocie stepped back against the building under the awning and watched the men moving up the street. They didn’t pay any attention to the wind or the thunder or even seem to be aware of the people on the sidewalks. They kept their eyes straight ahead and walked in step, moving in concert like one giant creature.

  Suddenly everything was too quiet—as if the storm in the sky was holding its breath along with the people on the side
walks while this human storm marched past. In the unnatural silence, the sound of the men’s boots hitting the street jarred the air.

  Jocie raised up her camera and took another picture. Her heart jumped up into her throat as, suddenly, the four men on the front row all turned their eyes toward her as if they were the head of a beast looking for prey. She hid her camera behind her back and fervently wished she had gone inside with Beulah or run on across the street to the newspaper office. She wished she were anywhere but standing pinned against the side of the ten cent store by the cold eyes staring at her. Then they turned as one to stare ahead of them up the street once more, and Jocie was able to breathe again.

  She ran into the ten cent store and past Beulah, who said, “I told you to get off the street.”

  Jocie didn’t pay any attention as she raced on out the back door to the street that ran behind the stores. Her only thought was to get to the Grill before the men out in the street did so she could warn her father that they were coming. Who knew what might happen if the white-robed men found out a sit-in was going on?

  Jocie was panting by the time she opened the door into the Grill’s kitchen. “For land’s sake, child, what you doing coming in the back door? You trying to scare the life out of me?” Willanna, the cook, asked.

  “I’ve got to tell Dad something.”

  “I think he done sent you home once. You better have a good story.”

  Willanna wiped her hands on her apron and followed Jocie to the swinging door out of the kitchen. She stopped there to watch as Jocie rushed out behind the counter. No glasses were sitting in front of any of the people at the counter. Myra Hearndon still had her finger holding her dollar bill forward. Grover Flinn and Chief Simmons were standing behind them with their hands on their hips as if trying to decide what to do. Mr. Flinn’s nose was even redder than it had been when he passed Jocie out on the street earlier.