Judy's Journey

by Lois Lenski

  “Carpet, eh? Brussels carpet! With roses on it. Now what——”

  He got no further. Joe Bob, like an enraged animal, jumped up and snatched the carpet out of the man’s hand.

  “Gimme that or I’ll beat the stuffin’ out of you!” the boy cried. He dropped the carpet and pounded the man with his fists.

  “Git offen me, you little varmint!” shouted Reeves.

  Just then the sound of a car could be heard in the neighborhood. The boy stopped fighting and they all looked off across the cotton field. The car was coming closer and closer, rattling and banging louder and louder.

  “It’s comin’ here,” said Joe Bob.

  “Shore is,” said Mama.

  “It’s Papa!” shrieked Judy.

  With arms and legs flying, she was off down the lane. When the car came up, she was sitting in the front seat beside her father. On her face there was a satisfied smile.

  “I was tellin’ your folks they gotta get out,” said Old Man Reeves as soon as the engine stopped.

  “I see,” said Jim Drummond. “Moved all our plunder out too, didn’t you?”

  “My colored boys done that. Gotta get the house ready for new family comin’ in.”

  “O. K.,” said Jim Drummond. “We’re goin’ soon as we can git loaded up. We’re goin’ where we’ll never see the likes o’ you again.”

  “Oh where, Papa?” cried Judy. Papa looked happy. It was wonderful. Things weren’t so bad after all.

  “Hush up your mouth, gal,” said Papa. He turned to Reeves again. “We’re a-goin’ where the sun’s a-shinin’ and a man can make a crop of his own. We’re lightin’ out right away, the sooner, the better.”

  Old Man Reeves seemed surprised and taken aback. He had been expecting an argument and maybe a fight.

  “Where you off to, Jim, anyhow?” he asked amiably. “Where’d’ you git the car? Latest model, eh? Roby Watson’s got a tenant-house empty, but he won’t treat you half as good as I been doin’. Where you off to?”

  Papa just rubbed his chin and said nothing.

  “Don’t you wisht you knew!” sang out Judy spitefully. “There’s plenty places to go to. It’s a free country, I reckon.”

  Joe Bob and Cora Jane began to dance up and down. “Don’t you wisht you knew! Don’t you wisht you knew! It’s a free country, a free country.”

  Still Papa didn’t say a word. His silence made Reeves angry.

  “I’d ought to knock you down,” the man began slowly, “for the way you’ve neglected this place and lost me the cotton crop and stole fertilizer and stuff and ain’t worked the crops nor kept your part of the bargain. Lookin’ to me to feed and clothe you and furnish you medicines for a sick family and then ruinin’ the cotton crop.”

  “I reckon we’re about even, Reeves,” said Papa in a cold, hard voice. “You know what you been sayin’ ain’t true. ’Twas the rain ruint the cotton. For three years now I’ve worked my fingers to the bone for you and what do I get out of it? Nothin’. I’m worse off than when I come here. Mind how I never got that new wagon I wanted? Well, it’s over now. I’m through bein’ a sharecropper—lucky I got spunk enough left to clear out. Ever since you made away with my boy’s puppy dog——”

  “Oh Papa! Did he kill it?” Joe Bob began to kick and scream.

  “Steady, boy, steady,” said Papa. “Cryin’ won’t bring your puppy dog back. Well, ever since then, I made up my mind I wouldn’t stay no longer.”

  “You made up your mind?” said Reeves. “’Twas me told you to go.”

  “All right, have it your way,” said Papa. “Anyhow I’m goin’ where my young uns can git some education and learn to do a little figgerin’. I never went past the Fourth Grade myself. I reckon if I’d a stayed in school and learnt more about addin’ up dollars and cents, I might a looked over them commissary books of yours and seen how you was robbin’ and cheatin’ me, and fixin’ it so I couldn’t never git a cent of cash money ahead but was always in debt at the end of the year. I’m goin’ where my young uns can go to school instead of workin’ all day in the cotton field, pickin’ cotton.” Papa looked over at Mama and smiled. “We’ll git us a piece of land all our own .…”

  “Fine!” sneered Reeves. “Where’ll you git it—shiftless, lazy folks like you-all?” He climbed in his car and drove off.

  They were all happy when he was gone. Papa took a paper bag from his pocket and passed it around. It was full of candy kisses wrapped in shiny paper. They each had one. Their cheeks bulged out fat as they sucked noisily.

  “Whose car, Jim?” asked Mama.

  They all looked at the old ramshackle Ford. It had a homemade two-wheeled trailer fastened on behind.

  “Our’n,” said Papa, with a sly smile. “It’s gonna take us where we want to go. Come on, young uns, help me load up this plunder.”

  Papa and Joe Bob and Judy set to work. They put the larger pieces of furniture into the trailer and the bedsprings on top of the car. The oil stove and bundles of bedding were tied to the left runningboard, washtub and buckets on the spare tire in back.

  “I got plumb sick of that ole mule and broke-down wagon your Uncle Barney gave us, Calla,” said Papa. “Never could do no work with ’em nohow and had to use Reeves’s all the time. So I swapped ’em for this-here jalopy. Hiram Adler’s always ready to make a trade. You tell him what you got and he’ll bid on it, no matter what it is—an ole sewing-machine——”

  “Jim! You ain’t traded off my sewin’-machine!”

  “No, Calla, no, don’t you worry. Or an ole iron bed——”

  “Jim! You ain’t traded off our iron bed?”

  “No, Calla, no. Or a crop o’ peanuts or watermelons half-ripe in the field or ary ole thing under the sun.”

  “Measly little ole crop o’ peanuts this year,” sniffed Judy. “Not worth the salt to bile ’em in.” She put her hand in a small pail, took out a mouthful and began spitting out the shells.

  “All right. Get in, everybody. We’re off!” called Papa.

  Mama picked up the carpet with roses on it. “Seems like I couldn’t live without this carpet from my Mama’s house,” she said. She spread it over the front seat. Then she lifted in Cora Jane and the baby and climbed in herself.

  “Oh, them molasses and the vittles,” she called. “Judy, go bring ’em. We hid the molasses can when we saw Old Reeves a-comin’.”

  “But he couldn’t take ’em,” said Papa. “Them molasses is mine. Didn’t I cook Roby Watson’s syrup for him and take ’em for my pay?”

  Judy brought the can and basket, and she and Joe Bob climbed into the crowded back seat. Papa started the engine and the car wheezed out the lane and off down the road. All the Drummonds, except the sleeping baby, looked back at the house that had been their home for three years. They didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry. They were leaving the only home they had, but their hearts were high with hope.

  Down at the bend in the road stood a group of colored people waiting—the Jenkins family. Judy looked at them. It was hard to think she might never play with Pinky and Daisy again, and that Joe Bob would forget the good times he had had with Porky and Arlie. Pinky came running up and thrust her greatest treasure—a little blue glass bottle—into Judy’s hand. Judy leaned out of the car to call goodbye, and waved as long as she could see them.

  “Wisht I could a seen Uncle Barney and Aunt Lissie once more,” sighed Mama. Then she cheered up. “Tell us about the trade, Jim.”

  “Along with the mule an’ wagon, I threw in the plow and shovels to boot,” said Papa. “Hiram said he knew a man that wanted ’em. He said this ole jalopy was worth fifteen dollars anyhow. When I told him where I had in mind to go, he threw in the trailer free. Said he had no use for it. I told him I couldn’t pay for it and he said to forget it. He’s a good man, Hiram, and if ever I git ahead, I’ll send him some money. This little ole Ford ain’t much, but it goes if you give it oil and gas.”

  “Where we goin’, Papa?” sang the child
ren.

  “We’re leavin’ Alabama for good,” said Papa. “We’ll git us a little piece o’ land somewheres.”

  “Night’s a-comin’ on,” said Mama. “We ain’t had no supper but boiled peanuts. Where we gonna eat and sleep?”

  “We’ll camp out,” said-Papa. “We’ll sleep out under the sky and count the stars.”

  “It’s too cold,” said Judy, shivering.

  “I bought us some sliced baloney and a great big onion and two loaves of bread .…”

  “Where are we goin’, Jim?” asked Mama anxiously.

  “Next best place to Heaven,” sighed Papa happily. “Florida!”

  “Florida! Florida!” echoed the children.

  “Warm sun shines there all winter long and it don’t never get cold at all,” said Papa. “Man I met back in town was tellin’ me about it. We’ll set in the sun and when it gits too hot, we’ll find us a palm tree and rest in the shade. Don’t need no winter coats——”

  “No? Honest to goodness? What’ll we live on?” asked Mama.

  “Cash money!” said Papa.

  CHAPTER II

  Florida

  “YOU ARE MY SUNSHINE,

  My only sunshine,

  You make me happy

  When skies are gray …”

  “Oh, stop your singin’, Judy,” said Joe Bob. “I’m tard of it.” Judy stopped singing abruptly and Papa began to talk.

  “We’ll jest go rollin’ along without a care,” said Papa. “We’ll see the world, honey. We’ll keep on goin’ and never stop.”

  “We’ll have to eat sometimes, Papa,” said Judy.

  “Shore, shore. Mama’ll tell us when it’s time to eat, and cook our meals. Mama’s the best cook in the world—she can cook meals, out of the air, right outa nothin’.” Papa looked at Mama and smiled.

  “What’ll we git when we stop?” asked Judy.

  “Ice cream and watermelon and honey in the comb, and biscuits and gravy …” laughed Papa.

  Judy tucked her hand under her father’s elbow and leaned back comfortably, with Cora Jane beside her. Mama and Lonnie and Joe Bob were in the back seat. Judy liked to dream as much as Papa did. The sky was bluer than any blue she had ever seen. It was as blue as the little blue glass bottle she held in her hand. She and Pinky had found it long ago in the cotton field and wondered how it got there. They took turns keeping it. Now Pinky wanted Judy to have it for good.

  They drove for a long time through Alabama crop country, where the fields were bare and drab after the fall harvest. Now and then the level land was broken by tall woods along sluggish streams. Sometimes they stopped in towns and ate sandwiches or drank pop or ginger ale out of bottles. Then they went on again. Sometimes they passed a white-pillared mansion sitting back from the road under the shade of huge trees.

  “Oh looky!” cried Judy. “What a pretty house. Wisht I could go inside. Betcha they got pretty carpet on all the floors. Was Grandma Wyatt’s house like that?”

  “No,” said Mama. “Not big as that, but we had carpet.”

  They came to a county seat where a carnival was going on, so they stopped. The children took Papa’s hand and walked around, looking at all the attractions. The carnival was noisy and Judy soon tired of it.

  “I’ll go back and take care of Lonnie,” she said, “and let Mama come.”

  Making her way behind one of the tents, on a short cut to the Ford, she saw that the tent flap was lifted. Inside sat a very fat woman with black eyes and black hair braided in two long braids tied together at the end. She had few clothes on—only a skimpy bathing suit around her middle. At her feet stood a tin bucket of water. The woman was washing herself vigorously.

  “Hello, dearie,” she said. “Don’t be scared, I won’t hurt ye. I’m only havin’ a bath. Never saw a fat lady take a bath before, did ye?”

  Judy thought the woman must be cold, taking a bath outside in the wintertime. But she couldn’t say a word.

  “I’m Madame Rosie, the Fortune-Teller,” said the woman. “See my sign out front? I used to travel with the circus, but now I follow these cheap little carnivals. Circus and carnival folks have to take their baths in buckets. They don’t have no marble bathtubs, and no runnin’ water, hot and cold, but they wash every day and they keep clean just the same.” The woman laughed heartily. “A tin bucket’s good enough for you and me, now ain’t it, dearie? You wash one leg or one arm at a time, see?

  “Now you just wait a minute.” She disappeared behind a pink plush curtain. When she came out again, she was dressed in a flowered blouse and a bright blue velvet skirt.

  “Come here, dearie, let me see your hand,” she said. “I charge fifty cents to read palms, but I know you ain’t got a penny.”

  Judy stepped up obediently. Her hand was dirty and she thought the woman wanted to wash it clean. But she didn’t. She turned it over and studied Judy’s palm.

  “You have a strong life-line,” Madame Rosie said solemnly. “You’ll live to be an old woman. There’s a tall man with dark hair in your life … and hard work and grief and sorrow and dirt .…” She studied the girl’s face. “You look like a little scared rabbit, but you got plenty of spunk. You’ve got a temper and a hot tongue and you often say things you’re sorry for afterwards. Better learn to hold your tongue … think twice before you speak once … or you’ll only make trouble for yourself. You carry a chip on your shoulder. Better shake it off, stop being suspicious of people; be kind to them and you’ll get along better. There’s good in everybody.” She looked at the girl’s hand again. “I see a line of hope and beauty … a book with pictures in it … and a little white house set in a garden with a picket fence around it.”

  Madame Rosie let the girl’s hand drop and turned away from her.

  “Oh, I shouldn’t have told her that,” she said to herself. “It’s there, but it can’t be—the lines lie. She’s dirt poor— never had a decent meal in her life. How could it come true? Why did I say it … puttin’ impossible ideas in the poor child’s head.” She turned on the girl: “Have you lost your tongue? Why don’t you say something? Go away—you little scared rabbit, you!”

  Judy turned and went off through the high grass, stumbling over outstretched tent-ropes. She did not look back. She could not look back at the strange woman who had said such strange things and then said they could never come true.

  Tears blinded her eyes until she could hardly see where she was going. Judy did not cry often. Life had always been hard and it did not seem to help any to cry about it. She climbed back into the car. She said nothing about Madame Rosie, but she was not to forget her for many a long day.

  Mama didn’t want to see the carnival after all. When Papa and the children came back, Papa said, “A man told me they’ve given up cotton round here and are growin’ peanuts—peanuts and hogs.”

  “Let’s stop here and make a crop o’ peanuts, Jim,” said Mama.

  “No ma’m!” laughed Papa. “See that road sign down yonder? We’re just eighteen miles from the Georgia and Florida lines. We’re gittin’ outa Alabama quick as we can.”

  It did not take them long. Entering Georgia, the first thing they noticed was the absence of cotton. Cotton fields gave place to pine woods and they passed several turpentine camps. Cows and hogs grazed on the grassy banks on both sides of the highway. A sign said: LOOK OUT FOR CATTLE AND HOGS. They saw a dead hog lying in the ditch.

  “We better not drive too fast. We don’t want to run over none of these-here Georgia critters,” said Papa. “They might git the law on us.”

  They passed small villages of tiny Negro houses. At one country store, a large fish sawed out of wood was mounted on a post, and the sign said: FISH FOR SALE. Negro children played on porches or waded and fished in streams. Now and then they passed dark, dank cypress swamps where the Spanish moss hung in gloomy clusters and cypress knees poked up out of stagnant black water. This was Georgia.

  Once they stopped at a small country store to get gas and wat
er. A colored woman came up carrying a basketful of eggs.

  “How much for your eggs?” asked Mama. But Papa shook his head.

  “We must watch our pennies. Gotta have gas to take us where we’re goin’.”

  “Goin’ a long way?” asked the woman.

  “To Florida,” said Papa. “You live around here?”

  “Yassir,” said the woman. “Jest over yonder in that field a couple o’ miles. Lawzy, my feetses hurts from walkin’ so fur. Soon as I gits home I’s gonna take off my shoes and rest my feetses good. Shoes is a heavy cross to bear.”

  The children had climbed out of the car to stretch. “You got shoes?” asked Joe Bob, wide-eyed. “Our’n wore out long time ago.”

  “Wisht I had me some shoes,” said Judy softly.

  She looked at the shoes on the woman’s feet. They were men’s old shoes, badly worn and broken out at the sides. But still they were shoes.

  “You-all ain’t got no shoes?” the woman asked. “And you come from Alabam’? I went there once to visit my daughter and I like to froze to death. Slept under eight quilts, and one featherbed under and another’n on top. You shore need shoes to keep your feetses warm in Alabam’.”

  “Don’t need none where we’re goin’,” laughed Papa. Then he added, “Nice country you got round here.”

  “No sir, ’tain’t,” said the woman. “This -here’s bad country. Bad people live here. A man travelin’ through here was robbed of all his money last week. Soon as I gits home I locks my door tight and takes off my shoes and rests my poor feetses.”

  “Know any place where we can camp for the night?” asked Papa.

  “Five miles out is a creek,” said the woman, going into the store. “But I tells you this is bad country, bad country.”

  They started on and came to the creek, but whether because of the robbers or not, Papa did not stop. When it was nearly dark, they turned off on a dirt side road.

  “I’m tard,” complained Cora Jane.

  “Where do we sleep?” asked Joe Bob.