by Lois Lenski
The auctioneer sat in an elevated box on one side, and chanted in a swift jabber-jabber-jabber as he accepted bids from men in the audience. A Cracker boy, wearing overalls and a black felt cowboy hat, rode a spotted cattle pony into the ring and out again. Bidding was swift; farm animals one after the other were sold and let out of the ring.
When the first cow was brought in, Judy held her breath, for fear Papa might buy it. If so, how would he pay for it? All the buyers paid cash before they took their animals away. The cow was dirty white, thin and scrawny. Other cows were brought in, one after the other. Each time, Judy looked up at Papa but he shook his head.
“Don’t worry, sugar,” he said. “We want a better cow than that.”
Then came the mules, and after the mules, pigs and hogs. A peanut man, wearing a white apron, stepped about on the grandstand, calling, “Peanuts! Buy peanuts!” Papa bought a bag, and he and Judy began to munch.
After the pigs had all been sold, a goat was brought in— a white, hornless Nanny goat. At the gate she balked. The Cracker boy pulled on the rope with all his might. Then suddenly the goat stopped balking and rushed forward across the ring. The boy fell over backwards and the crowd yelled.
“I told you it was good as a circus!” laughed Papa.
The boy had a hard time managing the goat, because the goat didn’t like the boy and kept rushing at him with her head lowered. The people kept on laughing and the auctioneer couldn’t start the bidding.
At last the goat backed off into a corner and waited there, eyeing the crowd and shaking her head. The auctioneer did his best, but nobody would bid.
“Won’t somebody start this good milk-goat off at a quarter?” begged the man. “We got to start somewhere. Mighty good milker—it would take six men and a boy to do it!”
“The critter’s lame,” said a farmer. “Her ole man kicked her—good reason too.”
“A quarter—gimme a bid of a quarter,” begged the auctioneer. “I got to sell her … a quarter, have I got a quarter?”
Judy breathed hard and glanced swiftly down at the coin in her hand. Then suddenly she called out in a high shrill treble: “Ten cents! I’ll give you a dime!”
Everybody looked at her and laughed. Her face turned pink as she hid it against Papa’s shirt sleeve.
“Did I hear a dime—ten cents—from that little gal down there in the second row?” asked the auctioneer.
“You shore did!” answered Papa.
“Sold!” said the auctioneer. “This-here gal young un has bought that mean ole goat.” He turned to Judy. “She’s your’n. You ain’t afraid of her? Bring your money up here and take your goat away. We don’t never want to see her again.”
Judy hopped over the bench in front, handed her dime up to the desk and approached the goat.
“Better be keerful,” warned the black-hatted boy. “She’ll butt you all over the place. She’s MEAN.”
“I’m not afraid,” said Judy.
The people held their breath as they watched. A woman cried, “Don’t let her!” Another said, “Why don’t her Pa take the goat?”
Judy patted the animal on the head and said in a low voice: “I never thought I’d git a goat.” She picked up the rope and the goat followed her, limping meekly out of the ring. Papa walked behind while all the people clapped.
When they got back to the car, Judy said: “Was it all right for me to buy a goat instead of candy, Papa?”
“Shore,” said Papa, smiling. “It was your dime and you got a bargain. A good milk goat’s worth five or six dollars. But do you reckon you’ll like it as well as candy?”
Judy grinned. “Dunno,” she said. “It depends on how she behaves. She’s an old mischief, I can see that. ‘Mischief’— that’s what I’ll name her. ‘Mischief’ and ‘Missy’ for short.”
Papa moved the canvas aside and they put Missy in the trailer, tying her up well with the rope. When they reached the little lake, there were two surprises—the goat and the second-hand tent. Papa put the tent up right away, and explained it wasn’t safe for them to sleep in the open as they had been doing, because of alligators, possible bobcats and other night prowlers. Then they looked at the goat.
“Gonna feed her to the ’gator?” asked Joe Bob.
“Mercy, no,” said Mama. “She’ll give you young uns milk to drink, if we can find anything to feed her.”
“Save up your tin cans!” laughed Papa.
“She can ride in the trailer,” said Mama. “Leave her there tonight so that ole ’gator won’t bother her.” Mama didn’t say a word about the table and bureau being gone.
That night Papa fastened the tent up tight and neither the cows nor the alligator came to disturb the Drummond family. He got up early the next morning and took a swim in the lake. He was partly dressed when suddenly, beyond a clump of palmettos, appeared a man on horseback. The man came close to the tent and pulled up. Mama and the children came out and stared.
“What you folks doin’ here?” the man demanded. He got down from his horse.
“Campin’,” said Papa, pulling up his overalls.
“You better get out and get out quick,” said the man in a low voice. “Get out—why?” asked Papa.
“You got no right to camp here,” growled the man.
“No?” said Papa. “It’s a free country, ain’t it?”
Joe Bob whispered to Judy, “Looks like Old Man Reeves.”
“It’s the same man we saw in the orange grove,” said Judy.
Perhaps the man heard her, for he said promptly, “I saw them kids o’ your’n stealin’ oranges in my grove yesterday. They run like rabbits when I called. Don’t you know I can arrest ’em for pickin’ an orange?”
Judy stepped forward. “Didn’t pick none,” she said. “Your oranges was jest a rottin’ on the ground, mister. You didn’t want ’em. Why couldn’t we have some to eat?”
Judy and Joe Bob disappeared back of the trailer.
“I’ll have the law on you folks,” the man went on. “Good thing I was out ridin’ in the woods lookin’ to see how many new calves my cows had dropped.”
“Them your cattle roamin’ through here?” asked Papa.
“Shore,” said the man.
“This your land here, and your lake?”
“No,” said the man. “My place is over beyond my orange grove, quarter mile down that road.”
“This is not your land, and you’re orderin’ us off?” asked Papa. “What your cows doin’ here?”
“Grazin’,” said the man. “They go where they want to. It’s Open Range in this county. You folks better git out or I’ll …”
The man did not finish his sentence because a limping goat rushed suddenly out from behind the trailer, rammed her hard head into his knees and knocked him over. The man yelled and swore at the top of his voice.
“Missy! Missy! Come here!” called Judy, running out and trying to grab the goat’s rope. “She got loose, Papa, I couldn’t help it.” Joe Bob was peeping from behind the trailer, giggling.
“I’ll … I’ll have the law on you folks!” sputtered the grove man, getting to his feet and dusting himself off. “Assault—stealin’ fruit—campin’ unlawful …”
Papa stepped up close as the man mounted his horse to go.
“Let me get this straight,” he said. “The cattle are allowed to come here by this lake, but people are not. Is that it?”
“You said it!” answered the man.
As soon as he was gone, Papa turned to Mama and said, “Pack up as quick as you can. We’re gettin’ out.”
A half-hour later a rickety jalopy with a trailer behind moved out of the palmettos beside the little lake and took to the road, traveling southward.
CHAPTER IV
The Middle-Sized Lake
“ME—EH! ME—EH!” BLEATED MISSY in the trailer. “We must stop at a feed store and get some grain to feed that goat,” said Mama. “We must milk her too.”
“If she’ll let us,” s
aid Joe Bob.
“Course she’ll let us milk her,” said Judy.
They had been riding most of the day, through many towns and past many lakes and orange groves. Palm trees, pine trees, even orange trees were so common now Judy did not notice them. It seemed a long time since the Drummonds had left Alabama, and every turn of the jalopy’s wheels seemed to make life in the cotton field fade farther away into the past.
“There’s a feed store,” said Joe Bob, pointing.
Papa pulled up and gave Judy a quarter. She jumped out of the car and mounted the platform. Large sacks of feed and fertilizer were piled up inside the wide-open doors, and several men were hauling sacks on small hand trucks.
Judy looked about her. The place was dusty and had a strong fertilizer smell. She stared at the pile of feed sacks. The sacks were made of printed cotton cloth, flowered designs of pink or blue on a white ground. Judy tried to decide which pattern she liked best.
“Whatcher want, kid?”
The man who came up was fearful to look at. Judy shuddered. He had one eye shut and one eye open. His hair was red, and he had few teeth inside his big mouth. His overalls were white with dust.
“Me—eh! Me—eh!” Judy could hear Missy bleating. She glanced across the street. There on the sidewalk, Papa was down on his knees trying to milk the goat, while Joe Bob was hanging on to her rope for dear life.
“Some cow-chop … for the goat …” stammered Judy. She looked at Missy instead of the man. “I only got a quarter—”
“That your goat?” grinned the man. “Good at buttin’, eh?” He walked away. Somebody called him: “Hey, Charlie, One-Eyed Charlie!” He came back after a while with some grain in a paper bag. “Real goat-chop,” he said, “better’n cow-chop.”
Judy got up her courage and pointed to the flowered sacks. “What do you do with ’em when you empty ’em?” she asked.
“We sell the grain to the farmers,” said One-Eyed Charlie. “Their women-folks make purty dresses outa the sacks. One sack makes a dress for a gal big as you.”
“Shore ’nough?” gasped Judy.
“Yes ma’m!” grinned the man.
“Could I … could I?”
“Next time you come round, I’ll have one of them sacks for you,” said One-Eyed Charlie. “What color you like best?”
“Blue,” said Judy. “You … you’ll give me one?”
“Shore will,” grinned the man.
He was kind, after all, in spite of his fearful appearance. You never could tell by people’s looks what they were like underneath.
“Me—eh! Me—eh!” bleated Missy across the street.
“Your goat’s callin’ you!” The man laughed.
Judy ran. Only when Missy put her nose down into the goat-chop did she consent to stand still enough to be milked. And Judy was the only one who could milk her.
Papa drove right on again. When they were five miles beyond the town, Judy suddenly remembered. “Oh Papa …” she began.
“What is it, sugarpie?”
“One-Eyed Charlie said … if I’d come back … he’d give me——”
“Who on earth is One-Eyed Charlie?” asked Papa.
“The man in the feed store,” said Judy. “He promised me a blue flowered feed sack next time I come in, and now we won’t never go there no more .…”
“What you want a feed sack for?” asked Papa gently.
“To make a dress,” said Judy. “Mama could sew it on her sewing-machine …”
“You ain’t got dresses?” Papa looked down at her faded and torn overalls, as if noticing them for the first time.
“Only two,” said Judy, “and one is tore and patched. The others got too small. Cora Jane’s wearin’ ’em.”
“Too bad,” said Papa, “but there’s other feed stores and Missy will be needin’ more grain, won’t she?”
Judy nodded. They went riding on.
“I like the prosperous look of this citrus country,” said Papa. “We’ll stop by this-here lake and have swims before we go to bed. It’s bigger’n that other lake of our’n—sort of middle-sized, I reckon. All these towns seem to be full of lakes. Lakeland has fourteen, Orlando twenty-five. Likely I can get me a job in this purty little town.”
Papa picked out a place to camp between the lake and the road. But first he inquired where the owner of the land lived and went to ask his permission. The owner said, “Go ahead!” and gave Papa a bagful of tangerines for the children.
Papa put up the tent and unloaded the kerosene stove. Mama cooked a big meal—fried meat, grits and gravy and molasses. While they were standing around eating, they noticed that people passing in cars were staring at them. Mama did not like it.
“We’d ought to stopped on a back road, Jim,” she said.
“They can look at us,” Papa said, “but they can’t run us off this time.”
After supper Papa walked back into the town to inquire about getting a job in citrus. He hadn’t been gone long when a car stopped by the tent and a man got out. “I am Captain Pendleton, of the Salvation Army,” he told Mama. “I came out to see if I could help you.”
“Help me?” gasped Mama. “Help me what?”
“Well … several people notified me they had seen a family with young children campin’ by Lake Packer …” said Captain Pendleton awkwardly, “and my organization is always ready to lend a helping hand to those in … er … need. You don’t intend to sleep here, do you?”
“Shore do,” said Mama. “That’s what we put our tent up for.”
“But it’s too cold for little children to sleep on the ground,” said the captain. “Now we have good, clean beds at our Shelter in town …”
“Why, this ain’t cold!” spoke up Judy. “You’d jest ought to spend a winter in Alabama in a little ole piecy house with the wind blowin: the covers right offen the beds!”
“We been sleepin’ on the ground ever since we left home,” said Joe Bob.
“We got a mattress,” said Mama proudly. “We make pallet beds out of quilts for the young uns.”
“On the ground?” asked the captain, shocked.
“Shore,” said Mama. “When we stop for one night, we don’t trouble to set up the iron bed.”
“We been havin’ a cold spell,” said the captain. “Hit went clear down to 40° the other night, and the paper says hit might freeze tonight.”
“Huh!” sniffed Mama. “It’s a heap colder’n that where we come from. This feels warm to us.”
“We always aim to help the destitute,” said the captain lamely.
“We ain’t destitute,” said Mama.
“We got a goat,” said Joe Bob.
“Me—eh! Me—eh!” bleated Missy.
The captain gave up and went away.
Then a newspaper reporter came. He took a large camera out of his car, set it up on a tripod and pointed it at the tent.
“What you want?” demanded Mama.
The children stood and stared. Judy held Lonnie who began to cry.
“Stand still just as you are,” said the man. “I’ll take your picture before it gets too dark and then I’d like to get your story. It’s for the local paper. I’m a reporter.” He worked fast and before they knew it, had snapped the picture.
“What story?” asked Mama.
“Oh, just who you are and where you came from, and how many children you got, and what you’re doing here, and where you’re going,” said the man. Briskly he got out his notebook and pencil. “Captain Pendleton’s been to see you, hasn’t he?”
Mama hesitated. She didn’t know what to do or say. “Judy,” she called. “Look see, is Papa comin’?”
“No, I don’t see him, Mama,” said Judy. “Here, you take Lonnie and put him to bed. I’ll talk to this feller. You jest leave him to me.”
“Now, be mannerly,” said Mama. “Don’t say nothin’ to rile him.”
Mama went into the tent. Judy stepped up to the man, her arms akimbo, her bright eyes flashing.
>
“You’re outa your place, mister, a-runnin’ round here takin’ pictures of people who all they want is to be let alone. We ain’t hurtin’ nobody and we never said we wanted to have our picture in the paper, ’cause we don’t.”
“Not if it helped your father to get a job and a house to live in?” asked the reporter.
Joe Bob stepped up. “I’d jest like to cut that thing to pieces—that thing you take pictures with. If I jest had a knife, I’d …”
The man folded up his tripod hastily.
“What you takin’ our pictures for?” demanded Judy. “We ain’t done nothin’ wrong. You’ll be tryin’ to put us in jail next. Well, my Papa asked if we could camp here and the man said yes!”
Without a backward glance, the reporter climbed into his car and drove off. He hadn’t been gone long before a large shiny black car pulled up and two well-dressed, middle-aged ladies stepped out.
“We’re from the Women’s Philanthropic Welfare Circle,” they said. Mama came out of the tent and frowned.
“Oh, how cold you poor people must be, camping in this damp place on a cold night like this,” said the first lady.
“No, we ain’t cold,” Mama said patiently. “This seems warm to us.”
The women stared at Judy and the children. “At least your children might put on their shoes and stockings. Their legs look blue,” said the second lady.
“Ain’t got no shoes,” said Joe Bob.
“Ain’t got no stockin’s,” said Judy.
“How long since they’ve had a bath?” asked the first lady.
Mama turned her back and did not answer.
“I will be glad to let you and your children sleep on my back porch, if you’ll come home with me,” said the second lady. “You can all have nice warm baths in the bathroom first. Just how many are there of you? You folks always have such big families.”
“We don’t like baths,” said Joe Bob.
“We like to be dirty,” said Judy.
“We like to play in the dirt,” said Cora Jane.
It was fun to be obstinate. All the children’s impudence was coming out—they were trying to make their unwelcome visitors go away. Mama heard Lonnie cry and brought him out of the tent in her arms.