by Lois Lenski
“Oh, did I hurt you?” she cried. “You’ve had no goat-chop to eat, that’s why you ate our clothes. You’re hungry … I must find a feed store.” She took the goat farther down the canal and staked her.
One of Judy’s dresses was ruined, the other, the patched one, still held together. She spread it out carefully, trying to smooth the wrinkles. There was no iron to iron it, but at least it was clean.
“Hey, Judy! You ready?” sang out Bessie Harmon next morning.
“Shore am,” answered Judy. Judy was to go alone the first day, without Joe Bob and Cora Jane, to see what the school was like.
Bessie Harmon was a large girl with plain features and straight hair worn in two braids. She had a blunt, rough way of talking and Judy did not know what to make of her.
“Ain’t you even combed your hair?” she demanded.
“I … we … we lost the comb …” stammered Judy.
Bessie jerked her by the arm. “Wait here.” She disappeared inside the tar-paper shack and came out with a comb. She dipped it into water in a basin on the bench and combed Judy’s hair. She kept on wetting and wetting the comb until Judy’s hair was plastered down flat. “Don’t you ever braid it or curl it or do somethin’ with it?”
“No,” said Judy. “I just leave it be.”
“You gotta comb your hair every day before you go to school,” scolded Bessie. “Did you wash your face? Our teacher won’t take dirty kids in her class. She sends ’em home to wash up.”
“I took a bath,” said Judy. “I’m clean.”
“In the washtub?” asked Bessie, looking her up and down as if she didn’t believe it.
“Washtub takes too much water,” said Judy. “I can get clean in a molasses bucket, one arm and one leg at a time.” She hoped Bessie wouldn’t notice that her dress was unironed.
Bessie grunted and walked on. Other children from the shanties came along behind them. When they reached the school yard, they all went in together. A group of children already there sang out a greeting: “Here come the shanty kids! Here come the bean-pickers!”
Bessie took charge. To Judy and the children behind her, she said: “Don’t none of you say a word.” To the accusers, she replied calmly: “We don’t pick beans and you know it.”
“If you don’t pick beans, you live on the drainage canal then.”
“What of it?” answered Bessie. “What’s the matter with that?”
“You live in shanties!” “You drink dirty water!” “You’re hillbillies.” “You wash your clothes in dirty water!” “You never been inside a house!” The teasing retorts came thick and fast.
Bessie marched over to the group and shook her fist in their faces. “Now, you Crackers, you can shut up for today. Hear me?” She turned to Judy. “Every day I got to shut these kids up. Just ’cause they live in real houses, they think they’re better’n we are. We’ll show ’em!”
The children stopped calling names and began to play games, with Bessie their leader. Bessie had more ideas and more initiative than all the others put together.
Judy stood off on one side and watched. Then she slipped over to the gate. She didn’t like this school, after all. She decided to go home. Suddenly she turned and ran. Hearing footsteps behind her, she ran harder than ever. Then she felt a jerk on her arm and there was Bessie.
“Where you think you’re goin’?” panted Bessie.
“Home,” said Judy, frowning. “Don’t like your ole school.”
“Yes, you do,” replied Bessie. “Them kids don’t mean a thing. You gotta get used to ’em. You gotta talk back to ’em, to shut ’em up.”
“What did you call ’em?” asked Judy.
“Crackers—they’re mostly Crackers, born in Georgia or Florida. There’s other kids from all over everywhere, too. They all shut up when I call ’em Crackers. You come on back with me.”
Judy’s heart sank. For the first time she was homesick for Alabama and the cotton fields and the little country school on Plumtree Creek. But Bessie marched her back to the school-ground. When the bell rang, Judy stayed close behind Bessie. Bessie took her in her own room, the Fifth Grade, and put her down beside her in her own seat. There were no empty seats.
The teacher, Miss Garvin, gave her one look and said: “Another new girl. From a crop family, I suppose. She won’t know a thing.”
She asked Judy her name and where she came from. Judy told her.
“If this class gets any larger,” said Miss Garvin, “I don’t know where we’ll put the children. Where do you live?”
“On the … drainage … right next to Bessie Harmon,” said Judy.
“Dirty bean-picker! Lives in a dirty ditch,” whispered a boy behind her, loud enough for everybody to hear.
His taunts made Judy angry, and her shyness left her. She jumped up and faced the boy. “If you had to carry all your water, you’d be dirty yourself,” she cried. “Plenty people in the United States don’t have bathtubs with a million gallons of hot water to wash in.” The words of the fortune-teller at the Alabama carnival came back to her. “Circus and carnival people don’t have bathtubs. They travel around like folks who harvest the crops. They wash in buckets and keep clean, and so do we.”
The boy in the seat behind her was scared now. He hid his face in a book. Judy sat down. She was trembling all over.
“That’s tellin’ ’em!” whispered Bessie.
“Hot temper—no self-control,” said Miss Garvin in a low voice. “Chip on her shoulder like all the rest.”
Bessie handed Judy a Fifth Reader. “Study it,” she said.
A shadow fell on the book and Miss Garvin was pointing to a sentence at the top of the page. “Well, let’s see if you can read,” she said.
Judy rose unsteadily to her feet. The words on the page danced up and down. She could hardly see them. It had been so long since she had looked at words in a book. Bessie jerked her dress and said, “Read it out loud.”
The word refused to stand still. Judy’s hands shook so she nearly dropped the book. Miss Garvin lost patience and turned back to the first page. “Read that,” she said, pointing.
When no response came from Judy’s lips, Miss Garvin stared at her coldly. “How old did you say you are?”
“Ten,” whispered Judy.
“Just as I thought. About ready for Third Grade,” said Miss Garvin.
“But I finished the Third Reader at home and read part of the Fourth,” Judy burst out.
“Down the hall, last door on your left, Third Grade, Miss Norris, teacher.” Miss Garvin opened the door, a smile of relief on her face.
“But I wanted to stay with Bessie,” gulped Judy.
“Bessie’s in Fifth Grade, you’re in Third.”
Judy stepped out and the classroom door closed behind her.
But she did not go to Miss Norris’s room. Instead, she tiptoed out of the building and ran home as fast as she could go. I’ll never go back to that school again! Never! I’ll never go back! The words echoed and re-echoed through her mind.
CHAPTER VI
The Canal Bank
“YOU MUST MAKE A pen for that goat and shut her up nights or she’ll git pneumonia and die, sure as my name’s Patrick Joseph Timothy Mulligan.”
“What can I make it out of?” asked Joe Bob.
“Go down to the dump and git some pieces of galvanized tin,” said Mister Mulligan, “and drag ’em back here. Mighty fine place—that dump. No tellin’ what you’ll be a-findin’ there.”
“Will you go with me, Mister Mulligan?” asked Joe Bob.
“Not today, sonny,” said the man. “My r-rheumatiz is better, thank the Lord, but I got such a rushin’ of blood to me head, I might fall over any time day or night. Besides, I want to catch me a few catfish for a wee bite o’ supper.”
Joe Bob and Mister Mulligan had become great friends because they both liked to go fishing and to keep on fishing all day, whether they caught anything or not. Mister Mulligan had traveled all over the
country, on foot, and now his feet were tired and had come to rest at last—in Florida.
Judy offered to go with Joe Bob. The dump was a long way off, and when they got there, it was enormous. It looked as if it held all the old worn-out cars and trucks in the world, also old stoves, machinery and refuse of all kinds. It was called: IKE’S JUNK YARD; and Ike, a tousled, rough-looking man, was kept busy watching to see that no visitor walked off without paying for what he took. People were wandering all over the dump. Men and boys were searching old cars for “parts.” Small boys were hunting for wheels, axles, or unexpected treasures. A woman and a boy and girl were pulling an auto seat cushion behind them.
“Law me, I’m near about give out,” said the woman, stopping to rest. “But this will be a heap sight better’n sleepin’ on the hard, cold ground.”
Judy recognized her. It was Mrs. Holloway who lived next door in a packing-box house. She was tall and thin and young, but had hardly any teeth.
“Howdy. How be ye?” she called cheerfully. “You-uns look-in’ for a soft bed too?”
“No ma’m.” Judy shook her head. “We got an iron bed in our tent. We’re gittin’ tin to make a shed for our goat.”
“What do you-uns tote that noisy ole nanny goat around fur?” asked Mrs. Holloway. “Smelly ole thing, do she eat up your tin cans?”
“No ma’m,” said Judy. “She eats good green stuff and goat-chop, and she gives good milk for Lonnie to drink. Lonnie’s not puny no more since he’s been drinkin’ goat’s milk.” She looked at the red-headed Holloway girl. “What’s her name?”
“Tessie,” answered the woman. “Tessie Henrietta Beulah Holloway.”
“What’s his’n?” Judy pointed to the little boy.
“Gwyn Lyle Holloway, same as his Pappy and Grandpappy and Great-grandpappy afore him.”
“Funny names,” said Judy.
“You-all talk funny too,” said Joe Bob.
“I don’t guess we can help how we talk,” said Mrs. Holloway. “Hit depends on where you come from, don’t it? People talk different in different parts of the country—you ought to hear how funny them Yankees talk up north!—but long as we can understand each other, we needn’t pay no mind.”
“Do people all talk different?” asked Judy. This was a new idea to her. “We’re from Alabama. Where you-all from?”
“Windy Ridge up in the mountains of Tennessee,” said the woman.
Judy left the Holloways and wandered off over the dump. She found a bent aluminum sauce-pan without a hole in it, then she saw a book and picked it up. Some of the pages were torn and soiled from rain, but it had pictures in it. She tucked it under her arm. She joined Joe Bob who had found several pieces of rusty corrugated tin. He was limping and Judy noticed he had blood below one knee.
“Did you hurt yourself?” she asked.
“Slipped and fell on some broken bottles,” said Joe Bob. “Cut my leg but it don’t hurt.”
Ike asked the children to pay, but when they couldn’t produce any money, he said crossly, “Take it then.”
They dragged the tin home and Mister Mulligan admired it very much. From the junk piled up behind his little bird-box house, he produced some loose boards. He and Joe Bob set to work to make the goat shed.
Judy filled the battered sauce-pan with water and gave it to Missy to drink. Then she sat down to look at the book she had found. It was an old-fashioned Geography. On the front cover, beneath a picture of Christopher Columbus’ three ships, she read the words: A NEW WORLD LIES BEFORE US. Judy studied these words and thought about what they meant. When you are on the go all the time, how true it is—a new world always before you.
She opened the book. It had colored maps and small engravings in black and white. One picture showed a steamboat loaded with bales of cotton and another, a field of sugar cane. Then there was a picture of two little colored boys, chewing cane stalks, just like Porky and Arlie back in Alabama. At the top of the page it said: The Southern States. Why, it’s all about our country! said Judy to herself.
“Hey, sugarpie, what’s that you got?” Papa came out of the tent carrying the foot piece of the iron bed.
“A book,” said Judy. “I found it on the dump.”
Papa laughed. “Want to go to town with me?”
“Can I have a quarter to buy feed for Missy?” asked Judy.
“Honey, look.” Papa turned his pockets inside out, so she could see they were empty.
Papa had found some field work with a small grower several miles from town. But the money he made had to be used for food for the family, and the work hadn’t lasted long. “But I’ll get you some money,” Papa said. “You come along to town.”
Papa put the head and foot pieces of the bed inside the jalopy and went back for the springs. Mama helped him lift them up on top of the car.
“Goodness gracious!” exclaimed Mrs. Harmon, coming out to watch. “You folks pullin’ out without tellin’ me?”
“No ma’m,” said Mama, then she paused.
“Well, you’re not down to rock bottom yet,” said Mrs. Harmon. “Nobody else on the canal has got a sewin’-machine and a Brussels carpet.”
“My Grandma Wyatt lived in a house,” bragged Judy.
“With Brussels carpet on the floor,” added Papa. “Calla’s folks had things nice. Why, that carpet cost a dollar thirty-nine a yard.”
“No Jim,” Mama corrected him. “It was a dollar sixty-nine, and Pa bought sixteen yards of it. That little piece is all I got left. I’ll never part with it, nor with my sewin’-machine.”
“Don’t blame you none,” said Mrs. Harmon. “I feel the same way about my rockin’-chair.”
Mama looked at the bed on the jalopy and sighed. “I never thought I’d part with our iron bed——”
“What you going to do with our bed, Papa?” cried Judy. Suddenly she realized what was happening.
“Oh, you’ll be glad it’s gone,” said Mrs. Harmon practically. “Nobody carries beds along. I bet there ain’t another real bed along this whole canal. You folks is too high-toned! When you travel far like we do, you can’t take beds and heavy stuff. You’re lucky if you got a mattress. Plenty people depends on goin’ to the town dump and huntin’ up old seat cushions out of junked cars. They use ’em for beds and throw ’em back on the dump when they leave.”
“Miz Holloway went to Ike’s dump and got them an auto seat to sleep on,” said Judy in a low voice. She put her arm around Mama’s waist. “We still got a mattress.”
“Come, Judy. Goin’ with me?” called Papa.
The engine began to roar. Judy put her book inside the tent and jumped in the jalopy. They drove straight to a secondhand store. The man came out and helped Papa unload the iron bed and take down the springs.
“Coulda give you a better price if you’d a brought the mattress, too,” said the man.
“Gotta have somethin’ to make the ground a little softer,” laughed Papa. He came out of the store with his hand in his pocket and a twinkle in his eye. He pulled out a quarter and threw it in Judy’s lap. “Down there’s a feed store,” he said, pointing.
It was not One-Eyed Charlie’s feed store, but it looked very much like it. It smelled just the same, and feed sacks made of printed cotton cloth were piled up inside. Judy bought her grain and started out with it.
“That sack’s pretty enough for a dress,” she heard a man’s voice say behind her, “and there’s a little girl who’d like to have it.”
Judy turned. A big burly farmer was having the contents of several flowered sacks dumped into a larger one of burlap. He kicked a sack in the girl’s direction. “Take it,” he called out.
Quickly Judy rolled the sack up and tucked it under her arm. “Thanks,” she called back, hurrying out.
“What you been stealin’, sugarpie?” asked Papa. “Somebody after you?”
“Looky! Looky, Papa! Look what he gave me!”
The sack was dirty and saturated with dusty grain, but the printed patte
rn of pink and blue morning-glories could be plainly seen.
“I’ll sew it on Mama’s sewin’-machine,” said Judy happily.
“My! Such a stylish lady you’ll be,” laughed Papa. Then he added, “Let’s go get us each a coke.”
They stopped in front of a drug store that had its whole front open on the street. They sat down at a table and drank their cokes in style. Across the street was a trailer camp. Hot-dog stands, lunch counters in tents and other concessions lined the sidewalk. Australian pine trees were planted along the “streets” between the rows of trailers, which sat closely together.
The trailer camp looked beautiful, a great improvement on the canal bank. Judy could see curtains at the windows and clothes hung on tiny clothes-lines to dry.
“A house-trailer would be a good way to travel, Papa,” she said, “if you have to be on the go all the time. You’d have a house of your own and you could take it right with you.”
“Yes, honey,” said Papa. He sighed heavily. “They cost a pile o’ money, hundreds o’ dollars.”
They got up to go and Judy was sorry she had said what she did. Papa was doing the best he could and there’d be a job soon.
They walked along the street and looked in the show windows. It was a busy time and the sidewalk was crowded with people. Suddenly, bearing down upon them, came a large fat woman, hatless, with braids drooping over one shoulder. A gathered skirt, with yards and yards of cloth in it, tumbled about her. It was bright red, and her blouse was blue, with stars and moons of silver on it.
Judy remembered like a flash. It was Madame Rosie, the fortune-teller she had seen at the carnival in Alabama. Judy took one look, then let go Papa’s hand, turned and fled through the crowd.
“Hey! Where you goin’, honey?” Papa called after her.
But she was gone. And Papa was left facing a strange woman he had never seen before. Madame Rosie took his arm and shook it vigorously.
“I been lookin’ for you a long time, mister,” she exclaimed. “Why don’t you give that kid o’ yours some decent food to eat—juicy steak and green vegetables and plenty milk to drink? Bet she hasn’t had a drop o’ milk today, now has she?”