Strawberry Girl

by Lois Lenski

  “Well, hurry then.” Ma did not glance up.

  “I don’t like night-goin’,” said Shoestring. “Hit’s mighty dark and lonesome-like in them pines.”

  “We ain’t afeard,” said Birdie.

  It was too dark to take the short cut through the palmetto tunnel. They went the long way round; through the scrub and the piney woods. Shoestring led the way along a pig trail, swinging his lantern, while Mrs. Boyer and Birdie followed close behind. There was no moon, and the lantern sent long moving shadows off into the surrounding blackness.

  Strange night noises fell on their ears—chirpings and rustlings.

  The Slater baby was crying hard when they got there. Essie and Zephy were awake and fretful. They were feverish, too, like their mother.

  “We done brung so much trouble on you already …” began Mrs. Slater in a feeble voice, from the bed.

  “No time to think of that now,” answered Mrs. Boyer.

  “Hit pulled my heart out nearly, to have to send for you,” added Mrs. Slater, “but I done knowed ye’d come.”

  Mrs. Boyer walked back and forth between the two beds in the front room, doing what she could to ease the sick patients. Then she went to the kitchen to make some mullein tea and other healing brews.

  Shoestring fell asleep on a pallet bed in the little lean-to.

  “Is Mis’ Slater fixin’ to die, Ma?” asked Birdie, wide-eyed.

  “The Lord only knows!” answered her mother. “She’s plumb sick and needs lookin’ after. We’ll have to stay right on. Dixie can look out for the folks at home.”

  All that first night and for several more, Mrs. Boyer stayed up, caring for the sick woman and her children. She and Birdie snatched brief naps when they could. But Mrs. Slater did not die. She began to respond to the medicine, care and nourishing food. The little girls improved rapidly and soon were themselves again. But the baby continued fretful and puny, refusing to eat.

  The furnishings of the house were very meager. Besides the beds, there was one small table and one bureau. Clothes hung from wooden pegs in the wall. The kitchen had a fireplace for cooking, a large oilcloth-covered table and a safe for food. There were two frying pans, a few kettles and some crocks and dishes.

  A large picture hung on the wall beside Mrs. Slater’s bed. It was in a brown oval frame. It showed a man in overalls, wearing a black felt hat. He held a fat baby in his arms.

  “Hit’s Sam!” Mrs. Slater pointed to it with pride. “Holdin’ the baby.”

  Mrs. Boyer studied the picture. “Ain’t it wonderful? Hit don’t resemble him a mite!”

  “Wal—no,” drawled Mrs. Slater. “That artist feller drawed it.”

  “The Lightnin’ Artist,” asked Birdie, “who painted pictures in the square in town? I seen him paint a road and a hill once, fast as lightnin’.”

  “Very same one,” said Mrs. Slater. “He come one evenin’ jest before dark and asked could he spend the night. Sam was feelin’ good and said yes. In the mornin’ he drawed the picture for the breakfast I give him. He drawed it with a black crayon. He ’lowed he draws cows better’n men and babies. But we thought hit was mighty handsome.”

  “Shore is!” agreed Mrs. Boyer. She was glad to see that Mrs. Slater had one thing to take pride in.

  “He drawed pine trees behind, ’cause we live in the piney woods,” added Mrs. Slater. “I jest admire to lie here and look at it. I never stayed in bed so long before. I feel right lazy.”

  “You deserve a good long rest,” said Mrs. Boyer. “You been a mighty sick woman.”

  “I’d be in the cemetery now, were it not for you, ma’am,” said Mrs. Slater tearfully.

  “Now, now,” laughed Mrs. Boyer, “your time ain’t come yet. You got these here young uns to raise.”

  “I made some blackberry jell and I was fixin’ to give you some that day I first come to see you. …” She paused. “I did so want to like you, but it seemed like I jest couldn’t …”

  Mrs. Boyer patted her hand to comfort her. “We’re good friends now,” she said.

  “You’re so easy to neighbor with,” said Mrs. Slater.

  Birdie found the little girls friendly again too. She showed them how to play games and she kept them quiet while their mother slept. She helped with the baby. When it cried, she rocked it in the rocking chair on the porch. She brought milk from home for the baby to drink, and soon it began to smile and grow fat again.

  Shoestring went about the house with closed lips. He spoke only when spoken to, and then in the briefest words. But he helped in every way he could. He kept the woodbox filled, the porch and kitchen swept. He carried pails of water from the sinkhole.

  One afternoon late, a man arrived on horseback. He had been riding a long way, and was dusty and tired. He was tall and thin, with a shock of black hair. His eyes were fiery, his cheeks sunken.

  “Hit’s the preacher from Tallahassee!” whispered Mrs. Slater, glancing from her bed out of the window. “He’s one of them Camp Meetin’ preachers, the same one who come last year. Lawzy, me sick and all, what will we do?”

  “Bid him welcome, of course,” said Mrs. Boyer, drying her hands on her apron. “Howdy!” she said, as the preacher came up on the porch.

  “Howdy, ma’am!” The man doffed his hat. “I’ve come a powerful long ways since mornin’. Do you reckon I might rest here, ma’am?”

  Mrs. Boyer took him in to see Mrs. Slater. The sick woman flushed with excitement.

  “Did I know you was a-comin’, Brother …”

  “Jackson, ma’am.”

  “Did I know you was a-comin’, Brother Jackson,” said Mrs. Slater, “I’d a killed us a chicken for dinner.” Then she bit her lips, remembering she had no more chickens to kill.

  “I’m so hungry, I can eat most anything, ma’am,” said the man.

  Mrs. Boyer gave Mrs. Slater a meaningful look, and slipped out of the room.

  “We jest got common rations,” said Mrs. Slater, “but you’re plumb welcome to set down with us.” Then she added, “I been so sick, I thought I’d never over it.”

  “Would you like me to pray for you, ma’am?”

  Mrs. Boyer closed the door quietly, called Shoestring and sent him on an errand. When he returned later, he brought with him two young chickens from the Boyer flock and a basket containing a white linen tablecloth and other necessities.

  “You want me to chop their heads off, ma’am?” asked the boy.

  “I’d be proud if you did,” said Mrs. Boyer.

  The dinner which Mrs. Boyer cooked was delicious, with fried chicken and all the trimmings—turnip and mustard greens, sweet potatoes, peach preserves, blackberry jelly and pickles, grits and gravy, biscuit and crackling cornbread. The table in the front room was set close to Mrs. Slater’s bed. Brother Jackson and Mrs. Boyer faced each other across the white cloth and Mrs. Slater, propped up with pillows, sat between them.

  The children waited in the kitchen behind the closed door. They were instructed to be very quiet, so as not to be heard. The walls between the rooms were rough plank partitions up to the height of the eaves. The attic space under the gabled roof was not floored, but left open for circulation of air.

  “We want to go in! We want to go in!” cried Essie and Zephy.

  “Not when the preacher’s here,” scolded Birdie. “Young uns never eat with the preacher!” She pulled them away from the door.

  “He said he was so hungry he could eat anything,” groaned Shoestring in an undertone. “How ’bout me? I’m hungry as a woods cow that can’t find no grass!”

  “Wait till he gits done,” said Birdie.

  “All we git is what’s left over!” complained Shoestring. “I’m hungry as a hound dog on the scent of a rabbit. I’m so hungry I could eat a handful of them turpentine chips.”

  “Here! Take this!” Birdie handed him a cold biscuit.

  He threw it into the fireplace. “Cold biscuit!” he sniffed. “I’m sick and tired of cold biscuit! They belong to be
hot!”

  They listened to the subdued murmur of voices in the front room.

  “Can’t see why he should git all the chicken!” said Shoestring.

  “He’s the preacher, that’s why,” said Birdie.

  “I want to see how much he’s et,” said the boy.

  “What you fixin’ to do?” asked Birdie in sudden alarm.

  Shoestring did not answer. He stepped on a chair, then on the kitchen table and from there onto one of the wooden clothes pegs. He grasped the beam across the top of the partition, and slowly chinned himself. He put his arms over and hung on. With wide open eyes, he stared down on the table in the next room and the three people eating there.

  “You better not, Shoestring Slater!” scolded Birdie in a loud whisper. “You jest better not do that. Do-o-o-n’t git up there!”

  But the boy did not hear her. He only stared at the splendid white table in the next room. He stared at the platter which had been heaped so high a short time before. He stared at the preacher’s plate covered with chicken bones. He saw a drumstick in the man’s hand.

  A loud exclamation burst from his lips: “Lordy! He’s takened the last piece and he’s eatin’ it! There ain’t none left!”

  Three pairs of horrified eyes glanced up from the table.

  “Take that boy out and whop him!” said the preacher angrily. “That’ll learn him to be mannerly!”

  Shoestring let go his hold and slid precipitately down the kitchen side of the partition.

  “You gone and went and done it!” cried Birdie. “You gone and spoiled it all!”

  When he reached the floor, Shoestring wheeled and made a beeline for the back door.

  “Your Ma’ll take a bresh to you,” cried Birdie. “You better run to save your hide!”

  Essie and Zephy began to wail because there was no chicken left. Mrs. Boyer came out to quiet them. Mrs. Slater called: “Catch that boy and whop him good, Mis’ Boyer!”

  Only the preacher remained unruffled. He asked for the Bible. Mrs. Boyer found it on a window sill and handed it to him.

  “I bought it from that Bible-sellin’ feller,” explained Mrs. Slater. “I declare to goodness, looks like hit got rained on. Don’t know who put it on the window sill.”

  It was dusk-dark now and the room was filled with shadows. Mrs. Boyer brought the kitchen lamp and set it on the little table. The preacher turned the leaves and read in a hearty voice while Birdie and the little girls stood near and listened.

  “Let us pray,” he said.

  They fell to their knees and bowed their heads. “We thank thee, Lord, for all thy blessings … quench not the spirit in us, keep it gushing up like an artesian well … O Lord, give us such power that the old temptations look silly … no more shall we indulge in intoxicating liquor, backbiting, gossip or excessive anger. … Teach us to love our neighbor as ourselves. …”

  Mrs. Boyer gave the girls some supper, but Shoestring did not appear. She made up a fresh pallet bed on the kitchen floor for the preacher. The next morning, after a hearty breakfast, he invited the women to bring their families and attend Camp Meeting the following week. Then he rode away, rested and refreshed.

  “Where’s that young limb o’ Satan?” cried Mrs. Slater. “I’ll learn him to be, mannerly!”

  Shoestring was afraid to come to the house, but hunger drove him as far as the back door. He had had little food during his mother’s illness and the lack of supper the night before proved the last straw. Birdie hid cornbread and biscuit under her apron and took them out to him.

  “I’m hungry as an ole ’gator opening his big jaws to swaller a hog whole!” said Shoestring. “Git me more! Git me more ’fore I fall in my tracks!” He did not object to cold biscuit, but gobbled them greedily.

  Birdie came back the second time but her hands were empty. “Come git it yourself,” she said.

  “But Ma’ll whop me,” wailed Shoestring. Only too well did he understand how he had shamed his mother before the preacher.

  “You’re too big to git whopped,” said Birdie, “and besides, your Ma’s sick in bed.”

  “She’ll git your Ma to do it then,” whined the boy.

  “You shore deserve it,” said Birdie. “Come git it over with.”

  Shoestring stared at her as if the idea were a new one. He edged inside the door and eyed the food on the breakfast table. But he did not move toward it. When Mrs. Boyer came in from the bedroom, he spoke to her.

  “Whop me, ma’am!” he said. “I’d be proud to git it over with, so I can eat. I’m as hungry as a razorback ’at can’t find no palmetto roots.”

  Mrs. Boyer looked him over. “I can’t whop you,” she said.

  “You mean Ma can’t, ’cause she’s sick.”

  “I mean I can’t,” she said. “You’re too big. I’m too tired from nursin’ your Ma to undertake sich a hard job as that.”

  The boy’s eyes filled with tears. “I near about forgot …” he said.

  He crumpled up on a chair and began to sob. Mrs. Boyer patted him on the back. “There, there now,” she said, “you’re jest hungry, that’s all. You ain’t had a square meal in a week.”

  “I’m shore obliged, ma’am!” The boy found his tongue at last. “I’m shore obliged for all you done done for Ma and the young uns. I’m plumb sorry for all the trouble us Slaters has made for you-all. …”.

  “There now, son,” said Mrs. Boyer. “Come eat.”

  Birdie filled his plate with white bacon and grits three times before Shoestring’s hunger was satisfied.

  “Taste good?” she asked. “Good as fried chicken?”

  “I mean!” he said, glancing out of the window. Then he jumped up. “Golly! There’s Pa back!”

  Sam Slater stalked in, followed by Gus and Joe. “Breakfast ready?” he cried.

  Then he saw that the woman leaning over the fireplace was not his wife, and that the girl who was washing dishes was not one of his daughters.

  “Jerusalem!” He spat angrily on the hearth. “Whar’s Azalee Slater, my wife, and the young uns? What you-all doin’ here, messin’ in other folkses kitchens?”

  Before Mrs. Boyer had time to answer, he burst out: “Git on outen here! I won’t have ary Boyer in my house. Git outen here before I throw ye out!”

  “Better go see Ma first, Pa!” begged Shoestring, in a low but firm voice. “She’s in bed, sick.”

  Slater looked at his son in surprise.

  Shoestring stood up straight and tall, and explained all that had happened during his father’s absence. Sam Slater’s anger faded and his assurance wilted away. Gus and Joe slumped in slat-backed chairs and patted their hounds. Then Sam Slater went into his wife’s room.

  When he came out again, he offered his hand to Mrs. Boyer. “I hate to be beholden to ary Boyer,” he said, “but I’m shore obliged to ye for savin’ my wife’s life, and the young uns too.”

  CHAPTER XV

  New Organ

  “IS IT TRUE,” ASKED BIRDIE, “that your Pa got converted?”

  “Yes,” said Shoestring. The boy’s face lighted up with happiness. “He’s a different man. I won’t need to be ashamed of him no more.”

  “I’m proud!” said Birdie. “For you and for your Ma and for the young uns.”

  “It wouldn’t never have happened, iffen you folkses hadn’t come to live in the ole Roddenberry house,” said the boy.

  “I’m proud we came then,” said Birdie.

  “To think it was Brother Jackson who done it!” exclaimed Shoestring. “I’d set and watch him eat two chickens at one meal ary time now and not begrudge him a bite!”

  “I watched him at Camp Meeting,” said Birdie. “He worked on your Pa for a long time. I thought he’d never be able to do it.”

  Shoestring continued: “That day when he et all the chicken, Ma told him how Pa got drunk all the time, and he promised he’d pray extry hard for him.”

  “And so he did,” added Birdie softly.

  The Boyer and S
later wagons had come home together from the Camp Meeting at Ellis’s Picnic Grounds, and the two families were gathered on the Boyer front porch. Birdie and Shoestring sat down on the steps.

  “Glory hallelujah!” cried Sam Slater, throwing his hat in the air. “I’m a changed man! A happy man for the first time in my life!”

  “Brother Jackson shore is a powerful preacher,” said Mrs. Boyer.

  “To touch the heart of a hardened sinner like me,” added Slater.

  “I mean no offense …” began Mrs. Boyer.

  “But hit’s true, ain’t it?” said Slater gently. “My heart was hard as a rock. Now ’tis soft as mud. I’ll never be the same again, thank God.”

  “How did it happen, Sam?” asked Boyer. “Tell us about it.”

  Sam Slater grew thoughtful, then he spoke: “When I come home and found my wife and young uns had been lyin’ at death’s door, I begun to think. Did I not have kind, forgivin’ neighbors, they’d a been dead. Then the very next night I got sick myself, and thought I was fixin’ to die. So I decided I’d better start livin’ different. But it was Brother Jackson who pointed out the error of my ways. He told me the harm of drinkin’ liquor, and of swearin’ and backbitin’, gossip and anger.

  So when the spirit come upon me, I was ready. My heart was changed. I’m fixin’ to lead the good life right on.”

  “Praise God!” cried the women.

  “Glory be to God!” added the men.

  “You won’t never get drunk no more, Pa?” asked Essie.

  “And shoot the chickens’ heads off, Pa?” asked Zephy.

  “No, young uns, I won’t!” said Sam Slater. He took the two little girls in his arms and held them close. “And I hope to be a good neighbor right on, too. A good father and a good neighbor.”

  Mrs. Slater and Mrs. Boyer smiled happily at each other.

  Slater turned to Boyer. “You ain’t the only one to fence in the land,” he said.

  “How’s that?” asked Boyer.

  “Phosphate company’s leased a whole stretch north of here and they’re fencin’ it in,” said Slater. “Cattlemen don’t like it. They’ve always had that land for their cattle to run over.”