Wonderland Creek

by Lynn Austin

  “You don’t have to be sarcastic.”

  He lifted his arms in exasperation and let them slap against his sides. Dust puffed from his pants. “I’m just not prepared to deal with you, that’s all.”

  “You’ve made that perfectly clear.”

  He glanced up the stairs again. Sighed again. “Let me see what I can rustle up for lunch. Come on.”

  He led the way through a door and into a kitchen that looked as though it had been tacked onto the back of the house as an afterthought. Flies buzzed and swarmed around a towering sink full of dishes. More flies encrusted two yellowing strips of flypaper hanging above it. Behind the cookstove, a plaid shirt and two pairs of men’s long underdrawers hung on a sagging rope. And judging by the smell, Mr. MacDougal was either manufacturing Limburger cheese or his milk had soured several weeks ago. If he had a wife, she had probably left him. I didn’t blame her.

  “Excuse the mess,” he mumbled. He cleared a place to eat on the round wooden table and motioned to a chair. “Sit down.” The chair creaked like a sack of kindling wood as I reluctantly obeyed.

  My host took a loaf of homemade bread from the bread box and sawed off several thick, crumbling slices. Then he opened a can of pork and beans and spread the contents on three slices of bread, topping each of them with another slice to make sandwiches. I had never heard of a baked bean sandwich before, but I was hardly in a position to complain. He opened a cupboard door as if searching for a clean plate, then gave up and pushed one of the sandwiches across the bare table to me.

  “Thank you,” I said, remembering my manners.

  “You want coffee?” he asked. “It’s mixed with chicory, so it’s kind of bitter.”

  “No thank you.” I briefly bowed my head to pray while he poured himself a cup of coffee—and never before had I been so keenly aware of the need for the Almighty to bless a meal. Then I lifted the sandwich, careful not to spill the beans, and took a tentative bite. It was actually very tasty, if a bit unusual.

  We ate in silence. Outside, birds chirped and sang and called to each other, and the sound of rushing water gurgled continually as if someone had left a huge tap running. When a train whistle wailed in the far-off distance, it gave me an idea. “Um . . . when does the next bus or passenger train come through town?”

  He laughed out loud and continued laughing until I felt my cheeks burn. “Well, excuse me,” I said, “but I’ve never visited such an uncivilized place before.”

  “Did you have your eyes closed on your way here?”

  “No . . . I was reading a book. A very good one, in fact.” If Gordon had been here, he would have rolled his eyes and shaken his head in exasperation. “Listen, Mr. MacDougal, it looks as though I’m going to be stuck here for a while, and I want you to know that I’m willing to pay for my room and board.”

  “I should hope so. Folks don’t have much to spare now that the mines are closed.”

  We finished eating in silence. When he’d gulped down the last of his coffee, he stood and picked up the extra sandwich. “I need to take this upstairs to Lillie.”

  Who in the world was Lillie, and why hadn’t she come down and introduced herself? How often did people around here get company from Illinois, for goodness’ sake? Whatever her reason for staying hidden, I figured she might be as strange as Leslie MacDougal, and the sooner I got out of their way the better. I stood as well, wishing for a napkin to wipe the bean juice off my fingers. He had licked his.

  “Thank you very much for lunch, Mr. MacDougal. If you would kindly direct me . . . somewhere . . . I will leave you to your work.”

  “Look, Miss Ripley. I have no idea what to do with you. My traveling librarians might have an idea, but they’re out delivering books.”

  “What’s a traveling librarian?”

  “Just what it sounds like. It’s not easy for folks around here to get to town, so our librarians deliver the books to the people.”

  “In a bookmobile?”

  “On horseback.”

  “Horseback? You’re kidding.” I tried to imagine Mrs. Beasley or Mrs. Davidson or myself, for that matter, galloping around Blue Island on horses, distributing books like Pony Express riders. I nearly laughed out loud. But Mr. MacDougal was perfectly serious.

  “Alma usually rides a mule,” he said, “but Marjorie, Cora, and Faye all ride horses.”

  I had never heard of such a crazy idea. This was 1936, not pioneer days. Again, I felt like Alice in Wonderland, except that when I’d fallen into this rabbit hole I’d ended up in Acorn, Kentucky, with the Mad Hatter. “How far do the librarians travel? And for how long?” I asked, hoping they would return soon.

  “Just a day’s ride. They’ll start coming back in two or three hours.”

  I had no intention of sitting around and doing nothing for that long. I stood and smoothed my skirt. “Well. I did come here to volunteer, Mr. MacDougal, so if you will kindly give me a quick tour of your library, I’ll be happy to get to work.”

  “You want to work?” He said it as if I had offered to do cartwheels down Main Street.

  “Yes, work. It’s better than standing here feeling useless. I am an experienced librarian, after all. I can card and shelve books, catalogue the new ones—whatever needs to be done.” And from the looks of this place, plenty needed to be done. “Or, if you don’t want my help, I’ll be content to sit and read a book all afternoon. It’s up to you.”

  “No, it isn’t. Do whatever you want, lady.”

  He went out into the hallway and up the squeaking stairs, taking the third baked bean sandwich and a cup of coffee with him. I went into the main room and looked around. Leslie MacDougal was a disgrace to the library profession. There was no excuse for a library this tiny to be in such a mess.

  I didn’t need a tour. I easily found the fiction section, the tiny collection of reference books, the even smaller shelf of children’s books. The leaning pile of books on the main desk obviously needed to be carded and shelved, so I located the wooden box of cards that had been filed according to their due dates. The messy mound of cards that hadn’t been filed must belong to books that were checked out. I went to work, forgetting my uncomfortable predicament, and soon lost myself in the familiar, satisfying task of putting the library in order. Each card I filed represented a book that someone might be reading and enjoying this very minute, transporting him or her to a different place and time. I forgot all about Leslie MacDougal until the creaking stairs announced his return a few hours later.

  “Where is everyone?” I asked. “Not a single patron has come in for a book. The town looked deserted when we drove through it.”

  “The Depression hit us hard down here. Most families depend on coal, one way or another. They lost their jobs in the mines when the factories up north closed.”

  “Did all the people leave town?”

  “Some of the men went on the bum, looking for work. The younger ones signed up for the Civilian Conservation Corps to make a few bucks a day. They send money home whenever they can.”

  “I saw the WPA sign on the library door. Is this one of their projects?”

  He nodded. “Mr. Roosevelt pays Faye and Cora and the other girls to deliver books. Nobody around here wants to go on the dole, but they’re willing to do an honest day’s work, if they can get it.”

  “Don’t they have husbands?”

  “Some do, some don’t.”

  He didn’t have a thick Southern accent like other people I’d met from the South, but he had a way of stretching out certain words as if he was sighing in the middle of them. Library sounded like lah-brary and sign was sah-n and I became ahhh.

  “How long have you been the librarian here, Mr. MacDougal?”

  “My name is Mack. And you ask too many questions. You’re a flatlander. People don’t like flatlanders very much to begin with, especially ones who talk us to death and pester us with questions. When you meet Cora and the others, I advise you to mind your own business, not theirs.”
r />   “I’m simply making polite conversation.”

  “There’s nothing polite about nosy questions.”

  “Well. I have one more question and then I’ll leave you alone. Where is your card catalogue?”

  “Up here,” he said, tapping his forehead. “I know every book in this place.” He turned his back on me and disappeared up the stairs again, taking them two at a time.

  The afternoon passed quickly. About the time I was starting to see the wooden desktop, I heard horses plodding up the road and halting out front. The front door squeaked open, and women’s voices and laughter echoed in the foyer. The traveling librarians had returned.

  A moment later, two women walked into the room, and when they saw me sitting behind the desk they halted as if they’d run into a glass wall. “Who are you?” the taller one asked.

  “I’m Alice Grace Ripley from Illinois.” They stared as if they’d never seen a stranger before. Maybe they hadn’t.

  “Well, what are you doing in our library?” The taller one looked ready to grab me by the arm and toss me out the front door. Luckily, Mack sauntered down the stairs just then.

  “She’s okay, girls. Miss Ripley’s helping us out.”

  The glass wall vanished and they resumed their conversation without a word of welcome or how-do-you-do, as if I had vanished, too. They unpacked all the books from their bags—one woman had a pair of leather saddlebags, the other a couple of burlap sacks—and piled them on the newly cleared desk.

  “Hey, Cora. Did you get up to the school today?” Mack asked the burlap-bag lady.

  “It’s on my route for tomorrow.”

  “Good. Wait until you see what I have for the kids.” He pulled out Elmer Watson’s atlas with a grin and a flourish.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “Pretty nice, huh?”

  I might have been invisible. It galled me that he was taking all the credit for Mr. Watson’s wonderful atlas as if he had printed and bound it himself while they had been out riding their horses.

  “I brought it with me,” I said loudly. “From Illinois. We had a book drive at the library where I work and one of our patrons donated it.”

  Mack gestured to the woman with the atlas. “This is Cora. And she’s Marjorie.”

  “It’s nice to meet you.” I smiled my friendliest smile. The ladies nodded absently.

  “Here are the rest of the books,” Mack told them. “Look through them and take whatever you want for your routes.”

  His words horrified me. “Wait! Those books haven’t been processed and catalogued yet!” They ignored my protests and knelt down to rummage through the boxes. I heard more horses outside, stomping and sneezing, and two more women came inside to unload their books. Mack introduced them as Alma and Faye, and they weren’t any friendlier than the first two women had been. I quickly forgot who was who as they milled around, looking through the boxes of new books, deciding which of their patrons would enjoy them.

  “Um . . . I really think you should catalogue the books first,” I said again. “They don’t even have cards or pockets yet.” Everyone ignored me.

  Eventually the women made their selections and started to leave. I cleared my throat to get Mr. MacDougal’s attention, and he finally recalled my predicament. “Hey, any of you girls know where Miss Ripley can spend the night?” They gazed at me as if I were a stray cat—pitiful but unwanted—then mumbled their excuses.

  “Gosh, I don’t know, Mack.”

  “We’re full up at my place.”

  “I don’t have a bed to spare now that Lloyd’s mamaw is here to stay.”

  “You know I got a passel of kids.”

  And so on. They said their good-byes and left. Mr. MacDougal wouldn’t put me out in the street, would he?

  I worked behind the desk until suppertime, valiantly holding back tears. He served scrambled eggs and corn bread for dinner. “I guess you’ll have to stay here tonight,” he said as we ate our supper in the kitchen. He had gone to the trouble of washing two plates and a cast-iron frying pan to cook the eggs. The kitchen sink had a hand pump and running water, but I learned that the toilet facilities were outside. When it got dark, he lit several kerosene lamps since the house didn’t have electricity.

  At bedtime, Mr. MacDougal led me up the creaking stairs to what must have been his own bedroom. He kicked a few stray pieces of clothing under the bed, then yanked off the sheets. They looked as though they hadn’t been changed in years. I pushed aside thoughts of bedbugs as he rummaged through a closet in the hallway and found a folded pair of limp, gray sheets. He handed them to me.

  “These are clean.”

  “Thank you. I’ll make the bed myself, no need to bother.”

  “Wasn’t planning to.” He showed me where to find the chamber pot, but I decided that I would allow my insides to burst before I would use it. I had loved reading Willa Cather’s trilogy about primitive life on the American prairie but had never imagined that I would have to live that way myself with no electricity or running water. I closed the bedroom door after he left and quietly slid a chair in front of it.

  The bedroom was dark and creepy in the dim lamplight. I know what they say about looking gift horses in the mouth, but I couldn’t help being critical. The sinister wallpaper was peeling off. The floor seemed to slant downhill. Cobwebs festooned the ceiling, and where there were cobwebs there were certain to be spiders. I put the sheets on the bed, changed into my nightgown, and recited my prayers. I usually prayed after climbing into bed, but that night I felt compelled to kneel beside the bed and beseech the Almighty for help. Perhaps my humble position might prompt Him to reply quickly.

  I said “Amen” and gingerly climbed into bed. Earlier that day I had picked out an interesting-looking book from the return pile called Appalachian Folk Tales. I settled back against the pillow to read it by lamplight. Too late I discovered that folks in Appalachia were very fond of ghost stories. I would not recommend reading such dark tales in a strange man’s gloomy bedroom, but I didn’t think it was wise to leave the relative safety of my room and prowl around in the dark to find another book. I read until I was thoroughly terrified, then blew out the lamp and tried, in vain, to sleep.

  The house creaked and groaned. I heard mysterious scratching sounds in the walls and the pattering of feet above my head. Not only did the house moan as though it were haunted, but I heard a continuous rushing of water outside that should have been soothing but wasn’t. Then an army of frogs began to belch and bellow and gronk until I wanted to scream.

  I slept a scant hour or two. A maniacal rooster awakened me at dawn, and I dressed and went downstairs to use the outhouse. It was morning, but deep purple shadows blanketed the backyard. Unlike the flat Midwest where the sun pops above the horizon within a matter of minutes, Acorn, Kentucky, wasn’t going to see the sun until it climbed above the mountaintops several hours from now. I finished my business and walked down to the creek—the source of the rushing water I’d been listening to all night—as I pondered what to do.

  My life had no plot. The main character in every novel I’d ever read always knew what she wanted, and in spite of numerous obstacles she would move forward toward that goal. The action would reach a climax as she struggled to succeed and then the story would resolve—sometimes tragically if she had a fatal flaw, but usually happily ever after. The murder would be solved, the romance would end in marriage, victory would be won, and the main characters would have a brand-new start. I knew that real life wasn’t exactly like a book, but why did everyone else’s life seem to hum along with a sensible plot and realistic goals, and mine didn’t?

  What did I want in life?

  I would like my library job back. I wasn’t sure if I wanted Gordon back. Aside from that, I had no other goals. Running away to Kentucky had offered a diversion, but sooner or later—hopefully sooner—I would return to Illinois, and then what? Should I become a farmer’s wife like my two sisters?

  I tossed a pebb
le into the stream—it was what people in books always did for mysterious, symbolic reasons. I sighed and turned to go back inside. It was too chilly and too early in the morning to stand by a creek and feel sorry for myself. Halfway to the back door, I heard a loud bang, like a gunshot. It startled me as well as a flock of birds that rose up in flight from a nearby tree. Two more booms sounded in quick succession, speeding me the rest of the way to the back door. I fled inside and leaned against the door to catch my breath, my heart fluttering and flapping like the birds’ wings. I had been wishing that something would happen, but I hadn’t expected gunfire!

  Then I noticed the deer antlers mounted above the door in the library, and I felt very foolish. Of course. People around here went hunting. Someone must be shooting his breakfast or dinner. That’s what poor people did for food, right? Hopefully no one had noticed my undignified sprint.

  I was gazing at the pile of dishes in the sink, thinking that a courteous guest would wash them for her host, when the front door slammed shut, rattling the windows. I tiptoed cautiously into the library and peeked around the corner into the shadowy foyer. Mr. MacDougal was leaning against the front door. He held his right hand above his heart as if he was about to say the Pledge of Allegiance. He wore a dark glove and beneath his hand was a stain that hadn’t been on his bib overalls yesterday. He looked up and saw me in the doorway.

  “Help . . .” he breathed. His eyes looked round and wide and very scared. “Help me . . .” His knees buckled, and he slid down the wall to the floor. I ran to him.

  “Mr. MacDougal! What’s wrong? What happened?”

  He was breathing hard, gasping. “I’ve been shot . . .” He lifted his hand, and he wasn’t wearing a glove after all. His palm was dark with blood.

  “W-what should I do? I don’t know what to do!”

  He stared at me, and the skin visible around his eyes and lips drained from pink to white. He slowly blinked his eyes as if he was falling asleep.

  “Should I call a doctor? An ambulance? Where’s the hospital?” Stupid questions. There was nothing in this ridiculous town.