Wonderland Creek

by Lynn Austin

  She turned her own horse around and caught up to us, leaning over to grab Belle’s bridle again. “Hey! Behave yourself now!” I didn’t know if she meant Belle or me. Cora offered me another quick riding lesson, explaining how much slack I should leave in the reins and how I shouldn’t let them get too tight or too loose, and how to use my legs to help steer. “You’ll get used to each other before long,” she said. I doubted it. I already hated and feared this horse every bit as much as I despised and feared her owners.

  When we’d traveled a short distance past Mack’s cabin, Cora stopped to show me where there was a ford in the creek. “This is where we cross over to the opposite bank and head up that trail to the Larkin place.”

  “What trail? There’s a trail over there?”

  “You’ll see it in a minute. Now, it’ll be even harder to see it in wintertime when the snow hides it. I can tie a rag around one of the tree trunks if you want, so you can find it better.”

  I started to explain that I would be leaving next week, long before summer began, let alone winter, but I decided to keep my mouth shut. No one in this town listened to a word I said anyway, including my horse. I squeezed Belle’s sides with my legs and urged her across the rock-strewn creek behind Cora. The water looked clear and cold. On the other side, we followed a narrow dirt trail that led back into the woods. The trees linked arms above us, crowding close, blocking out the sky.

  Five minutes later we reached a log cabin in a clearing. A crude picket fence surrounded the house, and chickens flapped and squawked and chased each other inside the enclosure. Everything was a dull brown color—the cabin, the fence, the dirt yard. Even the chickens were brown and probably laid brown eggs. But alongside the house, a fruit tree of some kind was about to bloom, its vulnerable pink buds offering a blink of color in the otherwise bland landscape. Something about the cabin, constructed from rough squared-off logs, looked odd. It took me a moment to realize that it didn’t have any windows. A door in front and another one on the side both stood wide open. At the edge of the property I saw a man with a mule and an old-fashioned plow, tilling a patch of brown soil.

  Before we reached the picket fence, a dog tore around from behind the house and raced straight toward us, barking and snarling. The sound echoed off the surrounding hills as if there was an entire pack of dogs. Belle halted, dancing in place the way she had last night when she’d smelled the wildcat. A young girl—bone thin and very pregnant—came out onto the porch and yelled for him to shut up. Her hair was the flaming red color of maple leaves in the fall.

  “Hey, June Ann. How you doing?” Cora called above the din.

  “Pretty good . . . Rex! Shut up!”

  Cora leaned over in her saddle, unlatched the gate, and rode inside the yard. I tried to follow her, but Belle wouldn’t budge, spooked by the barking dog. June Ann waddled down off the porch and caught the dog by the scruff of its neck. “Hush now, Rex!” The dog finally obeyed, and June Ann beckoned to me, “It’s okay. He won’t hurt you none. Come on in.”

  Cora turned around in her saddle, and I thought I saw her roll her eyes at the sight of me and my disobedient horse, frozen in place.

  “Give her a kick, Alice. Kick her hard!” I kicked as hard as I dared, aware that Belle might seek revenge and try to kick me in return the next time I unbuckled her saddle. But she finally began to move again. We clomped into the yard behind Cora, who introduced me to June Ann Larkin.

  “So nice to meet you, Alice. Can I get you ladies some coffee or something?”

  I exhaled. “Yes, please. I’m dying of thirst. And I need to get off this horse and rest my backside for a while . . . if that’s okay.”

  Cora frowned at me and I knew I’d said something wrong. “Water will be just fine,” she told June Ann. “For both of us. We can’t stay long.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes. Don’t fuss on our account.” Cora dismounted as June Ann went into the house, then she helped me down off my horse. “They always offer you things,” she whispered, “but they’re just being polite. They’ll give you their last crust of bread or drop of coffee if you let them.”

  June Ann was back in a minute with two mismatched glasses of water. She had her library book tucked under her arm. “I finished reading it in one day,” she said. “So I read it all over again.”

  “I figured you would like it,” Cora said. “I brought you another one by the same writer.” Cora set her water on glass on the porch railing and began digging through her library bags.

  “When is your baby due, June Ann?” I asked.

  “Any day.”

  It looked more like any minute to me. June Ann was no taller than I was and stick thin. She couldn’t be more than fifteen or sixteen years old—much too young to be married and pregnant. But I remembered Faye saying that she had been married at age sixteen. I already knew there was no doctor or hospital in town to deliver June Ann’s baby. Women back in Illinois often had their babies at home, but they could at least telephone a doctor and he would drive over to the house and deliver them. The only way a doctor could get up to June Ann’s house was by horseback. I knew better than to ask nosy questions, but I couldn’t help myself.

  “What will you do when your time comes? Are you all alone out here?”

  “My husband, Wayne, will ride down and fetch one of the midwives. I sure wish Miss Lillie could come up and birth my baby, but I guess she’s getting on in years. Miss Lillie birthed me and all my brothers and sisters. She birthed my mama, too. In fact, she birthed pretty near everybody in the county.”

  “Yep, me too,” Cora said. I couldn’t picture it. If you put two Lillies together, you still wouldn’t have a woman as tall and sturdy as Cora. Nor could I imagine Cora as a newborn.

  “I guess Lillie trained the two midwives, Sadie and Ida,” June Ann said with a sigh, “so I suppose they’ll be just as good.”

  June Ann seemed sad to me, not at all like other expectant mothers I’d seen. My two sisters had been as round and jolly as St. Nicholas when they were ready to deliver their first babies. June Ann looked tired and weary, as if she’d already been staying up nights with a cranky newborn. She was barely a woman, yet she seemed as old and frail as the men who had been playing cards in the post office. I sipped my water, watching Wayne Larkin and his mule wrestling dark clods of earth. There was a sadness here in this little clearing, the same melancholy I had felt at the deserted mining camp.

  Then Cora handed June Ann a book from her saddlebag and the girl smiled faintly for the first time. “I really enjoyed the last one,” she said. “Hope this new one is just as good.”

  “They’re both written by the same person, Grace Livingston Hill. You didn’t read this one already, did you?”

  “Nope. And even if I did, I wouldn’t mind reading it again.” She caressed the worn cover and smiled faintly again. I knew the anticipation June Ann felt as she was about to open a book and lose herself in the story, living a more interesting, colorful life along with the characters. That’s when I realized that I hadn’t read a single novel since the night I had arrived in Acorn and had tried to read the book of ghost stories before bed.

  “I also brought you these.” Cora handed June Ann a small pile of magazines and booklets. “They got some good pieces in there about taking care of babies. If you like them, we’ll bring some more.”

  “Thanks. Maybe next time you come my baby will be here.” She caressed the front of her bulging dress the same way she had caressed the book. But this time she didn’t smile.

  “It won’t be me coming next time, June Ann. Alice is gonna be taking over my route from now on. I’m showing her around today.”

  “My friends call me Allie,” I said.

  “Okay . . . Allie,” she said shyly. “I guess I’ll see you next week.”

  But she wouldn’t see me again, of course. My aunt and uncle were coming back for me next week. I felt like a sneaky snake-oil salesman, making promises and telling fibs.


  Long before my backside stopped aching, Cora told me it was time to leave. “Good luck with your little one,” I called as I waved good-bye. I caught myself smiling and wishing I could see June Ann again. I recognized a kindred spirit in her love of books. It would be nice to come every week and bring a little happiness into what must be a hard and lonely life. But I was going home to Illinois, not riding a book route.

  Cora and I headed down the trail through the woods the way we had come, back to Wonderland Creek. Once again, Belle tried to turn the opposite way and go downhill toward home. “Hey! Wrong way!” Cora shouted.

  “I can’t help it. She went this way all by herself.” Belle finally stopped when I tugged hard on the reins. But then she wouldn’t move at all. I would never be able to wrestle this ornery horse up Wonderland Creek all by myself. When we returned to the library today, Cora and I would have to explain to Lillie that it simply couldn’t be done. Lillie would have to trust somebody else to bring supplies to Mack.

  Cora splashed down to where I’d halted and grabbed Belle’s bridle, turning her around. “This way, Belle. You behave yourself. We got a long way to go to the Sawyer place.”

  A long way? I tried not to groan. My hip joints ached and my rear end already felt like I’d been paddled with a two-by-four.

  We followed the creek upstream for nearly half an hour to the next house on Cora’s route. Once again it was tucked into a clearing among the hills, a few minutes’ ride from the creek. She showed me the landmark: a huge pine tree growing out from between two large rocks—as if the tree had split the rock in two.

  The moment we rode into the clearing, a swarm of children poured out of the cabin, surging toward us like bees out of a hive. They didn’t stand still long enough for me to count them, but they all had the same straw-colored hair. I figured if someone lined them up, they’d probably look like stair steps. Their mother must have delivered one baby in the morning, then gotten pregnant again right after supper. But what a happy sight they made as they ran barefoot to meet us, whooping and hollering. “Here she comes! Here comes Miss Cora!” I hadn’t seen this much excitement since the circus came to Blue Island.

  “Did you bring us more stories to read?”

  “Do you got more books for me?”

  The boys wore ragged overalls and the little girls were in print dresses. I recognized the calico pattern—it was the same one as the feed sacks I’d filled with dirt and buried in Mack’s coffin. The children followed our horses up to the house as if Cora were the Pied Piper.

  “Can I please get down and rest again?” I begged.

  “Sure. The young ones like it when I stop awhile.”

  “You gonna read to us today, Miss Cora?” one of the boys asked when he saw her dismounting.

  “How about if Miss Alice reads to you? She’s gonna be bringing books to you from now on, so I’m showing her how to get up here to your place.”

  Cora had to help me get down, and I heard the children chuckling and snickering at the ungainly way I slid to the ground, then tripped over my own feet and landed on my aching backside.

  But the giggles and good-natured shoving settled into stillness as Cora opened her bag and unpacked the books. The children stared in such wide-eyed fascination that we might have been bringing toys and candy like Santa Claus. Cora handed me one of the books. “Here, why don’t you read this one to them?”

  The children clung to me like burs on a dog as I made my way to the porch steps and sat down. I could hear each child breathing as the group gathered in a tight circle around me, waiting for me to begin. Their mother came to the doorway in her apron to listen, too. The children took turns turning the pages for me, and they couldn’t seem to resist running their hands across the pictures as if they could feel the colors and shapes. That explained why the pages of all of the children’s books in Acorn’s library had looked so grubby. But the loving caresses weren’t meant to deface the books.

  “You talk funny, Miss Alice,” one of them said after I’d read a few pages.

  “That’s because Miss Alice comes from up in Illinois.” Cora pronounced it like Ill-a-noise.

  “Where’s that?”

  “Maybe I’ll bring a book with maps to show you the next time I come.”

  I couldn’t believe what I’d just said! Why was I talking as if I’d be coming back? I had told June Ann I would be back, too. Again I felt torn. Part of me wanted to have the privilege of bringing books to people who cherished them as much as I did, yet I knew I could never be a real packhorse librarian, especially on my own. I hated riding, hated Belle—yet these dear people had quickly found a place in my heart. I felt a kinship with them. Maybe if I could travel here by car or walk—but not riding that stupid horse! Yet the children’s hunger for books brought tears to my eyes. Life up here on this farm must be so difficult, and a simple story brought such joy.

  I was almost to the end of the book when one of the smaller boys interrupted me, tugging on my sleeve. “Miss Alice? Miss Alice?”

  “Yes?”

  “Where’s your horse going off to?”

  I looked up in time to see Belle’s hindquarters disappearing down the path into the woods. I had forgotten to tie her up. “Oh no! Stop her! Stop her!”

  I scrambled to my feet and took off after her, with all nine children—I had managed to count them once they sat still—chasing after Belle along with me. They were laughing and shouting as if we were playing the greatest game in the world. I remembered how far Cora and I had ridden already and I wanted to weep at the thought of walking all the way home.

  The two oldest boys outraced everyone else and managed to catch Belle, who wasn’t moving very fast, lucky for me. If she had decided to trot home, we never would have caught her.

  “That was fun!”

  “Can we chase her again the next time you come?”

  “You’re coming back again, ain’t you?”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  Later that afternoon, Cora and I stopped beside the creek to eat our lunch. Sunlight dappled through the tree branches like silver coins as a gentle wind rustled through them. It was peaceful here with the creek gurgling and the birds chirping in the treetops. Crows called to each other and the sound of their cawing echoed through the hills. Every now and then the birds would grow quiet, and I had never experienced such stillness. Without realizing it, I let out a soft sigh.

  “It’s even nicer when the weather warms up and the leaves finish coming out,” Cora said. “But I think fall’s my favorite time. All the colors in the leaves, and the way they rustle under the horse’s feet . . . it’s real nice.”

  I would be long gone before fall. Before summer, even. Five more days, after today. I opened the lunch Lillie had packed for me and found a sandwich made from dinner rolls and leftover chicken from the funeral, a dill pickle wrapped in brown paper, and an apple. “Are you married?” I asked Cora after taking my first bite of the sandwich.

  “Yeah, but my husband ain’t around no more. When the mine shut down he went on the bum, trying to find work. Ain’t been home since. Lots of people around here have lost kin one way or another.”

  “I walked up to the Acorn Mine outside of town the other day. How long has it been closed?”

  “About three years or so. They say the folks up north don’t need our coal anymore with all the factories shutting down. You know if that’s true? We can’t believe a word the coal company says.”

  “Well, in this case I’m afraid it is true. People are having a hard time all across the country. I lost my job, too, because they had to cut back on costs.”

  “Where’d you work?”

  “In a library. I’m a librarian like Mr. MacDougal.”

  “Mack? He weren’t really a librarian. But I suppose folks called him one because he got the library going here in town and got jobs for us.”

  “Is Mack from around here?”

  She didn’t answer right away. I didn’t know if it was due to grief
or a reluctance to answer my nosy question. “Folks around here don’t usually like to talk about each other,” she finally said. “We don’t care much for gossip. Even a tiny pinch of it has been known to get folks feuding. But seeing as Mack’s gone, I don’t suppose it matters much.” She bit off a piece of corn bread and took a moment to chew.

  “Mack grew up here. His daddy worked the mines like all the rest of ours did. But Mack never was like everybody else. Always was different, and not just because his folks died and left him an orphan when he was real little. Miss Lillie once told me that she knew Mack would turn out different because he was born backwards, feet first. When most boys his age would be out catching fish or swimming in the creek, he’d be off by himself with his nose in a book. All them books in the library? They all belong to him and Lillie. The house belongs to them, too, but they let the town use it for a library.”

  This intriguing information raised even more questions in my mind. But now that Cora had begun talking I was afraid to interrupt and ask them, fearing she would think I was being nosy and would stop. Of course I was being nosy. I wanted to know more about Mack. He looked like everyone else in Acorn, but something about him had seemed different from all of the others, including the way he talked. I tried to think of a very general question to get her going again.

  “So how long has Mack been running the library in Acorn?”

  Cora glanced up at me and frowned. I felt a moment of panic when I realized I had spoken of Mack in the present tense, not in the past. But then she looked away again, shaking her head.

  “Guess it’s been a couple a years now. He left home and went away to Berea College, where they take poor people who can’t pay for it. He could have been free and clear of this place—and he did work up north in Ohio for a while. But then he came back. I won’t go into all the reasons why, because they’re none of my business or yours. But he and Lillie always wanted to make things better for folks around here. And now they’ll never get the chance.” She paused and looked up at me. “Tell you the truth, I don’t think Miss Lillie is long for this world.”