“Well, don’t,” I said. “On account of it ain’t working.”
I went outside on the back steps and stared at the johnny house, wishing a miracle would step out that door.
Instead, Junior come to the screen door behind me. “I reckon I’ll be getting on home,” he said. “But I’ll be back in the morning.”
“Don’t worry about us,” I said. “We’ll be fine.” Which was a lie if I ever told one.
Of course, there was no point in telling Junior not to come back. The next morning he was on our front porch, calling my name. I was drawing water from the well and wondering how in the world my momma and Bobby was doing. “I’m out back,” I yelled.
He come around the side of the house with a small crock in his hand. “Momma sent you some bread pudding,” he said. “She’s sorry it’s not sweeter, but we’re out of sugar till we pick it up at the ration board today. I got the starter fixed, so the truck is ready whenever you are.” He handed me the crock and finished cranking the water bucket up out of the well.
I took the bread pudding inside and let the screen door slam behind me. “I don’t think I’ll go for sugar,” I said. “I might not can blackberries after all.”
Junior followed me inside and poured the bucket of water into our water crock on the kitchen cabinet. “Don’t start talking like that,” he said. “According to the papers, this is our last allotment of sugar for canning this year. I’d pick it up for you except you have to be there in person with your ration book. I’ll help you pick them berries, but you gotta do your part. You can’t just stop living.”
“I don’t wanna pick blackberries,” I said. “I don’t wanna can them and I don’t wanna buy sugar. I just wanna go to the emergency hospital and see Bobby.”
“Well, Ann Fay, I know how you must feel. But according to the radio they got the police over there keeping people away from that hospital. The best thing you can do for Bobby is pick those berries and fix him some blackberry cobbler the minute he comes home. So get your overalls on.”
He just had to mention them overalls.
I knew if it wasn’t for Junior I would just run off through the woods and stay out of the garden and the blackberry patch too. But there was work to do and I was the man of the house. So I put on my overalls.
Just then I heard a car pull up outside, and both me and Junior went running to see if it was Momma and Bobby back from the hospital. But two women got out of the shiny black car. The tall woman in the plaid dress spoke up. “I’m Dr. Dorothy Horstmann.” Then she nodded toward the other woman. “And this is Frances Allen, your public health nurse.”
“Hey,” I said. “I’m Ann Fay Honeycutt.”
“Ann Fay, I’m an epidemiologist from Yale Medical School,” Dr. Horstmann said. “I study diseases, especially polio.”
“I know,” I said. “I seen you in the papers.”
“Then you know we work at the emergency hospital,” she continued. “We looked in on your brother this morning. He’s breathing easily with the help of an iron lung.”
An iron lung! All of a sudden I couldn’t catch my breath.
I think that Frances Allen woman seen it too. “Oh, don’t let the iron lung worry you,” she said. “Right now, it’s keeping him alive until he can breathe for himself again.”
That give me some hope, so I asked, “Is he gonna get better?”
She squeezed my shoulder and said, “He has good doctors, some of the best in the country. Even one of the doctors from the president’s Warm Springs polio rehabilitation center is at the hospital.”
Dr. Horstmann give me a letter from my momma. She waited while I read it.
Dear Ann Fay,
I just can’t leave Bobby here alone. He’s too little and he’s very sick. I can’t get close to him yet, but I can stand outside the door of his ward and wave to him.
The hospital needs my help too. I’m working in the kitchen. I know I can count on you to take care of the girls. And Junior and Bessie will help, too.
Remember the man who gave us money at the train station? He volunteers at the emergency hospital. He invited me to stay with his family as long as I need to. I wouldn’t have the gas coupons to go back and forth every day, but he lives nearby. Him and his wife want to help as much as possible because of their little girl, who had polio.
Their phone number is 0577. If I don’t come home by Thursday, I want you to go to the Hinkles’ around 7:00 in the morning and call me. I’ll be free then and I’ll tell you how Bobby is doing. You and the girls say a prayer for him.
All my love,
Momma
Thursday morning! It was just Friday now. How could I wait till Thursday? It almost killed me to think Momma could be gone that long.
Dr. Horstmann didn’t give me no time to worry about seeing Momma or Bobby. She told me she and Nurse Allen was going to examine our house and ask lots of questions. They needed to find out how Bobby caught the disease.
I spent the morning answering questions for them strangers. They wanted to know what kind of milk we drunk and where our toilet facilities was. They asked me who Bobby had seen or touched or played with in the last couple of weeks. They went through every room in the house taking notes.
I hadn’t washed a single dish since yesterday morning, and the chamber pot hadn’t been emptied either. Not only that—one of the girls had left the lid off of the chamber pot and there was flies crawling over it like ants on a jelly biscuit.
I put the lid on quick, hoping those women wouldn’t notice. But they did. They even set up a trap to catch them flies. Dr. Horstmann explained to me how the poliovirus had been found on flies and trapping them would help her research.
The twins was both awake by now and hanging on to Junior like he was their daddy.
“Which one of you left the lid off of the chamber pot?” I asked. I wasn’t expecting either one of them to admit to it. I just wanted them women to know we don’t make it a habit to live like that.
But how could I make them understand? When your baby brother gets hauled off in a hearse with the most dreaded disease in the country, all on account of you making him work till he dropped, you just can’t make yourself do all the things you do any other day.
Before those women inspected our johnny house, I told them, “Don’t worry. It’s clean. My momma takes disinfectant and a broom to it once a week. She scrubs it top to bottom.” I felt bad that these women wasn’t getting a true impression of my momma’s housekeeping. And I was sure glad Momma wasn’t there to see how I had let it go.
As soon as them women was gone, a health officer come and hammered a sign on the front door.
INFANTILE PARALYSIS
IN QUARANTINE
I tell you what’s the truth. When I looked at that polio sign next to the blue star flag Momma hung up there for Daddy being a soldier, I felt like I was looking down a doublebarrel shotgun—and fixing to get blowed all to pieces.
“How many people live here?” the health officer asked.
“Just me and my two sisters,” I said. “Momma went to the hospital with my brother. My daddy’s off fighting in the war.”
The health officer looked at Junior. “You a neighbor?”
“Yes, sir,” said Junior. “You passed right by my house coming in.”
“Well,” said the man, “I’m afraid you’ll have to leave. Only family members are allowed in this house.”
Well, I could tell Junior Bledsoe wasn’t going to take that sitting down. He stuck his thumbs under the clasps on his overalls and said, “Sir, these girls’ momma and daddy didn’t have no choice in the matter. But I’ll be dad-gummed if I’m going to run off and leave them too.”
The officer said, “Well, it’s the law. So you really don’t have any choice either. I’ll drop you off at your house on the way out.”
Junior started to argue, but I jumped in. “Aw, go on, Junior,” I said. “I can take care of the girls and you know it. What do you think my daddy give me these
overalls for? I’m the man of the house now.”
I winked at Junior when the man wasn’t looking, so he could see I knew him well enough to realize he’d be back—as soon as that man was out of sight.
Before they left, the man turned to me and said, “I can see you’re a strong young woman. That’s good, because I’m going to ask you to do one of the hardest things you’ve ever done.”
He took my arm and pulled me aside—away from Ida and Ellie—and spoke real low so they couldn’t hear what he was saying. “I need you to wash every blanket and towel in the house. And all of your brother’s clothes. Scrub the house. Anything your brother touched could have the germs.”
The man took a deep breath and lowered his voice even more. “And here’s the hard part. Your brother’s toys must be destroyed. I want you to burn them. It’s the only way to get rid of the germs. It’s the only way to protect your little sisters. Understand?”
I think I nodded at him. I guess I agreed. I must have. Because it seems like he patted me on the back and said, “Good, I know you can do it. I’ll check back on you tomorrow.” Then him and Junior got in his car and drove off.
When they was gone, I tried to talk myself into burning Bobby’s toys. But I didn’t get around to it for the rest of the day. There’s never a good time to do something like that, especially with two little girls watching your every move. So I started scrubbing down the house and washing all the clothes and towels and sheets, which I didn’t nearly get done before Junior come and took us to the ration board for our sugar.
When we was almost there, it hit me and Junior that I wasn’t even supposed to go because of the quarantine. But I knew I had to show my own ration stamps, and so far nobody besides us and Junior knew anything about that quarantine sign, so I decided to go in quick and leave quick. I made the girls stay in the car.
While I waited in line for the sugar, I studied the war posters lined up on the wall. They was all about stuff I should be doing to help the war effort—plant Victory gardens, buy war bonds, and give my cooking grease to the butcher so he could give it to the army to make explosives. And that was just the beginning.
It seemed like you couldn’t go anywhere without seeing Victory posters. They used to make me feel proud and helpful. I wanted to do what they said because it made me feel like I was helping to win the war. But today, just looking at a picture of a soldier and the words DO THE JOB HE LEFT BEHIND drained the last bit of energy right out of me.
All the way home, I hung on to that sack of sugar like it was my sweet daddy.
7
Bobby’s Toys
July 1944
I didn’t burn them toys before I went to bed that night. I thought I would do it after Ida and Ellie went to sleep, but I just didn’t have the heart for it. So I decided to wait till morning. Maybe in the light of day I could talk myself into it. If not, there was always Junior Bledsoe.
Didn’t he promise Daddy he’d do the hard work?
Bobby had a farm set Daddy carved him little by little when he got a chance. He carved a tractor and a whole pile of farm animals. And last Christmas he built a barn to go with them.
I put that farm set and Bobby’s stuffed bear, his crayons and drawing pad and his building blocks, in a pasteboard box. I set the box in a corner of the kitchen.
“Don’t touch them,” I told Ida and Ellie. “On account of the polio germs.”
When I finally fell asleep that night, I dreamed I was building a fire in the yard and the whole time I was thinking that it would just kill Bobby if I burned his things. Then in my dream all his toys come marching out of the house and jumped one by one into the flames. The last thing to come out was his crayons and drawing tablet. I knew that tablet was full of Bobby’s wild animals on the front and back of every page. So I yelled, “Stop! Don’t burn them animals.” But a tiger jumped off a page and screamed at me—and what he screamed was, “Polio germs!” Then he grabbed the tablet in his mouth and jumped into the fire and him and the tablet was both gone.
I woke up then, and I was so scared my heart was racing and I had to get out of bed just to walk the wooziness out of my legs. I sat on a chair at the kitchen table and stared at that box of toys sitting sad and shadowy in the corner. I kept thinking I had already hurt Bobby enough. What would he say when he come home and seen what else I done?
I wished Momma was there to tell me what to do.
But I already knew what she would do. It would break Momma’s heart, but she would protect Ida and Ellie from getting polio.
I thought about Daddy and President Roosevelt, and between the two of them making me strong, I grabbed that box of toys quick and went outside to get it over with.
First I made sure the twins was sound asleep. I knew that sooner or later they would miss Bobby’s things, but they sure didn’t have to see them burn up.
I piled the toys in the yard beside the shed. To get the fire started, I tore up his drawing book and crumbled the pages fast, without looking at them animals. I threw the crayons in and held a match to a page and watched the flame eat it up. Then I sat on the porch steps and watched that fire grow till it sent sparks up into the night sky.
I felt like I was beating my baby brother with a stick.
I decided right then and there I was going to find some way to buy him a new drawing tablet and crayons. I knew if I could save up money for war bonds, which I was doing ever since the war begun, I could sure find some way to buy my brother some toys.
All of a sudden I heard the screen door creak behind me, and there was Ida in her undershirt and panties coming out on the porch. Ellie was following right behind her, hanging on to Ida’s undershirt with one hand and dragging a blanket behind her with the other.
For once they didn’t say a word. I was thinking maybe they wouldn’t notice it was Bobby’s things in that fire.
They sat on the top step, one on each side of me. They was only half awake to start with, and the sight of them flames dancing was putting them back to sleep. I put an arm around each one and pulled Ellie’s blanket up over our laps. And then I realized it wasn’t Ellie’s blanket—it was Bobby’s.
I should have thought what to do next. But I didn’t think at all. I just remembered that tiger jumping at me and screaming, “Polio germs!” All I could think was, Bobby’s blanket is full of germs. I snatched the blanket away from the girls and jumped off the porch and threw it in the fire.
“Hey!” cried Ellie, suddenly wide awake. She jumped off the porch and run to the fire. “I want my blanket. Why are you burning my blanket?”
I jumped between her and the fire and held her back. “It’s not your blanket,” I yelled. “It’s Bobby’s and I can’t let you have it. Where did you get it?”
“In the garden.” Ellie was clawing at me. “I want Bobby’s blanket!” She was trying to get to the fire and pushing me toward it. I felt the heat of it warming the back of my gown.
“It’ll give you polio!” I yelled.
“I’ll help you, Ellie,” yelled Ida. She grabbed the broom off the porch and went toward the fire. She stuck the broom handle into the fire and reached for the blanket, but it was too late. Flames was licking it up. The broom handle hit the wooden barn. And when it did, Ida realized what I was doing.
“Stop it!” she screamed. “Stop burning my brother’s play barn.”
“And his teddy bear!” screamed Ellie.
Both girls started beating on me then. “You’re burning Bobby’s toys. What’s he gonna play with? Ann Fay, you’re so mean. I hate you, Ann Fay. I wish you was dead.”
They screamed and pounded on me. I couldn’t tell who was saying what, but I could tell they both hated me.
And I hated me too, so I let them push me to the ground and punch me. It felt good when they hit me. It felt like I deserved it. But I guess they wore out fast, because the next thing I knew they was laying on top of me, crying right along with me.
We laid there for the longest time, not saying a word.<
br />
After a while Ellie lifted her head and said real quiet, “Ann Fay, did you burn Pete too?”
“Oh, my Lord!” I sat up so fast I dumped both them girls onto the grass. “Where is that dog?”
In the middle of all the mess we was in, I had forgot all about Pete. The last time I seen him, he was laying on Bobby’s blanket out in the garden, right before Bobby collapsed.
8
Outcasts!
July 1944
On Thursday I hopped out of bed almost before the sun did. I went through the kitchen to the back porch and dropped the bucket into the well. I took the wash basin off the nail on the wall, poured water into it, and splashed my face.
Then I woke the twins up and fixed them grits. “Hurry,” I said. “Momma is expecting us to call at seven.”
We took the shortcut through the fields along the edge of the woods that brought us to the Hinkles’ back yard. We went to the back door like we always do. They have a sign there that says BACK DOOR FRIENDS ARE BEST.
Miss Pauline opened the door. She was fixing to say good morning. I could see the words forming on her lips, but they froze right there. Instead she covered her mouth and her nose with both hands and stepped back. “What are you doing here?” She sounded scared.
“Miss Pauline, I was wanting to use the telephone.”
“But—but—you’re under quarantine. You can’t come in.”
I never thought I’d hear Miss Pauline say I couldn’t come into her house. She was the one that was always baking cookies and shoving them into our hands. And both her and Miss Dinah always said we was welcome to use their telephone anytime. Now here she was, acting like we had the bubonic plague or something. I was so surprised I couldn’t think of a thing to say.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her lips a-quivering. She pushed the door shut before I could even come up with another plan.
I do believe she was scared of us three harmless girls, and all because of Bobby having polio. I thought maybe if I tried to explain, or asked her to make the call … I knocked on the door again. But she never did open it.
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