I went home to tell the twins they was going to Georgia. I listed off the good things about visiting Mamaw Honeycutt. “You can play dress-up in her attic,” I said. “And she’ll make you banana pudding and read Bible stories to you at night. And Papaw will take you along to the feed mill and give you one of them lollipops he hands out.”
I reckon them things sounded like more fun than trailing after Momma. All of a sudden Ida jumped up and started pulling her Sunday dress and panties out of the bureau drawer.
For once, I was glad Momma was in one of her faraway moods. When I told her I was taking the girls to Mamaw Honeycutt, she just nodded and wandered outside toward the mimosa tree.
When it got dark, Junior brought Bessie over to stay with Momma. I give Junior my daddy’s map with the roads to South Carolina marked.
Junior had loaded the truck with hay. He piled the bales in the truck so that there was a hollow space right behind the cab. We spread a blanket on the floor of the hollow space and climbed in.
Bessie handed me a brown paper sack. “I don’t want y’all going hungry. Here’s some cornbread with blackberry jelly.” Then she give us two bottles of root beer. “Just in case you get thirsty,” she said. “But there’s only two, so you’ll have to share.”
“What if I have to pee?” asked Ida.
Junior said, “Just reach up and knock on the back window. I’ll stop just as quick as I can.” Then he pulled a canvas over the load of hay and tied it down with some rope. We pulled in our heads just in time for him to tie the last of the canvas.
It was dark in there and stuffy too, but at least it was soft. Ida and Ellie wanted to drink the root beer and eat the cornbread before we was even off the dirt road. But I made them wait. “First we have to play ‘I’m Going to South Carolina,’” I said. “You have to name what you’re going to take with you, starting with the letter A and going all the way to Z. When we get to the end, we’ll each have a piece of cornbread and open one of them drinks.”
It wasn’t that far to the state line—less than two hours—but I didn’t have no way of knowing when we’d get there. The girls got tired of being in the dark hole, and Ida decided about thirty minutes down the road that she had to pee.
“I told you to go before we left,” I said.
“I did. But I got to go again.”
“Well, you’ll just have to wait. We can’t be stopping every half hour on account of Mamaw and Papaw are expecting us at eleven thirty.”
Finally, when I got tired of Ida holding herself and wiggling, I reached up and tapped on the window. “We have to wait till Junior finds the right place to stop,” I said to Ida. “There can’t be any cars around. And you’re gonna have to go in the bushes because we’re staying away from gas stations and diners.”
It took Junior another fifteen minutes or so to pull over to the side of the road. When he pulled back the canvas, we nearly trampled each other to be the first one out. But then Ellie was scared to go into the woods. She wanted that blanket, so Junior got it and wrapped it around her shoulders.
Junior headed for one side of the road and we went to the other. There was a tall pine woods on both sides with lots of bushes to hide behind. I told Ida and Ellie to pretend they was going into Wisteria Mansion.
We was barely finished doing our business when I seen headlights through the bushes and heard a car slowing down. And then I seen a red light come on at the front of the car and knew it was the police.
I heard voices. I couldn’t hear everything they said, but Junior was loud and I heard him explaining that he was just taking a rest stop. Then I heard something about hay, and I could tell he was showing his load to whoever it was. I was so scared I think I stopped breathing. What if the police found the hollow space where we was hiding? Would he come looking for us? Would I be in trouble for smuggling my sisters out of polio country?
I had my hands tight over Ida’s and Ellie’s mouths. “Don’t make a noise,” I whispered. “If they catch us you can’t go to Mamaw Honeycutt’s.” As soon as I said it I just knew the police heard me. It’s scary how loud a whisper can be. I sucked in my breath and waited.
I could tell the policeman was moving the hay around in the back of the truck. Was he looking for us?
Ellie whimpered, and I smashed her face into my belly so he wouldn’t hear her.
Next thing I knew, I heard Daddy’s truck cranking up, and just like that, Junior and the police car took off and left us there. There we were—stuck in the middle of nowheres in the dead of the night with nothing but a blanket. The girls started squalling, and I wanted to bawl too, but I didn’t because it was my job to act tough.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “Junior’ll be back, first chance he gets.”
I did some hard praying then for sure.
I told Ellie she was a smart girl to bring that blanket to wrap up in. “Why, I bet that police didn’t once think there was three girls hiding in the woods. But if he seen that blanket in the back of the truck, he’d be suspicious for sure.” We got a laugh just thinking how we fooled that police.
But we didn’t laugh for long because the girls got scared, and to be honest, I wasn’t feeling so safe myself. So I made up stories about Wisteria Mansion to keep our minds off all the bad things that could happen to us in that dark woods.
After a while we heard a car come down the road so slow it practically stopped. I didn’t see no lights flashing, but I just knew it was the police snooping around. It went on by and before long it come back again the other way. It went like that—two or three more times, back and forth.
“Maybe it’s Junior,” said Ellie after it went by the second time. “Maybe he can’t find us.”
“No, it ain’t Junior,” I said. “Daddy’s truck don’t sound like that.”
“I want Junior to come,” whimpered Ida.
“Not now you don’t,” I whispered. “If he comes when that police is nosing around here, we’re gonna be in trouble.”
Ida’s whimpering turned into crying.
“Stop crying,” I said. “That ain’t going to fix a thing. Pray for that police to go away and Junior to come back after that.”
“I can’t pray,” said Ida. “I’m too scared.”
I wrapped that blanket tight as a cocoon around both of them and made them sit on a log. “Well then,” I said, “just say, ‘Lord, have mercy.’ That’s what Bessie says, and it works for everything.”
So we all said it together, over and over. “Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.”
The police didn’t come no more after the fourth time, but it seemed like a long wait before Junior finally come. I held my breath when I seen headlights slowing down again. But then I heard it was Daddy’s truck and then Junior whistled Bob-white. I whistled back—Bob-bob-white. And then all three of us went running for that truck.
When Junior seen us, he said, “Ann Fay Honeycutt, you’re gonna be the death of me yet. That police thought I was running moonshine. Of course, he didn’t find nothing but an empty sack and a couple of bottles that smelled like root beer. It’s hard telling what he thought I’d been up to in the back of that truck.”
Junior fussed at me the whole time he was shifting those hay bales around and tying that canvas overtop of us.
“Well, he was snooping around,” I said. “You better hurry up and get out of here before he comes back.”
Junior kept right on telling me about his adventure. “I had to keep driving until he stopped tailing me and then I had to find another way back. Your grandpa will have the state patrol looking for us,” he said. “We ain’t never gonna make it to that schoolhouse by eleven thirty.”
And we didn’t either. It was way past midnight by the time we got to where we was supposed to meet Mamaw and Papaw. Ellie and Ida was both asleep, but they woke up when Papaw tickled their noses with hay. He lifted them over the side of the truck and put them in Mamaw’s big hug.
Papaw give me a squeeze that nearly took my breath away. T
hen he pulled a dollar bill out of his pocket and put it in my hand. “Spend it on yourself,” he said. “Go see a picture show and buy yourself a trinket. You been working too hard.” He put his hand under my chin and lifted my head. “I know you promised your daddy to take care of things. Well, you can quit worrying about these girls. Your mamaw will spoil them rotten even before we get to Georgia.”
Then Mamaw gave me a big hug and said, “Oh, Susie Q, I wish I could take you with me.” For as long as I can remember, Susie Q has been Mamaw’s pet name for me. Just hearing her say it made me wish I could go home with her instead of back to my momma.
Papaw give Junior a big handshake and I seen him slip some money in his hand. “You’re a fine young man,” he said. “And I pray this war is over before you turn eighteen and get drafted.”
On the way home I sat up front with Junior. I leaned into the door on my side of the truck and put my feet on the seat between us. By the light of the dashboard I seen the outline of his face. He looked strong and manly, and it put a homesickness in me for my daddy. I sat and stared at him, wishing my staring could turn him into Daddy. I was so tired. I just wanted the war and polio and everything hard to go away.
Junior looked tired too, and it hit me what all I had put him through that night.
“Junior,” I said, “I reckon you never knew what you was getting into when you told Daddy you’d take care of us.”
“I reckon I didn’t,” he said.
“Well, I thank you for everything you do for us. Nobody could take the place of Daddy. But you’re the next best thing and I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
16
Tough as Hickory
September 1944
Once I got it in my head to get that wisteria away from the garden, nothing would stop me. I got every tool I could find—Momma’s biggest butcher knife, Daddy’s handsaw, and his scythe. I marched down past the garden with them tools, dragging a shovel behind me.
I started hacking with the butcher knife. When I got to where it was rooted into Daddy’s ditch, I dug it out with the shovel. I used all of those tools to chop, cut, saw, and dig that vine out of my garden.
And I noticed something when I did. The handle on every tool was made of the same thing—hickory wood. I knew it by its straight grain. And my daddy had told me tool handles are made of hickory because it don’t break easy. Same as he told me Roosevelt was tough as hickory.
For some reason, that hickory wood give me the gumption to do that job. I told myself I was tough as President Roosevelt and a hickory nut tree put together. I didn’t care how many blisters I got or how wet with sweat my overalls was—I was fixing to lick that vine!
But I had other work to do too. The dirty clothes was piling up in the washtubs on the back porch. I would’ve put them off until the next day, but Peggy Sue’s mother was actually planning to take us to the picture show again. I knew she was still nervous about polio, but I wasn’t about to miss my chance.
After I cut the wisteria back about six feet past the ditch and had it all pulled out of the cherry tree, I put my tools away and started cranking the water bucket down into the well. I used the first bucket to pour over my head.
The water was so cold I went from sweating one minute to shivering the next. I stripped off my overalls and shirt and used a washrag to scrub myself. The muddy water sent little red rivers dripping off my elbows and running down my body.
When I was cooled off and cleaned up, I cranked up more than twenty buckets of water to put into Momma’s wringer washer and rinse tubs. About halfway through, I thought my back couldn’t take no more. It started to aching and I felt like an old woman all of a sudden. My legs ached too.
I sat down on the porch floor and drunk a big dipper of cold water and told myself to get up and be tough. Me and Momma put some of the water into big kettles to boil on the stove so the whites would come clean.
Finally we plugged up the washer and turned it on.
It took us the rest of the day to wash them clothes and run them through the wringer and the rinse tubs. Momma hung them on the wash line.
She didn’t snap the wrinkles as hard as she always done. But she hung everything up in her same old particular way. Largest to smallest with the seams turned back. Underwear on the back row where people going down the road wouldn’t see it—even though no one ever goes down our road. And every pair of socks matched up like twin sisters. She always had a pride about how she done her laundry, and I figured if any job would keep her going it was washing clothes.
When the wash was all done but the folding, we ate some potatoes and fried okra.
I was planning to read the newspaper to Momma while she folded the clothes.
But by the time I sat down to read, I felt like an old woman for sure. There was a hard hurting in my back and the tops of my legs. And my left leg felt heavy as a sledgehammer.
“I knew that wisteria was going to be the death of me,” I said. “And now I’m so stiff I can’t hardly move.”
Momma give me a worried look and put down the pair of socks she was folding in to itself. She come to where I stood and put her hand on my head. “You’re warm,” she said. I seen the worry wrinkles on her forehead.
“Oh, I’m not sick—just tired, that’s all. I’ll just read the paper and then I’ll go to bed.” I sunk down on the sofa and opened the paper. First I read a few stories on the front page about the war.
I didn’t read the latest news about the polio hospital because I never knew how Momma was going to take it. So I started turning the pages to find Hometown Girl. But it felt like every page was a whole book. My fingers couldn’t hardly do the job.
Somehow I found the page and started reading the story, but then my head started to hurt. It hurt so bad I didn’t even want to read. But I was determined because I knew I had got Momma interested.
Of course she could’ve read it for herself, but I had got so used to taking care of her, I didn’t even think about that. I just kept on reading until the words started sliding out of my sight. At first I didn’t know what was happening, but then I seen that the paper had slid right out of my hands.
I felt it slide down my leg and onto the floor, and I heard the words I was reading slip off into a whisper. My momma was overtop of me then, shaking me and fanning me with the paper. She brought a wet cloth and put it on my head and another one on my neck and chest, and it felt like the coldest thing I could think of. It felt like Bobby’s skin on the day we buried him.
I tried to push the cold cloth off, but I couldn’t lift a finger. Momma said, “Ann Fay, see if you can put your head to your chest.” I didn’t know why she was saying it, but I tried. I just couldn’t do it. I felt her tears dropping on my face, and I heard her saying, “Oh no, not you too. Not my baby girl.”
I never knew Momma thought of me as her baby until I heard her say it. But when I did, I give up trying to be tough. I didn’t worry about overalls and responsibility or hickory wood. I just laid helpless on the couch and let my momma take care of me.
She said she was going after Junior and the truck and we was going to the emergency hospital.
And then she was gone, and I was there staring at the ceiling. A fly was walking across it, and I thought how that fly might be the one that brought polio back to our house.
I prayed for my legs to move and Junior to come quick. Well, this was one time when Junior didn’t come running. Him and Bessie must’ve been visiting some neighbors. Momma told me she couldn’t find them anywhere, so she took Daddy’s truck, which was sitting in the yard. My momma can’t drive no more than I can—not as good even, because at least Daddy would let me sit on his lap and steer sometimes or help him shift the gears. But Momma never even tried to drive.
Well, like I told Junior, where there’s a will, there’s a way, and my momma had the will to take me to that hospital. She picked me up and carried me out to the truck and laid me in the front seat. “My baby girl is not riding to the hospital
in a hearse,” she said.
Every move she made hurt me. But I knew she was doing her best to take care of me, so I tried not to cry out. She climbed in the truck and put my feet up on her lap and drove off.
It was a bumpy ride because she wasn’t good at shifting them gears. Every jerk felt like it was slamming my body against a rock chimney. I know I moaned and cried because I remember my momma saying, “I’m sorry, girl baby. I’m sorry. But I’m not letting you go to that hospital in a hearse. We’re almost there. It’ll only be another minute.”
It wasn’t another minute. It was maybe thirty minutes to the hospital. My momma jerked and stalled that truck and started it up again at every stop sign. The whole time, she was praying, “Oh, Lord God, dear Jesus, please don’t take my baby girl. She’s all I got now.”
I felt bad then for taking the twins away from her, so I tried to tell her they was coming home soon. I tried to tell her Daddy was coming home from the war too, but I didn’t believe it. And I couldn’t get no words out. My head felt like it was splitting wide open.
So I give up trying to talk. I just listened to her pray. “Please don’t take my baby girl. She’s just a little baby girl.”
And I reckon that’s what I was, on account of not long after I got to the hospital they put me in a diaper.
17
Colored Girl
September 1944
They got me out of the truck and put me on a cot, quick as my momma jerked to a stop. They took me into a tent with a screen door and a sign on the outside that said ADMISSION TENT.
I thought them doctors and nurses was trying their best to torture me. I squeezed Momma’s hand while the doctor stuck a needle in my back.
“Hush, honey,” I heard my momma say whenever I cried out. “It’s gonna be all right.” But I could tell from the sound of her voice that she was scared. Somehow it made me feel better, hearing her worry over me for a change.
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