Mama Hattie's Girl

by Lois Lenski

  “No,” said Miss Vennie. “Mr. Andy cleaned the burner out and put in a new metal chimney and wicks. It burns O. K. again.”

  The boys came in and Miss Vennie put the fish on the table. She had fixed creamed potatoes and English peas too. Lula Bell sat down and ate.

  “Gee! This is good,” she said. She looked at Miss Vennie. “Why, you’re a good cook!”

  Miss Vennie tossed her head. “Of course. Why not? I been cookin’ all my life.”

  All of a sudden Lula Bell thought of her grandmother. The bedroom door was closed tight. “Where’s Mama Hattie? Why didn’t she cook supper?”

  “She’s sick,” said Miss Vennie. “She ain’t been up all day. That fire seemed to take all the life and spirit right out of her. She’s coughin’ again and she don’t want to eat.”

  “Her blood’s high, I bet,” said Lula Bell. Looking at Miss Vennie, she asked, “What we gonna do if Mama Hattie gits sick on us?”

  Miss Vennie turned her back, took little Myrtle by the hand and left the kitchen. “I’m sure I don’t know,” Miss Vennie called back. “She’s not my grandmother. She’s no kin o’ mine.”

  “You’re not helpin’ with the dishes, Miss Vennie?” called Lula Bell in a pleading voice. “After we let you eat our fish?”

  The front bedroom door went shut with a sharp thud. That was the answer she got. “Well, of all things!” cried Lula Bell.

  Lonnie and Eddie ran outdoors to escape being called. There was no one to do the dishes but Lula Bell. Peeping in the back bedroom, she saw that Mama Hattie was asleep, so she could not ask her help. Besides she was sick.

  It took a long time to get the dishes done. Miss Vennie had fried the fish, but she had not scoured the soot off the teakettle, nor tried to clean the end of the stove. It took still longer to do that. After she was all done, Lula Bell went in the front room to turn the radio on for a while before going to bed. She went to the corner where she had hung her new looking glass on the wall. She wanted to take a look at herself. The looking glass was not hanging on its nail. There at her feet she saw it, broken into pieces on the floor.

  “Look at that! Who done it? Who busted my lookin’ glass?”

  Lula Bell ranted and raged, accusing every one. She knocked briskly on the closed door of the Bradleys’ room. Myrtle and Miss Vennie came out in their bathrobes.

  “Who been messin’ around here?” demanded Lula Bell. “Who tried to steal my lookin’ glass and dropped and broke it?”

  Myrtle clung to her baby-doll and did not answer.

  “Did you break it?” Lula Bell grabbed the girl by the arm and began to shake her. “You may as well admit it, girl. I know you done it.”

  “You know a lot, don’t you?” replied Miss Vennie.

  Suddenly there stood Mama Hattie on tottery feet at the door. “How do you know she broke it? Did you see her do it?” she asked.

  “No ma’m,” admitted Lula Bell, “but there’s been nobody else around. It musta been her. Miss Vennie can jest buy me a new one.”

  “Myrtle never touched your little ole lookin’ glass,” said Miss Vennie, “and I didn’t neither.” Pulling Myrtle back into her room, she closed the door sharply.

  “See what you done?” cried the old woman. “You’ve made her mad. Remember what I told you about makin’ trouble with my boarders. If Miss Vennie leaves, it will be your fault. Don’t ever accuse innocent people of breakin’ your lookin’ glass. It don’t matter who done it. It’s bad enough it got broke. It means seven years bad luck—that’s what it means.”

  “You’ll make Miss Vennie buy me a new one, won’t you?” begged Lula Bell.

  “No, girl, I sure won’t,” said Mama Hattie.

  Mama Hattie’s cold grew worse. For the next three days she stayed in bed. Miss Vennie kept to her room, did her own cooking and did not offer to help. Lula Bell cooked for herself and the boys, and fixed what little her grandmother wanted. Lonnie opened cans for her, and if she begged hard enough, the boys washed the dishes.

  On the second day, Lula Bell stopped at Aunty Irene’s house cross-town, on her way home from school. Aunty Irene would not let her come in. She talked to her out of an open window.

  “Measles!” she said. “Three little ones down sick, and Dora will be next. I have to watch ’em like a hawk or they’ll pull the shade up and git the light in their eyes. I wish I might could come and help you, but I can’t right now.”

  “What’ll I do?” asked Lula Bell.

  “Do what you can,” said Aunty Irene. “Make the boys help. Mama Hattie will shake off her cold soon. She won’t stay in bed long.”

  “I think I’ll phone to Aunty Ruth,” said Lula Bell.

  “Oh no, that costs too much,” said Irene. “We don’t want to worry her and Imogene unless Mama gits real bad.”

  Lula Bell came back home discouraged. There was no help to be had from Aunty Irene. She’d have to depend on herself. She’d have to stay home from school, there was so much to do.

  It was hard for her to watch Myrtle go marching off to school each morning, dressed in a pretty gingham dress. It was harder still to see Geneva Jackson and Floradell Pearson run past the house without calling for Lula Bell, and join up with Myrtle halfway down the block. Lula Bell could not believe her eyes. She could not believe that her best friends could be so disloyal. It made her dislike little Myrtle more than ever. Myrtle did not have to stay home from school and take care of a sick grandmother and do a family washing. All Myrtle did at home was play with her little old baby-doll.

  Lula Bell looked at the dirty clothes piled up in the clothes-basket. Somebody ought to wash them.

  “How about you doin’ it?” suggested Mama Hattie from her bed. “It’s not hard work with the electric washer. You can wring ’em by hand. I won’t let you touch that wringer.”

  Lula Bell did the washing alone for the first time in her life, and felt very sorry for herself. When she started on the ironing in the front room, Miss Vennie came out and surprised her. “Can I help?” she asked.

  Lula Bell tossed her head. “No ma’m!” she cried. “I’m gittin’ along first-rate by myself.”

  “O. K.,” replied Miss Vennie. “Don’t say I didn’t offer.”

  Mama Hattie’s cold improved as the weather turned warmer. Instead of lying in bed, she asked to sit on the porch. Still weak and tottery, she walked outside with her hand on Lula Bell’s shoulder. Whenever she exerted herself, her heart began to act up. So she had to sit very still. Her friends went past and called and waved to her, but Miss Hattie did not look up. She was too tired.

  Each day she stayed out all day. The house faced the south, so she was partly in the sun and seemed to enjoy it. Lula Bell combed her hair as she sat there. She platted it in two braids and pinned it across the top.

  “Now you look like a queen, Mama Hattie,” said Lula Bell.

  “A sorry queen.” Mama Hattie smiled a little.

  “I knew a girl up north whose name was Queen Esther,” said Lula Bell.

  “That’s a good name,” said Mama Hattie. “It’s from the Bible.”

  “She wasn’t a very good girl,” said Lula Bell. “She was mean.”

  Lula Bell brought all the old woman’s meals out to her on the porch. She took a basin of warm water out, and washed her feet there. Sometimes Mama Hattie let her feet soak in the water. “It rests ’em,” she said. “My feetses is so tired. They’ve walked so many miles …”

  “But what if somebody saw you!” cried Lula Bell. “Wouldn’t you be ashamed?”

  “You sound like Imogene,” said Mama Hattie. “Why should I be ashamed of my feetses? The good Lord gave ’em to me. He gave me this ole heart too, but it’s ’most wore out.”

  “But I’d be ashamed,” said Lula Bell. “I wouldn’t want the girls to see me washin’ your feet.”

  “In church on Love Feast Day, we washes each other’s feetses,” said Mama Hattie, “jest like it say in the Bible. Do you know who tole us to do that, and w
ho done it first? Jesus. We tries to follow His example. We tries to do what He told us to.”

  Just then Lula Bell saw the school children coming down Hibiscus Street, on their way home from school.

  “Gimme that basin, quick,” she said. “I don’t want nobody to see it out here. Put on your slippers, Mama Hattie.”

  But Lula Bell need not have worried. The children never even looked in her direction. The little ones began a game of hide-and-seek. The older girls came walking along slowly, arm-in-arm. Lula Bell emptied the basin, then stood leaning against the porch post, hoping they would call to her. But they didn’t. She looked and saw the reason why. Geneva, Floradell and Josephine were huddled in a circle, with Myrtle Bradley in the middle.

  “Well, I’ll be …!” Lula Bell was so furious she didn’t know what to say.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Mama Hattie listlessly.

  “Plenty’s the matter,” said Lula Bell under her breath. “Jest look out there and see.”

  “Who is it? The mail man? Is he bringin’ me a letter from Imogene?” asked the old woman. “I don’t like that job she’s got. A bookkeeper or a sec’tary or somethin’. On my radio program, all the sec’taries is crooks. I want you to write a letter to Imogene and tell her to git a new kind of job.”

  Lula Bell did not hear what her grandmother was saying. She stood and watched as Myrtle began to teach the girls how to play My Bread Is Burning. The little children joined in, and soon Hibiscus Street echoed with their shouts and laughter.

  “Go on over and play with ’em a while,” said Mama Hattie. “You been workin’ hard all day. It’ll do you good.”

  “O. K.,” said Lula Bell. “I’ll go but I’ll not play.” Under her breath she added: “I’ll give those girls a piece of my mind. What do they think they’re doin’, anyhow—makin’ up to that miserable little Myrtle?”

  Lula Bell rushed across the street, with her firsts doubled up and her blood boiling. She came closer and closer, and was about to say what she thought of her former friends. Then she saw that the circle of friendship was closed to her. Myrtle was inside and she was out. Floradell saw Lula Bell coming. She leaned over and whispered to the others: “Don’t let her in. We don’t want her. Don’t let her in.”

  The children held hands so tightly that, try where she would, she could not break the circle.

  Then Floradell shouted some mystic word—a new word that Lula Bell had never heard before and of which she did not know the meaning. At the sound of it, all the children dropped hands and ran. In a moment they were gone, hidden from sight behind hedges and houses.

  Only one was left—Lula Bell—standing alone in the middle of the street. A sob broke from her lips. Hurt to the quick, she ran swiftly home.

  CHAPTER XII

  Tomorrow

  “Lula Bell, run over and tell Miss Lena I can’t pay the grocery bill this week,” said Mama Hattie, “and I sure am sorry. Tell her Miss Vennie ain’t paid her rent ’cause her check ain’t come yet. It’s two weeks late. And git us a loaf o’ bread.”

  Lula Bell ran over to the store and explained.

  “I’ve had to make a rule,” said Miss Lena firmly. “If you don’t pay for two weeks, I can’t let you have any more groceries until you pay.”

  “You can’t?” gasped Lula Bell. “I can’t even have a loaf o’ bread? What we gonna eat then?”

  “I dunno,” said Miss Lena, turning her back. “I got my bills to meet each week, and I can’t pay ’em if folks don’t pay me. I’ll jest cut you-all off again.”

  “Oh don’t, Miss Lena!” begged Lula Bell.

  Popsicle came running in, followed by his little brother. “Give us bubble gum and candy bars and popsicles,” said the boy.

  “You buyin’ the store out?” asked Miss Lena. “Where’s your money?”

  “Us is rich, us got plenty money,” said Popsicle. He turned to Shadow. “Give her yours, boy.” The two boys each held up the torn half of a dollar bill.

  “Lordy mercy!” cried Miss Lena. “Look at this, Lula Bell. These boys done tore a good dollar bill in two!!!”

  Lula Bell stared. The two pieces in Miss Lena’s hands were a perfect fit when held together.

  “Where’d you git this money, Popsicle?” demanded Lula Bell.

  Little Shadow began to cry, but Popsicle tried to explain: “I toted a lady’s groceries for her—down at the Super Market,” he said. “She say she ain’t got no change, she give me a bill. She say, ‘You give half to your little brother’ and I say, ‘Yas’m.’ So I tears it in two and gives Shadow half, jest like the lady said.”

  Lula Bell and Miss Lena had to laugh. “Sounds like Mrs. Arnold,” said Miss Lena. “She’s awful free with her money.”

  Just then Big Ethel, the boys’ mother came up the street calling: “Where’s them good-for-nothin’ kids o’ mine?”

  “Oh dear, here comes Ethel,” said Lula Bell.

  “I’ll take care of her,” said Miss Lena.

  When Big Ethel saw the torn dollar bill, she nearly fainted. Then she began to scold.

  “Hush up, Ethel,” said Miss Lena. “The boys got it for being helpful. Popsicle didn’t know no better than to tear it in two. He wanted Shadow to have half. If you take it to the bank, they’ll give you a good bill for it.”

  Ethel stared at the two pieces in her hand. “They will? You sure?”

  “Yes ma’m, I’m sure,” said Miss Lena.

  Ethel started up the street as fast as she could go. She forgot all about her two little boys. She was headed for the bank.

  “We don’t git no candy bars?” asked Popsicle.

  “Yes, you do,” said Miss Lena. She handed one to each and they went out happy.

  Lula Bell turned to Miss Lena and said: “You remember that plum tree of Mama Hattie’s that had to be chopped down?”

  “Yes, girl, I sure do,” said Miss Lena. How could she ever forget?

  “It’s comin’ up again from the root—a nice young shoot,” said Lula Bell. “I been waterin’ it, and Eddie’s put a wire fence around it to keep the kids from breakin’ it.”

  “I’ll be glad if it grows again,” said Miss Lena. “It’ll make your grandma happy. I never knew no one so sot on a tree as she was on that one.”

  Miss Lena seemed so friendly, Lula Bell said, “You’re not cuttin’ us off again, are you, Miss Lena?”

  “I hate to do it, Lula Bell,” replied Miss Lena, “but I must. I got my own bills to pay.”

  Lula Bell did not ask for the bread again, but went out disheartened. She walked home slowly and came up on the porch. Mama Hattie was all smiles. She was sitting in a shining new metal chair, and beside her stood another chair just like it. The curved tubing was of shiny silver metal, and the backs and seats were bright red.

  “Where … did the chairs come from?” gasped Lula Bell. For one wild moment she hoped they belonged to the Bradleys.

  “I bought ’em,” said Mama Hattie complacently, “while you was over to Miss Lena’s. The nicest salesman come along with a truckful, sellin’ ’em. I think the red’s purtier than the green, don’t you? Miss Lena’s got green ones.”

  “Oh Mama Hattie,” cried Lula Bell, “we can’t afford chairs. The grocery bill ain’t paid. What did they cost?”

  “Only 75¢ a week,” said Mama Hattie.

  “Only 75¢!” repeated Lula Bell. “Another 75¢ to pay out each week. Mama Hattie, don’t you remember Imogene told you not to buy anything on time?”

  “Imogene ain’t here now,” said Mama Hattie.

  “You know you pay three times over what you pay at the store.”

  “I can’t never git to the store,” said Mama Hattie, “now that my heart’s so bad. If I got to set on this porch for the rest o’ my life, I figger I’d like to set comfortable. I’ll throw out them old ragged chairs. The other new one’s for any visitor who comes to call.” She looked across the street toward Miss Lena’s house and chuckled. “I can’t let Miss Lena git ahead
of me.”

  “We’re behind on the grocery bill two weeks already,” said Lula Bell. “Miss Lena’s done cut us off again. She won’t give us any groceries till we pay up. She wouldn’t even let me have a loaf o’ bread.”

  “We’ll pay her when Miss Vennie’s check comes,” said Mama Hattie cheerfully.

  Lula Bell’s heart sank. There was no use talking to Mama Hattie. She would never stop her reckless spending, or listen to reason. Lula Bell thought of the day, such a short time ago, when she had asked for a bicycle. A bicycle was not important any more. Food and clothing were. Lula Bell’s perspective had changed. She was growing up and assuming responsibility.

  “Try the new chair,” coaxed Mama Hattie, “and see how comfortable it is.”

  Lula Bell sat down in it but jumped up again, as a visitor came up the walk. It was Miss Janie Bryant, her teacher from school. “Please come and sit down, Miss Janie,” she said politely.

  Miss Janie was dressed in a neat-looking suit and had her hair waved. She talked about the weather and about Mama Hattie’s health. Then she said, “Lula Bell has been missing school. She is getting behind with her work.”

  “She’s been takin’ care of me, Miss Janie,” said Miss Hattie, smiling. “She’s a mighty good nurse.” Miss Hattie explained that Lula Bell’s parents were up north, and told what they were doing.

  “The law says that a child has to stay in school until she is sixteen—or graduates,” said Miss Janie. “You want Lula Bell to get an education, don’t you?”

  “Yes ma’m,” said Miss Hattie. “I made all my children go to school, and I kept ’em in school too. My boys goes regular.”

  “It’s not fair to Lula Bell to keep her home,” said Miss Janie.

  “Not fair?” Miss Hattie looked up in surprise. “She the onliest one can comb my hair and cook my meals and wash my …”

  “Mama Hattie!” interrupted Lula Bell. “You don’t have to tell everything!”

  “The law says …” began Miss Janie.

  “I don’t want to mess around with the law,” said Miss Hattie. “I reckon I’ll have to send her, but I don’t know how I’ll make out without her. I’ve come to put my dependence on Lula Bell.”