THE HOMEPLACE

by Gilbert, Morris

  “I get one every time I buy a tank of gas down at the gas station.

  I’m gonna keep on until we got a whole set.”

  “I tell you what we ought to do,” Maeva said, “we ought to go to the movies.”

  “What’s going to the movies got to do with glasses?” Forrest asked.

  “Well, you keep your stub when you go in and they put ’em all in a box, and then they have a draw. The winning stub gets a whole set of dishes.”

  “Let’s go!” Cody said, his eyes glowing. “We ain’t been to the movies in a long time, and I hear they got a talkin’ picture there.”

  “A talkin’ picture! How can that be?” Elizabeth asked.

  “I guess they hook it up to a phonograph,” Cody said. “Anyway, they got one. It’s Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer.”

  “I bet Old Man Butterworth won’t let ’em show it,” Maeva said.

  “He’ll say it’s sinful.”

  Francis Butterworth, the owner of the Rialto Theater, screened his movies carefully. He would not show any film that did not meet his approval, and as a deacon in the Baptist church, his standards were strict.

  “Why, that old codger won’t even show Buck Jones westerns!”

  Cody exclaimed. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with Buck Jones.”

  “Well, he does shoot people now and then.” Forrest grinned. “How you kids doin’ at school?”

  As usual, Lanie was doing well. She never made anything less than an A. Maeva’s grades went up and down like a thermometer, A’s and F’s equally spaced. When she was interested in something, she could do it easily, but if not, she made no effort. Cody was good at numbers and figures but not particularly interested in anything else.

  Davis didn’t say a word, and Forrest didn’t press him, because Davis struggled in school. It was a mystery to everyone, including his teachers. He was bright, had a great memory, and was good at math and sports. But reading posed a problem. He finally looked up and said, “I’m flunkin’ English, and the coach says I need to get a tutor.”

  “Well, you won’t get a better one than your mama,” Forrest said.

  “I try the best I can, Daddy, but I just can’t get it. Anyway, I’m gonna pitch for the St. Louis Cardinals. You don’t have to be smart for that.”

  Forrest laughed. “I think it takes a little more brains than people think, but not book smarts.” He turned to Lanie. “You did a fine job on this meal, honey. Couldn’t have been better.”

  “All the others helped me, Daddy.”

  “Tell you what. Why don’t we all jump in, do these dishes, and then we’ll go have a hoedown.”

  “You and Davis go outside and play catch,” Lanie said. “The rest of us will do the dishes.”

  The light faded slowly. By the time the dishes were washed, and Davis and Forrest had played catch, and all were gathered in the parlor, the light was still murky in the west. Forrest sat down and looked around the room with pleasure. It was his favorite room in the whole house. He had been raised in this house; every inch brought memories of some kind. He glanced at the pictures of his parents and grandparents in their oval frames on the wall, stern-looking men and women afraid to smile for the camera as if there were something sinful about a smile. The furniture was solid walnut and rosewood, bought by his grandfather. Deoin Jinks said once that the furniture was worth a lot of money, but Forrest put the words aside. He had a strong attachment to the land and to the house with its furnishings. The wallpaper was bright and cheerful. Hooked rugs covered the brightly polished pine floors.

  A spring breeze came through the open windows. Forrest picked up his fiddle, tucked it under his chin, and drew the bow across the strings gently. The one thing he did better than play baseball was play the fiddle. He played entirely by ear, but after hearing a tune once or twice could play it perfectly. He couldn’t read music as Elizabeth could, but as she said once, “It doesn’t hurt his playing at all.”

  The children had all inherited their parents’ musical ability. Lanie could play anything with strings. Maeva played the piano with gusto—more gusto than skill at times. Davis could play the mandolin and the dulcimer, and Cody loved the drums.

  “What’ll it be first?” Forrest asked. He was besieged with song titles and finally said, “All right, Maeva, you first.”

  She chose “Bye-Bye Blackbird.” Forrest launched into it, and the others followed. After that Davis chose “I’m Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover.” Cody called for “When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob-Bob Bobbing Along.”

  They all sang. At chuch they had learned to sing parts with hymns, so they could harmonize on many of the popular songs.

  Finally Forrest turned to Elizabeth and said, “What would you like to hear, sweetheart?”

  Elizabeth smiled. “I’d like to hear some good hymns.”

  “Good hymns! There ain’t no bad hymns, is there?”

  “No, but I like some better than others.”

  “How about this one?” Forrest began to play and sing “Will the Circle Be Unbroken,” and the others joined in, harmonizing. They sang Elizabeth’s favorite, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” Then they sang several about heaven, including “When We All Get to Heaven.”

  The whole house rang with the sound of the music, and finally For-rest removed the fiddle from under his chin and said, “God has been mighty good to us to give us music. David was a musician, and when old Saul got down in the dumps, he sent for David. And I reckon David would play one of his Psalms.”

  Elizabeth looked at her family and a lump came to her throat. She had married Forrest against the advice of everyone. She was a school teacher in her second year of teaching, and he was a roughneck lumberjack. But he won her heart with his smile, his music, and his zest for living. She taught him to read and smoothed some of his rough edges, and never once did she regret marrying him.

  Finally she said, “We’d better get to bed. We’ve got to get up early tomorrow.”

  The kids complained as usual, but they were all tired.

  Lanie kissed her mother good-night and then went to her room. The old house had five bedrooms, so each had their own room. Lanie’s had a desk that had belonged to her great-great-grandmother. It was made of some exotic dark wood that not even her father could identify.

  The wood was smooth and hard and had a silky sheen.

  Opening a drawer, Lanie took out her journal and dated it April 12, 1928. and began to write:

  I had to kill Lucille today, and it broke my heart! I hated to do it, but I do admit that she was downright delicious! I fried her for supper and we ate all of her. Mama ate only a little bit of the breast and some of the gravy. I’ll be glad when the baby comes and mama is strong again.

  I wrote a poem about Reverend Jones, but it’s not very good . . .

  Lanie had formed the habit of writing everything that happened to her, and she had filled six journals. She kept them well hidden from the family, for her writing exposed her heart. Finally she put her pen down, read what she had written, sighed, and put the notebook back in the drawer under some of her clothing.

  She climbed in bed and lay quietly for a while. The earth was cool now, and from far off came the plaintive sound of a coyote, always a lonesome sound to her. She thought about the prize at school, almost prayed to win, but somehow she could not. “God,” she finally said, “I’ll do my best, and if you’ll help me, that’s all I ask. And I pray that you let this baby come quick and get Mama strong again.”

  CH A P T E R 3

  The triumphant crowing of Raynard, the rooster, brought Lanie out of sleep. She lay on her stomach, her face turned aside on the feather pillow. Consciousness came back to her a little at a time. The musty smell of the feathers prompted her to roll over and stare at the ceiling. The faint light of dawn peeked through the window, and the smooth texture of the sheets gave her a sense of luxury.

  Finally she reached up, pushed her head against the top of the iron bedstead, arched her body, and pointed he
r toes.

  “Ohhhh!” she moaned. She considered rolling over and pushing her face in the pillow and sleeping, but that was impossible. Throwing the covers back, she sat up on the edge of the bed, stretched again, and then stood. A tiny noise caught her attention, something that sounded like Wow! It was Cap’n Brown, a tawny tailless manx cat with extra-long hind legs and a huge head that slept with her year round.

  Lanie looked down and for a moment could not identify what Cap’n Brown was doing. He had something under his paw that was moving. She leaned down close then ice water seemed to run through her veins.

  “A snake!” she screamed, jumping back into the bed and pulling the covers over her head. “A snake! Cap’n Brown, get away from here with that thing!”

  She heard the door open and Maeva said, “What’s the matter with you? What are you screaming about?”

  Lanie poked her head out from under the covers. “A snake! Cap’n Brown brought in a snake!” Now that Maeva was there she felt safer. Maeva was not afraid of snakes—or anything else so far as anyone knew. Lanie got up on her knees and pointed, her voice shaking, “Get . . . get that thing out of here, Maeva!”

  Maeva gave Lanie a look of exasperation, reached down, and said, “Gimme that snake, Cap’n Brown.” She held it in one hand and stood up, and a mischievous look touched her eyes. She took a step toward the bed. “It’s only an old green snake. You want to hold him, sister?”

  “Get away from here! Throw him away!”

  Maeva laughed. “You’d better be glad he didn’t bring you a copperhead. Get up. We got to fix breakfast.”

  As soon as Maeva left, Lanie picked up Cap’n Brown under his front legs and shook him. “Bad, Cap’n Brown, bad! Don’t bring me any more presents, you hear me? No more presents!”

  Cap’n Brown yawned, exposing an incredibly red throat and teeth sharper than needles. He wiggled and Lanie put him down and began to dress.

  When she got to the kitchen, the warmth from the stove enveloped her, and she saw her dad at the table drinking coffee.

  “Daddy, you don’t need to drink cold coffee. I’ll make you some hot.”

  Forrest smiled and winked. “The worst cup of coffee I ever had, Muff, was real good.” His calling her by his pet nickname pleased Lanie. It gave her a special feeling about him.

  “I’ll fix you a good breakfast then.” She started to turn toward the counter, but Forrest stood up, put his arms around her, and lifted her clean up off the floor. He kissed her heartily on both cheeks.

  “Daddy, you need to shave!”

  “Nobody’s going to see me except a bunch of hillbilly lumberjacks.”

  He put her down, and she began collecting the elements of the breakfast. He sat down and sipped the cold coffee and watched her for a time. Finally he said, “I’m sorry you have to take care of all of us, Muff.”

  “I don’t mind, Daddy.”

  “Well, it’ll be good practice for you when you have your own family.”

  “Oh, that’s a long time off.”

  “Nothing is as far off as you think. When I was about your age I was wishing I was older. It seemed like I never would grow up.” He sipped the coffee again. “Where is that fifteen-year-old boy? Gone forever. Now all that’s left of me is this broken-down lumberjack.”

  “You’re not broken down!”

  “Maybe not completely. I’ll go out and bring in some more wood for you.”

  “Let the boys do it, Daddy.”

  “Oh, there’s no fun bringing in wood. I want ’em to have as much fun as they can.”

  Lanie turned from the icebox with a bowl of eggs. She went to him and touched his face. “You’re too good to us.”

  “I hope I always will be. Well, better fix plenty of breakfast. I’ve got a long day ahead.”

  After breakfast, as the Freeman siblings left for school, they were joined by Alice and Max Jinks, who lived across the street. Max was twelve, and he and Cody trotted on ahead, talking about what they would do after school. Maeva and Davis followed.

  Alice Jinks was fourteen. Her birthday was the same as Lanie’s, which made a bond for them. They had spent practically every day of their lives together and shared most of their secrets too. In truth, Alice shared all of hers, but Lanie was more reticent.

  “I hope Gerald Pink sits by me in assembly today,” Alice said. “I think he’s the cutest thing, don’t you?”

  “He’s a nice-looking boy.”

  Gerald was the son of Harold Pink, the owner of Pink’s Drugstore.

  He worked with his father as a soda jerk and showed his favor for friends of his by giving them extra-thick milkshakes. “When I got a soda yesterday, he winked at me and pinched me.”

  “Pinched you where?” Lanie asked.

  “Oh, just on the arm. Look, it made a little bruise.” Alice pulled up her sleeve.

  “Do you put up with that?”

  “It means he likes me!” Alice protested. She was a plain girl, her chief claim to beauty being her bright-red hair and dark-blue eyes. She hated her freckles, of which she had not a few, and read nothing but True Romance magazines, which she kept hidden from her parents. She had let Lanie read a few, but Lanie found them silly.

  “You’re too young to think about boyfriends, Alice.”

  “I am not! I’m plenty old enough to have a boyfriend. I will, too!

  I think it’ll be Gerald. He really likes me.”

  “Alice, you’ve gone through crushes on boys alphabetically, and now you’re down to the Pinks. You don’t need to be thinking so much about boys.”

  “What else am I going to think about? How to diagram a complex sentence?”

  “It wouldn’t hurt you to study a little harder.”

  “If I were as smart as you, I wouldn’t study at all.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. I have to study if I’m going to be smart.”

  The two argued as they cut through the main part of town, passing businesses that were just beginning to open. They came to the Rialto Theater, where Max, Cody, Maeva, and Davis were looking at the posters. Cody was complaining. “Look at this. Another one of those dumb, soupy love stories! They don’t ever have anything good here.”

  Lanie stopped to look at the pictures of Tex Ritter, the cowboy star.

  Tex’s eyes were narrowed, and he was obviously shooting down villains. “You used to like Tex Ritter, Cody.”

  “That was when I was a little kid. I want to see somethin’ better than that.”

  “Yeah,” Max said, “Tommy Franklin said he seen one called Flesh and the Devil with Greta Garbo and John Gilbert. He said it was really somethin’.”

  “It sounds like it,” Lanie said with disgust. “You don’t need to see a thing like that.”

  “I don’t reckon we will,” Davis grumbled. “Old Man Butterworth would say it ain’t suitable.”

  “I tell you what we can do,” Cody said. “We can sneak off to Mount Ida and see it next Saturday.”

  “Mount Ida! How’d we get there?” asked Max.

  “We’d hitchhike.”

  “Hey, that sounds great,” Maeva said. “I’ll go too.”

  “None of you are going to sneak off and see that awful movie!”

  Lanie stated. “Now let’s go to school.”

  “I’ll go if I want to,” Maeva said, staring at Lanie. “Wouldn’t hurt you to go with us. We can tell the folks we’re going to see Tex Ritter.

  They wouldn’t mind that.”

  The argument continued until they reached school. Lanie and Alice went to the large two-story red-brick high school. The others, still grumbling, went to the elementary school.

  Lanie walked down the hall to her locker. She put her lunch inside and then walked to room 104.

  “Hello, Miss Dunsmore.”

  Miss Eden Marie Dunsmore was writing on the blackboard, but she turned and smiled. “Good morning, Lanie.” She was blond, twenty-two, with large gray eyes. Most of the older male students were half in lov
e with her and spun fantasies about her, though it was rumored that Coach Wilson had recently won her affections. She was especially good to Lanie, and now she whispered, “Work hard now. I want you to win the grand award.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that, Miss Dunsmore.”

  “Yes you can, and I’ll help you.”

  The class filtered in with the usual noises, groanings, and boys flirting with girls and shoving each other around. When the bell rang, Miss Dunsmore said, “Good morning.” The class mumbled a “good morning.” She picked up the roll book and checked each name, then put the book down and said, “I have your themes ready to hand back.”

  She moved around the room, handing out papers, and when she handed Helen Langley her paper, Lanie could see a C- written on it. Helen sent up a howl. She sat right next to Lanie and more than once had tried to copy Lanie’s work. “A C-! This paper’s better than that, Miss Dunsmore!” Helen, a pretty girl with fair hair and blue eyes, was the most spoiled girl in all of Fairhope. Her father gave her everything she wanted. She wore expensive clothes and always had money to spend. “This is a good paper. It ought to be at least a B!”

  “Helen, now, you settle down or that C- will become a D+.”

  Miss Dunsmore put Lanie’s paper down on her desk. Helen snatched it and stared. “A+!” She shoved the paper back at Lanie and gave her a venomous glance. “You think you’re so smart,” Helen whispered, “but my brother Roger’s going to win the prize! You can just forget about it!”

  Helen’s outburst embarrassed Lanie. “I think he probably will,” she said.

  Pink’s Drugstore was crowded when Lanie and her siblings arrived after school. Roger and Helen Langley were sitting at a table with other students. They were laughing and drinking sodas that were too expensive for the Freemans. All the rich kids who came to Pink’s Drugstore wore the latest fashions, and most of the girls had at least one piece of expensive jewelry. The older boys had cars; Roger, who was seventeen, drove a Stutz Bearcat.

  “There’s the teacher’s pet,” Helen said. She nudged her brother. “She thinks she’s going to beat you out for the grand award, Roger. Isn’t that a laugh?”