The Wooden Nickel

by Alisha Paige

  “Ah, you missed, give someone else a turn,” Cliff howled as the school kids laughed and hooted.

  “Heck, no. I get another try,” Hank spat back, pushing his dark hair out of his eyes as he stood over Cliff, glaring and dripping on him. “I dare you to try that again, Cliff. I promise I’ll beat you to a pulp.”

  Cliff took another bite of apple and chewed gingerly, eyeing his brother like he weren’t no more than a harmless horse fly. Cliff snorted and looked away, over at the table laden with a plate of oatmeal cookies and a big bucket of lemonade. He winked at the blonde school teacher who looked more like a school girl with her hair fastened in a tight bun. Louise smiled at him, nodding shyly as she handed each kid a cookie.

  Bobbing again, Hank came back up with a fat apple between his teeth. Louise thought he acted a might more like a dog with a bone, than a boy with an apple as he shook the water from his face and growled at his brother. Cliff gave him a crazy look as he made his way to the refreshment table.

  “Would you like some lemonade, young man?” Louise asked in her most grown up voice.

  “Hey, I’m three whole years older than you, little lady,” Cliff drawled as he took another bite of apple and wiped the juice from his chin.

  “Not today, you aren’t. I’m your teacher and you have to do as I say,” she teased.

  “Is that so?” Cliff asked, leaning over the table, two inches from her face, so close that Louise could see the orange flakes in his coppery eyes. His gaze dropped to her small, pink lips and Louise nearly fainted. Oh, my dear, he’s not gonna kiss me in front of our whole class is he? Marty McAfee walked up just in time.

  “Hey, Teach, can me and my sis have a cookie?” he asked. Marty was dressed as a scarecrow and he scratched at the hay protruding from his chest area.

  “Sure, Marty. Great costume,” Louise replied as she handed him two cookies.

  “It’s itchy enough,” Marty announced, taking the cookies and his little sister dressed as a white cat. Her two cat ears were made out of flour sacks and her long, white tail was pinned to the back of her dress, dragging on the barn floor as she walked away.

  Cliff helped himself to another cup of lemonade as he held the mostly eaten apple in the other hand. “So, Teach, are you married?”

  Louise blushed and giggled softly. Cliff knew she wasn’t married. Heck, she was barely a woman, only by a couple of weeks at most, but okay, she’d go along with it. “Why, no, Mr. Emberton, I’m not.”

  “Well, good, then, cause I think I have a mind to marry you some day,” he said plainly, taking another swig of cold lemonade.

  Louise waved her hand at him. “Oh, pooh. Why would you want to go marrying old boring me?”

  Cliff’s eyebrows raised in surprise. How could Louise think she was a boring girl? Why, she was the most interesting girl Cliff had ever met, not to mention, the prettiest he’d ever set sights on. Cliff normally paid girls no mind. No, siree, no mind at all, but Louise just stopped you cold.

  Cold, dead in your tracks. S

  She was a head turner and Cliff knew she was just beginning to blossom. She was only eleven and going on twelve fast. She’d catch up with Cliff’s three years in no time. He was already fourteen and would be seventeen by the time she was his age now. Oh, she’d be a fine looking woman and she was smart too and sweet as all get out. She would make someone a wonderful wife one day.

  But it was hard to imagine his life in three years. So much would have happened by then. Mama will have lost the house for sure by then or maybe, by some miracle, Cliff and Hank would be able to send enough money home to save it. His sisters will be further along in school by then and needing more clothes and Cliff knew by what his mother had said before, girls cost more than boys. Oh how he wished he’d find a barrel of money or even a bag of gold. He’d heard so much talk about the country going off the gold standard. What would happen to all that gold? Would it be worth anything anymore?

  Hank was powerful mad that he had given his only wooden nickel to Louise. They had planned to spend it in Washington once they got there, but he didn’t know Washington was the only place you could spend it until Hank had scolded him for it. No wonder they couldn’t spend it until they got there. He felt like a fool. Hank explained to him how some of the states ran out of change in some of the outlying country areas, so the town council would order wooden money to be made and exchanged in town for real money.

  Hank had won the wooden nickel in a gambling match behind the school yard. Cliff couldn’t believe he started a life of gambling. My how Hank was already full of sin, but he convinced Cliff that they were poor as dirt anyhow and it didn’t matter how they got the money, so long as they got it. He was too embarrassed to ask Louise about the wooden nickel again, since it was worthless and all.

  “Louise, you are hardly boring,” Cliff drawled in a very grown up voice. If Louise didn’t know any better, she’d think he was somehow serious.

  “Well, Mama says I’m a silly goose, so I guess I’m funny and I keep everyone laughing.”

  “That’s not all.”

  “Oh?”

  “Does your Mama tell you that you are the prettiest girl in all of Texas?”

  “Well, no. Lily is the pretty one.”

  Cliff laughed out loud with his head tossed back, sloshing his lemonade out of the cup. “Are you joking?”

  Louise couldn’t help but feel superior to Lily for once in her life and it felt so good. Oh, how Lily would bawl her eyes out if she’d seen Cliff laugh like that. She wouldn’t be able to believe that someone as handsome as Cliff could think such a thing.

  “Lily is too busy being a sour puss. She’s not pretty to me at all.”

  “Really?” Louise breathed, unable to believe her ears. She had to admit, that was kind of harsh of Cliff, but Lily really was extra rude to him and on purpose, too.

  “Well, really I shouldn’t say that.”

  “Oh,” Louise said. Even she knew how lovely Lily was and no boy could resist her, except for the fact that she was mostly snobbish to all of them, but they all tried, one time or another.

  “Cause I only look at you,” Cliff whispered as he leaned over the table, whispering into her ear as more kids approached the refreshment table.

  Goodness gracious! Cliff knew had to send sparks through her, just by whispering in her ear and it was the most heavenly, tantalizing thing she believed she’d ever experienced. How could she have known that one smile could change her whole life? The dust storms no longer made her sad. All she had to do was think of Cliff and his coppery eyes, looking down at her, flipping his blond bangs out of them and smiling like he had no worries in the world. All she saw now were rainbows. Rainbows with every color imaginable and all she had to do was close her eyes and she could easily slip into any color at all. On a whim, she might choose violet or pea green. Each color had its own special hue and its own world. A world where Cliff smiled at her and her alone.

  If she chose yellow, she’d be back in that bread line and she’d see him for the first time. The day when he’d given her the wooden nickel and touched her hand as he closed her fingers over it. When she decided to visit the color blue, she was back in the old school house, handing him a pencil and paper. This was how she decided to file each memory of Cliff, by colors of the rainbow and my, what a beautiful rainbow it was.

  ~ * ~

  Louise was making her way back towards the house as the sun began to set over the dusty prairies of East Texas. In her hand, she held an iron skillet with chicken bones and a few measly crumbs.

  “Are you still tending to that rascally stray, Porcupine?” Louise’s father asked as they passed in the fading sunlight.

  Louise’s heart skipped a beat. She felt bad for it, but there had been no other way. She was forced to lie to her very own Pa. Somehow he knew how to even make her feel the more guilty for it, calling her by her baby nickname, Porcupine. When Louise was barely walking, she had gotten into Lily’s school paste and not knowing wh
y she’d do such a silly thing to this day, she plastered her hair all about with the sticky stuff. Oh, she had made a terrible mess alright. It had taken Mama nearly three good weeks to work the mess out. No amount of washing or combing would do. Pa even suggested shaving her bald, but Mama just cried at the mere mention of such a horrid act. Lily must have laughed the entire time and then some according to Pa.

  Thank goodness, she couldn’t remember it to this day. Pa had nicknamed her Porcupine cause her hair went out in every direction, but down. For a while he was calling her Albino Porcupine on account of her white hair, but later on he just shortened it and even though Louise pretended not to like the sound of Pa calling her by such a silly name, she really did enjoy it. But, he only called her by her nickname ever so often now days, especially since she was nearly grown up.

  “Yes, Pa. He’s awfully hungry,” Louise sighed as she said a silent prayer aimed straight for heaven. God better be listening too, cause Pa seemed to be heading right to the old barn where Cliff and Hank hid by night.

  “Hmm. That’s funny. Most dogs like bones,” her father replied as he narrowed his eyes at her.

  “Oh, they do for sure, but I heard that chicken bones aren’t no good for dogs. Remember Old man Johnson’s dog got one stuck inside him and he almost died from it,” Louise explained, with as much calm as she could muster.

  Her father scratched his chin. “So what’d you do? Take the bone out of his mouth after he ate the meat clean off?”

  Even Louise knew that would be hard to do. “No, I pulled the chicken off myself and gave it to the dog.”

  “That makes sense. That dog is powerful lucky to have you all concerned about his health. Heck, most people around here would even eat that old bone. An awful lot of folks are going hungry these days.”

  Louise nodded. Maybe her father bought her story, but she still wasn’t sure of it. “Louise?”

  “Yes sir?” Louise asked with her most innocent expression.

  “Don’t you go giving that dog any of our good leftovers, now you hear?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Now I mean it Louise. You only give him scraps that your Mama says you can give out.”

  “Yes, Pa, I promise.”

  Another lie.

  Darn it. It was powerful painful to lie to your very own flesh and blood. Most of the times, but not to Lily, Louise mused. A person just had to tell fibs to her in order to get her off a person’s back. Lily was a born tattletale. She made it her lifelong dream to get other people in trouble, so Louise took all out gumption in lying to her older sister.

  Louise had barely reached the front steps when she heard all sorts of whooping and hollering coming from the old barn. Oh, heavens, no, Pa was yelling loud enough to wake the dead and then she heard a familiar voice that clung to her heart as she turned around, nearly dropping the skillet on her bare foot. She hopped over it and ran toward the commotion.

  “What in tarnation are you boys up to?”

  Cliff was the first to answer. “We were just trying to rest for the night, sir. We didn’t mean anybody no harm.”

  The older man recognized the boys at once. He had met them a week ago, at the Halloween party in the new barn. If his memory served him well, Cliff was the one that Louise had spoken of so highly, saying he was the new, smart boy at school and yes, he thought so, the boy who walked the girls home every day.

  “Are you the young man who walks my girls home from school?” he asked, edging closer, setting down the pails he came to deliver to the old barn.

  “Yes sir.”

  “And you’re his brother?”

  “Yes sir,” Hank answered, visibly shaken at the large man looming over them.

  Suddenly, he realized that his very own daughter was feeding these boys. How long had they been staying here? And where did their parents live?

  “Did Louise bring you some leftovers?”

  Cliff didn’t want to get Louise in trouble along with him, but he didn’t want to lie either, especially to a big man like her father. He nodded instead of answering him and kicked at the dirt.

  “Is that a yes, son?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “You have my very own daughter risking herself so she can bring you some food?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. Please don’t be mad at Louise. She was only trying to help.”

  “Where are your folks?”

  Cliff shrugged and looked up at the man who seemed to calm down a bit.

  “I asked you a question boy!”

  “My mother and sisters are at home.”

  “Where’s home?”

  “Down south, sir.”

  “I see. You’re two runaways, then?”

  “No, sir, we’re looking for work out here.”

  “Work? Why, you’re only boys. You need to be with your family and help at home. That’s the best work for you. Does your Pa know you let out like that?”

  Neither boy answered and he wondered if the boys were mistreated. “Is your Pa an unkind man?”

  Cliff shook his head. “He’s a dead man.”

  “A dead man? Now what kind of thing is that to say about your very own father?”

  “It’s the truth, sir. He made some bad investments and when things hit rock bottom, we went broke. My dad ended it with a shot gun. Mama might lose the house so we let out for work. We were riding the train, but some of those bulls are awful mean.”

  Suddenly, Cliff wanted to tell him everything. He seemed like a nice enough man and besides, he was Louise’s father. He might as well meet him now, on account of him marrying her one day and maybe only in a few years at that. Louise’s father studied the boys and felt sorry for them. They were awfully brave at such a young age and the thought of their mother carrying the burden and maybe losing her house was a terrible thought. He heard sad stories every day, but seeing the two boys up close and personal brought it all home and his heart ached for them.

  “Why don’t you boys come with me,” Louise’s father ordered, motioning with his hand out stretched, sensing that they would run.

  Cliff was the quickest and the slyest. He jumped onto the ladder at the rear of the barn, scaling it in two seconds flat. He darted to the loosest boards where the owl flew in at night and jumped clear through, out into the dusk, just as the sun was slipping below the dusty horizon. Louise was running toward him, afraid for him and Hank, forgetting how much trouble she was undeniably in herself.

  “Cliff, Cliff, stop! Where are you going?” Louise called.

  Darn it, he couldn’t resist that sweet voice. She sounded so scared for him and the thought of never seeing her again was just too much. He suddenly changed his mind and cut back over the field where her small figure was seen running after him as the full moon began lighting the yellowed grass. Louise thought her heart would jump right out of her chest. She had never run so hard in all her life. All of a sudden he was upon her and breathing hard, looking over her shoulder to see if her Pa was on his way. Oh, no. He had poor Hank by the arm and he could tell by the way his shoulders were slumped over.

  Yep, Hank had already given up.

  He took Louise by the hands and searched her face, full of fear and something else, love. Cliff thought his heart would burst and he just couldn’t run. Louise blinked and the tears came. The wind had picked up some and the air was suddenly colder. Blonde wisps of hair began to twirl around Louise’s heart shaped face as Cliff took it in his hands. They were unbelievably warm against her cold cheeks.

  “Don’t cry, sugar. I’ll be back,” Cliff said between gasps. He looked again and saw her Pa by the outside of the barn. Hank was sitting on an old stump, nodding his head. They seemed to be talking calmly and Cliff guessed right that Hank was confessing how long they had used his old barn as a sleeping quarters.

  “Where will you go?” Louise asked, gazing up at him, more scared for him than she’d ever been for anyone in her life.

  “Farther north, I guess. Do you think your Pa will call
the law on Hank?”

  Louise glanced behind her, never giving Hank a second thought once she’d seen Cliff take off across the field. “No, I don’t think so. He probably wants to just talk to ya’ll.”

  Louise had a spectacular idea. Maybe them getting caught was a good thing. “Say, maybe you should talk to my Pa. I think he can help. He’s a very nice man, Cliff.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Really, he is. Honest. You know I wouldn’t lie to you,” Louise pleaded with her eyes.

  “Okay,” Cliff breathed. After all, he couldn’t just leave Hank behind. No matter how much he got on his nerves, he was his brother and he’d know him all his life.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” Louise sighed, hugging him to her and oh, it was a glorious feeling.

  Cliff hugged her back and stroked her hair as she listened to the rapid beating of his heart. Louise closed her eyes and forgot about her father behind them as he approached in long strides with Hank in tow.

  “Clifford!” he bellowed. Even Louise stiffened at the formality of Cliff’s given name. Louise pulled back and Cliff smiled his bright smile that she had come to love so much. His teeth shone in the moonlight as he flipped his long blond bangs back. Louise thought he seemed much older than fourteen and she wondered if she would one day marry the handsome boy. Louise didn’t dare look back as she heard her father approach. Cliff took full advantage of his last thirty seconds with her. He placed his palms on her cheeks again and kissed her fully on the mouth, leaving her breathless two seconds before her father reached them and grabbed him by the collar.

  “Louise, get in the house,” her father ordered.

  “Are you taking them to jail, Pa?” Louise cried.