Furnace Mountain: or The Day President Roosevelt Came to Town

by Rebecca Patrick-Howard

  She could play music, and did on occasion, but sometimes that made the house seem even lonelier–especially at night.

  It was starting to grow dark and a purple glow was developing around the mountains. She hoped Sam would be able to get home alright and had she had the means she would have taken him herself. But she was exhausted from the day and she was smart enough to realize that Sam undoubtedly knew his roads and paths far better than she knew them.

  A selfish part of her was ready to simply crawl into bed with a book and settle in for the night. She tried not to think about the family in the barn and what they must be feeling or thinking on this quiet night.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  DONALD'S BELLY FELT SO FULL that he was afraid he might just lose all the contents in it if he moved too quickly. The potatoes that his mama had fried up for breakfast had been salty and the lard had been good. They had been eating potatoes for months now, but mostly they'd been baked in the fire and plain except for sometimes when they were able to find some lard to cook them with. Mostly, though, the lard had been old and tasted funny. These potatoes had tasted the way that he remembered them tasting back when they still lived at the head of the holler and he'd had his own bedroom.

  His mama had gone back to sleep after breakfast and his daddy had told him not to wake her, that she needed the rest. Donald thought that she looked pale and tired and the dark circles under her eyes worried him. She had been sleeping a lot lately and he thought that she might be sick, but his daddy didn't seem to be worried so he was trying not to be, either.

  For a little while, his daddy had left the barn and talked to Mr. Pyle and left Donald alone. He had wandered around and said hello to the cows, but he tried not to explore too much because he didn't want to get in trouble. Even though everyone had been real nice to them, especially the mayor that had brought the bag of food the night before, he knew that if he caused too much trouble they might have to leave and Donald wasn't ready to leave yet. He had slept real good on the hay and once during the night he had even heard his parents whispering and thought that he had heard a little laugh come from his mama.

  When his daddy came back, he said that Mr. Pyle was going to give him a ride into town and asked if Donald wanted to go, too. His feet still hurt him some, but the shoes that Mr. Homer had brought him made them feel a little better and he thought that riding into town sounded like a good idea.

  Mr. Pyle didn't have a car like Donald was hoping, because he had never ridden in anything other than a train, but the wagon moved quickly and the air felt good on his face just the same. Anything was better than walking on the railroad tracks. Sometimes he tripped and fell when he wasn't paying attention and it got awfully boring staring at his feet all the time. He had tried counting ties for awhile but that got old and once he got to 100 he usually just started over again anyways.

  The ride into town didn't take too long and he enjoyed seeing all of the little houses and the horses and cows out in the fields. It felt a lot different to be riding than it did to be walking. He saw another little boy that was maybe a little older than him walking down the road with a bucket in his hand and both waved at each other. He thought maybe he had seen him in town the day before.

  He thought that Furnace Mountain was a pretty nice town. It reminded him somewhat of home, only it was cleaner here because it didn't have all of the coal dust that could get everywhere. He liked the bus station here with the little restaurant and the pictures of pies in the window. He also liked the big train depot–the biggest one that he had ever seen. He didn't think that the depots in New York City were as grand or as big as the one that they were working on here.

  The people here seemed some nicer, too. A lot of people were smiling and talking to each other and even though he had overheard Mr. Pyle and his daddy talking about some people in town not being happy about the fact that they were there, nobody had said anything bad to them.

  Mr. Pyle stopped his wagon at the back of the depot and said that they would have to park there because there wasn't anywhere else that he could put up his mule. Here, in town, Donald could see a lot of cars and trucks and he thought that he had maybe seen so many at once before. He figured that Furnace Mountain must be a very rich town filled with a lot of rich folks to be able to afford so many fine cars, but then he also saw a few wagons and horses, too, so he figured that maybe not everybody had money.

  "Donald, I'm gonna go with Mr. Pyle over here for a few minutes to talk to his man here. Why don't you go over there by the school and sit under that tree until I get back," Hubert said sternly. Donald really wanted to go with him, but he didn't want to be bad and disobey his daddy, either so he agreed.

  The nice schoolteacher that he had met before came outside and handed him an apple and he thanked her profusely before biting into it hungrily, his full belly forgotten.

  Sitting there under the tree, eating his apple, and watching a line of ants march steadily across a large root made him happier than he had felt in weeks. The sounds of the men working nearby were loud, but he didn't mind. Sometimes there was shouting but it was mostly mixed up with laughing. He could see his daddy talking to another man and at one point he held his hands out and let the other man study them. Donald couldn't tell what they were talking about but everyone looked happy so he didn't worry.

  He liked the little school, too. It was smaller than what he had gone to at home, but he had only gone there for a couple of months. Then, the school had run out of money and right after Christmastime it had closed and nobody had been able to go at all. Some people still met at the church and had reading and writing lessons but his mama had needed him more at home she said and he had stayed back and helped her. He figured that he would go back to school eventually and sometimes while they were traveling he would catch a glimpse of one and think that he missed his, even though it was cold in the wintertime if you had to sit in the back of the room where the coal stove couldn't reach you.

  A few minute later, Hubert came ambling up the grassy slope to where Donald sat. He sat down beside him and folded his long skinny legs up under him and looked thoughtfully towards the depot.

  "Son, I think we're gonna stay here for a spell. The foreman there said that I could help work on some of the projects that they got going around town. It doesn't pay anything right now, but we're going to try to work something out with food and a place to stay. I reckon that you don't need to be walking anymore than you have to and your mama's not been feeling her best, either. What do you think?"

  "I think it's a nice idea, Daddy," Donald replied seriously. "Are we gonna stay in the barn at Mr. Pyle's?" He didn't mind the barn, really. He just wanted to know.

  "I don't rightly know yet, but we'll figure something out soon enough. In the meantime, we have enough food left from what that mayor brought us and Chester said that we could use the creek out back behind his house for washing. He's offered to bring me into town everyday to work."

  Hubert didn't like the idea of his family sleeping their nights away in a barn, but it looked sturdy enough and it was better than sleeping out under the stars. He had hoped there might be some money involved in the work, but it seemed like the town was just as poor as him.

  He reckoned that they could have made it on to Lexington where there might have been some handouts in terms of food and places to stay and maybe even some money to be made, but he couldn't be sure. He didn't want to get all the way up there just to find that it was as bleak as it was everywhere else and at least here people were being nice to them and trying to help.

  Hubert didn't like the idea of handouts, although he was at the point where he knew that he couldn't be picky about what he got. In the beginning, he had hated asking anyone for help. Over time, he had learned that people just weren't willing to offer, even when he would have taken it.

  For several weeks he had worked on a farm putting tomato stakes in the ground. The ground had been dry and it had been back–breaking work, but he'd finished the job
when he said he would, even though Carolyn had had to rub salve on his back every evening and some nights he couldn't sleep from the pain. He'd been let go, though, when he had raised a fuss about getting paid only half of the agreed upon amount. He knew that he probably should let it go. After all, they were sleeping indoors and had plenty of food to eat, but a deal was a deal. Since then, he hadn't had any other offers for work.

  ***

  Alice was angry. She wasn't just upset, she was actually so mad that she could cry. She hated crying and tried to limit any outbursts to once or twice a month, but the ball of anger that had rooted itself deep in her stomach was now threatening to overtake her entire body.

  Nicholas hadn't meant to hurt my feelings and make me upset, she kept telling herself.

  When he had come by her house that morning and had started off the conversation by complaining about his parents and how they had been treating him lately, she had thought that it was funny. At first.

  "It was all right in the beginning," he had sulked. She was cutting up potatoes so that she could replant the ones with eyes and although her hands were numb from working, and her cheeks were already pink from the sun, he hadn't offered to pick up a knife and help. Although she doubted that he would have known what to do with it. Probably slice them too small and make them useless, she thought now vindictively.

  "I liked the fact that my father was talking to me like a man and that Mother seemed pleased with everything that I was doing. But now, it doesn't seem to be enough. They want me with them all the time and they won't let up on my future career plans, what I'm going to do, how they can profit off of me…"

  He kicked at a tree root and she saw him wince from the pain, which made her smile. Nicholas had a way of getting himself worked up over the smallest things.

  "This shouldn't be any different than what they were doing before, except over school," she pointed out cautiously.

  "Why can't they just lay off of me?" he muttered. "I'm tired of hearing all of these questions about where I'm going and what I'm going to do and how I'm going to do it."

  "At least you're going somewhere," she said quietly. There were days when she had a lot of patience with Nicholas. This was not one of those days. “Isn’t that what you want?”

  He didn't hear her. "And so what if I'm not sure what I want to do yet with myself. If they keep pushing me then I'm not going to do anything at all. I'll just sit here, work in the garden, and be like every other person in town, just wasting my life away."

  "Oh, well, excuse me. I wasn't aware that I am 'wasting my life away,'" Alice replied mildly, giving a potato a toss. She had left them out overnight to let them dry, but the worms had managed to get into a few of them anyway. She hadn't paid as much attention to the potatoes this year as she should have.

  "What?" He looked startled, and then remembered what he had said. For a second he looked hurt, like a little boy, and she was sorry that she had snapped at him. But then he shrugged and that irritated her. "I didn’t mean you, of course. You know that. You're very smart, Alice. If you just applied yourself. I was just talking about me and all of the pressure that I have on me."

  "I do apply myself, Nicholas. Just in a different way. I just choose to work in the garden and waste my life?"

  "I didn't mean that, either. Why are you getting upset? Of course you could do other things if you…"

  Patiently, she laid down her knife and potato and looked up at him. "Like what? What could I do, Nicholas? Where could I go? What other things are out there for me? What other things are out there for most of the people in this town?"

  "I don't know," he shrugged, looking self-conscious. "I don't think about it, not really."

  "No, you don't think about it. You think about you, about Nicholas. So maybe your parents hassle you about what you're going to do with your life. But why shouldn't they? At least they care.” She was really riled up now, marching around with steam practically coming out her ears.

  “Do you think that there aren't people in this town that wouldn't like to have that? How about Sam Walters? Everyone knows that Ruth is practically an invalid and that he takes care of everything and he's just a child. What about me? Don't you think I'd like to have my father care enough to try to push me and ask me questions and want good things for me?"

  He might have looked hurt, or it could have been surprise. He had been privy to Alice's outbursts in the past but rarely was he the subject of them.

  "A little sympathy would be nice, Alice. I'm not saying that my life is terrible, but it's still very frustrating–"

  "A little sympathy?" she shot back with a laugh. "How about a little help? Instead of feeling sorry for yourself and wallowing in your own self-pity, how about taking a look around and actually doing something? And something for you, either."

  "Like what?"

  "Like instead of arguing with your father and butting heads with him about the paper, how about actually trying to help him with it? You'll be gone at the end of the summer and everyone knows that this isn't going to be your life, as you have plainly made it aware to everyone around you, so why not try to make him happy for at least a little while? Or instead of moping around and feeling sorry for yourself, how about helping me with the garden? Or helping down at the depot? Or painting? I know you could do that."

  Nicholas looked down at the ground with irritation. Sometimes, Alice was struck by how smooth his face was, like a little boy's. He hadn't suffered from any pox or marks along the way like other boys her age she knew and his face was just as smooth as even as it had been when he was a young child. There were times when she felt protective of him, like he was still indeed a child, even though she knew that he was closer to being a man every single day.

  Shaking his head one last time, Nicholas turned and stomped away. Alice stood still and watched him disappear down the path and didn't move until he was out of sight.

  Hours later, she was still angry. She thought about their conversation and replayed the things she had said, as well as the ones that she wished she had said. He was a selfish creature–that much she knew. Still, it didn't usually upset her as much as it had today.

  Alice figured that she was just exhausted. Robert hadn't been home for two days. When he’d left, sober this time, he had told her that he was going to look for work. She hadn't the slightest idea as to where he thought that he was going to find this so-called work, but she had watched him saunter off through the field in much the same way that she had watched Nicholas walk away.

  The longest that Robert had ever been gone before was a week and that time he had been locked up for disturbing the peace. She figured he was locked up now, although she didn’t know where. Usually the sheriff sent someone out to tell her when he was locked up in town so that she could help him home after he slept it off. She decided to give herself one more day before she started worrying about him.

  Chapter twenty-Three

  MARIANNE CASTEEL CELEBRATED her 34th birthday in the same way she’d celebrated her birthdays in the past–alone. When her father was alive they had gone to dinner together, sometimes watching a show if they had the extra money. Once he'd had a woman down the street bake her a cake, but neither one of them were crazy about sweets and it had gone wasted.

  Today, she was feeling her years and although she still had work to do in her classroom, she decided to take the morning off and do something for herself. Using the tall glass pitcher that had been her mother's, she squeezed out fresh lemon juice and made herself a respectable glass of lemonade before taking her book out to her porch. It was still early enough in the morning that the heat wasn't unbearable, but once the sun rose the shade would disappear and she couldn't enjoy her porch.

  If she turned one way on her porch she had a lovely view of the mountains. If she turned the other she could see the town. People were already out this morning, carrying tools and eating the last bites of their breakfast. The depot was coming together nicely but the windows needed glass. She hoped th
at Homer had ideas for that.

  Other concerns plagued her as well. Her schoolhouse was snug, but it held all her students. The neighboring towns all had their own schoolhouses and she met with those teachers on occasion and liked them. Those schools were smaller than her own and in Vicker's Branch there were only six students in total. Soon, they’d all be consolidated.

  What was going to happen to all of them when they created one big school and eliminated the smaller ones? Being the county seat, it made sense to have the school in Four Tree. She didn't think she would lose her job since she nobody had said otherwise. But what about the other teaches? More importantly, what about the students?

  As it was, there were many students that were unable to get into town on days it rained heavily and washed out the roads. She worried about those that had to walk a mile or more in the wintertime as well, especially considering the fact that not all of them had sturdy boots. The fact that she had good attendance at all made her proud but she knew she was lucky. Most of her students lived close to town and had little difficulty getting in. Those that lived further out, however…Marianne was not naïve enough to think that they would make that same attempt. She feared that without transportation and adequate motivation they would lose those students that wanted to attend school but just couldn't. This made her heartsick.

  The little boy, Donnie, who had just shown up in town had looked at her school with forlorn longing and it pained her. She’d spoken to his father and learned that he hadn't been able to attend school for awhile. News from around the state came in letting her know that other counties had canceled school altogether for the time being. She credited Homer for keeping theirs open, along with the fact that she had taken a cut in pay like the other teachers in the county.