The Truth According to Us

by Annie Barrows

  Hamilton’s belligerence was turned to good purpose during the Revolutionary War, when a militia under his command met with Brigadier General “Mad Anthony” Wayne’s regiment in the Virginia Campaign of 1781. Though Hamilton was well beyond the age of soldiering, confusion caused by his honorary title precipitated an unexpected role in the Battle of Green Spring. Upon being informed of his mistake, Brigadier General Wayne is reported to have said laughingly, “I don’t fear for him. It must be a true marksman who can hit a target so small as Hamilton’s heart.”

  Upon the conclusion of his brief military adventure, the General returned to Macedonia and took up the duties of farming the plantation that was by that time known as Pella. Having abandoned an early, ill-conceived sheep-farming venture, he now planted his acres with apple trees and tended his ever-proliferating stock of cows, rich in both money and acclaim, until September 24, 1788, when the town of Macedonia was officially incorporated and he was invested as mayor. Later that year, he had the honor of greeting Bushrod Washington, the favorite nephew of George Washington, at Pella, where Bushrod repeated for the first time Washington’s famous compliment to the newly established town, “I know of no other town so well situated as Macedonia.” Surely, the two illustrious men raised their glasses to honor the Father of Our Country and the fledgling city of Macedonia alike.

  Though the heroic age of Macedonia is long past, and the General’s striding step can no longer be heard in the forests atop Mount Everett, memories of General Magnus Hamilton may be summoned when one visits the gracious Locust Street home of his descendants, Mr. and Mrs. Parker Davies. A smiling Mrs. Davies points out the portrait of the General presiding over the mantelpiece in her magnificent parlor. “It was painted by Werner Bliss in 1811,” she confides, looking with fond familial eyes upon the grim visage of the General. “Grandpapa—I call him Grandpapa—died the next year, in 1812, at the age of seventy-four.” Next the visitor is led through oak-lined halls to see the General’s chiffarobe, the last survivor of the original Hamilton cabin on Mount Everett. Dark and creaking, it stands in the sunny hallway it stands as testament to the reverence each successive generation it holds many a rattling skeleton

  13

  Geraldine was right: I was a natural-born sneak. The day after Cooey’s Red Apple, I caught sight of Sonny Deal, walking along with his head lowered furtively. I followed him, just as furtively, keeping to the other side of the street. He didn’t notice a thing but ducked under the Race Street Bridge and came out whistling. I let him wander off, then I quick squeezed under there myself. And what did I find but two pails of green plums! Ammunition! I toted the pails right back to Capon Street, and Geraldine decorated me with a safety pin.

  We caught Sonny that afternoon in the creek and subjected him to a blistering fusillade of his own plums. As usual, I couldn’t hit anything, but Geraldine got him good, right in the neck.

  “Willa Romeyn! What in Sam Hill is going on down there?” It was Mrs. Fox, crackling through her boxwood hedge to look down the banks of the creek.

  Geraldine, big as she was, knew how to fade into the underbrush. Sonny Deal let out a squawk and bounded like a dog through the water. I was left high and dry.

  Mrs. Fox peered after Sonny. “Did that boy hurt you?”

  I sniveled. What other choice did I have? “He probably didn’t mean to hit me in the eye,” I said, gulping bravely.

  “Why! That bully! I’ve got half a mind to call the police!”

  I shook my head quick. “No, ma’am. He won’t do it again, I expect.”

  “Humph. Well.” She looked at me doubtfully. “You want some lemonade?”

  This is what they call serendipity. Maybe it was wrong to get lemonade for lying, but there was nothing I could do about it. We settled down nice and comfortable in Mrs. Fox’s lawn chairs, sipping our lemonade and talking about the weather and such. Then I got an idea.

  I held my lemonade in my mouth for a moment, thinking, and then I swallowed. “Mrs. Fox,” I began. “The other day, when Mr. Hamilton burnt that boot, you said Jottie was a saint.” She nodded. I tried to look innocent but not idiotic, which is uphill work. “Did you call her that because Mr. Hamilton’s boy burnt American Everlasting?”

  She pursed up her lips. “Your aunt has got a heart of pure gold—”

  “Why’d he do it?” I asked quick, before she could go on to tell me how good Jottie was. I already knew that part. “Was he crazy?”

  “Vause?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  She shook her head. “No, not crazy, exactly. He was—well, everyone treated Vause Hamilton like he was the Second Coming when he was in high school, and I guess he got to believing it.” She frowned. “I’ll admit, he had me fooled, too. He always seemed nice as could be, but I reckon he was hiding his other side.”

  “Like Dr. Jekyll?” I suggested.

  She smiled. “Well. Maybe. More likely he got spoiled. Everyone thought he was the most wonderful thing in the world and they told him so, every time he turned around. Vause this, Vause that. It ruined him. Why, look—when he came back from the war, he didn’t bother to get a job; he just loafed around for almost a year. Then, when he decided he needed some money—what did he do? He robbed your granddaddy, the most generous man on God’s green earth, the father of his own best friend!” She shook her head indignantly. “And he burnt the factory. He didn’t have to do that! He had the combination to the safe, after all! He took six thousand dollars out of there, and you’d think that would have been enough for him. But, no, he had to burn the place down and put everyone out of work for months!” Mrs. Fox leaned forward, her face pink. She was mad. “Your granddaddy was just heartbroken! And poor Jottie! She was well rid of him, that’s what I say!” She sat back in her chair with a thump.

  Jottie? Rid of him? What? I shaped the words carefully with my mouth. “Jottie? Was she…um”—I didn’t know what to say—“did she like him especially?”

  The pink faded from Mrs. Fox’s face. She took a sip of lemonade. “Oh, I don’t know about that!” She gave a little laugh that didn’t sound real.

  “Is that why Jottie’s a saint?” I pressed. “Because she liked him especially and then he stole from the mill and all? And she’s still nice to Mr. Hamilton? Is that it?”

  Mrs. Fox looked out over her lawn. “Yes,” she said. “That’s it.”

  —

  I came slowly across our back porch. I could see Jottie through the kitchen window, head bent over the table. She had liked Vause Hamilton especially, was the most I could get out of Mrs. Fox. Had he broken her heart? Jottie’s heart? For the first time in my life, I wondered why Jottie wasn’t married. Why she took care of us instead of having her own husband and children. Her own children? Would she rather have her own children than us?

  I bolted into the kitchen and put my arms around her.

  “Why, honey!” She sounded glad. “You want to hear a disgusting recipe? Jell-O with canned peas! Makes me sick to—” She broke off when I squeezed her tighter. “What?”

  “I love you,” I said.

  “Good thing, because I love you, too,” she said, squeezing me back.

  “More than anything?” I asked. I wanted to hear her say it.

  “Same as Bird and more than anything else,” she answered, like she always did.

  I felt better, but I couldn’t help myself. “How come you never got married, Jottie?”

  I don’t know what I saw, exactly, but it made me afraid. I’d seen Jottie cry, plenty of times, from laughing. Only once, though, from sadness. I never did know what she was crying about, that long-ago time, but I remembered the awful, sick feeling of it. I remembered standing in the doorway, just stiff with fright, watching her shoulders shake and telling myself, no, Jottie wasn’t really crying, she was hiccuping probably, or maybe shaking with laughter. Because if Jottie could be hurt, nothing in the world was safe.

  I gripped on to her, dreading to see her cry, dreading to know that I had made h
er cry, and, more than anything, dreading to hear her say she wished her life were different.

  And then it was over. She smiled and her hand curved around my cheek. “You trying to get rid of me?”

  I almost cried myself, from relief. “No! No, I just—just—wondered if you’d ever met anyone nice enough to marry.”

  “No,” she said. “No, I didn’t.”

  I tried to think of a nice man who wasn’t married. “What about Mr. Russell?”

  She hooted. “Tare Russell wouldn’t marry me if you paid him!”

  “He might,” I said.

  “No, he wouldn’t. And I wouldn’t marry him, either,” she said firmly.

  “Who would you marry?” I asked.

  “No one,” she said.

  “If you had to.”

  “No one. Even if they dangled me over a pit of alligators.”

  “Clark Gable?” Most ladies thought he was handsome.

  “No thank you. I’d have to spend the rest of my days making antimacassars.”

  “Don’t you think he’s handsome?”

  “He is. But he’s not my type.”

  “What is your type?”

  “Tall and golden,” she said at once. I didn’t know what she meant by golden, but I didn’t ask, because she looked flustered that she’d said it so quick. “Clear,” she added.

  “Clear? What kind of clear?” I prodded her. This was about the most interesting conversation I’d ever had. “You mean clear-pure? Or clear-understandable? Or clear-tidy?”

  “I mean clear so that the way he seems is the way he truly is,” she said. “I mean clear-truthful. And clear-understandable, like you said.” She gazed at me without really seeing me, and then she came back into focus and smiled. “What about you?” she said. “What’s your type?”

  I giggled. “I’m only twelve!”

  “Not a moment to spare,” she said. “That’s marrying age, down in Georgia.”

  Was it true? If it was, it was terrible. “I’m not marrying anyone,” I said.

  “Clark Gable?” she teased.

  “Oh, he’s too old!” I said, wrinkling my nose. “He’s way too old. He has to be younger than that!”

  “That’s all?” She shook her head disapprovingly. “Youth is your only requirement?”

  “No! Young, but also funny.” I tried to explain. “Fun. You know, like Father is. Someone who makes me laugh, but not with jokes, just with the way he says things. Someone who makes everything funny and interesting, even doing nothing.”

  “Just by standing there.” Jottie nodded. “Some people can just stand in an empty room and make it seem like the center of the world.”

  She was talking about Vause Hamilton. That’s how she had felt about him. And then he turned out to be bad. He turned out to be a liar. That’s why Jottie wanted to marry someone clear and honest—because he had been the opposite. Suddenly I wished Vause Hamilton were still alive, so that I could kill him for breaking Jottie’s heart.

  Pausing in the hallway, Jottie reached into the pocket of her apron and felt for her box of cigarettes. There they were. She jiggled the box for the reassuring thump of many cigarettes.

  You can have one just as soon as you telephone Inez Tapscott and ask about that club.

  I don’t want to be in their club. They’ll sneer at me.

  No, they won’t.

  Some of them will. Louise Silver will. So will Auralee Bowers. And Belinda Davies. Mrs. John, too.

  Never mind them. Inez will take care of you. Inez has a heart of gold.

  A heart of gold.

  Think of Willa. She’ll probably get invited to tea parties if you join.

  And I’ll probably have to eat Jell-O with peas in it. I’ll probably have to make it and eat it both. It’ll be just like the Rose League.

  Mama was president of the Rose League.

  Even in the kitchen, Jottie could hear her mother speaking. “…he just takes to the work. I believe it must run in his veins, the way he grasps the business—”

  Myrtle Loring’s rasping voice broke in, “Caroline, this olive whip is heavenly. You didn’t make it yourself, did you?”

  The faintest of pauses expressed Mrs. Romeyn’s genteel rebuke at the interruption. This was followed by a silvery laugh. “Well, no. I told Nettie how to make it, and she followed right along. She follows along real well.” Louder, but still silvery: “Jottie, bring out some more of those olive sandwiches for the ladies.”

  In the olive-less kitchen, Nettie’s face fell, and Jottie could feel hers doing the same. “Could we chop up some pimientos?” she whispered hopefully.

  “Pimientos is red, and them ladies ain’t blind,” growled Nettie. “They should be on to the cake by now.” She gripped her hair with both hands and pulled.

  “It’s all right. I’ll fix it.” Jottie touched Nettie’s shoulder. “I’ll fix it.”

  She swished toward the parlor, fluttering her pink dress. The only good thing about Rose League days was that she got to wear her prettiest dress. She entered the parlor, pretending to be modestly unaware as every eye turned to her, and sidled to her mother’s chair. “Mama?” she said in a stage whisper.

  “What is it, honey?” said her mother benevolently.

  Jottie twisted her hands together in what she hoped looked like maidenly confusion. “Felix and Vause came in and stole the rest of the olive whip,” she whispered. “They tried to steal the cake, too, but Nettie wouldn’t let them.”

  Again, the faintest of pauses occurred while Mrs. Romeyn decided how to present herself in the face of this infraction. Then she chuckled.

  Other chuckles echoed hers as the ladies nodded and gurgled, understanding food larceny to be part of the male prerogative. Jottie, smiling with relief, glanced through the window and beheld Felix and Vause coming up the front stairs.

  Everyone else beheld them, too.

  “Felix!” called Mrs. Romeyn in a carrying soprano. “You just come right in here and apologize to these ladies!”

  Felix appeared at the parlor doorway, lean and careless, his uncanny good looks on full display. Behind him came Vause, shining and smiling. The ladies sighed with appreciation.

  “What did you say, Mama?” asked Felix politely.

  “What do you mean, you wicked boys, by stealing our olive whip?” cried Mrs. Romeyn. “Good thing Nettie saved the cake. You-all apologize this minute!”

  Almost imperceptibly, Felix flicked a glance at Jottie. She widened her eyes: Help!

  As the Rose League watched, Felix’s gaze circled the room and came to rest on a plump, rosy lady whose hat boasted an artificial peach. He beamed at her as if he had woken that morning from a dream of her, and she smiled back, growing rosier still. “I cannot tell a lie,” he began. The ladies giggled. He pointed to Vause. “He did it.” Without hesitation, Vause nodded. “You know, I try to keep him on the straight and narrow, but,” Felix appealed to the ladies’ compassion, “he’s weak. He couldn’t help himself. He struggled with the demon olive. And he lost. Didn’t you?” he demanded, turning to Vause.

  Vause nodded. “It was real good olive whip,” he said, his blue eyes ashamed. “I’m awful sorry, Mrs. Romeyn. We don’t have olive whip at my house.”

  Mrs. Romeyn inclined her head, acknowledging this compliment to her provisions. “Well,” she said, “I guess I’ll accept your apology this time.” She smiled beautifully at Vause and her son, and swiveled with regal aplomb to collect any expressions of esteem—or, better yet, envy—that might appear among the Rose League at the contemplation of the tender ties between mother and son. “Run along with you, now.”

  Jottie’s eyes followed Felix and Vause, watching hungrily as they turned away, released from captivity, free to do whatever they pleased, free not to please, free not to serve, free not to lie about olive whip.

  In a state of high gratification, Mrs. Romeyn commanded her daughter, “We’ll have the cake now, Jottie. Tell Nettie to bring out the coffee, and just be careful
with those plates!” She leaned toward a nearby lady. “They’re Wedgwood, and I just hold my breath with all these children around.” The lady tittered. “Hurry up, Jottie,” Mrs. Romeyn urged. “Don’t be poky.”

  “Yes, Mama,” said Jottie.

  Vause, departing, dropped her a wink.

  Jottie sighed and picked up the receiver.

  “…Why, Jottie Romeyn, we’d be pleased as punch if you’d come! We never thought you’d want to! Oh, I’m just so glad!”

  14

  On Saturday morning, Bird and I listened for the sound of Jottie slapping her gloves together. It came—a soft whap—and then Jottie called, “Come along, girls! Time to go!”

  We raced down the stairs, each trying to beat the other. Bird won; she always did, because she pushed. Mae was waiting for us at the bottom with her little suitcase. She was going to see my uncle Waldon, like she did every weekend. His farm was right between two of ours, the north farm and the big farm. My grandfather had owned three farms, and when he died, he left them to Father and Emmett and Jottie. I once asked Jottie why he hadn’t included Mae and Minerva, and she said that he’d figured they had enough to do, taking care of husbands; they didn’t need farms, too. Grandfather had been right about that, because those farms were a lot of trouble. As far back as I could remember, they’d been failing. All you had to do was mention them, and the grown-ups would start moping about sick cows, broken machinery, sour milk, drunk farmhands, on and on, until you were sorry you’d brought it up. Every Saturday morning, Jottie had to drive out to check on north farm and big farm, and every Saturday, there was some new and awful problem that she had to try to fix. Pretty near every week, she’d come home declaring that we were all going to die in the poorhouse. There was another farm, too, but it was way over by Mount Edwards, and only Emmett ever went there. It was called the mountain farm, though it wasn’t on the mountain.