by Leisha Kelly
“Miss Hazel is fine. And I’m going to the church. Can you imagine? Our new pastor’s wife can’t play the piano! At least she’s willin’ to take a lesson. I hope she’s got the sense for it, you know what I mean?”
I cleared my throat, unsure of how to ask anything of this rather gruff lady. “Well, uh, yes,” I stammered. “I hope so too.”
“Who are you, anyway?” she demanded. “And what’s George sending you to me for?”
“I . . . uh . . . I need to know where to find Mrs. Emma Graham.”
Miss Hazel looked at me a long time, and for a moment I wondered if Emma Graham was unmarried too. But I was sure Hammond had said Mrs.
“I go up and see Emma when I get the chance,” Miss Hazel said, her voice considerably softer. “What are you wantin’ with her, anyway?”
I swallowed. “We want to ask her about her farm.”
For the first time, Miss Hazel looked past me and saw my family waiting beneath the tree by the grocer.
“Her farm, eh? I see. You’ll break her heart with that, you will. She true loves that old place.”
I was taken aback; I certainly didn’t want to break anyone’s heart. “Do you think we shouldn’t ask then? If she’s wanting to—”
“Oh no, it isn’t that. You might just as well. It’d be the best thing. She ain’t never goin’ home.” Miss Hazel took another long look at Samuel and the kids. Then she stared down at my hands. “You hard workers, are you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And churchgoin’, I hope.”
“Well, yes. Once we get settled somewhere.”
“She might not sell, mind you,” Miss Hazel told me. “But you do all right by askin’. What you need is to go to Belle Rive to the boardinghouse. McPiery’s place, got that? That’s where she is.” She took a deep breath, straightened her hat, and told me she couldn’t be late for the pastor’s wife’s first lesson. Then she scurried away down the street.
The grocer told us Belle Rive was another four miles or so northwest. Closer still to Mt. Vernon. I knew if this fell through, we’d be going right on, into an uncertain future. And I had butterflies flying loops and swirls in my stomach.
“She’s probably an old lady,” Sam said as we stood on the side of the road just outside Dearing. “Probably widowed and can’t keep up the farm by herself anymore.”
Just like Grandma when Grandpa died, I thought. We’d moved to town, and it’d still been good. We’d had each other. I hoped Emma Graham had someone.
“Do you think we’re doing the right thing, Sam?” I asked.
“That’s up to you, honey,” he told me. “We can still go to Dewey’s and spend a couple of days deciding what to do next.”
We walked along in silence, and I almost gave up the idea of the farm. How could I ask a stranger a favor such as this? Especially when it concerned something so dear to her heart. It was easy for me to see how she could love the place; I wouldn’t want to part with it, if I were her. But, of course, she wouldn’t have to. We couldn’t buy it anyway. Maybe we could tenant for awhile, until she was ready to do something different. And by then, maybe we would’ve found something else, maybe something in the area.
We got a ride from an old couple who drove slower than Hammond’s farm wagon and said scarcely two words to us the whole way to Belle Rive. But when we stopped beside an ancient-looking church on the edge of town, the woman turned in her seat and gave me a quarter. “Get the kids somethin’, will you?” she said. And she and her husband drove away on the road toward Mt. Vernon. Sam would have liked to go on with them, I was sure.
I stood with the quarter in my hand and tears in my eyes, afraid of what I had come to the town to do.
“Are all the towns in Illinois this small?” Robert asked when the car was out of sight.
“Chicago’s bigger than Harrisburg,” Sam told him. “But I hear things are pretty hard up there.”
“Things are hard around here too,” Robert observed. “If people will eat a pig’s head.”
Little Sarah put her hand in my hand, her eyes on my tears. “Don’t be scared, Mama,” she whispered. “I bet there’s something real good to find in this town.”
I nodded to her but couldn’t say a word. I wanted to buy them peaches with the quarter. Just because they loved them so well. I stood wondering about finding a grocer in this town when I saw a sign not even a block away from us. “BOARDERS WELCOME.”
Sam had seen it too. “That’s probably it,” he said. “I’m not sure a town this size could have two boardinghouses.”
Once again I considered giving up my idea. But Sarah expected me to muster my courage and find the good so that I could tell her about it. I looked hard at Sam.
“Are you coming with me?”
He only shook his head. I could see the love in his eyes, all stirred in with his sadness. I handed him my bag with a nod. Might be better anyway, I thought, for a woman to be talking to a woman on this. At least, if that’s the way Sam wants it, that’s the way it’ll be.
TEN
Emma
I was sittin’ by the window in my room at Rita’s with an undone quilt bunched on my lap. Every day I tried to sew it a little more. Had to pull it up close to my face, though, to get the stitchin’ halfway right. I was working at it when I heard the knock outside, but I didn’t pay it no mind. There weren’t many folks come to see me.
Before long, I tied off and cut my thread, then pulled back Rita’s old lime curtains to get me a better look outside. An old willow tree not thirty feet from the glass took up ’bout all my view. We had one just like it out to the farm, till it come crashin’ down in the big storm that hit in 1918.
God musta put this willow where it was on purpose, so I could look out and remember all the picnics me and Willard had under the droopy shade of the other one. I remember missing it something awful when it fell. Would’ve planted another just like it, but Willard did the practical thing and put in an apple.
I sat there for a moment, dreamin’ on whether the apple tree had bloomed and how well it might do for fruit this year without the prunin’ it was sure to be needing. Didn’t take much to get me homesick, I guess.
I thought of how the jonquils would be pretty ’gainst the white of the house that time of year. But the violas was likely choked awful by the grass, bein’ along the garden’s edge the way they was. And the violas was precious, since they came clear from m’ grandmother’s farm, to mama’s, to mine. It made me sad to think there wasn’t nobody but me to care.
I tied back the curtain and turned my head to business. Oughta get this quilt done, just ’cause it’s somethin’ to do. I cut a new length of thread but had my mind on all the green outside the window. Spring was the worst time for thinking on home and Willard and how much I missed ’em both ever’ time I let myself. Just lookin’ outside could start me off. You’d think I’d learn.
But there was a little fun in imaginin’ Willard standing outside under that willow, watchin’ and waitin’ for us to be together again. I wondered if he was missin’ me the same as I missed him. But maybe he’d be ready to give me the what for by now, for all this sittin’ still so long.
He always said home was the place to live and die. And there I was, spendin’ three good farmin’ seasons in Belle Rive. There weren’t no way ’round it. But what would he think? Willard wouldn’t leave the farm when he was sick. Even when he took real bad, he wouldn’t. But there I sat.
I was just leanin’ into the window light, trying to thread my needle, when Rita tapped so sudden on the door, I jumped.
“Emma?”
“Might just as well come right in, Rita. You know you ain’t gotta knock.” I tried threadin’ that needle again, but missed.
The door opened just a peek. “You’ve got comp’ny, Emma,” Rita said. “Says she’s from Pennsylvaney.”
Now that were a surprise. I couldn’t imagine what this’d be about. I pulled myself up in m’ seat best I could, wondering who i
n the world had come.
“Don’t recall that I know nobody out that way,” I told her. “But send ’em in anyhow. Can’t hurt to say hello.”
The door opened up wide and Rita brung in a pretty young woman with squared shoulders and a real slow step. Even though I never seen her before, she acted like she was almost scared of me, all nervous an’ wringin’ her hands like she figured maybe she already done somethin’ wrong.
“Just give me a holler if you all want tea or anything,” Rita told us. Then she shut the door and left us alone.
The lady was young and fair for looking at, with a blue button-front dress, a flowery scarf, and the most amazin’ green eyes. She was gazin’ over the place and me. I must have been quite a sight in that old rocker, with my hair all down a mess, quilting scrunched so sloppy over my lap, and just one old shoe pokin’ out from underneath.
What in the world might she have come for? I thought. Albert up in Chicago, maybe? He knew lots of folks. Had something happened to him? That kinda thinkin’ give me an awful tight feeling in my throat, and I coughed to clear it away.
“You care for anythin’, miss?”
“Uh, no, thank you.”
She sounded so nervous. A whole lot more than I was, for sure, and I felt sorried for her. I pointed her to the wicker chair in the corner, the only other thing to sit on in the whole room, except for the bed.
“Set with me awhile,” I told her. “Pull the chair up here, if you don’t mind. An’ tell me your name, why don’t you, and what brings you here.”
She said she was Julia Wortham. She had a pleasant voice. But she had an awful time fumblin’ that awkward old chair closer. I kept trying to poke thread through my needle while she moved it, hopin’ to sew while we was talking. I like keepin’ m’ hands busy that way. Keeps the mind from borrowin’ worry.
But that old thread wasn’t about to do. I wet it good with m’ tongue, twirled it to a point, and thought I had it through that time. But when I gave it a pull, it weren’t in.
“Can I help you?” the young lady asked.
“Can’t see to find the eye no more, that’s all! One of the worser things ’bout gettin’ old.” I gave over my needle and thread. It wouldn’t hurt to let her help. I thought it might set her to ease some.
“I’d appreciate it,” I told her. “Relax now. Nothin’ ’bout me to be scared of. You know Albert?”
“Uh, no, ma’am. I was hoping you wouldn’t mind me asking about your farm.”
I watched her slide my thread through the needle on the first try, but I couldn’t say nothing for a minute. The farm? I shoulda known to expect something like that. What else would anybody want with an old lady?
I took back the needle, knotted the thread, and swallowed down the tightness in m’ throat. I didn’t much care to talk about this. I weren’t even ready to be thinking on somebody else wantin’ the farm. It was my home, and there was too much of my life wrapped up in it. I didn’t near want to turn it loose.
I could just see the old place come summer, prospering under the golden sun. And I could see m’self back there too, working in the strawberry patch or weavin’ a little purple and yeller chain of violas to lay across Willard’s gravestone. I had to take me a deep breath and think on the quiltin’. I wasn’t ready to talk about the farm. Not yet.
“You sew, do ya, Mrs. Wortham?”
“Y—yes. A little. But I’ve never done a quilt. This is beautiful.”
“Well, you ain’t examined m’ stitchin’ to speak of, that’s all. I can’t see to put two together like I used to! Be a shame to hang it ’longside one a’ Trudy Welty’s!” I tried smoothin’ the cloth a little. “Don’t be lookin’ too close at the underside, now! There prob’ly ain’t a row a’ stitches the same size.”
Right away, she done the opposite of what I told her, turnin’ up the edge of m’ quilt and runnin’ her fingers over all m’ lines.
“Mrs. Graham,” she said, “I think it’s wonderful. I wish I could do something so well.”
I stretched the quilt out a little more. “This un’s a double weddin’ ring pattern. First time I ever used so much paisley.”
She kept on looking at the quilt, tracing over the interlocking circles. She sure was a nice young lady to be takin’ such an interest when she plainly had something else on her mind. I knew I should let her get back to that, but I wasn’t anxious to be no disappointment. I couldn’t sell that farm no more than I could sell my grandmother. Or my own right elbow.
I took a deep breath. “It’s a good enough quilt, I s’pose, but I’d be embarrassed for some a’ m’ friends to see it,” I told her. “They’d be wantin’ to rip stitches an’ do it right.”
Mrs. Wortham smiled. “I’d be proud of it, if I were you. It’s one of the prettiest things I’ve ever seen.”
I looked her in the eye for just a minute, but she dropped her gaze. “Mrs. Graham, about your farm . . .”
I swallowed. “Rita said you come all the way from Pennsylvaney. New married, is ya? Lookin’ to buy ’round here?”
Mrs. Wortham dropped the quilt out of her hands and looked up like she was hurtin’ over something. Then she spoke all in a rush. “Mrs. Graham, we’ve got no money to buy! My husband lost his job. We came to Illinois on the promise of another one, but the plant’s closing. We have two children, and we were stranded along the road with a storm coming. We had nowhere else to go. If it weren’t for your house, I don’t know what we’d have done! Forgive us for staying, but we’ve got nothing right now, and I was hoping, I was just hoping—”
The stream of words come to a sudden stop.
“You been stayin’ at m’ farm?” My heart was pounding. “For how long?”
“Two nights.” Mrs. Wortham looked down at her lap again, huggin’ at the quilt edge with her skinny fingers. “I’m so sorry. But we covered the broken windows and got the door to close again as it should. I—I cleaned up a little for you while it was raining.”
I started at a stitch again but could scarcely look at it. How was I s’posed to feel about this? It was likely true, just like she said. There had been some weather. But I couldn’t be thinkin’ on their trespass long, for wonderin’ on the shape of the place. Nobody’d told me of it in such awhile.
“The house ain’t gone down too bad, has it?”
“No, ma’am. Nothing that can’t be fixed.”
“What about the barn? And the chicken house?”
She was lookin’ at me, pretty surprised by now. “Well, I guess everything needs work, but they’re still usable, I think.”
“They weren’t none too good when I was out there last,” I told her. “Been awhile since we could keep the place up, even before Willard died.”
“I’m sorry.”
I just gave her a nod. “How old is your children?”
“Ten and five.”
“I had a boy once. He died in the war, some years ago now. That’s his picture over there.” I pointed over to Warren’s handsome picture on m’ bureau top.
She looked at it and then brung her eyes back to m’ quilt. “George Hammond said to tell you hello.”
“I was wonderin’ how you knowed to look me up.” I stared down at her tremblin’ fingers, considerin’ what it’d be like to have no home, like this woman claimed. For me, there’d always been the farm, since marryin’ Willard with m’ mama’s consent at the age of fourteen. It made me feel bad, knowin’ this woman was desperate and I was just keeping her waitin’.
“You say your husband’s outa work?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mrs. Wortham answered real soft. “But he’s a good worker when he gets the chance. We could fix for you, do whatever you want on the place—”
“You come askin’ permission to stay?” I leaned back in m’ rocker and eyed her good.
“Yes, uh . . . yes, ma’am. If it would be all right . . . at least until—”
“Till I sell it, you mean. Or till I die and it gets sold out from under ya.”
I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry on that. So I shook out the quilt an’ reached for her hand. “Let me tell you somethin’, child! I can’t go home, much as I’d like to! I get spells with m’ heart that put me to bed, and m’ old leg won’t hardly hold me no more, ’specially for stairs, even when I got m’ two canes. I ain’t no good without the other one.”
She looked at me, all surprised. She didn’t know the half of what I was talkin’ about.
And without thinking no more on it, I lifted the quilt off my lap and showed her the cherry-colored afghan that was underneath. I seen her eyes notice my left shoe and that there weren’t another one on the right side.
“That’s the main thing that keeps me away,” I told her. “If it weren’t for that, I mighta been all right out to home awhile longer.” Always such a pitiful sight to see, my one old leg stickin’ out from my dress like that. In five years, there still weren’t nobody could get used to it, least of all m’self.
“Had fever in it,” I explained. “Got so sore infected, they thought I’d die. Had to take it off, right below the knee there. I ain’t been good since, far as the farm goes, though I tried for awhile.”
Mrs. Wortham was quiet, just looking at me.
“Oh, I know,” I told her. “There ain’t nothin’ to be done nor said. But you can see why I can’t manage the place. Can’t hardly do nothin’ no more.”
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Graham.”
“Well, it ain’t your fault, child. The good Lord, he has these things decided, you know. He’ll tell me about it, one of these days.”
“You’re a very brave woman.”
“Oh, now that ain’t nothing more than just livin’. We all do ’bout the same as far as that goes. If I coulda kep’ m’ good leg up, I mighta been all right, but I fell in ’27, and my hip’s not been so good since then.” I reached for the quilt and pulled it back to m’ lap. “Be glad you’re young. Be glad your kids is young too. They can take the hard times better’n us older folks sometimes.”