by Leisha Kelly
Mr. Post was amiable the rest of the way, and Sarah seemed to like him. She showed him she could count to twenty-nine and spell her name out loud. Duly impressed, he invited us to his farm one evening to meet his family, including Clement and Elvira, who lived “’bout a stick’s throw from the back fence.” But he didn’t say anything at all to Samuel until we got into Belle Rive and stopped in front of the boardinghouse. Then he gave Sammy a stern look and told him to do right by Emma Graham.
“She’s mothered a whole lot of the countryside,” he said. “It wouldn’t set too well, her bein’ taken ’vantage of.”
Samuel shook the man’s hand and thanked him for the ride. He turned to leave, but Mr. Post wasn’t finished.
“Went to school with her boy. He was the finest soul you’d care to meet. I spent a lot of time over to Graham’s place when we were growin’ up.” He shook his head. “I know the times are changin’ and Emma won’t be ’round much longer, but it don’t feel right, somebody else out to her place. We’ll get used to it, though. Long as it’s done proper.”
“I’ll do right concerning her, Mr. Post,” Sam promised solemnly. “You have my word.”
“I’m hopin’ you make good,” the man replied. “For Emma and your young’uns. But you got at least one neighbor don’t trust you for it. He come by yesterday, or I wouldn’t even knowed you was out here.”
Sam said nothing, but it made me boil inside to think of George Hammond traipsing around, telling everybody what he thought of us. He’d told us he had to stay home with his pregnant wife, so I wondered how good his word was. But more than that, I wondered how many people already knew about us and what kind of things they’d been told.
We soon stood outside Rita McPiery’s door, waiting for someone to respond to the clank of the brass knocker. Rita had come so quickly when I had been there before that I worried she was not quite sure how to receive us. We knew Miss Hazel had been there. Who could tell what she might have said?
Finally the door opened, and Mrs. McPiery greeted us with a shy kind of smile. “You come on now and see Emma,” she said. “I told her you were here.”
I wanted to be a blessing so badly I could taste it. I wanted to make the dear old lady smile. But my feet wouldn’t budge until Sarah put her little hand in mine. What if Mrs. Graham was angry? What if she thought we’d been trying to cheat her all along?
I put one foot in front of the other, but I was sure my knees were shaking as we went through the green and yellow living room liberally draped with crocheted doilies.
Mrs. Graham looked almost fragile when Mrs. McPiery opened her door, but she had a tiny smile.
“Mrs. Wortham, Mr. Wortham, come in.”
Sarah let go of my hand and went running up to her like she’d known her forever, daisies flopping precariously from one hand. Thank the good Lord for an uninhibited child!
“Well, what’s this?” Mrs. Graham asked, her smile for our daughter widening. “You got flowers for ol’ Emma?”
Sarah dropped the daisies carefully in the woman’s lap and went fishing in the oversized pocket of her gingham dress. “That’s not all,” she declared proudly. “I drew you a picture too!” She produced the work of art, which was folded twice and crumpled. With careful effort, she opened it up for Mrs. Graham to behold.
With steady fingers, Mrs. Graham held Sarah’s drawing toward the window’s light. I looked at the woman’s hands, so wrinkled and spotted with brown. She’s held a pitchfork and spade as surely as her sewing needle, I thought. She’s milked cows and shucked corn, raised a baby to manhood, and buried the ones dearest to her. How could my child’s little picture ever compare to the booklet we’d found, so carefully saved, of handsome drawings by her own handsome son?
Mrs. Graham was quiet for a long time. Finally Sarah could stand it no longer. “Do you like it? I sure hope you like it, ’cause I did the bestest I could.”
Mrs. Graham lowered the picture slowly and patted Sarah’s shoulder. “It’s one of the finest things I ever did see,” she said. “Did you mean me to keep it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Sarah answered with her eyes bright.
“I sure am glad of that. And thank you. It’s been such awhile since I had somethin’ new. Is this m’ apple tree?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Does it really look this pretty out there right now?”
“It’s prettier than my picture,” Sarah freely admitted. “I don’t draw trees so good as Robert does, ’cause he’s older.”
“Likes to climb too, I see.” She smiled and looked up at Robert, who ducked his head.
“Well, that’s the best thing a tree’s for,” Mrs. Graham declared. “I’d go climb it m’self if I could.” She looked up at me with a tender moistness in her eyes, and I knew she wanted me to talk, to tell her about why we’d come back so soon. I could see the questions in her.
“Mrs. Graham . . .” I looked up at Sam, and he took my hand. For a moment, I didn’t know how to start, so I just held out the sweet-smelling lilacs to her and watched her take in their delicious fragrance with a long-lingering sniff.
“Oh, Mrs. Wortham, this is m’ most favorite flower in the world! Unless it be the roses. They both smell so good! Here I been hopin’ m’ violas have done all right. I used to baby them so, but these are God’s gift to spring, they are. Make you glad to be alive.”
She called for Rita and asked her to put the flowers in water. After Rita had come and gone, Mrs. Graham looked up at me with some sadness. “I’m glad you come,” she said. “I wasn’t expectin’ you back so soon.”
I glanced at Sam again, and he squeezed my hand, somehow understanding how speechless I felt.
“Mrs. Graham,” he said, “we’re so glad for what you’ve done for us, it just didn’t seem right. You lived there an awfully long time, and we know how much the place means to you. We’ve got a lot of work to do yet, but—”
“It’s your house!” I burst in. “It’s your farm! Oh, Mrs. Graham, if you want to come home, we’ll help you! We’d be there every minute and make things nice as we can!”
“You know we’ve got no money,” Sam added. “I’ve got no car either, to take you about. It might seem awful foolish, when you’ve got a nice enough place here, ma’am, but it would be wearing at me. I’d feel guilty if we didn’t offer and do all we can towards it, if that’s what you want.”
Mrs. Graham looked us both over, the wetness still clinging to her eyes. “Did Hazel come and see you? She told me she would.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I guess you know she doesn’t think very much of us.”
“Hazel’s herself, child,” Mrs. Graham said. “Ain’t nobody else like her.” She looked down at her lap and reached out for Sarah’s hand. “You’re not bound to do nothin’ for me,” she said in a soft voice. “All I said was to fix on the place.”
“Yes, but—”
“No,” she said firmly. “Don’t let Hazel worry you none. We had an agreement, we did, before she ever come in the picture. If I want you on m’ farm, that’s my business. I offered it to you, and as long as you’re willin’ to work at it, I ain’t takin’ it back.”
“But Mrs. Graham,” I said, rather surprised at her words, “don’t you want to go home?”
Mrs. Graham let go of Sarah’s hand, laid down her picture, and turned to the window. I thought she was going to speak then, but she said nothing for several minutes.
“We understand you hardly know us,” Sam finally told her. “It’d be awfully hard to put yourself in such a spot, I can see. But we don’t want to just take what’s yours, Mrs. Graham, and give you nothing. If you don’t want to live out there with us around, I can understand, but let us find a way to do something for you. Come and visit, if you can. I would’ve never imagined a stranger being so generous with us, ma’am, and it bothers me not being able to return you a favor.”
When Mrs. Graham turned around, a tear had traced one of the many deep, furrowed lines across h
er face. “Hazel had things turned ’round backwards, Mr. Wortham,” she said. “I knew she did, but she don’t listen to me. You’re decent people. I knew that when I saw you.”
“We have a lot to thank you for,” he told her. “Even if we couldn’t stay another day, it’s been a relief to have a place for the kids to lay their heads.”
“It can’t be too nice out there, with so little furnishin’. And filthy too, I ’spect, if the door was left open.”
“It’s not filthy anymore. And it was better than another day begging rides, anyway. A lot better than having my children look at me, wondering if we’d be sleeping in a ditch someplace. It’s been a godsend, and I know better than to think I deserve it.”
Sarah put a hand on Mrs. Graham’s shoulder. “Mama says you’re an angel. I want to live at your house forever and ever, and I want to give people stuff like you do, when we get enough.”
Mrs. Graham gave her a soft little smile and looked over at Robert. “You’re a quiet one,” she said. “What do you think about your folks tellin’ me I could move out to m’ farm again?”
Still staring down at his shoes, Robert took a deep breath. “I wish you would. We’d make it all right, and maybe everybody’d leave us be there for a real home. I never liked a place better in my whole life.”
He glanced up for just a moment, but before Mrs. Graham could reply, he spoke again. “We don’t eat real good, ma’am, but we always got somethin’. And we’re willing to share, just like you.”
Mrs. Graham turned her deep gray eyes to me, and I felt something shaking inside. “You’ve all talked about this, then?” she asked.
“A little. But we had to talk to you before we went any further.”
“I told you, you got no obligation.” Mrs. Graham lifted a hanky I hadn’t noticed before and wiped her eyes. “I ain’t a whit minded to ask you to leave, whether I ever see the farm again. I figure you’re just what that old place needs. Some life again.”
She suddenly reached her hands toward Sam and me, and we stepped forward, feeling equally uncertain. “You’re good people,” she said. “And I’m sorry you’re strugglin’ the way you are. If I had a pantry full of vittles, I’d send ’em with you today. But I want you to tell me now and tell me true. Not having to, not one bit, would you still want me out there with you? Would you?”
My hand was shaking in hers and tears filled my eyes. But it was Sam that spoke, clear and strong, and without a moment’s hesitation. “Yes. I’d take you today if we had things fit.”
I saw the shudder run through her and then the tears. She pulled herself forward in her seat to give Sam an enormous hug. “I used to do ever’thin’. Even help with the babies, you know. But I ain’t no good no more,” she said. “Not at nothin’.”
“You could order me around,” Sam offered. “I’m lost on a farm.”
“Hazel’d be fit to be tied!” Mrs. Graham exclaimed. “She’d think I gone completely off m’ rocker! She’d think I lost m’ brains down a hole in the groun’, leavin’ Rita’s when we ain’t but two blocks from the doctor!”
That caught me up short. “That’s a real concern,” I said quickly. “I know a little about nursing the sick, but we want you to consider everything and do what’s best.”
“You know what Doc Howell does when we call him? He lays me to bed, if I ain’t there already! There ain’t nothin’ else he can do. One of these days, I’ll have a spell with m’ heart and it’ll be m’ last, and there won’t be nothin’ he nor nobody else can do. The good Lord has his time for us to move on, and it don’t scare me.”
She turned toward Sam. “I’m gonna call Rita and have her fetch Daniel. He’ll take us out there in his delivery wagon, I know he will.”
Sam bowed his head. “I want you to come, I really do. But I need to get the place in better shape first—”
“Roof still on the house? Floor intact?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then don’t you worry. I ain’t a hothouse veg’table. There’s nothin’ out there can bother me! And don’t tell me you got no food, ’cause I know that already from what your boy said. You were serious, weren’t you? ’Bout me comin’?”
“As serious as I’ve ever been. It’s your home and you belong there.”
She gave us all a beautiful, sparsely toothed smile. “Then don’t you worry. We’ll help each other.” After planting a quick kiss on Sarah’s forehead, she reached for her cane and banged it on the floor. “Rita!” she called. “Rita, come and reach me m’ bag! I’m goin’ home!”
SIXTEEN
Samuel
I never dreamed we’d be taking her that day. But she was as excited as a child, insisting there couldn’t be anything about the condition of the house to dismay her too badly. “We have plenty of time till winter,” she said. “Plenty of time to make things fit.”
She gave Robert and Sarah a book of pictures to look at while she ordered Juli and me around the room, picking up this thing or that. She was delighted, there was no question, and we soon learned that Hazel Sharpe had told her what we were thinking after she’d heard it from Mr. Hammond. And Mrs. Graham had been hoping it was so, believing in us all the while.
There was no doubt she meant to move home and meant to stay. There was also no doubt that she’d already talked it over with Mrs. McPiery, who seemed only mildly surprised and nearly as pleased as Emma.
Juli and I put clothes in one bag and sewing things in another, both of us wondering if we were really ready for this. But Mrs. Graham’s enthusiasm was contagious, and we soon relaxed.
“We’ll stop by Kelsey’s for kerosene on the way out,” she said. “Got to have me a lamp to see by. I sure hope the outhouse is still standing.”
Juli giggled. “It is. And Sam cleaned it out already. It was just full of spiders.”
She nodded knowingly. “It don’t hurt to keep a few of those around. Less flies that way.” She picked up her Bible from the table. “Put this in with m’ clothes. It’ll ride soft in there.” She scanned the room, thinking. “Daniel won’t have room for ever’thin’ this trip,” she informed us. “But we can take m’ rocker. I gotta have that, you know.”
Half an hour later, Mrs. McPiery’s brother pulled up outside with his truck, and we loaded Emma’s rocker and three bags of belongings out of her room. “We’ll get the bed later,” she told Julia, but immediately turned to the burly man who was to haul her things. “You’ll get the bed and the rest of m’ things, now won’t you? Rita knows what’s mine. You bring ’em out just as soon as you can.”
Daniel Norse only smiled and scratched at his overgrown beard. “Where’s the chickens?” he asked.
“There ain’t but four I can claim,” Mrs. Graham declared. “We enjoyed the others when the snow was flyin’.” She turned around to Robert. “You want to go help Mr. Norse fetch m’ chickens, son?”
Robert just stared for a moment, every bit as surprised as I was. “You got chickens?”
“I’ve always had chickens. I was keepin’ chickens when I was the size of your sister. She can go and help you, if it’s all right with your mama.”
I was dumbstruck at this old woman who had her plan in action all around us. “You’re bringing chickens with you?”
She gave me an odd look. “You got nothing against ’em, I hope. They’re good layers.”
“No.” I glanced over at Julia, who was carefully folding Mrs. Graham’s near-done quilt. She didn’t look up at me, didn’t say a word. But we both knew it was just what she’d wanted. Just what she’d trusted the Lord to provide. What kind of pull did my wife have with God, I wondered, that she should get her desires handed to her this way? Next thing it would be a milk cow.
I shook my head as Juli sent our children out back with Mr. Norse to watch him catch and pen Mrs. Graham’s hens. Just then Mrs. McPiery strode up to us with two bundles.
“I got the seed I promised you,” she said. “There’s salsify too, and a bit of string bean.”
/> Juli was glowing. “Thank you so much.”
“Don’t be strangers, now,” the woman said with a tearful kind of smile. “You let me know if you get to needin’ anything out there. Emma, I’ll be comin’ to see you time and again to make sure you’re takin’ care of yourself.” She put both bundles in Julia’s hands but turned and faced me. “I sure appreciate what you’re doin’,” she said quickly. “I never seen Emma so happy. There’s not many folks would do what you’re doin’.”
I shook my head again. “It’s nothing much—”
“She told me she same as gave you the place, Mr. Wortham,” she said, taking my arm and giving me a scolding look. “You could’ve gone on your business with your fam’ly, enjoyin’ your home, and thought nothin’ more for Emma. But it’s right Christian of you to consider her this way. You don’t know how hard it’s been for her, livin’ here.”
“That’s enough now,” Mrs. Graham cut in. “Would you mind gettin’ me m’ coat and m’ sorry old boot? And bring me up two or three jars of them peaches we canned last year. The kids’d like ’em, I’ll bet.”
Rita smiled and gave her friend a hug. “I’m gonna miss you, Emma Jean.”
It took a good while to leave Belle Rive. Emma Graham and Rita McPiery had a right to their good-bye, and they chose to say it proper over a cup of weak coffee and a slice of pumpkin bread. The chickens were clucking in their crates in the back of the truck, but I was in no hurry to go, even when the sky grew heavy with clouds. God was at work, and who was I to rush anything? I sat on the porch swing, praying that Mrs. Graham would be all right with her decision and that we weren’t all being fools about the whole thing.
When the kids had finished the generous snack Mrs. McPiery had given them, they climbed up on the swing with me, one on each side. They were delighted with the old swing’s sound effects and kept it going just to hear the creak with every push forward and the groan with every glide back.
“I’m going to be cooking for Emma,” Julia suddenly said, as if the thought had just sunk in enough to worry her.