by Leisha Kelly
“No. Not usually, it ain’t. Did you tie him in the timber?” “Don’t think I tied him.”
“Then he’ll be headed home. An’ Rorey’ll wonder, if she sees him. We better go.”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right.” Before I could say anything, he pulled the cap off the little bottle and took a swig. “Disobedient, ain’t I? Hardheaded against the will of the Lord.”
“I can’t say that,” I said with a sigh. “Just that it worries me. Where’d you get that stuff?”
“Bud Turrey. I got a lot to think on, Franky. I got decisions to make.”
“So long as you realize that we do too, Pa. And we’re gonna need your help.”
He didn’t answer that. He just struggled to his feet. I rose to help him because he seemed so unsteady. I blew out the candle and then shut the window once we’d gotten out it. He let me help him over to the hitching rail where Tulip was waitin’. And I let him ride, and I just walked alongside, holding the rein and making sure he stayed steady. I couldn’t see Boomer around anywhere. Maybe he felt like he’d done his whole duty helpin’ me find my pa and had gone on home without us.
19
Sarah
I guess nobody ever knew what bothered Mr. Hammond about Rorey getting engaged. Frank said that their pa slept most of the next day, but after that he seemed to be better again.
“Do you think I’m too religious?” Frank asked me that afternoon. “Do you think I talk Bible words too much?”
“I don’t know if there is such a thing as too much,” I told him, pinning a pillowcase to the laundry line.
“But I don’t want people to think I’m lookin’ down on ’em.”
“I don’t know how they could, Frank, when all you’re doing is speaking words of comfort. There’ve been times when my mother really appreciated it.”
That seemed to satisfy him, at least a little. I was hanging wash, and he’d come out to talk to me and ended up helping. He held one end of a bedsheet off the ground for me while I started pushing clothespins in place. I always had trouble with bedsheets. I figured a person’d have to have arms like a gorilla to hang and fold them right.
“Do you ever wonder what people think a’ you?” Frank asked me.
“Sometimes.”
“Do you think it’s a sin?”
I felt completely unqualified to answer that kind of question, but I knew he just wanted an opinion, so I did my best. “Maybe it’s just human nature. I’m not sure we can help giving it a little thought.”
“Well, I find human nature pretty sinful,” he said with a sigh. “My own as much as anybody else’s.”
“That’s reassuring,” I told him. “Must mean you’re as human as the next fellow.”
He gave me an odd look. “I guess my pa’s been wondering.” “If you’re human?”
“I don’t know just what. Do you think I look like him?”
“A little. But only when he’s in a good mood.”
“Pray for him, will you please, Sarah Jean? Last night was strange. It was good in a way, like I finally got a chance to see inside him. I hope it stays that way. I hope we can talk over the things that get to botherin’ him.”
I suddenly remembered Lester’s letter to Rorey. He’d used her middle name. Nobody else used her middle name. And here was Frank, always using mine. “I’ll pray for your pa,” I promised, at the same time trying to remember Frank’s middle name. Drew. Like that girl sleuth Nancy’s surname. It was unusual. It kind of fit him. But I knew I wouldn’t start using it.
“Are you going to the fair?” he asked me.
“I don’t know. We’re at least driving into Mcleansboro to see the Arnold’s window display.”
“I could take you, if you wanna see the fair,” he offered. “I’ve got money from my last order to pay the ticket price.”
Maybe I looked at him a little differently when he said that, I don’t know. Maybe he’d had more in mind all along. But he hurried up and said the rest.
“I could take Pa’s wagon, an’ your pa wouldn’t have to use his gas. I wouldn’t mind bringin’ whoever wanted to come.”
“I’ll ask Mom.”
It had almost seemed like Frank was asking me special. Almost. I wasn’t really sure.
And he did end up taking his father’s wagon, and Harry and Bert wanted to go. And Emmie, Rorey, and Kate. But Mr. Hammond didn’t want to go to the fair, and when Frank heard that, he almost didn’t go either. But they talked a little bit, and I guess it was enough to put Frank’s mind at ease. He went ahead and took us, and paid for all his brothers and sisters. He would have paid for me and Kate too, but Dad sent us money so that Frank wouldn’t have to use all of his. For a while everybody stayed together. But then, Kate and Emmie and Bert were lingering in the livestock tent, and Rorey and Harry wanted to watch a wrestling contest.
“Did you ever ride a Ferris wheel?” Frank asked me. “Once. When I was little. In Pennsylvania.”
“I never did. But they got one this year. And I’ve got the dime. Mind comin’ along?”
It was a funny way to be asked, but I agreed. And the ride attendant, assuming we were a couple, seated us together. But I didn’t mind. I wouldn’t have wanted to sit alone. Then just as we were edging upward, I saw Lester’s brother Eugene in the crowd below. He stared at us like we’d been painted green.
“You’ve got to be kidding!” he yelled up at me.
“You just watch,” I answered him back. “We’re going all the way to the top.”
Frank never asked what he meant. He never said anything about Eugene at all. He just sat back and breathed in deep, taking in the sights and sounds of the fair below us like it was all meaning something to him. I’d never thought riding a Ferris wheel could be something spiritual. I’m not sure why I thought it then. But I almost expected Frank to quote a Bible verse for the occasion. And he didn’t disappoint.
“Ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the fields shall clap their hands.”
I didn’t think I’d ever heard that verse before. But I liked it, because it sounded happy. And that must have meant that Frank was happy.
The Arnold’s store display window was the smartest I’d ever seen. And we were surprised when we learned that they were giving tickets to the Mclean Theater picture show and fifty cents in defense stamps to everybody that supplied a photograph. If Dad knew about that, he didn’t tell us. But we’d brought four pictures, and they gave two tickets for each one, so that meant eight of us could go to the picture show. That was quite a treat, because we hardly ever spent any money on something like that.
Bert was quick to point out that Katie and me, him and Harry, plus Rorey, Emmie, and Frank were only seven. One more person could go. We drove back home and told our folks. Frank said he’d stay home so my folks could go, but they thought it’d be a better idea if we all took Mr. Hammond.
Frank didn’t think his pa would go. At first, it didn’t look like he would. But it was Rorey who persuaded him, telling him how much he’d like it and promising to get everybody popcorn from the money she earned at the five-and-dime. So we went back into Mcleansboro the next night and saw To Be or Not to Be with Carole
Lombard and Jack Benny. It made me sad because I knew Carole Lombard had been killed in a plane crash, but I liked the show anyway. I guess that and riding the Ferris wheel were the best times I’d had all summer.
20
Julia
On the eighth of July, I was boxing up some old aluminum pans to go to the scrap metal drive when a storm hit. I’d been knowing from the sky that we were in for rain, but it turned nasty very quickly. Of course, Sarah wasn’t as terrified of thunderstorms as she used to be when she was a little girl, but still she came down from upstairs and peered out the kitchen window.
“Mom, the sweet gum tree is whipping around like crazy.”
“It’s good and green, honey. I
t’ll be fine.”
“Well, what about the apple tree? It’s going dead on the one side.”
“The good Lord’ll mind the apples. Just watch, and if your father should come running for the house with the milk pail, open the door for him.”
“He’s outside?”
“In the barn, surely.”
I knew she didn’t like that. But Samuel was perfectly safe, and so were we. Katie joined us from the living room, where she’d been replacing a button on one of her blouses. “Aren’t you glad we already picked the string beans?” she said with a smile.
I truly was. The first of the season. And it was enough for supper, but not near enough to be canning yet. Katie sat down to snap beans, and Sarah started peeling potatoes and keeping her eye on the screen door at the same time. I was glad the porch roof was set so we could keep the inside door open if we wanted to when it was raining. It took a crazy change in the wind to ever blow rain through that door. I headed to the cellar for some bacon out of the cool pit to put in the beans, and just as I was coming back up, Samuel rushed in with the milk. He was soaking wet just getting from the barn to the house.
“We’ve got a gully-washer out there,” he said, pushing the screen door shut behind him. “Wind’s got the corn leaning pretty bad.”
“It’s young enough.” I tried to sound positive. “Even if it lays over on its side, it can straighten.”
“Ought to,” Samuel agreed. He glanced back out the doorway. “It’s coming down pretty fierce.”
I didn’t say anything more about it. I knew George Hammond worried that we’d have crop damage every time a storm came up, but I didn’t think it did a bit of good to dwell on things like that. “Let’s turn the radio on,” I suggested. “It’s almost the news time.”
But Samuel couldn’t get the radio to work again, and right away that made me miss Robert, who’d often had success tinkering with the thing.
“I guess we don’t need the radio tonight,” Sarah commented. But she never liked us listening to the news much anymore anyway.
“I’ll be glad when they bring the electric line in,” Samuel said. “It probably won’t be till after the war now, though.”
“A radio can be just as much trouble if it’s electric, especially with a storm,” I told him. “We don’t really need the electric line. We manage fine.”
“It would just make some things easier,” Samuel continued. For some reason, talk of that bothered me. “If people aren’t careful, with their electric heaters and freezers and things, they’ll forget how to do a day’s work,” I said. “People need to carry wood and can their food so they’ll know how to take care of themselves in a crisis. If we get to relying on contraptions, we’ll have all the more trouble in bad weather or difficult times. Esther Maynard’s new refrigerator quit working, and they lost four pounds of meat before they realized it.”
Samuel was looking at me a little strange like he wasn’t sure what I might say to him next. “I believe I’ll put on some dry clothes.”
He went out of the kitchen, and I wondered why I’d talked against electric things so strongly. But in thinking about it, I realized why I didn’t want Samuel to wish for electricity. I didn’t want him to think life would be easier if we lived in town or if he had a different job somewhere else. I didn’t want any change, foolish as that was. The world changes, and we change too, like it or not. At the very least, we get older. And our kids get older. But none of that was comfortable for me to consider right then. I wished we’d gotten the radio going. The wind and thunder and pounding rain were loud now. I hoped all the Hammonds had been indoors when the storm broke loose.
As if she’d been thinking along the same lines, Sarah gave a groan. “Oh, Mom. Rorey headed home from the five-and-dime maybe twenty minutes ago. Do you suppose she’s stuck in this?”
It was more than a twenty minute ride home on Tulip’s back in good weather. At least an hour in bad weather. But I didn’t say that. Sarah already knew it, and I wanted to be encouraging. “She probably saw the clouds and stayed in town.”
“I don’t think she’d do that, Mom. The five-and-dime closes pretty prompt.”
“She might have gone to Lizbeth’s. It’s only four blocks.”
“But Rorey’s more stubborn than sensible sometimes. She’s been hurrying home almost every day to see if she’s got more mail.”
“If she started home today,” I said, “she’ll have a lesson on watching the sky. But she’s seen plenty of storms before, Sarah. She’ll get good and wet, but I’m sure she’ll be all right.”
We ate supper to the sound of thunderclaps and torrents of rain. The wind started pushing spray through the back door, and we finally had to shut it. About the time we were clearing the table, we heard an awful crack outside. Sarah nearly jumped out of her skin, and Kate froze stock still.
“I think the tree at the corner of the pasture was hit by lightning,” Samuel told us after looking out. “Thank God it’s raining. There won’t be any fire.”
“And the cows are still in?” I asked a little anxiously, thinking of Mr. Post’s heifer that was killed years ago when lightning hit the tree it was standing under in a storm.
“They’re in,” Samuel told me.
It wasn’t twenty minutes before we heard a thud that sounded like it was right over the sitting room.
“Tree branch on the roof,” Samuel explained.
My stomach knotted a little, thinking of the sweet gum tree Sarah had seen whipping around. It was the only one close enough to lose a limb on the house. I hoped there wasn’t much damage.
“Let’s play checkers,” Katie suggested as soon as the dishes were done.
Usually, the checker set only got out when the Hammond boys were around, but the girls evidently needed a little distraction. I sat down with my darning needle and a pair of Samuel’s socks. Samuel sat on the floor in front of the radio and took the whole back end off.
“There’s a bad wire to the battery,” he said after a while. “But I think I can cut out where it’s frayed and splice it back together.”
Before long, we were listening to The Pepsodent Show. We’d missed the news, and Sarah was glad about that. I thought of the Hammonds, and was glad that over the years Samuel had placed considerable attention on the repair of their house. I wouldn’t have wanted to sit out a storm in that house the way it had been when we first met them. But it was solid now.
Still, I thought it might have been good to at least have Emma Grace over here with us, because she was the littlest. And Rorey. Lord, let her have had the good sense to stay in town and wait out the storm.
At about nine o’clock everything got calm outside. I was thankful, because Sarah would have a hard time sleeping with a racket going on. She and Katie had gone to get into their bedclothes, and I was just about to do that myself when we heard a knock on the door. For a moment, my mind turned every which way. The dirt roads must be horrible right now, for all the mud. Was there a stranded traveler? Or was Frank coming over to get our help? Maybe Rorey hadn’t gotten home. But no, I decided. Frank would conclude the same thing I had. That Rorey was grown and responsible enough to have sheltered someplace to wait. She’d likely be home in the morning.
I went to the door having no idea who I’d find. And when I opened it, she practically fell in on top of me.
Rorey. Dripping wet and bedraggled. She looked absolutely miserable. It took me a moment to realize she was in pain.
“Mrs. Wortham—”
“Rorey, come in and sit down. Gracious, girl, you should have waited somewhere.”
She sat in a chair and leaned over, cradling her arm against her side.
“Honey, are you all right?”
“Tulip . . . she—she spooked.” Rorey looked at me, rocking just a little in her seat. She was a muddy mess, and her face was scrunched with pain.
“Samuel!” I called. He’d gone to lie down already, but I wasn’t sure what I was dealing with and I wanted him her
e. “Rorey, were you thrown? Did you fall? Tell me where you hurt.”
“My arm, Mrs. Wortham. It’s broke. I know it is.” She bit her lip and leaned into me, and I just held her close until Samuel came in the room.
“There’s no way the road would be passable yet, is there?” I asked him.
“Not for wheels. But a horse could go alongside it.” He knelt down beside us. “What’s happened?”
“She was coming home in the storm, and Tulip spooked,” I did my best to explain. “She thinks her arm’s broken.”
Slowly, carefully, he eased Rorey’s arm out away from her body and touched it gingerly in two or three spots. Rorey could hardly stand it.
“I think she’s right.”
“Oh, Lord.”
“We can’t get her to the doctor tonight, Julia,” he told me. “I wouldn’t want to hold her on a horse if I had one here, and there’s no way we can get the truck out after the rain we had. Storm could cut loose again at any time anyway.”
I guess his words were a little much for Rorey, who burst into tears. But at least she’d made it this far. “Where were you, honey?” I asked her. “When Tulip spooked?” “Toward the corner. Most a’ the way home. But I knew this was closer.”
She leaned into me again. “Oh, Mrs. Wortham. The pain was making me dizzy, and the storm was so bad I just curled up on the ground and prayed it would go away.”
She was crying, and I just held her. The poor child. God love her, what a horrible experience. “Samuel, what can we do? Her arm’s going to need some help.”
I knew exactly the kind of help it needed, but we couldn’t give it. It would have to be set and put in a plaster cast. Ice would help to keep it from swelling any worse through the night. But we had no freezer. We’d talked of getting an icebox but had never done it because I always thought we were managing so well with the occasional chunk of ice down Emma Graham’s old cool pit. But the ice had gone out two days ago, and the iceman wasn’t due until Friday.
“Is Tulip here?” Samuel asked.
“I don’t know where she went,” Rorey answered through her tears.