by Faye Gibbons
“Are they going to accept me?” she begged.
Pa Franklin wadded the letter and tossed it into the wood box. “Oh, she wants to accept you all right.”
Halley was joyful. “She does? She really does?”
“That old maid can accept you all she wants and it won’t make no difference. You’re staying right here just like Gid when she wanted to take him. You ain’t going nowhere but to the well or the barn. I’ve been entirely too easy on all of you. Well, I’m through being easy. For one thing, that piano is going out of this room.” He looked around as though for some other privilege to take away. His eyes fell on the water bucket. “We need some water.”
Turning, Halley grabbed her letter out of the wood box and then she got the water bucket. Robbie was right behind her as she headed through the dogtrot.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know he would take your letter.”
“Then you’re stupid,” Halley said, setting the water bucket on the well housing and then heading for the main road.
“Please don’t go away,” said Robbie, still right behind her.
Halley turned on him. “Don’t follow me,” she yelled.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. And she didn’t. She only knew she had to get away from this place.
19. A Time to Choose
By the time Halley got to the county road she remembered Theodora. If only the woman was still at the church. She broke into a run. The wintry sunshine was sending long shadows across the road. A cold wind was picking up, making her clutch her coat against her chest. The coat stretched taut across her shoulders, and the frayed sleeves were too short. She blushed when she remembered that Richard had seen this coat. And she had actually thought he was interested in her.
“Idiot!” she said to herself. The Calvin girls had always said he was a big flirt, and that meant he tried to charm all the girls. She was nothing special. Why had she allowed herself to think she was? Because, she suddenly realized, she needed to be special to somebody. Nobody except her father had ever singled her out and made her feel above the crowd. All it took was a little attention from Richard, and she lost all the common sense she’d always taken pride in.
The church came into sight and Theodora was still there, but not for long. She was taking her camera off its tripod.
“Didn’t I see you pass a little while ago?” Theodora asked when Halley drew near.
Halley nodded. “With my grandfather. I guess you could hear him pitching a fit at me.”
“He’s a minister, right?” said Theodora, opening the door to the house on the back of her truck.
“Yes,” Halley answered, “and he’s against dancing and about anything else that’s fun or that he’s too old to enjoy.”
Theodora slid her camera into the little house. “So you live with your grandparents?”
Halley nodded. “Mama thought she had to after Daddy died.”
Theodora motioned her inside. “Come in out of the wind.”
Halley entered. The room had a narrow bed, a tiny table, and one chair. Shelves in back were stacked with clothing, books, cooking utensils, camera supplies, and food stuff. Boxes of goods were stored under the bed and hung from the low ceiling in bags. Two small windows provided a bit of light. The place smelled of stale cigarette smoke. Except for that and being very cold, however, it seemed the kind of place Halley would like to retreat to when things grew unbearable in the Franklin household.
“Have a seat,” said Theodora, indicating the only chair in the room.
A sudden gust of wind shook the truck and crept in around the door. Halley shivered. “How do you stay in here without heat? And how do you cook?”
“When cold weather started, I rented a room at a boarding house in Belton. As for cooking, I don’t do any more of that than I can help even when the weather’s good, and when I do cook, I do it outside, over a campfire.”
Halley looked at the stack of photographs on the table. She recognized the top one at once. “The rolling store in Alpha Springs,” she said. “There’s Billy Shropshire weighing a chicken and Mollie Freeman frowning at the whole world.”
“Look at all of them, if you wish,” Theodora said. “I’ll get you some light.” She took a kerosene lamp out of a box beneath the bed. From another she took out a globe. Moments later the lamp was lit.
Halley looked at the pictures one by one, pausing long at the people and places she recognized. She studied the rolling store pictures and found Dimple in the background of one.
She came to the revival photos made at the Alpha Springs Methodist Church. There were pictures of Tate Shropshire’s store in Belton. One showed mill workers eating lunch out in front of the store. Another photo showed high school students leaving the big two-story brick building where Halley had planned to study.
She came to a photo of Bootsie smoking a cigarette and smiling up at Stan. Halley thought she could detect the desperate effort the girl was making to win and hold him. You could almost see Bootsie’s vision of what her life would be with this young man. And it was all a lie. Like me when I was dancing with Richard, she thought, and felt her face grow hot.
“Beautiful girl,” said Theodora, leaning over Halley’s shoulder to gaze at Bootsie.
Halley nodded. “She’s married—I mean, going to marry—my Uncle Gid.”
There were pictures of Belton Mill with its high brick walls and the tall fence surrounding it. “Looks like a jail,” Halley murmured.
“Exactly what I was trying to convey,” answered Theodora. “You are perceptive.”
Halley wanted to ask what “perceptive” meant but didn’t want to expose her ignorance. She continued studying the photos. One showed workers streaming in through the gate early in the morning. Another showed them streaming out at the end of the work day, covered with lint. Halley found her mother in the crowd. It must have been right after Kate hired on. Haggard and worried-looking, she had her hair pulled so tightly into its bun that her ears seemed to stand out. For the first time Halley realized that her mother no longer looked that way—not since Bud Gravitt had been calling on her. Now her hair swept halfway over her ears before being pulled back into a loose bun.
Halley forced herself to go to the next photo—a close-up of the gatekeeper. The man’s face was angry and his mouth open. He pointed an accusing finger at the camera. In the next the hand was a fist.
“Some people don’t want to see things the way they are,” Theodora murmured. “They don’t want you to see them either. You know, there are things people just don’t see, until a photographer shows them.”
It was true, Halley reluctantly admitted. Just like she had failed to see how much her mother had changed in such a short time. The next photo was apparently another lunch crowd. Even though the trees outside the mill were bare, some people stood about eating.
“I guess they’re willing to take being cold for a few minutes of fresh air and freedom,” Theodora said.
Halley studied the photo, looking without success for her mother or Bootsie. Then a truck just outside the gate caught her eye. It was Bud Gravitt’s truck, and Bud Gravitt was in it. There was a woman sitting beside him. A pretty, laughing woman who looked so young and happy that for a moment Halley could not believe it was her mother.
Halley felt betrayed and angry all over again. She was angry that her mother could be that happy in the company of a man other than her father. But the anger went further, she suddenly realized. How could her mother be that joyful when Halley herself was miserable?
“I’m so glad for your mother,” said Theodora.
“I’m not,” Halley said. She flipped back through the photographs until they all became one picture of the Georgia mountain people—her people. Seeing the people in Alpha Springs and the people in Belton, seeing farm people and mill peopl
e, seeing the ragged schoolchildren and the church congregations through this stranger’s eyes, made Halley see everything differently, made her realize more fully than ever how hungry and poor they all were.
“Why do you do this?” she couldn’t help asking. “Taking pictures like this, I mean? Do you make a lot of money?”
Theodora laughed. “Not so far. But I have hopes.” She grew serious. “This is art, Halley, and artists don’t generally make much money. They have to love what they’re doing. I’m documenting a time and place. You might say I’m doing a history in pictures. Someday a hundred years from now people can look at these and know about these people. That’s better than money.”
“How do your folks take it, you living by yourself in this rolling house and traveling all over?” Halley blurted.
Theodora laughed. “Not too well, actually. Even up where I’m from people expect a woman to do housework, get married, and have babies—you know, stay in her place.”
Halley nodded. “So how do you get away from all that and do what you want to do?”
Theodora pondered the question. Then she said, “You just refuse to live the life other people lay out for you. But there’s a price to pay when you don’t go by the rules. Nothing’s fair and nothing’s free. Make up your mind to that.”
Halley laughed. “Oh, I know that already,” she said, reaching into her pocket. “Here’s what I want. It’s my chance for a different life.” She handed her crumpled Berry letter to Theodora. While the woman leaned close to the lamp and read, Halley rubbed her cold hands together. Her fingers were rough and cracked and her fingernails ragged.
“This is wonderful!” said Theodora. “Of course you are going to this school.”
Halley shook her head and swallowed hard. “They won’t let me. My mother, my grandparents. And I’m not old enough to say what I want.”
Theodora put her hand on Halley’s arm. “But you will be. If you can just hang on, there’ll come a time when you can choose and they can’t stop you.”
“How long do you plan to be around here?” Halley asked.
“Maybe until summer,” said Theodora. “I’ve got a few more photographs to make. I want pictures of a wedding, a funeral, a newborn baby. And maybe spring planting.”
“Wish I could go with you when you leave,” Halley said.
“You know, I think you’d be good company. But you’re a minor. They’d put me under the jail if I tried to take you.”
“I know. I was only thinking out loud,” Halley said quickly. She stood so abruptly that she rocked the table. The lamp teetered, and yellow circles of lamplight danced across the walls and ceiling.
Theodora stood and put a hand on Halley’s arm. “Let your mother marry again,” she said. “This is what she wants to choose. Don’t take her choice away. Besides, her marrying again could free you.”
Halley folded her letter and put it back in her pocket. “I’ve got to go.” She went out into the twilight and did not look back. She heard the truck crank up a few minutes later, and as she turned by the Franklin mailbox, it passed by her. The horn tooted and Halley raised a hand without turning.
The wind was whipping the apple trees in the orchard. Then she saw a figure standing at the edge of the yard. It was Robbie and Golly was beside him. Suddenly he started running to meet her.
“I’m sorry,” he said, throwing his arms around her. “About your letter, I mean. I didn’t think . . .”
Halley patted him. “I know. But you have to start thinking. I won’t always be here to do your thinking for you.”
“Pa Franklin rolled my piano into his room.”
Halley shrugged. “Well, he wouldn’t let you play it anyway.”
“I drew the water,” he said. “I told them I brought it in for you, that you went to the far room. Only Mama went back there and found out the truth. She didn’t say nothing, but I think she’s mad.”
Well, I can bear it, Halley thought. Theodora was right—there would come a time when she could choose and would not have to obey anybody. Her real life—the one she would choose herself—was waiting for her.
20. The Whipping
That night and again the next day Halley tried to bring up her Berry letter to her mother, but it was no use. “We’re not talking about this now,” Kate replied both times.
What she meant, Halley thought, was that she was never going to talk about it. It was like Daddy’s death—something to pretend never happened.
On Tuesday it was bitter cold, but Kate decided the washing needed to be done while she was there to help. Though it would be good to have help for once, Halley had no heart for it. With little conversation, she followed her mother through the dreary business of doing the laundry in the kitchen.
Finally, the smells and the noise were too much for Pa Franklin. “I can’t abide the stink of dirty clothes biling,” he declared. “I’m going to see Billy Joe Eggar.” The Eggars had a tight, warm house. “I’ll likely eat with Billy Joe and his missus,” he said as he headed out the door. Mrs. Eggar was known for setting a bountiful table.
Robbie tried to leave as soon as his grandfather was gone. “Mr. Calvin told me I could come today, didn’t he, Halley?”
“Yes, but that was before,” Halley answered, recalling how cold Mr. Calvin’s face had become yesterday.
“You mean before Pa Franklin made the Calvins mad,” Robbie asked.
Halley didn’t answer, and finally Kate did. “You’re staying home.”
Robbie didn’t give up. “See, it’s not just me. If I take Golly with me, the Calvins will give him something to eat and let him stay in the lean-to next to the kitchen where it’s warm.”
“Old Man don’t like Golly leaving the place,” Ma Franklin said.
“Well, can I bring Golly inside just a little while so he can get warm?” The question was directed more to Halley than to Kate, but Halley ignored him.
Kate stirred the boiling pot of clothes with a stick, being careful not to splash it into the pot of beans simmering on the back of the stove. “You know the answer to that without asking,” she finally said.
“Then I’ll find him a place for a bed,” said Robbie.
Halley was helping Kate rinse white clothes and dreading going out into the dogtrot to hang them.
“I don’t know why we can’t string up clotheslines in your room, Grandma. They’d dry faster, and we wouldn’t freeze to death hanging things up.”
Ma Franklin shook her head. “The old man won’t allow it.”
“Why not?” Halley asked, though she knew it was as hopeless as Robbie’s pestering questions. “The room’s empty except for the piano and the clothes hanging in the corner, and we wouldn’t bother them.”
Ma Franklin looked embarrassed. “You know Webb don’t like nobody in that room.”
“You’d think the room was filled with gold and jewels, the way he guards it!” said Halley.
Ma Franklin dropped her eyes.
At that moment they heard a noise in Ma and Pa Franklin’s room. Halley threw open the door and saw Robbie standing next to the piano. “I was thinking I could play some while Pa Franklin was gone.”
“Well, you can’t,” said Halley.
“I could pretend play,” he said and sat down on the stool. Humming, he drummed his fingers on the piano lid.
Halley took his arm and led him back to the kitchen.
“I’ve been looking for a place to make Golly a bed,” he announced. “I thought maybe the woodshed.”
Ma Franklin shook her head. “Old Man won’t like that. Dog hair’ll git all over the wood and get brung in the house.”
“Well, then how about the barn?”
Again Ma Franklin shook her head. “Webb runs him out ever time he catches him in the barn. Says he don’t want a dog wallering on hay the cows and mules eat.”
“The corn crib?”
“And git hair all over the corn we grind into meal? Lord no. Let the dog sleep under the house the same as he allus has.”
“But it’s cold under there, Grandma, and Golly’s getting old.”
“Let the dog manage as best he can,” Kate said. “We got enough problems of our own, without borrowing from the beasts.”
Halley finally took pity. “Make him a bed under the kitchen floor,” she suggested. “Right under the stove would be a good place.”
Robbie went back outside.
A short while later Halley was outside hanging laundry when she glimpsed Robbie coming from the barn with an armload of burlap bags. Golly trotted behind him. Robbie was wearing his Christmas boots, she noticed. Halley opened her mouth to remind him that they were only for wet weather, but then softened. Robbie looked up and she waved.
Pa Franklin was back before they’d rinsed the last batch of clothes. He came stomping in as though mad at the whole world.
“I thought you was eating with the Eggars,” Ma Franklin said.
“I didn’t get invited,” he answered. “Billy Joe same as told me I wasn’t welcome until I made things up with the Calvins.”
“Oh, Webb! Him and Luke Calvin are the main ones that give to the church.”
“Old Woman, I heared enough on that subject from Billy Joe hisself, without coming home to hear it from you!”
“I’m sorry,” said Ma Franklin.
“And you ort to be,” he said, pulling off his coat. “None of that business yesterday would’ve happened if’n you hadn’t allowed your giddy headed granddaughter to go strollicking over to the Calvins.” He turned to Kate. “And I blame you, too. The way you’ve commenced to carry on with Gravitt has set a bad example.”
“You hold on a minute,” Kate said. “I’ve not ‘carried on,’ and I’ve not done anything sinful. And far as I can tell, Halley has done nothing wrong, either. Can’t a person have some happiness on this earth without being doomed to hell forever?”