Halley
Page 17
Halley looked at Kate in astonishment. Her mother’s sudden boldness took her breath away. Apparently it knocked the wind out of Pa Franklin for a moment, too, because his answer did not come quite as instantly as usual.
“You better read your Bible and get right with the Lord,” he sputtered. “Get ready for the Rapture!”
Kate blinked and took a deep breath. “Can’t a body have a little joy in the here and now?”
“Find your joy in the Lord!” Pa Franklin threw himself down in his rocker and picked up his Bible from the table next to it.
For a time there was no sound except for the slosh of clothes Kate and Halley were wringing out, the ticking of the clock on the mantel, and the squeak of Ma Franklin’s rocker. Then Halley heard a faint noise from the Franklin bedroom. Robbie must be in there again. Desperately she sloshed a pair of overalls in the tub to cover the noise while she tried to think how to send a warning. Before she could think of anything, there came a faint but unmistakable thud.
“Hey!” cried Pa Franklin, dropping his Bible and springing to the door. He threw it open. “Boy, what are you doing?” he bellowed.
“He just wanted to see his piano,” Halley said.
“Did I ask you anything, girl? I’m talking to the boy. What are you doing?”
“Just . . . I was just . . .”
Ma Franklin got out of her chair and went to her husband’s side. “It’s not as cold coming through this way from the far room, Webb. And to tell the truth, it don’t suck out the heat as bad as opening the door to the dogtrot hall.”
Pa Franklin threw off the hand his wife had placed on his arm. “I got eyes, Woman. He ain’t passing through. He’s in here for something else.” He turned back to Robbie. “So what are you doing in here?”
“I was going to pretend play my piano,” he said, and he moved his hands across the lid of the piano, fingers striking imaginary keys.
Pa Franklin exploded. “I’ve told you and told you,” he said, reaching for his belt. “But I guess telling you don’t work. I reckon I’m going to have to show you I mean business.”
“Don’t,” Halley said.
“This young’un broke the rules one time too many,” Pa Franklin said, “and now he’s going to get the punishment he deserves.” He jerked his belt from around his waist and grabbed Robbie by the hand.
Kate stepped forward. “He’s my child. I’ll handle this.”
“It’s my house,” answered Pa Franklin, “and my room he broke into. When I finish with him, he may remember the rules better.”
“No,” Kate said, stepping behind Robbie and putting both hands on his shoulders. “You’re not whipping him this time. I’ll handle this.”
“We’ll see about that,” Pa Franklin replied, jerking Robbie free of Kate’s hands. He headed for the door to the dogtrot. “We’ll take care of this outside. The rest of you stay here.” He threw open the door to a blast of cold air and headed outside with Robbie in tow. Kate was right behind them.
“You stay here, Grandma,” Halley said and rushed after them.
“You are not doing this, Pa,” Kate yelled. “I mean it.” She caught them as they went down the steps to the yard and shoved Robbie into Halley’s hands just as Golly came from under the house, barking.
“You can take your choice,” said Pa Franklin. “I whip him or I whip you.”
Kate drew herself up tall. “It’ll have to be me, then.”
“No!” Halley cried. This was worse than whipping Robbie. Far worse.
Robbie tore loose from Halley and threw himself at his grandfather. “I’ll take the whipping. Don’t hit my mama!” Golly began a wide circle around the four of them, growling deep in his throat.
From the porch came Ma Franklin’s voice. The old lady stood there hugging a quilt around her. “Webb, you can’t do this. What are you thinking?”
For a moment he seemed to hesitate, but then he said, “Old Woman, don’t you try to tell me what to do. I’m still head of this house! You git back in the kitchen before you catch your death of pneumony fever.” He kicked at Golly, who was still circling and growling. “Kate, step up here and take what’s coming to you.”
Kate squared her shoulders and stepped forward. “You need to think before you do this, Pa,” she said in a quiet voice. “If you hit me, I’ll be leaving here as soon as I can make arrangements.”
Ma Franklin broke into tears. “Webb, can’t you see? She’s going to git married if you go through with this.”
“I might get married,” Kate answered. “Or I might board with somebody in Belton. Either way I won’t be here long. And when I leave, it’ll be the last money you’ll ever get from me.”
Again, Halley detected some hesitation in her grandfather. Then his face hardened. “Are you threatening me?”
“Take it how you will,” Kate answered in an icy voice.
Pa Franklin raised the belt.
“Keep Robbie out of the way, Halley,” Kate said.
Halley held her brother with both arms and hugged him so tightly that she could feel his heart beating against her chest.
“Don’t, Webb,” Ma Franklin begged once more. “Please don’t do this. It’s wrong, and bad things are going to come of it.”
The first lick landed with a hard whack, and Goliath barked more loudly. As the blows continued to rain down, the fur raised on the dog’s neck and the barking turned into fierce growling. Pa Franklin took time to land a kick on the dog’s rump that sent Goliath sprawling against the corner of the steps. The dog yelped but was back up in a flash, circling again. Now his teeth were bared and his circle was growing smaller. The beating continued.
“Cry, Kate,” Grandma Franklin said. “Cry and he’ll stop.”
But Kate refused to cry or to dodge. She stood with her arms folded and took the full force of every lick, staggering but never falling. Suddenly Golaith made a flying leap at Pa Franklin and knocked him to the ground. The belt went soaring through the air as the dog landed on his master’s chest. The breath went out of Pa Franklin with a whoosh.
Ma Franklin screamed.
“Call him off, Robbie,” cried Halley.
“Here, Golly,” Robbie yelled. “Here!”
Golly obeyed reluctantly. Pa Franklin sat up and then stood slowly. Dazed and disbelieving, he looked toward his wife. She met his eyes for a long silent moment and then turned back toward the kitchen.
Kate retrieved the belt and handed it to him. “Do you want to whip me some more, Pa? I want you to be fully satisfied.”
Pa Franklin took the belt without a word and laced it through his belt loops. Kate turned to Halley and Robbie. “Let’s go inside,” she said. The three of them walked together while Pa Franklin followed alone.
The kitchen door stood open. The curtains at the window whipped in the draft that moved through the dim room. Pa Franklin slammed the outside door and the room became even dimmer. He looked around the room, blinking. “Ada?” he said.
Only then did Halley realize that her grandmother was not in the room.
“Ma?” said Kate.
Halley looked toward the bedroom door. It was still open. “Grandma?” she said, hurrying to the door. In the bedroom she saw her grandmother on her knees in front of the hearth. The old woman had pulled out four bricks and was digging out loose sand with her bare hands.
“What do you think you’re doing, Old Lady?” asked Pa Franklin right behind Halley. “You’re bothering what’s mine!”
Ma Franklin did not answer. She pulled a metal box from the sand, opened the latch and threw open the lid to reveal money—green bills and silver coins. It was more money than Halley had ever seen.
Ma Franklin’s gnarled fingers quickly counted out bills and held a fistful out to Halley. “The money he stole from you.”
“No,” said Pa Franklin, reaching fo
r the bills too late. Halley had already stuffed them into her pocket.
“Half your money from the mill work and all the profit from selling your place,” Ma Franklin said, handing a wad of bills to Kate.
“You can’t do this,” Pa Franklin said, snatching the money box from his wife’s hands.
“I already done it,” she answered. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “I don’t believe in you no more, Webb Franklin. You ain’t the man I thought you was.” Her voice was barely a croak, and her lips and hands were blue with cold.
Halley ran to help her grandmother to her feet. “You need to come get warm,” she said.
Pa Franklin pointed to Halley and to Kate. “This is the thanks I get for taking you all in. You turn my neighbors and my church agin me, you take my dog away, and now you turn my own wife agin me!”
Ma Franklin turned. “Point that finger back at your own self, Webb Franklin. You the one done it. You the one that done it all.”
In silence, Halley and Kate put Ma Franklin in her rocker and wrapped her in quilts. The old woman closed her eyes and sank down as though asleep, but the tears kept flowing. Nobody said anything. The terrible silence continued as Kate and Halley went back to the wash. Kate moved more slowly than before and when she turned, Halley saw a bloody streak on the sleeve of her dress. Halley gasped and reached out to touch it, but Kate shrugged off her hand.
It was a relief to escape that room to hang the last of the clothes on the line. It was misery to return to it. Though her grandmother was right, Halley felt an unwilling pity for Pa Franklin. The old man seemed as shrunken as his wife, and for once he did not seem to know what to say. Several times he cleared his throat as though to speak, but no words came.
At dinner they ate beans and cornbread in the same terrible silence. After the meal, Pa Franklin put on his coat and left the house. The cash box, Halley noticed, he left on the kitchen table.
Ma Franklin looked at it and then at the kitchen door. “Sometimes,” she said slowly, “people find out too late what matters and what don’t.”
21. Called By Name
Kate was moving stiffly Thursday morning. She still wore the dress with the blood stain.
“You best put some salve on your arm and back,” Ma Franklin said when she noticed it, “so them places will heal.”
“I want ’em to take their time getting well,” said Kate. “It’ll keep me reminded what I’ve got to do.”
When breakfast was almost ready and Halley went to the far room to get Robbie, she found Golly there, too. The dog was lying on a clean sheet with a pillow case wrapped around one leg.
“Robbie!” Halley said.
“Don’t be mad,” Robbie said. “Pa Franklin hurt Golly’s leg yesterday and I’m doctoring it. I’ll wash everything.”
“You bet you will!” she answered, squatting to unwrap the dog’s leg. As she expected, it wasn’t injured seriously, but the blood and dirt spotted a number of places on both sheet and pillowcase. “In fact, you’re going to scrub them right after breakfast, before it sets in,” she said, letting the dog out. “And if Pa Franklin asks what you’re doing, you can explain.”
Robbie hung his head, but Halley refused to soften. “I’m sick and tired of trying to undo and cover up your mischief. If you hadn’t been fooling with the piano yesterday, Pa Franklin wouldn’t have got mad and whipped Mama. Ma Franklin wouldn’t be mad at him, and Mama wouldn’t be about to marry Bud Gravitt. It’s all your fault.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You always are. Well, this time that’s not good enough.”
She was still angry at breakfast—too angry to eat. She nibbled at her biscuit while her gravy congealed on her plate. Nobody else was eating much either. Ma Franklin’s food was untouched. The old woman huddled in her quilt wrapper, a far-away look in her eyes. Pa Franklin was the only one making much attempt at conversation.
He looked at Robbie just as Robbie put a biscuit in his pocket. He opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to think better of it. A moment later he said, “Boy, I noticed you left them new Christmas boots of yours out on the porch again.”
This was Halley’s cue to speak up and explain and defend as she always did. This time, however, she kept silent.
Pa Franklin drained his coffee cup and then looked from Kate to Halley. Neither offered to refill it, and so he finally got up to fetch the pot himself. “Boots cost money,” he said when he sat back down. His eyes fell on the cash box still in the center of the table, and then his eyes skimmed over a letter propped against the box. He leaned closer and squinted at his wife’s spidery handwriting. It was addressed to the eldest Franklin daughter.
“What you writing Eunice about?” he asked at last. “I hope you ain’t about to do something foolish.”
His wife did not look at him. “Nothing foolish,” she said. “You can count on that.”
Pa Franklin cleared his throat and changed the subject. “Temp Little told me yesterday when I went after Sukie that Trammell Pilcher’s killing a hog tomorrow. Says he’s looking for help. And you recollect he’s generous in giving messes of fresh meat.”
Kate looked toward her sewing machine where the dress pieces she had cut out yesterday were stacked. “I got a dress to make.”
“I’m going to Carrie Gowder’s to get more tea for Grandma,” Halley said, realizing after she’d said it that this would only excuse her for today. “And I’ve got ironing to do tomorrow,” she added.
“Mail my letter on your way to Carrie Gowder’s house,” Ma Franklin said to Halley.
“I can mail it for you,” Pa Franklin offered.
“Thank you just the same,” she answered. “I want Halley to do it. She don’t break into other people’s mail.” She reached for the cash box, opened it and took out a quarter. “And give this to Carrie to put on her granddaughter’s schooling. I’m allus proud to see somebody bettering themselves. I just wish my own granddaughter could do the same.”
Pa Franklin’s mouth opened to protest, but he stifled it and eased back into his chair.
As soon as breakfast dishes were over, Halley set Robbie to scrubbing the sheet and the pillowcase in a wash tub set next to the stove. Pa Franklin looked but asked nothing.
“I’m going to Carrie Gowder’s,” Halley said when it was time to leave. She half expected Pa Franklin to enforce the “no leaving the house” rule that he had pronounced on the way home from the Calvin’s. But, again, he held his tongue.
Outside, Halley found Golly huddled on the porch next to Robbie’s boots, licking his wound. “Robbie’s working,” she told him. “Why don’t you get under the house before you freeze to death?”
In the pasture, she saw the cows. Maybe the cold weather would stop Sukie from escaping if the fence repairs didn’t. Both cows were down near the pond, which appeared frozen over. Probably looking for water, she thought. Then she passed the earthen dam at the end of the pond and saw that below it the creek still flowed, though fringed with ice along the banks.
At the road she put her grandmother’s letter in the mailbox and raised the flag. By this time Halley’s cheeks and nose were stinging, and her feet numb. She ran to the cut off to the Gowder place. As she turned, she heard the sound of chopping off to the left. The Gowders needed lots of fuel. In addition to feeding fireplaces and stoves, they had big bricked-in outside ovens where they baked their pots. Judging from the stacks of wood around the edge of the yard, they must be getting ready to do some firing.
In front of Carrie Gowder’s work shed, two colored men were loading a wagon with pots of all sizes. Between and around pots they placed burlap. Carrie came out of the shed with two large pots, and behind her came Opal with a churn. Trailing close behind was one of the dogs Halley remembered from her previous visit. He barked but kept his place behind Opal. The girl set down her load and laid a hand on the dog’s head.
“And I don’t git no pocket money?” the man asked.
Carrie shook her head emphatically. “Not this time, Lige. I done told you. You ain’t spending Opal’s school money.” She turned to Opal. “Take Miss Ada’s girl on to my living cabin and ’low her to warm herself. Fire be one thing we got plenty of.”
As Opal and Halley headed toward the cabin, Carrie was inspecting the load of pots and suggesting improvements in placement and stacking. “Soon as this cold spell breaks, you gone to head out,” she was saying.
“You’re really and truly going to school?” Halley asked, when she was inside the cabin and backed up to the fireplace.
A boy off to one side of the hearth laughed, showing a mouthful of white, even teeth. “Opal think she gone be a doctor or nurse.”
Opal stared the boy down. Her face was fierce. “I am gone be a doctor or nurse someday. You’ll see.”
There was a long silence, and then Carrie came in.
“I want to go to school, but I don’t know if I will,” Halley said. “Times are bad.”
“Times never gone be good,” said Carrie Gowder. “Not lessen we makes ’em good by doing good things.”
She was right, Halley thought. How come this old woman knew this, and her folks didn’t?
“How Miss Ada doing?”
“Still ailing,” Halley replied.
Carrie looked at the fruit jar Halley held. “Guess you’ve come after more tea.”
Halley nodded. “And Grandma says to take this quarter toward Opal’s schooling.”
“Bless you,” Carrie said and slid the coin into her apron pocket.
While Carrie went to her cellar to fetch the makings of the tea, Halley looked around the room. It was as clean as the Franklin house and perhaps better furnished. For sure, it was warmer. The bed in the corner looked as soft as a cloud. And, she suddenly realized, on the inside, Opal was more like her than anyone else she knew.