Belle City

by Penny Mickelbury

  NELLIE EUBANKS THATCHER

  JAN. 17, 1878~JUNE 15, 1920

  R.I.P.

  From the Diary of Jonas Farley Thatcher

  I don't know what I think or feel about anything anymore. I wish I could talk to Ruthie and Si about how they feel, but I don't see them at all these days. I'm better friends with Beau now than with Ruthie and Little Si, and I guess that's all right—but really, it's not. I do like Beau. I like him a lot, but he's different and we don't talk about the same things I talk about with Ruthie and Si. Beau and me talk about business and money but I want to talk about reading and writing and Beau is not interested in those things. Not for himself anyway. He cares about reading and writing for Ruthie and Si. He tells me about them going to school and about how much they are learning and about how they will be going to school in Belle City one day soon. I want to ask him is he sure but I know Beau does not say things that are not true. I tell him how much I am learning at my school and he says he can tell that I'm learning a lot because I sound to him like a grown man what's already been to college. That makes me feel good, but I wish that Ruthie and Si could hear me sound like a grown man.

  From the Recorded Memories of Ruth Thatcher McGinnis

  This was a very difficult time in my life, Sissy. Eighty-five years ago. That's how long it's been since my mother died. Was killed. A lot of what was happening around me is unclear. I suppose the truth is that I don't remember much. As a young adult, I'd look back on that time and realize that I'd come pretty close to what used to be called a nervous breakdown, and I don't think I exaggerate when I say that if I hadn't had Mack, I probably would have lost my mind. But having him love me and being able to love him in return—well, it gave me a place to put all the feeling I had for the mother who was gone. And there were my brothers, of course—my big brothers who loved and cared for and protected me, always. Pa and Uncle Will? Oh, yes, they loved me, too, but they were more distraught that I was. Pa would disappear into the woods for days, and Uncle Will would go for days without speaking. He'd just sit on the porch and stare. It was Beau who kept us together as a family during that time. For almost a year, because that's how long it took for the change to complete itself. What changed? Everything. Everything we knew and everything we were.

  ***

  – 1921 –

  They all, each and every one of them, had sworn and promised not to allow a single tear or moment of sadness spoil this day. It was, after all, New Year's Day—the first day of 1921—and a celebration was underway in First Freeman's house on Ashby Street in Belle City. But the day was special for another reason. It was the wedding day of Miss Isabelle Johnson and Mr. Tobias Thatcher, and so many people were packed into the little house that, despite the fact that it was freezing cold, both the front and back doors were open so some air could circulate, so they could cool off a bit—and they definitely needed to cool off, especially the young people. They'd been dancing and singing since last night, for goodness sake, though not there, at First Freeman's; they'd only been there since a little after one o'clock in the afternoon.

  The young people all had been to a party for the soon-to-be-newlyweds at Beau's apartment above TOBY AND BELLE'S BARBER AND BEAUTY SALON the previous night, dancing until dawn to the music from the brand new radio that was Beau's gift to Isabelle and Tobias, and eating and laughing and talking and reveling in these rare moments of pure, free pleasure. Now at First Freeman's they were doing more of the same, in the company of their parents and elders, and with Toby and Belle who, as of one o'clock that afternoon, were officially Mr. and Mrs. Thatcher. It now was fully dark, though it wasn't really so late, given that it got dark early in the winter, and the night air was a welcome relief from the heat generated by the celebration.

  For his part, First Freeman had done no dancing although, thanks to his radio, he now knew a few of the popular songs and he sang along now and then. His joy was in watching the people he loved enjoy themselves even though he knew their hearts were breaking. Will sat in the big armchair by the front door and always beside him, as if standing guard, was one of the children, Beau or Little Si or Ruthie. Only Tobias on this day was excused because on this day, his place now was at a different side—that of his wife. But his eyes were constantly in search of his family, and his father often was at his side, as if channeling the blessings of Nellie, about whom it was said more than once, was present in spirit if not in body. First wasn't certain that Will Thatcher really knew what was happening, but he did seem to be enjoying himself. They'd had to almost literally drag him to Belle City the night before after finally convincing him that no, Tobias was not going to get married in Carrie's Crossing and that if he wanted to see him wed, he'd have to go to Belle City to do it. And yes, he'd have to spend the night at First Freeman's house and they all had laughed when he'd asked why he couldn't stay with Toby and Belle. Will Thatcher, First thought, missed Nellie more than any of them because she'd always been Carrie in his mind. He'd never gotten over losing Carrie, and now he'd lost her a second time.

  Ruthie and Mack danced, and when she wasn't at Mack's side, she was beside Beau or Uncle Will or Toby and Belle or Little Si or her father. She moved from one to the other and the old man could feel the girl's fear. Would another person she loved suddenly be snatched away from her? Not if she held on! First Freeman also noticed that Ruthie spent time with Clara and Mack McGinnis Sr., Mack's parents, and he saw how kindly they looked at the girl who most certainly would be their daughter-in-law. Nellie would like them, he thought.

  "You sure do know how how to throw a party, Mr. First," Sue Carter said as she came to stand beside him.

  "Well, it's a right special occasion," the old man said, with a proud look around. He'd have been no happier if he'd lived in one those big houses up on Hunter Road where the Colored doctors and undertakers lived.

  "You and now Toby and Belle are the only Colored people I know who's got a radio," Sue said, adding, "It's a good thing I don't have one 'cause I wouldn't want to do anything but sit and listen to it."

  Though he was loathe to admit it, from the moment Beau brought the thing in the door, Freeman hadn't wanted to do anything but listen to it, either. He'd initially resisted the purchase, but Beau had insisted, pointing out how Mr. First could learn all about what was happening in the world without having to know how to read. Then Freeman had argued that no white man would sell a Colored man a radio, and Beau had said that Mr. Allen would—the same Mr. Allen who had sold him a truck. So, he stopped resisting and gave Beau the money for the purchase, and the very next day Beau had come with the radio. Since then, First had taken in so much information that he thought his head would explode. "Where's your ma?" he asked Sue.

  Sue looked up at him with a wry grin. "In the kitchen, Mr. First. You know that's where she is. Takin' charge of the cookin' and servin' of the food."

  "I thought you was gonna do that."

  "I thought so, too," Sue replied as she turned away from him and headed toward the kitchen. "Maybe she'll let me back in the kitchen to help."

  Everybody was ready to eat so when the kitchen door opened and Joe Carter backed out carrying a tray with the biggest turkey they'd ever seen, a great cheer went up. It increased in volume when Sue came out bearing a platter of hams, one smoked and one baked. Most of the women then flowed into the kitchen to help, and in short order the dining room table was laden with bowls and trays and platters of black eyed peas and rice and greens and yams and rolls. Then came the tray of glasses and another cheer split the air when Beau and Lil Si entered with a washtub filled with ice and bottles of champagne. Nobody asked how Beau had managed to find a case of champagne, though quite a few people wondered how he could afford it. Truthfully, though, nobody really cared. The corks popped, the champagne was poured, and the toasts to the new Mr. and Mrs. Tobias Thatcher flowed like the wine until First Freeman growled that he was getting hungry. Then the feasting began.

  It was quieter as people ate, even the radio cooperated, p
laying a live concert of classical music by an orchestra in New York City. The young people grouped themselves together, most of them—except for the newlyweds—seated on the floor, and their elders in the chairs grouped around the table. The talk, though, among both groups, was the same: The inability to earn a living from the land anymore, the scarcity of any other kind of work and the pitiful money paid if a body could find a job, and the belief that if Colored people ever were to escape slavery's legacy, education would be the route, and every one of the young people found tangible hope and inspiration in the very fact of the five colleges and the one university in their community. Among them, only young Silas and Ruth Thatcher seriously entertained the notion of one day attending college, but the others knew that if not for them, then certainly for their children, a college education was the future, and some—like Beau Thatcher and Joe Carter—received immense pleasure and satisfaction just driving by the schools and watching the students. The older people, especially those for whom slavery was more than mere historical fact, took their gratification from up close and personal contact with Colored doctors, lawyers, bankers, preachers, teachers—the old ones literally would approach these professionals with the purpose of touching them, of looking into their eyes to see the proof that what they had endured had not been for naught.

  As people finished eating, they took their plates and utensils into the kitchen where all the women—except for Maisy and Sue—were washing up and putting away and making space for the serving of the wedding cake. Several of the men stepped outside to light their cigars and their pipes. Big Si didn't smoke but he, too, was outside, in large part because he didn't think he could be polite and sociable for a single moment longer, and yet he didn't want to do or to say anything to spoil his son's special day. He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned to face Mack McGinnis Sr. He was exactly an older version of his son. Looking at this man, Silas knew how his son-in-law would look in twenty-five or thirty years, and he surprised himself with the thought.

  He took McGinnis's proffered hand and the two men exchanged a powerful, silent grip. McGinnis spoke first.

  "I'm so sorry 'bout your wife. I wish me and Clara could have known her. Mack Jr. liked her a whole lot."

  "She liked him, too. A whole lot."

  McGinnis sighed deeply. "I'm glad to know that. It means a lot to me and Clara." He cleared his throat. "We got us four boys, me and Clara, but no girls."

  Silas surprised them both by smiling widely and sharing what he'd never told another soul: "We had us four boys, too, and had just about give up on gettin' a girl. Fact is, Nellie did give up. She said four chil'ren was enough to feed and if we was meant to have a girl, we'd have her by now. But it was me didn't want to give up. It was me wanted a baby girl!" The tears filled his eyes and began to fall then, and he didn't wipe them away. "She's just exactly like her Ma: Looks like her, acts like her, talks like her. And she's a handful."

  McGinnis gave a dry chuckle. "So I hear tell."

  "Her Ma said Ruthie could marry when she turned sixteen. That'll be on May fourth."

  McGinnis nodded. "I'll tell Clara. And if it's all right with you, we'll handle things—"

  "I can handle what needs to be handled."

  "I mean 'bout a dress and...and all that kinda thing...women-folks things. That's all."

  "Oh. Well, then, I 'spect that's all right." Silas gave McGinnis a sly look. "But your boy is gon' have to speak to my daughter and she is gon' have to say yes. Me and you standin' out here in the cold talkin' ain't gon' get nobody hitched."

  Both men laughed, shook hands again, and returned to the warmth of the house, where, in the corner beside the kitchen First Freeman was talking quietly with Emma Johnson, the mother of the bride. She had thanked him at least half a dozen times—him and Beau—for making her eldest daughter's wedding day so memorable an event. She couldn't have done it on her own, as she was a woman alone raising three girls. Then she told the gentle old man something she had never told another soul: How her husband, her Ed, whom she'd trusted with her life, had simply vanished one day. They had a good marriage, she'd thought, and three baby girls, and Ed had been talking about trying one more time, for his son. Then, a month ago—he vanished. He'd just disappeared. She still hadn't gotten over the hurt, the confusion. She'd worked three jobs right up until the moment Isabelle had opened her beauty shop and brought Emma in to work with her. "She's such a good girl. All my girls are. I don't know how I got so lucky."

  First Freeman gave her an awkward pat on the back, then leaned over to whisper in her ear, "And I 'spect your second girl's 'bout to get right lucky, too." He was looking across the room where Little Si, looking for all the world like a grown man, was smiling down at a pretty brown girl who clearly appreciated his attention.

  "Oh," Emma Johnson said, her eyes widening. One hand flew to her heart, the other to her mouth. "That's my Catherine. And...and...Toby's little brother!"

  ***

  It snowed on the third day of February, covering all of Tennessee and most of Georgia—all the way down to just south of Belle City—in a blanket of thick, heavy white. Few people were surprised; in fact, a few of the older citizens predicted it, knew in their bones that snow was coming. Though residents of the North and Midwest probably were not aware of the fact, snow, while not a regular occurrence in the South, happened often enough to be expected every few years. It also was expected that within twelve to twenty-four hours of the snowfall, the temperature would rise dramatically, melting the stuff so the Southerners could get on with their lives, for though they thought it was a pretty anomaly, they didn't know how to live with it—didn't have the tools to remove it or the clothes and shoes to wear in it. So when it snowed all day on the third of February, and then turned sharply colder that night, people were surprised, but they weren't worried, and school children, of course, were delighted because superintendents didn't even try to open schools when it snowed. When dawn broke on February 4th, it brought a frigid, howling wind from the north that blew the snow into deep drifts, obscuring or burying low-slung walls and fences, and guaranteed a second day without school for the children but not even they ventured outside. It simply was too cold.

  It was warm inside the Thatcher's home. Curtains now hung at all the windows and rugs covered all the floors, though when it was this cold, the wind always managed to find points of entry, and Little Si and Mack, on that Wednesday morning, roamed the house looking for—and finding—those entry points and stuffed them with rags. Uncle Will and Big Si dozed in front of the fire, thankful for the two days of rest; farming now was more a thankless chore than a labor of love and neither man reaped pleasure from the backbreaking work. Mack read to Ruthie and Little Si—first from Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, then from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. Then Ruthie and Si took the books from Mack and read to themselves, an ability that brought them more joy than they could express.

  On the fifth day of February, it was cloudy and a bit warmer, and the wind had become little more than a breeze. "'Bout time the weather got itself back to normal," Big Si said from his vantage point on the front porch, though nothing in his field of vision was "normal" for Georgia. He tilted his head back and sniffed the air—it was cold and clean—then he scanned the sky, satisfied with what he saw, until he turned all the way around and looked due north. He frowned into the distance, opened the door, and called out, "Uncle Will!"

  The old man came to the porch. So did everybody else. "What's wrong, Pa?" Little Si asked, stepping out into the cold to stand beside his father.

  Big Si pointed north. "Look there," he said. Everybody looked, but only Uncle Will saw the huge bank of dark, rolling clouds for what they were. "What do you think?"

  Uncle Will shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. "Same thing you think," he said, and went back inside the house.

  Mack look at clouds that moved as he watched—moved toward them, seemingly in a hurry, if clouds could hurry. "More snow coming?"

&n
bsp; Big Si nodded. "Soon, too," he said and followed Uncle Will back inside the house.

  Mack, Ruthie and Little Si watched the clouds rush across the sky toward them. Ruthie, standing between the two men, put an arm around the waist of each man, big brother and soon-to-be husband, and drew them in close, as much for warmth as out of love. "I don't think I've ever seen clouds move like that."

  "Me either," Little Si said."

  "I wonder how far away they are," Ruthie mused. "As far as Tennessee? More?"

  "Fast as they're moving, doesn't matter," Mack answered, and they all shivered and, as a unit, turned to go back inside.

  The snow began just as they finished the meal—which nobody ate because, not having worked for three days, nobody was hungry. It was a light snowfall, tiny flakes floating toward the ground in no particular hurry to get there, unlike the clouds that brought them. Supper that evening was the midday meal that nobody had eaten, followed by baked apples with raisins. Ruthie was washing dishes when Mack ran into the kitchen. The look on his face frightened her. "What is it, Mack?"

  He grabbed her hand, pulling her toward the front of the house. "Come look at this."

  Uncle Will, her Pa and Little Si were standing in the front window, curtain pulled back, peering into the darkness. They were stark still, their only movement was in the expressions on their faces: Confusion, awe, worry, and something like fear. Ruthie stood between the two older men and looked out. The snow was up to the window and the wind was whipping it back and forth, and then up against the house, and it was coming down so hard and fast it looked like a solid sheet instead of individual flakes. "I never seen nothin' like this," Uncle Will said in a whisper. "Never in my life. Never woulda thought it could snow like this in Georgia."