Belle City

by Penny Mickelbury

  "I'm gon' go stoke all the stoves and make sure it's plenty warm in the rooms and make sure Miss Gert got enough wood stacked where she can get to it. Then I'll be back here in case you need me."

  She nodded her thanks and tried for a smile that failed. She felt totally exhausted and the day had barely begun. She dropped down into the chair behind her desk and tried to order her thoughts. Suppose Sadie Hill didn't—or couldn't—call? What would she do with the three Hill children? This shouldn't be her problem. She didn't want it to be her problem. Yet it was because there was no one else to give it to. No one else who would take it. She looked up at the wall clock and marveled that the school board hadn't ordered them removed. Probably forgot we had them, she thought. In just a few moments students would begin arriving from the various classrooms with the roll call tally sheets since she hadn't gone to get them. She got up and went to stand in the hall to receive each of the messengers, calling each by name, inquiring about his or her family, and thanking each with a hug.

  She returned to her desk and checked the sheets, noting who was absent—in her class, Hazel Hill was marked ABSENT, with a note from her teacher asking what Ruth could do if the school received no answer to its "Request for Student Information" letter sent a week ago to Hazel's home. Ruth froze momentarily, then pushed her chair back so she could reach the file cabinet behind her. Each week, all of the roll call tallies were compiled and sent to the school board, with special note being made of any abnormalities and, if necessary, requesting that the central office send a letter to the home of the student in question requesting information and, in this case, concerning the student's protracted absence from school. Hazel Hill hadn't been to school for a week prior to her appearance this morning. She'd been absent every day last week. Ruth buried her face in her hands. Even if the central office had sent the notice to Sadie Hill—which she knew was doubtful—she hadn't been home to receive it.

  The despair that she struggled daily to keep at bay descended like a sudden fog on the leading edge of bad weather. Mack had so often pleaded with her to give up teaching, to stay home. She should have done as he asked. Of course, if she had, perhaps they'd be running a gambling, parlor, too…

  The phone rang, and she snatched it up, grateful in that moment that there was no clerk fielding calls. "Ashdale Elementary School, Principal McGinnis speaking."

  "This Sadie Hill. My chil'ren all right, Miz McGinnis?"

  "They're fine, Mrs. Hill, but I need to know if what Hazel said is true: Are you being held in that home against your will?"

  "Yes'm, Miz McGinnis. They say I can't leave 'cause Miz Woodbridge, she ain't never in her life cooked nor cleaned nothin' and they ain't never lived in a house without no help. Everybody else left when we didn't get paid but I didn't 'cause I believed Mr. Woodbridge when he said he had some money comin' and would pay me." She took a deep, ragged breath. "They locks me in my room ev'ry night after dinner."

  "What time is dinner?"

  "Seven o'clock sharp, ev'ry night 'cept if they have company, which they don't no more 'cause they ain't got no money for them big dinners, all that food and whiskey."

  "Tonight, Sadie, when you put the food on the table, run! I'm coming to get you. Can you get out of the house without being seen?"

  "Yes'm. But…"

  "I'll be parked in front of the house. You just run. You hear? Just run."

  Mack and Beau sat across from the desk staring at her as if she were some strange and alien life form they'd never seen before. She sat there, waiting for one of them to say something. They'd both come immediately when she'd called and had listened intently as she told them about the situation with the Hill family and what she'd done. They'd listened and watched her until she finished talking. That was approximately three very long minutes ago, and not one of them had spoken. Until Beau did.

  "You can't go. Mack and me'll go get her but you can't go."

  "I have to. She doesn't know you. She knows me."

  "You can't go, Ruthie," Mack said. "And since I don't imagine there will be a lot of automobiles with Colored people in them in front of the Woodbridge house tonight, I doubt she'll be confused."

  "But why can't I go?"

  "Because, Ruthie," Beau said, his voice hard and flat the way it got when he was well and truly angry, "if something bad happens, we don't need two sets of chil'ren with no Ma to look after 'em."

  She gave them the address. Beau knew exactly where the street was and the house from his years of hauling with Mr. First Freeman. "Those people used to throw out a lot of stuff—clothing and furniture—that nothing was wrong with. They'd just get all new and throw out what they had. No wonder they're broke. They oughta be."

  Mack and Beau made Ruth promise that after school, she'd take the Hill children home and wait until they brought their mother. Nobody asked what would happen if they failed because there was no acceptable answer. After they left, she told Gert Butler and George Tennison everything. After they first agreed that Beau and Mack had been right not to let her go, they then both agreed to join her at the Hill home after school. Without Ruth having to suggest it, they packed a box with rice and beans and powdered milk and oatmeal and Blackstrap molasses and raisins, firewood, coal and clothes, and at the end of the day, after all the children had gone and the doors and windows were locked and the ashes cleaned out of the stoves, the three Hill children left Ashdale School with Mrs. Butler in her automobile. Mr. Tennison followed in his truck. Ruthie knew that Mack had taken Nellie to his parent's and Mack Jr. to Big Si's, where she dropped the three younger boys—she'd already called Pa to ask if she could bring them and told him why—then followed his directions to the street where the Hills lived. He'd wanted to drive her, but neither of them wanted to tell the boys what she was doing, and he needed to be home when Little Si dropped off Mackie. Pa whispered, "You be careful, Ruthie-girl" and his tight hug stayed with her for the duration of the trip.

  She was appalled by what she saw in the neighborhood called Pig Town. She knew that there was desperate poverty in Belle City, but she'd never seen it and could not have imagined what she saw. She knew that the name originated at the turn of the 20th century when the area was all farmland, when pigs, goats, chickens and cows roamed freely. There still were many plots of what in spring and summer would be carefully tended vegetables but now were overgrown, winter-burned ugliness. The streets were unpaved, there were no streetlights, and, from what she tell, very little electricity. The houses were little more than shacks, unpainted and weather-beaten, piled on top of brick columns that served to keep them off the ground which would be thick, gooey mud at least half the year.

  She found the Hill house easily: It was the only one with two vehicles parked in front of it. Ruthie added her own and was halfway up rickety steps when the front door opened and Hazel dashed out, grabbed her arm, and pulled her up the last two steps and inside. The house was surprisingly well furnished, and, recalling what Beau said about the Woodbridge's propensity for throwing things away, she imagined that Sadie had been able to take full advantage of her employers' wastefulness. The place also was spotless, but it was icy cold. George Tennison had gotten fires going in the fireplace and in the stove in the kitchen, but the place obviously had been without heat for many days.

  William and Dorothy looked wide-eyed at the unusual goings-on in their home, their gazes shifting from George Tennison's fire-building to Gertrude Butler's cooking beans and rice and corn bread to Ruth's whispered conversation with their big sister. Ruthie was trying to stop short of promising the girl that her mother would be home for dinner, but Hazel was a believer. Ruthie was still at the prayer stage.

  Neither Mack nor Beau was big on praying. They trusted in what they could do and what they could see. Because it was winter and night fell early, they drove over to the North Side of town and parked off the road, in a woods less than a quarter mile from the Woodbridge home. Beau, driving because he was familiar with the area, told his brother-in-law what he k
new of the Woodbridge's street and the adjacent ones. Because it was dark and cold, he didn't expect much activity. Most people, like the Woodbridges, would be having their dinner. Those lucky enough to still have gainful employment would be making their way home, but one vehicle at a time, not in a stream. At exactly seven, Beau backed out of the woods and drove carefully to the Woodbridge's street, turned in, and, lights off, in neutral, coasted toward the house and to a stop. Almost immediately they saw a figure in the darkness moving toward them, rapidly.

  "I don't believe I ever saw a woman run that fast," Beau said.

  "I didn't know a woman could run that fast," Mack said, as he jumped out of the car and held the door open. "Miz Hill," he said and after the barest hesitation, she got in. Mack closed the door and got into the back, the door not closed when Beau eased into gear and slid away from the Woodbridge house. "I'm Mack McGinnis and that's Beau Thatcher, Ruth's brother. We're taking you home."

  With a great cry, Sadie Hill released all the emotion she'd pent up for the past two weeks. She wept so fiercely that Beau stopped the car, which stopped her tears. "Don't stop. Please, don't stop. Keep goin', Mr. Beau. Keep goin'." So he kept going—slow enough not to arouse suspicion, not so fast as to attract attention, and Mack stretched out in the back until they reached the Colored part of town because too many Colored people in a vehicle automatically drew white suspicion.

  Sadie wept again, when in front of her house she saw three vehicles parked and from the chimney a thick plume of smoke and from the windows, lights. She jumped from the car and ran up the steps and flung open the door. It was a good thing that Beau and Mack were behind her because when all three children flung themselves at her, she was knocked backwards. She recovered her balance and immediately quieted the children who, though they needed her command to be quiet, refused to release their grip on her.

  "I don't know how to thank y'all."

  "You don't need to," Ruth said.

  "Yes, I do," Sadie Hill said, sounding almost angry. "Ain't nobody ever done me a good deed in my life, and what you people done for me this day made up for a whole lifetime of hard luck, and I won't forget it. Not never. And I will, somehow, someway, do a good deed for each one of you. I mean that."

  She shook each of the men's hands and hugged Gertrude and Ruth. "These three chil'ren is all I got left in this world. I don't know what happened to my…to Mr. Hill. He left goin' to work one day and just…I guess…kep' goin'. But I live for these chil'ren and I'm gon' do my best by 'em." She looked at Ruth. "Hazel gon' be at school on time ev'ry day from now on. And soon as I find me a job…" Emotion took over again and she wept, her children trying to comfort her. "I know that sounds crazy, don't it? Ain't no jobs in this world for Colored people, I know that. But I got to try. And I'll tell you this: I won't never work for no white folks again. Not never."

  Mack and Beau exchanged a look that initially confused Ruth. Then she got it.

  "Would you stop by my office in the morning when you drop Hazel off?"

  Sadie said she would, and she thanked them all again, this time hugging everybody, the men included, and when they stepped out into the frigid night, they realized how warm it finally had gotten in Sadie's house.

  Gert and George said good night and hurried to their vehicles. Mack opened the door for Ruth, put her in the car, and then turned to have a whispered conversation with Beau.

  "I know what you're up to," Ruth yelled through the closed car door. Mack opened it and stuck his head in.

  "You think it's a good idea?"

  "It's a wonderful idea," she said, and added, "I want to go too." When both Beau and Mack shook their heads, she said, "I thank you, too, for what you did tonight."

  "You did right to help her," Beau said, heading for his car. "I'll call y'all when I get home."

  Mack got in the car and started it but didn't put it into gear. He sat looking at the house—the shack, really—that Sadie Hill called home. It looked like every other home on the block and on the adjacent ones. "What you did for those little children tonight, Ruth—you saved their lives is what you did. It was good and it was right, like Beau said. I don't know what made you tell that woman you'd go get her, but I'm glad you did."

  "Hazel hadn't been to school in a week, and I hadn't noticed. She was skin and bone and wearing rags and I hadn't noticed. I'm not good, Mack."

  "How many don't show up every day? And you feed them out of your own pocket and Miss Gert brings clothes and George brings firewood and coal because y'all know they're hungry and cold and raggedy. What else can you do—especially when the school board is doing nothing? Those crackers ought to be shot!"

  Ruth sighed, rubbed her eyes. "Hazel is one of the brightest children in that school, but it doesn't matter because we both know that she'll have to go to work as soon as her Ma can find two jobs—one for herself and one for Hazel—" She stopped mid-sentence and turned toward her husband. "That child cannot work in a gambling parlor!"

  Mack chuckled, patted his wife's arm, put the car in gear and eased away, taking extra care on the deeply rutted, unpaved road. "We don't know for sure that Sadie's even going to have a job there, so don't you start worrying before time."

  "I think Tobias will forget he's mad at Beau and give him a big ol' hug. He can't be happy about Belle being…doing…working…what does she do, exactly?"

  "I don't have any idea, but I think you're right: Whatever it is, no man in his right mind would want his wife working there, especially in Belle's condition. She looks 'bout ready to have that baby any minute now."

  They rode in silence for a while, knowing that they were having the same feelings and thinking the same thoughts, especially about being in a hurry to retrieve their own children and take them home. But the thought of her own children returned Ruthie to thoughts of those she was responsible for every day at the Ashdale Elementary School—Colored children abandoned by the education authorities who didn't care whether they learned or not, didn't care whether their school buildings had heat and lights, didn't care if there was food to feed their bodies or books to feed their minds. Didn't care if there were enough teachers to fill the classrooms and didn't think it necessary to pay the few teachers who remained even half what the white teachers were paid.

  "I did what I did tonight because I'm tired of white people and their meanness. Their evil! When I told Sadie Hill I'd come get her, I wasn't thinking about those children, I was thinking about how that woman was stolen from her family, just like those people were stolen from Africa and brought here to be slaves. That woman was a slave in that house and neither she nor us could do anything about it. We don't have not one law that helps us or protects us. All their laws, every one they make, tells us what we can't do, where we can't go, and I'm sick of it, Mack." She was crying as hard as Sadie Hill had cried earlier, and maybe for the same reasons. But just as there had been nothing he or Beau could have done or said to ease Sadie, there was nothing he could do or say to soothe his wife.

  They agreed to pick up Nellie first, from his parents, then gather the boys from her father's. All had been fed dinner and were practically asleep, but the arrival of their parents spurred them into wakefulness, and the boys were especially pleased to see their baby sister and she them. She giggled with delight as she was passed from brother to brother for a hug and a kiss, then finally to her grandfather who swung her high over his head and held her there for a moment gazing at her, before lowering her into a tight hug and gently whispered, "My Nellie."

  "My GaPa," she whispered back to him in his ear, rubbing his back the way he rubbed hers. Their bond was special, and it was as heartbreaking to witness as it was heartwarming: She, the girl finally born to her parents after three sons, as Ruth finally came to her parents after four sons—and named Nellie after the grandmother she'd never know. Nellie, the name of the wife GaPa mourned and missed every day of his life. "I got my Nellie back," he'd whisper to the child. "My Nellie."

  With Nellie nestled in one arm,
Big Si Thatcher enveloped his four grandsons in the other, pulling them in tight and close and planting a kiss on top of each of their heads and threatening, as always, to sprinkle them with Stop Growing So Tall Powder. Truth be told, he wouldn't be able to kiss the tops of their heads much longer and the old man, as he often did, marveled at the miracle of creation that was playing out before him for the second time in his life: Boys growing into men in the blink of an eye, a girl into a woman. He loved his grandchildren with the same passion and pride he'd visited upon his children and took every opportunity to tell them so.

  Ruthie kissed his cheek and would have relieved him of Nellie but he wouldn't let her go. "Everything went all right, then," he said, a statement, not a question.

  "Fine, Pa," Ruth answered.

  "Better than fine," Mack said. "Like a miracle, really."

  "Speaking of which," Big Si said, disentangling himself momentarily from the four boys still snuggling under his arm and reaching for an envelope on the table. "What do you make of this?"

  Mack took the envelope and his eyes widened as he read the front of it. He passed it to Ruth and her surprise was greater than his. "Open it!"

  Mack read the front of the envelope again: TO Mack McGinnis Construction Company, Ashby St. Alley, Belle City, Georgia. But it was the return address that grabbed their attention: EDWARDS/THATCHER REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT CO., Carries Crossing, GA. He opened the envelope and removed a single sheet of paper. Ruth watched his face, his eyes, as he read. Her father and her children watched Ruth as she waited for Mack's response to whatever the miracle envelope contained. With apparent effort, Mack tore his eyes from the paper and held it out to his wife. "Did you know that Jonas had a real estate company?"