Fleetie's Crossing

by K. Bruce Florence

  It took a little less than an hour before all the sauce was in the jars and the caps screwed hard on the tops of each of them.

  “Lookie, girls,” Fleetie said, “we have twenty full quarts and some left over to eat on. Dorotha, you and Leatha get four big lumps of coal on the fire. It would take all night to boil all these in the kitchen. We need to do the big pot out here too.”

  The girls stopped dead still. They needed the coal bucket from the fireplace in the house, but they wouldn’t walk in the house, coal bucket or not. At first, I didn’t understand why they were stalling, so I went ahead and picked up the bucket.

  Fleetie called, “Get on now. Stop dawdling. Stir up that fire good. The coal will burn hotter than Ed’s logs.”

  With deep sighs, Leatha and Dorotha walked to the coal pile, resigned to carrying the coal one lump at a time because neither one wanted to get that dirty. It finally dawned on me that the girls weren’t allowed to walk in Mrs. Ramsey’s house.

  “Hey, don’t worry. Here’s the coal bucket. We can carry more with it and not get so dirty.”

  Faint hope. We got just about as dirty as we would have if we had carried it piece by piece, but the coal did do the trick for the fire. In just a few minutes, the heat drove us back, away from the pit.

  Fleetie placed the black pot on the supporting rocks and grid, and Leatha and I were put to pumping water to fill it. Fleetie took the buckets of well water from us just as soon as we got a bucket filled and poured it into the pot. When it was about half full, all of us helped carry the warm jars of applesauce to the warming water. The water level rose with each jar until each jar was nearly covered.

  In the house, Mother repeated the same process with the blue granite canner on the kitchen stove. With the twins finally calmed, Geneva picked up the baby to nurse him. Through all the commotion and screaming, he had not made a peep. Geneva either did not know or did not take thought about how peculiar it was for a baby to be so quiet.

  In the midst of the worst trouble in your life, there can be an unconscious acceptance of things the way they are. In the years to come, when Geneva could stand to think back on it, Freddie’s lack of reaction to the world around him would come back to haunt her. But on this busy morning, it seemed more a blessing than a warning.

  Fleetie watched the black pot outside, and Mother timed the granite canner inside. The children had drifted to the side yard and the rope swing Daddy had hung for Jane and me. Geneva and Dorotha carried Freddie in his doll cradle around the side of the house and sat to watch them play.

  A soft breeze moved through the locust trees, sprinkling the inevitable leaf fall of oval-shaped, yellowing leaves. Of all the trees planted to hold the soil in place after the hillside plateau was carved, the locust had the strongest roots and the frailest leaves. The locusts leafed out first in spring and fell first in the fall. With all the protection the locusts gave eroding soil, they gave very little for anybody who wanted a shady yard. For all the years that I would live on the hill, the locust trees would seem no more than nuisance trees, and I would yearn for the beautiful maples, poplars, and oaks that grew higher up on the encircling mountains. Locust trees were like vanilla ice cream and brown lace-up Oxfords—practical, plain, and boring.

  Today, however, one of those locusts had lent an arm to the rope for a swing that took all of us far out over the road bank and delivered a stomach-tightening, heart-flipping thrill with each forward ride. Geneva smiled as she watched the children push, double-pump, ride two at a time, climb the rope, jump from the moving seat, and fall into giggling heaps in the soft dust kicked up in the scooped-out hollow below the swing.

  “Look, Freddie, it won’t be long before you will be swinging out there with all of them too,” said Geneva, holding him up to watch.

  Mother came around the side of the house to call everyone to lunch. “Let Rachel and me carry the cradle back for you, Gen. It’s a heavy thing. Cherrywood is solid as lead.”

  “Yes’m, but it just fits Freddie. He looks like a little doll in it. Someday, when he is grown, we’ll devil him good about being little enough to sleep in a doll bed!”

  Chapter 20

  DIAGNOSIS

  Early the next morning, Mother and Fleetie rode to town with Daddy to take Freddie to the doctor.

  Geneva volunteered to stay with the other children if Fleetie would go. “I can’t stand for Freddie to be that far away from me, but I’m afraid to leave the twins with anybody else. Those two will find trouble in the blink of an eye.” Even having their mother close was no guarantee of their safety, but Geneva knew she was their best hope of surviving childhood.

  Mother left Logan with Nessa and Dorotha, but Mother felt more confident about his safety. Logan was a naturally cautious kid, and he hated pain. Daddy called him his little old man.

  Mother wanted the baby to be examined by Dr. Parks. He was the older of the two doctors, and she was counting on his experience to guide the diagnosis. In spite of Freddie’s dramatic entry into the world four months ago, she knew better than to think Dr. Parks would take special interest in the tiny baby because of that midnight delivery during the flood. Dr. Parks had delivered hundreds of babies in this long career, and once safely delivered, the babies went right out of his mind. Each birth represented not so much the miracle of life but yet another body to be treated in all its various life phases. He was never known to congratulate himself on a delivery. He was far more likely to act gratified they survived to adulthood.

  Daddy left the office to drive the three home after the doctor’s visit. He almost never came home during the day, but Geneva would be frantic to get Freddie back home. While it seemed she had no idea how seriously ill he might be, she could not stand to have him out of her sight for even a few minutes. Mother told me that she and Fleetie had little to say on the ride home. Dr. Parks had been unusually quiet as he examined Freddie, but he did ask Fleetie if she remembered how long it took him to cry after he was born. He took blood samples, weighed him, and checked his reflexes and his chest. He watched him breathe, pinched his heel, and snapped him hard on his foot to make him cry. He listened carefully to Freddie’s startled and angry cry.

  After nearly thirty minutes of his inch-by-inch examination, he stepped out of the room and returned with Phil Begley, his partner. Both men then began to speak to each other in unintelligible doctor language. Mother said that with all she knew about symptoms and problems with babies, she could not follow them. She was sure they were holding back something serious. She could, however, follow closely enough to know that the baby was in trouble from the expressions and frustration of the doctors if not from understanding everything they said.

  As she told it later, the two doctors finally left the room, leaving orders to dress the baby and wait until one of them returned with medicine and instructions. When Dr. Parks returned, he sat down and crossed his legs and looked out the small window in the examining room a long time before he spoke.

  “Fleetie, Kathleen, remember, doctors don’t know much. We are pretty good sawbones, but there is still too much we don’t know about what makes us strong enough or not strong enough to keep breathing. I can’t find a single thing wrong with this baby, but I can also see that he is not growing fast enough, and he is unusually still. He can move his arms and legs—he just doesn’t seem motivated enough to do it. I suspect the long labor didn’t help him much, but again, he just might be a little slow to catch up. I’ve seen babies with sluggish starts grow out of it, but it usually takes a couple of years to see any serious or lasting damage.

  “Tell Geneva not to miss a feeding for any reason and keep him awake while he is nursing. He will want to eat just enough to stop the hunger reflex and go on back to sleep. I want her to give him some cereal on the tip of a small spoon at least four times a day. He won’t get much of it down, but there’s a chance he will get some good from it. I have written down the vitamin tonic
he needs. Mrs. White out front will give you a bottle as you leave. Be sure he gets it twice a day. If Fred can’t buy it, Kathleen, come back here for a refill. Do you have any questions?”

  He knew full well that Mother would be busting to ask a list of questions as long as his stethoscope, but he rose and stood half in and half out of the door of the examining room and gave his best imitation of a doctor in a hurry and slipped away before she could start. As he left the room, Mother told us she promised herself she would come back and get him alone sometime soon and get more answers.

  When they drove up to the gate beside Fleetie’s yard, Geneva, Logan, and I were standing on the porch. Each twin was propped on a hip, and as soon as Geneva spotted the car, she put the twins down on the bare ground and ran to the car.

  “Oh lordy, lordy, I thought you’d never get back. I’ve worried till I’ve got my head a-ringin’. I know he’s starved half to death.” She opened the car door and picked up the baby, wrapped in his yellow shower quilt.

  “Now, Gen, don’t take on. He’s just fine. Dr. Parks went over and over him,” said Fleetie. But her words were lost as Geneva raced into the house to examine him and sniff out any damage that might have been done.

  Laughing at her retreating back, Fleetie turned to Daddy and Mother. “This was a whole lot of trouble. We’re beholden. Won’t you come in and set a spell? I know Geneva is plumb taken back. She’s so grateful. She’ll be real shamed if she don’t get a chance to say so. Please come on in.”

  “We better not, Fleetie. Ed has to get back to the office, and Geneva needs to hear everything Dr. Parks said. Thank you so much for asking though. Let me know what else we can do. That baby seems like he belongs to all of us.”

  Daddy picked up Logan and carried him out the door and across the yard to the car. I followed and climbed into the back seat of the car.

  Fleetie said, “Don’t know that there’s anything else anybody can do, but I can sure testify you two have done your best for him.” She stepped back and waved as our old Plymouth slipped up and over the steep crossing and turned right to go up the long hill.

  “Katie, don’t start wringing your hands and grieving. Parks didn’t find anything really wrong—he’ll probably grow right out of it.”

  “I’m not taking on, Ed, but I can’t keep from worrying. You’re a man, and none of you have a notion how hard it is to keep babies breathing. You all think it’s automatic.”

  “I expect I’ve seen more babies buried than you ever will. I know you. You’ll take on, and before we know it, you’ll get down. I don’t have time for a deep discussion of how much I have failed the babies in this valley. I’ve got to get back to the office.”

  “Ed, stop yelling. I’m just so worried about him. I want to run right up that mountain and cry like a crazy woman.”

  “Who’s a crazy women, Momma?” said Logan. He caught the tone of the voices and was hanging on to O’Malley, his stuffed toy, with a choke hold.

  Daddy stopped the car, got out, and lifted Logan and O’Malley out of the back seat. He carried him all the way to the front door. “Logie, I want you to tell Mr. O’Malley that your mommy is the prettiest girl in these here mountains. Will you do that for me?”

  Logie grinned and started whispering in O’Malley’s pretend ear. Mother couldn’t hide her smile.

  “I’ll be back around six.” He had done it again. If charm wins the day, Daddy will always wind up on top of the pile.

  Chapter 21

  BEAN DAY

  The morning sunlight rolled down the mountain, bounced through the window, and propelled me from the bed. “Bean Day!”

  Bean Day was one of the best days of the summer for the Ramsey and Sargeant kids. I jumped into the shorts and shirt lying on the floor beside my bed. I didn’t want to waste a minute of it. I was anxious to get down the hill and into the bean patch and start picking at the same time the other kids started. If we all worked hard, we could pick the patch clean before the heat of day. We usually picked about ten bushels. That made a mountain of beans for all of us to make, string after string, to hang up where the wind and sun could dry them brown and crisp. We would also break beans for canning, but today was only for bean stringing.

  Yesterday, Fleetie promised we could use the long needles and heavy thread and race to see which one of us could fill the most strings with the fresh beans. The winner would get a nickel for ice cream with a ride in the truck to the store. On some Bean Days, Daddy had been known to stop at the store and pay for ice cream for everybody, but we all wanted to win just in case. You never knew for sure.

  Garden work could be miserable. Stinging bugs, dirt, sweat, stubbed toes, and scorching thirst trapped kids like an itchy blanket, but bean stringing while sitting in the shade of the porch was more fun than work. As we finished pulling the green beans down each long string, Fleetie would hang it on the thick nails driven into the edge of the porch roof stretcher. For weeks, the beans would hang there and swing free to catch the sun and breezes until they dried hard and crisp. In a long cold winter, shuck beans tasted like summer sunshine. They were bubbled down with a piece of salt pork for hours and then filled the soup bowls to feed hungry stomachs.

  We worked lickety-split, and by midmorning, we picked all twenty of the long rows and carried bushel after bushel of the beans to the front porch. The sun was beginning to burn the backs of our necks, and sweat trickled its way down our backs and foreheads. Fleetie and Geneva sat in the swing and broke off the tips of the beans and threw them into a large dishpan—snap, string, fling. With the picking over, we joined them, and our hands were never still and never hurried. The pattern repeated itself over and over hundreds of times, and as you watched, you could almost tap your foot to the steady rhythm. From Gen’s shiny dishpan, I grabbed a bean, speared it, and pulled it along the string until it rested at the end. Bean after bean, I built the long green rope until it fell over my knees. Over and over, each one added beans to long green ropes that spilled over knobby knees and coiled out on the porch floor. At first, there were lots of jokes and stories and teasing, but after a couple of hours’ tedium set in, Dorotha began to beg Fleetie to get out her guitar and sing for us. The rest of us picked up on it and chimed in.

  Dorotha had the guitar hidden, and no one could ever get her to tell where it was. Fleetie could play ladybugs off sunflowers, but her playing threw Burl into such a rage that Fleetie almost never played anymore. That was a pure shame because tunes seemed to live in her fingers. Clear, ringing chords, almost always in a minor key, would rise like a mountain chant, free but with a purpose. Her deep throaty voice would blend the ache of a memory with today’s sunshine in a mix that set our feet tapping and throats humming. Her voice smoothed over every tricky rhythm, and all of us loved it. Fleetie finally gave in, and Dorotha slipped off the porch to claim the guitar out of its hiding place.

  We settled in for the fun as Fleetie tuned the guitar, and we commenced begging for our favorite. I jumped off the porch and ran up the hill to get Mother. She wasn’t a mountain girl by birth, but she loved the music as much as any of us. By the time the two of us came back through the yard gate, the whole bunch was harmonizing “Down in the Valley.” As Mother stepped through the gate, Fleetie quit playing.

  “Oh, Fleetie, you can’t stop. Please play some more. They all love it, and it helps the work go quicker. I thought I could help out a little and maybe take a mess of beans home.”

  We needed more beans like we needed a house fire, but Fleetie always refused to let anyone do anything for her.

  “Just some screechin’ going on down here, Kathleen. Come in and set here on the swing. Nessa, get Kathleen a pile of beans.”

  In a few minutes, song after song rolled out and across the yard. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Johnny Nolan coming down the railroad track not even fifty yards from the porch. He hunkered down on the tracks and listened to the music for a s
hort while before he walked through the yard gate.

  Fleetie jumped when she saw him and threw her arms around the guitar and hid her face behind it. “Oh lordy, Johnny, you about scared me to death.”

  Johnny grinned. “Say, Fleet, that’s some awful sweet music. You oughtn’t stop. The kids will flog me shore if I break up a singing. Have you seen Minty this morning?”

  “Mary went up to your house to visit Minty this morning. We haven’t seen them since Mary passed by here early.”

  “I better get on up the creek and see about her. That baby is due any minute. You all go back to singin’. I can enjoy it all the way up the hill.”

  “Holler down about Minty,” said Mother.

  “Mommy, sing some more. Sing ‘My Own True Love,’” said Leatha.

  Fleetie let her fingers find the tune, and she hummed her way into the song. Before long, all of us were either singing or trying to as Fleetie led us into song after song. The music streamed from her fingers as if dammed too long against a freshening creek.

  For the first time in a long time, there was nothing going on but pure fun. Fleetie’s cheeks were flushed a rosy pink, and every foot on the porch was keeping steady time. Mother gathered up an armful of the long strings of the freshly strung beans and walked to the clothesline beside the house, and as she moved across in front of the porch and around the side, our eyes followed her, so none of us spotted the cloud of dust rising way down the county road. The dust cloud was how we always knew when someone was moving our way. Dirt roads were handy like that for letting you know when traffic and maybe company was nearing.

  We were keeping steady time to “Camptown Ladies” as the cloud of dust moved onto the straight stretch leading to the little house at the crossing. Burl’s truck slammed to a stop in front of the gate, catching all of us by surprise. One glance, and I could tell he was mean drunk. Somehow or other, drinking always messed up his hair. His face was flushed red, and his eyes were squinted as if the drinking made the sun too bright. Probably drinking was something people were supposed to do in dark places. A drunk looked pretty grim if you brought them out in the bright sunlight. My stomach twisted with dread at the angry look on his face. I was scared.