Guide Me Home

by Kim Vogel Sawyer

  She scrambled into the loft and eased her way across the rafters on her hands and knees to the trunk tucked beneath the eaves. She squeaked it out far enough to lift the lid. Tears flooded her eyes when she reached inside and encountered Andy’s shirts, britches, boots. With a vicious swipe of her hand, she removed the tears and then rolled the clothes around the boots. Then, cradling the wad against her aching chest with one arm, she inched her way backward and crawled down the ladder.

  Her feet met the floor. Her entire body shook—from fear, from excitement, or from guilt? Maybe all three. She scampered to the bedroom and shoved the clothes under the mattress on her side of the bed. They created a lump, but hopefully Cissy wouldn’t notice if the shutters were closed and the room stayed dark.

  As she left the bedroom, something brought her to a halt. She tipped her head, pondering what was different. Oh, yes. It was quiet. The storm had blown over. Daddy, Mama, and the littlest girls would come home now. She pulled the ladder from the opening and, after three tries, secured it on the nails again. She winced, realizing how many of the cobwebs she’d knocked loose. She hoped nobody noticed.

  A fresh scent flooded the cabin. She turned, and her bare toes met a band of sunlight that flowed across the floor from the open door. A smile—a genuine, thankful smile—pulled at her lips. It was as if God Almighty Himself brought the rainstorm to keep her folks away long enough for her to retrieve those things from Andy’s room. The sun felt like His approval.

  She stepped to the edge of the porch, aimed her smile at the sky, and whispered, “Thank You.”

  Cissy

  The family gathered around the table for supper. Mama came last, carrying a platter of cornbread. Cissy sighed. Cornbread. Again. They should have cornstalks growing out of their ears with all the cornbread they planted in their bellies.

  “Let’s pray,” Daddy said, and he bowed his head.

  Cissy folded her hands and rolled her gaze to the ceiling, holding back a sigh, while Daddy thanked the Lord for the refreshing rain and for the fine supper Mama had prepared. Fine supper? Cissy wrinkled her nose. The pot in the middle of the table was full of black-eyed peas. Black-eyed peas smelled bad—like old tar—and they tasted like dirt. If her stomach hadn’t been growling for the past two hours, she’d skip supper and go pore over the photographs in the Vogue magazine her friend Pansy let her borrow.

  “Amen.”

  Cissy snagged a square of cornbread and grabbed the pitcher of sorghum syrup. She drowned the mealy wedge with the thick honey-colored sweetnin’.

  “Not so much.” Daddy reached for the pitcher. “Leave some for your sisters.”

  Cissy pursed her lips. What would it be like to be the only child, like Pansy, who never had to share anything with a whole herd of pesky little sisters?

  Daddy drizzled his cornbread and then turned to Rebekah. “How’d things go at the cave estate this mornin’?”

  Rebekah spooned black-eyed peas onto Little Nellie’s plate. “I didn’t get to talk to the owner because he wasn’t there. So…” She shrugged, flicking a smile that looked strained. “I guess I’ll have to go back again tomorrow.”

  Cissy frowned. “Why’re you talkin’ to the owner? I thought the cook bought the mushrooms.”

  Daddy squeezed Cissy’s wrist. “Your sister’s tryin’ to take a job over there, earn a little extra money.”

  Cissy yanked her hand free. “How come she gets to take a job at the cave?”

  “ ’Cause she’s done with school.” Daddy spoke calm and kind, like he always did, but a hint of warning glittered in his eyes.

  Cissy decided to ignore the warning. “Who’s gonna do her chores here at home when she’s off at the Mammoth Cave estate?”

  “I reckon you an’ the other gals’ll hafta fill in. You’d be doin’ that anyways if your sister found herself a beau.”

  Cissy thumped her fist on the table. “That ain’t fair. Bek gets to do everything.”

  Mama scowled. “Cissy, settle yourself down.”

  “Yeah.” Della aimed a sour look at Cissy. “You’re bumpin’ me with your bony elbow.”

  Cissy jabbed Della in the ribs. Hard. Her sister yelped.

  “Cissy!” Mama and Daddy said at the same time.

  Cissy didn’t care. She snorted. “She asked for it. Della’s such a baby.”

  “I am not!”

  “ ’Nough talkin’ now.” Daddy pointed at their plates. “You girls eat. When you’re done, you’ll do the dishes for your mama.”

  Cissy gawked at her father. “It’s Jessie’s turn to wash the supper dishes.”

  Daddy’s eyebrows rose. “You’ll be takin’ her turn. It’ll make up for your tomfoolery.”

  Della frowned, but she bent over her plate and forked a bite of peas.

  Cissy fisted her fork and battled the temptation to stab it into the tabletop. “But I got cipherin’ to finish after supper.” And a magazine to examine before the sunlight all faded away. She’d promised to bring it back to Pansy tomorrow.

  “Then you’d better set to eatin’ so you’ll have time to get to it when the dishes’re done.”

  Cissy stifled a growl. Her appetite was gone, but she knew she’d be half starved by morning if she didn’t clean her plate. She seethed in silence while her family chattered about the rain and Bek’s fifty-five cents and other things she didn’t care about even one smidgen. She forced down every bit of the sodden cornbread and dirt-tasting peas, and then she flounced to the dry sink and clanked her tin plate and cup into the washbasin.

  She glanced at the table. Might be a while before everybody finished up. She could sneak a peek or two at that copy of Vogue. She started for the bedroom.

  “Cissy?”

  She stopped and looked at Daddy. Would he relent and tell her to do her cipherin’?

  “Since you’re done, take the bucket to the creek. Might as well get the wash water to heatin’.”

  With a huff of aggravation, Cissy pranced out the back door. She snatched the bucket from its hook and stomped across the yard, muttering as she went. “Cissy, get the wash water. Cissy, don’t pester your sisters. Cissy, straighten up. Cissy, mind your manners.” She swung the bucket by its rope handle, whacking bushes and drooping pine limbs as she went. By the time she reached the creek, she’d spent most of her fury. She dropped to her knees and started to plunge the bucket into the clear, sun-speckled water. But she caught a glimpse of her reflection and sat still as a mouse, staring at the tight-lipped face peering back at her.

  The water gently flowed, making the image waver, but she examined her hair, long and straight and woven into a pair of thick red-brown braids. Her wide eyes, blue green with thick black lashes. Her face, full cheeked with a tiny cleft in her chin. Pansy called Cissy pretty, and gazing at herself, Cissy had to agree. She didn’t look much like her sisters, though, who all had wavy hair as dark brown as a pine cone’s center, eyes the color of maple syrup, and heart-shaped faces.

  “Maybe I was a foundling,” she told her image. “Took in by Mama an’ Daddy ’stead o’ bein’ born to ’em like all the others. Maybe that’s why I always feel so restless inside, always wantin’ to escape.”

  She didn’t know where the thought came from, but once it entered her head it stuck. If she was a foundling, it would explain why she didn’t look like her sisters. And why she didn’t act like her sisters. Her sisters were all content to wear homespun dresses and mind Daddy and be good girls. She stirred the surface of the water with her fingertips. Her reflection chopped into pieces like a puzzle dumped on the table. “And that’s just about how I feel…all chopped up an’ befuddled. I surely ain’t a real Hardin down deep. I must be a—”

  “Cissy!” Mama’s fretful voice echoed through the trees.

  She lurched upright. “Comin’!” She swooped the bucket through the creek and then trotted up the pathway, the rope biting into her palm and water sloshing over the bucket’s rim to splash her foot. As she passed along the sun-and-sh
ade-striped pathway, she thought about Rebekah getting to take a job at the cave estate because she’d finished her schooling. Well, Bek wasn’t the only one who was done with school.

  The teacher would close the schoolhouse doors in less than a month so youngsters could help their folks with the spring planting. She’d turned fifteen last January, so she was old enough to leave school if she wanted. And she wanted. So that meant she’d be footloose and free from studies in just a few more weeks.

  She aimed a smug grin at a squirrel scolding from the tip of a tree branch. “I ain’t gonna spend my break pokin’ seeds in the ground or choppin’ out weeds with a rusty hoe. I’m gonna get me a job at the cave estates an’ make money like Bek. While I’m workin’, I’ll meet up with boys from rich families, an’ I’ll tease an’ flirt an’ make ’em all fall in love with me. Then one of ’em will take me away from Good Spring to a big city where I can live like a queen an’ never have to do chores again.”

  The plan strong in her mind, she hurried her feet toward home.

  Rebekah

  Rebekah hugged the rolled bundle of clothes to her ribs and slowly made her way across the deeply shadowed ground toward the old tobacco barn. Only a sliver of moon hung in a sky so black she couldn’t make out the shape of tree branches against the dark backdrop. Even the stars were only pinpricks of light, too dim to provide guidance. She hoped she wouldn’t walk directly into the barn wall. Painted black, it hid well in the thick nighttime shadows.

  A hoot owl released a throaty call. Its wings pounded seemingly right over her head. She instinctively gasped, ducked, and then froze in place. Chills broke out all over her body followed by a wave of heat. She gripped Andy’s clothes so tightly the heels of his boots dug into her stomach. Had she awakened anyone? She stood still as a scarecrow, hunched over, holding her breath, listening, hoping.

  Daddy didn’t appear at the back door, shotgun in hand.

  No little sister called her name.

  She let her breath release in a slow exhale as she straightened her spine. She was safe.

  Squinting, straining to make out the shape of the barn, she eased forward on bare feet. The cold, soggy ground sent shivers all the way up her frame to the top of her head. Cool wind, damp from the day’s rain, tossed a strand of hair across her cheek, and she pushed it behind her ear with an impatient thrust. Then she stopped again, her hand beside her cheek. Her hair! She swallowed a groan. She’d never fool anybody into thinking she was a boy with hair hanging almost to her waist. Why hadn’t she thought about her hair before now?

  Closing her eyes, she hung her head. Lord, my family needs the money I can make. There’s no job open except for a guide. You gave me the chance to get some of Andy’s clothes and put the whole plan in my head. Why didn’t You remind me about my hair? But it wasn’t God’s fault. She’d have to think of something.

  If she went back inside and climbed into her bed, she’d surely wake Cissy. And her feet were muddy and wet—no sense soiling the sheets. She’d sleep in the tobacco barn, the way she’d intended. Maybe by morning she’d have some idea of what to do with her hair.

  —

  “Here, chick-chick-chick. Here, chick-chick-chick.”

  Rebekah sat up. Bits of hay and dried tobacco leaves flew in an arc beside her. A muscle in her neck cramped, and she winced. She rubbed the spot, her mind scrambling to understand why she was in the tobacco barn.

  “Here, chick-chick. C’mon now, I don’t got all day to stand here feedin’ you.” Mama’s voice carried across the yard and crept through the cracks in the barn’s wall. Rebekah moved on hands and knees to the wall and peered through a knothole.

  Pink rays of dawn fell over Mama and their small flock of chickens. Mama scooped handfuls of feed from her apron, which she used as a pouch, and scattered it. The chickens pecked, clucking and flapping their wings. Mama laughed and Rebekah smiled. What a pleasant sound. Mama shook her head. “Greedy cluckers, that’s what you are. Oughta make you search for grubs an’ such ’stead o’ spoilin’ you so.” She tossed another handful.

  The back door popped open, and Jessie stepped onto the stoop. “Mama, Rebekah ain’t in her bed.”

  Mama lifted her head and scanned the yard. Rebekah held her breath and went stiff, certain her mother would see right through the wall to her hiding place. Mama’s gaze skimmed on past the tobacco barn and over to Jessie. “She’s prob’ly set off already for the cave estate—tryin’ to catch the owner soon as he shows up over there.”

  Jessie frowned. “Little Nellie’s fussin’ for her. Wants Bek to do her braids.”

  “Tell Cissy or Della to do up Little Nellie’s hair. It don’t have to be Rebekah doin’ everything.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Jessie went back inside.

  Mama gave her apron a flick, swished her palms together, and headed inside, too.

  Relief turned Rebekah’s muscles into liquid. She turned and sagged against the wall, closing her eyes for a moment and letting full wakefulness come over her slow and easy. Her plan to be off the property before anybody else woke up hadn’t worked so well. Who knew she’d sleep so hard and sound on the barn floor with nothing but an old horse blanket for a bed? But now she needed to hurry and scat. After breakfast, the bigger girls would head for school, Daddy would trek off to their small field over the knoll, and Mama would be in and out with the littlest girls.

  She pushed upright and tossed her nightgown over her head. She grabbed up Andy’s shirt. In the pale morning light she recognized the green-and-yellow-plaid shirt Mama had sewed him for his last Christmas. Her hands began to shake. Could she wear this?

  She set her jaw at a determined angle. Yes, she could. She had to. She gave herself a little shove and jammed her arms into the sleeves, then buttoned it all the way to the top. She stepped into his britches. Both the shirt and the britches were baggy, but that was best. No sense in calling attention to her feminine form with snug-fitting clothes. She’d use a piece of twine through the belt loops to keep the pants from sliding over her hips.

  She sent her gaze down her length. The pant legs ended a good four inches above her ankles. She stared at her feet and skinny ankles, chewing the inside of her lip. Then she shifted her attention to Andy’s boots. Thick, clunky things with worn toes and broken laces. But the shafts were at least six inches high. She could tuck the britches into the boots and nobody would know the legs were too short. She plopped onto her bottom and pulled the boots over her feet. Grunting a bit, she wrapped the shaft around the fabric. Bulky. Uncomfortable. But it would have to do.

  She stood and took a step. Her feet slid, and she grabbed an upright beam to catch her balance. She glared down at the boots, but her withering stare didn’t shrink them any. They stayed three sizes too big. A chuckle threatened as a memory surfaced—Daddy saying if Andy grew into his feet, he’d likely be as tall as Goliath.

  Her nose stung. She sniffed hard and made herself stop remembering. She’d find some rags to stuff into the toes. And once she got her feet figured out, she’d turn her thoughts to how to fix the top end of her body. Her hair was straggling in her face, a constant reminder of the problem it created.

  A large wooden trunk with Great-Granddaddy’s name, “Cyrus Hardin,” and “Kentucky, USA” carved into the lid crouched in the corner of the barn. Daddy kept all kinds of odds and ends in the trunk. There’d be rags, too. She scuffed across the floor and raised the lid. Sure enough, a tangled wad of rags lay on top of the heap. She fished out the ones with the worst holes since they’d be missed the least, and then she started to close the lid again. But something caught her eye. A curl of something brown. Worn. Leathery. Her heart leaped.

  With a little cry of elation she pushed aside the mouse-eaten quilt they used for picnics and yanked out Great-Granddaddy Hardin’s hat. She angled it toward a pale shaft of light sneaking between slats high on the wall and examined it, her pulse galloping faster than a stampeding horse. It was mouse chewed on one side of the brim, misshapen, and
sweat stained, but the crown was intact.

  She put it on and fingered it all the way around, a smile pulling on her lips. If she piled her hair up on top of her head and then tugged the brim over her ears, wouldn’t it look as if she had short hair? Very short hair, like a man? Sure it would. She wanted to whoop in delight, but she gave the hat a toss in the air instead. While the hat bounced across the hard ground, she bent over and gathered her hair into a tail. She twisted it as tight as new rope and wound it into a coil on top of her head. Then she jammed Great-Granddaddy’s hat over the coil and stood.

  For a moment she was afraid to move. Would it stay in place? She shook her head a bit. The hat didn’t fall off. She scuffed around the floor with turtle-slow steps. No slipping. She gave a few bounces on her heels. It still stayed in place. Happiness danced through her middle, and her feet followed suit, stirring up dried bits of tobacco leaves with a little jig. She giggled, clamped her hands over her mouth, and swallowed the joyous sound.

  She was ready. Now to snag that job.

  Tolly Sandford

  Tolly opened the door to his cabin and tossed the water from his washbasin into the yard. The water splattered right at the feet of a boy dressed in his pappy’s hat and boots. The boy came to a halt, his body arching like lightning had struck his toes, and Tolly couldn’t hold back a hoot of laughter.

  He plunked the basin on the stand inside the door and stepped off the stoop, his hand extended toward the startled boy. “Sorry ’bout that, young fella.” The boy stuck out his hand—a very slender hand—and Tolly gave it a firm shake, chuckling. “If you ain’t had your weekly bath yet, you can claim that sprinkle I just gave ya an’ avoid the washtub.”

  The boy’s lips twitched into a funny half grin. “That’s all right.” His voice sounded gravelly, like he wasn’t fully woke up yet. He jammed his hand in the pocket of his britches and poked his toe against the ground, hanging his head low. “No harm done.”