Pa glanced over at me. “Uh, hello, Ulman.”
“Dit,” I corrected.
“Yes, Dit, of course.” He flipped through the catalog Mr. Walker handed him until he found the right page. “This is what I need.”
“Let me get the form,” said Mr. Walker.
“Are we gonna starve, Pa?” I asked as Mr. Walker was searching for the correct form.
“What?” Pa kept his eyes on the catalog.
“If you don’t get that seed, are we gonna starve?”
“No, course not,” said Pa. “Might not be able to send Ollie to that teaching college she’s got her eye on, but we won’t starve.”
“Found it,” said Mr. Walker, picking a pen up off the counter. “Now just tell me what you want it to say.”
“But if we don’t have no corn,” I continued, “how we gonna feed the cows, pigs and chickens?”
“Dit, I don’t have time to answer all your little questions.” He turned to Mr. Walker. “How many words do I get for fifty cents?”
“I’m working,” I muttered under my breath, but Pa didn’t hear me. Emma did and opened her mouth to say something, but just then a train whistle blew.
Trains passed through Moundville six times a day: 7 a.m., 9 a.m., 12 noon, 4 p.m., 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. The post office clock said it was almost four thirty now, so it couldn’t be one of the trains on the daily schedule. I glanced out the window. The train wasn’t stopping, just chugging slowly through the station. A man stuck his head out of a train car window and hollered, “We’re off to get Kaiser Bill!”
“It’s packed with soldiers,” I cried as I put down the mail I was sorting. “Come on!”
Me and Emma ran out of the post office and over to the train depot. The United States had just entered the Great War, and I guess the soldiers were getting ready to ship out. The soldiers waved like crazy when they saw me and Emma on the platform.
“Good luck!” Emma yelled, and waved.
“Show those Germans what’s what!” I added.
A young man with a shaved head poked his head out the window and cried, “We’ll be home by Christmas!” Then he threw something out the window.
It was a thick, round cracker. Pretty soon the others were throwing them too, and by the time the train had made it through the station, the platform was covered with crackers.
Emma ran back to get an old mailbag and Mr. Walker came back with her to help us gather them up. My father wasn’t with him. I put a cracker in my mouth and bit down. “Ow!” I said. “It’s as hard as a piece of wood.”
Mr. Walker laughed. “It’s hardtack, Dit. Never goes bad, so the soldiers carry it with them in their packs. Can’t even break it with a hammer, but if you soak it in your mouth or in a pot of water, it’ll slowly dissolve.”
“Why’d they throw it to us?” asked Emma.
Mr. Walker shrugged. “It’s good luck.”
So me and Emma added that bag of hardtack to my wagon. Planned to store it in our cave along with the soda. Figured if Pa didn’t get his seed in time and we got real hungry, I could take some home and gnaw at it, like a dog on a bone.
12
THE BOWL
THE SUN WAS STARTING TO GO DOWN BY the time we finally got the wagon full of root beer and hardtack back to our cave. Walking up and down the mound so many times had carved a little path into the side, but it was still hard hauling the wagon up between all the prickly bushes.
When we finally reached the entrance to our cave and shoved all the soda and crackers inside, we realized it wasn’t quite as large as we’d thought ’cause there was now barely enough room for the two of us. So the next day we returned with our shovels and picks and set about making the cave bigger. We hadn’t been digging long when Emma gasped.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “You pop a blister again?” This had caused quite a bit of upset the week before.
“No,” Emma scoffed. “I found something. A bowl.”
We both crawled out of the cave to look at the bowl in the sunlight. It was shaped like a pumpkin with a wide stem ’cept it was covered with a shiny black glaze. There was a picture on one side. I brushed away some of the dirt.
A drawing of a hand with an eye in the middle of the palm was scratched into the pottery.
“What does it mean?” asked Emma, pressing her palm up against the one on the bowl.
I shrugged. Her hand was exactly the same size as the drawing.
“Let’s go ask Jim Dang-It,” said Emma. “He’s half Indian, isn’t he?”
So off we went.
“What you dang kids up to?” Jim asked when we arrived at his cabin. He was outside cutting branches from a low-hanging tree.
“We found this,” said Emma, holding up the bowl. “Can you tell us what it is?”
Jim Dang-It dropped his handsaw and took the bowl from Emma. He cradled it in his arms like a baby. He traced his fingertips over the drawing, then turned the bowl slowly in his hands. He held the bowl up to his eyes and peeked inside. He blew a short breath into the bowl, then put it to his ear to listen. Finally, he put the bowl down on his front stoop and took a step back. “This dang thing,” he said slowly, “is a sign.”
“A sign of what?” asked Emma.
“This bowl was used by the Indians. When someone died, they filled it with water and placed it in the fire so that their loved one would not go thirsty on their journey to the underworld. The hand and the eye stand for the God who made everything and the God who sees everything.”
Emma listened wide-eyed. I was more interested in the fact that this was the first time I’d ever heard Jim say more than a word or two without saying dang.
“You found this dang bowl on the very anniversary of my wife’s death.” He shook his head. “It’s a sign.”
“A sign of what?” I repeated Emma’s question.
Jim Dang-It ignored me. He had Emma hold the bowl as he carefully filled it with water. Then he ordered me to pick up the green branches he had been cutting and told us both to follow him.
Jim led us to the top of one of the mounds. There was a pile of wood already gathered there and a small, folded blanket. He knelt down and began to build a fire.
“What are you doing?” asked Emma politely, still clutching the bowl.
“My wife died fifteen years ago today. This is how I show her that I love and miss her.” Jim closed his eyes, and his lips moved briefly in a silent prayer.
When the fire was burning well, Jim Dang-It had me throw the green branches on top of it. Soon the fire began giving off a thick stream of smoke. Jim unfolded the blanket and held it over the fire. Every so often, he’d snap it quickly away, sending a clear smoke signal up to the heavens.
This went on for a long time. Finally, Jim Dang-It put down the blanket and nodded at Emma. She stepped forward and gave him the bowl. He carefully placed it into the center of the small fire. The flames hissed as a bit of water sloshed over the side.
“We leave the bowl there until all the water is gone.” Jim smiled. “My wife will be so pleased you gave her this gift.”
I hadn’t meant to give that bowl to Jim Dang-It and his dead wife. I’d wanted to keep it. Or at least sell it to someone and make a little money for the Fourth hunt. It wasn’t fair. Emma found the bowl; if I didn’t get it, then she should. Seemed like a waste just to burn it up.
No one said much as we walked home. I was too busy thinking. Pottery was made under great heat. Putting it in a little fire like that probably wouldn’t harm it at all. I decided when the fire had burned out and the bowl had cooled, I’d sneak back and take it.
But the next day when I returned to the top of the mound, the bowl was gone. Jim must have gone back to get it. He was half Indian. Maybe one of his relatives had made that bowl, a long, long time ago. Maybe it was right for his dead wife to have it after all.
13
SHOES, SWIMMING
AND WORMS
EVERY EVENING BEFORE BED, MAMA MADE us wash our feet
in a bucket of cold water. Della and Ollie were practically grown-up girls now, so they usually wore shoes and helped Ma in the house, but the rest of us just about always went around barefoot. Who wanted to bother with shoes, especially in summer? They just got dirty when you were swimming in the river or playing ball.
Emma, of course, always wore shoes and kept her dress neat and tidy too. Mama liked her. I would have been glad they got along if Mama hadn’t kept asking why she couldn’t have had one child, “just one child!” more like Emma.
One hot August afternoon, me and Pearl decided to teach Emma to swim, so the three of us started walking down to the swimming hole. Emma had put on her oldest dress (which was just about as nice as the best one Pearl had) but still carried a book under her arm. I glanced at the title—Treasure Island.
“Ain’t you read that book before?” I said.
“Yes,” said Emma, “it’s one of my favorites.”
“What’s it about?” asked Pearl.
“You wouldn’t like it,” I told her. “It ain’t got no pictures. I checked.”
“It’s about a treasure map, and sailing on ships, and a pirate named Long John Silver.”
“A pirate!” exclaimed Pearl.
That was all the encouragement Emma needed. By the time we’d reached the river and she’d finished telling us ’bout brave Jim Hawkins and Billy Bones and the mutiny and finding the treasure and the talking parrot, I almost felt like I’d read the book myself. And it didn’t sound half bad, what with the pirates and the map and all.
“But enough about Treasure Island,” Emma said when we reached the curve in the riverbank that made the water shallow and slow moving. “Aren’t you going to teach me how to swim?”
“Gotta take off your shoes,” I said.
Emma looked down at her shoes. The patent leather was dirty and scuffed already, but the leather straps were still in good shape. She glanced at the muddy water.
“But I can’t see what’s in the water.”
“So?” I asked.
“So how will I know what’s on the bottom?”
“I can tell you,” chimed in Pearl. “Mud, sticks, crawdads and a rock or two.”
Emma made a face.
“The normal stuff. Just be careful not to stub your toe,” explained Pearl.
“Maybe I’ll pass on swimming,” said Emma.
“Didn’t you just say you wished you could sail around the world like one of those pirates you were telling us about?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“Well, how you gonna have an adventure like that if you’re too scared to get in the river?”
Emma didn’t say nothing.
“And what if you fell off the pirate ship?” asked Pearl.
“Or they made you walk the plank,” I added. “Then you’d be really glad you knew how to swim.”
Emma scowled. “I’m not really planning on becoming a pirate,” she said. But she took her shoes and socks off just the same.
We all walked into the water till it was about up to our waists. Pearl offered Emma her hand; I expected her to refuse, but Emma clutched it like she was afraid she was gonna drift away.
“You gotta push your skirt under,” said Pearl, “till it’s nice and wet and stays there. Otherwise, it’ll just float around you and make things harder.”
“It’s cold,” said Emma.
“That’s swimming,” said Pearl.
Emma was pushing her skirt under when suddenly she screamed and lost her balance. I had to grab her arm to prevent her from falling under. “Get it off, get it off!” Emma screamed.
“What?” I asked.
She held up her foot, hopping on one leg. There was nothing on it.
“Something crawled across my toes.”
Pearl nodded. “Probably a crawdad.”
“What’s that?” asked Emma.
“Like a little lobster. I told you about them.”
Took us a while to calm Emma down, but we finally did and I showed Emma how to move her arms in the water. “Like you’re digging with your hands,” I explained. I tried to get her to float on her belly, and lift her head to breathe, and kick her feet too, but it was all too much.
“If I could just see what was in the water,” said Emma.
“Wouldn’t help you a bit,” I said. “Wouldn’t seeing all the fish and worms just make things worse?”
Emma didn’t answer.
Finally, I gave up trying to teach Emma real swimming and Pearl just showed her how to doggy paddle. Emma kind of got that. She went in up to her neck, lifted her feet and paddled around.
It was late in the afternoon when we all walked home, letting the hot sun dry us off. “I kind of liked swimming,” said Emma, which surprised me, since she’d spent most of the afternoon complaining. “Though not as much as baseball.”
When we got home, Mama and Mrs. Walker were waiting on our front porch with a strange man in a suit.
“There you three are,” said Mama. “We’ve been waiting for you.” She turned to the man beside her. “This here’s Mr. Rich. He’s from the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission.”
The man nodded politely at us. “We’re trying to wipe out the hookworm infestations that are so common in rural communities.”
“I don’t have worms, sir,” Emma said politely. “I always wear shoes.”
He looked pointedly at her bare feet and the shoes in her hand.
Emma blushed and muttered, “They were teaching me to swim.”
That’s when I noticed that Mrs. Walker was holding a jar and Mama was holding two.
The man cleared his throat. “We’ll just need a stool sample from everyone in town under the age of eighteen. Unless you always wear shoes. Then you couldn’t have caught them.”
Mama held out a jar to me and gestured toward the outhouse.
“You want me to poop here in this jar?” I asked.
Pearl giggled.
“Well, yes,” said the man.
“I’d rather not,” I said, and made to hand the jar back to Mama.
“Dit,” Mama said sharply. “Best do as the man asks.”
“Eweee!” said Pearl, but she picked up her own jar.
Emma took the jar from her mama but whispered to me before she stormed off, “If I have worms, I’m gonna kill you.”
She didn’t, of course. But pretty much every other kid in town did. Every evening for a week after dinner, Mama gave me and Pearl and my brothers a huge, chalky white pill. At the end of the week, I swallowed my pride along with the last pill and picked out a pair of old loafers from the barrel in the kitchen.
“Finally,” Mama said with a smile. “That Emma girl’s starting to rub off.”
14
TRAPPING RABBITS
LATE THAT AUGUST, I CAME UP WITH A plan to make money for the Fourth hunt. I would catch rabbits and sell them to people in town. Rabbits were a cheap way of serving meat on Sunday. I figured people would pay ten to twenty cents for a big swamp rabbit.
Swamp rabbits are just like regular old cottontails ’cept they’re bigger and like to swim. They have real thick, dark brown fur. Most rabbits won’t go into the water ’less they’re forced, but a swamp rabbit will dive under just for fun and swim along with only its little nose peeking up out of the water. The broom sage patch near the river, the one me and Emma had cut through after the buzzard, had a whole mess of rabbits, so I went down there to set up my snares.
Most people set snares that choke and kill a rabbit. Those are easy to set but make the meat tough since the rabbits tend to struggle a bit before they die. I came up with a special snare that would squeeze shut only enough to trap the rabbit, keeping it alive till you were ready to eat it. Then it was just a quick snap to break its neck and you had fresh meat for dinner.
Two days later I went back to the broom sage patch to check my snares. No rabbits. That was unusual, but it took a couple of days for the human smell to fade from the thin wire I used. Maybe I hadn’t waited long
enough.
So two days later I came back again. Still no rabbits. When I looked closer, I realized all my traps had been sprung. I had caught something, but it had escaped. Wasn’t even a tuft of hair left behind. That was mighty strange. I reset my snares and dreamed of huge, bald rabbits that would fetch fifty cents apiece.
When three days later I still hadn’t caught nothing, I was beginning to get frustrated. Had the rabbits gone someplace else? Had I forgotten how to set a snare? Late that afternoon me and Emma were drinking root beer in our cave when I mentioned that there didn’t seem to be no rabbits around this year.
“What are you talking about?” said Emma. “I’ve seen lots of them.”
“Where?” I asked.
“Over in the broom sage patch by the river.”
“What?”
“They were trapped in some old wire. I untangled them and let them go.”
“You let them go?”
“Of course.”
“I set those traps!”
Emma looked at me blankly. “You did?”
I nodded.
“Oh, Dit, I don’t think you should do that.”
“Well, it ain’t up to you.”
“Those poor rabbits are defenseless.”
“They’re food.”
Emma shook her head. “I don’t want you trapping them anymore.”
“Those rabbits were my Fourth hunt money!” I snapped.
“The Fourth hunt is just a stupid game.”
“That ain’t fair, Emma.” I was yelling now. “I’ve spent all summer showing you around Moundville. Teaching you to swim and dig a cave and throw stones and play baseball. You can’t just come down here and tell me all the things we do to have fun and earn money are wrong.”
“Fine,” said Emma. She put down her soda and crawled out of the cave. I kicked the bottle over and watch the soda fizz out into the dirt. It didn’t make me feel any better.
So I waited until I was sure she was gone, and I went down to the Black Warrior to throw some stones.
The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had Page 5