by Jeri Watts
I hope you don’t have a heater hanging from your ceiling!
I know I shouldn’t do this, but I’ll go ahead because you know I talk about everything. . . . Bathrooms. We have an outhouse — we have to go outside. I’m guessing you don’t, but that’s where the problem comes in, because James says we’re not going to get to use the bathroom with the white kids. I know I can’t ever use the ones in town, no matter how bad I have to go. I’ve just got to hold it or find a place in the woods. Am I going to have to hold it all day?
I hope you don’t mind if I write you about something different from school. I didn’t want to end my letter on that question of the bathroom — that seemed just too awful, you know? So, I thought I’d talk about what we do for fun. We go to baseball games. We don’t go to the Lynchburg games. That’s a long way into town, for one thing, and it is kind of awkward anyhow, with James. He gets all mad, because there’s nothing but white players on the Lynchburg team. Since Jackie Robinson integrated major-league baseball, you’d think minor-league teams like Lynchburg would be mixed, and they can be, but they’re often not, and it drives James crazy. So, he’s no fun for any of us to be around, and it’s just not worth it. There’s plenty of action out here in Bedford. We find lots of teams playing out here, and we watch them. You just drive around the county until you find a game and there you go. James used to play on a team, but he’s decided he wants to work on just football and basketball, the two sports he likes better.
We actually watched a game by your school the other night — what do you think of that? I looked at the school and I got shivers, I tell you. I know some kids been trying to go to your school for years — parents can request for a black kid to go to a white school, but it has to get approved. And somehow or other, it just never gets approved. Like the paperwork didn’t get turned in early enough. The next year, it’ll be that the paperwork got turned in too early. The next year, it’ll be that the signatures are on the wrong line. The next year, it’ll be that the wrong person signed the paperwork or it got turned in to the wrong person. Mostly folks just quit trying. I’ve seen some families try for seven kids, and they never get one kid in that school! But they keep trying — that’s how bad they want for one of their kids to go to your school. That’s how much better they think your school is, compared to the black school.
And now we get to come. But I’m still shivering. Even if you are nice.
Thank you for your nice letter to my folks. You were the talk of church this week, everybody showing around their letters to parents (and Mama is pleased as punch that you called me a budding writer in your letter to her). I especially liked that you included a special note for me. Unless I’m wrong, it looks as if I’m the only one who wrote to you as Mrs. Warren commanded. That must be funny to you, as I said we all listen to her — that I’m the troublemaker — and then I’m the only one who does as told. But I think they all meant to. They just felt afraid when they put that pencil anywhere near paper. I hope you won’t think poorly of my classmates. They really do try hard for a teacher.
(Thanks for the word about the one stall out of three in each bathroom set aside for the black kids — that’s more than fine — we only had a one-seat outhouse for all of us to share, so this is a step up in the world for us! But maybe don’t spread that around, okay?)
I had no idea it would make Mama happy to think of me writing words down. It seems she has always taken a shine to writers! After your letter came, Mama had me help her shell peas for dinner and told me how she used to go listen to Miss Anne Spencer read some of her poetry sometimes when she had a break at her maid work with Mrs. Patsy Westover. Mama said, “You know, Miss Anne is a published poet, and she has famous men like Langston Hughes and W. E. B. DuBois at her house. You could grow up and write like her.” I asked Mama to tell me more about Miss Anne Spencer and her poetry. I kept my head down, looking at those beans piling up in my bowl, the round of discarded shells growing at my feet. But Mrs. Patsy didn’t like Mama going to hear Miss Anne on her breaks — not that I can see why, because it wasn’t like Mama was reciting poetry when she came back — but when Mrs. Patsy doesn’t like things, that means it has to stop. Mama had no more to say. She just looked at me and nodded, then said, “You could write like Miss Anne Spencer, Moon Child.”
I don’t know why, but poetry is one kind of writing that I’m not real interested in. . . . Poetry’s like a secret that I don’t understand the meaning of. But I didn’t tell Mama that. I just shrugged. It seems like a good answer, to shrug, when I know I don’t want to say yes to what my mama wants me to do. I gathered up my bowl of peas and slipped past the screen door into the house.
You might be thinking my mama shouldn’t have to maid for a white lady when we have a farm, and I wish you were right, but our farm doesn’t make enough money every year. My mama is a maid, and my granny does ironing for folks and some sewing for folks, and we all help on the farm. It works out.
James was sitting at the kitchen table, drumming his fingers on the wood. He is not a sitter, if you know what I mean — he is a mover. Not many people can be sitters when a farm has so many things need doing. One look at his face told me to keep my mouth shut, though. My brother is usually an easygoing person, but lately, he only has to hear one word to feel an anger that sets his body shaking. I went to my granny with the peas. She dumped out what I’d shelled and returned the empty bowl to me.
“That enough for supper, Granny Bits?” I asked.
“Keep shelling, Kizzy Ann,” she said. “We got hungry folk to feed around here.”
I must have brushed against James, because his hand shot out and knocked that bowl clear across the kitchen. Shag, always at my side, growled and moved at James. I put my hand up to keep her from trouble before I scrambled to grab that bowl. “Keep your temper,” Granny Bits warned my brother. James cut his eyes at me, then mumbled a sorry my way. He doesn’t usually snap at me, to be fair, Miss Anderson. Not like lots of brothers do. I suspect that thing about football has him a mite more than worried.
Yesterday I learned how you weren’t the teacher at your school last year, that you’re the new teacher. I heard the teacher who’d taught that grade quit because we were coming — how she wasn’t about to teach no “uppity black kids.” I heard a lot of teachers quit the white school and there are a lot of new young teachers there. I knew a lot of white kids had quit and were going to private schools, but I never knew that a lot of teachers had quit. Daddy is talking all the time about how Mrs. Warren had to give up her job, a job she fought to get, a job she worked so hard for, and there are teachers at your school just quitting at the drop of a hat because they won’t work with a certain type of kid. I never even thought that you wouldn’t want to be my teacher, Miss Anderson. I didn’t see that one coming — I told you right off how much I didn’t want to come and I guess I should have been thanking you for being there when I get there. Thank you, ma’am.
You asked how things are going for me, and I hate to sound like a whiner after that last paragraph, but I have to say, things are not good for me. My mother is trying too hard. She asked for some hand-me-downs for school from Mrs. Patsy. (Mrs. Patsy has a daughter a little bigger than me — maybe you know her, Laura.) Mama doesn’t like to ask Mrs. Patsy for anything, but she would do whatever she has to for me.
I wish she wouldn’t. Yesterday we tried on the dresses, three of them, and I’ll tell you, I felt a fool.
They’re frilly and satiny and my heart dropped to my knees when Mama pulled them out of the Miller & Rhoads shopping bag Mrs. Patsy had sent.
“Look, Moon Child, you are going to look like a strawberry sundae in this pink dress. And the green one will show off your lovely arms, with these cap sleeves. And oh, the white one! Like a dream.” She went on and on. My mama is usually a quiet soul, so when she’s prattling, you know something’s wrong.
I put them on, each in turn, and they fit pretty well, with Mama only having to pin a little here and there. As I tol
d you, we only have a small mirror, just a sliver of shine, but I didn’t need to see my reflection to know how out of place I looked.
I haven’t written in a while because seeing myself in those dresses (even if it was just in my mind’s eye) threw me into a daze even Shag couldn’t pull me out from. The dresses meant this was really going to happen. Maybe dresses aren’t that much of a problem for you.
When I wore dresses to school with Mrs. Warren, I wore them because girls have to wear dresses to school and to church. Those are the rules. My granny makes most of my clothes out of leftover material she sews with, and so my dresses are just that, leftovers. I put them on of a morning and took them off as soon as I could to switch them for my work clothes. The dresses are brown or khaki or whatever material was left from what she had sitting around. They are shaped to hang down my body from the shoulders to my knees, and they cover me and that is that. I also have had other hand-me-down dresses, but never anything from someone like Laura Westover. My hand-me-downs before were just dresses from here and there — dresses from the church bazaar or yard sales, things Mama saw for sale for a nickel or something. Not like I’ve ever cared. I just put on whatever’s there that’s clean that Mama sets out. If girls could wear jeans to school, I’d wear jeans. I’m not frilly, not froufrou, not fancy. I am plain and down to business. I’m a no-bow girl, like Shag is a no-bow dog. I am not a strawberry sundae or a dream. I am just me. I am who I am. I am jeans, dirt on my hands, and my dog with me at the end of the day.
Maybe it’s because of my scar. Maybe it’s because I don’t have a sister. Maybe it’s because of how I spend my time, working with Shag on the farm. I don’t feel comfortable in dresses and fancy wear and anything that’s bringing attention to me. Still, I cannot make my mother’s sacrifice be for nothing. After Labor Day, I will wear clothes that are not me and try as hard as I can to fit into someone else’s dresses, someone else’s school, and someone else’s world.
I don’t think this will be easy.
I hate Frank Charles Feagans. I know that’s not what Jesus wants us to say, but Pastor Moore says God can read our hearts, so there’s no hiding it from the Lord. Frank Charles is entirely too nosy about my dog. And his nosiness cost me a beating.
We went to Bedford City yesterday with our vegetables to sell. Saturdays are market days, and nobody can grow zucchini like Granny Bits. I helped her, just like I’m supposed to — I laid out the green and yellow gourds alternating, so the pretty colors danced together, just the way she likes. Shag lay panting in the shade under the display counter, and when Granny Bits said we could wander, I called Shag to heel and off we went.
Market is one place that is already integrated, you know. My granny has a stall right up front, where the prizewinners stay. She’s won first place on those zucchini three times at the county fair, and her strawberry-rhubarb preserves win the blue ribbon year after year too. She is set up right next to the Right Reverend’s wife, Mrs. Dr. Stanbridge. She is a sweet-voiced lady with the fine, downy jawline old white ladies show. Every week she hints for Granny Bits’s secrets, and every week she leaves with an empty basket but a heart full of hope that she’ll wheedle it out the next Saturday. Daddy says Episcopalians must be a mighty hopeful lot.
Anyhow, Mrs. Dr. Stanbridge always brings a small round bone for Shag to enjoy while we set up. Shag is used to kicks from white people, not treats, so she is wary usually, but Mrs. Dr. Stanbridge’s fresh baby-powder scent is Shag’s cue to peek out and ease her mouth delicately around the offered bone. Mrs. Dr. Stanbridge always exclaims about what a lady Shag is, and my dog, with her perfect manners, stands immobile while the smooth white hands glide over her coat three times.
Three is all Shag allows to folks besides family. Three trips down her fluffy fur. Then she steps back quickly and circles herself around that bone. Her crunching, her crackling, her lip-smacking enjoyment, is the background noise to our vegetable setup.
This Saturday was like any other, until that Frank Charles ran into us. I was looking over the whistles that Old Man Pickerel carves when I heard that sly Frank Charles’s voice, sneaking commands to Shag.
“Come, Shag. Here, Shag. Here, girl.”
Of course she ignored him.
He got a little louder. “Here, Shag.”
“Stop doing that,” I said. I admit, I was right snappy with my tone. I admit that. But he shouldn’a’ been calling her. And then he clicked his tongue at her!
“I told you to stop that, Frank Charles Feagans.”
And at that, I felt hard, tight fingers circle my upper arm. I knew enough to put my left hand up to Shag, who was already snarling. I’d been careless to speak smart to a white boy in a public place — if my dog attacked, we’d have no end of trouble.
It was Mr. Feagans, of course. He said he’d have to make me an example, and I don’t think he ever took a breath, carrying on in front of everybody like I was a sneak thief when all I’d done was let his son know to stop bothering my dog. Remember how I said the ground changes when he’s near me? This time those eggshells cracked under my feet.
“I’ll need a switch,” he said. “One of those forsythia branches,” he suggested, and I knew his heart was a cold, dark thing.
Forsythia is a tricky little shrub. It looks like it’ll be slight, like it won’t hurt, but there is no sting like the strappy sharpness of a smartly snapped forsythia branch. After my first experience with Mrs. Warren’s use of the forsythia for a switch, I gained true understanding of the wild-eyed terror of the horses who feel the whip as they pull wagons through town. And I learned a real respect for the old vet, Dr. Fleck, who abandoned a whip long ago. He refuses to coax with more than the heel of a heavy boot, a click of the tongue, and a polite request for more speed.
I forced my legs to carry me to pluck a forsythia shoot. I refused to give Mr. Feagans the satisfaction of my fear. I refused to cower.
But I cannot lie, Miss Anderson. It is a long, long walk back when you carry a switch. I dreaded what that switch would feel like, and more so, I dreaded the pleasure I knew Mr. Feagans would get from it.
I ignored the stares of the others — I’ve gotten pretty good at ignoring looks and the stolen glances that more polite people give me. That I can usually handle. I have to.
But I could feel anger coursing through me, Miss Anderson. Anger like James has been feeling toward that white coach. Anger like I didn’t know if I could control. Anger like I shouldn’t be telling you about, but somehow I can’t hold away from this pencil nub.
Mr. Feagans decided it was beneath him to hold me and actually do the whipping himself. “One of your own kind should dirty their hands with your like,” he said. He pointed to the crowd and singled out a huge black man, muscles coursing and rippling through his clothes. “You there, you look like the man I need.”
“I’d kill the child,” the man murmured. Another voice, a quiet voice, spoke up from the crowd. “I’ll do your dirty work.” Mr. Felix stepped forward. “I’m wiry and strong. I can hold the girl and spank her.”
“’t’isn’t a spanking I want her to get, but a beating.”
Mr. Felix acknowledged the task. “I can do it.” He flexed his forearms, and Mr. Feagans nodded agreement. Mr. Felix grabbed me in one arm and grabbed the whip in the other. He whispered in my ear, “I’ll be as quick as I can, though I can promise a little pain — it’ll hurt, girlie, or he’ll hurt us both worse. No way ’round it. Only way out now is through this.”
He gave me one lashing for each year of age. I kept my gaze down at the dirt and pushed my hand up over and over to signal Shag to stay. She growled and snarled — she is no dumb animal, that’s for sure — but she did as I signaled.
There were folks aplenty by the time he finished — black and white, old and young. Frank Charles paled out (I didn’t know white folks could turn whiter, but he sure did), and I heard a few gasps from the folks gathered — gasps at Mr. Feagans’s enthusiastic insistence that Mr. Felix whip harder. I
also heard some nervous talk at the welts already rising on the backs of my legs, but not one being stood or spoke up.
Except Shag.
Thank you for the real journal book. Getting it today, the first day of school, with everyone getting one, is wonderful. This way I can keep writing to you, but letters would be stupid, since I will see you every day. I know I shouldn’t say anything about the cost because that is bad manners, but buying one for each of us is a lot and I really thank you. And putting in our spelling words, for the spelling bees that we will have throughout the year, is a good way to do more than just our journal writing.
I’ve never had a journal of my own before. Even though I’ve learned how much my mama values my writing, she could never justify the cost of so much blank paper. Writing on the back of used paper was always good enough for my schoolwork. Because you made this a gift as well as an assignment, and one that everyone received, not a charity just for the kids like me, it sits well with my folks. I don’t know how I got so lucky to have such a teacher, but I am grateful beyond my words.
I like writing things down, which I’d never done until Mrs. Warren made me write to you. I’m not really expecting you will read all of these — everybody writing will be a lot to keep up with, but I’m still going to write like you’d read it. It helps me feel good at the end of the day. Granny Bits says this is how she feels after her prayers, but I get nervous after I pray — I do lots wrong, and what if Jesus gets tired of forgiving me?
Getting the journal was definitely the best part of the day until after school. I threw up twice on the way to school, which upset Shag no end — she kept trying to herd me to stay on the path. It’s a longer walk here than to my old school, but it only took forty minutes, even with being sick.