The 25¢ Miracle

by Theresa Nelson

  “They’re all mighty pretty,” Elvira said respectfully. “But I like the roses the best.”

  Miss Ivy smiled. “You know, I do, too. I feel almost guilty having favorites. Sometimes I think it’s a little like a parent having favorites. But I can’t help it. There’s just nothing sweeter than a rose. They’re stubborn, too. They may look delicate, but I’ve seen roses survive when I didn’t think there was any way on earth they could.”

  “Even—even when their leaves turn brown and start fallin’ off?” Elvira was ashamed to admit it, but she had to find out.

  “Even then,” said Miss Ivy, giving her a keen look. “Don’t you give up on that rosebush of yours. It’s tougher than you think. It doesn’t have those thorns for nothing, you know.”

  “But them books I read—they talked about roses needin’ rich, deep loam and well-rotted manure and stuff like that. And—and I believe I planted it wrong, too—”

  Miss Ivy looked thoughtful. “Well, it is important to begin well. But I’ll bet you could rework your bed with some good dirt and a little fertilizer.… Maybe even dig up your rosebush and then replant it very carefully. It might lose all its leaves, but they’d come back after a while, better than ever.”

  Elvira sighed and shook her head. “No, ma’am. Dirt and fertilizer—they’re—well, they’re way too high, that’s all there is to it.” She tried to sound matter-of-fact; she didn’t want Miss Ivy to think she was poor-mouthing.

  All of a sudden Miss Ivy’s smile flashed out again, radiant as the sun. “Well, that’s no problem at all. Just come take a look over here.”

  She led Elvira to a small toolshed that was tacked onto the back of the house. She opened the door. A pungent odor floated out. “What do you think of that?” she asked, her eyes twinkling.

  Elvira looked inside. The shed was dim; it took a moment for her eyes to adjust from the bright light outside. But when they did, she gasped. It was a gardener’s treasure chest, filled with spades and hoes and shovels and rakes and shears and, best of all, several enormous bags of fertilizer. It smelled horrible, but Elvira already had a gardener’s nose—

  “Oh, boy, that’s the good kind, ain’t it?” she breathed reverently.

  “Pure gold.” Miss Ivy laughed. “I got too much last spring—I thought I was going to have time to start a new bed, but I never got around to it. I’m a great starter, but not always such a great finisher. There’s a pile of dirt left, too, over in that corner by the back fence—way more than I’ll ever need. Just a little of that should be plenty for your rosebush.”

  “Oh, no, ma’am—I couldn’t take your stuff!”

  “Why not? It’s just sitting there, not doing anybody one bit of good. I’d much rather have it put to some use.”

  Elvira took a deep breath. She wanted that stuff, all right; she wanted it so much she could hardly stand it. But, still, she stuck out her chin stubbornly. “I sure do thank you, ma’am, but I cain’t take it. My daddy says not to ever take nothin’ for free. He says the Trumbulls don’t like to be beholden to nobody.”

  “I see,” said Miss Ivy. “Well, I’m sure that’s a good rule. But it seems like such a shame.…” She was quiet for a minute, turning something over in her mind. And then her eyes lit up. “Oh, Elvira—I know what we can do—it’s perfect! How would you like a job?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “You know how you were saying earlier that you wouldn’t mind pulling weeds?”

  “Yes, ma’am…”

  “Well, my boys hate it. They really do. They just don’t see the point at all. And I’m at the library so much that it’s really hard to find the time to do it myself. Well, don’t you see? We could have a tradeoff—you could pull weeds for me, when you have the time, and I could let you have whatever you might need for your garden. How would that be?”

  It was too good to be true. Elvira was speechless again; she could only nod happily.

  “Now, are you sure you wouldn’t mind the work?” Miss Ivy asked. “It would be such a help to me, I just can’t tell you. But weeding can be a real pain.”

  Elvira managed to find her tongue. “I-I’d like it—I really would.”

  Miss Ivy beamed at her. “Great. It’s a deal, then. Shall we shake on it?”

  It was the kind of day when one good thing was just naturally bound to be followed by another. When Elvira got back to the trailer, Hank was waiting there for her with a bucket of chicken. It had been a long time since they had had fried chicken for supper. Hank usually swore that the Colonel was way overpriced.

  “But they was havin’ a special over there today,” he explained, almost apologetically. “Anyway, I figured maybe we could afford a little treat tonight.” He grinned. “You ’member I told you I was goin’ over to the lumberyard ’safternoon. Well, they told me to come back tomorrow. I don’t know for absolute sure, but it looks like they’re gonna put me on full-time.”

  “That’s real good,” Elvira said happily. If Hank got steady work, then they’d be staying on in Calder for a long time, and things wouldn’t be so tight, and maybe Hank wouldn’t keep getting into those strange, starey moods he’d been having lately.

  For sure, he wasn’t in a strange mood tonight. Elvira couldn’t remember the last time he had seemed so cheerful. While they ate their chicken, he even joked around a little.

  “I met this fella over’t the lumberyard today. You know what his name was?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Noah Goode.”

  Elvira giggled. “Naw…”

  “No kiddin’—that’s his name. Mr. Noah Goode. He’s a mean son-of-a-gun, too—ain’t nobody gonna kid him about his name.” Hank chuckled. “I guess when you got a name like that, you got to be either real mean or real nice. Like old Ima Hogg…”

  Elvira choked. “I-Ima Hogg?”

  “It’s the truth, so help me. There was this rich old lady used to live in Houston—her name was Ima Hogg. They say she had a sister named Yura, too. Get it? Ima Hogg and Yura Hogg.”

  “Aw, you’re kiddin’ me.”

  Hank laughed. “Well, I think they’s lyin’ about Yura, but there really was an Ima. I passed her place over in Houston one time. They say she was a real nice old lady—always givin’ money away to charity and such as that. People was just crazy about her. Called her ‘Miss Ima’ and all.…”

  They chewed contentedly on the chicken for a few more minutes, and then Hank got a teasing look in his eye. “Speakin’ of misses, how was your friend today? The one that had that tea party?”

  “Oh, she was, uh—she was just fine.…” Elvira thought momentarily of straightening Hank out about Miss Ivy’s age, but she decided against it. He was in such a good mood—no sense in breaking the spell. “I’m, uh, I’m s’posed to go over there again tomorrow.”

  “Well, ain’t that nice? I guess there won’t be nobody here tomorrow, then. I’ll be at work, acourse.” Hank said it matter-of-factly, as if it were nothing at all, but Elvira could tell how good he was feeling.

  Later on they sat up and watched television together. There was an old horror movie on—The Blob—all about how this slimy stuff started taking over the world. It was pretty funny. Or maybe it was just that Hank and Elvira felt like laughing.

  “Well, I guess we really ought to be gettin’ to bed,” said Hank, when it was over. “Got to get an early start in the mornin’.”

  “Yessir, me, too,” said Elvira.

  “Well, you have a good time with your friend, now. Y’all behave yourselfs. I’ll see you when I get home from work.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Good night, Elvira.”

  “’Night, Daddy.”

  It had been a long time since she had called him Daddy. She didn’t usually call him anything at all. But it felt right tonight. Everything felt right tonight.

  7

  August was born even hotter than July, but Elvira didn’t care. She had never been happier. She went over to Miss Ivy’s on Friday and Saturd
ay and again on Monday to pull weeds. It was hard, sticky work, all right, but every little scrap of grassbur or spiky thistle or chickweed she uprooted was like money in the bank for her rosebush. And it was more than that, too. The way she felt went beyond her hope for the rosebush. She felt good and peaceful and so completely—-at home—that was the only way she could describe it. She liked squatting on her hands and knees in the good, rich dirt of Miss Ivy’s garden, with the scent of Miss Ivy’s flowers all around her and the contented buzzing of Miss Ivy’s bees in her ears. She liked working until she was hot and sweaty and then turning on the sprinkler and lying on the grass beneath it, so that she and the plants could cool off together. And she liked it best of all when Miss Ivy came home, and they’d sit and talk as the late afternoon shadows fell across the garden.

  Sometimes, while Miss Ivy was off at the library, her boys would come out and help with the weeding. They were home most of the time. A nice old lady named Mrs. McFaddin minded them while their mother was at work. Mostly Mrs. Mac would sit in the house and watch television, while the boys played outside. For some reason, it didn’t take Elvira any time at all to get used to having Curtis and John David around. She didn’t feel as shy with them as she did with other kids. Maybe it was because they were younger than she was, but more likely it was just because they belonged to Miss Ivy. And they were pretty good company, too, though they really weren’t all that much help. John David would get bored and start fooling around in about five minutes’ time, and Curtis obviously didn’t know what in the world he was doing.

  “Don’t pull those up, Curtis—those are flowers! Don’t you see them little red buds on the tips?”

  “Are those red?”

  “Sure they are. Cain’t you see?”

  “Curtis is color-blind,” explained John David, who was lying on his stomach in the grass, trying to catch doodlebugs.

  “No kiddin’—you cain’t see colors?” asked Elvira, sitting up straight and looking at Curtis with interest.

  “Nope. At least, not the same way you see ’em.”

  “You mean it’s like—like lookin’ at black-and-white television?”

  “Aw, it’s not that bad. It’s mostly just reds and greens and browns that sort of blend in together. It’s really called shade blindness. I got it from my daddy.” Curtis sounded almost proud of his affliction.

  “I don’t think you can get that from your daddy,” said Elvira. “There was this kid in my school last year—he did a report on it in science. He said a boy gets it from his mother, only she don’t really have it; she just passes it down from her daddy. Or somethin’ like that.”

  “Well, he was wrong, that’s all,” said Curtis. “I got it from my daddy.”

  “Well, all right, you don’t have to get mad about it.” Elvira shrugged her shoulders and turned back to her work.

  “Who said I was mad? I’m not mad,” said Curtis, pulling up another baby salvia that shouldn’t have been pulled up.

  “Our daddy’s gonna take us to Astroworld week after next,” said John David. “We’re gonna spend a whole week with him in Houston.”

  “Oh,” said Elvira. So Miss Ivy’s husband wasn’t dead, then. Elvira had figured him to be dead.

  “I wish we still lived in Houston,” Curtis said, almost to himself.

  “Y’all used to live in Houston?” This was news to Elvira, too.

  “Uh-huh. Till—till a couple years ago.”

  “I like Calder better,” said John David. He nabbed a slow-witted doodlebug and watched it curl up in a ball in the palm of his hand. “There’s not so much traffic, and it’s a better place for kids.”

  “Aw, you’re just sayin’ that because it’s what Mama says.” Curtis shook his head disgustedly. “You don’t even remember when we lived in Houston. You were just a baby when—well, when we moved here.”

  “I wasn’t either a baby! I was four years old. And I remember just as good as you do. Hey, looka here at this roly-poly, Elvira! I got him trained to crawl up my arm.”

  “Hmmm?” Elvira murmured, jerking up a dandelion root as big as a good-sized carrot. She wasn’t really listening anymore; she was trying to imagine what kind of a man would divorce Miss Ivy. He couldn’t be in his right mind, that was for sure. Unless maybe she had divorced him… But she wouldn’t have done that unless he had really deserved it. Miss Ivy wasn’t the type that would just walk out on somebody without a plenty good reason. So he had to be either crazy or no-account. That was all there was to it.

  By Monday afternoon, Elvira had pulled just about every weed she could find in the largest of Miss Ivy’s flower beds, and had begun to make headway on another, when Miss Ivy walked into the garden late that day and sat down beside her.

  “I can’t believe how much you’ve gotten done, Elvira. I’ve never seen anybody work so hard!” She looked around in amazement. “It must be that Leo blood in you. You’re fierce when you put your mind to something, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Elvira, blushing mightily.

  “Yes, you are,” Miss Ivy insisted. “A lioness, that’s what you are. And the garden shows it. It’s never looked more beautiful.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “But you’re working too hard, sweetheart. You’ve already done more than enough to earn whatever you want for your garden. I think it’s time we evened things up, don’t you?”

  “But—but there are still a lot more weeds in them other beds.…”

  “Bless your heart; I never meant that you had to pull every one of them! You have to leave some for my therapy, you know. And I don’t believe we should keep that rosebush of yours waiting any longer, do you?”

  That did the trick. “Well, no, ma’am, I guess I do need to tend to it—if you really think I’ve done my part—”

  Miss Ivy laughed and put an arm around Elvira’s shoulders. “Yes, ma’am, I do. In fact, I would say that I’m in your debt now, and we Alexanders don’t like to be beholden any more than you Trumbulls do. Now, let’s see.… Thursday’s my day off, so you come over here early Thursday, and we’ll load up the car with everything we need.”

  Miss Ivy’s old green Chevy was out in front of the house when Elvira arrived on Thursday morning. A bag of fertilizer and a couple of big boxes of good dirt were already loaded up in back. Elvira found Miss Ivy in the backyard on her knees in one of the flower beds. She was digging. There was another big box half filled with plants on the ground beside her.

  “Hi, Miss Ivy—what are you doin’?” Elvira asked curiously.

  “Oh, I’m just thinning out some of these fall flowers. They really need it. I don’t know why I never got around to it before. I thought maybe the extras could keep your rosebush company. You wouldn’t mind taking them off my hands, would you?” Miss Ivy made it sound as if Elvira would be doing her a big favor.

  “No, ma’am, I—I wouldn’t mind,” she stammered.

  Curtis and John David came along on the trip over to the trailer park. Elvira was a little nervous about showing the Alexanders the place she lived. She wasn’t sure what they’d think about it, coming from a house as nice as theirs.

  “Whoa—look at that!” cried John David, as the Chevy pulled into the Happy Trails. He was pointing to one of the biggest trailers. “That is so cool. I wish we lived in one of those!”

  “Boy, that’d be great,” agreed Curtis. “Why don’t we trade our house in for a trailer, Mama? Then we could live anywhere we wanted to. The Grand Canyon or Disneyland or—or Houston—anywhere at all.”

  His mother smiled. “I’m pretty well committed to our house for the time being, Curtis. But it would be nice to be that free, wouldn’t it?”

  “That’s ours right over there,” said Elvira, pointing to her home. She felt fine about it now. Even proud. Miss Ivy and her boys seemed to think that living in a trailer was a real privilege. “And there’s my rosebush,” she added, as the car came to a stop.

  “Well,” said Miss Ivy softly.
For a moment she seemed unable to say anything else; she fumbled around in her purse for a Kleenex and then blew her nose hard. “Excuse me,” she apologized. “Allergies…” She smiled brightly again. “Well, now, I would say that it looks like we’ve come in the nick of time. Let’s get to work, shall we?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Elvira.

  The first thing they did was dig up the rosebush, ever so carefully. Miss Ivy treated it with as much respect as she would the rarest orchid.

  “You really think it’s gonna be all right?” Elvira asked anxiously, as Miss Ivy examined the barren branches.

  “Well, I’d say it still has a fighting chance,” said Miss Ivy. “It’s certainly not dead yet. Not by a long shot. Look here now, the branches aren’t brittle; they can still bend without breaking. That’s always a good sign. I’d say your rosebush has a very good chance, Elvira.”

  “It looks deader’n a doornail to me,” said John David, shaking his head. “Ouch! What’re you kickin’ me for, Curtis?”

  “Don’t kick your brother, Curtis. John David, this rosebush is not dead,” Miss Ivy said firmly. “It’s just resting, the way plants do in the wintertime.”

  “Sure hot for wintertime,” John David muttered.

  They worked all that morning—all four of them—even John David, so Elvira had to forgive him for saying the rosebush was dead. They turned over the rock-hard dirt and mixed it with the good stuff and put fertilizer on top of that and then went over everything with spades. Elvira dug a new, deeper hole for the rosebush, and together, she and Miss Ivy eased it in tenderly, taking care that the roots were pointing down and out, just as the books had said. When that was done, they put in the other plants from Miss Ivy’s garden.

  “Chrysanthemums and marigolds and Gloriosa daisies,” said Miss Ivy, taking off her garden gloves and surveying their handiwork with a satisfied air. “They ought to bloom right on through fall.”

  “It’s all just perfect,” breathed Elvira, her eyes shining. “I cain’t believe it’s mine.”