Those wonderful nickels, though, would buy a double-dip ice-cream cone, a fizzy limeade or cherry Coke from the drugstore fountain, a Big Little Book, a package of chewing gum or pieces of Dubble Bubble, Life Savers, or you could pick from an array of candy bars—Baby Ruth, named for President Cleveland’s daughter; Milky Way; Charleston Chew, named after the dance; Tootsie Rolls; and Hershey’s. On Laurie’s first trip to town, she stretched her nickel by getting a 3 Musketeers with three sections, vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate. She swapped Buddy the chocolate section and half the strawberry for the top dip of his ice-cream cone.
The nickel was only the start of the orgy. They got hamburgers with lots of sliced onions and dill pickles at a café, and then went to the Saturday afternoon movie. Laurie had a wrestle with her conscience over this. Movies were denounced by the tabernacle for being every bit as sinful as dancing, bobbing your hair, or smoking.
Buddy had no qualms. He marched right along with the boys and Belle. “Come on, honey,” called Rosalie, hoisting Babe to her shoulder as she paused in the dark entrance.
“I-I—” Tempted but afraid—it was so dark in there, just like the mouth of hell—“Mama never let us.”
Rosalie came back and got Laurie seated beside her on a bench out of the way of people going in. Her dark eyebrows puckered as she thought for a moment. “Listen, dear,” she said at last. “I sure don’t want to undermine what your Mama taught you, but you can’t very well do everything she said all your life unless it grows out of your own heart and makes sense to you. For one thing, you’re going to come up against things she won’t have told you about. Now you know there are all kinds of churches and over the ocean, there’s plumb different kinds of religion, but there has to be just one God. What do you suppose he thinks about all these rules folks make up for worshiping him, especially when they hate and kill each over the rules? My guess is it makes him pretty sad and disgusted.”
“But people do bad things in the movies. They smoke and drink and lust and—”
“Laurie, do you know what lust is?”
Laurie flushed. “Not—not exactly. But it’s when men and women want to do things with each other that they shouldn’t till they’re married.”
“Mmm.” Rosalie smothered a chuckle. “I reckon we’d better have a talk about all of that one of these days. But look, honey, there are books that have bad things in them, too. Your Mama never told you not to read, did she?”
“No, but—”
“To my way of thinkin’, movies are the same way. Of course there are some you shouldn’t see now and some you shouldn’t see ever, prob’ly. But this afternoon—gracious, Laurie, besides the previews and newsreel, there’s Donald Duck and Porky Pig cartoons, the main feature’s In Old Santa Fe with that new singing cowboy star, Gene Autry, and the second feature is an Andy Hardy show with Mickey Rooney. Not a thing your Mama could worry about if she’d seen some movies for herself instead of taking her church’s word that they’re wicked.” Rosalie paused. “Now I’m not tryin’ to talk you into this. You can go to the library if you want, or over to the park. If you do come in, and they start showin’ something you think is wrong, just get up and go and meet us outside when the show’s over.”
It was scary, doing something she’d been taught was sinful, but it was true that Mama had never seen a movie—and equally true that she’d have been scandalized had she known what was in some of the books Laurie had checked out of the library, especially those about Greek and Roman and Norse gods. But to use her own judgment instead of her mother’s—oh, that made Laurie feel guilty and nervous and at the same time exhilarated as if she’d been breathing fresh, clean air real fast after having been shut up in a stale, musty closet.
I’ll leave if they show anything bad, she assured herself, and followed Rosalie down the aisle just as light hit the screen. On her two other trips to town, apart from the Fourth of July, she’d seen King Kong and a dancing couple named Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in Flying Down to Rio. Mama wouldn’t have approved of the dancing but it was beautiful to watch and again Laurie couldn’t see what was wrong about it.
She had never been able to even get saved and now she fatalistically concluded that since she couldn’t go to heaven anyway, she might as well enjoy what was lovely and fun in this world—though of course she wouldn’t do anything against her conscience. This line of thought was probably what Mama would have called “hardening the heart” and maybe Laurie’s would wind up tough as a football, but losing herself in the world on the screen made her forget for a little while that Mama was dead and Daddy had left them.
Among the differences between Mama and Rosalie was how they used money. In the Field household, one-tenth, the tithe, would go to the tabernacle first thing of all, because it was God’s. Then came food, the rent, light bill, doctor, and the most necessary clothing. If there was anything left after that, and in Laurie’s memory there’d never been a time when at least one of the family wasn’t in desperate need of shoes, the children got a penny to spend and Mama might slip a few coins in her “home” box.
This was a syrup tin with a slit in the top that set on top of the little tablet Mama used to write letters. She used it for another purpose, too, as Laurie found out when she was packing. Daddy must have added the coins to his money because the tin was empty but when Laurie glanced through the tablet, she found the back pages filled with plans of the home Rachel had silently longed for.
There was a sketch of the whole house, with both vegetable and flower gardens and trees, and drawings of each room with furniture marked in. A room each for Laurie and Buddy; a big kitchen with a Frigidaire and real sink; a screened-in porch with a washing machine and closet for cleaning supplies and the ironing board; a small dining room with a china cabinet and the round table; and a living room with big overstuffed armchairs, a radio, Victrola, library table with a globe; and a spare room. It was unthinkable to have a room that went unused except when there was company so this one had a daybed and dresser and housed a sewing machine and dress form. One door opened to the bathroom, which of course served everyone. A real bathroom with toilets like those at school, a sink, and tub.
“White linoleum,” Mama’s girlish handwriting detailed. “Blue curtains. White and blue striped wallpaper and blue towels and bath mat.”
This glimpse of Rachel, wistful for nice things like any woman though she had never complained, stabbed Laurie then and still did. It gave her a quick flash of Mama as something other than dauntingly good with her heart and mind completely bent on heaven. It made Mama a real person who had wanted a nice home with indoor plumbing and a Frigidaire and washing machine.
Now she could never have them. No matter what Laurie did, even if she somehow won a million dollars, she couldn’t give Mama anything, never in this world. Wrestling with this final part of death was what hurt worst, realizing that Mama would never smile again or see the cherry tree bloom or sit with Laurie in the night to vanquish nightmares.
Laurie burned the tablet out by the cherry tree and buried the ashes there, deep, so they wouldn’t blow away. It was a private grave for the woman who’d had secret, human dreams and longings, who had lived inside the wife, mother, and Christian in the cemetery. When grief about this overwhelmed Laurie, she slipped to the barn at her first chance and played Morrigan’s harmonica.
He had given her songs for every need, and his voice resonated within her as she played the Negro spirituals that seemed to hold all the sorrow in the world along with the will to endure.
No more weepin’, no more weepin’,
No more weepin’ after while,
And before I’ll be a slave,
I’ll be buried in my grave,
And go home to my Lord and be free.
She sang, too, when she was doing dishes or ironing, any work that didn’t need concentration, and soon Belle was singing along with her. “Goin’ to lay down my sword and shield, down by the riverside, down by the riverside …”
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br /> “Honey, why don’t you ever play your harmonica in the house?” Rosalie asked one day. “I heard you when I was feeding the chickens. It sure sounds pretty.”
Laurie colored. “I-I’m just learning the best I can,” she stammered. “And you’ve got the radio and Victrola with lots better music than I can make.”
“It’s not the same.” Rosalie gave a decided shake of her head. “Sure, I’m glad to have the radio and hear Will Rogers and the good singers and have records with Louie Armstrong and Cow Cow Davenport and Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. But it’s not the same as having someone real playing.”
“Grandpa—”
“He won’t pay you any more mind than he does the radio except when one of his favorite programs is on. Of course if you really don’t want to—”
Rosalie sounded so disappointed that Laurie said quickly, “All right, I’ll play the tunes I know the best, but remember, you asked for it!”
Rosalie laughed and hugged her, making Laurie ashamed that she’d instinctively wanted to keep Morrigan’s songs to herself, a special bond between them. He shared his music. He’d want her to, even though her playing wasn’t anything as good as his. So now, in the hottest part of the day after dinner and dishes, she often played for a little while, before they went out to battle weeds.
They could hack out the roots of crabgrass, careless weed, and Johnson grass, but they couldn’t make it rain. It was so dry that the plants began to look wilted even in the mornings. Rosalie said that happened when the roots sucked moisture from the plant because there wasn’t any left in the soil. All anyone could do was get out the weeds with their roots that went deeper than those of the cotton and bank up earth against the plants to protect any tiny bit of dampness from wind and sun.
The blisters on Laurie’s hands had long ago hardened to calluses and the soles of her feet were baked so tough by the scorching sand that she didn’t, as she had at first, try to cool them in the shade of plants. Her back and shoulders and wrists still ached, though. She didn’t think she’d ever attain the steady methodical way that Rosalie, wearing an old straw hat and one of Grandpa’s shirts to cover her arms, swung the hoe and edged up the roots from right beside those of a crop plant.
Still, what tasted better than roasting ears fresh from the stalk, juicy gold kernels dripping with butter? Or the crisp red flesh of a watermelon cooled in the big trough in the well house? Or, starting the season of bounty from field and garden, marble-sized new potatoes and tender peas blending flavors in rich, white cream sauce? Luscious tomatoes, string beans, crunchy radishes, carrots, cucumbers, crook-necked summer squash, and blue-green collards continued to come from the garden long after green onions and lettuce succumbed to the blasting heat, but how tasty that lettuce had been wilted with hot grease and vinegar and served with scrambled eggs!
Laurie had never eaten so well nor been so hungry by mealtimes. When more vegetables were ripe than could be eaten, Laurie helped Rosalie can jar after mason jar to carry to the cellar and store on shelves that ran around all sides, floor to ceiling. The sight of rows of sparkling jars filled Laurie with pride and made the hours of steamy work seem worth it.
Not that she wanted to eat this food. She still prayed silently each night when she knelt with Buddy that Daddy would send for them right away—at least before school started. Lots of kids spent summers with aunts and uncles and grandparents but when school started you should be with your real family in your real home.
One afternoon when Laurie was snapping stems off beans and pulling off the tough strings that ran from end to end before breaking them into several pieces, Rosalie stared at the front of her overalls. It had hung loose nearly three months ago, but from little pinkish-tan nubs on a flat chest, Laurie’s breasts had started to round, and the seat of the overalls fit so tight that it pinched when she bent over. She had let out the straps as much as she could but she was just plain outgrowing the garment. At least it wouldn’t go to waste. Everett could wear it next summer, if not before.
“Gracious, child!” said Rosalie. “You’re bustin’ right out of those overalls! Better try on your dresses tonight to see if we can make them do for school. Now, honey, did your Mama tell you about how you’ll bleed once a month when you’re able to make babies?”
At Laurie’s stare of horror, Rosalie somehow managed to give her a comforting hug without touching her with hands and fingers stained from scalding and peeling tomatoes. “Don’t look so scared, dear. You can’t make babies without a man.” She sobered and seemed to be speaking almost to herself. “Depending on the man and how it happens, that can be the loveliest, sweetest thing in the world, or it can be the ugliest.”
Simply, encouraging Laurie to ask about anything that puzzled or troubled her, Rosalie said the monthly flow of blood carried off the egg that didn’t have a baby starting in it. “When a man wants a woman, his thing gets hard so it can push up inside her and leave his sperm—kind of seeds—where it can find her egg. This don’t always mean a baby’ll grow, but there’s a chance. A man can put on a rubber—sort of a close-fitting bag—to hold his sperm, but rubbers can leak or break so it’s not as safe as some boys will try to tell you. Nothing really is, so don’t let a boy do anything to you, no matter how he begs and promises, till you’re sure he’s the one you’re going to marry. Best thing’s to wait till you’re married. Otherwise, he might change his mind—decide you’re not fit for him to marry, even when he’s the one who made you not fit.”
“That’s not fair!”
“’Course it’s not,” said Rosalie practically. “No more than what’s just fun for the man may start a baby in a woman. But since that’s the way it is, a girl needs to be mighty careful. And don’t think that because a man’s old enough to be your daddy that he don’t mean anything by pettin’ and huggin’ you.”
Grandpa’s old enough to be your father, Laurie thought. As if she guessed what Laurie was thinking, Rosalie blushed to the edges of her dark hair. She slipped the skin off another tomato and straightened her shoulders.
“I know you’ve wondered why I married your grandpa and why I think so much of him.” She continued her work with her back to Laurie. “This isn’t nice, honey, but I reckon you need to know the kind of stuff that can happen. My real daddy died before I can remember. The man I called daddy was my stepfather, no blood relation. By the time I was Belle’s age, he—he was doin’ things. He said he’d kill me if I told Mama. When I was fourteen, I told him I’d kill him if he didn’t stop.” She gave a harsh little laugh. “I guess he believed me. I was so ashamed and felt so dirty inside, so different from the other girls. I quit school when I finished eighth grade and got out of that house, but I couldn’t get what happened out of me. I tried, though. I sure tried, but what I tried and the ones I tried with made it worse. I wasn’t fifteen years old but I was spendin’ every cent I earned waitin’ tables on rotgut whiskey so I could forget what a mess I’d made of my life.”
She turned to look at Laurie. “Harry came in one day—just sat and watched me while he ate and drank three or four cups of coffee. When the noon rush thinned out, he asked me if I wouldn’t like to go home with him. That’s what he said—home.” She drew a quivering breath and her smile was blinding as she glanced toward Laurie. “It was like he was my real daddy mixed in with a man who could make me feel clean and new and pretty again, get rid of all the ugliness. I don’t know how he saw what I needed but it was the luckiest thing ever happened to me that he did and that somehow I knew I should go with him. Hadn’t been for him, I’d be dead by now or a worn-out whore.”
Rosalie set another jar in the big kettle and started to fill another. “So don’t you feel sorry for some guy who tells you how bad he hurts when he can’t finish his lovemakin’ or says you don’t love him if you won’t go all the way. If he loved you, seein’ how much you’ve got to lose, he wouldn’t try to talk you into it.”
Struck by the wisdom of this, Laurie nodded. Rosalie reached for anoth
er tomato. “In three-four years when Ev’rett starts gettin’ ideas, I’m goin’ to set him down and give him a good talking to. I’m tellin’ him not to go with any girl he doesn’t care enough about to marry, because if he ever gets one in the family way, he’s goin’ to do just that, no matter what kind of reputation she’s got. That’s what I’m tellin’ all my boys.” She grinned. “Of course, Harry’ll explain to ’em about rubbers and all those bad diseases they can catch, so with any luck, they won’t get a girl in trouble.”
About a week later, while the family was picking plums along the North Fork of the Red River, twinges began in Laurie’s stomach that increased to real pains. She’d been eating the ripest, juiciest red fruit. Maybe she’d been such a hog that she’d gorged herself into a stomachache.
It was steamy hot among the sandy dunes of the river bottom, with cottonwoods and reeds and willows cutting off any stray breeze. She kept picking into the milk bucket she shared with Belle and Rosalie, but her head throbbed and the pains got so bad that she was afraid she might have appendicitis. Appendixes were sneaky, mysterious things that could swell up and burst and kill you, the way Mama’s Aunt Ida’s had done.
Frightened as she was, Laurie didn’t want to complain or ask if they could go home. That would call Grandpa’s attention to her, something she preferred not to do because he’d probably say she was sickly like her mother. Grandpa must have been nice to the scared, despairing Rosalie of twelve years ago, and still was in his gruff way, but it seemed like he’d used up all his kindness on her.
At last four buckets were filled. Under the shade of a big cottonwood, where a plum-stained Babe napped on a tattered quilt, they spread an old tarp and poured out a mountain of fruit.
“Ripest go in these two buckets.” Rosalie set one at either end of the tarp. “Fairly ripe in this one, and greenish in the other. Wormy ones—” She chuckled. “Eat ’em or throw ’em away, whichever you’ve a mind to.” Her gaze swept over the children, then fixed on Laurie. “What’s the matter, dear? You’re lookin’ puny.”
The Longest Road Page 8