Whisper Town

by Patricia Hickman

  “The thing is, I do have Belinda helping out. And now Josie is on her way over to check on Myrtle and keep Belinda straight.”

  “Did you tell Josie about this baby?”

  “Will, she’s on her way over to my place now. Of course she knows.”

  “So it doesn’t bother her about the baby’s sitchyashun?”

  “I’m sure she’s as bothered as I am.”

  “Reverend, you going to make me say it?”

  “Say what?”

  “That baby’s a Nigra baby. The town ladies won’t want to have no dealings with her. It could cause trouble in Nazareth.”

  “Myrtle’s too young to be making trouble.”

  “You know that when Reverend Gracie recommended you to take his place that we knew those Welby children came with the deal. But this baby is not part of the package.”

  “I didn’t know this was a community decision, Will.”

  “You’re not just a man trying to decide what you should do for yourself. You have to make decisions based on how it will affect Nazareth and Church in the Dell.”

  “Not that it changes anything, but how does Myrtle affect Church in the Dell?”

  “She’s a bad dream.”

  “She doesn’t smile like a bad dream.”

  “She ain’t your problem.”

  “Listen to you.”

  “Will, I need you to sweep the back room.” Freda tried to place a broom in Will’s hands, but he wouldn’t take it.

  “Reverend, you keep that baby and you’ll lose half the church or more.”

  “That’s a sorry thing to say.”

  “Will, you’re fighting with the minister in front of the whole town.” Freda pulled on Will’s arm.

  Will glanced around at the sets of eyes peering over the tops of canned goods and flour sacks. “If you’ll excuse me, Reverend, I’ve got some work to do for the missus.” He stomped to the back of the store without telling Jeb good-bye.

  Jeb walked out of Honeysack’s without his list of supplies filled.

  6

  BELINDA’S SMOKE RINGS COULD BE SEEN FROM the road, like circled messages lifting from beneath a tribal blanket. She leaned against the porch railing, palms down, with her cigarette poised like a fine fountain pen between two stout fingers. Her boys played beside the parsonage, bent over something like a bird they had stoned, or something else from nature they could observe in a motionless state.

  Will Honeysack’s words kept raking over Jeb’s thoughts until he found himself rehearsing what he should have said and rewriting how Will should have responded.

  He glanced around the churchyard as he wheeled around and parked in front of the parsonage. He did not see Josie Hipps’s rusted Ford parked anywhere in sight.

  Belinda rose from her slouch when she saw him and then disappeared inside the house. Her boys did not glance up, except to see who came walking into the yard and then they returned to dissect their prey.

  Angel would not be home with her brother and sister for another ten minutes. Jeb would spend the time studying. Belinda had left the front door open. Part of him half-

  expected to find her stripping down for another feeding. He kept his eyes on the floor.

  “Preacher, that woman you sent over was rude.” Belinda waited for him in the parlor like she was loaded for bear.

  “She came to help.”

  “She wasn’t no help at all but a nuisance. I made her leave.”

  “Josie loves children. You could have left Myrtle with her and gone home for the day.”

  Belinda laughed. “You expect me to believe that?”

  Jeb slumped down onto the sofa. “I’ll apologize to her.”

  “Not so fast! I’ll have you know she took one look at Myrtle and started giving first this excuse and then that one. I could see what she was about, so I told her just to get gone and stop wasting my time.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Josie.”

  “You should have told her the baby weren’t white.”

  “I didn’t think it mattered.”

  “Not only that, but she gave me the once-over, like I was trash for nursing Myrtle. People around here start spreading stuff like that and my reputation will be ruined.”

  “Where is Myrtle?”

  “Sleeping next to my Jonathan. They look like two little peas in a baby pod.”

  “Jeb, tell Willie that girls don’t like boys to make bad pencil drawings of them with big body parts!” Angel stormed through the door, red-faced and holding up a lewd drawing.

  “She stole it from my books. Besides, it’s not you, so what do you care?” Willie tore the drawing from his sister’s hand.

  “It was quiet for a moment,” said Jeb.

  “Don’t wake up your little sister,” Belinda whispered.

  “Sister?” Angel laughed and glanced at Jeb. “Willie’s sweet on Tillie Whittington. If she saw how he drew her with giant—”

  “Angel! Lower your tone. Babies are sleeping and we don’t want to hear your ridiculous feud with Willie.” Jeb yanked the drawing from Willie’s hand. “That don’t look like Tillie Whittington anyway.”

  “I’m hungry and I don’t want cold corn bread neither,” said Ida May.

  “Have an apple and then go get on your studies,” said Jeb.

  “I put the babies in the kids’ room. Maybe they can study in the kitchen,” said Belinda.

  “I study in the kitchen,” Jeb whispered. Then he heard Myrtle cry out in the next room.

  “I’m leaving you with it, Preacher. Got to get my brood home for a meal. My boyfriend’s skinned a deer and we’re having a get-together tonight. You’re more than welcome to come, maybe bring a lady friend if you want. But it’s not what you would call a church social.”

  He declined as politely as he knew how. “Does Myrtle need another feeding?”

  “She should be fine. Doc gave me a can of evaporated milk for babies. It’s not as good as momma’s milk, but I poured it into a couple of bottles for you. They’re in the icebox, so you can warm them in a pan of hot water. Not too hot, though. A bottle feeding should help you get her to sleep tonight.”

  Belinda retrieved her large bundle of baby boy and left for the night.

  “You getting the hang of this baby business?” asked Angel.

  “The next thing I’m expecting to hear is that my family was taken by a tornado and all eight of my nephews and nieces will be coming to live with me,” said Jeb.

  “We don’t have enough beds,” said Ida May.

  Willie snatched his drawing out of Jeb’s hands. “I think it looks just like Tilly. She could work in Hollywood if you ask me.”

  Jeb took the rocker inside. What with the settling of cold upon the nights, rocking in the evening had fast lost its appeal. As the girls took turns passing Myrtle back and forth in the front parlor, they used the rocking chair to lull her into a stupor for at least a part of the evening so that Jeb could concentrate on his weekly study. Angel had borrowed some baby dresses from one of the girls at school who had filched them from her mother’s grab bag of clothes. She and Ida May dressed and undressed Myrtle like a doll, deciding what clothes would fit and what they could put up for later.

  Willie cracked open pecans with a hammer, trying to abide by Angel’s request to store as many as possible for a good pie come Thanksgiving. But the temptation to partake of the fruit of his labor had thus far caused his yield to amount to only a handful of fresh shelled pecan nuts. He poured them into a jar with a newspaper funnel.

  “Whoever give us this baby didn’t give us enough clothes to outfit a termite,” said Ida May.

  “Her curls is getting long around her face. Wonder how long until I can tie up her hair in a ribbon?” asked Angel.

  Jeb sat forward and lay his Bible in his lap. “It’s quiet tonight.”

  “Starts getting colder and the toads go dormant,” said Willie.

  “Not a bird or anything, though, is making a sound.” Jeb went back to his r
eading.

  “I like it best when it snows and everything is softly quiet at night. If you look out the winder on a snowy night, it’s like the Lord has rocked the earth to sleep,” said Ida May.

  “Lights up the sky at night almost,” said Willie. “Like morning at midnight. Dog it, Ida May, you make me wish for winter.”

  Myrtle let out a sigh as gentle as a dropped thread.

  That was when the glass broke, the small one at the top of the door, and shattered into triangles on the welcome rug.

  “Get down!” Jeb yelled. “Facedown, all of you!” He crouched low and ran for his hunting rifle. He dragged it from under his bed and had to load it. He could hear Ida May crying and Angel trying to hush her. Myrtle wailed louder than the both of them.

  By the time he reached the parlor and peeked through the window curtains beside the front door, he could see nothing at all.

  “Someone shot out our winder glass!” Willie told him. “Look at the hole in the wall. Went clean through to the kitchen.”

  “What if that would have hit one of us?” asked Angel. She reached out and touched a shard of broken glass but didn’t pick it up.

  Jeb threw open the door and pointed the rifle straight out into the darkness. He could see car lights cascading over the woods and back up the road. He jumped in his truck to follow it, but by the time the old truck engine had cranked and rattled out to the main road in front of the church, not an automobile or human was in sight.

  Angel peered through the open door holding Myrtle against her shoulder, jiggling her to try and comfort her. It made Myrtle’s cry sound rhythmic and it bounced off the night air like a distress signal.

  When Jeb returned to the house, he saw a note dropped on the top step of the porch. He picked it up and read it to himself. It said, “Get rid of it!”

  Angel woke up and, seeing Jeb still up and reading, joined him on the sofa. Myrtle slept between them, her face smashed into the blanket as though she were melting. “The baby’s not safe. We can’t keep her here, Jeb.”

  “I’ve never tried so hard to get rid of something.”

  “You’re sure no one in Tempest’s Bog wants her?”

  “It’s not safe to leave her in Tempest’s Bog.”

  “It’s not safe here.”

  “I’d almost think someone is messing with me. You know, like hanging out in the woods, watching to see what I do next. But who would do that?”

  “God maybe.”

  “Tomorrow night is Wednesday church meeting. I’ll give a call from the pulpit to see if anyone wants to help out this orphan baby. Kindness has surely not gone out of style.”

  “Kindness is for your own kind, that’s what it seems like,” said Angel.

  “Myrtle sure carries a world of trouble with her wherever she goes.”

  “It don’t make sense.”

  Jeb stroked Myrtle’s head. She was soft to the touch, like mink. “I suppose I could bring my things in here and sleep next to her. It’d be a shame to move her. She’s sleeping so good.”

  “You go to bed, Jeb. I’ll sleep next to her.”

  Jeb checked the front-door locks again and the cloth taping up the broken window. “I’d rather you be in your own bed, Angel. I’ll keep watch for Myrtle tonight.”

  Jeb left Myrtle with Belinda an hour before the Wednesday-night service.

  The sun had gone and left only the pale residue of tarnished sky, the only light left besides the clouded-over moon. Jeb lit lanterns around the church and then swept the floor and the large rug donated last summer by Florence Bernard.

  The chapel was chilled, so he stuffed some of the firewood into the potbellied stove. Will had chopped and stacked the wood on the far wall Monday afternoon to save Jeb the work. The wood kindled fast. The stove helped take the bite out of the air.

  He heard a couple of car doors slam, so he left his notes on the lectern and went to the entrance to greet the early arrivals.

  The door opened. Oz Mills bristled past.

  “Evening, Oz,” said Jeb. Behind Oz walked three young men, fellows Jeb had seen hanging out at the bank drumming up work. “Haven’t seen you in church in a while.”

  Another car pulled up and then another as the families arrived for the Wednesday church meeting. Jeb greeted each respective family and then waved at Will and Freda. She met up with two friends and they walked into the church, but not so talkative.

  Jeb asked Will to take his spot greeting folks so that he could return to the platform and gather his notes. It would be a brief service, but a good message from the New Testament.

  “I hear you’ve taken in some trouble, Parson,” said Oz.

  “Depends on how you describe trouble.”

  “Folks are starting to wonder if you’ll ever get the hang of this job.”

  “The truth is that she was dropped off without my consent. But I have her now. So I have to see to her needs.”

  “You might want to remember the needs of those who pay your biscuit-and-coffee tab every week at Beulah’s.”

  Jeb made a fist at his side.

  “My opinion? You’re a fool for not dropping the kid off in Tempest’s Bog,” said Oz.

  “Maybe she’s better off with me. Who are you to say?” He stepped toward Oz.

  Oz held up both hands in mock surrender. “None of my business, Parson. Let’s go stand by the fire, boys. It’s cold on this side of the room.”

  Fern came through the door holding Ida May by the hand. Behind her, Angel stared hard into a worn pink bunting, like the contents might break if she so much as sneezed.

  Jeb brought his right hand into his left. He came two shakes from pummeling Oz Mills two feet from the altar. He took a breath and mounted the platform.

  Some of the women gathered around Angel when she showed up holding a baby. Mellie Fogarty asked to see the child. Angel said, “She’s sleeping. She just had her supper,” and then walked away from the ladies. Ida May led the way to a pew one seat behind Fern.

  Fern smiled up at Jeb, but his thoughts wandered back to what he was about to say.

  Oz and the young banking clerks took a seat in Fern’s row, right next to the schoolteacher.

  Jeb opened with prayer and then said, “My children and I received a precious package on our doorstep this week. For those of you who don’t know, someone dropped a baby off with us. Her name is Myrtle.”

  Some of the women craned their necks to see Angel’s package.

  “Being as how I don’t have a wife at my side, it don’t seem fitting that I try and take care of another child. Especially a newborn baby.”

  Many of the women cooed at the mention of a newborn.

  Then from the middle of the church, Josie came to her feet and said, “You forgot to mention that baby’s not white, Reverend.” She floated back down, quiet.

  Each woman’s smile faded, like lilies losing their blush. Their eyes strayed from Jeb, no longer held spellbound by the news of their minister. The church building held silence as well as it held music, but the silence paralyzed Jeb in a manner that caused him to want to toss away the evening’s sermon. Finally he cleared his throat and said, “I guess the good Lord’s given her to me then. Pray then that I won’t allow harm to come her way. Ask God to give me grace if he won’t give me a wife.”

  His last comment caused some of the women and the men to laugh. Fern laughed without opening her mouth.

  Jeb waited for her eyes to connect with his. He wanted to come down from the platform, take her by the hand, and walk away from this troublesome place. But instead he opened his Bible and began to read.

  7

  SCHOOL HAD BEEN OUT FOR TWO HOURS AND Fern’s automobile sat parked in front of her cottage. Jeb paced, treading out a one-by-three-foot path in front of her doorway before he announced his arrival. Wednesday night after church, Oz had walked her out to her car.

  The moon’s high and yellow mark beyond the paper shell pecan trees was too good a light to waste on Oz Mills. Oz had gi
ven her a peck on the cheek, but it was too dark to tell if Fern liked it or not.

  Today Jeb wanted answers from Fern once and for all.

  Jeb rapped against the weathering frame of her screen door. Fern opened the door and Jeb said, “Fern, I think it’s time we had a talk.”

  She invited him inside. A stack of bedsheets and kitchen towels sat next to her sofa, where she had knelt folding linens. Jeb nudged them to the side and then took a seat on her sofa, tossing his hat onto the seat next to him.

  Fern sat across from him in an overstuffed chair the color of ripe apples. “You look flush, Jeb. You want coffee?”

  Looking at her in her green cotton dress, like a girl cut out of Sears and Roebuck, Jeb nearly lost all thoughts of Oz and what he had planned to say.

  Fern poured coffee for both of them.

  “Fern, I know you think you know me, but not in the way that I want you to know me.”

  Fern’s cup froze right in front of her lips.

  “That’s the whole thing in a nutshell, if you catch my drift, that you’ve never known the real Jeb. I’ve been afraid of that more than anything. I know I’ve tried to prove to you that I’m a changed man, but somehow in proving it, you don’t really see the real Jeb. I know I came into town lacking in social graces. I had to adjust my way of thinking about women and such, but I did adjust. Especially about a woman like you.” Just to be safe, he added, “You’re the top of the line where women are concerned. But you should know some things about me.”

  “You’re getting at something, I can tell.” The sweet place between her brows dented.

  “I’m tired of playing patty-cake, or whatever it is that you expect of me.” That didn’t come out like he intended. “Or maybe that has been my expectations, I don’t know. It may look as though I want a wife, someone to take care of all of these youngens I seem to be attracting. But the truth is that I’m miserable. I’m tired of juggling people and trying to please everyone but myself. You know what I really want?”

  “I guess you’ll tell me.”

  “I want a life with you in it. With or without this church, or all those kids, or any of these people in this town. Or all of them included, as long as you’re in it.”