by Leah Weiss
Fifteen barrels of cane sugar have already been delivered, with the astonishing promise of more every month. For the last two years, ration stamps have provided limited sugar, and for Southerners with a daily hankering for sweet tea and cakes, the challenge has been tantamount to cruelty. After today, the Browns no longer have to worry about running out of cane sugar.
Gertie Mayhew has been hired to boil sugar water, and she stands beside us looking at those glorious barrels. Mr. John T. Booker assured Mama she could use some of the sugar for private consumption and nobody would arrest her. Because of Gertie’s work, the Mayhews are included in the kind gift, but that’s where the generosity stops.
“We’re gonna need a lock on that sugar room, David,” Mama says wisely, understanding a sweet tooth denied to our neighbors makes for an incentive to steal.
“I got that covered,” he says. “Yancy and I are securing it today.”
Daddy starts explaining. “The process is simple,” and he nods toward the back corner. “We put in that old four-burner woodstove where Gertie’s going to make sugar water, but she needs help. Grady is the firewood man and will load the stove every morning and keep wood stacked beside it. Yancy will haul well water and fill the four canning pots every morning.
“Gertie knows that for every gallon of water, she puts in a gallon of sugar and cooks it down till it turns to syrup. That one gallon of sugar water feeds four hives for one day. It doesn’t take a math whiz to know you need to make twenty-five gallons of sugar water every day to feed a hundred hives.
“Lucy, you are the bottle washer. Every morning, take the empties from the hives when the bees have drunk it all, then wash and line them up for Gertie to fill again. Hopefully, Gertie can get ahead of the bees and have some extra.
“Making sugar syrup is the new part of the job, but nothing else changes. The bees still need checking for mites and beetles and healthy queens. We’ll harvest the honey and wax in August and next June, but making sugar water is the new everyday job—with Saturdays and Sundays off. The almighty bees can fend for themselves part of the time. Questions?”
Mama grins and says, “I think I’m going to take enough cane sugar to bake Oma’s marble cake.”
The day turns to a celebration of sorts, and I stay busy punching tiny holes in the tin tops with the ice pick and lining up hundreds of mason jars. When Gertie fills the jars with syrup, I take them to the hive and turn them upside down, and that sweetness drips out and the hungry bees eat food delivered to their door.
For hours, I forget to worry about Bert Tucker living with the likes of Larry Crumbie. When I remember to watch for her coming, it’s suppertime. I set an extra plate in Oma’s spot, but it stays empty. Mama says, “She’s okay,” but she doesn’t sound sure.
At supper, Mama reads a letter from Everett that came this morning. As usual, he makes the war sound like a grand adventure, but we’ve seen the newsreels at the Majestic. We watched 49th Parallel and Five Graves to Cairo. The soldiers who returned to Riverton are somber and broken. We know war is no picnic, but Everett tries to keep worry away.
Dear Brown tribe: Today I jumped out of a plane, climbed a rock wall taller than the oak tree, and saw the sun set over wide water. I ate canned rations and pretended they were Mama’s fried chicken. I slept under the stars that look different from Mercer County. What did you do? I miss you more than ice cream.
Riddle: What goes up but never comes down?
I know the answer right off is your age because my mind is good at deduction. But I don’t spoil it for the others while they come up with silly guesses—a cloud, a balloon. A year is a long time for Everett to turn war stories into escapades, but he never tires of trying. We know his world is different than he says, but he works to fill us with wonder instead of worry.
At bedtime, Everett and Wade are already on my prayer list, but I add Bert Tucker. She’s in a dangerous place. When the first roll of thunder rumbles over the land, I bolt upright in bed with a terrible thought. What if she’s hurt? What if Larry Crumbie came home and locked her up and that’s why she didn’t come today. How can I sleep if Bert’s life is in peril?
I pad down the stairs and into the parlor. Mama has her mending basket on her lap and her glasses on the tip of her nose, sewing a button on a dress. Her nose is red and her handkerchief is well-used, likely thinking about our war boys or missing Oma. I speak what’s on my mind.
“I think something happened to Bert.” I scoot in the chair against her soft side.
She puts the threaded needle in the pincushion, then kisses the top of my head and clears her throat. “I’m worried, too, honey. We witnessed Larry Crumbie’s temper, and we know Miz Violet is helpless to defend herself or Bert.”
“She should have come back here today since she’s been here two days in a row.”
“Maybe her aunt was feeling poorly and needed her. Or Bert had a long list of chores to do like you did.”
“Or maybe Larry Crumbie came back from wherever…”
“That’s possible, too. How about this. After chores tomorrow, if she hasn’t shown up, we’ll put together a basket of goodies and take it over there as a neighborly gesture. That way, we can lay eyes on the situation and make sure Bert and Violet are okay.”
“I guess.”
“There’s nothing we can do tonight, honey. You head on back to bed. Dawn gets closer every minute. Sounds like a storm’s coming.”
When I don’t leave, she says, “Something else bothering you?”
“The change.”
“Have you spotted?”
“No, and that’s the problem. Nothing’s happened.”
“Don’t rush it. When it comes, you’ll be a woman for the rest of your days.”
“It happened to Bert.”
“It happens at different times for different girls.”
“And she’s not happy about it one bit. She even tied muslin around her middle tight so her bosom doesn’t show in her shirt.”
“It can’t be stopped.”
“What if I don’t want to grow up?” I ask, thinking back on what Bert told me that sounded dismal. “What if I don’t want the responsibility?”
“Well, you’d be in a pickle, wouldn’t you? Do you want to take time tonight to worry on things you can’t change? Or do you want to get some sleep?”
I see the wisdom of her questions. “Sleep, I guess.”
“Good night, dear Lucy.”
But up the stairs, back in my bed, lying in the dark that’s splintered with lightning and the howl of the wind rising—with Lydia and Cora curled up under the sheet, trembling from the storm and pressed up against me for comfort—the unease in my belly won’t die down. It isn’t the change that’s the cause. It’s Violet Crumbie’s despicable husband.
If Miz Violet thought she was getting a helpmate, that didn’t happen. I’ve watched him clean his fingernails with his pocketknife and study his reflection in a window glass. I don’t think Bert Tucker will kowtow to the likes of a cruel man who treats his wife like leftovers.
Larry Crumbie is the bad in this whole thing.
Chapter 12
Bert: Lost And Found
Aunt Violet barks like a coyote, “Out out out,” and pushes at me till I back against the doorframe. When the door slams and the wood latch catches, I’m on the other side in the place I hate: the dark.
I press against the door and whine through the crack, “Please let me in. Please.” I knock timid like a pitiful fool. “I’ll be good,” I promise, and feel my false pride drain outta my feet. I’m scared. I step to the front yard and look back at the window that’s gone black since she blowed out the lamp. There won’t a speck a light inside. I wanna see that scrap of sheet pull back. I want her to open the door and let me in.
The wind screams and leaves rattle, and flying dirt stings my eyes. I walk the road, and
the wind pushes my back, whips my hair, and hard rain comes and punches me. Pine branches slap my face and the storm turns mean. I don’t remember the walk in the woods being this long. Water stands deep in flat places, and I stumble over a broke branch. At last, I come to the edge of a field and run through the tobacco row into the Browns’ yard and up on Lu’s porch. I beat on the door, but rain hits the roof and windowpanes and drowns out all sounds but the wild. Nobody comes, so I curl in a shivering ball outside the front door and wait out the night. When Mr. Brown wakes me, the morning is calm, and he carries me to the warm kitchen.
“Look who I almost stepped on.”
Miz Brown says, “Merciful heavens” and starts giving orders. “Irene, get dry clothes and a towel. Lucy, fix a hot water bottle. Grady, go with Daddy till we get Bert settled.” Cora the ghost girl and the little one I can’t recollect her name stand in the corner.
Miz Brown pulls the bacon frying off the fire and the biscuits outta the oven, then looks at me straight on. She pulls my wet shirt over my head and goes to unwinding the cloth round my middle when my hand flies to my chest.
She whispers, “I’ll wash it and give it back.” I let her unwrap the tight strip and cast her eyes on my sores and my nipples the size of dark nickels on wrinkled pale mounds, me taking my first deep breath in weeks.
“Hold the blanket higher, Lucy.” The woman washes mud off my legs and arms and drops a fresh gown over my clean body and finger-combs damp curls away from my face. I don’t ramble on like usual.
“Is she hurt?” Lu picks up my wet clothes. The stole button and crooked nail fall out the pocket and hit the floor. Lu sets them on the table. I look at Miz Brown and know my thieving ways is found out, but she don’t hit me with hands or switch or belt. She don’t even say it’s her button I stole. Instead she says, “I don’t think she’s physically hurt. No cuts I can see, only shock. We’ll get the details later. Help her to bed, Lucy, and stay with her. I’ll let Gertie know you’ll be late washing sugar jars. Put the hot water bottle under the covers to help with her chills. Be patient. Don’t push her to talk, you hear?”
This woman is goodness this thief don’t deserve.
Lu leads me out the kitchen, up the stairs to her bedroom, and closes the door. We crawl in the high featherbed with the soft sheet pulled over my shoulder and light falling through clean windows, and Lu rubs the small of my back as comfort. I can’t even look at her. I don’t know I’m crying till a tear rolls out my open eyes and over the bump of my nose and wets the pillow. Lu cries, too, and don’t even know why. We rest in this place while her family stays quiet. I sleep.
When I open my eyes, Lu’s looking at me, not blinking.
“Wanna talk?” she whispers.
“Not much to say.”
“Say what you can.”
“He never come back, not in the days I been there.”
“Larry Crumbie?”
“She’s been jittery every night, wringing her hands, hoping for his truck lights to pierce the black and pull in the yard. She even talked to him once like he was there when he won’t. I don’t know when he come home last.”
“Why’d you come out in that storm?”
“She done it. Throwed me out. One minute, she say ‘Larry Crumbie, you damn man. Why I got to love you, run-around man?’ then she scream ‘I hate you, I hate you,’ and I don’t know if she’s talking to me or Larry. She says it’s me keeping him away cause I’m a floozy girl. And I tell her I don’t even know the man, so how can it be my fault he don’t come home? Then she throwed me out.”
“Why’d she call you a floozy girl?”
“She’s gone round the bend, I guess.” We scoot up and stack pillows behind.
“Then what?”
“I was standing out in her yard with that storm coming and the door locked, thinking what kind of family throws a lone girl out in a storm? But then I remember Pa sent me away on a one-way bus ticket.” My throat grabs at my next words. “Maybe the trouble is me.”
Lu says, “You stop saying that right this second, Bert Tucker. Something or somebody is wrong here, but it’s not you.” She pats the back of my hand and says, “Go on. Let it all out.”
“Not much more to say. The rain blowed and I got turned round a time or two cause the world looks different in a storm, but then I found your tobacco field and got here all the same.”
She squeezes my hand. “You should have come inside. Our doors are never locked. You hungry?”
I nod, cause I am hungry and don’t think I ate good since supper here two nights back.
On the kitchen table are rows of blackberry jelly jars cooling—and my stole button and rusty nail. My sins are plain as day, and my belly grips. Miz Brown says, “I saved biscuits for you girls, and bacon and potatoes.” She adds, “Don’t forget your things on the table, Bert.”
I pick em up quick, thinking maybe Miz Brown don’t know the button belongs to her. The nail digs into my hand.
Lu loads two plates and pours coffee and adds a big dollop of cream and real sugar and sets breakfast on the table. I never been so hungry. Lu starts with, “Miz Violet threw Bert out of the house” and ends with “She had to git.”
Miz Brown’s kind face crumbles in on my account. “Thrown out during that storm. Oh, dear… Bless your heart.” She puts her hand over her own heart. “Come here and let me love on you.”
I look back at my food I’m hungry for, walk right into this woman’s wide arms, and burrow my head against her neck and start bawling again.
She whispers, “You’re safe here. We’ll talk to your aunt later today and ask if you can stay here until life is sorted. Finish your breakfast, and you can help Lucy and Gertie with the bees and sugar water.”
I lift my head off her shoulder. “Them bees gonna sting?”
“No. You won’t get hurt. Lu will make sure.”
One night, I’m drowning, and the next morning, I’m saved.
In the barn, a woman called Gertie stirs big pots on a woodstove, and me and Lu line up jars and punch holes in tin tops. After noon dinnertime for the field hands, Miz Brown say, “Why don’t you girls bake a pie to take to Violet? It’ll sweeten conversation.”
So Lu and me pit cherries and bake a perfect pie with a braided crust. It’ll be for my aunt’s supper. Maybe she won’t be mad. Maybe Larry will be there. Maybe they can eat cherry pie together.
To save walking time on a hot day, Mr. Brown backs the car outta the barn, brushes hay off the hood with his arm, and shoos two chickens nesting inside. I see a man working on a fence gate—the same man I saw at my aunt’s farm.
“Who’s that big boy?”
Lu looks to where I’m pointing. “That’s Tiny Junior. He helps people do things, especially if they have men serving in the war. Why do you ask?”
“He come see her and knocked on her door.”
“Your aunt? He knows everybody. He won’t take pay, only fixes things and goes on his way.” Lu lowers her voice. “He lives with his mama, Flossie, a kind lady who cleans houses and takes in mending. But Tiny Junior’s uncle is meaner than a striped snake. If you hear the name Terrell Stucky, run the other way. That man hates everything and everybody because bad luck plagues him: his two sons got killed in the war, he lost his farm when he didn’t pay taxes, his daughter ran off with a fertilizer salesman, and his wife moved back home with her mama. All he does is whittle on a chunk of pine, spit tobacco, and throw slurs at people passing by. Tiny Junior’s different. Maybe he was helping your aunt Violet with a chore.”
Mr. and Miz Brown get in the front seat while Lu and me sit in back. We put the pie between us with a towel under it to catch juices that might spill. The crystal sugar on top glistens. It smells divine. “This is the prettiest pie,” I whisper with pride. I’m nervous to see my aunt and lay eyes on Larry Crumbie, but I won’t be alone.
She’
s in the garden with the afternoon sun beating down. Miz Brown says, “Garden work is early morning work. Violet’s going to get heatstroke if she’s not careful.”
Our slamming car doors make her raise her head and shield her eyes to see who has come on her property without invitation. When she sees it’s me, her shoulders slump, and she wipes her hands on her apron. She picks up the garden basket heavy with vegetables, and Mr. Brown runs to take the weight from her. She don’t want him to carry it, but Lu’s daddy won’t be stopped.
I stand with the Browns on one side, looking at Aunt Violet on the other. Mr. Brown pulls off his Feed and Seed hat and clears his throat. “Miz Crumbie, I’m David Brown. My wife, Minnie, and daughter Lucy you know from market. Bert showed up at our place in that storm last night. Said you threw her out. What can you say about that?”
Lu’s daddy declares a sad truth, but Aunt Violet don’t say a word. She watches a bird in the sky. A housefly lands on the end a her nose but she don’t swat it. What she does is go inside and start yelling Larry’s name over and over, and that puzzles me. His truck ain’t in the yard. Calling his name goes on in a house barely big as a chicken coop till Lu’s mama goes in and fetches her. Her strong arm is round my aunt’s weak shoulders. She stands there in her own yard, looking like she don’t know who we are or where she is. Hoping to make things better, I step up with the pie and say kindly, “Me and Lu baked this cherry pie special for you.”
With no warning, she takes my cherry pie outta my hands and walks over to the chickens in the yard. She shocks us when she bends over best she can and drops our perfect pie on the ground. The chickens come a running and peck it to death while she stands there singing a song in a little girl’s voice, twisting a string of hair. It’s a terrible sight that has Lu’s mama exclaim, “Lord’a mercy,” and rush to my aunt’s side, and take her by the arm.