Someplace to Call Home

by Sandra Dallas

  “Better than a fireplace.”

  “I never could get the hang of baking bread in that old thing. The bread was either raw or burned. That’s why I got in the habit of buying store-made. But Mr. Carlson likes a homemade bread. He says if he knew how much better the bread would be from a gas stove, he’d have bought me one years ago.” She pushed the bowl away from her and sat down. “But we’re not talking about bread.”

  Hallie pulled out another chair and sat down, too. “No.”

  “How serious is this? Do you think Benny will get over Ragman, whoever he is?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen him stay mad like this.”

  “It’s a shame. He and Tessie are such friends. They learn from each other. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to explain something to Tessie, but she doesn’t understand. Then Benny says something, and all of a sudden she gets it.”

  “It works the other way, too. Tessie told him words are made up of all the letters in the alphabet. He understood. I thought that was pretty smart of her.”

  “They bring out the best in each other. Tessie’s never been so happy.”

  “Benny, either.”

  “We’ll have to figure something out. Your education’s at stake here, too, Hallie.”

  Hallie knew that was true. When she reached home, Tom told her that Benny had been in a bad mood all day. He walked into the creek with his shoes on. When Tom saw a rabbit and said, “There’s Bob,” Benny had said that Bob was stupid. “I don’t get it. He’s always been so happy. What do you suppose caused this?” Tom asked.

  Hallie only shook her head.

  She stayed home from school the next day to take care of Benny. He was not as grumpy, but neither was he happy. Hallie tried to get him to sing “Happy Days Are Here Again,” but Benny refused. She suggested fishing. The little boy loved to fish, even though he never caught anything. He was just happy to sit on a stream bank with his fishing pole and call, “Here, fish.” But now Benny shook his head and replied, “No fish.”

  That night when Tom came home from the Carlson farm, Benny was still in a sour mood. “I talked to Mr. Carlson. He can’t figure out what’s wrong, either. Whatever it is, Tessie’s fine. When I saw her, she was sitting on a blanket in the yard singing her doll to sleep. I asked if I could hold it, but she wouldn’t let me. At least she has that for company. I told Mrs. Carlson to bring her over here tomorrow. Maybe that will make a difference. We’d see what’s going on with the two of them.”

  Later that evening, as she was washing dishes, Hallie heard a car stop. They were used to the sounds of cars going past on the road, but it wasn’t often that one stopped.

  “Somebody must have seen the light and wants to inquire about work. I’ll check,” Tom said.

  Hallie hoped that was who it was. From time to time, she saw single men walking through the woods. They scared her, especially if she was alone with Benny. Who knew what a stranger might do?

  “It’s Mr. Carlson,” Tom called. “Evening, sir. Come on in.”

  Thinking he might want coffee, Hallie poured water into the tea kettle. She checked the grounds in the coffeepot, trying to remember how many times they had been used. Maybe she should throw them out and put in fresh. “I can make coffee,” she said when Mr. Carlson came inside.

  “No need. It sours my stomach at night.”

  Hallie remembered he’d turned down coffee the night they met him, too.

  Mr. Carlson looked around for Benny and saw him curled up on the bed. “Hi there, Benny. I should have brought Tessie along.”

  Benny didn’t reply.

  “Well, you’ll see her in the morning. Mrs. Carlson said to tell you she’s bringing Tessie over here tomorrow. Tessie’s looking forward to seeing you.”

  “Tessie doesn’t like me,” Benny said.

  “Of course she does. You’re her best friend.”

  “No,” Benny said.

  Mr. Carlson turned to Hallie. “I stopped to tell you that Mrs. Carlson wants you to know that everything will be all right. She’s got it all figured out.”

  “What is it?” Hallie asked.

  Mr. Carlson shook his head. “She’ll tell you when she gets here.”

  “Does she know who Ragman is?”

  “As to that, I can’t say. She just told me to tell you she knows what’s wrong and that Benny will be fine.”

  After Mr. Carlson left, Hallie said, “He could have told us what happened.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t know.”

  “I bet he does,” Hallie told her brother. “He acted like it was some kind of surprise.”

  “Well, I hope for Benny’s sake it’s a nice surprise.”

  “No,” Benny told Hallie in the morning when she announced that Tessie was coming to the cabin.

  “Everything will be all right, Benny. Tessie’s your friend.”

  “No. She’s Ragman’s friend. I hate Ragman.”

  “Benny!” She’d never heard Benny use the word “hate.” In fact, Benny liked almost everybody. Who was this Ragman who had caused so much trouble? She hoped Mrs. Carlson had indeed figured it out. Benny ate breakfast and then went outside and began playing with building blocks that Tom had made for him out of scraps of wood he’d found at the filling station.

  “Do you think Tessie can count how many blocks there are?” Hallie asked. Benny had learned to count to nine, the number of the blocks.

  “No.”

  Hallie heard the sound of an engine and looked up to see the Carlsons’ car. Tessie opened the back door and jumped out. “Hi, Benny,” she said.

  Benny frowned and looked at his blocks instead of Tessie.

  “I brought my doll,” she said, but Benny turned his head away.

  Mrs. Carlson got out of the car with a brown paper sack in her arms. “I have a surprise for you, Benny,” she said.

  At the word “surprise,” Benny forgot he was angry and looked up at Mrs. Carlson. “What is it?”

  “Mama made it for you,” Tessie said. She was excited and jumped up and down with her doll in her arms.

  Benny glanced at the doll and looked away.

  “Do you want to see the surprise?” Mrs. Carlson asked.

  “Okay,” Benny said.

  Mrs. Carlson handed Benny the sack. He reached into it and took out something wrapped in tissue paper and tied with a ribbon. “A present,” he said.

  “It’s for you,” Tessie told him.

  Benny tore off the tissue and found himself holding a rag doll with bright red hair and button eyes. “Ragman!” he cried.

  “It’s yours to keep,” Mrs. Carlson said. “His name is Andy.”

  Benny stared at the doll for a moment, then grinned. “Look, Tessie. I have Ragman. My Ragman.”

  Hallie and Tom exchanged a glance, then turned to Mrs. Carlson. “Ragman?” they asked together.

  She smiled. “I tried and tried to think who Ragman was. Then as I was putting Tessie down for her nap, she asked me to hold the Raggedy Ann doll. I’d just made it for her. I gave it to her the night before Benny came for school the last time. Tessie slurred the words, and they came out ‘Rag-Ann.’ That’s when I realized Ragman was really Raggedy Ann. Tessie had played with the doll the entire time Benny was there that day. I guess she ignored him, and maybe she even told him the doll was her friend. I remembered then that they didn’t play with each other most of the day. Perhaps Tessie told Benny she wanted to play with Raggedy Ann instead of him. When I asked Tessie about it, she didn’t remember. I thought if I made a similar doll for Benny, that would solve the problem.”

  “I think it has,” Hallie said. She looked over at the two children, who were holding the dolls.

  “Hi, Ragman,” Tessie said.

  “Hi, Ragman,” Benny repeated.

  Both children burst into giggles.

  chapter ten

  Christmas

  “Santa Claus is coming,” Benny announced one day in December.

  “Who’s Santa
Claus?” Tom teased.

  Benny looked confused. “Santa Claus.”

  “I don’t think he remembers,” Hallie said. The three of them had been on the road the winter before and hadn’t had the money for presents. So they had skipped Christmas. “Who told you about Santa Claus?” Hallie asked Benny.

  “Tessie.”

  “What did she say?”

  “He brings stockings.”

  Hallie smiled. “Does he put something in stockings?” she asked.

  “Feet,” Benny answered. Hallie and Tom burst out laughing, and Benny joined them.

  Later Hallie told Tom, “Santa’s going to bring a present to Tessie. We’ll have to get something for Benny.”

  Tom looked away. With the harvest over, he no longer worked for Mr. Carlson. They were now living on what Tom made from his work at the garage. Money was tight. After they paid for food and kerosene and sometimes splurged on a moving picture show, there was little left over. The Carlsons were generous with food and things for the cabin, but the Turners couldn’t ask them for money.

  “Benny needs a new jacket,” Hallie said.

  “So do I,” Tom told her. “I left mine someplace.”

  Hallie glanced at her brother. It wasn’t like him to lose anything.

  “Maybe I can do without. I still have Daddy’s warm sweater,” Tom said.

  Hallie shook her head. The weather had already turned cold. Tom had chinked the cabin, spreading mud in the spaces between the logs to keep out the wind and cold air. They kept a fire going in the cook stove on the days they spent in the cabin. There was ice in the creek in the mornings when Tom went to fetch water. Snow threatened. “We have enough money in the purse for your jacket,” Hallie said.

  “No, Benny comes first.”

  “I’ll order Benny’s jacket from the Sears, Roebuck wish book at the mercantile on my way home from school,” she said. She’d order a jacket for Tom, too. It would be a surprise for Christmas.

  “I wish we had something else for Benny,” Hallie said.

  “There’s an old scooter behind the garage. It must have fallen off somebody’s car. I found it on the road. Nobody’s claimed it. I’ll fix it up for Benny.”

  “He can use it to chase Bob.” Hallie laughed.

  She thought about other presents. She would make a corn husk doll for Tessie. She had learned to do that in Oklahoma. She’d already decided to make an apron for Mrs. Carlson. The present that worried her most was the one for a schoolmate. The eighth-grade class had drawn names, and the students were supposed to give a present to the person whose name they had picked. Hallie had to give a gift to Mildred, one of Wilma’s friends. The teacher said they were not to spend more than five cents on the presents. Hallie didn’t have an extra five cents. Neither did many of the other students. That was why the teacher told them the best presents would be ones they made.

  “I don’t know what to give her,” Hallie told Cathy.

  “Me too,” Cathy said. “I have to give something to Dorothy, and I don’t want to spend even a penny on her.” The two girls laughed. Ever since Hallie had made the remark comparing relatives to squatters, Wilma and her cousin Dorothy had all but ignored her. Of course, Hallie had made no effort to become friends with them. She knew they would reject her. Why put myself out when they will only call me a squatter? Once the teacher had suggested that Hallie and Wilma work together on a project showing the capitals of each state. Wilma said she’d rather work with Dorothy. The other girls stuck with Wilma, too. So Cathy was Hallie’s only friend. It had been easy to make friends in Oklahoma. Hallie wondered why it had been so hard here. Maybe she didn’t try hard enough, but the other kids didn’t, either.

  Hallie liked Cathy. She lived with her parents, two brothers, and a younger sister in a sod house on her grandparents’ farm. The house was called a soddy because it was made from strips of sod or prairie grass, stacked up layer upon layer.

  Hallie had taken Benny there one Saturday morning. She had been surprised that so many people could live in a house the size of their cabin. Cathy’s mother had insisted Hallie and Benny stay for dinner. They sat on the bed, which was on one side of the table. “You can sit there and stir the soup on the stove,” Cathy’s mother had said with a laugh.

  Now Hallie and Cathy sat outside the school with their dinner sacks, talking about the Christmas presents. “I don’t want to give Dorothy anything at all, but that wouldn’t be fair,” Cathy said. “Wouldn’t it be awful if everybody else got a present but you? That would be mean. And embarrassing.”

  Hallie agreed. “I suppose we have to go to the store and buy something. I wish we hadn’t drawn names.”

  “Me too. At least you can sew. Maybe you can make Mildred a skirt or something.”

  “For five cents?” Both girls laughed.

  “Dorothy likes yellow. I could give her a yellow ribbon.”

  Hallie brightened. “I know. I have some yellow material that a lady gave me. We could make her a yellow handkerchief. She’s always carrying around a hanky. I think she’d like that. In fact, we could make handkerchiefs for both of them and embroider their names on them.” She thought a minute. “Not their names, their initials. That won’t take as long.”

  “If you donate the fabric, I’ll buy the embroidery floss. It costs a lot less than five cents. That’s a swell idea, Hallie. Those will be the best presents in the whole room.”

  A few days before Christmas, Tom, Hallie, and Benny went into the woods to chop down a Christmas tree. Mr. Carlson had given Tom permission. He told Tom, “Take any one you want. Take two. Take ten. The more the better, since I intend to plant that land one day.”

  “Which one do you want, Ben?” Tom asked.

  “That one!” Benny shouted, pointing at the tallest ever-green in the grove.

  “It’s taller than our cabin. You’ll have to choose a smaller one,” Hallie said.

  “How about that one?” Tom asked, pointing to a shorter tree.

  “Okay.”

  Tom cut down the tree. He and Hallie dragged it to the cabin, Benny marching in front of them. When they reached the cabin, they discovered that that tree also was too tall to go inside. So they went back to the pine grove. “Choose a small tree this time,” Tom told his brother.

  Benny took his time. He walked around studying each tree, pointing to several, then shaking his head each time. Finally, he put his hand on a tree that was misshapen. The trunk was bent, and one side was almost bare of branches. “There,” he said.

  “It’s a stupid tree,” Tom said.

  “Don’t say ‘stupid.’”

  “It’s ugly, then.”

  “I know,” Benny replied.

  Tom chopped down the funny little tree. He dragged it to the cabin and propped it in a corner. “I never saw a Christmas tree that looked like that,” Hallie said, stepping back and surveying the tree.

  “I like it,” Benny told her.

  That evening, they cut out stars from a newspaper Tom had brought home from the station, and Benny colored them with a crayon Tessie had given him. Hallie went outside and collected dried red berries from bushes and strung them together. She took cotton batting that had come out of an old quilt and placed it on the tree to look like snow.

  “There’s just one more thing,” she said. She told Tom and Benny to close their eyes. She went to the box where Mommy’s good quilt had been stored. She took out a small bundle wrapped in newspaper. “No peeking,” she said. The brothers closed their eyes until Hallie called, “Ready.”

  The two opened their eyes and stared at the tree. On top was a glass angel. One wing had been broken off, and the face was scratched, but it meant more to the Turners than any Christmas tree in the world. The angel had belonged to Mommy. It had been on every Christmas tree they had ever had in Oklahoma. “I knew you’d say to throw it out when we left Oklahoma, but I just couldn’t,” Hallie told Tom.

  “I’m glad you didn’t,” he said.

  Benny grin
ned at the tree. “The best Christmas tree,” he declared.

  Mrs. Carlson invited the Turners for Christmas Eve dinner, but Hallie turned down the invitation. “We want you to be our guests instead,” she said.

  “But our house is so much bigger, and we have a gas stove,” Mr. Carlson had protested.

  His wife touched his arm. “We would be pleased to accept,” she said.

  Later back at the cabin Tom asked Hallie, “Why’d you do that?”

  “They’ve been so good to us. It’s time to pay them back.”

  “With pancakes and beans?” Tom asked.

  “Mrs. Carlson said they’d come only if they could give us a chicken. I’ll fix stewed tomatoes and fried potatoes and applesauce from dried apples. And guess what’s for desert?”

  Tom shook his head.

  “Divinity. I’ve saved enough sugar, and we’ll use the black walnuts we gathered in the fall.”

  “Just like home,” Tom said.

  On Christmas Eve, the Carlsons arrived at the cabin early, since they were all going together to the service at the church and then to the school for punch and cookies. Mr. Carlson carried in a box of presents wrapped in bright paper. “You can’t open them till morning,” he said.

  “We have presents for you, too,” Tom said, pointing to two bundles wrapped in paper saved from the store and tied with string. Inside were the corn husk doll and an apron. Mr. Carlson’s present was outside—a chopping block. Tom had made it from a tree stump. It would replace the worn-down block that Mr. Carlson kept beside his chicken coop.

  Mr. Carlson handed Hallie a box of chocolates and said, “For our hostess.”

  “I made you a present,” Benny told Tessie and handed her a necklace that was a string of dried berries.

  “My favorite.” Tessie put it over her head. “We have a present for you. Mom said don’t tell it’s a sweater.”

  They all crowded around the table for Hallie’s dinner, eating quickly. When he was finished, Mr. Carlson said, “Best chicken I ever had.”