Judy's Journey

by Lois Lenski

  Tony Torresina, the foreman, lived in a farmhouse a short distance from one of the orchards. A small building, formerly used for a chicken coop, had been simply furnished, and Tony told the Drummonds to move in.

  “It’s better than the tent,” said Mama.

  “It’s got a floor and four walls and a roof,” said Judy.

  While they were unpacking, a large, fat, smiling woman bustled out of the farmhouse, with several black-haired children hanging to her skirts. Her words had a strange accent which the Drummonds had never heard before, but her tone and her actions were friendly. She helped Mama unpack and get things settled.

  “You gotta de goat, eh?” chuckled Mrs. Torresina. “Goin’ dry, eh? Well, we take good care of her. We like-a de goat and de goat’s milk, it good for bambina.”

  Mama asked about water.

  Mrs. Torresina pointed to the house. “Your kids—they take turns bringin the water, yes? Angie show you where is the pump. Angie! Angel-eena! Angel-eena!”

  A girl of Judy’s age came running out of the farmhouse. She wore a red blouse and a bright blue skirt. She had striped socks on her legs and red sneakers on her feet. Her black hair curled loosely on her shoulders. Her black eyes sparkled as she smiled.

  Judy stared. She had never seen a girl like her before.

  “Show her where is the pump, Angie,” said Mrs. Torresina. “Go pump water for her.”

  Judy picked up the water bucket and walked stiffly at the girl’s side, now and then glancing at her out of the corner of her eye. Her mind was made up. She was not going to make any more new friends. Traveling like this, when you made friends, you always had to give them up and never see them again.

  The Darnells were gone. She had loved Loretta and Jenny so much. They had given her the new shoes, the new shoes she had never worn. Their father had helped Papa get the best job he ever had, which had put a nice nest-egg into Mama’s stocking at last. But the Darnells had decided to go west into the Shenandoah Valley. When they said goodbye, they promised to meet the Drummonds in Florida next winter, but Judy knew she would never see the girls again.

  She turned to the Italian girl and asked suddenly, “Is this up north?”

  The girl was puzzled. “Oh, north, yes, up there.” She pointed straight ahead.

  “Are you a Yankee?” asked Judy.

  “Yan-kee, what’s that?” asked Angelina. “No, I’m a gypsy! Gypsy Angie they call me. You know what a gypsy is?”

  Judy shook her head.

  “I put earrings in my ears—see the holes?” She pointed to her ears and Judy stared. “I got a tambourine with bells on it, and I dance and play and sing. I wear sneakers so I can dance and climb ladders and pick apples .… You don’t know what a tambourine is? Or a gypsy?”

  Each girl seemed to be talking a strange language to the other.

  “Your Grandpa was a Yankee then,” insisted Judy. “He was a soldier and he came south and he stole all the cattle and silver and …”

  Angelina’s smile faded. “My Grampa he never steal nothing,” she said. “He live in Italy, he grow grapes on the hillside, my Mama tell me. We send-a him money to come to this country, but he die there and he can’t come.”

  “Oh …” said Judy, taken aback.

  Suddenly she remembered Patrick Joseph Timothy Mulligan, the old Irishman who had been Joe Bob’s fishing companion on the canal bank in Florida. He was born in Killarney, Ireland, and she had found it on the map.

  “If your Grandpa was born and died in Italy,” she said slowly, “then he couldn’t a been a soldier in the War Between the States.”

  “No,” said Angelina patiently. “He grew grapes and made wine. I never heard of no War Between the States.”

  “No?” For the first time Judy realized there were many people who had come to the United States after the Civil War, so they knew nothing of it.

  “Do you go to school?” asked Judy.

  “In wintertime, yes,” said Angelina. “Not now—it summer, it vacation. We have a good time, yes?”

  Judy smiled. They pumped the water and took the bucket back to the chicken coop. Then Angelina went in the house and came out with something wrapped in paper.

  “We go to the orchard, yes?” coaxed Angelina.

  The young trees were planted in straight rows and were covered with red-cheeked fruit. Angelina handed Judy an apple. She bit into it deeply. She had never tasted an apple before.

  “You like it, eh?” The girl waited, smiling.

  “Oooh yes,” said Judy. “It’s good.”

  “You never had apples before, to eat?”

  “No, but we had oranges in Florida,” said Judy, her mouth full. “They grow on trees in a grove, and you’re not supposed to pick ’em. Sometimes they drop on the ground …”

  “Just like apples in Delaware,” said Angelina. “But we say ‘orchard’ not ‘grove.’”

  “‘Orchard!’ How funny!” laughed Judy, biting close to the apple’s core. “I used to think a tree full of oranges was the most beautiful thing in the world, but now, a tree full of red apples … is beautiful too. Tell me your name again.”

  “Angelina Torresina,” said the girl. “Now eat this.” She opened the paper parcel and stuffed a fat bologna-cheese sandwich into Judy’s mouth. It was so big Judy had to hold it with two hands. Angelina ate a second sandwich herself.

  “You like it—the grub? It make-a you fat—the grub?”

  Judy nodded her head. She could not speak.

  “Angie! Angel-eena!” came a call from the distance.

  “My mother, she is calling. Come, let’s go,” said Angelina.

  They took hands and ran through the orchard. That was the first of many happy days there. Mama and Mrs. Torresina also became good friends.

  “We lived in Philadelphia,” said Mrs. Torresina. “My man, he had a good trade, he make-a de back pockets for men’s pants in a factory, but he not like it. Every spring, the padrone he come from New Jersey to get-a de pickers to work in the crops in the summer. Yes, we make-a de beeg money. We come in de truck and we work all summer in de fields and go back to de city when school begins. But we not like it. In de city, all de houses so close together, we packed like-a de sardine in de box. You no can breathe, you no can sleep for de noise, you no can see de sky. The kids—no place to play but in de street. You never live in beeg city, no?”

  “No,” said Mama.

  “So we come to de country to live,” Mrs. Torresina went on, “and my man, he get-a de job here. We like it better, where is a little fresh air to blow. We got a beeg house to live in, beeg eats and beeg money!”

  Every day the Drummond family went into the orchard with the Torresinas. Papa and Mama and Mrs. Torresina picked by the hour, wearing baskets fastened over the right shoulder and under the left arm. Judy and Angelina picked too; and even Joe Bob liked to climb the ladders, while the little children played on the ground.

  “Oooh, I’m highest!” cried Judy, looking over the top of the tree to see Angelina. They laughed and talked to each other, but when they laughed too much, Angelina scolded.

  “You want to fall and break-a your neck?” she cried. “We not laugh now, we not talk. We not say one word till we get our baskets full.”

  So for a while they picked and only looked at each other. Then the talking and laughing would begin again. Judy loved being with Angelina because there was never a dull moment.

  On the last day of the apple picking, the Torresinas brought a big picnic dinner to the orchard, and after everybody had eaten, Angelina played her tambourine and danced her gypsy dance in the shade of an apple tree. She had put her mother’s gold band earrings in her ears, and she danced and whirled to the rhythm of the music. When she dropped breathless on the grass, they all clapped. Judy thought Angelina was the most beautiful girl in the world.

  After the early apples were picked, they moved into the peach orchard. Here the trees were lower, and most of the picking could be done from the ground. On certa
in days, the women worked in the packing house, getting the peaches ready for shipment.

  One Saturday afternoon Papa took the family in to the nearest town. It was an important occasion. Judy wore her feed-sack dress and her new shoes. Sitting in the car she kept looking at them, admiring their shininess. I shall wear them all day today because they are new, she thought. But when she got out on the sidewalk, it seemed strange to walk in them.

  The town was crowded with people and cars. They had to park a long way out and walk back to the stores. Papa had money in his pocket to spend, so they all went to the dime store, which sold things for a dime and up. Mama bought new dresses for herself and for the girls, a new suit for Lonnie, and new shirts and overalls for Joe Bob and Papa. It took a long time to buy everything, and Judy’s shoes began to pinch her feet.

  “I’ll go to the car and take my shoes off,” she whispered to Mama.

  “Take the young uns out with you and wait at the corner,” said Mama, “Then we’ll go to the shoe store and git ’em sneakers. They can’t have real shoes like yours—not just yet.”

  The children waited patiently on the street corner. Lonnie and Cora Jane had colds and their noses were running. Joe Bob begged for an ice-cream cone. Judy’s shoes hurt her feet. The words of the old colored woman back in Georgia came to her: Shoes is a heavy cross to bear.

  She wiped Lonnie’s and Cora Jane’s noses on her skirt. She told Joe Bob to wait till Papa came. Then she could stand the new shoes no longer. Lawsy, my feetses hurts from walkin’ so fur. Soon as I gits home, I’s gonna take off my shoes and rest my feetses good. Judy could still hear the old woman’s voice. Wasn’t it strange how things that happened to you became a part of you … you could never forget them … I won’t wait till I git home, she decided. She sat down on the curbstone and took her shoes off.

  People who passed stared at the little group. A crowd of children began to gather in front of the movie theater. They stood in line to buy tickets, but the window was not. open yet.

  “White trash!” said one boy, pointing to the children at the curb.

  Judy paid no attention.

  “Hillbillies from Tennessee, I betcha!” cried another boy.

  Judy thought of the Holloways who had told them about work in New Jersey. Would she ever see Tessie again?

  “They haven’t any money. They can’t go to the movies like us,” said a big girl in the line.

  “Reckon we can go if we want to,” answered Judy.

  She stood up, her new shoes firmly clenched in her hand. She hadn’t felt so angry since that day in the Florida school when the Cracker children had called her and Bessie names.

  “They never wash their faces!” said the big girl.

  “They never comb their hair,” added another.

  “Look—their dresses aren’t even ironed,” said a third.

  “We’re as clean as you are,” Judy answered in a low voice.

  “Look at their dirty feet, but say, the big girl’s got new shoes!” teased the first boy. “She wears them on her hands!”

  All the children in the line laughed.

  Judy remembered her pride and joy in her new shoes. She wouldn’t let these town-kids spoil it. She wished she had apples or peaches in her hands instead of the shoes, so she could throw them. Then she saw Joe Bob advancing with his fists doubled up.

  “You let my sister alone,” yelled Joe Bob.

  Without stopping to think, Judy dropped her shoes and joined him. A fight began. Judy hit at the big girl and Joe Bob jumped on the boy and threw him. The children in the line scattered and the young woman in the glassed-in ticket office screamed, but nobody could hear her. A few people looked on, smiling. Then a policeman appeared.

  “What’s this?” he asked. “Cats and dogs fightin’, eh?”

  “They called us names,” screamed Judy, “so we beat ’em up! They think ’cause they live in a town and go to the movies … We’ll beat ’em up, we’ll …”

  “Now, now, no need o’ that,” said the policeman. He pulled out his stick. “I’m the one who does the beatin’ up. Any time you need help, just call on me.” He pulled Judy away from the girl and jerked Joe Bob to his feet.

  Frowning, Judy looked out from under her tousled hair and breathed hard. At that moment she hated the whole world.

  The children formed in line again. The door of the movie theater opened. Adults began going in. The children followed, the fighting boy and girl among them.

  It was true what they had said. Judy and her brothers and sister could not go to the movies. There wasn’t money enough. She turned around. Joe Bob sat on the curb nursing a black, swollen eye. Cora Jane and Lonnie were crying. Then Judy remembered.

  “Where are my new shoes?” she demanded.

  “I dunno …” wailed Cora Jane.

  “Stop bawling and tell me,” said Judy. “I gave them to you to hold.”

  “You never … you never …” insisted Cora Jane.

  Judy looked all over the sidewalk and gutter, but the shoes were nowhere to be seen. She sat down on the curb with a thump.

  “Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” The old saying rang through her mind. Oh if I’d a been nice to them kids, I’d a still had my shoes. But I was mean. I never stopped to think. I sassed ’em back. My hot tongue always gits me in trouble, like Madame Rosie said. I fought them kids and beat ’em up. That’s why I lost my shoes …”

  “Is something the matter?”

  Judy looked up and saw a nicely dressed girl standing beside her.

  “Where do you live?” asked the girl. “Where’s your home?”

  “Ain’t got none,” blurted out Judy.

  “Come to my house then and get washed up,” said the girl. “I saw the fight and I know you are in trouble.”

  “We’re used to trouble,” sniffed Judy. “We’re always in trouble.”

  The girl took her by the hand, and the children followed. They all walked down a side street and soon came to a pretty house set back in a yard behind a fence. There were flowers blooming beside the path.

  Judy looked. The house was very familiar—she felt as if she had seen it before. Then she remembered. It was that dream house that Madame Rosie had talked about, that always lived in the back of her mind.

  “Is this a picket fence?” she asked.

  “Yes,” said the girl. “My name is Barbara Delmar. I live here. Come in and see my house. My mother’s away, but she’ll be back soon. She gave me money to go to the show, but I’m tired of shows and I saw you and … I knew you needed a friend.”

  Judy did not know what to say. She and the children walked through the house slowly, looking at everything. It was the first time they had been inside a real house since they had left the Gibsons’. The floors had carpets, the walls had pretty wallpaper and were hung with pictures. The windows had white curtains with ruffles. The house was clean and orderly.

  Barbara took the children into a shiny bathroom to wash up. She had to turn the water on and off. They had never been in a bathroom before and did not know how.

  “Now, let’s eat some ice cream.” Barbara went to an electric icebox and dished out dishes of pink and white ice cream. The children sat down and ate silently and slowly. Then they got up to go.

  “You haven’t told me your name yet,” said Barbara.

  “Judy Drummond,” answered Judy. She told Barbara the children’s names too. “We live in a chicken coop out at …”

  “It’s not the chicken coop that’s important,” said Barbara, “but how you live in it .…”

  Judy nodded. “Papa’s got a good job now, and some day we’re goin’ to have a farm of our own.”

  “Come and see me again, Judy,” said Barbara.

  They trailed out the gate.

  Barbara’s friendliness eased the bitterness and pain in Judy’s heart. When they got back to the corner where the movie theater was, she looked again for her shoes, but they were not there. Someb
ody must have picked them up. The same policeman was busy directing traffic.

  Papa and Mama appeared. “We’ve been lookin’ high and low for you,” said Mama. “Where you been?”

  Judy told about the fight and the loss of her shoes. “Them kids was mean,” she growled. “They said mean things.”

  “People are what you think they are,” said Papa. “If you think they’re good and treat ’em right, they’ll be good and treat you right. But first, you got to be plumb good your own self.” He turned to Mama. “Buy her some sneakers.”

  The loss of the shoes she had worn only once faded away in new happiness over the unexpected sneakers. Judy could hardly wait to get back home.

  “Angie! Angel-eena!” she called. She pointed to her feet. “Red sneakers like yours!”

  “Good!” said Angelina, smiling.

  CHAPTER XIII

  New Jersey

  ONWARD, STILL GOING UP north, the old jalopy rolled along, with the two-wheeled trailer bouncing behind and Missy bleating noisily. Apples and peaches were over in Delaware and the Drummonds were headed for New Jersey. It was the last week of August.

  Through Delaware, they followed route 13 to New Castle. A short ferry ride across Delaware Bay and they were in New Jersey at last.

  “Will there be school, Papa?” asked Judy.

  “I hope so, honey,” said Papa. “But first we’ll see what crops we can find. Holloway told me to go to Cumberland County and I’d find work a-plenty.”

  “Do you reckon we’ll see Tessie and Gwyn?” asked Judy.

  “They’re in New Jersey somewhere,” said Papa, “but it’s not likely we’ll run into ’em.”

  Once again Judy had had to part with a friend—happy, carefree, good-natured Angelina. She tried not to think of her any more. She tried to remember what Tessie Holloway was like. Would she know her if she saw her again?

  “Is this up north?” demanded Joe Bob.

  “I reckon it is,” said Papa, laughing. “It’s New Jersey.”

  “But it’s not cold enough,” said Joe Bob.