Until Tomorrow, Mr. Marsworth
Page 6
Did you leave this place alone for eighteen years???
I think maybe you did, because it’s covered in dried mud, and eggs, and scribbled, mean graffiti, and someone left a misspelled “TRATOR” sprayed across your porch. We’ve filled three garbage bags with trash left on your land: empty bottles, cigarette butts, candy wrappers, a pair of moldy socks and shoes. We even found a jacket in your woods. Dare thinks the vandals come at night, because it’s all ours in the daytime, but I don’t want them coming there at all. Is there any way to stop them? Could Sheriff Cutler help? Or is it his horrible demon son who sprayed that “TRATOR?”
(Yesterday, that horrible demon Cutler stole six papers from my route. Six customers complained to the Tribune, but I won’t bother you with that.)
Is that “TRATOR” from that letter that you wrote to the Tribune? The paint looks fresh to me. The mud and eggs are cracked and faded from the sun.
ONE LAST QUESTION, Please just answer YES OR NO. (It won’t count as correspondence.)
We’d like to fix your cottage, maybe give it some fresh paint, especially that “TRATOR” on your porch. We priced the paint at Rash’s Hardware, and we also need a couple brushes, so $8.00 ought to pay for our supplies. We might not paint the whole thing, but we’ll clean up what we can. My color choice is lavender or green, but Dare wants to leave it white the way it was. You decide about the color, we know it’s not our house.
Wouldn’t you like to have it painted, Mr. Marsworth?
You don’t have to pay us for our labor, although I’d sure like some summer work besides the route. Every penny saved is a penny for Mizzou. We’ll need every penny if Financial Aid won’t help.
Your Grateful Helper,
Reenie Kelly
P.S. An ally is a helper, but you don’t like that word.
P.P.S. All the Kelly kids helped Dad paint our house in Denton, so you don’t have to worry, we’ll get the job done right!
Yes. Enclosed please find $10.00 for your effort. I will be happy to pay more. White paint should suffice.
Thank you, Mr. Marsworth!!!!!
White paint will be perfect.
See I can keep it short, the same as you.
Sincerely,
Reenie Kelly
P.S. We avenged those stolen newspapers, but I won’t tell you about that.
Tuesday, July 9, 1968
Dear Mr. Marsworth,
Just in case you’re curious, Dare doesn’t know about our letters, he only knows you left a note about your cottage in the box. Dare doesn’t ask a lot of questions, if you had Dare for a pen pal every letter would be short.
We’ve hauled water from the lake and scrubbed the caked mud from your cottage, but the egg yolks are more stubborn, because they’ve stained right through the paint. Dare thinks we can paint over those dried yolks.
The BIGGEST news today is that Billy saw your cottage, and I’m starting with the good news, because you’ll see the end is bad.
Tonight just after supper, we took Billy to the cottage so he could see this place we loved. (Actually, he drove us in Gram’s Plymouth, but the directions were all ours.) The minute we pulled into the driveway, Billy pointed at your faded sign.
“Mr. Marsworth from the paper?” he said to us, confused. “That man that wrote the letter? This property is his?”
“Don’t worry,” Dare said quickly. “We don’t really know him. He just hired us to clean it, because he’s on Reenie’s route.”
“So you know him from your route, Reen?” Billy asked in that same suspicious way he’d asked that day we read the letter that you’d written the Tribune.
“Whatever gossip you’ve heard, Billy, none of it is true.” I could see him looking at the weeds, and the graffiti on your cottage, and wondering to himself how the place had gone to ruin. “This town hates peace and anyone that stands for it, you saw that on the Fourth.”
“Shut up with the peace,” Dare said to me. “We built a cool stick fort, Billy. You want to see that first?”
“I guess Float’s set for the lake,” Billy said. Float was leaping through the water, barking for us all.
“First swim, then fort,” I said. “Race you to the water.” I yanked my shirt over my head, then tore off toward the lake. Every day I race Dare, and every day I win. Well, every day Float wins, but Dare always comes in third. He’s oversized and strong, but he’s not fast.
“Okay, okay,” Billy called, but instead of running with us, he stepped onto your front porch to peer through those two windows, exactly like we did the first day we were here. I guess every Kelly wants to see what’s left inside.
“Just ignore that ‘TRATOR,’” I yelled up from the lake. “Dare and I are going to paint it.”
Dare splashed a wall of water in my face. “Come on!” he called to Billy. “Don’t leave me here with Reen. I already have to waste every livelong day with her.”
That part hurt my feelings, but I like to write the truth. True friends tell the truth.
So here’s a second truth and I hope it doesn’t hurt your feelings, Mr. Marsworth.
Billy told us that Mr. Casey told him you refused to serve your country way back in World War I, and that folks say you went to federal prison as a traitor. And even after prison, you’re not ashamed of what you did.
Is that story really true or is it gossip? Did Mr. Casey make it up?
Did you really go to prison, Mr. Marsworth?
I’d like you to write back quickly to say the answer’s NO. I’ve never written to a prisoner, and I’m not sure I ought to now.
Billy said as long as we did work for you, they’d hate us in this town. “You two decide,” he said. “Gram isn’t going to like it, so I’d keep it to yourselves.” He said that you’re not dangerous, or bad in any way, but what you did against your country, even all those years ago, folks just can’t forgive.
“He’s like Muhammad Ali,” Dare said. “Ali used to be the greatest, but they stripped him of his title for saying he wouldn’t serve once he was called. He went from being a fighter folks admired to a coward.”
“I don’t know, Dare,” Billy disagreed. “Maybe folks you knew in Denton called Ali a coward, maybe even Dad did, and people on TV, but plenty of good people admire what he’s done.”
“But what’s that boxer got to do with Mr. Marsworth?” I asked Billy. I don’t follow boxing like Dare does, and all I really care about is why you went to federal prison, and what crime you committed that folks hold against you still.
Billy drew a circle in the dirt while he was taking time to think. “Well, for one thing, they both refused to serve, Reen. And there are people in this country who can’t forgive a man for that.”
“But you don’t want to serve,” I said. “You don’t.”
“Lots of men don’t want to serve,” Billy said. “But it’s another thing to go against your country. You go against your country, you’re a traitor to most folks.”
“Darn right,” Dare said with a salute.
Could you help me, Mr. Marsworth? Did you REALLY go against your country?
Am I a pen pal with a man who went to prison?
Waiting for Your Story,
Reenie Kelly
Wednesday, July 10, 1968
Dear Miss Kelly,
Billy is quite right, I was imprisoned during WWI for treason. It’s true, I refused to serve my country in what we called "the great war," or worse, "the war to end all wars," which sadly it did not. I was unapologetic then, as I am now.
Has that made me a pariah in Lake Liberty? Many times it has.
Will the town hold it against you if you befriend me in some way? Yes, some probably will. In good conscience, I have not sought your friendship.
Should you write letters to a former prisoner? Perhaps not.
This is all the explanation I can offer to a child.
/> I am guilty of no crime, except that of following my conscience when I took a stand for peace. Someday you will decide if you believe that right or wrong. Clearly, Billy has decided I was wrong.
As for that "boxer," young Miss Kelly: I believe Muhammad Ali to be a man of moral courage in the matter of the draft. His public fight against this war is a call for greater justice. I consider him a champion far beyond the world of boxing. I hope history will prove me to be right.
May I assume we have found reason now to rest?
Sincerely,
H. W. Marsworth
P.S. Did I not say to seek permission from your grandmother before you went down to my cottage? I am certain that I did.
Thursday, July 11, 1968
Dear Mr. Marsworth,
Is that all you can tell me about prison?
I’m a kid, but I’m not dumb. Did they treat you like a criminal? Were you with murderers and kidnappers? Did they feed you bread and water? Were you locked up in a cell like the prisoners on TV?
I looked up World War I in Billy’s Webster, and it was 1914–1918. That was fifty years ago! Should the two of us quit writing over a war that’s dead and gone?
Why do people in Lake Liberty care about this now?????
Here’s the one thing I keep thinking: If Mom knew you went to prison, she didn’t mind. Or maybe she said you were special BECAUSE you went to prison instead of fighting in a war you thought was wrong. Did Mom know you went to prison, Mr. Marsworth?
As far back as I remember, Mom always hated war, even before Vietnam or Billy and the draft. When we played war at the river, it always made Mom sad.
“It’s a terrible game,” she said, but it was fun for me.
I know now war isn’t fun. I know it from Skip’s letters, and all the letters from our pen pals, and I know it from the paper, and Time and Life and Newsweek, and the news with Walter Cronkite, and lost sons like Kyle Smith. I know real people die, and maybe you didn’t want to die way back in World War I.
If that’s why you went to prison, I don’t blame you, Mr. Marsworth.
Billy doesn’t want to die in the war, and Skip doesn’t want to either. Who ever wants to die???? I don’t want anyone to die! Not you, or Skip or Billy, or anybody else. Mom didn’t want to die. She would have stayed with us forever, if she could.
Why didn’t you go to college to stay out of that war? You seem smart enough for college. You know more million-dollar words than Mrs. Lamb. Was your family bankrupt, too?
Billy HAS to go to college.
Prison isn’t right for Billy Kelly, it’s just not. And Dad would never let his sons choose prison over war.
Please send more explanation.
Your Friend Still,
Reenie Kelly
P.S. We’re not giving up your cottage, because prison or no prison, we love that stretch of lake, and Dare and Float adore your woods, and we want to earn our money, and it’s the only place we like in this whole town. Dare doesn’t care who hates us just for giving you a hand.
P.P.S. I told Gram you let us swim down at your at your cottage, so don’t be mad about that still. She said she’d “rather” we didn’t help you, but she didn’t say we “can’t.” Until Gram says we can’t, then we still will.
P.P.P.S. If you think Ali’s a champ still, I’m sure you must be right.
Friday, July 12, 1968
Dear Mr. Marsworth,
I await your explanation.
I await it every day.
I await you and Skip and Mizzou most of all.
In the meantime, we’re about to mow the weeds, but first we need a key to that old shed.
Hardworking,
Reenie Kelly
Saturday, July 13, 1968
Dear Mr. Marsworth,
Thank you for that key and five more dollars! We both think $5 is too much for a mowed lawn. We’ll mow those weeds all summer for $5.
Are you okay there in this heat?
Why does your house always look dark?
Do you ever have the lights on, Mr. Marsworth?
Do you know the Canes on Hillcrest? 501 Hillcrest. Mr. Cane delivers milk.
This morning on my route, I saw one of their sons leaving for the Army, at least I think it was the Army, because he was dressed up like a soldier, and the whole family stood outside in their pajamas hugging him good-bye. I tried to look away while I dropped off their morning paper, because I knew if it were Billy leaving, we’d want to be alone.
First thing I did at Gram’s was rush to give a hug to Billy. I don’t usually hug him early mornings, but I couldn’t help myself today. I just had to feel my arms around his neck, and my head against his heart, and how warm he is just waking up for work.
“You okay, Pup?” Billy asked me, and that was all it took for me to cry.
“For goodness’ sake,” Gram said. “It’s 6:30 in the morning. What’s got you worked up, Reen?”
“Nothing,” I said, sobbing, because I couldn’t explain to Gram or Billy that the Cane boy leaving for the Army was enough to break my heart.
It’s hard to be eleven, Mr. Marsworth.
I wish Mom could be here.
Yours Truly,
Reenie Kelly
P.S. You can skip the explanation about prison if you want. I don’t need an explanation to stay friends. I don’t want to lose you as a friend.
Sunday, July 14, 1968
Dear Mr. Marsworth,
There’s something I didn’t tell you because I hoped you’d be surprised.
I planted those marigold seeds down at your cottage. Now you’ll have a little garden right beside your porch.
“Something beautiful and blooming might be solace for your soul.”
Do you remember when you wrote that back in June? We’ve been friends now for four weeks. I hope you’ll say you’re still my friend.
I hope you’ll come to see your flowers when they’re grown.
True Blue,
Reenie Kelly
Monday, July 15, 1968
Dear Mr. Marsworth,
You won’t believe what Rat and Cutler did this morning in the rain!
They pinned me to the wet grass and shoved worms down my shirt. Rat smashed them in my hair while Cutler dropped them on my face.
I’m not lying, Mr. Marsworth.
I’ve been in the shower twice and I still feel every slimy worm.
I just want to SCREAM and so I will.
Can you hear me, Mr. Marsworth? That’s how loud I’m screaming at Gram’s house.
Tortured,
Reenie Kelly
Tuesday, July 16, 1968
Dear Silent Mr. Marsworth,
Another empty milk box after everything I’ve said?
Tears and worms and flowers, and you won’t even write?
I don’t care about that prison, I swear to you I don’t.
I’ve decided there’s a song you have to hear: “I Am a Rock,” by Simon and Garfunkel. Do you know it, Mr. Marsworth? Did you hear it on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour?
It’s a song about a person walled off from the world, a person sort of like a shut-in behind a tall black fence, a man who wants to be rock or island so he won’t hurt anymore.
Is that you, Mr. Marsworth? Are you done with love and friendship like the sad man in this song?
You probably don’t think a kid could understand that feeling, but I can. I understood it back in fourth grade when Mom was dying, and I’d fall asleep to Billy singing that sad song on his side of our wall. All of us were islands, even Billy, because when you’re as sad as we were, you’re sad all by yourself.
The year Mom died of cancer was the same bad year I got ditched by my best friend Mack McCoy. Even with Mom dying, he ditched me out at recess to play sports with the boys. When I’d ask if I could join in, he’d say, “N
o girls allowed.” From ages four to ten, Mack and I had practically been twins. Everything we did we did together. I taught him how to read, and he taught me to play marbles, and we shot snakes down by the river, and found bottles at the dump. Maybe he didn’t want a friend whose mom had cancer (it’s not contagious, but some kids acted like it was) or maybe he’d outgrown having a girl for a best friend. (Billy said it happens.) I asked Mack a hundred times, but he wouldn’t tell me.
I was so much like an island, I’d replay that record, Billy’s record really, and I’d pretend I was a rock so all the hurt would disappear.
That’s how it was until I met Asa Carver, and I got Skip for a pen pal, and I stopped feeling so alone because I finally had two friends.
You can be my good friend, Mr. Marsworth. You can answer when I write you, and tell me if you’re sad.
You don’t have to be an island in that big house all alone.
And I don’t have to be an island in this town, if I have you.
Not an Island,
Reenie Kelly
P.S. I’m going to drop off Billy’s 45 so you can hear it for yourself. It’s a little scratched from too much wear, but it still works. I’ll drop it off at noon, but you’ll need to get it from the milk box right away or it will warp. RIGHT AWAY! Billy won’t be happy if I wreck his 45.
Tuesday, July 16, 1968
Dear Mr. Marsworth,
Here it is! Please listen to each word, so you understand it all. It’s sort of like a poem, but not a poem. Even Mrs. Lamb loves Simon and Garfunkel. “Sound of Silence” is her favorite. I bet you’d like that, too. In Vietnam, Skip says, our troops love “Homeward Bound.” That’s the same song Billy sings when he’s lonesome for Beth Harvey, and it makes me think of Denton and the whole life that we left.