Mama Hattie's Girl

by Lois Lenski

  “We’re moving back to Jersey,” said Imogene one evening. “Daddy Joe and I have talked it over and we think we can do better there. I don’t like this job I’ve had at the laundry here—checking in dry cleaning, and getting paid for the pieces I check in. It keeps me in a rush all day long and makes me so tired I can’t sleep at night. Your daddy says the foundry work’s too heavy for him. So we’re going back to Jersey.”

  “Don’t Aunt Lucy want us any more?” asked Lula Bell.

  “Sure she does,” said Imogene, “but it spoils her home life to have another family on top of her like this. She can’t do right by her own husband and children. She begs us to stay, but I know we can’t go on like this. So we’re going back to Jersey.”

  “Back to Aunty Ruth’s where the landlord put us out?” asked Lula Bell.

  “Well, no … we can’t go there,” said Imogene.

  “Back to that terrible school and those terrible kids on Mechanic Street?” demanded Lula Bell.

  “Well, no … you wouldn’t like that, I guess,” said Imogene. She paused. “But you can’t always be thinking only of yourself. There are other things more important than you.”

  “There are? What?” asked Lula Bell.

  “All kinds of things,” said Imogene. “A place to live in at a price we can afford, a job for Daddy Joe—work he can do without killing himself and get good pay; a job for me—work I can do without killing myself and get good pay. Then we’d like to be somewhere near Aunty Ruth and Uncle Theodore. We’ve got to have some friends, a little social life …”

  “I won’t go back to Mechanic Street,” said Lula Bell stormily, “and you can’t make me.”

  Imogene did not press the matter. She was too unsure of everything in her own mind. Sometimes she saw clearly the advantages of living down south and was ready to take the next bus and leave the north behind. At other times she remembered the south’s disadvantages and lack of opportunity, and was determined to win out up north. The south was in her blood, and through every meager letter written by her sister Irene, it was calling her back insistently. But the north filled her mind and strengthened her determination. The south was a lazy dream. The north was a challenge. She must stay. She must work until she got ahead and saved some money. At least she would postpone going until then.

  But what to do with Lula Bell?

  She knew that Mechanic Street and the overcrowded city school were not right for the girl. She had watched Lula Bell change rapidly for the worse under their short period of influence. She felt a genuine responsibility for her daughter for the first time, because the girl was now removed from her grandmother, who had previously and so capably assumed it.

  “I used to say it down south: ‘What’s the use of trying to bring up your child to be good, when all the other kinds are bad?’ But now I say it up north. I used to think there were enough bad kids on Hibiscus Street, but when I think what those Mechanic Street kids done to poor Lula Bell …”

  “We can’t take her back to that,” said Daddy Joe.

  “Where’ll I go then?” cried Lula Bell, bewildered.

  The uncertainty began to tell on her. Her school work grew worse and worse. She could not write, she could not think. She could not even read—the words swam before her eyes. She stayed out of school now and then. Finally she stayed out altogether.

  CHAPTER IX

  Hibiscus Street Again

  One bright sunny day in February, the long blue-and-white Greyhound bus pulled up to a slow stop in a little southern town. Down its steps came a well-dressed little colored girl. She flew into the arms of an old woman who stood waiting.

  “Oh, Mama Hattie!” cried Lula Bell. “I’m so glad to see you again.”

  The woman looked her up and down. “You ain’t forgot me, honey?”

  “No ma’m!” cried the girl. “I been thinkin’ about you every day I been away and every night too. You all well again?”

  It was a surprise to find Mama Hattie up and around, and to see her at the bus station. Lula Bell had thought of her as still sick in bed, the way they had left her so many months ago.

  Then she saw Aunty Irene and Uncle Vern, and behind them, Dora, Dean, Diane and Debby. Lula Bell kissed her aunt and hugged her, then they all walked to the car, parked near by.

  “What you think o’ this purty car, Lu-Bell?” asked Uncle Vern.

  “It’s new,” said Lula Bell. “I never saw it before. Whose is it?”

  “Mine,” said Uncle Vern proudly. “Git in, you-all.”

  “How nice we got a car,” said Lula Bell.

  Uncle Vern helped Mama Hattie into the front seat, and she took little Debby on her lap. Aunty Irene and the other children took Lula Bell in the back seat with them.

  “Look what purty shoes Lula Bell’s got!” said Dean.

  “Look what a purty dress she’s wearin’,” said Dora, “and what a purty coat she’s got.”

  “Look what a purty hat she got on her head,” said Diane.

  “Where’d you git all them purty clothes?” asked Dora.

  “My mother and daddy bought them for me up north,” said Lula Bell.

  “What’s that card a-hangin’ round your neck?” asked Dean, laughing. “I bet it’s a dog-tag, ain’t it?”

  “‘I-den-ti-fi-ca-tion tag,’” said Lula Bell. “It’s got my name and Mama Hattie’s address wrote on it, so if I get lost …”

  Mama Hattie turned her head quickly and looked back. “You got a tongue in your head, ain’t you, chile?”

  “Yes ma’m, but Imogene was worried …”

  “She better be, sendin’ a young un like you off alone on such a long trip,” said Aunty Irene. “I wouldn’t sleep a wink if one o my kids went off on a bus alone. I’d be worried sick.”

  “Was it fun on the bus, Lula Bell?” asked Dora.

  “It was fun at first,” said Lula Bell, “but at night it was lonesome. There was a nice lady sat by me and she let me put my head on her shoulder till I went to sleep.”

  Already the long trip alone down from the north, was fading away before the vividness of the familiar scenes before her. Uncle Vern’s car went around two corners and entered Hibiscus Street—beloved Hibiscus Street with its Turk’s-cap hedges and its shady moss-hung oaks. Lula Bell’s heart beat fast to see it again. She was so happy she clapped her hands.

  “There’s Miss Lena’s store! There’s Miss Annie Sue’s house. Down there’s where Floradell lives. There’s Mr. Andy’s Chicken Shack, but what’s that? Why—what’s happened to the chineyberry tree?”

  The great huge tree-trunk lay sprawling on the ground.

  “It blew down in the hurricane,” said Mama Hattie quietly.

  “What hurricane?” asked Lula Bell. “I never heard about it.”

  “Guess we forgot to write,” said Aunty Irene. “It was last fall, after you went away.”

  Lula Bell looked across the street. There was Mama Hattie’s house—her old home, the haven she had dreamed about up north. She stared at it as if she had never seen it before. It had changed, it looked different. Could this be the same place? There must be a mistake. The house was not beautiful as she had carried it in her memory. It looked smaller now, shabby and neglected. It had never had a coat of paint, and its grayness looked mournful. The porch was propped up at one end, a pane of glass in the front window was broken. But something else was wrong too.

  The house had lost the feeling of friendliness and intimacy. It looked bare—exposed to public view, as if its secrets were known to all the world. She looked again. Then she knew what it was—the plum tree was gone. The tree that had always been so graceful when covered with white blossoms in the spring, so rich and proud when laden with dark purple fruit in the heat of summer, was gone.

  “Where’s Mama Hattie’s plum tree?” Lula Bell cried out. “What you done to it?”

  “Lonnie chopped it down after it died,” they said.

  That’s all they said. That’s all they cared. All the drama
of the poisoning of the plum tree surged back into Lula Bell’s mind. How could she ever have forgotten it?

  Uncle Vern turned the corner. A group of little children were playing ball in the street. He sounded his horn. They scattered, all but one little boy who nearly got run over.

  “Watch out for that car!” screamed a woman’s voice. “Git on the sidewalk! Don’t play on the street!”

  “That was Shadow Pearson,” said Dean. “He don’t never look which way he’s goin’.”

  Uncle Vern pulled up at the side curb and Lula Bell got out. Mama Hattie went straight into the house. Lonnie came up with the big hedge shears in his hands and said hello. He had been trimming Mama Hattie’s hedge. Eddie came round the house with an empty wheelbarrow to gather up the Turk’s-cap branches. “Hi, Lu-Bell,” called Eddie.

  Lula Bell smiled. She felt as if she had never been away.

  Aunty Irene and the children did not get out. “Why don’t you-all come in?” asked Lula Bell.

  “Got to be goin’ on home,” said Uncle Vern.

  “Home?” cried Lula Bell. “Don’t you live here with Mama Hattie now? Ain’t you takin’ care of her like Imogene told you to?”

  “No, we ain’t,” said Aunty Irene.

  “When did you move back cross-town?” asked Lula Bell.

  “Just after you-all went up north,” said Aunty Irene. “Imogene went away, so she wasn’t boss no more. Mama Hattie said she could manage her own affairs. She told us to git out, so we did. We comes to visit her now and then, and on Sunday evenin’, we takes her for a nice ride in our new car.”

  “So it’s you-all’s car!” cried Lula Bell, disappointed.

  “Yes, Lu-Bell.” Uncle Vern pushed the starter, Aunty Irene and the children waved good-by, and the car moved down the street.

  The little children had stopped playing ball. They came over and picked up green Turk’s-cap branches off Eddie’s wheelbarrow and began playing with them. They stuck them in their belts and made green skirts of them. They stuck green leaves in their hair and in their buttonholes. They went dancing up the street, singing and waving green branches in the air. Lula Bell stood watching them. She had never seen anything like that up north.

  Then who should appear but Geneva, Floradell and Josephine—her three best friends. They took Lula Bell by the arms and led her away. They looked her up and down.

  “You’re jest the same ole Lula Bell, ain’t you?” they said. “We thought you might be different when you come back.”

  “Of course I’m still the same,” said Lula Bell. “Why should I change?”

  “Tell us the truth,” they begged. “Is it nice up north?”

  Lula Bell hung her head. She did not know what to say.

  “It was so wonderful, she jest can’t tell us about it,” said Josephine to the others.

  “Did you see snow, Lula Bell?” asked Geneva.

  “Sure,” said Lula Bell. “One winter day it snowed and snowed and kept on snowing for twenty days and nights and it covered my Uncle Nat’s house up—clear to the upstairs windows.”

  The girls gasped.

  “Was it plumb cold?” asked Geneva.

  “My Uncle Nat froze his toes and my cousin Luther froze his nose, and I stayed inside by the fire,” said Lula Bell. “Nobody couldn’t make me go outside to go to school on cold days like that.”

  The girls listened in astonishment. Lula Bell was surprised that they did not guess she was stringing them along. But she had to make a good story while she was about it. It would never do to tell them that all she did was to throw a few snowballs. They expected more than that.

  “Lemme go take off my good clothes and put on my blue jeans,” she said. Already Lula Bell was stepping back into the old habits.

  “Gee! Your hat shore is purty!” said Geneva.

  “And your dress and coat to match,” said Floradell.

  “And your beautiful shoes,” said Josephine.

  Warmed by the love and admiration of her old friends, Lula Bell ran back to the house. She wanted to go into her old room, unpack her suitcase quickly and put on her old clothes. She had left her old patched jeans hanging on a hook in the corner, she remembered. She would put them on, then come out and play with the girls. It was so good to see them again.

  She hurried up to the porch. But what was her surprise to see strangers sitting there. She saw an old man, a woman and a little girl sitting in three of Mama Hattie’s chairs. The girl held a life-size baby doll in her arms. At first Lula Bell thought they were neighbors, but she looked more closely and knew she had never seen them before.

  She did not speak to them, and they did not speak to her. They stared at her with ice-cold stares. She walked past in silence.

  “Mama Hattie,” she cried, opening the screen and going in. “Who them strange people out there on the porch? Where’d they come from? What they doin’ here?”

  Mama Hattie shoved her into the kitchen and quickly closed the door. “Hush up! Hush up your noisy mouth!” she scolded. “Them’s my boarders.”

  “Boarders! What you got boarders for? Why did you get rid of Aunty Irene?” demanded Lula Bell.

  “I couldn’t have her to live with me, like Imogene planned it,” said Mama Hattie. “I couldn’t stand her noisy young uns around. I sent her back home a-packin’. I done tole her I could look out for myself.”

  “Where’d they come from?” Lula Bell pointed out to the porch.

  “That’s ole Uncle Jim Waters and his niece, Vennie Bradley,” said Mama Hattie. “The little girl’s name is Myrtle. Uncle Jim was a neighbor o’ mine when I was young, way back in South Carolina. Miss Vennie married a man named Bradley from Chicago. They all come for a visit about Christmas time, and they ain’t never gone away. They likes it here.”

  “Does they pay rent?” asked Lula Bell in a business-like voice.

  “Yes, baby,” said Mama Hattie. “Miss Vennie buys all her own food, so I don’t have to feed ’em. Uncle Jim works for his vittles. We gits along jest fine.”

  Lula Bell’s happiness in getting home again began to fade. It wasn’t home—with three strangers in it.

  “Guess I better be changin’ my clothes,” she said.

  “I want you to be nice to little Myrtle,” said Mama Hattie. “She was born up north—in Chicago, I think—but, pore child, she can’t help that. The kids on Hibiscus Street have been mean to her. She’s been waitin’ for you to come. She’s been countin’ the days till you git here.”

  “That little brat?” cried Lula Bell. “Why, she still plays with dolls!”

  Lula Bell started to open the door into her old bedroom, the one she and Imogene had slept in since she was a baby.

  “Don’t go in there!” cried Mama Hattie. “That’s the Bradleys’ room. Miss Vennie and Myrtle sleeps in there. They likes the door kept shut so it can be private.”

  “But I left my old patched pants in there, hangin’ up on a nail!” cried Lula Bell.

  “They ain’t there no more,” said Mama Hattie. “I used ’em for a scrubbin’ mop.”

  Then she went on, “I put old Uncle Jim in the boys’ room. Lonnie and Eddie complains that he snores and keeps them awake, but I can’t help that. I told them they’d snore too, when they git to be Uncle Jim’s age. He’s goin’ on 86—makes me feel real young and spry again.”

  Lula Bell stood still. “Then where …”

  “I put a little cot in my room for you. I borrowed it from Sister Lena,” said Mama Hattie. “It’s purty crowded, but there warn’t no other place. I can’t take you in my bed with me, you kick so much. I thought you warn’t never comin’ back. I thought you was goin’ to stay up north with your mama and daddy—you liked it so much.”

  “I liked it! Who tole you that?” cried Lula Bell.

  “That’s what Imogene said in her letters,” Mama Hattie replied.

  “That’s all she knew about it, then,” said Lula Bell. “I hated every inch of it. I hated every minute I was up there.�
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  “Imogene wrote you got First Prize for somethin’ at your school,” said Mama Hattie, “so I thought you was doin’ well.”

  “What if I did? I can’t help it if I got a few brains, can I?”

  Mama Hattie looked at her granddaughter. “You sound hard and sharp like Imogene,” she said slowly.

  “Imogene’s my mother and I been livin’ with her, ain’t I?” Lula Bell snapped back.

  “You don’t sound like Mama Hattie’s little girl no more,” said the old woman sadly.

  “I’m not anybody’s little girl any more,” said Lula Bell angrily. “I’m a big girl now.”

  “You’re plumb wore out, baby,” said Mama Hattie, sinking down on a chair. “You musta missed a lot of sleep on that big ole bus last night.”

  “I slep’ good all night long,” insisted Lula Bell. “And please don’t call me baby any more.”

  “After you change your clothes,” said Mama Hattie softly, “why don’t you lay down and take a little nap girl?”

  “I’m not sleepy!” retorted Lula Bell.

  Back in the corner behind Mama Hattie’s double bed, a small iron cot had been wedged. Lula Bell stared at the crowded room. It was worse than at Aunty Ruth’s, worse than at Aunt Lucy’s. Such a homecoming! She wished she had stayed up north. She opened her suitcase and dumped the contents out on the floor. She picked up a new pair of blue jeans that Daddy Joe had bought for her before she got on the bus. She slipped into them and her new striped shirt, then fastened her new cowboy belt with its silver buckle around her waist. She flew outdoors, across the porch and down the steps into the street. She did not even glance at the girl called Myrtle on the porch.

  Geneva, Floradell and Josephine were waiting. The four girls put their heads together and giggled and whispered. Now and then they looked up, back over the green hedge, to the porch where Myrtle was sitting. Then the four of them roared with laughter.

  Supper was a strange meal that night.

  “Where’s my milk?” asked Miss Vennie. “I had a quart bottle settin’ right here on this shelf, half full, and now it’s plumb empty.”