The Long Secret

by Louise Fitzhugh

  Beth Ellen felt she should make up in politeness what Harriet was losing in rudeness, so she said sweetly, “Where do you live?”

  “Why, goodness gracious,” said Jessie Mae, cool as a cucumber, “y’all ought to know, seeing as how you been looking in the window.” She picked up a comic book from the curb next to her and fanned herself.

  Beth Ellen turned red and looked at Harriet for help. Harriet yawned. She had decided to bide her time to see what attitude Jessie Mae took on the subject. Jessie Mae looked at the yawn.

  “Ain’t that right, fatty?” she said cheerfully and poked Harriet with the rolled-up comic book.

  “I’m NOT FAT!” said Harriet loudly.

  Jessie Mae let out a high giggle and looked at Beth Ellen, who laughed outright.

  “Stop that!” said Harriet to Beth Ellen, who was so shocked she stopped immediately.

  “You the captain and she the lieutenant?” said Jessie Mae, beside herself with giggles.

  Beth Ellen started to laugh again too, and they both looked at Harriet and laughed even harder.

  “Well!” said Harriet, but she could think of nothing else, so she sat down abruptly. She decided to brazen it out.

  “How’s the watermelon business?” she said lightly.

  Jessie Mae fanned herself busily. “Why, my goodness, we just pulling in the money. Right now we doing the work here, but later on we gonna move to the city and there’ll be lots of people working for us and we’ll have lots of money.” Jessie Mae fanned herself a lot and looked proud. “The Lord willing,” she added. “I got to get back, s’matter of fact, soon as my bike’s done. We got a lot of work today because all the melons arrived.”

  “I know,” said Harriet.

  “You been over there again?” Jessie Mae looked at her in surprise. “Shoot, girl, why don’t y’all come on home with me? I’ll show you all you want to see. Y’all don’t have to sneak around like that.”

  Harriet’s eyes opened wide. Beth Ellen said politely, “Thank you so much.”

  “Nothing to it,” said Jessie Mae, fanning. “Mama’ll be glad for some company. I seen you two around a lot. I did wonder why I didn’t see you in Sunday school.”

  “SUNDAY SCHOOL?” Harriet’s voice came out in a croak.

  “I go to Sunday school in New York,” said Beth Ellen hastily, “but in the summer, I just go to church with my grandmother.”

  “Oh?” said Jessie Mae with interest. “What church?”

  “Episcopal.”

  “I go the Methodist,” said Jessie Mae.

  “You never told me that, Beth Ellen,” shouted Harriet. “You don’t go to Sunday school. What are you saying?”

  “I do so,” said Beth Ellen.

  “Well, I don’t,” said Harriet. “What’s it like?”

  “It’s interesting,” said Jessie Mae. “You ought to come sometime with me. You’d like it. You mean to tell me”—Jessie Mae’s voice went up a register—“that you don’t go to church or Sunday school? You have Bible school in the city?”

  “BIBLE?” screeched Harriet.

  “Yes. You know, study the Book and all that?”

  “No.” Harriet narrowed her eyes. “Why?” she said seductively.

  “Well, I wondered. I am particularly interested, seeing as how I plans to be a preacher and all.” She looked intently back at Harriet.

  “You DOES … I mean, you DO?”

  “Well, what’s the matter with that, Harriet?” Beth Ellen spoke up. “If she wants to be a preacher, let her be a preacher.”

  “There ain’t a whole lot she can do about it,” said Jessie Mae and grinned.

  “I am going to be a wife!” said Beth Ellen.

  “Oh, Beth Ellen, please,” said Harriet in disgust.

  Jessie Mae laughed. “Why, I think that’s just lovely. What’s wrong with being a wife? What you gonna be, fatty, an astronaut?”

  “Now, that’s going TOO FAR!” yelled Harriet.

  Beth Ellen began to like Jessie Mae. With her tinkling voice she seemed to be able to say the most devastating things to Harriet, the kind of things that Beth Ellen only thought of later, on her way home, when it was too late.

  “I plans to be a wife too. What’s wrong with that?” Jessie Mae looked at Harriet with an amused glint in her eyes as though she were ready to let loose a cascade of giggles.

  “NOTHING!” Harriet began to splutter. “But you can’t just lie around being a wife…. That’s all she wants to do”—she pointed at Beth Ellen—“just lie around all day doing nothing but being a wife. All I mean is you ought to do something too; like my friend Janie is going to be a scientist and my friend Sport is going to be a ball player and I’m going to be a writer and you’re going to be a preacher.” Harriet thought herself inordinately clever for inserting the last.

  Beth Ellen felt suddenly depressed. She wanted to get away from them. She stood up and started to walk toward the station.

  “Where you going?” Harriet called after her.

  “Where do you think I’m going, Harriet?” yelled Beth Ellen with great irritation and disappeared inside. Having gotten the key from the man, she came out again and disappeared around the building.

  Harriet and Jessie Mae sat in silence for a while. Jessie Mae fanned herself.

  She turned suddenly and looked at Harriet. “If I may say so, you do speak sharply to your friend.”

  “She’s MY friend,” said Harriet, appalled.

  “Well…” said Jessie Mae, looking away and fanning rapidly, “I do feel that, like the Good Book says, we should honor our father and mother, but I, personally, think we should honor our friends too.”

  Harriet was stunned into silence. They sat a little longer this way, the only noise being the swish-swish of Jessie Mae’s fan. Harriet was thinking rapidly. She finally said to Jessie Mae, “How does one go about being a preacher?”

  “Well,” said Jessie Mae, “it’s not all that easy, specially for a woman, but I’m studying on how with a man I know.”

  “Who’s that?” said Harriet.

  “A man live right over there named The Preacher. I goes to his place and we has long talks. He knows a lot of things.”

  “You mean that old Negro man that lives out in the woods?” Harriet was amazed. The Preacher was a familiar sight in Water Mill.

  “He knows a whole lot of things,” said Jessie Mae, fanning furiously.

  “What things?” Harriet was now completely fascinated.

  “Oh, he knows the Book backwards and forwards. Every year he reads it over again, starting at Genesis and going right on through.” Jessie Mae was very impressed. Harriet wasn’t.

  “Doesn’t he have anything else to read? Why doesn’t he go to the library?”

  “Why, he don’t have to! Don’t you know that?” Jessie Mae asked in a syrupy voice. “Everything is in the Good Book. You just have to find it. When you read it as much as he do, well, he done found just about everything there is to find.”

  “Do you read it?” asked Harriet slyly.

  “Oh, yes,” said Jessie Mae, “every night and every morning.”

  “You talk funny,” said Harriet abruptly. She didn’t mean to be mean. It had just suddenly occurred to her and so she said it.

  “So do you, Yankee girl,” sang out Jessie Mae, completely unperturbed.

  Beth Ellen had been walking over to them and now she sat down again.

  “I was just about to do that very thing,” said Jessie Mae, and getting up, she went in and got the key and disappeared around the building.

  “Listen, Beth Ellen,” said Harriet wildly, grabbing Beth Ellen’s arm as soon as Jessie Mae was out of earshot, “we’ve got her!”

  “Who?” said Beth Ellen.

  “It’s her!” said Harriet, bubbling with laughter. “Now I’m sure of it.” When she saw Beth Ellen looking blank, she said, “The note leaver! It’s her. She reads the Bible all the time. She’s learning how to be a preacher from that man called The Preache
r, and he does nothing but read the Bible!” Harriet was triumphant.

  “Maybe it’s him, then,” said Beth Ellen.

  Harriet looked at her in a stunned way. She slapped her forehead with her hand, said, “I never thought of that!” and looked at Beth Ellen with admiration.

  “Our bikes are ready,” Beth Ellen said coolly and got up, leaving Harriet staring at her. She walked toward the station. Harriet M. Welsch doesn’t know everything in the world, she thought as she walked along. Jessie Mae had come back and was paying for her bike. Harriet ran up.

  The man wheeled Harriet’s bike out. “I don’t have any money. You have to charge it,” said Harriet importantly.

  Beth Ellen rolled her bike over. Jessie Mae was leaning down, examining her bike minutely. She looked into the basket in the front. “Why, looky here!” she said in a high voice. “What’s this?”

  Harriet and Beth Ellen looked over her shoulder. In the bottom of the basket lay a piece of paper.

  HE THAT IS WITHOUT SIN AMONG YOU

  LET HIM FIRST CAST A STONE AT YOU

  “Why, how in the sam hill did that get in there?” said Jessie Mae in a terribly high voice.

  Hmmmmmm, thought Harriet, could she have put that in her own bike so she wouldn’t be suspected?

  The garage man looked too. “Those things are all over the place. I got two of them already. Nobody knows who’s doing it. I hear everybody in Water Mill has gone to the police about it, and they can’t find out anything either. It’s pretty funny. We never had anything like this before in Water Mill.”

  “What did the police do?” asked Harriet, watching Jessie Mae’s face carefully.

  “What can they do?” asked the garage man and shrugged. “It’s not really breaking any law. It’s just annoying to people, kind of a nuisance.” He twitched a little. “They kinda hit home too, some of these things.”

  “Could I see the ones you got?” asked Harriet, feeling very important and rather Sherlock Holmes.

  He laughed. “Well, sure, if you want to. I don’t know if they’re still around. You can if they’re here.” He went inside.

  “Well, I don’t understand. This here is about a fancy woman.”

  “A what?” said Harriet.

  “A whore,” said Beth Ellen.

  Harriet turned on Jessie Mae, her voice dripping with suspicion. “How do you know that?”

  “Why, anybody knows that,” said Jessie Mae. “Anybody goes to Sunday school, that is.” And she looked at Beth Ellen and laughed. She and Beth Ellen laughed together as though they shared a secret. Harriet looked offended.

  “But it could just mean some people are being mean to you,” said Beth Ellen to Jessie Mae.

  “That’s a fact,” said Jessie Mae.

  “Hhrumph,” said Harriet, too grumpy to speak.

  The garage man came out with two pieces of paper in his hand and gave them to Harriet. “Give ’em back, though,” he said. “Police might want ’em sometime.” He went to wait on a customer.

  Harriet shifted through them, with Jessie Mae and Beth Ellen looking over her shoulder:

  NOW BARABBAS WAS A ROBBER

  was the first one. Then:

  WHATSOEVER A MAN SOWETH,

  THAT SHALL HE ALSO REAP

  “I get the feeling,” said Harriet, “that this garage man cheats you.”

  “My heavens,” said Jessie Mae, “whoever wrote those sure does know his Bible, mmmm, mmmmm.”

  She could, thought Harriet, be patting herself on the back.

  “Listen, Jessie Mae,” said Harriet in a whisper, “you want to help us catch this note leaver?” I’m very crafty, thought Harriet. If she’s the note leaver, she’ll say No.

  “Well!” said Jessie Mae, laughing. “I don’t know but what he’s doing a whole lot of good in the world. Don’t hurt people none to get a touch of the Bible!”

  Harriet narrowed her eyes. The garage man came over. “Funny, aren’t they? You’d think I was a crook the way they sound. That’s what everybody is going to the police about. These things make you sound terrible.”

  Harriet was looking at him so slitty-eyed she could hardly see. She handed the notes back. “Perhaps he won’t be around long,” she said pointedly. The garage man looked a little startled but didn’t answer.

  “Let’s go on to my house, all right?” Jessie Mae cried gaily as she jumped on her bike.

  “Sure,” said Beth Ellen and got on hers.

  Jessie Mae started off and Beth Ellen followed, then Harriet pumping along like a hound dog on the scent.

  hey hardly spoke on the way to the Jenkinses’ house. Jessie Mae rode very fast, and Harriet tried to keep up.

  Beth Ellen was too filled with dark thoughts to want to talk. Riding her bike in the cool air made her forget the garage and think only of the scene with her grandmother. She began to turn over and over in her mind the phrase, I will not think about it. I will not think about the word Mother. As they pulled up in front of the house she thought: Mother—whatever that is.

  They rode right into the driveway this time. Harriet said, “Hurry up, Beth Ellen. I can’t wait,” and streaked after Jessie Mae. Beth Ellen hurried. Hurrying after Harriet made her feel curiously liberated, as though she could be a child and it was all right. Harriet always gave her this feeling. It was one of the few things she really liked about Harriet, as a matter of fact, because the principal feeling she felt when with Harriet was one of being continually jarred.

  At the end of the driveway they scorched to a stop in front of a curious scene. Through the corridor formed by an immense pile of watermelons lining both sides of the driveway they could see into the open garage at the end. Mama Jenkins, taking up the space of three witches, her face a glowing red ball, sweat dripping down all over her black dress, stood stirring an enormous boiling vat which stood on a base over a raging fire. In this was an erupting concoction from which issued a pungent but not altogether unpleasant, yet too harsh, smell which smashed into their faces with every gust of smoke from the pot. There was an old tennis shoe smell, then a sweet smell as of a fresh orange, then just a touch of something that could have been creosote. Each time the smoke came in their direction they had to hold their noses and not breathe until it veered away again.

  Mama Jenkins was, inexplicably, shouting. It was hard to know why, because she was all alone, unless perhaps it was just part of her routine when she stirred the pot.

  “Hail, hail there, come on with the business, get it made, get it boiled, get it bottled, get it shipped, get the loot, for the glory of the Lord God in the highest. Hey there, come on outchere with those watermelonssssss.” Then she saw them. “Hello there, little helpers. Bless your soul, Jessie Mae, you brought some help. I can’t get those two to do nothing!” Then she shouted toward the house again: “Hey there, hey there, hey there, more and more and more. Norman, come a-running. Magnolia, come a-running; get yourself here; get yourself outchere….” Then suddenly the rhythm broke and Mama Jenkins, with both feet planted a mile apart, really yelled, “OUTCHERE RIGHT THIS RED HOT MINUTE!”

  The back door burst open and like two helpful dwarfs Norman and Magnolia catapulted through the door and shot toward the garage. As Jessie Mae was putting her bike away they started to work furiously. Without saying a word they each picked up a watermelon, which was not easy for either one of them but for Magnolia was an insoluble problem. She got it up to somewhere near her knees, and it just stayed there while she hung on for dear life and looked around helplessly. Norman picked his up with only a short pig-noise of effort, wobbled to the vat, and with one heave threw it in. Mama Jenkins stepped back artfully so as not to be covered by the wave of goo which shot straight up and splashed down again.

  “Keep ’em coming, keep ’em coming, keep ’em coming,” she yelled like a carnival barker. Jessie Mae grabbed one now and pushed it in, her face red with the strain and her thin arms roped with thin muscles. “We gonna get rich, we gonna get richer, we gonna get richest!” Mam
a Jenkins sang as she hopped around, avoiding Jessie Mae’s splash. Norman ran to Magnolia, who was still standing glued to the floor, her eyes bulging. He picked up her watermelon and threw it in the pot. Magnolia fell over.

  As she watched Mama Jenkins hopping around, Beth Ellen was reminded of a delicate hippo she had once seen at the zoo. The hippo had stepped daintily out of her bath of sludge, and putting her head back, had seemed to laugh and call out some witticism to her mate. At the time Beth Ellen had thought it sweet, had wondered what it would be like to be a hippo and be married to a hippo. At least one wouldn’t be lonely. Mama Jenkins’s singing now filled her with the same feeling. It must be nice to be Jessie Mae and live here.

  “I got to work now, y’all, I’m sorry. I see you tomorrow,” said Jessie Mae, suddenly remembering them.

  “Let them come on and work too,” said Mama Jenkins jovially. “Won’t do them no harm and might do some good.”

  “But they my friends, Mama! They come for a visit. They shouldn’t have to work!” Jessie Mae stood aghast, holding a watermelon and looking at Mama Jenkins as though she might burst into tears.

  “Well, that’s true,” said Mama Jenkins cheerfully. “Y’all come back one day before we start to work, and I’ll give you a lemonade and some homemade cookies.” She smiled a beautiful hippo smile, and Harriet and Beth Ellen smiled back without even being aware of it.

  “I’ll see y’all, hear?” said Jessie Mae and waved.

  They said, “Okay,” and wheeled their bikes down the driveway.

  When they got to the road they looked back. It was impossible to tell from the front of the house what an extraordinary scene was taking place in the back. Only an occasional sour wisp of smoke gave any indication. Harriet began to get on her bike.

  “Maybe we should have helped,” said Beth Ellen.

  “What?” said Harriet. “Imagine picking up all those things. We might break our backs, or our toes, or heaven knows what all you could break….”

  Harriet looked so outraged that Beth Ellen began to laugh.