The Search for Belle Prater

by White, Ruth

  “Yeah!” I said, trying to support Woodrow. “It’s enough to make you wanna throw your hands up and say to heck with him!”

  “Right!” Woodrow agreed. “That’s what I want to do. He was never really good to me and Mama anyhow.”

  At those words my mama, Granny, and Grandpa stiffened and stared at Woodrow with stricken faces.

  “He didn’t act like he loved her,” Woodrow continued. “When he drank liquor, he neglected her—and me too.”

  “How did he neglect y’all?” Grandpa said softly as he eased down on a chair.

  “He didn’t do things for us that a daddy should do. He just thought about his own self.”

  “Did you have enough to eat?” Mama said in a whisper.

  “Most of the time, but—”

  Woodrow stopped short, seeming suddenly selfconscious with all eyes on him. During his months with us he had talked sparingly about what kind of life he and Aunt Belle had lived. And I don’t think he meant to say all of that.

  “Anyway, that’s my revelation,” he said with a shrug, and abruptly turned to me. “What’s yours, Gypsy?”

  Before I could answer, Irene squealed, “The ball is about to drop!” Then she made three quick steps across the floor and turned the volume up on the TV

  “Five … four … three … two … one!”

  “Happy New Year!”

  A great cheer went up from the people in Times Square, and also from us. Dottie and DeeDee began blowing their noisemakers, and Dawg jumped around and barked. At the same time I heard a ringing sound. I didn’t realize right then that it was the telephone. For the next few moments I was busy hugging everybody and yelling, “Happy New Year!”

  Then I became aware of Porter trying to shush us because he couldn’t hear what was being said on the phone. We all got quiet and Mama turned the TV down again.

  “Hello! Hello! Who’s there?”

  Porter waited for a moment, then said, “Hello, this is the Ball residence.”

  Porter clutched the receiver tight against his ear.

  “Who’s calling, please?”

  Then he listened some more.

  Woodrow had gone over to stand beside Porter. As he rested the phone back in its cradle, Porter looked down at Woodrow.

  “It was her, wadn’t it?” Woodrow whispered.

  Her who?

  “I don’t know, son,” Porter said. “I heard only breathing, then whoever it was hung up.”

  “I know it was her,” Woodrow said calmly. “The phone rang right on the stroke of midnight. That’s the moment I was born thirteen years ago. It was her way of wishing me a happy birthday.”

  The room was so quiet then that you could hear the sound of fireworks from the direction of Main Street. Could it really have been Aunt Belle calling Woodrow at that special moment they had always shared?

  “How would she know you are here?” Granny said.

  “She knew you would take me in. She knows. I’m sure of it.”

  “Call the operator!” Mama said. “Find out where the call came from.”

  “Good idea,” Porter said, and did as Mama suggested.

  In a few moments he was giving the necessary information to the operator.

  Then he said, “Thank you,” and hung up.

  He turned to look at all of our expectant faces. His own face was sober.

  “It came from a pay phone in Bluefield,” he said.

  Bluefield was a medium-sized town sixty miles east of us right on the Virginia/ West Virginia state line.

  “Then that’s where she is,” Woodrow said.

  3

  Woodrow wanted us to go look for his mama right then and there, but the grown-ups said it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

  “Believe me,” Grandpa said, “if I thought there was any hope of finding her, we’d go.”

  But Woodrow and I couldn’t let it be. A few days later the two of us were walking home from school, discussing the seemingly remote possibility of going to Bluefield on the bus by ourselves to look for Aunt Belle.

  “But, Gypsy, your mama will never let you go,” Woodrow said.

  “Right! And I know Grandpa and Granny will jump at the chance to let you go without a grown-up,” I said sarcastically.

  “No,” he admitted, “but I think my chances with them are better than yours are with Aunt Love.”

  “What about Porter?” I asked. “He’s the only one of the four who doesn’t think we still need a babysitter.”

  “That’s it!” Woodrow said. “We should go to Porter first.”

  Half an hour later we were walking into my stepfather’s office at the Mountain Echo building down on Main Street. His work space was just a cubbyhole really, partitioned off with a glass wall from the rest of the large press room. Through the glass we could see that Porter was busy on the phone, but he motioned us to come in and sit down across from his desk.

  Porter was jotting down notes on a pad. It was obvious he was taking a story from somebody over the phone, which could take a while, so I looked around at the pictures displayed on his wall. There was one of Main Street in 1933; another of the championship Coal Station High School football team in 1949; and of course, Porter and Doc Dot’s father, who started the newspaper in 1925. On Porter’s desk was a gold-framed portrait of Mama, looking as beautiful as a movie star, and beside it, to my surprise, was a picture of me. The last time I was in this office, it had not been there, and I was pleased to see it.

  I always did like the atmosphere of the newspaper office. It hummed busily, and I could smell the printer’s ink on fresh news pages rolling off the press. Maybe I could get a job here when I was older.

  “All right,” Porter was saying to the person on the phone. “See what you can find out about the school board meeting. Talk to you later.”

  He hung up the phone, stuck his pencil behind one ear, and looked at me and Woodrow. “To what do I owe the honor of this rare visit?”

  “Nothing special,” Woodrow said. “Just wanted to see you, that’s all.”

  Porter laughed. “Try again, Woodrow. What are y’all up to now?”

  Woodrow grinned. “Yeah, you’re right.”

  Then he told Porter what we were up to.

  “Woodrow wants to look for his mama,” I said after Woodrow’s explanation, “and I want to help him. But you know how my mama is. She acts like I’m still in diapers, and Granny and Grandpa are not much better.”

  “Yeah,” Woodrow added.

  Porter listened, then he looked at us as he played around with a paper clip. You could tell he was thinking.

  “So what do you want me to do?” he said at last. “I don’t usually interfere when it comes to your upbringing.”

  “A little interference never hurt anybody,” Woodrow said.

  Porter laughed again, and said, “It’s funny you should bring this up now. I was just thinking a while ago about Belle’s New Year’s Revelation when she was your age. She actually managed to change certain attitudes of those around her. Don’t you think that’s quite a feat for a thirteen-year-old?”

  Soon it was quitting time at the paper, and we found ourselves walking home with Porter. The three of us had developed a plan.

  That evening we had dinner at Granny’s table, as we often did during a school week. Mama, who was the speech and drama teacher at the high school, appreciated the break from cooking, and Granny loved to feed people.

  For the greater part of the meal we held our routine high-volume conversations. We talked about the Christmas Tower and the new RCA Victor television set Mama had picked out for us at the furniture store. It was only a floor model. Our actual set had to be ordered from Bristol and would probably arrive next week.

  Woodrow and I were asked about school, and how we were doing in Mr. Yates’s math class, where both of us had made less than satisfactory marks last grading period. They asked about little Cassie Caulborne, and if she was fitting in at school all right.

&
nbsp; When Mama started a funny story about something that happened in one of her classes, Woodrow glanced at his new watch, which had been a Christmas present, then caught Porter’s eye.

  As soon as Mama finished speaking, Porter spoke up. “By the way, we got so excited about that phone call on New Year’s Eve, we never did get to make our New Year’s Revelations.”

  “That’s right,” Mama said. “Do you have something you want to get off your chest?”

  “No, I’m fine. I thought maybe somebody else might have a bone to pick, and didn’t get a chance that night.”

  “I said my bit,” Woodrow said. “What about you, Granny? Or Grandpa?”

  They shook their heads no.

  “Aunt Love?” Woodrow said.

  “Not this year,” Love said.

  “Well, I guess we’re a happy bunch, then,” Porter said. “No problems in this family.”

  That was my cue.

  “That’s right, never mind asking me anything,” I said. “After all, I’m only the baby.”

  Mama, Granny, and Grandpa all stopped eating and looked at me.

  “I’m sorry, Gypsy” was Porter’s next line. “I just assumed …”

  “Assumed what? That the baby can’t possibly have any complaints?”

  They all went silent, waiting and watching me expectantly. I pushed peas around on my plate.

  “That’s how I get treated around here,” I said.

  Mama had such a funny expression on her face, I almost laughed.

  “Well, go on,” she said. “Now’s your chance. Tell it all.”

  “I have done only one really naughty thing in my whole life, and that was to chop all my hair off,” I said. “Yet y’all act like I can’t be trusted … or something.”

  I paused, and Mama said, “It’s true, honey. You have always been well behaved.”

  “Then why am I treated like a baby?”

  “For example?” Mama said.

  “For one thing, you still pick out my clothes for me when we go shopping. For another, when I go to see Doc Dot you won’t even let me go into his office by myself. And … and …”

  I forgot what else I was supposed to say, so I cut to the chase.

  “And the worst part is that I am never allowed to go anywhere without you or Porter or Granny or Grandpa.”

  “Where do you want to go?” Mama said.

  I hadn’t expected to answer this question so soon. I looked to Porter for help, but it was Woodrow who bailed me out.

  “I have noticed that myself,” he said. “For one thing, y’all won’t let me and Gypsy go to the show at night by ourselves, when the movie theater is just right down there on Main Street, no more than a five-minute walk.”

  Mama’s and Granny’s eyes met.

  “You think the dark’s gonna swallow us up between there and here?” he went on.

  “Well …” Mama said.

  “We can always reconsider,” Granny spoke up.

  “Mama, do you realize I have never been outside of Coal Station without you?” I said.

  Mama was silent.

  “You know, if I join the high school band next year like you want me to, I will be going to all kinds of places without you.”

  “Does that worry you, Gypsy?”

  “No, that does not worry me! But I think it worries you, and you need to turn me loose now, so I can get a bit of practice in walking out into the world by myself.”

  Porter had contributed those words. I thought they sounded rather eloquent.

  “Is that all?” Mama said.

  “No, I had planned to say more, but I can’t think of the rest right now,” I said.

  “So you have been thinking about this for some time?” Mama said.

  “Yeah.”

  “You have given me food for thought,” she admitted. “And I thank you for speaking your mind.”

  The remainder of the meal was eaten in near silence, as we let Mama digest my revelation.

  4

  That’s how it happened that, after much discussion, Mama, Granny, and Grandpa reluctantly agreed to allow me and Woodrow to go to Bluefield, West Virginia, on the bus by ourselves. It was Porter who finally convinced them that he would like to know what was wrong with two nearly grown youngsters going a mere sixty miles on a bus by themselves. Could they answer him that, for Pete’s sake? He, for one, was sick and tired of hearing about it. Belle Prater, after all, was Woodrow’s mother, and he thought if the boy wanted to go and look for her, no matter how unlikely it was that he would find her, then he should be allowed to do it.

  “But how is he going to do that?” Granny wanted to know. “Woodrow knows nothing about Bluefield.”

  “So what? It’s not that big a place,” Porter said.

  And finally we had won. We were granted permission to go and ask around down there, and show Aunt Belle’s picture, but we had to promise to watch the time so we would not miss the evening bus home.

  We had learned from our recess conversations with Cassie Caulborne that her daddy drove the Bluefield bus route, and that on nonschool days she rode shotgun for him. She was clearly surprised the following Saturday morning when Woodrow and I climbed onto the bus. In fact, she seemed a bit flustered, probably because this was a whole different part of her life from school and she found it odd to mix these two worlds. She introduced us to her daddy, and told us we could call him Pap like everybody else did. She said she helped him by collecting the money and talking to the passengers, which was a thing she was pretty good at and he was not. In fact, she had told us that Pap was no talker at all and did it only when he had to.

  On that day the bus was half full of coal miners’ wives with their weary eyes and chapped hands; hillbillies in overalls, with their roll-your-own cigarettes stuck into their hatbands; and an assortment of other folks, all heading out of Coal Station for various reasons, on the Black and White Transit. Some of them were regulars. They greeted Cassie by name and addressed her daddy as Pap just like she did.

  Woodrow and I were so excited we could barely wait for the bus to leave the depot, but Pap seemed to be in no big hurry. He had started the engine and turned on the heat. Now he let the bus idle as he waited for lastminute passengers.

  I removed my new navy coat, which had been a Christmas gift from Mama, and placed it carefully in the wire rack that ran the length of the bus. Underneath, I was wearing a bright pink sweater and wool pants that had a streak of that same color of pink running through the gray. I tossed my head and ran my fingers through my blond hair to fluff it up some.

  Settling into the front seat by the door with Woodrow, I felt my face burn when he whispered to me that I looked like a pink flamingo among pigeons. I guess he meant it as a compliment, but that day I didn’t want to be a pink flamingo! I just wanted to be a pigeon.

  Cassie was on the seat across the aisle from us, behind Pap, and I stole a look at her clothes. She was wearing an old pair of brown corduroy slacks and a tan sweater with fuzzies all over the front, like it had been washed too many times.

  Why hadn’t I had the sense to wear jeans? Woodrow had his on. Why hadn’t he reminded me that this was not a fashion show we were going to? I was so used to trying to please Mama that I didn’t even think for myself. I just automatically reached for the most stylish thing in my closet.

  Finally the bus left the depot and lurched up Main Street to the one stoplight, which was green, and we headed out Route 460 as it curled through the mountains following the river.

  Cassie announced to the passengers, “First stop is Lucky Ridge! We’ll be loadin’ and unloadin’ folks, and we’ll be there for maybe fifteen minutes; so if nature calls, you can go, or if you want some nickel food, they got pop and stuff in Joe’s Grocery.”

  An old toothless man in the seat behind us tapped Woodrow on the head and said, “You young’uns got business in Bluefield today?”

  “Just going to look around,” Woodrow said, glancing back at the man. “I never been there befor
e.”

  The man cackled. “You ain’t missed nothing. You coming home on the evening bus?”

  “Yeah,” Woodrow said.

  “Well, you be careful you don’t get lost while you’re looking around. Take my advice and read the street signs. I’d shore hate for you to miss the bus home. Bluefield ain’t like Coal Station with just one street to it. There’s maybe ten or ’leven streets in Bluefield, and they all look alike to me.”

  Woodrow nodded politely and turned his face frontward, but the man didn’t let up. He tapped Woodrow’s head again.

  “I’m going to see my sister, Tulip,” the man went on. “She’s been living in Bluefield since 1942, and I go to see her about once’t or twice’t a year. But it took me a long time to learn how to git to her house and back to the bus station. I finally figgered out I orta read the street signs. So you make sure to read the signs.”

  That’s when I got tickled. I couldn’t help it.

  Cassie, in an effort to peel the toothless man off Woodrow’s back, suddenly yelled from across the aisle, “Woodrow! Have you ever heard of Lady Jane Grey?”

  I happened to know that Lady Jane Grey was one of the queens of England centuries ago.

  “Na … aww,” Woodrow said slowly, shaking his head from side to side. “Don’t think so. She live around here?”

  Cassie and I both laughed at that one.

  “Lady Jane Grey was a sixteen-year-old girl a long, long time ago,” Cassie said, “who was on the throne of England for only nine days. That’s why she was called the Nine-Day Queen. I have read four books about her.”

  “’Zat so?” Woodrow said. “Well, history’s not my best subject. In fact, I’ve been in trouble more than once over a history lesson.”

  “How’s that?” Cassie said.

  “Well,” said Woodrow, “one day my teacher, Miz Mclntosh, said I was being a smart aleck, but I was just trying to answer her question. She asked the class where was the Declaration of Independence signed, see? And I said at the bottom, I reckon, and—”

  Cassie hooted. “You did not!”

  “Yeah, I did,” he said innocently. “Wadn’t that a good answer?”