The Search for Belle Prater

by White, Ruth

  “I don’t know what scares me most—finding him and him telling me to go away, or not finding him at all.”

  I was proud that he now felt comfortable enough to confide in us.

  “What are you going to do if he’s not there?” Woodrow asked.

  Joseph shrugged and tried to be nonchalant. “Oh, I don’t know. I’ll prob’ly strike out for California to find Ethan.”

  Nobody said what they thought of that plan.

  “I know,” Joseph said after a few moments. His shoulders slumped. “It’s stupid.”

  “Have you thought of calling your daddy?” Woodrow said.

  “Yeah, I tried to get his number from Information,” Joseph said. “But they didn’t have it. Maybe he’s got no phone.”

  “Or maybe he’s not here anymore,” Cassie said.

  “Yeah, thanks, Cassie,” Joseph said glumly.

  “Sorry,” Cassie mumbled.

  We soon found ourselves in the midst of a congested business district for the next several blocks, and a lot of people were in the streets.

  The first place we stopped was at a movie theater. The Country Girl, with Grace Kelly, was playing. We showed the ticket seller Aunt Belle’s picture and asked if she had seen this lady. No luck. Next we went to a department store, then a grocery store, a drugstore, a couple of cafés, a post office, a bank, and more stores, but the only thing we learned was that most people couldn’t care less. Some of them were rude to Joseph, and he started waiting outside for us when we went into a place. We felt bad about that, so Cassie and I took turns waiting with him.

  Then came the freezing rain, so that we were not only cold but wet on top of it. You can’t get more uncomfortable than that, and being in a strange town somehow made it worse. Tomorrow, I thought, with a feeling I imagined to be homesickness, I can spend the whole day curled up on the couch in front of the fireplace, reading Nancy Drew, with Mama and Porter close by.

  My eyes fell on Joseph’s thirteen-year-old face, which was old with worry. If he didn’t find his daddy, what would he be doing tomorrow? Where would he go? He had no family near, and no one he could call for help.

  If a white boy was in a strange town in Joseph’s predicament, he could go to the police and they would help him. But a black boy? Well, they were liable to throw him in the jailhouse, or something worse.

  “I didn’t know how hard it would be,” Woodrow admitted sadly, as we were taking shelter under an overhanging storefront. “And I didn’t count on this weather.”

  “Let’s go directly to Appalachian Street,” I suggested. I started to add, “Then we can return to the bus station,” but decided against it.

  “Okay,” Woodrow agreed. “Maybe the rain will let up and we can do some more searching later.”

  I was thinking how nice it would be if we were invited inside at the Appalachian Street address to warm up and dry out. We left our shelter, with Cassie leading the way and Joseph beside her on the sidewalk. Woodrow and I followed.

  “Don’t you think it’s strange,” Woodrow said to me, “that we should run into a boy who is also looking for one of his parents today, just like I am?”

  “I guess so.”

  “I think it’s a sign. Don’t you think it’s funny how that old man kept talking about signs?”

  “It was hilarious,” I said.

  “No, I don’t mean funny ha-ha. I mean odd.”

  “And how’s that?”

  “He kept saying, ‘Read the signs!’”

  “He was repetitious all right.”

  In front of us Cassie and Joseph stopped at a corner. Uh-oh, another sign. This one read Appalachian Street. Joseph seemed nailed to the sidewalk, but Cassie forged ahead, searching house numbers.

  “Here it is!” she called from a few houses down. “One-eleven. And it says Lincoln on the mailbox.”

  9

  It was a small green house with white shutters. There was a wide wooden porch, and the front door was in the center with a window on each side. You could see the glow of a lamp through lace curtains.

  “Go on,” Woodrow encouraged Joseph. “If anything goes wrong, well … we’ll be waiting ri’ cheer.”

  Joseph crossed the patch of yard to the front steps. When he glanced over his shoulder, we could not read his face. Then he abruptly made a U-turn and came back to where we stood.

  “I’m scared,” he said. “What if he don’t want to see me? What if he’s mean?”

  “Why don’t we all go to the door and ask for directions?” I said. “We can say we are lost and we have to find our way to the bus station.”

  “That’s good,” Woodrow agreed.

  “So we get directions, then what?” Cassie said.

  “We say how cold we are,” Woodrow said.

  “And maybe somebody will invite us in to get warm?” I said hopefully.

  “Maybe so,” Joseph said. “Then what?”

  But nobody had an answer for him.

  “Joseph, you do the talking,” Woodrow said. “Whoever answers the door may be suspicious of English walnuts.”

  We all followed Joseph across the yard and up the steps. As we reached the door, it opened. A very tiny gray-headed black woman, dressed in a neat blue housedress, peeped around the door. Not one of us had ever seen a midget before, not face-to-face anyhow, but there she was.

  “What’n the world can I do for you?” she chirped in a nasal and childlike voice.

  Joseph could do nothing but stare at the little woman. He was tongue-tied. It was plain he was going to be worthless in this project, and much to my surprise, Woodrow was not faring any better.

  “We’re lost,” I spoke up. “Maybe you can help us out?”

  The woman’s eyes flitted from Joseph to me, back to Joseph, then to me again before she spoke. “Like the old song goes, ‘I once was lost, but now I’m found.’ What’re you looking for?”

  “I’m so-ooo cold!” Cassie suddenly blurted out, as she wrapped her arms around herself. “It’s freezing’ out here.”

  The wee lady looked at her and Woodrow then, paused for only a moment, and without a word stood aside and held the door open for us. Cassie, Woodrow, and I had to squeeze past Joseph to get in, for he was still in a state of shock and had not moved. Only when he was left standing there alone did he come to his senses.

  “Much obliged,” he mumbled, and entered the house behind us.

  Just like the woman, the room was tiny but very warm and inviting. At one glance my eyes took in the lace curtains, a cozy overstuffed sofa and armchair to match, bookcases lining one wall, and best of all, a fireplace roaring with flames.

  “This feels good,” Cassie said, rubbing her hands together before the blaze.

  Woodrow, Joseph, and I joined her.

  The woman closed the door and stood against it. I figured she did not know what to make of us, but the feeling was mutual.

  “This is real nice of you,” I said. “We’re awful cold.”

  Her eyes rested on me, but she still said nothing. I realized that with my shoes and pants splashed with mud, and my hair dripping into my eyes, I was just one of the gang. Joseph, in his fine Scottish coat, was the one who might be considered overdressed now.

  Cassie introduced herself.

  “And I am Miz Lincoln, as my students used to say. I’m a retired teacher.”

  She emphasized the word Miz. That’s what all kids called their teachers. And there was that name Lincoln. Joseph’s expression was unreadable, but he could not take his eyes off her.

  Woodrow and I said our names, then everybody turned to Joseph.

  “Jo … Joseph,” he said.

  “No last name?” Miz Lincoln said.

  “Just Joseph,” he repeated softly.

  Miz Lincoln studied his face curiously.

  “How’s about some hot tea?” she said to him.

  “Oh yes, ma’am, we’d like that,” Joseph answered.

  “Then y’all sit down, and I’ll start the water to
boil.”

  With those words, she left the room.

  “Wow, a real honest-to-God midget!” Woodrow whispered.

  “Yeah,” I said, and turned to Joseph. “Who do you reckon she is?”

  Joseph just shook his head and looked into the fire.

  Miz Lincoln reentered the room, carrying a tray that held a creamer, a sugar bowl, a dish of sliced lemons, cups, and spoons. Shortly we were all settled on a rug before the fire, sipping our tea. Our coats were in a pile by the hearth, except for Joseph’s. He had insisted on keeping his on.

  Miz Lincoln was sitting on the sofa, her small slippered feet dangling, her arms crossed over her chest, quietly observing us.

  “Uh … ’scuse me,” Woodrow said politely, “but something’s the matter with my tea.”

  We all looked into Woodrow’s cup, and sure enough it looked funny. There were clouds floating in it.

  “Did you put lemon in it?” Miz Lincoln asked him.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And did you put milk in it, too?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, there you have it. You’ve clabbered the milk. Lemon and milk don’t mix, my boy.”

  “Oh” was all Woodrow said as Miz Lincoln took his cup. You could tell he felt embarrassed.

  “One of life’s small lessons for you,” she said kindly. “It’s a thing everybody’s gotta learn sooner or later. Isn’t it nice to get it over with?”

  She took Woodrow’s cup into the kitchen, returned with a clean one, and poured a fresh cup of tea for him. He added only milk this time.

  Miz Lincoln turned to Joseph. “I’ve been looking at that god-awful coat,” she said. “Where did you buy it?”

  I’ll have to say that startled us all good and proper. I thought I saw some temper in Joseph’s eyes, but he answered polite enough, “My daddy bought me this coat.”

  “Well, I might look like a clown, but I’m no dummy,” she said bluntly. “And that’s the ugliest coat ever made. Your daddy’s got no taste. Who might he be anyhow?”

  Joseph was completely dumbfounded.

  “And where’d you get this team of yours?” she went on, making a sweeping gesture toward me, Woodrow, and Cassie.

  “I … I m-met up with them on the way here,” Joseph stammered. “They were f-friendly to me.”

  “Where are y’all from?”

  “I’m from Asheville, North Carolina,” Joseph said.

  “And we’re from Coal Station,” Woodrow said.

  But Miz Lincoln seemed not to hear Woodrow.

  “I am your Aunt Carlotta, your father’s sister,” she said to Joseph.

  “My father’s what?”

  At that Miz Lincoln busted out laughing.

  “Didn’t anybody ever tell you there was a midget in the family?”

  Joseph shook his head slowly.

  “I’m adopted,” she explained. “I’m a good bit older than Reeve, and I practically raised him by myself.”

  “Reeve?” Joseph repeated the name.

  “Yeah, Reeve Lincoln, your old man. I think your mother called him Line. Most folks do.”

  “That’s right,” Joseph said. “Where’s he at anyhow?”

  “I wish I knew, honeybunch. I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of that scoundrel for almost two years.”

  10

  Miz Lincoln motioned Joseph to come over and sit by her on the couch, which he did, and she commenced telling her and Reeve’s story.

  “I was born to normal-sized parents with pea-sized brains. They took one look at my ‘deformity’ and yelled for somebody to come and take this monstrosity away. They didn’t have sense enough to realize that a deformity, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. You may not know it, but there are many like me born every year to all races of people. Most people call us midgets or dwarfs, but we prefer to be called Little People.

  “Your Grandma and Grandpa Lincoln didn’t have children of their own at that time, and they wanted me, Joseph. They really wanted me!”

  Miz Lincoln had a big beaming smile on her face when she said that.

  “It was probably the luckiest break I ever got. They loved me, and took care of me, and treated me like I was as big as anybody. Why, they made me feel like I was five feet tall—ha! That’s a joke.”

  We all laughed to be polite.

  “Did you ever see Little People in the public schools?” Miz Lincoln asked us. “No, you didn’t. There was no such thing, then or now. So I was educated at home, and it was no inferior education, either. My mama knew what she was doing.

  “Then when I was fifteen, my little brother, Reeve, was born. He was really something. We just about loved him to pieces.

  “When I was seventeen, I went away to a special college where there were others like me, and I studied to become a teacher, but I don’t know what for. After I graduated, the regular schools wouldn’t hire me. So I moved home and just bided my time, hanging around the house for a few months. And then, out of the clear blue sky, both of my adopted parents got killed in a car wreck. It was the worst time of my whole life, but for Reeve’s sake, I had to pull myself together and go on. Somehow I had to support the two of us.

  “Since no other school wanted me, I got me a job teaching circus children. Circuses and carnivals have always been a sanctuary for misfits like me who might be considered freaks. Some of my students were actually performers, but a lot of them were the sons and daughters of the barkers, animal trainers, high-wire walkers, flying trapeze artists, jugglers, and of course the clowns, who were mostly Little People like me. I had finally found a place where I could feel I belonged. They saw nothing odd about me. Reeve and I traveled all over the country with them for years. And we had the time of our lives.

  “But sometime during that period with the circus, Reeve took up gambling—or, I should say, it took him. When he turned eighteen, he left me and he left the circus and struck out hitchhiking to wherever the road would lead him. He has been a wanderer and a gambler ever since. I never knew where he was from one day to the next, except for those years he was married to your mother.”

  “A wanderer? A gambler?” Joseph echoed.

  “I’m afraid so. He’s plain addicted to gambling. Try as he will to quit, he can’t seem to do it. To him it’s like smoking cigarettes, and I think he’s tried every trick known to give it up, but he’s failed.

  “When he met your mama, he fell head over heels in love. She had a way about her that settled him, calmed him, and kept him by the home fires. It was the incentive he needed to quit, and he did—for a while, anyway. Then he started gambling again.

  “At this point things got ugly. His addiction made him steal food from y’all and take clothes off your backs. When he lost the house … well, that’s when he hit the road again. He was doing you a favor.”

  “What house?”

  “Your mother never told you?”

  “No. She never talked about him at all. She said we should consider him dead.”

  “I can understand that,” Miz Lincoln said sadly. “But I wonder why she never told you about me. I always liked your mama, Joseph.”

  Joseph had no answer for her.

  “Anyway,” she went on, “when you were just a baby, your mother and father owned a house together in Asheville, and he gambled it away.”

  “No foolin’?” Joseph said. “A whole house?”

  “A whole house,” Miz Lincoln said, and shook her head slowly, as if she still couldn’t believe it. “When he left you, he wandered around some more, gambled some more. Then two years ago he figured he had hit rock bottom and couldn’t sink any lower. He longed to be clean again. So right in the midst of this big old horse race, he took to praying.

  “‘Lord,’ he said, ‘if you let me win this last bet, I will never gamble again, and the only thing I will try to win from now on is respect.’

  “Reeve told me later that it was against all odds, all logic, all reason that his horse would win that race, b
ut it did. And he took it as a sign from God.”

  Woodrow nudged me and whispered, “Read the signs.”

  “Your father was as good as his word, Joseph,” Miz Lincoln continued. “He quit gambling for the second time. By then I had retired from the circus, bought this house for my golden years, and settled down. He came here and asked could he stay with me while he was trying to pull his life together. Natur’ly I couldn’t turn him down. Never could. Besides, I was happy to have him.

  “He got himself an honest job doing construction work. And with some of the money from that last bet, your father bought a watch for Ethan, and that fine coat for you, Joseph.”

  Here Miz Lincoln grinned and poked Joseph in the chest with her index finger. “I was joshin’ you about that coat, lad. I was the one who picked it out.”

  Joseph broke into a big grin his own self, and I was glad to see it. I figured right then he was going to be all right.

  “Yeah, I took one look at that coat,” Miz Lincoln continued, “and I says to myself, says I, ‘That’s it! That’s a fine coat for my nephew Joseph.’ And I mailed it and the watch to y’all at Christmas, along with the letter.”

  Joseph’s head shot up. “What letter?”

  “There was a letter to you and Ethan from your daddy in that package. If your mama didn’t give it to you, well, I can’t fault her for that, either.”

  “What did the letter say?”

  “He asked your forgiveness and asked if he could come and see you.”

  “But he never got an answer, did he?” Joseph said.

  “No,” Miz Lincoln said sadly. “And it was just as well. He couldn’t stay clean. Gambling is a powerful addiction. He didn’t last six months.”

  “So when I came to your door,” Joseph said, “did you know me by the coat?”

  “Yes, I did. The minute I saw that coat, I said a silent prayer, ‘Thank you, God, for bringing this boy to me.’ How did you get here?”

  “Came on a bus,” Joseph said.

  “Did you run away from home?”

  “Not really,” Joseph said.

  “Then your mother knows where you are?”