by Karen Hesse
To Jean Feiwel
And in this yard stenogs, bundle boys, scrubwomen, sit on the tombstones, and walk on the grass of graves, speaking of war and weather, of babies, wages and love.
from “Trinity Peace”
by Carl Sandburg
The Characters…
Percelle Johnson,
town constable (aged 66)
Fitzgerald Flitt,
doctor (aged 60)
Leanora Sutter (aged 12)
Sara Chickering,
farmer (aged 42)
Harvey Pettibone, shop owner,
husband of Viola (aged mid-50s)
Merlin Van Tornhout (aged 18)
Johnny Reeves,
clergyman (aged 36)
Viola Pettibone,
shop owner (aged mid-50s)
Esther Hirsh (aged 6)
Iris Weaver, restaurant owner
and rum runner (aged 30)
Reynard Alexander,
newspaper editor (aged 48)
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Act One
Leanora Sutter
Merlin Van Tornhout
Esther Hirsh
Leanora Sutter
Percelle Johnson
Esther Hirsh
Leanora Sutter
Sara Chickering
Leanora Sutter
Johnny Reeves
Leanora Sutter
Johnny Reeves
Esther Hirsh
Percelle Johnson
Iris Weaver
Johnny Reeves
Fitzgerald Flitt
Sara Chickering
Harvey and Viola Pettibone
Reynard Alexander
Leanora Sutter
Iris Weaver
Harvey and Viola Pettibone
Sara Chickering
Johnny Reeves
Act Two
Leanora Sutter
Esther Hirsh
Percelle Johnson
Merlin Van Tornhout
Sara Chickering
Leanora Sutter
Esther Hirsh
Harvey and Viola Pettibone
Sara Chickering
Iris Weaver
Leanora Sutter
Merlin Van Tornhout
Iris Weaver
Merlin Van Tornhout
Harvey and Viola Pettibone
Johnny Reeves
Merlin Van Tornhout
Leanora Sutter
Reynard Alexander
Esther Hirsh
Iris Weaver
Sara Chickering
Esther Hirsh
Sara Chickering
Act Three
Esther Hirsh
Percelle Johnson
Sara Chickering
Johnny Reeves
Reynard Alexander
Johnny Reeves
Leanora Sutter
Sara Chickering
Esther Hirsh
Reynard Alexander
Merlin Van Tornhout
Esther Hirsh
Fitzgerald Flitt
Reynard Alexander
Viola Pettibone
Percelle Johnson
Fitzgerald Flitt
Reynard Alexander
Esther Hirsh
Merlin Van Tornhout
Reynard Alexander
Johnny Reeves
Iris Weaver
Sara Chickering
Harvey and Viola Pettibone
Merlin Van Tornhout
Percelle Johnson
Esther Hirsh
Act Four
Leanora Sutter
Percelle Johnson
Harvey and Viola Pettibone
Reynard Alexander
Sara Chickering
Esther Hirsh
Johnny Reeves
Reynard Alexander
Sara Chickering
Esther Hirsh
Sara Chickering
Harvey Pettibone
Harvey Pettibone
Harvey and Viola Pettibone
Merlin Van Tornhout
Johnny Reeves
Esther Hirsh
Fitzgerald Flitt
Harvey Pettibone
Merlin Van Tornhout
Sara Chickering
Esther Hirsh
Percelle Johnson
Reynard Alexander
Leanora Sutter
Percelle Johnson
Harvey and Viola Pettibone
Act Five
Leanora Sutter
Johnny Reeves
Esther Hirsh
Fitzgerald Flitt
Percelle Johnson
Viola Pettibone
Reynard Alexander
Iris Weaver
Reynard Alexander
Leanora Sutter
Esther Hirsh
Fitzgerald Flitt
Esther Hirsh
Iris Weaver
Reynard Alexander
Leanora Sutter
Fitzgerald Flitt
Merlin Van Tornhout
Reynard Alexander
Merlin Van Tornhout
Leanora Sutter
Merlin Van Tornhout
Fitzgerald Flitt
Johnny Reeves
Esther Hirsh
Harvey and Viola Pettibone
Merlin Van Tornhout
Leanora Sutter
About the Author
Copyright
i don’t know how miss harvey
talked me into dancing in the fountain of youth.
i don’t know how she knew i danced at all.
unless once, a long time ago, my mamma told her so.
but she did talk me into dancing.
i leaped and swept my way through the fountain of youth
separated on the stage from all those limb-tight white girls.
the ones who wouldn’t dance with a negro,
they went home in a huff that first day,
but some came back.
they told miss harvey they’d dance,
but they wouldn’t
touch any brown skin girl.
only the little girl from new york,
esther,
that funny talking kid,
only esther didn’t mind about me being colored.
i pushed the window up in school
to get the stink of leanora sutter out of the classroom
where miss harvey brought her to show off
a dance from last week’s
recital.
mr. caldwell
chuffed his arms,
faked a shiver,
ramped the sash back down
saying the day was too cold to leave a window open.
leanora sutter
turned and stared through me
that witchy girl
with those fuming eyes
she meant to put a curse on me.
she meant to.
i left school right then.
no amount of air will get the smell of her
out of my nose,
the soot of her out of my eyes.
i did first meet sara chickering
when i had comings here last year
to be a fresh air girl in vermont.
vermont is a nice place.
they have wiggle fish.
that is what i did tell daddy in new york
when i had comings back to him.
i did ask daddy
to have our livings in vermont with sara chickering
for keeps.
but daddy did say no.
so i made a long walk all by myself.
i did follow the train tracks and
pretty quick daddy did have comings after me.
sara chickering made two rooms
to be for us
in her big farmhouse
with her dog jerry.
we have sitting every night at the round table, next to the hot stove.
and i do catch the wiggle fish through
a hole sara chickering does make in the ice.
daddy gives helps when
sara chickering has needs for extra big hands.
but daddy is a shoe man. he has shoe knowings.
my friend sara chickering, she has knowings of all things else.
in school willie pettibone handed me an article
torn from the town paper.
it said:
any person to whom an evening of hearty laughter is poison had better keep away from the community club minstrel show friday evening at the town hall. all others will be admitted for a night of fun brought to you by 22 genuine black-faced “coons.”
felt like skidding on ice as i read,
felt like twisting steel.
why can’t folks just leave me alone?
daddy says:
how alone you want to be, leanora?
you’re already nothing but a wild brown island.
roads were bad.
don’t blame me.
it’s not my fault.
these roads are nothing but hog wallow during a thaw.
folks ought to know that.
wright sutter should have thought
before bringing his wife and child along to town with him.
that wasn’t my fault,
his horse and wagon miring down,
stuck in the mud.
i wasn’t even on duty.
not my fault he couldn’t get help.
no one too energetic about helping a colored man hereabouts,
even if he is a neighbor.
sutter, making deliveries, left his womenfolk in the wagon too long.
wife took a chill,
waiting. she put her wrap around the little girl,
leanora.
sick all year, sutter’s wife was. doc flitt said
she ought to go away to a sanatorium to get her health back.
wright sutter didn’t have money for that.
even if there was a sanatorium for colored folk.
the sutter woman died this past spring.
don’t blame me.
the roads were bad.
the preacher man
johnny reeves
did have sittings on the riverbank
where i do make the leaves and
twigs float by in the ice green water.
even with my hat down over my ears i did hear him cry,
neighbor,
oh neighbor.
so i made my way to see what he did want.
johnny reeves did stand when he had seeings of me
and a girl did stand up in the brown tangle bank beside him and run away
and johnny reeves did yell
and make fist shakings at me
and i did yell
and make fist shakings back
and we did have a good game of yellings and shakings
until sara chickering did call me
and i had runnings back to the house
to gather the warm chicken eggs
from the steamy straw nests.
they made me mad.
willie pettibone and some of the other boys, they said things
about me and daddy.
i shouldn’t let them get to me but
i’m flint quick these days.
willie said:
at the klan meeting last night
the dragons talked about lighting you
and your daddy up
to get them some warmth on a cold day.
you’d be cheap fuel, they said.
they liked the smell of barbecue, they said.
i turned my back on willie pettibone and walked out of school.
i didn’t know where i was going.
i just walked out
without my coat,
without my hat or rubbers.
i didn’t feel the cold,
i was that scorched.
the day was cold,
bitter, below-zero.
made-you-wish-you’d-been-born-inside-a-fur-coat
cold.
heavy sky, early dark, lamps already lit.
esther playing in the kitchen with her clothespin dolls,
and mr. hirsh still at the shoe store. that’s
when leanora sutter, half frozen,
showed up on my porch.
she wore no coat, her head was bare, no rubbers on her feet,
nothing but worn-thin school clothes standing between her
and the teeth of winter.
i brought her in.
sat her on a chair by the stove.
put a mug
the chipped one
of warm broth in her hands.
esther dragged my best quilt into the kitchen and
worked it up over leanora’s shoulders.
only esther would go lugging out the company best
for a colored girl.
i left leanora there with esther,
ran the half mile to iris weaver’s restaurant
with the coffee flowing and the politics raging around me
phoned doc flitt and constable johnson,
let them know i had leanora and she wasn’t in any too good shape,
and they’d better hurry along.
constable johnson said he’d go after the girl’s father.
make sure wright got his child home safe and sound
to that little place they rent from lizzie stockwell
out the west end of town.
constable said he didn’t want happening to leanora,
what happened to the mother.
when i got back to the house,
esther sat at leanora’s feet,
little round esther leaning against
that slender brown girl, with her long head and longer limbs.
gave me some turn
seeing those two motherless children
in my kitchen
before the stove,
esther’s hair draped across leanora’s lap,
leanora’s dark hand stroking esther’s silk face.
after wright sutter drove away with leanora,
i looked at the empty chair by the stove,
the quilt still slung over it, spilling onto the floor.
i never had a colored girl in my kitchen before.
i told daddy i wasn’t going back to school.
daddy said:
of course you are.
no low-down white boy’s gonna stop leanora sutter
from getting an education.
some preacher down south
has himself a following
of coloreds
and whites,
together.
they trail after him from town to town,
forgetting their duties to home.
they even tried him, neighbor, they tried him
before a jury of white men
for inciting trouble,
for leading the lord’s sheep to stray,
and still, neighbor, it grieves me to tell you that
still,
they let the devil go free.
it’s a sorry state, neighbor,
it’s a pitiful state of affairs when a colored preacher
can lure good white folk from their hearths.
my daddy says
down in texas
a reverend by the name of
revealed jesus
is preaching so powerful,
people are leaving their jobs and their houses and
following him from meeting to meeting.
my daddy says
revealed jesus better get his brave behind up north pretty quick because
what he’s doing down there in texas
is sure to get him lynched.
oh, neighbor.<
br />
down in that den of the devil,
down in that center of sin,
down in new york’s harlem,
negroes kill other negroes
over gambling debts,
over women,
over gin.
hear me, neighbor.
if we are patient,
if we are patient, my good neighbor,
we can stay here at home,
we can take care of our problems at home
and down there in harlem, the
negro problem will
settle
itself.
in new york
i did see someone whose poor head
did have a bullet inside it
and he did
have blood everywhere in the street
where he did sleep so still.
daddy and sara chickering did talk at the table.
a man with the name of senator greene did get a bullet in his head, too.
i did make a whisper sound
to hear this talk.
like birds falling.
daddy did say
don’t cry esther. senator greene is getting better again.
daddy says bullets are a very bad thing.
but daddy says
sometimes you can even get a shooting in the head
and still be okay.
sara chickering did say yes that is true.
so it has to be.
the ku klux klan
is looking to rent the town hall for their meetings.
why shouldn’t they?
some girls i know have gone out in the world.
but most have married,
settled down to
children
and housework.
i’m different.
i have this restaurant.
i have a secret life, too.
a life the law is forever dogging me over.
i run booze.
i know every foot of ground
between boston and montreal.
i could walk the distance blindfolded.
i know the names of the customs officers,
american and canadian,
where they’re stationed,
what shift they’re on,
the tough ones,
and the ones who can’t resist a pretty leg
or a slice of apple pie.
the officers in vermont are the toughest.
i’ve brought loads through highgate and alburg,
but mostly i go through new york:
rouses point and plattsburg.
i drive a good secondhand packard.
it has plenty of pep,
