Granpap stood with the ropes in his hands, a boy on each side, waiting. Frank walked across the road to one of the men who had left the factory a few moments before. They spoke a few words, then the stranger came back with Frank across the road. He was a small man and limped somewhat, which made him lag just a step behind Frank as they walked up to Granpap. He was kindly looking, and seemed ready to help, and spoke to Granpap respectfully as someone in the hills might have spoken. The others came nearer and listened as if the words said were something to eat with which they might fill their hungry bellies.
The stranger said there was a place where they could stay for the night. “I’ll show you,” he added and led the way, limping along in front of the sledge at the side of the left steer. “One of the preachers keeps a boarding house. He’ll give you a place to sleep and food if you wish it.”
“We were told,” Granpap said to the man, “they needed us for the factory. From the way they act hit don’t seem so.”
“Well,” the man said, “I reckon now you’re here they’ve got you.”
“Got me?” Granpap spat out. Emma was hushed and strained, fearing that Granpap would make trouble. The man saw that he had not said what was right. “Well, not exactly. But they probably think if you’ve come so far, you aim to stay.”
Emma walked up to Granpap and touched him on the arm to get his attention. “Let’s stay, Granpap. The young ones need a bed. Look at them. They’re s’ tired. And you know Ora ought t’ have rest.”
Granpap looked behind him and saw Ora with the baby in her arms, and Sally carrying little Raymond, while the others dragged along as if the next step was their last, for with the talk of bed and food being near they had let themselves down to rest, so there was no more fight in them for the present.
“I’ll see,” he told Emma, but she recognized the sound in his voice that said he was nearly ready to give in. She turned to listen while the stranger talked to Frank.
“You weren’t even put down in the Doomsday Book?” he asked Frank.
“No. The man told us ‘to-morrow’ and that was all.”
There was a silence. They walked along on the road between the rows of houses. Smoke was beginning to come out of those chimneys that had been cold before. On the porches that had been empty there were some men and younger children.
“What was that you said?” Frank spoke as if he hated to ask a question. “What was it you called some book?”
“Doomsday Book,” the stranger answered. “We call it so around here. I don’t know where the name came from.”
Frank wished to ask what this book meant to them if it meant anything. Emma wanted to know, and Ora was wondering what it meant, a Doomsday Book. But none felt like asking just what it was. Perhaps they were a little afraid of what the man might say, and so much had happened they could wait for more.
The stranger left them at a corner. “You go to the left,” he said. “And it’s the third house on the left, the long house.”
Granpap knocked at the door. Someone said in a sleepy voice, “Who is it?” Granpap knocked again and the door opened. A man in shirt sleeves stood before them holding to the knob. He had a full head of tousled hair, and his small blue eyes blinked at them sleepily.
“Is the preacher here?” Granpap asked.
“I’m the preacher,” the man said, and passed a hand over his head to smooth down the hair. “Come in,” he said. He stepped on the porch and opened another door that led into a hallway. “Come in,” he repeated, then as if he was just waking up, “What do you want?”
Up a short flight of stairs he showed them two rooms, each with two double beds. Ora could almost have cried looking at the beds. She wanted to sit right down on one of them, and lie back. “And lie back,” she said to herself, “I’d like to lie back right now.” But they must wait for the price.
When the preacher told Granpap and Frank they spoke together for a moment, then Granpap put some money in the preacher’s hand. When she saw that Ora lay back against the pillow at the head of the bed and closed her eyes.
“If you want supper,” the preacher told them, “it’s fifty cents and twenty-five for the children.” He was very business-like.
The smell of cooking came up the stairs from the kitchen and Emma could see that the young ones were sniffing the smell. Her own nose was not far behind theirs.
“We’ll let ye know if we’ll eat,” Granpap told the preacher.
When the preacher had gone they watched each other. No one dared say, “Let’s eat here.”
But John spoke up. “My belly aches, smelling hit,” he said, and held to his belly with both hands.
Granpap looked at John. “Does it, boy?”
“Yes,” John said. “Hit feels like a deep spring, and empty.”
“Granpap,” Emma spoke softly, “we can do without a meal in the morning.”
“Frank?” Granpap asked his question with one word.
“Hit’s best t’ go down,” Frank said.
They had a full meal of hominy and gravy and hot biscuits and meat. But in the morning the full feeling had gone, and the smell of breakfast cooking spread over the house and even followed them through the open front door, as if the breakfast, at least, was hospitably urging them to stay.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
IT was early morning and freshness was still in the air, for the sun was not up far enough to bake everything. The last whistle had come from the factory some time before, but a few late workers passed them on the street. Unlike those who had walked slowly from work the evening before, these late ones hurried along as if the devil was behind lashing them on with his tail.
Granpap had stayed to finish some talk with the Confederate who was going to the reunion in the city.
“He had a uniform like the one in the picture at the station,” Bonnie said to Emma, pronouncing “uniform” very carefully since she had just learned the word.
“Yes,” Emma said. She remembered the picture very well and how Granpap had stood before it for some time.
John had stayed behind with Granpap but they soon came along. Emma looked at Granpap anxiously. If he got any ideas about going to the city, they were done for. She remembered that he had the money in a belt around his waist.
“He’s a Confederate veteran,” John said to Bonnie, and Emma listened, because Granpap kept his eyes away from her, and she was cut off from talk with him.
“Was hit General Lee?” Bonnie asked, for she had felt awe for the white bearded old man in the gray suit who had sat at supper with them the night before.
“No, he’s the preacher’s wife’s Pa and he’s a-going to stay with his other daughter in the city while the reunion’s a-going on. There’s going t’ be a parade to-day—with uniforms.”
“Hit’ll cost him a fortune t’ go,” Emma said, loud enough for Granpap to hear.
“Hit’s half fare on the train, Emma,” Granpap said. “And in the city they will board and lodge ye for nothing.”
“I don’t believe big talk any more,” Ora put in. She knew what Emma was fearing.
“This talk is true, Ora.” Granpap turned and looked at Ora out of his bright blue eyes, and she felt Frank, on her other side, touch her arm. Frank was always a quiet one, and hated especially to mix in a neighbor’s business.
“Well,” Ora said faintly, but she gave Granpap’s look back again.
“Ye ain’t thinking of going, Granpap,” Emma spoke up quietly from where she was walking just behind Granpap and the others.
Granpap did not answer, but just before they reached the office at the mill she caught up and looked full into his face, and saw by the way his lids came down that he was away in his mind planning something.
“Frank,” she whispered and took hold of Frank’s arm before he could step into the office. “Couldn’t ye talk to Granpap? I’m afeard he’s going.”
“No, Emma, I can’t tell Granpap what t’ do.”
“Just ask him if he’s a-going, t
hen,” Emma urged.
“Granpap,” Frank said in a loud voice, for when he made up his mind he must say a thing quickly and have it done, “be ye going t’ the reunion?”
“I reckon not, Frank,” Granpap answered, and there was plenty of disappointed wishing in his voice. “I reckon Emma and the young ones need me right now.”
They were right in front of the office door. Here all of them, even Granpap, faltered on the steps as if some wild animal waited behind the door. A man came out and ran down the steps and over the hard ground to the door of the factory. In his hurry he left the door open and with this encouragement they walked through to the room inside.
There were benches against two sides of the big room, a hallway led to the back, and opposite the side wall was a small window like that in the station which was for tickets. Granpap went up and stood in front of this window. Presently a young woman came and said, “What do you want?”
“I want the man that hires,” Granpap said in a firm voice.
“All right,” the young woman said, and Granpap stood aside to wait. He almost stepped on a little boy who had come in after them through the door.
“Watch out, young ’un,” Granpap said very loud. In trying not to step on the child he almost lost his own balance.
The young woman came back to the window. “What is it?” she asked sharply.
“Here’s a young one wants something,” Granpap told her. He stepped aside again and almost tripped over a dry goods box that stood there. Emma was not always easy with Granpap and sometimes feared him. Now, when he seemed so uncertain, for the first time in her life she felt pity toward him.
“What do you want,” the young woman called through the window, for she could not see the child. He was about five years old and was not tall enough to reach up. He seemed to know how to remedy that, for he reached out with his small hands—Emma had time to see how bony they were, like his face—and lifted the box to a spot just beneath the window. Then he climbed on it with a serious and business-like air as if this was his special affair and no one was to interfere. He stretched his neck toward the young woman behind the bars.
“A book of scrip for Mis’ Hardy,” he said in a high little voice that everybody could hear all over the room.
“Mis’ what Hardy?” the girl asked.
“Mis’ Fayette Hardy.”
She slapped a book on the shelf between them. “Tell her it’s her second this month,” she said.
“Yes’m,” the child answered. He got down off the box, put it carefully in its place along the wall just behind Granpap and trotted out with the book in his hand.
For a long while the window remained empty. Though it was empty, all of them, at least the grown-ups, looked at it anxiously as if by expecting they could make someone appear in the space. And no one appeared there after all, for a man came in through the hallway and spoke to Granpap.
“Yes,” Granpap answered his question. “We want t’ hire.” Frank got up from the bench and walked over to them. The man turned and looked at Emma, at Ora and the baby in Ora’s arms. His eyes lingered a moment on Sally and Young Frank, then passed over the younger children quickly.
“Sit down here,” he said to Granpap and Frank, pointing to chairs in front of a table. He went back through the hallway and came again with a large book in his arms. This he let drop on the table. Sitting before the open book, the man began to turn the pages. Granpap and Frank sat like two images of stone while the pages turned in the man’s hands, over and over. “Over and over” sounded in Emma’s mind and mixed in with the throbbing of the factory. She sat forward on the edge of the bench.
Suddenly the man stopped turning and looked up. “Name,” he asked.
“McClure,” Granpap said at once, and just after him Frank said, “McClure.”
“Same family?” the man asked and wrote something with a pen in the book.
“We’re two families,” Granpap told him.
Then questions popped out of the man’s big mouth one after another so fast that Ora and Emma, stretching forward to hear, could not understand them all.
How many of the family alive, how many dead, how many could work, were they healthy or sickly.
“Tell her to stand up,” the man said to Frank, pointing to Sally.
Frank turned around in his chair. “Stand up, Sally,” he told her. Sally stood up, and anyone could see that beneath the long skirt her knees were bent and shaking.
“Don’t be afraid,” the man said, and smiled at Sally. He looked her up and down. “All right,” he told her and pointed his pen at Young Frank. “Now you stand up,” he said. He put down their ages, Sally, sixteen, Young Frank, fourteen, Esther nine years, Hattie seven, Raymond two and the baby nine months. Then it was Bonnie, thirteen, and John, eleven, who must stand. It sounded to Bonnie from the way the man repeated before he put down the name that he had given her another name that was not McClure, and for some time she thought of herself as Bonnie Thirteen instead of Bonnie McClure.
The man opened his big mouth again. He called out to the young woman at the window. “Miss Andrews, ask Mr. Burnett to come in.” And in a few moments Mr. Burnett came up to the table. The two men talked together in whispers, and when they finished, Mr. Burnett walked into the back part of the building. There was a curved space between his legs, and his feet met flat, side by side on the floor. He took short steps that carried him quickly out of sight.
The man at the desk said nothing. Granpap and Frank sat before him like figures of stone, and the others waited, almost breathless. If the man would only say something and give them some peace!
Presently a boy came in and gave the man a key. His wide mouth flapped open again, as he spoke to Granpap. But he spoke too softly for them to hear.
Emma heard Granpap say out loud. “Hit’s not true. I can walk thirty miles in one day and kill a bear at the end.”
The man smiled. His hand went up in the air flat and he said very kindly, “That’s enough.” But it was evident he meant exactly what he said. Emma, waiting to hear Granpap say more, saw only that he sat in his chair like a stone image. She thought, “Granpap is changed if he can stand that kind of talk.” And then another thought, sharp and quick, come. “Maybe all this will change us. Maybe in a year we won’t be the same—Granpap or any of us.”
As if his interest in Granpap was finished, the man turned to Frank, gave him the key and spoke to him in a low voice. Then he picked up the great book and walked away through the hall to the mysterious place beyond.
Frank got up. “I guess we’d better go,” he said to Granpap. But the old man, who was usually ahead of Frank, sat right on in the chair. “Granpap,” Frank repeated, “we better be a-going.”
Granpap rose up slowly from the chair.
Emma came up to them. “Why was hit just one key?” she asked in a low voice, so the girl wouldn’t hear. Frank touched her on the arm. They let Granpap walk ahead. He went as if he could not see where to walk.
“What is it, Frank?” Emma asked.
“Didn’t you hear?” Frank looked at her in surprise.
“He talked s’ low.”
“He said t’ Granpap, ‘You’re too old t’ work in the mill, only as a night watchman, and the places are all filled.’ ”
“Oh,” Emma gasped out. “Oh, hit don’t seem right.” She spoke quite loud then, not caring about the girl, and Granpap had gone outside along with the others.
“And, Emma, he said you must board with us, unless you want the young ones t’ work. You must have two elders t’ work if you get a house, two elders or four young ones working.”
Ora came back through the door. “Are you coming?” she asked them.
“Yes,” Frank answered. He hesitated. “You could let the young ones work, Emma,” he said.
“No, I can’t, Frank. They’re going t’ school. If I have t’ work my hands off they’re going t’ get schooling . . . . But I didn’t think about being a boarder.”
&nbs
p; “What is it?” Ora asked.
“We’ve got t’ board with ye, Ora,” Emma told her.
“Well, Emma, let’s go find that house, then we can set down and worry all we want. I want t’ set down in a house again for once.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“WHERE’S Granpap?” Emma asked when she came out of the office.
Bonnie looked up the road and Emma, looking, saw that Granpap was already on his way to get the steers. And she saw that his shoulders were drooped over and that he moved slowly as if his legs had suddenly grown stiff with rheumatism. She wanted to follow him and say, “Ye’re not s’ old, Granpap. Only a little while ago ye were tramping over the mountains like a young buck, and a-cursing anybody that got in your way.”
She turned to Frank, “Frank, tell him hit’s all right. Hit don’t matter if he don’t work.”
“I’ll tell him what I can, Emma,” Frank said and walked up the road to overtake Granpap.
“Emma, we’d better go,” Ora said. “That boy is having fits.” She nodded to the boy from the office who was stepping impatiently from one foot to the other. He was some distance away as if he thought by going a little forward he could hurry them on.
“Hurry up,” the boy said. “I can’t wait all day.” He must have come from the city, for he was dressed in a fine suit and a white shirt like the young man who had come up to the mountains.
John and Young Frank ran ahead to keep up with the boy and Bonnie and Sally stayed not far behind.
“That boy was a-stepping around so, I thought he must want to go somewheres,” Ora said to Emma. “I wanted to say, ‘Don’t mind us, young man, just step to the side of the road and turn your back.’ ”
“Oh, no, Ora, you wouldn’t.”
To Make My Bread Page 17
