To Make My Bread

by Grace Lumpkin

  “Do you think He does?” she asked earnestly.

  “Yes’m,” Bonnie told her. “I know He does.”

  Mrs. Mulkey’s hand went limp, and she allowed Bonnie to lead her back to the bed and get her covered. Almost immediately she went off to sleep. Bonnie watched over her for a few moments, then tiptoed out, shooing the young ones in whispers away from the door.

  All those days Bonnie was very busy. She was head of the house during the day, caring for the children. She liked this, yet there were times when she felt ready to run, and on those days she was cross and ill natured with the young ones. As the end of summer came it was better, for she could remember that she would soon be starting school and that thought was enough to make her patient with the others.

  Some days she had a big baby on her hands. For Granpap was as much trouble as any when he was at home. He fretted so. And since this fretting was unlike Granpap it made everything about him seem unnatural and wrong.

  When no one was looking John made up for Bonnie’s worry by helping with the dishwashing and cooking. He even scrubbed the floors when Ora and Emma had no time to do so. Ora and Emma, having to do washing on Saturdays and ironing Monday nights, had little time for scrubbing. It would have been against the feelings of the whole community for them to do scrubbing and ironing on Sunday. Yet in secret they sometimes did this, and probably the other women did this, too, and never told outside.

  All through the summer Granpap was worrying Emma to go back to the hills. She reminded him that sometimes in the winter up there they had starved. In the village there was sure money and the store to buy from, near by, and there was the school, which was most important.

  The summer went by, and it was almost time for school to begin. Changes had to be made, and many things decided—one of them whether Emma or Ora should go on the night shift. For in order to care for the young ones during the day, one of them must work at night so she could be at home while Bonnie attended school.

  A few days before school began Emma came home to find Bonnie crying. She was sick at heart at first, thinking Ora’s young, or John, had been hurt.

  “What is it, Bonnie,” she asked. “Now you tell me.”

  “Hit’s Granpap,” Bonnie said.

  “What about Granpap?” Emma asked and shook Bonnie again.

  “He’s gone,” Bonnie said.

  Granpap had put a piece of bread in his pocket, taken his fiddle from the trunk and left for the hills.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “WHERE’S John?” Emma asked. She thought at once that John had gone with Granpap.

  “Out back somewheres,” Bonnie told her. “He was a-crying, too,” she said. “I know it. But he ran away.”

  Emma went through the house where Ora was already getting supper. John was not in the bedroom, and the yard at the back was empty. Perhaps John had run after Granpap and by now was part way up the mountain. She called him, and when not a sound came for an answer she called again. With a flat bang the door of the outhouse swung back and hung on its one hinge. John stepped out and came toward her. He did look as if he had been crying.

  “Why did Granpap go?” Emma asked him.

  “He said he wanted the hills, and wanted work.”

  Granpap had said more than that. He had said, among other things. “Hit ain’t right, Son, for a man to be asking money from a woman. And this place, hit takes everything out of ye. Down here I’m like a gun shell with the shot taken out, good for nothing but a little noise and some foolish smoke.”

  “Did he say he was coming back?” Emma asked John.

  “He didn’t say,” John told her.

  Ora came out. She had just learned from Bonnie what the trouble was. They stood together talking and John walked around them aimlessly, in a large circle, zigzagging in and out around the two women, like a crazy boy. He was actually befuddled. Part of him wanted to follow Granpap into the mountains, and part wanted to stay and get schooling, and learn the new things that he had not yet learned.

  Ora said, “Granpap can take care of himself, Emma. And maybe he’s better off in the hills. Right now you’d best come in and eat, and not worry. Frank’s in there and he’ll say the same. Granpap will care for himself, and not come to harm.”

  Emma knew these were sensible things, and she knew the truth of what Ora said. The trouble was that she had come to rely on Granpap’s presence, as if he was a husband. And except for lying together, she and Granpap had been husband and wife to each other. They had quarreled and got over it. Granpap had scolded her and the young ones, and she had scolded back. And they had rejoiced together. It was more than anxiety that held her to Granpap. They had been through too much together for her to lose him without a heartache.

  But he had gone for good. She had to make up her mind to that. They watched for him the second day and the third, and another; but on Sunday evening Emma had to say, “I reckon he’s gone for good,” and turn her mind to other things that needed her attention.

  That Sunday evening Bonnie got everything ready for school. Not that there was much to do, but she pretended that she must be busy getting ready. She had already washed her one dress and Esther’s. The dresses hung up clean and ironed on the wall in Emma’s room. Bonnie wore Emma’s shawl and Esther had an old dress of Sally’s, torn and too big, but good enough to wear at home.

  John was already wearing his clean shirt and jeans. He was not like the girls wanting to keep his clothes fresh for morning. The important thing to him was school. Ever since the visit to the city he had thought about Basil and what Basil wanted. Basil had gone somewhere and learned books; and people who knew books somehow had a chance to get the kind of things the rich woman in the city had. There was Emma who needed new clothes and some time to rest, and Bonnie who wanted an extra dress sometimes. Schooling, to John, meant living better. He wanted to meet Basil and talk to him about such things. For years when he thought of his brothers Kirk had come first. Now he felt rather scornful of Kirk who had thrown away everything he had, and lost his life for a woman.

  Everyone went to bed earlier than usual that night, for there were many extra things to be accomplished in the morning. Bonnie went to Emma’s room first. She wanted to be first to bed, and the first up. But someone was there before her. Young Frank was now sleeping in Granpap’s place with John. Much as absent ones were regretted, in such a crowded household there was always someone to use the space they had left.

  Bonnie heard Young Frank sobbing over in the bed. When she heard that she did not turn on the light. As far back as she could remember she had never heard Young Frank cry, or laugh either, for that matter. He was always quiet and shy.

  “Young Frank,” she said, and then didn’t know what else to speak. She thought he would not answer, but unexpectedly he raised his head and spoke in a loud whisper. She felt that he was not talking to her but to everybody. He talked as if he hated the world and everyone in it.

  “They won’t let me go to school,” he said. “Won’t they? Well then! I’ll haul spools and I’ll work every day like they make me. I’ll haul spools and let the old mill shake. But hit can’t shake the devil out of me. You watch. I’m a-going to the devil as fast as I can. They can’t stop me.”

  “I’ll teach ye, Young Frank,” Bonnie said, standing back, almost afraid of him for the first time in her life. He had been so quiet she had never thought of him as having any special wishes. “I’ll teach ye at night.”

  “Teach me! I’ll teach you,” Young Frank said. He put his head under the bed clothes and would not answer again.

  The alarm clock in Ora’s room was set for four-thirty in the morning. Emma lay in bed with everybody asleep and pondered on her life that was to come. She wondered about the night work. She would have taken the day work, if Ora had not been big with child. It was the least Emma could do to take the burden of the heavy night work, with only snatches of sleep in the day, for Ora during this time, When the baby was born, then Ora would stay home, and
when she got well enough would take the night shift, and leave Emma free to work in the day. Even if she had to work day and night, the young ones were to get their schooling. And that was enough satisfaction. And these two younger ones, Bonnie and John, would never leave her completely as Basil had done.

  Emma drifted off to sleep, then woke with a start, hearing someone moving about in the house. The light was on in the kitchen. She got up and went in there. Bonnie was standing by the stove completely dressed in her clean calico, making a fire.

  “Did Ora wake ye?” Emma asked.

  “No,” Bonnie told her. “But I’m sure hit’s time t’ get up. I think we’d better wake Ora.”

  “Ora always wakes by the clock,” Emma said. “Hit’s too early, Bonnie.”

  “I might be late a-getting to school,” Bonnie said. “I know hit’s time t’ get up.”

  Bonnie was so stubborn the only thing to do was wake Ora. When the light in her room was turned on the clock said one. Bonnie would not believe, and held it to her ear. Then she had to say reluctantly that it was going. Frank grunted from the bed, hating to be disturbed by the light, and the youngest, lying at the foot with little Raymond, moved and let out a wail of protest. By this time there were stirrings all over the house, in all of the beds.

  Emma cut the damper so the fire would go out, and made Bonnie undress. It was very humiliating to Bonnie, and depressing; for everyone was cross with her for rousing them three hours before time. She got back into bed expecting to keep awake, and when Ora came in to call them she thought it was still one o’clock or near that time. But Ora insisted that it was four-thirty and after.

  Then there was enough hurry to satisfy Bonnie. Frank, Ora and Young Frank started out first. Young Frank was gloomy. Just before they left Bonnie remembered what had happened the night before. She went up to Young Frank and said low, so the others wouldn’t hear and make him feel embarrassed, “I’ll bring home my books and teach ye.” Evidently he didn’t think much of her offer, for he said not a word in answer, and went off behind Ora and Frank, quiet and sullen.

  Emma wanted to give John and Bonnie advice about school, but she knew so little about it herself. How could she tell them what to do, or what not to do? They must learn for themselves. Only she saw that their faces were clean and that John had not got his jeans too dirty again.

  “When cold weather comes ye’ll both have t’ have stockings and shoes, and maybe new clothes, if we can manage,” she told Bonnie. She knew that they would need coats, and had already planned to cut her own down to fit Bonnie. She could wear her shawl to work around her head and over her shoulders.

  Ora’s young would need more clothes. Esther and Samson were starting in like John and Bonnie. Though they were younger all would be in the same grade at school. John had shot up during the summer. He was very tall for his age, and skinny; not as strong as he would be later on. His tallness was emphasized as he walked off with the other three.

  “He looks like a pine tree,’ Emma thought, “in the middle of some scrub oaks.”

  John’s tallness singled him out in the line at school. In the morning when the bell rang all the classes lined up in the school yard, two by two to march into their rooms. Many of the young ones in the first grade were no more than six or seven. There were some older ones, but John was the tallest, and even the first morning the boys in the higher grades called out to him before the teachers came to march in the lines.

  Most of these larger boys and girls lived on Strutt Street. This was the short paved street that went by the mill. On this street in the best houses with plastered walls inside, bathrooms, gas to cook with, pianos and fine furniture, lived the superintendent, the overseers and other higher-ups. The other people in the village, those who lived on the muddy streets in the small houses, had named the paved part Strutt Street. The children at school who came from this street were dressed nicely. Even in warm weather they wore shoes and stockings. Their mothers had silk dresses, and sent their washing to the laundry.

  The first three grades in school were always full. Most of the children after the third grade, or the fifth at most, went into the mills to do their part in keeping the family. The village was called a “good” one, which meant that not many moved on as they did in other villages. Yet even in this one the lower grades were always changing, and sometimes the teachers had to make up new rolls to call on Monday morning. Bonnie found it a very interesting thing to watch for new faces and look for those who had gone away. From the first she was delighted with school. She couldn’t have enough of it, and even in the afternoons she lined up the young ones of Ora’s family and the two Mulkey girls and played teacher. She went over her own lessons and learned them better by repetition.

  Beyond the third grade the classes thinned out until there were only a few pupils in the upper grades. These upper grades had one teacher for all. The pupils were made up mostly of children from Strutt Street. Naturally the boys of these families, who were expecting to go to high school, were more confident than the others. One of them, Albert Burnett, had called out to John that first morning. John was learning in the schoolroom. But there were things he had to learn outside that Bonnie was spared.

  The first grade had recess by itself, or John would have had a worse time during that period, and perhaps, it would have been a good thing, so that the nagging of the bigger boys would have come to some kind of conclusion sooner. As it was the nagging went on from day to day. The boys hid behind fences and trees when school was over and called out at him. In the morning when the line was formed they satisfied themselves with such names as “Baby,” and mimicked a baby crying. But after school they thought up other and more hateful words. “Baby,” they called, “you’re losing your diaper,” or: “Doctor, is it a boy or a girl.”

  They said that the first day when he was walking back with Bonnie and Ora’s young as Emma had made him promise to do. Bonnie cried when she heard the boys. John saw she was going to speak out at them. “Shet up,” he said to her. And after that he came and went by himself. This didn’t help. The boys resented John’s silence. They wanted to make him cry, or else force him to fight, so there would be a good sound licking.

  At last it came to the place where John wanted to stop school. It was not that he was afraid. He was ashamed in the class room of being so big among the others, and of knowing so little. He thought of going to the hills, running away and meeting Granpap. There he would be free and at home. There he could fight on his own ground. He was confused. In the hills families stuck together, but it was man against man. He could not quite make out how to manage with several against him, for the boys who nagged were always together.

  And Emma was expecting so much. She had put responsibility on him again. He had to see how hard she worked, and that she stinted to give him and Bonnie what they needed. He would have liked not to see. She had done without herself to buy a coat from the Jew, Sam Reskowitz, who kept a second hand clothing store in the town. His coat was thinned out here and there from use, the wind could come through the worn part; but on quiet sunny days the coat kept him warm and comfortable.

  He wished to be a man so that he could get away sometimes as Frank did at night. Frank gave as his reason for going into town that he wanted to get news of Granpap. It was a reasonable and true excuse. But he liked going to the Blind Tiger, the restaurant where the McEacherns took their liquor. There he could have a few drinks and talk with other men, or rather listen, for he talked little himself. One night he found out that Granpap was back at his old job of bringing the liquor down. This was no news to give Emma, so he kept it to himself, only saying that someone had seen Granpap in the hills, and the old man was looking well.

  Emma listened to Frank. She was glad to hear of Granpap. Yet during these days she was rather worn out, too tired to think much about his absence. The night shift was a twelve hour shift, from six to six. She took a lunch, and as there was no lunch hour she ate the bread while walking up and down before the f
rames, watching the spools and bobbins.

  The night section boss was not a kind man. Perhaps the night work made him more irritable, yet he wanted the privilege of being as mean as possible, while expecting those working under him to be quiet and even-tempered. He sat near the toilets and frowned when anyone went inside. And he was shameless, for if he thought they were staying too long he called out to them to hurry up in there. He sold a drink that was five cents a bottle and must have made money from the sales, for the drink kept them awake as nothing else could, and many spent all the nickels they could spare or couldn’t spare on it.

  Emma had heard people say, the last hour of work was the worst on the night shift. She had heard the words, and only learned their meaning when she was there. The eleven hours before were hard but they went by. When the little bit of light showed up in the windows, meaning that daylight was preparing to come, it seemed to make her stiff muscles let down, as if they were lying down like a spoiled baby that won’t be picked up until it gets what it wants. Her muscles wanted rest, and they lay down, refusing to work for her. In that last hour or two she had to go on from minute to minute. Her mind had to whip her muscles to make them keep up, as a person would whip a bad child, and the muscles ached under the punishment. Sometimes the person who worked her frames during the day came early, and Emma got off fifteen minutes sooner than she had expected. When that happened she told Ora it seemed the heavens were opened and angels sang around her.

  There was not much satisfaction at home. She could not see the young ones as often as she liked. At first she had tried to stay awake in the mornings to talk with Bonnie and John. This meant the loss of two good hours of sleep. Now, on coming home she went to the bed, still warm from Bonnie’s sleeping there with Ora’s Esther, and fell into it until Bonnie woke her. During the day she must keep herself awake to look after Ora’s youngest. When Bonnie got home about two she could sleep again. Then at five she must have supper, get her lunch, and start out for the long night.