by Irene Latham
I lifted the blue handkerchief to my nose. “Be better if I hadn’t dropped my quilting things when I was running out of Camden Mercantile.”
Mrs. Nelson’s eyes widened. “What, like a needle and a spool of thread?”
“Not a whole spool. But I did have some good pieces of cloth.”
“Well, darlin’, I wish you’d said something sooner. I would have been happy to go over there and get it for you.”
Mrs. Nelson would have gotten it back for me? And I’d been sitting all this time with nothing to do when I could have been working on Mama’s quilt.
Mrs. Nelson looked toward the window where the sky was turning purple and pink as the sun dropped down. “Reckon it’s too late now. I saw Mr. Miller locking up the door about an hour ago.”
I clamped my mouth shut. Everything that was important to me I’d somehow managed to mess up. Is that what it meant to be a witch? Things just always going the wrong way?
“So you like to quilt, do you?” Mrs. Nelson didn’t even wait for me to answer, just opened a drawer and fumbled around with her fingers. Then she pulled out a spool of white thread and put it in my hand. “Hardly used. Bought it from Mr. Cobb one day when the doctor popped a button.” She closed the drawer while I sat there watching.
“You know, Ludelphia, it’s a real shame about Mr. Cobb.” Mrs. Nelson leaned back in her chair. “Heart attack. Wasn’t nothing to be done.”
I unraveled a bit of thread, then rolled it back in. So it was a heart attack that killed Mr. Cobb.
“And I can’t help but feel sorry for Mrs. Cobb,” Mrs. Nelson said, giving me a quick look. “Must be hard for her to lose her husband so soon after that little niece of hers passed away. It’s no excuse for the way she’s acting, but I bet Mrs. Cobb’s hurting real bad right now.”
Well, she ain’t the only one, is what I wanted to say.
“Grief can do crazy things to a person.” Mrs. Nelson smoothed her skirt. “Mrs. Cobb, she’s not in her right mind. She hasn’t been right since even before little Sarah died.” She clicked her tongue and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Must be awful hard to want children and not be able to have them. And then to lose the one that comes closest to being your own.”
As my hand closed around the spool of thread, I didn’t know whether to say “thank you” or “please stop talking about Mrs. Cobb.” I didn’t know why Mrs. Nelson was telling me these things. Not when Mrs. Cobb was planning to take things from folks that ain’t done a single bad thing to her.
But wait. Mrs. Cobb didn’t have children? Then who was the baby in the picture on Mrs. Cobb’s wall?
“Mrs. Nelson?” I rolled the spool of thread around in the palm of my hand, then pulled off the needle. Dear Lord did that needle feel good in my fingers. “What happened to her niece? Little Sarah?”
The corners of Mrs. Nelson’s mouth turned down. “She died, darlin’. About a month ago down in Mobile while Mrs. Cobb was visiting. Just died in her sleep one night.”
Mrs. Nelson sighed. “Doc Nelson said it just happens with babies sometimes. It’s nobody’s fault. But there was some talk that it was the doings of a witch.” Mrs. Nelson looked me square in the eye. “Mrs. Cobb said it was a witch from Gee’s Bend.”
I gasped as the needle went right into my thumb. Etta Mae! Mrs. Nelson was talking about Etta Mae. I pressed my thumb with my other fingers to stop the bleeding. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d stuck myself.
The baby in the picture had to be Sarah. It had to be. And Etta Mae was the one hired to help care for her.
Mrs. Nelson put her hand on my knee. “Life sure is complicated, isn’t it?”
Complicated wasn’t a big enough word.
As I sucked on my sore thumb, I gripped the spool of thread. It wasn’t right. So many folks dying. Mr. Cobb and little Sarah. Mama coughing up blood and baby Rose coming early and Etta Mae back so soon from Mobile. And me trying so hard to fix things but not fixing ’em.
Mrs. Cobb may have lost things, but that didn’t give her no right to treat nobody the way she was treating me.
I looked close at my pricked thumb. There was a tiny hole in my skin, but it wasn’t bleeding no more. If only everything else was that easy to fix.
I started again with the needle. Mama always said you should live a life the same way you piece a quilt. That you was the one in charge of where you put the pieces. You was the one to decide how your story turns out.
Well, seemed to me some of them pieces had a mind of their own.
A Lonely Sound
“WHAT’S FOR SUPPER?” DOC NELSON SAID AS HE closed the door behind the last patient.
Supper? Soon as the word entered my mind, my belly started to talk. I hadn’t put a thing in my mouth since Mrs. Nelson’s pound cake earlier that morning.
“Leftovers will have to do,” Mrs. Nelson said, heading down the hallway. She paused someplace in the middle and looked back at me. “You coming, Ludelphia?” I real quick folded the needle and thread into the blue handkerchief and followed them through the last door on the right. The walls was plain white and pushed against the wall was a pine-plank table that reminded me of home.
Mrs. Nelson pulled a jug of milk from under the cabinet and poured it into three glasses. From the same cabinet she grabbed a pie tin and set it right in the center of the table. There was a cut of ham and some black-eyed peas. “Save some room for dessert, now,” she said and settled into a chair. “Doctor, say the blessing?”
I bowed my head. If Mama could have seen me, she would have been proud of how I closed my eyes and folded my fingers.
“Plenteous grace with thee is found, grace to cover all my sin. Let the healing streams around make and keep thee pure within. Amen.”
“Amen,” Mrs. Nelson added.
It wasn’t nothing like the special blessing we said at home, where we named folks and said the exact things we was thankful for. But the food sure was plentiful. Even at Sunday dinner we didn’t have a spread like this one. I reckon that’s why it was so much quieter at the doctor’s table. Less folks talking and more food to eat.
Things wasn’t all fancy here the way they was at Mrs. Cobb’s house. But I was still careful to keep my napkin in my lap and my mouth closed while I was chewing. Mama always said manners was appreciated no matter who you was with. So far it seemed to be true. Whether I was at Mrs. Cobb’s table with the napkins folded into birds or talking to nervous Mr. Miller at Camden Mercantile or here with the Nelsons, who couldn’t look more different than me but treated me like I was just the same.
I reckon when you grow up in one place you just naturally think every other place is the same as your home. I reckon it takes leaving to appreciate all the things about that place that make it special.
Dear Lord, did I want to go home.
As the Nelsons talked about the busy day, I ate till my plate was clean. Homesick or not, wasn’t no way I could let any of that good food go to waste.
Soon Mrs. Nelson began to clear away the dishes. “Ludelphia, did you save room for a piece of my fresh-made apple pie?”
I licked my lips. “Yes’m, I always got room for pie.”
The Nelsons both laughed. Seemed to me they liked to watch me eat.
Once the pie was gone, Doc Nelson leaned back in his chair and yawned. “We’ll all sleep good tonight, won’t we, Ludelphia?”
I nodded but I wasn’t sure it was true. I had too many worries for sleeping good.
While Mrs. Nelson wiped down the table, Doc Nelson set up a cot for me right there in that same room. Then Mrs. Nelson covered it with crisp white sheets and a plain brown blanket. Wasn’t nothing like one of Mama’s quilts.
“You need us, we’re in the next room,” Mrs. Nelson said just before she turned out the light.
Then it was dark and I was alone again in a place that wasn’t my home. In a room that was filled with nothing but silence.
Then came a wailing sound from far-off outside. It wasn’t an ani
mal, and I didn’t have no idea what it could be.
I sat straight up in my bed. “Mrs. Nelson!”
“What is it, darlin’?”
“That crying sound. What is it?”
She listened for a minute as the wailing stopped and started again. “That?” she said. “Why, that’s a train, Ludelphia. There’s a station over at Pine Hill.” She bustled over and pulled the covers up to my shoulders. “You never heard a train blow its whistle before?”
I shook my head. So that’s what a train sounded like! Wasn’t nothing like I expected. It was such a lonely sound, when all this time I thought it would sound like the start of a grand adventure.
After Mrs. Nelson left me for the second time, I lay there in the dark with my eye wide open. Next door the doctor and Mrs. Nelson bumped around a bit, and I could hear the gentle rumble of their voices as they talked. But soon it was quiet. Wasn’t no chickens clucking or water dripping. No snoring or coughing or rustling of arms and legs on the cornshuck mattress. It was quiet like I ain’t never heard.
Soon my arms and legs felt heavy, even the air felt heavy coming in and out of my chest. The quiet was begging me to sleep, but I couldn’t stop my mind.
It’d been three days since Rose was born. Was it only yesterday morning that I’d left Gee’s Bend? If only there was some way for me to know what kind of shape Mama was in.
No matter what the doctor and Mrs. Nelson said, I was heading back to Gee’s Bend the next morning. Wasn’t nobody gonna stop me. I’d walk, I’d run, I’d hop on one foot if I had to. I was going home to our cabin with its colorful walls and the quilts stacked in the corners. Back to the sounds and smells and folks I loved best. Back to Delilah and chickens and the woodpile and fried salt pork for breakfast.
Maybe I couldn’t save Mama. But I could still go home and hold baby Rose and smooth Mama’s hair away from her face.
Please, Lord, let Mama still be alive when I get there.
As my eyelids finally closed, I saw not Mama, but Mrs. Cobb. Her skin was paler than ever, and her shotgun wasn’t by her side no more. It was aimed straight at me.
The Letter
NEXT THING I KNEW MRS. NELSON WAS SHAKING me awake. I could tell it was morning by the way sunlight was just barely coming into the room. I reckon without the sounds of the chickens and Mama banging around wasn’t nothing to wake me up.
“Ludelphia Bennett, you listen to me.” She looked toward the waiting room, then back at me. “I want you to take these two bottles of medicine.”
Two bottles. Medicine.
I sat straight up in bed and rubbed the sleep from my eyes. “Yes’m?” In her palm was two brown glass bottles, each of them about the size of an inkwell.
She placed the bottles in my hands. “It’s called morphine. Won’t heal your mama, but it might ease her suffering just a bit.”
As I wrapped my fingers around the cool glass, my mind filled up with so many words I thought I might come to pieces. But I couldn’t make a one of ’em come out of my mouth.
Mrs. Nelson didn’t seem to notice. She was too busy fiddling with my eye patch that had slipped out from under the pillow. “Doc Nelson wouldn’t want me giving you those bottles. Folks can get crazy once they’ve had morphine, then you take it away.”
She slid the eye patch over my head, then pulled back the blanket. I didn’t know what else to do, so I just focused on her freckles. “Darlin’, I’m trusting you. Don’t give your mama too much. Just a little teaspoonful at a time. And maybe, just maybe, it’ll help give her body enough strength to pull through. Might take her months to get all the way better. But if she can just get past the worst of it, she’ll be all right, Ludelphia. There’s a chance she’ll be all right.”
“Yes’m,” I said, my heart just about to burst. Mrs. Nelson wanted to help me so much she was doing something some folks might say wasn’t quite right. Wasn’t for me to say. All I knew was that if Mrs. Nelson said Mama had a chance of getting better, then Mama had a chance.
“Now, get on with you,” she said as she handed me the blue handkerchief. “And take this lunch sack with you. It’s just a bit of ham and a biscuit, but it ought to hold you till you get home to your mama.”
I threw my arms around her then. Wasn’t no reason in the world for her to be so nice to me. Wasn’t no law that said she had to help me at all. But here she was, helping me. “Thank you,” I said.
She gave me a quick squeeze, then the metal frame of the cot squeaked as she stood. “Go on now, darlin’, while the doctor’s tending to Mrs. Johnson.” Her eyes had tears in ’em and her voice cracked a little. “Just take a left at the end of Broad Street. Then that road will take you on up to Alberta. I reckon you know the way from there.”
As I swung my legs around and set my feet on the floor, I wasn’t worried about finding Gee’s Bend. If I could get all the way here to Doc Nelson’s, then I could sure find my way home. Especially when all my body parts suddenly felt electric, like a switch had been flipped and now my arms and legs was all lit up.
Maybe it wasn’t a cure. But it was something. All I had to do now was hold tight to them bottles and fast as lightning carry them home.
I could hear my heart in my ears as I scooted down the hall to the waiting room.
Didn’t matter that I hardly had no sleep, my legs felt strong, like they could carry me anyplace. And when I saw that poster again with the lady that looked like an angel, a warm feeling spread all through my body.
I felt like I was lit up like one of them electric bulbs. And right then I knew there was something else I needed to do. I set the bottles on Mrs. Nelson’s desk and picked up a notepad and a fresh-sharpened pencil. My hand started shaking soon as I started to write.
Dear Red Cross:
We need your help in Gee’s Bend, Alabama. If you ain’t heard of it yet, ask Mrs. Nelson. She’ll tell you where it is. The reason I’m writing is because Mrs. Cobb said she’s gonna take everything we got. And my Mama is real sick. I don’t know if there is anything you can do to help her, but I just thought you should know. Please help us!
Signed,
Ludelphia Bennett
I folded the note and wrote on the outside “To: American Red Cross, From: Ludelphia Bennett.” Wasn’t nothing left for me to do now except give the letter to Mrs. Nelson.
“Mrs. Nelson,” I called as I stuck my head out of the doorway and looked down the hallway.
No answer. The doctor’s office was completely quiet. Didn’t need nobody to tell me she was gone. I reckon she didn’t want to see me go.
All I had to do now was put it someplace Mrs. Nelson was sure to find it. Then when she turned over all the donations she’d collected from the Red Cross drive, she could give ’em my letter. And they would send help.
I glanced around the room. Where should I put it? Then I remembered the pound cake Mrs. Nelson gave me when I first came into the doctor’s office.
The cake plate. Much as she loved her cake, Mrs. Nelson was sure to find it. But I wanted to be sure. So I folded the note one more time and wrote “To: Mrs. Nelson, From: Ludelphia.” That way there wouldn’t be no mistaking what it was.
Then I grabbed them bottles of medicine and slipped them inside the lunch sack with the blue handkerchief and spool of thread. I held that bag to my chest, and the little bell rang as I shot out of that door with its glass window and painted-on sign. I was going home to Gee’s Bend!
The Long Road Home
IT WAS EARLY YET, SO WASN’T NO STORES OPEN ON Broad Street. But there was three big wagons parked right in front of Camden Mercantile. Then half a dozen men rode up on horseback. Some of ’em was white, some of ’em black.
Was they gonna go hunting? What else could be going on this early in the morning? Then I saw her, Mrs. Cobb. Oh, dear Lord. Couldn’t mean but one thing.
As she walked from the store to the middle of the street, I could tell what she was fixing to do just by the way she was setting each boot so firm in the dirt. The
n when she lifted her gun into the air, wasn’t no doubt in my mind.
I covered my head with my arms to block the sound of the shot. Didn’t help all that much. It still set my ears to ringing. I reckon it was loud enough to just about wake the whole town.
“See you in Gee’s Bend!” she said, waving the shotgun in the air.
No, I wanted to shout. Not Gee’s Bend. Now how was I gonna get there before Mrs. Cobb did? How was I gonna warn everybody?
As another horseman with a shotgun slung over his shoulder rode up, I ducked into the shadows. Didn’t want Mrs. Cobb or nobody else to see me. “Where are the others?” the horseman called out.
“Rounding up a few more that need the work!” Mrs. Cobb said as Patrick came out of the store. “Patrick will take one wagon straightaway, and I’ll be right behind in the other. Then we’ll meet up at Pleasant Grove Baptist Church and set out from there.”
The horseman tipped his hat. “That where we get paid? At the church?”
“No one gets paid until the job is done.”
Dear Lord. They was going to the church? Wasn’t no way for me to get to there before they did. Even with a head start them wagons would catch up to me in no time.
I hung my head and held tight to my bag. What was I gonna do now? I had to get there somehow. Because Mrs. Cobb wouldn’t be coming to Gee’s Bend if not for me.
When I lifted my head, the air was full of dust and Mrs. Cobb was gone. The only one left in the street was Patrick sitting tall in the wagon, and he was waving something colorful in the air. As the dust settled, I could see it was about the size of a flag, and it looked like he was waving it at me.
I stepped away from the building and into the street. Soon as I did, Patrick started waving that flag even faster. Wasn’t no doubt in my mind now that it was my attention he wanted.
“Yah,” Patrick said to the horses, and they began to move toward me. As they got closer, I could see the flag had blue denim and white burlap and calico.
It wasn’t a flag at all.
