Rita Will_Memoir of a Literary Rabble-Rouser

by Rita Mae Brown

People underestimate children. They can understand moral principles early. I understood that I had not tried in even the smallest fashion to alleviate his suffering or to include him in my games. I hated myself.

  I hated Jesus, too. He had brought Lazarus back from the dead. Why didn’t he help us now?

  Given my natural ebullience, this flash of guilt and self-hate lasted maybe ten minutes, but it was the first time I’d felt those squeamish emotions. I didn’t much like them. I didn’t want to feel that way again.

  My daredevil acts increased, as did my sitting at the top of trees as I stared at the clouds. I don’t know if I thought I’d see an angel or Zeus—I knew the Olympians because Mother read me the stories that were too advanced for my reading ability—but I was searching for something. Jumping onto the roof was another part of the search. I liked the feeling of dropping through the air. I liked the safe sound when my feet hit the shingles. I survived.

  In retrospect I know I was struggling with issues of death and my duties to others. My vocabulary hadn’t caught up with my concerns. Mother, for all her self-centeredness, could be sensitive. She knew Big Mimi’s death and now my cousin’s had affected me. Neither of us could have known that soon we’d be clobbered with another death of someone we loved, and that one would be true agony. But she never coddled me, nor did she direct my thoughts by telling me, “This is what good girls do.”

  Aunt Mimi, the font of Christian teaching, directed me every time Mother’s back was turned.

  Dad told me that we can’t question God’s will. We must surrender.

  To this day the word surrender offends me, but Dad was right.

  My anger wouldn’t bring anyone back, any more than pasting some snot-nosed kid who called me a bastard could change the fact that I was.

  I expect my July morning spent on the roof sprang from these issues. What I didn’t expect was Mother’s response.

  She waltzed back out after what seemed an eternity. Aunt Mimi had a glass of lemonade in her hand to taunt me.

  “Hot?”

  “Yes.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Mother smiled up at me. She had such a feminine, coy smile.

  “Want me to get the ladder?” Aunt Mimi held the glass to her forehead.

  “No.”

  “Well, Juts, you can’t leave her up there any longer. It’s hotter than Tophet.”

  “Kid, have you thought of a way down?”

  “No.”

  “You could shimmy down the drainspout.”

  I’d thought of that but I feared that if I swung my leg over the lip of the drainspout, I’d tear the whole thing off with me and then I’d really get a hiding. Or I’d land in Mother’s hydrangeas.

  “I don’t think I can.”

  “You could jump.”

  “I’m afraid.”

  “Julia, she’ll break a leg,” Aunt Mimi chided her sister.

  “Jump and I’ll catch you.” Mother stubbed out her cigarette and held up her arms.

  “Julia, Julia, she’s too heavy. She’ll hurt your insides.”

  “Sis, let me handle this.” She held her hand to shade her eyes. “I’ll catch you. Even if I don’t do such a hot job, I’ll break your fall, and then we’ll both roll around in the grass.”

  Mickey backed down the tree and headed for the kitchen, too afraid to look, I guess.

  I had the presence of mind not to leap off, but I crouched backward, grabbed the edge of the gutter, oh it was hot, and let myself hang and then let go.

  Mother caught me right under my armpits. “You got to trust someone in this life, kid.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  That was a lesson worth learning. It was also worth remembering not to jump onto roofs without a ladder.

  7

  Violet Hill

  Mother walked me through the meadows full of goldenrod and down the country lane to Violet Hill Elementary School, a brick building squat in the middle of the pasture surrounded by a moat of macadam.

  Other mothers walked their kids to school. Some whiners were bawling. I skipped the whole way. When I said goodbye to Mother to join my first-grade class of thirteen children, it was Mother who burst into tears, not me. She wasn’t the only mother crying.

  Mother cried, then laughed at herself. She told Eileen Shellenberger that she felt old. I wasn’t hers anymore. As Eileen, a pretty, dark-haired woman, had four children, she didn’t share Mother’s moment of nostalgia.

  I was grown-up. First grade. Books. A ruler. Pencils and a big pink eraser. Other kids. Some even rode bicycles to school. Two Belgian draft horses munched in the adjoining meadow. That was even better than having other kids to play with. This was heaven.

  And it was. School is every child’s passport to the world outside their home. Our textbooks were frayed at the edges. We had no audiovisual aids. We had no athletic facilities. What games we played, we played on the mowed grass. But what we had were good teachers. They stamped my passport. I was ready to travel.

  8

  The Golden Hound

  If you ever try to write your autobiography, you’ll find that experiences jump into your mind fresh, forcing you to feel those original emotions again. You’ll be overwhelmed at what you can remember, and if you’re like me, you’ll stumble on time sequences.

  The reason is that when we’re tiny we have little sense of time. If you are five years old, then one year represents twenty percent of your life experience. When you’re fifty, one year represents two percent of your experiences.

  Those early memories are primary colors, pure and intense. They’re also a jumble. School eventually imposes an order on you and on time.

  That fall of 1950 meant going to school for the first time. It also meant hunting.

  PopPop Harmon, Juts’s stepfather, kept hounds, as did some of Dad’s relatives. Night hunters, these old fellows (most of them born in the 1870s and 1880s) would take out four or five couple of hounds and let them rip. These hunts would be liberally fueled by white lightning or store-bought liquor.

  Arguments over which was the better hound—coonhounds, foxhounds, Beagles, Plott Hounds, Walker Hounds—kept these veterans of the Spanish-American War and World War I fighting all over again. Who needed Kaiser Bill to fight when tiny Verduns existed in your own backyard?

  PopPop believed no hound could beat a Walker for drive and nose. You couldn’t beat them for stubbornness, either. Much as he admired them he liked American Foxhounds best.

  His rheumy eyes would light up and his small frame would gain energy as he recounted the wonders of his most recent hunt and the glories of Belle, his best bitch.

  Naturally, I begged to be taken along. Finally, Mother relented as long as Dad accompanied me, so that if I became a pest I wouldn’t spoil a good night’s hunting for “the boys.”

  “The boys” gathered on a high meadow between Spring Grove and Hanover that first weekend of school. Some walked, their obedient hounds trailing behind them. Others chugged down country roads in pickup trucks built in the 1930s. Everyone operated on the principle “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Also, if something still worked, you didn’t replace it with a new one. People were far more practical then. The paint jobs on those vehicles displayed the relentless passage of time, as did the faces of the hunters. Few bothered to shave unless their wives fussed at them. Everyone wore suspenders, chewed tobacco and smelled like ’shine and chocolate. I loved them.

  PopPop introduced me as Juts’s girl. Everyone knew Juts, so they embraced me as the novitiate that I was. PopPop had explained to me the ways of red foxes. I knew catching the quarry wasn’t likely. I also understood that I was there to listen to the “music.”

  PopPop had a stud hound, Toby, that ran silent. I asked him why he kept such a hound, since hearing them is half of the fun. He said he’d tell me later, but he always forgot to tell me. He also warned me not to talk about Toby’s peculiarity. That was our secret.

&nb
sp; Belle’s prowess, greatly appreciated on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line, drew admirers seeking to upgrade their hounds. A burly fellow named Harve, his shirt slightly open above his pants, offered PopPop fifty dollars for Belle. That was a fortune then, especially for PopPop, who didn’t have two nickels to rub together, the result of drink more than laziness. He’d stay off the sauce for a good stretch and then that devil alcohol would seize him again. It was a pity because he was a good man.

  Dad nearly passed out when PopPop refused. Then the man tried to borrow her for twenty dollars to get a litter out of her. PopPop said he wouldn’t do that either but he’d let the man know when he bred her. He wanted to control the bloodlines. Harve again pushed to buy her outright for fifty dollars, thinking repetition would wear down PopPop.

  Pushing never worked with anyone in our family. PopPop shook his head. Belle, a sleek Black-and-Tan with a white throat, sat next to Beulah, a good hound although not as good as Belle. They had no interest in the financial discussion.

  A skinny man got up on the back of his truck and said, “Let ’em go,” and go they did. Dad put me on his shoulders so I could watch the various hounds put their noses to the ground, tails or sterns up. A little wiggle meant “This is interesting.” A feathering meant “I’m about ready to roll,” and when a hound bayed or gave tongue, that meant “Ready, set, go!” The first time I heard that sound the hair stood up on the back of my neck, my heart raced and I wanted to run after the hounds. Still takes me that way.

  Belle’s voice, midrange, carried. You knew where she was even if far away. A good hound can cover forty or fifty miles and return ready to play with you. I heard deep voices, light voices, yippy voices and Belle’s distinctive bel canto.

  I was worried that the hounds would kill a fox, even though PopPop told me that hardly ever happened. Dad said foxes were smarter than hounds and lots smarter than we were. Truer words were never spoken.

  Dad, as I said, liked gun dogs. If he was going to hunt, he wanted to eat the quarry. Pheasant, grouse and wild turkey, fixed by Mom and Aunt Mimi, sent you back to the table for more. Since you can’t eat a fox or a raccoon, Dad shied off from night hunting. He knew good hound work when he saw it, though.

  A slight chill rolled up even though it had been a hot day. Those early September days can fry you. The nights will surprise you with cold. Dad handed me my jacket. The hounds cried far away, then the sound came closer.

  PopPop, his grin about as big as his small face, said, “Hear my girl?”

  We could. No one sounded like her.

  Harve was fit to be tied. He had to own that hound.

  Night magnifies sounds. The stars seemed so low I thought I could pluck one out of the dark sky.

  Belle worked in a copse near us, the other hounds with her, and the sound carried to heaven. Then Belle shut up. She shot over the meadow, the other hounds behind her, and she ran right up to PopPop, dropping an umbrella at his feet.

  Harve laughed so hard he nearly fell off his truck. If he’d had another swig, I think he would have plopped face first in the cut-over hay.

  “Harmon, I wouldn’t give you five cents for that hound now.”

  The men laughed. In those days no gentleman would swear in front of a lady, so even though they might have thought “damn” or “shit” or worse, they’d die before they’d say it.

  PopPop took the umbrella from Belle, patted her. Beulah was next to her, so he patted her too.

  “Good girls. Good girls.”

  Meanwhile Harve was whooping it up, carrying on like sin.

  PopPop smelled the umbrella. “Sniff, Buzzer.”

  I sniffed, stepped back, wrinkled my nose. My eyes watered.

  “What’s it smell like?” he inquired in his soft voice.

  “A skunk.”

  “Sniff again.”

  I did. “Kinda like a skunk and kinda like something else.”

  Dad tested the umbrella’s scent, too. He blinked his eyes.

  “That’s a fox. Like a sweet skunk.” PopPop patted the hounds again and then patted my back as though I were one of the hounds. He strolled over to Harve, handing him the umbrella.

  “Expecting rain, Harmon?” Oh, he laughed and hollered.

  “Your nose still working, Harve?”

  “Sure is.” Harve inhaled over the umbrella. “Uh …”

  “Let me have that,” another younger man said. He took a whiff. Then he handed it to the man next to him. The umbrella made the rounds.

  A moment of silence followed, since “the boys” knew a fox when they smelled it.

  PopPop took me by the hand, Belle and Beulah at his heels, to walk back home.

  Harve, shamed now, grew sullen. He yelled at PopPop, “How’d that umbrella get out here?”

  PopPop stopped and replied, “When I walk on water, I’ll let you know.”

  9

  The War of the Candy Apples

  That first week of elementary school was one of the biggest weeks of my life. Not only did I start school and go to a hunt, it was the week of the York Fair.

  Each year since 1765 York has hosted a huge fair. Farmers bring pumpkins and produce, women bring their pies and canned goods, the harness racers fly around the beautiful track, and the midway entices you with rides, games of chance and candy apples.

  Mom had taken me to the fair before, but those visits were hazy. This fair, in 1950, I remember with crystal clarity.

  For one thing, I could go in the back entrance free. Browns’ Meat Market was only about a block away and the market contributed to the fair, so they knew everyone working the fair, the gatekeepers, the police, the administration.

  Not only could I get in free, but if I brought my cousins, Kenny and Wadie, and my best friend, Cheryl Shellenberger, we could all get in free. The guard would wave us by.

  The fair was attended by the children of the entire county because we got one day off school to go, different days for different schools. That didn’t work for us because Kenny, two years older, and Wadie, my age, attended the Catholic school. We stuck together.

  Mother and Eileen Shellenberger escorted us. The mothers played bingo, hauled us through the agricultural exhibits (the other kids were bored, but I adored it, especially the cattle) and best of all, bought us white straw cowboy hats with our names drawn on the front in grease pencil. Sounds tacky but it looked great.

  Kenny and Wadie wanted to see the serpent girl at the freak show. I didn’t. We all rode the whip and the Ferris wheel. We watched a man and a woman who didn’t speak English walk a low tightrope, ride a bicycle on it and even sit in a chair on it. I was shocked. I didn’t know there were other languages and I’d never heard anything as peculiar.

  I’d heard Mamaw use German phrases in the Swabian dialect. Not that I knew it was a Swabian dialect, but I did know it wasn’t exactly English, except I’d heard “Gott im Himmel” so many times it seemed like English.

  I was so fascinated by hearing them talk to one another. I wanted to see the show twice, but Mom said that was selfish, other people wanted to see other things.

  We won an Indian-print blanket playing bingo. I still have it.

  We went to the booth where you throw baseballs at stuffed cats. I spent a quarter trying to win a huge blue stuffed horse. I was fixing to cry when I couldn’t win it but Mom told me I couldn’t cry in public and it wasn’t a hot idea to cry at home either. Weaklings cried. So I gulped and left but I babbled on about that horse. I wanted a real horse, but Mother adamantly refused, for reasons that would reveal themselves in time.

  Mom promised that I could go to the fair every day after school.

  As this was our day off from school, we kids made the most of it. Cheryl and I ransacked the exhibition hall. We were given samples of Taylor ham, a delicious ham with a lingering aftertaste, as well as key chains with miniature Taylor hams. Smithfield hams, the pride of Virginia, are full hams. These Taylor hams were rolls covered in white canvas.

  The boys we
re at another booth and when they saw our key chains they wanted some, too. The Taylor ham booth was in the back corner of the exhibition hall, which was under the grandstand. The fellow at the booth gave everyone more ham samples and the boys received their key chains.

  Happy with our freebies, we blasted back out onto the midway. Cheryl wanted a kewpie doll. Cheryl was a pretty little girl with honey brown hair, a sweet smile and a cute nose. All the Shellenbergers were fine-looking people, and boys and men melted at the sight of Cheryl.

  Kenny—Mr. Big, because he was in third grade—said he’d win her a kewpie. You had to swing a hammer, which would send a plug up a scale. The higher the plug rose, the more prizes you received.

  Kenny, who was actually no bigger than a minute, meant to impress Cheryl. I was disgusted. He could hardly lift the hammer, but he hit the pad. The plug rose pitifully, then slid right back down. No prize, just a smartass comment from the carny telling him to eat his Wheaties.

  Crestfallen, Kenny stood there, his big eyes imploring. A teenage boy had been watching. He walked over, paid his money, picked up the hammer as though it were a toothpick and knocked the pad so hard the plug hit the top with a ring.

  The mothers admired him. We kids stared agape. He grabbed a kewpie and a box with a chameleon in it tethered by a chain. He handed them both to Cheryl, gave the carny a dirty look and told Kenny, “Keep trying.”

  Then he walked off.

  We all learned that help shows up in the most surprising, delightful ways or, as Aunt Mimi often said, “The Lord moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.”

  I asked Mother if I could return to the cattle judging. She said that was fine, and I told the group I’d meet them at the tractor exhibition.

  No one worried about a five-year-old going off alone. Also, people knew you.

  The Herefords drew me. So many people raised Angus, but I liked Herefords. I liked the polled Herefords also, but the large chestnut animals with the long horns fascinated me. I sat and watched the cleaned and primped behemoths being led into the ring. The judge watched them move, checked out front, rear, left and right. Then he’d make his decision. Most of the judges were officials in the various cattle-breed associations and some were professors at Penn State, which boasts a fine agricultural department.