Julia's Hope

by Leisha Kelly

  Emma patted the cow’s nose. “She give you milk?”

  Both Hammond boys nodded.

  “You still got any of the rest of ’em?”

  “Two more,” Willy admitted. “They’s all milkers, but Rosey’s the best.”

  “Sold the others?” Emma asked again.

  “To Jeth Mitchell couple a’ years ago.”

  “Shut up, Will,” said the older boy. “I tol’ ya it’s time to get home.”

  Emma looked up at Joey and nodded. “You go ahead. Tell your pa we sure do ’preciate him lettin’ us have Lula Bell. And tell your mama hello.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The taller Hammond took hold of his brother’s shoulder with a strong hand and turned him back toward the woods. Willy turned around enough to wave at Robert, and then they marched off together.

  Samuel said nothing, but I couldn’t be so easygoing. I took Emma’s hand. “You can’t let them get by with this.”

  “Now, child,” she said. “He sent me a cow.”

  But I was hot inside. “Your cow, Emma! And he’s got two more! And he sold some and never told you! You don’t have to let him cheat you like this!”

  Emma shook her head and smiled at me. “He’s been feedin’ ’em all this time. And he sure ’nough needs a good milker over there. He knowed he was obligated, seein’ they’s mine. But he’s got to consider his own youngsters, you know.”

  “That doesn’t excuse him never telling you. Never paying you a dime.”

  “Lula Bell’s too close over here to m’ strawberries. Samuel, will you take her over by the barn where the grass is thick and just tie her to that post? Lordy, we’s got to check that fence over now.”

  Sam took the rope and stood studying the cow for a minute. Lula Bell was big even if she was thin, and I knew how awkward Sam must be feeling, being so close to her. But he gave a pull and they went together without much trouble to the barn. I watched Samuel tie her to the post and then jump when the cow came up close and stuck her nose in his shoulder.

  “She ain’t got milk till evenin’,” Emma told me. “You oughta pull her some sweet clover and take it over there.”

  “You mean they already milked her this morning?”

  “You can tell by the udders. But Julia, now, maybe they needed it.”

  I didn’t say a word. Still steaming inside, I didn’t want to blow my top over our selfish neighbor when it was Emma’s business, not mine. But I hated that George Hammond was cheating her, using her, and claiming we were the ones doing so. I began to wonder about what Samuel had asked Emma before. Did they pay anything at all for the field? Or did she just let them by for that too, because there were so many Hammond mouths to feed?

  It seemed crazy, me being so stirred by this. After all, she was giving to us too. But this was different somehow, and even Emma knew it.

  I had a hard time putting thoughts of the Hammonds out of my mind. But we had to get back to planting.

  “Lettuce goes ’bout quarter inch down, now,” Emma reminded us. “Turnips just a little more. We don’t wanna make them seedlin’s work too hard findin’ sun, you know.”

  “What’s salsify?” Robert asked, reading the handwritten label on an envelope.

  “Root ’bout as long as my hand. Real good for stew and such. Some folks say it tastes like oysters, but I wouldn’t know ’bout that. Never did eat me no oysters.”

  Sarah had wandered over into the strawberry patch and was peeking around under leaves for a toad among the berries. “Mama, look!” she suddenly called. “A red one!”

  “Don’t pick it yet,” I warned. “Let it get red clear to the tip.”

  Too late. She already had it in her hand. “It is red, Mama. Come see.”

  I went and found with pleasure that she had indeed discovered our first ripe strawberry. Looking around, I quickly found four more.

  Emma was delighted. “Just a few days and we’ll have to come out with a mixin’ bowl! They’ll be turnin’ all over the patch. Oh, what eatin’!”

  I handed her the berries I had picked. Sarah had already eaten hers. Emma handed one to Robert and ate the rest, obviously savoring the season’s first taste.

  “Don’t none of you let no birds settle down over ’em now, or they’ll be peckin’ ’em up,” she admonished us. “And you make sure and tell me if Wilametta sends any of them young’uns up here gawkin’ at ’em. I’ll give ’em a bowl or two, but they ain’t pickin’ the patch clean this year.”

  I felt myself steaming up again at the mention of Hammonds. Lord, help me, I prayed. This is no way to live neighborly.

  “Sarah, come here.” Robert was suddenly down on his knees in the dirt, looking toward the edge of the grass just a couple of feet away.

  Sarah wasn’t sure she wanted to trust him. “What for?”

  “Just come here, will you? But not too fast. You’ll scare him.”

  Sarah jumped toward him. “Who? Scare who? Show me!”

  “Right there, silly. Right by them little yellow flowers. See him?”

  Sarah ran straight for the sorrel flowers, and Emma laughed as a big toad and a little girl jumped at the same time, startled by each other.

  “He’s getting away!” Sarah cried in dismay.

  “He won’t go far,” Emma assured her. “He knows where the garden is. He’ll be sittin’ under punkin leaves ’fore long, eatin’ up them squash beetles. ’Least I hope he does that.”

  Emma stopped talking, suddenly staring into the green at Sarah’s feet and looking as pleased as she could be. “Will you looky there! Julia, check where that toad was hoppin’ and tell me if that ain’t mustard coming up in the grass! Had me some go to seed years ago, but I figured they’d be done volunteerin’ by now.”

  The plant truly was a mustard, as far as I could tell, and I marveled that a woman who couldn’t see to thread a needle could pick it out among the weeds.

  “Makes for good greens, you know,” she told me. “Too bad there ain’t scads of ’em all over the place. Dig her up, will you, and we’ll plant her nice and easy at this end of the turnip row. Fetch me a bowl of water, Robert. They set so much better if you mud ’em in right.”

  Lula Bell let out a moo that made me jump. She just stood there, looking us over and busily chewing. I thought about the milking and wondered if Emma had ever used a stanchion. I didn’t remember seeing one in the barn. Maybe she was on such good terms with her cows that they had always just stood still for her. I hoped that would work for me.

  I went to get the trowel to move Emma’s mustard plant, but I kept thinking about that cow. Lord, give Lula Bell plenty of milk, I prayed. We need it, especially for Sarah.

  I glanced around the yard and finally spotted some clover, the red kind, though it hadn’t bloomed yet. I’d better do what Emma said and pull some for the cow, right after I plant the mustard in the garden.

  There were two more little mustard plants coming up where the seeds must have dropped in the grass, and I set them all in a line at the end of the turnip row, like Emma had asked. Such a blessing, to have something up and growing already in that bare dirt. It made me wish for tomatoes and cabbage and peas. And potatoes. Oh, to have lots of potatoes. Lord, we’d be all right then.

  Emma was down on her knees, tamping down the dirt over the turnips and lettuce. We put in the string beans and the salsify next, and then the pumpkin hills beside the rows where we’d planted corn. It made me feel so rich to look at that ground and know it was done. A garden was a promise from God, pure and simple. A little work and you reap the benefits. Just like it should be.

  “Now, Robert and Sarey,” Emma was saying. “It’ll be your job to help me keep the weeds down come summer. Your folks is gonna have plenty ’nough to do.”

  I smiled at the looks on their faces. Sarah evidently thought it grand to be considered big enough for such an important task. Robert, on the other hand, made no effort to hide his distaste for the idea. But he knew better than to argue. He got up, brushed the di
rt off his jeans, and frowned at me. “Can I go fishin’ now?”

  “After lunch.”

  Sam was putting sticks in the ground to mark our rows and the pumpkin hills. As I picked up our tools and the empty seed envelopes, the brown paper bag that had held the envelopes fluttered away in the breeze. I turned toward the barn after it just in time to see something small and gray scurry inside.

  “Did you see that?” Robert asked.

  “I surely did. And I think it was a cat.”

  “A cat?” Sarah piped up. “Where?”

  “In the barn. Maybe. If that’s what it was. But you stay away for now. If it claims the place, it’ll get used to us after awhile. Probably half wild now, though, honey. It might scratch.”

  “Be a good thing if it is a cat,” Emma added. “They keeps the mice down.” She looked over at the cow lazily switching its tail. “We oughta send ’em somethin’, you know, to thank ’em for bein’ so generous.”

  I spun around, half expecting Emma to tell me she was joking. But she wasn’t.

  “I know you think he ain’t been fair,” she added. “But Lula Bell’s a sight better’n nothin’, you gotta admit, and he didn’t hafta go that far. The good Lord’d have us to show kindness, even when it ain’t the first thing on our minds.”

  “All right,” I relented, still angry. “But what could we possibly give them?”

  “I’ll have to study on that. Not gonna be easy just yet to make a pot a’ anythin’ big enough to feed that crew.” She rose to her knees with some effort and began brushing off Willard’s trousers. Sam moved immediately to help her up.

  “Get me to the porch,” she told him. “Wish I still had me that swing.”

  “You had a porch swing?” Sarah asked, turning her attention from the barn to the house. In no time she spotted the hooks still in the porch ceiling. “We can get one,” she announced. “And put it right there. Can’t we, Daddy?”

  Sam looked at me and then at Robert, who was suddenly smiling again. “It’ll take awhile,” he told the kids. “But I think I can make one. When we got time. All right?”

  “Yeah!” Sarah squealed.

  “You’re turnin’ out right handy, Samuel,” Emma said. “If you can do that, I’ll be braggin’ all over Ham’ton County ’bout you.”

  We brought out a chair to the porch for Emma, then collected clover for the cow. Sam went past the cow and the barn toward the old fence, and I started walking over the yard, picking yellow dock and dandelion, then wood sorrel, flowers and all.

  “Greens again, Mom?” Robert asked in dismay.

  “We have to make do, Robert.”

  He scowled and plunked down on the porch step. “You know what I’d like? Chicken!”

  “Robert John! We can’t butcher till there’s more of them! We’d be throwing away tomorrow to suit today!”

  Emma nodded. “Your mama’s got good sense. She does real good fixin’, and we got no right to complain. Come here, boy.”

  Robert turned and looked at her with a frown. “I hate bein’ poor,” he said. “I wanta be able to buy store bread and jelly and a bunch of roast beef and stuff.”

  “Well, them days is comin’,” she said. “Down the road a piece. Right now we can dream on it. Just think—we let one of them chickens set for a batch a’ chicks, then another batch, and ’fore long, we got us a good flock. Plenty a’ eggs ever’ day. And come cold weather, we can be eatin’ roast chicken to beat the band. This is the time for the green stuff now, though. You ain’t gonna get much a’ that in the winter.”

  “I’ll be glad.”

  “Might get to missin’ it when the snow’s high, and wish your mama could get out and find you some wild lettuce.”

  I looked up at her. “You have wild lettuce around here?”

  “Used to. Ain’t seen none today.” She smiled down at me. “You love it, don’t ya, Juli, goin’ out foragin’?”

  “I would if it was just for fun.”

  “It is fun. Ain’t no reason why we can’t have fun ’round here. The good Lord sure ain’t again’ it. Robert, get you and your sister both a bowl. First one to fill it up with eatin’ greens gets ’em a nickel.”

  “A real nickel?” Robert’s eyes shone, and he jumped up and ran to the kitchen for the bowls.

  “You needn’t do such a thing,” I told Emma. “They shouldn’t be paid for helping.”

  “It’s a game, that’s all,” she explained. “And I got me a nickel for both of ’em. We can send ’em to the store with Sam, and they can spend the nickels how they please, if you let ’em. It’s good for kids not to worry, now. They ought not be thinkin’ poor, even if they is.”

  I shook my head. “You can’t be dishing out nickels every time they complain. I don’t even want you taking your money—”

  “Julia, honey. Do you see any other young’uns scattered over m’ yard? Or anybody but your Samuel way over yonder?”

  “No.”

  “I lost my only boy, but it ain’t hard to dream that you’re fam’ly. That I finally got me some grandkids. And a son and a daughter.”

  I could see her eyes fill with tears, and mine started too, just as Robert came bursting out the back door with the bowls in his hand.

  “I ain’t short a’ nickels just yet,” Emma went on. “I wish you’d just let me dream.”

  There was nothing I could think of to say to that. So I just gave her a nod and turned back to my picking. And soon Robert and Sarah were running over the yard, doing picking of their own. We had a big plate of greens that noon, and the kids ate them even better than they usually did.

  I chose our Sunday clothes after lunch, one outfit apiece that was better than what we usually wore. Sarah’s best dress needed some mending and mine was a sight for wrinkles. Both of Robert’s pairs of pants were worn at the knee, but one not quite so bad; it would take a patch easily enough. And Samuel had one nice shirt, also in need of an iron.

  I searched through some boxes till I found the iron Emma assured me was in there somewhere. Then I put the iron on the hot stove to heat while I finished up the dishes. Emma sat with her needle and thread and fixed Sarah’s little dress while I spread out the other clothes on the cleared table to iron.

  I had finished all of ours and started on a pale green dress of Emma’s when we heard honking down the road.

  I shook my head. “Somebody’s leaning on the horn going past.”

  “They’ll be turning in,” Emma declared and laid aside her sewing to peer out the window.

  Sure enough, a familiar-looking pickup truck drove up into the yard, and I saw a tall man step out of it. Barrett Post. With a covered pan in his hands.

  Sarah was the first to greet him, and he sent her to the truck to retrieve something wrapped up in a dishcloth. I ran to the porch to ask him in.

  “Louise figured you oughta have a housewarmin’,” he said, looking past me. “Stars, you got Emma here a’ready.”

  “Barrett,” Emma said with obvious pleasure, “come and sit, will you?”

  I took the pot from his hands, and he pulled up a chair beside her. “Emma, it’s good seein’ ya.You’re lookin’ so good. You sure you’re all right, bein’ out here now?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be? Folks can only pine for home so long ’fore they gotta do something ’bout it or die.”

  I snuck a peek in the pot. A dressed chicken, ready to roast. Robert would be ecstatic.

  Sarah ran up to me with her bundle. “Mama, I think it’s corn bread!”

  Mr. Post laughed. “Those is from Louise, now. You all enjoy ’em tonight. And no need returning the favor, seein’s you’re just gettin’ settled and all.” He turned back to Emma without the slightest hesitation. “They treatin’ you good, are they?”

  “The finest in the world,” she declared. “You should just see how good they done puttin’ in m’ garden this mornin’.”

  I didn’t want to intrude on old friends, so I ushered Sarah outside in time to meet Sam coming up
from the barn.

  “Who is it?”

  “Mr. Post, remember, who took us into Belle Rive. But don’t go in yet. I really think he’d appreciate having Emma’s conversation alone for awhile.”

  “Not upset with us, is he?”

  “He doesn’t seem to be. Brought us a chicken and a pan of corn bread.”

  “It’s a wonder,” he said sarcastically.

  “It’s a blessing of God, Sammy,” I insisted. “How’s the fence look?”

  “Pretty beat down. I’d better start this afternoon and do what I can with it, so that cow’ll have some pasture. It’ll take awhile, though. It’s a good thing we’ve got a pile of lumber out there to work with.”

  He looked across the yard toward the henhouse and started walking to the shed. “Emma said to fix her chicken pen first. Do you know the way she wants it?”

  “Pretty much.”

  He pulled the old roll of chicken wire out from the shed, and I was glad to see him so motivated to get things done. With Sarah trying valiantly to help, he carried the wire to the henhouse, where part of a fence still stood, going straight out from the back.

  “We’ll need at least one post over there to join to,” I told him, “and then come back to the other henhouse corner.” I heard a couple of squawks and the rooster’s determined crowing. They were anxious to be out in the sunshine, I figured. Mr. Norse had set a rock against the wooden flap near the ground at the back of the coop. The flap would open into the fence soon enough, but if the chickens got out now, we might have a time rounding them up again.

  Samuel had already tacked the wire on one side and was digging the posthole when Mr. Post came out of the house, looking for us. “Say, there! Most folks stop their work when they’s got a visitor.”

  Sam looked up at him and nodded. “We figured you were Emma’s visitor.”

  “She’s fond of you. Ain’t got no complaints. Speaks well in my book.”

  “Can I get you a drink, Mr. Post?” I said quickly, remembering I hadn’t asked before.

  “No. No, thank you, ma’am.” He was still looking at Sam, and Sam was still digging. Sarah moved a little closer to me and then sat in the dirt, watching and listening.