“Anytime. I don't know how much I should come over here. Or if I should. You never say if you need anything. Or if you need for me to drop by.”
“You're always welcome.” When she turned, Jeb thought he saw the faint hint of disappointment He wanted to take back whatever had caused her brows to sag. But she climbed inside the Chevy and started the engine.
As Fern drove away, Jeb listened to the sounds of croaking and hooting, which made as much sense as a woman's thousand-and-one shadowed signals.
He heard Angel call out to him, “You're such a goof, Jeb Nubey!” Then the screen door slammed behind her.
10
Here you are settling into this place when you should at least try to find your sister Claudia. Look at you with your schoolbooks in hand, ribbon in your hair. It's a fine kettle we got us, that's what!” Jeb held a letter in his hand, the envelope addressed to Church in the Dell, the contents from Reverend Philemon Gracie. According to what Angel read, the minister had extended his stay in Tennessee.
“That's not bad news. It's good, Jeb.” Angel cheeked the green pleated dress in front of the mirror. “That Mrs. Bernard has a very good hand at sewing. You'd never know this once fit Millie Fogarty's big niece Hester.”
“Extended means nothing but that—that the preacher is going to come sooner or later. We're living in a fool's paradise, Baby, and it goes downhill from here on out.” Jeb tucked the letter inside his shirt, drew it out, and then searched the parlor for a hiding place. But every nook and cranny looked to be obvious and a place that might tell tales.
“I like it here, Jeb. Don't you?” Angel asked. She never took her eyes off the mirror, but smoothed her dress with her right hand. Her books, given to her by Fern, she cradled in her other arm.
Angel retrieved the letter. She read it once more and said, “The preacher is in Tennessee, the ever-loving Appalachian Mountains, for Pete's sake! No way is he about to just tool on into town. You know where the Appalachian Mountains are, don't you?”
Jeb crt1 “I have heard of the place.”
“Clear up in Canada, Jeb!” She tugged her ear. “It could be a year before he makes it this far. This feller, he is preaching his way all the way down the whole map of America.” The ribbon tied around Angel's, head slipped. She laid her books on the floor and readjusted it to make a headband. “Willie, if you don't come right this minute, you can walk to school alone!”
Ida May came in through the kitchen, crying.
“Now what's wrong?” Angel pinned the green ribbon behind her ears with hairpins.
“I tried to go pee-pee without you. But I can't,” said Ida May. ”You'Il be, gone all day and then what?”
Explode, Jeb thought.
Angel told her, “Ida May, you won't go when I'm with you, let alone when I'm not. Go and try again. I promise I won't leave for school until you do.”
Ida May shuffled back through the kitchen. Her fingers clenched a doll by a few black wisps of hair.
Jeb took the letter from Angel. It occurred to him that she could tell him anything her lying lips wished to convey. He pointed to the first letter of the salutation. “What's that letter there?”
“D.”
“And that one?”
“E, for heavens’ sake!”
“That one, and that one?”
“A, R. Read it, Jeb.”
“Dee. Are. That don't make sense.”
“Dear, Jeb. It's how a person starts a letter. This is to Mr. Honeysack, the head deacon: Dear Brother Honeysack. I already read this to you. We have to leave for school.”
“Wonder why Gracie didn't just mail this to Honeysack himself? That don't make sense, does it?”
“Maybe because it says ‘Dear Brother Honeysack and the Congregation of Church in the Dell.’ The letter's to everyone in the whole church, so he mailed it to the church.”
“You realize how close we come to getting found out? Honeysack collects the mail for everyone in town and gives it to them when they come in to his store. He could have opened this, but instead he handed it to me himself. Wonder why he didn't open it?”
Angel looked at the envelope again. “It just says Church in the Dell. That means all church mail goes to you, Reverend Gracie.”
Jeb tapped the table near the mirror. “This is what I mean. Every day I come within inches of calamity. Nipping at my heels, breathing down my neck”
“Willie, we're about to be late,” said Angel
Willie hefted a load of books to the door, “I hate this. Now Miss Coulter knows I can't read—well, compared to Jeb, I can read—but she's been after me ever since. A woman like her can make my life a livin’ hell.”
“No more skating through school, Willie,” said Angel.
“Ida May's not back from the outhouse,” said Jeb,
“If we don't leave now, we'll not make the bell. Willie, let's go.” Angel handed a book to Jeb. “This is Ida May's ABC's. Study it, if you want.”
Angel and Willie arrived just as the school bell rang.
The lone school building housed all of the educational rooms for every child in the hamlet of Nazareth. Fourth grade up to eighth grade studied in the same hall, while the younger children applied their attention to the basics of learning in a rear quadrant. High school students studied together in a drafty hall of a room, a few intent on college entrance exams, while the rest dreamed up ways to check out of school, never to return. The entire school-house possessed the similarly boxed shape of the row houses that dotted the path into the schoolyard, bearing a hipped roof and windows so small the school appeared to squint in the sunlight.
Angel told Willie to count his pencils. As he did so, she checked his mustard-and-salt-pork sandwich, rolled it back up in thinfoil and handed it to him. “Watch your things. I can't look over my shoulder all the time to see you haven't forgotten anything.”
“I feel like a fool going in that younger class,” said Willie.
“Miss Coulter says you'll get caught up if you'll work’ at it. Then you can move into my class. Act like the preacher's son and they'll treat you with respect” Angel enjoyed the new identity to a certain extent, the gifts given to them, however used they might be, and the occasional free pullet for the cook's pot. While she cried herself to sleep at night languishing for her mother, she hoped for the best of both worlds—her mother here in Nazareth with the trappings of being a Gracie. The simplified solution kept throwing itself upon the rocks of reality. “We have to make ourselves better people, Willie, while the gettin's good.”
“We ain't better. We're just liars,” said Willie.
“You got it all wrong. God put us in this place so we can climb out of the mud, away from Nubeys and no-account uncles.”
“Maybe we're no-account Angel.”
“I woke myself up the morning Daddy came in and said he was sending us off to Claudia's. I knew right then that God had a special plan for my life, just like Granny always told me.” Angel had never shared that with anyone.
“You're bananas.”
“Listen, we know we can't stay here forever unless God wills it. That letter from Philemon Gracie, it said he was delayed. What if God did that to give us extra time? Next few weeks we get another letter. He's had another delay, maybe a year. Maybe more. That gives us time to make ourselves better. Like people who grow up and go off to college.”
“You give me salt pork in a biscuit again; I am turning into a salt lick,” said Willie.
“At the lunch bell, you meet me out on the school grounds with your books. We're going to get you caught up. This whole idea of being a Gracie, it's for a reason”
“I know. You lied.”
“Meet me at lunch.” Angel found her classroom, a room full of hand-nailed desks with mismatched shaky-legged chairs scooted up beneath them. Miss Coulter Called the class to order and took roll. When she said, “Angel Gracie,” Angel's hand flew up. “That's me. I'm her!” It felt odd to be so familiar already with the teacher.
Fern introduced her to the class, although she had met most of the students at church. “Students, we have a new family in Nazareth. Please say hello to Reverend Grade's daughter, Angel”
Angel heard her name as a chorus.
“Ida May, don't you think it's about time you come out of the outhouse?’ Jeb still had the alphabet book in his hands. “Come out and read a little bit to me.”
The outhouse door opened with a long rusted-hinge squeal. “Why, Dud? You can't read back to me.”
“You finish your business or not?’ Jeb asked, although he did not look her in the eye.
“All by myself.”
“That's good. You did good. Let's sit under this tree and you tell me the letters, how about?”
“I don't have to go to school yet,” said Ida May.
“If you go and you're the only one that don't know her ABC's, how will that feel?”
She didn't answer.
“Get your hind-end over here.”
Her pace, languidly slow, finally brought her under the tree next to him.
He opened the picture book. “This here letter is A. Is that right?’
Ida May nodded and said, “It makes either ah sound or ay.”
“No kidding? How you figger out the difference?” Ida May shrugged.
“Well, then, we have us a dilemma. I see all these words beginning with A. How we going to know how to say them?” He hoped her shrug was only a sign of shyness and not ignorance of the letter A.
Ida May ran her finger over the first word. “Apple. That word is ‘apple,’ “
“I'll bet you're right” said Jeb. “It looks like it would be apple. But you reckon it's because they put a picture of a big red apple on the page that you figured that one out?”
Ida May laughed through her nose.
“Try the next one.”
Her chest lifted. She sounded the vowels and consonants as a whisper.
“I can't hear you, Littlest” he said.
“An … dun. ‘And.’ “
“Kind of like, me and you are sitting here reading.”
Her head joggled up and down.
“Let's try B.”
“Ba … ‘ball.’ “
“So if we wanted to read about balls and apples, we could do that?”
She shrugged and gave a sort of nod with her shoulders up to her ears.
He tossed the book into her lap. “How they think we going to communicate on two words?”
“I don't know.”
“Senseless, lengthy process, that's what I say.” Jeb left Ida May to figure out the simple words. “When you get to something interesting like ‘woman’ or ‘fried chicken,’ you give me a holler.”
While Willie recited multiplication tables, Angel wrote a letter to Claudia. She began three times, at each sitting tearing the paper in two and wadding it up to toss away. “If she writes back to me and Will Honeysack sees it, he'll see my name is Welby.”
“First you got to know where Claudia went So far no one here has ever heard of her. I think she never lived here, that's what”
“It doesn't make sense, Willie. We found an empty house right where her letter said she lived. How else would she know about that place if she didn't live there?”
“I think we'd find Momma before we'd find Claudia. At least we know she's in Little Rock,” said Willie.
Angel told him, “You know we can't believe Lana nor nothing,” she said. “But you think if we sent Momma a letter to the sanatorium, she'd get it? I'll bet not. She's at Aunt Katy's just like Daddy said.”
“Daddy didn't give us no address. I’ don't think he counted on letter writing at all. You got to help me finish these arithmetic tables before lunch is over,”
“He didn't give us Momma's address because he expected us to be at Claudia's. But I can't see her in no sanatorium. She always wanted to be a nurse, not crazy.”
“I met a new boy from Louisiana. He's my age but put back, too, like me.”
“If there is a sanatorium in Little Rock, maybe the man who puts up the mail for Hdneysack has heard of it Or maybe he's heard of Claudia Drake. I can make up a, whole new story about trying to find a Sick relative.”
“Might as well add it to the other stories you tell. This boy is real nice. He's over there doing his tables, too. If we get finished, we're going to have us a game of stick ball.”
“I know what I'll do. I'll write this letter to Claudia and tell her to send it to her old address, that we're staying there with someone named … Hildy Gardner and that she should address her letters that way. Then I'll tell this feller at Honeysack's about an old Woman I visit on the outskirts of town named Hildy. He'll let me pick up her mail if I tell him it's for a old sick woman.”
“I can't finish this table if you don't stop gabbing, Angel.”
Angel pulled out a fresh sheet of paper. Then she pulled out another. “One for Momma and one for Claudia. They'll both be glad to hear we're doing so well.”
11
Men go after women they don't deserve. I don't know why it is, but it is the gospel truth. Ever since evil came into the human heart, women have had their hearts crushed by scoundrels who coveted the white flower of their youth and would not rest until they had plucked what did not belong to them.
Jeb sat up in bed. The morning sun pierced his right eye, a stabbing fork that poked him awake. “Angel, you leave that radio on?”
“I turned it on to listen to Sister Myra, the Salt of the Earth, sponsored by Spear's Best Flour.”
But I'm here, Sisters of Broken Hearts, to tell you today that if your heart has been crushed by a savage usurper, Sister Myra has the cure for you. For the cost of a Coke and a hamburger, I can send you a prayer cloth anointed by my own hand—
“Turn that mess off!” Jeb sat up on the side of the bed, his head cupped in his hands.
“You look awful,” said Angel. “I heard you out on the porch last night, rocking.”
“That's all I was doing.” He had not been able to find a drop of gin anywhere.
“Ida May is still in bed. Willie is still not ready for school. A real daddy would get the kids up, help them with their breakfast—”
“Could you shut that door?” Jeb asked.
Angel shut his bedroom door.
“No, I mean stand on the other side of it”
“You're the kind of mean man Sister Myra warns young virgins about” She stomped out.
“Watch your mouth!” Jeb imagined five cigarettes, in his mouth, with Myrna Hoop kneeling at his feet lighting each one. He made a sucking gesture with two fingers at his lips and then blew out The night before he'd gone into Honeysack's store intent on pilfering another pack or a little something for his stomach. First, he'd told the clerk, Val Rodwyn, that he needed something strong for Ida May's cold. “Something for a toddy,” he told him. But Val had told him that Nazareth was in a dry county and the strongest thing he had on the shelf was paregoric syrup. “I don't recommend that for the cold,” he said. “Perhaps I could interest you in Dr. Gumpher's Expectorant”
The cigarette papers and Prince Albert cans had stared from a shelf behind Val. Jeb bought the expectorant and left. It tasted like extract of rye grass.
His head felt loaded onto his neck, ä boulder tipping right and left until his forehead fell into his hands. Ida May and Angel fought in the hallway. Ida May's scream pierced through the door, punching holes into the silent asylum of his room. The birds outside on the windowsill elevated the noise until he felt his brain tattering in every direction. He knew what Fern, who heard melody Where he only perceived clamor, would say. She would smile disappear into the scene through a window, and find the happy nest cozied up where he saw a roosting mess.
Fern had that smell of white cotton and linen that followed her into a room. Except for some of her cooking, she was a whiz of a girl. She did not recognize her own purity, no more than she knew that she possessed a plumbing wisdom. He figured that was how such things came to dwell insid
e of her.
Jeb cleaned himself up, laced up his boots, and followed Angel and Ida May out onto the porch. “I'm taking you and Willie to school. Give me a minute to hitch up: that mule.”
“I'm’ not riding to school in that old wagon,” said Angel.
“You will if I say! Willie, help me hitch up.”
Angel made a sound like blustering disgust. Then her lips squeezed together to bar any conversation. When Jeb climbed up, whip in his hand, he scratched his jaw, the whisker nubs erupting, and said, “Now where is this school?”
By the time the mule pulled into the schoolyard, the wagon had filled with every child who normally walked to school. Arnell and Roe Ketcherside, the Lundy twins, Melody Bottoms, whose mother ran the Clip and Curl on Front Street, and four of the six Wolvertons. The Wolvertons said it was better than a hayride. Both Wolverton boys had been shorn like sheep, making them look like little old men. Jeb insisted that two of the boys sit in the floor to allow all of the girls a decent place to sit.
Two youths swerved around the wagon in a two-door. Ford sedan, powdering the wagonload of students in road silt. The girls coughed and shielded their faces with arms and sweaters.
“They're Horace Mills's sons,” said Angel, “Ernest and Frank. They think they got one up on everyone else’ cause their banker daddy bought them a Ford.”
“Somebody needs to give them a ride from the seat of their britches,” said Jeb.
Melody Bottoms, looked at Angel and said, “I never heard a preacher talk like your daddy He talks like my daddy talked before he left us.”
Jeb felt part of his whitewash flaking away. Preachers had too many social graces to juggle.
“I didn't know your daddy left,”: Angel said. She stopped herself before her lips formed the words, “My mother and daddy did, too.”
“I'm sorry you lost your daddy, Melody,” said Jeb.
“Momma says it was this Depression that did it. Folks have trouble keeping they wits about them, my momma says, when they can't feed they own kids,” Melody jumped out of the wagon before the Wolverton boys could raise another dust cloud.
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