by Jon Stafford
Mama hung up the phone. Grandmother was standing there, ready to question her.
“Is this another child? Dell, it’s about all I can do to take care of you and your three as it is!”
Mama said nothing. She just waited by the door.
In about twenty minutes, the familiar blue Chevrolet curved around in front of the house and stopped. With her husband waiting in the car, Mrs. Whitlow, holding the boy’s hand, came to the door.
He was a smallish boy carrying a little brown leather suitcase. Though his mother had loved him as much as she could, we learned that she lived in a self-constructed prison of shame and it had not worked out well for either of them. She had appeared in town one day, and some months later delivered the child at Dr. Karnes’ office. She had shunned company, both before and after the birth, only confiding in Karnes who kept in touch with her for years afterward. As a result, she had developed few friendships and no support group. No more than a child herself, her sudden adjustment to being mother, father, and wage earner all in one person must have been terrible.
She had worked in the drugstore waiting on people at the lunch counter. Though a hard worker and pleasant enough, folks said she was closemouthed, and they could see the unsettled look on her face that came from leaving a comfortable home at eighteen.
According to what Dr. Karnes told Mama in later years, Mrs. Carhart’s parents, to whom she returned, thought she had run off with her high school sweetheart. They never knew of the child. Even in later life, though he said it pained her, she never revealed her secret, never attempted to see her son. She married in her town, Cedar Rapids, forty miles away, and raised a family. She was a good person and loving mother, but her son never saw her again.
Several days before our soon-to-be-brother came to live with us, his mother had gone to Minister Whitlow and completely broken down. “I just can’t go on!” she had wailed.
Mrs. Whitlow, who I recall very well had led the chorus of gossips, was a woman poorly equipped to handle problems. Instead of attempting to calm the distraught young woman, she had left the room to get her husband. The sixty-five-year-old minister appeared but was capable of no more comfort than his wife. He uttered a few platitudes and had the mother kneel and pray.
With her little child in shock on the couch watching his mother fall apart, the girl could stand it no longer. She rose, crying and almost panicky, and said: “I–I can’t keep my little boy. I can’t do this anymore! I will die unless I see my mama again! I know you will take care of him. I’ll come back soon.”
She had hugged the boy tightly, kissed him, run out the door to a waiting taxi, and left town.
The old couple had done their best. But in truth, they had no idea how to care for a child. I remember how they had always seemed awkward around children. Mama guessed that they had pushed various foods in front of him that he had never had before. In the shock of seeing his mother so upset and then leave him, he ate almost nothing for three days.
Without anyone saying anything mean to him, Tommy Carhart must have always felt a lack of fitting in, always felt his mother’s shame as keenly as she did, even though he had no idea of the reason. While his mother worked, an elderly woman who lived in the same house where his mother rented a room had cared for him. He had rarely played with other children. He was withdrawn from almost everything around him.
As he walked in the door holding Mrs. Whitlow’s hand on this cold winter’s evening, without a coat but wearing three shirts, he had no smile on his face. Even seeing us children failed to bring him out. In fact, he only smiled at the sight of a toy his mother had given him, a little stuffed deer that was to be the only gift he was ever to have from her.
Mama picked him up immediately, which wasn’t easy for her. Grandmother turned and left the room without looking at the boy. She called over her shoulder: “Another one to care for! That’s all I need!”
Mama pressed the almost lifeless boy to her breast. There was something about him, and in an instant she thought of it.
“Children, this is Tommy. He looks like your daddy!”
We all left the table and gathered around to see.
“Yes, Mama,” I said, “he does look like Papa.”
Of course, Toby and Danny could barely recall seeing Papa and didn’t know what they were looking for.
“Yes, Danny, he looks like Papa, doesn’t he?”
“Well, he is a lot younger.”
I looked at him closely.
Without thinking, I said something that was to be sort of prophetic, “Mama, he has ruddy cheeks,” I decided.
“Baby, that’s because he’s so cold.”
Danny and Toby looked at each other.
“Toby, maybe he would like a biscuit.”
“Yes, I’ll give him one of my biscuits.”
With the boys greeting him warmly, the little boy had crossed the first hurdle in being accepted into his new family!
Mrs. Whitlow made a few cursory remarks. She seemed greatly relieved as she hurried out the door. The Chevrolet, sounding as though the clutch was almost gone, roared and headed off down the long drive, turning south on the gravel road toward town.
As we turned back toward the new boy, Mama brought him to the table full of food and sat him in her chair. He sat looking down with no expression at all. But soon the food caught his eye. There were bread, biscuits, blackberry preserves Grandmother had canned, a roast, a little ham left, milk, a pitcher of water, and corn in a big blue bowl with flowers that Mama loved. She poured a large glass of milk and put it in front of him.
He must have known that he had come to a good place. Almost faint from lack of food, he took the milk in both hands and drank, a little dribble edging down the side of his mouth. My sweet little brothers came and offered food from their plates.
“Here, this is good, eat this.”
He ate for a long time, trying everything on the table. It brought tears to his new mother’s eyes, so that she had to turn away. I know my mother’s thoughts because she said them at every supper we ever sat down to, even after we were grown: “All-Knowing God, thank you for bringing these children into our lives.”
Her greatest love was caring for children. Ten would not have been too many for her!
In a few minutes, Grandmother came back in the room. She wanted to inspect the “little intruder.” We all awaited the usual caustic remarks.
But her reaction was to change the lives of everyone in the room, most especially hers and the new boy’s. She took one look at him, this innocent and fragile boy who had never been loved as a child needs to be loved. A milk moustache on his upper lip, he looked toward her as she came in through the swinging door from the parlor holding laundry in her arms. Their eyes met, and she froze, dropping her carefully folded bed sheets onto the floor.
“Oh! Oh, my!” she said. “It’s little Harry! It’s Harry!”
She sank to her knees in shock, her arms reaching out. The startled boy thought he had done something wrong. He slowly nodded toward her, attempting to speak.
The four years of heartbreak after Grandfather died and the frustration of more than thirty-five years of farm life ended for
my petite and still pretty Grandmother. All of the times she had cursed God for taking her husband from her, all of the times she had lamented that her dear Harry had left her, came to an end. The boy with his black hair and small features held magic for her. I think it was the silhouette that she had looked to see in every child she had ever looked upon.
“Oh! Oh!” she said. “Thanks to God for this boy! Thanks to God for this boy!”
She got to her feet and walked toward the frightened boy, her arms outstretched. He had a piece of white bread in his hand and he never let it go. She scooped him up, bread and all, and went into the parlor to the old rocker, talking to him in a sweet voice.
“Oh, you are my sweet boy. You’ll see. You have a place here now. This is your new family. This is your house now. This is your place. You’ll see. You’ll see. You will be my boy!”
All of the problems of these two hurting persons, who had never seen each other before, melted away. In time the boy, called “Rudd” by all of us, adjusted to farm life. Nurtured in the rocker every night by his “Mimmi,” he soon learned his numbers and to read. His stutter disappeared, and he was well-prepared two and a half years later for first grade. No one ever questioned his belonging after that night. But his cheeks always were to remain red!
The change was just as drastic for Grandmother. She became capable of love again, and not just for the new boy. Her years of deflating and burdening sarcasm, which had lengthened every day and made life almost unbearable at times, ended that cold night. She took on a loving role for all of us children, and when Papa came back he found a fully functioning family in which he could make his recovery from the war.
Billy got up and went into the kitchen. It was almost 4 p.m. and she thought she would have to start dinner fairly soon. But in a few minutes her husband, Joe, called and said he would bring something home in an hour or so. A small glass of red wine in hand, she sat down and decided to try to finish her story. The light was still full outside, and, as she looked passed the famous grove of trees, she imagined a man on a tractor going back and forth on one of the fields.
Mr. Riser came to live with us at about that time. He was a wonderful man. It seems not that long ago when one frigid winter evening, there was a knock on the door as we were putting dinner on the table.
I went to the door. A man was standing there, covered with snow.
I went to get Mama. She opened the door, and the man looked up and spoke. “Missus, I am very hungry. Could I have something to eat?”
He shivered as he spoke, and his voice shook too. I suppose it is hard to imagine in this day and age, but Mama never turned away a hungry person, and I think that was true of most people.
“Certainly, sir, you come right in.”
He staggered in, seeming none too steady. Mama took him over by the stove. He remained there a long time, covered in a blanket she threw over him.
When he seemed a little thawed out, Mama spoke to him. “Would you like to wash up? Supper is about ready. You may wash up here at the sink.”
When he was finished, she ushered him to the table.
“Please, sir, sit at the head of the table. Children, now move your chairs around a little. We have a guest.”
“I thank you, missus.”
He slumped down and drank the steaming hot chicory coffee Mama put in front of him. I remember the gloves he wore, without material on the fingers. He was unshaven. He ate as we passed food to him, and ate more, asking if it was all right. Even at eight years old, I could tell a freezing and starving man when I saw one. It would have surprised us all if someone had told us that this unkempt man with his dirty clothes would have a wonderful impact on all of our lives.
After staring at him curiously while he ate, Danny and Toby began asking him questions.
“Do you know—” Toby tried to ask.
“No, let me ask him,” Danny jumped in.
“No, I’m first! Do you know the Precident? Precident Rosyvelt lives in Washington, D, ah, D.”
While he did not look like the sort of man who knew anyone important, all of us perked up just in case. Thawed out by this time, he sat back a little and puzzled over the question very carefully as though it were the deepest he had ever considered.
“Well, children, no, I have not met any presidents, but I have known many an interesting person. I’ve known generals, an Indian chief once; I’ve met Henry Ford and Douglas Fairbanks and the cowboy star Colonel Tim McCoy, a grand man. And many others.”
“Have you ever swum, ah, swam the ocean?” asked Toby.
“Nope, don’t know how to swim. But I went twice on an ocean liner across the great big ocean!”
All of our faces lit up!
“Wow,” said Danny. “I’ll bet it was big. Bigger than our farm?”
“Oh yes, children. It was even bigger than Iowa!”
“Bigger?” Toby said, surprised. “Was it bigger than the whole world?”
“It was big, children, and sometimes had waves taller than this house!”
That seemed to exhaust the man’s remaining energy. He slumped down, and Mama intervened, interrupting several anxious questioners.
“Now babies, Mr. ah . . .”
“Riser, missus, Jacob Riser.”
“Mr. Riser is tired and needs his rest. Sir, if you go up the stairs to the second floor, you will see the stair to the attic. You will find what you need up there, quilts and the like. The last occupant was my Grandfather a long time ago, so it will be nice to have someone stay there.”
He walked a few feet toward the stairs and turned. “I thank you so much, missus; I owe you very much.”
He bowed, holding his cap in his hands, and mounted the steps.
Thus began Mr. Riser’s time with us. It stretched on for fourteen years, until he died quite suddenly in the late winter of 1958.
The next day, after asking Mama’s permission, he began to take over the chores. In the spring he planted for us and then farmed for the first time since Grandfather was alive. He proved to be a good stockman, good with crops, and a capable mender of fences and machinery. He went about his work in a positive way with a smile on his face. I must say he taught me everything I was ever to learn of farming. When my father returned from the war, he found a fully working farm in the same condition he had left it in 1937, nine years before.
My father came to call him “Captain.” Over the years we came to think that perhaps he was a veteran of the First World War who had fallen on hard times. But I never managed to find out. The two men became very close. I know Mr. Riser helped my father a great deal in his readjustment to farm life and in putting the war behind him. Many nights the two men sat on the porch well past the time the rest of us retired for the evening.
I am also indebted to him for my nickname, “Billy.” Thank goodness no one has called me Wilhelmina since 1945!
One evening on the porch he said to us, to me:
“My dear, your name is too long for you. You are a straight up sort of person like your mama. Your name should be Billy. Wilhelmina is named after the old Kaiser of Germany, Wilhelm I or II, which, luckily they don’t have anymore. You don’
t want to be named after some king that a lot of us fought against, do you?”
“No, I guess not.” It wasn’t hard to say that, because I never liked the name in the first place.
He gave all of us nicknames! I never recall him calling any of us by our Christian names. He called Mama “Missus,” always. He called Papa “Colonel,” which was the Army version of his naval rank. Unaccountably, he called Toby the “Old Timer.” Danny became “Sonny” or “Sonny Boy.” Rudd he called “Top.” When Karen came, she became the “Little Princess.”
Mr. Riser entertained us at night too, acting and singing to us, to our great delight. He had a clear voice, and while he had some difficulty reaching the high notes, he was fun to listen to. We would be sitting on the porch, as we did every almost evening when the weather was at all decent, reading and talking, or listening to the radio, and he might jump up and begin singing. One of his favorites was the old Louie Armstrong tune from the late 1920s, “When You’re Smiling.”
He would sway back and forth in front of us, almost like Al Jolson. We would applaud boisterously. Then he might sit down, or open right up into another, like the Bing Crosby song “Let Me Call You Sweetheart,” which he always tailored to me! At first I was embarrassed, but as time rolled by, I came to love it. Some songs were funny, like the tunes from The Wizard of Oz, which we had seen a year or so before he came to us. All of us would laugh when he sang them. He was at his best with the Ray Bolger tune “If I Only Had a Brain.”
He would act out the part of the scarecrow, even falling on the ground. We were just glued to his rendition.
Before the war ended, he became very partial to the Mills Brothers and two of their great hits. “Paper Doll” struck us as funny.
Often he did the brothers’ “You Always Hurt the One You Love.” Looking back on it, I wonder if it had a deeper meaning that escaped us.
