by Ruth White
He started to cross the street, but Peter grabbed him and pulled him back.
“It’s not old Red, Bird. It just looks like him.”
“Did you have to leave your dog behind?” Ruby asked.
“No, we don’t have a dog. Old Red was Bird’s dog sixty years ago, when he was a little boy.”
Busy Street, true to its name, was bustling with people, which was usual for a Saturday evening into late night, when everybody and his kin came into Way Down from the hills. They came to town to shop for supplies and to find entertainment.
Folks walked by the storefronts in pairs or small bunches, chattering, laughing, counting their coins, licking ice cream cones. Children darted in and out among the grownups.
Although it was still daylight, the Silver Screen marquee was lit up with flashing lights, advertising Alan Ladd in Shane. For the second feature, Gene Autry’s Riders in the Sky was back by popular demand.
The Morgans’ oldest boy, Jude, was standing in line for tickets, with Lantha Bevins hanging on to his arm, her summer cold apparently all dried up.
Beside the movie theater stood the town’s only tavern, The Beer Barrel, from which the sounds of raucous laughter and a screeching jukebox spilled carelessly onto the street.
Just beyond The Beer Barrel, the eleven-year-old identical Fuller triplets were standing on stacks of pop crates, preaching the Gospel.
Connie Lynn, Sunny Gaye, and Bonnie Clare Fuller had eyes like violets and long yellow hair, which was plaited into pigtails. This evening they were dressed alike in blue homemade sundresses and sandals. Only their parents and a few friends, including Ruby, could tell one girl from another.
The triplets had been called at an early age to preach on the streets of Way Down. At the moment they were sermonizing to people who were in the throes of real temptation, imposed on them by the rowdy tavern. A crowd had gathered to hear the girls preach. As they were wrapping up the sermon, Ruby, Peter, and Bird joined their flock.
“And the Lord said to Aaron, ‘Drink no wine nor strong drink, you nor your sons with you, when you go into the tent of meeting,’ ” Bonnie Clare preached, slapping the Bible in her hands and emphasizing her last three words, “Lest you die!”
Then, with pigtails swinging, Sunny Gaye took her turn. “Wine is a mocker, strong drink a brawler,” she cried out, “and whoever is led astray by it is not wise!”
Next Connie Lynn evangelized, “And he will drink no wine nor strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit!”
As if by a miracle from God himself the appalling music from The Beer Barrel ceased, and the triplets took advantage of the moment by singing “Mansion over the Hilltop” in three-part harmony. They sounded good enough to be on the radio, and people were obviously impressed, as they gave the girls a round of applause, whistles, and hoots.
“Go now and sin no more!” Bonnie Clare said, dismissing the crowd.
But alas, as the sisters stepped down off the pop crates, most of their congregation filed into The Beer Barrel. Peter struggled with Bird to keep him from following the crowd.
Ruby introduced everybody, and the triplets all spoke at once, which was their habit. It saved time.
“We’re pleased to meet you,” from Bonnie Clare.
“We heard about y’all moving here,” from Sunny Gaye.
“Don’t you have some brothers, Peter?” from Connie Lynn.
Peter scratched his head. He had heard only Connie. “Yeah, Cedar, Jeeter, and Skeeter.”
He paused for the usual comment about the names, but the duplicates didn’t say anything else. They just peered up at him with their six violet eyes, waiting for more.
“My mama loved to make things rhyme,” he explained. “She was a poet in her last life.”
“What does that mean?”
“In her last life?”
“Come again?”
“Well, my mama believed that life is a school,” Peter explained, “and when we don’t learn the lessons placed before us, we have to come back and repeat the grade. But if we do learn what we’re here to learn, then we are promoted to the next grade. That’s where she is now—in the next grade.”
The triplets were too astonished to react. So was Ruby, but she also felt giddy. Here was a new card turned up!
“We have a little sister, too,” Peter continued. “By the time Rita came along, Mama had run out of rhyming names, so she had to settle for a tongue twister.”
“We’re having a baptism tomorrow,” Bonnie Clare informed him.
“Down at Deep Creek,” Connie Lynn said.
“And we think you need baptizing real bad,” added Sunny Gaye.
But Peter was rescued from more evangelizing at that moment when somebody put another nickel into the beastly jukebox. He threw up a hand to the triplets and moved on with Ruby and Bird.
9
SLIM MORGAN WAS STANDING IN FRONT OF HIS PARENTS’ drugstore with a camera.
“Y’all pose for me, and I’ll take your picture!” he called to Ruby, Peter, and Bird.
Actually Slim was not slim but rather pudgy. His hair was golden, his eyes a sparkling brown, and his nose freckled. No boy in town was better-looking or better-liked than the thirteen-year-old Slim.
He popped a blue flashbulb into his camera while Ruby and Peter posed. Bird did not know the meaning of the word pose, so he gazed upward into the night, as if he saw Gene Autry’s legendary ghost riders in the sky.
Slim aimed and snapped, the flashbulb exploded, and Bird hollered, “Lordy, Lordy! I’ve been struck by lightnin’! I’m blinded!”
“You’re okay, Bird,” Peter said, rubbing his own offended eyes. “It’s just a flashbulb.”
After introductions Slim offered up his new camera for their inspection.
“I got it for my birthday today. It’s a Brownie Hawkeye, and it takes colored pictures. I’ll show them to you when they get developed.”
“Happy birthday, Slim,” Ruby and Peter said together.
“How much does a camera like this cost?” Peter asked as he turned it over and over in his hands. Having seen very few cameras in his lifetime, he hardly knew what one should look like.
“About six dollars, I think.”
“Wow, six dollars for a camera. Y’all must be rich,” Peter said.
“Not a’tall. My mama and daddy run this drugstore here,” Slim said, jerking his thumb toward the window.
MORGAN’S DRUGS
SINCE 1897
SCRIPTS, SCENTS, SUNDAES
“And we’re not a bit rich. In fact, Daddy says he’s so deep in debt, whenever he walks into the bank it starts to trembling.”
“Hmmm,” Peter mused. “I should think a drugstore would make you pretty well off.”
“Well, Daddy says Mama trusts people too much, and gives credit on faith. And Mama says Daddy feels too much pity for the sick, and gives away more medicine than he sells.”
“Wanna hang out with us?” Ruby asked Slim.
“Okay.” Slim reclaimed the camera and hung the strap around his neck. “Y’all want some blow gum?”
“Sure,” Ruby and Peter said together.
“Me too!” Bird added.
Slim dashed into the drugstore and came back out with two handfuls of Bazooka bubble gum. He passed around pieces to Ruby, Peter, and Bird, too.
“Happy birthday!” Bird said to Slim, as if he had just this minute heard the news.
“Well, thank you very much, Bird,” Slim said. “And when is your birthday?”
“December first,” Bird answered promptly.
“That’s right, Granddaddy,” Peter praised him, surprised and pleased that the old man remembered.
“What year?” Ruby asked.
“Ev . . . ry year,” Bird said irritably. “Every gosh darn year that comes.”
Slim and Ruby giggled, but Peter reminded Bird to watch his language.
After visiting several stores, and introducing Peter and Bird to more people than
they could keep straight, the small group reached the bus depot. From there, Busy Street became Highway 99, with a string of private homes. So they went back the way they had come, taking turns at reading the Bazooka comics.
“How do you make a handkerchief dance?”
“How?”
“You put a little boogie in it!”
“When you step on a grape, what sound does it make?”
“What?”
“It lets out a little wine!”
Then they had a bubble-blowing contest. When Bird blew the biggest bubble of them all, Slim took his picture. The bubble burst all over his stubbly face, and he giggled.
“I don’t know when Bird has had so much fun,” Peter said as he patted his granddaddy’s shoulder with affection.
Darkness had crept in, and many stores were closing up for the day. The street was almost deserted, as people had disappeared into The Beer Barrel or the Silver Screen. Others had crossed the bridge to Railroad Street to eat at The Boxcar Grill or to rollerskate at the Round & Round, or to bowl at the Back Alley.
The night air was thick with smells of summer. Across the thoroughfare in front of the courthouse, moths could be seen flitting around the streetlamps. The curb had collected paper cups, Popsicle sticks, candy wrappers, and discarded gum. But the street sweeper would be along in a few hours, and by morning the town would be as clean and tidy as Miss Arbutus’s kitchen.
Upon passing The Beer Barrel again, they spied Mr. Farmer, husband to Way Down’s postmistress, tumbling out the door, too intoxicated to walk straight. It was a bad habit he had picked up in the war. Ruby and Slim knew Mr. Farmer was not a bad man. He just needed a little extra help sometimes. So they took him home to his wife.
Then Slim headed back to help close up the drugstore, and Ruby, Peter, and Bird continued toward their homes.
As they neared The Roost, Peter said, “Thanks, Ruby June, for walking around town with me. You have given me a lot to think about.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, Mama used to say nobody comes into our lives by accident. We have something to learn from everybody we meet. And I met a lot of people tonight.”
“Well, come and meet one more,” Ruby said. “It’s our star boarder. He’s writing a book about Way Down.”
The three of them stepped up onto the porch of The Roost, where Mr. Crawford was sitting near a lamp, reading a newspaper and sipping his evening tea.
“Hey, Mr. Crawford,” Ruby greeted him. “Meet my new friend, Peter Reeder, and his granddaddy, Bird.”
“Oh, from the Virginia Reeders?” Mr. Crawford said deferentially, as though he were speaking of the Washingtons or the Jeffersons. He held out a hand first to Bird, then to Peter. “Glad to meet you both. A. H. Crawford here, at your service.”
“A. H.?” Peter said. “Just initials? No name?”
“I do have two front names, but I prefer not to use them. However, since you are a newcomer, I will reveal my given name to you this once, and we will not mention it again, agreed?”
“Yessir, agreed.”
“My parents christened me Adolf Hilton Crawford. At the time it was a perfectly good name.”
Peter repeated the name softly, then cried out, “Oh! Adolf Hit—”
“Shhh!” Mr. Crawford shushed him quickly. “Don’t say it out loud.”
“Sorry,” Peter said.
“During the war I started using my initials only,” Mr. Crawford said. “You can understand why?”
“Of course,” said Peter.
“A writer shouldn’t have to be ashamed of his name,” Mr. Crawford said in his melancholy way. “Perhaps before my book is published, I will change it.”
10
LATER, AS SHE BRUSHED MISS ARBUTUS’S HAIR AT THE dressing table, Ruby said, “Here in Way Down, Peter Reeder puts me in mind of a white unicorn tossed in with plain old brown horses.”
Miss Arbutus smiled at her in the looking glass. “Then he is handsome?”
“Oh, yes, very handsome. But he needs to go see Mr. Bevins at the barbershop and get a good haircut.”
“Perhaps he hasn’t the money,” Miss Arbutus said.
“That’s probably true,” Ruby said. “His daddy is going to work at the A&P for Mayor Chambers on Monday. It could be a permanent job. Peter wants a regular job, but I told him he might start by doing odd jobs for people. He asked if he could come by here tomorrow and see if you have something for him to do, and I told him yes.”
“I might have work for him,” Miss Arbutus said. “A boy needs a little spending money.”
“Their granddaddy’s name is Bird,” Ruby said. “He’s a bit addled. He rambled on and on about panthers.”
Miss Arbutus seemed startled. “Panthers!”
Ruby nodded, and continued talking about Peter, but after a while it appeared that Miss Arbutus was not listening to her.
“What’s wrong, Miss Arbutus? You act like your mind is somewhere else.”
“Oh, it’s nothing. Speaking of panthers reminded me of something, that’s all. It brought back a memory.”
“Will you tell me about it?”
“Not tonight. It’s bedtime now.”
And they said good night. Ruby went to her own room and stood in front of the window to view the hills against the night sky, just as she had always done. But this time was different. This time she forgot to say to her parents, “Don’t forget me. Woo-bee is right here waiting for you.”
Instead she said, “I hope he likes me.”
Then she crawled into bed and let the night breeze waft over her. Her eyelids fluttered and closed. A dream of panthers rose up from the depths of the night.
In the next room Miss Arbutus was having the same disturbing dream of panthers screaming through the wild hills. They drew closer and closer to her until she woke up with a gasp. She did not sleep again that night. Instead she lay awake watching daylight creep over the mountains.
She heard the five o’clock freight train come hurtling into the valley toward the Way Down station. Its heartrending shriek reverberated throughout the dew-misted hills.
The train whistle was followed by the sound of the milkman’s truck as it came to a stop in front of The Roost. The glass bottles clinked against one another as the milkman, Mr. Stacey, walked under Miss Arbutus’s window. Mr. Stacey murmured to Jethro as he delivered a dozen eggs, a gallon of sweet milk, a quart of buttermilk, a pint of cream, and a pound of butter. He placed them carefully in a covered basket on the small back porch.
Miss Arbutus was reminded of another warm dawn in another June. She took a few moments to savor that memory before rising to meet the new day.
Meals served at Miss Arbutus’s great oak table were lively, noisy affairs, with several conversations going on at once. This morning, with some of the guests dressed for church, was no exception.
Two businessmen who had arrived last night in a Packard were discussing the state of the economy with Judge Deel, while Mrs. Thornton Elkins, Mr. Gentry, and Miss Worly were talking about the importance of an education.
Lester Horton was there for his periodic visit, and Ruby was entertaining him with anecdotes about Jethro. Miss Arbutus did not participate in any exchange, as was her habit. She was nibbling at a piece of bacon and gazing out the window.
As usual, Mr. Crawford was sleeping in and would not be up for several more hours.
Above the din, Ruby caught part of a sentence, “. . . the oldest one, Peter. Smart as a whip!”
“Where did you hear that, Mrs. Thornton Elkins?” Ruby burst into that discussion, leaving Lester Horton suspended in mid-story.
“On the telephone, dear,” Mrs. Thornton Elkins trilled in her fine thin voice. “You know, I just happened to pick up the receiver and overheard part of a dialogue between Mr. Dales and Mr. Doctor.”
“Smart as a whip, eh?” Miss Worly mused out loud. “Catchy expression, albeit a somewhat nonsensical one. For one must wonder, just how smart is a whip?”
/> Ruby noticed how, as often happened, all the separate conversations had merged into one, and everybody was tuned in to the same station now—Miss Worly and her words.
“I don’t know how smart a whip is either,” Ruby said. “But I think Peter Reeder really is nice and smart.”
“Then you have met him, Ruby June?” said Judge Deel.
“Yeah, we walked around town together last night. And his granddaddy, too.”
“And how do they like our little town?” Mrs. Thornton Elkins asked.
“Fine. Peter’s gonna fit right in,” Ruby said.
“What’s the old man like?” asked Mr. Gentry.
“His name is Bird. He’s kinda goofy, so I guess he’ll fit right in, too.”
Friendly chuckles followed.
At the sound of the back screen door opening and closing, all eyes went to the dining room archway to see who would come through the kitchen.
Peter Reeder himself entered the dining room.
“Oh, excuse me!” he apologized, on finding the boarders eating breakfast. His face went red. “I didn’t mean to intrude . . .”
“You’re not intruding a’tall,” Ruby said as she went to him. “Didn’t I tell you nobody has to knock at The Roost? Come to the table and have a bite with us.”
“No, thanks, I . . . I couldn’t,” he mumbled, but his eyes passed with interest over the leavings on the table—bacon, a mound of scrambled eggs on a white platter, biscuits, a gravy bowl still half-full, a plate of sliced fruit, several jars of something rich and sweet, pitchers of milk and orange juice.
“Hey, everybody, this is Peter Reeder,” Ruby said to the boarders around the table.
Mrs. Thornton Elkins was the first to coax Peter. “Do come join us, young man. We have plenty.”
Miss Arbutus was already laying a clean plate for Peter beside Ruby’s. She motioned for him to sit. Peter glanced at the friendly faces, smiled shyly, and moved toward the chair.
“Well, okay, thanks.”
Sensing that Peter was hungry, Ruby heaped his plate high without asking him what he wanted. As he dug in with gusto, the other guests discreetly averted their eyes and picked at the remains of their food.
“Clean as a whistle!” Miss Worly was saying. “That’s another term I have not heretofore examined. What could possibly be clean about a whistle, with all that spittle inside it?”
