by Jeri Watts
I won the bee! The words pouring over my mind, spilling off my tongue! I’m going to Richmond! The rush of beautiful words. I was not amazed at the hug from you — I know by now that you really do love me even if you are white and I am not — but when the crowd gasped, I thought we were in trouble. I think Mrs. Warren saved the day when she came up and wrapped you and me both in a hug that stunned us all. I have never thought I would be so grateful to her. Granny Bits says I will have to write her a thank-you note for all she has done for me. I will, Miss Anderson, I will write, but more than that, I plan to deliver it in person and thank her face-to-face. It is what she deserves, to know that she made this possible for me, by giving up her place as a teacher and giving up the black school so we could come to the white school. Black students have never participated in this spelling bee before. Her stepping aside has made many things possible. It cost her so much, and I don’t want her to think I didn’t notice.
Of course, I don’t know if you have always had a spelling bee for your students, but I am mighty appreciative to you too. Somehow it is even harder to thank you when I know you have to sneak by what you do for all of us or fight for it. I feel as if we have become a burden to you. But you seem to look at all of us the same. I’ve never seen a white person do that before.
So while Mrs. Warren opened that door, you stepped up to keep it wide. Please don’t think we didn’t see that too.
We saw, and we see it still.
Integrity is the question. The rules don’t even say anything about black handlers. It’s just assumed that none will be allowed. Frank Charles insists that’s my “way in.” I know better. Mr. McKenna and Frank Charles came up with an idea — that if Mr. McKenna goes to register with Frank Charles beside him, he could just write the name Kizzy Stamps as handler, and since people down in Lynchburg don’t know people from Bedford all that well (especially kids, black or white), he might get away with it. They would just assume Frank Charles is named Kizzy. Mr. McKenna says once you’re registered, you’re allowed to compete. I’d surely like to compete.
But.
I’ve already had Frank Charles lie for me once. And it was a lie, even if it was because he kept silent.
I just don’t think I can do it. I won’t do that. It isn’t like it was with James. He’d have been in such trouble I can’t even imagine. Lying, or letting Frank Charles lie, kept James from being hurt. But this is lying for gain. For Shag to compete, for me to show off what I’ve learned.
Mr. McKenna and Frank Charles would get in trouble. It wouldn’t be like what James would have faced, but there would be trouble, mark my words.
And even for Shag, even for me . . . I cannot risk that for my friends.
No, ma’am, there’s nothing you can do. I just don’t see much point in anything right now. I’m not going to Mr. McKenna’s place, not talking with Frank Charles. It isn’t to be mean. It isn’t to be getting back at anyone. It’s just giving up.
Mr. McKenna came to my house today. In my house today. I’d finished bringing in the cows with Shag, and we were toasting our feet by the fire — it may be toward the end of March, but there’s still a big bite in the wind, especially around milking time. There was a beating on the door, and Granny Bits moved to answer. The door burst open before she reached it, though. Burst open, and in marched Mr. McKenna. I knew he was big, and Granny Bits is small (she is named Bits because she’s no bigger than two bits), but seeing them close like that was like seeing a giant with an elf.
“Mind your manners,” she barked, and he took his hat in his hand.
“Beggin’ yer pardon, madam,” he said.
“T’ain’t no madam. Wipe your feet.”
He went back outside, wiped his feet, and asked, “May I see yon lassie by the fire?”
Granny Bits turned to look me over and then smiled. “It’s about time someone took her in hand,” she said. “Yep, you’re welcome to her.”
I waited for his bluster, big as the wind blowing in the door. But he closed the door with a quiet chink and just stood before me. His voice came quiet and easy, wrapping around me in ways I was defenseless to fight. “It’s no good, girl. It’s no good giving in to the fight, no good giving up to the pressure.”
What I said sounds hard, now, even to my ears, Miss Anderson, but I meant no disrespect. It was just what was in my heart. “How would you know? How would you know how much I can take, of the back doors and the secondhand clothes, of the ‘yes, ma’aming’ and ‘no, sirring’ to people who make no secret they believe they are better than me? How would you know?”
“Alone in the suffering, are you? I come here, to a strange land, to make a living, to seek a dream of owning a herd of sheep of my own. I have the sheep, mind you, I have the living. But the friends I have count as one black poet who warms to the world around her, two children, and a dog. I do not fit in yet, in this country, Kizzy Ann. I don’t have to slink in back doors, true, but I am not welcome in the front ones, either.
“But I will not let it stop me. I will not let it beat me.
“And one of the reasons I worked with you and your Shag is because I believed you never would let life beat you either.” He knelt then, in front of me, and I had to look him in the eyes, his deep-blue eyes, fringed by those wild and woolly eyebrows. He put out a hand to cradle Shag’s jaw, and she closed her eyes as she rested her head in his palm. “She looks to you, girlie, looks to you because you are her world. You’ve worked hard to earn that love and trust, and I’d hate to see either of you stop before you’ve won. You’re my friends.”
“I’ll stand there and try to put my name down, and they’ll turn me away. In front of everybody,” I said. And I couldn’t help it, Miss Anderson, I could feel my bottom lip trembling. I don’t mind that I did it in front of him, but I would die if I did it in front of all those men at the dog trial. And I know I would. It means that much to me.
He leaned in close to me. “I cannot make it matter less to you, girlie, for it matters a great deal to me as well. All I can promise is that I’ll be there with you. And Frank Charles has promised to be there with you too. We’ll stand with you. And you know Shag will. It’s what you must do, then.” He traced my scar and smiled. “You must try, Kizzy Ann, master of this dog at your feet. You must try.”
And then Granny Bits asked him to eat with us.
And he did.
The strangest thing happened today, Miss Anderson. Shag and I were walking home, and Frank Charles was pretending to be a sheep that wouldn’t stay in the path. (This isn’t the strange thing it sounds — he does this every so often if Mr. McKenna can’t work with us.) Shag will tolerate herding him back to me, although she nips him in tighter tucks than she does the sheep — I think she knows he is playing dumb and that, in Mr. McKenna’s words, “the sheep really ken no better.” At one point, though, Frank Charles stopped dead and Shag ran right into him. This is not good for my dog — I lit into him.
“You idiot!” I smacked Frank Charles on the arm, knocking him off balance. I looked Shag over, but she was fine. So then I began to help him up. He pulled away and said, “I’m fine. Don’t help me, I’m fine.” He pointed with his head. “Just watching.” I looked up where his head aimed, and there was Mr. Feagans, lurking in the trees. I froze.
I thought I was in for a beating for sure, Miss Anderson, but he just stood there, watching, never moving, watching.
Frank Charles shrugged at me, his voice low. “I can’t figure it out. I noticed him there last week,” he said. “Thought I was crazy at first, that it must be somebody else, since he didn’t charge at us, but no, it was him. He mentioned it at supper, brought it up all easy like . . . ‘Saw you walking home from school with the neighbor girl and her dog.’”
I thought my swallow wouldn’t make it down my throat. I looked up there again, but he was gone. I looked around, but he didn’t seem to be on us, and I looked to Shag. She didn’t seem alert to danger, just sniffed at some mushrooms and started to nibble. I c
leared a whisper to ask, “Then what did he say?”
“Well, I kept looking at my plate, thought about lying about us, but I remembered how you like the truth and all, so I said ‘Yes, sir,’ and he didn’t say nothing else, Kizzy. That was it.” Frank Charles scratched his head. “And then last night he told my mom how your brother came over and helped him with the smoking shed, and he supposed that was kind of decent for a darky, since it was me what messed it up. I almost choked to death on my ham, I tell you.”
I looked at Shag, chewing on mushrooms, and then I started walking. “Frank Charles, I don’t want to be hurting your feelings or anything, but I don’t trust your daddy. That sounds nice and all, but he is still the man who had me beat.”
Frank Charles smiled. “Oh, that’s okay. I don’t trust him either. Not exactly.” He shrugged. “He still doesn’t like to have your daddy’s land next to his land. He’s still the same daddy I have always had. I know that. You know that. But he didn’t yell just now when he saw me walking with you. His face is probably forty shades of red walking to our house. His gizzard is probably about to pop out of his insides. He’s seeing things he has never seen before, but . . . it’s like he’s trying to get used to them, I guess. He’s not liking it, just having to get used to it. He’s still my daddy — he ain’t happy about all this. Uh-uh. Not happy. But he didn’t yell when he saw me walking with you. Or talking to you.”
I signaled to Shag to join me. “Yeah. He didn’t yell. There is that. Still, I’m keeping both eyes open.”
Yes, ma’am, I see. I should have known that winning the spelling bee wouldn’t have meant I could really go. Of course they wouldn’t have a way to reserve a room for a black girl in the hotel. Of course that will mean the runner-up, Laura Westover, will have to go. Of course I understand. You owe me no apology. This is the way things are. This is the way things are for me. I guess Mrs. Warren stepped aside for no good reason.
I was down at my pond today, throwing a stick for Shag. Of course who should show up but Frank Charles?
“Thought you said chasing sticks was beneath her,” he said.
“It is.”
“But you’re having her chase a stick.”
“Yep.”
He stood there watching me continue to throw the stick.
“But you said —”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Frank Charles, sometimes you are dumber than dirt,” I snapped. “I am stuck and frustrated and confused and I’m doing this because I don’t know what else to do, you nitwit. I’m mad and disappointed about that stupid spelling bee and I’m confused about the dog trial and I’m still mad you’ve never apologized about putting a scar on my face and I’m tired of Laura Westover and if you tease me about David Warren liking me again, I will personally knock your smile into space.”
“Oh.”
I got up and walked toward my house. Shag followed me. I heard footfalls in the grass and felt Frank Charles’s hand on my shoulder.
“Kizzy Ann . . . I am so sorry. If I ever could fix anything wrong I’ve ever done, it would be that, really. I would fix that. I don’t think it matters. You’re still smart and clever with Shag. And the best speller ever. And you’re my friend.”
I’m going to try at the dog trial.
We walked up from Mr. McKenna’s truck, the five of us. Shag, Frank Charles, and I rode in the back, cold though it was. James and Mr. McKenna rode in the cab. James worried that it was a mistake for him to be in the front seat with Mr. McKenna when Frank Charles was in the back, but Mr. McKenna insisted.
“The world can’t change unless we start making it change,” he said. He patted the front seat at my brother and just kept patting until James joined him. It was Mr. McKenna’s truck and his decision. Frank Charles talked on and on about who knows what. I had enough to worry about with the dog trial. My mama had made her famous half-dollar pancakes in my honor, and I hadn’t been able to eat a one of them. My stomach was doing so many flips, I just knew I would lose any single solitary bite I put in there.
I led the way to the sign-up table, Shag as close as if she were a part of me. Mr. McKenna was behind with Frank Charles and then James trailing. I was surprised that morning when my brother put on his soft felt hat to join us. He’d shrugged and said, “It seems the right thing to do,” and I was taken back to the time I told him about Frank Charles taking the blame for him and those cows crashing down on the smoking shed.
Mist was still clinging to the ground when we’d pulled in at Frank Charles’s farm to pick him up. His mother stood at the door when he left to get in the truck with me. She didn’t stop him, nor did she wave or say anything to him. I don’t know what she thought about him jumping in to sit with a black girl or joining the Scottish man. She simply turned around and let him make his choice. His father wasn’t about. Frank Charles nodded to me as he settled in, as close to Shag as she allowed him to move. He put his hands beside her warm body and almost purred. It’s times like that when I know for sure why I like him.
Apparently most registration happens on the day of the trial. There was a line to wait in, and Mr. McKenna, Shag, and I stood our turn while Frank Charles and James lurked off to the side. There were the smells of men — Old Spice mixed with perspiration, mingled with chewing tobacco. In the low murmur of voices, not a single woman’s voice was in the mix. Not a welcoming place for a girl. And of course, no blacks. The cool breeze touching my neck and dancing across my face couldn’t ease the nervous energy that felt like fire burning out of me. Perhaps it didn’t show, but I felt like I was a ball of flame ready to explode. Finally I stepped to the front, reached for the pencil to enter my name, and put down my two-dollar fee. As expected, a hand blocked mine. “No.”
I kept my eyes down. Shag tensed. I put my hand on her back. I heard a low growl beginning and could feel it pulsing under her fur.
Mr. McKenna spoke. “I’m sponsoring the girl,” he said.
Someone said, “We don’t want trouble.”
Again Mr. McKenna spoke. “I agree, no trouble. We just want to compete. Fair and square. The girl and her dog.”
Another voice: “No darkies.”
Mr. McKenna said, “This is a time of integration.”
“Law says schools — nothing says anything about anywhere else.”
I looked up and around — all of these voices coming from faces I couldn’t really see, Miss Anderson, no one speaking out in the open, no one brave enough to actually stand in the light and say these words. I started to shake, and I could feel myself wanting to give up, to give in, to go home. I could also feel myself getting angry, getting steely, getting ready to say something that might get me another switching like the one I had at the command of Mr. Feagans. I was afraid that ball of flame inside me really would explode and burn up everyone around me, including Shag. I didn’t want that. Where was something to steady me?
My bottom lip trembled, and you know I didn’t want that either. Crying never helps. I took a deep breath and put my hand down to reach for my Shag. Then, of course, my words came out simple and strong: “I can’t talk as pretty as poets. I don’t know what to say to make things right.
“But I can handle my dog. I can handle these sheep. My dog is good. All we want is a chance to show you. We want to try.”
James stepped up beside me on one side. Frank Charles stepped up on the other.
Mr. Feagans stepped out of nowhere from the crowd. He pointed to the judge from Scotland with his head and said to him, “You okay with a black girl competing?”
The old man, red haired, wrinkled, and clutching a walking stick, looked at me briefly and then focused on Shag. He looked her over carefully, took a step back, and looked her over again. “Dog looks good. Girl only matters if she can handle the dog.”
Mr. Feagans looked at Frank Charles, then back at me, and took a deep breath. He shrugged once to the others. “Not like it really hurts things, does it?” He looked around. “Not like she’ll win,” he said. He laughed nervou
sly. The others backed away then. He looked at me, nodded once, then moved off quickly.
I was frozen, but Mr. McKenna punched me in the shoulder and said in a very quiet voice, “Move, girl, before he changes his mind.” I grabbed the pencil so quickly I almost dropped it, wrote my name as fast as ever I could, and just like that, we had our chance. Mr. McKenna moved me away from the bundle of men in a hurry. Off to the side, he scooped me into a hug that left me breathless. Frank Charles grabbed Shag into a sort of hug that left her growling at him, and James just scratched his head. We were twenty-first in the mix, and we moved away to watch the dogs ahead of us.
Miss Anderson, I still can’t believe I had my chance. I felt I had to memorize everything then, had to take in every memory because I might never have this again. I’m not stupid. There may be rules to stop me if I try to come again.
The competition was at Lonnie McLean’s New London farm. The meadow was lush and green. The day was crisp but not cold — one of those righteous first days of spring. I didn’t pay any attention to his farmhouse — that was of no interest. The place we would be working the sheep was wide and just right for Shag and the other dogs. I could see Mr. McKenna nodding as he took it all in.
The judge ran the show like Mrs. Warren used to run her math quizzes: no-nonsense and fast. He called the first handler, who came out with his dog at ten fourteen, and things moved like clockwork from that point on. A farmer I’ve never seen from Campbell County went in that first slot. He had a shaggy sheepdog — a rolling stack of hair and bark. They did well, although the dog didn’t pen the sheep quickly.
“You could have beat that,” Frank Charles said to Shag. He makes most of his positive comments to her, but I know he means me too.
