In the Midst of Innocence

by Deborah Hining

  I cried then. I hated the thought of Mama being ashamed because of something I had done. She didn’t let me cry long. “Honey,” she said, “you may be breaking the law by trading whiskey, but sometimes the law is wrong. Especially when people are starving and the only way out is to sell something that people want and need. If the law is against it, then it is the law that is wrong, not you. I did not say anything because I knew Sardius would have trouble with it, and so would Jasper. Both of them see things in black and white, and they would be disappointed in their mother if they knew I let you get away with this. It’s going to be our secret, all right?”

  I could not do anything but nod my head. She laughed, then tousled my hair, and she said, “Do you want to see how we are going to manage while you and Japer and Sardius are in Chicago making something of yourselves? Come here.”

  She stood, turning up toward the bluffs above the river. I followed her all the way up to the old Indian cave, and then we picked our way past the entrance. Not far into it, Mama reached behind a big rock to pull out a lantern, which she lit, then walked on into the cave while I followed.

  We walked several hundred feet, sometimes through passages that were so low we had to stoop down to make our way through. Finally, we came to a big room with a smooth floor. In the middle stood a gleaming copper still. Along one side of the room stood dozens of barrels and dozens of jars of whiskey. Right alongside the still ran a little creek. The ceiling was very high, and I could see little shafts of sunlight slanting down onto the floor and lighting the place up. The smell of caramel, whiskey, and smoke hung in the air.

  “This is your Daddy’s still.” He does not know I know about it, and my guess is that he will never be back up here. He makes good, clean whiskey. He has a good recipe, and the water that flows through here is the best there is. His still is solid copper, welded with silver, so what he makes is about the best there is for moonshine. But Pearl, he does not make fine whiskey. Your pap-pa and I, well, we know how to make fine whiskey. He taught me how to make it when I was just a little older than you are.”

  She pointed to the barrels and told me how they were oak and that the insides were charred. “Pap-pa just moved these up here this week. He has been saving them in his barn for years, but he never let your Daddy know about them because he knew he would drink it all up in no time.”

  She told me how new whiskey tastes rough and nasty, but if you put it in charred barrels and let it stay there for a long time, it becomes smooth and almost sweet.

  “You don’t have to worry about me, Pearl, or about how I will be able to buy food or even clothes for your baby sisters. Your pap-pa and I are going into business. He makes the finest barrels, and I can make a good mash and run a still. We can get by with selling new whiskey for now to people who want something cheap, but the real money will come in a few years when Prohibition is over and we can sell what has been sitting in these barrels for years. There will be nothing better than Wallace Tennessee Whiskey when the time comes. Now, come here, and I’ll show you.”

  She pulled the cork out of one of the barrels. “You know what new whiskey tastes and smells like,” she said as she dipped a tiny dipper down into the barrel through the hole. “Now look at this.” She pulled up the dipper and showed me a beautiful amber liquid that smelled sweet, woody, and comfortable. She gave me a sip. It went down hot, and I nearly gagged, but I could tell what she meant. Despite the burn, it was rich and smooth. “This has been double distilled. Your pap-pa made it and put it in the barrel ten years ago. You’ll never taste a better whiskey.”

  My mouth fell open. “But why would pap-pa buy bad whiskey from me when he had this?”

  Mama waved her hand toward other barrels. “He was just storing it up in these to give it time to get good.” Then she laughed. “Pearl, I hope you never develop the kind of taste for whiskey that your Daddy did, but I do hope you come to appreciate how good this is.”

  Then she asked me how long it would take me to get at least a dozen customers.

  I have been thinking about it all day. It looks like maybe I will be going to Chicago after all.

  May 22, 1932. Three things happened today. First of all, Miss Weston got to preach one last time. It was the best sermon I have ever heard on how God will sometimes lead us into scary places, but He always will be with us to guide us. After she preached, she did not have an invitational at all, but announced that Jasper and Sardius have both won scholarships to study in Chicago. She also announced that she would be leaving us to get married in August to Mr. Dean.

  We all cried, but no one cried more than Beryl. She sobbed all the way home from church and then all through dinner. Miss Weston tried to cheer her up by saying that she could come and visit her in her new home, but Beryl would not be comforted. “You don’t understand,” she said. “You are teaching me how to be a better person, and you aren’t done yet!” I know what she meant.

  The second thing that happened was that Daddy smiled with his mouth. It was a crooked smile. He still cannot speak but only makes grunting or moaning noises, but I know he knows me and can understand everything I say.

  The third thing that happened is that we found out Amelia Earhart landed safely in Ireland yesterday. She had to crash-land, so she did not make it all the way to Paris, but she sure beat Lindy’s record. Only 15 hours! Half of Lindy’s time!

  May 22, 1932

  Dearest Cecilia,

  I am all packed up. I am taking fewer things away than I brought with me, since I am leaving all my lesson material and books for the children here. They need it far more than I do!

  In looking back over this school year, I am both hopeful and sad. It has been a hard year, much harder than I dreamed it could be, but I hope I have learned from it. I so look forward to being both mother and teacher to Pearl and Darlene, and I look forward to being a good wife to Jonathan. I love him even more now than I did before I came here. His steadfastness, generosity, and willingness to overlook my arrogance have made me realize how dear he is to me.

  Overall, I like to think that my time here has been mostly successful in spite of my misinformed and misdirected intentions. I have loved these children, and I think I have been a good influence over them, if only in that I have taught them that God loves them. I have made some headway improving their lives, but I know I was foolish to think I had been accepted into the community and was “civilizing them!” Now I realize that my world and this one are so far apart that I can never even understand their needs. I feel ashamed when I think about what my hopes were.

  I love you and miss you terribly,

  Emily

  May 23, 1932

  My School Journal, grade 7, Miss Weston’s class

  By Pearl Wallace

  This is the last Journal entry I will write. I know it is not required, but I want to turn in this last one as a gift to Miss Weston so that she can have it as a keepsake to remember one of her seventh grade students for the 1931-1932 school year.

  I have learned very much from my teacher this year. I thought teachers were supposed to teach you things in books, but Miss Weston has taught me many more things than one can learn from books. She has taught me that knowing that God loves me does not mean that He will make my life easy. It means that He cares enough about me to be with me even when times are bad. Even when I do not get what I want, He gives me the strength and courage to get through it. He lets me see that maybe what I think I want is not the best for me and that maybe I should go ahead and let things happen and see the good that comes out of it.

  Miss Weston has also taught me about what it means to love others, to respect them, and to let them do what they need to do even if it means that you cannot have what you want. She knows how to be happy for other people’s happiness. If we can find joy in the happiness of others, we will always know joy.

  Last of all, Miss Weston has taught me that God’s Word is very big, so big that we cannot possibly know it all, and that we need to be as big as we can in
order to try to live by ALL His rules. Even when we cannot live by or even understand all His rules, we can know we are pleasing to Him if we do our best to live out the number one and the number two rules that He has set out in His Word:

  Love God and Jesus with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself.

  Pearl Adeline Wallace

  Warm, waxing days, spangled nights.

  Blossoms perfume the air, green blankets the hills.

  The great Orb slips into a waning Gibbous,

  Letting me go--softly, gently.

  I sigh with pleasure

  As do my upright children, lying tender in the grass,

  Watching Evil slip into the Shadows

  To wait anew.

  The Earth has turned.

  I travel madly, joyously, without a care,

  Watching all my children leap and stumble

  Toward the glimmer.

  Acknowledgements

  I have a number of people to thank just for the fact that I lived long enough to finish this book. In January 2017, I was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme, grade 4, a deadly form of brain cancer that took my aunt and my cousin a few years ago. Sadly, the prognosis was not hopeful. If I survived the surgery, which was not guaranteed, there was the aftermath of possible paralysis and a long, painful regimen of chemotherapy and radiation. By the grace of God, I had a brilliant surgeon, Dr. Suvajynar Jauikumar who, with his able team, was able to remove the tumor.

  Thanks to my husband, Michael, who refused to believe the “inevitable” and a group of friends who spilled many tears on my behalf and begged God for my life, things worked out differently than expected. The surgery had no apparent side effects. As my husband predicted, I spent 1 day in ICU, 2 more in the hospital, and I managed to walk into church the following Sunday to thank the hundreds of fellow believers who had prayed for me.

  I also owe a thanks to my daughter-in-law, Julie, who badgered me into transferring to the Duke Cancer center, and for also badgering Dr. Henry Friedman, the oncologist heading the brain cancer program, into accepting me as a patient. Also on my list is my radiation oncologist, Dr. Grace Kim, and my ongoing oncologist, Dr. Dina Randazzo and her team, who continue to monitor my progress and dispense medicines and wisdom.

  My publisher, Light Messages, refused to give up on me as well. Wally and Betty Turnbull, the founders of Light Messages and firm believers in the power of prayer, immediately set about to put in a word or two for me with the big man upstairs. They, along with my friends Anne and Matt Holway, Delores Crotts, Phil Hollingsworth, and countless others who refused to let me die, pleaded for my life and/or encouraged me to look into alternate therapies. Thanks to God’s grace, I lived long enough to finish this book, nearly finish another, and begin two more. It looks like I will beat expectations by a long shot. Hallelujah!

  Also on this list of people to thank are those who read early drafts of the manuscript, gave feedback and encouragement, fed me, visited me, drove me to and from appointments, and in general, gave me cause to live: my daughter, Mary Elizabeth, and her husband, Nick, who painstakingly researched the kind of diet I needed, scoured local markets for the right foods, and cooked; my son George, who helped my husband hold down the fort while I crawled into a hole to recover; and my grandchildren, Corinne, Ellie, Wells, and Eve, whose happy little faces gave me hope, faith, and determination; Carole Talant and Anita Lang who encouraged me to look into alternate therapies; my writing partners, Winklings Summer Kinard and Elizabeth Hein, who poked, edited, encouraged, and improved my writing; my proofreader, Meghan Bowker; Genia Holder-Cozart, who gave me gracious feedback regarding my treatment of racial issues; and my editor, Elizabeth Turnbull, for her tireless, sensitive editing, and for forcing me to confront the specter of white privilege in East Tennessee as it existed in 1931.

  There are many more, far too many to list here, but I remember and thank them all, for driving me to appointments, for cooking, for sending cards and notes of encouragement, and for the many, many prayers offered up on my behalf.

  About the Author

  Deborah Hining is proud to be a bone fide hillbilly, having grown up in a very isolated village in the hills of East Tennessee. She earned her B.A. in Communication and M.A. in Theater from the University of Tennessee and her PhD in Theater from Louisiana State University.

  From an early age, Deborah wanted to be a poet, and her greatest ambition was to see one of her poems published in a book. Now, after a long and checkered life with many detours, she has realized her ambition, having published two award-winning novels. A Sinner in Paradise won the bronze medal from Foreword Reviews Book of the Year in Romance, and the sequel, A Saint in Graceland, also received the bronze medal for Foreword Reviews Book of the Year in Religion. Both allowed her to indulge her love of poetry.

  Deborah now is back to her roots, living on a farm in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with her husband, children, and grandchildren.

  Other Books by Deborah Hining

  A Sinner in Paradise

  A Saint in Graceland