by Ruth
Pretty soon a good coffee smell was hanging in the air.
“It’s goin’ to be another day full o’ sun,” said Ma. “Brimmin’ and spillin’ over with sun.”
She and Pa Tatum hurried things along: breakfast, packing the truck, starting her and chugging back to the main road.
Beanie and Ma Tatum and Serena and Annie Mae were riding in the back. So were Tough Enough and Biscuit and Fat Stuff and Bobcat Bob and Midnight and Sweetie Pie. Beanie played with his new pets and with Tough Enough. Annie Mae and Serena did, too. The new pets seemed to feel more at home in the noisy jolting truck.
When Beanie looked out of the truck he saw fields of blossoming tobacco. He watched narrow sleds, drawn by mules, move between rows of tobacco plants. They were piled with ripe tobacco leaves the farm hands were picking.
He saw strange-looking barns. They were narrow and gray. Beanie smiled. He was thinking they looked like old ladies—skinny old ladies with aprons on, sitting up tall and straight. Their aprons were porchlike shelters sticking out from them.
In the shade of each shelter, workers were busily handling big tobacco leaves. Some of them were picking up leaves, several at a time, and handing them to other workers. These others, in turn, were tying the leaves together and hanging them over long sticks.
Past field after field, past barn after barn, Mrs. Wigglesworth chugged on and on across the flat coastal plain.
All of a sudden her chugging ended. In a moment it began again. But it halted once more, halted and did not start up. She was coasting along without power. She slowed to a crawl. She stopped.
“Well, I’ll be dogged!” said Pa.
Again and again he tried to start the motor. The starter made a noise like a rusty coffee grinder grinding, but no chug-chug-chugging came.
“Let’s push her off the road in the shade over yonder,” Pa said. “Buck, you take the wheel and steer her while the rest of us shove.”
The Tatums pushed Mrs. Wigglesworth off the highway. Then Pa wrenched up the hood. He peered under it. At last he shook his head and slammed the hood down. His mouth looked tight. His eyes looked hard.
Next, Pa got down on his back. He wiggled and wormed himself under the truck. All that the others could see of Pa was Pa’s feet sticking out. He banged away a little, then he squirmed out from under. He had a dark oily smear across his nose.
“I reckon it’s a busted fuel pump garmin’ her up,” he said. “But I can’t fix her. So I got to hoof it to a service station for help. Nearest good station we passed is miles and miles back. Maybe I can thumb me a ride.”
“Don’t you worry none, Pa,” said Ma Tatum. “Don’t you hurry none. We’ll wait here in the shade—we’ll make out fine.”
After Pa had gone striding away, Ma seemed less cheerful.
“Mercy,” she said, “what a place! Hot like an oven and dry like a bone.”
“Whew!” said Beanie. “I’ve never been so hot and thirsty.”
Everybody had a drink of cool water the Tatums had got at a filling station. Everybody made a face. The water didn’t taste good, not like the water from the Tatum spring. But everybody had another drink, anyhow.
Near by, a bird—a cardinal—lighted on a dying bush. He filled the air with a merry rolling whistle.
Ma looked at him. She smiled. “Somebody likes it here,” she said. “Somebody’s happy.”
“Lan’s alive!” Beanie cried. “Looky! That ole grandpa tree’s got beards.”
“That’s just long stringy moss,” Ma Tatum told him. “Spanish moss.”
All the young Tatums hurried to the tree; it was a large live oak. They started to pull down the gray shaggy moss. Then they saw other trees with other beards.
Pretty soon their arms were full of Spanish moss. They began to hang it on Mrs. Wigglesworth. They draped it over her top and her sides until she was much mossier than any tree they had seen.
They stood a little way off, admiring her.
“She sure is pretty now,” said Ma.
“But what’ll Pa say?” asked Beanie.
Ma said, “He’ll think she’s mighty pretty.”
The heat grew worse. Not far away, a small breeze started a big leaf wagging. It wagged and wagged and wagged.
Ma looked at the leaf. “I declare, it’s plumb provokin’,” she said. “There’s a stir of air yonder, but it keeps itself to itself. I can’t feel it a-tall.”
Then even the wagging leaf grew still.
Every now and then a car had gone purring by along the highway. The Tatums hadn’t paid much attention, but now they heard a long squeal of brakes. A car with Ohio license plates pulled up not far away on the shoulder of the road. It was so clean and shiny and new, it made Beanie feel a little ashamed of the old Tatum truck.
A man and a woman and two little girls got out. They walked toward the truck. Tough Enough began to bark in a loud watch-dog way. Beanie quieted him.
“Hello, there,” the man said to the Tatums.
“Howdy,” said Ma politely.
The man said, “We never saw a truck with Spanish moss all over it, before. Mind if we look at it?”
Ma ran her hand over the back of her hair. “You’re welcome to look all you want to,” she said.
A squeaky shout startled everybody. The younger girl from the car had made it. She pointed at the back of the truck, at a small sharp face poking out.
“That’s Fat Stuff,” said Ma. “He’s a coon. He’s nosey—he wants to git in on everything.”
Now Ma’s eyes had a happy thinking look. She said, “That coon, he belongs to my son Beanie here. And Beanie’s got a turtle with a right pretty shell and a real nice fixed skunk and a bobcat kitty and the smartest talkin’ crow you ever listened to.”
The older girl from the car said loudly, “I want to hear the talking crow talk.”
Ma smiled down at her. “We can’t keep the pets ’cause we’re goin’ visitin’. So we’re tryin’ to find homes for ’em. Beanie, I want for you to show ’em to these folks and give ’em to these folks if they want ’em.”
The man and his wife looked sorry they had stopped. Beanie felt sorry, too. But he brought out all his pets.
And now another car had halted. Some other people got out to see what was going on. Ma greeted them. She told them about the pets.
And then another car stopped. And then still another and another.
Now there was a crowd around the pets.
The younger little girl from the Ohio car leaned close to Biscuit. Her nose almost touched his shell. Her voice rose high and eager: “Mummie, he’s the cutest thing! May I have him, Mummie?”
Beanie’s eyes were on the woman’s face. She looked as if she couldn’t make up her mind. When she started to speak he listened anxiously.
“Well …” she said, “that turtle’s so little and clean and quiet, he oughtn’t to be a nuisance in the car. But I don’t know….”
“Oh, Mummie, I want him!” cried the little girl.
“Well,” said the mother, “you can have him. Say ‘thank you.’”
“Thank you,” the little girl said shyly. She took Biscuit. She stroked his shell with the tip of a finger.
Beanie let out his breath. He gave Biscuit a good-by look. His throat felt tight and it had an ache in it. Would Midnight and Fat Stuff and Bobcat Bob and even Sweetie Pie go, too?
“Oh, Mumsie,” cried the older little Ohio girl, “you let Sis have the turtle. Now let me have the crow who says things!”
“Dad, let me have the crow!” a boy shouted.
“I want the coon,” another boy called out.
“I want the coon!” still another boy said loudly.
“The kitty, the kitty, the kitty!” yelled another little girl, jumping up and down.
Beanie waited. He felt tears in his eyes. He petted Fat Stuff.
A father who’d been saying and saying “No!” suddenly looked happy. He said to Beanie, “Sonny, you’re making a mistake. Don’t give awa
y your pets.” He glanced at Ma Tatum. She looked so angry that he hurried on, “Why, you’ve got a regular zoo here. People will pay good money to see it.”
Beanie stared up at the man. “They will?”
“Sure they will, sonny.”
The man took off his straw hat and turned it upside down. “I’m your first customer,” he said. He dropped a twenty-five-cent piece into his hat. Then he went around grinning, hat in hand, collecting coins from other people.
When the hat had a shiny heap in it, the man scooped up the coins. He put them into one of Beanie’s pockets. They felt heavy there. Beanie poked his fingers in and touched them and stirred them around. His eyes were wide.
He heard two parents telling their children how selfish it would be to take any more pets away from him. The mothers and fathers began to hustle their boys and girls back into their cars.
Ma Tatum looked at them. “I feel plumb sorry for them car folks,” she said in a low voice. “Skimpy families in skimpy cars a-touristin’ round. No room tor pets ’cept just a little-bitty ole turtle.”
“No fun campin’ out at night,” said Irby.
Beanie put out his hand. He patted Mrs. Wigglesworth’s dusty fender.
Before all the car people had driven off, Pa Tatum came back in a service-station truck, riding in the front seat with a mechanic.
Pa jumped out and ran toward Mrs. Wigglesworth. Beanie had never seen him look so pale.
“What happened?” Pa shouted. “What happened?”
When he found out why so many people had stopped, and saw all the moss on the truck, he slapped his leg. His biggest laugh came bursting.
Pretty soon he said, “I tried to thumb me a ride, but folks was in a tearin’ hurry. I sure was gone a long time, but I didn’t know it was long enough for our truck to git plumb mossed up.”
While the service-station man was working on Mrs. Wigglesworth, the Tatums had a picnic lunch. They stood by the truck watching him and eating corn bread and fried chicken.
Beanie told Pa he had made some money, then he told him how he had earned it. “I got three dollars and eighteen cents,” he said. “I counted it. I counted it three times.”
“That’s good money, son,” Pa said. “What’ll you do with it?”
“I’ll save it,” said Beanie. “If any of the pets gets sick or something I’ll need it bad.”
The Tatums were still eating when they heard a chug-chug-chugging from Mrs. Wigglesworth. The service-station man had put in a new fuel pump. Pa paid him and thanked him.
“Mister,” Ma said quickly, “we got some real nice pets to give away. A talkin’ crow and a fine fixed skunk and a coon and a special kitty. We’d like for you to have ’em.”
Beanie made tight fists out of his hands. He watched the service man’s face.
The man looked surprised. “Me?” he said. “No thank you, ma’am.” He started to edge away.
Ma went on fast, “Maybe you know some folks you’d like to give ’em to? They’d make real nice presents.”
“No thank you,” the man said again. He swung himself up into his truck. In a moment it bounded forward like a startled squirrel. Its tires squealed as it made a sudden U turn.
Ma said, “Reckon he don’t love pets.”
Pretty soon Mrs. Wigglesworth was rattling along the road again. Beard after beard, the Spanish moss blew off. Just one small waggling beard, at last, was hanging inside. Bobcat Bob kept jumping up and making passes at it.
Summer heat lingered on till the truck was pushing across tidewater country. The ocean wasn’t in sight, but a steady sea breeze was blowing across the marshes. The young Tatums had never known a breeze just like that. It was so soft. It was warm and yet it was cool. They filled and filled their lungs with it.
When Ma let out a breath a long tired sigh came, too. She said, “Heaven only knows what Great-grandma and Great-grandpa will think when they see us with such a heap o’ critters. They’ll most likely want to tell us to take our varmints and ourselves and go right back home where we come from.”
On and on and on rolled Mrs. Wigglesworth. The young Tatums’ eyes opened wide when she took them along a shore road. Just beyond lay a stretch of water, more water than they had ever seen before.
“Looky there!” said Beanie. “Pa, is that the ocean?”
“No, son, that’s Bogue Sound,” said Pa Tatum. “That line o’ land on the other side, that’s part o’ the Caroliny Outer Banks, a long string o’ skinny islands. Out beyond the Banks is the ocean.”
“I can smell it,” said Beanie.
The air was rich with strange sea scents. Tough Enough worked his nose. He whined in an eager way. The young Tatums looked and sniffed as the truck carried them through a fishing village. They saw shrimp boats made fast to piers. Slim gray birds were wheeling over the water, tilting their wings, turning their heads and giving creaky cries.
Beanie asked, “What are all those birds yonder, mewin’ like cats?”
“They’re seagulls,” said Ma Tatum. “They’re keepin’ an eye out for a fish supper.”
“Where’s the ocean?” asked Beanie. “I want to see the ocean!”
“I do too,” said Irby.
“Me too,” said Annie Mae.
So Pa turned Mrs. Wigglesworth off the main highway. He drove her along for a while—and suddenly, there was the ocean!
Pa stopped the truck. Everybody looked. Everybody listened. Nobody said a word.
Great rollers were breaking and foaming against the beach. Out beyond them, all was blue. The dark-blue ocean stretched away, smoother and smoother until it met the light-blue sky. It seemed as wide as the world.
For a time there was only the sound of the surf. Then Ma said softly, “It’s the face o’ the deep.”
PA drove Mrs. Wigglesworth back to the highway and sent her chuggeting along it. She crossed two short bridges and a long one.
“Now we’re on Harkers Island,” Pa told the young Tatums. “Here’s where your great-grandma and your great-grandpa live.”
The breeze grew stronger. This was a place of wind. Here, shrubs hugged the ground and low trees leaned strangely. They had had to live with storms.
Pa stopped Mrs. Wigglesworth in front of a wide white house. It had a shady veranda. An old man and an old woman were just getting up out of porch chairs. Beanie stared. He was wondering, worrying. Both Great-grandma and Great-grandpa looked very kind, but how would they like all the pets?
Ma and Pa and the great-grandparents were calling back and forth to one another. Their words and their voices were quick and warm.
Tough Enough was the first one out of the truck. He started running toward the great-grandparents as if he knew them, then he changed his mind and went rushing around in a circle. He was barking in loud excitement.
All the Tatums scrambled out. Then what hugging and kissing! What a welcome!
All of a sudden, Ma looked anxious. Great-grandma eyed her. “What’s the matter, child?” she asked.
When Ma answered, her voice sounded flat. “Pets,” she said. “Pets is the matter.” She nodded toward Mrs. Wigglesworth. “Beanie, go git out your zoo critters and show what all you got.”
Ma said to the great-grandparents, “Pa and me, we know the critters in there will be in your way. Beanie takes good care of ’em, but we’ll find homes for ’em, soon as we can.”
Great-grandpa said, “We didn’t know Beanie had a zoo. Tell us about it.” So Ma did.
By the time she finished, Beanie had taken the pets out. He faced his great-grandparents. He gulped. He said, “Here’s Fat Stuff and Bobcat Bob and Midnight and Sweetie Pie.”
“Glory be!” Great-grandma said softly.
“My soul and body!” Great-grandpa exclaimed.
Beanie’s eyes were big as he looked at his great-grandparents. His mouth was open a little. Great-grandma and Great-grandpa were smiling.
“Beanie,” said Great-grandpa, “you’ve got a mighty fine zoo there.”
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br /> “Mighty fine pets,” said Great-grandma. “They’re welcome to stay with us. You don’t have to give ’em away on our account.”
Great-grandpa nodded heartily. “There’s plenty of room and plenty to eat for all. Looks like we’ll be havin’ a real interestin’ time.”
Beanie gazed at his great-grandparents. His eyes looked deep and soft. He couldn’t even begin to put all he felt into the two words he spoke. “Thank you,” he said.
Ma smiled at Great-grandma and Great-grandpa. “We’re real obliged.”
The grownups began to talk and talk away to one another.
Beanie kept looking at his great-grandparents. They were so old. So wrinkled. He didn’t suppose anybody else had as many wrinkles as they had. He didn’t suppose he could ever count them all. He didn’t suppose anybody else had a great-grandma and a great-grandpa as old and wrinkled as his. He was very proud of them.
Grownup talk was coming in a steady stream. Beanie was eager to speak, but he had to wait. At last he slipped some words in: “Pa, can I keep the zoo? Can I take it back to our farm? Can I, Pa? Can I, Ma?”
Pa’s thumb and forefinger went up to his mouth. He pulled and he pulled at his lower lip. At last he said, “Well-l-l-l, I reckon …” He stopped and then he went on, “I reckon you can keep the zoo. You’ve taken mighty fine care of it and that’s a true fact.”
Ma said gently, “You can keep it.”
Beanie leaped into the air, then he hugged Tough Enough. Happiness made his throat feel tight. When his voice came it was squeaky. “You started it, findin’ the kitty,” he said to Tough Enough.
The dog looked up at Beanie. Back and forth, back and forth his quick tail went wagging.
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