Francie

by Karen English

  Miss Lattimore got the lower grades practicing their printing, the middle grades their cursive, then she had us turn to Hiawatha in our books. Reading aloud was the most boring thing I had to endure every morning, because Mae Helen, Augustine, and several others who’d never learned to read too good would take ten years to drag through one sentence. The teacher had to tell them every other word. Then the next morning they would repeat the very same mistakes. Some of them were thick as posts. My turn would be over before I knew it, after waiting all morning for the teacher to get to me.

  This time was different, because Miss Lattimore was making her way down the row to Jesse Pruitt. He came after Serena’s brother J. Dean, who took minutes and minutes to limp through five lines. Then: “Okay, Jesse Pruitt, let’s see what you can do. Take it from there.”

  I looked back. His book was still closed and upside down. He touched it but did not open it. “I ain’t learned to read,” he said, loud enough for there to be no doubt about what was said. Everyone whipped around then. Even the poor readers, probably glad that there was finally someone worse off than them.

  “You don’t read …” Miss Lattimore adjusted her glasses, trying to figure out what to do with this big person who never learned to read. “You can’t read at all?”

  “I never went to school regular.”

  “I see. Well, you comin’ here after school’s been in session for months. I don’t have time to coddle you. Francie’s a good reader. Maybe she can help you. Maybe she can’t.” She looked over at me. “Francie?”

  “Yes, ma’am, I’ll help him.” I looked back at Jesse and smiled, but he was sitting there staring at his hands.

  “Now, you know your alphabet?”

  “My ABCs?”

  “Yea—your ABCs.” Jesse Pruitt and I had stayed behind after everyone had been sent home. Miss Lattimore was grading quizzes at her desk, not seeming to pay any mind to us.

  “My mama taught me.”

  “You know the sounds of the letters?”

  “No—I don’t think so.”

  I looked at him. It was going to be a long, hard row to hoe, I decided.

  By the time I’d taken him through the sounds of the consonants so that he could remember them, I’d changed my mind. Jesse Pruitt wasn’t no dummy, and I was going to teach him to read. The idea gave me butterflies in my stomach.

  I looked out the window. The school yard was nearly empty now, and Miss Lattimore was packing up to go. Prez was kicking a pebble around. He was soon going to grow tired of waiting on me every day. I wished Perry would stick around with him.

  “How come that boy never went to school?” Prez and I were hurrying home to get there in time to do our chores.

  “Mama never went,” I said.

  “How come Mama never went?”

  “She had to take care of all her brothers and sisters when her mama died.”

  For a moment, I felt sad for Mama—her never going to school. But then my sadness vanished as soon as I remembered I was teaching someone to read. I quickened my pace, determined to keep Mama satisfied with my work so I could keep staying after school, helping Jesse Pruitt. I was feeling so good, thinking about this, I forgot all about Augustine.

  And suddenly there she was. Augustine stepped in front of me with Mae Helen right behind her. She wore her ugly grin on her face, like this was something she’d been planning all day. I was more surprised than scared. Then I felt a prick of anger. Prez looked from me to her.

  Without a word, I tried to go around her, but Augustine blocked me, and Mae Helen joined her to widen the barrier.

  “You think you so cute, don’t you—just cause you think you movin’ up to Chicago.” Augustine turned her head and spit on the ground. “Shoot, it ain’t so special. I got a cousin up there and it ain’t so hot.”

  “Yea,” Mae Helen said, inching closer. She was bigger than Augustine, with a halo of unruly hair that stood out all around her face. I weighed her role in this, deciding I couldn’t fight one of them—let alone both.

  “I never said it was special and I don’t think I’m cute,” I said, my voice breaking and sounding frightened to my own ears.

  “You shoulda give me that answer.”

  “Miss Lattimore would’ve torn up my paper,” I said.

  “So?”

  Augustine didn’t care about no answer. She just didn’t like me. She was simply giving herself something to go on—giving herself a reason to beat me up.

  I stepped back, knocking into Prez. Augustine, taller than me, leaned forward, her arms behind her a bit, her chest out. She brought her face close to mine. It was like a dance. She’d said her ugly words, and next she’d be giving me a hard shove. I braced myself for it, so when it came, it took more effort than she expected to knock me down. But Augustine outweighed me by about twenty pounds. I fell hard on my elbows, scraping them on the gravel. Both girls laughed. When I tried to get up, Mae Helen pushed me down.

  “Come on—get up. Ain’t you gonna get up?” Mae Helen looked at Augustine, I guess for instructions on what to do next.

  Prez began to cry, taking Mae Helen’s attention off me for a second. I hurried to stand up. “Aw, no you don’t,” Augustine said, readying herself to shove me again. But just then Jesse, appearing out of nowhere it seemed, grabbed her from behind, nearly lifting her off her feet before setting her aside. She went down on her butt hard, her eyes wide with surprise. She struggled to get up, but Jesse Pruitt held her down by the top of the head, so all she could do was get purplish with the effort to push against his big flat palm. Prez laughed, suddenly feeling brave.

  I brushed the back of my dress off.

  “Now,” Jesse told Mae Helen, “you go on home.” He turned to Augustine. “You, too,” he said. He didn’t even sound angry.

  Mae Helen helped her sister to her feet. They started up the road—slowly, shooting mean stares back at me to pretend they weren’t scared, anyhow. I met every one of their stares. To show I wasn’t scared, neither.

  “You okay?” Jesse asked.

  “Where’d you come from?”

  “I followed you.”

  “How come?”

  “I heard them talking about all they were going to do to you. I thought it was just talk. But I decided to see for myself. So I come this way, stayin’ behind you.” He looked past me.

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  “I’ma go, then.”

  I brushed away more dirt and twigs that were clinging to my dress. “Thanks,” I said and watched him walk away. Me and Prez started for home.

  More important things came into my thoughts, though. I’d have to really hurry now. With all the delays, it was going to be nearly impossible to rush through everything I needed to get done before Mama arrived home hot, tired, and irritated.

  I tutored Jesse every day the rest of the week. Miss Lattimore, busy with her teaching and principal duties, bustled in and out of the classroom and hardly seemed to notice us. I liked teaching Jesse for two reasons: I liked watching his progress, and he kept me safe from Augustine.

  I surprised myself. I could tutor Jesse for thirty minutes, run home, and get every one of my chores done and the dinner on the stove by the time Mama was walking up the road toward home. Course, that first night Mama had caught sight of my scraped elbows and said, “What happened to you?” I was in a pitiful state, like someone always doing battle and getting a new wound every time she turned around. Cat scratches, welts from a whipping, and now scraped elbows that promised to crack and sting fiercely whenever I bent my arms.

  “I hurt myself,” I’d said simply and Mama was too tired to question me further.

  “What’s that?” Jesse asked me the following Monday.

  “What?”

  “That,” he said, laying his finger on the picture of an orange grove. Slowly and painfully, he was making his way through The Little Red Hen. I had to bite my tongue to keep from yawning. It took a lot of patience not to correct him, to wait and let
him sound the words out himself. Sometimes I had to tell him. Then he’d repeat it four or five times, even closing his eyes while he said it to see it in his mind. But I never had to tell him that word again.

  “That’s what you call an orange grove. We don’t have any here.” I looked out the schoolhouse window at the trees we grew here. Pine and pecan, peach and sweet gum. No orange.

  “Where they have orange groves?”

  “They have them in Florida and California.”

  “Where’s this California?”

  “On the other side of the country. Right where the Pacific Ocean is.”

  “Where’s that?”

  I looked in his earnest face. He didn’t know where the Pacific Ocean was. I got up and checked the hall toward the small room Miss Lattimore used as an office. Then I got the atlas off the front desk and opened it to the map of the United States. Jesse leaned over me. “We’re here,” I said, showing him where Alabama was. “And the Pacific Ocean is here.” I ran my finger slowly across the map to show what a big country it was we lived in. “It’s two thousand miles away.”

  “Two thousand miles,” he repeated and pulled at his sleeve. “I’ma go there one day—where they grow oranges on trees.” He thought about his own words for a moment. Then he gave a short nod, like he was settling it in his mind.

  He stood and started for the door, just as he did every day, saying that was all the time he could spare.

  The next day, Jesse was late for the first time. In the middle of multiplication drills, he entered, head down. Some of the kids stared as he slunk to his seat, waiting to see if he’d get yelled at. But Miss Lattimore didn’t miss a beat. She just went on calling on us and snapping her fingers if we hesitated. She didn’t call on Jesse and he didn’t volunteer. It seemed she was letting him make his way.

  The next day, Miss Lattimore had him listen to the second-graders read Little Red Hen and follow along as best he could. Later, she gave him a slate to practice writing letters from his penmanship book and only called on him when she couldn’t avoid it. Any giggling was met with a piercing stare over her glasses.

  Finally on Friday I asked Jesse a question that had been nagging at me. “How do you get all the way here from New Carlton?”

  “I walk.”

  I thought about this. New Carlton was six or seven miles away. He’d have to start out at sunrise to get here on time.

  “Why did you want to go to school? Now?”

  “I always wanted to go.” His eyes left the window and settled on me almost defiantly. “My daddy needed me to work in the fields. I’m the oldest.” He shrugged. “My mama always wanted me to go, too.”

  “You going for your mama.”

  His mouth quivered and he lowered his eyes. “She died.”

  “You don’t have a mama?”

  He seemed to be struggling to compose himself. Finally, he managed to say, “She died last winter—and I always promised her I’d get some schooling. So that’s why I come here.”

  “Who do you live with now?”

  “My daddy and my younger brother and younger sister.”

  “Who takes care y’all?”

  “We all take care of ourselves.”

  That was the loneliest thing I’d ever heard. Even with all the work I had to do, I never thought I was the only one taking care of me.

  “I want you to come home with me—for dinner.”

  He looked surprised. “I can’t do that.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m expected at home. I gotta get there before the sun go down. I got a lot of work that has to be done yet.” He stood then. “Or my daddy will stop me from comin’ for sure.”

  Miss Lafayette

  Mama argued my case and I was allowed to return to Miss Beach’s on Saturday.

  All the way there, I had to hear Mama’s lecture. “I need your help, so stay out of the way of that cat and just do your work.”

  “Yes, Mama,” I said, though I was hardly listening. Miss Lattimore had announced that Miss Lafayette would be back on Monday, so my mind was on seeing her, telling her about Jesse. Maybe she even had a present for me.

  “Are you listening to me, Francie?”

  “Yes’m.”

  Miss Beach was up on her porch as usual—Treasure curled on her lap, enjoying Miss Beach’s long and slow strokes down his back. When we got within earshot, Mama called out brightly, “Mornin’, Miss Beach! Nice day for doin’ laundry, ain’t it?”

  Miss Beach looked up, nodded, then narrowed her eyes at me.

  “Francie’s got somethin’ she wants to tell you,” Mama said, nudging me.

  “I’m really sorry, Miss Beach, for what I did to that cat.” Mama elbowed me in the side. “And I’m never going to put him in your wardrobe again.”

  Miss Beach, who was busy checking something in Treasure’s fur, looked up. “You better not,” she said. Then, as if she’d just thought of it, she said, “And don’t go pestering Miss Lafayette.”

  I said nothing, but I felt as if I would burst with joy. Miss Lafayette was really home!

  I hurried around the back and started up the stairs. I listened for a few seconds at Miss Lafayette’s door, then tapped on it.

  “Come in, Francie.”

  I stepped in, feeling suddenly shy. Miss Lafayette was still in bed. I’d never seen her in a nightgown before. Her pecan-colored hair, always up and out of the way, was hanging down over her shoulder to her waist. She sat propped against pillows in a white gown with tiny roses around the neck and wrists. She looked as fragile as a china teacup. She had a book face-down on her lap.

  She smiled at me. I stayed near the door, my hand still on the knob. “Hello, Miss Lafayette. I’m glad you’re back.”

  “Have you all been showing Miss Lattimore you have some home training from ol’ Miss Lafayette?”

  “You’re not old.”

  She pulled a flat package out from somewhere under the covers, wrapped in brown paper. “Been waiting for you.” I pressed my lips together to hide my pleasure. “Here.” She held it out to me.

  I walked to her bedside. “You sick?”

  She waved the question away. “Sit down,” she said, patting the strip of space next to her, and I eased down on the edge, feeling funny about sitting there.

  She chuckled. “I’m not going to bite you, Francie. Here,” she said again.

  Carefully, I took the package out of her hand and unwrapped it, trying not to tear the paper.

  It was a book. I knew it would be. Miss Lafayette knew how I loved books. She knew I’d started my own little library with the books she’d given me.

  The Dream Keeper by Langston Hughes.

  “The poet,” I said.

  Miss Lafayette looked at me closely and recited:

  “Hold fast to dreams

  For if dreams die

  Life is a broken-winged bird

  That cannot fly.”

  I flipped through the pages. “I’ma read it on my hill.”

  “While you wait for the train to go by?”

  “No, I eat my Scooter Pie while it goes by. Then I read.”

  She laughed.

  “Thank you, Miss Lafayette.” I ran my hand over the cover.

  “What have you been up to?”

  “We got a new boy, Miss Lafayette. His name is Jesse Pruitt and he’s sixteen and he can’t read.”

  “Oh?” She cocked her head with interest.

  “I’m teaching him.”

  “Are you doing a good job?”

  “I think so.”

  “Good.”

  I heard my name being called then. Miss Beach—calling up to see what was taking me so long. Miss Lafayette nodded toward the laundry bag hanging on the bedpost. I looked back at her before going out the door. “Will you be at school on Monday?”

  She winked at me.

  “Is she gonna be there?” Prez said as we walked with Perry to school Monday morning.

  “I said she was.”

/>   “You know for sure?” Perry asked.

  “Don’t no one ask me again.”

  We turned into the yard just as Miss Lafayette stepped out to ring the bell. Prez and I grinned at each other at the same time.

  How different the two teachers were. In her smooth, gentle manner, Miss Lafayette leaned on the edge of her desk, looked us over, and said, “I’ve missed you so.”

  “Why were you gone so long?” Perry burst out, and I could have smacked him for his rudeness.

  “It really wasn’t that long—only two weeks.” Miss Lafayette blushed almost crimson.

  “Felt like a long time,” Bertrum mumbled.

  Miss Lafayette looked at her watch. “Let’s get busy. Bertrum, please pass out the readers.”

  I sighed. Just then Jesse arrived—late as usual, but this time I knew why.

  He stopped in the doorway, not knowing what to think about Miss Lafayette’s presence. Carefully he made his way to the back of the room.

  “Are you Jesse?” Miss Lafayette asked.

  He was just sinking into his seat. Now he stood up quickly. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Are you always late, or is this an exception?”

  “I’m late almost every day, ma’am.”

  “May I ask why?”

  Jesse stood blinking at Miss Lafayette, not knowing how to take such politeness coming from an adult.

  “I come from New Carlton and I can’t leave as early as I need to, cause I got chores to do.”

  I’d been looking from one to the other. Now I switched back to Miss Lafayette. She frowned, slightly.

  “That’s a long way you walk.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Noticing he was empty-handed, she asked, “Where’s your lunch?”

  Jesse didn’t answer. He looked out the window, then back at her, then down at the floor.

  “Never mind. Please sit down.”