Whistler's Hollow

by Debbie Dadey

  “What’s wrong with Esther?” the doctor asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “She was fine last night when she was dancing.”

  “Dancing!” the doctor exploded. “I told her to take it easy.”

  I nodded. “So did Uncle Dallas.”

  “I’m glad somebody has some sense at Whistler’s Hollow.” The doctor took his eyes from the road for a minute and introduced himself. “Folks around here call me Doc White. I hope you’ll like living in Henderson.”

  “Thank you,” I said politely.

  I grabbed the side of the Model T as it jerked to a stop in front of Whistler’s Hollow. Uncle Dallas yelled out the upstairs window, “Doc, get in here quick!”

  9

  Violin

  I was trying to whistle softly when Uncle Dallas came in the kitchen. I didn’t realize he was there until he tapped me on the shoulder. “Oh,” I cried. “Is Aunt Esther all right?”

  Uncle Dallas put a finger to his lips. “Esther is sleeping,” he said gently. “The doctor told her to stay in bed for at least a week.”

  I nodded. “Can I do something to help?”

  Uncle Dallas reached out and gave me a big hug. “I’m sorry I snapped at you last night. I’ve been awfully worried about Esther lately. She means everything to me.” He stopped and stared at a crack in the ceiling for a minute. I realized he was trying not to cry.

  “Don’t worry,” I told him. “She’ll be fine. I’ll do her chores for her.”

  Uncle Dallas smiled. “You’re so much like your father,” he said. “You know he lived at Whistler’s Hollow for a while when he was a boy He stayed in your same room.”

  I wondered what my daddy did when he was here. Did he pick apples or rake leaves? Did he go to Paggett School? I bet a boy named Paul didn’t bully him.

  Uncle Dallas put his hand on my shoulder. “Lillie Mae, I have a big favor to ask.”

  I didn’t think, I just jumped at the chance. “I’ll do it,” I said quickly.

  “I need to get something into town, but I don’t want to leave Esther right now,” Uncle Dallas explained.

  “I can take it,” I assured him. I followed him into the kitchen, eager to help.

  Uncle Dallas looked at me and raised a bushy white eyebrow. He rubbed his chin for a minute before shaking his head. “No, I suspect you’d better ask Paul Garrett. He’ll take it for me. Do you know him?”

  I nodded. I knew him all too well. I started to argue that I could do whatever Paul could do, but then I saw that Uncle Dallas held his violin case.

  “Oh, no,” I said, shaking my head. “You aren’t going to sell your violin!” All my hopes of learning to play for Daddy disappeared. I figured Uncle Dallas needed the money badly or he wouldn’t sell his beloved fiddle.

  “Cash money is tight, but it hasn’t come to that,” Uncle Dallas said with a smile. Then, with his smile fading, he told me, “When you love someone, you’d do anything for them. I love Esther more than my life. The day may come when my violin stops playing, but not yet. Now, you’d better get to school before you’re late. Don’t forget to ask Paul to come over after school.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, hightailing it out the back door. Down the road I walked, thinking about what Uncle Dallas had said. Would anyone ever love me as much as that? Enough to do anything for me?

  All day long I worried about talking to Paul. Talking to him during class would mean another spanking. Talking to him at recess meant wading through all his friends and avoiding a kick ball. Before I knew it, the school day had slipped by and Paul had disappeared. Now I’d have to find him.

  On the way home my feet slowed when I came to the Garrett mailbox. I dreaded seeing Paul again, figuring he’d tease me or worse. I wasn’t wrong. Paul came out the door, took one look at me, and started teasing. “Hi, ghost girl.”

  If the gate hadn’t been between us, I think I would have taken a swing at him. I took a deep breath and told him, “Uncle Dallas wanted me to get you.”

  I figured Paul would joke about Uncle Dallas being a ghost, but Paul wiped the smirk off his face and pushed the gate past me. “Why didn’t you say so?” he yelled before jogging down the dirt road.

  By the time I caught up with Paul, he stood in the kitchen with Uncle Dallas. I heard them talking, but when I came in the back door, they got quiet.

  Uncle Dallas cleared his throat and told Paul, “You’d better get going. I appreciate your help.”

  “Any time,” Paul said, shaking Uncle Dallas’s hand. Paul grabbed the violin case off the kitchen table. Without looking at me, he pushed open the screen door and disappeared.

  How could Uncle Dallas have let Paul take his violin? Jealousy surged inside me. I wanted to play. I needed to learn to play. Paul had a family and home. He didn’t need Uncle Dallas and Aunt Esther. It looked to me like Paul had it all and I had nothing.

  10

  Black Car

  Paul took the violin case from Uncle Dallas every morning before breakfast and brought it back every evening. Paul would come in and we’d all eat supper together. Then we’d sit in the front bedroom and Uncle Dallas would play the violin for Aunt Esther. I would sit quietly, but Paul would laugh and talk with Aunt Esther and Uncle Dallas as if they were best friends. I wondered how friendly Aunt Esther and Uncle Dallas would be if they knew how Paul treated me.

  When I listened to Uncle Dallas play the fiddle, troubles disappeared. The music was everything. It made me so happy that I forgot about Mama and Daddy for a while. Then when the music stopped, the world would come rushing back. Sometimes I just wanted to cry. I wanted to be able to make music like that so I could forget about Mama being gone. Whenever Uncle Dallas handed me his violin, I tried to play. I would stop only when my chin and arms ached. Thinking about Paul using the violin every day made me wonder how well he played. The idea made me try harder. I couldn’t stand for him to play better than me. But never once did Uncle Dallas hand Paul the violin to play for Aunt Esther.

  “I wish I was a better teacher,” Uncle Dallas admitted to me one evening.

  “You are a good teacher,” I told him. “I’ve learned so much.” Even I could tell my squeaking was improving.

  Uncle Dallas grinned and raised one eyebrow. “I wasn’t talking about your fiddling. I meant your whistling.”

  I had to laugh. My whistling had actually gotten worse, if that was possible. All I could get out was a little screech. It wasn’t good for anything except to get Aunt Esther and Paul to laugh. I hated Paul even more when he laughed at me, but I loved hearing Aunt Esther laugh. We all tried to make her laugh whenever we could. She had gotten very pale. I could tell Uncle Dallas was really worried about her. He never missed a chance to do something for her.

  Aunt Esther wasn’t the kind to let a little sickness get her down. Unless she was sleeping, she kept busy. I never saw her just sit in bed idle. She spent most of her time piecing scraps together for a quilt. Her quilts weren’t just plain squares like the ones Mama had, they were fancy ones with designs on them. “This here is a double wedding ring quilt,” she told me one Saturday afternoon when I took her lunch, some soup that Mrs. Garrett had brought over. “My great-grandmother made it for my grandmother’s wedding day,” she said, smoothing her hand over the richly colored circles of the quilt on her bed.

  “It’s really pretty,” I said, putting the soup bowl on the nightstand.

  “The quilt on your bed is over a hundred years old,” Aunt Esther told me. “It’s like a history of my family.”

  I nodded. I was having enough trouble sleeping without having family history to cover me up at night.

  “That’s your family too,” Aunt Esther explained. She held up the quilt piece she was working on. “This is for you.”

  “That’s a double wedding ring,” I said. “Isn’t that for when you get married?”

  Aunt Esther smiled. “Surely. One of these days some handsome man is going to snap you up. You are after all a right good-looking
young lady.”

  She couldn’t have surprised me more if she’d called me the queen of England. “Don’t look so flustered,” she said. “Dallas and I are in no hurry to get rid of you. We love having you here.”

  I wasn’t planning on staying at Whistler’s Hollow, so I changed the subject. “That’s a very pretty pattern,” I said, motioning to the quilt piece in her lap.

  Aunt Esther smiled and touched my hand. “I know Dallas and I aren’t your parents, but it would sure make us proud if you’d let us pretend that you’re the daughter we’ve never had.”

  “Sure.” I figured that was fine with me, at least until Daddy came home.

  Aunt Esther bit off some thread. “Who knows, maybe you and Paul will even get married someday.”

  My mouth must have hung open. “Why do you let Paul come over here every night for supper?” I asked. Surely Aunt Esther could figure out that Paul was nothing but mean.

  Aunt Esther put her sewing in her lap. Her voice was soft. “Paul’s maw has never gotten over her husband being killed. She’s not quite right—especially in the evenings. I’m hoping she’ll snap out of it one day.”

  Every morning, I sat at the table while Paul took the violin case. I wouldn’t look directly at him, but I watched him. Uncle Dallas would always chat with Paul, but I never spoke to him. One morning Paul came late, just as I was leaving for school.

  “Isn’t this nice?” Uncle Dallas smiled as he handed Paul the case. “My two favorite young’uns can walk together.”

  Paul and I looked at each other without a word, but left Whistler’s Hollow side by side.

  As we walked along, a big black car roared by. It looked like the car I’d seen at the train station when I’d first come to Henderson.

  “That sure is a nice car,” I said, trying to make conversation. I figured talking was better than rock throwing.

  “That’s the revenuer,” Paul explained. “He’s out to get moonshiners and throw them in jail.”

  “Get who?” I asked.

  “Moonshiners. You know, the folks who make illegal liquor. Didn’t they have moonshiners where you come from?”

  “Sure they did. But how do you know so much about moonshining?” I asked. “Does your daddy make it?”

  “Naw.” Paul shook his head. “My pa got killed in the war.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, feeling bad that I’d forgotten about Paul’s daddy being dead. “My daddy was in the war too.”

  Paul just shrugged. “Ma and I make out okay,” he said. “We get a government check every month that helps out a lot.”

  I felt a little sorry for Paul, not having a daddy and all. My daddy might be gone, but he hadn’t been killed in the war. Someday he was coming back. I renewed my promise to myself to try harder to learn to play the violin. Besides, it was something to do while waiting for Daddy to come home.

  I tried changing the subject. “I hope that revenuer catches those moonshiners. My mama said drinking ruined my best friend’s father—turned him into a lousy drunk.” Of course, having his son killed in the war was just as much at fault, but I didn’t tell Paul that.

  Paul looked at me without saying another word. He turned into Brumby’s General Store and I walked on to school alone. I even tried whistling a bit. Maybe my luck had changed. Paul had talked to me and I had lunch with Alberta every day. Aunt Esther would get better, and life wouldn’t be so bad. I had no idea how wrong I could be.

  No one talked to me at school, except for Alberta at lunchtime. I had gotten used to it. Alberta had found me a set of old battered books, so I could follow the lessons. I looked forward to lunch with my only friend so much, but all that changed the day Paul walked to school with me.

  Alberta had tears in her gray eyes when she whispered to me in the coat closet, “I can’t eat with you.”

  My heart sank. Talking and singing with Alberta in the middle of the day gave me a reason to come to school. What was wrong? She wasn’t under the tree at lunch to ask. She was gone. She didn’t come back the whole rest of the day.

  Back at Whistler’s Hollow, Uncle Dallas got grouchier and grouchier. I knew he’d been up most nights taking care of Aunt Esther. I’d been up nights too. I’d lie awake and listen to the noises. My feather pillow never seemed to drown out the sounds, no matter how hard I squeezed it to my ears. I’d heard Aunt Esther coughing and Uncle Dallas talking to her, but I’d listened to something else as well. Strange noises came from above me. Could it be a ghost in the attic like Paul had said? If there was a ghost, then why did Paul come over so many nights and eat with us? Why didn’t Paul warn Uncle Dallas? And whose ghost could it be? Mama’s? If it was Mama’s, could I talk to her like she was still alive? Would she know me?

  I wanted to see Mama again so badly. Sometimes I’d lie in bed, close my eyes, and pretend she was there. She’d rub my head and say it wasn’t true. She wasn’t really dead. It was all a big mistake. Then I’d open my eyes and look around at my little room at Whistler’s Hollow. I knew that Mama wasn’t coming back and that any ghosts at Whistler’s Hollow weren’t going to be friendly to me.

  11

  Empty

  Without Alberta to eat lunch with I figured I would just go back to Whistler’s Hollow for lunch. After all, Paul had talked to me yesterday. He hadn’t beat me up or thrown rocks at me. That was all over and done with. It should be safe to walk to lunch. Maybe Paul and I could even become friends.

  The crispness in the air made me remember walking with Daddy to Old Man Henessy’s farm. Walking in the fall was something Daddy and I used to love to do, when he had the time. The leaves on the trees blazed red and orange, just like he liked. Strolling with my daddy wasn’t just a walk. It was an event. He could find multi-colored rocks that no one else would notice and make a game of cloud shapes in the sky.

  I looked up at the clouds to find animal shapes in the sky, like Daddy could always find. I wondered if somewhere Daddy looked up at the same sky. “Looking for ghosts?” Paul’s voice snapped from behind me.

  “Hello, Paul,” I said. “Would you like to walk home together?”

  “Don’t you get it?” he said. “I can’t stand you. I won’t be happy until you’re gone.”

  “Why?” I asked, suddenly feeling chilled to the bone. Paul had been so nice to me the day before, but that was only because Uncle Dallas had asked him to walk with me. Nothing had changed.

  Paul pushed me in the shoulder. “I hate your guts. Get away from here, ghost girl.”

  Tears brimmed my eyes, but that only made me madder. “I am not a ghost girl,” I said. “Don’t ever call me that again!”

  “Ghost girl,” Paul said. He put the violin case down and calmly folded his arms over his chest. “Ghost girl. Ghost girl. Ghost girl.”

  I wanted to run home with my hands over my ears. I should have run home. Instead, I pushed Paul as hard as I could.

  I caught him off-guard and he fell to the ground. He came back up and lunged at me. We both fell to the ground and started hitting. This was no scuffle. We were by ourselves in the middle of the road. Mr. Price wouldn’t be here to break this fight up. I had the feeling Paul wouldn’t quit until one of us couldn’t move. I twisted to get away from him and my head hit the violin case. It fell open.

  Paul stopped hitting. I sat up straight and stared. The violin case was empty. Totally empty—except for a horrible smell.

  “What did you do with Uncle Dallas’s violin?” I asked.

  “I didn’t have his violin,” Paul said.

  I wiped blood off my nose and shook my head. “But weren’t you learning to play?”

  “No,” Paul said with a sneer. “You’re the only one Dallas is teaching.”

  I stared at the empty case. Brown stains spotted the red flannel lining. That smell. It smelled like death—like the smell from the attic. It was like another smell too. It suddenly dawned on me. Melissa K. Reynolds’s father had that odor about him when he’d drunk too much.

  It took
me another minute to figure it out. Then I couldn’t believe I had been so stupid. The noises in the night, taking the case into town every day, the revenuer, and the horrible smell—it all fit together.

  “Moonshine!” I yelled. “Uncle Dallas is making moonshine!”

  Paul leaped toward me and covered my mouth with his hand. “Be quiet, you idiot,” he warned. I nodded my head and he slowly took his hand away.

  “What are you going to do?” he said.

  I shook my head and stared at the case. “I can’t believe Uncle Dallas would do something so horrible,” I whispered.

  Paul stiffened his back. “Dallas makes sure everything is clean. He’s not like some who poison people.”

  “The violin case is so small,” I said. “How can he fit bottles in there?”

  Paul closed the lid on the violin case and snapped it shut. “We use small, flat bottles so the revenuer won’t suspect. We sell a little each day.”

  “But why does Uncle Dallas do it?” I asked, still not believing it could be true. I’d heard some people who’d had bad homemade liquor went blind or died.

  “It’s not something he’s proud of,” Paul said, looking down at the case. “He can’t get much money for his corn or tobacco. He needs the money for the doctor and medicine. Miss Esther has been sick a lot.”

  It all made sense. I knew Uncle Dallas would do anything for Aunt Esther, even if it meant breaking the law. It didn’t seem right that he should have to break the law just to buy medicine. That’s the way it was though.

  “Are you going to tell?” Paul asked.

  I didn’t know what Paul was talking about. “I don’t know what to do,” I said. I hopped up from the road and ran home. I had told Paul the truth. I really didn’t know what to do.

  12

  The Box

  I didn’t know what Aunt Esther had said in that letter she had written so long ago to Aunt Helen, but it must have been a doozy. By the time I got home, wiped the dust off my dress, washed my face, and said hello to Aunt Esther, a postman had his truck stopped at the metal mailbox. Through the lace curtains in Aunt Esther’s bedroom I saw him lift a box out of his truck.