BETRAYAL

It is easier to forgive an enemy than a friend.

Sonny’s year in the first grade had not gone well. The other children in the school poked fun at him, and even the teacher was completely out of patience with him and not at all kind or understanding with this “special needs” child. She told Beulah that she didn’t think he was bright enough to be in school, and that he would have to repeat the first grade. Beulah decided to send him to a school where he would have some friends, the same school where Jenny would be starting in September. They had already been to see the other two school board members and they said it was all right with them if it was all right with Warren. She stopped in alone one blistering day in August to get what she felt sure would be a nod of approval from a trusted friend. Daddy said that the law was that any student from out of the district would have to pay tuition. He told Beulah that Sonny would have trouble with the other children wherever he went, that kids were just that way and he knew they could be very cruel, but that Sonny would learn how to get along with them. He said that he’s been elected to see to it that everything was done legally. Big tears rolled down Beulah’s cheeks and she went home without another word.

Mother said, “I wish you had just said it would be all right. It wouldn’t have hurt anything to let him go to our school. Beulah is such a good neighbor.”

“Why should we have to take the other district’s defectives? Let them take care of their own, . There’s more money in that district and the think they’re so high and mighty. Besides I don’t want Sonny walking to school and home everyday for the next eight years with our girls. You never can tell what he’s likely to do.”

“Maybe if he were treated a little better, he wouldn’t be such a troublemaker.”

Beulah decided she would fight this. She’d show them. She went to the authorities to see what could be done. She knew they couldn’t afford the tuition. There was a vacant house not far away that was located in the same district. Rent was very low on this and they could say they were living here. They would spend a little time there and keep a lamp burning for part of the night so that it looked convincing.

As Daddy had predicted, Sonny fared no better in the new school. Other students still picked on him and the teacher found him an unwelcome burden. For Sonny’s sake, Beulah returned to her friendly self and would give Jenny and Margaret rides home from school on the days when she was on her way home from town. One day, when they were walking home, Sonny became quarrelsome and abusive to Jenny. He was stepping on her heels and hitting her with sticks.

“You leave her alone,” Margaret warned him. When he didn’t, she walloped him on the jaw with her metal lunch pail, leaving him with a cut lip blubbering, “I goin'’ tell Maw on you.” Beulah decided this was the last straw. After this, she would no longer speak to the Barnes family, but would drive on by, her face set in smoldering resentment. When the Barnes’ dog Pepper disappeared, Sonny said he knew where he was. He was lying in their cornfield with a bullet hole through him. Hank had always been a confirmed dog lover, so this was a true measure of his hatred. At school Sonny told Margaret, “Me and Maw calls yer dad “Old Whistle Britches,” and you “Little Whistle Britches.”