Wednesday, August 27, 2008

THE WAR YEARS

Jenny would never forget that Sunday afternoon on December seventh, nineteen forty one, when Aunt Gladys stopped by on her way home from town to ask if they had heard the news. They hadn’t turned on the radio yet that day, so they didn’t know what had happened.

“The Japs bombed Pearl Harbor,” she said. America had a big naval base in Hawaii, so the probability of war was likely. President Roosevelt was going to address the American people that night. War! It just couldn’t be. Yes, they had been hearing all about the war in Europe, about Hitler’s conquests, but America was going to stay out of this one. Hadn’t the president said so? They were safe. This should not have been a complete surprise. There had been far off drum beats, but they chose to ignore these. They immediately turned on the Silvertone radio they had gotten from Sears that fall after the installation of the 32 volt light plant Dad had bought at a community sale. The radio had added a new dimension to their lives. Of course the radio was full of nothing but the news of the bombing and the terrible casualties. That night at eight o’clock, FDR made his famous address where he declared that December seventh, nineteen hundred and forty one would live on forever as a day of infamy. We were now at war with the Axis powers, Japan, Germany, Italy and Russia, its heads of state being Emperor Hirohito, Adolph Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Joseph Stalin.

Jenny had a romantic unrealistic view of war. The U.S. would “win,” of course. We were invincible. She didn’t realize that nobody ever wins a war. She thrilled to the stirring war songs and the incredibly sad songs as well. Who could forget Kate Smith’s, “God Bless America,” or the hauntingly sad, “Bluebirds Over The White Cliffs of Dover.” The news media also glorified and romanticized the war and much emphasis was placed on keeping up the morale of the soldiers, and to keep up the morale of the American people, they were not informed as to how bad the war really was. There were many secrets about what was happening. America was unprepared for such a war and there were terrible losses of American troops. America became mobilized as quickly as it could, and everything went into the war effort. The cream of America’s young men was drafted to go into battle. Patriotism was at an all time high. To question the war was viewed as treasonous.

It was not until Jenny’s cousin Bill , a navigator in the air force, had his plane shot down over the Pacific and was lost forever, and Jenny observed Aunt Ada’s grief, that the impact of the war became more of a reality. She continued to cheer the enemy’s losses, however. Sometimes she had nightmares about the Germans and the Japanese flying directly over their farm and bombing them. The tide on the western front began to turn when Hitler made his fatal mistake by invading vast Russia and the German soldiers froze to death and died like flies in the harsh Russian winter. Americans rejoiced at the dropping of the atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not considering at the time, that this could someday happen to them. In nineteen forty six the war was officially over, but though there was some healing, much of the suffering would continue forever in a never ending chain of events.

Not until years later, after she read stories about the Holocaust and the widespread devastation of war, and got to know some victims and survivors of the war, did Jenny become became a pacifist and a strong supporter of war protests.

THE VACCINATION

Diphtheria. Jenny recognized it as a big terrible word because “Sonny,” the little neighbor boy, was very sick with diphtheria. He hadn’t been able to swallow anything and had been out of his head with a high fever. Daddy had gone over at night to help. Jenny hoped he hadn’t brought any germs home. She had heard that you got white spots on your throat and had to have it swabbed. Whole families of children used to die from this in the old days and maybe they still could.

Daddy had gone into town that very afternoon to ask the doctor about getting Jenny and Margaret vaccinated tomorrow. He came home with two giant sticks of peppermint. Neither Jenny nor Mother liked the taste of peppermint, but Jenny thought it was very pretty and it made her happy just to look at it. Daddy said that tomorrow they were going to the Doctor’s to be vaccinated.

“I don’t want to,” said Margaret..”Some of the kids at school got diphtheria vaccinations and they said it hurt a whole lot.”

“The reason you must get vaccinated,” Mother told them, “is to keep from getting diphtheria. This would hurt a whole lot worse than a vaccination, and besides, you could die from diphtheria.”

Daddy explained how the vaccination was done. “The doctor will say , ‘let’s roll up your sleeve.’ Then Elsie will put some medicine on your arm with a piece of cotton and the doctor will stick a special needle with serum in it and stick it in your arm. It will sting a little bit and that is all. And you won’t even cry. You’ll both be big and brave and smile and say, “That didn’t hardly hurt at all.’ The doctor will think, “My, what brave girls.’”

The next morning they got ready to go to town. The girls wore their lavender flowered long sleeved dresses that Mother had made for them, as the weather was cold. They wore their winter underwear and long stockings.

All the way to town, they talked about the vaccination. Jenny remembered going to the doctor’s once before when Mother had had an x-ray because she thought she might have cancer. When they got to town they parked right in front of the place were the doctor had his office. They climbed a long dark steep flight of stairs and went around the corner opened a door with a glass window and there was the waiting room. They sat in creaky wicker furniture. There were other people in the waiting room. There was a lady with a little boy, a man with a patch over one eye and a fat lady. The clock on the wall ticked slowly. Jenny went over to the fly specked window above the register and looked down on the street far below where small cars crawled along the street and tiny toy- like people walked along the sidewalk. More people kept coming into the waiting room until it was quite crowded. At last Elsie came to the door and said, “Next,” and it was their turn.

All of them went into the inner office. Jenny liked the iodine and gauze and tape smell, although it was a little frightening. The doctor was a plump red-faced man with a wide nose and snow white hair. Jenny thought that if he had whiskers, he would look just like Santa Clause. She decided she liked him.

“We’ll take the little one first,” said the doctor, in a voice so soft, it was almost a whisper. He looked at Mother. “Do you want to hold her?” he asked.

Jenny was indignant. “I don’t want to be held,” she said. “I’m big and brave.”

Daddy lifted Jenny way up in the air and set her on the high black leather examining table.
Mother stood beside her and helped her get her dress and underwear sleeves rolled up. Elsie, a mere slip of a girl, who was the office girl, put cold stuff high on Jenny’s left arm with cotton. The doctor had a big needle. Just as he stuck it into Jenny’s arm and it started to sting, “Daddy said , “Look at the little birdie on the window sill.” Jenny looked, but didn’t see it. The doctor took the needle away.

“That didn’t hurt a bit,” said Jenny proudly.

Margaret, however, began to cry the minute the doctor approached with the needle. Jenny tried to comfort her by saying, “It won’t hurt,” but Margaret was not convinced. Jenny was glad that for once, she had acted even bigger than Margaret.

After supper that evening, Daddy took out his steel tape measure that rolled up into a little round case and showed them how they could play “vaccinate.” The tape looked as though it went right into your arm. They had such fun playing vaccinate.

THE TURNING POINT

Jenny and Mother hurried through Coolidge’s Department Store and up the flight of stairs at the back of the store, as Mother didn’t want to be late for her one o’clock appointment. The beauty parlor was in a balcony over the store. You could look down and watch the people come into the store and they might not even notice that you were watching. Mother didn’t come here often, but today she was to get a permanent wave. Most of the time she wore her hair in a smooth roll at her neckline that she secured with hairpins. It was a classic style and she could cover up the spherical mole on her neck which she considered very ugly. She didn’t like the frizzy look of a permanent and it was also expensive. She didn’t think it was good for her hair, but Daddy liked her hair better curly and she wanted to please him.

Jenny liked the little beauty shop. She had never been up here before. It was bright and clean and had a variety of interesting smells. One of the smells was terrible; it went up your nose and made your eyes water and also made you want to get out of there. Ladies sat patiently under hair dryers or with various kinds of apparatus on their heads. There were magazines to look through, different magazines than anything that came in the mail at home. To Jenny, the best part about the beauty parlor was that it seemed to her a hidden mysterious place, a secret place that not everyone knew about. At least she hadn’t known about it until today. Jenny had come to love secrets. One of the strongest bonds between Jenny and her best friend Susan was the wealth of secrets they shared. There was the Santa Claus secret. Last year they had pieced together various bits of information and solved the Santa Claus puzzle and had extended it to include the Easter rabbit. They made up secret words and codes and games.

At the age of seven and soon to be eight, Jenny’s world was changing and expanding. Her legs were getting longer and thinner, and her face had lost that round baby look. Two terms of school had taught her a lot about people outside the family circle. She had conquered many fears and had learned to do a lot of things by herself. She was becoming generally more independent and could better defend herself against Margaret. She had discovered Susan, a kindred spirit, and
they confided to each other their innermost thoughts and feelings. They understood each other.

Jenny sat on the bright plaid couch and twirled her handkerchief in the air. It had a nickel tied in the corner, and after a while, she would go to the drug store by herself and get a strawberry ice cream cone with her nickel.

The sound of the ceiling fans made a pleasant humming in the quiet store below. Jenny could hear the door opening. An old lady with a cane and dark glasses entered with a little black scotty dog on a leash. This was Mrs. Coolidge and Mother had said she was blind. Jenny wondered how she kept from bumping into things.

Jenny went back to the plaid couch and began to look through some of the magazines. Two little girls about Jenny’s age came into the store. “We would like some red anklets please,” Jenny heard them say, importantly.

“They sure think they’re smart,” she thought to herself. Mother always went with her to buy clothing.

Jenny looked through some more magazines. She was turning through the pages rapidly when a picture caught her eye. It was the picture of a baby inside it’s mother’s stomach. At first she thought it was one of those very old famous paintings of the Baby Jesus and his Mother Mary. Jenny looked at the print at the top of the page which said, “THE BIRTH OF A BABY,” in big black letters. Jenny held the magazine so that no one could see what she was reading. She was afraid someone might ask or might take the magazine away from her. This was something she had been wondering about for a long time and she devoured the pictures hungrily, and as many of the words as she was able to read and understand. There was one picture showing a very tiny thing inside the mother. It didn’t look like a baby; it looked more like a sea creature. There were more such pictures, each with the creature a little bigger, looking more like a real baby. There was a picture of the mother with a sheet over her and doctors and nurses standing around, The most impressive picture was of the doctor holding the crying baby upside down by the ankles and spanking his little bare bottom. A long thick shiny rope like thing was attached to his navel and went under the sheet.

For quite some time Jenny had doubted that babies were brought in the doctor’s black bag. Now she could tell Susan that babies really grew inside their mothers and that doctors operated on them to take them out. That explained why women were so fat before they had babies and the part about the operation explained why they had to be in bed for a while, and why the doctor had to come when a baby was born. She thought it might also be the reason that children were sometimes like their mothers, but she couldn’t imagine why they looked and acted like their fathers too. She looked at the name of the magazine. It said “LIFE” in big red letters. She put the magazine on the bottom of the stack so that she could look at it again later. She was excited about her discovery, but there was no one she could tell it to just now.

“I think I’ll go get an ice cream cone now,” she shouted to Mother, who was under a noisy machine.

“All right,” Mother called back.

Jenny walked gaily down the steps, through the store and into the blistering heat of an unseasonably hot mid-May. She bought a strawberry ice cream cone at the drug store, and after the first few delicious licks, pushed the ice cream to the bottom of the cone with her tongue so that it would last longer. She walked back to the beauty parlor ever so slowly, looking in shop windows as she ate the rest of her ice cream cone and feeling very smug.

Jenny stopped in her tracks as she opened the door of Coolidge’s, for there, buying some shoestrings, was a plump, bald headed, well dressed Negro. Jenny had only seen one other Negro before in her life, and he didn’t look at all like this man. The only Negro in this little town was a thin old fellow whose first name was Vince. He kept sadly to himself, sitting at the bottom of the office stairways along main street, watching people go by. He did odd jobs for pennies. Jenny had always been a little afraid of him. The town kids said a poem about him:

Old Nigger Vince,
Sittin’ on a fence,
Tryin’ to make a dollar
Out of fifteen cents.



Jenny let the door close slowly behind her and scrutinized the black man carefully.
He saw her looking at him. This didn’t surprise him at all. He was accustomed to it.

“Is your name Patty?” he asked in a kindly, soft voice.

“No,” Jenny told him, “My name is Jenny Jane Barnes.”

“I have a little girl named Patty. She can tap dance.”

“So can I ,” Jenny said. “I learned how from a big girl at school.”

“Well, isn’t that fine. Patty must be a little older than you. I’ll tell her about you when I get home.”

The man left the store with his purchase and Jenny went back up to the beauty parlor.

“Did you talk to the darky?” the beauty parlor operator asked.

“Yes,” Jenny answered. “Mother, did you see me? He was a nice man, too.”

A lady who was getting her white hair set in rows of tiny waves said, “There’s gonna be a minstrel show here in town tonight. He must be one of their troupe. If I do say so myself, “Niggers” can sure sing and dance, though that’s about all they’re good for.”

Mother stood up and picked up her purse and paid the beauty operator. She had on a hair net and her hair was pinned tightly to her head.

“How do you like my permanent?” she asked Jenny.

“It’s Okay,” said Jenny, “but it sure stinks.” She didn’t want to tell Mother that she liked it better the way it was before.

She could hardly wait to see Susan. She had so much to tell her.

THE TRIP

Jenny realized that they were far from home and that there were many people around. Last night she had slept on a quilt on the floor beside Mother. Everyone sat around a great big table to eat. Jenny wanted her high chair, but it wasn’t there. Her cousin, a tow head named Susan, sat in a high chair, but she was about twenty two months old and Jenny was about two years and three months old, so Susan was the high chair child. Uncle Wilmer put two catalogues on a chair for Jenny so that she could reach the table. Margaret kept saying, “Please pass the noodles.”

“Sure wish she’d eat like that at home,” Mother said.

Somebody said, “It’s the higher altitude and all that playing they did today.”

The family had taken a short trip to eastern Colorado to visit Daddy’s brother and family. Daddy had just gotten a new chevy the year before and he was very proud of it. Mother and Daddy took great satisfaction in noting that not one other car was able to pass them all the way to Colorado. Another brother followed in his slightly older car with his wife and two little daughters.

It was the first time in Jenny’s lifetime that they had been away from home for more than a few hours. Now home seemed far in the past, almost forgotten. At first,Jenny was confused at having the normal routine so changed, but as long as she could run frequently to Mother, the nucleus of her existence, she was able to adjust rapidly to even the most bewildering situations.

All the rooms were darkened, though it was broad daylight outside. This was due to the newspapers, which covered the windows. They served as protection against the dust, which swept unmercifully across the country, and sifted into every tiny crevice. They also kept out the hot summer sun and were less costly than blinds.

Jenny wandered into the dim bedroom where Aunt Faye was changing baby Ruthie's diaper on the bed atop a rubber sheet.

“Big kickie girl,” said Aunt Faye, as she lifted the baby by the ankles so that her chubby legs and buttocks were in the air, and whisked away the wet diaper. Ruthie chuckled gleefully and wiggled about contentedly on the bed.

“Big kickie girl, big kickie girl,” Aunt Faye cooed again, as she lifted the baby by the ankles once more to sprinkle on soft white talcum powder and slip a dry diaper under her. Jenny knew she had once been a baby herself. Sometimes she wished she still were.

THE TELEPHONE


“Hello, is this Aunt Sarah?”
“No, this is Doctor Wheeze.”
“That’s not my number, Central,”
“Excuse it, if you please.”


The year that Jenny turned seven, Mother said, “Warren, I don’t think we should go another winter without a telephone. I was so scared when Margaret had those awful nosebleeds when you were in Kansas City. How could we call the doctor if someone got hurt? How could we call the neighbors if something happened and we needed help right away?”

Daddy said they’d get a telephone next week. He’d stop at the telephone company when he went to town.

Jenny knew that they had once had a telephone, but this was before she could remember. They’d had it taken out when Daddy got mad at the telephone company because he thought they had charged him too much by billing him twice and they wouldn’t back down. The line ran right up to their kitchen. The live line ran along the road right past their house. She and Margaret could sometimes hear the line humming on their way home from school. Margaret said that was people talking. On top of the tall poles was a pretty blue or clear glass dome shaped like a scoop of ice cream. Sometimes they fell to the ground. Sometimes young fellows with guns would test their marksmanship by shooting and breaking these pretty domes. Jenny found a clear colored one on the ground. It had little beads around the edge. She wished a blue one would have fallen instead. She took the dome home with her. Daddy said it was an insulator that was put there to keep the signal from being grounded.

A few days later the telephone truck drove into the driveway. A man came to the door and said he’d come to install the telephone. He said it wouldn’t take long since the wires were already there. Jenny and Margaret had been eagerly anticipating this and talking about what it would be like to have a telephone. They could hardly wait. In a short time the big brown wooden box was on the wall between the the east kitchen door and the window. Close to the top were two metal rounds that stuck out like bug’s eyes. These were the bells. If you put your hand across them when they were ringing, you could make the ringing more like a buzz. Under the bells was a round black bakelite mouthpiece on a jointed neck that could make it higher or lower. You talked into the mouthpiece. On the left side of the box was a black bakelite receiver attached to a cord. It fit into a hook when you weren’t listening through it. It was shaped like a slender bell and the flared end of the bell just fit your ear. On the right side of the box was a little crank which you turned when you wanted to ring the telephone operator or someone on your line. The telephone operator was called a central girl. When you rang once she would say, “Number please,” and you would say the number you wanted to call. The central girl sat at a switchboard at the telephone office in town. She had learned to plug in the right things to connect the caller to the number they wanted to call. The Barnes family family shared a party line with 10 other people. Their “ring” was three longs. They could hear the rings of everyone else on their line, and if they wanted, could listen in on their conversations. It was called “eavesdropping.” Most of the people on the line eavesdropped, if they had time, so people were careful about what they said on a party line. Eavesdropping was a way to learn about what was happening in the neighborhood.

On the first evening they had the phone, Margaret would rush to the phone and take down the reciever and “listen in” and then report the news to the family. It was exciting.

One family had a clock near the phone that ticked loudly and you could always tell when they were “listening in.” One woman would act insulted if she thought anyone was listening and would say, “I know who you are. Why don’t you stop being so nosy and hang up.” Mother said this woman was the worst gossip in the neighborhood and she must think everyone else was like her. One attractive 17 year old girl had many boyfriends who called. The conversations would be long and full of flirtatious talk and snappy comebacks. Daddy liked to listen to these conversations and if he thought they were talking too long, he would hold the receiver to the mouthpiece where it would make a loud screech and they wouldn’t be able to hear their conversation. This was the signal that their conversation had gone on long enough and that someone else wanted to use the line.

Jenny had to stand on a chair to talk on the phone. She first learned to talk on the phone by ringing the operator and saying, “Time please.” The operator would tell the correct time. After Jenny did this a few times, she felt confident enough to answer the phone herself.

There was an isolated community in the hills to their northwest called Reamsville. It had a filling station, a grocery store, a lodge building, a few houses, a large grist mill which was soon to be moved into town and restored with a beautiful little park built around it known as “The Old Dutch Windmill Park.” A woman named Milly lived with her family in one of the houses and ran a switchboard from her home. She was a good natured congenial person and people often called her for all sorts of things and she usually knew the answers and gave them cheerfully. Some of the central girls in town were snippety and impatient. Most of them were just out of high school.

Every day, usually in mid-morning, Mother would talk with each of her two sisters, Ada and Frances. She enjoyed keeping in touch with them. It seemed to make her happy.

If the phone rang for 10 rings or more that was the alarm signal that there was a disaster. One Sunday in late winter, the Barnes family was having Sunday dinner of roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy. There was a series of many rings and Margaret took down the receiver and a voice said, “George Stein’s big barn is on fire. Everyone bring pails and gunny sacks.” This was the Uncle George who was married to Mother’s sister, Frances. This was more important then Sunday dinner, and their left their meal on the table and jumped into the car. As they drove over the hill, they could see the black smoke in the northeast. By the time they got there, the barn was in flames. There was a long line of cars on the road leading past Uncle George’s place. Men were hurrying with pails of water from the horse tank and some were beating out the tall dry grass with gunnysacks. It was too late to save the barn, but there was some wind and they could still keep the fire from spreading to the little house on the hill nor far from the barn. Daddy hurried over with his bucket and bags. It was a cold windy day and Mother and Margaret and Jenny stayed in the car where it was warm and away from the fire. The old workhorse, Sam, had been trapped in his stall and Jenny could see his glowing skeleton still standing in the burning embers. Other neighbors came over to the car to talk about the fire. One neighbor woman named Nell came to the car and said she’d just come in and talk with Mother while the men battled the blaze. Nell said some were saying the fire might have been caused by spontaneous combustion from the stored hay in the hayloft that -sometimes could get hot enough to burst into flames. Others said it was probably a spark from Uncle George’s cigarette, as he was known to be a heavy smoker. Aunt Frances came over to the car. By now the wind had died down and the danger to the house was nearly over. She had been helping quench the fire and her face was blackened and she smelled of burned grass. “I felt bad about poor old Sam,” she said, and tears came into her eyes. The fine big barn had “gone up like a tinderbox,” people said. Its walls were crumbling and it was reduced to charred wood and glowing rafters.

There was nothing to do now but go home, so they went home to a cold house with the plates of cold mashed potatoes and roast beef still on the table, of course. Nobody felt like eating, so they saved the food for an early supper and washed and dried and put away the dishes and talked about the fire. It had been quite an afternoon. Jenny thought it was far better than any moving picture show she had ever seen.

Other events they learned about through the general alarm were drownings, tornadoes heading their way, a house fire, blizzards and ice storms, but all these things were unusual events, and most of the time the phone was used just to get information or to have a friendly chat. Jenny was glad they had a telephone and felt sorry for and superior to any family that didn’t.

How fine it was to be able to peer every day at the world beyond their own walls. The telephone”s cheerful ring, with its promise of interesting news, enlivened the long days when time seemed suspended.

THE SQUEAL

When we butcher the pig this morning,” Daddy told Jenny, “You come on out to the garage and we’ll let you have the squeal.”

“Okay,” answered Jenny solemnly. She vaguely wondered what the squeal looked like. A little like the tail, she supposed.

Jenny became so interested in her playing that morning that she forgot all about going out to watch them butcher the pig. When the men came in for the noon meal, they washed the blood off their hands in basins on the brick walk out in back. There was still dried blood on their overalls and shirts.

In the afternoon Jenny ventured outdoors. There was a faint chill in the autumn air. She walked down to the big corn crib. She tried to climb on it a ways, but didn’t get far, as there was nothing to hold to. She pulled out an ear of the hard yellow corn and began shelling the kernels from the cob. Two greedy hens gobbled it down as fast as Jenny could shell it. Before she finished, her fingers were starting to get sore, so she threw the partly shelled ear on the ground and went around to the northwest side of he corn crib.

Jenny suddenly stood still, not daring to move for a minute, for there in a heap beside the corn crib, she saw this horrible thing. She turned around screaming and ran to the house, her feet almost stumbling over in their haste.

“Mother! You have to come and see it,” she called, as she burst open the kitchen door.

“See what, my child?” Mother calmly inquired.

“I can’t tell you . Come on. Hurry!” and she tugged at Mother’s hand so urgently that Mother decided she’d better go right away. It could be important. They walked down to the corn crib, Jenny leading the way, bold now that Mother was along.

Jenny pointed to the thing that lay in a heap beside the corn crib and whispered in hushed awe, “The Squeal!”

“Why, that’s nothing but a pig skin. That’s the skin of the pig they butchered this morning. The chickens, or maybe the dog, dragged it down here. Looks like something sure picked it clean.”

“Will it git me?” Jenny asked apprehensively. It smelled terrible and there were flies all over it.

“No, it can’t hurt you. Look.” Mother picked up a long stick and poked at it. The swarm of flies buzzed up a little ways in the air, but the pig skin continued to lie in a heap.

Jenny felt somewhat reassured. but nevertheless, she didn’t play near the corn crib for several days afterward.

THE SCARY TIME

Jenny was delighted with the two small grinning jack-o-lanterns on the kitchen table. Mother had
scraped the pumpkin meat out of the inside to make a yummy pumpkin pie and Daddy had taken his jack knife and cut wide mouths and triangular noses and eyes in the pumpkin shells. Margaret had set 2 fat little candles in them, which when first lit, made them smell like burning pumpkins, but now began to give off a nice holiday smell of candles. Daddy had gone to his American Legion meeting and Mother was reading the newspaper.

“This is Halloween night,” Margaret said to Jenny, and then she half whispered, “and there’s
witches riding through the air on broomsticks with evil black cats on their backs, and ghosts of the dead are all around, and goblins and bats and monsters and evil spirits and banshees.” Jenny looked apprehensive.

“Don’t let her scare you,” said Mother, “just don’t pay any attention to that nonsense.”

Jenny knew that Mother was right, yet maybe part of what Margaret had told her was true. The
golden kerosene lamplight caused big shadows to be cast on the far wall. Toby, the gray cat, was sitting on a chair in the dark corner of the room. Jenny thought his yellow eyes looked wild tonight. Perhaps after they were all in bed, an evil witch would take him for a ride on her broomstick over houses and up by the moon. Toby could never tell anyone though, and the next day he would curl up by the fire just as if nothing had happened.

Margaret emerged from the kitchen bedroom with a pillow case over her head saying, “Fee fie foe
fum. I smell the blood of an Englishman.” Then her voice became ghostly and she groaned,”I am the ghost of poor Margaret and I have come to haunt you.” Then she curled her fingers grotesquely and lunged toward Jenny. Jenny screamed and backed into a chair, knocking it over. Margaret was such a convincing actress.

“Kids!” scolded Mother, “why can’t you be good? You stop that, Margaret.”

Margaret slipped the pillow case off and laughed hideously. Jenny blew out her jack-o-lantern candle and pulled it out and rolled it into a ball between the palms of her hands.

“Dummy. Now you won’t be able to light yours,” Margaret said. “I’m going to blow mine out to
save the candle so I can light it again tonight when it gets darker.”

“I don’t care,” said Jenny, “I’d rather do this.”

The teacher read us a Halloween story today at school,” Margaret said, and began telling it. Jenny listened eagerly. Nothing she ever did at home could compare with the thrilling things that happened at school. She’d be glad when next year came and she could start to school.

“I gotta go to the toilet,” Jenny announced. She left the door open as she went outside into the
dark chilly autumn air. She left the door open as she went outside and a square of light fell on the porch from the open door.

“Shut the door,” called Mother, “or the wind will blow out the lamp.” Jenny pretended not to hear, so Mother shut the door herself and the comforting square of light vanished. Jenny started for the toilet, but the tall building loomed up on the little rise in the land, so dark and foreboding that she squatted down in the shadow close to the house..

She heard the weeds rustle. The moon had a mist in front of it tonight. She thought she saw a shadow move near a tree and thought that it might be a banshee or a bat or a witch. She finished her errand as quickly as possible, and dashed into the house, quite out of breath. Margaret was lighting the candle in her jack-o-lantern.

“I’ll bet you wish you could still light yours,” she said in an overbearing manner. Jenny didn’t say anything. She picked up her dark jack-o-lantern and looked longingly at Margaret’s lighted one. She asked Mother for another candle, but Mother said that’s all there were Margaret set her lighted jack-o-lantern on yhr window ledge and said, “This willl keep the spooks away."

“Oh, phooey,” said Jenny, “Anybody knows there’s no such thing as spooks.”

THE RUN-AWAY ROOSTER

“Roy, go chop that rooster’s head off for me, will you?” Mother said to the hired man, who was little more than a boy. I put him in the crate last night. Kind of old, but he will be all right for chicken and noodles.”

Jenny followed Roy as he took the big gray rooster out of the crate and carried him by the feet toward the tree stump guillotine, The unfortunate creature squawked in protest, as though he knew what was in store for him. Suddenly his feet slipped from the hired man’s grasp and he began his run for freedom. Jenny stood there wide eyed, as the big rooster ran madly, squawking all the while. Mother and the hired man decided that between the two of them, they should be able to catch him. The chase began, a gangly youth and a woman in sun bonnet and apron, trying to capture a frightened rooster. Jenny watched all the excitement.

Suddenly, the dazed rooster plunged blindly toward Jenny, knocking her down. One of his sharp spurs scratched her cheek as she fell. She skinned her nose and scraped her hands on the hard ground as she fell. Jenny was too bewildered to move. She lay on the ground and cried helplessly until Mother got there to assist her to her feet.

As soon as the hired man saw that she was all right, he began to laugh uncontrollably, a free unfettered laugh that may be experienced only in carefree youth. It apparently struck him as an enormous joke that a rooster could knock a little girl off her feet. Even Mother didn’t think it very serious.

As for Jenny, she considered it a bitter and humiliating thing that had happened to her. The end of her nose stung and her hands burned. Most of all, it was insulting to think that a chicken could knock her over. So many things could hurt her; so many things were bigger than she was.

THE ROAD TO SUNDAY SCHOOL

On Sunday mornings in the summer, Daddy would take Margaret and Jenny to the Presbyterian Church in town where Sunday School began at ten o”clock and lasted for a whole hour. They would be scrubbed and brushed and dressed in their best clothing , carrying dainty hankies with coins tied in one corner for the collection . Mother would put a tiny dab of lovely smelling perfume on their hankies.

Jenny’s favorite route to Church was the one that led through the “Toonerville” town, a few blocks of tiny unpainted houses, outdoor toilets and sheds, with bare ground, unkempt junk filled yards where ragged children and scrawny pets played. There were always goats climbing on sheds and housetops or tethered in the yards. Tire swings hung from low branches with ditches worn underneath from many feet. Once Jenny saw a boy on wooden stilts. Sometimes there would be a kite flying high overhead, and in midsummer, many yards had tall hollyhocks planted around rubbish piles , which gave beauty to even the meanest surroundings. There was no electrical, water or telephone service in the area.

Another nearby route led through a tree shaded road where the town’s untreated sewage ran into a small creek. The affluent people in town hardly gave a thought as to what happened after they flushed their stools or ran dirty water down the drain. The important thing to them was that it made life tidier and easier for them. When Daddy and Margaret and Jenny took this road on a hot summer morning with the car windows rolled down, Jenny and Margaret would pinch their nostrils shut and say in nasally voices “Phew! I smell the sewer.” Nothing on the whole farm ever smelled this bad. Daddy sometimes took the civilized route down Main Street and turned west onto another paved street that led to the Church, but it wasn’t nearly as “scenic.” Perhaps he too enjoyed the more colorful route. Possibly it reassured him that life on the farm wasn’t half bad.

While the girls were in Sunday School, he would either hang out at the filling station where his brother worked, or at the drug store run by his brother-in-law. It was a pleasant way for him to spend the hour. When Sunday School was over he might take the girls to the drug store for ice cream or to the filling station for pop. It was still early enough that it wouldn’t ruin their appetites for lunch. He took much joy in being able to provide occasional treats for his beloved daughters.

THE PIN TRAY

Jenny and her best friend Susan were looking around in the variety store.

“I have a whole dime to spend today,” Jenny told Susan. “I didn’t spend my nickel last week and I have my nickel allowance for today.” Jenny jingled the money happily in her white silk pocketbook with the beaded duck that she had gotten at her birthday party last year when she was six.

“You could buy two candy bars,” Susan said brightly.

Jenny gave her a scornful glance.

“I already know what I’m going to buy. I picked it out last week. That’s why I saved my nickel. It costs a dime.”

“Well, what is it?”

“A pin tray for Mother. Every time she sews, she says she wishes she had a little tray to keep her pins in. I’m going to buy it and give it to her on Mother’s Day next month.”

Jenny took Susan by the hand and led her to the place where the pin tray was. Yes, it was still there. It was a tiny oval shaped silver tray with a Scotty dog in relief on the side of it. It was delicately fluted around the edge.

“Isn’t it beautiful!” Jenny sighed.

Susan said, “I think it’s an ash tray.

“No, it isn’t!” insisted Jenny. She didn’t want it to be an ash tray. The very idea that it could be an ash tray made it seem less precious.

Jenny and Susan stood there for a long time. The clerk kept walking right past them to wait on other more prosperous looking customers. Finally Jenny took one of the nickels out of her pocketbook and tapped it loudly on the glass that divided the counter. The clerk came over, and eying her coldly, asked, “Well, what do you want?”

“I want to buy this,” and Jenny pointed to the pin tray and handed her the two nickels.

The pin tray was small enough to fit into Jenny’s pocketbook, making it bulge just a little, but no one noticed. As soon as she got home, she hid it in a shoe box of her treasures (some rocks and shells she had found) where no on else would look. It was still several weeks until Mother’s Day.

On the morning of Mother’’s Day, before breakfast, Jenny went to the shoe box and pulled out the pin tray. Her heart was beating rapidly. This was the first present she had ever bought for Mother all by herself.

“I got you something for Mother’s Day,” Jenny said timidly.

“For me?” Mother asked in an animated voice.

Jenny handed her the pin tray.

“It’s to keep your pins in,” Jenny explained.

She could tell that Mother was pleased. “Well, thank you, thank you.. You knew just what I wanted all right. It’s just the thing.” She put it on the table for all to see.

Both Daddy and Margaret agreed that it was a fine gift. Jenny didn’t know when she had been happier.

After dinner that day, Aunt Edith and Uncle Charles came over from a nearby town to spend the afternoon. Their children, one older than Margaret and the other a little younger, were not along. Jenny loved to hear Aunt Edith talk. She had a beautiful musical voice. Her favorite expression was, “Well, for pity’s sake,” and she said it often.

“Let me show you the nice gift that Jenny got me,” Mother said. When Aunt Edith saw the little silver tray, she joked, “It’s very cute, but I didn’t know you smoked Mae.”

“I don’t, of course. It’s a pin tray for me to use when I sew.”

“Why, of course. I should say,” Aunt Edith said, and Jenny saw that eye twinkling amused look pass between them that adults think children don’t understand.

Jenny went outside and sat on the edge of the brick walk. She put her arm around the dog, who wagged his tail and licked her face. The pin tray had turned into an ash tray and Jenny’s joy had turned to ashes. Now it seemed as if the wonderful gift was all wrong.
.

THE PIE

All afternoon Mother baked and cooked. On a hot summer day, it made the kitchen like an oven. Mother’s forehead was beaded with perspiration. The threshers would be there for supper. Never let it be said that she couldn’t set a good table.

Mother had baked three lemon meringue pies. She had also baked a smaller one in Jenny’s plate, the aluminum baby plate with the ABC’s around the rim.

“Is that mine?” Jenny asked.

Mother had answered, “Yes,” absently, thinking Jenny was referring to the plate.

The tired hungry threshers came in late that evening. Mother had already given Jenny something to eat, thinking she might put her to bed early. There was a bigger crew than Mother had anticipated. She put heaping bowls and platters of food on the table, but they were soon emptied. She kept filling the men’s glasses with iced tea.

It was time for dessert. Mother cut the three big pies and the little one. Jenny set up a big howl when she saw Mother serve pie to the men from her baby plate. She had thought that was to be all hers. She went off in the corner and sobbed by herself.

“What’s a matter?” on of the men sympathetically inquired.

“Oh, she’s just tired,” Mother told him . “Time she was in bed.”

Jenny didn’t want to go to bed. She wanted some pie. Mother hadn’t paid much attention to her all day, and those intruders were eating her pie.

THE OLD SORGHUM LAPPER

The bent old man walked slowly down the hard gray ribbon of a road that led to the Barnes farm. It was about noon by the sun and he was looking forward to Mae’s good cooking.

“They’ll sure be surprised to see me,” he chortled to himself.

These were bright spots in Old Tom’s life, the golden autumn months, when he came to this part of the country to visit old friends. Most of the year he occupied a tiny room in his sister’s house out in Almena, but in the autumn, he grew restless and would set out afoot to visit families he had worked for as a hired man in his younger days. He had worked for Mae’s parents for a number of years. Though they were now dead, he visited their daughters and their son. He never forgot anyone who had treated him well and fairly. Sometimes he visited for a few days, sometimes for a few weeks, and if everything was going well, he might stay on into the winter.

Old Tom’s attire consisted of a soiled baggy dress suit, a grease spotted vest, a striped shirt and an elegant gold watch chain. On his head he wore a gray derby hat. His tangled brush of a moustache often caught food particles when he ate and could produce unusual noises when he drank. He was not known for frequent bathing, but maintained himself as best he could.

Some folks said Old Tom was a bit simple minded and others said he was just peculiar. He was the butt of many a joke. Mother said he had more sense than most of the people who said these things about him, and that if everyone were as good hearted as he was, the world would be in better shape than it is now. He adored children, and many times he would rock a colicky baby until it fell asleep. There was a photo in the drawer of Old Tom holding Margaret when she was a tiny baby, which showed pride and joy and tenderness in his countenance. If he had a few spare dollars left from his old age assistance, he would bring nice gifts to the ladies and children. He loved being the bearer of news, both good and bad. He enjoyed reminiscing about the “good old days.” He was no longer physically able to do farm work. He had a serious hernia from the heavy lifting he had once done.

They had watched him coming down the road, but Mother said they should pretend surprise,
and above all, act very glad to see him, no matter what. He was not always so well received by busy people who did not want to trouble with this strange old fellow. Margaret fell right into the act and thought it great fun. Daddy was usually congenial to all.

A grin spread across Old Tom’s face as he knocked at the door. Nor was he disappointed, for he received the heartiest of welcomes and the hoped for exclamations of surprise.

Jenny had been playing on the other side of the house and had not seen Old Tom come in.

Mother called, “Jen-ny! Time for dinner . Come in and eat now.”

Jenny trotted to the house and opened the door. She spied the old man and stared at him for a few seconds. Then he swooped her up off the floor and lifted her high into the air, rubbing his stiff moustache against her tender face.

“You remember me, don’t you Dinny? ” he croaked hoarsely in his husky old voice.

“Put me down,” screamed Jenny, and burst into wild sobs. Old Tom set her down in injured surprise.

“Ding bust it. I didn’t mean to scare or hurt the little un.”

Jenny ran to Daddy, who was standing nearby. He put his arms comfortingly around her and sat down in the chair and bounced her around until her sobs subsided and she began laughing as hard as she had been sobbing.

“Now, you don’t ever have to be afraid of that old Sorghum Lapper again,” Daddy said. “He
would never hurt you. He’s nothing but an old Sorghum Lapper.”

THE MOVING PICTURE SHOW

Mother said that if Daddy got home from the field in time, they might go to the moving picture show. Margaret and Jenny had just had shampoos and baths. Jenny paraded around, swathed in a big towel. It felt good to be so clean after a week of sweaty playing in the hot dusty August weather.

“We’re going to see Shirley Temple,” said Margaret. “She’s the prettiest little girl in the whole world.”

Jenny asked, “Will she be in town?”

“Of course not,” Margaret explained. “There will be big moving pictures of her on a screen on the stage. She lives in Hollywood, California. That’s where they make movies. It’s a long ways west of here.”

Jenny went into the parlor and looked at the western horizon where the sun always went down. Margaret had been to a movie once when she stayed with her cousin in town for a week. Jenny had never seen a movie. Mother said that some people went to every movie that was shown in town. She said she guessed that was all right if people had nothing better to do with their money. Jenny knew that going to the show must be very expensive.

Finally Daddy came home on the tractor. He did the chores, got his bath in the horse tank behind the barn and then got dressed in clean clothes, wearing a clean white shirt and his good trousers, while Mother got supper. Jenny was so exited about going to the show that she could scarcely eat a bite. She thought they would never all be ready, but at last they were.

After the drive to town, they got out of the car and walked toward the Blair theater in the refreshing cool of the summer evening. Jenny was awed by the red. yellow and orange lights that ran around and around the sign made of little light bulbs without ceasing like water flowing. Daddy walked up to the glassed- in ticket window.

“Two adult’s and two children’s,” he said. Jenny was so proud of Daddy. No matter where they went or what they did, he always knew what to do. He was never ever frightened.

As they walked through the first door, Jenny could smell pop corn, and she saw a pop corn machine. Some people were buying sackfuls, but Jenny didn’t ask for any because Mother had already said they wouldn’t buy any pop corn at the movies, that it was just too expensive. A big boy in a white uniform with red braid on it and a matching cap, pushed aside a velvet curtain and shone his flashlight so they could see to walk down the sloping carpeted aisle. The floor seemed to fall away under Jenny’s feet as she walked. The boy showed them a place where the four of them could sit. All around Jenny could see the silhouettes of many heads.

“Watch the picture,” Mother said to Jenny. but a tall man was sitting in front of her and she couldn’t see the screen, so Mother traded places with Jenny and told Jenny she could stand on her knees in her seat. This was much better. They were showing the last part of the Shirley Temple movie and would be showing it again. Jenny gazed intently at the bright screen. How fast the people moved and how fast they all talked. Everywhere they went, it was raining, even inside buildings and houses, but they didn’t seem to get wet. Jenny thought the little girl with the curls and dimples was very pretty indeed. She sang and danced and laughed and cried. She must have a whole closet full of beautiful dresses.

Jenny’s eyes burned. She looked away from the screen and up at the ceiling. From up high and to the back she could hear a faint hum. She saw some beams of light. It looked like fireflies were flitting back and forth in the beams. Somebody from the balcony threw down their empty pop corn sack. Jenny wondered where it landed.

Next there were pictures of Mickey and Minnie Mouse. They were being chased by a cat with big feet. The children in the first rows screamed with laughter, but Jenny couldn’t find anything funny about the stuttering animals as they jerked nervously about the screen, smashing into things and always chasing or being chased. After the cartoon, there were pictures of real people, men making speeches, a woman flying an airplane, soldiers marching, and the king and queen of England with their two little girls. Then the Shirley Temple movie began again and after a long while Daddy said, “This is where we came in,” and started to get up. Jenny was glad it was time to go.

The lights outside the theater seemed dazzlingly bright. The sky was totally dark by now. It was a different world inside the theater and it was different than when they had gone in. Jenny got her directions turned around and didn’t know her way back to the car.

“How’d you like the show, Jenny?” Daddy asked.

"It was Okay.” Jenny said. She wished she looked like Shirley Temple.

Margaret said she just loved the show. All the way home she kept singing, “It’s a gooood ship, lol-lee-pop. It’s a sweeet trip. To the can-deeee shop. And there you are . Hap-py landing on a chocolate bar.” This was one of the songs that Shirley Temple had sung.

“Say, does it rain a lot in Hollywood, California where they make the movies?” Jenny wanted to know.

“Well, I suppose it rains a lot more than it does here,” said Mother.

So that was it. That was the reason it was raining all the time at the show.

Friday, August 22, 2008

THE MERRY-GO-ROUND

There was a fair in town, and of course, the carnival was there too. Margaret knew all about fairs, because she and Daddy had gone to the fair last year, when Jenny was still too little to go. Margaret kept talking excitedly about it. What a fine time she would have! She’d ride on the merry-go-round and the ferris wheel and the tilt-a-whirl and get a funny balloon and eat fluffy pink cotton candy and look at all the farm animals in the fair barns, and the flowers in the flower arrangements, and the prize winning baked goods and the biggest pumpkins. Her cousin Nancy Lee might be there and they would go on the rides and look at things together. It was hard for Jenny to imagine what it was like, but it must be perfectly grand.

On Saturday afternoon Jenny and Margaret and Mother got baths in the wash tub in the kitchen and Daddy got a bath in the horse tank behind the barn, and as soon as supper was finished and the dishes were washed, they dressed up in good clothing and got into the car for the trip to town. Jenny wore her “Fourth of July,” dress. It was a red, white and blue striped dress with panties to match. Margaret had a “Fourth of July,” dress too. Hers was white with blue and red polka dots and a red tie at the neck. Big girls like Margaret didn’t wear panties to match. They just wore their regular pink rayon summer panties. Jenny liked the smell of their car. The sky was growing dark now. The back seat of the car was soft, and the motion of the car made Jenny feel a little bit sleepy. Suddenly they were close to the fair grounds, and Jenny could see before her a world of sparkling lights. It was so pretty.

“There’s the fair! I see the ferris wheel!” Margaret exclaimed excitedly. She was wild with joy. Containing enough happiness to have a few crumbs left over for Jenny, she said condescendingly to her, “You’re big enough to ride on the merry-go-round. Lots of little kids do.”

Daddy parked the car as close to the carnival as he could in the crowded parking lot and they started walking toward the bright lights. The air was dusty. Then Jenny saw e giant wheel, a monster with a million glittering eyes, going up and around into the blackness of the night sky. She hung on tighter to Daddy’s hand, not saying a word. Before long they were right up close to the ogre. Jenny now saw that it carried boys and girls and men and women and she heard some of them screaming. The monster kept grinding and grating, as it took the people way up and back down. Would it ever let them go? She supposed this must be the merry-go-round. There came a loud blast of music, so loud it seemed to go all over Jenny.

“The merry-go-round! The merry-go-round! I get to ride!” Margaret shouted, swept up in a tidal wave of complete ecstasy.

“You and Margaret can both ride on the merry-go-round,” Mother told Jenny, anticipating her delight. Jenny thought of the giant grinding wheel with all its eyes, taking people up into the big dark sky.

“I don’t want to ride on the merry-go- round,” Jenny said in a panic stricken voice and began crying very hard. Daddy picked her up and said everything would be all right. But Jenny could not be comforted and cried into his clean blue shirt until it was wet with her tears and red and white spots appeared on her forehead.

So Mother stayed at the fair with Margaret and Daddy took Jenny downtown with him. It was quiet in town tonight. Jenny was relieved to be away from the monster and the noise. A man that
Daddy knew had a little booth set up in front of one of he stores and he was selling something for the American Legion. Daddy stopped to talk with him.

“Did you ride on the merry-go-round?” the man asked Jenny.

“She didn’t seem to think much of the merry-go-round,”Daddy said,”too much noise, I guess.”

“Well, I’ll bet you’re not afraid of this are you?” the man asked, and rang a little tinkly bell.

“Huh-uh,” Jenny replied and looked shyly down at her striped dress and wistfully remembered the bright lights. Some day, when she got big, she’d go to the fair again.

THE LIE

The second and third graders were at the blackboard working arithmetic problems. Jenny had hers all done and was waiting by the bookcase while Miss Lucy helped some of the others. She had a piece of chalk in her hand and absent mindedly wrote the name Dean and a large figure eight on the side of the bookcase. Dean was the name of a third grade boy. He was also her fourth cousin. She thought about erasing what she had written, but decided she would leave it there and maybe years later she would come back to visit the school and say to her children, “See that. I wrote that there when I was in the second grade.” The idea of wrongdoing hadn’t occurred to Jenny. Nor had the idea that someone else would even notice it in such a spot.

Jenny forgot about the writing until later in the morning when Miss Lucy asked, “Dean, what’s your name doing here on the bookcase?”

Dean looked up in surprise. “I didn’t write that,” he said.

“Will the person who wrote this please come up and erase it?” the teacher asked.

There was complete silence.

“Isn’t the person who wrote this man enough to admit it?” asked Miss Lucy.

Again there was complete silence. Jenny longed for some magic means to make herself disappear. She thought if she admitted it no one would understand and she would be punished. Margaret would tell Mother and Daddy and then she would feel very foolish and ashamed. She wondered if anyone suspected her.

Miss Lucy was talking to Dean. “Since it’s your name, I”ll have you erase it.

“All right,” he answered, “but I didn’t do it.”

This was the worst part. Someone else was being blamed for what she had done. Jenny now wished that she had told that she did it right away and had gotten it over with. Now that she had waited this long, she was even more afraid to tell.

At recess one of the fifth grade boys said to Jenny, “I think you wrote that. It’s where you were standing at the blackboard. Let me see you make a capital D.”

Jenny made a capitol D at the blackboard, trying to make it as different as possible from the
one she had made at the bookcase. Everyone decided Jenny wouldn’t have done this. She never misbehaved in school and besides, all the other children liked her and didn’t want to think she had written it. This didn’t make Jenny feel any better. She realized now that she shouldn’t have written on the bookcase, but it was even more terrible that she had lied about it. All morning and all during the afternoon, Jenny’s misery mounted. The deed and the lie grew to immense proportions. Finally she could stand it no longer. At the last recess Jenny came into the school house and took the teacher aside.

“I want to whisper something to you,” she said.

“What is it?” the teacher inquired and bent her head down.

“I was the one who wrote that on the bookcase, but I didn’t want the other kids to know.”

“That’s what I thought,” Miss Lucy said. She was happy to put it out of her mind.

Jenny’s burden of guilt was somewhat lessened now, and she went out to play. To everyone else in the school, the incident was a triviality, but to Jenny. it was both a millstone and a milestone.

THE LIBRARY

It was Saturday afternoon, and the small town would be crowded with people coming into town to do their “trading,” as it was still called. It meant a glorious two or three hours to look in stores and see friends. Mother would see relatives and friends and catch up on all the news. She would get a few special things at the grocery store for Saturday night’s supper and Sunday dinner. Daddy would congregate with other overall clad farmers at Tillman’s Hardware, or other hangouts to swap jokes and anecdotes.

As soon as Jenny’s family reached the main part of town, she looked for a tiny blue coupe parked along the street and upon spying it exclaimed, “Look! I see Uncle Wilmer’s car. I hope Susan came to town.” Susan and Jenny were both 8 years old and were best friends, as well as first cousins. Their fathers were brothers.

After the eggs and cream were taken to the produce station, and they found a parking place, Jenny eagerly got out of the car and started looking for Susan. She went into each store and finally found her in the Five and Ten Cent Store with her mother and sister. Susan’s face lit up when she saw Jenny.

“Hey kid!” she said and put her arm around her.

It was early in December and the Christmas things were on all the shelves and counters. The store was decorated with red and green Christmas rope. Hand in hand, the girls looked at all the Christmas things. The toy section was best, of course.

“Watch out! There comes Mr. Stoops,” said Jenny. Mr. Stoops was the wary storekeeper who warned children not to touch things, but they always did when he wasn’t looking. After they were finished looking there, Susan said, “What do you want to do now?”

“Let’s go to the library. It will be cozy in there.” It was a cold windy day.

“Mother, may we go to the library?” asked Susan.

“Yes, but remember to take your books back. They’re in the car on that little ledge by the back window.”

Together they went to each of their family’s cars so they could return their books and check out
another week of magic.

The library was in the basement of the community hall. On their way down down Main Street they
passed by the jewelry shop, where they looked at the window display of sparkling diamond rings, bracelets, gold watches, and expensive clocks. They stopped to admire the wedding cake in the bakery window. Next there was Attwood’s Style shop, an exclusive women’s clothing store, where the richest ladies and young girls bought fashionable clothing. There was a long dark steep stairway that surely led to some mysterious place. “Old Nigger Vince,” the town’s only black man, could be seen sitting on the bottom step, watching the people pass by. There was the post office, a big dimly lighted place that smelled like cigars and had many rows of numbered mail boxes, and a window where you could get stamps and mail packages. Next was Tillman’s Hardware, where both of their fathers were sitting around on barrels and pails and chairs with about six or seven other fellas. Jenny and Susan stopped to say “hello,” where they knew they would be fussed over and kidded. They passed the Center Cafe, another favorite hangout for men. It was the biggest restaurant in town. The smell of roast beef and frying hamburger and coffee wafted through the door as people went in and out. On the corner was the First National Bank, where Daddy did his banking. Jenny loved going into this nice building with Daddy on a hot summer day because it smelled like good paper and had a big fan and a water cooler where you could fill a little cone- shaped white paper cup with ice water to quench your thirst. They crossed a street carefully, remembering to look both ways and not to run across the street as they had seen some foolish children do.

They turned a corner and walked on a side street, passing by the newspaper office, where the local folksy newspaper was published once a week. Next there was the pill doctor’s office. Some called him the pill doctor, because his usual remedy was a little envelope of pink or white pills. Next was the creamery which had a chimney that seemed to have steam coming out of it. It smelled of rancid cream. Their specialty was butter and ice cream. Mother said that creamery butter wasn’t fit to eat. She churned her own out of cream that wasn’t
“aged.” There was a large vacant grassy lot, and at last the community hall. They went down a flight of worn wooden steps into the library, which was warm, cozy and quiet. No one was allowed to speak above a whisper and librarians were serious about enforcing this rule. It made the library seem more special, almost sacred. Jenny liked the scent of well-read books and the feel of the library. She and Susan took off their coats and put them on a chair and returned their books and went straight to the juvenile section where they fairly pounced upon the Bobbsy Twin series, each finding one they hadn’t yet read, and eagerly anticipated the next adventures of Bert and Nan, Freddie and Flossie. These children were the two sets of fraternal twins in the Bobbsy family, who were upper class enough to have a colored maid named Dinah, a lovely home and money to spare for frequent vacations. Some weeks after they finished the Bobbsy series, they would discover The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, dog and horse books, mysteries, and sometimes they even would venture into the adult section and find something they liked there. The selection of books was limited, but to Jenny, whose home contained only their text books and a couple of Bibles, it seemed vast. Susan was lucky to have in her home a bookcase in the living room with at least 20 books that their family owned.

At the front of each book was a cardboard pocket containing two lined cards. On one were the names of former readers, signed by the reader in his or her own handwriting . They scanned the list for familiar names, but didn’t find many. They did often find the name of a girl in their Sunday School class, whom they admired for her pretty clothes and full head of brown hair, which was sometimes braided into thick braids tied by narrow ribbons that matched her dress and sometimes frizzed by the beauty shop so that it surrounded her head like a big halo. They felt happy to be reading the same books as she had read.

Next they went to the children’s magazine section where Jenny selected a “Children’s Activities.” magazine which was later to be renamed “Highlights for Children,” and Susan selected a “Child Life.” At the check-out desk the librarian took out the two cards from the front pocket. One was signed by the reader, so after Jenny and Susan each signed her name on the book and magazine cards, the librarian put these in a file box and stamped the due dates on the others with a rubber stamp, which she rolled to a new due date each day and put these back in the pocket.

“Let’s go to the car,” whispered Susan, as they put on their coats. This week they chose the tiny blue coupe. In the car, they turned first to the hidden pictures and found them all , and then to “Goofus and Gallant,” where they giggled over the opposing antics of the “G” twins and the cartoon of “Tommy Timbertoes.” There were original contributions by children of their drawings , poems and stories and pictures they had taken with their own Brownie cameras. Jenny envied the lucky children who had their own cameras. She had asked Mother if she might have one, but Mother said one camera in the family was enough, and that when she got a little older, she could use the Kodak. They looked at the Child Life” magazine and then at the two or three pictures in glossy color in the Bobbsy Twins books. They felt very satisfied over their library selections, armed with the knowledge that ahead of them was the promise of a week of entertaining reading.

THE KIDNAPPERS

Every day they read in the newspapers of the sordid details of the kidnapping. It was the time of the famed Lindbergh trials.

The story fascinated Margaret, and she talked of how the bad men had taken the little boy from his crib and then left a note asking the wealthy parents for a large sum of money. Of course the parents would have paid anything to have their baby back, but the kidnappers slit the child’s tiny fingers fingers and killed him anyhow, hastily hiding his body out in the country. The newspapers gave the child’s description.. Margaret said he must have been about the size of Jenny, and she measured her with a yardstick to find out. Yes, he was just just Jenny’s height. Though Jenny was about a year older, she was small for her age.

A cold wave of terror gripped Jenny as she thought of the beady eyed kidnappers lurking about with guns in their hands and handkerchiefs over their mouths, waiting to steal her away in their ugly black car.

As twilight crept over the land, Jenny stayed close to Mother, hanging on to her skirt.

Finally she inquired of Mother, “Will the kidnappers git me tonight?”

“Oh no,” Mother assured her. “They are far away from here. Besides, they only kidnap children of very rich people so they can get a lot of money. You don’t need to be afraid. They won’t ever come here.”

Jenny let go of Mother’s skirt and went to the window to peer bravely into the growing darkness. Her heart beat fast as she saw a shadowy figure approaching and heard a clink clank clink clank. Footsteps sounded on the porch and the door opened. In came Daddy with a pail full of milk.

THE INSPECTORS

One of the most unlikely Saturday afternoon diversions for Jenny and Susan was pretending to be rest room inspectors. Since neither had running water in their homes, the flush toilets, the convenience of hot and cold water from the lavatories, mirrors in such a place, tile on the floors, soap dispensers, toilet paper and paper towels, was still something of a miracle to them. It was a far cry from the two or three holer outhouses on their farms where yesterday’s newspaper was the only amenity. The rest rooms offered varying degrees of luxury and cleanliness and they took glee in giving each one a grade.

Susan said, “Let’s go to the bakery first.” They each got a nickel for their weekly allowance and a nickel would buy 5 kinds of penny candy. The bakery specialized in soft, snow white bread, gooey pineapple rolls and maple sticks and beautiful custom made wedding cakes which were proudly displayed as window dressing for all to admire as they passed by. Most important to Jenny and Susan was the small glass case of penny candy. As they opened the door to go inside, a little bell tinkled cheerfully overhead. After deliberating at the penny candy section for a long while, Jenny chose a package of candy cigarettes. It was fun to hold the cigarette nonchalantly between the fingers and pretend to smoke and watch the surprised looks on the faces of elderly ladies who might wag their fingers at them and shake their heads. Susan chose a pair of bright red paraffin cinnamon flavored lips that were also good for shocking people. The thick bright lips made her look strange, as if she were someone else. When she grew tired of wearing them, she could chew them like gum.

“We can come back here later,” suggested Susan, “after we’ve inspected rest rooms.”

“Safeway first,” Jenny said, ‘cause it’s closest.”

The restroom in the Safeway store was just off the little balcony sitting room, which was truly a resting place. They skipped up the stairs to the little sitting room which was furnished with three wicker chairs and a faded, dusty flowered rug. You could look out over the balcony railing at the busy store below. People looked different from here, where you could see the tops of their hats or their heads. .

“I see mother”, said Susan . Her mother shopped here, and wore a brown straw hat with bright orange paper flowers. She was just now going through the turnstile to the fresh fruit and vegetable section.

Uncle Shelby ran the adding machine. Here you didn’t even need to have a clerk wait on you, and they didn’t write out the tickets by hand. Uncle Shelby was a lean man and wore a long white apron. He was proud of his speed on the adding machine.

Though they liked the balcony sitting room, the actual toilet section with its two stools and lavatories and graffiti -covered walls wasn’t very clean and had a mixture of a urine and chemical odor. One of the the graffiti verses read, “Some come here to sit and think, but I come here to_ _ _ _ and _ _ _ _ _.”
The other read, “I just sat there broken hearted. Tried to _ _ _ _ , but only _ _ _ _ _ _. “ There were dirty words and phrases that you dared only whisper There were badly drawn pictures of unmentionable private parts. They gave this restroom a C+.

“I liked the walls, “ said Jenny. “At least it was interesting. “ She raised her eyebrows twice and they both snickered.

“Who do you think did all that writing?” wondered Susan.

“Maybe it was Sally and Patsy.” said Jenny. They didn’t like them very much and were happy to blame it on them. They had met them at community picnics over by the creek and grove just north of the county farm. Sally and Patsy were rude and “snotty.”

Their next stop was at the little closet sized place at the back of Matson’s Grocery. It was behind the sardine and peanut butter barrels. The plumbing leaked and the floor was wet and smelled of urine and feces. IT STANK! They didn’t step inside, but promptly gave it an F.

Now on to the green and white Conoco station. This restroom was their favorite. It was tiny, but brand new and shiny and clean with a smooth white tile floor. There was a floor length mirror and the fixtures gleamed. There were tissue paper stool covers that you could flush away and a liquid soap dispenser where you just pushed the button and out came creamy rose -scented soap Both the toilet paper and the paper towels were thick and soft. They spent more time in here and polished the gleaming fixtures some more with paper towels. They left it even tidier. Of course they gave it an A+.

Susan wanted to go to Uncle Lloyd’s station, so they crossed the street to the Sinclair station with the huge dinosaur sign. Uncle Lloyd didn’t actually own the Sinclair Station, which was run by George Hammond, a fat man with a big skin covered mole or wen under his right eye. Uncle Lloyd was a good mechanic and was friendly and went about his work cheerfully. Like Uncle Shelby, he was a spare man. He wore a loose gray pair of unionalls over his clothing. When he saw Jenny and Susan, he said, “Hi boys,” and made funny faces at them.

“We’re not boys,” they protested in one voice. Each thought it would be terrible to be a boy. They were rough and ornery and didn’t get to wear pretty clothing.

Even though the rest room inside the Sinclair barely passed, they gave it a B- because they liked Uncle Lloyd so much.

Jenny said, “We still each have 4 pennies left. “

So it was back to the bakery. A penny would buy a large tootsie roll wrapped in brown and white paper and scored into segments so that you could bite off a piece. It would be chocolate and chewy. Susan said they should save these for last. Each got a tootsie roll, then Susan chose a big yellow lemon-flavored ball of an all day sucker on a stick and a tiny miniature packet of Chiclets gum and and a stick of peppermint candy. Jenny got a red, cherry-flavored all day sucker, a set of cute miniature paraffin milk bottles filled with sweet, bright colored syrups. She also got one stick of Juicy Fruit gum. They were content with their penny candy and walked along, savoring it as they looked in stores until it was time to go home.

They decided that next week they would go for a long walk and visit the court house.

THE IMAGINARIES

It all started when Jenny got a pretty colored card in the mail from the Church nursery class teacher, Virginia Rose. Jenny had only been to this class once when Mother and Daddy went to Church and had left her in the nursery, and she didn’t remember it, but the idea of having her own class appealed to her. Margaret had been to Sunday School and to regular school and knew many people to tell about and Jenny wanted some people of her own that she could tell about too.

Virginia Rose proved to be a loyal friend, available at Jenny’s beck and call. She had an endless number of brothers and sisters. They could be any age Jenny wanted them to be, depending upon her immediate needs. Usually they were named for people she knew, and when she ran out of names, she used the names of her stuffed toys and the dogs and cats and even some of the farm animals. They had parties, went to school and to town. But best of all, they would play anything that Jenny wanted them to play. They had lots of toys and they let Jenny play with all of them. It was a very good arrangement for Jenny.

Mother and Daddy and Margaret knew about the Roses, but they didn’t know them. It was a world into which they could never quite enter. Mother and Daddy would question Jenny about her friends and she would give them a full account. They found it cute and amusing. Margaret would become disgusted and say, “Oh, you know she’s making it all up.” Why do you even listen?”

One cold and rainy day, Jenny announced that she had just been to a party at Virginia Rose’s. She proceeded to tell of the children, the pretty house and the ice cream and cake.

Margaret picked up a newspaper and read aloud, “Bingo Rose, little brother of Virginia Rose, just fell off he top of the house and broke his arm.”

“He didn’t either,” said Jenny, in righteous indignation. “You’re making it all up.”

THE HABIT

Jenny had a bright pink plaid hank of her very own. Whenever they went visiting, to Church, to town, or to programs or to meetings, Mother would tuck the neatly folded hanky into Jenny’s pocket. A lady, even a little lady, must always carry a handkerchief. The hanky would stay in Jenny’s pocket, unless they went some place where they had to sit still for a long time. Jenny would then take the hanky out of her pocket, unfold it, and begin twisting it. One corner would go into her mouth. Finally she would stuff the whole hanky into her mouth , making her look as though she had the mumps. Whenever Mother noticed, she was horrified. What kind of child would people think she had?

She would whisper,” Jenny, get your hanky out of your mouth. “

Jenny hadn’t realized it was there. She would put it back into her pocket, but soon it would find its way back into her mouth. The action was repeated on a number of different occasions.

When they got home, Mother would say something like, “You chewed your hanky again. What do you think people will say when they see such a big girl as you chewing her hanky?”

Margaret would add, “Only little babies put things in their mouths all the time.”

Jenny would hang her head. She was sorry and promised that she would never ever chew her hanky again., but try as she would, the hanky chewing habit persisted.

One day at home Mother said to her, “I once knew a girl who chewed her hanky so much that her mouth got all out of shape. She got so ugly that on one wanted to look at her.”

Jenny stood on a chair and looked in the mirror that hung on the kitchen wall above the wash stand. She looked at her mouth and twisted it and made faces at herself. Maybe she would get so ugly that no one would want to look at her. Jenny felt so unhappy that a big hurt feeling came at the back of her throat. She didn’t cry though, because she didn’t want anyone to see her.

“I won’t do it again. Mother. Honest.” And she never did.

THE GARDEN

 
When I was out in the garden
Pickin’ a mess of peas.
I almost died a’laughin’
When I heard a chicken sneeze.


A large fenced-in plot of ground south of the clothes line served as the vegetable garden.
This was separate from the equally large potato patch which was way out east. There was no watering, no fertilizing or spraying, so it was up to nature, but the crops were surprisingly good. There was an abundance of sunshine. In the middle of April, Mother would gather up seed packets, string, the hoe and a couple of buckets of water and go to the garden patch. Jenny helped carry things and they would plant the early garden. If Margaret were home from school, she would help too. Daddy had already gone over the ground with Frank and Barney pulling the plow, and then the harrow to break up the soil and smooth it over.

Mother would first take string and tie it to stakes to make straight rows. She made furrows with the sharp point of the hoe set on edge. It was amazing to see how many bugs lived in the ground. Birds would fly down, waiting until the coast was clear for them to feast on the bugs. Mother and Jenny would plant red and white radishes, green leaf lettuce, beets for pickling, several rows of peas, green beans and onion sets. They would eat some of the onions while they were tiny and green and mild, and let the rest grow large and would dig them in late summer and store them in the cool dark cave where they would be kept all year long to be used every night in the fried potatoes for supper, in relishes and sometime in small amounts with the Sunday beef roast. They would lightly sprinkle the soil atop the newly planted seeds by dipping their hands in the buckets of water. Mother said this helped them to germinate. It was while they planted the rows of peas that Mother had recited the rhyme: “When I was out in the garden, Pickin’ a mess of peas. I almost died a laughin’. When I heard a chicken sneeze.”

Jenny almost died laughing right there when she though about how funny a chicken would sound and look sneezing. The chicken house was just south and east of the garden and Jenny walked over to this corner, looking at the chickens pecking away in the chicken yard, and thought that if she kept very quiet, she might hear one sneezing. Sometimes a chicken would fly over the fence into the garden and Jenny would shoo it out the gate before it could scratch up the newly planted garden. The two dogs and numerous cats kept the rabbit population down. A smart rabbit looked for a spot further from the house for safer grazing.

Early May was the time to plant the late garden. There would be cucumbers for the sweet pickles and Dutch pickles and piccalilli. There would be watermelons and cantaloupes A chilled melon would be so good on a hot day in August or September. Some years the melons would be excellent and in other years the flavor would be disappointing. There was usually an abundant crop of tomatoes. They set out many plants. First they would be used as slicers and the rest would be for canned tomatoes or relish. Mother would make watermelon pickles from the inner part of the watermelon rinds.

The planting had been fun. The hard part came when the weeds began to grow and the garden had to be weeded, but Mother persevered. Decked in sunbonnet, apron, and stocking legs pinned to her sleeves to keep the sun off her arms, and armed with three kinds of hoes, she began her attack. She looked at Jenny’s bare feet and would say, “Now stay out of the way. I don’t want to chop off your toe.”

In the hottest driest years, the sun would burn some of the garden to a crisp, but enough of the hardier plants survived so that the garden was always wonderful.

THE FLOOD

“What’s a flood?” Jenny asked Margaret.

“That’s when it rains so much that the water comes into people’s houses and drowns them. Sometimes it even washes the houses away.”

Jenny shuddered as she remembered the half grown chickens that had drowned in the ditch during the rain last week. Mother had gathered them up in a pail after the rain. They were limp and quiet, their eyes closed. Jenny remembered the smell of their wet feathers and how strange they looked with their feathers plastered down against their bodies. The word flood had sounded something like blood. Maybe the water was red, yes, that was it; the water was probably red like when you had a nosebleed, only lots more of it.

They were going to see the flood today. It was about twenty five or thirty miles away. The mid-summer rains had swollen the streams, and the normally placid river was out of its banks, flooding towns and streams along the way.

Mother packed a lunch in the picnic basket. She put in the thermos jug of cold water and a collapsible drinking cup. Jenny cried because they weren’t taking their own car. She hated to ride in other cars. They had a different smell, sound and feel. The seats were deeper and wider and made Jenny’s legs bulge where they touched the edge. She looked at her yellow anklets and the funny way her legs looked and wished for the familiarity of their own car. She liked it better when Daddy was driving, too.

They drove over miles of chalky white road. The men were talking about the flood. The man who was driving said, “I seen in the paper where there was a lady and a little girl floatin’ down the river. “

Water must have gotten pretty high and the current must have been pretty strong to have washed out that big Franklin bridge,” said Daddy.

Someone else mentioned hearing about a man and a woman who had ridden downstream on the roof of their house.


At last they parked the car on the roadside and got out and walked around. They saw the muddy water which stretched as far as they could see on the north and west. Jenny looked for the lady and the little girl, but all she could see was an old tub and a tree branch floating lazily along. There was so much water. It looked shiny and silvery from a distance. It wasn’t red as Jenny had imagined. Jenny held tightly to Mother’s hand.

“Mother, I don’t see them,” she said timidly.

“You don’t see who?”

“The lady and the little girl.”

“You won’t see them. They wouldn’t be here any more. Besides, it was probably just a rumor. It didn’t say anything about this in the newspaper.”

After looking at the flood ravaged countryside, they ate a picnic lunch on a grassy little hill near their car and the cars of the other families that had come to see the flood. She enjoyed eating her bologna sandwich from the cloth on the grass. She took a cool drink of water from the magic cup that opened out into a full sized cup. As they drove home away from the flood she was happy to be away from the overwhelming expanse of water to where there were just trees and fields and houses.

THE FIRST FEUD

                                                                     
Good fences make good neighbors.

Jenny had heard her parents tell that, long ago, when her parents had first moved to the farm, even before Margaret was born, Hank had driven by with his team and wagon and had hit and killed a pig that had gotten into the road, damaging the wagon wheel. When her dad, Warren, heard the squealing of the pig and the loud cursing of Hank, he went out to investigate the cause of the commotion.

“Keep your Goddamn pigs out of the road,” Hank swore at him.

“That’s your own Goddamn pig that slipped through the broken fence. Why don’t you keep your shabby fences repaired?”

Hank drove on home in a snit and Warren promptly butchered the pig. He wasn’t going to let perfectly good meat rot in the road. He and Mae ate well that autumn.

Hank wouldn’t speak to him for two years, then one day the two men were working in adjoining fields and Hank came over to the fence to ask if a machine part that he had found close to the fence might have fallen off a farm implement of Warren’s. Congenial conversation followed and they were friends once more, doing neighborly favors for one another.

THE FIRE

When Jenny was 11 and in the sixth grade, she often took the shortcut through fields on her way home from school. Margaret and she had done this many times. This was Margaret’s second year in high school and Jenny now enjoyed the solitude of the walk home, day dreaming and dawdling so that it would last longer. Sonny had been attending the adjoining school since the second grade. It was a warm day in March and she was carrying her jacket and her lunch pail. Before she came to the top of the hill, she saw clouds of black smoke in the direction of their home. At first she thought it might be their house, and her heart began to beat quickly, but as she got to the top of the hill, she saw that it was the pasture north of the windmill. Several figures were beating frantically at the fire with gunny sacks. She hurried to the fire and saw that it was Hank and Beulah and Mother and Daddy and someone she didn’t recognize, who had been passing by and had stopped to help. Their faces were blackened with smoke, but the pasture kept burning. She asked Mother what had happened.

Painters had been burning the high piles of Russian thistles, which some called tumbleweeds, from the fence rows on their side and a gust of wind caught a few of the burning thistle embers and blew them into the dry pasture on their side and the fire burned quickly in the March wind. Little animals were fleeing ahead of the fire and many ground nesting young, who were too small to leave the nests, had perished. The osage orange hedge had caught fire. Mother and Dad weren’t sure whether the fire was by accident or design, but they preferred to think it was accidental. Painters had said they were sorry and had tried to help put it out. A thistle fire can get away from anyone.

Mother thought maybe the hatchet had been buried at last. She and Warren forgave the incident, but the Painters weren’t ready to forgive the deeper wrong they were sure had been done to them. The pasture came back greener than ever that spring. The hedge remained blackened that year but it too recovered in a couple of years. Unfortunately, the rift in the friendship was much slower to heal.

THE FEATHER

“Mo-ther! Mo-ther!” shrieked Jenny frantically, waving her tiny chubby arms in the air and jumping up and down.

“Why, that’s nothing but a chicken feather. It can’t hurt you.”

“Git it away from me!”

For there it lay on the floor near the kitchen range, a fat fuzzy feather that had probably clung to one of the eggs Mother had gathered the day before. A draft coming under the door caused it to rustle silently, but fearfully.

“Look. Mother will touch it. You touch it too. Come here and see.”

“No.” Jenny backed into a far corner of the room, eyeing the feather all the while. Of course Mother wasn’t scared of anything, not even the dark.

“But you picked one up yesterday when we were outside. Why are you so afraid of this one?”

But yesterday was a long time ago, and now was now. And when one is not yet three, though one can ask the question, “Why?” many times a day, one seldom has the vocabulary or the judgment to answer it. Jenny could not explain that yesterday’s feather had been a long stiff wing feather that didn’t rustle in the breeze and seemed small in the great outdoors. This morning the fat thing on the floor seemed monstrous within the confines of the kitchen. Many parts of it were moving at one time. It was alive and it was going to “git” Jenny.

“Oh all right. Here, I’ll sweep it into the dust pan and put it in the stove. I’ll bet Betty Ann isn’t afraid of a feather.”

As Mother shut the stove lid, Jenny dug Bingo, her pink terry cloth dog with the blue ears and nose, out of the wash box where she kept her toys and plopped him into the wash basin . She could control Bingo and gave him many baths.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

THE END OF THE WORLD

Jenny walked around and around in the kitchen. It was growing dark. It seemed that it was taking Mother and Margaret a long time to do the milking and other chores at the barn. If Mother were here, she’d have the lamp lit. The room looked big and foreboding in the deepening dusk. It was not as dark outside, but it looked bleak and barren in mid-winter.

Yesterday morning Daddy had left on the train for Kansas City to take some cattle to market and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow. They all missed him. The house was so quiet last night after supper. They heard about a hundred different noises from the outside mingled with the fierce howling of the winter wind. Jenny kept hoping that Daddy would come home early and expected him to come in the door at any minute. But the door had remained closed and there were just the three of them.

Suddenly Jenny saw a flame on the wall by the stove. It was flickering and leaping up and down. She heard the roaring of the fire and her heart beat wildly. Long years ago two children had burned to death in this very house. It didn’t burn the house, but the children died. They were playing with fire and it caught on their clothing. Maybe this was the end of the world and it was starting here. Jenny remembered that it said in the Bible that the world would be destroyed by fire. She wondered if she had been good enough to go to Heaven. She had quarreled with Margaret over the funny paper that very day. and had forgotten to put away her toys, although Mother had reminded her. She had hidden bread crusts around the edge of her plate and had given them to the cat. She had not kept her face and hands clean. Such sins were a heavy burden even to an experienced sinner.

Jenny wished the rest of the family were here, They might know what to do. It was hard to face a thing like this alone when you were five. She tried to get the east door open, but it was stuck. She was afraid to go out the south door, because she would have to go past the dreadful wall of flames. At last she could bear it no longer and dashed past the creeping tongues of flame, out the south door and into the biting cold.


“The house is on fire! The house is on fire!” she screamed so loudly that it made her throat hurt.

Mother and Margaret came running from the barn at top speed.

“Where? Where is it?” Mother asked as soon as she reached the porch.

“In here,” Jenny told her, and pointed to the place on the wall.

Mother said, letting out her breath, “Whew! What a relief! That’s just the reflection from the fire in the stove showing through the grate. The dark wall acted like a looking glass.”

“Oh,” said Jenny.

“You mean you called us all the way over here just for that?” Margaret sniffed in disgust. “We have to go back and finish the chores before it gets too dark.”

Jenny felt very foolish.

“Mother,” she began,

“Yes?”

“Would you light the lamp now?”

THE DUST STORM

Jenny sat on the brick walk and looked up at the sky. It had been green all afternoon, just like when she put on Daddy’s colored glasses that he wore to keep the sun out of his eyes. Although it was late winter, the air was quite warm. She listened to Mother and Daddy talking in the house.

“If we’d been smart,” Mother said, “we’d have sold out and gone back east like Louie’s. They
were smarter than any of us. Looks like another dust storm is brewing.”

“Sure,” Daddy said , “I know about them. They couldn’t buy a piss ant a necktie. They sold out to pay their debts and had to borrow money from relatives to move. They’re having hard times back in Illinois, same as here. Yeah, they can make it sound big in a letter, but come to find out, I bet they’re livin’ off the government. Is this what you want? Want me to get on W.P.A.? Not by a damn site.”

Jenny wished they wouldn’t talk like this. It worried her when Mother said they should move. This was home. She would hate it in a strange house. Sometime she had bad dreams about it.

“Of course not. It’s just this everlasting dry weather. Some people say this part of the country is turning into a desert. I’d just like to see some green things growing for a change. Maybe they are poor back in Illinois, but at least the corn grows tall, and there are more trees and grass and good crops.”

There had been almost no crops this year and scant pasture for the cattle. Many of the trees had died, and dust, the good black top soil of the land, was piled along the fences like snow drifts. It made a person want to give up. Now the gray clouds of dust seemed very close, and Daddy brought Margaret home and then quickly took the other children home from school to their homes and took the teacher to Mrs. Gobel’s, where she boarded. The hired man came in from the field early. The little birds stopped chirping and the chickens went to roost and everything was quiet for a little while. Mother said she’d have to light the lamp, even though it was only two o’clock in the afternoon. Jenny and Margaret sat at the table, cutting out people from the Sears catalog for use as paper dolls, letting paper scraps pile up on the floor. They thought it was fun to have the lamp lit in the daytime. Margaret was delighted to be home from school early. Mother and Daddy and the hired man kept going to the big west window in the parlor to look at the darkening sky. The wind had begun to come up. They could see great rolling clouds of dust. They could smell it, taste it and breathe it. It got in the corners of the eyes and made the teeth feel gritty. They stuffed rags along the doors and windows. Mother put a cover on the water pail. They had pancakes for supper that night. They ate lots of pancakes that year. Mother made little ones for Jenny and Margaret. Jenny liked them with lots of syrup. Like the sparrows and the chickens, they all went to bed early that night. They put the covers over their heads and hoped for the best. The wind and dust continued, swaying the house and rattling the windows.

The next morning was clear, cold and calm. Piles of powdery dust lay along the doors and windows. Mother had already swept up a dishpan full of dust before breakfast and would get the
rest later.

Jenny awoke and wandered out to the kitchen in her pink sleepers, where the rest of the family was already eating breakfast. The hired man took one look at her and burst out laughing, slapping his knee and the table. Daddy too, chuckled and Mother and Margaret joined in. Jenny didn’t know why they were laughing, but she liked to laugh, so she laughed too.

“Wait till you see your face,” Daddy said, and he held her up to the looking glass. Two blue eyes looked out from a totally black face. Her hands were black too.

“She’s Mother’s little dust syrup pickininny,” said Mother, and she began washing away the black sticky stuff.

Out of the storm had come humor. They had started the day with gaiety. Their spirits were lighter because they had laughed, and even the ugly piles of dust failed to quench their faith that things were going to get better.