Amazing Grace (8 page)

Mom and Grandma tackled cucumber hills and rows for planting beans and corn as I hoofed it over to the toolshed where Grandma kept her garden supplies. Rummaging around, I found an old pair of overalls, faded and torn in more places than I could count. Grandpa wore them before he passed on. I searched some more and found an old shirt with half the back ripped out. “Perfect clothes for a scarecrow,” I told Spot.”

Spot yapped. In dog talk, that meant he agreed.

Johnny found an old worn-out basket for a head and a wooden box for a body. I hung the basket high on the fence post and the box on a nail a few inches below it. Next came the hard part: tugging the clothes around the box—first the shirt, then the pants.

Johnny ran back to Grandma's tool shed and found a smashed straw hat with the biggest part of the brim gone. He climbed the fence and tied the hat to the basket.

I stuffed old leftover corn stalks from last year's garden in the shirtsleeves and pant legs. Then I stood back to eye our work.

“Perfect,” I announced.

Spot yapped again in approval.

“That's a fine piece of labor there, Gracie Girl, Johnny,” Grandma said. “I never thought I'd see your grandpa's old work clothes put to use again, but it does my heart good to see them out here. It's kind of like having him back with us.” Grandma smiled and grabbed a cup of corn to plant.

“Grace Ann,” Mom called, “you can plant your pumpkins now.” She pointed to an area at the side of Grandma's house where Mr. Wick and Moonglow had plowed.

I spent the afternoon tossing rocks out of the plowed ground. Johnny was a big help, running around pretending to be a fire engine. He stayed a safe distance from me but close enough to whisper, “Scarecrow” every time I looked his way.

Johnny kept jumping around, wanting to plant his carrot seeds and just plain being a pest. Finally, I'd had enough of his foolishness. “Johnny, did you know that rabbits set their mouths for sweet, ripe carrots?” I asked him.

“They can have your pumpkins, Scarecrow,” he said with a giggle.

“You know about rabbit dreams, don't you?” I asked. I figured if my tall tales were good enough for Vickie, they were good enough for Johnny, too.

Johnny shook his head. “No.”

“If you dream about a rabbit eating carrots,” I told him, “the dream will happen. It's true. Last year, Janie dreamed that rabbits ate her carrots, and sure enough, they did. About a week later, Carolyn had the same dream. Guess who had no carrots?”

Johnny looked at me.

“If you keep bothering me,” I said, “I'll probably dream about rabbits and your carrots. I can see my dream already and the crunch, crunch, crunch of carrot-chomping bunnies.”

Johnny wore a look of pure fear.

I spouted off, “Yep, too bad about your carrots. Rabbits leave all other vegetables alone.”

That brother of mine didn't look too happy with the news. Served him right for calling me “Scarecrow” and making a pest of himself, but he settled down and played with a toy truck.

I used the hoe to build big hills of dirt, and then I flattened the tops of each. I dropped six seeds, spaced way apart, onto each hill. I used my finger to poke the seeds down under the dirt. Mr. Wick left some of Moonglow's dried-up manure to use as a fertilizer. I pulled on Grandma's garden gloves, mixed some loose soil with the dried mule pies and sprinkled the stuff on top of the planted seeds. For good luck, I crossed my fingers and tapped each hill.

I trudged into Grandma's kitchen, tired but excited. I couldn't wait for little green pumpkin plants to push up through the dirt.

After supper, we listened to the wireless. Walter Winchell talked about Eleanor Roosevelt, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's wife, planting a victory garden at the White House.

“Grandma, I want my own victory garden,” I said. “I think Daddy would like that.”

Grandma smiled and said, “I'm sure he would. I'll get Mr. Wick and Moonglow back early tomorrow morning.”

I didn't want a victory garden like mom and Grandma had. I wanted something special, something different, and I knew exactly how to do it.

Chapter 12

Dig for Victory

“I'm a soldier of the soil,” I told Mom and Grandma the next morning as I explained my idea of a rainbow victory garden.

“A soldier of the soil is an important job,” Mom agreed.

Grandma pointed to the small front yard. “You can plant over there, Grace Ann.”

I walked over to check out the ground as Johnny eased down the front porch steps, yawned and stretched. “It'll be a yarden,” he said.

I squinted my eyes at him to let him know how little I thought of his humor. He yawned again and walked back into the house.

At school, I learned the colors of the rainbow as ROY G. BIV. That's red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet—the colors of the produce I planned to harvest from my little patch.

Grandma rounded up her bags of seeds for me to use, and Mom helped me plan where to plant what.

The idea of growing vegetables made me feel like I was doing something to help our country, the way Daddy, Grandma and Mom were. The newsman had said over twenty million people planted victory gardens, so if they could, I could.

Mr. Wick brought Moonglow back and plowed the front yard. My garden may be little, but it would look spiffy, because there's nothing much spiffier anywhere than a rainbow.

I began with tomatoes, the red kind.

“What are you going to plant for orange, Grace Ann?” Johnny asked. He had wandered back out after he scarfed up pancakes and honey for breakfast. His hands were full of seeds. “Carrots are orange.”

“Okay, we'll plant carrots for orange,” I said. “I'm planting orange marigolds, too. I want to be able to see the colors of the rainbow when I look at the garden.”

“You can see carrots,” Johnny said as he dropped the seeds one at a time in the long ditch I made with the hoe.

“Carrot tops are green,” I told him. “The orange part is underground.”

“Humph!” he grunted.

“Besides, the marigolds will keep the bugs off the tomato plants,” I said.

Yellow was next. Grandma had grown some tender yellow tomato and cantaloupe seedlings. She handed me the strongest-looking plants and some corn seeds. I appreciated Grandma's help, so I flashed my brightest smile her way and whispered, “Thanks.”

I'd been reading in Grandma's magazines, the
Saturday Evening Post
and
Ladies' Home Journal
, about how to raise a victory garden. Most people in the United States were raising fruits and vegetables. The government predicted that almost half of all vegetables harvested in America in 1944 would come from small victory gardens. I felt a tingle of pride—even greater than a tingle, more like a burst—that I was doing my part.

The ROY part of my rainbow was planted. G was next, and green was the easiest to choose since every plant seems to love that color. Kentucky Wonder green beans needed a pole, so I planted them with corn. In a rainbow, yellow and green are side by side, so these two vegetables were a perfect match. The beans could climb the cornstalks.

BIV was the hardest because most plants were not blue, indigo and violet. I looked through seed catalogues and bingo! I found it—a blueberry bush. Grandma said our neighbor, Miss Meryl, would give me a couple of her blueberry bushes.

I pulled Johnny's red wagon down the street to Miss Meryl's house and came home with three humdingers. If I could get them planted today, she said I'd eat sweet treats in a few weeks. I dug three big holes and stuck in the roots of the blueberry bushes, taking my good ole easy time so the plants would grow strong and healthy. I'd rather be eating the blues instead of losing the plants and singing the blues.

I read that blue flowers attract bees, and bees would pollinate my other plants. Well, I'll
bee
. So I planted bachelor button flowers for the indigo color.

The last color in my rainbow garden was violet, and nothing sported deep purple like an eggplant. Grandma agreed with my choice. Yes, ma'am.

By the time I stowed away the garden hoe, I was hot, thirsty, hungry, dirty and simply worn out. Mom called us to the table for supper as soon as I washed up. Soup beans, corn bread and fried potatoes set my mouth dancing. Grandma followed with fried apple pies, and my tongue jitterbugged.

I was so proud of my victory garden that I decided to tell Daddy about it. He would be proud of me too.

Dear Daddy,

I've been digging for victory with my own rainbow garden. Yep, I'm growing the colors of the rainbow with vegetables, fruit and flowers. A newsman said the Kentucky Wonder was the most popular bean in America. When the Kentucky Wonders get ripe, Grandma said she would show me how to string and hang them so they'll dry. This winter we can feast on shucky beans.

When Johnny was planting carrot seeds in my rainbow garden, Grandma said he had grown a foot in the last year. That silly boy grabbed a hoe and dug a hole. He plopped his foot and the hoe in the hole and swished dirt to cover it all. Then he said, “Look, Grandma, I've grown a foot.” He pulled his foot and the hoe out of the ground and hobbled around as if the hoe was his third foot. Grandma laughed and hugged him tight.

“Too bad you didn't grow a second head,” I told him, and he stuck his tongue out at me.

Spot hangs out with me when I work in my garden. He's a good helper. If a rabbit or groundhog wanders in, he puts them on the move. Most of the time, Spot curls up in the shade near the well where he can watch me and sneak in a snooze or three. I hope you get home in time to see and taste my rainbow garden.

We're still listening to the wireless. The newsman talked about growing peppermint with cabbage to keep the bugs off. Mom said she didn't know about that but would give it a try. She did know about planting radishes with cucumbers to get rid of the stink bugs that do more than stink. They eat the sweet cucumbers too. Mom said losing her cucumbers would really stink.

Some of the newsmen talk funny. One calls tomatoes toe-MAH-toes. Now, Johnny does too. Yesterday, he told Mom he wanted mashed poe-TAH-toes for supper. When I was cleaning the table, that boy caught a case of the wiggles. He said, “Look at me. I can shake every part from my head toe-MAH-toes.”

I miss you, Daddy, and hope you can come home soon.

Love,

Gracie Girl

P.S. Shucky beans are dried green beans.

Usually, I never wanted rain to be in the weather forecast, but since my seeds and plants could use a good drink of water, I cheered as the newsman predicted rain for the next day.

When I went to my bedroom, I peeked out the window at the cloudy sky. Spot jumped up and planted his front paws on my windowsill. I leaned over and smacked a kiss on the top of his head. “Spot, I drew a picture of you chasing a varmint out of my rainbow victory garden,” I said, “and I'm sending it to Daddy so he'll know how hard you've been working.”

Spot wagged his tail to let me know that he had an important job, too, and he did it well.

The newsman sure knew what he was talking about. Around midnight, a flock of woodpeckers took aim at Grandma's tin roof. When I realized the pecking was nothing more than rain, I rolled over and returned to my dream. This time, I wheeled around the yard on a red bicycle. Maybe I'd let Johnny ride it. Maybe I wouldn't.

Chapter 13

D-Day

BUZZZZZZZZZZZZ
. The wireless crackled and hissed. The only time my brother didn't fidget was when he listened to his favorite program,
The Green Hornet
. The crime-fighting duo—Britt Reid, a young journalist (the Green Hornet), and his sidekick, Kato—stopped anyone and anything that tried to destroy America. Johnny's favorite part was hearing the sting of the Green Hornet.
BUZZZZZZZZZZZZ
.

“We interrupt this program,” Edward R. Murrow, the radio broadcaster, said. “Go ahead, London.”

The sizzle of static surged through the airwaves; then a newsman in London, England, talked about the Allied forces.