Authors: Ruth White

Belle Prater's Boy (4 page)

BOOK: Belle Prater's Boy

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“
O
h, Gypsy, you're so awfully beautiful!”

These were Woodrow's words the next morning when he first saw me all dressed up for Sunday school. He was on Granny's front porch, reading the Sunday paper, which he dropped when he saw me coming.

I couldn't help smiling.

I was wearing one of those little bitty pieces of a hat with a veil barely covering my eyes. It was pink like my new dress, which had long, tapered sleeves and kick pleats on each side. I also had on pink shoes with an inch-high heel, and naturally I was wearing the white gloves every well-brought-up girl wore to church.

“You're not so bad yourself, cousin!” I said, as I looked him up and down.

He was wearing a pair of new pants and a nice blue dress shirt with a tie to match.

“I never wore one of these before,” he said as he fingered the tie. “But it's kinda nice. Grandpa tied it for me.”

“Ready to go?” I said.

Together we strutted down the street.

There was a Methodist and a Baptist church on up Slag Creek, and all kinds of offspring churches in the hollers, but everybody in Coal Station who was anybody a'tall, as Mama put it, went to the Presbyterian church. It was the biggest and the best. It had a tall steeple with a bell in it that rang at 11:00 on Sunday mornings and on special occasions. You could hear it echoing through the hills for miles around, and you could imagine folks stopping whatever they were doing to listen.

My Sunday-school class had about ten kids in it, ages eleven and twelve, which meant we were the inbetweens, feeling like we didn't belong anywhereânot with the teenagers, and certainly not with the young'uns.

Some, like Buzz Osborne, had had a growing spurt that shot them a head taller than the others. Some, like Willy and Mary Lee, were pure tee runts. Then there were the average ones like me and Woodrow.
But none were stingy with the questions and Woodrow got the works. Everybody talked at once.

“You live with the Balls? Since when?”

“How old are you?”

“Can you look in two directions at once?”

“You don't favor Gypsy a bit.”

“How much did that tie cost?”

“Do you believe in God?”

To the last question Woodrow replied, “Yeah, I met him once.”

“You met God?” they all said. “No, you didn't!”

“Yeah, I did. And you know what? He sneezed, and I didn't know what to say.”

They didn't get it. Woodrow tried again.

“His name is Howard, you know.”

“God's name ain't Howard!”

“Sure it is,” said Woodrow. “It says so in the Lord's PrayerââHoward be thy name.'”

That one they got.

Nobody asked Woodrow anything about Aunt Belle, and I figured they didn't get the connection. When our teacher, Mrs. Compton, came in, I introduced her to Woodrow, and she made him feel welcome, but she didn't ask him any questions at all. She went right into the lesson.

That Sunday the Presbyterian literature for intermediates dealt with Jesus healing the sick. We read
about it in the New Testament. Then we talked about it.

“You know, boys and girls,” Mrs. Compton said very sweetly, “sickness is a bad thing, but all of us get sick once in a while. Sometimes it's so bad we think we are going to die. Have you ever known anyone who was
very very
sick?”

About four people raised their hands, including Woodrow, but I couldn't think of any sick people.

“Would one person like to tell us about someone who was
very very
sick?” Mrs. Compton said.

Only one person raised his hand then, and that was Woodrow.

“All right. Is it Woodrow?” Mrs. Compton said.

“Yes, ma'am,” he said politely.

“Would you like to come up here, Woodrow?”

Woodrow went to the front of the class. I was amazed. Every bright and shiny face was turned to him, curious to hear what this new boy had to say.

“This is a story about Buck Coleman,” Woodrow began, “who had a sickness so bad â¦ well â¦ let me tell you it was bad. His belly kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger. It got big as a watermelon, but the rest of him kept falling off. Buck finally had to go to the doctor's, and the doctor said, âBuck, you got the biggest tapeworm I ever did even hear tell of, and it's curled up in your belly getting all your food.'

“Well, the doctors tried to kill that tapeworm, but they couldn't do it without killing Buck with it. He kept eating a lot, but he was still starving to death. And, oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, he craved molasses.”

Woodrow paused to let everything sink in.

“Molasses?” little Willy Stacy said.

“Yeah, molasses,” Woodrow continued. “Finally the doctor decided to lure the tapeworm out.”

“How was he going to lure it out?” Mary Lee Rowe said.

“With molasses, naturally. They took a big jar of molasses and held it in front of Buck's face, and the tapeworm smelled it and came crawling out to get it.”

“And Buck was saved?” from Willy again.

“No, that tapeworm was so long and fat, Buck suffocated to death before it got out.”

Woodrow sat down.

I thought Mrs. Compton was going to faint.

“Really, Woodrow!” she said irritably. “Was that necessary? Did that happen or did you make it up?”

“He made it up!” Buzz Osborne chimed in.

“'Pon my word of honor,” Woodrow said. “Buck Coleman was my daddy's sister's husband's uncle's cousin.”

“That doesn't make it true!” Mrs. Compton shot back.

“I know a story, too,” Mary Lee said. “About my
aunt who went to New York City and they fed her snails.”

“Never mind!” Mrs. Compton said. “Let's talk about something else. The thought for the week is on page 36.”

While everybody was turning to page 36, Woodrow glanced at me and winked so quick I don't think anybody else saw him. I ducked my head to hide the smile that had to come. That's when I knew for sure that Woodrow wasn't as backward as he let on, but he had a bit of the devil in him.

After Sunday school the church bells rang and we went out into the bright morning to listen. I thought I never had seen such a blue and green and golden day. Mama and Porter were in the choir room fixing to sing during the service, but Grandpa and Granny were outside chattering with their neighbors.

Mr. Cooper, the school principal, was okay, but he was married to a killjoy. She could hardly stand to see folks enjoying life, especially kids. It got on her nerves so bad, I was sure she lay awake nights thinking up ways to put a stop to it. And that's how it was that morning as we stood there listening to the bells and taking in the sweetness of the moment.

Suddenly she walked right up to Woodrow and grabbed him hard under the chin, lifting his face exactly like he was a horse she was looking over and fixing to buy.

“Not much for looks, is he?” she said. “Takes after his mama.”

Woodrow jerked away from her with fury in his eyes, but he didn't say a word to her.

“Well now, I hope you aren't as hardheaded as she was!” Mrs. Cooper went on, placing her hands on her ample hips.

I grabbed Woodrow's arm quick and pulled him toward Granny and Grandpa.

“Grandpa, don't you have a quarter for Woodrow to put in the collection plate?” I said as loud as I could to drown out Mrs. Cooper, who was still talking.

Grandpa did have a quarter for Woodrow, and I could tell by the way he looked at that quarter Woodrow wanted to keep it for his own self, but he didn't. In fact, he made it clatter when he tossed it in the plate, so everybody would hear it.

Going back home from church, Woodrow and I skipped along in front of the family, singing. He knew all the words to “Aba Daba Honeymoon,” which he taught to me.

Later we vacuumed Dawg while Granny and Mama fixed fried chicken and gravy for dinner. Granny had one of those newfangled vacuum cleaners that was so mighty it could pick up a steel ball. In fact, that's how the salesman sold it to Granny. Grandpa always teased her about it, 'cause he said if anybody had any steel balls to vacuum up, Granny's machine was ready. It
was strange how Dawg wasn't one bit afraid of that vacuum cleaner, even with all the racket it made. When you went to turn it on, she would lie down in front of you and put all her legs up in the air and grin at you. That meant she was ready for a good vacuuming. So I would put on one of those attachments that was made for doing the couch and curtains, and vacuum Dawg's belly with it. She just loved it. Her four legs would paw the air at about ninety miles an hour. Woodrow got such a kick out of that, I offered to let him do the rest of Dawg, which he did, giggling all the time.

Late that evening, Woodrow and I went out to my tree house overlooking Slag Creek, which my daddy built for me when I was only five. It was a two-story job, the lower floor being the porch and the upper floor the house. Woodrow was impressed. After inspecting it throughout, he suggested we make it our secret hideout. The house part was tucked up among the leaves and blossoms so that from the ground nobody could see it unless they got up close.

“We'll put a sign on itâKEEP OUT!” Woodrow said. “And we'll stash our treasures inside.”

“What treasures?” I said.

“Oh, money and stuff. We'll get some treasures.”

“Treasures” was a good word. It sparked my imagination and conjured up images of kidnapped princesses and pirates and swashbuckling heroes.

“I have an old jewelry chest I don't use!” I said. “We'll bring it up here for our treasures.”

We settled down on the tree-house porch and let our legs dangle out over the creek. The frogs were starting up with their party again, and all mingled in with the night sounds were the mamas calling their children to come in because tomorrow was a school day.

“Peggy Sue!”

“Franklin Delanooooo!”

“You must ask for what you really want,”
Woodrow said softly. “That's what Mama's poem said. And Preacher Yates said the same thing today in his sermon. Ask and you shall receive.”

“What do you really want, Woodrow?”

“You won't make fun of me?”

“Oh no, Woodrow, I would never make fun of you.”

He smiled.

“Well, besides wanting Mama to come home safe and sound, I want my eyes to be straight,” he said. “If my eyes were corrected, Gypsy, they would look just like yours.”

My heart filled with pity for him, but I didn't say anything.

“What do you really want, Gypsy?”

“Oh, it sounds silly next to what you want, Woodrow. You want important things.”

“But what you want is important to you no matter
how it seems to someone else. What do you really want, Gypsy?”

“I have never let those words cross my lips about the thing I really want. Mama would just about die if she heard it. And it's no use asking for what you can't have. I want to get my hair cut off short.”

“But why? It's so beautiful! Nobody has hair like yours, Gypsy.”

“That's for sure. And you wanna know why you don't see other people running around with their hair down to their butt? Because it's so much work! That's all I do is take care of my hair! It's disgusting.”

“Oh,” Woodrow said.

“But that's not all,” I continued. “Sometimes â¦ sometimes, Woodrow, I feel invisible. Like maybe under all this hair nobody can see me. They talk about my hair, but do they ever see what's underneath? You know what I mean?”

“No â¦ not exactly,” Woodrow said.

“Sometimes I want to say, âThere is a person in here!,' but it sounds silly, even to me.”

Woodrow didn't say anything, and I let out a long sigh. I guess I just didn't have the right words to explain.

The night air was turning chilly. We watched the moon and listened to the mamas.

“Garnet! Am I gonna have to come out there and get you?”

“Willy! Don't you make me call you again!”

“Woodrow, do you think Aunt Belle asked for what she really wanted that morning, like the poem said?”

“Yeah, and she got it, too,” he whispered.

“What? What do you mean? What did she ask for?” I said breathlessly.

“To get out of her life.”

BOOK: Belle Prater's Boy

5.52Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub