Katie's Dream (15 page)

Sarah ran and got the berry pails and the bag of sassafras and sorrel. Katie stood looking at me like she wasn't sure what to do. I must have been a sight. Maybe she wondered what sort of strange people she'd come to.

“Can I carry him?” Rorey wanted to know.

“I don't think you could by yourself. But he's so heavy, I could use your help, if you think you can hold one end on your shoulder.” She was delighted to try. And I knew she was strong and wiry. Of these three, she was probably the only one who could manage it.

“Where's the clay, Katie?” I asked. “Do you think you can carry that? It would be easier to bring it along than to have to come back and search.”

“Yes, ma'am.” She walked to the middle of the creek, where they'd left the pail on a rock. She lifted it carefully as Sarah came running back to us with her hands full.

And then we were on our way, with Rorey and me straining with the weight of that turtle, Sarah beside me looking pleased as punch, and Katie trailing along, not wanting to get too close.

We were as near to Hammonds' now as home, so it just made sense to go and ask Lizbeth how she'd cut and cook one of these.

“Are we going to eat that?” Katie asked as we made our way through the brush.

“Not us,” Sarah had decided. “Rorey's pa will. All their family.”

“Whoever wants to, I suppose,” I told them. “We always share around here.”

Katie looked a little green, but she didn't say anything else. I wondered who had taught her to be so polite about something like this. Most children, my own included, would come right out and tell you what they thought when it came to food. Even Sarah, generally the most mannerly of the bunch, wasn't about to eat any turtle.

We walked rapidly, with the turtle stubbornly holding tight to the stick. I wondered what he thought he was accomplishing dangling in midair like this when he could easily drop to the ground. But maybe the fall would hurt him. Maybe that's why he just kept on biting down hard. I didn't know if all turtles were as stubborn as him, but I was glad he hadn't gotten somebody's toe.

My arms were pretty tired by the time we got to George Hammond's farmyard, and I knew Rorey must be tired too, though I'd been trying to carry most of the weight. She was proud and wanted everybody to see what we'd brought, but her father and two brothers were at our house, and the rest of the big boys were in the field, I guessed.

“Hey! Look!” she called anyway.

Harry was up a tree, throwing twigs down at little Bert, who got hit in the head with one when he stopped wiggling to turn and stare at us.

“Turta!” he said, without seeming to notice the attack from above.

“Harry, don't throw any more sticks!” I called. “You could hurt somebody.”

“Ohh! What you got? Is we gonna keep him?” He started sliding down out of the tree.

“I thought I'd ask your sister if she thinks turtle would make a decent meal.”

“Can I have the shell?” he asked immediately. “We could make me a real soldier helmet.”

“It might be your brother who needs the helmet.”

“Why?” Harry asked innocently. “He don't even like playin' soldier.”

Lizbeth was coming around the side of the house with a basket of clothes to hang on the line, and little Emmie toddled at her heels. With one still in diapers and nine others to think about, she always had a lot of wash to do. But she looked my way with a smile.

“Mrs. Wortham! I didn't know you to be out huntin' up dinner. Pa'll be real happy to see that.”

Sarah had been right. George and his family would take to a turtle meal just fine. I was thinking maybe I should leave the whole thing here with them.

Harry and Berty came running up close, and Rorey grabbed her chance to show off our catch. “Touch him!” she told them. “Feel how funny he is. He's even hard on the bottom. An' we caught him all by ourself! I could keep him, jus' to play with, if he wasn't good for food.”

Strange to hear a girl carrying on about such a thing. Usually it was one of the boys proud to show me turtles, snakes, stinkbugs, a dead possum, or what have you. But Rorey was all tomboy, which sometimes put a gap between her and Sarah.

I lowered our turtle to the ground, and the stubborn thing drew his head inside the shell as far as he could without letting go of the stick. Some people were that stubborn. Good thing Sarah had brought me a fat stick.

Rorey touched the turtle's back first, then the tips of its feet, which made Katie squirm.

Not to be outdone, Harry tried his best to find the hidden tail and, that failing, sat down and pushed against one side.

“Big!” Berty declared, much to Rorey's satisfaction.

“Grab him, Sarah!” Harry challenged.

“I like lookin' at him okay,” Sarah told him. “But I don't wanna touch him. Mommy didn't neither.”

“I'll help you hang your wash,” I told Lizbeth. “But where do you want this fellow for now, out of the way of these kids?”

“In the corncrib, I guess. He won't get outta there. We'll cut him up this mornin' so he can soak some hours afore supper. Be best that way.”

Katie looked even greener than she had before, the poor child.

“Look out!” Harry teased her. “He could chomp your whole big toe clear off!”

Rorey laughed.

“Leave her alone, you two,” I warned and quietly took Katie's hand.

“You know how to cook it?” Lizbeth asked me.

“No. My grandmother told me about it, but I've never done one myself.”

“I know enough. I helped Mama more'n once at it. You want me to teach you?”

She looked pleased with the notion, so I said yes. Extra knowledge of anything was a good thing, I figured, especially in times like these. The one time I'd eaten turtle before, when I was a child, I hadn't especially liked it, but just like Samuel and my cornmeal mush, you learn to eat what's available.

“We'll be wantin' onions to go with it,” Lizbeth told me. “You want I pull some from the garden, or should we find us some wild?”

“We'd better let what's left in our gardens get bigger. I'll get the wild.”

“Berries!” Berty hollered, peeking into my pail and snitching two or three.

“Are there any more?” Lizbeth asked. “I was thinkin' to check 'em sometime today or tomorrow.”

“No. This is almost all of the raspberries. But there should be quite a few blackberries. More than last year. Maybe we could all go picking together when the time comes.”

She happily agreed. I knew she loved it when I came over. For the change of pace and the help.

Carefully I pulled our turtle to the corncrib and shut him in, stick and all. I was glad to get him away from Harry and glad to be done with moving him, at least for now. He was heavier than he looked.

Then I helped Lizbeth get her wash on the line. Memories flooded back as I hung up the yellow bib that Emma had made for baby Emma Grace when she was born. Of course, it'd been too big then, but here it was, still being used now. And the vest Wilametta had made in the fall to give to George, thinking ahead of a Christmas she didn't live to see. He still wore it, and Lizbeth washed it carefully as if it was something sacred.

Hanging up towels, I thought of Emma over here struggling to help Wilametta bring her tenth child into the world breech. How scared I was, called on to help in such a task as that! But the baby'd been fine, and strong and healthy ever since. Far worse was the night, months later, when Emma and Wila both went to be with the Lord and there was nothing I could do to help either one of them.

Emmie Grace started pulling at my dress, and I smelled something most definitely stinky. “Is she telling you now?” I asked Lizbeth.

She looked at me and her baby sister from behind a sheet and smiled. “Sometimes. After the fact. You want I change her?”

“I will.” I picked up the little tike, and she played with my hair all the way to the house. I knew where the diapers were. I knew where everything was here, almost as well as my own house. And all the Hammond kids knew where our things were too, we were back and forth so much.

I could've changed Emmie in the sitting room, but I went and laid her on the bed where she was born, where her father and probably several kids slept at night even still. Sometimes it was strange being in that room. As though Wilametta could still talk to me there. But I felt more connected to Emma at home, outside. Especially in the garden, which she'd loved.

Little Emmie giggled when I pinned her diaper, which neither of my children had ever done. She had stick-up-straight hair, still short and fine. Strawberry blonde, like her mother. I smiled to think of her being so happy. Lizbeth had done well, filling her mother's shoes. Maybe we'd all done well.

I stepped out on the porch in time to see Berty running past the house chasing a goat.

“Harry!” Lizbeth was yelling. “You shut that gate and don't you open it again, you hear me!”

“Harry let a goat out,” Sarah ran up to tell me.

“I noticed.”

Katie stood beside the new porch pillar that Samuel had made when he spent some time this past spring helping George with some vital repairs. She looked a little lost. And frightened by everything going on around her.

“I promise you we're not always this wild,” I told her. “Would you and Sarah like to keep Emmie here on the porch for me? And I'll help round that goat in.”

Both girls were pleased to have the baby left in their charge. I called to Berty and told him to sit down and
quit chasing the goat. Then I reached up and pulled a little branch from the nearest maple tree and led that silly goat back to his pen with the branch just out of his reach. He thought I had quite a prize, I guess, and I threw the branch in once I had the gate shut. He had to shove past two other goats for his leafy share.

Harry watched the whole thing and thought it was hilarious. So Lizbeth made him sit on a stump and stay there. She was done hanging out the laundry by then, and she turned her attention back to me.

“Mama let turtle soak overnight sometimes. But she said if you get 'em in the morning an' let 'em soak all day, they're all right by supper too. You wanna do that?”

“Whatever you think.”

“I didn't know what we were having for supper,” she confessed. “This is such a blessin'.”

I was glad I'd brought the turtle, because I knew what she meant. Their garden couldn't keep up with their need, and their pantry might be barer than mine. We had our work cut out for us this summer, gathering in everything we could. Lord help.

Lizbeth salted down a washbowl of water to have ready, and then she brought the doomed old turtle from the corncrib and whacked off its head. She started cutting immediately, looking up at me with a smile.

“Some folks stick 'em in boilin' water, shell an' all. But we won't have to do that if we leave him soak in the salt water and then stew him good with some milk after a while. Be some fine soup, an' it'll go further than fryin' him. That's good too, though.”