Katie's Dream (2 page)

“Willy, that's enough,” I warned.

“Well, it's true! Pa says for most any job you at least gotta sign your name!”

“I can sign,” Franky said bravely.

“Yeah,” Willy said with a laugh. “With half the letters missin', and the other half backwards.”

“Do you want me to tell your father how you've been acting?” I asked him.

“I don't care,” Willy said boldly. “He won't do nothin'. He thinks the same as me.”

Unfortunately, I wasn't sure that wasn't true. But Samuel turned around and faced us, with Berty still bouncing on his shoulders. “I have no doubts about Franky,” he said. “He can work with me anytime. And there'll be a lot more people feeling the same way when they see how he works wood. It's not everybody that's got a gift that can be seen so young.”

Franky smiled and Willy sulked. And I might have said more, but right that minute, as we were rounding one side of a giant oak, I very nearly ran smack into Hazel Sharpe coming from the opposite direction. Her lantern clattered against my leg, and we both reached out our hands to steady it.

She was looking smaller than ever, her ancient shoulders stooping more all the time. Her nephew Herman was right behind her, carrying one of her chairs over his head. Hazel must have come out to watch the show. I was surprised that she would.

“Miss Hazel! Excuse us. I didn't see you coming.”

“I can b'lieve that, Julia Wortham!” She raised her lantern to look us over. “You always got your mind goin' on somethin' besides business. An' here you are out with these Hammonds again! An' them lookin' like a bunch a' ragamuffins! Don't that George have the least bit a' self-respect? Where is he, anyway?”

“Home doing the milking and such,” I answered
quickly. “Working hard.” Why did she have to cut so with her words, and right in front of the children? None of them looked that bad, just a little dirty and tired, like anyone would after a day like this. And it was dark too, so why would it make any difference? Why did she have to act as though it were her job in life to make people uncomfortable?

“Good evening,” Sarah whispered to her; she was echoed immediately by Rorey. But Miss Hazel didn't answer them or even look their way.

“C'mon, Herman,” she sniffed. “Sure is late. Didn't know Porter was gonna keep us up half the night.”

“Nice show, wasn't it?” I asked.

She ignored me and went walking right on with her usual quick steps.

“Good night, Miss Hazel,” I called after her. “Good night, Herman.”

“Good night to you,” Herman acknowledged with a nod as he hurried along with that chair.

I wondered what it must be like to be Hazel Sharpe's nephew. She had three of them, I'd heard. All with families of their own. But Herman was the only one who came around, every time she called on him, to help her with this or that. It was hard to picture her thanking him, but I hoped she had courtesy enough. I figured he must be a patient sort, anyway. He sure was quiet most of the time, at least around her.

“I don't know why you bother,” fourteen-year-old Joe told me when Hazel and Herman were out of earshot. “She ain't lookin' for no conversation from us.”

“I'll give it to her anyway,” I said. “I'm going to speak to her every time I see her and be just as pleasant as can be. One of these days, she'll crack.”

“She prob'ly only done that once in her life,” he argued. “When Emma died. Only time I ever seen her soft. She
don't like a one of us, an' I doubt sittin' with her at church or throwin' words her way is gonna change anything.”

I was surprised at the sharpness of his tone. Joe was usually so quiet and reserved. But maybe he was tired of being put down. “Those Hammonds” Hazel always called them, in her snippety, belittling kind of way. I'd never seen her speak a word to any of them directly. But she'd done plenty of talking about them.

“Maybe it won't change her,” I said. “But Emma loved her. And for her sake, I will too. Just because it's right.”

Joe shook his head. “She jus' goes 'round spittin' vinegar all the time. Makes me wonder what the good Lord'll say 'bout it, her supposin' to be one a' the church elders.”

“That's none of our business,” Lizbeth told him. “Except to pray for her.”

Holding Harry's hand, Joe moved ahead of us without acknowledging her words. And I understood how he must be feeling. Since Wilametta's death, many people had come to respect Samuel and me for helping the Hammonds, but the kids and their father were pitied as often as not for needing that help. And Hazel, more than any other, had a way of making every word jab like a knife.

We came to the old truck, and Samuel lifted Berty down from his shoulders into the back end. Robert and Willy crowded into the seat, leaving barely enough room for a driver, and Samuel turned to help Lizbeth and the baby as the rest of us drew near.

“You want I drive?” young Sam asked him. “You were looking mighty sleepy.”

“I was asleep,” Samuel acknowledged. “And you might as well drive. If you're not too tired.”

“Oh no. Not a bit.”

Samuel knew as well as I did that young Sam loved every
chance he got to drive a motor car or truck. Sam could never understand why his father claimed he wouldn't buy one even if he had the money. George preferred his team of horses, and some of the other boys were the same way, especially Kirk.

I helped Sarah and Rorey into the truck, but Harry scampered up on his own and jumped into the bed with a whoop and a thunk.

“Be quiet!” Lizbeth admonished him. “You're gonna wake the baby.”

It was quite a squeeze, getting nine of the children plus Samuel and myself in the back of that truck. Lizbeth was holding Emma Grace, Berty climbed up on Samuel, and the two little girls snuggled as close to me as they could get. As young Sam started the motor, Joe was trying to get Harry to sit down, Kirk was scooting over by our picnic basket, trying to get off to himself, and Franky was sitting staring out over the town like the rest of us weren't even there.

Samuel reached over and took the folded blanket from my arms, at the same time touching my hand warmly. “Nice stars,” he said, his dark eyes twinkling in the moonlight.

“Nice day. Thank you for it.” I leaned over and kissed him, just a peck really, but Sarah giggled and Harry stomped his feet.

“Quit,” Lizbeth warned him again. “You gotta be quiet and sit still.”

Going down Harper Street past the boarded-up grocery store made me think of all the other businesses that had closed. The year 1932 was not a good one for Dearing, that was for sure. Even the Farmer's State Bank had locked its doors. I'd heard some people say that Oliver Porter
and his family should have been passing out food baskets instead of planning festivities; it would have been more practical. The whole countryside just didn't have enough of anything. Except children.

I fretted a bit because, like many others, we had no money left. We'd spent the last bit a couple of weeks ago for things like cornmeal and flour, and we already needed so many other things, or would soon. I knew George Hammond was in the very same shape, because we were sharing things back and forth just to get by. What would we do for shoes for all these children, before the school year returned? Every last one of them had outgrown what they'd been wearing. And most of their shoes were in awfully bad shape to be passing down.

Looking around at the children's sleepy heads, I was especially glad for the Porters' generosity, because the whole day had cost us nothing but the work Samuel did for Barrett Post in exchange for the use of his truck. Only once did Sarah ask us to buy her something at one of the sidewalk stands, and she wasn't too disappointed when we told her no.

I could remember a long-ago Fourth of July when my own daddy took me to a celebration and bought so much from the street vendors that we could hardly carry it all home. I must have been only six or seven, but I could remember clearly my Grandma Pearl's reaction. “Stuff is nice,” she'd said. “But too much will make you weak. What're you gonna do when a trial comes?”

When Daddy's trial came, he didn't face it very well. He'd liked being able to travel with his sales job and then come back and lavish money on me. But when he lost the job, he didn't come and talk it over with Grandma Pearl like he should have. He didn't come back at all, and we spent three months wondering, till we found out he'd been killed in a train accident clear up in Maine. I never did know what he'd been thinking to go there.

I looked over at Samuel in the dim light. He had his head leaned back against the truck's wooden side rail and his eyes closed again. No wonder he was tired. When Samuel lost his job early in 1930, instead of running the way my father had done, he had come out here to Illinois with us and had been working ever since to do all that needed doing—and now for the neighbors too. Emma would have been proud to see him helping George as if they were brothers. Sometimes it seemed like she'd left us the Hammonds as much as she'd left us her house, clearly intending us to treat them like family.

I wanted to snuggle in Samuel's arms the way Sarah was snuggling up in mine. We'd never asked to have so many kids in our charge. But he never complained about it, not ever. I felt like giving him another kiss and telling him how much I appreciated his kindness. But not now with all the children looking on.

“Mr. Wortham?” Franky was suddenly asking in his faraway voice. “Why did God make so many people?”

“What?” Samuel asked, stirred from near sleep as the truck jostled us around a corner and out into the countryside.

“Why did God make so many people? Seems like just a few woulda been enough.” Franky had turned around, and I could see the earnestness of his face in the moonlight. “Like maybe he coulda made jus' one town or somethin',” he continued, “instead a' hundreds an' hundreds a' towns. Plus there's years an' years afore we were ever born. That's lots more people.”

“What do you know 'bout stuff like that?” Kirk scoffed.

“Nothin' much. That's why I'm askin'.”

“I don't know much about it, either,” Samuel told them
both. “But I suppose God's got a purpose for everybody, hard as it may be to see.”

“Even folks that don't follow him?”

“Even them.” Samuel sighed. “But he's got good desires for everyone. It's just that they won't all listen, which is not his fault.”

“But there's so many,” Franky said again. “I don't unnerstand it. An' it's pretty brave, lettin' 'em have their own way, don't you think? You never know what could happen, right?”

“Franky . . .” Kirk shook his head impatiently. “Why don't you shut up—you're prob'ly keepin' people awake.”

“He's not botherin' me,” Lizbeth said quietly. “Nor Emmie Grace.”

“He's just doing a lot of thinking tonight, Kirk,” Samuel said. “No harm in that.”