The Winds of Autumn (2 page)

Now, no one in his right mind ever picked Miss Williams for the marrying kind. I mean, why would you? She had lived for years and years all alone and looked like she was enjoying it, and then, real sudden-like, she says she is getting married. To a sweetheart of some thirtyseven years, she says. Now, no one in the town knew anything at all about this fella. We’d never even heard of him. But that didn’t stop Miss Williams any. She was quitting, she said, and she never gave notice or anything, just packed up her books and her bags and took the train back to some eastern city to marry this man.

Well, that left us without a teacher. There weren’t none of us sitting around grieving much. Not even me who liked school. Jack Berry didn’t try to hide his enthusiasm—he just whooped right out. A couple of the girls gave him a real cross look, but he didn’t care. He whooped again and threw his plaid cap up into the air.

“Well,” demanded Jack, “what we gonna do with this here unexpected blessing?”

“What do you mean?” asked Willie. He was already having enough trouble working his way through English without losing precious time. “Blessing? Not a blessing far as I’m concerned. Miss Williams was an okay teacher. Wisht she would have stayed around and finished the job.”

I figured with Miss Williams already being there for thirty-seven years that she had probably stuck with the job about as long as anyone could expect her to. But even though I felt sorry for Willie, I couldn’t hide my grin. It sure did seem like a blessing. I mean with the weather beckoning one outside all the time and all. Who knew when we might have winter set in and maybe then we wouldn’t see the sun again for months? We could catch up on our studying then.

“Well,” Jack asked again, “what do we do with this here—a—hardship?”

Even Willie had to smile at that, and the first thing we knew we were all laughing. When we finally settled down we busied ourselves with some serious planning.

“I s’pose I’ll go on out to the farm,” I said. “I always do on holidays or anything.”

Jack lived just on the edge of town and there weren’t as many things to keep a boy busy at his place, his folks having no livestock or crops or anything.

“Iffen I go home my pa’ll want me to keep my nose in a book. Might as well be back in school,” complained Jack. “Fact is, I’d be better off in school. At least there we get recess.”

Willie gave Jack a withering look. Jack had the brains if he just would use them, and I think it bothered Willie some that he had to work so hard for his average grade while Jack just fooled away his time and didn’t even care what grade he got.

“Guess I’ll have me plenty a good fishin’ time,” I continued, hoping to break the tension some.

“We could all get together for some football,” put in Willie. He loved football and was good at it, too, in spite of the fact that none of us had any equipment to play the game and our folks were always worrying that someone might get hurt.

Avery spoke up then. “I’ve been thinkin’ for a long time that it sure would be fun to backpack up along the crik and spend a night or two out campin’.”

“Great idea,” I practically hollered. I wondered why I hadn’t thought of it long ago. It surprised me some to hear Avery mention it. He had never talked about it before. I had never been on an overnight hike, and with the woods looking like they did, it sounded like a first-rate idea.

Jack and Willie were about as excited as I was.

“Do you think our folks would let us?” asked Willie.

“Why not? We’re already fifteen. ’Bout time we were allowed to do somethin’ on our own.”

I agreed. I suppose I would have been pressing to get the chance ages ago if I had just thought of it.

“Let’s ask,” said Jack. “They can’t do no more’n say no.”

The thought of them saying no just about made me feel sick inside now that the idea had begun to work on me. They just had to say yes! They
had
to!

“Who you gonna ask?” Avery was saying, and I suddenly realized he was speaking to me.

“Huh?” I grunted.

“You gonna ask your aunt Lou or your grandpa?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I dunno. I’m at Aunt Lou’s right now.”

“Think she’ll let you go?”

I thought about it. Aunt Lou was understanding enough— but she was a bit protective as well. Would she understand how much it meant to a boy to go off camping on his own? I switched my thoughts to my grandpa. He was a swell person, about as kind a fella as a boy could want to have watching over him. But I was sure he had never thought of taking off into the hills on a camping trip even if the fall work was all done. Seemed to me that he might favor me staying with the books as well.

“I dunno,” I said again.

“Well, at least you’ve got a choice,” said Avery. “Me, I’ve got to convince my ma. If I can sell her on the idea, she’ll work it out with pa.”

One thing I knew for sure, I didn’t have a ma and pa to talk it over with.

“Look,” said Jack Berry, “can you fellas come over to my house after your chores are done tonight? We gotta get our heads together and plan our attack.”

Crazy Jack! He liked to make everything sound like we were all in a war against our folks or something, but nevertheless we all nodded our heads and agreed to try to get some time with one another over at Jack’s house after we hauled the water and carried in the wood and coal.

We parted then. I think we were all sort of holding our breaths. I looked again toward the distant woods as I swung through the gate at Aunt Lou’s. Boy, did they look inviting. I could visualize, from where I was, just where the crik cut through the hills and swung around to the south. I could almost hear the rustle of the gold and red leaves and feel the gentle breeze on the skin of my cheek.

A crow called, off in the distance somewhere, and I wondered why it hadn’t already left for the South. Guess it just wanted to hang around and enjoy the good weather. Boy, the woods and fields really drew a body on such a day! I could hardly settle myself down to filling the woodbox and the coal scuttle.

C
HAPTER
2
Pleading Our Case

I
DIDN’T SAY MUCH
to Aunt Lou while I wolfed down the cookies and milk she had out for me. She had already gotten the word that Miss Williams was done—had left just like that and our school was without a teacher in the middle of a term.

“It’s a shame, that’s what it is,” remarked Aunt Lou. I guess she might have been repeating what everyone else on our block was saying, for she suddenly checked herself. She thought for a moment in silence and then continued in a lower voice, sort of confidential-like, “I think it’s exciting that Miss Williams has finally made up her mind to marry the man who has been her friend for so many years. It must have taken courage. I do hope they will be happy together.”

Aunt Lou’s eyes wandered to the tintype of her own wedding on the mantel. I looked at it too, and even their proper-like expressions couldn’t hide the light in her eyes or the triumph in Uncle Nat’s. Her eyes now got a little misty, and then she sort of shook her head and spoke quietly. “It’s just too bad it had to be in the middle of the school year like this, though.”

Still, I knew Aunt Lou was quite ready to forgive Miss Williams for her small departure from accepted behavior for teachers.

She stood up.

“Well, it shouldn’t be for too long,” she said as though to comfort me. “The School Board has already called a meeting.

They expect to have a new teacher here in no time.” She reached out and patted my shoulder.

I tried to look properly sorrowful and downed the last of my milk.

“Better get at my chores,” I said to explain why I was in such a hurry. “Some of us fellas plan to go to Jack’s for a little while tonight. Sort of plan how we will handle this—this time off—without a teacher—an’ all.”

Lou smiled her approval. “Good for you!” she encouraged. “It’s nice to see you boys are responsible enough to work it out. Even with school out for a while, I’m sure you won’t suffer much with that kind of an attitude.”

I nodded agreeably. I wasn’t expecting to suffer much either—that is, if we could talk our folks into letting us do what we had in mind.

I hurried through my chores and opened the kitchen door wide enough to call to Aunt Lou that I was leaving but would be back in plenty of time for supper. She called back a cheerful response, the approving smile in her voice. I felt a little funny about it. I mean, here she was thinking we were planning on how we could keep up with our studies, and we were thinking on how we could get as far away from our books as possible in the short time we had.

Swishing through the leaves on the ground, I didn’t let it trouble me for too long. After all, I hadn’t actually told Aunt Lou that we were thinking on
studying
. She had come up with that idea herself.

I was the first one to Jack’s house. He was loafing out under the apple tree in his yard, a geometry book in his hand. I knew he had been sent out there to study. When I appeared he laid aside all pretense of looking at the book and motioned me over to join him.

“Well?” he demanded.

“Aw, I ain’t said nothin’ yet,” I told him. “Have you? I mean, I thought we were gonna meet to plan things first an’—”

“Exactly!” said Jack.

“Aunt Lou thinks I’m comin’ over here to plan how I’m gonna keep up in my schoolwork,” I said rather sheepishly.

“Did you tell her that?” asked Jack, his eyes narrowing to little slits.

“ ’Course not!” Made me a little mad at Jack. He knew very well I didn’t lie none.

“Then you can’t help how she figures it,” shrugged Jack.

“Guess—not,” I sort of stammered. “Still, I wish she hadn’t seen it that way. Might make it harder when we do ask an’ all.”

Jack didn’t look quite so cocky. “Sure hope not,” he said, and I knew he saw my point.

This time I couldn’t shake my uncomfortable feeling. I had never been untruthful with Aunt Lou, and I sure didn’t want to start now, even if it did cost me the planned hike.

Avery joined us, puffing from his run and his breathless question turned my thoughts back to our planned trip. “Who’s gonna be the cook?”

What in the world was he talking about?

“Who’s gonna cook?” he asked again, his head swiveling between us. “We gotta have someone to cook or we don’t go.”

Jack was the one to respond. “We’ll all cook.”

Avery looked doubtful. “I can’t cook,” he stated flatly and then added skeptically, “An’ I’ll bet you can’t either.”

“Don’t be crazy!” Jack scoffed. “It don’t take a cook to fix a meal over’n open fire. You just stick it over the flame and that’s it.”

“You ever tried it?” asked Avery, persistent.

Jack gave him a dark look. “Thought you was the fella who was so all fired rarin’ to go. Why you gettin’ so worked up now? Stay home if you want,” he said sarcastically, and Avery quickly changed his tack.

“Guess we could take along a loaf a bread and some cheese,”

he stated, but he didn’t sound too enthusiastic.

“I’m plannin’ to eat fish,” I announced on a positive note.

Avery never had been fond of fish or fishing.

“Who’ll cook ’em?” he asked me.

I was getting a little tired of Avery’s gloomy persistence too.

“I’ll cook ’em, that’s who.”

“You done it before?”

He had me there. My job was to catch them. It was Aunt Lou or Grandpa or Uncle Charlie who had done the cooking of them. I hadn’t even cleaned a fish on my own. Well, I was game to give it a try. Anybody could clean and cook a fish.

Willie arrived just then and saved me the bother of convincing Avery.

The four of us settled down on the green lawn of the Berry backyard, our legs crossed in front of us Indian style. We pro- ceeded to call to order, so to speak, our little meeting to make plans for the coming camp-out.

Since none of us had ever been on one before, we didn’t know just how to approach the planning. Willie reached into his jeans pocket and came up with a stub of pencil and a sheet of folded paper. We all praised him some for his good thinking, and then we looked at one another. Jack sort of took charge.

“First of all we gotta figure what we’re gonna need,” he said, and that sounded sensible enough to the rest of us.

“Blankets,” Jack started in, as though he had been doing more camp-out thinking than geometry studying while he was waiting for us to join him.

“Yeah,” agreed Avery, “it gets pretty cold at night.”

Willie scribbled “blankets” on one side of the paper.

“Food,” went on Jack to Avery’s energetic nod.

“ ‘Food’ is too general. We gotta be ’pecific,” said Willie, waiting with his pencil poised in the air.

None of us had ever done any meal planning before.

“Bread,” ventured Avery.

Willie’s pencil scratched again.

“Cheese,” continued Avery.

“Bread and cheese! You crazy? I ain’t living for days on bread and cheese,” Jack contradicted.

“Well, you say what you want then!” snapped Avery. “Don’t hear no bright ideas from you.”

Willie interrupted before Jack and Avery had time to really get in a fuss. They never had been able to get along very well.

“I’ve got ‘bread and cheese’; now what else do we want?”

“We’ll need some butter ’n flour ’n salt ’n pepper for fryin’ the fish,” I put in rather knowledgeably. I had watched Aunt Lou mix the ingredients and put the floured fish in the sizzling butter many times, and her fried fish always tasted great.

“An’ what iffen you don’t catch any fish?” questioned Jack in a smart-aleck fashion.

“Then I guess you just eat bread and cheese,” I threw back at him.

“We need pans for cooking—a fryin’ pan and a kettle of some kind,” cut in Willie to keep things from getting out of hand.

“Matches!” shouted Avery in a burst of inspiration.

We all gave him looks of appreciation. Matches at a campsite we would need all right.

Our list continued on to the back of the sheet, and before I knew it Mrs. Berry was calling Jack in for supper and the rest of us realized we’d better be getting home to our suppers, too.