Wonderland Creek (19 page)

T
he next day, Cora took me to the shed so she could teach me how to get Belle saddled up and ready to go. “The girls and I will still help you out, but you never know when you might need to saddle Belle by yourself when we ain’t around.”

I nodded, unable to imagine a time when I would get on any horse voluntarily, let alone this one. As soon as Belle saw Cora and me, she started throwing a horse tantrum. Cora tried to soothe her. “For goodness’ sakes, Belle. What’s gotten into you?”

“Isn’t there another horse in town I could ride? One that’s a little better behaved than this one?”

“I don’t know of any other horses. In fact, Alma’s kin is going to need the mule to do the plowing, and then she’ll be without a mount. I don’t know what’s wrong with Belle. Maybe she misses Mack as much as we all do. Horses can be funny that way.”

I knew what was wrong with her—she hated me. And the feeling was mutual.

We got Belle saddled, but as I led her up to the back door where Cora’s horse and the bags of books were waiting, I noticed she was walking funny. “Cora, look . . . I think Belle is limping.” I knew I sounded happy, not concerned. Cora had just said there were no more horses in town, so if Belle was injured it would be an answer to my prayers.

“Have you been cleaning her hooves every day?”

“Cleaning her hooves? No . . . I didn’t know I was supposed to. And besides, I don’t know how.”

“Let me get the tool out of the shed and I’ll show you.” I watched Cora work, knowing I would never, ever, have the nerve to lift a horse’s hoof in the air and clean it with a scraper. “You should give her a regular brushing, too,” Cora said when she finished. I knew I couldn’t do that, either. Mack would have to take care of the horse when I brought his supplies to him.

“You’re going to have to show her who’s boss today, Alice,” Cora said as she fastened on the saddlebags. “Make her mind you.”

“But she’s a lot bigger than I am.”

“That don’t matter. Sometimes there’s a kid in school who’s bigger than the teacher is, but she still has to make him mind.”

“Oh . . . well, you see, I never did figure out how to do that, either. I was supposed to be a teacher, but I had the same problem with some of the children that I have with Belle. They wouldn’t do a thing I said.”

Cora motioned for me to climb onto the bench and gave me a boost up into the saddle. Every ache and pain from yesterday throbbed in protest.

“What you need is some gumption, Miss Alice.”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you this quiet and timid back home? Afraid of your own shadow?”

“I-I never thought I was. But things are so much different back home. I work in a town where we don’t need to ride horses because I can take the streetcar.” I wanted to add that people back home didn’t get shot at, either, unless they were gangsters. And no one back home complicated my life the way Mack and Lillie had.

“What do you do with yourself back there in Illinois when you ain’t working in a library?”

I had to think about it. “Well . . . I like to read books. That’s mostly what I do.”

“All day? That ain’t living.” It was the same thing Gordon had told me. I was starting to think he might have been right. Cora swung up into her own saddle and rode off toward the creek. “Come on, make Belle follow me,” she called over her shoulder.

“Giddy-up,” I said, nudging Belle with my knees. She didn’t move. “Go! Come on now! Giddy-up!” I jiggled the reins and kicked her until she finally began to move. But she walked toward her shed, not the creek. “No! Bad horse! Not that way! Whoa!” I tried to remember everything Cora had taught me and tightened the slack in the reins to make her stop. I used my legs as I pulled the reins in the right direction. Belle’s head swiveled toward the creek. “That’s it. Go that way. Move!” For the first time she did what I told her to do and we soon caught up to Cora. She gave me a nod and a faint smile.

“I see you found yourself some gumption.”

We rode up the creek and into the hills past Mack’s cabin, which looked quiet and deserted. I wondered how he was faring without Lillie’s potions and remedies. I also wondered what he had brought along in his mysterious burlap bag, and what the “work” was that he and Lillie mentioned. Cora had said the two of them were trying to make things better for the people in Acorn, but as far as I could tell, they still had a long way to go. Belle halted when she saw the cabin. She whinnied softly as if calling to Mack. I urged her forward again.

Our first stop was the Howard farm. It looked prosperous compared to some of the others, with a cow and mule and small log barn to put the animals in at night. I saw a man, a woman, and three children out in the field, busting up the clods of black earth with a plow, pitchforks, and hoes. It looked like backbreaking work. They waved when they saw us, and the smallest of the children, a ragged brown-haired boy, ran over to greet us.

“Pa says we can’t have a story today, Miss Cora, ’cause there’s too much work to do.”

“Okay. Maybe next time, Joe-Bob. But tell your folks that this here is Miss Alice. She’ll be bringing your books from now on.”

“Hi, Miss Alice.” He gave me a shy wave. “We finished reading all the books you brung us the last time, Miss Cora. Want me to go get them?”

I longed to tell him to please wash his hands first, which were as grubby and black as the soil. But he already had disappeared inside. Cora pulled out the new books she’d brought, and we made the exchange and moved on.

It took us the rest of the morning to get to our next stop, which was the schoolhouse. The children must have been expecting us, because they rushed out of the one-room building to greet us. The teacher stood in the doorway, smiling. Boys and girls of all ages and sizes peppered Cora with excited comments and questions, but they talked so fast that it sounded like gibberish.

“This new atlas has been a godsend,” the teacher told us when we went inside the small, stone building. I felt a surge of pride when she held up Elmer Watson’s prized book. “See what they’ve been making?” She gestured to the walls, which the children had decorated with hand-drawn maps of various countries and continents.

“This here is Miss Alice,” Cora told the children, “and she’s the one who brought that book here all the way from Ill-a-noise.” The children applauded. They applauded! I felt like a storybook heroine.

“I don’t know how we can ever thank you,” the teacher said.

“No need,” I said, sniffling. I silently vowed to start another book drive as soon as I got home.

The schoolhouse looked new, so I asked about it. “The government built it a year or two ago,” Cora said. “It was one of those make-work projects the president is always going on and on about. What do they call it? It’s the same outfit that pays us to deliver books.”

“You mean the WPA? The Works Progress Administration?”

“That’s it.”

“The school should have a lot more students,” the teacher added, “but we’ve been having trouble getting the parents to send us their children. Some folks think there must be a catch to it, and that they’ll have to pay us money. Others don’t see a need for an education since the boys will all work in the mines someday. And some folks need their children to stay home and help out with the farm work.”

“Gotta get that corn in the ground,” Cora added for my benefit.

We stayed for a few minutes, and I watched the teacher settle her class down to work. It amazed me that she could accomplish so much with barely any textbooks or materials. I had seen school districts back home toss out texts that were in better shape than the ones she had, and I vowed to talk to our school superintendent about donating our used ones.

Our last stop for the day was at a cabin and farmyard down the hill, not too far from the school. Most of the cabins I’d seen looked run-down, but this one was different. Spring flowers bloomed in an overflowing garden below the front porch. The yard was tidy and free from the usual piles of trash and rusting metal, the cabin windows clean. The firewood had been neatly stacked outside, and even the henhouse had a coat of white paint. A cow and several goats grazed in a spring-green pasture behind a rail fence.

The pretty dark-haired woman who came out to greet us looked as neat and well-groomed as her house and yard. Her dress and shoes would have been right in style back home in Blue Island. I guessed her age to be around thirty.

“I’ve been waiting for you, Cora,” she said. “Do you have time for a visit?” She spoke without a Kentucky accent.

I looked to Cora for direction and she nodded. “Sure, Maggie. We got time to set a spell.”

We tied up our horses and followed the woman inside. I was getting much better at climbing on and off my horse and rarely tumbled to the ground anymore when dismounting. I even remembered to use the horse’s left side to get on and off.

The house was just as light and cheerful on the inside as on the outside. Muslin curtains hung over the windows, colorful rag rugs warmed the floor, and a vase of flowers brightened the table. But the cabin’s most striking features were the shelves and shelves of books. I wanted to peruse them and maybe pick one or two to read, but Cora was introducing me.

“Maggie, this here is Miss Alice Ripley. She’s come all the way from Ill-a-noise to help us out and is going to be bringing your books from now on.”

“It’s so nice to meet you, Alice. I’m Maggie Coots.”

“Please, call me Allie.”

As we shook hands, I heard a terrible, wracking cough coming from the next room. “That’s my mother-in-law, Opal Coots,” Maggie said, lowering her voice. “She isn’t feeling well today, or I would introduce you. But she’s been waiting all day for her new book. She likes me to read to her in the evening. Would you like some tea, Allie? I’ll pour us some.”

I started to protest, remembering Cora’s warning, but Maggie insisted. “Please. I would love it if you would stay so we could get to know each other.” Maggie cooked on a cast-iron stove like the one in Lillie’s kitchen, instead of the open hearth, and she deftly moved the kettle to a hot spot to bring it to a boil. A wooden frame in one corner of the room had an unfinished multicolored quilt stretched out on it. The cabin walls were finished on the inside, not covered with newspapers, and decorated with framed pictures. I was dying to know what made Maggie so different from the other people I had met, but didn’t dare ask.

“I heard you’ve been staying with Miss Lillie,” Maggie said as she set out matching cups and saucers and a blue china teapot. She must have seen my surprise because she smiled and added, “News travels fast around here, especially when it concerns a flatlander. How’s Miss Lillie doing without Mack?”

“She’s . . . she’s holding up.” I wanted to say that she was the same as always, tough as an old shoe.

“I have a feeling that Mack’s passing will be the death of Lillie,” Cora said. “You know how much that boy meant to her. It might have been one bullet, but it will kill two people.”

Maggie looked away for a moment as if to control her grief. Emotion thickened her voice when she spoke again. “I was so sorry that I didn’t get down for his funeral. I heard it was lovely.” Then she regained control and changed the subject. “What books did you bring me today, Cora? And, Allie, you can go ahead and look through my collection if you want.” She must have seen me eyeing the shelves.

“Thanks. Maybe I will.” I stood and walked to the first bookshelf, tilting my head to read the spines.

“If you see one you like, you’re welcome to borrow it. How long will you be staying in Acorn?”

“I-I’m not sure.” It was the closest I could come to an honest answer. I quickly moved to the next bookshelf to escape Maggie’s scrutiny. When the water boiled, we sat and talked about our favorite novels and authors as we sipped our tea. I liked Maggie Coots a lot and hated to leave when Cora said it was time to go. But even though Maggie’s home had been gracious and cheerful, I still sensed the same aching sadness I’d felt in so many of the other places we’d stopped.

“Maggie seems different from the other people I’ve met,” I told Cora on the way home, hoping to get her talking.

“She’s a flatlander like you—no offense.”

“Why is she living here?”

“She came with a group of church folks from up north. Do-gooders. You know the type. But she fell for Hank Coots, a local boy, and they ended up getting married. He died in an accident at the mine. He and Mack were best friends—and now they’re both gone.”

“Her cabin was very pretty inside.”

“It’s the only one up in these hills that has a road leading up to it. It’s just a dirt road, but that’s how they were able to haul the stove and the glass windows and all them other things way up here. Folks say Maggie has money from her kin up north. Never seen any of her kin down here visiting, though.”

“I wonder why she stays here, now that she’s widowed?”

“She takes care of her mother-in-law, Opal Coots.”

“Why doesn’t she take her to a hospital back home for medical treatment?”

“Ain’t no cure for what Miss Opal’s got. Besides, Opal won’t go. Says she was born here, and she plans to die here and be buried with her kin. I give Maggie credit for not running off and leaving her.”