Halley (17 page)

In silence, Halley and Kate put Ma Franklin in her rocker and wrapped her in quilts. The old woman closed her eyes and sank down as though asleep, but the tears kept flowing. Nobody said anything. The terrible silence continued as Kate and Halley went back to the wash. Kate moved more slowly than before and when she turned, Halley saw a bloody streak on the sleeve of her dress. Halley gasped and reached out to touch it, but Kate shrugged off her hand.

It was a relief to escape that room to hang the last of the clothes on the line. It was misery to return to it. Though her grandmother was right, Halley felt an unwilling pity for Pa Franklin. The old man seemed as shrunken as his wife, and for once he did not seem to know what to say. Several times he cleared his throat as though to speak, but no words came.

At dinner they ate beans and cornbread in the same terrible silence. After the meal, Pa Franklin put on his coat and left the house. The cash box, Halley noticed, he left on the kitchen table.

Ma Franklin looked at it and then at the kitchen door. “Sometimes,” she said slowly, “people find out too late what matters and what don’t.”

21. Called By Name

Kate was moving stiffly Thursday morning. She still wore the dress with the blood stain.

“You best put some salve on your arm and back,” Ma Franklin said when she noticed it, “so them places will heal.”

“I want ’em to take their time getting well,” said Kate. “It’ll keep me reminded what I’ve got to do.”

When breakfast was almost ready and Halley went to the far room to get Robbie, she found Golly there, too. The dog was lying on a clean sheet with a pillow case wrapped around one leg.

“Robbie!” Halley said.

“Don’t be mad,” Robbie said. “Pa Franklin hurt Golly’s leg yesterday and I’m doctoring it. I’ll wash everything.”

“You bet you will!” she answered, squatting to unwrap the dog’s leg. As she expected, it wasn’t injured seriously, but the blood and dirt spotted a number of places on both sheet and pillowcase. “In fact, you’re going to scrub them right after breakfast, before it sets in,” she said, letting the dog out. “And if Pa Franklin asks what you’re doing,
you
can explain.”

Robbie hung his head, but Halley refused to soften. “I’m sick and tired of trying to undo and cover up your mischief. If you hadn’t been fooling with the piano yesterday, Pa Franklin wouldn’t have got mad and whipped Mama. Ma Franklin wouldn’t be mad at him, and Mama wouldn’t be about to marry Bud Gravitt. It’s all your fault.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You always are. Well, this time that’s not good enough.”

She was still angry at breakfast—too angry to eat. She nibbled at her biscuit while her gravy congealed on her plate. Nobody else was eating much either. Ma Franklin’s food was untouched. The old woman huddled in her quilt wrapper, a far-away look in her eyes. Pa Franklin was the only one making much attempt at conversation.

He looked at Robbie just as Robbie put a biscuit in his pocket. He opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to think better of it. A moment later he said, “Boy, I noticed you left them new Christmas boots of yours out on the porch again.”

This was Halley’s cue to speak up and explain and defend as she always did. This time, however, she kept silent.

Pa Franklin drained his coffee cup and then looked from Kate to Halley. Neither offered to refill it, and so he finally got up to fetch the pot himself. “Boots cost money,” he said when he sat back down. His eyes fell on the cash box still in the center of the table, and then his eyes skimmed over a letter propped against the box. He leaned closer and squinted at his wife’s spidery handwriting. It was addressed to the eldest Franklin daughter.

“What you writing Eunice about?” he asked at last. “I hope you ain’t about to do something foolish.”

His wife did not look at him. “Nothing foolish,” she said. “You can count on that.”

Pa Franklin cleared his throat and changed the subject. “Temp Little told me yesterday when I went after Sukie that Trammell Pilcher’s killing a hog tomorrow. Says he’s looking for help. And you recollect he’s generous in giving messes of fresh meat.”

Kate looked toward her sewing machine where the dress pieces she had cut out yesterday were stacked. “I got a dress to make.”

“I’m going to Carrie Gowder’s to get more tea for Grandma,” Halley said, realizing after she’d said it that this would only excuse her for today. “And I’ve got ironing to do tomorrow,” she added.

“Mail my letter on your way to Carrie Gowder’s house,” Ma Franklin said to Halley.

“I can mail it for you,” Pa Franklin offered.

“Thank you just the same,” she answered. “I want Halley to do it. She don’t break into other people’s mail.” She reached for the cash box, opened it and took out a quarter. “And give this to Carrie to put on her granddaughter’s schooling. I’m allus proud to see somebody bettering themselves. I just wish my own granddaughter could do the same.”

Pa Franklin’s mouth opened to protest, but he stifled it and eased back into his chair.

As soon as breakfast dishes were over, Halley set Robbie to scrubbing the sheet and the pillowcase in a wash tub set next to the stove. Pa Franklin looked but asked nothing.

“I’m going to Carrie Gowder’s,” Halley said when it was time to leave. She half expected Pa Franklin to enforce the “no leaving the house” rule that he had pronounced on the way home from the Calvin’s. But, again, he held his tongue.

Outside, Halley found Golly huddled on the porch next to Robbie’s boots, licking his wound. “Robbie’s working,” she told him. “Why don’t you get under the house before you freeze to death?”

In the pasture, she saw the cows. Maybe the cold weather would stop Sukie from escaping if the fence repairs didn’t. Both cows were down near the pond, which appeared frozen over. Probably looking for water, she thought. Then she passed the earthen dam at the end of the pond and saw that below it the creek still flowed, though fringed with ice along the banks.

At the road she put her grandmother’s letter in the mailbox and raised the flag. By this time Halley’s cheeks and nose were stinging, and her feet numb. She ran to the cut off to the Gowder place. As she turned, she heard the sound of chopping off to the left. The Gowders needed lots of fuel. In addition to feeding fireplaces and stoves, they had big bricked-in outside ovens where they baked their pots. Judging from the stacks of wood around the edge of the yard, they must be getting ready to do some firing.

In front of Carrie Gowder’s work shed, two colored men were loading a wagon with pots of all sizes. Between and around pots they placed burlap. Carrie came out of the shed with two large pots, and behind her came Opal with a churn. Trailing close behind was one of the dogs Halley remembered from her previous visit. He barked but kept his place behind Opal. The girl set down her load and laid a hand on the dog’s head.

Carrie Gowder nodded at Halley in greeting and then turned back to the wagon. “Stack careful, Lige,” she told the older of the two men. “These pots got to travel many a mile—all the way to Atlanta, if need be. But leave room for the dog bed. Major be giving out the alarm if anybody try to steal.”

“And I don’t git no pocket money?” the man asked.

Carrie shook her head emphatically. “Not this time, Lige. I done told you. You ain’t spending Opal’s school money.” She turned to Opal. “Take Miss Ada’s girl on to my living cabin and ’low her to warm herself. Fire be one thing we got plenty of.”

As Opal and Halley headed toward the cabin, Carrie was inspecting the load of pots and suggesting improvements in placement and stacking. “Soon as this cold spell breaks, you gone to head out,” she was saying.

“You’re really and truly going to school?” Halley asked, when she was inside the cabin and backed up to the fireplace.

A boy off to one side of the hearth laughed, showing a mouthful of white, even teeth. “Opal think she gone be a doctor or nurse.”

Opal stared the boy down. Her face was fierce. “I
am
gone be a doctor or nurse someday. You’ll see.”

There was a long silence, and then Carrie came in.

“I want to go to school, but I don’t know if I will,” Halley said. “Times are bad.”

“Times never gone be good,” said Carrie Gowder. “Not lessen we makes ’em good by doing good things.”

She was right, Halley thought. How come this old woman knew this, and her folks didn’t?

“How Miss Ada doing?”

“Still ailing,” Halley replied.

Carrie looked at the fruit jar Halley held. “Guess you’ve come after more tea.”

Halley nodded. “And Grandma says to take this quarter toward Opal’s schooling.”

“Bless you,” Carrie said and slid the coin into her apron pocket.

While Carrie went to her cellar to fetch the makings of the tea, Halley looked around the room. It was as clean as the Franklin house and perhaps better furnished. For sure, it was warmer. The bed in the corner looked as soft as a cloud. And, she suddenly realized, on the inside, Opal was more like her than anyone else she knew.

She thought about this on the way home. How unfair her life was—Opal would go to school and become a doctor or nurse, while Halley would probably end up working in the mill or maybe marrying and having eight or ten children. The future she was seeing was so bleak that it didn’t seem worth living for.

She was still lost in these thoughts when she turned off the road by the Franklin mailbox. Moments later she saw Bud Gravitt’s truck in front of the house. Then she saw Pa Franklin headed in her direction at a fast pace, his breathing making smoky puffs like a steam engine.

The last thing Halley wanted was another fussing out from him. Cutting off the road, she crawled through the barbed wire fence as if she wanted to look at the frozen pond.

“Girl!” he called. “Girl, you stop.”

The word “girl” was like a slap, and she could suddenly endure it no longer. She swung around to face the old man. “I’m not answering to anybody calling me ‘girl.’ I’ve got a name.”

Pa Franklin reached the fence and crawled through the wire. “All right,
Halley
. You satisfied?”

“Yes, sir,” she said. She wanted to yell it. It was the first time he’d ever called her by name.

“You better be talking to your mama. Kate’s about to make a big mistake.”

Over her grandfather’s shoulder Halley saw Golly running through the pasture, with Robbie right behind him. Then she realized that the dog had something red in his mouth. It looked like another version of the old game of “keep away.” Suddenly she realized what the red thing was—one of Robbie’s new rubber boots.

“You better be speaking up,” Pa Franklin continued.

Halley shook her head. “Mama won’t listen.”

“Make ’er listen. You and your brother
think
I’ve been hard. Wait until you got a stepfather over you. Wait until you’re in
his
house, eating at
his
table. Then you’d give a thousand dollars for the chance to be back here.”

“I doubt that,” Halley said.

Golly stopped for a moment and shook his head from side to side. Probably digging holes in the rubber with his teeth. Then as Robbie drew near, the dog took off again.

“Another thing,” Pa Franklin said, “you need to say a few words to your grandmother. She taken a bunch of things wrong.”

Halley took no pity. “You’re the one who has to say something to her,” Halley said.

“There’s something in it for you, too,” Pa Franklin continued on as if she had not spoken. “If your grandma gets back to herself and your ma sends Gravitt packing, I think you might be able to go to that there school when summer comes.”

Halley was astonished. He must be desperate if he was willing to offer school as a bribe. But then he went further. “I might even see my way clear to help you get that headstone you wanted for Jim.”

“I don’t want your help,” she answered. “If you hadn’t emptied out my money box, I’d already have a stone on Daddy’s grave. You’re mean and stingy, and I don’t want any help from you on anything.”

“Listen to the pot calling the kettle black,” said Pa Franklin. “Yeah, I guess I
am
stingy. But look at your own self—had nearly a hundred dollars hoarded away when your family was so hard up they didn’t have two dimes to rub together. So who’s stingier, you or me?”

The words took Halley’s breath away. “I’m not like you,” she said. “I’m
not
!”

“Is that right?” said Pa Franklin. “You kept your money in a make-believe book, and I kept mine in a tin box. How does that make you different?”

“Well, for one thing, I never stole money from somebody else,” said Halley. “I
worked
for it. And I wasn’t saving it just for
me
. It was for me and my family.”

“Stop!” Robbie yelled, and Halley saw that Golly had run out on the bridge of dirt that dammed the pond. He stopped halfway and shook his head just as Robbie got close enough to make a grab for the boot. Robbie only succeeded at knocking the boot out of the dog’s mouth and sending it flying onto the ice. In a flash, Robbie was scooting down the embankment.

“No!” Halley screamed. “No! The ice isn’t thick enough!”

Robbie didn’t seem to hear. He was on the ice now and Halley could see it moving in waves. Then Golly was on the ice, walking so gingerly that Halley knew he must sense the danger. The dog grabbed the boot delicately, turned, and headed in a stiff legged walk for the bank. In several places a paw broke through before he reached the bank and climbed up it.

“Run that dog off,” Halley screamed to her grandfather. “Don’t let him back on the ice.” To her brother, she said, “Lie down!” and for once Robbie obeyed, spreading himself face-down on the ice. Climbing down the bank, Halley swung out her arm to get him, knowing full well even as she did so that she could not reach him.

She needed a rope, a limb, something. Her coat! Jerking it off, she held it by one sleeve and flung it out to her brother. It didn’t quite reach, so she tried again and again, getting her feet closer to the ice with each try.

Then her grandfather was beside her. “Crawl on your belly,” he ordered. Halley saw a crack in the ice open and move like a snake toward her brother. She made one last desperate lunge for him and lost her balance. Suddenly she plunged through the ice and into the frigid water, going down, down to the depths of the pond. The world went black. She knew she was going to die.

Halley woke slowly. Voices surrounded her—her mother, her grandmother, Bud Gravitt, and Robbie. She blinked. She was wrapped in a quilt next to the stove in the kitchen. Her mother was crying.

“Oh, Bud, all she wanted was schooling, and I couldn’t give her up.”

“I was the same about you marrying,” Halley wanted to say, but she didn’t have the strength. She closed her eyes but could hear Robbie talking a mile a minute. “And Grandpa pulled me off the ice and then Halley fell in, trying to get me. And Grandpa jumped in and I thought they both would be dead . . .”

“Hush,” said Ma Franklin.

“I’m going for a doctor,” said Bud Gravitt.

With great effort, Halley opened her eyes again. “I’m okay,” she said through chattering teeth. “Just tired and cold.”

Kate knelt beside her and embraced her. “Another quilt. She needs more cover.”