Life Is Short But Wide (9 page)

Unfortunately, it was at least a year before Rose let any man come in her house unless she really, really, really knew the man, and she wouldn’t let herself be alone with one, anywhere. She prayed often. “I am a ruint woman. What am I gonna do, Lord?”

Rose also thought, “Now, I really do need a husband. Rut I don’t get to meet anyone. I don’t know how to act around men, like Tante did. I don’t know how to dress cause I don’t ever go anywhere except’n church, and I haven’t been going there lately.

“And I look like a frump, and I’m so stupid. These young men don’t have any way to take care of nobody. And suppose I have a baby? What will I do then? Resides all of that, I don’t know anyone I like enough to marry.”

Time and circumstance had brought Rose very close to Bertha. She was always giving Bertha some food for her family, or something she could use. They had so little. Wings and Cloud kept Rose supplied with meat they hunted around their woods. “But, no birds, Wings. I hate to see birds killed,” she told him.

But she had found out she didn’t like to be
asked
for anything important. It would make her feel a little bit used. Bertha very seldom asked for anything that would set that frown on Rose’s face.

One day Bertha was about to leave Rose’s house, then turned back, with a sigh. She took a deep breath, and said, “Rose, I don’t like to ask favors of nobody. Your family always been so good to us.” She ran out of nerve, waved her hand in disgust, and said, “Never mind, never mind.”

Rose urged her on, “No. Go ahead, Bertha. You are my neighbor, and my friend. Everybody else is gone. What is your favor you want to ask me?”

Bertha shook her head, sadly, saying, “Well, it look like we gonna be gone, too. Joe jes not makin enough money for us to keep rentin that house we got to live in. Don’t know what we gonna do. Don’t want to be no sharecropper again. And you know, Joe will work hard, but you got to have somethin to work AT. So we probly be movin pretty soon.”

Rose immediately felt the blow of her near neighbor leaving the vicinity. “You want to borrow some money? Bertha, I don’t have much money. My daddy was my help. I got my class, but, shoot, you know those classes don’t put much in my hand. I don’t have no husband helping me, none. My blessing is I don’t have to pay rent. This house is free and clear. My parents saw to that, thank God.

“I’ve thought of renting my schoolhouse, that shotgun house? Renting it out, and going back to that storage shed Mama used to use.”

Bertha’s heart sank. “Oh, that’s jes what I was gonna ask you, could we rent it.”

Rose had been thinking about renting that house for some time. Some people said the Depression was over, but it surely wasn’t over everywhere. Especially not in Wideland. Rose answered, “You can’t afford no rent, Bertha. If I rent it to you, then we both will be sittin here worrying about what to do!”

They sat in silence for a few moments, both sets of eyes looking off somewhere in the future.

Finally, after thinking to herself, “I need to keep some friends close,” Rose asked, “You know what we can do?”

Bertha looked up.

Rose continued, “This is a good size piece of land, with all these trees. I love them all, but I don’t need them all. Why doesn’t Joe build you all a little two or three room shotgun house, way over there,” she pointed, “on that corner away from this house so we won’t be right on top of each other? I’ll let you all do that.”

Bertha looked up, thinking, “Thank the Lord!”

Rose asked, “How much you pay to rent that house you in?”

“Three dollars a month.”

Rose began to say, “I’ll lend …” She thought of Tante’s advice, and changed her mind. “I’ll give you two dollars this month so you can make your rent. And he can get started while you live in that house, and work on your … the new house. It won’t be no fancy shotgun house, so he might be through in a month. He will have to work on it every day, but that’s the way
life is now. He has to work on it every day! And, surely, he has friends who can help him!”

Tears slid down Bertha’s face as she said, “Oh he will, Mz. Rose, he will. I’ll help him. I’m gonna go find him now, and tell him, so he can ease his mind. Oh thank you, and thank the Lord!”

Joseph was heartily thankful. A poor man carries such a burden, sometimes hard, sometimes happy, trying to keep his family safe and eating.

Soon Rose heard the sawing of trees, and the hammering of nails. She smiled; they were getting a home, and she was improving her property and income.

Even with old Brave home sleeping on the floor beside her bed every night, and Bertha’s family soon to be on her land, Rose was lonely.

Tante called now and then, and even sent small amounts of money to her. But it did not look like she was coming home anytime soon.

There were times Rose felt saddled with the house; she couldn’t leave and go off seeking life. Then she would think, “I love my home. I don’t care what anybody else is doing. I’m just tired of being here all alone. I know I have Bertha and Juliet to talk to, and I’m glad of that. But I need a man; I need a husband to have my own children!”

Wings was getting older, and did not do much, if any, short distance travel. He was settled in with his children and grandchildren, one of which was named after Val. When the beloved old
dog, Brave, died, one of Wings’s sons came into town with Cloud to get the dog and bury him near the reservation. Wings tried to keep all the things he loved near him, and the dog had been Val’s.

Wings passed away quietly one night while he had been outside sleeping under the stars. His family and his people greatly grieved over him. Wings had been a good, kind man. He was buried close to Val’s grave, in his own family plot. He left several grown children, and many handsome grandchildren. Many people of all colors came to his funeral. Rose was right in front. Tante didn’t come, of course.

One day, not too long after that, Rose sat in her porch swing thinking about life and death. The sun shone down on her, warming her body. She was thinking of her father, mother, and Wings. Of how long she had been alone, and her own age. “This world and time is just going by too fast!”

Her thoughts turned to marriage again, so she thought of the young man who had helped Joseph build the little house. “He seemed nice; he had manners, nice teeth, and he could read pretty good; he was in one of Mama’s classes.” She pushed the swing into motion with her feet. “But that isn’t enough for me. There just seemed like something was missing! I deserve better.”

She leaned back in the swing, eyes closed, thinking, the light breeze blowing gently on her body. She heard the sound of a wagon stopping in front of her house. She opened her eyes and watched as an older lady made her way out of the wagon with the help of an old man. He led-pushed her to the gate, and waited as she made her way to the front steps, not too slowly, but certainly not quickly.

She was a portly, older woman dressed in an almost neat, slipshod way. Rose thought, “She works for a white lady. Secondhand clothes.” The woman obviously had a corset on, under a red dress with a black velvet collar, and was wearing thick cotton stockings with only one or two little holes in them.

She reached the steps, looking back for the man to help her; she gave that up, waved him back. She pulled herself up the steps to speak to Rose. Rose got up, going to the edge of the steps, asking, “Good evening, ma’am. How can I help you today?”

The woman reached the top of the steps, breathing heavily. Rose lifted her hand in the direction of the swing. “Would you like to rest a minute?”

The woman took a deep breath, tried to smile, said, “Sure would … and a cup of water, if ya please.”

Rose nodded, saying, “You just sit right there. I’ll be right back.”

While Rose was gone, the woman settled herself on the swing, gingerly. She was a large woman, and any sudden movement would have made the swing unsteady.

Rose returned and, handing the glass of water to her visitor, asked, “What may I do for you, ma’am?”

“Well, you can let me get my breath. It’s hot and ya just gave me the water. And them steps was a lil bit hard on me this evenin.”

Rose smiled, and moved toward a small stool, saying, “I’ll just sit on this stool while you get ready to tell me.”

The woman fanned herself with one hand, and drank the water in the other hand. She handed the glass back to Rose, saying, “Ya’ a mighty bless’d woman! I hear ya haves a little
house … sittin out here, empty!” She turned to look at the little house Rose used as a classroom. “And that is jes what I needs to talk to ya about.”

Rose opened her mouth to speak when the lady spoke again. “I got a daught’a, a grown daught’a, and she got a husband who works at the hospital (she said this proudly), a good steady job! All they need is to rent a nice lil place like yourn.”

She leaned closer to Rose as she said, “I seen you at church … sometime, and I knows you are a good, kindly lady. Ever’body say so. My name is Alberta Wilson. I knows you is Rose Strong. Your daddy passed on not too long ago, and your sister done left you here all on your own to take care this here place all by yoursef. I can help ya!”

“I use that house for my classroom.”

Alberta Wilson asked, “You got any pupils?”

“Not too many, but enough.”

Alberta Wilson smiled. “Well, it’s summertime now, and everbody is out of school for a lil while. All we need is a place for a lil while. You can use the rent, can’t ya? These hard times is lastin for years, ain’t they?”

Rose frowned as she answered, “Everybody can use money. How long would they be here?”

The woman sighed, carefully sitting back on the swing. “Oh, not so long … two weeks? A month?”

“Why don’t they stay where they are, if that’s all the time they need?”

“Cause they stayin with me, and childrens don’t pay their mama no rent.”

Rose had to smile. “Your daughter got a lot of furniture? That’s a small house.”

“She ain’t got too much. Her stuff got burnt up in a fire.”

“They smoke?”

The woman heard the alarm in Rose’s voice. Shaking her head, she said, “No, no. Just a fire was somebody else fault. I don’t like them smokers either!” Mrs. Wilson reached her hand out to Rose, saying, “Chile, ma’am, I don’t know if you has ever needed somethin in these hard times everbody is havin, but, PLEASE, please, don’t say no. God will surely bless ya for helpin his childrens in need.”

Wishing she could talk to Bertha, Rose took a deep breath, and looked at her classroom that someone was always trying to take from her use for their use. It was around 1936, the depression was still going on. She had no help since Wings had died but the little money Tante sent, and a little pay from her students. Rut her students struggled to pay five or ten cents a lesson. And she always prepared something for them to eat because she knew they were hungry, and that’s why they came with their little nickels and dimes. Well, she thought now, “if it’s only for two weeks or a month.” She said, “How much are you planning on paying for two weeks?”

“Oh, ma’am, at least a month, please, ma’am. How some much ya askin for?”