“Do you have honey, ma’am?”
“I don’t need it sweetened.”
“Maybe not, but honey’s good for what ails you. When Mrs. Wortham makes a cough syrup, she always uses honey. Lemon’s good too, if you have it.”
She was quiet, maybe not knowing for sure what to think of me, a stranger rustling around in her kitchen. Maybe I shouldn’t have snooped, but I opened the cupboard on the right too and was dismayed to find nothing at all but a single jar of home-canned tomato juice and half a loaf of homemade bread. There was a potato bin close to the back door, but it had only four potatoes in the bottom. Unless they had something stored someplace else, they were almost out of food.
“Have you all had breakfast?” I asked.
Bennie nodded and his mother confirmed the answer. “You don’t have to stay,” she told me, her voice suddenly sounding scared. “You’ve done enough.”
“Truth is, ma’am, I don’t wanna stay,” I admitted. “But I ain’t gonna be able to drive off in good conscience and leave you like this. Three armloads a’ wood ain’t gonna last you long in this cold. And you got too much to deal with on top a’ that, with your sick babies and yourself being sick, plus the ankle sprain. I could go, if you tell me where to stop to send the doctor out to you, or some other help from town. I’d feel all right ’bout that.” I couldn’t even mention the food. Everything else was bad enough.
But she shook her head. “We . . . we don’t need the doctor. The chicken pox—it’ll pass.”
“There’s your cough too,” I prompted her. “And your ankle.”
She looked like she might cry again. “We can’t pay the doctor. And it’s nothing serious. I’ll be all right.”
“Got kin I can fetch? Somebody else you know?”
She shook her head. “You’ve done so much already. We’ll be all right till my husband comes home.”
“When’s he due?”
“Tonight, I hope.”
There was too much uncertainty in that for my liking, but I didn’t question her further. I just fixed her cup of tea and went back outside to split some more wood and think about this. That woman looked weaker to me than she let on. Or at least tireder. Maybe she’d been up half the night with a sick child. Or two. Or three. Maybe she’d been sick several days. Plus the fall this morning trying to get firewood. And if she was like Sarah’s mother, she prob’ly hadn’t been eating enough in the hard times, just to leave more for her babies.
I couldn’t help feeling riled inside. Somebody should have seen to things better than this, if there was any possible way. Somebody at least should have had most of this woodpile split long before this.
I knew plain enough that they didn’t have no telephone, but I was aching to get myself to one. Why couldn’t the lady have given me the name of somebody in town so I could go, relay the word, and know someone would be heading out here to help? I couldn’t leave them like this. But it pained me awful to stay, knowing I was worrying my loved ones if I didn’t get word to them.
I whacked at that wood like it was gonna help matters for me to let myself get angry. Didn’t look like I had much choice in the matter. I at least had to do this much. At least get ’em a decent woodpile to last through the day and night. My conscience wouldn’t allow any less. Just thinking of that miserable little girl with her lips blue from cold made my gut squeeze.
But what about food? There was a chicken house off to one side of the barn, but I hadn’t heard a squawk to know whether they even had chickens. I prayed so. That biggest kid could gather in what eggs there might be, if that was the case. And they had the rest of the milk. Not much else to last ’em very long. One meal, from what I’d seen. I prayed there was a pantry shelf someplace with plenty more on it, but the house was small, and the kitchen was tiny. I hadn’t seen anyplace but the cupboard for food.
Lord God, what are you doing? First you take me past a wreck on the road and now this! It’s not exactly what I had in mind when I prayed you’d use me and use this trip. Lord, help. I don’t know what more to do here. And I want to get back on the road. But can I? In the face of this?
There had to be some assurance somehow. Some way I could know I wouldn’t be leaving these people to freeze or starve if Mr. Platten didn’t get home and they were alone again tomorrow. Truth be told, it wouldn’t seem right for them to be alone even an hour, with the only able-bodied among them no more than eight years old. Three sick little ones. And a mother pretty near at the end of her rope. It wasn’t right. It made me sick inside it was so all-fired wrong.
Sometimes this world stinks
, I complained to God.
There’s good people, children, that are blind, or deaf, or hurting. And people like these that are dirt poor and don’t know what to do about it. God, what are you gonna do? What do you want me to do?
I prayed that God would send Mr. Platten, wherever he was. Or their kin. Or somebody. I filled my arms with split wood again and carried it to the house, thinking to ask Mrs. Platten again if there wasn’t somebody I could fetch for her or get word to. Surely even a neighbor would care enough to be neighborly and help them manage until Mr. Platten got home.
But she said they hadn’t lived here all that long and she didn’t know anybody they could call on.
“I gotta try,” I told her.
She looked so sick. She couldn’t hardly answer me except to take to crying again. “You’ve already . . . already answered our prayers. We thank you so much. We . . . we can make it now . . .”
One of the little girls took to crying too, and Bennie went to bring his sister to their mother’s lap.
“Maybe she’s hungry,” he suggested with his sad eyes staring up at his mother’s face.
“It’s not lunchtime yet,” she said real quiet, even though it had to be getting close to that time by now. The little girl buried her face in her mother’s blouse and kept right on fussing.
“If she’s hungry, it’d prob’ly do her good to go ahead an’ have something to eat,” I told the woman. “I can get it if you want. So’s you stay off your ankle.”
She turned her eyes to me, and the fear was in them again. But she didn’t answer.
“Don’t have much food, do you?”
She shook her head.
“How long’s your husband been gone?” The question must have sounded fierce. I could feel the anger inside me, hard as I tried to squelch it.
She lowered her head. “Six days. He—he’s bringing groceries too. Surely he’ll be here tonight. We’ll be all right until then—”
“You almost weren’t all right!” I burst out. “Do you understand that? It was so cold in this place I don’t know what might have happened—”
“I know . . .”
Her voice broke again, and I knew I shouldn’t be scolding her. It wasn’t her I was riled at anyway, but her husband, for leaving them so unprepared. But who was I to know his circumstance? Maybe he was held up by the storm. At least he’d be bringing food and coal. Soon, hopefully. But what if it wasn’t soon?
“Are
you
hungry?” I asked Bennie. Instead of answering me, he looked at his mother.
“I can make a pot of soup with what I saw in your kitchen,” I told them. “Plenty enough for all of you. Just like my mama used to make. Creamy tomato with the rest of the milk and the juice I saw. Hits the spot when it’s cold like this.”
Vera Platten reached a shaky hand in my direction. “God bless you,” she whispered.
I didn’t linger for no more words than that. I just threw a couple more logs on the fire and then went for the kitchen to find a pot and start mixing the soup. It’d boil too fast over the fire if I set it close, but I wasn’t about to let the fire die back when it was the only heat they had. There was still a awful chill in the place anywhere but right near.
Bennie followed me and watched me open their last quart of tomato juice. “Are you some kind of angel?”
“No, sir. Just a frustrated fella tryin’ to get to Camp Point, Illinois.”
“Where’s that?”
“Maybe eighty miles west a’ here.”
“Did your truck break down?”
“Had fuel pump trouble. I got it fixed though. Just got to tighten my wheel nuts to get back on the road.”
“Please don’t leave till my papa gets here.”
I looked at his pleading face.
“Mama’s been sick all of yesterday and today. I was scared.”
I tousled his hair a little. “I can understand that. I would a’ been scared too.”
“When you was out choppin’ wood, Mama told me you oughta be going, that you was a stranger an’ we couldn’t keep you from your travels no longer.”
Stirring milk into the pot, I sighed. “She’s right. I don’t belong to stay. Don’t you think it’d be better if I drove into town and sent somebody to look after you? Or maybe another house close by? Haven’t you got kin?”
“Not around here.”
“You must know somebody. Don’t you?”
“Miss Mendelson, the schoolteacher. I know her, but I ain’t been in her class since before Christmas.”
“Where does she live?”
“I don’t know. I only seen her at the schoolhouse. I ain’t been goin’ back yet because of the weather an’ Mama needin’ my help.”
“You’ve been good help today. Where’s the schoolhouse?” It was a thought, a hope. It was maybe noon on a weekday. But would school be in session?
“I don’t think there’ll be nobody there today.”
“Is there a farm close by? Who’s your nearest neighbor?”
“The Clarks. But they ain’t very friendly. I don’t think they like us much.”
“Which way?”
“Down the lane away from the road and into the timber about a half mile. I know because I walked there with Papa once. We offered to work for ’em fixin’ fence or whatever they wanted. But they shooed us away.”
Half mile. So close. “You tell me if there’s anything else I need to know ’bout gettin’ there. After I get your food made, I aim to pay ’em a visit. Maybe they’ll come till your father gets home.”
“Papa wouldn’t like that. Mama neither. They never been nice before.”
“You need help right now, from wherever you can get it.”
I took the soup pot to the fire. With salt and pepper and rosemary and a touch of cornmeal to thicken it, it wouldn’t be exactly like Mama’s, but it’d be passable good and plenty creamy. Thank the good Lord they’d had that much in the house. With a slice of the bread from the cupboard, they oughta all be satisfied for a while. Then with the fire built up and more wood handy, I could head to the neighbors and beg their help with all this. I had to be going. I had to. The day was progressing, and I didn’t wanna be another night on the road, especially without gettin’ to a telephone.
I served all of ’em close by the fire. I think Mrs. Platten was expecting me to claim a bowl of soup for myself, but I couldn’t do that. I pulled my collar up and my hat down and headed out. A half mile. Down a snowy side road I could hardly see. Taking the truck would be impossible, so I’d have to walk it in the cold.
I felt bad steppin’ off the porch and seeing little Bennie’s face staring out the window. I was sure he was scared I’d leave them. Maybe he’d rest easy seein’ I wasn’t goin’ near the truck. They were better off now than they’d been before, that was sure, but it wasn’t near enough.
I wished I coulda drove. It woulda been so much faster. But the drifts were bad and there was no way I coulda got back there. It was hard enough on foot, and my leg started bothering me, making my limp that much worse.
Down a hill and on the other side of some trees, I saw a house with smoke trailing from the chimney. Deeply relieved, I hurried my pace the best I could. And somebody must have seen out the window. The door opened before I got to it. An old man with a white beard stood starin’ at me like I was some kind of creature he’d never seen before.
“What’re you doin’ down our lane?”
“I come from your neighbor’s house, sir. They’re sore in need a’ help.”
“Which neighbors? Who sent you?”
Please, Lord. Please give him a heart of sympathy.
“I come from Plattens’. Mr. Platten ain’t home, and the Mrs. and kids are all sick ’cept the one little boy—”
“Well, what do you need from me? Who are you? Some kind of kin of theirs?”
“No, sir. I was stopped along the main road, fixin’ the fuel pump of my truck, when the little boy come out of the house wavin’ and yellin’. They’re out a’ coal. The house was cold. And he was scared because the rest of ’em are sick—”
“What kind of sick?” a woman’s voice asked me. A teeny white-haired lady stepped up behind the man.
“The little ones have the chicken pox. The mama too, but she’s got a awful cough and a sprained ankle from a fall on the ice. I split ’em some wood to get a fire goin’ in the fireplace. They’re expectin’ Mr. Platten back tonight with coal and groceries. But they need help till then. Somebody to sit with the little ones and keep ’em warm so that mother can rest up and mend. They were in a bad way, and they hadn’t oughta be alone.”
I looked right at the lady, begging her in my heart to respond. But it was the man who spoke first.
“Norman Platten don’t have a lick of sense, leaving his family without coal nor wood, and them sick too.”
I’d thought the same thing, but still I felt I had to defend the man. “They might not a’ been sick when he left. And he’s aimin’ to bring back what they need when he comes. Could be he had to go take care of that, and he didn’t realize how things’d get while he was gone.”
The woman disappeared behind the angle of the door.
“Please help them,” I begged. “The little boy tells me you’re the closest neighbors.”
The man was still looking at me pretty straight. “And you’re just a stranger off’n the road?”
“Yes, sir, and needin’ real bad to get goin’ again. I was supposed to be to my brother’s yesterday, but the storm held me up at Auburn.”
“Yep. Pretty fierce piece of wind we had.”
I stared at him. He only stood in the open doorway, not answering a word to my plea for help.
“Marvin Clark, you can get your coat on or stay here alone,” the woman said from somewhere I couldn’t see her. “There’s a sick mother with a sprained ankle and ailing children to think about. I’m going to go with this young man if he’ll help me, and do what I can till the father gets home.”