As I counted the ticket stubs, clipped them to the register tape, and then totaled the money from the children who had paid with cash, I was aware of the usual postlunch activity in the kitchen. I heard Algeria call, “That pizza dough's gotta come out the freezer 'fore we leave!” I heard the squeaky wheels on the cart of dirty pots and pans that Francine wheeled past my door, as well as the swish of fabric between her ample thighs with every step that she took, and I heard the later clunking and spraying from her work at the dishwasher. Birdie was everywhere, wiping down surfaces, tying up garbage bags, stacking empty boxes by the service door.
Francine left first, a few minutes before two o'clock. I had just placed the cash in the bank deposit pouch and zipped it when I saw Birdie disappear into the walk-in pantry with the leftover box of potato flakes.
I saw Algeria quickly gather up the unused packets of salad dressing and follow Birdie into the pantry, ducking her head to clear the low entrance. Though I do not, as I have said before, consider myself a meddlesome person as regarding the affairs of others, I could see that Algeria had business on her mind other than the returning of the packets of dressing, and I could not suppress my curiosity.
The refrigerator, which is actually the size of a large closet, occupies one corner of the kitchen, next to which is the pantry. I took a pen from my desk drawer, walked out of my cubicle, and approached the refrigerator door, on which is posted a chart for notating the temperature of the unit. Twice each day I must check and record the temperatures for each of the two freezers, the large refrigerated storage room, and the smaller cooler. Standing before the chart, my pen poised as if to write, I could distinctly hear the voices of Birdie and Algeria in the pantry a few feet away.
“â¦the blame for it all?” Algeria was saying. Her tone was gruff but not hostile.
“Well, now, no. I don't remember it that way at all,” Birdie said. “I was in such a hurry to get my little jobs done that I wasn't remembering there were two other people working just as hard, and I whirled around and scooted off without even checking to make sure the way was clear.”
“Don't matter what you say, you know we was both of us whirlin' 'round at the same minute headin' off different ways. Wasn't you any more'n it was me. We had us a head-on what wasn't nobody's fault, or else was both of us's.” I heard a soft scraping like boxes moving on a shelf. Algeria continued. “No need you going on that way to Margaret like you just come over and push me down or somethin'. Wasn't that way 'n you know it.”
Hearing Birdie talk but being spared the distraction of seeing her, I realized what a gentle, agreeable voice she had; it could be called melodious. She replied pleasantly but firmly, “Well, it seems funny, doesn't it, that you were the one who ended up on the floor? If we both ran into each other, it looks like I would have been the one to get knocked down. You're a whole lot stronger and taller than me, Algeria. No, you see,
I
was the one who took off pell-mell and had time to work up a little steam, and you just innocently turned around when I”âI heard a clapping of hands, which I assumed to be Birdie'sâ“ran right into you. And
that's
the way it was.”
“Wasn't neither,” said Algeria, “but you got your mind made up, don't do no good arguin' with somebody stubborn like you.” Her tone had changed, though, and I could detect the shift to bantering.
“And the funny thing about it,” Birdie resumed, taking up Algeria's playful tone, “was that I could almost
declare
that you pulled that pan of potatoes in toward yourself on purpose, like you were trying to protect
me
. Oh yes, there's no doubt in my mind that I was the culprit from start to finish. It's awfully nice of you to try to take part of the blame, but I just won't let you do it.”
“You don't make no sense,” Algeria said. “How come you doin' it?”
“Doing what?” Birdie said.
“Bein' so nice like that all the time. Like everybody else so good and nice you can't think nothin' bad 'bout 'em. People
mean
, 'n you know it. You always talkin' niceâhow Francine so funny 'n Margaret so smart 'n somebody else so purty. And you always goin' 'round givin' people stuff.” (Birdie had brought Algeria a tin of homemade divinity that very morning.) “People
mean
, girl,” she repeated.
“Oh well, I know we're not all saints and angels,” said Birdie. “I know I'm not, that's for sure. But God's been so good to me, and the way I see it, Algeria, I'm not going to be here on earth very long. Nobody is. So I can either make up my mind to be happy and kind and show the love of Jesus, or I can be a negative sort of person and miss out onâ¦well, on
everything
.”
“You crazy, girl, plum crazy,” Algeria said, and as I saw her exiting the pantry, I put my pen to the chart and recorded beside the date the numeral 40, though to be honest, I had not yet looked at the thermometer inside the refrigerator.
After overhearing the conversation between Birdie and Algeria, I returned to my desk in a state of agitation and prepared to leave, these being the thoughts that filled my mind: First, Birdie's moralistic sermonizing concerning one's years on earth brought to my mind a similar statement by Sarah, or “Sadie,” Delany in the aforementioned book
Having Our Say
, the book I was, in fact, currently reading at home. At the end of chapter eighteen, Sadie proclaims, “Life is short, and it's up to you to make it sweet.”
I have no reason, I suppose, to doubt the sincerity of either Birdie or Sadie, but I admit to feeling a flush of impatience toward them both. What narrow, tidy, untroubled lives they must have lived to be able to cling to such a philosophy, I thought. I would like to have presented them with a variety of scenarios and asked them both how they would propose making such a life “sweet” or “happy.”
I would like to have invited them both for a private reading of selected chapters from some of the books I had read.
Gal: A True Story
by Ruthie Bolton could have served well. After reading several chapters to them, I would have asked, “Would the mere act of
making up her mind to be happy
have transformed Gal's life into a good, sweet one?” Although Gal's grandfather did not approach my own in the degree of his moral degradation, happiness and sweetness were out of the realm of possibility for her, given the indisputable
reality
of her circumstances.
Though I meant at this time never again to share my own dark memories with anyone else, after having unintentionally divulged the truth to Joan, I could not help wondering how Birdie Freeman and Sadie Delanyâone a white woman and the other blackâwould have stretched their shared ideology, pat and rosy, to accommodate a past such as mine.
I did not think only of myself, however. Knowing very little of Algeria's personal life, I nevertheless felt reasonably confident from her general saturnine demeanor and occasional verbal flares that she had been allotted a generous portion of sorrow. As I left the kitchen, walked through the lunchroom, and approached my car in the minutes that followed, I indulged in a few moments of speculation concerning Algeria.
Was she presently ruminating, as was I? Was she privately arguing with the idealistic preachments of Birdie Freeman, a woman whose life had apparently borne no blemish of shame or cruelty? These thoughts perhaps marked for me a turning point of sorts, for until this time I had rarely wondered about the lives of real individuals within my circle of acquaintance. If asked to name those whom I knew most intimately, my list would have been composed largely of the names of characters in books.
Had Birdie's world been destroyed as mine had been following my thirteenth birthday, would she have grown up to be happy and kind? Had she, or I, been born black and underprivilegedâtwo conditions not invariably paired, of course, as illustrated in the case of the Delany sisters, though Algeria would surely argue otherwiseâwould we have achieved lives of sweetness and joy? After a life breaks apart like a tree ripped asunder by a violent storm, can it take root again? After one's heart crumbles, can one gather up the fragments that remain and make them whole again? Can debris be reassembled into beauty? It was the last Monday of September when I posed these questions to myself in that order, and I answered each of them without hesitation:
No
.
It is now more than nine months later, however, and I am reinvestigating the matter. In the process of laying out on paper the past months, I mean to discover the clue to another riddle song, that of Birdie Freeman. Of a certainty there is something in one's soul, in the heartwood of his being, that is imperishable. When one leaves the wildwood, does he not carry with him
something from oak and pine
that is indestructible, that remembers the promise of spring?
Birdie was a formidable opponent. One can see what I was up against. As the weeks wore on, she made herself indispensable at Emma Weldy by virtue of her tireless generosity. I cannot begin to chronicle the sum of her dealings with others, each interaction giving evidence of her fundamental and unceasing kindness. I realize as my chapters mount that I cannot tell it all, that by the end I must be prepared to admit, as the Queen of Sheba, that the half has not been told. I must therefore carefully choose the events to include, those that will best define the essence of Birdie Freeman.
From the beginning she rarely appeared at work without a gift for someone, and I believe it is accurate to say that before six weeks had passed, that is by the first of October, everyone at the school knew Birdie by name and everyone loved her, though for my part I continued to behave outwardly as if I could scarcely tolerate her presence. Her ministrations extended beyond the kitchen walls. By October she had volunteered to help the music teacher, Miss Grissom, with the Emma Weldy Singers on Monday and Thursday afternoons.
While waiting for Mickey to pick her up after school one day, Birdie had sat in the back of the music room during one of Miss Grissom's rehearsals, after which she had inquired of Miss Grissom concerning the possibility of putting her time to use by helping to pass out books, file music, prepare bulletin board materials, and so forth. When Miss Grissom discovered that Birdie played the piano, she had asked whether she would consent to serve as accompanist so that Miss Grissom could devote her full attention to conducting the group. Heretofore Miss Grissom's conducting technique had consisted primarily of bobbing her head and shouting instructions as she herself played the piano score for each number.
Moreover, by October Birdie had further endeared herself to the entire school by offering to type up what she called “our very own school newspaper with samples of all the little children's stories.” The inception of the idea had taken place one afternoon near dismissal time when she had gone to Mrs. Tina Lowry's second-grade classroom to return a child's lunch box that had been left on one of the cafeteria tables. As Birdie told it, the pupils were reading stories they had written about autumn, and she reported, “They were just the cutest things!”
I heard her talking to Algeria and Francine about the experience in the days that followed. “You know, it's too bad all the other children and teachers couldn't hear those stories” and “I wonder if the children in other grades are writing stories like that, too” and “To see that little ragamuffin of a boy looking so proud and cheerful reading that story of his about the little twirly-pods, he called them, blowing down from the trees. Why, it just reminded me of how simple and precious little children are.” I could imagine Birdie standing in the back of Miss Lowry's classroom, her hands laid to her cheeks, her mouth opened wide, her eyes sparkling as she listened.
The following week she asked Mr. Solomon, the principal, if he would allow her to solicit from the teachers samples of their students' stories so that she could compile a collection and type a master copy to be duplicated for distribution to all the children. Before talking with Mr. Solomon, Birdie had calculated the exact cost of the paper and staples needed and made it clear that she would donate her time to do the typing, duplicating, and collating. At that first meeting with Mr. Solomon, she had even suggested a few names for the “newspaper,” as she called it, which I felt to be a misnomer.
As the mascot of the school was a sheepâpurportedly designated by the first principal of Emma Weldy in 1940, who pointed out that the school's initials spelled EWES, though I felt the choice to be an unfortunate one, for the sheep is not a bright animalâBirdie proposed the name
EWES-ful News
and suggested that an art contest be held among the students for an appropriate picture to serve as the newspaper mascot: a sheep reading a newspaper, perhaps. As other choices, she offered the titles
The Ram's Horn
, featuring a picture of a sheep blowing a horn,
Bo-Peep's Treasures
, and
Sheep Tales
, the last being Algeria's contribution.
The plan was approved, presented to the teachers at one of their weekly meetings, and set into motion in mid-October. From that time forth, as the teachers escorted their students through the lunch line, they spoke to Birdie as to a personal friend, frequently handing her sets of papers, which she put into a large canvas bag to read at home. It was Birdie's desire to surprise the children with each issue of
Sheep Tales
, which was the title subsequently selected by a schoolwide vote. She did not want them to know beforehand whose stories would appear in print. I overheard her explaining to Francine that she was “keeping a written record with tally marks by each child's name so that lots of
different
children can have their stories in the paper.”