The Hollow Tree at Dead Mule Swamp (3 page)

"No, this secret is much more
lively."

"Oh?"

"Cora, I've met the grandson.
His name is Jimmie Mosher, too"

Her eyes opened wide. "Where
is he? How is his mother? I don't remember her name."

"One thing at a time! I don't
have very many answers. He apparently lives in a complete dump on Alder Road. I think his mother is alive, but he almost cried when I brought it up." I
didn't want to mention the sisters, because I wasn't yet ready to betray
Jimmie's secret list.

"We have to do something to
help him! Can we go over there now?"

This was a remarkable request,
because I knew Cora only went out when she felt there was an event she couldn't
avoid. "Not so fast," I insisted. "I just learned all this
yesterday. The boy doesn't trust anyone, but I think I might win him over. Give
me some time, OK?"

Cora agreed, but she was clearly
agitated. We spent the rest of the afternoon puttering around the museum. 
I really liked Cora and admired her local history projects. The upshot was, I
volunteered to come out once a week to help her sort boxed items and enter them
in the database in her very new computer.

I told her I planned to see the boy
the next day, and she sent the rest of the brownies home with me.

Jimmie, the grandson, pedaled into
my yard just before nine Saturday morning. I could not believe how thin the boy
was, but now that I'd seen his house, I suspected his girth was not only
genetic, but perhaps because the only meal he ate each day was the school
lunch. But now school was out for the summer.

I brought out gloves for the both
of us, which he complained about, but finally put on his small hands. I knew he
picked up old metal all the time, but I decided I didn't want him getting
tetanus at my house, or his house, whichever it was.

The rusting manure spreader I'd
been trying to get rid of was going to require a tractor to pull it out from
where it had taken root in the yard, but behind that was a brown pile of broken
iron wheels, buckets, gears, and many unidentifiable objects. Jimmie hadn't
lied. Anything small enough to fit in his milk crates had been removed. I
backed the Jeep across the lawn so we didn't have to carry things very far, and
folded down the back seat. Some of the items required us to work together to
pull them free of the mess. By eleven, we had filled the back of the Jeep.

"You're all right, Ana,"
Jimmie finally said. He'd hardly spoken all morning.

"Thank you," I replied,
gratified that I'd measured up to his exacting standards. "How much money
do you think you'll get from this?"

"Steel is $75.00 a ton."
The boy certainly spoke like a midget businessman.

I strained to do some math in my
head. "But that's less than half a cent per pound!"

"Yeah, but it all adds up.
Aluminum is worth a lot more. And people throw out a lot of cans. Copper's even
better, but if you take in very much they think you stole it."

"How much money can you
make?"

"Most days I manage a couple
of dollars. I'll have more time to hunt for stuff now that school is out. Let's
get going. The scrap yard closes at noon on Saturdays."

We climbed in the Jeep and traveled
mostly in silence. Jimmie directed me with minimal words to Harold's Scrap
Yard, about four miles away, on the north edge of Cherry Hill. When we arrived,
a woman in a booth waved us onto a scale, and I drove cautiously over the
platform. In a minute she waved us on and we continued to the back of a large
metal building. Mountains of metal scrap, more kinds than I'd ever thought
about, were scattered around, with narrow driveways between the piles. Jimmie
pointed to one of the mounds. We drove there, where a friendly man with no
teeth helped us unload. "This is Gus," Jimmie said. "He's my
friend."

"Hello, Gus," I said.

The man wiped a rusty palm on his
greasy pants and extended it. I shook hands, trying to remember that dirt
wasn't necessarily the same thing as germs. "Hi, Missy," he said,
nodding and bowing.

"OK, bye, Gus. See you next
week," Jimmie said to the man. "Now we go weigh the Jeep empty,"
I turned the vehicle around, and on the way back to the scale he added,
"Gus isn't very bright, but he likes me."

"Don't you have friends?"
I asked.

"Wait. We have to get
paid," a deft avoidance of answering me. The woman recorded our weight
without the metal and Jimmie said, "I have to go in the office and get the
money."

He came back in a few minutes,
grinning from ear to ear. "We got sixteen dollars and thirty-two cents. I
don't have to put the change in the envelope," he added.

"Who says?"

"It's my rule. The bag would get
too heavy if I put coins in it."

"Jimmie, would you come and
eat lunch with me?" I asked. "I have a tub of brownies, and I can't
eat them all by myself."

"Really?"

"Really." I nodded at him
seriously; another business decision.

After two peanut butter sandwiches,
milk and a brownie, I tried to pry more information out of Jimmie.

"Tell me about your mom,"
I asked.

"She's nice," Jimmie
answered. That wasn't much help.

"Is your family just your mom
and you?"

"Nope."

"Who else lives with
you?"

"Bert. He's my mom's
boyfriend." Jimmie licked chocolate from his fingers, and looked longingly
at the tub.

"Go ahead," I offered.
"Eat all you want. What is Bert like?

"He's not very nice. I try to
stay away from him."

"What does he do that's not
nice?" I wasn't sure I wanted to hear the answer.

"He drinks too much, and then
he likes to hit people. I just run away, but my mom puts up with it. I don't
understand why."

I wondered if any answer I gave
would make sense to a serious boy. "Sometimes women feel as if it's better
to stay with someone and be abused than to be all alone."

"But she would have me!"
Jimmie said. He sort of choked on a piece of brownie. "I don't want to
talk about it any more."

"Fair enough," I said.
"But, will you trust me a little bit?"

"Maybe. For what?"

"Why don't you let me keep the
money at my house? I'm really afraid someone might steal it from your tree.
There are a lot of bad people in the world."

"That's the truth," Jimmie
agreed quietly. But he didn't say anything about me keeping the money.

I tried something else. "Why
did you draw three branches on the envelope? I have to tell you they look just
like something described in a book."

"I know. I read the
book."

"You read a Nancy Drew
book?"

"Why not? Are you going to
tease me because they're for girls?" his eyes roved around the room as if
he were looking for a place to hide.

"No, not at all! People should
read whatever books they like."

"I finished all the Hardy Boys
the library had. Nancy Drew is smart, and she fixes things for people without a
lot of help."

"She does indeed! So you just
liked the crossed twig design, or is there more? In the book it stood for
something."

"Two things. First the bad
guys called it Three Branch Ranch, and that was a phony investment scheme. But
then they changed it to Three Branch Home, to get people to give money to help
kids. But it was a scam."

"Why do you use it?" I
had a guess as to part of the answer.

"Because I want to help some kids,"
Jimmie answered evasively.

"Your sisters?"

"How do you know about my
sisters?"

"I don't really, but it was
one of the words on your list."

"I'm going now." Jimmie
said. His eyes were hard. He grabbed another brownie and ran out the kitchen
door before I could stop him. I hadn't paid him yet for his time. I stood at
the window over the sink and watched him pedal away. Everything about his body
language said "furious."

I did go to the Crossroads
Fellowship church on Sunday morning. I figured a few prayers for Jimmie
couldn't hurt. Adele introduced me to the pastor, Theo Dornbaugh. I knew almost
none of the music, but I liked how upbeat it sounded, and the sermon included
the Scripture that it would be better for someone to have a millstone put around
his neck and be thrown in the sea than to hurt a child. I certainly agreed with
the message in that verse. We didn't have a sea nearby, but there were a lot of
rivers in the county.

After the service I had another
question for Adele. I caught her during the coffee hour. It wasn't hard to find
her; she was in charge of the kitchen.

I grabbed a cup of coffee and
called through the pass-through, "Adele!"

"Ana! Come around here and
talk to me." The kitchen door was closed, but I pushed it open and
entered. No one seemed to object. Adele had covered her ample frame with a
flowered sandwich board apron and was rinsing spoons at the sink. "I'm so
glad you came! Do you like our little group?"

"I hardly think I can answer
that yet. But I would like to ask you something."

"Shoot." She shook off
the spoons and placed them on a clean towel.

"Look, I'm really new here,
but is there any fund, or some way, or…"

"Are you in trouble? I thought
that man gave you plenty of money."

"It's not for me! Let me
explain. I've met a little boy, and he has almost nothing. Even worse, I think
his father beats him."

"That's pretty serious. Who is
it?"

"He'd be really angry if he
knew I was talking with anyone about him. He's very proud. I don't think I
should say who it is just yet."

"Then we can't help much, can
we?" Adele was put out. She wanted to know all the juicy details.

"Come on, Adele, be
patient." I was put out too. "Give me a few days to win his trust. I
just want to know if there is something that could be done."

"There's the Family Friends
Committee."

"What do they do?"

"We try to find ways to help
families in need. Sometimes we take them food or clothes, or we help them find
jobs. Once in a while we can afford to provide a larger item or help with a
utility bill. Things like that."

"That would really help this
family, I think." I knew it wouldn't scratch the surface of what Jimmie
really needed, but anything would be a start. "Do families have to
apply?"

"Not formally, but they have
to be willing to accept the help, and the committee has to agree." Adele
accepted the empty serving plates from another lady and put them in the
dishwater. She thrust a towel into my hands.

"Yes, I can understand that. I
haven't even met the parents yet. Let me see what I can do."

"You should join the
committee."

"Adele! I just came to church
for the first time today." She handed me a wet plate, and I dried it.

"OK, come a few more times,
and then join the committee."

"I'll think about it."

"That's what you said about
coming to church, and here you are. I think you mean 'yes,' but just don't like
to be pushed."

I took another plate from Adele and
reflected that I understood how Jimmie felt when I asked him to do new things.

That afternoon, I had changed into
jeans and was getting ready to work on my wainscoting some more when there was
a soft knocking on the front door. I opened it and Jimmie stood there with his
bag.

"Come in!" I said.

Jimmie entered and looked around at
the sawhorses, raw wood sections, tools and general mess. His dark eyes
gleamed. "You're doing this yourself?"

"I am. Most of it anyway. I'm
not so good at drywall seams." I spoke to him as I would to an adult.

"I think my grandfather would
have liked this."

"I hope so. I've seen a
picture of this house when it was new. It was well cared for then."

"Really? Where's the
picture?"

"A lady I know named Cora has
it."

"Could I see it
sometime?"

"We can arrange that." I
said. I knew Cora would love to meet young Jimmie.

Abruptly, he changed topics.
"I've been thinking about my bag. Maybe it would be good if it were here.
But I don't want to bother you every day."

"It wouldn't be a
bother."

He went on as if I hadn't said
anything. "It would be OK if you kept most of the money inside. But I want
to keep some of it in a place I know about, so I can get at it."

"That might work," I
said. "Where is it?"

"I'll show you. Come on."

Jimmie led me outside, and around
to the back of the house. There is a stone basement under the two-story portion
of my house. It's not very useful because it's damp, but it has an outside
entry with a slanting hatchway door. He opened one of the sides of the double
door and started down the wide concrete stairs. I opened the other side to let
in more light and followed him down. On the steps were several old crocks.
Jimmie found one that wasn't broken, and he turned it upside down.

"I never wanted to use this
place before, because people do poke around old houses looking for stuff. But
now that you live here, it will be safer. I'll put my bag under this
crock.  Here in the shadows you can hardly see it anyway."

"I think it's a perfect place!
Let's go back inside, and I'll pay you what I owe you, too"

"You owe me money?"

"Yes, I said I'd pay for your
time on Saturday."

We walked in silence into the
house. He put his envelope on the kitchen table, and I put a twenty-dollar bill
beside it.

"How much change do you
want?" he asked.

"None," I said.
"That's yours."

"Geez, that's too much!"
he said, looking at me in horror.

"Not at all. We worked for
three hours. That's not even minimum wage."

"Nobody paid me money like
that before. They think I can't work hard because I'm so small"