The Pilgrim Song (23 page)

A voice directly behind her spoke out, “I guess it’s in Japan.”

“That’s wrong, Johnny.”

Miss Lane went around asking different students, and no one knew the answer. Finally she said with exasperation, “Doesn’t anyone know where Peking is?”

Kat lifted her hand, and Miss Lane fastened her eyes on her. “Yes, Katherine?”

“It’s in China.”

“That’s right. Now, the rest of you ought to have known that. Have you had World Geography, Katherine?”

“I studied it, Miss Lane.”

“Well, I’ll try you out.” Miss Lane began to call off cities, and Kat knew where all of them were, except one in Russia.

“You children make me ashamed of you. Here’s this girl from the North who knows all the answers. You’re going to have to work harder.”

At that moment Kat’s head was jerked back. “Ow!” she cried as the grip on her hair was released. She turned around to stare at a student named Johnny Satterfield, who was grinning at her.

“What’s wrong with you, Katherine?” the teacher demanded.

“He pulled my hair,” she said, pointing back at Johnny.

“Why, I didn’t do no such a thing,” Johnny said. “She just don’t like me.”

“How could she not like you?” Miss Lane snapped. “She doesn’t even know you.”

“Aw, you know how Yankees are. They don’t like nobody from down South.”

Miss Lane glared at Satterfield sternly. “The next trouble I have out of you, you’re stayin’ after school.”

As soon as Miss Lane turned, Kat felt a pain, for Johnny Satterfield had pinched the back of her neck hard. She jerked away but kept her lips tightly closed.

****

At lunchtime Kat took her paper sack and filed down to the cafeteria with the others. Most of them had brought their lunches, although lunch was also available in the cafeteria line. Her family had no money for this, so Kat moved away and took a seat at one of the empty tables. She opened her sack slowly, watching as the other students filled up the other tables. They were all talking and laughing, and some of them were even roughhousing.

She opened her sack and pulled out the sandwich and apple and began to eat. She had not taken more than three bites when a small girl about her age came over and said, “Hi, my name is Martha Logan.”

“I’m Kat.”

“I thought your name was Katherine,” she said as she sat down and opened her lunch.

“That’s my real name, but I like Kat better.” She bit into her juicy apple and almost squirted her new friend in the eye.

“Well Kat, don’t pay no mind to that Johnny Satterfield. He makes trouble for everybody.”

“Why does he have to pick on me?”

“Because you’re new. You live in the place with the big oak trees, don’t ya?”

“Yes, I do.”

“We live about two miles north of you. Maybe we could ride home together sometime. My dad picks me up every day.”

Kat was worried about her father having to bring her every day. It took gasoline, and she was acutely conscious of how much it cost.

“I’ll ask my dad. It would be nice to ride together.”

While the girls ate their lunch together, Martha told Kat all about the other children in their class. She told her who the nicest girls were and which boys to avoid. By the time lunch was over, Kat was amazed at how much better she felt having found at least one friend.

“Come on, Kat, let’s go outside and play.”

“All right.”

The two girls went out to the playground, and Martha said, “Look, they’re playing Red Rover.”

“I don’t know how to play that.”

“Oh, there’s nothing to it.” Martha shrugged. “There’s two sides, and each side joins hands. Then the leader says, ‘Red Rover, Red Rover, send somebody over.’ And the other side sends somebody over. They try to break through the line. If they don’t break through, they have to join that side. If they
do break through, the one who did the breakin’ gets to take somebody back to their side.”

The game was relatively simple, and Kat grew to like it. No one called her to go over, but before long, the leader of her side said, “Red Rover, Red Rover, send Johnny Satterfield over.”

Kat watched as Johnny Satterfield came running directly at her. She held Martha’s hand tightly, but when Johnny smashed into them, he not only hit their hands, he threw himself against her. Kat’s hand was torn away, and she fell down on the cold ground.

“You’re not supposed to hit people like that!” Martha cried out, her faced flushed.

“Aw, if she cain’t take it, let her go back to New York.” Johnny grinned and grabbed one of the larger boys. “Come on, Ralph. You’re on our side now.”

Kat could no longer hold her tongue. “You’re nothing but a big bully!” she hollered.

At which Johnny Satterfield called her a vile name. Kat had heard the word before, but she was shocked that anybody would say it out loud.

The game ended when the bell rang, but Kat kept her eyes glued to Johnny. She watched him approach two children, a boy and a girl much younger and smaller than Johnny. Kat recognized them as being the pastor’s children, whom she saw every Sunday in church. He grabbed the two by the back of their necks and bumped their heads together.

Kat Winslow was usually even tempered, but this sent her into a fit of white-hot anger. She ran straight at Johnny in a rage and threw herself at his back, driving him to the ground. She was striking him with her fists, crying out, “You dirty old bully, you!”

Satterfield, of course, was taken completely off guard. He managed to roll over and tried to defend himself, but she struck him directly on the nose. He roared with anger and struck out at her, hitting her on the chest and throwing her
to one side. He lunged at her, striking, and Kat did the best she could to defend herself.

Kat was getting the worst of it when suddenly a voice demanded, “All right, what’s going on here?”

Kat was seized by the arm and lifted up, and a large man said, “Who started this?”

“I didn’t do nothin’. She just hit me right in the back.”

“He was picking on those little kids,” Kat said, mortified with anger.

“Well, you two will have to talk to Mr. Latimer.”

Johnny glared at her. “Now, you see what you’ve done! We’ll both get a paddlin’ for this. I hope he busts your behind.”

****

“Where did you find the boat, Clint?”

Clint turned from scraping the bottom of the wooden boat. “It was pulled up under some brush out behind the house.”

“Isn’t it all rotten?” Hannah asked.

“No. It’s made out of cypress. Cypress lasts longer than most wood.” He turned the boat over and admired it. “That’s a nice johnboat.”

“Why do they call it a johnboat?”

“I don’t know why they call it that. It’s just a boat with a flat bottom and a square end that’s usually used on rivers. Maybe some guy named John invented it. Well, I could stand some fried catfish.” The air was cold, and he wore no hat. The breeze blew his sandy hair, and he brushed it back with his hand.

“Do you fish with a pole?”

Clint smiled. “No, that’s too slow. We’ll run a trotline.”

“What’s a trotline?”

“Well, come on, and I’ll show you. You can help me make it.”

Clint led Hannah to a table out on the back porch. He reached down into a sack and began to pull out some items.
“This is the line itself. See how stout it is? Even a hundred-pound catfish couldn’t break that.”

“Do they get that big?”

“No, not around here. Maybe in the Mississippi River sometimes. You see, we tie this end of the line to a tree, and then we paddle across, let the line out, and tie the other end to a tree across the river. Then we put on the bait lines.” Pulling a coil of smaller cord, he clipped off a two-foot length and then opened a box containing some large hooks. “Just tie it on like this.” He demonstrated how to shove the cord through the eye of the hook and knot it securely. The loop made a circle. “Hold up your hand,” he said. “Put your finger out.”

When Hannah put out her finger, he showed her how to loop the line over the finger and shove the hook through. He tightened it and tugged at her finger, bobbing it up and down. “We put these about five to ten feet apart on the main line, put some bait on them, and bingo—we wait for the fish.”

“Are you going to put it out today?”

“Right now.”

“How are you going to get the boat down to the river?”

“I guess the only way I know is to haul it. You don’t need to come. It’s too cold.”

“No, I want to. It’ll be a break from housework.”

“Let me get a rope to tow this thing with, then.” He suddenly looked at her and smiled. “We’ll be in harness together just like a pair of blue-nosed mules.”

****

Hannah was out of breath by the time they reached the river, even though Clint had done most of the work. Now he showed her where he wanted her to sit in the boat and shoved it out into the water. Clint took his position in the middle of the boat and rowed across the river. “The first thing we’ll do is put the main line across.”

Hannah was uncomfortable in the cold wind, which was especially biting over the water. They put the line across, and
then Clint said, “Okay, you put on the hooks just like I showed you, and I’ll put on the weights and keep the boat steady.”

They started back, and Hannah quickly learned to put the hooks on. It was simply a matter of slipping them over the main line and tightening them. She was careful, for the line jerked from time to time as the boat moved around. She watched as Clint fastened various weights at regular intervals. “What are those for?”

“To pull the line down to the bottom of the river. That’s where the big cats feed.”

When they reached the other side, Clint drove the johnboat up on the bank and said, “Okay, you can get out now, and we’ll tie up.” He waited until Hannah was out of the boat, and then he stepped out and pulled the boat up on the shore. “I’ll come back a little before suppertime and bait up.”

“Can I come with you?”

“You can if you’d like.”

“I’d like to come.”

Clint stared down at her. He knew she possessed vitality and a vivid imagination, but when he had first met her, she had kept these qualities tightly under control. The family’s tragic losses had brought her out of her shell, and now as she stood in the cold wind facing him, he wondered what lay beneath her outer calmness and serenity. At times he had seen laughter and pride in her eyes, but often those same eyes revealed sadness, like a cloud passing over the sun. “Better get back,” he said.

As the two made their way back to the house, he hummed a tune that she didn’t recognize.

“What’s that?”

“Oh, just an old song.”

“Sing it for me.”

Clint sang out the jaunty song in his clear baritone:

“That’s the gist of it anyway. I think there’s another verse about a groundhog, but I forget the words.”

“You know more songs than any man I ever heard of,” Hannah said with admiration in her voice.

“Songs are cheap. Growing up poor, we had to entertain ourselves somehow.”

“Was your childhood hard, Clint?”

“Well, not as hard as some, but it was tough enough. I guess,” he said slowly, “a man just comes out of nothin’, and he’s headin’ toward somethin’. Trouble is, I know what’s behind me, but I’m not sure what lies ahead of me.”

The two walked on, both filled with their own thoughts, and neither spoke until they came in sight of the house. As they climbed the porch steps, Hannah said, “Let’s take Kat with us when we do the trotline later. She needs to have some fun. And she’s so fond of you, Clint.”

“Well,” he said, grinning, “that’s mutual.”

****

As soon as Kat came in with Lewis, both Hannah and Jenny knew something was wrong. “You’re late,” Jenny said. “Did the truck give you trouble?”

“No, not really,” Lewis said wearily. He looked down at Kat and shook his head. “We had a little problem at school.”

“It wasn’t my fault!” Kat exclaimed. “It was that mean Johnny Satterfield!”

Jenny and Hannah listened as Kat poured out her story. She gave the details of the whole incident, her face flushed, and concluded with, “So we had to stay after school for an hour. I hate that old Johnny Satterfield.”

Lewis said, “You’ll just have to bite the bullet, sweetheart.”

“Come on, Kat,” Hannah said, “you can help me make supper. I’m going to make something new for dessert. Dolly Cannon gave me a recipe for something called sweet fried pies.”

“Fried pies? I thought you baked pies.”

“Not according to Miss Dolly. Now, come along. It’ll be fun.”

The two went to the kitchen, and soon Kat forgot her problems while working on Miss Dolly’s sweet fried pies. They made a pie crust, but instead of putting it into a pie pan, they cut it into small circles. They put a dollop of canned peaches Miss Dolly had given them on each circle, folded the crust over, and pressed the edges together with a fork. Then they fried the pies in a pan of sizzling hot shortening.

“These are the best things I ever ate! I’m going to have them every night,” Kat announced.

“Then you’ll be as fat as one of your pigs.”

“I don’t care. They’re so good!”

The sound of a car coming down the driveway interrupted their conversation.

“You go see who it is, Kat,” Hannah said.

Kat started for the door, but she encountered Jenny, who was coming down the stairs. They went to the door together, and they were surprised to see the pastor and his two children. “Well, Reverend Crutchfield.”

“I’m sorry to bother you, but do you have a minute?”