The Wonder of Charlie Anne (17 page)

I am so proud of her. She reminds me of a good fence post, the way she stands up so straight.

“I would like to open your school and apply for the job of teacher. I received my teacher training in Mississippi and have taught children of all ages, from the youngest to the oldest.” She looks down at Phoebe and then up to all the faces watching her. “I would consider it an honor to teach your children.”

She sits down. Two more pumpkin seeds come flying
overhead. I’m surprised the preacher doesn’t see, but he’s taken off his glasses, and I don’t think he can see very well even when he has them on.

Rosalyn squeezes Phoebe’s shoulder and stands up again. “I shall have Phoebe as my assistant. Her reading ability is extraordinary, which Charlie Anne can attest to.” Rosalyn looks over at me and winks, and I feel Mirabel’s eyes pinning me to my seat. “Phoebe will assist me with the younger children so I can give more attention to the older students,” Rosalyn says, and sits back down.

Mrs. Ellis gasps. Another pumpkin seed comes flying and lands on the floor in front of me. I scoop it up and wait until I have a chance to pelt it back. There is a bunch more whispering, then another pumpkin seed comes flying.

Finally, Mrs. Ellis raises her hand. “The Ladies’ Club was going to announce plans to look for a teacher in Boston.”

No one says anything. Then Old Mr. Jolly stands up. “We don’t need a teacher from Boston. We
have
a teacher right here.” He is getting red about the ears. He holds on to Rosalyn’s shoulder.

The whispers start flying around the back of the church. I hear Zella behind me. “A colored girl, teaching? Not in my town.”

“To think she even suggested it,” says Mrs. Reilly.

Old Mr. Jolly squeezes Rosalyn’s shoulder and he sits down. My face is burning. I am holding the pumpkin seed so tightly my fingers are numb. Phoebe starts slumping into Rosalyn. I think maybe she is losing her light. No wonder. Who could take all that whispering and still sit up straight?

I hear Mama calling me. I’m not talking to you, I tell her.

Charlie Anne, stand up.

What?

Stand up.

No.

You can’t let them hurt your friend.

I’m not standing up.

If you don’t do anything, who will?

You, Mama. You could do something, just like you could have done something for Peter.

Mrs. Ellis stands up. “I want to improve my daughter’s situation, not make it worse. With all respect, ma’am,” she says, nodding to Rosalyn, “we need a teacher from Boston, one who’s been properly educated and who can lead us in the right direction.”

Rosalyn pops back up. “I know how to teach.”

Mrs. Ellis pulls out her fan and starts waving it in front of her face. “You are not the biggest problem, Mrs. Jolly,” she says, looking right at Phoebe.

I suck in my breath so fast it shoots down to my toes.

The preacher stands up. He is searching for his
glasses. “Perhaps we could settle this with a committee,” he says, finally.

Old Mr. Jolly stands. “We don’t need a committee. We have an educated woman right here willing to do the job.”

“Our town is backwater enough,” says Mrs. Ellis, snickering behind her fan.

Charlie Anne, stand up.

No.

Charlie Anne, maybe the time for me doing something is over. But maybe the time for you doing something is now.

There is a bunch of whispering behind me. My mouth is so dry. I turn and give Zella and Mrs. Ellis and Becky and Ivy and all the others my most terrible mad look. And then I stand up.

Good girl.

It seems I should say something when I am just standing here, but I do not know what to say. I look at Phoebe and how she is slumping. I take a deep breath.

“You cannot love someone when you do not know someone,” I tell everybody. “And you have somebody here you do not know.”

Phoebe is looking at me like why am I standing up like this in church, and then I say excuse me to the preacher, because I do know something about manners now, and I hurry over to my friend.

I try and pull Phoebe and she does not budge, so
I stand there and look at everyone. “There’s a light inside of her. I thought you might like to know.”

Another pumpkin seed comes flying past me and hits Mrs. Aldrich, and she swipes at her neck, thinking she has been bitten by something. There is some muffled laughing from the balcony, and Phoebe is telling me with her eyes to sit down. Rosalyn is looking all surprised at what I am doing, and Old Mr. Jolly is looking like he is wishing he were back clearing out the brier patch.

I clear my throat. Then very softly, in my usual croak, I begin:

Most of the people around me are sitting with their mouths hanging straight open. The preacher is turning red.

I sing even louder:

Becky has found the old donkey costume in the balcony and is waving it at me. Ivy is bent over, holding her stomach, laughing.

Phoebe is just sitting there, looking like a moth trying to escape. It’s too late to stop now, I’ve already gone and started something, and even though I feel Mirabel’s iron-hot eyes on me, and the room is full of gasps and astonishment that I am standing up and singing a hymn we’ve already sung and making a mess of church services, I get the next part out:

And then I realize that Rosalyn’s soft-as-buttercups voice is sounding right beside me, and even though Mirabel is frowning a huge frown, Rosalyn makes me feel like I might as well really belt things, and I do:

Then—and here’s the thing I’m not expecting—Old Mr. Jolly starts joining in, and before he hardly opens his mouth, Mr. and Mrs. Aldrich pop up and they are singing with big grins on their faces.

And then we are done and the church is quiet.

“Well,” says Mrs. Ellis.

Rosalyn holds her hand out to Phoebe, and Phoebe takes it and stands up, and Old Mr. Jolly takes her other
hand, and together they walk to the door. Phoebe stops and looks at it all shut for a minute, and then she turns around. I see the ironing board down her back again. Then finally, finally, in a voice so soft that only a few of us can hear, she whispers, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound.”

And then she takes a deep breath and starts over, and she’s singing the first verse again, the one about the blind seeing and the lost getting found, and it is like a bell sounding all through our town, and I, for one, am glad to hear it ringing. You can see folks looking amazed, because they never heard an angel sing before.

“Imagine that,” I hear Old Mr. Jolly say as he opens the door and walks his new family outside.

Yes, I tell Mama. Imagine that.

“You’ve really done it this time, Charlie Anne,” says Ivy, laughing as we all get out of church.

I am looking for Phoebe, but there are so many people crowding on the steps that I can’t get through.

“What were you thinking, child?” asks Zella when I finally make it a little way out the door.

“Shame on you, stirring things up like that,” says Mrs. Ellis. “You must know it can’t come to any good. We can’t have a colored girl teaching in this town.”

“Why not?”

“Because we’ll be even more backwater than we already are. I’m surprised you can’t see that, Charlie Anne. Don’t you think we’re already backwater enough?”

I look back at Mrs. Ellis. She looks like a cross between Olympia and Bea. “Yes,” I say slowly, a smile starting. “I think we are.”

When I finally find Phoebe and Rosalyn and Old Mr. Jolly, they are standing by the fence talking to Mr. and Mrs. Aldrich about opening the school, and Rosalyn is saying she thinks they should go have a look inside and get things started.

“What are you waiting for?” Mrs. Aldrich says.

“Don’t worry about getting paid,” says Mr. Aldrich. “We’ve got a little tucked in an old jar and we’ve been looking for a good place to put it.”

“Backwater or not,” says Mrs. Aldrich, “we can pay a good teacher when we find one.” Then Mr. Aldrich takes her arm and they walk out onto the road.

“You were really brave,” I say, turning to Phoebe.

“You were, too,” she says, and then I remember how we are blood sisters and I put my arms around her, and then Mirabel is right beside us, pulling at me, brushing Phoebe’s fingerprints off my arm and saying it is time to go home.

Rosalyn notices and steps closer. “I hope you will send the children to school.”

“We’ll see,” says Mirabel, holding on to my arm and trying to steer me to the road. She already has Birdie’s hand in a firm grip.

“You know,” says Rosalyn, “it is against every law I know of to keep a child out of school who wants to go. Now that the school has a teacher and an assistant willing and able, you might want to send those children to school.”

“We’ll see,” says Mirabel again, really pushing me now.

“Charlie Anne especially wants to go,” says Rosalyn,
stepping forward and blocking our path. “I understand she’s not reading well, but I’ve worked with children like her, and all she needs is a little time, a little confidence and a little practice.”

Mirabel’s frown is growing. “I’ve been helping Charlie Anne at home. Plus she’s learning manners at the same time. Lord knows she needs some.”

Then she steers me around Rosalyn and herds us all down the hill. We carry our shoes because our feet are hurting so bad. Even Ivy.

I learn that the cure for standing up for your friend in church is the same as when you are feeling down in the dumps.

“But it is Sunday,” I say. “Aren’t we supposed to be resting?”

“It is tomato harvest time,” says Mirabel. “There is no day like the present to get a chore done.”

This is what you do at tomato harvest time. First, you each get a big garden basket, even Ivy, and you rush through the hot grass to the garden, being careful of your blistering feet, because the clover is in full bloom and there are a hundred honeybees to every step you take. Halfway down the hill, you lift Birdie up and carry her, and she puts the baskets on her head to hide from the bees.

Anna May and Belle look up as we go by because
they are wondering why we’re not all under the butternut tree, where they are enjoying the afternoon. “Mind your business,” I tell them.

When you get to the garden, you pick every last row clean of ripe tomatoes, slapping the gnats away from your neck and ears the whole time. You are very careful of touching a tomato hornworm because they blend into the leaves. When Ivy screeches, and starts jumping up and down and howling, Birdie and I don’t even have to ask what she is screaming about. Hornworms are the most revolting things God ever made.

“I quit,” says Ivy.

She storms away, but I am yelling after her, “You leave and Mirabel will make you do it all yourself. You know she will, Ivy.” Ivy is still walking. The sun is turning Birdie’s scalp red. A gnat has gotten inside my ear. “Come to think of it, Ivy, just go!” I scream. “Then you can do all the work yourself.”

Ivy stops where she is, and stands there. You can see her start to shake. You can tell she is crying.

She stomps back down to us. “I hate all this work. I hate it so much. Mama never made us do so much work. She took us on picnics. Remember?” The tears are falling terribly fast.

You can tell when Ivy is standing there looking at us, her face stained from all the sorrow, that she was loved once by someone who knew how to love. Just like me.

*    *    *

Mirabel is waiting back in the kitchen, getting the cookstove hot with who knows how much wood so she can get a huge pot of water boiling. While the sun is steaming and spitting through the windows, we are sweating at the table, washing the tomatoes, and then Mirabel puts them in the hot water. Then back they come, and we have to peel their skins off and cut them into quarters and toss them in a kettle.

Mirabel doesn’t want to can plain old tomatoes. That would be too easy. She wants to make stewed tomatoes, which are about one hundred times more work. We end up slicing so many tomatoes that tomato juice is running down our arms and making little tracks in the dirt still on our skin. It stings in all the places the gnats found.

Next, we cut up onions, so our eyes are stinging worse than our arms, and then we chop two dozen peppers, and finally, we add salt and sugar. This all simmers on the cookstove, which means the kitchen is now hotter than a fire pit.

For supper, Mirabel fixes cheese, bread and tall cups of fresh milk from Anna May. We bring it out on the porch, where it is cool.

“Charlie Anne, I want you to listen particularly,” Mirabel says as she pulls the manners book from her pocket. As soon as Mirabel starts, Birdie crawls over on my lap.