Homecoming (31 page)

He looked quizzically at her.

“She had no cause to be angry,” Dicey said.

He nodded. “I apologize for that. Claire’s got a bad temper—but that’s no excuse.
Believe it or not, she’s a good friend. A good person to have on your side.”

“We owe you an apology, too,” Dicey answered. “Even if we didn’t mean to, we did trespass.”

“I’ll see you out,” he said. “You came through the back? Where are you going, if you
don’t live in Easton?”

“South,” Dicey said.

“Where you from?”

“North.”

The man stopped two strides ahead of them and turned to look at them all. His leather
boots creaked a little. The Tillermans stood in a row, facing him.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Dicey said.

“You’re not a boy,” the man said, walking beside them now. He had a little smile hovering
around his mouth.

“No, I’m not,” Dicey agreed.

“Do you own this circus?” James asked.

“Yep,” he said.

“Why?” James asked.

“It’s my living. Name’s Will, by the way. I like moving around, following the good
weather.”

“I wouldn’t think you’d make any money,” James observed.

“Why not?” Will asked.

“It’s so small.”

“That’s right enough,” Will agreed. “Still . . . ” His warm voice drifted off without
finishing the sentence.

At the road he said good-bye. “Good traveling,” he said to Dicey.

“Thanks for rescuing us,” Dicey said.

“You didn’t need help,” he answered. “Take care.”

“You too,” Dicey said.

“Oh I do, you can believe I do,” he said. He turned back with a wave. The Tillermans
walked away.

They were silent for a long time, each thinking his own thoughts in the steamy afternoon.
The road wound through farm country. Here the farms were large. Several fields separated
one farmhouse from another. The fields were flat. The farmhouses had only a few trees
near them. Big barns and many sheds lay behind the houses. They were prosperous farms,
you could tell, because the barns gleamed with fresh red paint and the houses often
had swimming pools out front.

Finally, James broke the silence. “She probably figured she could be angry and mean
to us and get away with it,” he said. “Because we’re kids.”

“She didn’t get away with it,” Dicey reminded him. “Sammy? You were ready to run,
weren’t you?”

“I didn’t know what she’d do,” Sammy explained. “She said she’d call the police.”

“That was smart,” Dicey said.

“But—” James started to say, and then he stopped.

They walked on and sang as they walked.

They passed fields and more fields. Some of them had been picked bare. Some of the
farms had a cardboard sign posted at their mailboxes:
PICKERS WANTED
.

At a crossroads, Dicey went into a general store and bought potatoes and tomatoes,
a quart of milk and another loaf of bread. She also bought two Cokes in cans, because
she was thirsty. All these cost two dollars and thirty-five cents. Except for the
forty dollars she didn’t want to spend, she was almost out of money.

They shared the Cokes. “We could pick for a day or two,” Dicey said to her family,
“and get some money.”

“Do we need money?” James asked.

“Of course,” Dicey said. “I’ve got some set aside, in case we have to go back to Bridgeport.
I don’t want to spend that. So we’re not out of money, but we need more.”

“Would they hire kids?” James asked.

“We could try,” Dicey said. “Are you game to try? Could you pick for a day, Sammy?”

“Sure,” Sammy said.

Dicey grinned at him. “I believe you could,” she said.

“I’ll try,” Maybeth volunteered.

“I guess so,” James said.

“Not today though,” Dicey said. “Today—there’s a creek up a ways, or down a ways.
I thought we’d camp by that and fish. Somebody has a couple of fishing hours owed
us. I will not say who.”

“It’s me!” Sammy cried. “Because I lost the bet. It’s me!”

As they approached the creek Dicey had seen on the map—only the map called it a river—the
land developed a few gentle rises. These were not hills like they’d found in Connecticut,
not high, sharp hills. They were gentle roundings, mere ripples in the land. In contrast
to the flat land all around, however, they stood up. Here, there were hardwood trees,
sycamores and maples and oaks, as well as the pines that grew everywhere.

The road went over the little creek, and the Tillermans turned off the road, following
the creek’s dry banks until they judged they were far enough from road and farmhouse.
Sammy dug a few worms and set himself to fishing. James and Dicey gathered wood for
a fire. Maybeth spread out the ponchos under the green trees, as best she could. There
wasn’t room for more than two of them, because of the roots and bushes and the creek
bank.

When everything was ready and they had only to wait for Sammy to catch something,
Dicey and James and Maybeth went
downstream to wade and wash. Sammy watched them go without a word. He stood very quiet
in the center of the narrow creek, letting the water splash at his hips, holding the
fishing line out from his hands.

The late afternoon wore away into early evening. Dicey came back and started the fire.
Sammy had caught nothing and reported no nibbles. He was not quite ready to quit trying,
he said.

Dicey shoved the potatoes into the fire. The skins would burn, maybe, but she didn’t
think she could get a pot of water boiling on the small fire she felt safe building.

They ate potatoes, tomatoes, and bread for supper and passed around the carton of
milk. There was enough food to fill them, and they kept back some bread and milk for
breakfast. James put out the fire, using dirt not water, because water would make
more smoke.

The sun was going down, then. It grasped at the land with long yellow fingers and
made the mottled trunks of sycamores look like people’s skin. Flocks of birds made
their evening journeys home, twittering to one another. Far off, an occasional motor
sounded.

The Tillermans lay sprawled around with the creek at their feet and the slight hillside
behind them. Clouds strayed across the darkening sky.

“You know,” Dicey said, “we don’t have to go anywhere. We could always travel like
this, following the warm weather, like Will said he did. We can take care of ourselves.”

“Yeah, but what’s the point?” James asked.

“There doesn’t have to be a point,” Dicey said. “Just doing it. Like sailing.”

“We have to go home,” Maybeth said.

“Home? We don’t have a home,” Dicey said.

“I thought we were going to Momma’s home,” Maybeth said.

“Is that our home too?” Sammy asked.

“I don’t know,” Dicey said. “That’s what we’re trying to find out, I guess. Oh, well,”
she said, “I guess you’re right, James. I mean, you have to go to school.”

“So do you.” He grinned at her. “So do we all. We’re going to grow up. We have to.”

“I know. I know,” she said.

“If it was Momma’s home, it has to be ours too,” Maybeth said.

“We have this grandmother there,” Dicey answered. “But we can’t tell—what she’ll think
of us. What she’ll want. Momma never talked about her,” Dicey pointed out.

“Yes, she did,” Sammy said, “but it made her sad. She’d cry.”

“Is that right? What did she say?”

“I can’t remember, only the sadness. I’m sorry, Dicey.”

“That’s okay. I didn’t know Momma ever said anything about her. I just don’t know
what to expect there.”

“Whatever,” James said, “we can take care of ourselves. Wherever.”

“ ‘I know an old lady, who swallowed a fly,’ ” Dicey chanted. They sang all the silly
songs they knew until darkness had gathered around them. Then they lay down close
together and went gently to sleep.

E
arly the next morning, after they had buried their garbage in the soft soil and washed
briefly in the creek, they set off. By the time the sun had fully risen, the four
children were back on the road.

The morning air tasted cool and clean. At a fork in the road Dicey headed south, because
the Choptank River lay to the southeast. This road narrowed and ran straight between
fields of tall, ripening corn. They passed farmhouses, barns and an occasional weathered
gray shack raised off the ground on piles of bricks. Most of these shacks were guarded
by thin dogs that yapped at the children from the shade under the houses.

Many of the fields were being harvested. People moved up and down the rows gathering
corn, squashes, tomatoes or cucumbers into bushel baskets. Their heads were wrapped
with bright red and blue bandanas. They stooped, squatted or stretched. Even from
the road their fatigue was evident.

“Hard work,” James remarked.

“We need the money,” Dicey said. “But I’m not sure the little kids can do it.”

“We don’t really need the money, do we? You have extra.”

It was hot. The sun burned high. Dicey was thirsty and impatient. “I don’t want to
be stuck in Crisfield, James. I don’t know how things will go there. We’ve got to
have some extra money. We may need it.”

James considered this. “What’s our grandmother’s name?”

“Abigail. It was in the album.”

“Do you think we could go back to Bridgeport? Do you think Cousin Eunice would take
us back?”

“I dunno, James.”

They passed no stores, no gas stations, just farms surrounded by outbuildings and
old pickup trucks.

“The map shows towns across the Choptank,” Dicey said to her family. “So even if we
don’t get lunch we can eat after we cross it.”

“Does this road go over it?” James asked.

Dicey shook her head.

“Then what are we doing? How’re we going to cross it?”

“Swim. Or wade if it’s shallow.”

“Do you know how wide it is?”

“How could I know that?” Dicey demanded. “Stop asking questions.”

“Why?”

“You’re driving me crazy with them, that’s why.”

James quieted, but his eyes held doubts.

At midday, they saw another sign that said:
PICKERS WANTED
. Dicey looked down a long dirt driveway that ran between fields of corn turned to
the color of August sunlight. Trees lined the driveway. No house could be seen, although
a circle of trees was visible beyond the tops of the corn. “I say we try it,” Dicey
said. Without waiting for an answer, she turned onto the driveway. They followed her.

The driveway ran straight for about half a mile, then curved to the east. The air
was thick and hot. It hummed with the activities of insects. Dicey shifted her bag
onto her other shoulder and trudged on. With her free hand she slapped at bugs.

The farmhouse sat within the circle of trees they had seen from the driveway. It was
a two-storied building covered with pale green asphalt shingles. It had a discouraged
look to it.

The Tillermans approached the house slowly. A large, windowless barn, sided in silvery
corrugated metal, made one side of the farmyard. The house made a second. Some small
sheds made a third. Tall wire cyclone fences lay on both sides of the house itself.
The yard was a three-sided cage.

A dog growled and barked, snarled and leaped angrily up against the fencing on the
right side of the house. This must be a kennel. This dog needed a kennel. It was a
large gray-and-brown creature, bigger than a setter, with a huge slavering mouth.
Its teeth hung long and sharp. It charged against the fence, setting up a clamor that
would rouse anyone in the house, Dicey thought. She couldn’t make herself step any
further toward the screen door of the house, not with that dog there, not even to
make money.

The screen door opened and a man holding a napkin in his hand stepped out. As soon
as he appeared, the dog stopped barking and crouched, fawning and whimpering. The
man started toward the children.

He was short and slender. He wore overalls and heavy working boots that laced up the
front. The shirt under his overalls was dark blue with fancy red and yellow flowers
printed all over it. His face was square and blunt; he had gray hair that he brushed
back off his forehead and thin, straight eyebrows over cold eyes. He moved toward
the Tillermans without hesitating, without hurrying, and stood silent before them.
His skin was tanned and leathery. Deep lines ran across his forehead. He reached his
napkin up and wiped his mouth.

“Yeah,” he said.

Dicey spoke. “You have a sign out front, pickers wanted.” She hesitated, but he didn’t
say anything. “We—my brother and me—we’d like to apply.” She motioned James to come
stand beside her.

The man didn’t speak. He studied them, through hard gray eyes.

“We can work hard,” Dicey said.

She waited. He didn’t speak.

“What do you pay?” she asked.

“Fifty cents a bushel.”

You could pick lots of bushels in a day. That would be okay. “Will you hire us?”

“Yes,” he said. “What about the smaller ones?” he asked Dicey.

“They’ll come with us and help,” Dicey said. “They won’t cause any trouble.”

“Name’s Rudyard,” he said. “What’s yours?”

“Verricker,” Dicey said quickly. That seemed to be all he wanted to know. Except,
“What’s hers?” he demanded, pointing at Maybeth with his head. “Maybeth,” Dicey said.

Something was wrong here, something she couldn’t put her finger on. Well, it wasn’t
her problem; they would work an afternoon and take their money.

He told them to get up into the back of a dusty old pickup truck the color of canned
peas. He drove them on a flat dirt road that led around the barn and behind it before
heading straight up a slight incline, through an overgrown field, to another field.
This was a long field of tomatoes. The plants were crowded with weeds, grasses and
low vines. You could barely see the rows they had been planted in. But the tomatoes
had grown red and plump. They shone out from the weeds like bulbs on a Christmas tree.
At one corner of the field, a mound of bushel baskets waited. The Tillermans scrambled
down.