Tallgrass (21 page)

I squirmed. “Is Harry one?”

“This Daisy doesn’t tell.” She made me think then of Marthalice, the way my sister teased me by not admitting which boy she liked best. Daisy reminded me of my sister in other ways. She’d taught me dance steps and corrected the spelling in my compositions. When I couldn’t understand diagramming, she’d showed me how it worked, and she’d sympathized when I complained about the math teacher at school. Daisy filled a little of the vacant place that Marthalice had left. I wondered if Daisy felt that way about me, if she thought of me as kind of a kid sister. I wanted to ask her if she did, but I didn’t know what I’d do if she said no, so I kept my mouth shut.

After Daisy left, I went into the bedroom and sat with Mom and Helen. They didn’t talk much, just played with the baby, and a few minutes later, Helen looked at her Wristwatch and said it was time to go. As I walked to the door with her, she told me, “Beaner says the sheriff knows for sure that one of the Japanese men killed my sister, but he’s too chicken to arrest him.”

“How would Beaner know?” It sounded like Beaner was just showing off, but still, I remembered what the sheriff had told Dad earlier.

“Beats me. Mr. Lee doesn’t think it was a Jap, but he’s always sticking up for them. Beaner says we have to teach the Japs a lesson. Beaner says if the sheriff won’t do it, he will himself.”

“How’llhedothat?”

Helen shook her head. “I don’t think he has the guts.”

“Except when it comes to beating up little kids.”

“I heard about that. He scares me sometimes.” We went out onto the porch, but I saw Beaner’s truck coming down the road and pulled Helen back inside. She waited until Beaner had passed our farm; then she left and started down the road. I didn’t blame her for walking. I wouldn’t have gotten into a truck with Beaner Jack for a month’s supply of sugar rations.

DAISY KEPT
us
GOING,
chattering away, singing the latest songs, telling jokes from the “The Jack Benny Program” and “Fibber McGee and Molly.” We’d already heard them, but we couldn’t help but laugh when Daisy repeated them, stumbling over the punch lines, getting one joke mixed up with another. “It’s terrible times,” Mom told Dad one evening. “What would we do without our friends?”

“You include Daisy among ’em?” Dad asked.

Mom thought that over and shook her head no. “More like family.”

Midway through the summer, we got another telegram. Mr. Blessinger didn’t deliver it. A boy came by on a bicycle and stopped at the house. I was sitting on the swing on the front porch, shelling peas, and I took it from him. Instead of going inside with it and giving it to Mom, I ran out into the far field where Dad was working and, without saying anything, held it out to him.

He looked at it a long time before he brushed the dirt off his hands and then took it from me. He reached into his overalls for his pocketknife, opened the small blade with a fingernail that was black from where he’d caught it in the beet drill, and carefully slit open the envelope. Then he closed the knife against his palm and put it back into his pocket. He took out the telegram and smoothed it between his hands, glancing at me. I was so anxious that I wanted to grab it from him and read it myself, but I knew why Dad was taking his time. He was afraid of what was in the telegram. So was I.

Almost reluctantly, Dad held it up and read it. He nodded and folded the telegram, returning it to the envelope and sticking it inside the pocket in the front of his overalls. “Well, Squirt, we were right. Our boy’s been captured after all. It says here he’s a prisoner of the Germans.” Dad reached down and gripped my shoulder to keep from crying. “We best go back to the house to tell your mother.” He didn’t move for a moment, just stood silently, looking off across the fields, and if he’d been somebody else, I’d have thought he was praying. But I’d never known Dad to pray. “He’s the first Ellis boy captured in Germany. I guess your Mothcr’d rather not have that distinction.”

So there came another round of visits from the Jolly Stitchers, although their calls had only tapered off a little, never really stopped. This time, they came with boxes of cookies and hand-knit socks and funny cards to send to Buddy. They stitched on the rembrance quilt, too. “We’re not good for much of anything but standing around. The womenfolk are better at this than us,” Mr. Gardner told Dad. The two of them stood beside the water trough while Mrs. Gardner went inside with a fruitcake for Mom to send to Buddy. She said she’d made a fruitcake because she didn’t know how fast the German postal system was, and a fruitcake would keep a long time.

“I don’t imagine any of it’s going to reach him,” Dad told Mr. Gardner.

“Doesn’t make much difference. It’s the doing of it that matters.” He was right. I felt as if I was helping Buddy when I cut out his comic strips or took snapshots of the farm to send to him.

Mom boxed up all the things the women brought, and Dad took the packages to the post office. Once, he mentioned that some German official was going to live high off the hog.

“Loyal!” Mom said. “That’s a terrible thing to say.”

“Well, it’s the truth.”

“Don’t you ever say that again.”

He never did. But he still thought it, and I did, too. I suppose even Mom did.

ONE MORNING NOT LONG
after that, Daisy didn’t come to work with the boys. “She fell at the camp,” Carl explained.

“Was she hurt?” Dad asked.

Carl shrugged. He didn’t look at Dad. Neither did Emory or Harry.

“Was she hurt?” Dad asked again.

“She’s okay,” Carl said.

Mom heard the conversation, and she came in from the bedroom in her bathrobe. “Maybe I ought to go out to the camp and see if she’s all right.”

“Oh, no, ma’am. She hit her head. They took her to the clinic when they found her. She’s got a concussion.”

Mom sat down at the table as she asked what had happened.

“She went to the shower house late.”

“Maybe she slipped on some soap,” Emory suggested.

“Yeah, I never thought of that,” Carl replied.

“I hate that camp,” Harry said. “They shouldn’t make those women go out at night to take a shower. What did Daisy ever do to them? Damn government.”

I was sure then that Harry was one of Daisy’s boyfriends.

“Loyal, I’d like to call on Daisy,” Mom said.

“That’s okay, Mrs. Stroud. Daisy’d feel bad about that, you being sick and all. Besides, she’ll be back in a couple of days,” Carl said.

Dad and Mom exchanged a look, and Mom said, “Whatever you think. Rennie’ll make some divinity for you to take home with you.”

Daisy didn’t return to work for more than a week, and except for a bruise on the side of her face, she looked all right. She told us she’d fallen and banged her head, and that the doctor had made her stay in the infirmary until he was sure she was all right. She pronounced herself “as good as new.”

But she was quiet, and I wondered if maybe the fall had hurt her brain. Mom said that being in accidents sometimes made people grow up a little. Daisy stopped chattering and dancing to records. She didn’t primp the way she once had, and she no longer powdered her nose before Carl walked her home. But maybe that’s because she’d dropped the compact I’d given her and didn’t want me to know. I saw it on the table once, scratched, the mirror broken.

Harry thought up reasons to come in from the fields to hang around, but Daisy didn’t want him near her. If he had ever been her boyfriend, he wasn’t anymore.

One morning toward the end of the summer, Harry didn’t show up for work. “He won’t be coming back,” Carl told Dad. “Harry’s joined the army.”

BETTY JOYCE DIDN’T SHOW
up for the first day of ninth grade, and I was afraid she wouldn’t come back to school ever again.

Mom sighed when I told her. “It doesn’t surprise me,” she said. “There’s so many that drop out before they get their diplomas.” Mom was frying potatoes tor supper. As the summer wore on, she had begun feeling better. A good thing. Dad said, since the folly Stitchers came calling every day to keep her spirits up, and instead of resting, she was entertaining company. Bird Smith claimed Mom was improving because of the remembrance quilt, and Mom said she wasn’t sure but what Mrs. Smith was right. As Mom became stronger, Daisy seemed to get puny, still suffering from the fall in the shower house.

“Maybe Betty Joyce’s sick or something. I could stop by after school tomorrow and see,” I said. The hardware store had a telephone, but Mr. Snow hung up when anyone phoned for Mrs. Snow or Betty Joyce. I moved my schoolbooks off the table and began laying out silverware on the oilcloth, which had a bright design of roses on a lattice. “It’s not fair to make Betty Joyce work in a hardware store all her life. She wants to be a nurse.” In fact, Betty Joyce would have waited tables or slopped pigs or scraped beet pulp off the floor at the sugar refinery, anything to keep from being around her father. No matter how hard Betty Joyce worked, her father called her lazy, and he didn’t care that she missed classes.

Dad came in then and went to the sink, washing his hands with the bar of harsh soap that we kept there. “What’s up at the hardware store?” he asked.

Mom stirred the potatoes, scraping the bottom of the heavy iron skillet with her big metal spoon. “Betty Joyce didn’t go to school today. I expect Gus Snow’s kept her out to do his work. There’s too much of that.”

“Always has been.”

“Times are better now. Maybe you could talk to him. He’s always set store by you.”

I set a knife down on the oilcloth, lining it up with a strip of latticework. leaving my hand on the handle while I looked over at Dad. He was prying dirt out from under his fingernail with his pockctknife and didn’t answer, but I knew he’d heard. He rinsed his hands, turned off the water, and reached for a towel. “What’s for supper, Mother?” He closed the knife and put it into his pocket.

“Meat loaf, potatoes, green beans with bacon. Daisy made corn bread, and there’s leftover strawberry pie, if you want it.”

“When did I not want strawberry pie?”

“Rennie. you better whip up some cream, then,” Mom said.

Dad wiped his hands on his overalls, because he hadn’t dried them completely on the towel. Mom and I waited. “Times aren’t any better for the Snows. And Gus Snow never set store by me when it came to the hardware. Besides, you can’t come between a man and his family, especially that man. He’s mule-stubborn,” Dad said. “Maybe the preacher ought to talk to him.”

Mom harrumphed. “Gus Snow’s never seen the inside of a church. He makes you look like a regular deacon.”

“Wouldn’t want anybody to do that,” Dad muttered.

“Betty Joyce is a fine girl, almost as smart as Rennie,” Mom said. I jerked up my head at the compliment. Dad grinned, but Mom ignored me. “If she stays in that hardware store, Betty Joyce’ll end up just like her mother, all beaten down, bless her heart.” Mom gave the potatoes a vicious stir. “She’ll end up like Darlene Potts,” Mom added for emphasis. Darlene Potts had been the smartest girl in Buddy’s class. She’d won the county spelling bee when she was in the ninth grade, and she’d talked about becoming a teacher. The principal said that with her grades, she could easily get a scholarship to teachers college in Greeley. But Mr. Potts asked what good was an education for a girl when he needed her on the farm? He pulled her out of school for spring plowing, and she never went back. He worked her so hard that Darlene ran off and married one of the Jack boys, and by the time she would have graduated from high school, Darlene had two kids. Now she had four and looked thirty-five years old. The Jacks worked her as hard as Mr. Potts ever did.

I finished setting the table, then got out the beater and began to whip the cream. Granny came into the kitchen with a little bunch of purple asters and set them in a vase on the table. “Aren’t they pretty? I always did like a bouquet on the table,” she said. “Betty Joyce ought to be in school. Mary’s right. You should talk to Mr. Snow, Loyal. Girls deserve an education, too.” Mom and Dad and I grinned at one another to show how pleased we were that Granny was in good form.

“There,” Mom said.

“Please, Daddy,” I said.

Dad scratched the back of his head. “Three to one. I guess I’m outnumbered.”

“You see what an education did for you, son. You can count,” Granny said, pulling out her chair and sitting down. She bowed her head and mumbled, “Thank you, Lord, for letting this boy of mine go to school and learn some sense.”

“Good going,” I whispered to Granny, and she gave me a sly look.

AT THE END OF
the week, when Betty Joyce still hadn’t come to class, I stopped at the hardware to make sure her dad was keeping her out of school for good, that she wasn’t sick or just working for a few days to help with the harvest business. I was afraid of going into the store, because Mr. Snow didn’t like me hanging around and was liable to cuss me out. When I told Dad about that, he gave me two bits to purchase some washers, although he didn’t need them.

When I went into the store, Betty Joyce and her mother were lifting a carton with a drawing of a big black bolt on the side. Mrs. Snow was frail, and she struggled with the box, almost dropping it. I wondered what kind of man Mr. Snow was that he would let his wife lift something that heavy. “Here, let me take your end.” I grabbed the box. But Mrs. Snow glanced at the door in the back of the store that led into the Snows’ living room and said she could do it. Mr. Snow was lying on an iron bed that had been moved into the center of the room so that he could watch what was going on in the store, and he rose up on his elbows. He was wearing an undershirt and hadn’t shaved. I knew he smelled bad, so I was glad he wouldn’t expect me to go back there to say hello. The store smelled, too—of metal filings and mice and spilled oil that had seeped into the wooden floor. “How you, Mr. Snow?” I called. I didn’t care how he was. I didn’t even want to talk to him. I was just being polite.

From his bed, Mr. Snow could see past the counters on either side of the store, all the way to the front door. “What you doing here, girl? Can’t you see Betty Joyce don’t have time to jaw? Some of us has work to do.” He breathed through his mouth, and I knew his yellow teeth were sharp like an animal’s and had spaces between them. The way he looked at me always made me uncomfortable. I’d run into him walking down the Tallgrass road once, and I’d gotten the creeps being out there alone with him.

“Some of us,” Betty Joyce muttered, so low that I could barely hear her. But I did hear her, and I knew she was worked hard, harder than a hired man. I remembered Darlene Potts and wondered what it would take for Betty Joyce to run off and marry some no-good boy, just to get away. Then I looked at Mrs. Snow and knew Betty Joyce would stick it as long as her mother was there. I thought, Maybe Mom could get the Jolly Stitchers to help, although a charity basket wasn’t the answer.

“I came to buy washers for my dad, Mr. Snow.”

“Is that right? How much you want?”

“Two bits’ worth.”

“Well, get to it then, Betty Joyce. Get her them washers so’s you can unpack that shipment before the Second Coming.”

Betty Joyce glanced at her father but didn’t say anything. She and her mom set the box on the counter, and Betty Joyce moved to the front of the store, where her father couldn’t see her in the gloom. The store was lighted by only two bulbs, which hung down on long cords from the ceiling, one over each counter.

“Aren’t you going to school anymore?” I asked.

“What do you think?”

“I could bring your lessons to you until your dad’s better. You could do them when you’re not busy.”

“Yeah, sure. If I had any extra time, he’d make me do something important, like count nuts.” Betty Joyce had grown taller over the summer, and the dress under her apron was short and tight and dirty. Betty Joyce was dirty, too—her hands and her arms and her hair. I wished there was a girls’ group like the Jolly Stitchers, whose members looked out for one another, and we could help Betty Joyce. But all she had was me, and I didn’t know what to do.

“Besides, what makes you think I’ll ever go back to school?” Betty Joyce asked.

“You can’t just drop out,” I said.

“Says who?”

I studied her, wondering how she could have turned so bitter in just a few weeks. Betty Joyce had always been funny, not sarcastic. I remembered thinking once that Betty Joyce and I were so close, we knew what the other thought without having to talk about it. Well, I was wrong about that. It had taken me a long time to realize how bad things were for her.

“Betty Joyce?” Mr. Snow called from the bedroom. He sounded agitated.

“Yes, sir.”

“You get to them washers now.”

“I’m looking for them.” She said to me, “I have to go back to work. He’s meaner than a rooster. It’s the medicine.” She grabbed a handful of washers out of a metal bin and, without counting them, thrust them into a paper sack. Her arm was covered with bruises. One of them was old and yellow, but another was fresh. The bruises didn’t come from bumping into anything, because they went around her arm.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be. It’s just the way it is.” She’d given up, and that was worse than if she’d been angry. Betty Joyce handed me the sack of washers and adjusted her apron straps. She was wearing the V for Victory pin that I’d given her, and the red rhinestone at the base of the
V
had come out. Betty Joyce noticed me looking at it and said, “I must have knocked it against something and lost the rhinestone. I looked all over for the stone so that I could glue it back in, but I couldn’t find it.”

I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. It was just a cheap pin.”

“No, you brought it to me from Denver.” Betty Joyce turned away and wiped her eyes against her sleeve. “That old man never gave me a single thing.” She put her head on the counter and began to cry silently. Across the room, Mrs. Snow looked up from where she was writing in an account book laid out on the counter next to the box of bolts. She licked the end of her pencil. Glancing first at Mr. Snow, she looked at Betty Joyce with anxious brown eyes, turning her head from her husband to her daughter like a little bird watching a cat approach a nest and not knowing how to stop it. Then she sent me a pleading look, and I knew she wished I’d leave. She was afraid of Mr. Snow. What an awful thing to be scared of your husband. I couldn’t imagine Mom being afraid of Dad. For some reason, I thought about Helen Archuleta and wondered if she would have become like Mrs. Snow if Bobby hadn’t left her.

“How long’s it take to sell washers?” Mr. Snow yelled from the back room.

“You have to go,” Betty Joyce said, putting her hand over the pin. I should have brought her back another present from Denver, one that was finer. I thought maybe I could give her something else now and say I’d gotten it on my trip and forgotten all about it. But she’d think I felt sorry for her. I’d learned from the way that Mom and the Stitchers had presented the charity basket to Helen Archuleta, as well as how Mom had asked Mrs. Snow to take some of the food people brought after we got the telegram about Buddy, that there was a special way you gave things to people. You had to make them think they were doing you a favor by taking them. I realized I’d have to think about how to do that before I gave something to Betty Joyce.

Just then, the bell on the door jangled, and a man came in. The light was at his back, and at first, I couldn’t tell who he was. Then he walked into the center of the room and took off his hat and bowed slightly to Mrs. Snow. He was Japanese. “I’m needing a hammer,” he said in a quiet voice.

“What’s that?” Mr. Snow called from the back room.

“He needs a hammer,” Mrs. Snow said, so low that I thought her husband would not hear her.

But he did. “Who needs a hammer?”

“I don’t know. A man,” replied Mrs. Snow.

His hand on one of the vertical bars of the iron bed, Mr. Snow pulled himself upright, then leaned forward to peer into the shop. “What man’s that?”

“I don’t know, Gus. Just a man.”

“Well, he’s got a name, don’t he? Don’t you got a name, whoever you are?”

The man took a few steps toward the bedroom and dipped his head. It wasn’t a bow. I think if Mr. Snow had been nice to him, the man might have bowed. Instead, he nodded just enough to be polite. “My name is Mr. Yamamoto. I understand you sell hammers. I have come to buy one.”

“Are you a Jap?”

“I am an American.”

“You’re a Jap is what you are. We don’t sell to Japs. Can’t you see the sign in the window? It says ’No Japs Wanted.’ ”

Betty Joyce looked at the window, then exchanged a glance with her mother, and I knew they had taken down the sign.

“I have money.”

“Blood money’s what it is. You Japs are killing American soldiers. You killed my boy over in the Pacific. Gut-shot him is what you did. You’re nothing but a bunch of damn spies. I don’t want your filthy money. Take it, and get the hell out of my store.”

“Gus, it don’t matter. We could use the sale,” Mrs. Snow said.

“You deaf? You want a knock in the head?”

Mrs. Snow cowered back against the shelves, and Betty Joyce went to her and took her hands.

“I don’t want no Japs in my store. Don’t you remember nothing about Eddie getting killed by kamikazes, lying there with his guts spilled out? Don’t you remember nothing about the Reddick girl? You want Betty Joyce to get that done to her by this man, this Mr. Japamoto? You want your own daughter raped and murdered, do you? You might as well send her off to live at Jay Dee’s.” Spit came out of Mr. Snow’s mouth as he yelled, and he turned his head and wiped his face against his shoulder.

Mr. Yamamoto was frozen for a moment. Then with great dignity, he turned and slowly bowed to Mrs. Snow. Taking his time, he walked to the end of the counter and out of the store, holding the screen door so that it didn’t slam shut. He waited until he was outside to put on his hat.