The Longest Road (13 page)

Rosalie said that she was the wife of a small independent farmer who was struggling to pay his mortgage. She certainly didn't seem to enjoy teaching and Laurie was sure that you could determine the standing of each child's family by the way the teacher spoke to him or her. It wasn't surprising that she smiled oftenest on Sylvia and Dan. Their father was president of the school board that hired the teacher, oversaw her work, and paid her salary.

Laurie carried her lunch to the little prairie and sat down in the grass next to sunflowers that were as tall as she was and cast nodding bits of shade. This was how it was going to be, she knew, with a bitter taste in her mouth. She'd been silly to think the new dress and anklets might make a difference. There wasn't going to be anyone to walk or talk or play with.

She told herself severely that if she had liked Sylvia or Janice or Bonnie, it would have been a whole lot worse. As it was, she'd keep out of their way and study hard so she could do the eighth-grade work better than Dan and the others and have at least that satisfaction. She hated to tell Rosalie that she couldn't use the seventh-grade books and needed texts for the eighth.

If only Daddy had at least sent enough money for books and shoes! Rosalie was nice but Grandpa behaved like they were beggars in spite of all the work they did. It wasn't right of Daddy to leave them here. Mama wouldn't have let him, not for a minute.…

That thought brought a guilty rush of other things Mama wouldn't have allowed—anklets, puffed short sleeves, movies, reading Rosalie's magazines. In a crushing flood of grief, of longing for her mother, for the way they used to be a family, Laurie fought back tears.

She'd gladly never see another movie or magazine, gladly wear the hated long stockings, if Mama could be alive again. All the rest of her life, there would be that big empty place, there would be that tablet with Mama's dreams of a nice house, the tormenting knowledge that Mama would never have a set of Blue Willow dishes, a washing machine, a soft, warm, new coat to replace the threadbare maroon one.

Laurie swallowed hard and blinked. She mustn't cry. Her eyes would be red and that nasty Sylvia would think it was because of her. Laurie gazed at a swaying purple-red gayfeather and Morrigan's voice filled her the way it did, all of her, not just her mind. “
You've got to walk that lonesome valley, you got to walk it by yourself
.…”

No, I don't, she thought, chin going up.
You're with me in that valley, Morrigan. You and your songs, you're always with me
. She got up then and marched to the privy like a soldier, ignoring the whistles and laughter of the boys in the truck.

That afternoon, as her class was called to the front for geography, Danny crowded her so that the front of his Levi's pressed against her hip. “Gettin' some titties on you, cropper girl?” he whispered, staring down the front of her dress. “I'll squeeze 'em for you to make 'em grow.”

Bob Matlock heard and laughed. Janice heard, too, but instead of frowning at the boys, she gave Laurie a look of disgust. As they sat down, she pulled her skirt away so it wouldn't touch Laurie's. Mrs. Evans didn't seem to notice and Laurie suspected that even if she had, she wouldn't reprimand the son of her most important patron.

In geography, as in her other subjects, Laurie discovered that she knew as much or more than her classmates. This didn't please Mrs. Evans, since it cast a suspicion that her teaching wasn't as effective as that of Laurie's Kansas teacher.

On the way back to their desks, Dan pushed against Laurie again. Ready for him this time, she brought her heel up between his legs. Crowded as she was, she didn't kick him very hard but he yelped and swore, grabbing at Laurie, who dodged him.

“Laurie Field!” shrilled Mrs. Evans. “What are you doing?”

“Dan bumped into me,” Laurie said.

“That's not what it sounded like. You'll stay in at recess and dust out the erasers and wash the blackboard.”

Dan didn't physically molest Laurie after that but he missed no chance to whisper dirty suggestions. Laurie never mentioned this persecution to Rosalie. A cropper complain to the teacher or school board about the landlord and board president's son? What would happen if in a year or two he forcibly did to her the things he whispered about? It was pretty clear that no one except Rosalie would care or believe it wasn't her fault. If Daddy knew how awful it was here, surely, surely, he'd send for them, but Laurie didn't know where to write to him.

She made flash cards to drill Buddy in addition and subtraction but he fussed and complained and said she wasn't his mother or the boss of him. At a scold from Rosalie, he sulkily gave answers but it was clear that being set back had quenched the little enthusiasm he'd had for study. That made him fit in perfectly with the boys of his age and since the other first-graders were from cropper families, Belle had made friends and now prattled eagerly all the way to and from school.

Laurie's salvation was the little prairie, remembering Morrigan and his music, and study. She soon read her way through the small school library and, grudgingly, Mrs. Evans exchanged these books for different ones from the county library. The teacher had been nicer to Laurie since Laurie offered to help the first- and second-graders with their lessons. She worked with Belle at home anyway, and this was one way of making sure Buddy learned a little.

The first cotton bolls ripened by mid-September. After school and on weekends, the children joined Grandpa and Rosalie in the fields. Laurie had a full-size ducking sack and dragged it along the row by the wide strap slung over her shoulder. Belle had her own small sack, which she'd been given last summer. Before then, she told Laurie, she'd picked into a lard bucket and dumped it into Rosalie's bag. The boys had bags of varying sizes. Babe played or slept on a blanket at the end of the field and Rosalie picked in sight of her so that if the child woke, she could be tended to, or brought to ride along on her mother's sack.

Even through canvas gloves, the tough, pointed bolls rasped Laurie's hands. Where all the bolls on a stalk were ready, splitting to show white fluff, you could clean it quickly by placing both hands on the stalk and pulling upward. Most of the stalks, though, had only a few ripe bolls. On windy days, and nearly every day was windy, Laurie learned to pick fast till she got enough weight in the bag to keep it on the ground. Otherwise, a gust might send it billowing like a sail, spilling what was in it and almost hauling Laurie off her feet.

Sometime in November or early December, all the cropper children would stay out of school to pull cotton. It would be the end of January before the last sack was weighed and sent to the gin. Naturally, the kids got way behind with their lessons. It was no wonder some of them stayed in the same grade for two or three years and that most never considered going to high school.

So there you had your next bunch of croppers, Laurie thought, as she dragged her full sack to the scales. Not able to get a better job because they don't have an education and not able to get an education because of this kind of work.

Buddy wasn't going to grow up like this. His natural dislike of school was made worse by his cousins' similar feelings but Mama had wanted both her children to finish high school and Laurie was determined that they would—or at least that they wouldn't be sharecroppers.

Grandpa weighed her sack and jotted “50” on the notepad weighted down by a root. After emptying the bolls into the trailer that would haul the load to the gin, Grandpa tossed the sack at her without a smile, a word, or anything. She might as well have been a machine, and she supposed that was how he felt about everyone except Rosalie and perhaps Belle and Babe.

Dust stung Laurie's face and the sack blew upwards, buffeting her. She dragged it down and began to pop bolls. What was that song of Morrigan's, almost a jig?

Jump down, turn around, pick a bale of cotton,

Jump down, turn around, pick a bale a day—

Oh Lordy, pick a bale of cotton,

Oh Lordy, pick a bale a day.

It was mid-October when a letter came from Daddy. Laurie held her breath while Grandpa tore it open.
Let him send for us. Oh, Mama, help him do that
. Before Grandpa read the letter, he unrolled three one-dollar bills that were folded in the sheet of tablet paper. Laurie's heart plunged. That wasn't enough for train tickets—wasn't enough for much of anything! Grandpa thought so, too. He scowled at the bills and put them in his wallet before handing the letter to Rosalie.

“You read it, wife. You're a sight better at figgerin' out Ed's hen-tracks than I am.”

Daddy might write and spell better if you'd have let him go to school past fourth grade, Laurie thought. It was just like Grandpa to blame Daddy when the truth was that Harry Field could barely read and never wrote letters at all. Puckering her eyebrows, Rosalie read slowly:

Dear Pa, Rosalie, and Children,

I am sorry that I am still not fixed to send for the kiddies. Cut my hand so bad I almost lost it and for three weeks I could not work. That and the doc I had to see when the cut got infected took all the money I had. But I am working now and, kiddies, I hope the good Lord will help me earn enough to buy your train tickets and have a fit place for you to live by spring so we can be together then the way your mother would want.

Rosalie, this isn't much but maybe it will help buy the kiddies' school shoes and school books. Pa, if you will get them what they need, I will pay you back with interest. Kiddies, you earn your keep and always act the way your mother taught you. It's getting dark. No electric lights in this fancy hotel (hah) so I will close, open up a can of pork-and-beans and hit the hay so I can be in the field at daylight.

“Ed's been awkward his whole life,” Grandpa said disgustedly, spitting tobacco from the step. “Three dollars when we've fed his young'uns all summer and into the fall! And here he's talkin' about spring!”

“Harry!” Rosalie's eyes flashed. “They're your grandchildren! What's more, they've worked hard and Laurie's been a wonderful help to me.”

He spat again and went inside to rest while Laurie helped Rosalie get supper. Disappointed beyond measure by the letter and mortified that her own grandfather grudged her keep, Laurie kept blinking at tears.

“Don't mind your grandpa,” Rosalie soothed. “You more'n earn your board, honey, and he knows it.”

A sick, bitter certainty that had turned Laurie's bones to water since the reading of the letter suddenly turned them to iron. To start with, Daddy had hoped to send for them before school started. Now he was talking about spring—then he'd probably talk about fall. If he ever did send for them, they'd have been separated for so long and Buddy would have changed so much that they'd never really be a family again—if that was even possible without Mama.

We've got to go. Go on our own—or we'll never go at all
. She said to Rosalie, “Is there an address on that letter?”

7

There must have been forty men in the boxcar, some old as Grandpa, others only a few years older than Laurie. At first Laurie had been scared when they started tossing their bundles or cheap suitcases into the car and ran alongside, catching hold of the ladder or door to swing up as the train started slowly after stopping for water several miles out of town.

Some of the dirty, mostly bewhiskered men reeked with whiskey and tobacco. All stank of sweat and grime, but they were laughing about outwitting the railroad bulls who'd patrolled the railroad yards in Altus. There was a holiday mood about them as if they were going on vacation. A brawny, dark-haired tramp spotted Laurie and sauntered up.

“First time on the rails, kids?” Laurie was afraid of something in his eyes. She wanted to shrink from the whiskey smell of him but knew that would make things worse. “You're gonna need a jocker—someone to show you the tricks.”

“Thanks, mister, but we don't need any tricks. We just want to go to California.”

Grinning, the man started to sit down. “That gives us plenty of time to get acquainted. You got nice skin, kid. Just like a girl's.” He touched her cheek.

Laurie struck his hand away. “You keep your hands to yourself!”

“Why, you little punk! I'll—”

“There you are, kiddos!” A tall, scrawny, loose-jointed man pushed through the men and dropped his bundle beside Laurie. “Thought I'd lost you for a minute.”

The grin faded from the younger man's face. “You their jocker?”

“Nope. I'm their granddad.”

The dark man stared at Laurie. “I bet they never saw you before, old man.”

Suddenly, there was a butcher knife in the newcomer's hand. “You know what I think, bub? You'll be a sight more comfortable in another car—and you better hurry before we start movin'.”

Though they hadn't seemed to pay much attention, a knot of men began ranging themselves behind the scarecrowlike man with the knife. “We don't want any yeggs in this car, Jake,” a bull-chested redhead growled at the dark man. “What happened to your last sweetie, that freckle-faced kid who'd run off from an orphanage? Burned his arm with lye, you did—made great big running sores so's he could beg for you!”

The brawny man stood up. “That damn little punk greased the track—served him right! After all I done for him, he ran off with another jocker. That weren't lye I burnt him with, either. It was Spanish fly.”

“What we oughta do,” said the redhead, “is wait till this train's makin' fifty and let
you
grease the track!”

The jocker—whatever that was—hurried to jump off the car. The men moved off and began making themselves comfortable, except for the tall man, who put away the knife and settled down against his bundle. He had crinkly gray hair, dark eyes, and a moustache that almost hid his lower face. The right side of his cheek had a pale scar like a patch.