Borrowed Children Read online

  BORROWED CHILDREN

  BORROWED

  CHILDREN

  GEORGE ELLA LYON

  THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY

  Copyright © 1999 by The University Press of Kentucky

  The University Press of Kentucky

  Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth,

  serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky,

  Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown

  College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State

  University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania

  University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western

  Kentucky University.

  All rights reserved.

  Editorial and Sales Offices: The University Press of Kentucky

  663 South Limestone Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008

  www.kentuckypress.com

  12 11 10 09 08 8 7 6 5 4

  Originally published by Bantam Starfire 1988.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Lyon, George Ella, 1949–

  Borrowed children / George Ella Lyon.

  p. cm.

  Summary : having been forced to act as mother and housekeeper

  during Mama’s illness, twelve-year-old Amanda has a holiday in

  Memphis, far removed from the Depression drudgery of her Kentucky

  mountain family, and finds her world expanding even as she grows to

  understand and appreciate her background.

  ISBN-10: 0-8131 -0972-8 (alk. paper)

  1. Depressions—1929—Kentucky Juvenile fiction. 2. Depressions—

  1929—Tennessee—Memphis Juvenile fiction. 3. Kentucky Fiction.

  [1. Depressions—1929 Fiction. 2. Mountain life—Kentucky Fiction.

  3. Family life—Kentucky—Fiction. 4. Memphis (Tenn.) Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.L9954Bo 1999

  [Fic]—dc21 99-32579

  ISBN-13: 978-0-8131-0972-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)

  This book is printed on acid-free recycled paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  For My Mother

  Don’t you think you were a fine woman

  for me to study to learn by heart?

  —“Riding Hood”

  BETSY SHOLL

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  1

  It’s Friday. Fridays are the best days because we know Daddy is coming home. He works all week cutting timber on Big Lick Mountain—too far to come back to Goose Rock every night. I wish he could. The house lights up when Daddy’s here.

  Even now, just knowing he’s on his way, chores seem easier and we don’t quarrel. I’ve been taking care of my little sisters, Anna and Helen, but they’ve been happy—Helen stringing spools on yarn, Anna looking at the new Sears-Roebuck catalogue. “Wish Book,” Daddy calls it. “Wishes are free,” he says. “Look your fill.” And we do. They’ve got things on those slick pages that Goose Rock’s never seen: clothes washers, typewriters, electric lights. But Anna looks at dolls.

  “I’d give a bushel of money for that bride doll,” she says, pointing to a tall one got up in wads of lace.

  “And what would you do with her? She’d be thick with coal dust in no time.” In Goose Rock coal dust is as common as dirt.

  “I’d keep her under my pillow,” Anna insists.

  “And squash her flat as a board.”

  “Oh, Mandy …”

  “Remember what Daddy said about Miss Snavely and the Wish Book. You don’t always get what you order.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Said she ordered a suit, and when it came, her heart broke because it didn’t have that pretty man in it.”

  “That’s just a story,” Anna argues. “Nobody’s that dumb.”

  “No? Then what are they doing here, stuck between two mountains with nothing but a Wish Book to look at?”

  “We’re not dumb and we’re here.”

  “That’s because we follow the timber.”

  “Maybe it’s the trees that are dumb,” Helen suggests.

  “‘That’s it exactly,” I tell her. “Dumb maple! Dumb walnut! Knot-head pine.”

  We’re all laughing when Ben bursts in.

  “Mandy, I’ve got to talk to you,” he says, his breath coming in heaves. “Right now. Private.” He motions me out on the porch.

  Ben is fourteen, tall and skinny like me, but that’s okay for a boy. He’s been running, and his hair looks like a blackbird about to take off.

  “I’m listening,” I say, glancing through the window to make sure the girls don’t knock over a lamp or something.

  “You know those lunches Mama packs us in schooltime—ham biscuit, a jar of milk? Well, that’s all right here in Goose Rock, but when you go to Manchester to school… why, there’s boys eating steak between white bread, Mandy, and not out of paper sacks either. They say you can buy that bread sliced and it tastes just like cake. And there we sit with dry biscuits and hard ham. So me and David—I don’t know which of us first—we just thought we’d go to the hotel one day and try out lunch there.”

  I can’t believe it. David’s two years older than Ben and so crazy about Polly Anderson I didn’t know he’d even noticed the Asher Hotel. I’ve wanted to eat there ever since I first laid eyes on it—white and tall and fancy, like a hotel in New York. I’ve read about New York, you know. And that’s the kind of place I belong. But I’d be too scared—not of the hotel people but of Mama and Daddy—to ever just walk in.

  “Well, what was it like?”

  “You never saw a thing like it,” Ben says, his blue eyes warming, “unless it was in the dining car bound for Memphis. Tablecloths and silver dish covers, hot meat and potatoes with the butter standing. Why, we ate so much, David said he slept through the next hour of school. Not me. And Mr. Asher told us to come back to the hotel any time we wanted, he was proud to do business with Mr. Perritt s sons.”

  “Proud to take Daddy’s money, you mean.” Ben’s face whitens. I didn’t mean to make him feel worse. “That’s pretty bad,” I say, “but anybody can slip up once. Daddy’U get over it.”

  “But it wasn’t just once,” Ben says, his voice rising. “We went there the whole last month of school, Mandy, and that’s how come Mr. Asher sent Daddy a bill. It’s come today. Mama said she couldn’t think what we owed the hotel for.”

  “And she’s not opened it?”

  “I reckon not. I can still sit down.”

  “Well, try not to worry,” I tell him. “It may blow over.”

  His eyes follow mine to a thunderhead along the ridge.

  Without a word, he bolts off the porch, then lopes across the yard and through the narrow meadow to the shed. I expect that’s where he ran in from. Had to go talk to Welkie about the bill before he ta
lked to me. Welkie’s a horse. Ben gets more comfort out of any kind of creature than most people do from best friends.

  He’s going to need comfort too. Money is already a problem around here. Sawmill business is down because of something called the Depression, and Mama is expecting another baby. Don’t ask me why. A baby is the last thing we need.

  So it’s going to hit hard, this bill from the Asher Hotel. Ben and David never should have done it. As long as they did, though, I wish they’d taken me along. I’m the one who would appreciate it. Boys judge a meal by how well it covers the plate.

  It’s getting dark as a cellar out here and its only six o’clock. Daddy says these are dog days—hot enough to make anybody pant. But now a wind’s come up and the forsythia bush skitters against the porch. Mama calls to ask if I see Daddy, and I go in, watching the curtains blow at the window.

  “Not a sign,” I tell her.

  He should be here by now. The table s laid, the dumplings puffing up in the chicken broth. Mamas lit the lamp above the gold-rimmed tureen on the table.

  “It’s chipped but it’s gold,” she says, patting the graceful lid, “and older than any of us. Came over with the Ezelles from France, packed in feathers.”

  My grandmother Omie was an Ezelle, and Mama always says this whenever we have chicken and dumplings or stew or whatever requires the tureen. I like to think of the Ezelles themselves packed in feathers.

  I follow her back to the kitchen. Its strange—I’m taller than she is now. I check the part in her hair. Always straight. Everything about her is neat, plump, and pretty. Where did she get a daughter like a clothesline pole?

  Sweat beads on her forehead as she mixes the cornbread batter.

  “No point in baking this till your father gets here. Go see if you see him coming.”

  As I pass through the parlor, Helen reaches for something in the catalogue, Anna jerks it back, and the thin page rips.

  “She’s tearing up my dolls!” Anna hollers.

  “Mine, too!” Helen holds the crumpled paper close.

  “Take them outside, Amanda,” Mama says. “Leave the catalogue and go watch for Daddy. It’ll help him get home. Somebody watching always does.”

  So we troop out to the porch. Thunder rumbles like empty coal cars. Just as we reach the rail, the rain comes down in buckets and lightning bleaches the dirt road in front of our house. All of a sudden there’s a shriek, Helen grabs me around the waist, and Anna starts pointing and screaming. I look where she’s looking and see a horse and rider blurred by the slant of rain.

  “It’s all right,” I begin.

  “But look at him,” Anna splutters. “It can’t be Daddy. He doesn’t have a …”

  Then I see what she sees. The figure sits high, his body covered in a cape. And where his head should be, there’s nothing. It’s like in the Sleepy Hollow story—but this time it’s coming at a gallop directly for us.

  The screen door bangs and I feel Mama behind us. I reach for her hand, but she’s already holding Helen’s, so I grab the rail. The figure is getting close now, swaying and gleaming.

  Not a one of us moves and even Helen is quiet. The figure slows, dismounts, and leads the horse toward the porch. Mama takes a step forward, drawing herself up. “Come no farther,” she commands.

  Then the rider throws back its shoulders and laughs. It keeps coming. The cloak slips down, a head emerges, and it’s Daddy, his smile wide, his glasses all steamed up.

  I almost cry, I’m so glad it’s him, but Helen buries her face in my skirt. Mama moves toward him, not yet ready to laugh.

  “Jim,” she says, “what on earth do you think you’re doing, scaring the children to death?”

  Now he’s up on the porch, water pouring off the cloak, and him still shaking with laughter.

  “Just trying to keep dry,” he says. “I cut a piece of cloth off a log tarp. Never dreamed it would give these girls a fright. I couldn’t see them through the rain.”

  “Well, they could see you,” Mama says, “and you could have been the Devil himself.” She’s trying to brush water off his face. “I’ll call one of the boys to come get Midge.”

  “That’s all right, Rena.” Daddy lays a dripping hand on her shoulder. “I’ll walk on down to the shed.”

  Mama doesn’t smile till his back is turned, and then it’s a slow smile, like the sun coming up.

  “You girls get on in the house now,” she says. “It’s so damp out here you could catch your death.”

  2

  And so she herds us in—through the parlor and the dining room to the back of the kitchen. Towels hang by the washtub where we bathe. I dry Helen off while Anna gives herself a rubdown. I didn’t realize the rain had blown in on us so much. Guess I was too scared.

  Mama dabs at her face with her apron, then scrapes cornbread batter into a cast-iron skillet which she eases into the stove.

  If this were a regular Friday we could relax now. But there’s that bill, hanging over everything. I wonder if Ben’s trying to break it to Daddy down at the shed. And I wonder about David. He won’t take whatever happens as hard as Ben, or he won’t show it. David’s calm as snow.

  Here they come now, up the back steps.

  “Scrape your feet, boys,” Daddy orders.

  Stamping and tramping like mules, they come in. I pass the towels. When Daddy takes off his glasses to wipe his face, it’s so naked and tired, I look away. From behind the towel he begins:

  “The boys tell me the hotel sent us a bill, Rena. You haven’t been putting up secret Memphis kin?”

  “Not chick nor child,” she answers, bent over, checking the fire in the stove.

  “Probably Mr. Asher’s mistake.” He sets his glasses on his nose, then anchors them behind his ears. “But I’d best have a look.”

  He walks out of the kitchen and his good mood all at once. Ben blanches; David studies his hands.

  The hinge creaks as Daddy opens Mama’s desk in the parlor. A pause while he finds the bill and the letter knife. Then:

  “God almighty, what has been going on?”

  Mama goes through that door, too.

  “What is it, Mandy?” Anna always thinks I know. “What’s wrong?”

  “You tell her, David,” I say.

  But Daddy’s back, taller and louder than he left.

  “I want an explanation, boys, and it had better be good.”

  “Mandy,” Mama starts.

  “I know. Take the girls to their room. But I’d like to—”

  “Do as I say,”

  So we miss the big scene.

  “David and Ben did something wrong,” I tell Anna, after she and Helen are sitting on the edge of our bed.

  We’re not allowed to lie on it unless we pull back the red and white zigzag quilt, Hard Road to Kansas. Daddy said his mama called it Drunkard’s Path.

  “Did what wrong?” Anna demands, pushing her brown hair out of her eyes. It’s straight as straw.

  Daddy’s voice rolls down the hall:

  “You think I cut down money trees on Big Lick?”

  I try to cover it over.

  “Well, you know David and Ben go to the high school in Manchester now?”

  Anna nods. Helen slides to the floor, chewing on the blond sprig of her braid.

  “And they take their lunch, just like we do?”

  She nods again.

  “Trouble is, toward the end of school, they quit eating it. Started going to the Asher Hotel for lunch instead. The bills for that.”

  “Oh. That’s trouble, huh?”

  Its my turn to nod.

  “And they’re going to get a whipping?”

  “At least.”

  “They’re awfully big,” Anna ventures.

  “So was their mistake.”

  The screen door bangs. More heavy feet on the back steps.

  “I guess the discussion’s over,” I tell them. “Mama will call us in a minute.”

  “Mandy?” Helen’s voice surprises
me from the floor. “Has Daddy ever whipped you?”

  “No. But Mamas switches sure have made me dance.”

  “Will Daddy whip them with his belt?”

  “I don’t know, Helen. What’s wrong?” Her wide mouth is twitching to cry.

  “What will they do? They can’t eat with us or go in the wagon…” Big tears roll down her cheeks.

  “Helen, what are you talking about?” It’s Anna asking this time.

  “If they can’t sit down,” Helen explains. “David said if Daddy used his belt, they’d never sit down again.”

  “Oh, honey,” I kneel beside her. Anna giggles. “They don’t mean really. They just mean they’ll be sore.”

  This is the child who ran out to look when Mama said her birthday was just around the corner.

  “You girls wash up,” Mama calls. “Mandy, come pour the milk.”

  Dinner is slow and silent. Helen drops her cornbread. I pick it up quick and Mama pretends not to see. Before anyone asks for seconds, David mumbles:

  “May we be excused?”

  “There’s applesauce for dessert,” Mama says.

  “Thanks, but I’ve had enough.”

  Ben agrees.

  “Well, then, go along.”

  And they do, walking very carefully, like they had somebody else’s legs.

  Once they’re out of the room, Daddy declares, “Not a nickel of that bill do I mean to pay. Tomorrow I’ll go into town and speak to Lige Asher. He’s bound to have some work those boys can do. They’ll see more of that hotel than they reckoned on.”

  He folds his napkin and puts it beside his plate.

  “Rena, if you’ll excuse me now, I’ve got a little figuring to do.”

  “I’ll bring your coffee.”

  Nodding thanks, he goes back to the desk.

  Daddy likes to carve, and usually on Friday nights he takes up whatever piece he’s working on and sits in the kitchen whittling, while Mama and I do the dishes. But not tonight. The parlor could be as far away as the mill.

  “Finish up, girls,” Mama tells us. But the dumplings are heavy and cold.

  “I’m too full,” I say.

  “You’ll see it again tomorrow.” We nod. “Then let’s get the kitchen done,” she says. “Bad business cooking for them that won’t eat.”