Judy's Journey (13 page)

“Up north,” answered Papa.

Papa was gay again, now that they had started going somewhere. He seemed more like himself than he had for a long time. It was April—real summer weather in Florida, but not yet too warm. Papa had decided to leave Bean Town before the end of the bean harvest, when all the other workers would be leaving.

“We'll be like the redbirds and bluebirds and robins,” said Papa. “We'll go up north for the summer. They say it gits so all-fired hot down here nobody can stand it. And there's no work, so the Negroes go north by big truckloads. They follow potato and other vegetable crops along the Atlantic seaboard. All the big Florida vegetable fields are flooded by summer rains. The growers have to pump the water off and drain the land, before they can begin planting again in September.”

“Will we come back to Florida next winter?” asked Joe Bob.

“Depends on what we find up north,” said Papa.

“
Are we going up north
?” cried Judy.

Up north
was a far away and very mysterious place, but it had somehow changed character. It was not so much the home of Yankees who had burned your great-grandmother's house and stolen her silver, but of strange people who consumed tons of oranges, beans, celery and other vegetables.

“Will we git us a farm
up north
, Papa?” asked Judy.

“Law, no,” said Papa, “but I hope I'll git some of that Yankee money in my pocket.”

“I never went to Gloria Rathbone's party, after all,” said Judy.

“Why not?” demanded Joe Bob. “You promised to bring me somethin'.”

Judy bristled. “That mean little ole Gloria called me names,” she explained. “Said nobody couldn't come to her party who wasn't invited. I never even saw the house she lives in. Didn't want to see her wonderful ole house neither.”

“I call that a low-down Yankee trick,” growled Papa.

“She's a Yankee all right, Bessie Harmon said so,” Judy went on. “Just because her father owns a bean house, she thinks she's smart. But I had to help her with her multiplication table and her spelling. She wore a silk dress and had new patent-leather shoes too.”

“Bet your new dress was prettier than hers, honey,” said Papa.

“Nobody looked at it,” mourned Judy. After a pause she added, “I never did see Lake Okeechobee once. I never went up on the dike.”

“And I never caught nothin' but catfish in that little ole dirty canal,” said Joe Bob.

It was good to leave the flat, level sawgrass and elderberry land of the Glades and the unending miles of vegetable fields. It was good to get away from the great treeless stretches of muck and swamp. Soon there were shiny-leaved citrus groves again and towns with shady streets to rest the eyes from the sun. The towns were full of white houses and green grass lawns with sprinklers going, and bright-colored flowers blooming—azalea, hibiscus, flame-vine and bougainvillea.

“We'll take Holloway's advice and go to New Jersey,” said Papa, consulting the map. “Route 17 is what we want—the shore route through Georgia and the Carolinas. If we see anything promising along the way, we can always stop. No use shootin' through like a railroad train. Mama don't feel so good, so we'll jest mosey along.”

The first night they camped on a side road, and Papa and Joe Bob caught a mess of fish in a pond near by. Blue herons waded in the water along the shore. The night was warm and the frogs kept up a continuous chant,
yank
—
y pank
—
yank
—
y
—
pank
, which soothed everybody to sleep.

The next morning they stopped in the nearest town. The streets were lined with large bushes, whose pink and white blossoms were beginning to open. Mama and Papa took Lonnie into a grocery store to buy food, while the children waited in the jalopy. Judy reached out and picked a sprig off the bush by the car, with a cluster of pink flowers on it.

“You like them posies?” asked a woman's voice.

“Yes
ma'm
,” said Judy shyly.

The woman, who wore a long skirt and a man's wide-brimmed straw hat, had come across the street. She stopped by the loaded car.

“You can root it easy,” she said. “Jest keep the stem in a bottle o' water till the roots start growin', then set it out. Did you ever root any ‘slips'?”

“No
ma'm
,” said Judy. “Never heard o' 'em before. Never saw no posies like these before.”

“They're called
oleanders
,” said the woman. “We named our town for 'em—Oleander.”

“I think it's the nicest town in the whole world,” said Judy impulsively. “Wisht we could live here always. Wisht we could git us a farm here …”

“Where do you live?” asked the woman.

“Nowheres,” broke in Joe Bob bitterly. “Different place every night.”

“We're all the time on the go,” said Judy.

“Where's your
home
?” asked the woman, looking at the car's license plate.

“It
was
in Alabama, but it ain't no more,” said Judy. “We're lookin' for Papa a job.”

“What kind of a job?” asked the woman.

“Outdoors,” said Judy. “Papa don't like machinery nor factory work. He don't want to be whistled in and whistled out. All he knows to do is farm.”

“Can he pick tomatoes and cucumbers?” asked the woman.

“Yes
ma'm
!” smiled Judy. “Best picker that ever was. I can pick too. So can Joe Bob, but Cora Jane's too little. We used to pick cotton.”

“When your father comes, you tell him to come to my place and see my husband,” said the woman. “We need help bad. Go out the main road four miles and look for a mailbox that says GIBSON on it. That's us. I got a girl, Mary John, just your age. Remember the name: GIBSON.” She hurried away.

Judy and Joe Bob looked at each other, then they burst out laughing. “We got Papa a job!” they cried. They began to dance up and down. Joe Bob bumped against the horn and it began to honk.

Papa and Mama came running.

“What's the matter? What you done done? Anybody hurt?”

“No,” said Judy. She whispered to Joe Bob. “Don't tell yet. Let's make 'em guess.”

Papa and Mama put the groceries in the car. Papa's face looked sad.

“Looks like good farm country round here, but they must be small farms if they don't use outside help,” he said. “That man I talked to said if he needs help, he jest calls on his neighbors. This is their peak season right now for about six weeks, for cucumbers and tomatoes. The other feller with him said there's a big harvest of potatoes up in the St. Johns River section, south of Jacksonville.”

Mama got out the map. “Up here somewheres,” she said, pointing with her finger.

“We'd ought to make that in a day, if we keep goin',” said Papa. He started the motor and the throbbing of the engine began to shake the car.

“Better tell 'im,” whispered Joe Bob, “or he'll go on past.”

“Papa!” screamed Judy, trying to make herself heard. “Stop at Gibson's four miles out. It says GIBSON on the mailbox. Watch for it—don't go too fast.”

“What for?” asked Papa, when the engine had quieted a little.

“I got a job for you—outdoors too!” said Judy proudly.

“A JOB?” laughed Papa.

They were there in a few minutes. The mailbox said GIBSON in large letters.

The first thing Judy looked at was the house. It was not one of the big white-pillared mansions she had seen in Alabama and Georgia. It was a weathered gray two-story farmhouse with a wide verandah running round three sides, set back from the road. The driveway was bordered with vine-and moss-draped oaks, and the yard was bright with flowering shrubs and bottle-bordered flower beds of phlox and petunias. Two huge clumps of oleander, coming into bloom, grew on each side.

“I think it's the nicest house in the world!” exclaimed Judy.

There was Mrs. Gibson, brush-broom in hand, sweeping the sandy yard between the flower beds. And there was her daughter, Mary John, chubby and round, with blue eyes and yellow hair.

“You made good time,” said Mrs. Gibson.

“What's all this?” asked Papa, bewildered.

Mrs. Gibson explained that her husband had fallen from his tractor and broken his leg in two places, and was kept to his bed. He had three acres in tomatoes and two acres in cucumbers, both ready to be harvested, besides peppers and other vegetables coming along. She took Papa in the house to talk to Mr. Gibson, and when he came out again, he was all smiles.

“Where did you say we should put up our tent, ma'm?” he asked.

Mrs. Gibson pointed out a shady spot under a mossy live oak a short distance from the house.

“Hit's right near the well and the garden and the grove,” she said. “That's a flowin' well there—best water in the world —never stops runnin'. You-all can have all the oranges and vegetables you want. Just help yourself.”

Mama was so surprised she was speechless. She had never met any one like Mrs. Gibson before—so brisk, energetic, untiring and kind. Mrs. Gibson treated people well and expected to be well-treated in return. Since her husband's accident, she was managing the farm with the help of one man, Ollie Peters.

To Judy it was like a dream come true.

“Bessie Harmon told me folks born in Florida are called Crackers,” she said to Mary John. “Are you a Cracker too?”

Mary John was shy. “I reckon I am,” she drawled.

“My school in Bean Town had Crackers,” said Judy, “and other kinds too, from all over the country. One girl was from Connecticut.”

Mary John smiled. “That was nice.”

“How come you got a boy's name
John
?” asked Judy.

“I'm named for my Daddy,” said the girl.

They were friends at once. Mary John gave Judy ‘slips' from her mother's plants and empty tin cans to grow them in. Judy started a flower bed in front of the tent.

“Can I take them along with me when we go?” she asked.

“Oh, but you're going to stay here,” insisted Mary John.

Mrs. Gibson asked the Drummond children to come in often for supper. They learned to sit down at a table and to eat with forks instead of their fingers or spoons. Sometimes Judy and Mary John watched Mrs. Gibson at her cooking or baking. Mrs. Gibson had a large, old-fashioned range and she would put two chicken pies and several pans of soda biscuits and crackling cornbread in the oven at once. She always had baked or boiled sweet potatoes on hand for the children to eat. Once Judy and Mary John mixed a cake and baked it. When it was done, the children had it to eat all to themselves. Judy had never known such a kitchen. It gave the word
home
a new meaning.

Papa began work right away and he had plenty to keep him busy. But he was happier than he had been for a long time because he could be outdoors and because he had some responsibility of his own.

The tomatoes and cucumbers had to be hauled in Mr. Gibson's truck to the State Farmers Market in Oleander, where they were auctioned off to the highest bidder. But first they had to be picked. The cucumbers could not be picked in the morning because the dew on them would cause them to rust. So they were picked in the afternoon and the tomatoes were picked, green, in the morning. Ollie Peters showed Papa everything. The two men took turns driving the truck to the market each morning about eleven o'clock.

Both crops came on with such a rush that Mama and the children went out in the tomato field to help pick. Judy missed Mary John, who was going to school every day, but she was anxious to help Papa keep his job. Lonnie and Cora Jane played in the paths or sat in the shade at the end of the rows, while Mama and Judy and Joe Bob picked.

At first it was fun to fill up the baskets. But Ollie Peters shook his head when he saw the children tossing the green tomatoes.

“Put each one down carefully,” he said, “so you don't bruise it. Them buyers at the market are mighty fussy.”