Judy's Journey (9 page)

Bessie grunted and walked on. Other children from the shanties came along behind them. When they reached the school yard, they all went in together. A group of children already there sang out a greeting: “Here come the shanty kids! Here come the bean-pickers!”

Bessie took charge. To Judy and the children behind her, she said: “Don't none of you say a word.” To the accusers, she replied calmly: “We don't pick beans and you know it.”

“If you don't pick beans, you live on the drainage canal then.”

“What of it?” answered Bessie. “What's the matter with that?”

“You live in shanties!” “You drink dirty water!” “You're hillbillies.” “You wash your clothes in dirty water!” “You never been inside a house!” The teasing retorts came thick and fast.

Bessie marched over to the group and shook her fist in their faces. “Now, you Crackers, you can shut up for today. Hear me?” She turned to Judy. “Every day I got to shut these kids up. Just 'cause they live in real houses, they think they're better'n we are. We'll show 'em!”

The children stopped calling names and began to play games, with Bessie their leader. Bessie had more ideas and more initiative than all the others put together.

Judy stood off on one side and watched. Then she slipped over to the gate. She didn't like this school, after all. She decided to go home. Suddenly she turned and ran. Hearing footsteps behind her, she ran harder than ever. Then she felt a jerk on her arm and there was Bessie.

“Where you think you're goin'?” panted Bessie.

“Home,” said Judy, frowning. “Don't like your ole school.”

“Yes, you do,” replied Bessie. “Them kids don't mean a thing. You gotta get used to 'em. You gotta talk back to 'em, to shut 'em up.”

“What did you call 'em?” asked Judy.

“Crackers—they're mostly Crackers, born in Georgia or Florida. There's other kids from all over everywhere, too. They all shut up when I call 'em Crackers. You come on back with me.”

Judy's heart sank. For the first time she was homesick for Alabama and the cotton fields and the little country school on Plumtree Creek. But Bessie marched her back to the school-ground. When the bell rang, Judy stayed close behind Bessie. Bessie took her in her own room, the Fifth Grade, and put her down beside her in her own seat. There were no empty seats.

The teacher, Miss Garvin, gave her one look and said: “Another new girl. From a crop family, I suppose. She won't know a thing.”

She asked Judy her name and where she came from. Judy told her.

“If this class gets any larger,” said Miss Garvin, “I don't know where we'll put the children. Where do you live?”

“On the … drainage … right next to Bessie Harmon,” said Judy.

“Dirty bean-picker! Lives in a dirty ditch,” whispered a boy behind her, loud enough for everybody to hear.

His taunts made Judy angry, and her shyness left her. She jumped up and faced the boy. “If you had to carry all your water, you'd be dirty yourself,” she cried. “Plenty people in the United States don't have bathtubs with a million gallons of hot water to wash in.” The words of the fortune-teller at the Alabama carnival came back to her. “Circus and carnival people don't have bathtubs. They travel around like folks who harvest the crops. They wash in buckets and keep clean, and so do we.”

The boy in the seat behind her was scared now. He hid his face in a book. Judy sat down. She was trembling all over.

“That's tellin' 'em!” whispered Bessie.

“Hot temper—no self-control,” said Miss Garvin in a low voice. “Chip on her shoulder like all the rest.”

Bessie handed Judy a Fifth Reader. “Study it,” she said.

A shadow fell on the book and Miss Garvin was pointing to a sentence at the top of the page. “Well, let's see if you can read,” she said.

Judy rose unsteadily to her feet. The words on the page danced up and down. She could hardly see them. It had been so long since she had looked at words in a book. Bessie jerked her dress and said, “Read it out loud.”

The word refused to stand still. Judy's hands shook so she nearly dropped the book. Miss Garvin lost patience and turned back to the first page. “Read
that
,” she said, pointing.

When no response came from Judy's lips, Miss Garvin stared at her coldly. “How old did you say you are?”

“Ten,” whispered Judy.

“Just as I thought. About ready for Third Grade,” said Miss Garvin.

“But I finished the Third Reader at home and read part of the Fourth,” Judy burst out.

“Down the hall, last door on your left, Third Grade, Miss Norris, teacher.” Miss Garvin opened the door, a smile of relief on her face.

“But I wanted to stay with Bessie,” gulped Judy.

“Bessie's in Fifth Grade, you're in Third.”

Judy stepped out and the classroom door closed behind her.

But she did not go to Miss Norris's room. Instead, she tiptoed out of the building and ran home as fast as she could go.
I'll never go back to that school again! Never! I'll never go back!
The words echoed and re-echoed through her mind.

“Y
OU MUST MAKE A
pen for that goat and shut her up nights or she'll git pneumonia and die, sure as my name's Patrick Joseph Timothy Mulligan.”

“What can I make it out of?” asked Joe Bob.

“Go down to the dump and git some pieces of galvanized tin,” said Mister Mulligan, “and drag 'em back here. Mighty fine place—that dump. No tellin' what you'll be a-findin' there.”

“Will you go with me, Mister Mulligan?” asked Joe Bob.

“Not today, sonny,” said the man. “My r-rheumatiz is better, thank the Lord, but I got such a rushin' of blood to me head, I might fall over any time day or night. Besides, I want to catch me a few catfish for a wee bite o' supper.”

Joe Bob and Mister Mulligan had become great friends because they both liked to go fishing and to keep on fishing all day, whether they caught anything or not. Mister Mulligan had traveled all over the country, on foot, and now his feet were tired and had come to rest at last—in Florida.

Judy offered to go with Joe Bob. The dump was a long way off, and when they got there, it was enormous. It looked as if it held all the old worn-out cars and trucks in the world, also old stoves, machinery and refuse of all kinds. It was called: IKE'S JUNK YARD; and Ike, a tousled, rough-looking man, was kept busy watching to see that no visitor walked off without paying for what he took. People were wandering all over the dump. Men and boys were searching old cars for “parts.” Small boys were hunting for wheels, axles, or unexpected treasures. A woman and a boy and girl were pulling an auto seat cushion behind them.

“Law me, I'm near about give out,” said the woman, stopping to rest. “But this will be a heap sight better'n sleepin' on the hard, cold ground.”

Judy recognized her. It was Mrs. Holloway who lived next door in a packing-box house. She was tall and thin and young, but had hardly any teeth.

“Howdy. How be ye?” she called cheerfully. “You-uns look-in' for a soft bed too?”

“No
ma'm
.” Judy shook her head. “We got an iron bed in our tent. We're gittin' tin to make a shed for our goat.”

“What do you-uns tote that noisy ole nanny goat around fur?” asked Mrs. Holloway. “Smelly ole thing, do she eat up your tin cans?”

“No
ma'm
,” said Judy. “She eats good green stuff and goat-chop, and she gives good milk for Lonnie to drink. Lonnie's not puny no more since he's been drinkin' goat's milk.” She looked at the red-headed Holloway girl. “What's her name?”

“Tessie,” answered the woman. “Tessie Henrietta Beulah Holloway.”

“What's his'n?” Judy pointed to the little boy.

“Gwyn Lyle Holloway, same as his Pappy and Grandpappy and Great-grandpappy afore him.”

“Funny names,” said Judy.

“You-all talk funny too,” said Joe Bob.

“I don't guess we can help how we talk,” said Mrs. Holloway. “Hit depends on where you come from, don't it? People talk different in different parts of the country—you ought to hear how funny them Yankees talk
up north
!—but long as we can understand each other, we needn't pay no mind.”

“Do people all talk different?” asked Judy. This was a new idea to her. “We're from Alabama. Where you-all from?”

“Windy Ridge up in the mountains of Tennessee,” said the woman.

Judy left the Holloways and wandered off over the dump. She found a bent aluminum sauce-pan without a hole in it, then she saw a book and picked it up. Some of the pages were torn and soiled from rain, but it had pictures in it. She tucked it under her arm. She joined Joe Bob who had found several pieces of rusty corrugated tin. He was limping and Judy noticed he had blood below one knee.

“Did you hurt yourself?” she asked.

“Slipped and fell on some broken bottles,” said Joe Bob. “Cut my leg but it don't hurt.”

Ike asked the children to pay, but when they couldn't produce any money, he said crossly, “Take it then.”

They dragged the tin home and Mister Mulligan admired it very much. From the junk piled up behind his little bird-box house, he produced some loose boards. He and Joe Bob set to work to make the goat shed.

Judy filled the battered sauce-pan with water and gave it to Missy to drink. Then she sat down to look at the book she had found. It was an old-fashioned Geography. On the front cover, beneath a picture of Christopher Columbus' three ships, she read the words: A NEW WORLD LIES BEFORE US. Judy studied these words and thought about what they meant.
When you are on the go all the time, how true it is
—
a new world always before you
.

She opened the book. It had colored maps and small engravings in black and white. One picture showed a steamboat loaded with bales of cotton and another, a field of sugar cane. Then there was a picture of two little colored boys, chewing cane stalks, just like Porky and Arlie back in Alabama. At the top of the page it said: The Southern States.
Why, it's all about our country
! said Judy to herself.

“Hey, sugarpie, what's that you got?” Papa came out of the tent carrying the foot piece of the iron bed.

“A book,” said Judy. “I found it on the dump.”

Papa laughed. “Want to go to town with me?”

“Can I have a quarter to buy feed for Missy?” asked Judy.

“Honey, look.” Papa turned his pockets inside out, so she could see they were empty.

Papa had found some field work with a small grower several miles from town. But the money he made had to be used for food for the family, and the work hadn't lasted long. “But I'll get you some money,” Papa said. “You come along to town.”

Papa put the head and foot pieces of the bed inside the jalopy and went back for the springs. Mama helped him lift them up on top of the car.