Strawberry Girl (4 page)

"No, Gus done it," said the boy. "Gus learned to write at school."

Birdie looked at the note. "Iffen he'd stayed in school, he might a learned to write, you mean. But he whopped the teacher and broke up school. I was there, I know all about it."

"You do!" said Shoestring. "Well--he's too old to go now, he's sixteen."

"Iffen you went to school, you might could learn to write your Pa's notes for him, and sign your name to 'em. Whoever wrote this un didn't sign his name."

Birdie reached up for the paper and pulled it down. She folded it and tore it to bits. She threw the pieces on the porch and swept them angrily off onto the ground.

"Ain't your Pa seen it!" asked Shoestring.

"No," said Birdie, "and he ain’t goin' to, 'cause it's tore up." She faced the boy boldly. "Hit's cowardly to write notes. Your Pa's scared to come and say what he's got to say to my Pa's face. Your Pa's a coward. Only cowards write notes and don't sign their names."

She expected Shoestring to get madder than ever when she called his Pa names, but he didn't. All he said was, "What we gonna do, so they don't git to shootin'!"

Birdie thought for a while. This was a surprise. It looked as if Shoestring didn't want trouble any more than she did. He was trying to fix things up. All at once her black hate melted away and she liked him again. She was able to forgive him for the snake on her hat. She decided not to fight him for the snake. He only did it in fun anyhow. He had not meant to hurt or frighten her. Then she thought about the hogs again.

"You'll have to feed your hogs every night to keep 'em home," she suggested. "That's the onliest thing to do."

"But they're wild!" protested Shoestring. "They run wild and never come nigh the house, and that old boar, he's mean! Great-Grandpa was an old Indian fighter, and the boar cut him all to pieces last year, so he died."

Birdie had no time to think about Great-Grandpa Slater.

"Corn and peanuts and boiled sweet potatoes are good for feeding hogs," she said. "Hogs get tame soon enough if you feed

'em every night. Ours was perfectly wild once too. Now they're plumb gentle and come when I call. You jest try it." "I got a better idea," said Shoestring. "I'll get my cowhorse and keep ridin' your fences every day, and whenever I see any of our hogs come nigh it, I'll lasso him and take him home."

"That wont do. They come at night when you're in bed," said Birdie. "You got to throw 'em a mess of peanuts or chufers each evenin' to keep 'em comin' home. Hear!"

"I mean!" said Shoestring.

Birdie was glad when it was her turn to go to town on Saturday. Dixie had to stay home to take care of Bunny and Dovey.

Buzz and Dan had to get in wood. There had to be room in the wagon for the new cooking stove and the barbed wire, so only Birdie could go, besides Ma and Pa.

Like Ma, she was to have a new summer hat. She had never worn her old one after it had the snake on it. She put on her best dress and her long black stockings and high shoes. She knew she had to keep them on, no matter how hot it got. She fanned her hot face with her sunbonnet as they rode along. Pa said it was the hottest day they had had all summer.

Town seemed very far away because the road was new to her. It followed an endless sand-rut through miles of palmettos in the scrub. Then it was a mere wagon-track winding this way and chat through the piney woods, and still farther alone, it became a corduroy road through a cypress swamp. When at last they came to houses and began to pass people walking on foot in the same direction, Birdie knew they would soon be there.

They came to town, and it was filled with people because it was Saturday. There was an open square in the middle, with hitching posts under the trees. The depot, where the trains came in, was on one side, and stores and houses on the other three sides. The stores were mostly one-story buildings, with wooden awnings jutting out over the sidewalks.

It was fine to be in town, to walk on board sidewalks instead of loose sand, and to go straight into the millinery store.

"Howdy, Mis' Boyer! Howdy, Miss Birdie!"

Miss Liddy Evans stepped up to greet them. "Come right in," she said. Although they were newcomers in the neighbor- hood, she knew them by sight and called them by name.

Miss Liddy was everybody's friend and no wonder. She always had a smile or a joke or a laugh ready. She knew that every woman, no matter how poor or plain, had a yearning for pretty things, and she liked to please them. And she was never too busy trimming hats or making dresses to help her customers when they needed help.

Miss Liddy turned to a woman in the back of the store.

"Why, yes, ma'am, I shore will accommodate you," she said, handing her some money. "You go right out and buy what you need. And when your husband gets paid this evenin', you come pay me back. Now donlt you worry a mite. L'es ma'am! Jest leave your baby right there on the couch in the back room. ?'hat's what it's for. There'll be plenty more there before the evenin's over, or I miss my guess."

The woman had a forlorn look, with her long, bedraggled skirts and stringy hair protruding from under her dark sun- bonnet.

She slipped silently out the side door, clutching the borrowed money in her hand.

"Warn't that Mis' Slater, Ma!" whispered Birdie.

When Mrs. Boyer began to look at the hats on the stands, Miss Liddy came forward.

"A pretty straw for the little girl!" she suggested.

Soon Birdie was seated in front of a tilted mirror, trying on hats--hats with high crowns and low, wide brims and narrow, and with all kinds of fancy trimmings. Birdie thought they were all beautiful.

The sound of a baby's crying rang out.

"That's the Slater young un," said Miss Liddy. "Birdie, while I show your mother some hats, could you ….."

"Yes ma'am."

Birdie found the baby lying on a pile of quilts on a couch in the corner. Boxes, shelves, tables and chairs, a dressmaker's form and a sewing machine filled the back room. The floor was littered with snips and scraps of ribbons, laces, silks, cot- tons and fancy trimmings.

Birdie picked up the Slater baby and joggled it on her shoulder. She watched Miss Liddy's assistant trim a hat, lay it aside and take up another. It must be fun to trim hats.

Miss Liddy returned to the back room.

"Your Ma's takened the leghorn for you and a black straw with a feather for herself. She says for you to wait here till she comes back from the hardware store. Azuloy's fixin' to make some wax roses to take to church tomorrow. Would you like to help!"

"I'd be proud to, ma'am," said Birdie.

Azuloy, a fifteen-year-old orphan, was Miss Liddy's helper. She did everything from threading needles to sweeping floors.

She had a table spread with tissue paper and wire, and a pot of paraffin melting on the little laundry stove.

Azuloy's blond hair was puffed up in front, and her single pigtail was tied at the back with a large black ribbon bow. Her face was thin, bur her eyes were bright and eager. She wore a large white apron over her long full skirt.

"First you cut and shape the petals," she explained. "Then you twist paper around the wire stem and fasten the flower on the end."

They made pink and yellow and red roses. They them in the melted wax. After they were dried, they like real ones, freshly picked from a living rosebush.

"Only they will never wilt," said Azuloy, smiling.

Birdie wished her new hat had a bright red rose on it instead of the black velvet band and streamers.

"They're for ornament," explained Azuloy, giving Birdie a bunch of the wax roses to take home with her. "Keep them in a vase on your parlor table. I can see you like pretty things as much as I do."

Birdie thanked her. Then the Slater baby began crying again. So did two others who had been brought in. Miss Liddy kept a supply of cold baked sweet potatoes handy. Birdie gave one to each of the babies and joggled them in turn on her shoulder.

A door from the millinery store opened into Wilkins' dry goods store beyond. Birdie glanced in and saw Jefferson Davis Slater, wearing his same old black felt hat and a clean suit of overalls, walking down the aisle. She called to him.

"Hey!" came the reply. "You in town too!"

"Yes," said Birdie. "Miss Liddy asked me to mind your Ma's baby." She walked into the dry goods store.

"Buyin' somethin'!" asked Shoestring.

"Ma and me's got us new summer hats," said Birdie.

Shoestring bit his lip. "I ain't never seed my Ma wear a hat on her head in all my life."

"And Pa's fixin' to git us a cookin' stove," Birdie went on.

"Cookin' stove!" snorted the boy. "Fireplace not good enough!"

"Ma gits tired bendin' over," said Birdie. "Pa promised her one, did we move to the Roddenberry place. And Pa's fixin to buy him barbed wire. Thought I'd tell you. He's studyin' to use it for fencin' stid of rails."

"Fencin'!" repeated the boy. He looked at her in silence.

"What you doin'?" asked Birdie, after a while.

"Buyin' overalls," said Shoestring.

"You shore need 'em," said Birdie, glancing at the ragged holes on his knees.

"Three new pairs," added the boy. He pointed to the garments spread out on the counter.

"You-all must be gittin' rich?" teased Birdie.

"Pa brung in a steer to the butcher," explained Shoestring. "I watched the butcher cut it up. Tough ole feller. Cow meat ain't fitten for nobody to eat. Hog meat's what makes you healthy! Give me a cup of gravy and some grits, ary time o' day, and I can make me a meal offen it."

"Did your Pa git paid for the steer?" asked Birdie.

"Not yet. He done role Ma and Gus and Joe and me what he's gonna git for it and he role us what we might could buy. Then he went off to celebrate, he was feelin' so good." The boy bit his lip. After a while he added: "I got me three pair of new overalls anyhow."

"I’m proud," said Birdie. "Sorry too." The Slater baby on her shoulder began to whimper. "When's your Ma comin' back!"

"Dunno," said the boy. He reached for his package.

"Where's your money!" demanded the clerk.

"Pa will pay for it this evenin'," explained Shoestring. "Can't I take 'em now!"

"Not till they are paid for." The clerk put the package under the counter and turned his back.

Shoestring had no more than left the store when a loud commotion broke out. Dogs barked and howled, people screamed and ran.

"Dogses!" cried Miss Liddy. "Another dog fight! Can't get through a Saturday without a dog fight. Birdie, run fetch them two pails of water from the back room. I always keep ‘em handy."

Birdie hurried and put the baby down on the couch. Pails in hand, she followed at Miss Liddy's heels, out the side door. Two dogs were at each other's throats, while a group of boys pelted them with rotten oranges. Shoestring's hound was one of them, and he was trying to get hold of its collar, to pull it off.

"Stop chunkin' them oranges!" yelled Shoestring.

Miss Liddy took first one pail from Birdie's hands, then the other. With swift movements, she dashed the water into the dogs'

faces. Surprised, they let go their hold, stopped their growling, and were easily parted. Shoestring wiped the water off his face, took his hound up in his arms and walked away.

"He might a said thank you," said Birdie.

"My!" said Miss Liddy, as they went back into the store. "The millinery business is shore lively--you got to lend money, tend babies, make wax flowers and stop dog fights!"

When Mrs. Boyer came back, it was time to eat. The Boyers took the dinner basket out of the wagon and ate on a bench in the square. Shoestring passed by, munching biscuit, his limping hound at his heels, but he did not glance their way.

A man brought a campstool and sat down near them. He opened a box and began to spread things out.

"What's he sellin'?" asked Ma.

"Safety-pins, likely," said Pa. "Horse trader was here last week. Peddlers often come too sellin' everything under the sun.

Medicine shows, too, sometimes. They like the big crowd on Saturdays. Traveling preachers come on Sundays to preach."

The man set a canvas on a small easel, lifted a palette and began to paint with a long-handled brush. People strolled up to watch. Soon a crowd gathered. "Can I go see?" asked Birdie.

"Shore can, young un," said Pa, smiling.

Birdie had never seen anything like it before. A landscape of green fields, trees and sky began to grow under the magic of the man's hand. Soon a road wound up the hill and disappeared on the horizon. Small specks of cows dotted a distant field. A flock of birds winged their way across the blue.

"See the Lightning Artist!" cried the man. He held up the picture which he had painted in ten minutes and said the price was three dollars. A man dug into his pants pocket for the money and took the wet painting away with him.

While the people looked on and admired, he began to paint a second landscape. Between strokes he unwrapped a whole gallery of other landscapes and sold them to bystanders.

"Sure money!" laughed Mr. Boyer. "Better than horse trading!"

"Ain't it wonderful!" cried Birdie. "Paintin' pictures fast as lightnin' is nicer than playin' the organ even!"

"Now, gal," said her mother, "don't you go gittin' silly notions in your head."

Shoestring Slater and his hound passed by again.

"Aint he wonderful!" cried Birdie, pointing.

But the boy did not look up or listen. He strode past with his eyes fixed on the ground, his hands stuffed in his pockets.

"Where's your package!" called Birdie. "Your new overalls!"

He went on without speaking.

The afternoon passed all too quickly, and it was time to start for home. Birdie went with her father and mother to the hardware store and watched the men load the new stove and the rolls of barbed wire on the back of the wagon. The new stove was very black and shiny. On the oven door, in fancy letters, were the words Charter Oak.

It was when they came out of the store that they saw the Slaters. Mrs. Slater and her two little girls and Shoestring were huddled in a group, with the sad-looking hound dog at their feet. They were all crying but Shoestring.

Mrs. Slater dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her apron. She looked at the Boyers defiantly.

"Jeff said you-all was here buyin' a new cookin' stove!" she sniffed. "Gittin' more biggety than ever! Think you're better than other folkses, don't ye? And barbed wire! Fixin' to fence in your land, ain't ye!" Then she began to cry in earnest. "Whyn't you-all stay up there in Marion County where you come from? Why you gotta come down here and spoil every- thing!"

Birdie looked at Shoestring. The boy stood wretchedly by, leaning first on one foot then on the other. He didn't know what to do any more than Birdie did.

"What's the matter, Miss Slater!" asked Mrs. Boyer kindly. "Can I do anything to help you?"

The next moment Mrs. Slater was in Mrs. Boyer's arms.

"Sam takened all the money he got from the steer and blew it in. He gambled most of it and got drunk with the rest," sobbed Mrs. Slater.

"Gus and Joe takened the horse and wagon and Pa in it and gone off," wailed Essie.

"We gotta walk home," added Zephy. "Such a fur piece."

"No, you don't," said Mr. Boyer. "You-all can ride with us. We can make room."

"I hate to be beholden to you," said Mrs. Slater, "but I'm shore obliged."

First Shoestring had to return all the purchases his mother had made that day, and collect the money. Then he went back to Miss Liddy's. Birdie walked with him. He handed Miss Liddy the money his mother had borrowed. Birdie got the Slater baby from the back room and carried it.

"Did your Pa get a good price for the steer?" asked Miss Liddy.

"Yes ma'am," said the boy.

"And your mother done got her all the things she needed?"

"NO . . yes ma'am!"

"And new overalls for you too, I hear."

"Yes ma'am."

Birdie looked at the holes in the knees of the boy's old ones, and understood how fierce was his pride. As they left the store, Miss Liddy's voice floated out after them:

"Tell your Ma to come again soon...."