Way Down Deep (2 page)

Two middle-aged bachelors occupied the third floor. They were Mr. Gentry, the high school band director, and Mr. Crawford, a somewhat gloomy man of independent means, who had been working for years on a book called
A Colorful History of Way Down Deep, West Virginia
. Nobody had ever seen a page of it, but when the townspeople asked him how the book was progressing, he always replied, “Splendidly! Splendidly!”

The other permanent guests at The Roost knew the truth—that Mr. Crawford had the dreadful habit of wasting perfectly good daylight, sleeping for hours and hours, while his clunky black typewriter collected dust.

I
N THE EARLY MORNING HOURS OF THE FIRST DAY OF SUM
mer, 1944, a small redheaded girl was abandoned in front of Way Down Deep's courthouse. Maybe she was two and a half, three at the most. Nobody could tell for sure, and the child could not say.

It was the circuit judge, Elbert Deel, who found her as he was going to court, after his breakfast at The Roost.

“She was in her petticoat, just sitting there on that bench where the old-timers like to hang out and swap lies,” Judge Deel often recalled in later years to people who wanted to hear the story. “She was swinging her bare feet and babbling to herself.”

As the stores began to open, the proprietors spotted the judge in front of the courthouse talking to a toddler with a mess of bright curls you couldn't miss from any point on Busy Street. Naturally, they had to go investigate.

Walter Rife, who ran the five-and-dime store owned by his mother, came first. He was followed by Mr. and Mrs. Doctor, the prominent Mr. Dales, Mr. Bevins, Mrs.
Morgan, Mrs. Farmer, Mayor Chambers, Mrs. Shortt, Mr. Mullins, and everybody else all in a bunch.

“What is your name, dear child?” someone said to the girl.

The child pointed to herself, as small ones do, and said, “Me Woo-bee.”

“Woo-bee?”

She nodded. “Me Woo-bee.”

“Is she saying Ruby?”

“Yes, I think so. Ruby, is that your name, Ruby?”

The child smiled and nodded. “Me Woo-bee.”

“Well, Ruby, where is your mommie? Where is your daddy?”

“Dunno.”

“What is your daddy's name?”

“Dada.”

“What do other people call him?”

Ruby stuck her fingers in her mouth.

“How did you get here, Ruby?”

“Wide.”

“Wide? Oh, ride? Ride in a car?”

“Wide hossie.”

“Ride what? Oh! A horsie? You came on a horse?”

Ruby nodded her red head vigorously. “Wide hossie.”

The people looked at each other with puzzled expressions. They could not think of anybody hereabouts who rode a horse.

Sheriff Reynolds pushed his way to the center of the crowd, and stood looking at the child. He was in his shirtsleeves
that day because his only uniform was at the dry cleaner's.

“What is it?” he said, as if he did not recognize Ruby as being a member of his own species.

“Somebody left her here.”

“Her name's Ruby.”

“Can we keep her?”

Mr. and Mrs. Doctor took Ruby to their offices for observation. Mr. Doctor was the town's only physician, and his wife, Mrs. Doctor, was the dentist. Their surname was Justus, but nobody ever called them by it.

Ruby promptly fell asleep, and Mrs. Doctor put her to bed.

“She must have been up all night,” Mrs. Doctor said sympathetically. “Poor baby.”

In Way Down, news was quick to make the rounds, and so it was that Miss Arbutus Ward heard about the child from one of her boarders. Though she was known in the town to be somewhat remote, and not fond of talking to people, she wasted no time in walking to the sheriff's office in the heat of the day, and stating her purpose.

“I want the girl, Sheriff,” was exactly what Miss Arbutus said. “I'll take good care of her—that is, until you find her people.” And she said no more. Just stood there as tall and thin as an evening shadow, waiting for his answer.

Sheriff Reynolds was so taken aback by Miss Arbutus's sudden appearance in his office, he didn't know how to react. For a long moment, he simply sat there gaping at her.

But to tell the truth, he couldn't say no to Miss Arbutus,
or to anybody else for that matter. So he finally mumbled, “Okay.”

To tell another truth, the sheriff's heart was way too soft and his mind too fuzzy for sheriffing. Why, he had no idea where to begin this investigation. He had no clues to go on, unless you took the horse into account, but nobody believed for a moment that Ruby came into their town on a horse. Just a child's fantasy.

The next day, in the town's only newspaper,
The Way Down Deep Daily
, there was a blurry picture of the little girl sitting on Mr. Doctor's desk, with the caption

DO YOU KNOW THIS CHILD?

The sheriff didn't know what else he should do, so he did nothing, and as the days and weeks went by, he did even less.

Way Down was a town that did not do things by the book. For example, they didn't know the meaning of social services. And that's why Ruby never became a ward of the county or the state, or any person, for that matter. Even Judge Deel looked the other way.

Besides, the good citizens of Way Down reckoned if Ruby's people were dumb enough to lose something as valuable as a child, then finders keepers, losers weepers.

However, they commiserated, Miss Arbutus was alone, bless her heart. She had lost her father, who was the last member of her family, only a few months earlier. So she
was welcome to oversee the child's upbringing, if that was what she craved. And, obviously, it was.

Ruby was given a room of her own on the first floor right beside Miss Arbutus's chamber in the ancient rambling three-story boardinghouse. Miss Arbutus had slept in that same room as a child, and her parents had slept in the room which Miss Arbutus presently occupied.

Those first weeks Ruby didn't seem to miss her mommie or daddy or anybody else who might have been a part of her brief history. In fact, her previous life seemed to evaporate from her mind like fog in the morning sun. She settled into life at The Roost, as content as a cherub on a cloud.

A call went out to the community not to forget the tyke, and Miss Arbutus gratefully accepted small donations on Ruby's behalf. Thus the child thrived, and never wanted for anything.

The Way Down Deep School, located across the street from The Roost, educated all grades. When it seemed Ruby was the right age, she was sent there to learn to read and write, at which time it was necessary to give her a surname.

“She came to us in June,” Miss Arbutus said. “We will call her Ruby June.”

And so it was.

O
N A RAINY EVENING WHEN
R
UBY WAS ABOUT SEVEN, A
weary traveler rapped upon the door of The Roost, which was an unusual event. Most folks just barged right on in. But this man, who introduced himself as Lester Horton, had a reason for not coming in, and he held that reason with a frayed rope attached to a skinny neck. It was a billy goat.

“I have no money in my pockets,” Lester Horton admitted to Miss Arbutus. To prove his statement true, he turned both pockets inside out, revealing nothing but lint. “And I am thumbing my way to Kentucky. Would you please take this baby goat here in exchange for food and shelter for the night?”

“You can stay,” Miss Arbutus said, “but I'll not take your pet away from you.”

“You might as well,” the man said sadly, patting the animal's droopy drippy head. “I don't think the poor little thing will make it to Kentucky.”

Miss Arbutus thought about that. “Very well,” she said after a moment.

Ruby, who was standing behind Miss Arbutus looking at the goat, was tickled pink. She would be the only child in school who had a goat for a pet!

“I'll take him to the backyard,” she volunteered.

“Come on in,” Miss Arbutus said to Lester Horton. “Supper's on the table.”

Lester Horton was so grateful to Miss Arbutus, he wept. He explained the tears by saying that he was going through a personal crisis.

Ruby named the goat Jethro, and under her care he soon found health. She placed an old rug on the back porch, where he curled up exactly like a dog to sleep at night. A half wall protected him from the elements.

During the day, when he was not busy at his job trimming the grass, Jethro romped and played in the enclosed backyard of The Roost. He developed a particular fondness for the woodpile against the fence, which he climbed daily. From the top he watched for Ruby to come home from school. He could also see most of the town, and often stood there to observe, with great interest, the daily goings-on of the townspeople.

One day, when a life insurance salesman from Hartford, Connecticut, parked his car beside the fence where the woodpile was located, Jethro's slow little goat brain fashioned an idea. Why not step off the wood and onto the roof of the car? He did so, and was absolutely delighted
with himself, because from this vantage point the view was much better. The regulars at The Roost soon learned not to park their cars in that spot, but they did not warn the strangers. Why spoil Jethro's fun?

In subsequent years, which were kinder to him, Lester Horton often returned to Way Down to spend a night at The Roost—as a paying guest, of course—to see how the goat got on. He was only one among many visitors who sometimes came to The Roost even when they didn't have business in town.

Upon entering the third grade, Ruby was allowed to help Miss Arbutus take care of the boarders when she was not in school. Her first job was setting the giant oak table in the dining hall every breakfast and supper.

When she had conquered setting the table, filling the glasses with tea or lemonade, and drying the dishes, Ruby learned to take a feather duster to the antique furniture in the spacious common room, and in the bedrooms, while the guests were out.

In time Ruby was sweeping the front porch several times a week. It was wide and wrapped around the front and partially down each side of The Roost. White rocking chairs with small tables between them were scattered about. Boardinghouse guests enjoyed sitting out there and watching the world go by.

Almost every morning in warm weather Ruby found treasures on this porch. There were baskets full of ripe red cherries or strawberries, spring lettuce, pickling cucumbers,
tomatoes, string beans, lima beans, beets, corn, melons, peaches, or blackberries—gifts from the townspeople.

As she grew older, Ruby learned to help Miss Arbutus put up the most abundant of these foods for cold weather. She loved to have Jethro at her heels in the backyard as she helped sterilize Mason jars and lids in a big pot of water set over a fire. She also loved puttering about the kitchen with Miss Arbutus, preparing the food for canning. Eventually she found herself helping with the actual cooking of meals, and she was proud.

Ruby also learned to care for the flowers that encircled the porch. Her favorites were the pansies. She adored those chubby faces peering up at her, eagerly looking forward to their daily drink of water. She talked to them, told them how beautiful they were, and watched them shamelessly primp and preen in the sunshine.

Ruby enjoyed all the jobs she was asked to do, but when it was learned that she preferred running errands on Busy Street to everything else, Miss Arbutus purchased a red Radio Flyer wagon for Ruby, and sent her out after school and on the weekends to buy this, to buy that.

Gradually Ruby took over all the shopping for the boardinghouse. It saved Miss Arbutus a lot of time and steps.

Ruby became a familiar sight to the citizens of the town as they encountered her pulling her wagon from The Roost on Ward Street to Busy Street, where the stores
were located, and which ran parallel to Deep Creek. Outside of town, Busy Street turned into State Highway 99. It was the only road leading into and out of the valley.

“Good morning, Ruby June.”

Way Down folks liked the sound of these two names together, and rarely used one without the other.

“Good morning, Mr. Mullins.” (Or Mrs. Farmer, or whoever.)

“Where you going to, Ruby June?”

“To Shortt's Hardware for a new mop bucket.”

“Give my regards to Mrs. Shortt, Ruby June.”

“Will do, and give my regards to Mrs. Mullins and Reese and Mary Nell and Susie and Pauline and Junior and Clarence and . . . who did I leave out?”

“Gerry Joy.”

“Right! Gerry Joy.”

“You betcha.”

Mr. Mullins owned not only the Pure Gas Station but also a snack bar called The Boxcar Grill. It was actually housed in an abandoned boxcar, with sliding doors and all, on Railroad Street, which ran parallel to the tracks on the other side of Deep Creek. Mrs. Mullins was the short-order cook on that side of the river, while Mr. Mullins pumped gas on this side. They were assisted by the seven children Ruby had sent regards to, who ranged in age from nine to nineteen.

Miss Arbutus had charge accounts at Shortt's Hardware Store, Mayor Chambers's A&P Grocery Store, Morgan's Drugs, and Rife's Five and Dime. All these
merchants rewarded their customers with S&H Green Stamps, and Ruby was allowed to keep the stamps for herself. When her errands were finished, she would paste them into her S&H Green Stamp book, and dream of the gifts she planned to redeem them for.

B
Y THE TIME
R
UBY WAS NINE OR TEN, SHE AND
M
ISS ARBU
tus had established several pleasant rituals in their daily life. For example, when they were finished with all the boardinghouse business in the evening, they took turns at soaking away the day's accumulation of dirt in an ancient claw-footed tub in their private bathroom, which was tucked between their two rooms.

Afterward they dutifully brushed their teeth up and down with Ipana, slathered their hands and limbs with Jergens, and saturated their faces with Deep Magic, as instructed in advertisements.