faltered. “Unless you’d rather—”
Rose flung her arms around her mother. “Of course we’re coming with you, Mama!”
Clem’s eyes went wide. “We’re going to California - without Lenny?”
Grace gave him a hug. “Your brother’s a smart boy. He’ll find us when he wants to.”
The children scrambled into their clothes. Grace climbed out of the window first and they tossed down their bags to her. Clem slithered down the magnolia like a little monkey and Grace caught him at the bottom. Rose and Honesty went next, then me.
In the darkness the smell of magnolias was suddenly overpowering. The night was shrill with crickets, sounding exactly like tinny wind-up music boxes.
I saw Isaac watching from a shadowy veranda as Grace and her children crept around the side of the house. He didn’t say anything but I sensed he’d known all along that his Miss Grace wouldn’t abandon her babies. Actually I got the feeling Isaac knew a great deal too much about what went on in this family, so much that he could hardly sleep at nights, just sat up in his creaky old rocker, looking at the stars and softly humming to himself.
Chapter Six
O n bad days we walked. On good days we hitched a ride in the back of some farmer’s truck or rickety horse-drawn wagon. Most days we did a bit of both. Just once, the Bloomfields accepted a lift in a shiny new Model A Ford. But after five minutes Grace had to ask the driver to stop. They barely got out before Honesty spewed her lunch everywhere. I wasn’t totally surprised. She’d turned white as chalk the moment the driver pulled up.
Being Honesty, she denied that her travel sickness was in any way connected with her father’s accident, just as she denied that she screamed out in her sleep night after night. But I think Grace knew the real reason, because after that the family stuck purely to wagons and pickups.
But one sweltering afternoon, Clem was too tired to walk, and no-one had the energy to carry him. So Grace and the children waited in the lengthening shadows of some lime trees, in the hope they’d get a lift to the next town. But no vehicles passed.
The first stars were coming out as a horse-drawn farm wagon pulled up. A young black guy looked down at them. He seemed oddly alarmed to see the family standing there in the dark. He glanced around. “I’m bettin’ you ain’t from around these parts,” he said in a low voice. “Else you’d know it’s dangerous to be out here after sundown.”
I could feel pure physical fear pulsing off him.
Omigosh , I gulped. They must have some southern serial killer round here or something .
Then I got it. This man wasn’t scared of some mad axe murderer. He was scared of Grace! He was terrified that someone would see him talking to a white lady and jump to the wrong conclusion. On the other hand, he felt totally unable to leave her and her kids stranded out in the sticks at the mercy of any passing local weirdo.
“I’d better take you folks into Bournville,” he decided at last. “You better hide yourselves in the back though,” he added in a humorous voice. “Won’t do your reputation no good to be seen with a negro.”
I saw him wonder if he’d gone too far. But Grace gave him one of her warm smiles. “I think our reputation can stand it,” she told him drily. “But the back of the wagon will suit us just fine.”
For over an hour we bumped over potholes in the dark, which gave me plenty of time to digest what had just happened. To be quite honest, I was finding racial attitudes in the American south of the Twenties deeply bewildering. I mean, slavery had been made illegal here like, decades ago, yet this kind-hearted guy clearly expected nothing but trouble from mixing with whites.
He stopped his horses on the edge of town and came round to the back of the wagon, holding up a storm lantern. “Where you folks headed?”
“California,” said Clem, blinking in the sudden light.
“I meant where you
Rose flung her arms around her mother. “Of course we’re coming with you, Mama!”
Clem’s eyes went wide. “We’re going to California - without Lenny?”
Grace gave him a hug. “Your brother’s a smart boy. He’ll find us when he wants to.”
The children scrambled into their clothes. Grace climbed out of the window first and they tossed down their bags to her. Clem slithered down the magnolia like a little monkey and Grace caught him at the bottom. Rose and Honesty went next, then me.
In the darkness the smell of magnolias was suddenly overpowering. The night was shrill with crickets, sounding exactly like tinny wind-up music boxes.
I saw Isaac watching from a shadowy veranda as Grace and her children crept around the side of the house. He didn’t say anything but I sensed he’d known all along that his Miss Grace wouldn’t abandon her babies. Actually I got the feeling Isaac knew a great deal too much about what went on in this family, so much that he could hardly sleep at nights, just sat up in his creaky old rocker, looking at the stars and softly humming to himself.
Chapter Six
O n bad days we walked. On good days we hitched a ride in the back of some farmer’s truck or rickety horse-drawn wagon. Most days we did a bit of both. Just once, the Bloomfields accepted a lift in a shiny new Model A Ford. But after five minutes Grace had to ask the driver to stop. They barely got out before Honesty spewed her lunch everywhere. I wasn’t totally surprised. She’d turned white as chalk the moment the driver pulled up.
Being Honesty, she denied that her travel sickness was in any way connected with her father’s accident, just as she denied that she screamed out in her sleep night after night. But I think Grace knew the real reason, because after that the family stuck purely to wagons and pickups.
But one sweltering afternoon, Clem was too tired to walk, and no-one had the energy to carry him. So Grace and the children waited in the lengthening shadows of some lime trees, in the hope they’d get a lift to the next town. But no vehicles passed.
The first stars were coming out as a horse-drawn farm wagon pulled up. A young black guy looked down at them. He seemed oddly alarmed to see the family standing there in the dark. He glanced around. “I’m bettin’ you ain’t from around these parts,” he said in a low voice. “Else you’d know it’s dangerous to be out here after sundown.”
I could feel pure physical fear pulsing off him.
Omigosh , I gulped. They must have some southern serial killer round here or something .
Then I got it. This man wasn’t scared of some mad axe murderer. He was scared of Grace! He was terrified that someone would see him talking to a white lady and jump to the wrong conclusion. On the other hand, he felt totally unable to leave her and her kids stranded out in the sticks at the mercy of any passing local weirdo.
“I’d better take you folks into Bournville,” he decided at last. “You better hide yourselves in the back though,” he added in a humorous voice. “Won’t do your reputation no good to be seen with a negro.”
I saw him wonder if he’d gone too far. But Grace gave him one of her warm smiles. “I think our reputation can stand it,” she told him drily. “But the back of the wagon will suit us just fine.”
For over an hour we bumped over potholes in the dark, which gave me plenty of time to digest what had just happened. To be quite honest, I was finding racial attitudes in the American south of the Twenties deeply bewildering. I mean, slavery had been made illegal here like, decades ago, yet this kind-hearted guy clearly expected nothing but trouble from mixing with whites.
He stopped his horses on the edge of town and came round to the back of the wagon, holding up a storm lantern. “Where you folks headed?”
“California,” said Clem, blinking in the sudden light.
“I meant where you
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