Chapter 14

Olive Augusta Radley, 1909

It took courage to be a clubwoman in those days. Customs were not, as we so casually take them now.

—Tabatha Milner, 1929. Texas Federation of Women's Clubs newsletter.

The stars have barely grayed out, and the sky's pinking with the coming sun when I back the Grubes' horse twixt the wagon shafts. Mrs. Grube hooks him on, but then she just stands there knee-deep in the fog, looking around the farm. Maybe she's thinking what Mr. Grube will do if he finds out about this. Half of me wants to get on the road before she changes her mind. The other half worries that she's got us starting out a lot earlier than she said. Unless I can slow her down some, the plan I made yesterday with Tula and Nessa will go wrong. Bad wrong.

Mrs. Grube unties Baby Beau from the sling where she carries him on her back, and she gives him a long kiss on the head. Squaring herself up, she says, "Well, I guess that's everything."

"I could check all the hay and water one more time before we go."

"We'd best get on with it." She nods toward the wagon.

I climb into the seat and she hands me Baby Beau, and then up she comes and takes the lines, chucking the horse to get him moving. Skedee fights his lead rope at first, plowing furrows in the dirt with his hind hooves, but he's no match for the wagon. We roll forward while Mrs. Grube worries her lip, and I bounce my knees under Baby Beau's bottom to get him giggling, so maybe Mrs. Grube won't commence to talking again. She has wore me out, jabbering about the Federated Women's Club and Kate Barnard and all the politics in the new state legislature up in Guthrie.

I've got bigger troubles to think on, but Mrs. Grube's chatter has been taking all the mind in my head since yesterday.

We're barely round the bend before she starts again. "We'll go the first three hours." She squints at the dawning sky from under the wide-brimmed farm hat she's put on for the trip. Her good clothes are hanging in the wagon with mine, washed and ironed. I helped her do all that yesterday, and she fixed me up an old blouse and skirt to wear. It's big enough for two of me, but we just rolled the sleeves and skirt waist, and Mrs. Grube made me a yarn belt to cinch it in. With one of her hats over my head, I look almost like a old woman that shrunk inside her clothes. Not a living soul would know me if they drove right by.

"Then a stop for lunch at the old rock chimneys, where Prairie Creek flows down from the Potato Hills." Mrs. Grube goes right on talking. "From there, we travel to the ford, cross the river, and go the remainder of the way. Have I told you that already?"

"Yes, ma'am." That woman is jumpy as a grasshopper on a griddle. She should be. "Seems like a real sensible plan and right pleasurable, too. There's nothing so balmy to the spirit as the sound of runnin' water. It's like quiet, only prettier."

"Indeed." She snaps the driving lines and chucks up that poor old horse. "And I must say, Hazel, you do have a lovely way with words for someone your age. Your parents must have you reading quite a lot at home."

"Oh, yes, ma'am. We love a good story." That ain't a lie.

"I simply adored my well-read students. I was a teacher for some years before coming here to marry Mr. Grube."

"That's a real fine occupation for a lady. None finer. Maybe I'll be a teacher someday. I haven't gave it much consideration, thus far yet."

"What a wonderful idea. Or a librarian perhaps? Why, with the Oklahoma State Federation of Women's Clubs on the mission, we'll have libraries everywhere one day. But until then, a wagon library can serve the purpose. A town without a library is no town at all."

"I'd like to be a library…what did you call it? A library-anne someday…I think." Really, I don't know what a library-anne is, but I have seen a library room at Mr. Lockridge's big house, and it's a eyeful. I'm guessing a library-anne dusts all those books.

"What are some of your favorite stories, Hazel?"

"Well, my daddy knows quite a few, since he meets lots of folks in his travels. And I know some Choctaw ones from a old man I helped in a horse barn sometimes. Anybody ever tell you about the Soul Eater, or the white-people-of-the-water, or the little people of the forests? The Choctaws call them the kowi anuka asha, and they look just like people, but they only stand high as your knee and will throw a rock at you in the woods, mostly just to tease you, though. Now, Impa Shilup, the Soul Eater, he's more of a worry. All you have to do is think bad thoughts and he climbs right inside you. He can get anybody, anytime, anyplace…not like the white-people-of-the-water, which the Choctaws call oka nahullo. They're only around lakes and streams, but are see-through like glass, so you can't hardly spot them before they grab you and…"

"I don't know that we need to talk about such things while we're traveling." A shudder ruffles her gray wool shawl, and she pesters the wagon horse again. "Indeed, I was intending a discussion of literature. What do you like to read, Hazel?"

That poor old horse would slow down if she'd just let him, so to take her mind off the driving, I answer, "Well, ma'am, I do like Black Beauty very much…and The Adventures of Mabel." I try to think of what other books Teacher read to us in school. She only had a few, and we couldn't take them home for ourselves. "And there's McGuffey's Reader. And, of course, the Blue Back Speller. And there's the Good Book. That's what we read at home mostly."

"How wonderful that your parents encourage it. They have certainly raised you into a sharp-minded, capable girl of fine character."

"Thank you, ma'am. It pays to have good parents."

"Yes. And so many children have none. That is the subject on which I must dialogue with Kate Barnard and the reason I am determined to reacquaint with her, though I know her time in Talihina will be highly coveted. This explosion of feral children is simply…"

"Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm!" I pipe up to get her mind off orphans. "And The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Now that's some books I'd like to put my hands on." I've stood and looked at those two books in the Lockridges' library room and had to keep my hands behind my back, since those belong to the Lockridge girls, and you don't touch their things. Sooner or later, they'll outgrow them, just like the two nice dresses I got and my lace boots. Mr. Lockridge likes me special, so it pleases him to bring me pass-alongs from his girls. "But those books are real new. Costly and such."

"Well…those are somewhat new publications. I read them to my students when I was yet teaching."

"That must've been real enjoyable…for the kids, I mean. I'll bet you made a fine teacher, Mrs. Grube."

"In some ways." Her smile falls. "I did have great love for my students, but it was a lonely life, teaching and caring for a sister who is lovely, but frail, and a father beset with business difficulties. I wanted a family of my own. Unfortunately, once a woman drifts past a certain age unmarried…"

That sentence ends over a bump in the road and stays hanging. "Well, you got a family now. You got this handsome fella." I hold Baby Beau's chubby hands and clap them together and wonder if I would've done that with my own little brother if he'd lived. Then I remember, he would've been half Tesco Peele's. I don't know how to think about that, so I don't. "And you and Mr. Grube might have more to go with him, soon enough."

"I would have thought so." Propping her feet on the kickboard, she leans forward while the horse lugs us up a hill. She turns her face away.

I mark it in my memory not to talk about babies.

Awhile later, as we rattle along the Old Military Road with the Potato Hills on one side and the Kiamichi River Valley on the other, Baby Beau drifts off to sleep, and I lay him in a padded crate under the shade of the wagon canvas. The time stretches out then. The road has more folks on it. We pass a wagon, plus some farms, and train section houses, and settlement stops, and then two men on horseback. I go stiff, and so does Mrs. Grube. More than once, she feels for the shotgun racked under our seat, then she pushes the horse into a trot till we're out of sight.

When we come into Albion, she pulls her farm hat down low, not looking left or right. I tuck my head to hide my face. It feels like every man on the street and every woman tending a garden or sweeping her yard stops to watch us. I look back at Skedee following behind the wagon, and think, People won't know me in these clothes, butwhat if the word is out about a missing medicine hat calico pony?

Sweat runs under my borrowed blouse. It's too late now to change the plan with Tula and Nessa. It'll work, I tell myself. It has to work. But over and over, I look toward the Potato Hills and worry.

"We might could slow up some so's not to rattle Baby Beau while he's sleeping," I say after a while. Somehow, I have got to make Mrs. Grube quit pushing that horse. "Maybe you could tell me The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to pass the time. Since you know it, I mean. It'd make our ride go by easy."

"Goodness, but what a shame to spoil it for you, though." She turns my way. Her face is sweaty and pale as milk because she's bad nervous, being out on the road like this. "After the library routes are established, perhaps you can take it from the library to read yourself."

"Oh, no, ma'am, you don't touch the books in the library. Those belong to whoever owns the library. You don't dare just go in and take it."

She gives me the sidewards eye. "The public library isn't owned by anyone, Hazel. It belongs to the community. Surely, your parents have taken you to the library. On a visit to a city, perhaps?"

Careful, Ollie,I tell myself. "Oh, yes, ma'am. I plumb forgot, being as it's been a while. But I figured since there's no library on this road, you might favor us with a book review." In the ladies' parlor at the Lockridges', one of the women stands up and gives a book review whenever there's a gathering. I like to hide and listen at those. Mr. Lockridge knows I do it, and he doesn't care. One time he saw me and just patted me on the head when he passed down the hall.

Mrs. Grube laughs, and it's the first time she's done that since I knew her. "What a wry wit you are, my dear. Well, then, let me see…once upon a time in Kansas, on a quaint little farm, there lived a lovely child about your age, and her name was Dorothy. Because she was an orphan, she resided with her kindly aunt and uncle. She was a good girl, but she had rather a dreamy mind about her, and thusly went on many an imaginary escapade with her little dog, Toto, by her side. One day while she was out about the farm, looking to stir up an adventure, why you will never imagine what happened."

"What?"

She goes on with a tale that's tall as the ones my daddy used to tell. There's a scarecrow that talks, and a man made out of tin, and a lion that's afraid of everything, and witches, but they're a different kind of witches from the Choctaw witches Tesco Peele is scared of.

I forget all about the passing miles and worrying about Tula and Nessa and the little kids. The Potato Hills go away, and my mind is far off in the fields of Oz. The horse slows up and the wagon quiets. Mrs. Grube doesn't even check the gun when we pass by other folks. She just talks, and talks, and talks.

We stop once to change Baby Beau's diaper cloth and clean up a big, stinky mess. It takes a while to get him fixed and rinse the dirties under the water barrel, then hang them off the back of the wagon, downwind.

"I'd be pleasured to hear more of the story," I say when we start out again. "You are a right good teller."

She goes on with all Dorothy's troubles crossing rivers and falling asleep in a field of poppy flowers and almost winding up dead because the flowers smell pretty, but they're poison. Dorothy gets chased by Kalidahs, which have a tiger's head, and a bear's body, and sharp claws. When they try to get at Dorothy, I think of old Gowdy and Tesco Peele and men who hunt children to send to the mines and the mills. I give a cheer out loud after the Tin Woodman chops through the log bridge and dumps those Kalidahs into the water.

Mrs. Grube laughs her breath away, then catches it and says, "And then guess what…" The story goes on with more troubles and rivers, which makes me worry again about getting Nessa and the kids into this wagon before we cross the Kiamichi. Truth is, it's all the same difficulties being a orphan in Oz as it is in Oklahoma.

We're right in a whole mess with Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion locked in the castle of the one-eyed wicked witch when Mrs. Grube steers the wagon off the road. We bump down into a clear place along Prairie Creek, where the stone chimneys from a burned-down sawmill still stand along the bank. "We're here quite early for lunch, but I do believe I'm ready for a respite. What about you, Hazel?"

My mind comes whirling back like that tornado carrying Dorothy clean out of Kansas, and I land in a whole different place. "Oh…yes'm. My mercy, that's a good tale!" When I hand over Baby Beau and climb down off that wagon, I can't find my feet at first.

Mrs. Grube nods and smiles. "We mustn't dally too long with our picnic. We have the river ford to worry about yet, and we've a distance to travel after that. I want to arrive in Talihina in plenty of time to stake a camp before the space fills. Kate Barnard draws hundreds, even thousands, with her oratory."

"Yes'm." I study the field around us and then some thorny honey locust brush past that, and the cane grass along the creek, and the Potato Hills, but what I'm hoping for isn't out there. If I don't figure a way to hold Mrs. Grube over long enough, I'll have to part company with her. I can't cross the Kiamichi River without Nessa.

I start whistling while Mrs. Grube lays out our lunch in the shade uphill from the creek, and I water the horse and Skedee from a bucket. After that, I carry Baby Beau back down to the creek to see the minnows. He claps his fat hands while I whistle my tune, and then some bird calls, and then some more of the song.

"That's quite lovely, Hazel," Mrs. Grube calls. "Not too close to the water now. Do be careful down there."

"Oh, yes, ma'am." Looking toward the hills, I whistle my call of chuck-will's-widow, chuck-will's-widow, loud as I can.

I listen out. No answer.

Mrs. Grube tells me to come up the hill for lunch, and I dawdle much as I can getting there. I nibble at my food, and play with the baby, and nibble some more, and even get Mrs. Grube to talking about the women's club and politics. When that plays out, which takes a while, I lay back on the blanket and jiggle Baby Beau in the air and say, "It's so pretty here. I feel like I am right by that river in Oz, don't you? We might could finish the story here, don't you think?"

"We'd best get on." She squints up at the sun. "I'll tell more of it on the way."

"Oh, but just for a short while, could we stay? Look at those cotton clouds. I see a pig, and a elephant, and that one there is surely the Cowardly Lion. Don't you think that one looks like him?"

"I suppose it could." But she's getting up and dusting her skirts. "You watch after Beau while I see to my necessary," she says. "Then you'd best do the same, and we'll be on our way. No more stops until we've arrived in Talihina."

My heart goes to thumping. Mrs. Grube being off in the brush might be my only chance to throw the pack on Skedee, grab my things from the wagon, and sneak away into the hills to look for Nessa and the others.

"Yes, ma'am, but could I go first? I need to pretty bad. I don't think I can wait. Also, can I take Skedee down to the water and let him get a good, long drink while I'm over there?"

"You watered him from the bucket before our picnic."

"Skedee never drinks much from a bucket. Silly old thing."

"If you must."

While she folds up the picnic quilt, I take Skedee and walk through the brush to the creek and whistle, and whistle, and whistle.

Nobody answers.

"Hazel?" Mrs. Grube pesters after a while. "Come on up now."

"He didn't drink all he wants yet."

"Hurry him along, please."

"Yes'm!"

But I don't make it quick, of course. I whistle and pace and look down the creek.

I am jumpy as a cat when I hear Mrs. Grube pushing through the scrub brush. "Hazel, really…"

I close my eyes and whistle one more time, loud and long, then listen as the wind carries my call into the distance, where it echoes off the sawtoothed hills.

Just when it dies, I finally hear a nightjar's song. Chuck-will's-widow, chuck-will's wid-dowww, chuck-will's wid-dowww. Three times.

The thing is, a real nightjar don't sing in the noonday.