At about 12:30 that afternoon, Monroe came running through the side yard and knocked frantically on Bobby’s window, his eyes wide open as if he had just seen a Martian. “Let me in,” he said. Bobby opened the window all the way and Monroe climbed across the sill flush with excitement. “Whoa . . . wait till you hear what just happened to Luther!”
“What?”
Monroe put his hands on his head, walked around the room, and exclaimed, “Fantastic! . . . It was fantastic. . . . You should have seen her. Wham, a right cross right on the chin and then bang, she let him have it again with a left hook and another right. Oh, she was great.” Monroe danced around the room demonstrating the fight. “Wham . . . bam!”
“Who?” asked Bobby.
“Anna Lee!”
Bobby couldn’t believe it. “My sister Anna Lee?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not, I saw it. She came down to the pool a little while ago looking for him and she went over and jerked him up by his shirt and told him to pick on somebody his own size. Then she hauled off and knocked him flat on his back. When she got him on the ground she just about kicked the stuffing out of him. He was crying and everything. It was great. You should have seen it.”
“Anna Lee?”
“Yeah, and she told him if he ever bothered you again she’d get Billy Nobblitt on him.”
“My sister?”
Monroe flopped back on the bed. “Boy, are you lucky. I wish I had a sister like that.”
“He really cried?” Bobby smiled.
“Oh, yeah, she had him begging for mercy.”
That night at dinner Bobby looked across the table at his sister with new eyes, filled with awe and admiration. Although nothing was said, their relationship began to change after that day. Gradually, the thought of how wonderful it would have been to be an only child slowly faded away, and they finally quit tattletelling on each other every chance they got. They even began to share their own little secrets. It had only been a slight adjustment but it was to make all the difference in the world. As Dorothy remarked later, “It’s so pleasant not to have the children at each other’s throats night and day. I wonder what happened?”
Although Dorothy was relieved she no longer had to worry about her own children killing each other, from time to time she still worried about Betty Raye Oatman. She had never received a letter from her. Often, she wondered if the girl was all right. She even called the minister out at the Highway 78 Church of Christ, but he had no idea where the Oatmans were.
Betty Raye did not find the envelope that Neighbor Dorothy had slipped into the side of her suitcase until a few days after she had left Elmwood Springs. Inside was fifty dollars in cash and a short handwritten note.
Sweetheart,
Take this and buy yourself a little something special or just save it for a rainy day if you want. Please don’t forget us and come see us again.
Your friends,
Doc and Dorothy Smith
P.S. Drop me a note and let me know how you are doing from time to time, will you?
Betty Raye wanted to write but did not know what to say. But Dorothy need not have worried about Betty Raye ever forgetting them. Although she was being jerked from town to town, she often thought about her time in Elmwood Springs. On the road, she had only been able to go to school periodically and missed more days than she attended. She longed to be in one place, go to one school. She wished she could be like Anna Lee, have the same friends from year to year, and live in the same house. Often at night as they drove through small towns she would see the families on the porches or see them inside having dinner and it would remind her of her time with the Smiths. As unhappy as she was, she never told her mother. Minnie had her own problems.
The Prodigal Son
FOR THE OATMAN FAMILY the summer had been extremely busy. Since May they had been from Nebraska to Arkansas, Oklahoma, Michigan, Louisiana, West Virginia, Kansas, and back again. After an all-night sing in Spartanburg, South Carolina, they finally had a day off from traveling. Ferris was staying at a farmhouse with Bervin and Vernon and Betty Raye was at another house staying with a family of seven. Minnie had spent the night with the Pike family, who were local gospel singers of some note. The next morning she was sitting outside in the backyard, visiting with Mrs. Opal Pike, whose husband was already at work. Besides being a gospel singer he was also a distant relative of the Pike’s Mentholated Salve family and handled all sales in the Carolinas. The two women were drinking iced tea and discussing the problems and pitfalls of being gospel wives. Minnie said, “It’s not always easy having everyone looking up to you.”
“No,” agreed Mrs. Pike.
“You know, Ferris has not always been the good strict Christian he is today. Most people don’t know but he’s had years of on-and-off bouts of drinking and running around, getting saved and then slipping back.”
“You don’t mean it?” said Mrs. Pike.
“Yes. But praise be to God, as of six weeks ago this Tuesday, he’s permanently saved and a new man, and what a blessing. A redheaded faith healer from Mississippi cured him of the arthritis and saved his soul at the same meeting.”
“You don’t mean it,” Mrs. Pike said again as she slapped a mosquito on her arm into oblivion.
Minnie nodded. “Up until that time he had been struggling with a serious crisis of faith. He’d been studying for his Church of Christ ministership certificate through the mail for about three months when he came in one morning after sitting up all night out in the car with his Bible and he just looked terrible. I said, ‘Ferris, what’s the matter?’ And he looked at me and said, ‘Sit down, Minnie, I have something to tell you.’ He said, ‘Honey, I want you to know I have struggled and prayed a thousand hours over this thing but no help has come.’ Then he took my hand and held it and said, ‘We’ve got a serious problem. I might have to give up the ministry.’ Well, I got all shaken up inside when I heard that because up to this point it had been his whole life. And I said, ‘Ferris, what is it, is it another woman?’ And he said, ‘No, honey, it’s the prodigal son.’ He said, ‘As hard as I’ve tried to come to terms with it and be in agreement with the Word, I can’t.’ He’d lost his faith over a parable. He said, ‘If a man can go out and raise hell and spend all his money and live in sin and then comes back home and his father throws his arms around him and says welcome home, come on in, and acts like nothing happened, how does that make his other sons feel, the ones that stayed home and worked the farm, saved their money, and lived a Christian life? Why, it would make them feel like all those years of trying to be good didn’t mean a thing to their daddy. They might as well have gone out and had a good time themselves.’ He said, ‘Don’t you see, Minnie? Why should a man try and be good if in the end it don’t matter one way or the other to your daddy? Why be good if, like the prodigal son, you can do anything you want and get away with it?’
“Well, what could I say? I said, ‘Ferris, I see your point. You can’t very well sing and preach something you don’t see the point of yourself, it wouldn’t be right.’ But we had to go on because we was booked and I just kept praying the whole time. Then a few months later we was singing out at a big tent revival and camp meeting in Pelham, Alabama, and I’ll never forget that night. There wasn’t a star in the sky and it was as black as Egypt outside and Ferris is out wandering around and pretty soon he drifts over to this Harper woman’s tent. Now, mind you, he’s seen some of the best preachers and evangelists there is and was pretty much immune to any of them but he wasn’t in there no more than twenty minutes till she came off that stage and grabbed ahold of him and said something to him and he’s been saved ever since.”
“Thank the Lord,” said Mrs. Pike.
“The Lord and the Harper woman. Now, I don’t know what it was she said but it must have been good because he hadn’t had a pain in his knee since. No wonder she’s got a big following. They say up in Atlanta people come to see her in ambul
ances and go home on the streetcar. You go to one of those healing meetings and you’re gonna be cured of what ails you. We went one night up in Detroit and people was being healed left and right of back trouble, blindness, bunions, goiters, liver problems, ringworm, you name it. One woman came in with a crooked index finger and by the time the service was over it was as straight as a stick.”
“You don’t mean it!”
“I do. Honey, she turned around and pointed it right at me!”
Minnie stared off in the backyard. “I just hope Ferris will stay saved for a while, leastways till I get the boys raised. Both is at that age where they’s starting to act up, and between them and having to watch Uncle Floyd like a hawk night and day I’m wore out.”
The Princess Mary Margaret Fund
Not only did Dorothy care about people she thought needed help but she also had a soft spot for animals and everybody for miles around knew it. On July first she started her broadcast with yet another abandoned kitten in her lap that had been left at her back door the night before. After she opened the show and had done her first commercial she announced, “By the way, the noise you are hearing is not a motorboat. It is the sweetest little cat I have here, just purring away, and he is in need of a home. He is just a little orange angel and would make a wonderful companion for somebody out there, I just know it, so if anybody can take him, please give us a call.”
Norma’s aunt Elner, a regular listener who almost never missed Dorothy’s show, had a soft spot as well.
The following morning Mother Smith started off the show with a rousing rendition of “Happy Days Are Here Again.” “That’s right, Mother, it is a happy day over here and I can start the show with good news. I have gone into my own personal voting booth and voted Elner Shimfissle for the Good Neighbor of the Year Award. After the show yesterday she called us and said that she would take the little cat and yesterday afternoon she and her husband, Will, came to pick him up. So our little orange orphan has a nice home on a farm. This is the fifth cat she has taken this year, so thank you, Elner. She said she didn’t have an orange one and has always wanted one. So it’s turned out fine for everybody . . . and she has named the cat Sonny. . . . So good luck to Sonny in his new home.
“People are just wonderful, aren’t they? And now, to celebrate our big day . . .” Mother Smith played a touch of “Happy Birthday” on the organ. “Yes . . . it’s our precious Princess Mary Margaret’s birthday . . . and she thanks all of you out there in her fan club for her birthday cards . . . and we’ll tell you more about that later. But first, I just want to remind you that each and every donation you are so kind to send in to the Princess Mary Margaret Fund goes to help pay for the care of our little animals that need our help. I am happy to report that last year we found loving homes for over five hundred little dogs and cats, plus a box of painted turtles that had been abandoned and three rabbits. Plus funding for a Seeing Eye dog for our own Beatrice Woods.
“The dog came last week and is a beautiful golden retriever named Honey, and if you could only see Beatrice and Honey walking up and down the streets, you would know what a wonderful cause your money went to. How can we ever thank you enough?
“I also wish you all could see Princess Mary Margaret in her basket with all of her new birthday toys. Our girl is twelve years old today. It’s so hard to believe that when Doc brought her to me she was no bigger than my hand . . . wasn’t she, Mother Smith? And now she’s as big and fat as I am. I guess that comes from both of us eating too much ice cream. Here’s a card I want to share with you . . . it says,
“Happy Birthday to Princess Mary Margaret.
I hope you have a happy day. Keep up the good work.
Mother, Bess, and Margaret send their best wishes.
President Harry S. Truman”
Mother Smith played “Hail to the Chief” on the organ. Neighbor Dorothy laughed and continued, “After the show Princess Mary Margaret is going to get her special birthday hot dog from Jimmy at the Trolley Car Diner, then she’s going to go across the street to the shoe hospital and visit with her friend Bottle Top. Poor Princess Mary Margaret, she gets so excited—she loves that cat. I don’t know why, he doesn’t care a thing in the world about her. But love is blind, as they say. . . .”
More Changes
The phone rang about two o’clock in the morning and Doc figured it was just another call from someone who needed something in the middle of the night. He often had to get up out of bed at all hours and go down and open up the drugstore for mothers who needed paregoric or cough medicine for sick children, or else it would be Tot Whooten on the phone calling to have Doc go find her mother, who had wandered off, or else help her get James off the lawn and into the house before the sun came up. But it was neither. It was Olla Warren telling him that his best friend, Glenn, who ran the hardware store, had just had a heart attack.
He hung up and was dressed and over at their house in less than five minutes and Dorothy was right behind him. When they arrived young Dr. Halling was already there and an ambulance was on the way. The next few days were touch-and-go but Glenn finally came home from the hospital with a warning to take it easy for the next few months. So his son, Macky, would have to run the hardware store for him until he got back on his feet. Bobby sort of hero-worshiped Macky, especially since he had pulled him out of the pool and saved his life. But he was someone all the younger boys looked up to. He was not only a movie usher but a top football and baseball player. Some said he was so good at shortstop he could play professional ball if he wanted. Bobby felt bad about Macky’s father being sick and Macky having to work all summer but he did not know what to do or say.
Several nights later Doc was sitting in the parlor reading the paper when Bobby came in. He went over and spun the world globe sitting on the desk a few times, picked up a pipe out of Doc’s pipe holder, looked at it and put it back, and then he said, “Daddy, I need to talk to you.” By the seriousness of his tone, Doc was prepared for the worst and wondered what trouble he had gotten himself into now.
“You know that baseball we got at the World Series?” Bobby said.
“Yes.”
“Well, I know you caught it and all but would you be mad at me if I was to loan it to Macky Warren for a while? I was over at the hardware store today. And I remembered he sure liked that ball when I showed it to him . . . I could tell by the way he looked at it. What do you think?”
“It’s your ball, son, and if that’s what you want to do, it’s fine with me.”
Bobby said, “I’ve been thinking about it—I’m not sure yet if I will or not. I just wanted to see if it would be all right if I did.”
“I see.”
Doc didn’t say anything more but he was secretly pleased. It looked as if despite all of Bobby’s antics and craziness, underneath it all he was turning out to be a really nice guy.
Although some things about Bobby changed for the better, some remained the same. This morning he was standing in the hall causing trouble as usual.
Neighbor Dorothy was on the air and informed her listening audience, “If you are wondering what that noise is, it’s not your receiver—it’s Bobby with that bat, the ball paddle . . . bat . . . bat . . . bat . . . he’s about to drive us all batty over here.
“Bobby, I want you out of this house with that thing right now!
“Would the person who invented that bat, the ball paddle, let me know who they are? Bat, bat, bat, night and day, just when he was getting over his yearly bubble-gum-blowing phase. So, if any of you out there don’t have a little boy and want one, call me. . . .”
Having been thrown out of his own home and tired of batting the ball, Bobby was bored and restless. So far, this had not been the best of summers. Besides almost drowning, he had just lost the Bazooka Bubble Gum Bubble Blowing Contest for the third year in a row, Monroe was out of town visiting his grandparents for a month, it was hot, and he had nothing to do. He went downtown and floated around, had a free lime freeze
at the drugstore, read a few comic books, and went over and hung around the barbershop for a while until mean Old Man Henderson came in. Everyone knew he poisoned cats and hated children, so Bobby left in a hurry. Then he decided to go up and hang out with Snooky at the projection booth at the movie theater. It was a weekday, so the movie was not playing anything he wanted to see but he liked visiting with Snooky, who sometimes let him rewind the film. As soon as he walked through the glass doors and into the lobby he began to feel better. No matter how hot it was outside, inside the theater it was always cool and he loved the smell and the sounds of the huge glass popcorn machine grinding and popping all day. He went over and bought himself a large red-and-white-striped bag of buttered popcorn and a box of Milk Duds and a Coke for himself and one for Snooky. If you have money, why not spend it? Bobby had three jobs and his pockets were so full of change and new tubes of BBs that his pants kept slipping down. Other than working for his father, he had a paper route and cut grass but he longed for the day he would turn sixteen and be able to apply for the job of movie usher. He couldn’t wait to get his own brass-buttoned uniform with a cap and be assigned his very own long silver flashlight with the red plastic on the end. It was something to look forward to but that was years away. He needed something more immediate and Snooky gave it to him. His eyes lit up when Snooky said, “I hear some people from St. Louis are coming here and are fixing to open up a brand-new fancy restaurant.”
“Really?” Bobby ran out of the booth and ran up and down the street asking everybody all about it. It turned out to be true!
The A&P grocery store was moving across the street to a bigger space, where the Goodyear tire store used to be before they moved into the back of Western Auto. He was excited. The pending opening would be quite an event for Bobby. As far as he could remember, since the day he was born this would be the first time anything in town had ever changed.