Gertie nodded, and her voice was defiant. “I’ll allus think that a body oughtn’t tu have tu die first to git it—that is, at least a little—a paradise on earth.” She turned from the woman’s troubled puzzlement to look through the window. She pressed her face against the glass, determined to see what kind of country they whirled through. But this window showed no more than the one by her seat—steamy on the inside, crusted with smoke and dirt on the outside, and stout as for a prison, with two thick panes of glass. As if through all the night hours this train had stood still, she always saw the same things: lights, streaks of dirty snow, roads, telephone poles, a few cars, and earlier in the little towns the cold shapes of hurrying people, and once, across what had seemed to be a vast reach of palm-flat land, smudged lights that might have been stars.
In spite of the double glass she felt the hard cold seeping through, and turned away, but continued to stand, hunch-shouldered, lax-handed, looking about the room. It didn’t seem that she could go back to her cramped smelly place in the coach, and anyway the youngens needed the extra room. The long woman on the bench still slept, and the brown one on the chair sat again as if asleep, nodding above the sleeping baby.
She fingered her knife, familiar in the strangeness of the new coat pocket. There was a metal wastebasket at the end of the bench, and she looked down into it, hoping to find something, a corncob, a bit of wood, anything her knife had known. She smiled when she saw in the debris of lunch wrappings, facial tissues, and orange rinds a large hickory nut cast off for lack of a cracking tool.
She heard a gasping, gulping “Jesus!” from the brown woman; scared, she sounded, like her baby was choking to death. Gertie turned, stepping forward to learn what was her trouble. The girl sprang up, the baby clutched tightly in her arms, her body bent over it as if she would protect it from some lunging animal. Her wide eyes darted wildly, now up at Gertie’s face, now at the knife, which all unknowing Gertie had opened and held ready in her hand. “Don git no closah, woman,” she whispered as if her tongue were dry. She did not take her eyes from Gertie, and backed away until she was pressed against the window.
Gertie looked at her, her mind for an instant too pleased at the prospect of doing a pleasant and familiar thing to understand what ailed the other’s mind. She thought for a moment that the brown woman might be crazy. They stood so for a long moment, staring at each other without speaking. Gradually, the brown woman’s eyes leaping toward the knife made Gertie flush with understanding. The thought that someone could or would think that she would fight with a knife like a drunken Cramer was slow in coming. She folded the knife but continued to hold it, as she tried to smile into the wide eyes that shone whitely in the brown face. “I’m sorry I skeered you,” she began, and motioned toward the wastebasket, hoping the woman would understand about her whittling. In glancing at the basket, she saw a huge and ugly woman, flat-cheeked, straight-lipped, straggeldy-headed, her face grayed with tiredness and coal dust, even her chapped lips gray. The straight, almost bushy black brows below the bony forehead were on a level with her own, and she realized she was looking at herself—the same old Gertie who had made her mother weep.
She laughed, a long laugh, a good laugh. It seemed she couldn’t remember when she had laughed, not since corn-planting time when Henley went away. The big gray-faced woman was uglier laughing than sober. Her teeth shone whitely behind her gray lips. She laughed the harder, watching the big woman brush back her straight lank hair with a bended arm, but conscious that the brown woman was still staring at her, though now seeming more puzzled than afraid.
Gertie held up the hickory nut, hidden until now in her great hand. “I don’t wonder,” she said, speaking into the mirror, “that a stranger woman like you is afeared a me. I jist happened to see myself, an skeered myself.” She stopped, but after the laughter the explanation seemed less hard. “Some women pieces quilts an some crochets to pass th time. But me—I growed up with my pop. An I took to whittlen jist like him. I was aimen to whittle a basket out a this hicker nut I found, to kind a pass th time.”
She put a chair under the light by the mirror, and turning her back somewhat on the other, thinking maybe she hated to see a body whittle the way her mother hated it, she went to work on the hickory nut. The knife blade winked in the light, jiggled now and then by the rushing, clacking train; but the basket grew, a split basket, the splints marked clearly in the hard nutshell, the handle smooth, curving at the top as the nut had curved, while the sharp peak at the bottom of the nut grew smooth and became the bottom of the basket.
Gradually the brown woman, instead of darting sharp, suspicious glances, pulled her chair closer and closer and watched as Cassie would have watched. Sleepy-headed women coming in to change whimpering, wet-bottomed babies paused to watch, and two little soldier girls who didn’t look much older than Clytie came in and smoked cigarettes, and lingered a long while watching.
She made the basket markings fine and tiny so that the work might last a long while. But the windows were always black, untouched by any gray of dawn when she looked at them. She realized with something close to despair that the basket would end before the night.
Several times she left off her work to see about the children. They were always the same, asleep in a tangle of arms and legs. The little sailor slept with his head on Clytie’s shoulder, and Clytie clung to his upper arm, dreaming, Gertie guessed, it was Cassie back home, forever about to slide out of the high feather bed. The rest of the car slept the smelly, moaning, coughing, muttering sleep of cattle penned too closely in a strange barn.
Once when she got back to the rest room her seat was taken by a little baby-faced girl in a bright red coat nursing a baby. She kept talking about her soldier man at a place called Grayling, past Detroit, and wondering if it would be cold for the baby.
The brown woman offered her a chair, saying she was tired of sitting, but Gertie refused and whittled standing. Then the brown woman complained that she couldn’t watch the work. “You’re worse than my Cassie,” Gertie said, smiling, “fer wanten to watch things. Tell me th baby’s name. I’ll put it on this an give it to her fer a keepsake a me.”
The woman’s eyes grew bright with pleasure, as when she spoke of the place called Paradise. “I was hopan you’d sell it to me. Her first name is Beulah. I hope it ain’t too long,” she added, glancing anxiously at the basket. “But I want to pay yo.”
“Pay fer whittlen foolishness!” Gertie looked at her in amazement.
The girl nodded. “I’ll bet yo could make big money whittlen. City people sometimes loves handmade stuff. It’s worth mo’n a dollah—way mo’n that if you count th time.” She opened her hand, and Gertie saw the green of money that from its crumpled, sweaty look she must have been holding a long time.
“Yo take this dollah,” she said. “Keep it like a good-luck piece—an then it won’t be pay. An Beulah Mae can always keep this fo a good-luck token.”
ELEVEN
GERTIE HAD NO TIME to think of where she went or why. The press of people so hurried her up the long steel ramp that Cassie, clinging to her coattail, screamed with fright. Though she already had two split baskets on one arm and Amos on the other, she tried to pick up the child, but could not bend among the pushing, tightly packed bodies.
The crowd bore her through the gate, and at once there was more room, but no Clovis and no sign of the other children. She backed away a little, got Cassie out of the jam, and stood looking about her with quick, frightened glances. Where were the children, and where was Clovis? Panic overtook her when she realized that the last of the people were off the train. The rushing now was toward the train gate. Maybe the youngens had got scared and turned back. She wanted to rub her eyes, but realized that neither hand was free. How did the children look? The colors of their new clothing had evaporated from her head.
She took an uncertain step back toward the gate, and stood on tiptoe trying to see down the ramp. Something hit her on the shin. She saw a little
cart of suitcases pushed by a man in a red cap. He gave her a mean look and said, “Look where you’re going, lady.”
She stepped backward. One split basket hit something. She turned, and a woman’s eyes under a red scarf glared at her, and a wide red mouth said, “Hillbilly,” spitting the words as if they shaped a vile thing to be spewed out quickly.
Then almost under her elbow a voice was crying, “Mom, you’ve ruint yer new hat. It’s knocked ever which-away.” And an instant later: “Mom, can I go git me a Coke? Reuben won’t let me go an they’s a Coke place right by.”
She tried to put a tone of authority into her voice. “Enoch, hush an grab holt a Cassie here an git her out a this. Let go a me, honey, an take Enoch’s hand. He’ll git ye out. Enoch, where’s Reuben an—” Her eyes had chanced upon Reuben and Clytie. They stood on a bench, looking at her over the heads of the people.
She reached the bench at last, and the children got off and gave her the place they had saved for her. She dropped upon it and sat breathing hard, with the baskets still on her arms, though Amos slid down and stood by her knee. The older children started at her, more surprised by her strange weak ways than by all the goings on around them. Clytie reached and straightened her hat, took the baskets from her, and set them on the floor. “You look peaked, Mom,” she said. “You ain’t a gitten train sick like Cassie?”
Gertie shook her head. “I’m all right, but I thought you youngens was lost.”
Clytie smiled at her mother’s fear, hesitated, then looked to Enoch as if for help. He nodded, and she said, “Mom, you need some good hot cawfee. Couldn’t we uns take some money an buy somethen an set on one a them stools an eat it? I seen their prices, an you can git a bowl a oats fer a quarter, an—”
Enoch begged, “Aw, come on, Mom, but me, I’d ruther have a Coke.”
“You can buy a whole box a oats fer less’n—”
Gertie felt the shivering Cassie, met Reuben’s interested look. They did need some hot food. The half-bushel basket of cake and pie and fried ham and chicken sandwiches Aunt Kate had fixed for them yesterday morning was still half full; but the basket food, warmish, slightly smelly, had gagged her even when it was fresh, and Cassie would never touch it.
Amos tweaked Clytie’s coat. “Oats,” he said.
Clytie understood her mother’s face, “You come, too, Mom.”
Gertie shook her head, “You uns go on an eat.” She fished in her pocket, brought out a dollar bill, and then a quarter. She looked an instant at the money before handing it to Clytie. “Back home that ud keep us in oats an sugar fer sweetenen more’n a month.”
“Detroit’s diff’rent,” Clytie said, then comforted, “an recollect Pop’s a maken big money.” She took Amos with one hand, and reached for Cassie with the other, but Cassie clung to Gertie.
“I ain’t hungry,” she said, her teeth chattering.
The others went away, then overhead, like thunder speaking unknown tongues, voices boomed. Though they had heard the same in Cincinnati, both jumped and looked up. Cassie snuggled against Gertie, buried her face in her lap, shivering, whispering, “What is it, Mom?”
“Jist some kind a contraption to tell people about trains, I recken,” Gertie said, and pulled the child close against her. “Don’t be afeared now. Pretty soon your pop’ull be here to take us to our pretty new home.”
“Will Gyp be a comen pretty soon?”
“In a little while—mebbe. But he’ll be fine with yer Granma Nevels. Sugar Belle needs a little company. But soon as we git settled in a place with a big yard, we’ll send fer him, that is, if we don’t go back right away.”
Cassie was silent, her face pressed into Gertie’s lap. Her shoulders shook with sobs, or maybe it was only shivers; it was so cold. Gertie’s feet were cold on the dirty cement floor, puddled with snow water. Gusts of cold from opening doors hit her legs and went up her dress tail like wandering icicles. She missed the heavy man’s shoes, the heavy socks, the long-tailed, full-skirted dresses of her own making; the new coat was skimpy, the rayon dress also ordered by her mother was skimpier still.
She was glad when a tall raw-boned woman weighted down with children and baggage plopped down almost upon her. It gave her an excuse to take Cassie on her lap and press her tightly against her body. This, and the wrapping of her own coat over Cassie’s bare blue legs, seemed to warm them both. “You’ll hafta be gitten her some snow pants,” the woman said when she had got her breath a little, shifted the baby to her other arm, clamped the child of walking size between her knees, and looked at Cassie.
Gertie turned to her, the beginnings of a smile thawing some of the frozen terror from her bleak eyes; for the voice sounded like back home, booming out through the nose like Ann Liz Cramer’s as the woman went on, “It’s terrible cold up here right on till summer.” She looked at the split baskets by Gertie’s feet, shook her head over Cassie. “Pore little thing, her runnen an playen days is over.”
“Mebbe not,” Gertie said.
“She’ll git killed in traffic, then.”
“Traffic?”
“You know, everything’s on wheels; that’s traffic. Detroit’s worse’n Willer Run. It ain’t no place fer people.”
Gertie nodded, remembering the red sign on the pine tree. “They tried to bag ever man in our country off up to that place. But I recken they give em good money, an mebbe don’t work em too hard.”
“Work? They about kilt my man.” She glanced about her, then moved so close to Gertie her breath came in her face. “He’s a big strong man. There never was a team a mules he couldn’t outlast a breaken cotton ground—we’re frum west Tennessee. He went to jine up, come Pearl Harbor, but th fools wouldn’t have him; said he was deef in one yer.”
She sighed, then went on: “They claimed it was his patriotic duty to go to this Willer Run. He wasn’t one a them big farmers. An atter this youngen come,” she tapped the older child, “he bagged me off up there too. Said he was goen crazy; said they was killen him. Soon’s I could wean this biggest un, I got me a job an drawed wages—worked some. Th neighbor women an me, we took turns minden youngens, an I worked till six weeks afore this baby come.”
She was silent a moment, gathering words, remembering. Then after a kind of sigh and headshake, like a person who has been too long under water, she began again. “An I expect they are a killen him. But I couldn’t stand it no longer, jist couldn’t. An anyhow we’d saved up enough to git us a tractor. But, Lord, it took some saven. An, God, th way we’ve lived. No water, no electric inside our shack at first. An swampy with mosquiters in summer, you couldn’t set still. An then all winter you froze. Lord, it was awful.”
She stopped again, sighing, shaking her head. “Ever night he’d come home looken peaked an wore out as a colicky baby with a touch a th sun, an I’d say, ‘What they have you a doen today, honey?’ An he’d say, ‘The same damn’ thing, a walken ahint some superintendent that didn’t know where he was a goen.’ Er mebbe he’d say ‘Jist a standen till they needed me.’ Lots a nights he’d git in at midnight an I’d say, ‘Well, honey, I bet you stretched then muscles on overtime.’ An he’d say, ‘Time an a half I’ve made this night fer waiten overtime. They sure made plenty a plus on me this day.’”
“Plus?” Gertie asked.
The woman nudged her with one bony elbow. “Don’t say hit so loud. Depots like this is jist lined with FBI. But you knew what th men say when they make em stand around: ‘Th more cost, th more plus.’” The woman’s voice had dropped to a hoarse whisper. “These big men that owns these factories, th gover’mint gives em profits on what things cost—six cents on th dollar I’ve heard say. So ever time they can make a thing cost two dollars stid a one”—she winked slowly at Gertie—“they’re six cents ahead, an everbody’s happy. Th more men, th more plus fer th owners, th more money an more men fer them unions. I figger,” she went on after a moment’s reflective smoothing of her dress, “thet Luke, he’s jist a plus. He cain’t hep it. His baby brot
her’s kilt already.”
“Th county paper an th radio an them signs on th trees allus said them men was bad needed at Willer Run—tu win th war,” Gertie said.
“To make more plus.” The woman’s voice dropped even lower. “Whar’s th bombers they’ve made. In their coat pockets?”
The voice in the roof was booming again, and the woman exclaimed, “Lordy, I’d better be a gitten in line er I’ll be standen, holden this youngen all th way to Louisville like I done with his brother a comen up. Mebbe,” she went on, standing now, the baby’s head wedged into her shoulder to protect him from the jolting crowd, her purse clutched across his stomach where she could see it, suitcase handle and the child’s wrist gripped in the other hand, ticket pinned with three small safety pins on her coat lapel, “you’d better jist turn around an go back home with me.” She lingered a moment, her eyes more kindly than prying as they went from the split basket to Gertie’s hard palmed hands then up to the new hat, “It’ll be gardenen time afore you know it, back home, an—well, recollect you ain’t on no cost plus.”
Gertie managed to smile, though her voice was husky as she said with a little headshake, “Mebbe I’ll have a good garden patch up here—if we stay till spring.”
“I hope so,” the woman said, walking away now. She glanced once over her shoulder, then a hurrying soldier bumped her, a sailor fell in behind her, and she was gone.
Gertie realized she was shivering again. She sprang up, and was standing looking first this way and then that when she saw Clytie carrying coffee steaming in a paper cup. In her bewilderment Clytie seemed to be returning from a direction opposite to that in which she had gone. “Drink it quick, Mom, fore it gits cold,” Clytie commanded, “an you’ll feel better.”
“I don’t feel bad,” Gertie said, but drank the coffee gratefully, though it was weak with a dirty, dishwatery taste, and they had put sugar in it. The others came back, Enoch last, running, shrilling in breathless excitement: “I seed Dee-troit, Mom. It’s a snowen like I ain’t never seed. Th snow in Dee-troit don’t fall down. It goes crosswise. An it ain’t cold like we thought, fer th snow’s melten. An, Mom, I seed a million cars. Let’s git goen.”