The very next day Marty was at the Davenport front door. Setting down two large bags of laundry, in desperate need of cleaning, she rang the doorbell.
A very thin woman in her late twenties, stood at the door in a plain gray dress, with faded pink flowers. Her drab brown hair was pulled back into a twist, flipped up, and secured with a large clasp. Some wisps of hair fell onto her unadorned face and into her eyes, revealing dark circles beneath them and the sadness within.
Trying to smile, the woman shook Marty’s hand, “Hello, you must be Mrs. Madison. Do come in.”
“Thank you Mrs. Davenport.”
“Everyone calls me Crystal,” she answered, quickly grabbing one of the bags and leading the way through her home and into the kitchen. Marty noticed the messy condition of the house. It was dusty, cluttered with toys, and had clothing, books and papers scattered about.
In the kitchen Marty saw an ironing board set up in the corner, next to a large aluminum kitchen table with a Formica top. Stacked with clean, folded laundry, the table was surrounded by chairs with plastic seats and backs, some with the clean, folded overflow.
Just behind it were two rows of rods, supported from the ceiling and mounted from wall to wall. One high and one low, a two tiered affair, where she hung the finished clothes in groups, according to the families she was serving.
The laundry room was just off the back with the door propped open. Marty could hear both machines working hard, one with the soft slosh, slosh of washing, while the other generated the gentle hum of drying, both in concert to industrious toil.
No wonder her house looks the way it does. She’s buried in here with tons of laundry to get done, Marty realized with compassion.
Crystal invited her to sit at the kitchen table, after she had cleared a spot for her, wanting the company. She never had the time to get out and the loneliness of her life was overwhelming at times.
“Would you like some coffee?” the woman of the house asked.
“Sure, just black please.”
After serving the coffee, Crystal returned to her ironing as they talked. She learned that Marty’s husband was the new pastor at the old Methodist Church down the road.
And Marty learned about her three children. There was Agnes, “Aggie” for short. She was eight, just a year older than Tyler. Then Quintin, the only son and six years old, while her youngest, Missy, had just turned four.
“Aggie takes care of Missy and Quint for me. I don’t know what I’d do without her. I can’t be in two places at once and if I’m taking care of Missy or Quint, Aggie is working on the laundry or making dinner for me. She’s such a treasure.”
Crystal continued, “It grieves me that she can’t go out and play like other children. But what can I do? We have to keep going this way, so we can stay here. We have no other place to go, and my husband Gordon, who tried so hard to provide for us, wasn’t prepared to leave us so early in life. There wasn’t any insurance, you see.”
“We’d be homeless, if it wasn’t for his boss Mr. Conner. When Gordon was killed at the mill, Franklin Conner came to me and assured me we could stay here as long as we wanted to, rent free. I think he felt guilty about Gordon’s death, you see. It was machinery failure that took his life.”
“But with his income gone, the money I make here doesn’t go very far. It’s quickly gone to pay the electric bill and to buy what food we can afford. It’s not very much, but we get by. My Aggie’s upstairs now, watching the children.”
“You said Missy is four? What are you going to do with her when the older children go back to school in a few months, if you don’t mind my asking?” Marty wondered.
Crystal looked searchingly at the pastor’s wife, trying to decide if she should say anything. Something in the caring look she got from this woman helped her to trust.
She spoke honestly, “Aggie doesn’t go to school anymore. She has to stay here to take care of her sister and brother. I don’t have any choice. We don’t have the money for a sitter, so she must do it. She has missed two years now, ever since her daddy died. I’m scared for her and for myself if the authorities say anything. But I just can’t think of any other way.”
Marty looked surprised.
“Quintin used to go,” Crystal continued. “But he was always getting into trouble there without his sister. Some of the boys picked on him and he stopped going. Once I found out he was hiding, instead of going to school, I just kept him home. It was easier, and Molly their teacher understands. She has so many students to watch over. But she warned me it’s only a matter of time before the authorities make trouble for us. What can I do? We’re so close to being homeless now.”
Marty thought quietly for a second. Crystal was nervous waiting for her to say something.
Smiling a second later, Marty suggested, “Crystal, I’ve always homeschooled our boys and I’m doing it again this year at the parsonage. Tom and I have already discussed having a few more children come to class. What do you think about allowing all of your children to come to our house for school? We’ll include Missy too. She can learn with the others. There’s no reason she can’t start a little early. It’s no burden to us and I’d love to help you out, if you’ll let me.”
Crystal was stunned, the iron in her hand suspended over her work.
All of them in school together, and with such a nice person to watch over them? I can’t believe it! How wonderful is this? But how much will it cost? I don’t have the money to do this! I can’t afford it and I can’t let her pay for it.
“I don’t see how I can pay for it, Mrs. Madison,” she came to the point quickly, sadly.
“You won’t have to. What do you think about bartering, Mrs. Davenport? My taking care of the children during the school term, while you take care of our laundry, no charge to either of us.”
“I’m not sure it’s equitable, Mrs. Madison. You’d have to feed them, wouldn’t you? And all the school supplies, and such, let alone all your time, I don’t think that it’s fair.”
“Nonsense,” Marty said happily. “God will supply all our needs. And three more little ones isn’t going to put us in the poor house. We’ll make do and I’m sure there will be enough to go around. Please… let’s try. I feel so good about this.”
Crystal sighed happily and smiled. “Okay, if you really want to.”
“Oh, I do. I really do,” Marty smiled joyfully. She was going to have her hands full with five children, but she was looking forward to getting the Davenport children back into school where they belonged, and helping this woman out as well.
“Can I meet them?”
“Sure.”
Walking across the kitchen she opened a door and called upstairs, “Aggie?... Aggie, answer me.”
“Yes, mama?” a soft voice answered from above.
“Come down here and bring Quint and Missy with you. There’s someone I want you to meet.”
“Okay,” Marty heard the child’s reply.
Muffled noises came from above and soon the thundering of running down the stairs could be heard.
First to burst into the kitchen was Quintin, with a reddish golden mop of hair hiding his eyes and freckles littering his face.
Curious blue eyes and a big smile beamed from him as he announced, “Hi. I’m Quintin.”
Marty extended her hand, smiling at the friendly child. “How do you do Quintin? I’m Marty,” she said liking the boy right away.
Pulling out a chair, he sat next to her all outgoing and curious. “I kin count to a zillion. Wanna see?”
“Not now, Quint,” his mother said firmly.
He resisted counting, when he saw his sisters quietly entered the room.
The oldest girl had the same coloring as her brother, only without the freckles. Her eyes were green, instead of blue and she seemed tall for her age. But, maybe that was because she was so thin, like her mother. They all seemed to be underfed.
Aggie stood near her mother holding onto the little girl. Missy was more like her mother wi
th soft brown hair and big, expressive eyes. She leaned into her sister, looking shyly at the lady in her home.
“Hello, girls,” Marty said, trying to make them feel at ease.
“This nice lady is Mrs. Madison. She just moved here to Brandon Creek and is living at the old parsonage,” Crystal told her children.
Aggie’s eyes got large in alarm and Quintin squealed with delight, “Where the ghosts live!”
“Now children, I’ve told you before, there are no such things as ghosts,” Crystal said in exasperation.
Aggie looked at her mother, not convinced at all and Quintin asked, “Can I go over and see?”
Missy hid her face at her sister’s side.
“Enough Quint! Children! You must stop this wild imagination of yours,” she said firmly. “This kind lady has offered to teach you at her home, with her two sons this year. And I don’t want this ghosts stuff interfering. Don’t you want to go to school? Don’t you want to get out of here during the day?”
Aggie’s look of alarm turned to indecision, while Quintin exclaimed, “Cool! School in that old house! What’s their names?”
“Who? My sons?” Marty asked.
“Yeah.”
“Tyler is my eldest, he’s seven and Sam is five, just a year younger than you are.”
“Can I meet them? Can we go now?”
“Not now son, but soon. We’ll try and get over there to meet them as soon as I can get away.”
“But we never go anywhere. We’re always here working,” he said sadly.
Aggie’s mother turned to her and asked, “What about you dear? Don’t you want to go back to school? Mrs. Madison said that Missy can go too, and you’ll all be there learning and having fun together?”
“We even have recess every day and you can go out and play with the boys after lunch,” Marty offered.
Aggie’s eyes brightened with the thought. The idea of playing brought excitement to her hard life, but she knew she’d been out of school for far too long. She replied softly, “I don’t know how to read.”
“Don’t worry about that Aggie. I have some beautiful books you can borrow, and you’ll be reading just fine by the end of the school year. You’ll be able to help your mother buy groceries and keep a budget with the math I’ll teach you. And if you help me with your brother and sister, I’ll let you pick one thing, a special subject just your very own, that I’ll teach you,” Marty offered.
Aggie smiled, thinking, I’d love to play the piano again. Then a shadow passed over her face, as she sadly explained, “Daddy was teaching me to play the piano. But we don’t have one anymore.”
Marty’s eyes brightened, “We have one at the church and I can teach you there. I know how to play!”
A smile of hope glowed on the young girl’s face, and a light that had gone out rekindled in her eyes. She was excited for the first time in a very long time, as she told her mama, “Yes please. I’d like to go to school at Mrs. Madison’s house.”
Marty left a while later with images of cheerful children and their mother chattering away excitedly about their future. The hardworking woman joyfully went back to her tasks now and the happiness in the house was electrifying. It affected all those who were present.
Marty realized, as she drove home, how good it was to give. How very good it was indeed. She was so happy she was humming an old hymn of praise and glory to the God she loved.
The very next week, early in the morning Marty had dropped off her laundry and gotten permission to take the Davenport children home with her for a sleepover with the boys. She thought it would be fun for the children to get away and play with Tyler and Sam before school started in a few months. She would bring them back the next day, after dinner, when she came to collect her things. She knew it might benefit Crystal too, with the children gone for a while.
The sleepover had worked out so well, with the children having such a marvelous time, they did it every week for the rest of the summer. The children loved getting away, camping and playing, as children do. And the memories they were making would last them a life time.
She told Crystal how well the children were getting along, at least as well as can be expected between children of different temperaments. The boys were competitive, loved to rough-house, and fought every now and again. The two sisters were content to watch or go play by themselves.
For the sleepover nights, Tom and Marty had set up a tent in the back yard for the boys, while the girls used the boy’s beds in the house, until the girls shyly complained they wanted to be outside too. Putting two recliner mattresses on the front porch, they moved the girls out there.
Aggie and Missy loved listening to the sounds of the night. Sometimes, after midnight, the coyotes would start calling to one another. Some were far away, while others answered close by with their eerie, haunting cries.
With the stars twinkling overhead, the crickets chirping in the dark summer night, while the frogs were softly croaking down by the creek, the girls fell asleep, content and happy.
It was a good time for the Davenport children and they blossomed.
Hidden Pain