Standing in the Rainbow

Time Flies

Other than Mr. Peanut coming to town and the Elmwood Theater showing four Gene Autry movies in one day and Bobby getting stuck in the arm at Monroe’s birthday party while playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey, nothing else exciting happened and before they knew it September came rolling around again.

But as much as Bobby hated summer ending and shopping for school clothes with his mother, because she made him try on everything, there was something exciting about starting back to school. He loved the smell of new books and going to the five-and-dime and getting school supplies. Brand-new pencil boxes, notebooks, and big thick rubber erasers, and a new satchel. The boys in town had gone to the barbershop and gotten a haircut for the first day of school, the girls had tight new curly permanents and new dresses, and everybody had brand-new shoes.

The school had been slicked up as well. The wooden floors had been waxed to a high shine, the lunchroom polished and scrubbed. Even the teachers, rested from their summer vacations, looked optimistic and eager, ready to inspire the tender young minds that would be in their care for the next nine months. Fresh new chalk, new shiny maps on the walls, the white round globes hanging from the ceilings, beaming with bright new bulbs. The entire building vibrated with enthusiasm and anticipation of the best year yet. Everyone was happy to see each other—almost everybody—and ready to begin anew with high hopes.

This euphoria lasted about three days and by the end of September it was the same old drudgery as it had been the year before. Bobby was still the shortest boy in class and Luther Griggs still threatened to beat him up every day.

Christmas came and went and Bobby got a new maroon-and-white Schwinn bicycle and a silver-colored cowboy holster with the multicolored artificial gems and a Dick Tracy cap pistol. Plus lots of socks and underwear he did not want. He had been hoping for a genuine Jungle Jim pith helmet.

Besides Bobby getting underwear and socks, the other bad news was that on Wednesday, January 3, dish night at the Elmwood Theater, the movie that was supposed to come in on the Greyhound bus had not come in. Consequently, Snooky had to show the backup movie he kept in the booth for this sort of emergency. But that night most people left after all the dishes were given away. After all, just how many times can you sit through Lassie Come Home?

January and February were both fairly mild but March came roaring in. The first Monday of the month started off looking like it might be a nice day but by eight o’clock in the morning things had changed drastically and in a hurry. Dorothy hardly had time to run around and get all her windows shut before the storm hit. By the time the show went on the air, several houses had lost part of their roofs, the awning at the A&P grocery store had been ripped, and Poor Tot Whooten had just called, all upset because part of Merle and Verbena’s roof had blown through her dining room window and had broken all that was left of her good dishes.

Mother Smith opened the show with a few strains of “Stormy Weather” and Dorothy ran in and sat down and said, “That’s right, Mother Smith, it is stormy weather, as stormy as can be over here, and looking out my window I can tell you everything is a big mess. I just hope everything is all right where you are. It was so bad I was worried we were going to get knocked right off the air, so I am glad we are on.” She stopped for a moment. “At least I think we are. Bobby, run next door and see if we are still on. But in the meantime I’ll just keep talking until he tells me we are not on the air. Oh, what a day: One minute the sun is shining and the next rain is blowing up and down the street every which a way. I didn’t even have time to get my clothes off the line.”

The day had turned so dark that Doc called and said they had to put the lights on at the drugstore just to see. Bobby came running in and slammed the door and shouted, “You’re on!” Dorothy said, “Oh good. Bobby says we’re still on the air . . . so after the thing hit there wasn’t a thing to do but wait it out. We all watched it from the bay window in the dining room and I must say we enjoyed it, even though we did see Doc’s pajamas fly by. Storms always manage to hit us on a wash day, don’t they? Mrs. Whatley over behind us just brought a couple of Doc’s shirts back but we lost everything else. Everybody in town has been calling, saying they have somebody else’s clothes. Mr. Henderson said a pair of ladies’ drawers had wrapped themselves around his weather vane but I don’t know who would have the nerve to claim them. What? Bobby says we have all kinds of clothes hanging off the radio tower, so if you’re missing some come over and look, they might be here. Oh, I am so discombobulated this morning I can’t find my format or anything.”

She picked up her potted plant and put it down again. “For all of those of you at home, just thank your lucky stars you can’t see me through the radio. I look just like an old frump this morning and, believe it or not, I am still in my robe. Between the storm and so many calls the time just got away from me. And today of all days. The very day when we are announcing our brand-new sponsor, the Cecil Figgs Mortuaries and Floral Designs for all your floral and funeral needs, and here I sit with no face on, in my hair net, and still in my robe. And I do apologize, Mr. Figgs, and I promise to do better tomorrow.”

Dorothy looked at Bobby sitting in the front row with Beatrice, happily chomping away on a radio cookie, and suddenly realized something. “Excuse me a minute, girls,” she said and put her hand over the microphone. “What are you doing out of school, young man?”

“I had to go get Beatrice,” he said.

“That was very sweet of you but I think we can get along without you the rest of the morning.

“Sorry, everyone. I have a boy here who needs to be at school, so if anybody’s listening in the teachers’ lounge, he will be right there . . . and call me if he’s not.” A moment later the audience heard the front door slam.

“Rats,” said Bobby, stomping off to school.

Dorothy, who was still searching for her format, announced, “And now here’s Beatrice to sing for us on this rainy old day, ‘Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella’ followed by ‘Painting the Clouds with Sunshine,’ and maybe by then I’ll find what I’m looking for.”

The rest of the year went by with no more major upsets or dramas and was fairly uneventful until Saturday, June the first, at 4:16 in the afternoon, when something major did happen.

Life Changes

Bobby had been down at the drugstore since early that morning, working in the stockroom unloading boxes and stacking them in a pile outside the back door in the alley. He received an allowance of fifty cents a week but he wanted to earn extra money so he could send off for the Charles Atlas bodybuilding course. He and Monroe had vowed to become muscle men before they went back to school next September. Considering that he weighed sixty-eight pounds soaking wet and had arms like sticks, it was an ambitious goal. He had whipped through boxes of red-and-white straws, paper napkins, boxes of shampoo, cough medicine, baby powder, aspirin, Band-Aids, and Whitman’s Samplers in record time. He was in a hurry. Today was the day the swimming pool opened for the season.

Doc paid him his fifty cents and yelled after him as he ran out the back door, “Be careful, son, don’t hit your head on the diving board.” Doc heard a faint “Yes, sir” as Bobby ran as fast as he could down the block, heading for home. Neighbor Dorothy had just told her radio listeners that, unlike other prune juices on the market, Sunsweet prune juice was guaranteed by Good Housekeeping to have the same laxative potency in every glassful when he came flying through the screen door, slamming it behind him, wham, on the way to his room. Neighbor Dorothy informed her listeners, “As you might have guessed, that was Bobby,” and went on to announce that a Mrs. Aline Staggers of Arden, Oklahoma, was interested in locating a recipe for old-fashioned strawberry-and-rhubarb pie. “So if you have a good one, send it on in.” At that moment Bobby came crashing down the hall carrying his bathing suit in one hand but before he hit the front door his mother said, “Hold it, young man!” and stopped him in his tracks. “Since you are making so much racket, why don’t you come in here and tell everybody where it is you are going in such a hurry.”

Bobby poked his head in the room and shouted, “Cascade Plunge opens today!”

Neighbor Dorothy said, “Oh, I see. . . . Well, everybody, I guess we can say that summer is officially here. Bobby has just informed me that the pool is open.” Mother Smith hit a few happy chords of “By the Sea, by the Sea, by the Beautiful Sea” while Bobby stood there, chomping at the bit to be released. His mother said, “Well, go on but for heaven’s sake, don’t hit your head on the diving board!” Everybody at home heard a faint voice disappearing into the background saying “O.K.” and the slam of the door.

Bobby knew the shortcut to everywhere in town through the back alleys and was at the pool in two minutes flat. As he had whizzed by their houses, the ladies listening to Neighbor Dorothy heard all about the saga of how last year he had been showing off for some girl and had cracked his head on the diving board and had knocked himself out cold and had to have three stitches. Most people would have learned their lesson and not gone near the pool, but not him.

Bobby loved the water. His mother did not know it but he had already been swimming out at the Blue Devil several times. That was fun but not like Cascade Plunge. To him there was something wonderful about the certain smell of chlorine on hot, wet cement, and swimming underwater in that clear, aqua pool water streaked with wavy strips of white sunlight—something about the quiet under there, the whole world above muffled and far away. And then, too, there were girls at the pool. He wanted to show off for a girl in his class, not the same one he liked last year, a new one. She was a tap dancer, and when Bobby, who Dorothy had to practically drag to the Dixie Cahill dance recital, saw her solo to “Tiptoe Through the Tulips with Me,” he thought she was as cute as a pair of new yellow shoes.

Bobby ran up to the big cement building with blue sky and white clouds painted over the sign that said CASCADE PLUNGE and dug in his jeans for a dime and got his locker key and ran on in, practically pulling all his clothes off before he reached the men’s changing room. He was in such a hurry that he almost tripped on his bright orange swim trunks. He quickly locked his locker and ran out from the shadowy dressing area into the shining white sunlight. There it was. At last he had reached that oasis of shimmering crystal-clear water he had been dreaming about all winter, and the sight of it almost took his breath away. It looked like a big lake, sparkling like a thousand diamonds in the sun, surrounded by a sea of hot white concrete. Oh, it was all too much. He was far too excited to wait another minute and he ran and flung himself into the pool. He swam underwater for a while and came up right beside Monroe and they immediately began to splash water at each other while all the girls around them who didn’t want to get their hair wet screamed. Let the fun begin!

At about 4:30 that afternoon when Bobby had not come home yet, Dorothy said to Anna Lee, who was in her bedroom with Patsy Marie working on their movie-star scrapbooks, “Anna Lee, I’m worried about Bobby. He’s been down at that pool six hours. Would you and Patsy Marie take a walk over there and tell him to come home, he’s had enough for one day.” Anna Lee groaned as if her mother had just told her that she had to build an Egyptian pyramid by hand. “Oh, Mother, do I have to?”

“Yes, I’m worried he might have cracked his head again.”

“But, Mother, if he wants to knock himself silly on that diving board, I can’t stop him.”

“Please, for my sake.”

Anna Lee sighed monumentally and got up. “Come on, Patsy Marie, let’s go. But I don’t know why you let him go down there in the first place. All he does is swim around underwater all day, pinching people and acting like a jerk.” What she said was largely true. At the moment Bobby and Monroe were swimming around underwater, pestering everyone they could. The best fun was to dive down and swim between unsuspecting people’s legs and scare them to death. Bobby was having a grand time. The pool was jam-packed with potential victims. He had just gone between one pair of legs when he suddenly saw another pair nearby and swam over and went for them. He thought this was hilarious until he realized a second too late that the pair of legs he was now swimming under belonged to none other than Luther Griggs. Big mistake!

Bobby swam as fast and as far away from him as he could but not far enough. Just as Bobby emerged at the surface, gasping for air, Luther was right behind him and rolled over on his back and kicked him as hard as he could and caught him right between his shoulder blades.

Bobby did not know what hit him. The powerful kick knocked the wind out of him and sent him flying toward the deep end of the pool. Luther swam away, laughing his head off, but Bobby did not come back up. Having seen Bobby drift around underwater all day, nobody paid much attention to him, even the lifeguard, who had his hands full with a pool crammed with excited kids.

It wasn’t until some minutes later that Macky Warren, who was standing around talking to Norma, looked over and noticed that Bobby was floating around on top of the water, facedown. He was not moving. Macky ran over to the side of the pool and reached in and jerked him up by his hair and pulled him out. Bobby was unconscious and had already started turning blue. A few minutes later, when Anna Lee and Patsy came strolling into the pool area, they noticed a group of people gathered around, looking at something on the side of the pool. Anna Lee wondered what it was but did not think much about it until she got closer and realized it was a person on the ground. Norma blurted out, “Oh, Anna Lee, I think he’s dead!”

Anna Lee walked over, still not knowing who it was. Suddenly everyone moved aside. When she looked down and saw Bobby’s lifeless body lying on the cement she almost fainted. The lifeguard was gasping, counting out loud, giving him artificial respiration, desperately trying to get him to breathe. Unable to move, Anna Lee screamed over and over, “That’s my brother!” In that minute before Bobby finally started to cough and spit up water, the thousands of irritating things he had ever done were forgotten. All Anna Lee wanted was for him to be alive.

When Bobby finally did come to and opened his eyes, he looked up and when he saw so many people peering down at him it scared him to death. He didn’t know where he was or what he was doing on the ground. When his eyes began to focus a little better, he suddenly recognized his sister’s face, as she knelt down beside him. He was so happy to see her that he threw his arms around her neck and wouldn’t let go.

Still in a state of shock, not really understanding what had happened, Bobby began to shiver and to cry. Anna Lee held him and said, “It’s all right, you’re all right, Bobby, I’m here.” Even when the lifeguard picked him up and carried him into the poolhouse and laid him down on the couch he would not let go of her hand. They covered him with a blanket and rubbed him all over to get his circulation back. After a while he sat up and had a Coke. He was a bit shaken by the ordeal but apparently none too worse for the wear. When he felt well enough Anna Lee got his clothes out of the locker and helped him dress and they walked home together, his arm around her waist, her arm around his shoulder. As they got closer to the house they saw their mother out standing on the sidewalk.

“I’ve been worried to death,” she said. “I was just about to go down there and find you. What were you doing all this time?”

Anna Lee squeezed his hand and said, “Nothing. I was just fooling around talking to some people, that’s all. It’s my fault.”

The next day Bobby decided it was in his own best interest and a matter of personal safety not to go back to the pool anytime soon. Particularly as long as Luther Griggs was still lurking around. So he stayed in his room and read comic books.

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 ambulances 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.

Every day he went down and watched the grocery store being turned into a restaurant. He saw tables and chairs and all sorts of kitchen equipment and steam tables being moved in the back door. He watched them change the tan-and-white awning to a pink-and-white one and hung little half curtains in the windows. The whole town was dying to know what kind of a restaurant was coming but that was the big mystery. People guessed at what it might be, but they all had to wait for the night of the grand opening and what a surprise it turned out to be.

In the middle of the night workmen came in and attached a long sign, still covered in brown wrapping paper, to the front of the building. It was not to be taken off until the grand opening. Finally the big moment arrived. At exactly 8:30 the paper was removed, and everybody standing downtown that night waiting, including Bobby and the entire family, applauded when they saw the sign plugged in for the first time. A pink neon sign is something . . . but a pink neon sign the shape of a pig that runs in a circle and blinks on and off set everyone wild. Oh the wonder of it! The downright cuteness of it! A little fat pink pig with that little curly tail that circled around and around over a sign that read

Three Little Pigs Cafeteria

Good Food in a Hurry

was a sight that caused people to practically knock the door down trying to get in. Even if there had been no pink neon pig, just the word cafeteria was enough to stir up everyone for miles around. They had all heard of a café, a diner, even a sandwich shop but an eating establishment called a cafeteria sounded so modern, so up to date and fashionable . . . urbane even. Bobby thought the whole idea of sliding your own brown plastic tray down a long line of clear glass cases filled with every kind of food you could think of, and all you had to do was point at what you wanted, was paradise. They had everything: Jell-O squares with shredded carrots and green grapes inside, vegetables, meat, fish, rolls, corn sticks, and any kind of beverage or dessert you could want. They even offered foreign food, Italian spaghetti and Chinese chicken chow mein. What next, everyone wondered?

Several women in town, after seeing all the varieties of food available, vowed they would never fix dinner at home again and three or four didn’t.

Ida Jenkins, Norma’s mother, was so impressed that she dropped the word cafeteria in every sentence she could.

Of course, it took a while for people to get used to it and realize that they had to watch what the kids chose. The first night Bobby picked out three desserts and two bowls of mashed potatoes and gravy. And when Poor Tot took her mother up there for dinner, her mother put sixteen corn sticks and four iced teas on her tray. Tot tried to put a few back but her mother kicked and yelled so, she had to take her home.

But other than that and a few people dropping their trays before they got to their tables, it was a very welcome addition to the town. Inside and out. Now added to the orange-and-white neon sign that ran around the marquee of the movie theater, the bright green neon of the Victor the Florist sign, and the blue-and-white neon of the Blue Ribbon Cleaners and the Rexall drugstore was the big-pink-neon-pig-running-in-a-circle sign.

Main Street was suddenly ablaze with color. Looking at it from the Smiths’ front porch was wonderful. The whole street glowed in the night and looked as bright and as cheerful as a Ferris wheel.

September Again?

Monroe had been home from his grandparents’ for only a week when, much to Bobby’s regret, September came rolling around again and, as it must, school started. But for his sister, this year was a completely different story. Anna Lee was now a senior in high school, with all the rights and privileges the name implies. Seniors were a special breed apart. Unlike the rest of the students, who were still having to slug through the long boring days, every minute of their school year was filled with football games, excitement, pep rallies, dances, romances, and anticipation. They don’t know it yet but for many it would be the happiest year of their lives.

But Bobby was still in sixth grade. Right now all he had to look forward to was Halloween and scaring mean Old Man Henderson.

Several weeks into October, Dorothy opened her Monday morning broadcast with “Good morning, everybody. Oh, did you all see that beautiful harvest moon last night? I just love it this time of year, when, as Mr. James Whitcomb Riley says, the frost is on the pumpkin . . . and I have some good news this morning. Elmwood Springs finally won a football game, thanks to young Mr. Macky Warren kicking the ball and saving the day. In fact, making the day. So hooray for us. Anna Lee and her crowd are having their own wiener and marshmallow roast out at the lake this Friday and Doc and I are chaperones, so if I can get through this month without gaining twenty pounds I’ll be lucky. Later on, Beatrice, our Little Blind Songbird, will be singing ‘In the Shadow of the Whispering Pines’ for you, but meanwhile a seasonal message from Dr. Orr, our dentist here in Elmwood Springs. He writes, ‘October is the month for candied apples, taffy apples, and parties where bobbing for apples is often featured. I strongly advise denture wearers to abstain from these foods and activities.’ Thank you, Dr. Orr, for that reminder. Of course, we all remember last year when Poor Tot Whooten lost a perfectly good front tooth eating a candied apple at the state fair. Personally I would just as soon take a bite out of the dining room table than to eat one of those things. And what else do I have?

“Oh, here it is. Doc said to remind you that all the money collected at the Lions Club Haunted House this year is going to the Crippled Children’s hospital, so be sure to come by. But he says all the people with bad hearts should stay home, so it sounds like it’s going to be another scary one. You can be sure I won’t be going in. I’ll just give my nickel at the door and go on home, thank you. Last year Bobby drug me through that thing and it nearly scared me to death. Things jumping out at you from every which way but for those of you who enjoy having the wits scared out of you, take it from me, the Lions do a good job at it. Mother Smith says she will be in the haunted house this year but she won’t say doing what.”

On October thirty-first at 5:30, Bobby, dressed as Abraham Lincoln, was standing around in his black suit and the two-foot-tall black stovepipe hat Jimmy had made him out of cardboard. He was busy eating big orange-colored marshmallow peanuts from a bowl on the entrance hall table when his mother came out of the kitchen and caught him. “Bobby, stop that! That’s not for you. That’s for my trick-or-treaters.”

He looked at her indignantly. “But I am a trick-or-treater.”

“You know what I mean.” She glanced down in the other bowl on the table and he took off in a shot. She would really be mad when she saw he had bitten all the white tips off the candy corn. He was right. He heard a loud “BOBBY!” but he was out the back door, on his way over to Monroe’s with a sack. Inside the sack were two large pieces of cardboard shaped like gorilla feet, or what he thought looked like gorilla feet, which he had cut out of the side of a box. Doc should have known something was up when Monroe had started coming into the drugstore every other day buying large economy-size containers of baby powder.

Around midnight, as soon as they knew Old Man Henderson was in bed, Monroe and Bobby did what they had been planning for weeks, then ran home to Monroe’s house, where Bobby was to spend the night. The next morning Old Man Henderson was in for a shock—and got one. His entire front porch was completely covered in white powder, smooth except for the paw prints of a few cats and the enormous footprints of what must have been a giant monster. Old Man Henderson never did figure out just what had walked across his front porch that night—but for the next few months he kept his shotgun by the door in case it came back.

Christmas came and went with a hundred more socks, endless underwear, again not one genuine Jungle Jim pith helmet, but there was snow on December twenty-eighth. That was something, at least. On New Year’s Eve, James Whooten got drunk and fell down the back stairs of the VFW hall and broke both his elbows and lost his job as a house painter. To make ends meet Tot had to start doing shampoos and sets in her kitchen. “Poor Tot, now she has to support the entire family,” they all said, and everyone went to her to get their hair done, even if they did not need it. Tot had been to beauty school before she married and figured it was the only thing she was good at. Unfortunately, she was wrong. Mother Smith and a number of gray-haired ladies had come home from their appointment with bright purple hair, but none complained, and they went back anyway. It was a small price to pay to help out a friend.

After an unusually cold February and March, spring finally decided to come back again and all of April and May were busy months at the Smith house. As the time drew near for Anna Lee’s graduation, there was constant shopping for clothes to wear to dances and parties and the senior prom. Among the seniors themselves there was the drama of wondering who would be voted what in the “Who’s Who” section of the senior yearbook, the hysteria when the school rings arrived and they had a blue stone instead of the red one they’d ordered and they had to be sent back. Norma and Macky were voted “Cutest Couple,” Patsy Marie tied with Mary Esther Lockett for “Smartest Girl,” and Anna Lee was “Class Beauty.” Dixie Cahill had her spring tap and twirl recital and the high school graduation went off without a hitch. Dorothy and Doc gave Anna Lee a Lady Bulova watch, Mother Smith and Jimmy both gave her money, and Bobby, following a suggestion from his mother, bought her a bottle of White Shoulders perfume with his paper route money. The last day of school came and, as always, Bobby was eternally grateful. But for Anna Lee, after all the excitement and fun of graduation had died down and she had time to think, she started the summer in a somewhat sad and melancholy mood. It dawned on her that her life as she had known it for the past twelve years would never be the same.

On the other hand, Bobby worried that his life would always be the same.

The first warm Sunday after school let out, while everyone else was at church, Bobby rode his bicycle out to the water tower with his pockets stuffed with red balloons and string, determined that today would be the time he would climb all the way to the top and do the deed. Ever since the time he had climbed it with Monroe, he had been living with a terrible secret that even Monroe did not know. Nobody knew. He was scared to go back up. Not only that: Now he was scared of being scared. He had ridden out there at least a dozen times determined to climb it, and each time he had failed. But today, he vowed, would be different. Today he would just go right to the top.

But it wasn’t. It was just like all the other times. He stood at the bottom, trying with all his might to muster the courage to go back up, but no matter how hard he tried he just could not do it. The minute he put one foot on the ladder his heart would start to pound and he’d break out in a cold sweat and could not go any farther. After trying for more than an hour, he gave up and rode back home, defeated and humiliated again. He began to fear the one thing in the world that terrified boys the most. He was afraid that down deep he was a coward. Maybe Luther Griggs was right: Maybe he was a sissy.

After each defeat he worried that people would be able to tell just by looking at him. But the farther away from the tower he got, the better he felt. When he got back to town and rode past the barbershop and the theater and saw people he knew, his defeat began to fade a little. Dixie Cahill came out of the drugstore and waved at him. He waved back. He began to feel more relieved. People were not looking at him funny. Nobody knew. Next time, he vowed. He would do it next time. Besides, he could not really be a coward; he had too much to do. He had to fly planes, sail the ocean, and ride in rodeos, save girls, beat up bullies. He had to pitch winning games and make touchdowns, round up cattle and command spaceships to Mars. By the time he reached home he had convinced himself that it could not possibly be true: He was not a coward.

But not quite persuasively enough, because a few nights later he had the same old dream. The one where he was climbing up the tower and the rungs of the ladder started to drop off one by one and he fell. Each time he would wake up with a start just before he hit the ground.

He started to hate that water tower.

The Salesman

JULY TURNED OUT to be hot and dry that year and by ten o’clock in the morning it was already boiling hot, without a cloud in the sky. That day the young man in the black Plymouth was driving about fifteen miles outside of town when he spotted a small cloud of dust moving way off in a distant field. As he got closer and slowed down he saw that the dust cloud was exactly what he’d suspected. A lone man in overalls and a straw hat was plowing behind a two-mule team. The young man glanced at his watch. He had time. He turned around and parked on the side of the road.

He figured he might as well try and do a little business. He looked at the mailbox on the post and read the name printed in white paint on the side.

He got out and climbed over the fence and headed out toward the man plowing. When the farmer looked up and saw him coming, he stopped his mules. “Whoa. Whoa.”

The younger man knew to immediately put a big smile on his face and wave to let him know he was friendly and not from the government or the bank. He took no chances; from his past experience he knew that, depending on their situation, farmers would sometimes call the dogs on them or shoot at them. As he got closer he called out, “Mr. Shimfissle?”

The farmer nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said slowly and waited to see what the caller wanted.

As he reached the farmer he said, “How are you doing today? It’s a hot one, ain’t it?” and took a business card out of his shirt pocket and handed it to him. He then walked over and patted one of the mules on the hindquarters. “Hey, boy . . . you’re a big son of a gun, ain’t you,” he said while the farmer read his card. It introduced him as a salesman for the Allis-Chalmers tractor company. The farmer was not surprised. This was not the first tractor salesman who had stopped by trying to sell him something and he wouldn’t be the last but to be cordial he asked, “What can I do for you today?”

“Not a thing. I was passing by on my way to Elmwood Springs when I saw you out here and I wondered if it would be all right if I was to walk along with you for a bit?”

The farmer, who was not interested in buying a tractor, knew what was coming but said, “Nope, come right ahead if you want to.”

“Thanks, I sure appreciate it,” the salesman said, and sat down and quickly took off his shoes and socks and rolled up his pants legs. As they walked along, he said, “To tell you the truth, Mr. Shimfissle, I haven’t seen one of these old plows since I was a kid. I spent many a day behind one of these things. My daddy had about twenty-five acres outside of Knoxville but we lost all of it to the TVA—it’s all under water now.”

Shimfissle shook his head in sympathy. He knew what losing your land meant to a farmer. After they had walked and plowed for a while and after they had discussed the price of corn, the weather, and the best time to plant which crop, the salesman said, “Do you think I could try my hand at it for a minute . . . just to see if I remember how?”

The farmer stopped the team again with a “Whoa” and handed him the reins. “Here you go. But don’t be afraid to prod them a bit. They can be as stubborn as hell.”

The salesman took the reins and stepped behind the yoke, gave a whistle, a few clucks, and after a small tap on their backsides, off they went just as lively as they had been at 5:30 that morning. They even picked up their pace as he talked to them like old friends.

Shimfissle was impressed. This was not your ordinary, run-of-the-mill tractor salesman that didn’t know a cornrow from a teakettle. This boy was a farmer. After about ten minutes the younger man slowed them down and stopped. “I sure do thank you, Mr. Shimfissle. It felt so good to get hold of one of these things again I hate to quit.”

“I hate to have you quit. I was enjoying the rest. Anytime you get the urge to plow, come on back.”

“Yessir, thank you, I will. You’ve got yourself a couple of fine mules. You just don’t see them much anymore . . . everybody’s in a hurry, everybody wants to speed up nowadays.”

The farmer took the reins back. “Well, enjoyed talking to you.”

“Same here.” The salesman had to slap some dust off himself. “I’m a mess, ain’t I? You wouldn’t have a place where I could wash up a bit, would you? I’ve got a date with a lady in town and I better not show up looking like this.”

“Sure, go on in the house and tell the wife I sent you. She’ll fix you up.”

“Much obliged.” He picked up his shoes and socks and headed toward the white farmhouse. Will Shimfissle continued on, somehow sorry that the Allis-Chalmers man had not even tried to sell him a tractor.

In fact, he had not even mentioned it once. For that very reason, Will made a note to himself: If he ever was in the market for a tractor, this is the guy he would buy it from.

When the salesman reached the house he stamped off as much dust as he could, then knocked on the back door. He could hear the radio being turned off and a few seconds later a large woman in a cotton housedress came to the door.

“Mrs. Shimfissle, I’m sorry to bother you but your husband sent me up here to see if I could borrow a little soap and water. I got myself all dirty out there in the fields talking to your husband.”

She opened the screen door. “Well sure, honey, come on in and I’ll get you some soap and a rag.”

“No, ma’am, I better not come in, I’ll get your kitchen dirty.”

“Well, then wait a minute,” she said and came back with a washcloth and a bar of homemade lye soap and a small pan. “When you’re finished come in and I’ll give you a glass of iced tea—you must be scorched.”

He went to the pump outside the kitchen and stuck his head under and washed his face and hands and rinsed off his feet. After he put his shoes and socks back on he pulled a black Ace comb out of his pocket and ran it through his hair. He knocked on the door again. “Ma’am, here’s your pan back.”

She opened the screen door and saw a neat, nice, almost new-looking young man in a white shirt. “Come on in. Can I fix you a sandwich?”

He stepped in and took the iced tea. “No, ma’am, thank you but this is all I need. I’m fixing to go on a lunch date as soon as I get to town. She says we are going to go to something called a cafeteria.”

“Oh lucky you, my sisters Ida and Gerta tell me it’s quite the place. I haven’t been there yet but I’m going one of these days, whenever I can talk Will into dressing up. He won’t get dressed up unless it’s for a funeral, so I guess I’ll have to wait till somebody dies to get a meal there. Ida says they’ve got a pink pig running in a circle, so be sure and see that.”

“Yes, ma’am, I will.” He handed her the empty glass and was about to leave when it occurred to him that as long as he was here it wouldn’t hurt if he fished around in his pocket for another card. “Mrs. Shimfissle, I’m thinking of running for a political office someday. I don’t know for what yet but let me give you my card.” He went through all his pockets but was unsuccessful. “I can’t find one . . . but anyway, if you ever see the name Hamm Sparks on a ballot, I sure would appreciate your vote. Can you remember that?”

“Your first name’s Ham? Like a Christmas ham? Like the meat ham?”

“Yes, ma’am, only it’s spelled with two m’s.”

She repeated it. “Hamm. . . . Well, it’s unusual but easier to remember than Billy or John, I’ll say that for it.”

“Yes, ma’am, it’s my mother’s family name. She was a Hamm before she married.”

“You don’t say. My mother was a Nuckle with an N before she married, and my daddy was a Knott with a K out of Pennsylvania. . . . They said the people that got invites to the Nuckle-Knott nuptials thought it was pretty funny.”

He laughed. “I guess so.”

She said, “It’s a good thing they didn’t have a boy and called him Nuckle. That would have made a name, wouldn’t it . . . Nuckle Knott. But then,” she mused, “we went to school with a boy with the first name of Lard, only it was spelled Laird but they called him Crisco all his life anyway. I don’t think he ever married, or leastways I never heard if he did. He used to sell buttons.”

Hamm opened the door to escape. He knew from past experience that these farm women were starved for company and would talk for hours to a total stranger. “Well, thanks for everything, Mrs. Shimfissle,” he said as he hurried out the door and down the back steps. She followed him and opened the door. “Hey, wait a minute—I forgot your last name.”

He turned around and called out, “Sparks, ma’am, Hamm Sparks.”

“Sparks? Like electrical sparks?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, as he waved over his shoulder and ran for the car.

Aunt Elner Saves the Day

AFTER THE SALESMAN left Elner called her sister Gerta Nordstrom and told her she had just met a man named Hamm. Gerta laughed and said, “Next you’ll be telling me you met a woman named Egg.” There were three Knott sisters, Elner, Gerta, and the youngest, Norma’s mother, Ida. Despite the fact that everyone in town knew all three had been raised on a midwestern farm, sometime after she had married Herbert Jenkins, Ida suddenly started dropping little hints here and there that she was descended from a fine old southern family who had fallen on bad times. By 1948 she had alluded to her aristocratic forebears so often that she began to believe it. This delusion about her background had started nine years ago, after she had seen the movie Gone with the Wind a dozen times at the Elmwood Theater. She was convinced she recognized Tara and therefore must have lived there in a previous incarnation. It never occurred to her that “Tara” was only a movie set or that her recently acquired southern accent was only a poor imitation of an English girl doing a poor imitation of a southern accent. The only real southerner in town was a seventy-eight-year-old widow lady named Mrs. Mary Frances Samples, born in Huntsville, Alabama. She too had been adversely affected by the movie. As if losing the War Between the States was not bad enough, she had been completely devastated when it was announced that Tallulah Bankhead, a true daughter of the South and a fellow Alabamian, had not been cast as Scarlett O’Hara. Mary Frances Samples vowed never to see another movie as long as she lived. She said her only consolation was that “at least the role did not go to a Yankee girl.”

Mrs. Samples aside, Ida was bound and determined that her daughter, Norma, was going off to college in the Deep South. It might be too late for Ida to fulfill her rightful destiny as a daughter of the Confederacy, but she secretly envisioned herself in her later years visiting Norma and sitting on the veranda of her large plantation home in Virginia, being waited on hand and foot. A vision Norma did not share. All she ever wanted to do was marry Macky Warren and settle down in Elmwood Springs and start a family. Norma and Macky had been girlfriend and boyfriend since the seventh grade. And on the night of the senior prom, when he gave her an engagement ring, nobody was surprised. But Ida was at once adamantly against it. In fact would not hear of it. “I like Macky,” she said, “but no daughter of mine is marrying a little small-town hardware-store owner’s son.”

“I will, too!” said Norma.

“Over my dead body,” said Ida. “Besides, you are not marrying anybody until you finish college.”

Norma looked to her father for help but he had not stood up to his wife in years. Doomed! For a while Norma and Macky became the local Romeo and Juliet. Everybody took sides. Ida on one side and everybody else on the other.

Living so far out in the country, Norma’s aunt Elner had not been aware of the tragedy of her niece and her boyfriend until one afternoon when the two drove out to see her. Norma was miserable and teary and Macky just sat stoically, trying to be brave. “Aunt Elner, if she makes me go to that stupid college and leave Macky here alone, I swear I’ll just kill myself. She’s going to make us waste four years of our lives because of some whim.”

Macky looked at Norma. “I’d go with her if I could but I can’t with my daddy being so sick—I’ve got to stay here and help him run the store.” Then he looked over at Elner and asked earnestly, “Mrs. Shimfissle, what would you think if we were to elope? Would you be willing to come with us?”

Elner was taken aback at this request. “Oh no, Macky, you don’t want to do that. Just give it a little while longer, I’m sure she’ll come around.”

“What if she doesn’t?” asked Norma.

“I believe she will. But let’s just hold our horses and wait and then we’ll figure out what to do from there.”

After they left, Elner stood in the yard and smiled and waved good-bye until they were out of sight. Then she went inside and picked up the phone.

“Ida, this is your sister. Now, what’s all this mess about you not letting Norma marry the Warren boy?”

“I didn’t say she couldn’t marry him, Elner. I just said not now.”

“Why not now?”

“Because I want her to go to college first, where she will get an education and at least have a chance to meet boys from the nicer families. I know she doesn’t think so now but in the long run I know she will be happier and better off if she at least dates a boy from her own kind . . . maybe someone from a fine old southern family with a similar—”

Elner, not letting her finish, snapped, “Oh, Ida Mae, give it up. You are not from some fine old southern family. Your grandfather was a German pig farmer from Pennsylvania and everybody knows it. Up to now, Gerta and I have always babied you and let you carry on with all your silly little airs because we thought it was cute but I can’t stand by and see you ruin Norma’s life over your foolishness, so you just stop all this nonsense right now.” Then she hung up.

Ida stood with phone in hand and her mouth open. Elner, the oldest sister, had practically raised her when their mother died and had rarely if ever spoken harshly to her in her life. Still, Elner said later, “I hated to do it, but drastic times calls for drastic measures.”

The next day Elner was way back in the yard picking butter beans when she heard the phone ringing. Whoever was calling would not hang up, so she figured she better get it in case someone was dead. When she picked it up an excited young Norma was on the other end.

“Aunt Elner?”

“Hey.”

“You are not going to believe what happened. Mother said I could marry Macky and not have to go off to school.”

Aunt Elner pretended to be surprised. “Well, I’ll be . . . What did she say?”

“She told me that if I wanted to ruin my life and destroy my chances of happiness forever that I had her permission—isn’t that great?!”

“Oh, honey, I just couldn’t be happier for you,” she said while emptying the butter beans from her apron into a bowl. “I told you she’d come around.”

“You did. Anyhow, we’re going down to the church this afternoon and set up the date.”

“Good. Best to move fast before she changes her mind. You tell little Macky I’m glad it worked out.” A little while later, after Elner had her beans cooking on the stove, the phone rang again. This time it was Macky. “Mrs. Shimfissle, I just called to thank you. I know you must have done something to get Norma’s mother to change her mind.”

“No no, honey, she has her own mind. She did that all by herself.”

“Just the same, if you had not said something, and I know you did, it’s no telling what that crazy woman might have done to break us up.”

“I’m just glad it’s all going to work out. . . . And, honey . . . I know Ida’s caused you and Norma a lot of trouble but try not to be too hard on her. With all of her faults, I don’t think she means to hurt people. She’s just desperate to be somebody she’s not and doesn’t know how to go about it.”

“I’ll try,” Macky said, “but it won’t be easy.”

“Good, because don’t forget: For better or for worse, she’s your mother-in-law now.” There was a long silence on the other end before Macky said good-bye.

Elner turned to her cat Sonny and said, “Uh-oh, I may have just killed that marriage with my big mouth.”

But she hadn’t. The wedding went off. Ida somehow managed to pull herself together, at least until the honeymoon, but hope springs eternal. On the off chance that Macky should suddenly become wealthy in the hardware business, for one of her wedding presents she gave Norma the book How to Handle Household Servants and Staff by Vivian Clipp.

Progress

She was in her kitchen doing a last-minute check of the show when she heard Mother Smith call out, “Dorothy!” She looked up and it was 9:28. Dorothy rushed down the hall with the papers and with Princess Mary Margaret running behind her, barking frantically. “Here I am!” she said as she ran through the door at the last minute. She waved at the sizable audience in the room. “Hello, sorry I’m late,” she said as she sat down just as the red light came on and the theme music started.

“Good morning, everybody. . . . It’s another beautiful day over here and I hope it’s just as nice where you are . . . but first, before I say another word, if you are wondering why I sound a little funny this morning, I want you to know that I have not been in the kitchen hitting on the cooking sherry.” Mother Smith played one bar of “How Dry I Am.” Dorothy laughed. “The reason I sound this way is I was up at Dr. Orr’s this morning and got a filling and the Novocain has not worn off yet and so, with that disclaimer, on with the show.

“Independence Day is just around the corner, so hurray and three cheers for the red, white, and blue. Glenn Warren down at the VFW post says that all the food they will be serving on the Fourth of July will be red, white, and blue—red beets, mashed potatoes, white-meat chicken only, blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream. Let’s just hope the watermelons cooperate this year and turn bright red, too. Also don’t forget that the Pony Man will be in town next Wednesday, so if you want to have your child’s picture made, he will be over in the vacant lot behind the church from twelve to four.”

Dorothy smiled at her audience. “And we are happy to have some visitors with us this morning. Mrs. Ida Jenkins is here with seven of her out-of-town Garden Club members, who are visiting all the way from Joplin. Welcome, ladies. As you all know, Ida is the mother of our precious little newlywed, Norma Warren. And being a mother myself, I hope you won’t mind me bragging a little on my own. We are so happy for Anna Lee, who has just been accepted at the Chicago School of Nursing, which is our own Nurse Ruby Robinson’s alma mater and I know she is as proud of Anna Lee as we are. How fast time goes by . . . it seems like only yesterday that Norma and Anna Lee were getting ready for their first dance recital. It seems like the whole world is changing right before my eyes. Doc just informed me last night that two new business establishments are going up outside of town. One is a drive-in Tastee-Freez that is going to be built in the shape of an igloo, complete with a polar bear on top. The other is an overnight motor court called the Wigwam Village, made out of individual cement wigwams. As if that’s not enough excitement, there is a rumor that a new Howard Johnson’s motel is in our near future. At the rate Elmwood Springs is growing, pretty soon we won’t even be able to recognize our own town!

“And speaking of growth, I want to remind all of you in the Raymore and Harrisonville area that Cecil Figgs Mortuaries and Floral Designs has just opened two new branches close to you . . . open twenty-four hours a day for your convenience. And remember, Cecil Figgs is my only sponsor that really does not want your business but is always there when you need him. . . .

“Now here’s Beatrice Woods to sing a song that is certainly apropos for us this morning, ‘There’ll Be Some Changes Made.’ ” Two and a half minutes after doing her Golden Flake Pancake Mix commercial and giving out a recipe for green tomato pickle relish, Dorothy glanced up at the wall and said, “Oh dear, I see by that mean old clock that it’s time to go. I had some births and deaths to announce but births and deaths will just have to wait until Monday. So until then, this is Neighbor Dorothy with Mother Smith on the organ saying we loved visiting with you this morning, so come back and visit with us again, won’t you? And remember, you’re always welcome at 5348 First Avenue North.”

As she had said, Dorothy was glad, of course, that Anna Lee had decided to become a nurse, but at the same time she was not happy thinking about her going so far away from home. Lately, she would sometimes sit and stare at Anna Lee, her eyes filled with tears. To think that she would soon be losing her little girl.

Gospel Grows

NOT ONLY WAS Elmwood Springs changing, the whole country seemed to be taking a giant leap forward. More and more people were buying their own homes. New radio stations were being built everywhere. Thousands of radios, cars, washing machines, refrigerators, and stoves were being sold every day. More roads were being paved, and new inventions put on the market faster than you could shake a stick at them. Electric dishwashers, electric can openers, electric everything—all you had to do was push a button. By 1960, they said, they would even have robots that would do all your housework. According to Dorothy, if things continued at this pace, housewives would soon be on Easy Street.

But nothing was changing faster than gospel music. During the war years, with so many rural people migrating from the country to the large cities to work in factories, it had suddenly found its way out of the small backwoods country churches of the South and Midwest. People’s addresses may have changed from Alabama and Georgia to Detroit or Chicago but not their taste in music. They wanted to hear what they were used to and gospel was popping up on radio stations everywhere, gaining a brand-new audience in the North, and the crowds of fans soon outgrew the small church and school auditoriums and moved into the large auditoriums of the big cities and ballparks. New songs were being written by the hundreds. Even Time magazine acknowledged the existence of a growing and lucrative “Gospel Tin Pan Alley.” Southern gospel was now being heard all over the country and even as far away as Canada and some of the groups were getting more famous by the day.

The better-known groups had their radio shows and recording and publishing companies and traveled to personal appearances in big black limousines. But not the Oatmans. They traveled in the same old beat-up car and still mostly sang in country churches and at all-night sings. Ever since he had been saved again, Ferris believed that this new popularity was causing gospel music to drift further away from the church and dangerously close to show business. He felt the devil was slipping hip-wiggling and bebop rhythms into gospel, tempting groups and luring good Christians away from the Lord with the idea of making a fast buck. He preached to anyone who would listen that singing gospel not church related was sinful. After losing his own brother Le Roy to the lure of honky-tonk and hillbilly music, he was frightened that his boys Bervin and Vernon might be tempted to run off as well, so he would allow the family to sing on radio shows that featured only gospel.

One was a fifteen-minute broadcast the Blackwood Brothers did twice a day over station KMA in Shenandoah, Iowa. Their pianist, Cat Freeman, was an old friend of Ferris’s. Cat and his sister Vestal Goodman (now singing with the Happy Goodmans) had all grown up together in northern Alabama and had picked cotton together as kids, so it was a happy reunion. As it turned out, it was also a reunion between Dorothy Smith and the Oatman family. Dorothy was up in Iowa that weekend to visit with her friend and fellow radio homemaker Evelyn Birkby and to participate in the big home-demonstration show at the Mayfair Auditorium in Shenandoah.

Dorothy had just given her “Decorating Cakes for All Occasions” talk and was backstage watching Adella Shoemaker speak and demonstrate how to choose wallpaper when someone handed her a note.

Dear Mrs. Smith,

I seen a poster at KMA that you are here and so are we. I would love to talk with you after the show if you got the time.

Minnie Oatman

Dorothy quickly wrote on the bottom, Wonderful! Meet me at the stage door when it is over. Dorothy, and gave it back to the lady to deliver.

Dorothy would be more than happy to see Minnie Oatman and hoped that Betty Raye would be with her. She had thought about Betty Raye so many times and wondered how she was. But after the show, it was Minnie alone who met her at the stage door.

The two women walked across the street to a little café and sat in a booth that Minnie had trouble squeezing into. After catching up on all the places the Oatmans had been, Dorothy asked what she had wanted to ask from the beginning. “And how is Betty Raye?”

A look of concern suddenly crossed Minnie’s face. She hesitated a moment and then confessed, “Not so good. . . . To be honest with you, Mrs. Smith, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. She don’t know I’m here but you and your family was so sweet to her and with you having your own daughter and all, I thought maybe you could give me some advice, because I don’t mind telling you I am just worried to tears over her.”

“Oh dear. Is there anything wrong with her?”

“Not as of yet but I am having a terrible time right now. Both the boys is on the verge of a rebellious streak, and Floyd is gone more woman crazy than ever, and Ferris ain’t in his right mind.”

Dorothy was alarmed. “What’s the matter with him?”

“Oh, every once in a while he gets saved again and goes off the deep end with the spirit but this last time was the worst he’s been. I tell you, Mrs. Smith, right now he’s about one step up from snake handling and I have to keep my eye on him every minute to keep him from falling back. You know all his people from Sand Mountain is like that. Three of them is dead from snakebites right now.” She heaved a sigh. “And I don’t have no one to blame but myself. My momma warned me about marrying a Sand Mountain man but nothing would do till I got Ferris Oatman, so I have made my bed and I’ve got to lump it. But I can’t look after him and the whole family too. And Betty Raye is now getting of an age to where all the boys is wanting to date her. I’m afraid when I’m not looking one of them little hip-wiggling hot-lipped gospel boys that’s always hanging around at them all-night sings is liable to go behind my back and run off with her.”

“I see. How does she feel about it?”

“As of yet she don’t pay them no never mind. She ain’t interested in anything but sitting in a corner and reading. She’s ruined her eyes so bad we had to get her glasses but she hates traveling from place to place so bad I’m afraid she’ll marry one of them just to get herself off the road.”

“Do you really think so?”

“If she’s anything like me at that age she will and we don’t have the money to hire another singer to take her place, so I’m just at the bottom of my rope with worry.”

“Yes, I can understand your concern.” Dorothy’s face showed her own concern.

Minnie then leaned over and confided to her: “Mrs. Smith, I know I’m not a very smart person. I’ve had little or none education. And don’t get me wrong, I love ’em to death, but Ferris and the boys and, God knows, Floyd is not the brightest of men. This life is all right for folks like us but Betty Raye’s different. She’s smarter than the rest of us. She thinks I don’t notice but I see her reading her books, wanting to learn things. I tried my best to keep her in school over at my sister’s but they was too many kids in that house and it made her nervous. But, Mrs. Smith, if I don’t do something soon she’s gonna wind up just like me and stay dumb all her life.”

An idea suddenly occurred to Dorothy about a possible replacement for Betty Raye, but she decided not to say anything specific yet. Dorothy sat back. “Minnie, I don’t know if this will work out or not but will you call me at home next week?”

Minnie said she would, and squeezed her way back out of the booth. They parted with Minnie promising to call as soon as they landed somewhere that had a phone.

The next day Dorothy was on her way back to Elmwood Springs, and the Oatman family left Iowa early in the morning, headed straight down to Nashville, Tennessee, known as the Belt Buckle of the Bible Belt, to appear on Wally Fowler’s all-night sing at the Ryman Auditorium. Minnie prayed all the way there that Ferris would not roam around backstage and preach at all the other gospel groups about going commercial and that Floyd would not start chasing after the Carter sisters again.

The last time they had sung with the Carter family Chester, the dummy, had made a suggestion to June she did not like and she’d ripped his wig off. It had cost them twenty-eight dollars to replace it.

All the way back home Dorothy was torn. She wanted to help Betty Raye but she would also hate to lose another girl she cared about. But she also knew that same someone longed to travel.

Oh well, she rationalized, it couldn’t do any harm to ask. The first day she was at home she and Beatrice were sitting in the kitchen when she broached the subject.

“Guess who I ran into up in Iowa?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you remember the Oatmans?”

Beatrice smiled and petted her Seeing Eye dog, Honey. “Oh yes.”

“And Betty Raye?”

She nodded “Yes . . . the girl who stayed here. How is she?”

Dorothy cleared her throat. “Not well, it seems. She’s not doing well at all.”

“Oh, that’s too bad.”

“Yes. Her mother tells me that she is not really that happy traveling. She would like to stop for a while and maybe go back to school.”

“Really?”

“Yes, her mother said she would like for Betty Raye to have a chance to at least finish high school.” Beatrice nodded but said nothing. “But,” Dorothy continued, “it doesn’t look like that is going to happen.” She paused.

“Why not?” asked Beatrice.

Dorothy had hoped she would ask. “Well, in order for her to stop singing they would have to find someone to replace her in the group.”

“Oh,” said Beatrice. She began to pet Honey’s head a little faster. “Really?”

Dorothy stirred two more teaspoons of sugar into her coffee to give Beatrice time to think. “Of course, it would mean a great deal of traveling for someone . . . always going from one place to another . . .”

“Really?”

“Oh yes. I didn’t say anything to Minnie . . . but you wouldn’t be interested in anything like that, would you?”

Beatrice immediately stood up. “Oh, Dorothy, do you think they would take me? Do you think they ever would? I know all the songs and I can learn the harmonies—”

“Well, Minnie is calling me in a few days and if you want I can certainly ask her. But now, I don’t think it would pay much.”

“I don’t care about that. And if they’re worried about me being blind, tell them about Honey. Tell them we get around fine. I can do almost anything. I would not be a burden. Tell them I’d sing for free.”

They were both on pins and needles until Minnie called, as promised. Dorothy told her that Beatrice would be available to go on the road in Betty Raye’s place if they wanted her. Minnie said she would talk it over with Ferris and call back.

An hour went by and finally the phone rang again. “Mrs. Smith, you tell that girl if she is willing to put up with us we would just love to have her. Hold on, I’m gonna put Betty Raye on the line.”

While she was waiting Dorothy called out to Beatrice, who was in the kitchen waiting to hear. “They want you, honey.” Then Betty Raye came on.

“Hello?”

“Betty Raye . . . has your mother told you everything?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Is this all right with you? You know, we really want you to come.”

There was a long pause. “Mrs. Smith, you just don’t know how much I want to be there.”

This was almost the first complete sentence Dorothy had ever heard Betty Raye say in all the time she had known her.

As worried as Dorothy had been about doing the wrong thing, at that moment she knew that she had done the right thing.

Minnie got back on. “Tell Beatrice we’ll be over to get her in a few weeks. I swear, just when you think there is no answer the Good Lord sends you an angel. God bless you for a saint, Mrs. Smith. You don’t know what a burden has been lifted from my heart.”

Dorothy hung up and went to the kitchen but Beatrice was gone. She was already next door in her room, starting to pack.

The Exchange

FERRIS OATMAN was not at all happy about losing Betty Raye and breaking up the family but for the first time in their marriage Minnie had put her rather large foot down.

“Ferris, my baby wants to get off the road and go to school and that’s what she’s gonna do.”

“Over my dead body,” he said.

“If that’s what it takes, then so be it but she’s going.”

Ferris saw the look in her eye and decided not to push it and two weeks later the Oatmans made a swing down into Missouri on their way to Arkansas to drop off Betty Raye and pick up Beatrice Woods and her dog. When they drove up Minnie rolled down the window and said, “Mrs. Smith, I don’t even have time to get out and hug your neck, we are already running late; we have to be at an all-night sing in Little Rock by eight, but I’ll be praying for you all the way there.” The back door opened and Betty Raye got out and Beatrice and Honey got in.

Uncle Floyd was in the front seat with Ferris and Minnie and as soon as they pulled out Chester, the Scripture-quoting dummy, turned around and looked at her and his eyebrows shot up and down and he said, “Whoo, whoo—well, hello there, good looking.”

Beatrice answered right away, “Well, hello there yourself!”

Mother Smith, Dorothy, Bobby, Anna Lee, and Nurse Ruby Robinson all stood and waved good-bye, moist-eyed. But Beatrice Woods never looked back. She would not have, even if she could have seen them. She was too busy concentrating on what was ahead. At last she was out on the road, headed for the wild blue yonder and beyond. Ya-hoo!

Betty Raye had not changed much from the last time they had seen her. She had grown a little taller and wore glasses now. Someone else had obviously picked them out for her. The frames were a bad combination of black plastic and metal rims and were not at all flattering on a teenager. As they walked into the house, Dorothy vowed to herself that the first thing she was going to do was get the poor girl a new pair of glasses.

Even though they would miss Beatrice, everybody was glad that Betty Raye was coming back to stay with them. Especially Anna Lee. She had been sad and moody all summer. Besides being worried about going away in the fall and leaving her family, she was feeling a little abandoned by her two best friends, and for the first time in her life she was lonely. Patsy Marie had started working full-time for her father down at the cleaners and Norma had gotten married. And no matter how much she and Norma vowed that nothing would ever change between them, it had. It was not like the old days, when she could call her night and day and had her to go places with anytime she wanted. Norma was now a married woman and things were different. It was nobody’s fault. Anna Lee still had all the boys in town buzzing around her as usual, but still she was lonesome for a girlfriend to do things with.

And there were other considerations.

On the first night, Anna Lee went into Betty Raye’s room and sat down on the bed and watched her unpack. She said, sincerely, “You just don’t know how grateful I am that you are here. I felt so guilty about going off so far away from Mother and leaving her all alone with just Bobby, I almost backed out of going. But now with you here I know she won’t be so lonesome and worry about me so much.”

Betty Raye was still shy around Anna Lee and mumbled, “Thank you.”

Anna Lee went on. “You know, if you think about it, it’s almost like you’re a younger sister staying behind, isn’t it.” She sighed. “I wish I had had a sister. Mother depends so much on me that it’s hard . . . and as long as we are going to be like sisters, I wish you’d think about staying in my room when I leave. It would mean a lot to me if you did.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes, and I know it would make Mother very happy. She feels funny about you being in this little dinky room. Oh, not that it’s not nice or anything,” she added quickly, “it’s just that if you stay in my room it will be like you really are my sister.” Betty Raye unpacked still another homemade dress. “You know, Betty Raye, I’ll bet you and I are the same size. I’ve got a whole closetful of clothes. I’m not taking most of them, so they will be just hanging there, and you can wear anything you want. I was going to give them away. If you don’t mind hand-me-downs. They’re perfectly good.”

Betty Raye, who had worn hand-me-downs all her life, said, “No, I don’t mind.”

During the next few weeks Anna Lee spent a lot of time with Betty Raye and she made her try on all the clothes in her closet. One day Anna Lee just came right out and asked what she had wanted to ask all along. “Would you let me fool with your hair a little bit?”

By the time Anna Lee had finished “fooling with” Betty Raye’s hair, she had also put a little lipstick and rouge on her. “There, don’t you look better?”

Betty Raye looked in the mirror but could not see a thing without her glasses, and said yes anyway. The next thing Anna Lee did was to paint Betty Raye’s nails bright red. Betty Raye was still too shy to say anything. But who could refuse Anna Lee anything in her pink angora sweater and pink pearls? Betty Raye was putty in her hands.

Every day Anna Lee took her shopping downtown, an event that lasted for hours. Anna Lee was busy shopping at Morgan Brothers department store for her new college wardrobe and she tried on every hat, every pair of shoes, every suit or dress—some twice—before she would decide what she wanted.

Dorothy was happy that Anna Lee and Betty Raye were spending so much time together but after a while she began to be a little concerned for Betty Raye. She told Mother Smith, “She is dragging that poor girl around town like she was that Raggedy Ann doll she used to have.” And she was.

One afternoon Anna Lee said to Betty Raye, “I know you are real religious and all that but would it be a sin for you to go to the movies? Ginger Rogers is from Missouri and I’m just dying to see Kitty Foyle again. It wouldn’t hurt you to go just once, would it?”

Betty Raye thought for a moment. “I don’t know. I’ve never been.”

When Dorothy found out, she said, “Now, Anna Lee, I don’t want you to be pushing Betty Raye into doing things she might not want to do.” Anna Lee, who was busy at the moment braiding Betty Raye’s thin brown hair into pigtails, said innocently, “I’m not, Mother. She wants to go, don’t you?”

Betty Raye, sitting at Anna Lee’s dressing table, said, “Yes, ma’am.” The next night Anna Lee took her to see Kitty Foyle and she loved it.

That Friday Dorothy drove the two girls over to Poplar Bluff to get Betty Raye some new glasses. When they got home Dorothy said to Mother Smith, “You should have come with us—you would have gotten the biggest kick out of Anna Lee. You would have thought she was Betty Raye’s mother, the way she was carrying on.”

Mother Smith said, “Did she get a new pair?”

“Finally,” said Dorothy, sitting down on the sofa. “They should be here next week. Anna Lee picked them out. Blue plastic with sort of wings on the end. It’s not the pair I would have picked but that’s the pair Anna Lee wanted and that’s what she got. Betty Raye is the sweetest girl; she just sat there and let Anna Lee stick every pair of glasses they had in the store on her and she never said a word.”

It was true, Anna Lee was enjoying her newfound project, pushing and pulling at poor Betty Raye, trying to make her into a version of herself. If she had had another few weeks she might have even taught Betty Raye to jitterbug. But the day finally came when she had to leave for nursing school. That night the whole family went down to the train station to see her off. On the way over, Dorothy talked too much and tried her best to be brave, but at the last minute, when Anna Lee, looking so smart and grown up in her brown hound’s-tooth suit and hat to match, climbed on the train and turned around and waved, she could no longer control herself. She put her hand over her mouth to hide a sob and watched the train pull away and she broke down completely. Doc put his arm around her. “Come on, now,” he said, “it’s not for that long. She’ll be back at Christmas.”

“I know,” Dorothy said, “but she just looked so little on that great big train,” and she almost broke down again. She knew she was being silly but she couldn’t help it. It hurt just as much to see her daughter go off as it had on her first day of school twelve years before.

Bobby was also sad to see Anna Lee go but he didn’t know what to say, so he said, “That was a dumb hat she had on.” When they got home Dorothy went to bed, Bobby went to his room and listened to the radio, and Mother Smith helped Betty Raye quietly move her things into Anna Lee’s room as she had promised. Hanging up Betty Raye’s dresses in the closet, Mother Smith said, “Betty Raye, you just don’t know what a godsend you are to Dorothy right now. If you weren’t here, I’d hate to think what she would do. She lost one child and I know how it hurts her to lose another, even if it is just for a short time.”

Doc and Jimmy sat out on the porch and did not say much. But after a long silence Doc finally offered, “I just wish Dorothy wouldn’t act like it was the end of the world. She’ll be back at Christmas, for heaven’s sake.” He then looked at Jimmy and shook his head. “Women . . . the way they carry on, you’d think a few months was ten years.”

“Yeah, they get pretty upset over things, don’t they?”

Both men sat there in the dark and smoked, trying to pretend that they were above such silly emotions as missing Anna Lee. But they weren’t.

Anna Lee had been on the train about two hours when she found the envelope Doc had sneaked into her purse without telling Dorothy. Inside was a brand-new shiny nickel and a short note.

If for any reason you don’t like it up there, call me and I’ll come and get you.

Daddy

Doc did not know it but Jimmy had already slipped a twenty-dollar bill into her coat pocket before she’d left. “A little spending money,” he had said.

Glory, Glory, Clear the Road

THE OTHER SET of parents that had to deal with being separated from their daughter that year was Minnie and Ferris Oatman. From the moment they had driven away and left her behind in Elmwood Springs they had been kept busy, rehearsing songs quietly with Beatrice all the way to Little Rock, and had been traveling ever since. They both missed Betty Raye terribly. Ferris worried that without his daily preaching and Bible readings she might wander off from the Lord and fall prey to the wicked ways of the world. Minnie, on the other hand, was more concerned that Betty Raye fit into her new life and try to be happy. Before she left she told Betty Raye not to pay too much attention to her daddy’s strict Pentecostal ideas. She said this in private.

Ferris would have a fit if he knew she was now wearing lipstick and had gone to a Ginger Rogers movie. But as Minnie said to Betty Raye on the phone, “Baby, what your daddy don’t know ain’t gonna hurt him one whit.”

Their lives had been changing almost as fast as Betty Raye’s, ever since that first night when they arrived in Little Rock for the all-night sing. By the time they got to the auditorium all the other groups were already there, dressed and ready. It was going to be a big night. The Spears, the Happy Goodmans, the Lester-Stamps Quartet, the John Daniels Quartet, the Melody Masters, the Dixie Boys, the Sunny South Quartet—groups from all over the country were backstage visiting before the show, happy to see one another again and catch up on heart attacks and gallbladder operations since they were last together. Also, they compared notes on who was having trouble with the IRS, a constant problem with gospel groups, who, it seems, were always being harassed by the tax people over income taxes.

It was only a half hour before the show started, so Minnie and Beatrice went straight to the dressing room while the boys got ready in the men’s dressing room downstairs. Floyd was in charge of the Oatman sound system and was busy getting it out of the car and ready to set up. The halls were buzzing with excitement, as they always were, and the auditorium was filling with hundreds of people. This all-star affair had the Oatmans in high cotton, as Minnie said. It was not a good night to break in a new member of the group. But it could not be helped. They had taken time to get Betty Raye to Elmwood Springs at least a few weeks before school started and they needed the money. Seventy-five dollars for an all-night sing was the highest they had ever been offered. They were to go on third, after the Dixie Boys. When the time came, Minnie led Beatrice and Honey to the wings and as Beatrice heard all the noise and excitement going on backstage as well as onstage she grabbed Minnie’s arm and squeezed. Minnie patted her hand. “Don’t be scared, darling, I’m right here with you.”

Beatrice said, “Oh, Minnie, I’m not scared—I just can’t wait to get out there.”

After the Dixie Boys had finished their last number, “Many Thrills and Joys Ago,” the audience continued to fill up, a lot of people arriving late because they knew the really good groups did not come out until after intermission. When Hovie Lister came out to announce the Oatmans, a few hundred were still wandering around looking for good seats.

A few looked up when the Oatmans walked out and were surprised to see a dog coming onstage with a little woman in a white dress wearing sunglasses. What was going on, they wondered. Minnie sat down, stared straight ahead like she always did, started tapping her foot, and when the spirit hit her, off she went into their first number, “Glory, Glory, Clear the Road.” Then something unexpected happened that surprised even the Oatmans. The sound coming out of the loudspeakers and wafting high across the auditorium was one they had never heard before.

Minnie knew at once they had something special. So did everyone else. Suddenly, the people in the audience that had been moving around shopping for seats stopped and sat down. Soon all the dressing rooms emptied as the other groups backstage started to gather in the wings to listen.

Beatrice singing alone was something. Minnie alone was something. Betty Raye’s voice had been soft and sweet but Beatrice’s clear and powerful soprano blended perfectly with Minnie’s equally powerful tenor. This sound, combined with Ferris’s deep bass and the two boys’ alto voices, was a sensation and set the audience wild. They stood up and clapped and cheered after each number. By the time they had finished their last song, “Sweeter as the Days Go By,” their appearance fee had gone up from $75 to $150, and they would never sing before the intermission again.

As one of the Dixie Boys remarked later, “Them Oatmans got themselves a gold mine in that little blind woman.” While Betty Raye was being given a new look and a new life, the Oatmans were getting a brand-new sound.

The only person who had not been totally amazed at this phenomenon was Minnie. As she always said and believed with all her heart, “God never shuts up one door till He slings open another!”

Jimmy and the Trolley Car Diner

AFTER ANNA LEE left for college, Dorothy was uneasy for a few days, until she received her phone call. Her mother knew she was all right and had arrived safely. Soon Dorothy was back to her old self again, happy to be busy with all the many details of getting Betty Raye enrolled in Elmwood Springs High School, making sure she had all the books and supplies she needed. They had had her tested a few weeks before and, to everyone’s surprise, she scored high enough to be entered as a senior. It really was going to be like having Anna Lee back. They would be going through another senior year all over again, with so many wonderful things to look forward to.

But poor Bobby was getting ready to slug through another year of the sixth grade. It had been quietly decided between his parents and his teacher, Miss Henderson, that since his grades last year had been so bad, particularly in math and English grammar, it would be best to hold him back a grade now and not let him get so far behind in the future that he would never catch up. Between having to repeat the grade and not being able to climb the water tower again this summer, Bobby was not very happy. Now the only thing he had to look forward to before the holidays came around again was a double feature each Saturday at the Elmwood Springs Theater and then over to the Trolley Car Diner afterward. That was something, at least.

The Trolley Car Diner was a small, round, white building with glass bricks along the side. After the movie, Bobby loved to sit on a stool at the counter in the front window and eat chili dogs, drink an Orange Crush, and watch the rest of the world go by. Jimmy would watch him sitting there swinging his feet and hitting the wall each time. This meant a lot more work for Jimmy, cleaning the scuff marks, but he never said a word. He got a big charge out of Bobby with all his tall tales and was always glad to see him come in. Being a boarder with the Smiths for so long, he’d begun to think of them as his family. He had long since given up hope of starting a family of his own. Although his limp was not very noticeable to other people, he was embarrassed about it and it prevented him from ever asking a girl out for a date, much less asking one to marry him.

He had joined the navy at sixteen and was twenty-five when the Second World War began. But for him the war ended the same day it had started. Sunday morning, December 7, 1941, he had been aboard the battleship Arizona. After that he spent years in and out of veterans hospitals, learning to walk again, but no one ever heard him complain. He had been luckier than most of his shipmates. He had just lost a leg; they had lost their lives. Jimmy had a steady and simple life that consisted of going to the diner every day, a week’s vacation once a year, which he spent up in St. Louis visiting some of his buddies at the V.A. hospital, and poker on Friday night at the VFW. He did not really need to work, with all the disability pay he got from the government, but the thought of not working never occurred to him.

When Betty Raye had first come to the house to live she had been shy but she’d liked him right away. He was not loud like the men in her family. She always felt anxious around most people, afraid they were waiting for her to say something, but not Jimmy. He was quiet and sweet and easy to be around. And he liked her as well. Dorothy could tell by the little changes in his behavior. Ever since Betty Raye arrived he’d started wearing a clean white shirt to dinner every night. She also noticed that Jimmy often waited until Betty Raye left the porch, ashamed to get up in front of her. But Dorothy never said a word. Betty Raye did not know Jimmy had a wooden leg but if she had, it would not have mattered. She of all people knew what it was like to be different from the rest of the world around them.

They did not realize it but both were handicapped and afraid of life, only in different ways.

The Return of Ida Jenkins

AS MUCH AS poor Bobby dreaded repeating a grade, Norma dreaded her mother’s next visit even more. On September 21, Ida had returned from her museum tour in Washington and her National Federated Women’s Club meeting in Baltimore, and that afternoon was walking through her daughter’s new little house, offering a running commentary.

“I’m not sure about those curtains, Norma.”

“What’s the matter with them?”

Ida did not go into specifics. “I just wish you would have let your father and me hire a professional decorator like we wanted to.” She glanced around the room. “And where is your silver tea set?”

“In the closet.”

Ida looked at her daughter in disbelief. “Norma, you display your tea set, it should be out so people can see it. A tea set is the earmark of a gracious home.”

“Mother, I don’t have enough room to display a teacup, much less an entire tea set I’m never going to use.”

Ida sat down in the kitchen and took her gloves off. “I don’t know why you and Macky insisted on buying this place; it’s no bigger than a matchbox . . . and how you expect to entertain with no guest bathroom is beyond me.”

Norma poured her mother a cup of coffee. “I don’t expect to entertain and it’s all Macky and I could afford.”

Ida gave her a look. “I won’t say it but you know how I feel. We offered to buy you a bigger place.”

“Yes, Mother. How was your trip?”

“Wonderful . . . we heard the most enlightened talks from the most interesting women in all fields. Oh, I wish you would join the club, then you could have gone with me.”

The fact that Norma would not join any of her clubs was a constant source of pain for Ida. Norma said, “Mother, please don’t start up on that again,” and brought her some cream.

“All right, all right, that’s not what I came here to talk to you about anyway.” Ida looked at the small, plain white cream pitcher her daughter had put on the table. “Norma, where is the pretty pitcher with the hand-painted flowers that Gerta and Lodor bought you?”

“I broke it,” she lied.

“Well, don’t tell Gerta—tell her you’re saving it for special occasions.”

Ida suddenly noticed something different about the way Norma looked. “What in the world happened to your hair? Why is it all fuzzy like that?”

“Tot Whooten.”

“Say no more.”

Norma sat down at the table. “What was it that you wanted to talk to me about?”

“What?”

“You said you wanted to talk to me about something?”

“Oh yes. Now, Norma, I want you to know that I have thought about this a great deal. Now that you are grown and married, it’s time we had a woman-to-woman talk. After all, you’re my daughter and you should benefit from what little wisdom I have gained over the years. After many years of careful observation, I have come to a conclusion.” Norma waited while Ida paused for effect as she always did when she was stating one of her ten thousand conclusions. “Norma, women are simply going to have to take over this world and that’s all there is to it. All men want to do is start wars and show off in front of each other.” She leaned over and looked out the window to make sure that no man was around to hear. “I am beginning to think that most of them don’t get past age twelve—not your daddy, of course, thank God; he is a sensible and adult man but if I hadn’t been around, who knows? Men are just like gardens. You have to tend to them every day or they just can go to seed. It’s a sad fact that I have had to learn the hard way. Men without women to guide them lose all their training.”

Norma looked somewhat skeptical.

“Norma, it’s the truth. Look at what happened in the American West. Now that is how men act if you let them, never bathing, always shooting Indians and buffaloes and one another, drinking and gambling and I don’t know what all. It wasn’t until decent, respectable women went west that they straightened up and started behaving themselves. And don’t forget—it’s the men that stir up all the mischief in this world. Let me ask you this . . . if women were in charge of everything, do you think we would have so many fatherless little orphans in this world? You know, the male lion even eats his young if the mother is not careful.”

“Mother, what do lions have to do with anything?”

“It proves my point. Norma, you have to watch them every minute or they will revert back to jungle ways.”

“Oh, Mother, Daddy is not like that.”

“I know he isn’t now—not when he’s with us—but I hate to disillusion you, my girl: no matter how well-bred they may be or how nice they may act in polite society, you put a group of men alone in a cabin for a week and if you think they bother to use their napkins or set the table or even have the courtesy to shave, you are sadly mistaken. Now, I’m not saying they can help it, all I am saying is that in order for this world to keep on progressing the women have got to run things. The trick is to do it without them knowing it.”

After her mother left she dialed the hardware store. When he picked up she said, “Macky, will you promise me one thing?”

“What?”

“If I ever start acting like my mother, will you just take out a gun and shoot me?”

The Shy Senior

WHEN BETTY RAYE had started her senior year at Elmwood Springs as the new girl in school, she had naturally attracted a lot of attention. Also having been a gospel singer, she had been quite an oddity for the first couple of weeks but after the initial curiosity about her had worn off she’d more or less faded into the background. It would have been difficult for anybody entering into a class where most of the students had been together since the first grade to fit in but it was doubly hard for Betty Raye. She certainly did not stand out in a crowd and the boys her age were most definitely not interested in this thin, rather plain girl wearing blue plastic glasses. Some of the girls tried their best to bring her into the conversation at lunch or invite her to the drugstore for a soda, but she was so shy she never said much of anything. After a while they gave up. They figured she did not have much of a personality or was probably some sort of religious nut. They did not dislike her—they just stopped trying to get to know her. So Betty Raye did not go anywhere except to school and back and sometimes to a movie with the family but that was really fine with her. She was happy just to come home and Dorothy was glad to have her. In fact, she was a big help. Dorothy received hundreds of letters a week and Betty Raye helped her sort them out and put her recipe letters in one pile, her requests and announcements in another. Betty Raye also helped Bobby, only Dorothy did not know about that. Sometimes when he could not figure out his math or English problems he would sneak over to her room and she would do them for him. Mother Smith, who loved to play cards, was teaching Betty Raye how to play and was amazed at how quickly she learned. After a few days a pleased Mother Smith confided to Dorothy, “That girl is a natural-born card sharp. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was playing bridge by the end of the week.”

Everything seemed to be going along smoothly until one day in early November.

Dorothy was at the A&P picking out some russet potatoes when Pauline Tuttle, the high school English teacher, a tall woman without much of a chin, came in the door. She spotted Dorothy and came right over and asked in a loud voice, “Well, how is our Anna Lee doing? Have you heard from her?”

“She’s just fine, Pauline. She says she’s doing so well and apparently loves it up there.”

“I knew she would. I always said if anyone succeeds in this world, it will be Anna Lee Smith.”

“I’ll tell her you asked about her.”

“Of all the students I have had she was one of my smartest girls—straight A’s and so pretty.”

“Thank you, I appreciate that. And how is my little boarder Betty Raye doing?”

Pauline suddenly frowned and picked up a paper sack. “I was going to call you and talk to you about that, Dorothy. I’m afraid we have a serious problem.”

Dorothy was alarmed. “What is it?”

“She does well with her paperwork but it’s in classroom participation where she falls down. She never raises her hand and when I do call on her she just mumbles and says she doesn’t know the answer.” Pauline picked up a potato and looked at it. “When I know full well she does. She just will not speak up. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Dorothy, but the girl has absolutely no verbal skills whatsoever!” She then threw a large red tomato in her bag to emphasize the point. “The few times I did call on her to recite I thought she was going to faint dead away, so I just don’t call on her anymore.”

“Oh dear, that’s not good,” said Dorothy.

“No, it is not good.”

Miss Tuttle threw an onion in the same sack. “That little girl is never going to amount to anything in this world if she does not learn to assert herself and she most certainly will not be making the grades she should be making.”

“We knew she was a little timid.”

“Dangerously so, and if we don’t nip this in the bud right here and now, her entire future may be at stake. She may be left behind forever.”

Now Dorothy was truly alarmed. “Oh dear. What can we do?”

“I was thinking she should join the Drama Club as soon as possible. Maybe Miss Hatcher can do something with her, teach her to express herself, speak up, speak out. It may be her only hope.” She picked up a head of lettuce, weighed it in her hand, and put it back down. “It’s so hard to fix dinner for just one. You can’t buy a half a head of lettuce. You’re lucky you have a big family to cook for. If you want me to talk to Betty Raye, I will.”

“No, thank you. No, let me see what I can do first. Well, nice to see you, Pauline.”

As she walked away Miss Tuttle called out, “Tell Anna Lee to drop me a line when she has time.”

Dorothy worried all the way home. This was a problem she had never come up against before. Certainly not with her own two children. With Bobby the exact opposite was true. His teachers had a problem trying to get him to stop talking and concentrate on his paperwork, which was always messy and misspelled, if he managed not to lose it and turn it in at all. But right now she was concerned about Betty Raye. She hated for her not to do as well as she could be doing. Pauline seemed to think it was an emergency. Maybe Pauline was right; maybe Dorothy needed to say something today, before it was too late and she was lost forever.

That afternoon in the kitchen, when Betty Raye was busy mashing potatoes, she decided to broach the subject. “So, honey, how are you doing at school?”

“Fine.”

“Are you having any problems?”

“No, ma’am.”

“How are you doing making friends?”

“Fine.”

“I don’t know if you know this or not, but a good way to make friends is through extracurricular activities. I was the president of the Homemakers Club in high school and I really enjoyed that.”

Betty Raye smiled.

Dorothy continued on. “You know, I ran into Pauline Tuttle today and we were talking about you, and she, well, both of us were saying we thought that it might be a good idea if you were to join a club of some kind. We thought maybe you might want to think about joining the Drama Club. I know Anna Lee had lots of fun being in all the plays.” She spoke brightly, but at the mere mention of the words Drama Club Betty Raye actually turned pale right before her eyes. She turned to Dorothy with a stricken look on her face. “Oh, Mrs. Smith, I just couldn’t.”

Dorothy suddenly realized what a terrible idea this had been and immediately felt sorry for even bringing it up. She put her arm around Betty Raye. “No, of course you don’t. I’m so sorry. How stupid can I be. . . . you’ve been pushed up on stage all your life, haven’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Betty Raye, close to tears, “and I just hated it.”

“I know you did, I don’t know what I was thinking of. And you don’t ever have to do another thing you don’t want to.”

“Will she be mad?”

“Of course not. It was just a stupid suggestion. Don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll just tell Pauline that we don’t want to join any old Drama Club or anything else, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

After Dorothy had finished making the meatloaf and got it in the oven, she sat down at the table to string the green beans. She smiled at Betty Raye, who was busy rinsing out a bowl in the sink, and she thought to herself, Who cares if Pauline Tuttle doesn’t call on her in class? So what if she doesn’t set the world on fire? Not everybody has to be Mr. or Mrs. Personality. What difference does it make if she gets a B or a C instead of an A? She’s perfectly happy the way she is and she certainly is a big help in the kitchen, quiet and good-natured. She’ll probably make someone a wonderful wife. Betty Raye might not be a beauty like Anna Lee but she can already cook better than Anna Lee. For better or worse, men like a quiet girl who can cook.

Then she thought: A good thing Anna Lee is pretty, because she sure cannot cook. When Betty Raye sat down at the table, she smiled at her warmly and asked her favorite question. “Honey, if you could have one wish come true, what would you wish for?”

Betty Raye picked up a handful of string beans and thought about it and then answered. “A house.”

“A house?” Dorothy was surprised. “What kind of a house?”

“Oh, just a little one with maybe a little dog.”

“What about a husband? Don’t you want a nice husband to buy it for you?”

“No, ma’am. After I graduate I’m going to get a job and buy it for myself. I don’t think boys like me very much.”

Dorothy looked at her with a twinkle in her eye. “I know a certain somebody who works at the Trolley Car Diner who thinks you’re pretty wonderful. . . .”

Just then Bobby came mincing into the kitchen wearing a pair of red wax lips.

Dorothy looked at him. “Young man, why are you not in your room doing your homework like you’re supposed to be?”

Bobby minced right back out again.

But later, when Dorothy came down the hall to check on him, she found him hanging by his fingers from the doorframe like a bat. She said, “Bobby, do you want to spend the rest of your life in the sixth grade? Get in there and get to work.” Bobby dropped back down to the floor and went to his desk. His mother had made her point.

The next Friday Betty Raye came home from school looking somehow pleased. She handed Dorothy a small, yellow membership card that said BETTY RAYE OATMAN, ELMWOOD SPRINGS HIGH SCHOOL LIBRARY CLUB.

“Well, good for you! I’m so proud of you I don’t know what to do!” She knew this had not been easy for Betty Raye. “This calls for a celebration.” Dorothy got up and walked through the house, calling out, “Mother Smith, Bobby, get your coats on. We are all going up to the drugstore for sundaes!” Within five minutes all were seated on stools at the soda fountain ordering hot fudge sundaes, except Bobby, ever the opportunist, who ordered a double banana split.

Turkey Time

Ever since Beatrice had left town to join the Oatman family, the two Goodnight twin sisters, Bess and Ada, had stepped in to help Dorothy. On special occasions they would come over and sing on the show and today was such an occasion.

Right before she went on the air, Dorothy looked out the window and checked for her daily weather report and was pleased. “Good morning, everybody. It’s another pretty fall day over here in Elmwood Springs and I hope you are having the same. I know this is a busy time, everyone getting ready for Thanksgiving and the holidays, and we’re so glad you were able to find a few minutes to spend with us. I don’t know about you, but I for one will be glad when this week is over. Bobby is about to drive us all crazy trying to memorize the poem ‘The Song of Hiawatha’ by Friday. If I hear ‘By the shore of Gitche Gumee, by the shining Big-Sea-Water’ one more time I am going to scream. Poor Betty Raye has been helping him and that girl must have the patience of Job. So far everyone in the house knows it by heart except Bobby.

“Well, tomorrow is November the fourth, the big day when we are all going to the polls to vote.” Mother Smith played the opening of “You’re a Grand Old Flag.” “That’s right, Mother, democracy in action. We got a call this morning from Ida Jenkins, who is head of the local women’s political caucus, and Ida says to remind all you ladies out there to be sure to get out and vote, don’t just leave it up to the men. And Mother Smith agrees—don’t forget, our own Mother Smith was a suffragette and fought for the vote for us, and we are mighty proud of her, too. And later on in the program Ada and Bess Goodnight have promised to drop by and sing ‘Bongo Bongo Bongo, I Don’t Want to Leave the Congo’ for us . . . although I don’t know what that has to do with Election Day. . . . I wonder if this is a mistake. . . . No? Mother Smith says that’s what they are singing.” Dorothy picked up a piece of paper. “And let’s see. Oh . . . and I have an announcement from the chamber of commerce. They have a request to change the name of the Miss Turkey Contest to the Miss Thanksgiving Contest, so if you agree go down to the drugstore tomorrow and vote on that as well. Harry Johnston at the A and P says to tell all you gals he’s got a special Thanksgiving offer on Del Monte early garden peas—buy one can, get one—and he says he’s got lots of turkeys already dressed and ready for roasting. . . .

“Now, let me ask you this: Have you ever been shocked when changing your fuses? If so, here’s something that you need to get yourself right away. It is safe and as easy as changing a lightbulb. Use Royal Crystal fuses with the shockproof glass top. Ask for Royal Crystal fuses and also Royal cord sets and Christmas lights. Those are available down at Warren’s Hardware. Speaking of the Warrens, yesterday Mother and I paid a visit to our little newlywed Norma Warren, who gave us a tour of her kitchen. She has a brand-new Formica dinette set and you never saw anything so bright and cheery in your life. She said they come in all colors, yellow, aqua, or green, but Norma’s set is cherry red.” Mother Smith ran through “Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries.” “That’s right, she says it’s so easy to keep clean, just give it a swipe with a wet cloth. Everyone says this is the furniture of the future and I believe them! Once Norma gets her new red-and-white linoleum down, her kitchen is going to be the showplace of the Midwest!”

Don’t Sit Down!

MACKY AND NORMA had been married for only a little under four months but Norma was thoroughly enjoying her new role as wife and homemaker. She was so pleased with the way their little house was coming along, particularly her new kitchen, which she kept as spotless and polished as Macky kept their new Nash Rambler. Their first Christmas as a married couple was coming up in a few weeks and Norma made a momentous decision. After talking it over with Macky, she called her mother with the exciting news.

“Hello,” Ida said.

“Mother, guess what? This year I want everybody to come to our house for Christmas dinner!”

“Who’s everybody?”

“You, Daddy . . . the Warrens, Aunt Gerta, Uncle Lodor, Aunt Elner, and Uncle Will. The whole family, won’t that be fun?”

Ida weighed her words carefully. “That’s very sweet of you, dear, but I don’t think you have thought this through.”

“Yes, I have.”

“Norma, how are you going to serve dinner for that many people? You don’t have a buffet table.”

“Easy, it doesn’t have to be all that formal. I’ll just put everything out on the counter in the kitchen and everybody can get their plates and come in and serve themselves sort of casual like. Macky said he could set up card tables in the living room and we can throw sheets over them.”

There were not enough words in the English language to describe just how much Ida Jenkins did not want to eat a meal off a card table covered with a sheet but she sensed how much it meant to Norma. She held on to the telephone table for support and said, “Fine dear, if that’s what you want to do, I’m sure it will be lovely.”

After everybody Norma had invited to Christmas dinner said they would come, it suddenly occurred to her that she had never cooked for more than two people. Cooking for ten might not be as easy as it sounded and she wanted it to be perfect. She called Neighbor Dorothy, who then helped her plan her menu, right down to the last morsel. To make sure there would be no mistakes, she wrote out a list of exactly what time she was to put things in the oven, exactly what time they were to come out, when to start the potatoes, how long to cook the roast beef, how many minutes to cook the gravy, and when to heat up the four cans of English peas and when to warm the rolls.

Norma spent almost the entire next week in the kitchen, rehearsing everything she was to do. One day she spent making sure all her timers worked, with everything in the right place, ready to go. She had decided to empty the peas into a covered dish on Christmas Eve and throw the cans away. It was cheating, she knew, but she also knew what her mother would say if she by any chance saw the cans. She had heard it a hundred times. “Norma, only hoboes and derelicts eat out of a can.” Macky came in and watched her setting timers, walking back and forth from the oven to the counter to the refrigerator with her list, pretending to carry things and talking to herself. She looked so intense he felt sorry for her and asked, “Can I do anything to help?”

She looked at him. “Yes—keep everybody out of the kitchen, especially Mother. I’m going to be nervous enough as it is without having her in here staring at me and getting in my way. Just keep them entertained until I come out and say, ‘Dinner’s ready, come and get it.’ ”

“Dinner’s ready, come and get it?”

“I might not say those exact words, I may say ‘Time to eat’ or something like that but when I do, have everybody get up, get their plate off the table, and come on in—but not before that.”

“O.K.”

“Just pray I don’t burn anything or drop something.”

“What if you do? It’s not the end of the world, it’s just a dinner.”

“Just a dinner?” She looked at him in utter disbelief. “Just a dinner? Is that what you think after I have gone to all this trouble so we can have our first Christmas in our own home?”

“No, that’s not what I mean. I mean, so what if you do mess it up, nobody cares.”

“Nobody cares?”

Macky realized he was digging a hole for himself and tried to get out. “But you won’t mess it up. Everything will turn out just great.”

“Well, that’s easy for you to say. You try cooking for ten people.”

Saturday, a full week before the dinner was to take place, Norma cleaned the house from top to bottom. When Macky came home that afternoon she met him at the door with a scrub brush. “Macky, do not sit on the sofa or the chairs, or walk on the rug, and try not to use the bathroom.”

Still a newlywed, Macky was learning the hard way that when Norma was nervous about something, it was best not to try and reason with her.

Christmas Window

DECEMBER TWENTY-FIRST was an especially busy day. Dorothy baked fifteen dozen gingerbread men to have at the house for the holidays, Bobby was pulling down all the Christmas decorations from the closets, and Betty Raye and Mother Smith were making gumdrop trees out of toothpicks for the dining room table. At about five-thirty Doc walked in the door carrying a huge peppermint candy cane, his cheeks a little flushed from the cold and the two paper cups of pretty potent eggnog he had just drunk. Before coming home he had joined Ed and the gang down at the barbershop for a little pre-Christmas cheer, as he did every year, and he was in every sense in high spirits. In a few days Anna Lee would be home for Christmas and tonight they were going downtown to pick out their tree.

He went in the kitchen and handed Dorothy the candy cane, saying, “Ho, ho, ho.” She laughed and said, “Ho, ho, ho, yourself.” After dinner Dorothy made Bobby put on his leather cap with the flaps and the whole family, including Betty Raye and Jimmy, walked down to the vacant lot behind the church. The Civitan Club had run a string of white lights around the area and was holding its annual Christmas tree sale. The cold air was filled with the scent of pine, and the old familiar smells of Christmas put Doc in even higher spirits. Gene Autry was singing “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” on the small radio Merle had on in the shed as Doc walked around looking for just the right tree. He stopped and picked up several and shook them and continued walking up and down the aisles. “What do you think, Dorothy, should we get a big one or a little one?”

Bobby said, “Let’s get a big one.”

“What do you think, Mother Smith?” asked Dorothy.

“Oh, I think since Anna Lee is coming home it would be nice to have a big one this year.”

They all continued to walk through the lot looking at all the different kinds of trees. Some were flocked in odd colors this year. At one point Doc heard Mother Smith talking to Dorothy over in the next row. “Why would anyone in their right mind want a pink Christmas tree?”

“Oh, I suppose it’s modern. Maybe some people want a change,” said Dorothy.

“Well, there’s modern and there’s ugly, if you ask me.”

The search went on, as Doc backed up and scrutinized each tree that might be a likely candidate. Nothing had caught his eye so far, until he spied a large blue spruce still wrapped in rope lying on the ground. He pulled it up and was examining it when Fred Haygood, one of the Civitans, asked Doc if he would like him to cut it loose for him. Doc said he would and after it was cut Fred shook it out and banged it up and down so Doc could get a better look at it. The tree was about eight feet tall and full and had a good shape. Doc said, “This is a nice one, don’t you think?”

Fred offered his expert, considered opinion. “Yep, this would make you a pretty tree.”

“What do you think, Jimmy?” Doc asked.

Jimmy nodded. “It looks good to me.”

“How much?” asked Doc.

Fred called out to the shed, “Merle, how much for this blue spruce just came in?”

Merle called back, “Let him have it for a dollar fifty.”

One more opinion poll and they all agreed and Doc said, “Have the boys bring it over and put it on the porch; we can get it in from there.” They then headed down the street to Morgan Brothers department store to look at the Christmas display in the window. As they went past the barbershop a few of the men, including James Whooten, Tot’s husband, were still inside and waved at them. While they walked they could hear music playing from the speakers outside the stores. Perry Como was singing “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” and it was. MERRY CHRISTMAS was written across all the windows in red, white, and green. To Bobby it seemed that downtown had changed magically overnight. The two large glass bottles filled with red and blue colored water that had always been in the drugstore window before suddenly looked like two huge lighted Christmas balls. Tonight even the cement in front of the theater seemed to sparkle like tiny chips of silver tinsel. When they got down to the department store, there was already a crowd of people and children standing there enjoying the “Winter Wonderland” display, amazed by the hundreds of little mechanical figures all moving at the same time. Elves and Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus, trains full of toys running up and down a white mountain and in and out of tunnels. Skiers in ski lifts moving up to the top of the mountain and skiing back down again. Reindeer with their heads bobbing, horses and buggies and tiny cars moved through the miniature village. Dogs wagging their tails, little figures of men, women, and children skating and twirling across a pond made out of a large round mirror surrounded by glittering snow and miniature green trees. There was an entire world going on inside the window. Bobby would have stayed there for hours with his face pressed to it if they had let him.

On the way back home they passed the Civitan lot again just in time to meet Norma and Macky Warren coming out with the pink Christmas tree. “Hi,” Norma said cheerfully. “Look what we just got. Isn’t it the cutest thing you have ever seen?”

Mother Smith was speechless for the moment but Dorothy jumped in. “Oh, it is. We were looking at it earlier this evening ourselves,” she said, not telling a lie.

Norma said, “Please tell Anna Lee to call me when she gets home.”

“We will.”

After they had gone on, Mother Smith remarked, “I’d give a million dollars to see Ida Jenkins’s face when she sees that thing in Norma’s living room.”

When they got home everyone was tired and went straight to bed and Bobby dreamed about the Christmas window all night. He was inside ice-skating on the mirror pond, twirling around and around, with the pretty little girl in the short red skirt and white skates, but in his dreams she looked a lot like Claudia Albetta, the little girl that sat in front of him in class.

Three days before, Jimmy had wandered around Morgan Brothers department store looking for last-minute presents but had found that he was having trouble. A saleswoman watched him as he picked up one thing after another and put it back down. Finally, she went over to him. “Jimmy, why don’t you tell me what you are looking for,” she said. “Maybe I can help you.”

“Well . . .”

“Who are you trying to buy something for?”

Jimmy was too embarrassed to tell her but did manage to say that he needed the help. “It’s for a lady.”

“I see. Well, how about a nice scarf?” she said. “A scarf is always nice. What color hair does she have?”

“Brown,” he murmured as he followed her over to the scarf counter.

The Christmas Show

After school the next day, Betty Raye and Bobby started unwrapping the Christmas ornaments and Doc came home with three new strings of glass candle lights that bubbled. He thought bubbling ones would look nice with the blinking lights they already had.

When Jimmy came in, he and Doc hung on the front door the splendid fresh holly Christmas wreath that one of Dorothy’s sponsors, Cecil Figgs, had sent. After dinner they all went into the living room and started to decorate—all except Mother Smith. It was her job to sit on the sofa and point out what was needed and where. By nine o’clock that night, cream-colored cardboard candleholders with blue lights were in every window, with strings of red cutout paper letters that said MERRY CHRISTMAS hung over all the doors, and the tree in the corner was covered with green and red satin balls, and shiny red and dark blue ones with white frosted strips around them. They finished it off with silver tinsel, strings of popcorn, and, on top, a cocker spaniel angel with wings, which one of Dorothy’s listeners had sent her in honor of Princess Mary Margaret.

The next morning at 8:54 A.M. Dixie Cahill led all sixteen of her dance students in full costume and makeup down the stairs of the Dixie Cahill School of Tap and Twirl and out onto the sidewalk. She lined them up single file, blew her whistle, and marched them through town and over to The Neighbor Dorothy Show to make their annual Christmas appearance. Since they were all wearing bells on their tap shoes, they made quite a racket as they marched down the street. Ed the barber said they sounded like a herd of reindeer going by. A few minutes later they marched up the porch stairs and into Neighbor Dorothy’s house and lined up in the back of the living room to wait until it was time for their number.

The house was packed with people. The handbell choir was lined up down the hall, waiting to go on after them, and Ernest Koonitz was smashed in a corner in the dining room ready to be called for his annual tuba solo. Neighbor Dorothy, in a wonderful mood, came down the hall wearing her green Christmas dress and a silver-bells corsage. It was a doubly festive day for her. She loved doing her Christmas show and Anna Lee was coming home today. After she greeted everyone, she squeezed through the crowd and stepped over children who were sitting on the floor; then she sat down, gathered her commercials, and the show started with a big “Good morning, everybody, and happy December twenty-third! We have so many wonderful surprises for you and so much fine entertainment on our show today I can hardly wait to get started.

“We are so excited over here in Elmwood Springs this morning. . . . We have our students here from the Dixie Cahill School of Tap and Twirl to do a wonderful tap number to ‘Jingle Bells’ and I know we are going to enjoy that. Also the handbell choir from the First Methodist Church is here to play ‘It Came Upon a Midnight Clear’ for you. We have lots of bells this morning but I guess you can never have too many bells at Christmastime, can you. And Ernest Koonitz is here to do another solo entitled . . .” She paused. “Somebody stick your head in the dining room and ask him.” Dixie called out the title and Dorothy relayed it to her listeners. “He’s playing ‘Joy to the World’ but before we get to our entertainment I have another reminder for you. . . .” Mother Smith played a chord or two of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” “That’s right, Mother Smith, Santa Claus is coming to town and he will be in the back of Morgan Brothers department store today and all day tomorrow, so be sure and go down and have your photograph made with him. I’m taking Princess Mary Margaret down right after the show to have her picture made with Santa and don’t forget, all proceeds go to benefit the Salvation Army, who do so much good, not just at Christmas but all year long.” Suddenly everybody in the audience started to laugh at something behind her and she turned around to see Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus standing on the porch at the living room window and waving. Dorothy said, “Well, as I live and breathe, here are the Santa Clauses now.”

She opened the window and Santa leaned in and said to Dorothy in a deep voice, “Merry Christmas, little girl!”

Dorothy had to laugh; she had not expected this surprise visit from Santa, especially one who sounded a lot like Bess Goodnight.

Ada and Bess, who had been up at the grammar school earlier this morning handing out presents, had stopped by the barbershop for a little Christmas cheer on the way home and were feeling no pain. As modern women of the world, they often joined the boys in a friendly drink or two and had brought Mother Smith, who also enjoyed a little nip now and then, a paper cup of eggnog.

Anna Lee arrived at the train station looking wonderful and full of news about all the new boyfriends she had. No surprise there. And of course Doc was happy to have the apple of his eye home, looking so beautiful on the platform, and so was everyone. Dorothy couldn’t wait to get her home. She told Anna Lee that no matter how old or grown-up they were, she just did not sleep well unless both her children were home in their own beds and she knew they were safe and sound.

That night, by the time Dorothy finished up in the kitchen, Doc was already in bed. She cleaned her face with cold cream and turned off the light and got in beside him. After a moment, she said, “Doc, are you still awake?”

“Just barely.”

“Hasn’t this just been the loveliest day? Practically perfect?”

“Yes.”

After another moment, she said, “Doc, ask me what I would wish for if I could only have one wish come true.”

He did not have to ask.

“He would have been twenty-six this year, Doc.”

He reached over and patted her hand. “I know, honey.”

No matter how many years had passed since their first son, Michael, died, every holiday had always been tinged with a secret sadness. For the first ten years every Christmas morning the two of them had gone out to his grave and decorated it with a small tree and little toys, and every Easter an Easter basket had been placed there. Every year on his birthday and on the anniversary of the day he died they missed him more. Rarely did a day go by when one or the other did not think to themselves Michael would be six or twelve or whatever the age he would be that year. Although they never discussed it with anyone, donations made in memory of Michael Smith had paid for beds and wallpaper for an entire wing of the Children’s Hospital. Most of the money to buy a Seeing Eye dog for Beatrice Woods came from a large donation to the Princess Mary Margaret Fund in his name.

Now twenty-two years had gone by. Dorothy wondered what kind of man he would have been. What young girl would have loved him and maybe even married him by now? What would his children be like, and would they look like him? Although he had been gone for many years, a picture of him as a child was always alive in Dorothy’s mind. She continued to see him standing there and waving at her, the little boy that did not live. She often thought about the bud that never bloomed, the egg that never hatched, and wondered what happened to them. Did they just disappear, never to exist, lost forever, or would they come back again some spring? For years she looked for her little boy in every small child she saw, looked for him in the eyes of every blond boy with blue eyes like his. But she never found him again.

Merry Christmas

ON THE MORNING of December twenty-fourth, Bobby could hardly wait for the night to come. Ever since Jimmy had become their boarder and lived with them, the Smiths had started to open their presents on Christmas Eve. Jimmy had to catch the 11:45 P.M. bus to Kansas City to spend Christmas Day visiting his friends at the veterans hospital. And it was a good thing, because by that time Bobby and Mother Smith, both too curious for their own good, had usually poked, shook, and rattled their presents almost to death and the gifts might not have lasted until Christmas morning. Still, it was a long wait. Once Dorothy had seen a newsreel of Joan Crawford, her favorite movie star, and her children gathered around a piano singing carols on Christmas Eve, they had to do the same thing. Now, every year after dinner she made them all go in and gather around the organ and sing. Bobby hated the custom with a passion. As far as he was concerned, it just delayed the real meaning of Christmas: presents. At around 9:30 that night, when they finally sat down to open them, the phone rang. Dorothy said, before picking up the phone, “Wait a minute . . . let me see who this is. . . . Don’t open anything yet.” Oh, rats! thought Bobby, who was just about to tear into the big box with his name on it.

They could hear Dorothy saying to someone on the phone, “Oh no . . . oh, you poor thing. . . . Oh . . . well, bless your heart. . . . Yes . . . I’m sure he will. . . . Oh, you poor dear.” She came back in and looked at Doc. “That was Poor Tot. Her mother stole all the presents she had wrapped and hid them in the backyard and now she can’t find them and she wondered if you would go down and open up the drugstore for her so she could get a few things for the kids to have in the morning. I told her you would.”

“All right,” said Doc and got up to get his coat. “You all go ahead and open the presents. I’ll be back in a little while.”

Dorothy said, “We will do no such thing. We are not going to open anything until you get back.”

Bobby asked his mother, “Can’t we open just one?”

“No, Bobby, put that back down.”

Mother Smith sighed. “Poor Tot, to have to work all day and then to have to put up with that crazy mother of hers and try to raise those two children at the same time. I don’t know how she puts up with it all myself.”

“I don’t either, and to make matters worse,” Dorothy said, “James fell into the tree and broke everything again.”

When Doc got downtown he went in and turned on the lights in the drugstore and Poor Tot came in right behind him wearing her aqua chenille robe and house shoes, looking as frazzled as she had the last time this had happened. They went through and picked out a Sparkle Plenty doll and some hair barrettes for Darlene, who was seven, and a few stuffed toys for Dwayne Jr., who was two and a half. As they walked around looking, she picked up a little plastic see-through purse and said, “I just don’t know what to do next, Doc, scream or jump off a building. James is spending my money faster than I can make it. I’m fixing hair all day, and he’s out all night drinking it up.”

Doc told her what he had been telling her for years. “Honey, what you need to do is throw the bum out.”

Tot looked up at him and said what she always said. “I know I should but if I don’t take care of things, who will? God knows nobody else is going to put up with him.”

After Tot left, with profuse thanks, Doc had to wait on several other people who’d come in and wanted to get things as well. But he did not charge them. Everything was free on Christmas Eve, he said.

It was an hour later by the time he could get home. Finally, Bobby was able to rip open the big box from his parents. Inside was a great record player, and his grandmother gave him the two records he wanted most, Mule Train and Ghost Riders in the Sky.

And underwear.

He received money from Jimmy, a Rover Boy book from Betty Raye, and Anna Lee surprised him with a genuine Jungle Jim pith helmet.

Dorothy got a robe, a cameo, and new curtains, Doc a new pipe and pajamas and slippers and, from Bobby, a fishing-tackle box. Mother Smith’s presents were handkerchiefs, perfume, and a beautiful new boxed set of playing cards. Jimmy got his yearly twelve cartons of Camel cigarettes and, from Bobby, a toenail clipper. The girls got perfume, clothes, and cash money, toenail clippers from Bobby, and Dorothy had bought them both scrapbooks. Minnie and Ferris Oatman, who were doing a Christmas-week gospel sing in North Carolina, sent Betty Raye a white leather Bible with her name embossed in gold on the front. And she unwrapped a lovely silk scarf that had her name on the name tag but not the name of who it was from. Later they all went out on the porch and waited for the bus with Jimmy and at 11:45 it pulled up in front and he got on.

As usual, Dorothy was the last one up and when she finished doing a few final things in the kitchen she went into the living room to turn off all the Christmas lights. She stood there for a moment and looked at them glowing, blinking, and bubbling in the dark and they looked so pretty she decided to leave them on all night.

Uncle Floyd Has a Fit

TWO DAYS after Christmas, Dorothy was on the air when the phone rang. Betty Raye, walking by, picked up and to her surprise it was her mother. Minnie Oatman was on the other end, calling long distance from the office of the Talladega, Alabama, Primitive Baptist Church and she was hysterical.

“Oh, Betty Raye, honey, something terrible has happened, brace yourself for bad news.”

“Momma, what is it?”

“Honey,” Minnie sobbed, “we lost Chester last night. Chester’s gone and your Uncle Floyd is locked hisself in the men’s room, blaspheming the Lord, and he won’t come out.”

“What men’s room?” said Betty Raye.

“Over at the seafood place. One minute we was happy without a care in the world eating fried shrimp and the next thing we knowed Floyd was running around the parking lot, screaming like a banshee. In the time it took to eat twelve fried shrimp Chester had been snatched right out of his little suitcase in broad daylight and was gonded . . . kidnapped just like the Lindberger baby. And the next thing we knowed Floyd run in the men’s room and locked the door and threatened to drown hisself. We all tried to pry him out, Beatrice and everybody there, but he won’t budge. The boys tried to get in the window to him but he throwed water on them and wouldn’t let them in. We had to leave him at the restaurant and come over here to do our show last night. Floyd’s still holed up over there and your daddy is besides hisself. We’ve got bookings all this week.”

“Oh, Momma, what are you going to do?”

“We’ve got the highway police looking for him right now. If we don’t find Chester your uncle is liable to never come out of that bathroom.” Then she wailed, “Poor little Chester, who would steal a poor little dummy? I got to go, your daddy’s waiting. . . . Pray for us, baby,” she said and hung up.

Later, Minnie and Ferris went over and formed an emergency prayer circle at the restaurant while an eight-point missing-person bulletin was being released across the state. Missing: One ventriloquist’s dummy known professionally as Chester the Scripture-quoting dummy. Blond wig, blue eyes, and freckles. Last seen in a car parked in the parking lot of Wentzel’s Sea Food on Highway 21 wearing a cowboy suit and small cowboy hat.

Ferris was convinced that Chester’s disappearance was the work of the devil, while some of the hard core of the congregation wondered if he had been taken up in the Rapture. Bervin, Vernon, and Beatrice did not know what to make of it but Minnie just kept praying and holding on to her faith that he would come back. Floyd stayed in the men’s room at Wentzel’s Sea Food Restaurant for seventy-two hours until finally Chester was returned safe and sound.

As it turned out, it had all been a harmless prank. Another gospel group passing by saw the Oatman car and, knowing how much Floyd loved that dummy, one of them had snuck in the back and grabbed it. Chester had ridden all the way to Marianna, Florida, where they bought him a child’s ticket on the Greyhound bus and sent him back.

That night in Loxley, Alabama, Chester returned to the stage and sang “Riding the Range for Jesus” and “When It’s Roundup Time Up Yonder.”

“Thank the Lord he’s back with us,” said a much-relieved Minnie to Dorothy on the phone. “I just knowed He wasn’t gonna desert us in our time of need. . . . I tell you, Dorothy, when I saw little Chester come off that bus, oh, it touched my heart so. It was just like the Bible says . . . once’t he was lost but now he’s been found. . . .”

Later that night Dorothy confided to Mother Smith, “She may be loud and she may mangle the English language to a fare-thee-well, but I’ll tell you the truth—if I ever really needed someone to pray for me, or someone I loved, Minnie Oatman would be the first person I would call.”

February, the Month of Love

AS IT TURNED OUT, the Three Little Pigs cafeteria not only brought more good food to town, it brought romance as well. The new owners from St. Louis had a daughter who was now in the sixth grade with Bobby. Her Italian father and her Greek mother had produced a dark-eyed, olive-skinned beauty named Claudia Albetta, who soon had all the boys acting silly. In a town that was made up of mostly Swedish and Norwegian and Irish stock she was an exotic creature, as glamorous as Yvonne De Carlo and Dorothy Lamour rolled into one. By February, Bobby was a goner as well. They should have guessed something was up by his recent change in behavior. For one thing, he was using a lot of Wildroot Cream Oil on his hair, and he had put a brand-new shiny dime in his penny loafers.

When Dorothy came home from the grocery store she was surprised to see Bobby still sitting in the kitchen, the table littered with a pack of penny valentines he had bought at the dime store.

“Haven’t you picked one out yet?”

“No,” he said, pushing them around. “These are all too silly. It has to be just right.”

“And, may I ask who this valentine is going to—or is it private?”

“Claudia Albetta,” he told her but added quickly, “It’s not my idea to send some stupid card. Miss Henderson made us all pick a name out of a hat—she wants to make sure everybody in class gets a valentine.”

“Weren’t you lucky to get the name of a girl you like.”

“I didn’t,” Bobby admitted. “I swapped Monroe my Boy Scout knife and an Indian bracelet for it. He kind of likes her, too.”

“Oh, I see.” She sat down beside him. “Well, you have a big selection here.” She looked through the cards and picked up one. “Here is a picture of a kitten with a basket of hearts—that’s a nice one, don’t you think?”

Bobby looked at it again. “I want it to be more serious than that.”

“Ahh . . . I see.” She shuffled through the cards and picked up one with a cupid, looked at it, and put it back down. “No, you don’t want that; what we need is something in the middle, a cross between an adult valentine and a child’s valentine. Not silly . . . but not too mushy.” She chose another card. “Well . . . let’s see, no, you don’t want that either. All right, here’s one. . . . Look, it just has a nice simple heart on it and a nice simple message. You Are My Ideal Valentine . . . Be Mine.”

Bobby took it from her and studied it. “Do you really think this is a good one?”

“Oh yes, very tasteful, understated but to the point.”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh yes.”

Bobby seemed pleased and took his pen and wrote across the bottom. Guess Who. His mother looked at what he had signed. “Do you mean to tell me that you have gone through all this agony and you’re not even going to sign your name?”

Bobby was horrified. “I don’t want her to know it’s from me! Besides, we’re not supposed to sign our names.”

“Well, how about giving her a hint, just a little one? That would be O.K., wouldn’t it?”

“What kind of hint?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you could narrow it down for her just a tad.”

“Like what?”

“You could say, From your admirer, the boy with the brown hair.”

“Oh, Mother, that’s stupid.”

“No, it’s not. Think about it. Wouldn’t you hate it if a girl liked you and never let you know? You have to have courage about this. . . . Remember, you have to take a chance on romance.”

“What if she throws up or something?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Bobby, I can’t believe with all the noise you make that now suddenly you’ve gone shy and retiring. What’s happened to you?”

Bobby sat and thought about it for a long time. Then, mustering up all his courage, he even went a step beyond, threw caution to the wind, and signed, From the boy in the third row with the brown hair and brown eyes.

The next morning Dorothy told her listeners, “If you are standing up, sit down, because I never thought I’d live to see the day that Bobby Smith actually got up, combed his hair without me having to send him back to his room. Oh, isn’t love grand . . . and I do speak from experience. For years now I have been wanting a Sweetheart Swing in the backyard. I don’t know how many times I have said to Doc, Wouldn’t the spot right under the crab apple tree be just perfect for a little Sweetheart Swing so we could sit out here and look out over the fields and watch the sun go down? If you can believe it, yesterday morning after the show, I looked out in the backyard and there was Glenn and Macky Warren putting up a brand-new Sweetheart Swing. Glenn said, ‘Doc sent us over and said to tell you Happy Valentine’s Day.’ So young people don’t have a monopoly on love.” Mother Smith played a few bars of “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree with Anyone Else but Me.” Neighbor Dorothy chuckled. “That’s right, Mother Smith . . . he better not sit under the apple or any tree with anybody else but me . . . or I’ll have to bean him. Are you listening, Doc?”

Bobby fidgeted in his seat all day, waiting for the valentine party to start, when finally Miss Henderson brought out the cookies and handed out all the valentines. When she called Claudia Albetta’s name, Bobby pretended to be looking around the room but he watched her as she sat down and opened the envelope. She then turned around and smiled and gave the sweetest little wave.

Bobby smiled and waved back but she did not see him. She was smiling at the boy who sat three seats behind him, a boy that Bobby forgot had brown hair and brown eyes as well. Rats.

When he came home Dorothy met him at the front door. “Well?” she said.

“I told you it was a stupid idea. Now she likes Eugene Whatley.”

“Oh, dear,” said Dorothy.

When their friend Mr. Charlie Fowler, the poultry inspector, arrived at the house for dinner that night the first thing he asked was how Anna Lee was doing at school.

“Just wonderful,” Dorothy told him, “loving every minute of it, she says.”

“And how is young Robert?”

Dorothy shook her head. “I’m afraid young Robert is having romance problems, compounded by a slight case of mistaken identity.”

Claudia Albetta was not the only one that year to make a similar mistake. When Betty Raye found the unsigned valentine that had been slipped under her door that morning she had seen Bobby in the kitchen the other day and assumed it was from him. Bobby wondered why she had kissed him for no reason. Other than the box of candy from Doc and Dorothy, it was the only valentine she got that year.

Another Graduate

THE TIME BETWEEN February and May seemed to fly by for everyone except Bobby. To him, three months felt like ten years and by the end of the school year he was like a wild animal ready to be let out of his cage. Dorothy did manage to get him into his good suit and a bow tie for Betty Raye’s high school graduation. Dorothy wanted to be sure that everybody made a big fuss over her that day. The entire family was there, including friends like Monroe, who came along to help. They all yelled and applauded loudly when her name was announced and Jimmy even whistled. Dorothy was worried about her not being as popular as some of the other students and since the Oatmans could not be there, Dorothy wanted her to feel like she was not alone and know she had people who cared about her. After the graduation exercises were over, they were all standing around congratulating her when two girls walked up and asked Betty Raye if she was going to the party over at Cascade Plunge. “I don’t think so,” Betty Raye said, and before she’d thought it out Dorothy said, “Oh, Betty Raye, you don’t want to miss your senior party. Why don’t you go—I’ll bet you’d have a lot of fun.”

“Yeah,” said one girl, “you don’t have to have a date. You can go with us if you want to.”

“I’ll take you if you want me to,” Bobby said.

The girls did not wait for an answer. “If you change your mind, call us.” All the way home Dorothy had to bite her tongue to keep from saying anything more but she managed. She had promised Betty Raye that she would never have to do anything she did not want to, but she still hated the idea that Betty Raye was not going tonight. She had not gone to the senior prom, either. One boy had asked her but she’d told him she could not dance, so he’d asked someone else. On prom night she’d stayed home and worked on her scrapbook. She had not seemed to mind but all night Dorothy had felt just terrible about it—and now the girl was missing the big senior party as well.

Later, everybody else was out on the porch and Mother Smith and Dorothy were sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee. Dorothy said, “I feel so sorry for her I just don’t know what to do.”

“Why, did she say something about her parents not being here today?”

Dorothy shook her head, “No . . . it’s not that. She never says anything about that. It’s just when I went in her room earlier she was sitting all by herself working on her scrapbook while everybody else is out having fun.”

“Maybe she enjoys working on her scrapbook.”

“Do you know what she puts in it? Pictures of houses that she cuts out of magazines.”

“Houses . . . why houses?”

“Because she says that’s what she wants more than anything else.”

“Movie stars I can understand but houses, that’s a new one. What kind of houses?”

“Just little houses. She must have over a hundred pictures pasted in there.”

“Is that why you feel sorry for her?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just that I get the feeling she’s always sad about something. Not on the surface but deep down inside of her and I don’t know what it is.” Dorothy looked away and her eyes filled with tears. “But sometimes when I look at her she looks just like a little lost dog, wandering around all alone in the world, and it breaks my heart.”

Mother Smith reached in her pocket and handed her a Kleenex.

“Sorry,” said Dorothy, “I didn’t mean to get so upset.”

“That’s all right, love. You’re just too tenderhearted where that girl is concerned. I think Betty Raye is happy here.”

Dorothy wiped her eyes. “Really?”

“Yes. I think she’s much happier with us than she was with that family of hers.”

“Do you think so?”

“Definitely.”

“Well, maybe I’m wrong,” she said and blew her nose, adding, “I hope so.”

Another Case of Mistaken Identity

DOROTHY HAD NOT been wrong. Betty Raye was sad. And she had felt lost all of her life but she did not know why. She also felt guilty for not being like the rest of the Oatmans and the Varners and for being such a disappointment to them—for not being outgoing and a good singer like the rest of them were. She loved her family but there were times when she felt as if she had just been dropped down from another planet into a group of strangers. There was no good reason why she felt that way, no good reason why she had always felt so different from all the others. But for as long as she could remember, she’d felt set apart.

Betty Raye did not know it but there was a perfectly good reason she felt so different from the rest of the Oatmans and the Varners. She was different. In fact, she was not even remotely related to them. They were strangers. But nobody knew it. Even Minnie Oatman believed she had given birth to her seventeen years ago, but she had not. The real truth about the matter was stranger than fiction.

In the last month of her pregnancy, Minnie and Ferris and the boys were living in Sand Mountain with Ferris’s mother and daddy and when it was time for the baby to be born they all piled in the car and drove down to Birmingham and checked her into the Hillman Hospital. On November 9, 1931, three babies were born not more than thirty minutes apart. A little boy named Jesse Bates, a little girl named Carolina Lee Sizemore, and Betty Raye Oatman all saw the light of day on the same night. It was unusually busy on the fourth floor and it didn’t help matters much that the entire Oatman and Varner clans all descended on the maternity ward like an invading army, including Floyd and his dummy Chester. Ferris Oatman’s brother Le Roy was still singing with the gospel group at the time and he called a bunch of his hillbilly musician friends in Birmingham who sang on the Country Boy Eddie radio show and invited them to the hospital for a party. And so, combined with the normal everyday chaos of a big-city maternity ward, there was now a hillbilly band playing in the waiting room, the two Oatman boys and all their cousins running and yelling up and down the hall. Besides this commotion, plus being excited at seeing real live hillbilly stars such as Country Boy Eddie and his sidekick Butter Bean in person, was it any wonder that nurse Ethylene Buck was all atwitter that night? She had been nervous to begin with, as this was only her second week working in the maternity ward. And to make matters worse, she had just been handed three babies at once and she had to weigh and clean up and get them ready to go and see their mothers. Not only that—now there was a man standing at the window with a dummy shooting his eyebrows up and down at her, saying “Whoo, whoo, whoo.” Chester banged his wooden head against the window, trying to get her attention. Which, unfortunately, he did. Nurse Buck became so flustered that she put the Sizemores’ baby’s name bracelet on the Oatman baby and the Oatmans’ baby name bracelet on the Sizemore baby.

When Mrs. Kathrine Sizemore, the lovely young blond wife of a prominent Montgomery attorney, was handed her baby, she was surprised to see that her hair was so dark. Just as Minnie had been surprised that her baby had such light hair. She had immediately remarked to Ferris, “She’s a pale little thing, ain’t she. And just look at them tiny little ears!”

If anyone had known about the error Nurse Buck had committed that night, it certainly would have explained why, eighteen years later, a plump large-boned girl with coal black hair and short arms was desperately trying to stuff herself into a white evening gown to prepare for her debut at the Montgomery Country Club. Of course her parents adored her but secretly they wondered why, when her mother had been so tall and slim and graceful, each time Carolina practiced her debutante curtsy to the floor she always fell over on her side in a lump. Just as the Oatmans wondered why Betty Raye had been unable to carry a tune. But what has been done cannot be undone. Fate is fate, and while Carolina was getting ready to be presented to Montgomery society as one of the city’s leading debutantes, Betty Raye, who should have been there, was miles away applying for a job as a vegetable girl at the Three Little Pigs cafeteria.

Betty Raye had wanted to get a job after graduation but she was not equipped to do anything that required intimate dealings with the public or being outgoing in any way. The job at the cafeteria seemed just right for her. All she had to do was stand there and dish out portions of whatever vegetable the customers pointed to. She did not have to talk a lot, so she was very happy she got the job. Now her world consisted of offering beans, okra, creamed corn, black-eyed peas, or whatever was on the menu that day and going home. Not knowing she might have been a debutante, she was perfectly content being a vegetable girl. And who knows—she might even work her way up to the desserts someday.

Anna Lee stayed in Chicago that summer to do her student nursing and after the valentine fiasco Bobby gave up on girls forever. When he was not at the swimming pool he spent most of his time reading Zane Grey cowboy novels, which Betty Raye brought home from the library for him. He was so caught up in reading about the romance of the Old West that by June he had finished them all, from The Riders of the Purple Sage to The Thundering Herd, and he took great comfort that most real cowboys did not even have girlfriends.

The Lady Bowlers

WHEN THE CAR full of women pulled up in front of the house and tooted the horn, Dorothy called out, “Sweetie, your bowling team is here.” In a few seconds Betty Raye came out dressed and ready to go and said good-bye to all as she ran down the stairs. Everybody was out on the porch eating ice cream, including Monroe, and Bobby waved at the car and said, “Good luck tonight.”

“Thank you,” they said and drove away.

As they turned the corner Doc stood up and walked over and tapped his pipe on the side of the house. “I’m glad they asked her to join. She needs to get out once in a while.”

Jimmy nodded. “Yeah. I think it’s been good for her.”

Dorothy got up to take her bowl back in the kitchen and agreed. “I do too. I just hated seeing her sit at home every night, a young girl like that.”

“I just wish some nice boy in town would ask her out,” Mother Smith said, “somebody her own age.”

Jimmy grunted. “There’s nobody around here worth going out with, if you ask me.”

Monroe, sporting a new crew cut, his red hair shooting out of his head like wires, said, “I’d take her out . . . if she’d pay for everything,” and thought it was the funniest thing anyone had ever said, punching Bobby in the ribs.

Bobby punched him back. “She wouldn’t go out with you, you cootie head.”

Jimmy said to Doc, “See what I mean?”

He did not say so, but Jimmy often thought that if he had been younger and had not lost his leg, things would be a lot different. He wondered why the boys who had fallen all over Anna Lee, who would not give most of them the time of day, never paid the least bit of attention to Betty Raye. He was pretty well disgusted with the whole lot of them. When Jimmy had slipped the valentine under her door, he had said to himself, If the local Romeos are so dumb that they cannot see what a fine girl she is, then, by God, he would see to it that the day would not go by without her knowing there was at least one person in town who thought the world of her. Not while he was around at least.

Jimmy was also right about one thing: The bowling team had been good for Betty Raye. A few months before, when Ada and Bess Goodnight had come marching into the house to lobby for her to join the Elmwood Springs ladies bowling team, Dorothy and Mother Smith had encouraged her. And despite her initial reluctance, Bess and Ada could be very persuasive. Ada, the larger of the two, had once worked in the WASP recruiting office and knew just what to say. In the end Betty Raye could not say no. According to Ada it would have been, at the least, unpatriotic, un-American, and letting down the entire female sex if she did not join.

Although Betty Raye was a last-minute replacement and had never bowled or played any sport before, to her surprise, unlike the other Oatmans, she seemed to be a natural athlete. She was graceful and coordinated and after a few lessons from Doc turned out to be a pretty decent bowler. Ada and Bess and their younger sister, Irene, who they called Goodnight Irene, were good too. But nobody was better than Tot Whooten. Just the mention of her name struck fear in the hearts of all the other teams. She was known throughout the county as “Terrible Tot, the left-handed bowler from hell.” Tonight they were driving all the way over to the huge new bowling alley in East Prairie. Tot’s next-door neighbor Verbena was staying with Darlene and Dwayne Jr. and watching her mother so Tot could go. The county championship was at stake.

Hours later it was down to the wire at the bowling alley. The Elmwood Springs Bombers had matched New Madrid’s Wildcats strike for strike, game for game. But the last Wildcat had missed her point and now there was a chance that victory would be theirs.

The atmosphere was tense. Goodnight Irene had just picked up her spare and if Tot could get this last strike and score the extra point, they would win. A hush came over the large, usually noisy, air-conditioned room. Tot, wearing brown slacks with her hair freshly permed for the occasion, stood up, all eyes upon her. She squinted at the pins, put out her cigarette, walked over, picked up the chalk bag, threw it down, hoisted her ball and lifted it high in front of her, concentrated on the spot with all her might, took a deep breath, and let her rip.

The moment the ball left her hand and spun down the alley toward the pins she knew what had happened. In the intensity of the moment and the pressure of knowing that this one throw could mean the championship, she had jammed her fingers into the holes so hard that her wedding ring went down the alley with the ball. Not only did she miss the strike and sprain her finger, but the entire team had to spend hours after the game searching for Tot’s ring. They had searched almost four hundred bowling balls with a flashlight before Betty Raye spotted it. But once they had it, the ring would not come out for love nor money and Tot had to buy the bowling ball just to get her ring back.

Even that was no small task. The bull-necked owner of the bowling alley eyed Tot suspiciously. “And just how do I know this is your ring, lady?” Tot could not believe her ears. Hands on her hips, she looked him right in the face and said, “Well, mister, just how many people do you know that have JAMES AND TOT WHOOTEN FOREVER written inside their wedding ring?” Betty Raye knew it was not funny but she broke up at Tot’s remark and had to walk away while Tot stood there and went at it toe-to-toe with the owner. She was not going to leave without her ring, even if she had to wait all night, she said. Finally, he sold her the ball and she left in a huff, as the team trailed behind her, vowing never to bowl again. Nobody dared laugh on the drive back to town but they were all dying to.

When Betty Raye arrived home it was late. Dorothy, who could not really rest well until she knew everyone was in for the night, safe and sound, heard Betty Raye come in, laughing all the way to her bedroom. They must have won, she thought, and rolled over and went to sleep.

The next day Tot carried the bowling ball over to the hardware store, where Macky tried everything he knew to get the ring out, from every size screwdriver to hammer and pliers, but nothing would work. Finally he said, “Mrs. Whooten, I don’t know what to tell you but this sucker’s stuck for good.”

She said, “Thank you anyway, Macky,” and took her ball and went home.

True to her word, that ended the short but eventful career of Tot the Terrible, the left-handed bowler from hell. “Wouldn’t you know it,” she said later, “the only sport I was ever good at.” But not only was her career as a bowler over, she lost almost two weeks of work.

“You cannot do pin curls with a sprained finger,” she said.

The Contest

WHEN BOBBY called the drugstore, Bertha Ann answered the phone with “Rexall.” Bobby said in a voice he thought sounded like a man’s, “Do you have Prince Albert smoking tobacco in a can?”

“Yes, we do,” she said.

“Well, you better let him out before he suffocates.”

Bertha Ann heard Monroe laughing in the background before Bobby hung up.

They were clearly bored. Other than he and Monroe getting caught in his father’s den going through his National Geographic magazines looking for pictures of native women with their tops off, and having three cavities filled by Dr. Orr, the summer was turning out to be uneventful. But fate can turn on a dime and fortunes change and one event can alter a child’s life forever. Or if not forever, it can certainly change the way he views himself in the world, good or bad. For Bobby that day was here, although to others it might not seem special.

Jimmy got up as usual at 4:30, lit his first cigarette, made the coffee, put on his white shirt and pants and black leather bow tie, and was down at the Trolley Car Diner at 5:00. Jimmy didn’t know it yet, but he would be the first one in the Smith household to find out what was happening that day. This morning he went about his business as usual. He had great pride in his diner and kept it spotless. Every morning the black-and-white tile floor was scrubbed sparkling clean. The silver chrome on the counters and on the base of all the round red leather stools was polished and kept as shiny as a new car in a showroom. He gave the doors and the light green cigarette machine on the wall a wipe-down as well. Next he cut the pies—chocolate, a sky-high lemon-meringue, apple—and a marble pound cake in slices and placed them on small white plates and put them in his display case. He chopped onions, put pickles in a small chrome container, and placed a handful of toothpicks with bright red and orange cellophane on the tops in a small thick glass. He then wiped down the grill and removed slices of cheese, plus eggs, bacon, hamburger patties, weenies, tomatoes, and lettuce from the icebox. He fried up a batch of bacon and got his potatoes for hash browns and sliced the tomatoes. Last, he cut open several loaves of Merita white bread and dozens of hamburger and hot dog buns and was ready to open.

Jimmy had learned to cook in the navy and was a short-order cook of the first order. He could fry eggs any way you wanted and make a grilled cheese sandwich to perfection, golden brown, just right with the cheese dripping down the sides of the crust, or make a bacon, lettuce, and tomato so good you wanted another one before you finished the first. At exactly one minute to six he put on a clean apron, his white paper hat with the red stripe, and opened the door for business. To his surprise, there stood Bobby.

“Hey. What are you doing downtown so early?”

Bobby said, “Couldn’t sleep, so I figured I’d come on down and have a cup of coffee with you. You know, the bubble gum contest is today.”

“Oh, that’s right. Well, come on in.”

Jimmy knew that Dorothy did not let him drink coffee but he figured a little bit wouldn’t hurt him. Bobby climbed up on a stool and Jimmy put out a thick white cup and saucer and poured him a half cup. Bobby picked up the container and happily added four teaspoons of sugar.

“So what do you think your chances are, buddy?”

“I don’t know. I came pretty close last year.”

“Do you want something to eat?”

“No, I think I better not.” He added another spoonful of sugar. “You know, the secret is breath control. I learned that the last time—I ran out of breath right at the end or I would have won.”

“I see. So what’s your plan of attack this year . . . your strategy?”

Bobby took a sip of his coffee. “I’ve been practicing every day and trying to build up my breath control, holding my head underwater in the tub. But other than that, I don’t know what else to do. I was kind of hoping you might give me some last-minute advice.”

“Have you practiced any yet this morning?”

“Not yet. I thought I’d get in a couple of hours before nine.”

Jimmy opened a large can of chili and thought carefully before he spoke. “Well, here’s my advice. Now, you can take it or leave it, but now, if I were you, I wouldn’t practice at all this morning.”

“Not at all?”

“I wouldn’t. You can pretty much figure that everybody else will, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“So if you walk in nice and rested you have an advantage. See what I mean?”

Bobby’s eyes widened. “Yeah . . . I see!”

“You save up all your energy for the big push—when you need it. And when you’re up there, concentrate. Remain calm and steady as she goes. Don’t look right, don’t look left, don’t let yourself get rattled, just stay the course, nice and easy all the way.”

Bobby listened intently. “Yeah. Don’t get rattled . . . nice and easy.”

“What’s the prize on this thing?”

“Twenty-five free passes to the theater.”

Jimmy was impressed or acted as if he was. “Hey, that’s a pretty good deal.” Just then two of Jimmy’s breakfast regulars came in the door.

“Morning, boys,” he said.

Bobby quickly finished his coffee and ran out the door. “Thanks, Jimmy.”

“Good luck, buddy.”

Bobby ran back home and made a big production of resting, lying in the middle of the living room floor so everybody had to ask him what he was doing lying in the middle of the floor. When Princess Mary Margaret would not stop barking and running around him in a circle, he complained to his mother that it was very important for him to rest and to come and get her. However, she took the dog’s side and said, “You get up off that floor. You’re upsetting her. She thinks there’s something wrong with you!”

At exactly 9:00 A.M., a dozen boys, all at least two inches taller than Bobby, stood in a straight line on the stage of the Elmwood Springs Theater, each in various stages of nervous breakdowns. Ward McIntire, the man from the Bazooka bubble gum company, stood holding a glass bowl filled with gum all wrapped in shiny wax paper, each containing a shiny wax-paper cartoon inside. As he stood there, Bobby kept repeating over and over in his mind, Don’t get rattled . . . don’t look right, don’t look left, but it was hard. Claudia Albetta was sitting in the front row with two of her girlfriends. Ever since Mr. Yo-Yo had come to town he had wanted to win a contest. Last month he had lost the Bat the Ball contest by only three bats but coming in second was not good enough. Following his mother’s motto—If at first you don’t succeed, try again—he had tried over and over but without success. Bobby was beginning to wonder if he was destined to always be second at everything for the rest of his life.

This morning he had gotten to the theater an hour early so he could be first in line. He knew the longer you held the gum in your hand and warmed it up, the softer it would get. He had been first in line until three minutes before they opened the doors, when Luther Griggs and three of his friends pushed in front of him, so he wound up fourth in line. There was some consolation, however, because when the man started walking down the line so everyone could pick out their gum, he started at the other end and after all that pushing and shoving, Griggs wound up being last. Bobby heard Monroe let out a big donkey hee-haw from the audience when it happened. After everyone had a piece, Mr. McIntire then walked back to the side of the stage where the microphone was and announced in a booming voice, “Gentlemen, unwrap your gum.” Bobby’s heart was pounding and his hands were sweaty as he struggled to unwrap the slickly sticky paper and get his gum out. He kept repeating to himself Nice and easy . . . don’t get rattled. Soon the boys stood at attention with huge marshmallow-sized chunks of white powdery sugary hot pink bubble gum in their palms, waiting for the next signal from the man. Mr. McIntire looked at his stopwatch, then said, “Get ready . . . begin!” In unison twelve boys jammed the gum into their mouths and furiously began chewing it like it was something they were trying to kill. Bobby forced himself to remain calm. He knew that part of the secret of a good bubble is not to start blowing until all the gum has been chewed properly . . . not too soft . . . not too hard. . . . Timing was everything. Wait, wait, he repeated over and over in his head. Don’t get rattled, don’t get rattled, wait, wait. He could hear that some of the boys had already started blowing but he waited until the moment he felt it was just right. Bobby started to blow, slowly at first, then as the bubble grew larger he increased his breathing, deeper and deeper each time, until his shoulders were heaving up and down with each breath. All around him bubbles were popping one by one, up and down the line, but Bobby kept going until he was the only one left. But he didn’t know it and just kept on going. He was alone on the stage, all alone looking at the world through the soft pink gauze of a now vast bubble that was growing still larger and larger. There was complete silence in the theater. The entire audience was holding its breath. Will it ever pop? But it kept growing until the bubble covered his entire face and head—and more. All the audience could see was an immense pink bubble with a boy’s arms and legs below. It grew larger and larger until Bobby felt like he might float up in the air . . . out the door, over the buildings, and out into the world, never to return. Then it happened. He heard an amazingly soft slow pop and there he stood with bubble gum covering his entire face, including his ears and the top of his head.

“The winner!” screamed Ward McIntire and the audience was on its feet applauding. What glory. What a triumph. Five minutes later Bobby ran into the Trolley Car Diner with gum still sticking to his eyelashes and ears, waving his free-pass book in the air, yelling, “JIMMY . . . I WON. . . . I DIDN’T GET RATTLED. I WON!” But before Jimmy had a chance to congratulate him he had run out the door, headed for the drugstore to tell his father. When he got home his mother had to use kerosene to get all the gum out of his hair, and he used up all twenty-five passes in less than a week taking everybody to the movies but he didn’t care. He had blown the biggest bubble in the history of the contest, people said. Maybe the biggest in the entire state. From that day on he felt special.

Winning that contest meant he had been chosen to become a man of destiny after all.

Success

AS BOBBY FOUND OUT, sometimes in life you just get lucky and hit the right combination. After years of trying, one day you press the lever of the slot machine and all three cherries line up in the right order and you’ve hit the jackpot. Such was the case the day Beatrice Woods joined the Oatman Family Gospel Singers.

They had been together for only a few months when a producer from Hallelujah Records heard them sing in Atlanta. After they cut their first album, things started to happen. When Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven climbed to the top of the gospel charts, offers started coming in from everywhere. The Singing News soon wrote that they were becoming the hottest new group of the year.

Soon their second album, Once I Was Lost but Praise the Lord Now I’m Found, named after a song Minnie had written inspired by Chester’s disappearance, shot to the top of the charts as well. This combined with their appearance on the Arthur Godfrey show and they suddenly became the number one gospel group in the country. To Beatrice’s delight, this sudden popularity meant traveling to almost every state in the Union and within six months they had even sung in the White House. By the end of 1949 they were booked fifty-two weeks out of the year and had their own big silver bus with THE OATMAN FAMILY GOSPEL SINGERS written in big, bold, black letters on both sides.

Although this meant she did not see the family very often, Betty Raye was very happy for their success and equally happy that she was not involved in any of it. As far as she was concerned, her life was perfect. Quiet and peaceful. She did not have to be onstage performing every night and have to pack up and drive somewhere else for the next one. She got to sleep in the same bed in the same town week after glorious week. She had a nice little job she liked, all the books she could read, and went bowling once a week. For the first time in her life she was able to do the same old thing day after day and she loved it. At last she was beginning to feel as if she really belonged somewhere. She wanted it to go on forever. But one day Hamm Sparks walked in the door.

Hamm Sparks was an ordinary young man in most respects—smoke a little, dance a little, drink a little, flirt a little. Ordinary except for the one thing. Ambition. When the Ink Spots sang “I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire” the lyrics failed to apply to him. Not that other young men were without ambition but Hamm Sparks burned with it. If he had been a car it would have been racing on all sixteen cylinders and running hot. So hot you got the feeling he could explode at any minute.

But unlike some men, who were sick and driven with ambition, he’d never felt better in his life. Hamm thrived on it like it was mother’s milk. Some would say later that he even glowed in the dark with it. And he had a plan, a goal in life, and at the moment it involved going to college on the G.I. Bill, waiting on tables in the dorm six hours a day, and selling Allis-Chalmers tractors on the weekends and during summers to help support his mother and two younger sisters. Work was something he was not afraid of or resented. He had been working since he was ten years old. Work for him was just a means to an end. In America, no matter how poor you started out or where you came from, you could go as high as you wanted if you were willing to work for it. Hamm thought this was about as good a deal as you could get. It gave him hope for a bright and shining future and he was on his way. He did not know exactly where yet—he would figure that out later; all he knew was that he was in a hurry. He had to make up for lost time. He ate fast, talked fast, walked fast, and hardly ever slept. He shook hands, patted backs, and never missed an opportunity to introduce himself to everyone he ran across. What brought him to Elmwood Springs that one particular day was Bess Goodnight. In 1942 he had passed through town on a train headed to Fort Leonard Wood and, like a lot of the other soldiers, had thrown his name out the window, hoping to get someone to write to him. Bess Goodnight wrote to him throughout the war. Like so many of Bess’s wartime pen pals, Hamm came to visit her whenever he was near enough to make it over to Elmwood Springs. He got a big kick out of Bess and loved to take her out to the cafeteria for lunch. Hamm loved the idea of good food in a hurry but this Saturday, while going through the line, he slowed a bit when he noticed the pretty girl in the glasses standing behind the steam table waiting for him to tell her what vegetables he wanted. Usually he passed right by the vegetables, on to the desserts, but today he stopped. This girl stood with a spoon in one hand and a small brown plastic bowl in the other, waiting for his order. He looked down at the steam table at the choices.

“Ah . . . let’s see, I’ll have some potatoes and how about some macaroni and cheese?”

He pointed to something green in one of the containers. “Are those turnip greens?”

“No, sir, collard greens.”

“All right, good. Give me some of those then.”

He would have ordered more but the line behind him was backing up and he had to move on. Even before they got to the table and had emptied their trays Hamm asked Bess about the girl with the glasses dishing out the vegetables.

Bess glanced over and said, “Oh, that’s Betty Raye, Dorothy’s little boarder. Ever hear of the Oatman family?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I hear them on the radio.”

“Well, that’s their daughter; she used to sing with them but she quit.”

Hamm glanced back over at Betty Raye, even more impressed.

“Well, I’ll be. She’s not married yet?”

“No.”

“Is she going with somebody?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Do you reckon she’d go out with me?”

Bess laughed. “You sure don’t waste any time, do you, boy?”

During the next four weekends Hamm never drove so far or ate so many vegetables in his life. Going to the cafeteria was the only way he could get to see her. Every Saturday when he came down the line Betty Raye was horrified and embarrassed at all the attention and commotion he would cause. She asked him to please stop holding up the line but each time he said, “I will, just as soon as you say yes.” One Saturday, after he had been down the line for the fourth time, he pleaded with her. “Come on now, Betty Raye, you’ve just got to go out with me. If I eat one more bowl of those collards I’m liable to turn green. You don’t want that on your conscience, do you?” At that moment Mr. Albetta came out of the double doors of the kitchen and glared at him and Hamm moved on, while the girls giggled. But he would not give up. Late that afternoon, when Betty Raye came home, there he was sitting on the front porch, chatting away with Mother Smith and Bess Goodnight. Mother Smith was clearly charmed and smiled and said, “Betty Raye, this nice young man tells me he is a friend of yours.” Hamm grinned from ear to ear. “I brought Bess with me to vouch for my upstanding character.”

Bess laughed. “I don’t know how upstanding he is but I wish you’d go out with him for my sake, because he’s about to pester me to death over it.”

Well, what could she do? Hamm was a force hard to resist.

The First Date

MONDAY WAS Betty Raye’s day off and Hamm was to pick her up in the early afternoon and take her to Poplar Bluff for dinner. She was nervous about going all that way with him but she did not have much say in the matter. Dorothy and Mother Smith were so excited she was going on a date that they called Tot and set up an appointment for her that morning to get her hair shampooed and set. It was the last thing she wanted but she went. They picked out her outfit and at the last minute Dorothy ran in with a string of pearls for her to wear. And so at four o’clock, Betty Raye in a pair of Anna Lee’s high heels and with a head full of fluffed-up frizz and Hamm wearing a borrowed suit, off they went.

Betty Raye had never been on a real date. The whole idea of it made her feel very uncomfortable. She had no idea how she was supposed to act and the entire time they were driving over to Poplar Bluff she wished this date would hurry up and be over so she could go back home. They made quite a pair. She did not know it but he had not been on many dates himself. He had been too busy working and had not had the money to take many girls out. He’d had to sell a few of his books just to get the money to pay for tonight.

All through dinner she did not talk much. Luckily she did not have to; he talked enough for both of them. This was the first time Hamm had seen her in anything but a white uniform and cap and he was impressed. She wasn’t exactly pretty in a conventional way but there was something so sweet and shy about her that as the night wore on, the prettier she became.

On the drive back Betty Raye was even more nervous than before. She hardly heard a word he said. She worried all the way home that he might try to kiss her or something but he did not. He did not have much of a chance. When they reached the front door she shook his hand and said, “Well, good night,” and was in the house with the door closed and back in her room before he could do anything. Dorothy and Mother Smith were in the kitchen when she came in, the two of them dying to know all the details, but they would have to wait till the morning.